The Spent Poets

From their name on down, the San Francisco-based Spent Poets flirted with pretension at every move. Lead singer Adam Gates' lyrics dropped references both literary and pop-cultural (Virginia Woolf and other suicidal female writers, the Beatles, and Syd Barrett were particular obsessions), and the group's lavish version of neo-psychedelia includes spoken interludes, found sounds, tape-effect extravaganzas, and exotic, sometimes bizarre instrumentation. Yet the wit and melodic invention of the group's sole album keeps the group from tipping over into preciousness...usually. The core of the Spent Poets formed in San Francisco in 1988 when Gates and multi-instrumentalist Matt Winegar began making homemade tapes in Winegar's living room. These tapes found their way to the duo's friend Matt Wallace, a local producer (Faith No More, Yo, etc.), who began working with the duo in 1990 and suggested they put together a full band for live performances. Gates and Winegar recruited keyboardist John Berg, bassist Derek Greenberg, and drummer Michael Urbano and began playing the local circuit, eventually signing with Geffen Records in 1991. The group's Wallace-produced album was recorded over the course of several months that year and released in early 1992. Although the Spent Poets were generally well-received critically, its ornate, lush, and trippy sound stuck out in the first flowering of grunge like Ravi Shankar in a mosh pit, and sales were minimal. A reconfigured version of the band (Gates, Winegar, and Greenberg) recorded a follow-up album in 1993, but Geffen declined to release it, and the band split up that summer. ~ Stewart Mason, All Music Guide