Artist

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Artist: The Dalloways

Album: Penalty Crusade

Publication: The Eureka Reporter

Category: Feature

Writer: Wendy Butler

Date: 05/31/2005

Website: www.eurekareporter.com

Review Link: www.eurekareporter.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?ArticleID=1275

A Retroactive Tribute

The Smiths catalyzed their love.

The new-wave band marked familiar time with many listeners during the 1980s.

A Smiths’ song happened to be on the juke box in a pool hall called “Avalon,” when Gerhard Enns and Nico Rhodes met.

“I was on a blind date with some loser,” Rhodes said. “He played The Smiths. … I saw Gary (Gerhard) singing at the bar.”

And that was it.

Not only did she and Enns become romantically involved, Rhodes is now synthesizer player for Enns’ band The Dalloways.

The band’s other members are Matt and Aaron Wall and Ricky Gonzales. It will perform on Friday at 7 p.m. in The Placebo, Manila Dunes Community Center, 1611 Peninsula Drive.

The band has released its first full-length recording “Penalty Crusade,” which was self-produced on the band’s Bird in Box Records label.

Enns said that whether time dips back to the “Brit-pop” bands of the 1980s or bands of today, such as Grammy award-winning Coldplay, what has been consistent for him in terms of musical influences are songs’ lyrics.

Enns is The Dalloways’ songwriter, as well as a guitarist and the lead vocalist.

He has a master’s degree in creative writing, with a focus on fiction. One of his literary influences is Hunter S. Thompson.

“Actually, I’m a story writer,” Enns said. “A lot of the lyrics tend to be story driven — people who I experience in my life. … Creating a character in a song, I think that’s important.”

The album’s title song “Penalty Crusade” is Enns’ attempt at a powerful narrative about a letter a man writes to his brother, “who has gone off the deep end and moved off to New York,” he said. “This song is from the perspective of a brother trying to reconnect (and) convince the brother to come back home.”

With the help of the album’s producer — also the band’s drummer, Aaron Wall — an album goal was to “get deep” musically and lyrically.

“Ice Capades” is one of Enns’ favorite compositions on this album.

“And there was something in his eyes

And in his sad and cocky voice

That made you want to stay

Made you touch his girlish face,

And when the ice had all but melted

And the world all disappeared,

There was nothing left to skate on

But the dreams he’d always feared.”

The Dalloways began as songwriting on acoustic guitars between high school friends Enns and Jon Wall, who no longer is in the band.

“Brit bands” from the 1980s and 1990s colored Enns’ growing up.

“I couldn’t get enough of them,” he said.

The Smiths is just one in a long succession of influences.

Bands like Prefab Sprout and musician Lloyd Cole rank high, Enns said.

He said he also admires Burt Bacharach — “anybody who is a fantastic songwriter.”

In terms of being a husband-wife musical team, Rhodes said performing with Enns has been enjoyable and challenging, especially since she is not a trained musician.

Rhodes is now performing music that echoes the type she was passionate about when she was younger.

“It feels like we are united in something we both feel really strongly about,” she said.

“It has made things a lot easier, as far as being in a band, and a lot more fun, too,” Enns said. “She understands where I’m coming from and why it’s so important for me to do music.”