newfi “The New Fidelity are the old Lo-Fi Champion (get it?) on Viagra. Not priapic necessarily—but with a new lease on life: hooky, melodic, ebullient and blissfully free of all that plodding perfectionism that used to gum up the works.”

That update on one of Long Beach’s most-happenin’ bands was written by Alison M. Rosen for OC Weekly’s music issue on June 17 … of 2004—and seven-plus years later not much has changed. Now, as then, for instance, nobody refers to a band as “happenin’—with or without the “most.”

More to the point, now, as then, The New Fidelity remains as relevant a presence and influence on the Long Beach music scene today as it was more than 10 years ago, when Dan Perkins’ outfit was called Lo-Fi Champion and shared bills with an almost completely different cast of contemporaries.

The New Fidelity headlined Sunday’s Summer and Music In The Park show—with Jameson, Lightmusic and John Kray—at Promenade Square, located in downtown Long Beach at 1st Street and The Promenade. The bands go on at 3, 4, 5 and 6 p.m. Admission is free. But if you missed this show, don’t sweat it—for years and years now, there’s always been another one coming.

 ”Which is not to say,” Alison M. Rosen wrote a-way back when, ”that the New Fidelity (Perkins and Roberto Escobar along with Cleveland transplants Shawn Malone and Billy Parkinson) are slapped together or even punk, but just that currently everything is green and new and invigorated and shiny and easy for the nine-month-old foursome who, according to Perkins, have been getting all kinds of Beach Boys comparisons. From idiots!

“Aside from their masterful harmonies, the New Fidelity sound nothing like the Beach Boys and everything like the soundtrack to an ’80s movie that was never made. Take the wistfully danceable “Casa Grande” for instance, about a “sunny winter’s day bike ride through Long Beach.” John Cusack should be on that bike! Or “First Day,” about doing dishes in your apartment and reflecting on the way that love sometimes walks into your life . . . and fucks it up! Molly Ringwald is doing those dishes right now!”

Damn, how I used to love reading Alison M. Rosen write about The New Fidelity in OC Weekly!

Now, however, I enjoy reading Adler Bloom write about The New Fidelity’s new single, “California Summer,” in American Pancake:

“New Fidelity have always channeled the early 60′s Brit pop sound of bands like The Hollies, The Dave Clark Five and The Zombies but also infuse what is uniquely a Southern Californian beach sound as well. The boys hail from Long Beach, California so this makes absolute sense.

“Their new single is unabashedly bright and in full technicolor. It literally takes you far, far away to a place where Governors don’t commute the sentences of murderers and gas does not cost $4.00 a gallon. If you allow the music to do so, it will strip away years of cynicism that can, these days, coat us all like heavy layers of paint.

“California Summer (A-Side) vacillates between tight bass driven post punk (reminiscent of The Jam) to a chorus hinging on bubble gum pop (reminiscent of The Archie’s). Lead vocalist Dan Perkins laments being away from his California Summer expressing how he feels when he is away… “now I feel like a Buddhist Monk in a Church in Rome.”

The B-side entitled Never Go Away percolates with an enticingly sweet picking guitar with a heavy counterpoint of syncopated  guitar power chords and organ swells following heavy bass and drum down beats. It is a wonderfully complex little dance as each musical entity played at different time signatures all fit so perfectly together. The lead vocals seem a bit more playful than on California Summer giving it a more live performance feel and I like that. Never Go Away inhabits a more power pop 80′s jag in that Joe Jackson / Knack universe but let me be clear, New Fidelity is it’s own planet. A planet where Beatle boots, Rickenbacker guitars and a brighter tomorrow rule the day.”

Wasn’t that nice?