---
title: Number19
description: Number19, the Brooklyn band Sarth Calhoun formed in 1999 with Leah Coloff, Tony Diodore and Mark Righter, and its album Suspension.
url: https://www.sarth.net/conspiracies/number19/
facet: dream
credit: Sarth Calhoun, bass and Yamaha EX5, in Number19 with Tony Diodore, Leah Coloff and Mark Righter, 1999 to 2005; on *Suspension*, Searching Eye Records, 2001.
author: Sarth Calhoun
---
[Conspiracies](/conspiracies/) / Number19

Conspiracy · Dream

# Number19

[Number19](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number19) was a band in Brooklyn. [Tony Diodore](/conspirators/tony-diodore/), [Leah Coloff](/conspirators/leah-coloff/), Mark Righter and I formed it in 1999, with Diodore on guitar and violin, me on bass and a [Yamaha EX5](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yamaha_EX5), Coloff on cello and voice, and Righter on drums. Cello and violin ran over bass and drums, with electronics underneath. The band released one album, *Suspension*, and was active until 2005.

It was the first band I made with Coloff and with Diodore. I started [Lucibel Crater](/conspiracies/lucibel-crater/) with Coloff in 2005, and played in [Lou Reed’s band](/conspiracies/lou-reed-song-band/) with Diodore from 2011.

![Number19 in 2001, four tinted panels around the band’s logo: Mark Righter at the drums, Tony Diodore with a guitar, Sarth Calhoun on bass, Leah Coloff at the cello.](/images/number19-2001.gif)

Number19, 2001: Mark Righter, drums; Tony Diodore, violin and guitar; Sarth Calhoun, bass and synth; Leah Coloff, cello and vocals. From the band’s site, numbernineteen.net.

> Along his musical journeys, he met cellist and songwriter Leah Coloff, who convinced him to combine computers with music. The band they established, Number19, funded its first record with downloads from mp3.com in 2001.
> 
> The biography on my old WordPress site

## How it began

I met Mark by joining his band, and Leah by trying out for hers, when she was promoting her album *Dark Sweet Heart*. Both of them played in Gebbeth, my electronica-improv group, before the four of us formed Number19. The band’s site billed the music as Rhythm & Strings.

The record was paid for out of [mp3.com](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mp3.com) downloads, led by the single “Water.” Number19 reached number eighteen overall on that site and took more than ninety thousand downloads in six months. *Suspension* came out on Searching Eye Records and was the band’s only album.

## Suspension

[Embedded player](https://embed.music.apple.com/us/album/suspension/274828088)

The record: [*Suspension*](/transmissions/suspension/), 2001. Nine tracks. On [Apple Music](https://music.apple.com/us/album/suspension/274828088) and [Spotify](https://open.spotify.com/album/0EBi9RJO4j2cGeL0CPtYW5), credited to Number 19. Track six, [“I Before E”](/transmissions/i-before-e/), has its own page, with the note I wrote about it in 2022.

On mp3.com: The band notably funded its first album, Suspension, from mp3.com downloads. At one point the band was ranked #18 overall on the site, and garnered over 90,000 downloads in 6 months. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number19)

The credit: Sarth Calhoun, bass and Yamaha EX5, in Number19 with Tony Diodore, Leah Coloff and Mark Righter, 1999 to 2005; on *Suspension*, Searching Eye Records, 2001.

> Tony, Sarth, Leah Coloff, and Mark Righter formed Number19 in 1999. After we released Suspension, Tony went on to play with Puracane, and eventually form BM Linx. Now, Tony and Sarth have joined forces again, playing with Lou Reed.
> 
> My introduction to the band on my old WordPress site

## Where everyone went next

Diodore played guitar and violin on [Puracane](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puracane)’s *I’ve Been Here the Longest*, then formed [BM LINX](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BM_Linx) in 2005. That same year I started Lucibel Crater with Coloff on cello and voice and [Paul Chuffo](/conspirators/paul-chuffo/) on drums. I joined [Lou Reed](/conspirators/lou-reed/)’s touring band in 2008; Diodore joined it in 2011, and the two of us spent the 2011 and 2012 European cycles in the same band again. Those dates are on [Sightings](/sightings/).

I wrote the introduction and the biography quoted here for my old WordPress site, recovered from the Wayback Machine. How we met, Gebbeth, Rhythm & Strings and the single are from the band’s own site, numbernineteen.net, as captured in 2001, and so is the photograph. The mp3.com figures are Wikipedia’s, citing CD Baby.