Dan Cochran Celebrates the Release of Hilltop Lager by Playing Bass

Four String Brewing Company founder Dan Cochran is no poser. His beer isn't some brand whipped up in an ad agency conference room in Zurich. It was whipped up in his head while playing bass for bands such as Big Back 40, The Lonely Bones and Why Isn't Cheap Trick in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? Put simply, the dude brews killer beer. And he also plays bass. On Friday May 12th, Dan will be introducing his latest creation - Hilltop Lager - with an International Can release party at both of his Columbus Four String locations. (click here for more details)

As the party winds down at the taprooms, Dan will be lugging his rig over to Woodland's Tavern to play bass with the semi-legendary bar band League Bowlers. Seems like a very long day for the father of two with another on the horizon. Dan would have it no other way. "Hilltop Lager is a beer for the working man and The League Bowlers are a working man's band. It's a perfect fit. I'm excited to share this new beer with the world and then play some lager fueled rock n roll. I'd have it no other way. Hope everybody can join us at one venue or both."

The Four String Taprooms will be open 4pm until late. The League Bowlers will be onstage at Woodland's Tavern 9:30-11 pm. Admission is FREE to all events

Related reading: English Pub Rock and The League Bowlers.  Dan Cochran Talks about playing in Why Isn't Cheap Trick in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? . The Real Story Behind Four String Brew. .

English Pub-Rock and The League Bowlers - by Ricki C.

The League Bowlers will open for Bava Choco at Ace of Cups this Friday evening, January 6th.  Doors at 8 pm, League Bowlers at 9 pm, Bava Choco at 10:30 pm.  Admission is FREE, info at Aceofcupsbar.com.    

Pub-rock in England was an early to mid-1970’s phenomenon/trend that never really translated to America.  Spearheaded by bands like Brinsley Schwarz (which featured a pre-Stiff Records Nick Lowe as co-lead vocalist & songwriter) and Ducks Deluxe, pub-rock was a reaction to the prog-rock and glam-rock trends that dominated English music from 1972 on.  Playing tiny bar venues with small Fender amps and a decidedly low-key but ROCKING return-to-three-minute-songs attitude, pub-rock offered an up-close & personal style of rock & roll for music fans sick to death of 17-minute Yes orchestral suites or the glam-rock stylings of David Bowie, Sweet and Slade.*  Lipstick 'n' lace just didn’t cut it with your workaday rocker soccer fan.  

(* All of whom I loved, by the way, but that's an entirely different blog for a whole 'nother day.)

Pub-rock was the immediate precursor to punk-rock in England and, very likely, punk-rock would never have happened without its musical cousin.  One of the nascent Sex Pistols’ first gigs was an opening slot for Joe Strummer’s pub-rock outfit The 101-ers at stalwart pub-rock venue the Nashville Club (see vintage 1976 review below).  That was the night Strummer glimpsed the musical future spread out before him, leading to his defection to The Clash, and likely sounding the death knell for pub-rock as a music movement.  (Pub-rock also spawned Ian Dury – from Kilburn & the High Roads – and Elvis Costello, who used to open shows and occasionally haul amps for Brinsley Schwarz, fostering his later artist/producer relationship with Nick Lowe.)  

Anyway, I often think of The League Bowlers as a 21st-century incarnation of an English pub-rock band: a repertoire consisting of a handful of catchy, feel-good originals (Kids Down South, Half Of Me, Pretty In A Slutty Way) interspersed with a rockin’ dose of their favorite cover tunes (from The Mavericks to Dwight Yoakam to The Georgia Satellites to Elvis Presley, just to name a few).  Formed from the remnants/ashes of several previous bands bearing the name, the current Bowler line-up is comprised of Colin Gawel (on leave from Watershed and The Lonely Bones) and Mike Parks (who traces his rock & roll lineage all the way back to West Side garage bands of the 1960’s, I first saw him play at a Lazarus teen fashion show, through The Godz and The True Soul Rockers) on lead & rhythm guitars;  Dan Cochran – late of Big Back 40 and Feversmile – now the owner of the Four String Brewery on bass; and drummer-extraordinaire Jim Johnson, a mainstay of Willie Phoenix’s` bands for decades.  

