1980s: 28th Day and World of Pooh While attending
Chico State University in 1983, Manning played bass with guitarist/singer Cole Marquis and drummer Michael Cloward in the jangle-pop band 28th Day. They released a self-titled EP on the
Enigma label. This was the only recording from the band before it split up in 1986, when Manning moved to San Francisco, but two expanded editions with outtakes and live recordings were re-released in 1992 and 2003. 28th Day's EP was produced by
Russ Tolman, guitarist-songwriter of
True West. In 1998, Tolman and musician/writer
Pat Thomas formed their independent label
Innerstate which would go on to release more Manning recordings, including the
28th Day – The Complete Recordings 2003 reissue. A
Pitchfork review of this 20-song collection praised the timelessness of the 80s band, saying "...this stuff still sounds as beautiful and rich and satisfying as it ever did. Anthems of heartbreak, odes to inarticulatable sadness, paeans to the dead!
Sandy Denny could have sung most of these tunes without breaking a Brit-folk sweat." In 1986 Manning joined singer-songwriter and bassist Brandan F. Kearney's band World of Pooh. They released their only album
The Land of Thirst on Kearney's Nuf Said label in 1989 (now out of print). Manning's own songs included "Scissors" and "Somewhere Soon;" both would be rerecorded for her upcoming solo album. She also shared some songwriting credits with Kearney. Manning made her first solo album,
Lately I Keep Scissors, recorded quickly in 1986 as an 8-track demo, which would eventually be released on Thomas' San Francisco label, Heyday in 1988. Terri Manning recorded some backing vocals and local musician friends pitched in, including drummer/singer Melanie Clarin, who would become a longtime collaborator on future projects. The songs ranged from personal laments to jagged folk-rock and pop, including "Every Pretty Girl," "Scissors," (with a percussive scissors track) and "Mark E. Smith & Brix," which referred to
The Fall lead singer-songwriter and his former wife.
Trouser Press praised Manning's song-craft, saying her solo work "reveal[s] a songwriter of tremendous lyrical power and breadth of sonic vision."
1990s: SF Seals and solo career Rolling Stone took notice of Manning's musical output, calling her one of 1992's most important new artists. The World of Pooh lineup eventually morphed into a new band called The SF Seals with Manning as chief songwriter and singer. Band members included Melanie Clarin, cellist Kim Osterwalder, bassist Margaret Murray, and guitarist Lincoln Allen. Manning, a longtime baseball fan, named the band after
the city's former Pacific Coast minor-league team. SF Seals released the EP
Baseball Trilogy in 1993, most likely the first baseball-themed release in indie rock (not counting Manning's own 1991 mini-album
One Perfect Green Blanket, whose songs are not baseball-themed but whose cover art is of a baseball field; its title refers to a baseball field). The three songs included a cover of Les Brown's "Joltin' Joe DiMaggio," the Mad V. Dog-penned "Ballad of Denny McLain," and Manning's "Dock Ellis," about
Ellis' infamous 1970 no-hitter pitched while tripping on acid. The band released their first album,
Nowhere, on the Matador Records label in 1994 with guitarist Brently Pusser joining in the recording sessions. Their second album,
Truth Walks in Sleepy Shadows, came out a year later. It made ''
Spin Magazine's'' top ten list for 1995 With the encouragement of fellow musician
Alastair Galbraith, Manning traveled to
New Zealand in 1997, touring with John Convertino and Joey Burns of
Giant Sand and
Calexico and collaborating with her favorite musicians from the underground scene there. Recording sessions commenced with musicians including
David Kilgour of
The Clean,
Chris Knox of
Tall Dwarfs, Graeme Downes of
The Verlaines, Robert Scott of
The Bats, and David Mitchell and Denise Roughan of
The 3Ds. The resulting album,
In New Zealand, was released in 1999. Manning's solo album
1212 was released on
Matador in 1997 with Burns and Convertino backing her. The album's 19-minute song cycle, "The Arsonist's Story" was conceived as a rock opera, told from the points of view of a troubled teenager and her equally troubled mother. Aside from the rock-opera aspect, the album paid tribute to Manning's fondness for
Krautrock. "Stammtisch" lays lyrics in English and German over a jam based on a riff by German band
Neu!, and a cover of
Amon Düül's "Marcus Leid" was included as well. With her growing catalog,
Option Magazine said she had "helped pioneer the type of lo-fi, post-modern folkstress approach later championed by [songwriters like] Juliana Hatfield and Liz Phair." But despite critical acclaim, Manning was dropped from Matador due to low album sales.
2000–present: The Go-Luckys! and The Sleaze Tax Manning lived in Stuttgart, Germany, where she had a strong fan base, from 1998 to 2001. During that time, she recorded and toured with her band The Go-Luckys!, its rhythm section made up of twin brothers, Flavio and Fabrizio Steinbach. While working on her degree in biology at California State University, Chico in 2008, Manning fronted a new rock band, The Sleaze Tax (a reference to creatures from the 1970s TV show
Land of the Lost), with drummer Mike Erpino and bassist Jason Wooten. The band recorded some songs and played live on the west coast but no album was forthcoming. She also formed two short-lived bands, Champion, with guitarist Loki Miller and drummer Charles Mohnike, and Fiberglass Jacket, with drummer Justin "Dusty" Evans and guitarist Tom Little. She composed music for the Chico theater group The Blue Room, for a play based on
Molière's
The Misanthrope, with lyrics by playwright Lauren Goldman Marshall. Manning also hosted a weekly radio program called Radio Detour on listener-supported station
KZFR.
Cover songs In addition to being a highly regarded songwriter, Manning is known as an interpreter of other writers' songs. Artists she's covered include
The Bats ("Smoking Her Wings"),
Badfinger ("
Baby Blue"),
Jackson Browne ("
These Days"),
The Verlaines ("Joed Out"),
Portastatic ("Through with People"),
Tom Lehrer ("Rickety Tickety Tin"), and
Les Paul and Mary Ford ("Blow the Smoke Away"). Manning sings "San Diego Zoo", the opening track on the 1995 album ''
Wasps' Nests'' by
Stephin Merritt's side project
The 6ths. Her cover of
Marianne Faithfull's "The Shalala Song" can be heard in
Jon Moritsugu's 1994 film
Mod Fuck Explosion. Of her penchant for covering such a wide range of songs, she stated: "I listen to a lot of different types of music. I think that's why there's such a diverse bunch of covers...If I fall in love with a song, I'll make a tape of that one song and hear it 50 times in a row without having to rewind. Usually, all the covers I've done are songs that I've obsessed on." ==Personal life==