I’d like to start this out by apologizing. My computer completely crashed this week taking my Coyol article with it. I am attempting to recreate the piece off of notes I made on a legal pad while at work. I fucking hate my laptop, why did this happen? I took good care of you dude, and you do this! Also fuck the Apple Genius who openly laughed in my face at the Beverly Center when I said I wasn’t sure if I had everything backed up. He laughed and said, “no one is ever sure if they backed up.” I wanted to get juvenile and say, “Shut up nerd, you look like a pervert. Fix my computer.” Anyways, Enjoy the article!
Usually when you go to a residency show, you don’t expect much. For those of you who are unfamiliar, residency shows are when a band is booked for say, every Wednesday in the month of July. So every Wednesday of that month, they have a place to play a set. The shows are designed to try and build a buzz, so that as the month goes on, the audiences get bigger by word of mouth. That’s the idea, and it’s a nice idea, but it’s rarely the case. Generally you only attend these types of gigs because your roommate is in the band and even though you’ve seen them play dozens of times before, you drag your ass out to East bum fuck on a weeknight to hear songs you know backwards and forwards, because you share a wall with the jerk. All this just so you can avoid the, “Why weren’t you at the show last night?” conversation. Those are never fun. Especially when your excuse consists of, “Well New Girl was on, and I know as a single white male I ain’t exactly part of the target demographic, but that Zooey D. just gets me.” That’s not some shit I want to go through every Wednesday for a month. So I go. I go and I piss and moan like a jerk the entire drive there and back. This was all a round about way of saying residency shows are not usually looked forward to.
So when my buddy Ryan called and asked me if I would be into catching one over by Miracle Mile at midnight on a Friday, I had my hesitations, I complained about the drive and the start time until I got a beer in me and I calmed down. Midnight rolled around and soon a 15-piece Alt country band called Still Watters Run Deep took the stage. Although there were 15 members on stage, two stood out, Front man, John Issac Watters and vocalist Celeigh Chapman.
I hated admitting it, because I had been bitching for the previous hour, but I really loved the show. My only complaint was that the stage was so crowded. Too many things were going on, a lot of them weren’t really adding to the song. Sometimes bands try to do too much during a live show. Focus on what you are good at and go from there. Streamline. That is the word of the day.
To give you an idea of what I mean when I say the stage was crowded. Watters is the tall gent in the red neckerchief, Chapman is the tiniest girl off to the side. This is the only video I could find of that show.
After having their songs stuck in my head for a month or so, I tried looking them up online to see if they had any upcoming shows. The search was made quite difficult due to their complete lack of an online presence. I kept checking every few weeks, but never came up with anything concrete. So I gave up. That was nearly two years ago. Â A few months back the same buddy called me and we had the following conversation.
Ryan: Hey bud whatcya doin?
Me: I just ate a pizza, like a whole pizza. I might die.
Ryan: Wanna go to a show tonight?
Me: What show?
Ryan: It’s the dude from that Still Watters Deep or whatever’s new band.
Me: Oh yeah?
Ryan: Yeah. It has that tiny, hot, good singing chick in it.
Me: I’m down. Might have to poo first though.
That’s how most of our conversations go.
No longer were they the 15-member monstrosity. They were now a quartet, Will Gramling on keys, drums, guitar, and a killer tambourine. Watters, Gramling and Chapman met at USC where they began singing old folk songs together just for fun. After several projects had come and gone, Chapman and Watters began writing songs of their own and Coyol was born.
Watters has an odd presence on stage. He stands well over six feet tall, and kind of looks like a homeless Adam Carolla. He 
hunches over his guitar never seeming fully comfortable, and warbles through the songs. His voice is unlike anything I have heard in recent memory. Think Jack White crossed with Modest Mouse’s Issac Brock.
Celeigh, no longer encumbered by the massive group on stage, was now free to bounce about throughout the set. She commands most of the attention when performing. Firstly because her voice is amazing, she is quite possibly the best female vocalist I have ever seen live. She’s a speck of a thing but belts out like a heavyset gospel choir member. Secondly, she is strikingly beautiful. The two of them together were perfect. I wanted the band to simplify and whittle things down to the basics, and for the first time, I actually got my wish. I went to the first night of their residency and then ended up attending two of the next three shows played.
The drastic difference in their vocal styles would cause one to think that their duets wouldn’t work. Their voices are so far off. But it’s quite the contrary. The juxtaposition between the two blends together beautifully. Thus far they have only released a singular Self-titled EP that. I bought it at one of their shows but those of you interested in picking it up can do so at their band camp. They released the songs individually, each accompanied with its very own cover art made by local artist friends of the band. One of my favorite tracks of theirs is their very first single, Pharmacist. They have opened all of the shows I’ve been to with this song. It is a showcase for their vocal skill and really gets the crowd going.
I really connected with the lyrics of this song. All too often I have felt that I needed to be fixed. A lot of the time I find myself depressed and not sure why. Like so many others I often think the only way to change my mood is through some doctor prescribed pharmaceuticals. This isn’t healthy. I think about that book Brave New World, part of me wishes I had a steady stream of soma that could just make me feel content, maybe a bit disconnected, but at least content. I haven’t felt that way in a long time.
Another one of my favorites off of this EP is A Beast.
The light slow strumming backing the their boisterous harmony causes me to take pause and just listen. Coyol is a special type of band. Most of the time when I listen to music, I use it as a distraction from whatever it is I am doing at any given time. When I listen to Coyol, I’m usually not doing anything at all. This band isn’t my distraction for some other activity; I just sit back and listen. They allow me to sit back and feel something aside from the stress, aside from fear. I sit back, take a deep breath, and maybe even come close to feeling content for a few fleeting moments. Grab the EP. It’s only 6 bucks. You could be cool and give the band some money or you could take that six bucks and just spend it on something that will rot either your teeth or your mind.
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