Description
Huntington Beach is an album by the American alternative rock band Lifesavers, released on Brainstorm Artists International in 1995, distributed by Diamante Music Group. The album was recorded by Gene Eugene of Adam Again fame at The Green Room in Huntington Beach, California; with the band producing. (According to the credits, this album was recorded in 1993.)
For the Collection
It’s pretty standard for an artist that has a successful song or songs to keep that material in concerts for several tours or even several years. It’s a bit more rare for a band to revisit an entire era of its existence and write about it from a fresh vantage point. But that’s what Mike Knott and Brian Doidge have done with their band, Lifesavers. Birthed in the Orange Country, Cali. punk/New Wave scene of the early ’80s, Lifesavers scuffled for almost six years, releasing indie projects and struggling to decide whether it should bring the gospel to seedy L.A. clubs or take the somewhat safer route and promote itself to the Christian scene. By the time ‘Kiss of Life‘ was released in 1986, the band had filed off most of its rough edges and fully immersed itself in Europop – to the disappointment of many of its original fans. Although not as critically-lauded as the duo’s darker and more challenging group, L.S.U., Lifesavers’ early work is nonetheless regarded by many as groundbreaking in alternative Christian rock.
‘Huntington Beach’, recorded 10 years later, sounds as if it could have been tracked in the early ’80s as well; ironically, it’s got a more raw, punk edge than its predecessor. At its heart a concept album, ‘Huntington Beach’ finds Knott & Co. re-examining those halcyon days ‘through the filter of a decade of hard experience. Songs such as «When She’s Gone», which finds Knott despising a song that reminds him of his girlfriend; «Huntington Beach Police», a tale of the hassles experienced at the hands of over-zealous law enforcement; and «Joey Ramone», a paean to the patron saint of punkers, capture a vitality and immediacy that one seldom hears in rock music today. [Bruce A. Brown, CCM, January 1996]
> Apple Music (https://music.apple.com/us/album/huntington-beach/686601520)
CD tracklist:
01. When She’s Gone
02. Disappointed
03. Huntington Beach Police
04. Mrs. King
05. Rent A Cop
06. Out
07. Big Kimono
08. Sick
09. Daddy’s Womp
10. The Day Elvis Died
11. Should Have Known
12. Joey Ramone
13. Who Is She
14. Get Outta My Life
15. Susie’s Got Eyes For You
Note: Simultaneously released on cassette and CD by Brainstorm. Tracks 13 to 15 are hidden tracks from Knott’s first band, The Hightops. Track 13 has a short vocal introduction from Michael Knott: “In 1978, I was in a band called The Hightops and it was our first time in the studio. My sister Bridget was in the band. There’s Vince and Brad.”
A 1995 advertisement for new album releases on the Brainstorm label, including Perfecta by Adam Again, Songs of the Heart by Daniel Amos, and Huntington Beach by Lifesavers.
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