`Coinmonster gets national airplay`

By Joe Pinchot
Herald Staff Writer

A locally produced recording by the band Coinmonster is catching the ear of radio programmers.

The New Castle-based band's album ``Universal Solvent'' was the third most newly added recording to radio play lists in the hard rock category for the last week of January and beginning of February, according to reporting publications the Gavin Report, Album Network and FMQB. FMQB's Friday issue listed the album at No. 41 ``with a bullet'' in airplay, said Bill Hutchison, the band's manager and president of the independent Quadropus Records, which released the album.

``Being No. 3 means they got put ahead of some bands on major labels,'' said Bill Dodd, who recorded and produced the album at his Mud Hut Studios in Sharon. Those bands are Course of Empire on TVT Records and Unsane on Relapse Records, Hutchison said.

The band sent the album to 450 radio station, including 150 college stations, and is asking them to play ``Jerry's Just a Head.'' Commercial radio has complied, but college radio is playing whatever it wants, Hutchison said.

Radio stations as far removed as Dallas, Honolulu and Seattle are playing Coinmonster songs, but the album is strongest in Cleveland, where eight stations are spinning it, and Boston, where seven have taken to it.

The album has been on sale regionally since July, but a national distribution campaign kicked in just two weeks ago.

Airplay is being promoted by Skateboard Marketing of New York. Coinmonster is only the third band not signed to a major label to be accepted by Skateboard, Hutchison said.

Dodd called the recording a curiosity because of the limited capability of his studio. He records using eight tracks, while major studios offer 16 or 24 tracks.

``Bill does a great job,'' Hutchison said. ``They've recorded there in the past and they're always happy with his work.''

The band has recorded four albums with Dodd, and he said the musicians are a producer's dream.

``They're very quick,'' he said. ``They just sit down and play.''

Coinmonster took all of 20 hours to record ``Universal Solvent'' over two days in February 1997, and maybe another 10 to mix the recording, a fraction of the time some other bands use.

``It's the best band I ever recorded,'' said Dodd, describing the music as heavy progressive rock.

``They are three of a kind. There are musicians like them in other bands, but not all the musicians (of their skill level) in the same band.''

Singer/guitarist Jon ``Jon Jon'' Reider is an incredible guitar player, Dodd said. ``He must have two brains.

``The drummer (Dave Galazia) is probably the best drummer I ever heard. He could probably sit with Neil Peart.''

Peart is the highly acclaimed drummer for the Canadian rock trio Rush.

Bassist John Troutman, who has moved to Cincinnati but remains committed to the band, rounds out the lineup.

``I have a feeling they're going to be regional heavy hitters,'' Dodd said.

Hutchison said the band will be looking to travel in April or May to areas where it is getting the most airplay. A radio station in Atlanta wants to bring the band down to play, he said.

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Updated Feb. 9, 1998
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