Cool Rays was a rock band formed by five

Evergreen State College The Evergreen State College is a public liberal arts college in Olympia, Washington. Founded in 1967, it offers a non-traditional undergraduate curriculum in which students have the option to design their own study towards a degree or follow a ...

(

Olympia, Washington Olympia is the capital city of the U.S. state of Washington. It had a population of 55,605 at the 2020 census, making it the state of Washington's 23rd-most populous city. Olympia is the county seat of Thurston County, and the central city ...

, US) students in late 1980. The band is especially notable as

Calvin Johnson Calvin Johnson Jr. (born September 29, 1985) is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver for nine seasons with the Detroit Lions of the National Football League (NFL). Nicknamed "Megatron" after the ''Transforme ...

's first ensemble and one of the earlier expressions of the Olympia music scene that developed in the 1980s and 1990s. Johnson wrote most of the band's songs, with assistance on

lyrics Lyrics are words that make up a song, usually consisting of verses and choruses. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist. The words to an extended musical composition such as an opera are, however, usually known as a "libretto" and their writer, ...

from Ed Gaidrich. The entire band worked together to set Johnson's lyrics to music. Cool Rays played at least one

cover song In popular music, a cover version, cover song, remake, revival, or simply cover is a new performance or recording by a musician other than the original performer or composer of the song. Originally, it referred to a version of a song released ...

Jonathan Richman Jonathan Michael Richman (born May 16, 1951) is an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. In 1970, he founded the Modern Lovers, an influential proto-punk band. Since the mid-1970s, Richman has worked either solo or with low-key acoustic an ...

's "

Modern World The modern era or the modern period is considered the current historical period of human history. It was originally applied to the history of Europe and Western history for events that came after the Middle Ages, often from around the year 1500 ...

". The songwriting characteristics associated with Johnson's later work (simple stories, childlike sensibilities, use of catchy

phrases In grammar, a phrasecalled expression in some contextsis a group of words or singular word acting as a grammatical unit. For instance, the English expression "the very happy squirrel" is a noun phrase which contains the adjective phrase "very ...

from American

vernacular Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken language, spoken form of language, particularly when perceptual dialectology, perceived as having lower social status or less Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige than standard language, which is mor ...

, quirky

juxtaposition Juxtaposition is an act or instance of placing two opposing elements close together or side by side. This is often done in order to Comparison, compare/contrast the two, to show similarities or differences, etc. Speech Juxtaposition in literary ...

of words and ideas, etc.) are present in their earliest form in his Cool Rays compositions, as is Johnson's "uniquely deep, droning singing voice"

Members

– vocals, guitar * Cathy Watson (see Doll Squad) – bass guitar * Ed Gaidrich— saxophone, vocals * Tony Traverso – guitar * Tracy Taylor – drums

Biography

During its short existence, the band played several concerts in Olympia and one in

Portland, Oregon Portland ( ) is the List of cities in Oregon, most populous city in the U.S. state of Oregon, located in the Pacific Northwest region. Situated close to northwest Oregon at the confluence of the Willamette River, Willamette and Columbia River, ...

. The band had more musical creativity than musicianship, with two of the band members having taken up instruments for the first time just to be able to participate. While certainly not the first amateur girl and boy band to come along, Cool Rays embodied what became some of the motivating ideas (and ideals) of the Olympia music scene: that one need not be a formally trained or professional (or

stereotyped In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can be, for example ...

) musician to make music; local people should make their own music (rather than passively relying on the " corporate ogre"

music business The music industry are individuals and organizations that earn money by writing songs and musical compositions, creating and selling recorded music and sheet music, presenting concerts, as well as the organizations that aid, train, represent ...

to provide it); and girls should play a more active role in the making of rock music. Cool Rays benefited from a devoted following among certain students and downtown Olympia residents, however, the group's popularity did not spread far. In the late 1970s, many younger music listeners had not embraced

punk Punk or punks may refer to: Genres, subculture, and related aspects * Punk rock, a music genre originating in the 1970s associated with various subgenres * Punk subculture, a subculture associated with punk rock, or aspects of the subculture s ...

and other emerging genres. Local tastes tended toward

hard rock Hard rock or heavy rock is a heavier subgenre of rock music typified by aggressive vocals and Distortion (music), distorted electric guitars. Hard rock began in the mid-1960s with the Garage rock, garage, Psychedelic rock, psychedelic and blues ...

psychedelic Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary mental states (known as psychedelic experiences or "trips") and a perceived "expansion of consciousness". Also referred to as classic halluci ...

and folk-rock musical motifs. The band dispersed in the summer of 1981, after the end of the

academic year An academic year, or school year, is a period that schools, colleges and university, universities use to measure the duration of studies for a given educational level. Academic years are often divided into academic terms. Students attend classe ...

. Cool Rays is briefly referenced in ''

Our Band Could Be Your Life ''Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, 1981–1991'' is a book by Michael Azerrad. It chronicles the careers of several underground rock bands who, while finding little or no mainstream success, were hugely ...

'' by

Michael Azerrad Michael Azerrad is an American author, music journalist, editor, and musician. As a graduate of Columbia University, he has written for publications such as ''Spin'', ''Rolling Stone'', and ''The New York Times''. Azerrad's 1993 biography '' Com ...

(

Little Brown Little, Brown and Company is an American publishing company founded in 1837 by Charles Coffin Little and James Brown in Boston. For close to two centuries, it has published fiction and nonfiction by American authors. Early lists featured Emily ...

, 2001).

Discography

In spring 1981, Cool Rays made an unpublished

audio cassette The Compact Cassette, also commonly called a cassette tape, audio cassette, or simply tape or cassette, is an analog audio, analog magnetic tape recording format for Sound recording and reproduction, audio recording and playback. Invented by L ...

produced by

Steve Fisk Steve Fisk is an American, Washington-based audio engineer, record producer and musician. As a musician, he has been in bands such as the instrumental alternative/indie rock band Pell Mell and the electronic band Pigeonhed. He has long been a ...

and recorded in the

recording studios A recording studio is a specialized facility for recording and mixing of instrumental or vocal musical performances, spoken words, and other sounds. They range in size from a small in-home project studio large enough to record a single sin ...

of the

. A few of the compositions from that cassette were subsequently released as part of compilations of Olympia- and

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

-based artists: * ''SubPop5'' (

Sub Pop Sub Pop is an independent record label founded in 1986 by Bruce Pavitt and Jonathan Poneman. Sub Pop achieved fame in the early 1990s for signing Seattle bands such as Nirvana (band), Nirvana, Soundgarden, and Mudhoney, central players in the gru ...

, 1981)http://www.subpop.com/releases/sub_pop/books/sub_pop_cassette_zine_1980. * ''Absolute Elsewhere'' ( Mr. Brown Records, 1982) * ''Let's Together'' (

K Records K Records is an independent record label in Olympia, Washington, founded in 1982. Artists on the label included early releases by Beck, Modest Mouse and Built to Spill. The record label has been called "key to the development of independent mu ...

, 1984)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cool Rays Musical groups from Olympia, Washington