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The Redundant Steaks began one evening in April 1989, at the Pit Stop snack bar in Burton- Judson Courts, at the University of Chicago. Jon, Doug, Bert, and Ernie were engaged in a friendly conversation about onomastic randomness and band names while savoring a steaming plateful of the Hottest Nachos In All of France. Before long, someone had scrounged up two cans. Everyone contributed nouns to one, adjectives to the other, and then took turns picking out combinations. Velour Domino. Eggplant God. Redundant Steaks. And then, thanks to some beneficent synaptic misfiring, someone thought, hey, we should actually do something with this. And why not? Bert had a four-track cassette recorder, guitars, and a Casio keyboard. Ernie played bass and had a flute. Doug had a Radio Shack microphone. Jon had inflatable dinosaurs. The rest is musical history.
During their reign as the lo-fi art-rock Scando-pop kings of the south-of-the-Midway musical scene at the University, the Redundant Steaks pioneered their unique performance idiom, which was best exemplified by the menacing, guitar-wielding figure of Bobo the Clown, and by the frenzied clash of inflatable titans during live performances of Petrified Vomit. The Steaks' last live performance was a satisfying acoustic gig at the Reynolds Club C-Shop, as part of the 1990 Festival of the Arts.
Since that time, the individual Steaks have garnered various doctorates and professional degrees, and have moved on to work in international investment, non-linear physics, linguistics, and the U.S. Congress. But, although their lives have resolved into the seeming quietude of responsible adulthood, the musical conspiracy that is the Redundant Steaks continues to percolate beneath the surface, bubbling much like the fluorescent goo that topped that fateful plate of nachos....
