"Crazed teen punks (with crazed chops and record
collections to match) like the Adolescents, Redd Kross and the Pink-Album
Pagans gone completely feral." - Paper Magazine
"...it sounds like they cracked the punk code all by their lonesome in a garage in O.C. It's loud and fast, yes, but what separates this killer record from the rest are the hairpin-turns and loopy stops and starts that arrive out of the blue and transform basic structures into odd Buckminster Fuller-type constructs. Punk? Uh huh. But so much more." - The LA Weekly
Audacity didn’t meet in college and didn’t even meet in high school or middle school - this particular band goes back to second grade in Fullerton, California, where baby guitarists Kyle Gibson andMatt Schmalfeld met and bonded thanks to moms who were both big into the Beatles. After Punk 101 with a savvy older sister who clued them in on Bikini Kill, the Stooges and the Buzzcocks and after searching up Wire and the Adverts in the wild mess of early Internet file-sharing, Gibson and Schmalfeld were ready for junior high and bassist Cameron Crowe and drummer Thomas Alvarez, who’d been playing on his brother’s drum kit in the family garage. (Crowe was “already very punk,” says Gibson, thanks to his dad’s formidable vinyl collection.)
Soon they’d have an all-levels-in-the-red CDR demo; soon they’d be kind of about halfway done with high school and soon the boys who would start the currently legendary Burger Records heard a song called “Mode” and figured it was time to figure out how to release an LP for Audacity. So while Audacity isn’t quite the band that built Burger, they definitely inspired that first big bite - and their 2009 Burger LP Power Drowning (recorded by the Distillery’s Mike McHugh, behind the boards for the Black Lips, the Vivian Girls, Harlem and tons more) sits in a place of honor in any California punk collection. Burger Records are like their big brothers, says Gibson: “We were perfect fits for each other, as we’d been hanging around Orange County and never felt like we fit in. It was meant to be!”
Now it’s three years later - three years spent on relentless touring, working up and scrapping (except for a few rare 7”s) what could have been an album all its own and even serving as backing band for both glam-garage savant King Tuff and San Pedro punk godfather Todd Congelliere, who stepped away from his bands Toys That Kill and Underground Railroad to Candyland to play solo songs in the adorably named Toddacity. (If you hear some Tuff influence on “Garza Girls” or some Todd on “Chili,” don’t be too shocked - both “old dudes” had a big effect on Audacity, says Gibson.) By May 2011, however, Audacity felt they were ready, and began recording what would become Mellow Cruisers with L.A. producer Rob Barbato (Soft Pack, Cold Showers.)
You can tell they’re older and wiser, says Gibson. (“Hopefully!” he adds.) But he’s not wrong. Power Drowning was already the kind of revelation-slash-reassurance punk gets too rarely - like the Descendents, Adolescents and Red Cross before them, that first Audacity LP proved again that unsupervised kids from the suburbs can smash out their own set of teenage classics, with personality and righteousness and even technique to spare. On Mellow Cruisers, however, the Audacity machine reinforces that SoCal core with the tangled guitar of Dinosaur Jr, the bottle-smashing rock ‘n’ roll of the early Replacements, Nirvana’s blown-apart Bleached rockers, even some kind of screwy post-Pinkerton twin-guitar riff derangement on “Subway Girl”’s middle break - this is a punk band that spits out pop songs at high velocity, that breaks open a chorus with an even better chorus and stacks lead on melody on lead until the whole thing just blurs into white light. Yeah, Schmalfeld can still screaaaaaam like nobody, but they got sweet spots on this now, too. If you’ve seen them live in the last year and heard a song you loved - “Punk Confusion,” “Funspot,” “Ears and Eyes” - then it’s on this record waiting for you. - Chris Ziegler
"Mellow Cruisers" Track List:
1. Indian Chief
2. Garza Girls
3. Punk Confusion
4. Subway Girl
5. Companytime
6. Persecuted
7. Funspot
8. Ears and Eyes
9. Chili
10. Extensions
Audacity Live
May 12th Irvine Lakes, CA @ Electric Roots Music Festival *
May 17th Costa Mesa, CA @ The Detroit Bar ^
* = w/ Tijuana Panthers and Pangea
^ = w/ Allah Las and Lovely Bad Things
For more information, visit:
www.audacityband.com
www.burgerrecords.org
www.recessrecords.com
"...it sounds like they cracked the punk code all by their lonesome in a garage in O.C. It's loud and fast, yes, but what separates this killer record from the rest are the hairpin-turns and loopy stops and starts that arrive out of the blue and transform basic structures into odd Buckminster Fuller-type constructs. Punk? Uh huh. But so much more." - The LA Weekly
Audacity didn’t meet in college and didn’t even meet in high school or middle school - this particular band goes back to second grade in Fullerton, California, where baby guitarists Kyle Gibson andMatt Schmalfeld met and bonded thanks to moms who were both big into the Beatles. After Punk 101 with a savvy older sister who clued them in on Bikini Kill, the Stooges and the Buzzcocks and after searching up Wire and the Adverts in the wild mess of early Internet file-sharing, Gibson and Schmalfeld were ready for junior high and bassist Cameron Crowe and drummer Thomas Alvarez, who’d been playing on his brother’s drum kit in the family garage. (Crowe was “already very punk,” says Gibson, thanks to his dad’s formidable vinyl collection.)
