Land of the El Caminos

Guitarist/vocalist Dan Fanelli and drummer Ken Wallin attended junior high school together in the early '80s in a suburb of Chicago. While in high school, the two friends began jamming and said if they ever released an album, it would be titled Land of the El Caminos. The idea for the name came from a vision the pair had of a fictional place where the famous muscle car was the prominent focus. The jam sessions soon came to an end when Fanelli and Wallin went their separate ways in 1988 to attend college. In 1994, Fanelli returned to Chicago and began writing new original compositions and recording them on his four-track. Two years later, Wallin also returned to Chicago and reunited with Fanelli as a two-piece to perform in area bars. The duo dubbed themselves Land of the El Caminos, after their fictional album title from eight years prior. While playing at various clubs, Fanelli and Wallin stumbled across a bassist from Southern California. After talking with the musician, whose name was Aaron Cleall, Fanelli and Wallin realized that they all held the same interests and invited Cleall aboard to round out the band. A year later, they recorded their self-titled debut, and by 1998, their CD hit local record stores in Chicago. The release created a buzz around the city thanks to airplay on radio station WXRT and favorable reviews by such newspapers as The Chicago Sun-Times. Throughout the rest of the year, the group started working on more new material and testing it out at clubs. The result of the new songs was the band's second release, Doll Face, in the summer of 1999. The first copies of the disc that were pressed contained handwritten labels and were sent to various publications and clubs. Doll Face caught the attention of the venues and reviewers for its post-punk pop...