Let's see...Seth, quit the band Eliot (originally The Big Body Of Venus Lacy) which included John on bass, drummer Don Yanek and (briefly) guitarist Jeff Boyd. The Chicago weekly New City ran an article on the band's demise. When asked what he might do next, Seth mentioned a show he'd recently attended featuring Unrest, Gastr del Sol and Stereolab. Unlikely as it sounds, Pat and Michael were the first guitarist and drummer, respectively, to call Seth as a result of the article and Number One Cup was born.

Our first single "Connecticut" was released (on Michael's Sweet Pea label) before we'd ever played a show and featured John on bass, though we were actually still just a trio. In fact, we played our first handful of shows with two guitars and drums. Eventually, we felt we needed a bass and put an ad in the Chicago Reader. Jenni Snyder won the sweepstakes and became our first bass player. We played a bunch of shows with her and released our second single "Indie Softcore Denial" (also on Sweet Pea) as a full-fledged four-piece. This 7" included "Divebomb" and "Rent-a-Tent" two songs which remained in our live set to the end.

After a while Jenni decided to pursue a long-dormant romance with former fIREHOSE guitarist, Ed fromohio and moved with him to North Carolina, leaving us, once again, bassless. During this time we signed with Flydaddy Records, then of Seattle, WA and began recording our debut full-length, Possum Trot Plan at Kingsize Sound Labs with Dave Trumfio. Pat handled roughly half the album's bass playing with John sitting in for the other half. We also recorded a cover of the Mountain Goats' "The Monkey Song" during these sessions and released it as our third 7" (Sweet Pea.)

After the recording of Possum Trot Plan, Red Red Meat invited us to tour with them on the West Coast. We busily searched for a bass player and settled on Pat "Tiger" Reis. Tiger joined us on the Red Red Meat tour and played acoustic guitar on "The Quiet Astronaut" which appeared as a b-side on the UK release of the single "Divebomb." During the Red Red Meat tour, however, we became aware that Tiger wasn't working out that well and, at the tour's conclusion, we made the choice to once again become bassless.

The problem was we had just been asked to do our first tour of the UK and Europe where "Divebomb," it seems, had become a bonafide minor hit. In a bind, we turned, once again to Johnny-the-boy, who, after a bout of inexplicable hemming and hawing, agreed to accept our offer of a seven-week, all expenses paid tour of the UK and Europe.

We headlined the tour on the strength of "Divebomb" and were supported by Flydaddy label mates, Mavis Piggott and (for the UK dates only) Reading, England's geek-pop maestros Bennett. The tour was a blow-out success and included stops all over England, Scotland, and Wales, plus a handful of dates in Germany, Belgium, and the Netherlands. We recorded an Evening Session for BBC Radio One (the equivalent of a Peel session, though not played on John Peel's show) and, at the behest of John Peel who was sitting in for Mark Ratcliffe, performed live on the Mark Ratcliffe show on BBC One. Met Mr. Peel etc. By tour's end, we'd become so tight and dynamic as a live band, we asked John to join full time. He hemmed and hawed some more and, eventually, accepted.

When we arrived home we toured the States with Eric's Trip and then began recording our second album, Wrecked By Lions at Idful with Brad Wood. We went back to England and toured with an Irish pop band called Bawl (don't look for them, they're not there) played the Phoenix Festival in Stratford, England and a few smaller festivals in Belgium. We came home and toured some more. Frankly, it's all a blur at this point. Somewhere in there we toured the UK with Urusei Yatsura and spent a meager six days writing, recording and mixing our Kim Chee Is Cabbage EP at Stroppy with Jeff Boyd. Which leads us to more touring and, eventually, to the recording of People People Why Are We Fighting?

We recorded People People... in three 10-14 day stints over a three month period, November, '97 to January, '98. It was recorded at Pachyderm in Cannon Falls, MN where Nirvana recorded In Utero and PJ Harvey recorded Rid Of Me. Pachyderm is a lovely place, tucked into a hillside in the middle of the Minnesota woods. While recording there we stayed on the premises in a beautiful house (4 bedrooms, heated pool, ping-pong, two fireplaces, bar, etc.) that's the spitting image of the house in Hitchcock's North By Northwest. We had planned on having Brad Wood produce, but he was lured away by the Smashing Pumpkins at the last minute, leaving us in the lurch. We decided to produce the record ourselves, which turned out to be a good thing, as we wound up with a record that is truer to our vision than anything we've recorded prior. That People People... sounds so good is due primarily to Pachyderm engineer Brent Sigmeth. Brent was joy to work with, acting as the hands to our collective brain. The new album came out October 20th, 1998. A tour followed. We broke up in Pensacola, Florida in February, 1999.

NOC

Geneva

New York

March 1999