Pitchblende

In March 1991 the art punk quartet Pitchblende surfaced inside Washington, D.C.’s bustling independent-music community, the same environment that sustained the Dischord/TeenBeat/Simple Machines network. Singers and guitarists Justin Chearno, formerly of Unrest and the Dustdevils, and Treiops Treyfid first crossed paths at a local bookstore and initially tracked material as a duo accompanied only by a drum machine. An advertisement placed in the Washington City Paper brought bassist Scott DeSimon and drummer Patrick Gough into the fold, after which the musicians made their first stage appearance under the name Comet Anger. That summer the newly formed quartet committed ten songs to tape as a demo; early in 1992 the Landspeed label issued their debut single, “Sum,” and later the same year Jade Tree released the EP Weed Slam. Cargo followed with the full-length Kill Atom Smasher in spring 1993, prompting Pitchblende to spend the ensuing months on nonstop U.S. tours before delivering the second album, Au Jus, in 1994. At the start of the next winter Chearno moved to New York City; once DeSimon joined him several months later, the band entered a period of inactivity, although the four members still found occasional time to work on their third LP, GYGAX!, so named in honor of the creator of the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons. Pitchblende formally disbanded after the album appeared. Chearno and DeSimon eventually reconvened in Turing Machine.