Cracker is an American rock band, formed in 1990 by lead singer David Lowery and guitarist Johnny Hickman. The band's first album Cracker was released in 1992 on Virgin Records; it included the single "Teen Angst ", which went to #1 on the U.S. Modern Rock chart. The band's follow-up, the 1993 album Kerosene Hat included the hit songs "Low", "Get Off This", and "Euro-Trash Girl".
Jonathan Allen Lethem is an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. In 1999, Lethem published Motherless Brooklyn, a National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel that achieved mainstream success. In 2003, he published The Fortress of Solitude, which became a New York Times Best Seller. In 2005, he received a MacArthur Fellowship. Since 2011, he has taught creative writing at Pomona College.
The Minus 5 is an American pop rock band headed by musician Scott McCaughey of Young Fresh Fellows, often in partnership with R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck.
House of Freaks was a two-man band formed in Richmond, Virginia in the mid-1980s. Bryan Harvey played guitar and sang, and Johnny Hott played percussion. The band managed to achieve a remarkably full sound, mostly because of Hott's inventive drumming and Harvey's confident vocals and knack of playing bass lines on his guitar while simultaneously playing a melody.
Jonathan Denis Langford is a Welsh musician and artist based in Chicago, Illinois, United States.
Bloodshot Records is an independent record label based in Chicago, Illinois, which specializes in alternative country music.
Brian Doherty is an American drummer, singer-songwriter, composer, music producer, and educator based in New York City. After starting his career as a member of the rock bands The Silos and They Might Be Giants, he has also worked with artists such as XTC, Freedy Johnston, and Ben Folds and contributed to movie soundtracks. As of 2014 he has released three albums of royalty-free drum tracks for songwriters, and in 2012 released his debut solo project, Treat + Release.
Northeast High School is a high school in Oakland Park, Florida. The school is a part of the Broward County Public Schools district.
The Vulgar Boatmen are an American rock band, formed in Gainesville, Florida, United States, in 1982 by a group of students at the University of Florida, including John Eder and Walter Salas-Humara, later of The Silos. In its original configuration the group issued several cassette-only releases, including Women and Boatmen First (1982) and All Bands on Deck (1984). As first Eder and then Salas-Humara departed, the group coalesced around Robert Ray, a film studies professor at the university, who became one of the group's two principal songwriters and vocalists, the other being Indiana musician Dale Lawrence, a former student of Ray's who was a veteran of the early punk band the Gizmos. The band was named as a play on the Russian folk song The Volga Boatmen.
Duane Jarvis was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter who recorded, wrote songs and toured with many rock and roll and country music performers, including Frank Black, Peter Case, Rosie Flores, John Prine, Amy Rigby, Lucinda Williams, Dwight Yoakam, Tim Carroll, and Gene Clark & Carla Olson.
Whitey Morgan and the 78's are an American country band based in Flint, Michigan. In 2010, they signed a recording contract with Chicago-based Bloodshot Records.
Walter Salas-Humara is the chief songwriter for and a founding member of The Silos, a rock band formed in 1985 in New York City with Bob Rupe. The Silos were voted the Best New American Band in the Rolling Stone Critics Poll of 1987, and have released more than a dozen albums to date. As indicated by its name, which suggests both agrarian populism and impending apocalypse, the band shows influences of post-punk East Village experimentalism as well as the nascent country-rock revivalism that would return at decade's end. As described by Stephen Holden in the New York Times, "The band's austere style inflects the astringent twang of the Velvet Underground with the drone of R.E.M. and adds countryish echoes that recall Gram Parsons."
The Setters was a collaborative musical project between rock-n-roll songwriters Walter Salas-Humara of the Silos, Alejandro Escovedo of True Believers, and Michael Hall of the Wild Seeds. The band originated when Hall told a music festival he wanted to play at that he was in a band with Salas-Humara and Escovedo. Hall came up with the band name "The Setters" off the top of his head when the festival organizers asked him what the band's name was. Hall then called up Salas-Humara to ask him to perform with him at the festival, and Salas-Humara agreed. They released a single, self-titled album in 1993 on the German Blue Million Miles record label, and which was released the following year in the United States on Watermelon Records. The album was produced by Gurf Morlix, and featured performances by accordionist Lisa Mednick and bassist Scott Garber. The tracks on the album are all new recordings of songs originally written by Salas-Humara, Escovedo, or Hall. Brian Beatty gave the album 3 stars out of 5, writing, "Though there's no arguing with the quality of the songs here, most of them have appeared on albums much better than this one. Purchase those albums first."
Watermelon Records was a record label based in Austin, Texas.
Michael Hall is an American singer-songwriter and journalist from Austin, Texas. Musically, he is known for his work as the frontman of the Wild Seeds and for his subsequent solo career. He has written articles for multiple publications, including Trouser Press, the Austin American-Statesman, and the Austin Chronicle. Since 1997, he has written for Texas Monthly.
You and Your Sister is the debut album by the American band the Vulgar Boatmen, released in 1989. The Vulgar Boatmen, at the time of the album, constituted two bands: one based in Florida and one based in Indiana.
Cuba is the second album by the American alternative rock band the Silos, released in 1987.
Adequate Desire is an album by the American alternative rock musician Michael Hall, released in 1994. The album title comes from a line in an Emily Dickinson poem.
Please Panic is an album by the American band the Vulgar Boatmen, released in 1992. The band supported the album with North American and European tours. "You Don't Love Me Yet" inspired the title of Jonathan Lethem's 2007 novel.
The Silos is an album by the American band the Silos, released in 1990. A commercial disappointment, it was the band's only album for RCA Records. The Silos peaked at No. 141 on the Billboard 200. The band supported the album with a North American tour that included shows with the Jayhawks.
