The Push Kings (sometimes simply Push Kings) were an American rock band from

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston, ...

. The group released several albums of

Beatles The Beatles were an English rock band, formed in Liverpool in 1960, that comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are regarded as the most influential band of all time and were integral to the developme ...

-influenced

power pop Power pop (also typeset as powerpop) is a form of pop rock based on the early music of bands such as the Who, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, and the Byrds. It typically incorporates melodic hooks, vocal harmonies, an energetic performance, and ch ...

in the late 1990s and early 2000s before disbanding in 2001.

History

Brothers Carrick and Finn Moore Gerety founded the group in the early 1990s with David Benjamin and Matt Fishbeck; they all met as students at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

.GERETY BOYS BACK IN TOWN
''

Hartford Courant The ''Hartford Courant'' is the largest daily newspaper in the U.S. state of Connecticut, and is considered to be the oldest continuously published newspaper in the United States. A morning newspaper serving most of the state north of New Haven ...

'', September 13, 2001. The Geretys are the sons of former

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

and

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educatio ...

president

Tom Gerety Tom Gerety, a lawyer, philosopher, is the former president of both Trinity College (Connecticut) (1989-1994) and Amherst College (1994–2003). Biography After leaving Amherst College, he became the executive director of the Brennan Center for J ...

. They released several 45rpm vinyl singles in the first half of the decade.The Push Kings biography

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on musicians and bands. Initiated in 1991, the databas ...

While their early work was heavily indebted to

indie rock Indie rock is a Music subgenre, subgenre of rock music that originated in the United States, United Kingdom and New Zealand from the 1970s to the 1980s. Originally used to describe independent record labels, the term became associated with the mu ...

musical artists such as Pavement, they began moving toward more of a power pop sound in the mid-1990s; reviewers also noted influences from 1980s-era musicians signed to Rough Trade and

K Records K Records is an independent record label in Olympia, Washington founded in 1982. Artists on the label included early releases by Beck, Modest Mouse and Built to Spill. The record label has been called "key to the development of independent mu ...

. They signed with Massachusetts-based Sealed Fate Records, run by Eric Masunaga of the Dambuilders, and released their debut self-titled album with the label in early 1997. The ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' wrote of the band, "the band's retro garage pop and its bowl haircuts quickly grow on you." They appeared on

KCRW KCRW (89.9 MHz FM) is a National Public Radio member station broadcasting from the campus of Santa Monica College in Santa Monica, California, where the station is licensed. KCRW airs original news and music programming in addition to programm ...

's Morning Becomes Eclectic later that year. The band released four albums in five years, a pace of recording that was intentionally accelerated; the group noted that groups of the 1960s and 1970s released albums much more quickly, and believed it was unnecessary for groups to take two years or more to record and market an album, as was more common in the 1990s. ''Far Places'', their follow-up to ''Push Kings'', arrived in mid-1998. Switching to Rebbel Records, they released another self-titled album in 2000. Their fourth album, ''

Feel No Fade ''Feel No Fade'' is a studio album by American rock band Push Kings. It was released in 2001 by Le Grand Magistery Le Grand Magistery is an independent record label operating out of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan since 1996. They have been hom ...

'', arrived in late 2001, and received a scathing review by

Pitchfork Media ''Pitchfork'' (formerly ''Pitchfork Media'') is an American online music publication (currently owned by Condé Nast) that was launched in 1995 by writer Ryan Schreiber as an independent music blog. Schreiber started Pitchfork while working ...

.''Feel No Fade'' review

, January 13, 2002. By the end of 2001 the group had disbanded. Carrick Moore Gerety later went on to join

Everybody Else Everybody Else is an American rock band from Silverlake, California. History Everybody Else was formed by Carrick Moore Gerety and Mikey McCormack after both moved to the Los Angeles area. Both had relocated with bands, hoping to win fame on the ...

, and Fishbeck later formed Holy Shit.

Members

*Carrick Moore Gerety - vocals, guitar *Finn Moore Gerety - vocals, guitar *David Benjamin - drums *

Matt Fishbeck Holy Shit is an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in the early 2000s. Originally a duo consisting of Matt Fishbeck and Ariel Pink Ariel Marcus Rosenberg ( ; born June 24, 1978), professionally known as Ariel Pink, is an American musi ...

- bass

Discography

*''Slow Down, This Is NOT Monte Carlo'' (Chunk Records, 1995, self published version the same year) *''Push Kings'' (Sealed Fate Records, 1997) *''Far Places'' (Sealed Fate, 1998) *''Push Kings'' (Rebbel, 2000) *''

'' (

Le Grand Magistery Le Grand Magistery is an independent record label operating out of Bloomfield Hills, Michigan since 1996. They have been home to a number of artists including A Cuckoo, A Girl Called Eddy, Always, Baxendale, The Blood Group, Cinéma Vérit� ...

, 2001)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Push Kings Rock music groups from Massachusetts Musical groups from Boston