NEWS, BIO, REVIEWS & Highlights

01/03/23 Instruments are all tracked and we're about halfway completed with the vocals.  Hoping to finish up the vocals in January and move to the mixdown stage with James.

11/03/22 - TVic booked the next two weeks solid to get started on recording a new record at Earth Analog Studio.  We are excited that Matt Talbott agreed to produce and record a slate of 10 new songs.  We also have James Treichler of Wave Upon Wave Studio working on the team.  Matt will work to place mics and capture all the tracks on his awesome Swiss made 2 inch 24 track analog recording machine.  The tracks will be dumped to ProTools and sent to James studio for mix down.

09/03/22 - PRF BBQ LOU 2022 Music & Art Festival was amazing.  PRF is a wonderful community of musicians and music fans scattered all over the United States.  The BBQ was delicious, and the venue in LOUiseville, Portal @ FifteenTwelve, is an amazing music venue.  The owners have a metal works shop business named Rockerbuilt that shares space with Portal.  They have a deep passion for music, art and artists.  There are spaces for boutique art stores in addition to the large music space and stage.  The bar is amazing as well.  We had a blast playing and appreciate all the friends and fans that watched and cheered through our set.  TVic was honored to play the festival with a large list of amazing bands (too many to list)!  Here is a link to a compilation album created for the festival:  https://prfbbqlou.bandcamp.com/album/prfbbqlou-2022-bands   We discovered a new favorite band named Djunah!  Chicago-based Djunah spotlights the talents of Donna Diane, who pulls triple duty, simultaneously playing guitar, singing, and pulverizing a Moog bass organ with her foot. Drawing a broad range of comparisons from Diamanda Galás to Melvins, Djunah (pronounced “JUNE-uh”) pairs her powerful, unrestrained vocals and abrasive guitar with punishing drums courtesy of Jared Karns (Their/They’re/There, Hidden Hospitals).  Check them out asap.  We look forward to playing more shows with them.

06/29/22 - Terminus Victor is playing Audiofeed Music Festival 2022 on Sat 7/2/22 at 5pm and sharing the bill with great bands and artists Pedro The Lion, Rosie Thomas, Propaganda, Flatfoot56 and more!  TVic is booked for several shows this year with some touring in August and September.  The band is also scheduling time in the studio to record a new 10 song album which will be released on vinyl and CDs as well as streaming platforms.

02/28/21 - TVic's last live show occurred just a few weeks before the pandemic hit.  They performed at a music festival event called Thundersnow 2020 on Friday, Feb 14th, and had a fantastic weekend meeting new friends and fans.  They also saw some other great bands like Nonagon, Sewer Kitten, Maple Stave, & God Eaters.  TVic was gaining inertia with more shows on the schedule and a further reach before live shows and venues shut down.  Recently the band was able to get together to record a live music set.  They rented time to use the main recording room at Earth Analog Studio.  They set up lights for ambiance as well as audio and video recording equipment.  A video was created of a 20min set that included in the Thundersnow 2021 online music festival which occurred on Fri-Sun Feb 19th-21st.  TVic was really happy with how the video turned out with the sound quality, live music energy and the visual experience.  It's the closest the band has come to a live performance in over a year.  TVic has not stood idle for this past pandemic year.  They have been working together writing new songs and are ready to get into the studio to record their next full length record.  The timing may be perfect to get the new record completed and begin playing live shows again with the end of the pandemic hopefully in sight.  We can hope that live music and venues can get rolling again late this year.  Let's hope so.  TVic has a lot of pent up live performance energy to share.

Terminus Victor music is both immediate and insidious.  A bold and spicy blend of rock, alternative rock, and post-punk with a dash of shoegaze.  Joy Divison, My Bloody Valentine, Slint, HUM and more are influential ingredients in the wall of sound recipe cooked up by Scott Kimble [Bass/Vocals], Don King [Guitar], and Terry Wathen [Drums].  This band's tastes become known through their music and lyrics that communicate powerful yet vulnerable expressions of raw emotion, insecurities and empathy with the pain and beauty of life as common people. Post-grunge anti-rockstar, Kimble, with his omnipresent dark hat and black fingernails casts a shadowy figure, and he has a ghost like ability to disappear from a room when he was standing here just a second ago. Like a dedicated chef and his staff that work unseen in the kitchen, Kimble savors the process to create songs that taste good to the ears and are memorable to the palette. His creative mindset suffuses into his home kitchen where he makes a burger taste better with mouth watering recipes like his Yucky Burger with teriyaki and Zeke Burger with tzatziki sauce.

