Out of nowhere, a YouTube channel named Peeter’s Drumming & Music has seen fit to release a cache of rare Cop Shoot Cop tracks. Now, to be fair, most -- if not all -- of these songs have either surfaced before as b-sides ( “New God,” “Transmission,” “The Queen of Shinbone Alley” can all be found on the CD single of “Any Day Now,” “Anonymous” appeared on the “Two at a Time” single), on movie soundtracks (“3am Incident” appeared in the Johnny Mnenomic soundtrack) or as curios appendages (“Schweinhund!” is on the split-ep – the indelicately titled Dick Smoker Plus -- with the Italian band Meathead).
The remaining tracks like “Baby Broke Down,” “The Sky is Blue,” “Transmitter,” “Hole in the Sky” (not a Black Sabbath cover) and “Get Gone” have all periodically popped up on the internet, over the ensuing decades, on various platforms. This all said, for comparatively passive fans (unlike bug-eyed completists, like yours truly), it’s nice to have them all aggregated into one, convenient package.
Peeter asserts the following:
“(Mostly) Unreleased and unmixed songs from the Release session in 94 and also what i believe is the band's last session in 95. A whole album worth of material!”
My chronology is fuzzy, at this point, but this was indeed probably the last session that Tod [A] participated in. After Tod jumped ship from proceedings, the remaining members re-worked some of this material (with Natz taking over all vocals), stripped away Tod’s contributions and re-released it as the Red Expendables (a self-deprecating new band name alluding to the unfortunate, red-shirted crew members of the Starship Enterprise who always seem to die first). The Red Expendables (or RedEx) were evidently of no interest to Interscope Records, who dropped them upon news of their former commanding officer’s departure. The album was later released in 1999 on a tiny indie called Grimmwerks. If you’re curious to hear that, you might be able to track down the physical CD on eBay, but the whole album was uploaded ten years ago onto YouTube here. Also, it’s amazingly on both Amazon Music and Spotify.
These days, Tod is in Turkey, working on new Firewater material. Phil Puleo is still working with SWANS. Natz is a visual artist (see his work here) and recently released some new music under the name EXP. Jim Coleman is always working on new music, and since parting ways with Human Impact (which Phil was also a member of), he's planning on a new release, next month, from his project called The Children. Steve McMillen is now a lawyer, living down in Texas.
In any case, enjoy the very final music the band made as Cop Shoot Cop below….
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