God Is My Co-Pilot

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possessed of a confusingly sprawled discography. the tracks I've heard range from no-wave ditties to orally fixated darker-side-of-twee grumblefunk ("pocketful of sugar") to what le tigre's "deceptacon" would sound like if starved for a week then fed, well, amphetamines (their take on the fall's "totally wired"; "queer disco anthem" feels like mars possessed by daphne & celeste).

haven't really gotten into the non-english vox stuff (heh probably because they're new to me & i'm finding their words addictive).

also liked - "Steal Yr Girlfriend", "Backstab", "I Hate My Friends", "Hey Mister", "Rubber Or Leather?".

° what else of theirs is worth checking out?
° does anybody know what's happened to them? the only operational GodCo webpage I could find hasn't been updated since 2000.
° where do they fit in? does it matter? they sound new yorkish (um, blah blah knitting factory ny hardcore something something? uh i've heard some sonic youth & no wave, etc); & they don't sound what I image queercore to have generally sounded like . . . (show not/and tell? form<=>function?)

(haha if any slsk users can upload "we signify", I'd be v.grateful.)

― Ess Kay (esskay), Monday, 2 June 2003 15:09 (twenty-two years ago)

douglas to thread. maybe dave q?

(if it wasn't 4:10am I'd be brimming-with-excitement at them, but probably too much to post)

― Ess Kay (esskay), Monday, 2 June 2003 15:10 (twenty-two years ago)

You mean Dark Beloved Cloud (Douglas' record label concern) to the rescue! As noted at the DBC site, _Puss 02_ is superb (that's where "Pocketful of Sugar" is). From there, I imagine it's a free-for-all of goodness. If you find their cover of the Pagans' "Eyes of Satan" (from a tour-only release), you should definitely give that a whirl, too.

― David R. (popshots75`), Monday, 2 June 2003 21:58 (twenty-two years ago)

Lordy. Yes, one of my very favorite bands ever--I put out a bunch of their records & probably saw them live over 100 times. _Puss 02_ is one kind of high point, I think; _Speed Yr Trip_ is the utter amphetamine freakout velocity-rock record; _Getting Into Boring Time, Biting Into Boring Pie_ is their weirdest by a wide margin (almost entirely non-intonated acoustic instruments, plus a little marimba) and a secret favorite of mine. There are also a couple of singles comps that only came out in Japan and are very worth tracking down.

There's a Hrvatski remix of "We Signify" on a 3" comp I put out a few months ago--! (Of the 7" single version, which I think is superior; there's also a version on _Straight Not_.)

GodCo dissolved a few years ago, though I recently heard a rumor that they might play again sometime for the hell of it. Sharon Topper is working with Todd Solonz, I believe; Craig Flanagin is now in law school; Siobhan Duffy sings with the Gunga Din; Daria Klotz plays with Kings County Queens; Michael Evans has been playing in various projects (he recently did a show with Greenpot Bluepot); not entirely sure what's up with Frederik, Laura, Alex, Christine, Sheila, etc.

As for where they fit in? The contemporaries they had maybe the most kinship with were more or less the Dog Faced Hermans/Ex/Moonshake/Dawson/Melt-Banana continuum (and that guitar sound was straight out of DNA and early Half Japanese), but one thing I loved about them was that they were VERY open-eared--Craig's been playing in a couple of old-time country projects the last few years, e.g.

― Douglas (Douglas), Monday, 2 June 2003 22:53 (twenty-two years ago)

one of my favorite bands. my favorite release is, in fact, the tour-only album mentioned above, that used to be (i think, still is) available on that old website.

after that, i have a lot of second favorites. sex is for making babies, straight not, puss 2, i could go on.

(and of course, anything i might know about what the band is up to i learned from douglas wolk, so i won't add anything there...)

― Mark F (mflaum), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 20:27 (twenty-two years ago)

The one song I've heard by them -- "Anatomically Correct" -- is k-classic.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 20:39 (twenty-two years ago)

I once called in a request for Pocketful of Sugar to an indie show on the local college station (KVRX) and the DJ pulled it halfway thru. The only time I ever heard a DJ do that. (The song isn't even that weird)

― Aaron A., Tuesday, 3 June 2003 20:41 (twenty-two years ago)

There are actually two tour-only albums. _No Fi_ (a.k.a. _Neko No Akubi: Nihon No Fi_, now I think out of print) is the one that has "Eyes of Satan" on it, & was recorded in 8 hours, more or less as a Sharon/Craig duo. _Je Suis Trop Content_, which I'm still selling, is a full-band quickie w/ some odd covers and live stuff on it.

This is making me nostalgic--I just put on _How to Be_. "Your body has its own agenda..."

― Douglas (Douglas), Tuesday, 3 June 2003 21:33 (twenty-two years ago)

"_Je Suis Trop Content_, which I'm still selling"
HOW DO I GET ME ONE????
oh i love god is my co pilot. they had it just right. points to make but endlessly playful, free jazz but punk and folk and the poppest you can get all at the same time. they did everything for me that people said DNA would do and didn't

― bob snoom, Wednesday, 4 June 2003 07:34 (twenty-two years ago)

I was all happy as i thought this was going to be an old Sloan topic, Cod Is My Co-Pilot is just one of those campus radio things from out east.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 12:51 (twenty-two years ago)

I love their
#gender is as gender does" 7"
from the sleev to the fantastic "i hate girls"

― Jens (brighter), Wednesday, 4 June 2003 15:08 (twenty-two years ago)

ten months pass...

hey wow apparently they played a show on 04/04/04 - anyone see it? are they back together? &c?

