About Eleventh Dream Day

Eleventh Dream Day formed in 1983 when guitarist/singer Rick Rizzo met drummer Janet Beveridge Bean in Louisville, Kentucky. Janet moved to Rick’s hometown, Chicago, and with bassist Shu Shubat formed the band named from Shu’s infatuation with numerology and Janet’s proclivity for falling asleep on the beach. The band got some notoriety from a demo tape and college radio play, but when Rick and Janet wanted to turn up the volume and add a guitar player, Shu departed and made way for Baird Figi and his pal, bass player Douglas McCombs. The group put out an EP in 1987 on LA-based Amoeba Records, followed by the full-length one-night live-in-the-studio guitar sprawl, Prairie School Freakout in 1988, which was further licensed to New Rose in France. After touring the States, the band got noticed by Atlantic Records and signed a seven-record deal in 1989. Beet climbed to the penultimate slot on the college radio charts, Lived to Tell (1991) saw the biggest audience and most critically acclaimed reviews, and El Moodio (1993) banked on the momentum to make a good run of things. By the Time They Got to Lounge Ax chronicles some of the band’s best performances of the early ‘90s at the legendary Chicago club. With multi-instrumentalists Mark Greenberg and James Elkington, and originals Rick, Janet, and Doug, the band is still playing the occasional gig and keeping the door open to future recordings.