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Poster Children Artist Feature


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Biography
Every band hates to categorize their music; it’s very hard to do. You could call us a pop band with a good amount of noise and rhythm. Some of our songs could be played on your local commercial radio station. Some songs have yelling vocals, others have singing ones. We like to try to make each of our songs (and records) sound different from one another. We never want to fall into a rut. Since we listen to so many different types of bands, we have a lot of influences in our music, ranging from punk to techno. We also have a lot of odd time signatures in our music, although we like to think that it’s hard to tell they’re odd; we don’t want to sound like Rush. Rick’s lyrics are generally about politics or social problems. And some still think we sound better live than on our records.

RTFM came out on April 22nd, 1997. It is an Enhanced CD, playable in regular CD players, Macs and on Windows 3.1/95/NT. It has 12 songs on it and video of us recording, technical readouts of our van, info about old records, instructions on how to start a record label and how to make a web page, tour reports from both Rose and Howie, interviews with each band member, and clips from some of our old videos. The whole idea behind the Enhanced part of the CD was to make something that was HUGE, that contained way more information than anyone would ever be able to look at in one sitting. And the price is still the same as any regular CD, since we programmed the Enhanced part ourselves.

Bryce Goggin, who mixed Junior Citizen, came in to help produce this album as well as mix it. It was recorded in Champaign, Illinois, at Pogo Studio, a great analog studio with tons of awesome amps and guitars. We believe this is the best-sounding record we’ve made yet.

“RTFM” stands for “read the f**cking manual.” It is a geek techie term that tech support people will say to you if they want to be smarmy and if you are asking a question that is answered in “the manual.”

Frequently Asked Poster Children Questions

Who is Poster Children? When and where did the band form? Poster Children formed in 1987 in Champaign, IL, a small college town with big computers. Rick (R.N. Valentin; guitar, lead vocals), and Rose (R.G. Marshack; bass, backup vocals) are the two original members of the band. The other people are Jim (J.E. Valentin; guitar, Rick’s brother) and Howie (H.D. Kantoff; drummer #6). Since 1987, we have toured the US many times, and opened for such acts as Failure, Steel Pole Bath Tub, The Buzzcocks, Screaming Trees, Fugazi, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Swervedriver, Soul Asylum, Jesus Lizard, Jawbox, The Wedding Present, and Public Enemy, (much to the chagrin of their fans).

What kind of music do you play? Every band hates to categorize their music; it’s very hard to do. You could call us a pop band with a good amount of noise and rhythm. Some of our songs could be played on your local commercial radio station. Some songs have yelling vocals, others have singing ones. We like to try to make each of our songs (and records) sound different from one another. We never want to fall into a rut. Since we listen to so many different types of bands, we have a lot of influences in our music, ranging from punk to techno. We also have a lot of odd time signatures in our music, although we like to think that it’s hard to tell they’re odd; we don’t want to sound like Rush. Rick’s lyrics are generally about politics or social problems. And some still think we sound better live than on our records.

What was it like to work with Steve Albini? It was fine. It was a long time ago. We got his phone number from the Didjits, a great Champaign band of the past. Steve’s studio is in Chicago, 2 hours north of us, so it was very easy and cheap for us to record with him. He is very nice. He cooked us a barbeque over broken hickory drumsticks, and taught us about major labels and the record industry, things that we believe to this day. He is a very smart man.

What are the connections between PC and ?? Between PC and Hum: Their bass player, Jeff, was our guitarist during the Daisy Chain Reaction period, and Rick and Rose founded “12Inch Records,” the label that put out Hum’s first two records. Between PC and Tortoise: Their drummer, John Herndon, was our 5th drummer. Between PC and Salaryman: Salaryman is the 4 of us Poster Children playing “basement” music. It sounds absolutely nothing like Poster Children.

Who does your artwork? We do. All except for the Daisy Chain Reaction (our 2nd record, on Twin/Tone Records) artwork. What are we best at?

Playing shows. We try to present our audience with a huge amount of energy and intensity at our live shows; this makes every show a challenge for us, no matter who or how many people are watching. We do especially love to play all-ages shows, because there is a better chance of receiving energy back from the audience. We were profoundly inspired by the great indie bands of the 80’s, like Husker Du and The Minutemen, who toured across the country by themselves and sold their own t-shirts; did everything themselves. We do our own artwork, choose who we record with, make our own t-shirts, drive our own van (sometimes sleep in it!), and load our own equipment. We feel this makes touring and being in the band more fun.

Has Poster Children done any videos? There are 8 Poster Children videos; “If You See Kay,” “Clock St,” “Dynamite Chair,” and “What’s Inside The Box,” “Junior Citizen,” “He’s My Star,” “Superhero,” and “21st Century.” MTV so far has played “If you See Kay, “”Dynamite Chair” and “Junior Citizen.” “Superhero” is a song that we wrote for a Public Service Announcement for Fox Children’s Network, for a video that appears during “Might Morphin Power Rangers” and “Spiderman” once in a while!

How can I see your videos? You can see clips from some of them on RTFM. When we get enough videos, (10 or so) we’ll release them on a video cassette. We may release them on a CD-ROM, too.

What do Poster Children do in their spare time? We collect information.

How To Tour Like Poster Children

Vehicle and Contents We have a Chevy van, which everyone drives, and there is room for the 4 of us and a sound engineer to sleep in the van if we have to, as long as it’s not moving. There is no tour manager or roadies.

Tour Support We’ve been touring for many years now, and can support ourselves pretty easily on tour, so we don’t take tour support. It’s just better for you if you don’t take (and spend) unnecessary funds from your label.

It always comes out of your royalties, somehow, so why buy a tour bus if you don’t need it?

Where Do We Sleep? We used to sleep on people’s floors most of the time; people who we meet at our shows who offer their floors to us, but now more often, we are starting to stay in motels; we get 1 room for the 4 of us. It’s often very tiring to be on tour and sometimes when you go back to peoples’ houses, there are...parties.. Sometimes partying is the last thing a band would like to do after they play a show. (But not all the time!) And sometimes we sleep in the van, at rest areas. We all have sleeping bags.

What Do We Eat? We each get 10$ a day for breakfast/lunch and when we play a show, the club must feed us dinner. Sometimes we get cheap pizza, but more often then not, we get a really nice meal.

Who Books the Shows? We have the same booking agent we’ve had since we first started touring; we are lucky because it is very hard to find a good booking agent who listens to you. We tell our booking agent (her name is Ellen Stewart) to make sure the shows have cheap ticket prices, try to make them all-ages, and we tell her to give us about 1 day off every couple of weeks. We drive ourselves crazy on our days off.

How Long Are The Drives? Our drives are usually either 8-10 hour drives or 3-5 hours drives, depending where we are in the country.

Sometimes we have to leave right after we play a show in order to get to the next concert on time.

Poster Children: see also
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