McCaig-Welles Gallery

Joe Coffee review from Delusions Of Adequacy Magazine

For many hardcore fans, the name Paul Bearer is immediately associated with seminal New York band Sheer Terror. Most don't know that the outfit's former front man has a new group called Joe Coffee that just released their first album, Bright as the Stars We're Under. It's hard not to compare this venture with old Sheer Terror albums, but fans would be amiss to think Joe Coffee is the second coming of Paul Bearer's previous band. Though Bearer is the link between the two, nothing else is the same, and one must remember this fact to truly appreciate Joe Coffee's sound.

Singer Paul Bearer is accompanied in Joe Coffee by the standard guitarist, bassist, and drummer. The foursome is solid and offer listeners an album full of melodic post-punk and borderline hardcore that, while not breaking any new ground, tantalizes the ears without being overpowering. Previous associations aside, Bearer and his ever-enigmatic personality really are the focal point here, and it's his lyrics and vocals that make a lasting impression. The songs run the gamut of styles and emotions, but one thing is clear throughout - Paul Bearer isn't trying to sugar-coat life and he isn't interested in being something he's not. In a time of musical clones and bands created for mass-marketing appeal, it's nice to find something this real.

The eight tracks on Bright as the Stars We're Under barely seem like enough - especially since the first, "Intro," is little more than the sound of a bunch of cows mooing and doesn't contain any music. Highlights include "3 a.m. and 4 again," which provides a mighty catchy melody and showcases Paul Bearer's appealing singing voice. The near-screaming vocals of yesteryear are all but nonexistent on this album as a whole and it's mighty refreshing. "Pretty in Pinko" falls in this same upbeat vein but with a more tongue-in-cheek approach. Leave it to Bearer to write a song that laments the loss of a Marxist girlfriend with lyrics like, "I was far too dumb to tell the difference between the Revolution and a piece of ass." Other tracks, like "Coke and Sympathy" or "Rooftop Rendez-vous" present the harder side of Joe Coffee that will appeal more to punk/hardcore purists with crunchy guitar, louder vocals, and a tough guy attitude.

Bright as the Stars We're Under definitely shows a sense of musical maturity for Paul Bearer and company that only comes after years in the industry. I find it rare for a first album to be so flawless these days, but these guys have clearly packed everything they know into each song. That doesn't mean the album is overproduced or pretentious, it just has the right combination of bravado, humor, integrity, and passion for music to make fans out of the most skeptical of listeners. My only hope is the band's next release contains twice as many songs to satisfy all their new fans.

"The Best Just Got Bester" presents new drawings along with a mini-retrospective of paintings and drawings from the artist's earlier one-man shows, "Sean Taggart NYHC" (2003) and "They Win" (2004). Taggart's work incorporates narrative conventions drawn from pop cultural sources such as comic strips, graffiti, and hardcore music flyers, using the energy and immediacy of cartoon imagery to convey an intense emotional response to a hostile and indifferent world. Much of Taggart's work traces a thin line between humor and despair, which the artist sees as the only rational reaction to an irrational society.

While Taggart's work does draw upon influences from pop culture, the artist was himself instrumental in creating many pop artifacts of the last 20 years. Beginning with the hardcore flyers he drew as an 18-year-old, Taggart moved on to creating album covers for bands such as Agnostic Front and the Crumbsuckers, drawing T-shirt art for everyone from hair-metal icons Poison (!) to Jane's Addiction, designing and illustrating all the Jerky Boys characters, and creating countless trading cards, comic books, and book and magazine illustrations. A selection of this early work will be included in "The Best Just Got Bester."

The paintings from "Sean Taggart NYHC" represented Taggart's personal vision of the early 1980s New York Hardcore scene, in which he was a major figure as a flyer artist. In "They Win," Taggart's paintings and drawings addressed the complex emotions associated with the attacks on 9/11/01 and America's response to them. The new drawings in "The Best Just Got Bester," while more abstract, still deal with deeply felt issues surrounding the place of the artist in American society, as he navigates among seemingly insurmountable obstacles: the Scylla of irrelevancy, the Charybdis of a shrinking market place, and the Sirens of mainstream mediocrity.