When he reappears on stage, Kimble plays a modified three string bass with roaring rhythmic style as he sings a range of dynamic to soaring vocals. He is mindful to empower his band mates with space to add their flavors to the mix. Kimble's lifelong friend, King, is his counter opposite. Nattily adorned in a suit and tie, he joyfully kneads the fret board amplified by chiming stereo guitar tone. Their opposite worlds of artful and technical minds are a combination where each feels enriched by the other through mutual influence. Round out the three course menu with Wathen who has a forte to find sought-after drum treasures and collect them from forgotten and dusty places.  He always arrives with a superb sounding flavor-of-the-day snare selected from his floor to ceiling stacks.  Originally from Chicago, he is a life long drummer who bonds the chemistry of the band with precise dynamic temperatures that underscore his band mates riffs. Together through hundreds of performances, this band blends their secret ingredients of sounds and songs that build and share delectable energy, excitement and interconnection with audiences.

Terminus Victor is from the twin cities of Champaign-Urbana, IL.  Kimble and King started as a duo in 2000 with a ferocious explosive drum machine named 'She'.  Like Steve Albini’s breakthrough rock act, Big Black, (the also drummerless) Terminus Victor explored/exploited the notion of combining man and machine.  After ‘She’ moved to Portland in 2006, Wathen joined the band.  Fans who loved the 100% performance energy level with ‘She’ measured a boost to 150% with the addition of Wathen's dynamic drumming. At the same time, politely retracting not to offend the work done with ‘She’.

Nicknamed TVic, this band thrives on inspiration “the music is in here [point to heart] and it has got to come out!”.  Their creative process rolls on with a new menu of songs nearly completed for their next planned record and future release.  This band is tight and performs with fervent passion and intensity for energized audiences of tens to hundreds.  TVic gets invited back to venues and festivals like repeat invitations to Cobrafest by Matt Talbott of HUM and benefit shows like the annual Great Cover Up for community causes like Girls Rock, CU One-to-One Mentoring Program and benefit shows to raise healthcare support for people.  Terminus Victor lives by their motto that whoever comes to a show was meant to be there and each person will be given TVic’s best.

"Terminus Victor re cementing their place as one of my all time favorite bands yet again right now. Sweet Jeebus"

[-Joe Funderburk  - Quote during the show he booked at Blackbird in Urbana, IL on March 16, 2019 ]

Press Statements:

“Their particular brand of alternative rock shakes the rafters in order to convey their reality, and it works.” [–Jeff Zolito (smilepolitely.com)]

Terminus Victor listed as a Top Ten Unsigned Band of ‘07 across  the areas of Baltimore, Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland, DC, Denver, Detroit, Philadelphia, Rochester & Syracuse. "The easiest way to describe them is plainly a wall of sound. These guys hit you like a tidal wave and when a song ends, you are left wanting more." [-Brian Campbell]

“Full of energy, vitality, ideas, and talent“ [-Decoy Magazine]

"Thunderous sound and energy, amazingly intense.“ [-Troy Michaels (Innocentwords Magazine)]

“Passion is not manufactured angst“ [–Don Gerard]

“Abrasive and intricate“ [-Impact Press]

"Singular. Unique. Like nothing else. Sheesh. Words fail me...“ [–MaxRnR]

