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The seeds of The Coal Gems were sewn in December, 2003 when Jahna and Blair were working on something Blair had written for The Miscreants. Thing is, it wasn't the kind of thing Jahna was in the mood for at the time. Too dark and rough. To keep Jahna playing, Blair started doodling on a few chords on his Crumar Toccata. Jahna asked what it was. It wasn't anything... yet.
That day had been the first huge snowstorm of the season, so Jahna started singing a few words. Between the two of them, they finished the song off. That was "Underneath This Blanket". But at that point, the song was headed for The Miscreants. Unfortunately, it just didn't fit the band. Jahna later tried it with The Whirls, a short-lived band that briefly included Blair and also included Jahna's bandmate, Julia, from The Demands on bass. But the band didn't last long and it never really sounded the way they'd envisioned it when they wrote it.
Eventually, the idea of The Coal Gems came about. Jahna and Blair soon realized there was a need for somebody to do some pretty jangling. And so Matt (one of their bandmates in The Miscreants) was invited.
Finally, in the first week of October, they got together to rehearse. Despite having "Underneath This Blanket" and "Going Out Of My Mind" (and even a slight touch of "I Don't Know What I've Done") at Miscreants' rehearsals, Matt was pretty surprised by the direction Jahna and Blair had for this band. Things went *really* well that night and we all had a feeling we were doing something really special.
The band did a 6-song mini-set debut opening for The Miscreants and The Electrolux Combo at Magnetic Field in Brooklyn on November 13th for Blair's b-day show. Finally, a chance to see what an audience thought. We were actually wondering how it'd go over, considering The Miscreants play a pretty different style than The Coal Gems. But people were extremely enthused! There were comparisons to Spacemen 3, Spiritualized, Mazzy Star, and the Cowboy Junkies... All of which made Blair (who to date has written or co-written all the original material) and Jahna (who has arranged the covers, co-written songs with Blair, and has the greatest vision of what she wants the band to be) chuckle, as they really never got into those bands. Blair heard Spacemen 3, Mazzy Star, and the Cowboy Junkies when they all came out, but never really got into them. It wasn't a dislike, but rather just that he was listening to so much other stuff he was completely into at the time. He did, after all, spend the 90s doing a garage-rock fanzine called The Teen Scene (named for a song on the first Splat Cats EP.)
The Coal Gems are currently working on filling out their set. With any luck, they'll have a full set ready to go by February, 2005. Look for them soon. In the meantime, enjoy the rehearsal tapes.
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