In a search to find others interested in trading videos of live shows, drummer/singer Bob Nanna, of Friction, placed a classified ad in Maximum Rock 'n Roll and met drummer Roy Ewing, of Champaign-Urbana, IL, in 1993. That fall, Bob, a freshman at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, started hanging out with Roy, who played in... [+] Read More

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Castor broke through in 1995 just as fellow Champaign-Urbana, IL, art rockers Hum made their major-label debut. While Hum enjoyed more popularity by staying marginally within the bounds of straightforward rock, Castor pressed the limits of spacious, experimental music on their self-titled debut, earning a tour with the Promise Ring and Compound... [+] Read More

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Based out of the Mid-Western semi-metropolis of Milwaukee, Wisconsin -where cheese, beer and the Promise Ring being the three most popular exports- is where Compound Red got their start. Consisting of Andy Reis (bass), Mike Allen (guitar), Dave Henderleiter (drums) and John Lyman (vocals), the Red reinforced the sound of melodic guitars,... [+] Read More

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In their eight-year existence, Jawbox released four studio albums of increasingly skillful post-punk, not necessarily carrying the torch of their Washington, D.C., elders (Minor Threat, Embrace, Rites of Spring), but instead building on the tradition of Chicago's thriving early-'80s scene (Big Black, Naked Raygun, Effigies). Highly and unfairly... [+] Read More

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Lullaby for the Working Class hails from Nebraska and combines the '90s chamber pop sounds of Lambchop and Tindersticks and the country-rock stylings of Gram Parsons. Originally the band started out as a two-piece with Mike Mogis and Ted Stevens, both singer/songwriter musicians. To make the band complete, AJ Mogis (bass) and Shane Aspegren... [+] Read More

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Formed in Baltimore, MD, way back in 1988, Lungfish is one of the longest surviving emo bands. Signed to D.C.'s Dischord, Lungfish's highly intense, minimalist yet complex music has been called everything from Taoistic to stoic. Singer and lyricist Daniel Higgs bares his soul with each profound album and is so driven to write that he published... [+] Read More

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Because the term emo has come to define a sensibility more than a particular sound, it can be difficult to pin down even if you're not an outsider. Yet there's a general consensus -- by no means universal, but fairly solid -- that Washington, D.C.'s Rites of Spring were the first true emo band. Their music epitomized emo (or emocore, as... [+] Read More

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One of the best-loved bands on the Dischord roster, the Nation of Ulysses are best remembered for lifting the motor-mouthed revolutionary rhetoric of the MC5 and blowing it up to an elaborate, almost ridiculous level. Any discussion of NoU inevitably comes to rest on their conceptual foundation: a relentlessly provocative (and entertaining)... [+] Read More

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The Promise Ring were one of the most popular emo bands of the '90s, epitomizing the poppier, more accessible wing of the style. Along with Sunny Day Real Estate, the Get Up Kids, Braid, and Jimmy Eat World, they helped bring emo from the punk underground to a wider indie rock audience in the latter half of the decade. Like the exact definition... [+] Read More

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