STREET TO NOWHERE: CHARMINGLY AWKWARD

“We recorded Charmingly Awkward ourselves in ten different locations (three studios, two apartments, a practice space, a cabin, a basement, a living room, and my bedroom) on no budget aside from money saved from playing shows and selling demos and t-shirts,” Dave Smallen recalls, “ We recorded in the middle of the night, did it totally guerilla style. I wouldn’t do it again that way, but it was key for how the record came out.”

Thematically the album addresses everything from social alienation (“They’re Not Like Us” which is inspired by Smallen’s older brother), insomnia (the dreamy “You Can’t Go To Sleep”), and political activism  (“Leave The Cameras On,” which was inspired by Smallen’s arrest during antiwar protests in 2003). And then there’s “Georgia, Can You Hear Me?,” a stripped-down acoustic number he recorded off the cuff at 5 o’clock one morning.

It is these very same recordings that Capitol has decided to release – none of the standard major label tweaks, re-recordings, or remixes. It even includes Smallen’s original woodcut artwork for the cover and packaging.
        
“I was talking to a friend the other day about the whole label thing and he asked, ‘Now it’s gonna be easy, right?’” muses Smallen. “And I was like, ‘No, this is when it gets hard.’ Because we need to do as much as we can ourselves—be out on the road, be touring. We are taking none of this for granted.”