Tin Star

Tin Star were born in a London pub. Dave Tomlinson and Tim Bricheno, who had played together in xc-nn in the early 1990s, were talking over what to do next when Tim Gordine overheard them, introduced himself, and the three formed a band in 1996. They signed to V2 and made their debut, The Thrill Kisser, in Gordine's London flat, where there was no room for a drum kit, so machines did the drumming instead.

That cramped setup shaped everything. "Head" is the proof: a moody, big-beat-era stomper where programmed rhythms carry the rock swagger and the hook burrows in and stays. It became a hit on American rock radio, reaching number 10 on Billboard's Modern Rock chart in 1999, and it found a second life on screen, turning up at the children's birthday party in The Sixth Sense, in the film Gossip alongside "Disconnected Child", and on the TV series Roswell.

The second album, Dirtybird, arrived in May 2001, with "Sunshine" taking a brighter, woozier turn, and a song called "Dirty Bird" found its way into an episode of Felicity. The band split in 2005.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.