Before there was Nirvana, there was Dead Moon — the most important band you've never heard of

Dead Moon married grit, garage, psychedelia, and lovelorn punk with an undertow of country: stripped down, raw, and raucous. Photo / Supplied

The drive is long and they arrive after dark. Small town, south of the south. The owner of Glengarry Tavern is a musician — quite friendly, excited to meet them.

They want to meet birds. There are penguins on the coast, and he says he will take them. But they drink all night, so bye-bye birdie. Tonight, they will play to a small crowd of music lovers. It's September 5, 1992, and Dead Moon are in town.

"Fred was disappointed he didn't see those penguins!" Toody Cole, musician, mom, bass player with Dead Moon, is laughing like a sailor over the phone from Clackamas, Oregon.

She's talking on the landline in the house her husband Fred built, her home for 39 years - still unfinished. A backwater dive with rock 'n' roll soul, amidst pines, blackberry bushes, rusting cars.

Thirty years ago, Toody, husband Fred Cole and drummer Andrew Loomis hit the stage in Invercargill. Dead Moon's inaugural tour was arranged by Kiwi rock'n'roll impresario John Baker; the first of many journeys south.

It was tour managed by Graham Bennett, aka Tegal Chicken. That night, "Tegal" recorded the gig on cassette, continued the tour, and forgot about it. The recording was unearthed a few years ago, a precious analogue fossil. And under the name Going South, it's about to be released on vinyl.

For those who don't know, Dead Moon is the most important band you've never heard of. Born in Portland in 1987, they married grit, garage, psychedelia, and lovelorn punk with an undertow of country: stripped down, raw, and raucous.

They were one of the Pacific Northwest's seminal pre-grunge explosion groups: a key influence on Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden. And although both Fred Cole (in 2017) and Loomis (in 2016) have passed, Toody is still rocking.

"I played last night in Portland, with two bands my friends are in. It still feels so good to get up and perform."

Live music was off the menu in Portland (Toody lives 20km away) over Covid. It was a "pisser" for the music town, she says, with many venues closing.

"Even now that things are open, there are so many rules and regulations, it's taken the 'yahoo' out of the music scene."

But she put lockdown to good use, working on the house: "Fixing up parts that weren't finished, putting up the ceiling, doing some painting, getting posters framed, and hanging up family pictures".

The two-storey cabin in the woods is exemplary of the Coles' rough-hewn, DIY ethos.

It's significant in a number of ways; as the place they raised their kids, as a repository of rock 'n' roll relics (including the mono lathe on which The Kingsmen's Louie Louie was recorded) and the space where Dead Moon started.

Dead Moon's significance (and that of Fred) was evidenced by the lamentations of the music press on his death from cancer. (Fred and Toody's lifelong love affair was both tender and passionate, a beautiful rock 'n' roll soul love ballad.)

Fred's musical career began in the 1960s, as the lead singer of garage rock band The Weeds.

He met Toody when the band ran out of petrol in Portland, heading north to Canada to dodge the draft in 1967. She was working at a local folk music club, but the band blew away anything else in town, and the club manager loved them enough to offer them a residency.

He and Toody fell in love (she was 18, he was 19) and they had three kids before she was 22.

Toody's music career started later, when the kids were older. They'd had an exhilarating ride when the kids were young: moving to the wilds of the Yukon, pursuing the music dream in Los Angeles, then back to Portland. Fred taught Toody the bass, aged 30, and they had a couple of bands before Dead Moon. But it was the best.

Dead Moon, from Portland. Photo / Supplied

Fred was the alchemist: screaming guitar, the whiskey-soaked howl that wailed of death and love. Toody and Andrew were "the glue that held everything together and kept hammering at you" (as Toody explained on YouTube documentary Women of Rock Oral History Project).

Dead Moon was also egalitarian — the three lined up in a row, front of the stage.

"It can really grate on the band when the lead singer gets all the attention. Fred really didn't want that — our band was a partnership. All three of us were different enough, had such differing personas, to all stand out."

The band existed at a pivotal time and place in the Pacific Northwest. It was before the grunge explosion - the scene was in its infancy, with bands touring up and down the west coast. Dead Moon was a key attraction.

"We would be going up to play in Seattle all the time. It was cheap to get into venues, it was exciting, and there was a real buzz. When Nirvana and Soundgarden were up-and-coming (and underage) they would be sneaking into shows to see us play. We were great mates with Mudhoney — we saw what everyone was up to."

But while Nirvana scorched the stratosphere, Dead Moon would only achieve cult status. They had a rabid following in Europe, toured repeatedly, and this led, in turn, to the 1992 tour of New Zealand.

Baker orchestrated the tour. He'd been sent a cassette of Dead Moon by a Swiss compatriot involved in the music scene there and was instantly smitten. This was pre-internet, and he (rather sweetly) sent the Coles a letter inviting Dead Moon to play. Toody sent back an enthusiastic yes.

(As an interesting aside, shortly after accepting the New Zealand tour, Dead Moon was offered a support spot touring with Nirvana, at the fervent peak of their fame. "We'd confirmed a booking [for New Zealand] and someone calls up and says we have something bigger to play. We don't cancel the small one to do the big one," said Fred on TV3's Nightline in 1992. "We play the small one and tell the big one that we can't do it.")

On August 31, 1992, Dead Moon rocked Aotearoa. Toody remembers wild and exotic landscapes and the wide-eyed enthusiasm of culturally isolated Antipodeans.

"It was one of the most fun tours we ever had. The landscape, the people - and the crowds were totally unjaded. There were always really interesting people everywhere we went; real individuals. And they were really into what we were doing — it was quite cool."

Other than the penguins and the night of drinking, Toody can't remember much about the Invercargill show. "I'm curious to listen to the finished product. Baker says it was the best set of the tour, so it will be great to hear it."

The album will be released as a limited edition double vinyl in New Zealand only, on September 10. There will be a later release in the United States through Mississippi Records from Portland, Oregon, with Flying Out distributing the album locally.

Toody Cole. Photo / Supplied

No Spotify, no YouTube, just good old vinyl, like they did in '92.

This sits well with Toody. While (arguably) their most popular song, Dead Moon Night, is currently sitting at nearly five million listens on Spotify, she's not a fan.

"I have no social media. I don't know anything about that Spotify shit. The people who collect the royalties just sort that all out for me. I'm not interested."

What does interest her is a plan for a repeat trip to wild Yukon, where the family briefly homesteaded in 1970. "I planned to go there in 2020, to mark the 50 years since our last trip, but Covid stopped that. So I'm hoping that it may work out next year."

Going South will be released as a limited edition box set through Electric Alchemy EA08 on Saturday, September 10, at select record stores.