N  i  c  e    w  o  r  d  S

Harp Magazine

Coach Fingers are the kind of band unafraid to finish off all your booze, do whatever drugs you might have in your pocket and just get plain weird until the sun comes up. There are echoes of Jim Morrison on the upbeat, boogie-rocker “Evil” and a dash of Zappa can be found on “The Drop Off,” but what many might miss is the heavy Danny Barnes vibe that permeates everything from the banjos, the vocals, and the subject matter. Something else that might not get picked up on is the watery guitar, reminiscent of a Jerry Garcia exploration, on “Lost in the Cornmaze with the Id and the Odd.” And just when it starts to feel hackneyed, bandleader “Coach” Jason Meagher sneaks in “Miranda,” a haunting tale of a small town, a loaded gun, and a daughter hiding by the tracks. When the going get weird, the weird get going. - Aaron Kayce

Time Out New York
4 stars

Coach Fingers features members of local collective the No-Neck Blues Band, here swapping free-form psychedelia for 70's boogie rock and Frank Zappa goofs. They approach this debut album with the outward carelessness requisite for such an era. It pays off: No Flies on Frank is loose, spirited and a little sleazy, like a lost weekend from an earlier age. - Jay Ruttenberg

Foxy Digitalis

A few of perhaps the most bearded groups of all time include:
The Band
Little Feat (probably)
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Kings of Leon (don’t worry, this is a joke)
Fleetwood Mac in the 70s
The Beach Boys in the 70s.
And of course beard kings ZZ Top; a band who – with help from this proliferation of contemporary freak beards – are right on the cusp of becoming hipster fashionable (you heard it either here, or on the X, first). In the photograph I’ve got, which is small and xeroxed, in actual fact only two of Coach Fingers have beards, but cock even a cursory ear to “No Flies on Frank”, and it sounds like they all do. It sounds like even their wives have goddamn beards, and their seventeen creek-diving, plaid-diapered children.

Coach Fingers are an overtly downhome side-project featuring three members of wonderful New York free-noise collective the No-Neck Blues Band, who famously aren’t a blues band at all, unlike this side-project, who are rather. Confused? Alright, basically Coach Fingers is to NNCK what Howlin’ Rain is to Comets on Fire. I think. Or simply imagine ‘The Dukes of Hazard’.

“No Flies on Frank” is a modest, thoroughly enjoyable self-contained, bourbon-slurpin’ ‘Basement Tapes’-esque ramshackle entity, thus it feels wrong to break the seal and begin to discuss individual songs and all. But they’re sepia-tinged and jaunty and wholesome and American and there are banjos, dobros, a Rhodes piano and several mangy dogs, lounging on the what, porch?

Shall I keep going or have we got this now?
They’re Kingsbury Manx’s ideologically-sterner older brothers.
They’re Midlake’s bucktoothed cousins, resentful and keepin’ it real cuz descending minor chord sequences are for faggots. As is a ‘production’.
They’re Coach Fingers and they don’t care whether or not you buy their CD because they’re busy wearin’ their over-easy classic rock chops to the bone on sizzlin’ cuts like ‘Great Flood’ (yes of course there’s a great flood) and probably tellin’ stories by moonlight and something to do with reefers and moonshine.

I live in Southern England, so none of this comes easily to me. Have pity. 7/10 - Seb Hunter

Pop Matters

Surreal Zappa-esque Foolery

No one should buy No Flies on Frank because it’s a NNCK side project. Though the two bands share one core member (Jason Meagher) and two contributors (Dave Shuford, David Nuss), very little about the Coach Fingers’ first full-length can be attributed to the long-running improvisatory collective. For one thing, NNCK is nothing if not serious; Coach Fingers is one long, country-flavored giggle from start to finish.

Consider standout cut “Wakachu the Walrus”, a Dada-esque rampage through Molly Hatchet’s riff book cut with Lewis Carroll’s brand of whimsy. Wakachu is clearly one of a long line of Southern rock bad boy heros, the sort of troublemaker you might plausibly locate in a Lynyrd Skynryd song. He’s a gin-drinking, card-playing, coyote-fighting good ole boy, who admits in the song’s best lines, “Trouble seems to fit me like a hand inside a glove / It’s like pulling up to a two-ton bridge when you know you’re hauling three”. He’s probably got a tattoo or two, and he’d be a total stereotype, except that he’s a walrus.