& has anyone seen those two japanese singles comps anywhere? the internet has not aided me in the slightest, sigh.

― etc, Sunday, 25 April 2004 12:08 (twenty-one years ago)

I believe they are homosexuals

― Mr Mime (Andrew Thames), Sunday, 25 April 2004 12:46 (twenty-one years ago)

not entirely sure what's up with Frederik, Laura, Alex, Christine, Sheila, etc.

Laura went on (among other things) to record some poorly-received albums with "Mr. Dorgon" who used to work the door at the Knitting Factory.

― dlp9001, Sunday, 25 April 2004 13:40 (twenty-one years ago)

one year passes...

I miss this band. Even saw 'em once on tour here in Oregon, Halloween '95. To my ears they fulfiled that amorphous "early Rough Trade" sound potential better than any other 90's outfit.

― sleeve (sleeve), Sunday, 20 November 2005 22:03 (nineteen years ago)

My favorite of theirs was ther outpunk album, I think is was called 'straight not', I orded it was AJAX records in highschool just on a hunch. I would track it down. I always thought of them as being closer to the loft jazz scence, mixed with the zine banannafish, ie. thinking fellers union local 282, sun city girls.

― Jacobs (LolVStein), Sunday, 20 November 2005 22:39 (nineteen years ago)

They've been playing the odd show here and there over the last few years, most recently in August at a benefit for ABC No Rio. Usually Sharon, Craig, Jason and Christine, sometimes an extra person or two.

I actually saw Sheila a few weeks ago--she's got a new band called Luff that's really charming, VERY un-GodCo-like, and may be touring in the near future...

Craig and Janina McCormack have an art duo called Pants Avengers, about which I know very little.

― Douglas (Douglas), Sunday, 20 November 2005 23:51 (nineteen years ago)

Craig used to work the cash register at Bleeker Bob's back in the day.

― Alex in NYC (vassifer), Sunday, 20 November 2005 23:53 (nineteen years ago)

I can never evah convince anyone to listen to them - I think maybe some gravity-records joxx will listen, cuz hey, men's recovery project, y'know, but I think it secretly makes them feel icky; le tigre brats find it too clanging/wounded; zorn/patton creeps find it too political/punky; &c&c&c. sigh.

― etc, Monday, 21 November 2005 01:10 (nineteen years ago)

Their early stuff was fan-fucking-tastic. But after the first bassist, James Garrison, left, they lost some punk/hardcore forward-motion and became more artsy, so I lost interest.

They were very 90s downtown NYC - flirty sexual disorientation, detuned guitars, no-wave riddims, spazzy jazz skronk, klezmer obsessions. Very Knitting Factory. They never properly fit in with the riot-grrrl scene, and even the whole Dog-Faced Hermans/Ex/Dawson (now there's a name from the past!) connections I view as personal friendships more than actual aesthetic camraderie.

I saw a few of their early shows in '90, then caught them a couple times opening for Dog-Faced Hermans in '94. They were the first queerpunk band I was exposed to. Although there's something I never reached clarity on; I'd heard Sharon Topper and Craig Flanigan were a couple, yet Craig was writing all these lesbian-crush lyrics for her to sing. Granted, sexual politics are complicated waters, but that always struck me as kind of odd.

Found a decent site on them...
http://allan.hise.org/godco/

― Edward III (edward iii), Monday, 21 November 2005 21:11 (nineteen years ago)

saw Craig at an art opening at the Tank, the Pants thing mentioned above I think...they built musical instruments out of pots and pans and the like and were selling CDs made on the art.

― Dan Selzer (Dan Selzer), Monday, 21 November 2005 21:30 (nineteen years ago)

Yeah, the album on Outpunk is called "Straight Not". That was actually what I pulled out to listen to that made me revive this thread. It was better than I remembered.

That 10" on Quinnah is great too.

― sleeve (sleeve), Monday, 21 November 2005 22:55 (nineteen years ago)

I interviewed Craig once after a GodCo show in Berkeley at Gilman Street for my little college radio program, and he was incredibly nice and talkative considering I was just a college student who had a show that no one listened to. I tape-recorded it and then played sections of it on the air.

― o. nate (onate), Monday, 21 November 2005 23:04 (nineteen years ago)

six years pass...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTqueCrRkbE

I eventually found vol 2. of History Of Music, but still vaguely on the lookout for vol 1.

Hadn't realised Douglas had posted this in one of the old Rough Guide threads, so:

The Rough Guide to God Is My Co-Pilot

1. 2 Meats (Tight Like Fist version)
2. Su Vot Vot Esta Su Voz
3. Caught Looking
4. Frauen u. Nichtfrauen
5. Straight Not
6. Zonnebloem
7. 55,151
8. Bicycle Girls (My Sinister Hidden Agenda version)
9. "Bicycle Girls" (Getting Out of Boring Time version)
10. Three Times Fast (Children Can Be So Cruel version)
11. If I Were Theresa
12. What's Natural
13. Butch Flip
14. 2 Amis
15. Childhood Dreams of Abduction and Mutilation
16. In the Forest
17. My Earliest Memory (Kittybait version)
18. Comfort
19. I Surrender Complete Control to Anne
20. Smooth & Clean (Puss 02 version)
21. Kleines Eisstück
22. Boris
23. Backstab (How I Got Over version)
24. Ghost
25. Crushing a Girl

the usual disclaimers apply--

― Douglas (Douglas), Tuesday, January 20, 2004 9:06 PM (8 years ago)

― etc, Tuesday, 13 November 2012 11:45 (twelve years ago)

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