"In the fall of 1997, I put an ad in The Rocket, a now defuct music publication in Seattle, Washington, looking for a drummer. Exactly one drummer answered that ad, the fugitive Iowan Robbie Skrocki. A few weeks later we were Rat Cat Hogan, and thus we've been ever since, more or less." - Herbert Bergel
Rat Cat Hogan was a two piece band composed of Herbert on guitar and vocals and Robbie on drums. The sound of their music is pretty lo fi and simple. The lyrics to their songs are mostly about mundane everyday things and read like short stories/diary entries, the vocal delivery is off, the guitar is angular but the drums sort of keep the whole thing together. This stuff definitely isn't for everyone. The two times I saw Rat Cat Hogan live they were heckled by assholes through their entire sets, but I've always found something charming in their quirky tunes.
The We're Bicoastal album features Chris Walla of Death Cab For Cutie playing piano on the fourth track and Sean Nelson formerly of The Long Winters & Harvey Danger singing background vocals on tracks five and seven.
Today's download contains two Rat Cat Hogan albums that were released as a single cassette on Elsinor records. I got my copy for free from the band at a show they played with Peter Parker down in Olympia, probably in 1999. Both sides have the same great quirky songs you'd expect from these guys but the Don't Call Me Twaddy side of this tape is probably my favorite of all of their recorded output. The two albums have been separated into individual downloads.
