Jellyfish (band)

Jellyfish
Album cover for Bellybutton
Background information
Origin	San Francisco, California, United States
Genres	Indie rock, power pop
Years active	1989–1994
Labels	Charisma
Associated acts	Beatnik Beatch, Imperial Drag, the Grays, the Moog Cookbook, Uma Jets, TV Eyes, Beck, Puffy AmiYumi
Past members	Andy Sturmer Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. Jason Falkner Eric Dover Tim Smith Chris Manning Niko Wenner

Jellyfish was a power pop band from San Francisco. It formed after Beatnik Beatch broke up in 1989. The core members were drummer/singer/songwriter Andy Sturmer and keyboardist/multi-instrumentalist/singer/songwriter Roger Joseph Manning, Jr. Although their career was short, the band has become highly influential in the power pop genre.

Jason Falkner had been a member of the acclaimed Paisley Underground band the Three O'Clock, writing and performing on the band's major-label debut, Vermillion. Following the break-up of the Three O'Clock, Falkner placed a newspaper classified ad looking for a new project based in Los Angeles. This caught the attention of keyboard player Roger Manning, who was attending University of Southern California at the time and was looking for musical collaborators. Manning's interest was sparked by the fact that Falkner was the only musician in the entire classified section to mention the band XTC. Although both Manning and Falkner found the meeting interesting, it amounted to little and they did not choose to work together at that time.

In 1988, Manning moved back to the Bay Area to join a San Francisco-area band called Beatnik Beatch, replacing their previous keyboard player Se Padilla. Another member of the band was singing drummer Andy Sturmer. Manning and Sturmer became a songwriting team and began writing material for the band's upcoming second album. The songs were then rejected by Beatnik Beatch's leader (bassist and singer Chris Ketner) who preferred the band to concentrate on his own material. Consequently Sturmer and Manning quit Beatnik Beatch together to pursue their own project.