Album Notes

Relaxing backstage before a recent performance, the members of Vegas DeMilo spent the last few minutes before show time arguing good naturedly about their ideal fantasy touring partner. "I insisted on the Cars," Vegas singer/guitarist Foster Calhoun recalls with a smile, "but the rest of band was holding out for Lou Reed performing the entirety of his Metal Machine Music album, complete with its endless sheets of howling feedback." Not your everyday Rock n' Roll dream...but not a surprising combination, either, given the band's infatuation with decadent pop hooks and furious bursts of white noise.

Vegas DeMilo's mix of samples, loops, keyboards, and fuzzed out guitars has made them one of the leaders in San Francisco's "Rocktronica" underground. Departing from the metal edged rap rock scene of recent years, Vegas DeMilo embraces an over-driven pop sensibility with an appreciation for lyric driven songwriting. Featuring a live sound that is simultaneously low-fi and hi-tech, the band has been drawing large crowds in the San Francisco club scene for the last two years. The release of their new album, Motel California, features the group's distinct sound along with an increasing dose of cynicism.

Motel California playfully chronicles the lowered expectations and confusions of today's twenty-somethings. Deadpan odes to bike messengers ("Dusted") and alternative career choices ("Teen-Age Pornstar") are coupled with more serious takes on personal disillusionment ("Fall") and coming of age ("My Brilliant Career"). "Twelve months of touring, crashing in flea bag crack motels, and living off nothing but fast food and beer put us in the mood to do something different this time around," says bassist Alec Johnson. "We tried to make an album about where we've been in the last year...and hopefully where we're going."

Founding members Alec and Foster have been playing and recording together since their teen years growing up in the south, where they haunted used record stores for the kind of inspiration not available on their local radio station. "The turning point for me was finding a copy of The Jesus & Mary Chain's, Psycho Candy, in a cut out bin," says Foster. "It made everything I had been listening to up to that point sound lame in comparison. It was nasty, vindictive and unbelievably cool sounding...everything a record should be."

Upon immigrating to San Francisco in late 1997 the duo founded Vegas DeMilo (whose name is inspired by an obscure AC/DC lyric) and began refining their own unique blend of punk attitude and subversive pop. Drummer Gabe McCurdy and guitarist Scotti Fraser joined the band after seeing an ad in (the now defunct) BAM magazine that described the upstart group's sound as "low-fi arena rock." Touring steadily up and down the west coast, the band's self-released debut CD was a favorite at many college radio stations. Their sophomore effort, Before It Gets Old, released in March of 1999, was hailed by fans and critics, and received airplay on commercial rock stations KITS (San Francisco) and KMBY (Monterey/Santa Cruz).

Their heightened visability prompted Billboard magazine to hail Vegas
DeMilo as a band "on the verge of a national breakthrough" and Music
Connection to name them one of "California's hottest unsigned acts."
Signed to Southern California Indie Pinch Hit records in the fall of 2000,
the band promptly returned to the studio to begin work on their most
ambitious effort to date. Motel California, produced/recorded in San
Francisco by Dug Nichols and Vegas DeMilo is scheduled for release in
the fall of 2001.