Teen-Beat. Barbara Manning.

Barbara Manning is an American indie rock singer-songwriter and guitarist. In addition to her solo career, Manning has been active in a number of bands, including 28th Day (with Cole Marquis), World of Pooh, S.F. Seals and The Go-Luckys!. She has also distinguished herself as an interpreter of other writers' songs. Artists she has covered include The Bats ("Smoking Her Wings"), Richard Thompson ("The End of the Rainbow"), Jackson Browne ("These Days"), Portastatic ("Through With People"), and Amon Düül ("Marcus Leid").

RELATED ARTISTS

THE GO-LUCKYS

S.F. SEALS

THE SLEAZE TAX

28th DAY

WORLD OF POOH

BARBARA MANNING B4 We Go Under 7-inch single

Barbara Manning
Photo by [unknown]

COLLABORATORS

1988

Mellanie Clarin,

Greg Freeman,

Mike Freeman,

Derrall Garrison,

Brandan Kearney,

Alan Korn,

Terri Manning,

Cole Marquis,

J. Neo,

Sid Merritt,

Hector PenaLosa,

Kim Osterwalder,

Dave Spaulding,

John Stuart,

Chris Von Sneidern

1991

Paul Bergmann,

Melanie Clarin,

James Dillon,

Greg Freeman,

Mike Freeman,

Alan Korn,

Sid Merritt,

Steve Michener,

J. Neo,

Kim Osterwalde,

Matt Stahl

1993

Jon Langford,

Stuart Moxham

1997

Tasha Bundy,

Joey Burns,

John Convertino,

Bridget Keating,

Thymme Jones,

Nick Luca,

Jim O'Rourke,

Rigo Pedroza,

Fernandez Sanchez,

Craig Schumacher

1999 (In New Zealand)

Joey Burns,

John Convertino,

Graeme Downes,

David Kilgour,

Chris Knox,

David Mitchell,

Denise Roughan,

Robert Scott,

1999- (The Go-Luckys!)

Fabrizio Steinbach,

Flavio Steinbach

RECORD LABELS ASSOCIATED WITH

Communion,
Heyday,
Matador,
Normal

FILM

SOMEONE WANTS YOU DEAD (Live)

Performed live at the Fast Forward festival in Doornroosje, Nijmegen, Holland, 1994.

AT CHILLITH FAIR

Chico, California, October 25, 2008.

BIOGRAPHY

The idiosyncratic but rewarding Barbara Manning is a little too spiky and odd to fit comfortably in the Lilith Fair crowd, but her best work outshines those of her bigger-selling peers. Manning's artistic restlessness and her tendency to jump in and out of bands and recording situations makes it difficult to follow her career -- her discography must be one of the most confusing in all of the '90s indie scene -- but it also makes her one of the most vital and interesting singer/songwriters of her era.

Born in San Diego and raised in Northern California, Manning's first musical venture was 28th Day, a jangle band the singer/bassist formed with guitarist Cole Marquis and drummer Michael Cloward in 1984. The group's promising self-titled EP was released in 1985 and reissued twice thereafter, on an expanded CD in 1991 and an even more expanded cassette featuring live tracks and outtakes released on Cloward's own Devil in the Woods label. But although Marquis would remain an important musical ally for Manning -- who recorded several of his songs on her solo records -- 28th Day split up in 1986.

Starting the attention-deficit-disorder-like pattern that would remain her usual practice for the next several years, Manning's next move was to simultaneously join her friend Brandan Kearney's band World of Pooh and start her solo career. Manning's "Lately I Keep Scissors," possibly her best song, was both a highlight of World of Pooh's 1989 debut The Land of Thirst and the title-track to Manning's powerful solo debut, which had been released the year before. Though World of Pooh broke up in 1990, Manning continued with her solo career, releasing the lengthy EP One Perfect Green Blanket in 1991. That EP's title illustrates Manning's baseball obsession, which also fostered her next band, the SF Seals, whom she named after a defunct minor league team. The SF Seals, which also included drummer Melanie Clarin (ex-Cat Heads; she had also played on Manning's solo debut), guitarist Lincoln Allen, and secondary singer/songwriter Michelle Cernuto. The quartet debuted in 1993 with the brilliant EP The Baseball Trilogy, two old baseball-themed novelty songs, and Manning's own "Dock Ellis," a suitably psychedelic groover about the first man to pitch a no-hitter while tripping on acid. 1994's disjointed Nowhere was very much a group effort, but by the time of 1995's Truth Walks in Sleepy Shadows, the SF Seals were firmly under Manning's control; it's indistinguishable from her solo records.

