The Outnumbered

Jangle-punks the Outnumbered came together in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois during 1982 when singer/guitarist Jon Ginoli and singer/bassist Paul Budin joined forces. The pair had originally crossed paths as record reviewers for the University of Illinois student paper The Daily Illini. With lead guitarist Tim McKeage and drummer Ken Golub added to the lineup, the band delivered its inaugural performance on Halloween of that year. Drawing inspiration from local heroes the Vertebrats, the Outnumbered aimed to blend the Byrds’ melodicism with the Ramones’ raw energy and soon became a fixture on the regional underground circuit. Their first album, Why Are All the Good People Going Crazy?, appeared on the Homestead label in 1985 and yielded the college-radio favorite “I Feel So Sorry Now,” after which the group toured nationally alongside the Replacements, the Violent Femmes, and Soul Asylum. The follow-up Holding the Grenade Too Long surfaced in 1986, yet when the quartet’s following remained confined to cult status they dissolved the following year. A third collection, Work...Buy...Die, surfaced after the breakup on the local Edible imprint in 1988. Ginoli eventually moved to San Francisco and launched the pioneering queercore outfit Pansy Division. In 1998 the Parasol label issued the Outnumbered retrospective Surveying the Damage.