Coconut Records
Jason Schwartzman is a talented young man, mostly well known to people for being an actor, starring in independent fare (particularly that of Wes Anderson), such as ‘Rushmore’, ‘I Heart Huckabees’, ‘Marie Antoinette’, ‘Hotel Chevalier’ (one of my favorites), and ‘The Darjeeling Limited’. He is from film family legends; his mother is Talia Shire (nee Coppola, Adrian from Rocky), his uncle is Francis Ford Coppola, his cousins are Nicolas Cage (Nicolas Coppola) and Sofia Coppola and his brother is Robert Carmine (Robert Coppola Schwartzman), lead singer of Rooney. What many people don’t know is, is that Schwartzman is also a gifted musician.
Prior to acting he was the drummer and songwriter for Phantom Planet, yes, the band that penned the ubiquitous theme song ‘California’ for one of the greatest TV shows ever, ‘The OC’. He soon found success in acting and then eventually created his band, Coconut Records, which is really his own solo side project. Schwarztman writes all the lyrics and plays most of the instruments. ‘Nighttiming’ was the debut, released in 2007 and defines the early part of 2008 for me, as I listened to it a lot. ‘Davy’ was the followup released in March of this year. Between the two albums there are guest appearances by Zooey Deschanel, Kirsten Dunst and members of Incubus.
The sound is 60s influenced pop, a lonely affair with plenty of beautiful melodies. There are great pop hooks, introspective and reflective lyrics, sadness and wispy keyboards, vocals and guitars. He also manages to grasp other genres, with Beach Boys inspired California sounds, disco rock, which never sound forced but rather inspired. The man has depth.
Coconut Records - It’s Not You It’s Me
Reader Comments
Didn’t know a new album came out. Awesome.
I’ve been meaning to post about him for ages. love the new album.
talented guy.
however, he’ll always be Cool Ethan to me. when he sat at the piano at the end of Slackers, singing ‘little locked room’… u cld tell he wld do big things.
good tracks.
The link for It’s not you it’s me” is wrong. It’s a Peter Bjorn and John song….
whoa, thanks. fixed it. that’s my favorite song of his too