Billy Cote is an American songwriter and musician who is best known as the primary tunesmith and guitarist for Madder Rose, an indie rock band from New York City who were together from 1992-1999. Madder Rose made 4 albums together, 1 on Seed Records(owned by Atlantic), 2 on Atlantic, and one on Thirsty Ear. They also released 2 EP's and 3 seven inch singles. They were most successful in the UK and Europe, where they frequently toured. After Madder Rose, Cote made a record as the Jazz Cannon, with NYC poet Don Greene. Mary Lorson, vocalist from Madder Rose, also appears on 2 tracks. The Jazz Cannon mixed Greene's raw John Lydon like vocals and odd lyrics with extremely lo-fi loops and scratchy guitars. The jazz Cannon also put out 2 twelve inch singles, all on San Francisco label Function 8. Cote next put out an album called Piano Creeps with Lorson on the U.K. label Cooking Vinyl.It was a mostly instrumental record based on some low key film scoring the duo had done.
Cote and Lorson continue to do film work, most notably scoring "What Remains" a documentary about photographer Sally Mann, which had a theatrical release in 2007, and Grace Lee's "Barrier Device", starring Sandra Oh. Cote and Lorson are now married and living in Ithaca NY with their son, Roman, who was born in 2002. They are currently finishing work on a record called "[Future Blues (for me and you)]" that will be released by The Kora in the fall of 2008. The record will be credited to The Piano Creeps, with multi-instrumentalist as the third member.
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