Tilt - Biography
Tilt was a ‘90s pop punk band from Berkeley, California. Singer Cinder Block and guitarist Jeffery Bischoff started an East Bay merchandising company, also called Cinder Block, in 1989, printing T-shirts they sold to tourists and students on Berkeley’s Telegraph Avenue. Cinder Block Inc. soon started making T-shirts for punk bands that played at the 924 Gilman Street venue, and Block and Bischoff were married. In 1992, the couple formed Tilt with bassist Pete Rypins—formerly of Crimpshrine, one of the first bands on Lookout! Records—and drummer Vince Camacho. Lookout! released the band’s first records, the 7-inch EP Tilt (1992 Lookout!) and the album Play Cell (1993 Lookout!), after which Rypins left to play guitar in the Tantrums. Bassist Gabe Meline joined around the time Fat Wreck Chords, the label operated by Fat Mike of NOFX, signed the band. Meline left after one album,‘Til It Kills (1995 Fat Wreck Chords).
Tilt broke up briefly around 1996 but soon reunited with ex-Screw 32 bassist Jimi Cheetah. The band recorded two more albums, Collect ‘Em All (1998 Fat Wreck Chords) and Viewers Like You (1999 Fat Wreck Chords), before breaking up for good in 2001. Their last release was the collection Been Where? Did What? (2001 Fat Wreck Chords). Cinder Block sang for Fabulous Disaster from 2003 until 2004, when she formed her new band Retching Red with bassist Mike “Cyco Loco” Avilez, the singer of Oppressed Logic. She and Avilez opened Designs in Ink, a store and art gallery in Oakland’s Montclair neighborhood, in 2007. Though Cinder Block and Jeffery Bischoff are no longer married, their T-shirt company has continued to grow.
