Severe Tire Damage was an American

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock-n-roll, and rock 'n' roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from African ...

"garage" band from

Palo Alto, California Palo Alto ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for ) is a charter city in northwestern Santa Clara County, California, United States, in the San Francisco Bay Area, named after a Sequoia sempervirens, coastal redwood tree known as El Palo Alto. Th ...

, United States.

Innovation

Severe Tire Damage was the first band to perform live on the Internet. On June 24, 1993, the band was playing a gig at

Xerox PARC Future Concepts division (formerly Palo Alto Research Center, PARC and Xerox PARC) is a research and development company in Palo Alto, California. It was founded in 1969 by Jacob E. "Jack" Goldman, chief scientist of Xerox Corporation, as a div ...

while elsewhere in the building, scientists were discussing new technology (the

MBone Mbone (short for " multicast backbone") was an experimental backbone and virtual network built on top of the Internet for carrying IP multicast traffic on the Internet. It was developed in the early 1990s and required specialized hardware and ...

) for broadcasting on the Internet using

livestreaming Livestreaming, live-streaming, or live streaming is the streaming of video or audio in real time or near real time. While often referred to simply as ''streaming'', the real-time nature of livestreaming differentiates it from other non- liv ...

(known as

multicast In computer networking, multicast is a type of group communication where data transmission is addressed to a group of destination computers simultaneously. Multicast can be one-to-many or many-to-many distribution. Multicast differs from ph ...

ing at the time). As proof of their technology, the band was broadcast and could be seen live in

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...

and elsewhere. On Friday, November 18, 1994, the

Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for over six decades, they are one of the most popular, influential, and enduring bands of the Album era, rock era. In the early 1960s, the band pione ...

decided to broadcast one of their concert tours on the Internet. Before their broadcast, Severe Tire Damage returned to the Internet, this time becoming the "opening act" for the Stones. Instead of an obscure Australian researcher, the entire world press was watching this time, and Severe Tire Damage was elevated from obscurity to Warholian fame.

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly news magazine based in New York City. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely distributed during the 20th century and has had many notable editors-in-chief. It is currently co-owned by Dev P ...

magazine described Severe Tire Damage as being "a lesser known rock band." The Rolling Stones told

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

: "the surprise opening act by Severe Tire Damage was a good reminder of the democratic nature of the Internet."

Band members

The core band consisted of these people: *Russ Haines: guitar and vocals. Haines worked at DEC Systems Research Center.
Mark Manasse
bass and vocals. Manasse worked at DEC Systems Research Center.
Steven Rubin
vocals. Rubin worked at

Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Computer Co ...

. *

Mark Weiser Mark D. Weiser (July 23, 1952 – April 27, 1999) was an American computer scientist and chief technology officer (CTO) at Xerox PARC. Weiser is widely considered to be the father of ubiquitous computing, a term he coined in 1988. Within S ...

: drums. Weiser was Chief Technologist at

. Additional people came and went during the band's history: *Ken Beckman: drums. Beckman worked at DEC Systems Research Center. *Lance Berc: tech. support. Berc worked at DEC Systems Research Center. * Bruce Donald: guitar. Donald was a professor at

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

. *Hania Gajewska: band manager. Gajewska worked at DEC Systems Research Center. *Brad Horak: Tech. support. Horak worked at DEC Systems Research Center. *Joel Jewitt: Drums. * Anna Karlin: guitar and vocals. Karlin worked at DEC Systems Research Center and is now a professor at the University of Washington. *Berry Kercheval: Bass, tech. support. Kercheval worked at

. *

Dexter Kozen Dexter Campbell Kozen (born December 20, 1951) is an American theoretical computer scientist. He is Professor Emeritus and Joseph Newton Pew, Jr. Professor in Engineering at Cornell University. Career Kozen received his BA in mathematics from ...

: guitar, composer. Kozen was a professor at

. *Amy Lansky: vocals. Lansky worked at NASA Ames. *Ethan Robertson: sax and keyboards. *Daniel Scharstein: keyboards and drums. Scharstein was a student at

Music

Besides performing rock and roll standards, the band wrote a number of original songs that run the range from rock to punk. These songs appears on their two albums: "Who Cares" (a full CD album) and "Trial Starter Kit" (a mini-CD with only 4 songs). Both albums are out of print but are available on their collection CD "The Best We Can Do."

Downfall

On April 27, 1999, Weiser died,In Memoriam: Mark Weiser
and the band never fully recovered. For a brief time afterward Silicon Valley drummer Joel Jewitt practiced with the band and played some local gigs.

References

External links

Official band websiteComputer Chronicles episode "Internet" (1995) with Severe Tire Damage performing live at four minutes into the program
{{DEFAULTSORT:Severe Tire Damage (Band) Garage rock groups from California American garage punk groups