That sort of disconnect—between the classic rock lines and the surreally disconcerting imagery—is what makes Coach Fingers such a great ride. As you’d expect, given the personnel, the quality of musicianship is quite high. Still, there’s a complete lack of self-importance here. The epically swamp-boogie-ish “Lost in the Cornmaze with the Id and the Odd” is propelled mostly by a chorus of kazoos.

There’s a sense of high intelligence at play here—a giddy silliness that, along with certain 1970s-leaning guitar lines, may remind you of Zappa (possibly the “Frank” of the title). Still, the Coach Fingers are also pretty effective when they straighten up, too, as on the lovely, very country “Miranda”. This tune, an oblique tale of a drifter, a sheriff, and a missing girl named Miranda, is lushly orchestrated by Meagher’s brother Sean, full of plaintive harmonica, strings, steel guitar, and righteous gospel piano, yet it seems like the simplest, most affecting song on the record.

By contrast, “The Drop Off”, which follows, is just the opposite, a crazy country prog romp where Edgar Winter’s keyboards bang along next to a maniacal banjo. Time signatures, tempos, keys, and moods are all in flux… just when you’ve gotten a handle on the head-pounding verse, you stumble across a sweeping Beatles-psyche chorus. It’s completely nuts, way too crowded and overstuffed with ideas, but weirdly compelling anyway.

No Flies on Frank is a long drunken drive down some seriously twisted country roads. Bring a friend, some weed, and a case of the giggles, and if you don’t end up in a ditch, you’ll have a hell of a time. - Jennifer Kelly

The Covalent Bond

Three members of The No Neck Blues Band, Coach Jason Meagher, Dave Nuss and Dave Shuford, form the nucleus of Coach Fingers. In addition, the band consists of Sean Meagher on keyboards and George Devoe on guitar. Their album No Flies on Frank is a delight of boogie blues rock with an irreverent twist akin to Zappa, who I suppose is the inspiration of the album title. I am especially drawn to the irreverent aspects of their music such as the kazoo chorus in "Lost in the Cornmaze with the Id and the Odd." Yet, the silly song about a walrus is something special. "Wakachu the Walrus" starts out with some clearly articulated guitar picking, only to transition to a addictive chorus that Jimmy Buffett may have composed with the help of Frank Zappa.

Pensatos.com

Dirty and Perfect

Let the revivals begin. The long overdue resurgence of southern style sev/ixies blues rock, complete with its booze sheltered harmonics is nigh. For the greater part of the decade, rock has been less internally influenced and guided by British invasions instead of conjuring home sounds. Leading this resurrection is Coach Fingers and their debut No Files on Frank which with its much needed guidance, has laid the groundwork for one of the most noble and inventive rock albums of the decade.

Summoning the darker side of rock, Coach Fingers pulls from experiences learned by the likes of southern rock greats. Hooks can be associated with the likes of CCR at any given moment. These blues colored murky waters are filled with evocative organs, echoes of guitars and hazy growls derived from Meagher’s previous work under the No Neck Blues Band mantra. ‘Lost in a Cornmaze with the Id and the Odd’ is a juggernaut with its reverberating lyrics only equal to the kazoo laden strings. But it’s the coy plucking breaks that form the true aspect of the song’s fixed influence. Although the gut of the album is Meagher’s baby, originating greatly in his mind and accomplished through his shady Jim Morrison vocals, it’s the work from power guitarist George Devoe that elevates the album to its memorable moments. From banjo beset numbers like ‘One for RBM’ to the riddled languages he speaks thru mind blowing finger-work within ‘Late Night Westtown’ – Devoe stands as one of the paramount unidentified guitarists on today’s music scene. Tripped out ‘Wakachu the Walrus’ is both original and appealing with its first phase blues setting that evolves into a clutch bass driven number without warning reviving itself. Most of the songs lack memorable moments and the much needed fluidity but that’s not what Coach Fingers is about. The style they play is part improv and slanting jams for live play.

No Files on Frank is a pop blues explosion of groove and soul that edges across a plain of riff driven Goth displaying the truly lost art form of American rock in this otherwise saturated impressionist media. Despite an acquired taste application may need to be filled out before submitting this to your library, Coach Fingers have accomplished a much needed moment in rock maturity. Each track is a forward thinking throwback to the origins of inventive rock in America that deserve an audience of major labels to take notice.

