Representative Albums: "The Rooks", "Double Dose of Pop!", "Encore Echoes
Representative Songs: "Reasons", "Drag of the Month", "Wish You Well
Biography
The Rooks gained a cult following among power pop fans in the 1990s with a style drawing its main inspirations from the Beatles, Big Star, and the Replacements. Leader and co-founder Mike Mazzarella (vocals, rhythm guitar) formed the group in New York with drummer Patrick Yourell in 1990 after their previous outfit, a Connecticut band called the Broken Hearts, dissolved. An early incarnation of the Rooks featured Mazzarella's friend and fellow power-popper Richard X. Heyman, as well as Heyman's wife Nancy on bass and guitarist Michael Fernbach. However, this lineup was short-lived, and several demos were recorded with guitarist Kristin Pinell (also of the Gripweeds); Mazzarella had intended to record one album only, but Pinell convinced him to make the unit a full-time operation. Yourell left the group in 1992 and was replaced by Jim Riley, while the bass slot was filled by Annmarie Gatti. This lineup completed the Rooks, which was released in 1993. Yourell rejoined the band in 1994 for an Eastern European tour, and the Rooks signed with Not Lame Recordings that fall, also adding Anne Benkovitz on bass. The band split an LP with Twenty Cent Crush, contributing nine songs to the release titled A Double Dose of Pop! in 1995, and that year also released the more melancholy EP Chimes. The Rooks returned in early 2000 with Wishing Well on Not Lame Recordings. ~ Steve Huey, All Music Guide
The Rook is a time-traveling comic book character whose adventures were chronicled in various issues of Eerie magazine published by Warren Publishing in the 1970s and 80s, before getting his own title. He was created by writer Bill DuBay.
The Rook is actually a scientist named Restin Dane. Dane comes from a family of scientists whose members include the unnamed protagonist of the novel The Time Machine by H.G. Wells. Dane gains his nickname from the fact that his time machine resembles a giant chess rook. Dane takes to wearing Western style clothing and a gunbelt. His first adventure is to travel back in time to the Alamo to save an ancestor.[1] He succeeds in saving his great-great-grandfather Bishop Dane, who accompanies him on many of his adventures, along with two robots he built.
In a later adventure, he meets the time traveler from Wells' book — who is revealed to be his grandfather Adam Dane — and helps him in a war between the Eloi and the Morlocks.[2]
Harris Comics would later "revamp" the character in name only, first in a mini-series Chains of Chaos, then giving him a short-lived series for five issues (#0-4) in 1995.
Bibliography
Eerie #82-85, 87-95, 98-105 (Warren, 1977–1979)
Rook Magazine #1-14 (Warren, 1979–1982)
Eerie #116, 120 (Warren, 1980–1981; stories featuring The Rook's great-grandfather)
Eerie #132, #134, #136 (Warren, 1982)
Warren Presents #2 (reprints the stories from Eerie #82-85)
Notes
^ "The Man Whom Time Forgot!," Eerie #82 (Warren, Jan. 1978).
