Bacon Ray

Diane Court (1999)

Bacon Ray was a part of Tallahassee, Florida's incredibly rich indie scene in the late '90s that also included Nel Aspinal, Frankenfinger, Flanders, the New You and bazillions more.   The band's origins start with Merlin Mann, a huge fan of Mike Coleman's prior bands the Singing Spoons and Ultraboy. When the latter broke up in 1994, Mann persuaded him to form Bacon Ray.

According to Mann, "Mike's old band, Ultraboy, was being interviewed on V89 (the FSU college radio station), and drummer Kelly Shane made reference to a notional "bacon ray." I thought it was hilarious and lobbied that it become the name of Mike's next band. (My other idea, "Kung Fu Grippe," became the title of a weblog I did for a couple years)."

Along with bassist Chris Gleasman from Gruel, the trio started crafting a set of original songs.  According to Mann, their sound "borrowed equal parts of Kiss, Big Star, Frank Zappa, and Jonathan Richman."

The lineup changed over the years, but Bacon Ray had a fairly long career for a college band, releasing three cassettes, two singles, two CD's, and numerous compilation tracks before breaking up in 1999.  Their final release was "Diane Court" on The Nervous System, a compilation of mostly Florida bands on AAJ Records.  The song is a fairly explanatory, and extremely catchy, ode to the movie Say Anything.

Mann is an active blogger today and can be found here.