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Artist: The Dalloways

Album: Penalty Crusade

Publication: The Bakersfield Californian

Category: Feature

Writer: Danielle Belton

Date: 01/06/2005

Section: Eye Street

Page: E6

Website: www.bakersfield.com 

Oh, to be a Home-Grown Import

You're a total book nerd (or snob perhaps) if you have already figured out where local band The Dalloways get its name. Either that or you just finished taking a women in literature course because the name refers to feminist writer Virginia Woolf's novel "Mrs. Dalloway" written in 1925.

So naturally, The Dalloways founder Gerhard Enns, 34, is an avid reader, which comes in handy when you teach at a college in Lake Isabella.

This Central Valley (Bakersfield and Fresno) based band recently released its first CD, "Penalty Crusade" on Enns' own record label Bird in Box and is starting the daunting task of touring and reaching out for what has been a longtime dream of Enns -- to be a Brit- pop band from California.

Of course, there are a few things wrong with that sentence, but the following should clear all that up.

THE DALLOWAYS ARE ...

Gerhard Enns, 34, lead singer and guitarist, his wife, Cortnie (pronounced Courtney) Enns, 28, on keys, brothers Aaron Wall on drums and percussion and Matt Wall on bass and Ricky Gonzales, guitar.

THE CALI BRIT-POP THING

"We have British roots," said Cortnie Enns before her husband finished with, "from the Central Valley." The Ennses like Brit pop a lot. Alas, neither of them are British and both live in the aforementioned Central Valley, California, USA. But that doesn't stop The Dalloways from trying to create a unique strand of this genre here in the States.

"Brit pop bands of the '80s, PreFab Sprout, the Dream Academy," Gerhard Enns said.

"I listened to those tapes to their end in high school, until they grooved out."

ON BEING IN A BAND WITH YOUR WIFE

"My life is a lot easier now that my wife's in the band," Enns said while Cortnie stood nearby.

She nodded and agreed.

Cortnie Enns isn't on the Penalty Crusade CD, but the album features lots of keyboard work. When the band started playing live Gerhard Enns realized he couldn't play guitar, keys and sing lead, so his wife came in for the assist.

BIG IN JAPAN

Band members were more than pleased that their first album would be distributed in Japan -- promoted and stocked in the 1,500 or so Tower Records and HMV stores in the country.

ON A PENALTY CRUSADE

The album features a virtual who's who in the "indier than thou" music scene, including local band Loveday's Mimi Dorsey, Sarah Lebeau and Velvet Blue Music recording artist Josh Dooley, who also played on local band Calico Sunset's electro pop CD "Deep Deep Paranoia."

"Most of the stuff on the album is meant to be heard on the third or fourth listen to it," said Aaron Wall. "The songs are meant to grow on you."

Enns would love to see the album get picked up by a larger label, but for now he'll settle for touring, writing music and using his label to help out other small struggling artists.

"We'd love to do music full time," Gerhard Enns said.

Copyright, 2005, The Bakersfield Californian