Uncle Green

A jangly Southern power pop band in the classic mold, Atlanta-based Uncle Green featured vocalists/guitarists/songwriters Matt Brown and Jeff Jensen, bassist Bill Decker, and drummer Pete McDade. Naturally, Uncle Green looked to R.E.M. as a chief influence, but also drew from less elliptical power pop influences both classic (the Beatles, Squeeze) and contemporary (Trip Shakespeare, the Posies, Matthew Sweet). Formed when some of its members were just 15, Uncle Green debuted with two albums for the small New Vision label (1987's Get It Together and 1988's 15 Dryden), but didn't truly hit their stride until signing with the indie DB. Produced by Brendan O'Brien, 1989's You was a major step forward, finding Brown and Jensen both perfecting their voices as lyricists and their senses of craft and structure as tunesmiths. 1991's What an Experiment His Head Was further refined the group's sound and helped them land a major-label deal with Atlantic. With O'Brien again at the helm, Uncle Green recorded Book of Bad Thoughts, their hardest-rocking — and, some said, best — album yet. Unfortunately, despite radio's greater receptivity to Uncle Green's style of music, the record failed to catch on with a wider alternative audience; after Atlantic ditched them, the group wound up disbanding in 1994. However, they immediately regrouped — with the exact same lineup — as the slightly more alt-rock-sounding 3 Lb. Thrill; they signed to O'Brien's Sony subsidiary 57 and recorded one album, Vulture, in 1995.