San Francisco power pop quartet Amateur Night came together in mid-1996 the way most bands tend to: mutual friendships and the fortuitous placement of an ad seeking a drummer. Guitarists/vocalists Greg Heller and Tim McGoey grew up together in Laguna Beach, CA, at one point co-fronting the Orange County subterranean metal outfit Tubesteak. McGoey and Amateur Night bassist Ross Murray met at the University of California at Santa Cruz in the early '90s; the pair (along with Heller) relocated up the coast to San Francisco after graduation a few years later. Drummer Sharon Lord rounded out the lineup in 1996 after responding to an ad the other three had placed in a local weekly. Drawing heavily from '80s Minneapolis alt-rock (the Replacements, Soul Asylum), the band began performing shows in and around San Francisco by the end of 1996, releasing a debut EP, Can't Stop Sitting, in February of the following year. The elusive Kneeling Before Zod EP followed in spring 1998, around the time Heller's on-stage antics of performing in the absence of pants on occasion, among other risky business, began making the local rounds. The singer/guitarist, a freelance music critic for a number of Bay Area publications at the time, often drew the considerable ire of other local musicians for his full platter of caustic jabs in his weekly Night Fever column for BAM magazine. A self-titled full-length released in March 1999 foreshadowed Amateur Night's final year of activity as Heller eventually returned to Southern California to further pursue a writing career; Lord also relocated southward around the same time. Murray joined Actionslacks full-time following the 2000 dissolution of the band, while McGoey played guitar and sang with power poppers Make Me Famous in 2001 and 2002 before moving to Chicago. ~ Charles Hodgkins, All Music Guide