Celebrating the 16th Anniversary of Pennylane "From Paradise To Parking Lots"

16 years ago Indie Vision Music released a little known EP by a little known emo/indie rock band from Kauai, Hawaii known as “Pennylane”. So much has changed in the years since both professionally, musically, industry, and personally, that those years seem like such a blur. I just remember a friend passing this self released EP to me at one of my Chain Reaction shows that the band released on their own and loving every second of it. At the time IVM was releasing albums as part of it’s web presence and a year before the zine would launch (2005). I was excited to work with them. You see, the guys were in a little band called Longshot808 on their native island and I had seen them perform once with Dogwood outside of a Church in during a light rain (duh, it’s Kauai). They were pop-punk/melodic punk and it was so cool. I never got their demo and I couldn’t find the songs online but it was enjoyable. Fast forward a few years and I got wind of Pennylane featuring a few former members of Pennylane. Loved it. I would later “sign” the band (whatever that meant lol) and worked on plans to re-release the EP with a few “Live” songs (my idea). I hooked up with a design firm called Web X Design and they did Forgotten Arrival, Next In Line, Hearts Bleed Passion 1, and Pennylane covers. I had some ideas for tropical locations and pics but somehow they ended up using a tropical locale more in line with atlantic beaches than something in the pacific ocean haha. Anyway, I would release this EP in May of 2004 then I started getting real stressed and down then began the process of dismantling everything I had worked so hard at. Luckily for me, things turned around the next year and a zine was launched (More on that soon). This Ep stands the test of time and I feel I did a pretty good job at masking the fact that this was just a self released indie demo that got new mastering job by Anthony Catalano (Next in Line/Little Hurricane). You can find the album on digital networks and bandcamp (see below). The CD portion of this release featured an “Enhanced Portion” with the music video to “Riverside Waiting”, “Silent Sky (Live)”, and some other fun band info. Remember Enhanced CDs? Anyway, I posted the music video for Riverside Waiting below for fun. For some odd reason Spotify labeled the band as “Penny Lane” and I had no control over that 🙁

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We’ve just about landed on the 16th anniversary of this mostly unheard gem by Hawaii natives, Pennylane. From the moment I caught a caught a few members in prior band Longshot 808, I just knew there was something special to come. I heard this Ep after a friend passed it to me at one of my Chain Reaction shows I put together years ago. I loved it so much that I invested money into making it an official IVM release. Back then you had to buy 1000 cds as a minimum and I started to run out of them within that first year (mostly to the band restocking 😉 ) Unfortunately IVM shut down the label shortly after the final release that year, 2004 which was the great Joey’s Loss full length. I’ll never forget memories of that time period and getting to know the guys @davidtamaoka @jtamaoka @mynameislaine (and those MIA). Loved this band then and still today. I would like to apologize for the artwork though. I would rather have used a pic from Kauai where the guys were at the time but the graphic designers used something more fitting of a tropical east coast Atlantic seascape 😂 Anyway, if I were a better label guy, this could have been a launching point for something huge. Anyone who wants the files can find on music.indievisionmusic.com or on digital streaming sites. Long live Pennylane! #pennylane #fromparadisetoparkinglots #kauai #hawaii #poppunk #punkrock #indie #indiemusic #indieemo #emo #indierock #altrock #posthardcore #longshot808 #oliviatheband #pspazz #spookytuesday #acceptance #anberlin #brandtson #furtherseemsforever #nomotiv #hotrodcircuit #stairwell #coheedandcambria

A post shared by Indie Vision Music (@indievisionmusic) on Apr 30, 2020 at 10:33am PDT