Jill Cunniff (born August 17, 1966) is an American musician and artist, best known as the lead singer of the band
Luscious Jackson
Luscious Jackson is an alternative rock/ rap-rock group formed in 1991. The band's name is a reference to former American basketball player Lucious Jackson.
The original band consisted of Jill Cunniff (vocals, bass), Gabby Glaser (vocals, guit ...
. Cunniff was born in
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
and attended college in
San Francisco
San Francisco (; Spanish language, Spanish for "Francis of Assisi, Saint Francis"), officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the commercial, financial, and cultural center of Northern California. The city proper is the List of Ca ...
.
After returning to New York in 1991, she formed
Luscious Jackson
Luscious Jackson is an alternative rock/ rap-rock group formed in 1991. The band's name is a reference to former American basketball player Lucious Jackson.
The original band consisted of Jill Cunniff (vocals, bass), Gabby Glaser (vocals, guit ...
with friend
Gabby Glaser
Luscious Jackson is an alternative rock/ rap-rock group formed in 1991. The band's name is a reference to former American basketball player Lucious Jackson.
The original band consisted of Jill Cunniff (vocals, bass), Gabby Glaser (vocals, guit ...
. Cunniff plays bass, sings lead vocals, and has been the chief songwriter of the band.
Cunniff appeared in a 1996 episode of the
Adult Swim
Adult Swim (AS; stylized as dult swim
Dult is a village in Batala in Gurdaspur district of Punjab State, India. It is located from sub district headquarter, from district headquarter and from Sri Hargobindpur. The village is administrated by Sarpanch an elected representati ...
and often abbreviated as s is an American adult-oriented night-time cable television Television channel, channel that shares channel space with the basic cable network Cartoon Network and is programme ...
series ''
Space Ghost Coast to Coast
''Space Ghost Coast to Coast'' is an American adult animation, adult animated comedy talk show created by Mike Lazzo for Cartoon Network and hosted by a re-imagined version of the 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon character Space Ghost. In contrast t ...
'' as herself. That same year, she provided the voice of Laura for the English localization of the
Sega Saturn
The is a home video game console developed by Sega and released on November 22, 1994, in Japan, May 11, 1995, in North America, and July 8, 1995, in Europe. Part of the fifth generation of video game consoles, it was the successor to the succ ...
game ''
Enemy Zero
is a 1996 horror-themed adventure video game for the Sega Saturn, developed by Warp and directed by Kenji Eno. Players assume the role of an astronaut who awakens from cryogenic sleep to find her spaceship overrun by invisible creatures who ...
''.
Cunniff joined bandmate
Vivian Trimble
Vivian Elizabeth Trimble (born May 24, 1963 in New York City) is an American musician, best known as the keyboardist in the band Luscious Jackson from 1991 to 1998. She also joined bandmate Jill Cunniff under the name Kostars and recorded an album ...
under the name
Kostars
Kostars was an alternative/pop-rock side project formed by Vivian Trimble and Jill Cunniff while on a headlining tour with Luscious Jackson in 1995.
Trimble and Cunniff, who needed an additional outlet, wrote under the name Kostars and released ...
and recorded the album ''
Klassics with a "K"
''Klassics with a "K"'', was the only full-length album by Kostars, a side project of Luscious Jackson members Vivian Trimble and Jill Cunniff, released in 1996 on Grand Royal.
Fellow Luscious Jackson members Kate Schellenbach and Gabby Glaser ...
'', released in 1996. In 2002, she formed a
house music
House is a music genre characterized by a repetitive Four on the floor (music), four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 120 beats per minute. It was created by Disc jockey, DJs and music producers from Chicago metropolitan area, Chicago' ...
group named the
Cooler Kids. Cunniff released a solo album, ''
City Beach'', in early 2007.
References
1966 births
Living people
21st-century American singers
21st-century American composers
20th-century American singers
20th-century American musicians
Luscious Jackson members
Singers from New York City
American women singer-songwriters
American rock bass guitarists
Women bass guitarists
Feminist musicians
Guitarists from New York City
20th-century American women singers
20th-century American guitarists
21st-century American women singers
21st-century women composers
20th-century American women guitarists
Cooler Kids members
Kostars members
Singer-songwriters from New York (state)
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