Thymme Jones, a pianist, was looking through the shelves at a Hallmark greetings card store when he spotted a category of greeting cards called “CHEER-ACCIDENT”. Six lineups have passed through Jones’ Cheer-Accident band since then. One of them has also been lost. The group, which performs pop songs with bizarre chord progressions, has produced a number of albums and singles for labels like Complacency and Pravda and Skin Graft. In 2009, Cuneiform was added to their roster. Jones, drummer Mike Greenlees, and Jim Drummond were at a New Years party in 1981 when they decided to form a group. Jones couldn’t shake his Hallmark memories and called the band Cheer Accident. The band recorded their first album, “Life Isn’t Like That” with help from a variety of musicians. Greenlees and Drummond resigned to pursue other full-time pursuits after the album was released in 1986. The next Cheer-Accident lineup consisted of guitarist Jeff Libersher and bassist Chris Block. Block was a friend of Jones’s from Northern Illinois University in the mid-80s. From April to July 1988, they recorded their first nationally distributed album, Sever Roots, Tree Dies, at Solid Sound Studios, Hoffman Estates, IL. The album was released on Complacency’s own label that year. Vasectomy, another cassette LP featuring material from the session, was released by Complacency. After the release, the band returned to the studio with Steve Albini and recorded the EP Dumb Ask. The album impressed Neat Records so much that they offered the band a second record deal in 1990. After pressing the album, Jones showed it to the band. Jones claims that it was compressed too much, was edited in an inappropriate manner, and stuffed with misspellings. The contract was terminated after the band became angry. They released material on Complacency, and they also hired Phil Bonnet (an engineer/producer who is well-known for his work alongside Will Oldham in the U.S.). To be their second guitarist, Maple, Bobby Conn and Eleventh Dream Day were also considered. Cheer-Accident began recording its fourth album, Babies Shouldn’t Smoke, in 1991 in the upstairs studio at the Pete WAY in Chicago. Pravda approached Cheer-Accident shortly after the sessions ended to offer the band the opportunity to add a track on the label’s 20 Dynamic Super Smash Hit Explosions! compilation. The group also added their own version of “Theme From Shaft.” In 1992, Cheer-Accident’s bassist Block was asked by Cheer-Accident to quit the band because he had a dispute with their musical style. They also started working with Dan Forden, the new bassist. The next year was spent recording and developing Cool Clown Ground, a Chicago cable access TV program. Albini was invited back to the studio in July 1994 to assist Cheer-Accident with Not a Food recording, which would be its sixth full-length album. It was released on February 19, 1996. After Forden’s August 1994 marriage, Dylan Posa (ex-Flying Luttenbacher) took over as Forden’s bassist. The band chose to take a straight-ahead, pop-oriented approach to their next full length record, The Why Album. It was recorded between 1992 and 1993 and released in November 1994. Posa’s background in volatile Luttenbachers gave Cheer-Accident a strong feeling during their 1996 and 1997 performances. The band members would also start to contribute to other groups, including U.S. Maple, Dot Dot Dot Dot Yona-Kit Bobby Conn Gastr Del Sol and Smog. Cheer-Accident was featured on the 1997 split 7″ single, His Ass Was His Only Features on the Super 800 label along with the group Star Star. The band released Enduring the American Dream, their seventh full-length album, in April. It contained material that they had been working on for five years. This was Pravda’s second album. It culled tracks from studio sessions in Hoffman Estates and Schaumburg. The group recorded the song “Trading Balloons” in February 1998. It lasted 52 minutes. The band took a break after the session and toured until September 1998. They then reunited to perform with the Flying Luttenbachers and the Bells at Lounge Ax, Chicago. Cheer-Accident was struck by tragedy at the start of 1999. Bonnet died from a brain aneurysm just two weeks after they performed at Seven Dead Arson in DeKalb, IL on January 22nd. Also, Bonnet had only two days to record the basic tracks for Salad Days. The band decided to stop and met up to discuss Bonnet’s wishes. All of the recording and mixing of Salad Days was completed by the middle of May. Jones sought out a guitarist to replace Bonnet. He enlisted the help of Jamie Fillmore, a friend who had previously played on Antje’s album Big Open Sky. After the lineup had been stabilized, Trading Balloons was self-released as an EP. Salad Days was released in October 2000. The band released a number albums throughout the first decade after the millennium. These included Variations on a Man Goddamn Old, which featured recordings from the mid to late ’90s, and Bonnet (Pravda 2002); Gumballhead the Cat, a comic book soundtrack, and wildly dissimilar Introducing Lemon (both Skin Graft 2003); and What Sequel. (Pravda, 2006). For the release of 2009’s Fear Draws misfortune, Cheer-Accident moved to Cuneiform. It was regarded as the strongest album of the decade by many. Allmsuic
