Following the 1995 breakup of the quirky art-pop outfit Heavy Vegetable, guitarist, singer, and songwriter Rob Crow joined forces with that group’s lead vocalist Eléa Tenuta to form Thingy, an outfit that soon ranked among the principal creative vehicles for the restless, prolific Crow. Both San Diego natives, Crow and Tenuta recruited bassist Jason Soares, previously a member of Loader, Rice, and Stacatto Reads, and promptly recorded the seven-song EP Staring Contest, issued in 1996 on Headhunter/Cargo, the former label of Heavy Vegetable. Its drummerless, predominantly acoustic sound represented a clear shift from the concise, jagged, progressive structures and punk origins that had defined Heavy Vegetable. The change proved short-lived once Mario Rubalcaba—also of the Black Heart Procession and an alumnus of cult emo favorites Clikatat Ikatowi—joined on drums. With amplified instruments restored, the band delivered its debut full-length, 1997’s Songs About Angels, Evil, and Running Around on Fire, an album that echoed Heavy Vegetable’s style more closely. During this period Crow and Soares also played in the synth minimalists Physics, while Crow issued solo material under his own name and as Snotnose and collaborated with the punk band Fantasy Mission Force and the indie-pop project Optiganally Yours.
Side projects delayed work on Thingy’s follow-up, but the same four-piece lineup eventually completed To the Innocent, released in 2000 on Absolutely Kosher. Rubalcaba then relocated to Chicago and left the group, while Soares stepped away to concentrate on Physics and its posthumous offshoot Aspects of Physics. Brent Asbury took Rubalcaba’s place, and Cameron Jones, a Physics colleague who also drummed for Crow’s concurrent band Pinback, initially filled Soares’s role. In 2001 Jones moved to Portland and started Two Guys with his brother Ryan, prompting Kenseth Thibideau to join Thingy. Although Crow devoted most of the ensuing years to Pinback, he kept developing new Thingy songs, with a third album planned for some unspecified later date.
