| New Photos | Sun, 03/12/2006 |
| John Dunlevy took some photos of the band this morning. We went to a used car lot on 3939 N Western, and then to Ronnie and Paul's apartment. I'll post some of the photos on website soon. Here's a shot of John that I took as he was taking pictures of us. . . | |
| Back on the Horse | Fri, 02/24/2006 |
| After a few month-long hiatus over the winter months, we're gearing up for some shows this spring and then a tour over the summer. We'll also be recording an EP of new material. Stay tuned for details. | |
| New Show @ Silvie\'s 11.5.05 | Wed, 10/26/2005 |
| First Coat will be playing on Saturday, Nov. 5th at Silvie's Lounge in Chicago (1902 W Irving Park). Show starts at 9, and we're playing with the Fake Fictions and Modern Temper. See you there! | |
| Darkroom Show on Sunday | Sat, 10/15/2005 |
We're playing with our good friends Spouse and Seth tomorow, Sunday October 16th, at Darkroom. The bar is at 2210 West Chicago between Damen and Western. Oh and we'll have a new song. =) You're going to love it! Here are the details: First Coat Spouse Seth The show starts at 9.30pm. $6 at the door. 21+. | |
| Subterranean show moved to Beat Kitchen! | Sat, 08/27/2005 |
| Our show on Sept. 1st has been moved from Subterranean to Beat Kitchen. The bill is now First Coat, Inspector Owl, and Radiant Darling. Doors are at 9pm. Hope to see you there! | |
| Subterranean show 9/1 | Thu, 08/18/2005 |
| New show added! We'll be playing at Subterranean on Thursday, Sept. 1st with our friends The Elanors from Champaign, IL and Inspector Owl from Chicago. Watch the Calendar page for more details as we get them. | |
| Darkroom July 31st | Sat, 07/23/2005 |
| We’re going to be playing at Darkroom on Sunday July 31st at 10PM. Here’s the schedule: Sunday, July 31st, 9.30PM - $5 cover DJs Clayton Counts & Pop Terror Special Guest TBA (maybe) Twin Wrecks the Memory First Coat It’ll be our second show with Robert Voyer on bass. Ronnie is on vacation until August 20th so we’ll be playing as a four piece. We’ve started working on some new songs, and I was hoping to have one ready for the show, but I think it’ll have to wait now. We’re not quite there yet. Still, this should be a great show at a cool venue (see the July 7th post). Pop Terror is fantastic and Twin Wrecks the Memory sound intriguing. They’re playing WHPK’s Pure Hype on Friday July 29th. | |
| mmHg\'s last stand | Sat, 07/23/2005 |
| Robert put together an outstanding outside show on the 15th. The sound was great, the weather was perfect, and somehow there were tons and tons of people there. John Ugolini and Matt Rown were there, Deirdre’s mom flew in from PA, I saw Becky’s dad and sister, and Morgan flew in from DC to see mmHg play their last set. They played the set of their lives. It was sad to see the four of them take the stage for the last time, but they couldn’t have ended on a higher note. Great job guys! | |
| Endings and Beginnings | Sat, 07/09/2005 |
| I just got the schedule for the Millimeters Mercury reunion show in Bartlet Quad on Friday the 15th of June: 6-6:25: nick hudac (of the G'damn Shames) 6:40-7pm: unled tit 7:15-8pm: the passerines 8:15-9pm: first coat 9:15-10pm: H&B 10:15-11pm: mmHg If you never saw Millimeters Mercury you should really come to this show. I don’t know when they’ll play again. Millimeters Mercury was started by Travis Carter and Robert Voyer sometime in 1999 or 2000 while they were undergrads at the University of Chicago. In 2001 Chris Vlasses joined on drums and the unit got a lot more serious. They put out a slew of EPs and went on several short US tours. They were always the most energetic and meticulous of the Hyde Park bands, and their last album, Turbo, is excellent. It gets played pretty frequently on WLUW’s Radio One. I feel like the whole scene took a hit when the guys broke up the band to pursue other endeavors. MK of the Plank Length wrote a nice history of Millimeters Mercury. You can read it here. He read it during their last show at Schuba’s in 2004. Also, in the spirit of beginnings and endings, Sean Mahan left First Coat about a month ago to move to San Francisco. Right now he’s writing software for a health spa… or at least that’s the last I’ve heard. Sean is a fantastic bassist and played a big part in arranging our songs. We’ll miss him. Robert Voyer of Starlister and mmHg has joined us on bass. The reunion show will be his first show with us. Robert is an all round fantastic musician, and I’m sure he’ll push our sound in new directions --especially as we begin to learn new songs. I have a couple new things in the pipeline. Like always, they’re simple folky acoustic guitar things. I’m very excited to see what the band does with them. Hopefully we’ll have something ready for the Darkroom show on the 31st. We’ll see. I’m going to bring back our lyrics page and possibly post the words to some of the new songs. -Conor | |
| Becky Starks | Sat, 07/09/2005 |
| A comment on Mystery and Misery: Hey there! My name is Becky Stark and I am writing to say that – wow this is very funny- but there are two Becky Stark musician ladies and we have been confused. The song and the movie that keirsti wrote about on this website are related to me and not the becky stark of mr. hyde records! I discovered this amazing coincidence last week when I was in san francisco to play a show with scout niblett and viking moses and one of the guys in viking moses thought that they were playing with the other becky stark and then he pulled a letter from her out of his pocket! I am really excited about this doppelganger effect and maybe one day we can have a becky stark/becky stark show. I think that the general distinction is that one becky stark is from chicago (that’s not me) and one becky stark is from los angeles ( that is me). I made an acoustic guitar recording and released it under the name Lavender Diamond but I still play as becky stark or becky stark and the lavender diamond. Ok- that’s all! becky stark : if you are reading this- let’s get together and have a party! love, becky stark Becky Stark of Mr. Hyde Records used to play with First Coat until 2003 when she left Chicago to live on an island off the coast of California. She came back in December of 2004 and recorded five songs with Loren Jan Wilson in our apartment. Since then she’s developed a little bit of a following on the internet. Check out the pod casts here, here, here, and here. Anyway, as it turns out, there is another singer songwriter from California named Becky Stark, and people are getting the two Becky’s muddled. Part of this is because Becky of Mr. Hyde Records doesn’t have a web site, and so people just assume that she is the other Becky Stark from California. The best place to find information on the Becky of Mr. Hyde Records is on the Mr. Hyde Records bulletin board, at least for the moment. You can find the Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond on the Lavender Diamond website here. …and they aren’t the only Becky Starks either. I just received a “Warrant Warning Notice” from the City of Austin for an overdue ticket. It’s signed by one Rebecca Stark, Clerk of the Court. -Conor | |