Soon they’d have an all-levels-in-the-red CDR demo; soon they’d be kind of about halfway done with high school and soon the boys who would start the currently legendary Burger Records heard a song called “Mode” and figured it was time to figure out how to release an LP for Audacity. So while Audacity isn’t quite the band that built Burger, they definitely inspired that first big bite - and their 2009 Burger LP Power Drowning (recorded by the Distillery’s Mike McHugh, behind the boards for the Black Lips, the Vivian Girls, Harlem and tons more) sits in a place of honor in any California punk collection. Burger Records are like their big brothers, says Gibson: “We were perfect fits for each other, as we’d been hanging around Orange County and never felt like we fit in. It was meant to be!”
Now it’s three years later - three years spent on relentless touring, working up and scrapping (except for a few rare 7”s) what could have been an album all its own and even serving as backing band for both glam-garage savant King Tuff and San Pedro punk godfather Todd Congelliere, who stepped away from his bands Toys That Kill and Underground Railroad to Candyland to play solo songs in the adorably named Toddacity. (If you hear some Tuff influence on “Garza Girls” or some Todd on “Chili,” don’t be too shocked - both “old dudes” had a big effect on Audacity, says Gibson.) By May 2011, however, Audacity felt they were ready, and began recording what would become Mellow Cruisers with L.A. producer Rob Barbato (Soft Pack, Cold Showers.)
You can tell they’re older and wiser, says Gibson. (“Hopefully!” he adds.) But he’s not wrong. Power Drowning was already the kind of revelation-slash-reassurance punk gets too rarely - like the Descendents, Adolescents and Red Cross before them, that first Audacity LP proved again that unsupervised kids from the suburbs can smash out their own set of teenage classics, with personality and righteousness and even technique to spare. On Mellow Cruisers, however, the Audacity machine reinforces that SoCal core with the tangled guitar of Dinosaur Jr, the bottle-smashing rock ‘n’ roll of the early Replacements, Nirvana’s blown-apart Bleached rockers, even some kind of screwy post-Pinkerton twin-guitar riff derangement on “Subway Girl”’s middle break - this is a punk band that spits out pop songs at high velocity, that breaks open a chorus with an even better chorus and stacks lead on melody on lead until the whole thing just blurs into white light. Yeah, Schmalfeld can still screaaaaaam like nobody, but they got sweet spots on this now, too. If you’ve seen them live in the last year and heard a song you loved - “Punk Confusion,” “Funspot,” “Ears and Eyes” - then it’s on this record waiting for you. - Chris Ziegler
"Mellow Cruisers" Track List:
1. Indian Chief
2. Garza Girls
3. Punk Confusion
4. Subway Girl
5. Companytime
6. Persecuted
7. Funspot
8. Ears and Eyes
9. Chili
10. Extensions
Audacity Live
May 12th Irvine Lakes, CA @ Electric Roots Music Festival *
May 17th Costa Mesa, CA @ The Detroit Bar ^
* = w/ Tijuana Panthers and Pangea
^ = w/ Allah Las and Lovely Bad Things
For more information, visit:
www.audacityband.com
www.burgerrecords.org
www.recessrecords.com
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