Pittsburgh Post Gazette - Pittsburgh PA
The Stone Coyotes
Born to Howl
(Red Cat)
The Stone Coyotes borrow heavily from the guitar-heavy arena rock of the '70s, but there's nothing borrowed about their passion. The trio's ability to take old-school intensity to a new level comes not so much from volume or speed, but from guitarist/vocalist Barbara Keith's combination of smoldering, telegraphic lyrics and the urgent backbeat crafted by husband/drummer Doug Tibbles and bassist/stepson John Tibbles.
Born to Howl (to be released April 10) follows this formula consistently, never sounding formulaic in the process. With the exception of the country-flavored "Detroit or Buffalo" and "Jolene" (a rocked-up Dolly Parton cover), and the folky lament "Death of the American Song," the album is straight-ahead guitar rock, with an undercurrent of chaos and raw power that could easily break the surface and explode at any moment. It never does, which, paradoxically, only makes the experience more powerful. From the slightly sexual, slightly psychotic "Shake," to the proud and possibly autobiographical "First Lady of Rock," to the smokey, mid-tempo "Four Times Gone" (an unmistakable nod to the Stones' "Gimme Shelter"), Born to Howl is an impressive third chapter in the Coyotes' already impressive body of work. Grade: A MINUS - John C. Bruening
Munsters of rock
Stone Coyotes is a band with a vivid Hollywood past
Friday, March 23, 2001
By Scott Mervis, Weekend Editor, Post-Gazette
If you go see the Stone Coyotes Tuesday at Rosebud, look at the drummer, watch him pound away with those big marching sticks and consider the fact that in a former existence he put words in the mouth of Herman Munster.
We can say with confidence that it is the rare band that sports a drummer who can claim to have written for "The Munsters," not to mention "Bewitched" and "My Three Sons." And that's only one of the things that makes the Stone Coyotes a lone wolf in the rock 'n' roll world.
That drummer, Doug Tibbles, is married to the singer-guitarist, Barbara Keith, who was a Greenwich Village folk singer back in the '60s and had her songs covered by the likes of Barbra Streisand and Tanya Tucker. The bass player is John Tibbles, Doug's son from his first marriage.
By now, you might be wondering, How old are these people? Wasn't "The Munsters" like a hundred years ago? It was in black and white, for goodness' sake.
Actually, it didn't have to be, that was just for effect. "The Munsters" ran 1964 to 1966, which puts the older Tibbles in his early 60s. Keith is in her early 50s and John is the young pup in his mid-30s.
By now, you're also probably thinking, There's no way this band rocks.
Believe it or not, they do. OK, they're not the Ramones, or the Foo Fighters. But they describe themselves as "AC/DC meets Patsy Cline" and that's not off the mark.
The Stone Coyotes started in the late '70s with Keith and Doug Tibbles just banging around the house. In 1985, they added John on bass and soon after bought a house in Greenfield, Mass., and turned the basement into a studio.
Now, they're pumping out records, like the self-released "Church of the Falling Rain" and "Situation out of Control," and playing clubs at all hours, living a rock 'n' roll existence that Doug never expected -- though never ruled out -- at this stage of his life.
He grew up with his dad writing for movies and TV, including "Leave it to Beaver," and he naturally gravitated toward the business, starting as an extra for "Ozzie and Harriet" and as a stand-in for Jim Nabors on "Gomer Pyle." In his early 20s, he wrote a script for "My Three Sons" and at 26 was writing the season-opening episodes for both "Bewitched" and "The Andy Griffith Show."
Tibbles humbly plays it down -- "If you had grown up out there, you'd have done it too -- it was just a lazy guy's way to get out of real work" -- but his output was impressive. He gave us, for instance, the episodes where Tabatha first gets her magic and turns her friend into a butterfly on "Bewitched," where Opie joins a rock band on "Griffith," and "Munster the Master Spy," in which a Russian trawler picks up Herman Munster and mistakes him for the missing link.
" 'The Munsters' was the most fun," Tibbles says. "We knew it was a silly show. We had no idea it would be a classic that kids hooked up to. I tried to make it more literate, like I did 'Cyrano de Munster.' It was hard work, like geometry homework. It's hard to knock out a half-hour script with their characters and within their restrictions."
Tibbles' increasing unhappiness with TV writing came to a head, ironically, on the set of "Happy Days."
"I got onto 'Happy Days' and left within five hours and never did it again," he says. "I got there at 9:30 in the morning and Garry Marshall came in and said, 'We're having a production meeting at 10:30.' I thought, this is great and I started writing a script. He meant 10:30 at night! I thought, I'm not doing this, so I quit. They couldn't believe it. My kids had already met Fonzie and Ronny and everything."
So, he left television writing because he didn't like the hours?
"After a while, I didn't like the writing. I used to get into arguments. On 'Bewitched,' why does she just trick her husband? Why doesn't she do something good with this magic? I thought it was irresponsible that all these kids were glued in front of the set watching this idiocy. And 'Family Affair,' I was embarrassed to admit I wrote for that."
He went on to work music production at Warner Bros. Records, which is how he met Keith. While he was writing for TV, she was dropping out of Vassar College in the late '60s to pursue her musical dream at the legendary Cafe Wha? in Greenwich Village. She joined a band called the Kangaroo, which recorded one album and opened for The Who and the Doors.
