Photo credit: Koryn Bennet
Allen Cote
Allen Coté is good at keeping busy. You might have heard his film scores or music on PBS’s Wisconsin Foodie television program. With the imminent debut release of his Cuban-inspired band ¡paLABra!, Coté talks about how he keeps his days filled.
How has the lockdown affected your creativity?
I have some mixed feelings about my personal situation, because I can definitely empathize with folks who are experiencing loneliness or isolation and we’ve all obviously lost a lot of work. Between lessons and the slate of gigs I had lined up for the year, I lost half my annual income within weeks of the first lockdown and I know I’m one of the luckier ones.
On the other hand, given the ever-prevalent and exhausting political rhetoric, degradation of public discourse and basic decency, radical whack jobs roaming the streets, I can’t honestly say I miss being social very much. So, after the initial shock, it’s been a pretty smooth transition.
I have been fortunate enough to pick up a few new projects here and there, including a score for a documentary coming out early next year and found the time to finish some older ones, including the Pezzettino EP that was released back in May. The full-length debut by ¡paLABra!, almost four years in the making, will probably be released whenever the five of us can be in the same room together again. I’ve also been revisiting some infamous lost weekend sessions and sending around some demos of orphan songs to friends and filmmakers for potential collaboration. This has really been a great time to clean out the closet and hopefully make room for some new ideas, if and when I can sit with the chaos long enough to actually write about it.
And of course, getting to look like I may or may not rob any place I walk into is not only a great source of personal amusement, but also makes it a lot less conspicuous when my mind wanders off in public. I get a lot more thinking done at the grocery store than I used to.
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Do you have a routine or schedule for staying in practice or working on new material?
I’m still teaching around half my students online, so that keeps me somewhat sharp—and sometimes even hopeful. I have my daughter during the week, and she’s learning virtually which, as a first grader, essentially means that I homeschool her with a couple hours of zoom lessons and some benchmarks set by the school. We haven’t had this much time together since she started preschool, and it’s been often inspiring, occasionally challenging and a not-so-gentle reminder to keep my shit together and keep a roof over our heads.
Between our respective lessons and the onslaught of blue light and terrible audio I’m usually pretty depleted most weekdays, but Friday through Sunday I try to spend at least eight hours a day in some form of positive productivity—even if I’m not feeling actual creation. At the very least I force myself to learn some favorite songs, play around on an unfamiliar instrument (I’m finally getting halfway decent at piano), comb through old notebooks for ideas or whatever. Anything to avoid the looming existential crisis.
Even though being self-employed for so long set me up for a particularly tenuous fiscal year, I’m very fortunate that it also instilled the self-motivation necessary to keep moving forward when I can’t see the road, let alone the destination. I may be a complete and utter fool for continuing down this path in the middle of a goddamn shitstorm, but at least I’m not sitting down and waiting to drown in it.
Are you making plans for when you can resume playing in front of people again?
I’m planning on losing a few pounds and regaining some semblance of personal grooming. Maybe put on some pants.