Description of Terminus Victor for Heirship Records Farewell Festival

Dec 15, 2018 / eventful.com

TERMINUS VICTOR was initiated in 2000 to create energetic rock music using a drum machine named ‘She’. Their music described as an “electro-rockomatic-neo-inferno” is captured on the band’s freshman and sophmore records MASTERING THE REVELS and UNDER SURVEILLANCE, created and released in 2002 and 2005 respectively. After two records, the machine and dual human crew felt it may be time to part ways, and pursue new germinations along the Terminus Victor viral strain. Opportunity arose soon after ‘She’ moved to Portland in [2006] when Terry Wathen tried out for the band. Now three members strong, talents and personalities align into a centrifugal serum of music creation, growth and expansion. Fans who loved the 100% performance energy level with ‘She’ measured a boost to 150% with the addition of Terry’s dynamic drumming. At the same time, politely retracting not to offend the work done with ‘She’. Terminus Victor has a contagious future infected with a strong base of current and new songs composed by vocalist/bassist Scott Kimble, and crafted into works of art by the band. Seven years after their last full-length, the band returned with PREVENTION VS INTERVENTION. Replete with aggression and passion, yet at times staid and stoic, these nine tracks act as a declaration of certainty of ambivalence. The voice comes over the PA, declarative yet desperately questioning.

Terminus Victor return with new record, Prevention vs. Intervention

March 14, 2013 / 1:00pm / By Jeff Zolitor

Almost eight years after their last release, Terminus Victor is back with a new album, and it’s a promising return. The new music, by Scott Kimble, Don King, and now with  drummer, Terry Wathen replacing the beat box of their earlier releases, has landed with a universal message. Within every struggle that we endure together, there are a million smaller, personal, heart-pounding, life-shaking struggles taking place.

Prevention vs. Intervention reflects such a struggle. You know from the first chord of the first song, “The Hands of Gridlock,” that what follows is a gritty depiction of something big, something important, and the band delivers. Their particular brand of industrial, alternative rock shakes the rafters in order to convey their reality, and it works.

Whether it’s the myth shattering, “Cue the Disclaimer” (stream below), telling one and all that life is mere smoke and mirrors, or Kimble’s tour de force, “Hopelessly Rehabilitated,” Terminus Victor is aging well.

Drummer Terry Wathen makes his presence felt throughout the album, but never more so than on track four. All things considered, it is good to have a drummer, and one who’s up to the task of pushing through the wall of sound. Wathen does, and then some, and continues to add a hard underscore to the riffs of his bandmates.

King breaks out of his comfort zone on track seven, “One Tough Customer.” In my mind, I see his fingers working the fret board joyfully, stretching out along the scales and making the notes attest to their worth, and complementing the lyrical interludes well.

What I heard on track three really threw me for a loop. Wafting up through the crevices of King’s power riffs, was a whiff of one of my favorite bands, Morphine. In retrospect, it would be hard to fathom that Terminus Victor hasn’t been influenced by Sandman, if only for the innovative composition of the music. But I think it’s more than that.

Lyrically, this album is laden full of raw emotion and insecurities. From the how-did-I get-here lament, “I’m underpaid and insecure, and no one takes me seriously” to the sad, shoulder shrug, “I’m not afraid that I’m uninsured, I’ve got nothing left to my name,” it’s laid out with all due WTF sincerity. To those who don’t know it, the everyday pain of existence is lubricious, and Kimble needs us to hear that.

My favorite track is “Hopelessly Rehabilitated,” track five. Compelling lyrics over a sparse, solo bass for about 1/3 of the song, seems to be the perfect vehicle for this story, and every song is a story. Flash to Robert Downey Jr. or Amy Winehouse, and you can begin to sense what Kimble might be relating to.

“Don’t make me go back to therapy” tells a story that the album title conveys: the internal struggle between two equally tough options.

Kimble sings,“If they ask how that makes me feel one more time, I’m just walking out” and, “I always find that I’m trying to convince someone else, I’m completely normal.” Who hasn’t been there? You don’t want to cloud those sentiments with crashing cymbals or power chords. No, those lyrics need to get through, and Kimble makes sure that they do.

And that brings us to the last track, track nine. This song is the summation of the album’s dissertation on struggles. “Now All We Need Is a Reason” expresses the realization of the struggle, and what we have learned from it. “Waiting in line, for some peace of mind” suggests we need the accolades of others to validate ourselves. We don’t. But the lesson that we take away is that “it’s not who you know; it’s who you blow, and I won’t be part of it,” and Kimble makes sure to tell you that “you shouldn’t want to be a part of it” either.

“Now all we need is a reason,” is a mature effort from a band who knows what they need to do. And you need to hear this album.

