Come | |
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Come performing at Dingwalls in London, Thursday 23rd May, 2013
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Background information | |
Origin | Boston, Massachusetts, U.S. |
Genres | Alternative rock, blues rock |
Years active | 1990–2001, 2008, 2010–2011, 2013 |
Labels | Matador, Sub Pop, Beggars Banquet, Domino, Placebo |
Associated acts | Live Skull, Codeine, Dangerous Birds, Uzi, The New Year, Evan Dando, Thurston Moore, dirtmusic, Empty House Cooperative, Karate, Steve Wynn, The Jesus Lizard, Tortoise, Thalia Zedek Band, Rodan |
Members |
Thalia Zedek Chris Brokaw Arthur Johnson Sean O'Brien |
Past members | Winston Bramen Daniel Coughlin |
Come is an American alternative rock band, formed in Boston by Thalia Zedek (vocals, guitar), Chris Brokaw (guitar, vocals), Arthur Johnson (drums), and Sean O'Brien (bass).
Come came into being after a mutual acquaintance invited Brokaw, O'Brien, and Johnson to play with him. Brokaw was playing drums with Codeine, Johnson had previously drummed for Athens, Georgia band Bar-B-Q Killers, and O'Brien had played with two other 1980s Athens bands, Kilkenny Cats and Fashion Battery. After playing one show together, Brokaw, O'Brien, and Johnson decided to split off into their own project and invited Thalia Zedek to join them. Zedek had played in the bands Uzi and Dangerous Birds and had met and befriended Brokaw in the mid-1980s. Her most recent band at the time, the post-no wave New York City band Live Skull, had disbanded in 1990 and Brokaw and Zedek had been talking about playing together.
After a year of jamming together, Come released the 12-inch single "Car" on Sub Pop in 1991 – a seven-minute epic in the post-punk, blues-noir style of The Birthday Party, These Immortal Souls, and The Gun Club. According to Spin magazine, "Car" was "[a] two-song seven-inch that delivers all the satisfaction of, let's say, the definitive Hendrix box set." This release encapsulated what was to become Come's trademark style: thematically dark, emotionally intense, and lengthy songs marked by Zedek's distressed vocals, abrupt rhythms, and the tension-filled guitar interplay between Zedek and Brokaw, both extraordinarily accomplished guitarists. Even before the release of its first album, the band received much critical praise, with Spin magazine stating that "[t]he band is ferocious, bending a head-on adrenaline rush into a staggering blues crawl, churning noise-damage into aching melody, and letting it fall apart", adding that Come was "[n]ot just another band from Boston," but rather "poised on the brink of the big time."