The members’ decades-old collective CV speaks for itself. Three-piece Psych Coyote is the mesmerising result of perfecting and pruning their creativity within hallowed art school corridors; serving as acoustic and electric performers – and even a compère – upon literal stages both open-mic and professional.
Psych Coyote was formed, surprisingly recently, last winter. They consist of guitarist and singer Benjamin Cockett (who also performs under said moniker); David Nevin on drums, and Alex Wonder on bass.
Performing on this balmy mid-May evening in this wholly residential and industrial part of East London; their no-holds-barred 30-minute set – spearheaded by Benjamin – is akin in its acceleration to early Hüsker Dü or Black Flag.
Undeniably, all the suitably traditional and interconnected influences shine through: The Velvet Underground, T. Rex, Paul Weller, The Rolling Stones, Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, The Who, Can, Paul Weller, Ocean Colour Scene and Iggy Pop.
Wielding a Gibson SG, Benjamin immediately takes the lead and they launch into the opener ‘Roman Dog‘ that has the immediate essence of The Stones’ ‘69 album Let It Bleed. Propelled by rasping chords and bouncy butterflies-in-tummy bass, it concludes with a veritable howl.
The next song, the venomous tongue-in-cheek ‘Watford Gap‘ is introduced as “the culture of information we have in the modern world” subtly alluding to its all-encompassing Alan Partridge-ness.
Speaking unconsciously, Watford Gap’s Blue Boar Service Station was the ‘all the groups’’ second home in the early-to-mid 60s redolent of a less sterile and tentatively romantic era.
Such throwback imagery of ‘the road’ is artfully evoked in ‘Twenty Twenty-Two‘. Benjamin is a keen scooterist, and he reels off arbitrary-seeming years (1958, 1965, 1992, et al) to evoke a sense of historically-entrenched mod-ness. It also brilliantly functions like Syd Barrett’s ‘Word Song‘ meets The Modern Lovers’ ‘Roadrunner.‘
The other songs ‘Hard Wired For Love‘ and ‘The Same Game‘ is where the riffs take precedence over the lyrical imagery, and that is the way I perceived their performances.
Drummer David provides the necessary elevated whip crack. The former song contains a ‘Satisfaction‘-style riff that makes the absurd but interesting notion of a heads down Jagger-less Stones totally plausible. Benjamin told me post-gig that he has been a Stones-driven student. The fretboard is readily patronised for the latter song, and suggests the Freakbeat side of Weller and Co. battling with their neo-psychedelic contemporaries while deciding whether or not to later ‘sell soul’?
The closer ‘Universal Man’ has a gut-wrenching bass-driven ‘Teenage Kicks‘ feel – as if to convey a ‘What If’ futuristic parka-driven scenario two to three years too early worship of The Silver Apples and Krautrock. That is the overall unique essence of Psych Coyote: where musical reference points from the decades are blended and bent to form a cohesive listenable whole.
The definite anthesisis of weekend rock star dressing-up.
