Fastbacks
Encyclopedia
The Fastbacks were a Seattle
punk rock
band. Formed in 1979 by songwriter/guitarist Kurt Bloch
(born August 28, 1960), and friends Lulu Gargiulo (guitar and vocals, born October 12, 1960) and Kim Warnick
(bass and vocals, born April 7, 1959), they disbanded in 2001. Their sound mixed a generally punk rock
approach to vocals and sound textures with pop
py tunes and strong musicianship.
Although these three band members remained fairly constant, they went through numerous drummers, including Duff McKagan
, later of Guns N' Roses
. MTV
's web page on the Fastbacks says that estimates at the number of Fastbacks drummers "range from 12 to 20." For most of the band's last decade, Mike Musburger filled this role, but other Fastbacks drummers before him (or when he took occasional breaks) included Bloch himself, Richard Stuverud
(perhaps best known from War Babies
, Fifth Angel
and Three Fish
, side project of Pearl Jam
's Jeff Ament
), Nate Johnson and Rusty Willoughby
(both of whom also played in both Flop
and Pure Joy), John Moen
(of the Dharma Bums, later of Steven Malkmus's Jicks and The Decemberists
), Jason Finn
(of the Presidents of the United States of America
), Dan Peters
of Mudhoney, and Tad Hutchison of the Young Fresh Fellows
. Several of these people also served at times as drummers in The Squirrels
, a similarly long-lived band, and the Fastbacks' sometime label-mates on Pop Llama Records, who bring a similar mix of strong musicianship and punk attitude to even poppier material.
Contributing to the band's breakup was Kim Warnick's move to the band Visqueen in 2001 through 2004. In summer 2010 Kim Warnick started a new band with Mikey Davis called Calligraphers.
The Fastbacks reunited for a one-off live performance at the West Seattle Summer Music Festival, featuring the core trio of Kurt, Kim and Lulu, along with Mike Mussburger on drums, their first official show together since their break-up a decade ago.
Seattle, Washington
Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...
punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
band. Formed in 1979 by songwriter/guitarist Kurt Bloch
Kurt Bloch
Kurt Bloch is an American songwriter, guitarist, engineer and producer, best known as songwriter and lead guitarist of Fastbacks. He has also been a member of The Young Fresh Fellows and has recorded tracks and produced albums for Tokyo Dragons, Robyn Hitchcock, Les Thugs, Flop, Sicko , The Minus...
(born August 28, 1960), and friends Lulu Gargiulo (guitar and vocals, born October 12, 1960) and Kim Warnick
Kim Warnick
Kim Warnick was co-founder, bassist, and lead vocalist of the Seattle band Fastbacks between 1979 and 2002, and bassist with Visqueen from 2001 until her retirement from performing in 2004....
(bass and vocals, born April 7, 1959), they disbanded in 2001. Their sound mixed a generally punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
approach to vocals and sound textures with pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
py tunes and strong musicianship.
Although these three band members remained fairly constant, they went through numerous drummers, including Duff McKagan
Duff McKagan
Michael Andrew "Duff" McKagan is an American musician and writer. He is best known for his twelve-year tenure as the bassist of the hard rock band Guns N' Roses, with whom he achieved worldwide success in the late 1980s and early 1990s...
, later of Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses
Guns N' Roses is an American hard rock band, formed in Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, in 1985. The band has released six studio albums, three EPs, and one live album...
. MTV
MTV
MTV, formerly an initialism of Music Television, is an American network based in New York City that launched on August 1, 1981. The original purpose of the channel was to play music videos guided by on-air hosts known as VJs....
's web page on the Fastbacks says that estimates at the number of Fastbacks drummers "range from 12 to 20." For most of the band's last decade, Mike Musburger filled this role, but other Fastbacks drummers before him (or when he took occasional breaks) included Bloch himself, Richard Stuverud
Richard Stuverud
Richard Stuverudis an American drummer known for playing in several bands in Seattle scene. His first band was the punk rock band The Fastbacks , returning in 1987 in the side project of the vocalist Brad Sinsel , called "Suicide Squad".Soon, he joined the War Babies band in 1988, together with...
(perhaps best known from War Babies
War Babies (band)
War Babies was an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington in 1988 by former TKOguitarist Tommy "Gun" McMullin and vocalist Brad Sinsel. Although associated with hard rock, the band's sound incorporated some elements of grunge music...
, Fifth Angel
Fifth Angel
Fifth Angel is an American heavy metal/ power metal band from Bellevue, Washington.-Biography:Fifth Angel was formed in the suburbs of Seattle in late 1983, specifically, in the Bellevue area...
and Three Fish
Three Fish
Three Fish was an American rock band formed in 1994 by Pearl Jam's Jeff Ament. The lineup featured Ament, Robbi Robb of Tribe After Tribe, and Richard Stuverud of the Fastbacks and War Babies.-History:...
