BOB (Atlanta)

Creating music together was our God experience... It was the controlled release of energy.

BOB was an Atlanta-based art rock band that spent the 1990s writing, recording, touring, and happily ignoring the boundaries between punk, post-punk, noise, pop, improvisation, and whatever else seemed worth exploring. We weren't chasing trends or record deals. We were chasing the next great song, the next strange idea, and the thrill of making music together.

Along the way we released an EP and five full-length albums, toured the East Coast in a well-worn Ford Econoline, played clubs from Atlanta to Boston—including CBGB in New York—and shared stages with many of the artists who defined the Atlanta and Athens underground music scenes. Every dollar we made went back into recording, gas, stickers, or another excuse to keep going.

This site is an archive of that journey: every official BOB release, rare live recordings, videos, photographs, stories from the road, and memories from a time when discovering a band meant showing up at a club, tuning in to WREK, or taking a chance on an unfamiliar record. Whether you're revisiting BOB or discovering us for the first time, welcome.

Download BOB. The links below take you to Bandcamp where you can name your price, including $0.00 -- an EP and five albums in chronological order await you, going from The Peel Sessions EP in 1992 through Pendulum in 1999. Don't delay. Get yours today!

The Peel Sessions EP

Released in 1992 on burgundy colored vinyl. Ted on bass. Hear the needle fall.

Parli Bri Wah

Recorded at Andy Baker's home studio. The duo of Rich & Eric.

Complex Organism Blues

BOB's most popular album. Released on Amy Potter's Half Baked Records in 1994.

Rounded At The Free End

More cohesive than COB. Clanky, angular, dissonant, abrasive. BOB's finest hour.

Sonic Hedges

Dance music BOB style. Keyboard? Sax? Dancers? Whassup?!

Pendulum

BOB's final album. Included guest stars Sicily Simpson, Diana Obscura and Harold.

VIDEOS

Ed Pawlicki documented loads of obscure Atlanta bands throughout the 90s. Subscribe to his YouTube channel. Ed was a fixture with his camera at many local shows and a longtime friend of BOB's!

Another BOB buddy who documented the scene was Michael Koenig, who now makes his living as a photographer. His popular YouTube channel currently has over 12,000 subscribers. He's got an eye. See here: Vacant Moon.

Live @ WREK 91.1 FM 02-28-1995 (Part 1)

Atlanta's obscure and oft ignored airwaves were penetrated by BOB this Tuesday night beginning at 10pm.

"Animal Speak" turned free-form after the first 4 minutes of structure. We never knew if it would be inspired and transcendental or flat and tedious. Here, you can see the boys give it a go with Keith E Lee.

Live @ WREK 02-28-1995 (Part 2)

Meandering into "Animal Speak" around 8:05 and ending at 21:48 when Eric ejaculates, "I say we're outta here".

In May '95 BOB hit the road up the East Coast in a modified Ford Econoline. Mike Watt once showed off his Econoline to Rich and Eric outside The Masquerade. His was the BOB van on steroids, modified for months of tour-spieling. BOB's mods included metal work by Freddie DeSchon of local band Tweezer that not only looked cool, it served to secure BOB's gear. BOB never suffered equipment theft on the road. But Katt's bass was stolen from inside their rehearsal space.

CBGB's 05-03-1995

Rich's dad filmed this set on a VHS. Was it at this gig that the CB's office manager reneged on paying the $50 guarantee, which resulted in vandalizing a urinal by a certain anonymous band mate who stood greater than 6 feet 6 and smoked a lot of weed?

After 25 years, we reunited for two sets in Atlanta. This was the first night with a lineup of several talented bands organized by WREK 91.1 FM. Jim Moran introduced, Mike Koenig filmed. The next afternoon, 04-08-2018, their friends Hayride from Athens opened the set at The Earl in East LA.