The Top 20 C-U Albums of the Decade

October 28, 2009 / 7:00am / By Doug Hoepker

17. Terminus Victor

Under Surveillance

(Innocent Words, 2005)

Listen to "Your Nemesis" by Terminus Victor

Scott Kimble and Don King are C-U's odd couple: Don, clean-shaven and well kempt in a suit and tie; Scott, in grungy black, a wool hat pulled low over his brow, his face scruffy. Visually, the pair embrace the Cheap Trick dichotomy; musically, however, they favor another northern Illinois institution, Big Black. In 2005, the guitar-bass duo was backed by a hostile drum machine (simply named "She"), which added the fitting touch for a band playing industrial rock at a deafening level. Terminus Victor's live show at this time was so intense — loud, bright, heavy on the senses — that it often scared away a good portion of the crowd, many of whom opted for slightly quieter, distant corners of the venue. For those who stuck around for the show, a point was driven home: Terminus Victor did its own thing, bystanders be damned. And by the time Under Surveillance, the band's second record for Innocent Words, came out, they were balancing the propulsive low-end of their music with more melodic leads on guitar and vocals. The record reveals a texture and tunefulness that may have been overshadowed live by the sheer volume of their sets. The Touch and Go influence still hangs heavy on Under Surveillance, but on "A Scream in the Park" Kimble's voice cuts through the mix during the verse to reveal an approachable melody, and King's guitar is more atmospheric than abrasive. "Your Nemesis" is ready for radio airplay (it did get some spins locally) and highlights the duo's capability of penning a memorable chorus. They eventually kicked "She" to the curb and added a human on drums, but for six years Terminus Victor toiled in the trenches as a two-man, one-machine wrecking crew and one of C-U's heaviest bands. 

The Juxtaposition of Terminus Victor

… a biography by Don Gerard, July 2005

Duality makes for great superheroes and great rock bands.

However, let me backtrack a bit. For the past 15 years the local music community in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois has banded together for a benefit dubbed “The Great Cover-Up”. In years past Poster Children have performed as Elvis and the Who, Hum was Led Zepplin, the Moon Seven Times did Alice Cooper one year and Van Halen another. You get the idea.

“I’m sure a lot of people were, like, whatever, but it was something I just had to do,” Scotty Kimble says.

His band, Terminus Victor, chose to cover Slint in 2004.

Standing in the snow a month later, wearing his omnipresent wool hat and fingerless gloves, Scotty cuts a decidedly Dickensian figure. He half-smiles and, in a barely audible voice, mumbles, “Maybe we should’ve done something else, but, oh, I don’t know…I just felt like I had to try.”

Herein lies some insight into what sets Terminus Victor so far apart (and, by the way, immensely above) a vast majority of the current crop of indie rockers vying for the attention of the punk-pop- “fence-post”-modern set.

Allow me to digress even further. Having spent four decades in the Midwest (and 20 of those years in the music “business”) I have come to realize two of the primary architects of this time zone’s rock music are Cheap Trick and Steve Albini.

Like Albini’s breakthrough rock act, Big Black, (the also drummerless) Terminus Victor explore/exploit the notion of combining man and machine. Human vocals backed by a ferocious mechanical back beat.

The difference being Albini’s ego would not allow him to be anything but cocksure and as cold and unyielding as his Roland drum patterns while Kimble, on the other hand, often seems vulnerable; eschewing logic for gut instinct (Slint? A sold-out venue and the guy play songs only Rose Marshack and seven other people have ever even heard?).

Duality. Only so much can be planned, written in advance. Only so many issues can be rationalized and understood. The passion is not manufactured angst. Unlike the cartoon characters Albini creates Kimble’s songs come from not from his imagination, but somewhere deeper within.

Which brings me to Cheap Trick: brilliant, dangerous, popular, rock deities, rock oddities often melding sing-along melodies with disturbingly creepy lyrics. Gods and Geeks, pretty boys and punks, geniuses and savants. Christ, it was as if a chunk of your high school class were all represented in one four-piece, guitar-rock combo.

Within Terminus Victor the metaphor is even more economical. Guitarist Don King (nattily adorned in crisp, business formal attire) grinds out molar-rattling chords while flailing about the stage like a scarecrow in a twister portraying both the straight man and the jester to Kimble’s post-grunge anti-rockstar.

Duality.

