Ric Menck

Ric Menck

Best known as the drummer for power-pop cult favorites Velvet Crush, Ric Menck also recorded an endless series of indie label singles under a variety of names including the Springfields and Choo Choo Train. A native of Champaign, Illinois, during the mid-1980s he formed his own label, Picture Book, to release material by himself as well as friends and collaborators including Paul Chastain; perhaps the most notable of Menck's early projects was the Springfields, which between 1988 and 1990 released a pair of superb singles -- "Sunflower" and "Wonder" -- on the legendary UK indie Sarah Records. Those same singles -- as well as material from Choo Choo Train -- were later collected on the LP The Ballad of Ric Menck, issued on the Summershine label in 1996. Jason Ankeny