Quotes

- EXCLAIM! Magazine -

"Primal, roiling dance music, as urgent as anything
coming out of North Mississippi hill country." ****(four stars)

- Chicago Sun Times

"Impressive, really, that Smarten Up! consists of some of the greatest
roots-rock/Americana songs to surface since Mark Olson left the Jayhawks
side-by-side with the most progressive culture-clashing menagerie
of instrumentation conceivably possible by a 5-piece band."

- RockzillaWorld Magazine -

"Blues-rock with saxophones aren't especially rare. A blues-rock band that includes
both sax and Highlands bagpipes is a different story altogether.
Taxi Chain is a Toronto-based quintet founded by onetime Rare Air piper
Grier Coppins that has fun defying musical conventions, making the pipes sound
right at home amid Memphis-style horns and R&B- influenced vocals, while throwing in
just enough worldbeat grooves and country choruses to insure the listeners will never
know what's coming next. The group races from tracks like the self-explanatory
"James Brown Ate My Bagpipe" to the abstract, sax-led quasi-jig "Zimbobby,"
stopping in India ("Tandoori Mustache") and Ireland (the title medley), with lots of
pulsing rhythms and creative riffs along the way. This is a taxi that's worth flagging down."

-Tom Nelligan
Dirty Linen - August-September, 2004

"Smarten Up! is a record tailor made for those with a sense of adventure, and
gets better and better with repeated listens for those will take the musical leap of faith.
This reviewer is already reserving a spot for Smarten Up! on his "best of 2004" list."

-Lou Friedman
Musictoday - March, 2004

“If Grier Coppins & Taxi Chain make their way into the region, go and see them”

“The forlorn looking Coppins has the scruffy vocals of a man with a
terminal case of the blues that has just tanked himself with a couple of six packs.”

“To say you guys had the CROSSROADS (Memphis) audience rocking would be an understatement. I really enjoyed experiencing Taxi Chain live… great sound. Even the club manager came up to me and said you guys got him out of his office which is a feat few bands have accomplished.”

-Jim Gaines, Engineer/Producer
(Otis Reading, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Neville Brothers, Blues Traveler, Steve Miller, Huey Lewis)

“I was completely transported by the high energy fusion band as it brought down the house at the festival’s climax. Grier, face painted blue, and Patrick O’Gorman in a wizards robe, turned the stone amphitheatre on the shores of Lake Huron into a druid funk-rock ritual in the pouring rain. But my most vivid memory is talking all night at a nearby farmhouse and then marching behind Grier and Pat’s pipes, across the misty hills of Ontario into the dawn." (of Rare Air)

“Taxi Chain sold more CD’s from the stage than I’ve ever seen anyone do.
What a great show, the people here loved it”