Dillon Fence

Although Dillon Fence released three full-length albums and several stand-alone EPs between 1991 and 1994, and at one point was the highest profile group on Mammoth Records after Juliana Hatfield and the Blake Babies, the band never got much in the way of critical acclaim, nor did their records spark much word of mouth outside of a small cult audience based in their native North Carolina. That said, there's a low-key charm to their brand of genial jangle pop that fans of the Connells or Guadalcanal Diary will most likely find appealing. The roots of Dillon Fence stretch back to a high school band formed by guitarist Greg Humphreys and bassist Chris Goode in their hometown of Winston-Salem, NC. After winning a high school battle of the bands, Humphreys and Goode's group gigged around town for a couple of years but split up in 1985 when the members left for different colleges. The following year, Humphreys introduced Goode to a guitarist friend from the University of North Carolina, Kent Alphin. Inspired to play together again by the songs Humphreys and Goode had completed on their own, the pair joined with Alphin and drummer Brooke Pitts to form a new group called the Magoos, which they changed to Dillon Fence after a strange piece of outsider art Humphreys and Alphin had seen in the town of Dillon, SC, shortly before their first show. After a period on the North Carolina fraternity house circuit (during which they shared several stages with another struggling local group called Hootie & the Blowfish) and a change of drummers (Pitts ceding the stool to Scott Carle), the band's self-titled EP/demo tape caught the attention of Mammoth Records, which signed the band in 1991. Their first EP, Christmas, was released late that year as a teaser for 1992's full-length Rosemary....