, side project of Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam
Pearl Jam is an American rock band that formed in Seattle, Washington, in 1990. Since its inception, the band's line-up has included Eddie Vedder , Jeff Ament , Stone Gossard , and Mike McCready...
's Jeff Ament
Jeff Ament
Jeffrey Allen Ament is an American musician who serves as the bassist for the American rock band Pearl Jam. Along with Stone Gossard, Mike McCready, and Eddie Vedder, he is one of the founding members of Pearl Jam...
), Nate Johnson and Rusty Willoughby
Rusty Willoughby
Rusty Willoughby is an active American musician born in Staten Island and currently living in Redmond, Washington, a suburb of Seattle. , he has been vocalist, songwriter and guitarist or bass guitarist for several Seattle based bands: Pure Joy , Flop , Llama , and Cobirds Unite...
(both of whom also played in both Flop
Flop (band)
Flop was an early-1990s pop punk band from Seattle, Washington. The band gained some exposure as a result of a brief appearance in Doug Pray's motion picture documentary Hype!.-The Beginning :...
and Pure Joy), John Moen
John Moen
John Moen is a musician and member of The Decemberists, Boston Spaceships, and Perhapst. He sings, plays the drums, five banjos, the melodica, occasionally the keyboard, and dances around with a floor tom...
(of the Dharma Bums, later of Steven Malkmus's Jicks and The Decemberists
The Decemberists
The Decemberists are an indie folk rock band from Portland, Oregon, United States, fronted by singer/songwriter Colin Meloy. The other members of the band are Chris Funk , Jenny Conlee , Nate Query , and John Moen .The band's...
), Jason Finn
Jason Finn
Jason Finn may refer to:*Jason Finn , rock drummer for Love Battery and The Presidents of the United States of America*Jason Finn , actor in Freedom Writers...
(of the Presidents of the United States of America
The Presidents of the United States of America (band)
The Presidents of the United States of America, commonly referred to as Pot USA or "PUSA" or The Presidents, are a twice Grammy-nominated American alternative rock band. The band formed in Seattle, USA, in 1993. The three-piece group currently comprises vocalist and "basitarist" Chris Ballew,...
), Dan Peters
Dan Peters
Daniel Joe Peters is the drummer for Mudhoney. He joined Bundle of Hiss when he was fifteen years old. He also played drums for Nirvana, appearing on one single, "Sliver". Peters' only live appearance with Nirvana was on September 22, 1990, in Seattle, Washington, at the Motor Sports International...
of Mudhoney, and Tad Hutchison of the Young Fresh Fellows
Young Fresh Fellows
The Young Fresh Fellows are an American alternative rock group that was formed in 1981 in Seattle, Washington, by Scott McCaughey and Chuck Carroll; Tad Hutchison, Chuck Carroll's first cousin, joined for the recording of the group's debut album in 1983....
. Several of these people also served at times as drummers in The Squirrels
The Squirrels
The Squirrels are a novelty band based in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1984 by lead vocalist Rob Morgan , the band has been through numerous lineups, but has stuck to the aesthetic that Peter Blecha describes as "cross-pollinat[ing] bubblegum sensibilities with punk attitudes."Although most of...
, a similarly long-lived band, and the Fastbacks' sometime label-mates on Pop Llama Records, who bring a similar mix of strong musicianship and punk attitude to even poppier material.
Contributing to the band's breakup was Kim Warnick's move to the band Visqueen in 2001 through 2004. In summer 2010 Kim Warnick started a new band with Mikey Davis called Calligraphers.
The Fastbacks reunited for a one-off live performance at the West Seattle Summer Music Festival, featuring the core trio of Kurt, Kim and Lulu, along with Mike Mussburger on drums, their first official show together since their break-up a decade ago.
Discography
- "It's Your Birthday"/"You Can't Be Happy" (single), No Threes, 1981
- "Someone Else's Room" on the Seattle Syndrome Volume OneSeattle Syndrome Volume OneSeattle Syndrome Volume One is a compilation of Seattle-based bands and artists released on vinyl and cassette in late 1981 on Engram Records...
compilation, 1981 - Fastbacks Play Five Of Their Favorites (5-track, 12" EP), No Threes, 1982
- Everyday Is Saturday, No Threes, 1984
- Fastbacks ... And His Orchestra (album), Pop Llama, 1987, also released on UK Subway, 1987
- "Swallow My Pride" (Green RiverGreen River (band)Green River was an American rock band from Seattle, Washington that was active from 1984 to 1988. Although the band had little commercial impact outside of its native Seattle, Green River proved to have significant influence on the genre later known as grunge, both with its own music and with the...
