The New Fidelity have played on your TV and share a tailor with Rodney Bingenheimer. But what they really need is a Rolodex

PHOTO by STERLING ANDREWS

Dan Perkins could really use a  publicist. At a time when an increasing number of bands are opting to stay the unsigned, DIY course, the New Fidelity singer and guitarist easily points to one advantage a major record label offers: special teams.

“It’s pretty advantageous to have a qualified publicist with a proper Rolodex and a manager who knows venues—in other words, to have a team of people who work in their respected discipline,” Perkins says. “That is something a label theoretically provides.”

The bright side? “We’re not going into debt,” laughs drummer Billy Parkinson.

Named last year by Music Connection Magazine as one of the “Hot 100” unsigned LA artists, the New Fidelity—with guitarist Shawn Malone, bassist Roberto Escobar and, missing from the picture above, keyboardist R. Scott—play concise, London-via-Long Beach Mod/pop laden with enough hooks and harmonies to send you skipping happily along Bluff Park—in search of the Big Red Bus, maybe.

Songs like “2nd Once in a Lifetime Girl” (Costello enunciation with Bandstand clap-along), off last year’s Tiny Slivers, demonstrate the kind of Eveready rock (good for meet-cutes and makeouts, good in the bedroom and the bar) that has similarly helped propel bands such as indie rogues the 88 onto countless TV shows and film soundtracks. But as New Fidelity will tell you, hopping on the tube isn’t easy.

It takes knowing someone in the industry—usually a fan from the audience—and the kind of luck that gets everyone (producers, editors, directors) to agree on your song. Still, the band has popped up in the background audio on Studio 60, Eli Stone and other major network shows, plus a memorable near-appearance on Invasion. That deal didn’t work out, but Perkins remembers watching a cut with the song “One Step Away”: “They had a Buddy Holly song and they didn’t have the budget—it was going to be 10 grand—and the producer said he wanted something that sounded like it was on the Rushmore soundtrack. It was an alien love scene in a bathtub!”

And yet, getting your song on a prime time television show—alien humping or not—doesn’t necessarily equal, say, more fans on MySpace—most songs aren’t credited, and Malone even cites a time when the band asked for a credit only to be told, “We don’t give credits to unsigned indie bands.” (“That’s where it would be awesome to have a proper agent,” adds Perkins.)

So, you keep at it. For the New Fidelity, this means lots of shows, both locally in Long Beach—like their Thursday show at the Prospector during Long Beach Loop and a spot on the bill at Sunday’s Schooled in Song at University by the Sea—and (maybe especially) in LA.

It also means looking sharp—during dinner at Canter’s Deli with KROQ-FM legend Rodney Bingenheimer (he’s a fan), Malone discovered Bingenheimer and the band share a tailor. But the band’s suited appearance isn’t just a cute Mod trope, Perkins explains.

“We want to look like we went on stage to play on stage, not clean it,” he says. “We have pop songs, we love pop music, we like harmonies, we like three minute songs, we want them to be authentic, we want them to be well-written, we don’t want to stylistically exclude people and in a way the Mod look kind of reflects our approach to music—we don’t want to have an expiration date.”

“Sounds good, looks good,” adds Scott.

And, until the day a record label sends in reinforcements, being a musician means staying busy doing
other things. “What happens is, in your life, you don’t get paid to be a musician a lot of times. You have to fit it in and do it for free,” says Perkins. “I’d like to just spend more time playing music. I’d love to have a team and not be burned out doing 11 other things. I think in the post-major-label-analog-distribution model, someone’s going to have provide that team.”

Until they arrive, there’s always the CW—and Malone says, catching the song with the guitar track you recorded in your apartment: “It’s like, ‘We’re listening to a song that we recorded five feet away in the bathroom!’ ”

THE NEW FIDELITY WITH DENGUE FEVER, CRYSTAL ANTLERS, GRAND OLE PARTY, DUSTY RHODES AND THE RIVER BAND, PAWNSHOP KINGS, MOLLY JENSON, BLANK BLUE, BRETT BIXBY, SHAVE, THE YEAR ZERO, CHRIS HANLIN, JAY BUCHANAN AND MORE AT SCHOOLED IN SONG UNIVERSITY BY THE SEA | CORNER OF FIRST ST AND LINDEN AVE | LONG BEACH 90802 | SUN 10AM-10PM | FREE | MYSPACE.COM/SCHOOLEDINSONG | ALSO AT THE PROSPECTOR DURING THE LONG BEACH LOOP | THURS 10PM | EVENT BEGINS AT ALEX’S BAR AT 8:30PM | $10 INCLUDES BUS RIDE AND JÄGER SHOT | MYSPACE.COM/THELONGBEACHLOOP FOR MORE INFO

Tags: long beach loop, schooled in sound, the new fidelity