Though primarily known as the drummer for Pittsburgh cult post/math-rock icons Don Caballero, Damon Che was also the frontman and chief songwriter for experimental side project the Speaking Canaries, which he formed in the mid-1990s. Mixing the familiar, down-tempo abstractness of his native genre with the fist-pumping Van Halen riffs of his youth, Che and his bandmates (Karl Hendricks and Noah Leger) released 1995’s SONGS FOR THE TERRESTRIALLY CHALLENGED. Despite attention from the media, Canaries continued to remain somewhat obscure, recording two more LPs in the ensuing years, but clearly influencing their hometown’s crops of up-and-coming bands, such as Centipede Eest.