There have been an assload and a half of popular bands come out of Champaign-Urbana. There have even been a few good ones. I have seen literally hundreds of those bands (and thousands of from elsewhere) and rarely does one give me the impression it is anything beyond what I believe them to be.

Cobain was a kid from Aberdeen who dreamed of rock stardom. Once he was a rock star he realized he just wanted to be a kid from Aberdeen. Dylan was a folk singer who went electric (as well as a Jew who went Gentile and back again). Duality.

Bun E. Carlos and Rick Neilson were a chubby guy and somewhat of a weirdo from Rockford, Illinois.

Steve Albini was a kid who grew up in Missoula, Montana, loved to play baseball and planned on getting a degree in journalism in college.

Peter Parker. Bruce Wayne. Clark Kent. Duality.

Kimble and King, too, remain a paradox.

Which is precisely why they belong on the long list of popular bands…and remain on my short list of good ones.

Under Surveillance Record Review

by Doug Hoepker (smilepolitely.com), July 2005

Scott Kimble and Don King are C-U's odd couple: Don, clean-shaven and well kempt in a suit and tie; Scott, in grungy black, a wool hat pulled low over his brow, his face scruffy. Visually, the pair embrace the Cheap Trick dichotomy; musically, however, they favor another northern Illinois institution, Big Black. In 2005, the guitar-bass duo was backed by a hostile drum machine (simply named "She"), which added the fitting touch for a band playing industrial rock at a deafening level. Terminus Victor's live show at this time was so intense — loud, bright, heavy on the senses — that it often scared away a good portion of the crowd, many of whom opted for slightly quieter, distant corners of the venue. For those who stuck around for the show, a point was driven home: Terminus Victor did its own thing, bystanders be damned. And by the time Under Surveillance, the band's second record for Innocent Words, came out, they were balancing the propulsive low-end of their music with more melodic leads on guitar and vocals. The record reveals a texture and tunefulness that may have been overshadowed live by the sheer volume of their sets. The Touch and Go influence still hangs heavy on Under Surveillance, but on "A Scream in the Park" Kimble's voice cuts through the mix during the verse to reveal an approachable melody, and King's guitar is more atmospheric than abrasive. "Your Nemesis" is ready for radio airplay (it did get some spins locally) and highlights the duo's capability of penning a memorable chorus. They eventually kicked "She" to the curb and added a human on drums, but for six years Terminus Victor toiled in the trenches as a two-man, one-machine wrecking crew and one of C-U's heaviest bands.

7/3/21 - Headliner for Cobrafest 2021 put on by Matt Talbott (Hum).  Shared the stage with Cloakroom (Relapse Records), Sweet Cobra, Matt Talbott Music, Frontier Folk Nebraska, Our Landmark

2/20/21 - Live Video performance ONLINE PRF Thundersnow 2021 Music Festival

2/14/20 - Performed at PRF Thundersnow 2020 Music Festival

7/15/19 - Indoor Stage headliner at Cobrafest 2019

7/6/19 - w/ Red Jumpsuit Apparatus (Virgin Records) at Audiofeed Music Festival 2019

6/1/19 - w/ Acquaintances (members: Jered Gummere [The Ponys, Bare Mutants, Richard Vain], Patrick Morris [Don Caballero, The Poison Arrows], Stephen Schmidt [Thumbnail, Chino Horde], Justin Sinkovich [The Poison Arrows, Atombombpocketknife, Thumbnail], and Chris Wilson [Titus Andronicus, Ted Leo and the Pharmacists, Hammered Hulls, Hound, Shake Ray Turbine]) in Champaign

7/2/16 - w/ HUM (RCA Records) at Cobrafest 2016

10/28/09 - Top 20 Album of the Decade in Champaign-Urbana - Under Surveillance by Terminus Victor

2/6/04 - w/ Poster Children (Warner Bros Reprise Records; Creation[UK]) at Empty Bottle in Chicago

4/24/04 - w/ Menthol (Capitol Records) in Champaign

6/4/04 - w/ Menthol (Capitol Records) in Indianapolis

2/15/05 - 2005 Chicago Auto Show at McCormick Place

11/1/03 - WILL TV Channel 12 Broadcast Live @ 12midnight on Studio X Live Music Show by Brian Paris

6/28/03 - Video recorded Terminus Victor Show by Lepers TV at The City Museum in St. Louis