Jambase.com
Runner-up for album of the month

Bite down on this glistening wad of metallic bubblegum and watch your teeth change color while you dance around in your undies. "Coach" Jason Meagher - on furlough from NYC's stellar No Neck Blues Band - has created a pop marvel full of thick groovers with dark fringes. It's the sloppy yelp of the Stranglers rogering the Kinks while John Fogerty chain-smokes in the corner.

It boogies like the days when men were Burt Reynolds hairy and put their music out only on vinyl. Every cut is addictively tuneful yet lathered in well executed distortion and peculiar instrumentation – a withering flute there, a haunted dobro here, a busted organ lifted from Levon Helm's garage over there, and was that a sackbut on the chorus? They channel the dead well, dragging Jim Morrison ("Evil") and George Harrison ("One For RBM") from beyond the veil to good effect. There's the warm flush of a red wine buzz to the proceedings, which start raw as a Billy Childish rehearsal and grow denser and more relaxed by the end. With bullhorn wails, splashes of switchblade surf and even hints of prog ("Late Night Westtown"), the Coach Fingers play the hell out of their instruments, especially guitar discovery George Devoe. Crammed with punkish invention and finger-snappin' tunes, No Flies On Frank is a grand debut. – Dennis Cook

Music-Versity

Jason Meagher sounds like a man possessed. It sounds as if all of the great spirits of 60s/70s Southern Rock are battling their way to the forefront of the main Coach’s music, but none seem to really take priority over the other so styles wish and wash in and out of a song almost as if Meagher can’t control it. And while the Southern tag does define the rural, bearded swagger of Coach Fingers’ sound, the influences range much wider, especially into the realms of psychedelic rock and backwoods blues. In just one song, you can hear John Fogerty jamming with Ray Manzarek (keyboardist from The Doors) while Zappa arranges, The Free Design adds a touch of color and Pink Floyd hints on their studio trickery. With a more contemporary frame of mind, I routinely hear the kind of sound Man Man would embrace but without their unyielding instinct to skew unrelentingly, or All Night Radio brought up on blues rather than hippie hoopla. Any way you define it, Meagher, and a couple of his fellow members from the No Neck Blues Band, have created a thoroughly enjoyable, challenging and unpredictable album that stays humble in its lo-fi production and does an amazing job of embracing its influences without straight copping them.

Paper Thin Walls
Single review - “The Drop Off”

“The Drop Off” feels a little bit like scrambling onto the back of a careening Halloween hayride, wooden wheels trembling, bales of straw flying, scarecrows toppling, bats darting, all clipped corners and big, ghoulish shrieks. Which is to say “The Drop Off” is just as enthralling as it is terrifying. Coach Fingers’ guitar-heavy backyard-rock is riddled with gothic Americana bits (including plenty of banjo and fart-bass), an endearing—if ungainly—mix of scrap and skronk that’s vaguely reminiscent of Canadian brethren the Deadly Snakes. Still, Coach Fingers, who borrowed three members from NYC’s No Neck Blues Band, are a surprisingly boogie-oriented outfit, and “The Drop Off,” with its humming guitars, arm-flailing drums and drunken vocals, is riff-addled enough to toss us all, headfirst and happy, straight into the pumpkin patch. - AMANDA PETRUSICH

C|Net

A madcap blend of boogie swing, Mothers of Invention snark noise, and surf riffs sharpened to a razor's edge, the Coach Fingers' "No Flies on Frank" LP is a fittingly insane tribute to its presumed title figure, Mr. Zappa. And it's no amateur ode: these are some of N.Y.'s most established noisemakers.

Indieworkshop.com
"Evergreen" 8" Lathe Cut (Sound @ 1)

Evergreen is the debut solo outing by Coach Fingers, the alias of the No Neck Blues Band's (blonde haired) guitarist Jason. Known for his inspired, often hypnotic and ever evolving electric guitar work it may come as a surprise that Evergreen contains four completely acoustic compositions. Apparently recorded on Thanksgiving "a long time ago" the songs that comprise this 8" lathe cut lean away from the psychedelic guitar work NNCK is known for, in favor of a tip of the hat to American roots and blues music. The influence of NNCK's biggest fan, John Fahey, can be heard in finger-picking and pacing of these songs, but make no mistake Coach Fingers has no interest in solely paying homage to or imitating great guitarists of the past. There is an honesty and intimacy to these songs that is beautiful and timeless. A fantastic release, issued in a stapled sleeve, and limited to only 75 copies. (RB)