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CURRENTLY IN MUSIC
Pop punk with a Christian message

Peter J. Woelk

Anybody Hear Cough. Enhanced CD. Winnipeg, Man.: Cough, 2000.

This is pop punk with a Christian message. Eleven songs come hard and fast. There are no sentimental love ballads to break up the continuous assault of electric guitars and the heavy pulse of Hoorman’s drums. This is definitely geared for a selective audience.

Cough’s Terence Hoorman, John Ivo Wiens, Colin Hanson and Cory Doerksen are well rehearsed and know their craft. But this talented Winnipeg foursome is closing down the show, and this is likely their final curtain call.

This enhanced CD and the band’s well-organized web site (www.cybercough.com) provide enough material – interviews, bios and studio footage – for beginning a fan base, indicating that Cough was poised to break out of the limited southern Manitoba market and explore international ones.

Anybody Hear is a testimony to the group’s hard work and dedication in making the project work, proving that sometimes the good die young. Incidentally, that hard work was noticed. Anybody Hear was nominated for a Prairie Music Award in the category of “Outstanding Christian Recording”, competing against the talents of Steve Bell, Murray Forbes, Garland Headley and Rick Unruh.

I wonder, though, what might have happened to Cough’s promising career had the group found its Christian pop punk fan base?

That is the question left for the former members of Cough to ponder.

Peter J. Woelk is editorial assistant at the MB Herald.

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Last modified December 7, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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