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Tim Kinsellas
Biography
Tim Kinsella burst onto the Chicago scene while still in his teens with his scream punk band Cap'n Jazz. The collective snottiness and rage of this band can be heard on Analphabetapolothology, a compilation of the band's entire recorded history featuring two cherished covers, one of a-ha's "Take on Me" and the second of "90210." The band broke up in 1994 when Kinsella was only 20 years old and had recently earned his degree in English literature. Two bands formed of the split, the pop-punk Promise Ring and Kinsella's art-noise-emo band Joan of Arc. Integral to JoA is Kinsella's cranky, scratched-up voice and tendancy for absurd lyrics, perverse song changes, and punk experiemental sensibilities. A Portable Model Of (1997) and How Memory Works (1998) framed his obscurity in the overwrought intensity of emo, a movement whose nickname was an instant turn-off and which Joan of Arc came to symbolize as part of Jade Tree Records.

The strangely titled Live in Chicago 1999 was produced by Casey Rice and empasizes Kinsella's growing dissatifaction with the trappings of rock & roll. The tape-spliced bits that made Joan of Arc's first two albums interesting rock records now became the predominant melodic device of the music.