1986
A photo of the Deal With It recording session illustrates a profile of Virgin records’ Jeremy Lascelles.
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Star Hits |
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Studio Week
Star Hits
1984
Equal Opportunity
“…What’s it like to be a woman in an all-male rock and roll world? Martha Davis of the Motels, Berlin’s Terri Nunn and Lyn Byrd of cool new combo Comateens tell it like it is.
…’When I started going to music clubs in New York, the bands were all guys and they had a very tough punk image,’ recalls Lyn Byrd, singer-keyboardist with up-and-coming New Wave trio, Comateens. ‘Then all of a sudden, it became hip to have women in bands. But it actualy worked out well. Girls got into bands for all the wrong reasons but wound up having real creative input.’ Byrd is a good example of that. With bassist Nic North, she helped develop the group’s unique blend of breezy electronics, drum machine boogie and rock roots on the ultra-competitive Manhattan club scene. Nic’s guitar-playing brother Oliver joined in 1981 and finally last year, Comateens released their major-label debut, Pictures on a String, after a series of promising independent records. Byrd says the kind of discrimination that bugs her the most involves little things like dressing rooms. ‘It’s funny that even though there are so many women musicians today, most nightclubs still don’t have a little corner where a woman can change her clothes.’ She copes with the problem with a technique she calls How to Get Undressed Without Getting Undressed. ‘It takes awhile to learn how to put on a clean shirt wthout taking the old one off, but you have to learn. I couldn’t get naked in front of a room full of men; I’m not that liberated yet.’ What’s her advice to a young woman considering a career in rock and roll? ‘I’d just say this: give it everything. You get so much just by being professional and organized, things like being on time. You have to learn how to be a business person and have fun at the same time. It can drive you crazy, but it’s the only way to do it’. ”
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Rock & Folk |
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Studio Week |
Rock & Folk
Numeros1
NME
1983
Comateens: Synthesisum Electropopus
“…The inspiration for their odd name came from a story in one of the New York gutter rags about a young mother who lapsed into a coma before giving birth: the headlines referred to her as the coma-mom and to her child as the coma-baby—the band became the Comateens, feeling that the name reflected both the sinister and sweet sides to their music…By 1981, after contributing a couple of tracks to the Marty Thau compilation album 2×5, they had signed with the Greenwich Village independent label Cachalot to release their self-titled debut album and a 12″ single Ghosts. The records set the tone for their future output, combining serious songs about urban alienation with throwaway mini-pops cover versions of such standards as Summer in the City and TVC15.”
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Music Sound Output |
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Numeros1 |
Music Sound Output
1984
“New York’s Comateens are a power trio with a twist… despite some independent recording and a US major-label debut, they’ve been most sucessful in Europe, Nonetheless, Pictures On A String…resulted in two good-sized dance-club hits…”
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Miscellaneous |
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NME |
Miscellaneous
1981
From an unknown French publication, possibly Salut!
Comateens New York Fever
Q: You use a rhythm box. Are you machines youselves?.
Nic:: No. Our music is too organic for that.
Q: Does the box leave a place for improvisation?
Nic: No, we only improvise in private. Then we jell the ideas. Improvisation is annoying.
Q: Are your songs about machines?
Nic: No, if they were we’d be called Kraftwerk. Our songs are about New York, our city, and the people who live there.
Q: An urban group, then?
Lyn: Yeah, very urban.
Q: What effect does that have on you, being urban?
Nic: It’s anxious. New York is a stressful city.
Q: You can be afraid on some nice melodies…
Nic: Yes. What’s more, people can remember them. Melodies are more agreeable than banging around.
Q: So urgent rhythms + romantic melodies = Comateens?
Nic, Lyn and Oliver together : YES!
Nic: Rolly, our rhythm box, loves fast tempos. It’s important that our songs practically play without us, no matter what other nonsense is going on.
Q: And David Bowie, in all this?
Nic:: It’s the old story. Since we liked him when we were starting out, we did a cover of “TVC-15”. And since we still like him, we put it on the album.
Q: What is the history of the Comateens?
Nic: I worked in a recording studio with a girl who had a rhythm box; it was her who asked Lyn to join the group, so she could operate the box. That was 3 years ago, during the era of Richard Hell, James White, etc…
Q: Lyn, what were you doing in those days?
Lyn: I was bored out of my mind, but I had the look.
Q: And so?….
Nic: Drummers and rhythm boxes came and went. The girl left, Oliver joined. The Comateens are born.
Q: Coma what?
Nic: Teens! Co-Ma-Teens! You didn’t see the Daily News article 3 years ago? A weird story. Each day, they gave a report on the health of a comatose pregnant woman in the headlines of the Daily News…Coma mom still alive…Coma mom dies….Coma baby lives… A pal of ours said to us one day
“Why not name yourselves the Comateens?” Funny, no?
Lyn: Now we can’t say two words without saying “coma”. Do you have a comacigarette?
Q: How old are you?
Lyn: Old enough.
Nic: Average of 22. But our ages are secret.
Q: Do you go out a lot at night?
Nic: Nah…culturally I live in a very ascetic way. For example, I never listen to the radio.
Q: So what do you listen to?
Nic: Classical records. Or silence; that’s the most musical thing.
Oliver: For me, it’s The Residents. And that’s the truth.
Lyn: Me, I love noise. Doesn’t matter what noise. At my house the radio is on 24 hours a day.
1981
Check back for press translations.
1981
Check back for press translations.
1981
Check back for press translations.
1984
Check back for press translations.
1984
Check back for press translations.
1983
These short write-ups from publications in Japan, Denmark, Italy and Greece are a sampling of the international press coverage the band received. We don’t know what most of these items say, and we are not sure we want to, but if anyone wants to translate these items and send them to us, the mystery will finally be solved.
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Melody Maker |
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Music Sound Output |
Melody Maker
1979
“The Comateens didn’t play their current instruments until the afternoon, some months ago, when they decided to form this unit. So Nick’s bass is unambitious, Ramona (guitar) and Lyn (synth) find even rudimentary parts testing. Still, they manage to groove — enough to be our most interesting dance band since the B-52’s and Contortions…As an effort in downtown DIY, they’re a tonic…They haven’t developed the hardness of arrangement or image that constituted their predecessors’ greatest assets, but may in their place have something more important; the ability to make contact with their audience, unpretentiously, in the way that Talking Heads have. On the evidence of their show at Hurrah last week, the Comateens are still half a dozen songs away from real contendership. Give them another six months and then screw your wigs on.”
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Liberation |
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Miscellaneous |
Liberation
1981
Les comateens dans le brouillard
Check back for press translations.
1983
Comateens le rock delicieux
Check back for press translations.
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Le Journal |
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Melody Maker |
