Michael "Cub" Koda (October 1, 1948 – July 1, 2000) was an American rock and roll singer, guitarist, songwriter, disc jockey, music critic, and record compiler. Rolling Stone magazine felt that Koda was best known for writing the song "Smokin' in the Boys' Room", which reached #3 on the 1974 Billboard charts as performed by Brownsville Station, and was later covered by Mötley Crüe. He co-wrote and edited the All Music Guide to the Blues, and Blues for Dummies, and put together the CD of blues classics accompanying the latter title, personally selecting versions of each song that appeared on it. He also contributed liner notes for the Trashmen, Jimmy Reed, J. B. Hutto, The Kingsmen, and the Miller Sisters, among others.
If it ever got to the point where I thought I had lost the things that drove me when I was 14 years-old -- that gotta-be-somebody instinct that drives every performer -- if I was just up there headed into Hackland, I'd quit.
2
I've never understood how someone can obviate their own personality to crawl inside somebody else's skin. If I can't bring something of my own self to it, it just doesn't make any sense to me. And, to me, you should throw your heart and soul into that music. The thing I don't agree with the blues Nazis is, "Oh, you got to play it just like the original Checker 78." If you mummify something and just turn it into a museum piece, it won't live. That music's vibrant and you just got to play that stuff like you're killing rattlesnakes in your backyard -- with a vengeance.
3
[on adding his own personality to his music] It's obvious that I love a lot of different kinds of music so what I want to do now is stretch the boundaries of so-called roots music as far as I can while making it singularly stamped with my own personality. I'm not worried about sounding exactly like some old blues or doo-wop record; screw that -- I want to sound exactly like me doin' that stuff.
#
Fact
1
Was once described by Stephen King as "America's greatest houserocker".
2
Lead singer of the group Brownsville Station. The group's song "Smokin' in the Boys Room", which Koda wrote, hit #3 on the US charts in 1973 and went double-platinum.
$11 Million
