The Coctails were a Chicago music quartet, which forme while its members were attending the Kansas City Art Institute. The band was active from about 1988 to 1995 (with reunions in 2000 as the very last band to play on stage at Lounge Ax before the famous Chicago club closed its doors; December 2004; January 2005 for the release of their Popcorn Box CD collection of rarities; and July 2005 for a tour of Japan). Members Archer Prewitt, Mark Greenberg, John Upchurch, and Barry Phipps were largely self-taught musicians who experimented with various instruments and played in a manner they described as the Chinese fire drill method, in which they rotated instruments during live sets. For example, though Phipps often played bass, he was as likely to play guitar, drums, bass, saxophone, or theremin.