Optimus Prime, his visage, name, and information are all property of Hasbro.  Unless I'm wrong, if I'm wrong then....crap. Um....here's some links! GRIM'S VILE TALES Tentacle Studios

OH! And the King-of-All-Tears is the property and brainchild of Grant Morrison....poor bastard, poor poor bastard, don't get me wrong, he's financially stable, but King-of-All-Tears residing in one's brain....day-ay-um.

Biographies 

Vinyl Era Is:

Daniel Murphy- Vocals and Bimbe 

Mike Nagoda- Keyboards, Lap Steel Guitar

Kyle Noon- Bass Guitar, and site admin/legal owner (lets face it folks, the evil of this page is my fault)

Anthony Niznik- Drums and Percussion

Optimus Prime- Supreme Autobot Commander

The King-Of-All-Tears - Temporary manager until we can find one that doesn't bend time and space.

 Band History

 The origins of Vinyl Era started back in the day in February 2004 when Mike Nagoda had to do a project for one of his University courses, so he decided to do a concept album. The album, entitled The Horrible Truth, was a concept album attacking many Ameircan pro-conservative ideologies and the recent actions of the Bush Administration. He asked his friend Anthony Niznik to play bass and the two formed the band Minus One (an in joke referring to the fact that they had no drummer and instead used the drum machine on Mike's keyboard). They continued writing songs after the album, played one unprepared and horrible gig and decided it was time to get more members.

After various line up changes the band as of June 2004 was Mike on the keys, Anthony on drums and Kyle Noon, a friend of Mike and Anthony's, on bass. They realized they needed a proper vocalist (Mike's vocals were not powerful enough to do lead, nor did they have the required range)that had a strong voice and a good range. On one of Mike's indie film shoots, Mike discovered that his boom microphone operator, Daniel Murphy, could sing rather well. Daniel joined the band in August and 'home base' was moved from Anthony's to Daniel's basement which included a drum set and recording facilities.

The last thing the band needed was a good lead guitarist. Enter Michael McCallum, friend of Daniel and 13 year old virtuoso guitarist, dubbed Baby Hendrix by the band. Michael had an amazing technicality and sound in his playing. Fiery, emotiomnal, blazing fret work. He became the fifth and final member of the band in August 2004. The band then began practicing and writing new songs, their sound ranging from hard rock to blues, to more mellow acoustic numbers. They are currently working on a demo cd and trying to get gigs to they can get 'out there' and get noticed. They have no intention, as of this moment, of stopping anytime soon.

Edit : McCallum is no longer with us , we wish him thwe best of luck with future endevors and we push on without him to rock your fucking asses.

 Daniel Murphy Bio

 Name: Daniel Murphy

Role: Vocalist and Bimbe player
Age: 19
Influences: Define "influences"
Favorite Bands: Metallica, H.I.M. Al Stewart, Wierd Al, Dream Theater, Therion and many others are pretty cool, (if there was a band made up of Walken, Curry, Mr. T, Depp, Sutherland, and Landau with Unicron as backup vocalist that'd be really cool as well.)

Bio:

"Daniel is Vinyl Era's vocalist, his vocals ranging from hard rock screams to husky blues vocals. He's a cynical yet nice fellow, just so long as you don't piss him off. He is the common source of humor in the band with his rants about Gnosticism, Cthulhu and the Dark Tower series by Stephen King. He enjoys reading, writing and cheese."

That's how Nagoda describes me. Well, it is accurate I suppose, if somewhat bland. Permit me to elaborate, because... well, you're on the other end of the monitor and I am the one that is currently updating, so permit or not I'm doing it anyways. MUAHAHAH! In any case, greetings. Nagoda is very misleading here, as he so often unintentionally is, for I rant about so much more then the above. Mostly random crap that no one in their right minds would give a damn about. Sometimes that happens to include gnostic views and Dark Tower related stuff. Excuse me (HAIL ABRAXAS!) Anyhoo, yeah. Now on to the important stuff. I am the singer for this little band, and as such I have noticed that the last names of everyone here start with either N or M. You might be asking yourself what in God's 72 holy names those two things have to do with each other. The answer to that is very simple, and is also the same as the answer to this question: what is the difference between a profound, inspired mystical spiritual truth and a pile or random claptrap made up on the spot? Five pounds of flax. In short, for those of you are confused and befuddled, there is no correlation. None. At all. In any way. Face pants. Deus. Ex Machina. Red beats. In any case, I sing what I can, when I can, and husky blues don't really enter into it, but then again, Nagoda often uses words that have entirely different meanings then what he thinks they mean (like "symphony" dear gods...) and it's really more like raspy or hoarse, or even doomy. I am not the best of singers. Truth be told I do not know why I was picked. Well, actually, I do. It's a funny story really, except by funny I mean not funny, and by story I mean a recounting of events that specifically apply to this particular case. And by a recounting of events that specifically apply to this particular case, I mean a story. Well, you see, my friend Abi needed someone to operate the boom-mike for a movie project she was doing, and asked me. It was on the shoot that I met Nagoda, and he liked the mike work. I've got steady hands it turns out. Anyway, he asked me to help him film a movie about vampires (that Kyle and Anthony were both in, though they will most likely deny it in court, or at least Anthony will and Kyle will admit it, but then detonate to destroy all testimony before jumping into a new host body. He's funny that way. Like Legion.) which never actually got completed. But then, one day after shooting, he randomly asked me, "hey, can you sing? I need a vocalist for the band I'm in." And I said, "Yeah, a bit." Then he asked me to sing another brick in the wall part 2 and... yeah. Then I met with the others, collected on my debt from Amanda McCallum (although instead of her soul I decided to ask for her brother, a pretty good deal all in all really) and then well, I started to sing in a complete band.
That's pretty much it, and now I must retreat to my secret underground layer (Michigan to the rest of you out there) but before I go I give a warm welcome to my dark an gleeful friend Katie, and to  Xenia, Queen of the elephants. That's all for now... MICHIGAN AWAITS!

