Slightly Stoopid's

Slightly Stoopid's third album, Everything You Need, came out last year on the deceased Sublime singer Brad Nowell's Skunk Records, but it was just released in October in the U.K. on Encinitas's Surfdog label. One British mag calls the Ocean Beach band "a brilliant example of the kind of hip-hop/punk acts California seems to be breeding like rabbits at the moment." The review continues, "Slightly Stoopid, besides having a ridiculously silly name, are a bunch of guys evidently running high on the kind of dub-punk fusion that became Sublime's calling card in the late '90s. Of course, with that in mind, the plagiarism tag is never far from reach when listening to this, but, thankfully, what could've turned out to be an irritating rehash of Sublime's greatest moments is spiced up well enough for them to develop an awesome genre-smoking cocktail of their own."

(Drowned in Sound, London, England; November 11, 2004)

Before Switchfoot played the Marquee Theatre in Tempe, Arizona, on November 16, a local paper's preview noted, "Record companies don't always know what they've got.... When Columbia first signed the rock group from a Christian music company called Sparrow, they had so little faith in the guys that they issued their CD, The Beautiful Letdown, on their tiny imprint called Red. They also let Sparrow retain rights to sell the band to the Christian market.... That turned out to yield huge results. Switchfoot's latest album has been on the charts for 64 weeks, the longest run of any band in Billboard's Top 40. They've sold 1,140,996 CDs, roughly 906,000 of those for Columbia and 230,000 for Sparrow. The [new] record is powered by 'Meant to Live,' a top ten single on pop radio, and 'Dare You to Move,' a smash on alternative rock stations.... The band's name comes from a term for switching to the foot you don't normally emphasize on your board."

(East Valley Tribune, Tempe, Arizona; November 14, 2004)