Tim Cohen

Tim Cohen has long stood out as a central presence in the Bay Area’s psychedelic and garage-rock resurgence that began in the early 2000s, owing in part to his work with such local groups as the Fresh & Onlys and Magic Trick. Although his solo recordings, which began with the 2009 debut Two Sides of Tim Cohen, often adopt a more personal tone, they remain relaxed and saturated with psychedelic and vintage pop elements. His second album, Laugh Tracks, marked his first appearance on Captured Tracks in 2010; he then shifted to Sinderlyn for Luck Man in 2017 and later placed his seventh solo effort, You Are Still Here, with Madrid’s Bobo Integral in 2021. In addition to music, Cohen maintains a parallel career as a visual artist whose pieces have appeared in exhibitions in San Francisco and Denver.

Originally from Syracuse, New York, Cohen relocated to San Francisco near the start of the millennium and soon began issuing music under several different names. Using the alias Feller Quentin, he put out the indie-folk sets I Want to Be Black Kind Of in 2002 and Cat in a Tree with a Mouse in His Teeth in 2003, then moved to Echelon Productions for I Am Not a Monster in 2004. He also joined forces with Evan Martin in the hip-hop-inflected folk outfit Black Fiction, which eventually expanded to five members and released Ghost Ride in 2006 followed by God in the Gutter in 2007.

Cohen’s best-known venture, the Fresh & Onlys, originated in 2004 as a partnership with bassist Shayde Sartin before growing to encompass Kyle Gibson, Wymond Miles, and Heidi Alexander, the last of whom departed early on. Drawing on an eclectic range of touchstones that included Buzzcocks, the Mekons, and Country Joe MacDonald, the group settled into a gritty yet melodic pop style laced with garage-rock energy. Their first release, the Imaginary Friends EP, came out on friend Kelley Stoltz’s imprint in early 2008; after the self-issued Medicine Island cassette, John Dwyer’s Castle Face label delivered the self-titled debut LP in April 2009, with the follow-up Grey-Eyed Girls appearing on Woodsist that autumn.

Cohen also issued his initial solo album under his own name in 2009, the still-psychedelic yet more introspective Two Sides of Tim Cohen, which surfaced via Empty Cellar and Secret Seven. That same year he quietly issued a metal record under the moniker Amocoma. A surge of activity arrived in 2010: the Fresh & Onlys delivered the EP August on My Mind for Captured Tracks along with assorted singles and their third album, Play It Strange, on In the Red in October, while Captured Tracks simultaneously handled Cohen’s second solo outing, Laugh Tracks.

The Fresh & Onlys began 2011 with the Sacred Bones EP Secret Walls, and Cohen simultaneously launched the psych-folk project Magic Trick via the Empty Cellar release Glad Birth of Love. Magic Trick’s second album, Ruler of the Night, emerged on Hardly Art in late June 2012, only two months before the Fresh & Onlys returned with Long Slow Dance, their fourth LP and first for Mexican Summer. They issued the Soothsayer EP the following year while Cohen found time for another Magic Trick set, River of Souls. Written during a stay at an isolated Arizona horse ranch and suffused with a relaxed Western atmosphere, the Fresh & Onlys’ fifth album, House of Spirits, appeared on Mexican Summer in June 2014.

Cohen devoted his attention to Magic Trick for Half Man Half Machine on Spiritual Pajamas in 2015 and Other Man’s Blues on Empty Cellar in 2016 before returning with his first solo album in six years, Luck Man, on Sinderlyn in January 2017. The same label also issued the Fresh & Onlys’ Wolf Lie Down later that year, after which Cohen offered the self-recorded solo LP The Modern World in 2018 and, following his move to Bobo Integral, the 2021 solo album You Are Still Here.