cover) on the Sub Pop 200Sub Pop 200Sub Pop 200 is a compilation released in the early days of the Seattle grunge scene . It features songs from Tad, The Fluid, Nirvana, Steven Jesse Bernstein, Mudhoney, The Walkabouts, Terry Lee Hale, Soundgarden, Green River, Fastbacks, Blood Circus, Swallow, Chemistry Set, Girl Trouble, The...
compilation, Sub Pop, 1988 - "In The Winter"/"It Came To Me In A Dream" (single), UK Subway, 1989
- "Wrong Wrong Wrong"/"In America" (single), UK Subway, 1989
- "Lose" [Fastbacks]/"King of Hubcaps
[ Gas HufferGas HufferGas Huffer was an American garage rock band from Washington state. They were known for their formal and comical lyrics and their antic stage presence.-History:Gas Huffer classified themselves loosely in the Garage punk genre...] (single), SPFC 1990 - Very, Very Powerful Motor (album), Pop Llama, 1990
- "In The Summer/You Can't Be Happy/Everything I Don't Need/Queen of Eyes" (EP), No Threes/SPFC, 1990
- "Hit or Miss" (The Damned cover) on Another Damned Seattle CompilationAnother Damned Seattle CompilationAnother Damned Seattle Compilation is a musical tribute to 1970s punk band The Damned, featuring tracks recorded in 1990 to 1991 by 18 Seattle area bands and released on Seattle's Dashboard Hula Girl Records.-History of the Compilation:...
, Dashboard Hula Girl RecordsDashboard Hula Girl RecordsDashboard Hulagirl Records is a Seattle-based independent American record label founded in 1989 by Trev Dellinger and Chris Swenson. The label released several LPs, EPs, and singles before folding in 1992...
1991 - The Answer Is You ["My Letters"/"Whatever Happened to ?"/"Impatience"/"Above the Sunrise"]' (2-single set), Sub Pop, 1991
- Live in America (2-single set), Smilin' Ear, 1991
- In America, Live in Seattle 1988 (album), Lost and Found (Germany), 1991
- Never Fails, Never Works (album), Blaster (UK), 1991
- "Run No More/"Really" (single), Who Cares, 1992
- "Now Is the Time"/"Sometimes"/"Was Late" (single), Ded Beet, 1992 [recorded 1983-1985]
- The Question Is No (album), Sub Pop, 1992
- "They Don't Care"/"Out of the Charts" (single), PopLlamaPopLlama RecordsPopLlama Records is an independent record label founded by record producer Conrad Uno in Seattle, Washington, in 1984. After making several of his own demos in his basement studio, Uno would produce the Young Fresh Fellows' debut album The Fabulous Sounds of the Pacific Northwest at the bands request...
, 1993 - "Gone to the Moon"/"Go All the Way" (single), Sub Pop (Germany), 1993
- Gone to the Moon (EP), Sub Pop (Germany), 1993
- ZückerZücker (album)Zücker is an album by the Fastbacks, released in 1993 on Sub Pop.The twelfth track, "Please Read Me" is a cover of a Bee Gees song from their 1967 album Bee Gees 1st.-Track listing:# "Believe Me Never" – 3:03# "Gone to the Moon" – 1:50...
(album), Sub Pop, 1993 - Gone to the moon (album), Sub Pop, 1993
- Bike-Toy-Clock-Gift, first released as a tape on Bus Stop, 1990; (album), Lucky, 1994
- "Wait It Out"/"The Jester" (single), Munster (Spain), 1994
- Answer the Phone Dummy (album), Sub Pop, 1994
- New Mansions in sound (album), Sub Pop, 1996
- Alone in a Furniture Warehouse Scaring You Away Like a Hotel Mattress (album), Munster (Spain), 1996
- Here They Are... Live At the Crocodile... (album), Lance Rock (Canada), 1996
- Win Lose or Both (EP), Pop Llama, 1998
- Day That Didn't Exist, spinArt, 1999
- Truth Corrosion and Sour Bisquits, Book, 2004
External links
- 1991 interview, Noise For Heroes #20
- "Choosing Fandom" from This American LifeThis American LifeThis American Life is a weekly hour-long radio program produced by WBEZ and hosted by Ira Glass. It is distributed by Public Radio International on PRI affiliate stations and is also available as a free weekly podcast. Primarily a journalistic non-fiction program, it has also featured essays,...
#31 - on the Trouser Press site
- Former fastbacks.com pages, mirrored at Sub Pop
- Sgt. Major