Jellyfish

San Francisco-based power pop outfit Jellyfish just released two full-length albums throughout their early-’90s heydays, however the group’s immaculately crafted pop/rock and roll tracks and unapologetic penchant for everything vintage helped throw some essential light on that which was becoming at that time an extremely crowded pop underground. Like their closest contemporaries the Posies, the Wondermints, and Redd Kross, Jellyfish drew through the same well as rings like Badfinger, XTC, Cheap Technique, the Move, Big Superstar, as well as the Zombies, crafting sometimes complicated, impossibly catchy music that cast an alternative solution pop/rock and roll shadow on the air hits of the prior three decades. Created around the skills of previous Beatnik Beatch users vocalist/songwriter/drummer Andy Sturmer and key pad participant/multi-instrumentalist Roger Manning, in addition to previous Three O’Clock vocalist/songwriter/guitarist Jason Falkner, along with Manning’s sibling Chris becoming a member of the group on bass for concert events, Jellyfish found fruition in 1990 using the launch of Bellybutton. The debut recording yielded the band’s biggest strike, “Baby’s RETURNING,” and a string of solid singles (“The Ruler Is usually Half-Undressed,” “THAT’S THE REASON,” “I Wanna Stay House,” and “Right now She Understands She’s Incorrect”) that gained the group a dedicated however decidedly cult pursuing. Both Falkner and Chris Manning still left the fold following the Bellybutton tour, the last mentioned blaming a distaste forever on the highway and the previous unhappy along with his function as only a guitarist. Sturmer and Manning spent another 2 yrs holed up in the studio room using a spinning cast of music artists who included bassist Tim Smith and multi-instrumentalist/manufacturer Jon Brion to record Jellyfish’s sophomore work, Spilt Dairy. Released in 1993, Dairy was an even more intricate affair than its forerunner, echoing the studio room mastery from the Seaside Young boys (“Hush,” “Ghost at NUMBER 1”), the guitar-heavy onslaught of Kiss and Queen (“Signing up for a Fan Membership,” “All can be Forgiven”), as well as the psychedelic pop from the Beatles (“Bye, Bye, Bye,” “Brighter Time”) with amazing acumen. The music group endured per year of touring (by using Smith and guitarist/vocalist Eric Dover) before contacting it quits by the end of 1994. Regardless of the group’s fairly short profession, the people of Jellyfish were able to influence a bunch of likeminded performers, like the Merrymakers, the Hutchinsons, the Excentrics, and Ben Folds Five, in addition to protected for themselves exactly the same sort of cult position bestowed upon therefore a lot of their heroes. Andy Sturmer became an extremely sought-after manufacturer and composer, dealing with everyone through the Dark Crowes to Ozzy Osbourne to Japanese pop superstars Puffy AmiYumi; Roger Manning became a member of up with Eric Dover to create the retro-glam rock and roll outfit Imperial Move, shaped Moog Cookbook with Los Angeles-based musician and manufacturer Brian Kehew, toured and documented with Beck, and released a set of single albums; and Jason Falkner shaped the likeminded power pop work the Grays with Jon Brion, caused fellow pop crooner Eric Matthews, and released a string of superb single albums. In 2002, Not really Lame released Lover Club, a “fan-oriented” limited-edition package arranged that included four discs of unreleased Jellyfish materials (demos, rehearsals, compilation songs, live recordings, etc.) and memorabilia, come up with with the help of all the group’s users and their soundman, Shalom Aberle. It had been a fitted eulogy designed for fans by way of a band filled with longtime followers of bands.