The Sights

The Sights' lead guitarist/vocalist Eddie Baranek and bassist Mark Leahey (who both share songwriting and vocal duties) have been playing music together since the age of 13, forming this band at the beginning of their senior year of high school. They played their first shows together in early 1998. Baranek and Leahey were still under the age of 18 at the time, and were not old enough to remember first-hand the bands that seem to have had the biggest influence on them, including edgy late-'70s punk/new wave acts like the Buzzcocks or early Jam, and certainly did not remember those bands' influences: British mods like the early Who or the Creation. In late 1999, drummer Eugene Strobe came aboard, replacing a series of drummers, adding a raucously wild Keith Moon-like quality to their live performances. The youthful trio recorded songs for a debut album, Are You Green?, at Jim Diamond's Ghetto Recorders that same year. The album was issued in 2000 by Spectator Records, but the small Detroit-based indie folded not too long afterwards. Fall of Rome Records in Los Angeles re-issued Are You Green? in 2001, and the Sights' 2002 follow-up Got What We Want. Three years later, the band released a self-titled album on New Line/Scratchie. ~ Bryan Thomas, All Music Guide