The Spent Poets

Using their name on down, the San Francisco-based Spent Poets flirted with pretension at every move. Lead vocalist Adam Gates’ lyrics fallen referrals both literary and pop-cultural (Virginia Woolf along with other suicidal feminine authors, the Beatles, and Syd Barrett had been particular obsessions), as well as the group’s luxurious edition of neo-psychedelia includes spoken interludes, discovered noises, tape-effect extravaganzas, and incredible, occasionally bizarre instrumentation. The wit and melodic invention from the group’s lone album helps to keep the group from tipping over into preciousness…generally. The core from the Spent Poets produced in SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA in 1988 when Gates and multi-instrumentalist Matt Winegar started making home made tapes in Winegar’s family room. These tapes discovered their method to the duo’s friend Matt Wallace, an area producer (Faith FORGET ABOUT, Yo, etc.), who started dealing with the duo in 1990 and recommended they come up with a full music group for live shows. Gates and Winegar recruited keyboardist John Berg, bassist Derek Greenberg, and drummer Michael Urbano and started playing the neighborhood circuit, eventually putting your signature on with Geffen Information in 1991. The group’s Wallace-produced record was recorded during the period of almost a year that calendar year and released in early 1992. Even though Spent Poets had been generally well-received critically, its ornate, lush, and trippy audio trapped out in the very first flowering of grunge like Ravi Shankar within a mosh pit, and product sales had been minimal. A reconfigured edition of the music group (Gates, Winegar, and Greenberg) documented a follow-up record in 1993, but Geffen dropped release a it, as well as the music group split that summer.