The Dirt Bike Annie story...

The band formed during the school year of 1997 at NYU with a mission statement to bring good-time party-fun back to rock and roll. Dirt Bike Annie had their work cut out for them trying to win over apathetic, jaded New York City audiences, but formed their fan base through fist pumping, energetic music and an engaging live show that the band refers to as their “visual hook”.

Guitarist/singer Adam Rabuck and Jeanie Lee made their first recording in high school, and had no idea that after they got their first temp job out of college, they would be making music together again. College sophomore (and best friend/roommate to Adam and Jeanie), Daniel Paquin, picked up the reins on bass, and gave up his Spring and Winter breaks for touring with the band. They secured a permanent drummer by recruiting their #1 fan, Michael Yannich, one week before a show with Tilt, but since he already knew every song from going to all of the shows, the transition was smooth and seamless.

Drawing on their own lives for influences, Dirt Bike Annie created a soundtrack for their summers, dreams, downfalls, and futures, with distorted guitars, three part harmonies, and a pumping back-beat that keeps the audience dancing.

A Brief band history...

The summer before I started my second year at NYU, I learned about 50 cover songs on my Fender Squire guitar. Some of the songs were alterna-hits circa 1993 by bands like the Lemonheads and Too Much Joy. There were some other songs that were not as cool, but I thought they would make good covers, like Pictures of Matchstick Men and Hetero-Sexual Man. My idea was to start this kick ass cover band and play a whole lot of NYU parties and meet a lot of girls and have a lot of fun and be popular.

That fall, I hooked up with a guy named Chris Moses (pictured in the flyer). We threw together a 12 song set, which was mostly us rearranging the same three chords twelve different ways. We had a lot of spunk, and always tried our hardest to entertain. This usually involved things going up our nose or food being thrown at the audience. Chris's friend from Rhode Island, Tim McCarthy, played drums with us. We rocked out (to the best of our rocking our ability at that particular time) at NYU sponsored shows and local clubs that would book every crappy Pearl Jam rip-off and Long Island hardcore band and put 'em right along side Dirt Bike Annie (a Green Day rip off band). Thanks to all of the NYU students who would go to these crappy shows and support us, we stayed together a lot longer than we should have.

In the Spring of 1995, there was yelling and screaming and a drummer's fist through some broken glass and the end of Dirt Bike Annie. There were a few futile attempts to keep the torch lit, but neither the Moses party, nor the Rabuck seemed motivated.

About six months later, I found myself at a dorm party thrown by a girl named Kat (of MTV's The Real World fame), and that's where I ran into a friend of mine named Dan Paquin. Dan was currently in a band called The Sellabits (who later went on to become The Chefs of the Future). I had seen The Sellabits play at a NYU coffee house and I remember liking them a lot, mainly because Dan knocked over the entire drum kit by the end of their 15 minute set.

Ever since I had met Dan (Fall 1994), he had always liked to "jam." Personally, I hate "jamming" It feels like a waste of time to me. Regardless, at this party, he convinces me to go back downstairs to my room to "jam." I had taken a few hits of acid at the party, so I was pretty much down for whatever. Dan played the drums and my roommate, Mike, played bass. We started off with Sinead O'Connor quiet but eventually blow-out-my-speakers ear popping riffs accompanied with some inner cave man primal screaming. At the time, it sounded pretty cool. Dan must have enjoyed the experience because quicker than you can say, That ain't no lie," Dirt Bike Annie was playing its first show in forever with Dan on the bass and my other roommate, Dennis, on the drums. Shortly thereafter, we cranked out our first 7" EP on my eight track reel-to-reel. It all happened in one room, my friends, one room.

Maybe a year went by, maybe it was six months, but either way, we had dented the New York Pop Punk scene and had hooked up with Egghead, Furious George and The Sea Monkeys. Dennis left the band to study astrophysics out on Long Island. In the down time, I tooled around with some old recordings I had done with Dennis at Jeanie Lee's apartment, located at 88 Christopher Street. Jeanie is a friend of mine from high school who attended NYU with me. At the time, her band, Severna Park, had moved off to Seattle after our senior year of college, so she was constantly bugging me to join up with Dirt Bike Annie, and like a dumb ass, I was always like,"No, no, no". Little did I know, that Jeanie would be the best thing to ever happen to DBA. Finally, one summer afternoon in 1997, I was like, "Look, you can sing back-up vocals on these recordings" and when Dan and I heard how cool it sounded, we looked at each other, and, well, let's just say, Jeanie has been in the band ever since.

Thanks to a desperate flyer we put up in Kim's Video Store, we hooked up with an excellent drummer named Heth Weinstein, whom I absent mindedly renamed "Dirt Bike Deano." Mental note: don't change people's names with out consulting them first. At this point, the Dirt Bike Annie lineup was stable, and remained this way for quite a while. We recorded another EP (this time for Mutant Pop) and even went on a week long Tour. In the year to come, we recorded a third EP (Break Up Records) and then our first full-length compact disc (Mutant Pop). In the summer of 1999, we had a kick ass two-week tour and got to play with lots of awesome bands and made lots of great friends. Unfortunately, later that summer, Dirt Bike Annie said "Good-bye" to Heth because they were not connecting with him on a personal level

During the last show of the summer 1999 Tour, in Burlington, New Jersey, a familiar pop punker came out to the show. His name was Mike Yannich. Mike's a nineteen-year-old with his own record label and a lot of spunk. Loyal till the last drop, Mike would always be in the front when DBA played. I noticed that he would sing along to every word (even the back up vocals), and every beat as was evident in his perfectly in synch hand pumping. Before the Burlington show, I was buying beer for Mike's friend (because he forgot his ID) and he told me that Mike was actually a really good drummer and would be really into playing for Dirt Bike Annie. After a few months of deliberation, DBA opted for the young upstart, and the line up's more solid than a shit on acid.

After one week of rehearsals, we played our first show with Darlington, The Huntingtons, and The Heartdrops, and it was, to be frank, our best show ever. Mike is the culmination of everything we needed in order to be and remain in the pocket: he doesn't pussyfoot around when he comes to hittin' the skins, he knows and loves the underground pop punk scene, and he's got enough vim and vinegar to tour and play sets repeatedly, just keep the Pepsi coming.

Dirt Bike Annie looks forward to a tour at the end of this summer, a new full length CD, two EP's, a couple comps, a few split 7 inches and a new used set of wheels from my parents. In between gigs and releases, DBA throws intimate get-togethers at mission control: the Souse House in Jersey City, New Jersey. There's been three parties thrown so far featuring such pop punk favorites as The Shy Guys, Bitch and the Moans, Attention Deficit, The Grand Prixx, Wormbath, Grady, The Break Ups, The Lee Majors, The Lynnwoods, International Waters, The Ergs, The Proteens, and The Bravo Project. Look to early May, for Mr. Paquin's Wink-wink nudge-nudge surprise party.

To conclude, Dirt Bike Annie has taken on many incarnations, seen many different places, met many different people and fired many drummers. Regardless of where our future takes us our present tense is getting better by the minute thanks to die-hard fans and loyal friends. What we've accomplished so far is just the prologue to big ass book, and it only gets us psyched up to see more places, meet more people and make more rock. Keep coming to shows and we'll keep hitting 'em.