This Time With Feeling

Refrigerators don't get much love in rock music, save for This Time with FEELING's subscription to the label of 'fridge rock' to describe their music, infused with genius melodies and coy vocals by the band's resident chanteuse Ali Coyle. TTWF unravel a lyrical prowess, exposed through Coyle's sultry voice and rounded out by Matthew Craven's drums, and Eliot Cossaboom's guitar splendor. Currently the band are disposing their musical ardor at the Detroit Bar for a month-long residency, tonight you can (and should) see them live with Retreat Retreat and Bella Novela.
Mon., May 13, 8 p.m., 2013 - OC Weekly

It was ladies’ night last Saturday at Detroit Bar, but not for the reason you’re thinking of. No, it was because the evening’s lineup was made up of women who rock in every damn sense of the word. Bella Novela and This Time With Feeling accompanied Well Hung Heart for a concert/release party for WHH’s newest album, Young Enough to Know it All. Spirits were high as the bands played, each one a different breed of music, and each one with a performance all of their own.


Ali Coyle
For TTWF the show began even before the group had set up a mic stand. Singer Ali Coyle mingled with the crowd before the show, passing out nametags with pre-assigned “feelings.” That night, as per her nametag, Ali was feeling “pensive.” (I happened to draw “cray-cray;” make of that what you will.) By the time the band was ready to start, the crowd had gathered, feelings firmly in place, around the foot of the Detroit Bar stage, and I can attest everyone was feeling fine.

And as for the band? Well it was clear they came to play. Everyone’s face was painted up with war paint. They jumped and danced across the stage like maniacs. Eliot Cossaboom seamlessly switched between keys and guitar nearly every other song. Their songs were strong and beautifully complex, floating over the crowd in harmonious tones as we all danced in time. Even when someone threw a black bra onstage, the TTWF crew were cool and composed as ever. Ali just asked innocently, “Is this for me?” Then, smirking, she tied it to her mic stand and kept playing, like a lady Steven Tyler in a newsboy hat.

It was the type of performance that reminded me, beyond any doubt, why This Time With Feeling is an OC favorite. They put everything they have on the stage, and truly don’t expect anything back from us, even though we gladly give it. They do it for the music, to tell us everything they know – all we have to do, as they say in the song, is listen. - Music In Press

“I feel like if I didn’t write these songs, I would be a crazy person…
It’s like my medication.” – Ali Coyle (Lead singer)

With their first EP dropped only 10 days ago (September 6th), and each CD case individually decorated with spin art, and stuffed with hand-cut letters to their fans and friends (Did I mention each case took over an hour to make – 45 minutes longer than the CD’s runtime?), This Time With Feeling’s dedication to their craft and feverish eagerness to share their work with the crowd is undeniable. And with plans for a video EP release in the near future, this band will be hard to ignore.
In the comfort of Elliot the pianists’s apartment, sandwiched by Lord of the Rings board games and Munchkin Cthulu, the interview began:
Being new to the scene as a band, you have the limited opportunity to define yourselves and create your image. What image are you moving towards?
Tim Craven: It’s hard to say. We’re all such disastrously different people.
Elliot Cossaboom: Yeah, we’re all super different, which makes the music super interesting, but it also makes our dynamic potentially difficult. I don’t think anyone wants to kill anyone else though… so that’s good!
With all these differences, how do you keep your egos at bay?
Elliot: The second the garage door closes and it’s practice, personal stuff is out of the way.
Kyle Fierro: Nobody here has an ego about what they do. No one holds anyone back. We’ve just learned to find a common ground between us all, whether it be music, or video games, or some other almost meaningless piece of –
Elliot: Star Wars!
Tim: Don’t you dare put “meaningless” and “Star Wars” in the same sentence.
Kyle: … Yeah, stuff like that.
What motivates and inspires you to write and perform your music?
Matt: The idea of being involved in a project that can potentially blow someone away. I mean, If you can write a song like that, why keep that to yourself?... Also it’s really fun!
Ali: I feel like if I didn’t write these songs, I would be a crazy person; It’s like my medication. I don’t think I could be happy doing anything else – I don’t.
Tim: I’m just always trying to push myself forward musically; I [always] need to do better than last time.
Elliot: There are just too many people being big, silly rock stars, and I don’t want to be one of them. I like normal people and the normal things that go on in [their] lives – normal people who happen to be very strange, and doing interesting things.
Do you think it will be difficult to gain recognition for your songs of “heartbreaks and heartmakes” with artists like Adele in the limelight?
Ali: People are always going to relate to songs about heartbreak; it’s universal. I think it’s more about the music – about whether the song is catchy, and our songs are catchy.
Elliot: Yeah, everyone loves music, and everyone has a different way of devouring it.
I know you’re a new band, but have there been any road bumps in your early career?
Elliot: There’s an old saying in show business: The show must go wrong. Everything always goes wrong. At our big show – the one we spent months and months preparing for – we broke a guitar string in the middle of our performance… twice. Then we broke a bass string. The amazing thing is, the rest of us didn’t skip a beat. Ali looked to Kyle for a status update when Tim’s bass string broke, he motioned with his eyes to Tim, who had his broken string dangling in his hand, and despite witnessing the nightmare, she immediately turned back to the microphone and kept singing and playing. It was amazing.


