David Kauffman and Eric Caboor's 'Songs from Suicide Bridge' Reissued by Light in the Attic

BY Gregory AdamsPublished Mar 5, 2015

Light in the Attic's quest to uncover lost treasure has now got the label exploring the darkest regions of folk, with news arriving that the imprint has uncovered California duo David Kauffman and Eric Caboor's rare 1984 offering, Songs from Suicide Bridge.

The label, which delivers the set May 5, explains that this is the first collaborative work from Kauffman and Caboor, a pair of musicians that found each other in the Los Angeles coffee house scene in the early '80s. In a statement, Kauffman described the relationship as "two loners who happened to join forces."

The pair didn't break into the industry and apparently played to mostly empty rooms, but bonded over this shared experience. Self-recorded onto a four-track in a converted utility shed at Caboor's childhood home in Burbank, CA, Songs from Suicide Bridge came after the pair half-joked about putting together a collection of their least commercial and most depressing songs. Tracks like "Kiss Another Day Goodbye," which leads off the album, feature on-the-ropes lyrics like: "I don't know how much longer / I can feel the way I feel / And never cry."

You'll find the aching, downtrodden track in a stream down below.

"People would tell us those songs were depressing," Caboor says in the album's liner notes, which were written by Sam Sweet, "but it wasn't depressing to us. In a lot of cases, playing those songs in that little room was one of the only things that made us feel better."

Named after California's infamous Colorado Street Bridge, Songs from Suicide Bridge was originally pressed up in 1984 by the pair's Donkey Soul Music. Only 500 copies were made at the time.

Light in the Attic's 30th anniversary edition features a remastered version of the album from the source tapes, and now splits the 10-song effort onto two 12-inches pressed at 45 RPM. A CD release is also on the way, with this marking the first time it's appeared domestically. Previously, the album had been given a CD release in South Korea.

Following the initial release of Songs from Suicide Bridge, Caboor and Kauffman rebranded as the Drovers. They issued two LPs through Donkey Soul Music, 1989's Beyond the Blue and 1992's Tightrope Town.

Songs from Suicide Bridge:

1. Kiss Another Day Goodbye
2. Neighborhood Blues
3. Life Without Love
4. Angel of Mercy
5 Life and Times On the Beach
6. Backwoods
7. Midnight Willie
8. Where's the Understanding
9. Tinsel Town
10. One More Day (You'll Fly Again)

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