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  Street To Nowhere - They're Not Like Us
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Most people get a measly little diploma on graduation day, but Dave Smallen got something a lot cooler: a recording contract. While it�s true that the Street To Nowhere leader didn�t actually have anywhere to graduate from this past June�after studying art at UC Santa Cruz and UCLA, he returned home to Oakland in the fall of 2004 to concentrate on music�Smallen couldn�t be happier with the way things have turned out.

�I went pretty much knowing that I didn�t want to graduate, or that I wasn�t going to,� admits Smallen. �Getting signed the same week I would�ve graduated was nice vindication.�

Street To Nowhere�s good fortune may appear to have come easily, but the 21-year-old Smallen has been making music for years. In fact, he started a group called Street To Nowhere when he was still in high school, but after going to college and delving into the work of artists like Radiohead, The Beatles, and Bob Dylan, he found himself in more of a singer/songwriter mode. Smallen began playing acoustically wherever he could: clubs, street corners, community centers, and coffee shops. He opened for artists who performed everything from contemporary jazz to hardcore punk. In 2004 he decided to enter a battle-of-the-bands competition to perform at San Francisco alt-rock radio station Live 105�s annual summer festival, BFD. What started out looking like a long shot ended up being a turning point in his career: he won the competition and in doing so gained the respect of his friends and family as well as the confidence to take a break from college and record an album.

Even though he didn�t have a band or much money, in early 2005 he and best friend Matt Radosevich (who had just landed a job as assistant to producer Eric Valentine) started recording with whomever they could, wherever they could. Ironically, in recording the album, Smallen employed many of same techniques used by the average college student: asking favors from friends, working a part-time job to get by, and of course, pulling quite a few all-nighters.

�We recorded Charmingly Awkward ourselves in ten different locations (three studios, two apartments, a practice space, a cabin, a basement, a living room, and my bedroom) on no budget aside from money saved from playing shows and selling demos and t-shirts,� he recalls, � We recorded in the middle of the night, did it totally guerilla style. I wouldn�t do it again that way, but it was key for how the record came out.�

The finished product, Charmingly Awkward, finds Smallen commenting on and exploring questions about things both personal and political over the top of a soundtrack influenced by everyone from Elliott Smith to Leonard Cohen to Billy Corgan and Billie Joe Armstrong. There�s also some Weezer-like buzzing and Bright Eyes-esque folk on the 11-song album, but Smallen makes sure his own style and voice are always loud and clear.

�The concept for Charmingly Awkward was to just do what was appropriate for each song,� he explains, �To not force it into any common genre but instead create an album as eclectic as my music taste, held together by a common thread of personality.�

Thematically the album addresses everything from social alienation (�They�re Not Like Us� which is inspired by Smallen�s older brother), insomnia (the dreamy �You Can�t Go To Sleep�), and political activism (�Leave The Cameras On,� which was inspired by Smallen�s arrest during antiwar protests in 2003). And then there�s �Georgia, Can You Hear Me?,� a stripped-down acoustic number he recorded off the cuff at 5 o�clock one morning.

It is these very same recordings that Capitol has decided to release � none of the standard major label tweaks, re-recordings, or remixes. It even includes Smallen�s original woodcut artwork for the cover and packaging.

Though Smallen still occasionally performs solo, early this year he assembled a band featuring guitarist Will Hauser who he met while at UCLA, high-school pal Bryce Freeman on bass (who dropped out of college the same time as Smallen and played a substantial role in the making of Charmingly Awkward), and former Link 80 drummer Joey Bustos. Street To Nowhere recently finished a two-month tour with the Format and Rainer Maria and plans on spending the foreseeable future on the road.

�I was talking to a friend the other day about the whole label thing and he asked, �Now it�s gonna be easy, right?�� muses Smallen. �And I was like, �No, this is when it gets hard.� Because we need to do as much as we can ourselves�be out on the road, be touring. We are taking none of this for granted.