George Usher

Art-pop singer and songwriter George Usher entered the world in Cleveland. Local radio stations began spinning his earliest demo recordings while he was still a teenager. Before heading to New York in 1977 he had already stockpiled enough unreleased demos to equal roughly thirty complete albums. Shortly after settling in the city he assembled the power-pop band the Decoys. By the mid-1980s Usher had joined the cowpunk outfit Beat Rodeo and appeared on its 1986 LP Home in the Heart of the Beat. He also operated as a satellite member of the Bongos. In the late 1980s he led his own group House of Usher, which released the LP Neptune, and joined forces with fellow Beat Rodeo veteran Steve Almaas in the Gornack Brothers for the acoustic album Refund. He later became a member of the Schramms. His first solo effort, Miracle School, finally appeared in 1996; Dutch April arrived two years afterward. Usher resurfaced in 2001 fronting the George Usher Group alongside guitarist Doug Larcey, bassist Dennis Ambrose, and drummer John Bellon. The band issued Days of Plenty, mixed by Mitch Easter. Fire Garden, likewise mixed by Mitch Easter, followed in 2003.