Dead Moon

From Portland, Oregon came the trio Dead Moon, whose singular strain of roots-infused garage punk summoned visions of down-on-their-luck drifters and couples defying the odds. Their sound shifted between introspective and ferocious yet remained consistently raw and vigorous. At the front stood the married pair Fred and Toody Cole. Fred had launched his long-running musical path at fifteen. After a string of groups and a stretch of experiences that included settling land in Alaska, evading the Vietnam-era draft, and tracking bears, the couple launched the punk outfit the Rats. With the addition of Andrew Loomis on drums, Dead Moon came together in 1987. Though they built a fervent audience across Europe through constant touring, comparable recognition at home stayed out of reach.

For nearly ten years the group issued albums on their independent Tombstone imprint. Every title appeared on vinyl alone and was mastered with the identical lathe used for the Kingsmen’s 1963 recording of “Louie Louie.” Beginning in 1991 they started converting those vinyl-only titles to CD, first through Music Maniac in Europe and eMpTy in the United States, a project that extended into the following decade. In 2006 Sub Pop issued the career overview Echoes of the Past, a selection of tracks chosen by Fred Cole himself. The band dissolved later that year, prompting Fred and Toody to form Pierced Arrows almost immediately. Subsequent years brought multiple reissues of the Dead Moon catalog. In 2015 the live archive Tales from the Grease Trap, Vol. 1 captured a high-octane 1993 performance at Portland’s Satyricon. Another live document, What a Way to See the Old Girl Go, surfaced in April 2017 and preserved their set from the X-Ray Cafe’s final night in August 1994. Drummer Andrew Loomis passed away in March 2016 at fifty-four; Fred Cole followed in November 2017 at sixty-nine.