The Summerlands advertise themselves on their Bandcamp page as “the swunkiest band on the West Coast”. I thought I was pretty hip with lingo, but I had to ask Google the meaning of “swunky”. Its unhelpful chat bot told me that “swunky” was “likely a typo of spunky.” Unsatisfied, I went to a tome of verbal curiosities which has never let me down: Urban Dictionary. Its fine editorial staff informed me that “swunky” actually stands for “sweaty and funky”, as in “Tara and I danced all day in the mud pit at Lollapalooza in the hundred-degree heat, and then we made out for like an hour in the porta-potty even though we were all swunky.”
It’s this sort of independent, care-free, fuck-it attitude that runs through the thickest veins of The Summerlands, especially on their new record, Bonfante Gardens Forever. The title is a nod to the California theme park now known as Gilroy Gardens, having changed its name in the mid-2000s due to post-corporate takeover executive meddling. The theme park is not far from Santa Cruz, the hometown of The Summerlands’ songwriter and frontman, Grant Simmons. Therefore, the feelings of having pride for the home turf and anger over its fate flow throughout the album.
Simmons conceived of the album in 2020, two years before forming the solo project which would become The Summerlands. That year, the CZU fire in Santa Cruz forced him to evacuate, and the experience caused him to ruminate on the other massive changes that had afflicted his home over the past decade: Silicon Valley creeping in, climate change, gentrification, displacement, and fascism going from a slow creep into a full sprint. The album also relates these themes to the city of Portland, Oregon, where Simmons is now based.
Bonfante Gardens Forever stemmed from two influences in particular: Titus Andronicus’s The Monitor (a timeless indie punk album) and Mark Arax’s The Dreamt Land, a non-fiction book about California’s complex and conflicted history with water and land. The influences shine on tracks like the leadoff “Sellwood Bridge Blues”, named after one of Portland’s bridges and featuring an anthemic riff similar to the one on “A More Perfect Union”. There’s also the seven-minute opus “SS Palo Alto”, which echoes longer tracks on The Monitor like “A Pot In Which To Piss” and “Four Score and Seven”. As far as Mark Arax, the author speaks portions from his book in various tracks across Bonfante Gardens Forever, delivered similar to the spoken word clips on The Monitor.
The record features sounds from other 21st-century indie punk progenitors like Jeff Rosenstock, PUP, and Empty Country, with blazing instrumentation from multi-instrumentalist Simmons and the band’s three other members (Jacob Bledsoe on drums, Benedict Cahill on guitar, and Aaron McKay on bass.) With additional vocals and sounds from various other contributors, Bonfante Gardens Forever takes on a symphonic and concept-album nature which generates emotion from the questions for which it seeks answers:
How do you balance love for your hometown and a yearning to stay with the knowledge of its growing inhospitality and unaffordability? How do you become an adult in a world where the benchmarks for adulthood become evermore unreachable? How do you reckon with daily choices that – due to late-stage capitalism, corporate greed, and lapsing regulations – force you to contend with and contribute to the effects of climate change, surveillance, and the imminent end of society as we know it?
On “The Henrys” — a grungy anthem towards the end of the record — Simmons offers an answer in the form of the lyric, “The future is deliberate / I run towards it.” Between the wide soundscape, the lyrical depth, and the themes explored, The Summerlands decree that no matter what the powers that be have decreed for the future, simply letting it happen is not an option. There are opportunities for revolution, reformation, and celebration everywhere, even on a small scale. Helping friends with mutual aid, a hot meal potluck, or a shoulder to lean on is always a good start. When the world finally crumbles as the weight of capitalist greed collapses on itself, the communities we build on our own terms will be there to pick up the pieces, put out the fires, and prop each other up.
And even if we all get flattened, we’ll go out on our own terms: By getting as swunky as possible in the last remaining dive bars, by the sides of local swimming holes, in each other’s basements, and in other dimly lit and delirious spaces where one last little light of love can shine.
Bonfante Gardens Forever is a fantastic new punk record that will command multiple listens to understand its emotional weight. Get a headstart by listening to the lead track “Sellwood Bridge Blues” below.
Written by Will Sisskind