Also in 1995, Manning sang a terrific song on Wasps Nests, the first album by Stephin Merritt's all-star side project the 6ths, and recorded a brief but powerful album, Barbara Manning Sings With the Original Artists, in collaboration with former Young Marble Giants leader Stuart Moxham that nicely slots Manning into the jazz-tinged minimalism of Moxham's own work. Finally, in this exceedingly productive year, Manning released Northern Exposure Will Be Right Back, an experimental tape loops and noise collaboration with zine publisher/performance artist Seymour Glass under the name Glands of External Secretion. (Manning and Glass had recorded a pair of singles under this name earlier in the decade; though two more Glands of External Secretion albums were released, Manning's role in them was sharply curtailed.)

1997's 1212, named after Manning's birth month and day, was originally planned as the third SF Seals album, but Manning decided early on to retire that conceit. Her strongest work since Lately I Keep Scissors, the album features "The Arsonist's Story," a complex, side-long suite that's one of Manning's most richly satisfying efforts. By contrast, the 1999 EP In New Zealand features Manning recording with a Who's Who of Kiwi musicians in a loose, live-sounding setting.

After a closet-cleaning set of singles and loose tracks, Under One Roof, Manning formed a new band, the punk-poppish Go-Luckys, and recorded 2000's Homeless Is Where the Heart Is and 2001's You Should Know by Now.

- Stewart Mason, Rovi

DISCOGRAPHY

SINGLES

Don't Let It Bring You Down
February 8, 1992 [with Seymour Glass]
B4 We Go Under

ALBUMS

Lately I Keep Scissors
One Perfect Green Blanket
Sings with the Original Artists
1212
In New Zealand
Under One Roof
Super Scissors

COMPILATIONS

10 Jahre Normal
Teen-Beat Fifty
No Alternative
Love Is My Only Crime
Hit Me With A Flower
Soluble Fish
Fast Forward
Wakefield: Volume 2
Wakefield: Volume 3
Wakefield: The Teen-Beat Boxed Set
Festplatte
What's Up Matador
Terrastock All Access
Bouquet Of Dreams, Vol.3
San Francisco
Rough Trade Shops: Singer Songwriter 1 SCORE! 20 Years of Merge Records: The Covers

SOUNTRACKS

Mod Fuck Explosion

Glands of External Secretion
The Go-Luckys!
The S.F. Seals
Snowmen
28th Day
World of Pooh

SONGS

Aramoana
Baby We're Really in Love [with Mad Dog]
B4 We Go Under
Being Cheated
Big Eye
The Blood of Feeling
Breathe Lies
Cake Walking
Cry Me A River
CZC
Daddy Bully
Damned Lucky
Dock Ellis
Don't Let It Bring You Down
Don't Rewind
8s
End of the Rainbow
Every Pretty Girl
Everything Happens By Itself
Evil Craves Attention/Our Son/10x10
Evil Plays Piano
Fireman
First Line (Seventh Row)
Gold Brick
Green
Haze is Free (Mounting a Broken Ladder)
Here Comes Love
Hide Your Love Away
Hummingbird
I Can't Watch You Play Drums
I Love You 1000 Ways
Isn't Lonely Lovely?
Joed Out
Lock Yer Room (Uptight)
Lover's Leap
Make It Go Away
Marcus Leid
Mark E. Smith & Brix
Martian Man
My 1st Gun
Never Park
Optimism is It's Own Reward
Patience is Gone
Prophecy Written
Rickity Tikity Tin
Scissors
Shalala Song
Slip into the Ocean
Smoking Her Wings
Someone Wants You Dead
Something You've Got (Isn't Good)
Somewhere Soon
Stain on the Sun
Stammtisch
Straw Man
Sympathy Wreath
Talk All Night
That Kid
These Days
Through With People
Trapped and Drowning
Untitled No.2
Walking Stick
Whatever I Do is Right/Wrong
When I Dream
Your Pies

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