http://thistimewithfeeling.net/
- Alex Helton

When you dig deep enough, you never know what you might find. This has always been my mantra when discovering new acts in and out of the OC area. Admittedly, more often than not, the most obscure bands playing at the most obscure venues on a weekday night are about as inspiring as Clear Eyes… “Clear Eyes… wow…” At these shows I find myself asking the question, “What the hell am I doing here?” Luckily however, the answer to that very question was realized as I captured one of the OC’s best kept secrets in the underground indie rock scene last Tuesday at the Detroit Bar. The name? This Time With Feeling (TTWF).

This Time With Feeling played with a sub-par lineup of other bands and they single handedly took the night to exponentially bigger, brighter, and happier places. The evening went from sour to sweet quicker than a sour patch kid could burn your house down and give you a sticky crystallized kiss on the shin. TTWF is the sticky kiss that you’ll never want to wash off your shin.

Playing as a quartet, TTWF’s sound is Rilo Kiley meets Manchester Orchestra meets Wintersleep (if you don’t know who Wintersleep is, look them up. They are Canadian, eh). Front woman Ali Coyle delivers a refreshing and energetic take on lead vocals and guitar that is sure to keep your head bobbing, ears tingling, and warm fuzzies flaring deep inside your belly. The song structures are layered with complex, rhythmic melodies, which every member contributes to in a very crucial, yet non show-boaty way. The sound is rich with depth, but still very listenable. Unlike most local bands, TTWF makes great use of changes in complementing and transitioning to crucial moments in the music. In tracks like “Take Your Time,” the band harnesses the energy in a momentum-building verse and finds a way to tease the listener with an expected climax by doing something unexpected. Instead, they utilize a simple, yet perfectly placed riff that lures the listener in a very captivating way; it keeps the audience begging for more until the bitter end of the well-orchestrated piece.


Ali Coyle
Apart from playing great songs, TTWF’s set was complete with shameless banter in between numbers and laughs and smiles from Coyle, as the liquor-ridden male audience members yelled out, “I LOVE YOU, ALI!” (I’m sure she gets that a lot, being that she possesses the looks and demeanor of a blonde Zooey Deschanel). “I love you too!” is all she would reply, which was met by uproarious applause and wishful thinking.

The band is confident, strong, and above all, entertaining, which allows them to capture a very passionate cult following. They played to an exuberant crowd, whose sole reason for attending was to see This Time With Feeling specifically. Each song was met with applause, and by the end of their set, the band was met with demands for an encore. No wishful thinking here as they plowed through one more song and left the Detroit Bar in ruins and the other acts happy that somebody brought a crowd.

It was a memorable night and I look forward to seeing them again. I’m excited for what they may come up with in the future. They possess a lot of potential, and though they are great now, I feel they have barely scratched the surface of where that potential may take them.

Their new EP, We Hope That You Don’t Mind, is available for download on bandcamp for three dollars. THREE dollars. Buy it. Plus, it would be in support of great music by deserving local artists, not to mention, it’s not half bad. Their songs are sweet, their music is aggressively progressive, and they are fun to watch. Check them out, support local music, and don’t be afraid to dig deeper; you’ll thank yourself. - Ben Kashuk

Here's one for the arty soulful types. This Time with Feeling features music which centers around the gravitas-inflected vocals of Ali Coyle and her acoustic guitar. She's a song writer who's relative youth is eclipsed by her worldly presence.

Tue., Sept. 6, 7 p.m., 2011 - Brandon Ferguson