Then, she put out solo records on Verve and Warner Bros., the latter of which lives on as a popular Japanese import. It featured top session players like Lowell George and Jim Keltner and a song called "Free the People," covered by Streisand and another, "Stone's Throw Away," which George produced for Delaney and Bonnie.
"I actually am proud of it," she says of the record. "There are some songs I like better than others. For the time, it was good."
Ultimately, Keith got fed up with her solo career, gave back her advance money and she and Tibbles took off for Massachusetts to live on their royalties and plan their next move.
Having soaked up a lot of L.A. and New York punk along the way, they decided to form a band, the Stone Coyotes, that would crank up the electricity while keeping the songs fairly narrative and literate.
"It just seemed to happen," she says. "We got older and got louder. It's just so much fun. We're always looking for power -- the power from precise use of volume, not just a big mess. That's why we like AC/DC, for instance, and bands like that. It's power contained in a pretty strict structure. We found that it was our natural inclination to just to rock, and yet to still retain the lyrical quality of folk music."
As if their lives weren't interesting enough, the next chapter involved crime novelist Elmore Leonard, who was looking for a rock band as a model for "Be Cool," the sequel to "Get Shorty." He saw the Stone Coyotes in 1997 at the Troubadour in L.A. and immediately knew he had the band that his fictional character, Chili Palmer, would manage.
"I think what struck him was the realness of what we are," Keith says, "and the fact that we have stripped everything down to its bare essence. That we're doing it, art for art's sake."
In the book, Leonard renamed them Odessa, but used their actual song lyrics. Since then, the novelist has appeared to read at a few of their gigs, earning them coverage in Rolling Stone and other big publications. A movie of "Be Cool" is supposedly in the works, but Keith isn't sure where that stands right now.
In the meantime, the Stone Coyotes have a new record, "Born to Howl," ready to go and they'll keep plugging away, selling the discs at their gigs and on the Internet.
Tibbles says at his age he has to watch his health -- "I can't do the tequila and dope and all the stuff I did when I was young" -- but when it comes to playing, it's hard, loud and full speed ahead.
"It isn't the literal age. It's what you have inside you," Keith says. "If you have a wild heart, you could be 5, you could be 55, or you could be 75."
MusicDish.com
Artist: The Stone Coyotes
Title: Born To Howl
I remember this band. The family band that ROCKS. Though apart from the honestly KICKIN', memorable musical hooks, I had no idea how Important they were. Check it:
- Mom, AKA Barbara Keith, has recorded for Verve, Warner Brothers and more big names; her songs have been covered by Streisand, Tanya Tucker, etc; but she gave back a major label advance to be an indie songwriter/singer who then proceeded, with the help of hubby and child, to stay at #1 on the Amazon charts for 9 months and sell a bathtub load of cds straight from the net.
- Dad, Doug Tibbles, has touched everyone's lives before picking up the drum sticks for a living. He's written episodes of The Munsters, Bewitched, Andy Griffith, and so many famous shows this loser-reviewer is going to start crying in a moment.
- Son, bass player John Tibbles, rounds out the trio, and there's nothing tag-along about this kid. He wields a bass riff as well as mama takes lead guitar, spicing up more sound than you'd expect from 3 strong. Strong they are. That's not just my opinion. Ask Elmore Leonard.
Yeah, that famous author/screenwriter Elmore Leonard patterned his latest novel, Be Cool (the sequel to Get Shorty), upon this family band, 'cause he likes their straight forward rock n roll approach. He dedicated the book to 'em, even put some of their lyrics in the novel. THAT is about as high praise as you can get.
The music IS that kinda rock that will never die, mostly because it has formed the base upon which all of these sub-genres and sudden cocksure acts find themselves perched. The Stone Coyotes prove that with 'Shake', 'Torn Asunder', 'Rock It' and other guitar-handled leads. 'Don't breathe the air - Don't drink the water / You might die of a rare disease / When you go out, put on your overcoat / Poor baby, you don't want to freeze.' That's the intro to 'Rock It', one of many hot licks just waiting for ya.
The only cover song on the disc is Dolly Parton's 'Jolene', updated with fervor and a wonderfully harder turn as only Coyotes can howl. They don't need any other covers. Barbara Keith's tight constructions and voice like a 22 year old are ENOUGH without the added name droppings and tv relations.
One of the best bands I've ever heard. Lesser acts, be wary of listening, else you'll compare yourself to an ideal you may never achieve.
From Aiding And Abetting - Online
Stone Coyotes
Born to Howl
(Red Cat)
Not yer usual power blues rock trio. The Stone Coyotes prefer to boogie, with a healthy dollop of acid rock (the real thing) plopped in now and again. That this is a family band (dad Doug on drums, mom singing and playing guitar and piano and son John on bass--and some guitar) makes for an even more interesting dynamic.
No matter what the Stone Coyotes are playing at any given time, the songs move. Whether laying down pile-driving riffs on the autobiographical "First Lady of Rock" or tripping through Dolly Parton's "Jolene" (a song also popularized by Olivia Newton John way back when), the tight center drives the music forward.
Folks don't make music like this any more. I mean, these songs are big and loud and utterly human. This is a strange reference, but I remember on the first Tesla album there was this motto spelled out big in the liners: No machines! There's nothing mechanical or programmed about what this family does.
It may seem odd to call such raucous fare "organic," but that's how I hear this. And I really, really like it. The rhythm section bounds with joy and the rest of the song always follows. Fun? Undoubtedly. And a big ol' blast of fresh air to boot. Top notch.
