Coast by Bruce Goldish

I've never seen fingers strum and pick and pluck so fast in my life... Song after beautiful song after incredible song, I was truly impressed... You come across someone as talented as this and you go, 'Oh my God! That was incredible...' Reminds me of Leo Kottke.... great, blew me away... He's strumming so fast and so hard with his fingers, when I was watching his index finger - that thing was going so fast, it was like, jeez dude, some of us got turned on..."

- ROCK99, Salt Lake City, UT, Live on the Mick & Allan Show

"This album is great!!! Just fantastic playing & writing."

- Micah Solomon, President, Oasis CD Duplication

"Lovely!"

- WJFF, NY

"It has a very warm feel too often missing from solo guitar CDs."

- WUNC, Chapel Hill, NC

"Nice!"

- National Public Radio

"Incredible guitar-work."

- KRVM, Eugene OR

"Very nice work - the cut Caffeine especially!"

- KFCF, Fresno, CA

"We'll continue to share it [Coast] with listeners for a long time to come." [Then, describing Bruce's style] "Leo Kottke and Carlos Montoya or some flamenco guy, and maybe a little classical influence and put them in a Cuisinart."

- KUMD, Duluth, MN

"Rarely-if ever-do we come across this sort of alchemy, this sense of love and admiration for an instrument, while listening to a record these days. It's just not there anymore. Records today are made for profit, not profundity. It's all about hooks, looks and sales. Seldom a day it is when a record scoops you up on a magic carpet in one quick motion and whisks you through all sorts of feelings and emotions. Many times, when we buy a new disc, before the third or fourth track is even over, we're looking to skip ahead and see what else it has to offer. We're bored. The same ole, same ole.

Guitarist Bruce Goldish's first record, "Coast," offers us a chance to delve into something entirely different-and here's the great thing about this record: It is just Goldish and his guitar. Nothing more. There are no vocals or cheesy lyrics to bog it down. There's no overdubs to make you wonder just how hell it was done. It's just Bruce, his guitar and his soul. Unfiltered art. Pure. Uncomplicated. And in today's market: extremely courageous.

It is an all-instrumental disc from a guy who can't read or write music. Go figure. When one brings this sort of street mentality and raw education to a genre that is laden with Berklee graduates and protégées of the latest and greatest, it offers the modern listener, the person who doesn't really listen to the genre, a genuine feel for the improvisation involved in a project like this... It's the sort of music I assume heavy metal guitarist Ritchie Blackmore would be doing if he wasn't spending his time with Deep Purple. It's classical music, I guess one could say, with an edge; it's instrumental guitar with cocktail sauce.

...this music would work rather swimmingly in front of three thousand suits and bow ties at a classy band shell during a warm summer evening in Greenwich, Connecticut. But one has to understand something about good music, regardless of the genre: It can also work in the confines of a 1987 Datsun B-210 while one is perhaps going off to the factory in the morning. It's simple pleasures, that's all. One doesn't need a PhD. to enjoy something; one only needs to give it a chance.

In fact, Bruce Goldish's "Coast" will sweep you away and actually force you to think about things in your life-instead of allowing you just get by with mumbling along to the latest disposable pop song that you'll hear three or four times that same day anyway.

Catch Bruce Goldish now while you can still afford it. Soon he'll be playing the likes of Carnegie Hall, and you'll be forced to take out a small loan just to buy tickets in the nosebleed section."

- M. William Phelps, New England Entertainment Digest, July, 2002

BRUCE'S GUITARS:

Takamine classicals, 1976 Guild F212XL 12-string, Taylor 814 ce.

BRUCE'S BIO:

What were the elements that shaped Bruce and his music? What other jobs has he had? Lowly Warehouse Guy, Burly Construction Worker, Well-fed Busboy, Well-hydrated Bartender, Black-thumbed Greenskeeper, Disco Bar Bouncer, Mine-dodging Kibbutznik, Sun-bronzed Fruit-picker, Petting Zoo Zookeeper, European Street Guitarist/Cave Dweller, Disgruntled Dishwasher, Somewhat Nervous Juvenile Delinquent Supervisor, Mindless Juvenile Delinquent, Desperado Salesman, Occasionally Clumsy Roofer and Painter, Inept Carpenter Assistant, Car Cleaner and Detailer (you wouldn't know it if you saw his car), Laid Back TV Deliveryman, Schmancy-Hotel Desk Clerk, Arrogant Backgammon & Big Boggle Champion, Pill Pushing Psych Tech, Kenpo Karate Instructor, Volunteer Dog Walker, Not-Yet-Burdened-By-Pay Novel and Screenwriter, Southern California Masseur, Critical Care Nurse, Sludge-slow-but-Successful Marathon Finisher... now self-taught Recording and Touring Artist, and Cringing Biographer.

Plus a few other elements. Other than that, he's pretty simple.

A Minnesota refugee, Bruce resides in Santa Barbara, CA, with his hammock and two dogs.

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