Roger Joseph Manning Jr.

Vocalist, songwriter, and keyboard player Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. became a cult hero as a member of the bands Jellyfish and Imperial Drag, and later moved on to a celebrated solo career and an impressive resumé as a sideman. Manning's music is lovingly steeped in sounds of the past, particularly psychedelic pop of the 1960s and power pop and glam rock of the '70s, and he's able to build songs from those ingredients that sound fresh and exciting, rather than simply mimicking the artists he loves. His albums with Jellyfish (1990's Bellybutton and 1993's Spilt Milk) and Imperial Drag (1996's Imperial Drag) won him a passionate fan base for their canny blend of classic sounds and modern outlooks, and he scored a minor hit with 1996's The Moog Cookbook, playing alt-rock hits on vintage synthesizers. He continued to conjure past-is-present tunes on solo efforts like 2006's The Land of Pure Imagination and 2023's Radio Daze & Glamping (the latter combined newly recorded songs with tracks from the independently released 2020 EP Glamping). Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. was born in Los Angeles on May 27, 1966. When he was three years old, he heard "Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine In" by the 5th Dimension and "Spinning Wheel" by Blood, Sweat & Tears on the radio while riding in his parents' car, beginning his life-long fascination with music. He began taking piano lessons a few years later, and he made his first public performance at a student recital, where he played Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer," which had been recently popularized in the hit movie The Sting. Once he had money to spend, he started his record collection by buying copies of Kiss' Alive! and the Beach Boys' Endless Summer, and by the time he was in high school, he'd mastered the art of crate-digging at discount record shops. While attending high school in Pleasanton, California, he met fellow music obsessive Andy Sturmer, who played the drums and had a talent for songwriting. After attending the University of Southern California, where he studied musical composition, Manning relocated to San Francisco, where Sturmer was playing in a band called Beatnik Beatch. When Beatnik Beatch's keyboard player left the group, Manning signed on with the group, and appeared on their self-titled 1988 album for Atlantic Records. (In the credits, he used the name Roger Manning.) The album's sales were modest, and in 1989, Manning and Sturmer left to form their own group. Teaming with fellow retro-pop fan Jason Falkner, Manning and Sturmer formed Jellyfish, who landed a deal with Charisma Records for their first album, 1990's Bellybutton. The album won rave reviews and the video for "Baby's Coming Back" got air time on MTV, but the album's mix of psychedelia, retro-pop, and arena rock proved hard to market, and 1993's Spilt Milk (recorded after Falkner left the group) once again got great press but found few paying customers. After personal differences came to a head while Manning and Sturmer were trying to write a third Jellyfish album, the group broke up. Shortly after Jellyfish split, Manning teamed with guitarist Eric Dover (who had played with Jellyfish on tour), bassist Joseph Karnes, and drummer Eric Skodis to form Imperial Drag, whose style was similar to Jellyfish but with a harder, glam-style attack. They were signed to the Sony-distributed label The Work Group, and their self-titled debut album was released in 1996. While the single "Boy or a Girl" rose to number 30 on the Modern Rock Singles chart, the album didn't fare as well, and critical support was faint. The group split up in 1997. In the latter days of Imperial Drag, Manning and Brian Kehew had started a studio project, the Moog Cookbook, in which they covered grunge and alternative rock hits using 1970s electronic keyboards. Their debut album, 1996's The Moog Cookbook, won a following for its witty, expertly executed arrangements and authentic 1970s vibe, and a follow-up, Ye Olde Space Band, devoted to classic rock chestnuts, came out in 1997. In the wake of Imperial Drag's breakup, Manning stepped away from fronting bands and put his focus on working as a sideman and producer. He and Sturmer had already backed Ringo Starr on the sessions for 1992's Time Takes Time, and Manning was soon doing studio work with Kara's Flowers, Air, Luscious Jackson, and blink-182. After playing on Beck's 1998 album Mutations, Manning became a long-running member of his road band. In 2000, Brian Reitzell collaborated with Manning on an electronic pop album, Logan's Sanctuary, which purported to be the soundtrack album for a nonexistent sequel to the 1976 sci-fi film Logan's Run. Manning's first proper solo album, 2005's Solid State Warrior, was credited to Roger Joseph Manning, Jr., in part to avoid confusion with the anti-folk artist Roger Manning. It was initially available exclusively through Weedshare, a short-lived digital music distribution service; it was later made more widely available in a physical edition under the title The Land of Pure Imagination. Manning collaborated with Brian Reitzell and one-time Jellyfish bandmate Jason Falkner on a studio project, TV Eyes, an homage to 1980s synth pop and post-punk. Another synth pop-influenced project, Malibu, made its debut in 2007 with Robo-Sapiens. Manning continued to be an in-demand studio player and touring sideman, plying his trade with artists ranging from Morrissey, Sugar Ray, and Angels & Airwaves to Neil Diamond, Glen Campbell, and Cheap Trick. A second proper solo effort, Catnip Dynamite, was released in Japan in 2008, and was issued in North America in 2009. In 2016, Manning was one of several noted pop musicians (including Susanna Hoffs, Aimee Mann, Jon Brion, and Jason Falkner) who backed up the legendary pop savant Emitt Rhodes on 2016's Rainbow Ends, his first album in over 40 years. 2018 brought a seven-song EP from Manning, Glamping, and in 2020, Manning introduced a new group, the Lickerish Quartet, which included former Jellyfish contributors Eric Dover and Tim Smith. (The name was taken from a classic 1970 erotic film from filmmaker Radley Metzger.) Embracing many of the same influences and ideas as Jellyfish, the Lickerish Quartet recorded 12 songs that were released on three four-song EPs between 2020 and 2022; they were collected into an album, Fables from Fearless Heights, that was issued in Japan by Sony in 2022. That November, the trio posted a message on their social media accounts revealing the Lickerish Quartet had amicably split. In 2023, Omnivore Recordings issued Radio Daze & Glamping, which combined the four studio tracks from 2018's Glamping EP with four new songs; the digital and CD editions added an additional six live tracks and two instrumental mixes.
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