 Anthony Niznik Bio

Name: Anthony Niznik
Born: 1988
Age: 20
Sex: male

Hair color: Dark brown
Eye color: Brown
Role: Drummer ,Guitarist in downtime
Favorite Bands: Pink Floyd, Barenaked Ladies, Guns 'N' Roses and The Kinks
Influences: Buddy Rich, Steve Gadd and Neil Peart
Tools of the trade: multi-instrumentalist (violin, bass, drums, guitar) songwriter/poet

Bio: I started playing drums when I was in cadets for about 3 years. In that time I became the lead snare. I moved to kit soon after and  have been sucking up all the techiques I can get my hands on. not much to know about me im a maratal artist (brazilian jiu jitsu and Goju Kai Karate) I play music (obviously) and Im busy most of the time.

Kyle Noon Bio

Name: Kyle Noon aka Kyle David Philip Noon Thompson Sveinson-Dyer, Noony, Nooner, Thompson, Mr Thompson, Dr T (and the women XD),  Squishy, Galgemore ye Destroyer, Happy Cancer
Role: Bass, menace to society, most hostile in the group, closest thing to site admin we can afford
Favourite Bands: Rise Against, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Green Day, Bad Religion, Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Reel Big Fish
Influences: Flea, Mike Dirnt, Jay Bentley, Mike Wong
Age: 20 from one side older than the skies above from the other

Bio:

There isn't much that is important to say about me, but in comparison to Daniel's bio I feel this is too short so parts of it may be bullshit rants, or little known factoids about me that may be true or horrible lies, I'll let you, the reader, decide. I'm a full-blooded Celt in search of a good time. In fact, that's why I joined the band in the first place, that and my infinite love for threatening Nagoda's very existence; also, who could deny access to fresh warm bodies to hop to. Just so you know, I'm a punkrocker with a mean right, odd sense of values (if you can call it that), and a real short fuse. I've been known to swing from calm relaxed and orderly to random stupid and violent at the drop of a hat. Luckily for them, the band has yet to see me truly pissed off, come to think of it, neither have I hmm that's going on the list. I've played bass for 4 years though if you ask me I don't think I'm any good. Did I mention i was a pessimist? Well I am. I can honestly say that everything i do is crap and doomed to failure and demise, but that's just venting. Seriously I do what I do for the amusment of others, or their bane I've yet to fully decide, my life's philosophy is; dignity is a small price to pay for a room full of laughs; and if one has no dignity, even better; and if you have a thermal cannon, well then you're just sittin pretty now ain't ya. Anyway, enough about me, back to the real matter at hand, the death of Nagoda! I have been constructing a robot made out of soy designed to fight to the death with anyone it sees, and...wait, this isn't my doom to Nagoda page, uh... forget what I just said, um, enjoy the band and if you don't, well, I'll see you in hell anyway!! P.S. I need a job, any openings please e-mail k.noony@gmail.com

I suppose now's as good a time as any to mention that the bellow link while still active, is something that I haven't updated since may of 2005 and REFUSE to update ever again due to the fact that parts of it are so emo I dread to touch it.  For that I'm sorry, it wasn't the best period in my life.  Anyway...um..>.>...<.<.......O_o GAH *disappears*

Optimus Prime Bio

Name: Optimus Prime
Role: Supreme Autobot Commander

Bio:

He's Optimus FREAKING Prime, you want a bio, watch Transformers, dumbass.

Mike Nagoda Bio

Name: Mike Nagoda aka Nagoda aka Scooter Crackpot Monkey aka Smeagol aka YOU DIE NOW!
Born: 1985
Age: 22
Role: Keyboards, Double Slide Guitar 
Favorite Bands: Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, Rush, Clutch, Iron Maiden, Vanden Plas, Andromeda, Robert Randolph, Dream Theater
Influences (Keyboards): Jon Lord, Rick Wright, Jordan Rudess, Keith Emerson and J.S. Bach
Influences (Double Slide): Robert Randolph, Brian Cober, David Gilmour, Ritchie Blackmore
Tools of the trade: Yamaha PSR 730, Yamaha DX9 (Controller), Emu Proteus 2000 (rack module), 1962 Gibson Skylark Lap Steel Guitar

Bio:

I am responsible for forming the band. Yes, all of this is my fault, Anthony and Kyle remind me of this often. I like prog rock and metal a lot, and i like writing and thinking about wierd things (for instance, what would happen if you combined puppies, nebulae, and Gilbert Gotfried? The answer is you don't really want to know...). That's it, I guess. Now I should go think about things in latin and go tend to my army of budgies who await me in my secret lab near Michigan which Daniel doesn't know about... wait, did I just type that? Oh no, now Daniel will see! No matter! To the lab, come my pretties... come to me... the city will be ours! 

And in case you're really bored you can check out my insanity here: Nagoda's Blog

King-Of-All-Tears Bio

Name: The King-Of-All-Tears
Aliases: Sabaoth, the Big Guy, Lord of the Black Iron Prison, Tear-Boy, the most terrible of the Five
Role: King of all tears, lord of the endless Iron Room, temporary manager

Bio:

We dare not speak it's name. It once rode Unicron though, and while controlling the Borg and weilding the Marley Stick, so it's got to get points for that.
For more info read the Invisibles. It shall let you see things in a way that nothing else will ever let you see them. Plus, it has the only Brazillian Transvestite Shaman I've ever seen in a comic.