Five 1990s bands who broke up too soon

TILT – 1993-1999, FOUR ALBUMS

Tilt came out of the East Bay with Cynthia Morgan (AKA Cinder Block) powering her way through vocals that recalled an in-tune version of X’s Exene Cervenka. From their first album, 1993’s Play Cell, Tilt cranked out tight, high-energy punk. Morgan’s husband Jeff Bischoff’s guitar matched the vocalist’s power.

For their second release, Til It Kills, they had moved to Fat Wrecks Chords with NOFX frontman Fat Mike, and were producing an even smarter, more radio-friendly combo of punk and garage tunes. They continued that with songs like ”Molly Coddled” from their third album, and the historical feminist anthem “Annie Segall” from their fourth. They could also do clever pieces of surrealist camp like “Dead Bum,” (from the first album) and “Animated Corpse” (from the last) which sounds kind of like the Misfits with Phoebe Buffet taking lead vocals.

With that pedigree, Tilt should have had greater success. But the signs of distress were there a few years earlier when they broke up for a while as Cinder Block and Bischoff pursued other projects. Finally, after about ten years as Tilt, they went their separate ways. Cinder Block formed a new band, Fabulous Disaster, but has occasionally teamed up with the original members of Tilt for one-off reunion shows. As she sang on Tilt’s final album – “Looking inside each crumpled body bag, it all happened in a flash – It was a mighty fine ride.”