Artist bio

The Posies were basically a two-man band, structured around cotton-candy-voiced Washington State residents Ken Stringfellow and Jon Auer. The pair took its cue from power-pop a la Big Star, the Move, and Cheap Trick, penning harmony-drenched tunes whose melodic treasures drew such notables as former Beatle Ringo Starr to cover them ("Golden Blunders"). The band's first release was 1988's Failure, essentially a stripped-down home demo, but the Posies slowly added more and more rawk elements to the mixture up through Amazing Disgrace, before bowing out quietly in 1998 with Success.

Stringfellow followed up his Posies stint by becoming the touring keyboardist of R.E.M., and both he and Auer have since released solo albums.

Albums by this artist

Amazing Disgrace (1996)

Posies

Amazing Disgrace

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» TROY CARPENTER | CO-DIRECTOR

Posies Amazing Disgrace DGC, 1996 RiYL: Big Star, Cheap Trick, Teenage Fanclub, Foo Fighters

The title of the Posies' 1996 record Amazing Disgrace is more than a play on words. It also serves as a half-joking review of their career.

A generally four-piece band centered around singers/songwriters/guitarists Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow, the Posies put out four albums of creative and catchy power pop in the midst of the much-lauded Seattle music scene. But they never registered a bona fide radio hit or even so much as attracted a medium-sized following.

So, the band continued to add a new facet or two to its sound each time around, endlessly trying to hit upon the gimmick that might make their music "accessible" to the greater part of the pop-loving public.

On Disgrace, Auer and Stringfellow are accompanied by bassist Joe Skyward and drummer Brian Young, the (count em!) third rhythm section to pass through the Posies in as many albums. The sound of the band is thus mutated once again, and this finds Jon and Ken playing around more with the electric nature of their instruments, a great contrast to their mostly acoustic debut album, failure.

But the hooks shine through the fuzz. Auer and Stringfellow, who take turns at lead vocal duty, have similar sugar-sweet voices that carry their tunes high on the power of the vocal melody. Somehow they hadn't run out of ideas after four albums of consistent, almost predictable changes and harmonies.

Adding a quirky touch to the mood of the album, the liner notes credit Cheap Trick's Robin Zander and Rick Nielsen for the "screams and guitar freakout" in the middle eight of "Hate Song."

The songs all have a typically Posies feel, but are contorted in a wide variety of positions. "Grant Hart" is a frenzied tribute to the ex-Husker Du drummer that recalls Pearl Jam's "Lukin". "Broken Record" is one of the Posies' more clever tunes, using sleek musical repetition to echo the lyrics' intended redundancy. And first single "Please Return It" is a dynamic ode to life's volatility.

Like Frosting On The Beater before it, Disgrace has great moments but fails to reach an epiphany or become fully realized. Another very respectable effort, it just doesn't have that extra appeal that would elicit mass recognition. But on the bright side, the Posies never lost any integrity or talent, and the best parts of this album are quite worth the price. The "disgrace" is a matter of opinion.

TROY CARPENTER | Troy Carpenter founded NATN from a Chicago apartment during the ambitious winter of 1998 with co-conspirators Ben French and Jonathan Cohen. After a five-year stint in New York, he and wife Lourdes have recently relocated to Indianapolis, where he spends days listening to music and nights in the kitchen at Elements restaurant. Musical heroes: Jimi Hendrix, Bob Marley, Super Furry Animals. What else makes life worth living: Sushi, Phucty, runs in the park, and the Atlanta Braves.