ANNE COHEN

Mother of Andy Cohen (Silkworm)

He was a precocious kid. When he was ten, he started playing trumpet in the school band and his trumpet teacher said he was one of the best students he'd had in a long time; then when he got into middle school, his band teacher gave him French horn lessons because the high school didn't have enough French horns and he took right to that. He did so well that he even had him solo a Mozart horn concerto. I had to hire a professional pianist to accompany him because the music was so complicated.

I bet having him play horns around the house was a good time.

Well, the best lighting in the house was in the bathroom so he used to practice in the bathroom!

Ouch. It must've been pretty loud.

He'd keep the door open whilte I was upstairs. I actually liked listening to him practice... Then, I'll go back to when he was in high school, then he started playing with his Einheit band. At the time it was called an underground band, he was playing alternative music before anyone had heard of it. They'd practice in our basement. Timmy was in it, Tim Midget, he's still in Silkworm. In fact Silkworm's origins really are in Einheit. Andy was the youngest one in it,

Were you surprised when he started playing rock music?

Not at all because I'd had this introduction. Another couple and his dad and I went to hear them when they were Einheit at the Elks club. We had never heard any of this music before and they were slam dancing. (laughs) We were surprised. When they were setting up, I was down in the lobby in the Elks club and they were upstairs and someone must've been walking around with Patchouli oil on or something. The manager and a waitress were running around the lobby saying, "oh! I smell marijuana! It must be that band upstairs!" Well, the cleanest guys at that whole concert were the band members!"

Oh I'm sure.... Did they ever confront them or anything?

No, we were surprised how calm and collected everybody was. So then his dad didn't want to go to anymore because he didn't like the music and it was too loud for him so I went to all their concerts by myself. I called myself their oldest groupie. They'd be in high school gyms or a dance studio. Sometimes it was downstairs at the Moose Hall.

Moose what? Was that a club or something?

The Moose Hall. You know, the Moose fraternal organization. They rented rooms from these places. You could tell the management from the Elks club was nervous about having this music. A lot of the kids that came were all wearing black or white. The put on the earrings -- the "punk"... I was always proud of (Einheit) because they were playing their own music and I thought that was just great even though I didn't understand it.

Did you continue going to all the Silkworm shows?

Yes I did, when they're local. Sometimes I go by myself and sometimes I'd ask a friend. But then they started getting out of town so I haven't seen them in a while. I did hear them when they came last fall and I was amazed by how much their music had changed and how much better it was.

Like how?

See, I don't know how to explain it, it just sounded better than it had. It even sounded better than the CD. It had matured or expanded...I don't know!

So he went back to college in New York and Tim and Joel went to Seattle and got jobs and waited for Andy to finish college. He went for a year and a half. He told me he'd go for two but then he said he really needed to get on with his music so he left Columbia and went to Seattle and got a job. He worked in a Futon store and became their top salesman for several months in a row and they have 24 stores! He was a good salesman too! I told him I'd help pay for his education but then when he was away from school for so long, the university of Wash was there, I said if you're not back in school by fall you're going to have to do it on your own. So he did get himself back in school and he did graduate.

What'd he study?

Philosophy. Now he can be a bartender...

That's right, he has all the options.

Or...what he's doing now is he's driving a taxi.

My first job after college was working in a copy store.

Oh really? Did you sell the most copies?

Actually I got fired.

(laughs) oh no! Did you give too many copies away?

No, I was a bad stapler. I didn't staple things straight.

Well, you found something more interesting.... One more thing, the instrument that Andy played belonged to the school but when he was in middle school he had gotten a computer for Christmas and he loved that computer for about six months, then he sold it and bought a guitar. After that Andy never was sitting without a guitar in his hands playing. When he'd be talking to you, he'd be strumming. He'd be talking on the phone and you could call him and he'd be playing the guitar when he was talking on the phone.

Did he listen to a lot of music?

Yeah he did, I remember U2. And there were other bands up in his room.... he always bought as many books as he did tapes.

Did he ever have any particular career interests other than music?

When he was a little kid he wanted to be a paleontologist. That was big for a long time. Kindergarten to third grade.

Are his siblings musical?

No. Two things he has we don't where he got -- red hair and... even thinking through our grandparents and great grandparents, we didn't have music on either side.

Is there something else you could tell us about Andy that people might not know?

He's a rock climber. He took up cross-country skiing and he learned how to telemarking do you know what that is? It's when you go downhill on cross-country skies. It's so difficult that there was one time he came home from his lesson he said "I got so frustrated I cried." But he has turned out to be an excellent telemarker. His downhill friends really admire what he does. What it is, it's going downhill with bent knees; it's a certain skill you do on those skinny skies. So anybody that knows anything about cross-country skiing would know about that.