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Acoustic punk band This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb formed in Pensacola, FL, in the mid-'90s, fusing influences from the 1960s folk protest movement (most notably the unflinching political themes of artists like Phil Ochs and Joan Baez) and the D.I.Y. aesthetic of punk. The core of the group is singer, guitarist, and primary songwriter Rymodee and bassist Terry Johnson. A variety of drummers, including folk-punk stalwart David Dondero and Aaron Elliott, publisher of the noted punk zine Cometbus, have completed the trio both on-stage and in the studio, though Ted Helmick has been the most consistent presence on the drum throne. This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb debuted with a self-titled 7" EP in 1997, followed by the 10" Of Chivalry and Romance in a Dumpster in 1999. A single, "Black Panther Party," and the full-length Dance Party with This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb followed in 2001. Released in 2002, Front Seat Solidarity was followed by a pair of split EPs with the Carrie Nations and the Devil Is Electric, with the band's third album, Three Way Tie for a Fifth, coming out in 2004. Following a brief period of band inactivity, during which Rymodee maintained his concurrent solo acoustic career, This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb released their fourth full-length effort, Convertible, in 2008. In 2006, This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb inadvertently made national news when a campus police officer at Ohio University in Athens, OH, alerted the city bomb disposal unit after seeing a This Bike Is a Pipe Bomb sticker on a bicycle chained to a campus bike rack. The unnamed graduate student whose bicycle was blown up in a controlled explosion was later awarded damages and an official apology.
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