Fastbacks

Fastbacks are a Seattle, Washington, punk rock band. Formed in 1979 by songwriter/guitarist Kurt Bloch (born August 28, 1960), and friends Lulu Gargiulo (guitar and vocals, born October 12, 1960) and Kim Warnick (bass and vocals, born April 7, 1959), they disbanded in 2001 but have reunited multiple times. Their sound mixes a generally punk rock approach to vocals and sound textures with poppy tunes and strong musicianship.

Although these three band members have remained fairly constant, they have gone through numerous drummers, including Duff McKagan, later of Guns N' Roses. MTV's web page on the Fastbacks says that estimates at the number of Fastbacks drummers "range from 12 to 20." For much of the band's heyday, Mike Musburger filled this role, but other Fastbacks drummers before him (or when he took occasional breaks) included Bloch himself, Richard Stuverud (perhaps best known from War Babies, Fifth Angel and his collaborations with Pearl Jam's Jeff Ament, including Three Fish, Tres Mts. and RNDM), Nate Johnson and Rusty Willoughby (both of whom also played in both Flop and Pure Joy), John Moen (of the Dharma Bums, later of Steven Malkmus's Jicks and The Decemberists), Jason Finn (of the Presidents of the United States of America), Dan Peters of Mudhoney, and Tad Hutchison of the Young Fresh Fellows. Several of these people also served at times as drummers in The Squirrels, a similarly long-lived band, and the Fastbacks' sometime label-mates on PopLlama Records, who bring a similar mix of strong musicianship and punk attitude to even poppier material.