The Posies

The Posies was an American indie rock band, originally from Bellingham, WA, United States, although all band members had moved to Seattle when the band gained prominence. Active from 1986 to 2021, the band's two core members, singers, songwriters and guitarists were Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow. Formed in 1986, the band fell apart abruptly in October 2021, as allegations of sexual misconduct by Stringfellow surfaced in an article published by KUOW, Seattle's NPR affiliate. Read more on Last.fm …read full bio

The Posies was an American indie rock band, originally from Bellingham, WA, United States, although all band members had moved to Seattle when the band gained prominence. Active from 1986 to 2021, the band's two core members, singers, songwriters and guitarists were Jon Auer and Ken Stringfellow. Formed in 1986, the band fell apart abruptly in October 2021, as allegations of sexual misconduct by Stringfellow surfaced in an article published by KUOW, Seattle's NPR affiliate. Auer, who had learned about the allegations a few months prior to publication, announced that he had terminated his partnership with Stringfellow immediately in August. The Posies began as a set of informal home recordings by Stringfellow and Auer, but soon became a full-fledged band. Those early demos were released as the album Failure (1988). Mike Musburger and Rick Roberts joined soon after, allowing the band to play its first live shows in Seattle and Bellingham. The four then moved into a house in Seattle's University District. The band's first full album was their major-label début Dear 23 (1990). It was produced by John Leckie and features lush orchestrations for the songwriters' literate, clever, melodic pop with occasional hard-hitting guitars. The Posies' guitars hit even harder on their third and fourth albums, 1993's Frosting On The Beater and 1996's Amazing Disgrace. These two albums are the band's most succesful and are still widely regarded as classics of nineties indie rock and power pop. The band's rhythm section underwent many changes over the years. During the recording of 'Frosting', Roberts left and was replaced by Dave Fox. During the 1994 European tour, Musberger left (new bassist: Joe Howard a.k.a. Joe Skyward), whole Brian Young took over on drums. The 'Amazing Disgrace line-up' also recorded album #5, Success (1998), which failed commercially. The Posies went on hiatus while the members concentrated on outside projects, including solo albums (Stringfellow, Auer) and projects such as Lucky Me, Skyward and Chariot, while Brian Young played drums in Fountains of Wayne. From 1997 to 2001, there was only sporadic Posies activity, although two live albums saw the light of day: an 'electric' one (Alive Before The Iceberg, 1999) and an 'acoustic' one (In Case You Didn't Feel Like Plugging In, 2000). After a satisfying tour as a duo, Auer and Stringfellow brought the band back to active service, now with Darius Minwalla on drums and Matt Harris on bass. The new line-up recorded and released the studio albums Every Kind Of Light (2005) and the particularly well-received Blood/Candy (2010). From 1993 onwards, Auer and Stringfellow also joined Alex Chilton and Jody Stephens as band members of 'power pop' legends Big Star, playing on many tours as well as the Big Star studio album, In Space (2005). The Posies' creative team was in Big Star for seventeen years in total. The years 2010-2016 were a particularly dark time for The Posies. Auer and Stringfellow's association with Big Star came to an abrupt end when Alex Chilton died in 2010. The Posies' 2014 incarnation included Darius Minwalla on drums and Joe Skyward on bass, but disaster would strike: on 21 May 2015 Darius Minwalla died suddenly in his home in Vancouver, from undisclosed causes. On 26 March 2016, Joe Skyward passed away after a battle with cancer. The Posies re-emerged with a new album (their 8th), Solid States, in April 2016. The Posies quietly disappeared once again, but were generally expected to resurface at some point, like they always did. This time, however, turned out to be different. On 25 October 2021 Seattle's NPR affiliate, KUOW, published a series of allegations of sexual misconduct by Stringfellow. Auer had heard in August that his friend Kristine Chambers was among the women about to go public with an accusation. He called her right away. They spent nine hours talking over several days. "I left The Posies very quickly after hearing from Kristine about what happened to her," Auer wrote by email. "What she described to me was super disturbing, and it made my position immediately clear. I confronted Ken about it on a phone call on 4 August 2021, cancelled our upcoming shows and flat-out told him that I wouldn't be working with him anymore." The Posies' final recording and commercial release was a stand-alone single, 'Sideways', released in September 2020. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.

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…shrink me down again