The Coachmen were a lower-Manhattan punk rock/ new wave band that performed from early 1978 to their final gig at

White Columns White Columns is New York City’s oldest alternative non-profit art space. White Columns is known as a showcase for up-and-coming artists, and is primarily devoted to emerging artists who are not affiliated with galleries. All work submitted is ...

in August, 1980. The line-up included guitarists

Thurston Moore Thurston Joseph Moore (born July 25, 1958) is an American musician best known as a member of Sonic Youth. He has also participated in many solo and group collaborations outside Sonic Youth, as well as running the Ecstatic Peace! record label. Mo ...

and J. D. King, bassist Bob Pullin, and Danny Walworth on drums, who was replaced by Dave Keay (ex-Harry Toledo). Briefly, Mary Lemley was vocalist. The Coachmen was Moore's first band; their live performances were his first times performing in N.Y.C. clubs in an artistic milieu. They played at

CBGB CBGB was a New York City music club opened in 1973 by Hilly Kristal in Manhattan's East Village. The club was previously a biker bar and before that was a dive bar. The letters ''CBGB'' were for '' Country'', '' BlueGrass'', and '' Blues'', Kr ...

Max's Kansas City Max's Kansas City was a nightclub and restaurant at 213 Park Avenue South in New York City, which became a gathering spot for musicians, poets, artists and politicians in the 1960s and 1970s. It was opened by Mickey Ruskin (1933–1983) in Decembe ...

, Tier 3, A's (curated by

Arleen Schloss Arleen Schloss (born December 12, 1943 in Brooklyn, NY) is a North American performance artist, video/film artist, sound poet, director and curatorSonic Youth: Sensational Fix, p. 514 Publisher: Walther Konig; Har/Com edition (March 1, 2009) of the ...

), The Botany Talk House, The 80's, S.N.A.F.U., and loft parties thrown by

Jenny Holzer Jenny Holzer (born July 29, 1950) is an American neo-conceptual artist, based in Hoosick, New York. The main focus of her work is the delivery of words and ideas in public spaces and includes large-scale installations, advertising billboards, ...

. Their penultimate performance was at

Giorgio Gomelsky Giorgio Sergio Alessando Gomelsky (28 February 1934 – 13 January 2016) was a filmmaker, impresario, music manager, songwriter (as Oscar Rasputin) and record producer. He was born in Georgia, grew up in Switzerland, and later lived in the Unit ...

's N.Y.C. loft. It was there that Thurston Moore met

Kim Gordon Kim Althea Gordon (born April 28, 1953) is an American musician, singer and songwriter, best known as the bassist, guitarist, and vocalist of alternative rock band Sonic Youth. Born in Rochester, New York, she was raised in Los Angeles, Califor ...

. Some simpatico bands The Coachmen were billed with were The Green Scene, Paul McMahon's A Band,

Phoebe Legere Phoebe Hemenway Legere is a multi-disciplinary artist. She is a Juilliard-educated composer, soprano, pianist and accordionist, painter, poet, and a film maker. A graduate of Vassar College with a four octave vocal range, Legere has recorded fo ...

's Monad, Harry Toledo, and the Fluks, a band that included guitarist

Lee Ranaldo Lee Mark Ranaldo (born February 3, 1956) is an American musician, singer-songwriter, guitarist, writer, visual artist and record producer, best known as a co-founder of the alternative rock band Sonic Youth (guitar and vocals). In 2004, ''Rolling ...

who would wind up in Sonic Youth with Moore. A demo tape of material from those days was released in all three formats on New Alliance in 1988 and titled, ''Failure to Thrive''. Shortly after The Coachmen's breakup Moore went on to form Sonic Youth along with his girlfriend, bassist

.Michael Azerrad Our Band Could Be Your Life: 0316247189 - 2012 He joined the Coachmen, a guitar based quartet heavily in the vein of the hippest bands in New York at the time, J. D. King began an award-winning illustration career and restarted the band with new members in 1997, putting out two recordings on Moore's

Ecstatic Peace! Ecstatic Peace! is a record label based in Easthampton, Massachusetts, founded in 1981 by American musician Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. The label name is borrowed from a line in Tom Wolfe's 1968 nonfiction novel '' The Electric Kool-Aid Aci ...

label: ''Ten Compositions: New Frontiers in Free Rock'' in 2000 and ''American Mercury'' in 2006. The latter was reviewed favorably online in Next Big Thing and Blog to Comm and in print in Wire No. 276, February, 2007. ''American Mercury'' also got a fair amount of alternative radio airplay, including on

WFMU WFMU is a listener-supported, independent community radio station, licensed to East Orange, New Jersey. Since 1998 its studios and operating facilities have been headquartered in Jersey City, New Jersey. It broadcasts locally at 91.1 Mhz FM, i ...

. The band is now known as J. D. King & The Coachmen, renamed to differentiate it from other bands, old and current, with the same name. The band name was King's idea, an ironic homage to a typical 1960s garage-rock band name. Dave Keay is the drummer for the avant-rock band The Day Care Centre. Their

double LP A double album (or double record) is an audio album that spans two units of the primary medium in which it is sold, typically either records or compact disc. A double album is usually, though not always, released as such because the recording i ...

, ''A Jumpin' Jackpot of Melody,'' was released in 2007.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Coachmen, The Musical groups from New York City Musical groups established in 1978 Musical groups disestablished in 1980 Musical groups reestablished in 1997 Progressive rock musical groups from New York (state) 1978 establishments in New York City