Fighting Gravity

Fighting Gravity, a ska outfit rooted in Richmond, Virginia, featured Schiavone McGee handling lead vocals, David "Tree" Triano on guitar, Dave Peterson on bass, Eric Lawson on keyboards, Chris Leitch on trombone, Karl von Klein on saxophone, and Mike Boyd behind the drums. The members first assembled in the mid-'80s while enrolled at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and initially performed under the name Boy O Boy. Over the ensuing decade they kept up a punishing road schedule of 150 to 200 shows each year along the Eastern seaboard. After building a loyal audience through steady appearances at clubs and frat houses, the band launched its own imprint, BOB Records, in 1990 and delivered the debut album Boy O Boy. Shishskabob arrived in 1992, joined the same year by Bobsled, a holiday collection sold exclusively at live dates. Two further independent releases—No Stopping, No Standing in 1994 and Forever Equals 1 day in 1996—preceded a move to Mercury, which issued You & Everybody Else in 1998. Hello Cleveland, mixing hit tracks with previously unheard material, appeared the next year. Summer 2001 brought Under the Radar, documenting the group’s first acoustic and unplugged concert on CD and pairing several new recordings with stripped-down versions of familiar songs.