OFFICE began life as a concept piece: a series of sculptures by frontman Scott Masson while he was studying in London. Mason recalls, "I would fill galleries up with Xerox paper, make weird little cubicle displays, white boxes, cell phone sculptures, various pop culture stuff, fill rooms up with empty water bottles, etc. They were all very minimal and blank-looking, but it was the start of some thematic dialogue within myself." Upon returning to the States, the Detroit native recorded a self-described "very dark" electronic folk pop concept album, and simply called it OFFICE . A year later, Masson moved to Chicago, and gathered some friends to record The Ice Tea Boys and The Lemonade Girls , a much poppier album, filled with lush, often piano-driven melodies with electronic flourishes. In both records, Masson dealt with similar themes to his sculptures: OFFICE imagery, city life, pop culture, work environments, as well as love, social structure and money. After finding a positive response from Ice Tea Boys , Masson officially formed OFFICE as a band, and began performing locally. 3 years later, Masson, along with a final lineup of guitarist Tom Smith, bassist Alyssa Noonan, drummer Erica Corniel and backup singer/keyboardist Jessica Gonyea, released an album of infectious new-wavey pop tunes entitled Q&A , and began taking over the Chicago music scene.
Over the Spring and Summer of 2006, OFFICE became a hot ticket in Chicago , playing nearly every week, and securing a sold-out residency at local venue Schubas for the month of May, as well as a spot at Lollapalooza in August. In June, iTunes handpicked a song off Q&A for the incredibly high-profile "Download of the Week" spot on their homepage. During the seven days it was available, the song received over 300,000 downloads and peaked at number 14 on the iTunes charts — unheard of for an unsigned band. Local press took notice of OFFICE too. The band appeared everywhere from NPR affiliate WBEZ to Jim DeRogatis' column in the Chicago Sun Times. The Chicago Reader wrote "Q&A is the best local release in a year filled with excellent local releases. The quartet's high-gloss, sexy alt-pop connects from the very first bars of the opening track and never lags for the duration of the 12-song disc." Time Out Chicago featured the band with a photoshoot, and interviews ran everywhere from UR Chicago to the Illinois Entertainer . National press took notice as well. NPR made Q&A's title track a Song of The Day, praising OFFICE's exuberant hooks... [and] crisply enjoyable rock...The white-collar world has rarely sounded so enticing." Billboard called Q&A "a blast of electro-pop perfection" while Venus compared Masson's "smooth and sassy tenor" to that of Freddie Mercury's and Magnet described the album as "a jaunty collection of stuck-at-work daydream anthems and state-of-confusion pleas that fits in nicely between Nick Lowe and Nik Kershaw...pretty irresistible stuff, the sort of record that's bound to get this surprisingly unsigned quartet some deserved label attention."