It's an old Italian proverb that what you do the first week in January is what you'll do all the rest of the year.  So why not come out on this First Friday Night in January, catch some quality rock & roll from The League Bowlers and Bava Choco and improve your chances for a fun 2017?  See ya at Ace of Cups, 9 pm sharp.  - Ricki C. / January 3rd, 2017 

                                                 Nick Lowe wrote it in 1974, Elvis Costello made it a hit in 1978.......

Ducks Deluxe - in time-honored rock & roll fashion - cop the riff to The Velvet Underground's "Sweet Jane" to power their own truck-drivin' rocker.  It's a long way from the Mean Streets of New York City to the Nashville in Kensington.......

The League Bowlers, 2008.......

from the Ricki C. archives: New Musical Express, April 17th, 1976, live review section (I used to make the trek every week from the West Side to the Little Professor Bookstore in the Lane Avenue shopping center, from 1975 to sometime in early '79, when I lost interest in English post-punk.  Does anybody else miss Little Professor Bookstore as much as I do?) 

Tailgate w/ The League Bowlers @ Four String Brew Before the Battle of Ohio

Big $ and K-Dubs the Soldier - collectively known as The North Coast Posse - have been slogging through blogging another tough Browns season. To cheer them up, Pencilstorm will be throwing a pre-game party at Four String Brew (985 W. 6th 43212) Sunday October 23rd. As always, The League Bowlers (featuring Four String Founder Dan Cochran on the four-string) will provide the tunage. People start staggering in around 11:30 am and the Bowlers play at noon. Kickoff 1 pm. 

Fans of the Browns, Bengals, Day Drinking and Rock n Roll are all encouraged to attend. Admission is FREE. 

Kick Off Party with Carl Rose Jr, (The League Bowlers), Big $, Neil Sika, and K-Dubs The Soldier. @ Four String Brew. Next party Sunday Oct 23rd. Doors 11am. Music at Noon. FREE.

Browns Kickoff Party at Four String Brew with The League Bowlers

The Cleveland Browns will be kicking off the season at 1 pm on Sunday September 11th  against the Philadelphia Eagles. To celebrate the occasion, Pencilstorm Browns bloggers The North Coast Posse will be converging on the Four String Brew Taproom (985 W. 6th) at noon to begin their annual tradition of heavy self-medication to survive another Browns campaign. Four String Brew will be the NCP home of the Browns for the 2016 season.

Follow @northcoastposse (The NCP were named a Top Five follow by the actual Cleveland Browns)

As if watching two of the NFL's worst teams play while day drinking wasn't enough, The League Bowlers (featuring Four String Owner Dan Cochran on the 4 string bass, duh) will be performing a set of rock n roll at noon. The event is FREE. See you there!

Four String Brew's Dan Cochran Talks About Playing in Why Isn't Cheap Trick in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?

Why Isn't Cheap Trick  in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? is playing Ace of Cups Friday, April 8th. Click here for details

- What is is about Cheap Trick that motivated you to join this band?
 
Dan - I’ve been a Cheap Trick fan for years now.  They have such a great catalog of tunes, and most of it is underrated.  In addition to that, they have toured forever.  It’s great for fans, because they come through most American cities every year.  They headline their own shows, open for obscure bands, play corporate gigs, and come through on festival dates.  If you pay attention, you can see them a couple times of year without having to travel very far.
 
 - Tom Petersson and his 12-string bass have a very distinctive sound, how has your rig evolved over the years trying to simulate it?
 
Dan - When we started this thing four years ago, I really had no idea what I was getting into.  The first few years, I used one of my Fender basses and my regular rig.  I’ve always played with my fingers and continued to do so on the Cheap Trick tunes.  In the end, it didn’t feel right and it didn’t sound right.  What a lot of people don’t understand is that Petersson’s sound is most of what you hear in the Cheap Trick sound.  His bass covers a giant frequency range, and the way he plays holds down the bottom end while creating melody and full harmonic range at the same time is truly distinctive.  

Once I really started listening to the Budokan record, I realized that he was playing most of the parts.  What I thought was guitarist Rick Nielsen in so many places was actually Petersson.  Nielsen really just paints on top of everything with tasty leads (and writes nearly all of the tunes).  Even Robin Zander plays more guitar live than people think…..and not like a pussy either (Bono).  So, I realized last year that I needed to take the plunge and get the 12-string bass sound going.  For those who don’t know, Tom Petersson literally invented the 12-string bass.  His basses have multiple outputs and he splits his signal in many ways.  Nobody knows for sure exactly how he is crossing the frequencies. He also changes his amplifiers on a regular basis.  For me, part of the fun of going to see CT is to stand stage left in front of Petersson and look at what amps he brought out.  It’s different every time, and always totally bad-ass.  

