Two years ago when she was 74, an age when most have retired, Toody Cole – living in Clackamas, just outside downtown Portland, Oregon – started a rowdy rock band.
And not for the first time, because Toody and her late husband Fred, who died in 2017 at 69, had prior form when it came to bands. In 1978, they founded the punk-cum-country band The Rats, then The Range Rats, and in 1987 the one that made their reputation, Dead Moon.
Over the decades Dead Moon – guitarist Fred, bassist Toody (real name Kathleen) and drummer Andrew Loomis – established themselves through constant touring. They came to New Zealand in 1992 as unknowns (booked by John Baker, who also brought the White Stripes here in 2000), eschewing a big-time opening slot to do so.
You turned down Nirvana to come to the bottom of the world?
“Yes, we did,” she laughs, “but we’d agreed to do it and thank god we did. I’ve never had more fun on a tour than we did on that crazy one. We played 19 shows, every little town and met amazing people.”
And they recorded a live album in Invercargill, which few people and probably no international act could claim.
“That’s true. I knew they were recording but it was great, an amazingly fat sound and beautiful. Who knew?”
That album, Going South, came out two years ago and despite a tiny audience on the night – some say around 40 – Dead Moon threw themselves into their set, which included signature songs You Must Be a Witch, Dead Moon Night and Fire in the Western World, as if they were commanding a crowded, steamy club.
Dead Moon returned at least five times post-1992 (she’s lost count), and after they broke up in 2006, she and Fred came back as Pierced Arrows in 2008.
“We tried to retire [after Dead Moon] but you know how it goes,” she told me at the time. “Two or three months down the line we thought we had to do something else. We weren’t willing to give it up.”
Despite Dead Moon drummer Loomis’s death in 2016 and her husband’s the following year, the irrepressibly cheerful Toody still isn’t giving up.
She returns once more with her new band for a short tour and to play The Others Way festival in Auckland.
“Well, I don’t do golf,” she reasons, “and [the seven grandchildren] are all grown and gone; the youngest graduates college this year.
“After Fred died I did some guest singing with bands in Portland then Covid hit. Then I went back to Europe, played with different bands in Berlin when the reissue of the Dead Moon book Off the Grid came out, went back to Holland, which had been our home base in Europe.”
The new band – with former Pierced Arrows drummer Kenny Halliburton and guitarist Christopher March – recently played a festival in Spain. Early next year they’ll be in Brazil and then at a blues festival in Portland for the Fourth of July weekend “which is a big compliment because the festival has been going for many years”.
She’s something of a local legend in the Portland area.
“All I know is I can’t go anywhere without getting in for free and it’s hard for me to buy my own drinks. I’ve kept in touch with people in the scene and most of them I’ve played with on the same bill and have known for many years.
“Dead Moon got lucky in the 1990s because everyone was showing up for live bands and we hit our peak in that particular sweet spot.
“But so many young kids even now are discovering Dead Moon. There’s also a lot who just love the band’s logo and will buy the T-shirt just for that. I never thought it would last this long and have this kind of legacy. It’s amazing.”
She says there’s a very active Pacific Northwest music scene, dismissing with a hoot President Trump’s assertion Portland is in the grip of anarchists and Antifa activists: “That’s major bullshit. Portland’s not burning down, and we don’t run it like a third world country. I can’t believe what comes out that guy’s mouth.”
For her concerts here they’ll play a Pierced Arrows song, a couple from The Rats but mostly Dead Moon.
“We’re doing You Must Be a Witch, which Fred wrote when he was 18, so just a gamut of his whole career and paying him homage as a great songwriter.”
She admits it takes a bit more effort these days. “But you do the best you can. You’ll never be as you were in your heyday but you learn to compensate.
“I think my voice has gotten better and the wealth of life experiences adds to the feeling you can get in your voice.
“At some point I will retire … but right now? If you love it and it still says something to you, then you should still do it. Why not?” l
