Poster Children (1987-) | University of Illinois Archives

Name: Poster Children (1987-)

Historical Note: The band Poster Children was formed in 1987 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign when Rick Valentin (guitar) and Rose Marshack (bass) met Shannon Drew (drums). Over the next seventeen years the band, under the leadership of Valentin and Marshack, produced eleven different studio recordings of alternative rock, indie rock, punk rock, and post-hardcore rock music including Toreador Squat (1988), Flower Plower (1989), Daisychain Reaction (1991), Tool of the Man (1993), Junior Citizen (1995), RTFM (1997), New World Record (1999), DDD (2000), and No More Songs About Sleep and Fire (2004). The band's "do it yourself" work ethic was reflected in its members' wish to drive their own tour bus, create their own artwork and t-shirt designs, and operate their own record label, 12 Inch Records (also given on some releases as Twelve Inch Records). The band also pioneered the development of several new forms of electronic performance art including enhanced CDs, webcasts, and social-networking blogs, before these technologies were adopted by commericial sound recording companies. In addition, Poster Children also toured internationally in Europe in 1996 to the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy, and Denmark. Beginning in the late 1990s Rick and Jim Valentin, Rose Marshack, and Howie Kantoff joined forces to form the band, Salaryman, and released the first of three studio recordings, Salaryman, in 1997, Karoshi (1999), and The Electric Forest (2006). The CD Future Form of Intelligence (2008) was incorrectly attributed to Salaryman by the website allmusic.com .