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From The Sublime To The Outrageous, After The Quake  Features Raucous Western Skate Punk, Surreal Road-Tripping Sleaze, and Vivid Surf Guitar Twang.

Band Ditches Traditional Music Label Marketing and Distribution Model For A More Direct Band-To-Fan Relationship

Reno/Lake Tahoe – Former drummer for Sublime, Bud Gaugh has made a point to keep fans on their toes. From the early Long Beach days of The Juice Brothers through the bittersweet success of Sublime, and subsequent bands Long Beach Dub All Stars and later, Eyes Adrift with Krist Novoselic (Nirvana) and Curt Kirkwood (Meat Puppets), Gaugh has seen his share of major label success, fan adulation, and even devastating disappointments. After “retiring” from all these bands, Gaugh intended to kick back a little and enjoy life. That is, until he started playing with a loose contingent of musicians from the Reno area that eventually formed into his latest band, Del Mar.

Combining high energy, tongue-in-cheek skate punk with classic surf instrumentals, Del Mar’s first release After The Quake is a vivid potpourri of slap-happy musical styles. A common thread runs through the disc depicting life after the “big one” and some of the bizarre people that inhabit the wild west. These themes are held together by a colorful cast of characters including roadside Reno prostitutes, unwashed beach bums, meth heads, and even a giant jellyfish. This all adds up to an intense and rather peculiar listening experience of in-your-face music deliberately played with utter abandon by the four members of the band. As Gaugh likes to say, “Del Mar is an uncorked 572 big-block driven by a schizophrenic, machete-wielding, blunt smoking, green puss-dripping monster shooting cop cars with a barrett .50 cal. BMG!”

The members of Del Mar regard themselves as family which is quite literally true. In addition to Bud Gaugh on drums, his wife Nicole Hutcheson plays rhythm guitar and sings. The band is rounded out by Mike Martinez, a Reno native, on bass; and Matt Bode on lead guitar and vocals. It is Bode’s manic over-the-top vocals and intense high-octane guitar that give much of After The Quake its signature sound and power. Commenting on Del Mar’s music, Bode remarks “The surf stuff is great and the punk stuff is better. I want to have an arsenal of punk music for the young fans and surf music for the older fans”

In addition to the four band members, Dennis “Lil Daddy” Roth makes a few guest appearances narrating the opening track Westbound ’80-Intro and again on “I Got A Woody” and his signature tune, Roth’s Revenge. Son of Ed  “Big Daddy” Roth, the acclaimed counter-culture cartoonist and car builder best known for popularizing “Kustom Kulture” with his outrageous car designs and caricatures, “Lil’ Daddy” continues this tradition depicting imaginative, outsized characters behind the wheel of classic roadsters as the imaging for Del Mar. It is the perfect visual compliment to Del Mar’s extreme surf-punk ethos and wacky lyrics.

After a few too many bad experiences with major record labels, Gaugh and the band decided to shun the majors and enter the new world of “Do It Yourself” recording and distribution, handling all aspects of the release through indie startup Half Of Nothing Records in Sacramento. Like many bands today, Del Mar is more interested in forming a deeper band-to-fan relationship instead of handing everything over to a major record label only to be told what to write, what to sing, how to sing it, and how to market it (comically depicted in “Rats On A Sinking Ship” from After The Quake.). Half Of Nothing Records shares these concerns with Del Mar as echoed by label chief Zach “Zippy”Goodin “No suits or ties here,” says Goodin. “Bands like Del Mar started Half Of Nothing Records to play what they want, own the masters, and have control of the creative process. Goodin looks forward to Del Mar hitting the road to “blow up some amps, break some strings, and have a little fun in the sun.”