Dan Working on Gonna Raise Hell at his Brewery. Photo by Chris Casella. Bass Tuning by Oscar.

I decided against buying a 12-string bass.  What I would want is ridiculously expensive and I’m still not convinced it would sound right.  So, the challenge is to get a distorted 12-string bass sound from a 4-string bass.  With some help from bandmate Rick Kinsinger, I started building the rig.  I have played with bass distortion for many years, and there is a major problem with it.  No matter what pedal you use, the low end goes away when the distortion is engaged.  So, the answer is to split the signal.  I use my regular rig for a clean low end.  It’s a Traynor 200 watt bass head on an Ampeg SVT ported 4x10.  For the high end, I’m basically putting a guitar half-stack on top of my other amp. This year I’m using a Sovtek 50 watt head on a vintage Music Man folded cabinet.   The high end signal is run through distortion and a pitch fork pedal.  The pitch fork gives me the octaves for the 12-string sound.  Together, it sounds killer!  

The other issue is what bass to use.  When I plug a Fender bass through it, it sounds great, but not like Petersson.  Last year I used a vintage Gibson Thunderbird.  It was perfect!  Everything I wanted.  Lately, Petersson has been playing a semi-hollow body Gretsch 12-string.  I recently found a 4-string version of the bass that is really cool.  That’s what I’m using for the show this year.  The hollow body gets a great low end tone and tons of feedback!  It’s basically a giant guitar envy setup, which has been a lot of fun. 

- Do you feel like Tom gets enough credit strictly as a bass player? 
 
Dan - No, I don’t think he does. I think it’s linear with Cheap Trick as a band.  They are one of the great bands in rock & roll, and most people don’t realize it.  Petersson is the same way.  If you ask bass players who their favorite players are, his name doesn’t usually come up.  It’s probably because of his crazy tone and 12-string basses.  What CT fans need to know is that his sound IS Cheap Trick.  His sound covers the entire stage.  He’s more than a bass player.  There aren’t many other examples of this.  John Entwistle from The Who is one.  I remember reading an interview with Pete Townsend talking about the reunion tour The Who did back in the late 80’s.  They decided that because of hearing damage, the stage volume would have to stay below 90 db.  The problem was that when The Ox wasn’t able to turn the full rig on, they had to hire strings, keys, and horns to sonically fill things out.  Petersson does the same thing.
 
 - What are your favorite Cheap Trick songs to perform live?
 
Dan -  I really like the heavy stuff….Auf Wiedersehen, He’s a Whore, On Top of the World, etc.
 
- Who are some of your other favorite bass players?
 
Dan -  There are so many: James Jamerson, Donald “Duck” Dunn, John Paul Jones and Paul McCartney are a few.
 
 - Four String Brewing is going through a major expansion and you have two young ones at home, how do you find the time to squeeze in a project like this?
 
Dan - That’s a great question.  My time has gotten really tight in the last year or two.  We just built a new production facility on the West side, expanded the Grandview taproom, and opened distribution in the rest of the state.  I decided a few months ago to promote my two year old son, Oscar.  He’s basically running the show these days: running the brewery, booking gigs, and working as my bass tech.  He gets a little whiny sometimes, but I don’t have to pay him.  It’s a good deal.  The brewers get a little pissed off that they have to report to a two year old, but whatever.
 
- If I stopped by the Four String Taproom and I hear some Cheap Trick playing, what beer would go best with that?
 
Dan - Definitely a Brass Knuckle Pale Ale!
 
 - Any chance of a special edition 12 String Brew in honor of Tom Petersson making the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?
 
Dan - I think we would have to brew (3) Four String beers for the math to work.

Dan Cochran is a founding member of the band Why Isn't Cheap Trick in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame? and the Four String Brewing Company. He also plays bass in Colin Gawel and The Lonely Bones and toured the world and elsewhere with the band Big Back 40. Four String Brew is available everywhere so look for it on a tap or in a store.

Auf Wiedersehen / Goodnight - Cheap Trick Live 01-21-89 at the Palace of Auburn Hills.

Tom Petersson Hoisting a Four String Brew to Honor Dan.