Columbia Records Ready To Release New Mooney Suzuki Album, Alive & Amplified, Produced By The Matrix

Columbia Records is set to release Alive & Amplified, the eagerly-awaited new studio album from the Mooney Suzuki and first full-length collection since the group's critically-acclaimed breakout platter, Electric Sweat. Alive & Amplified will be in stores on Tuesday, August 10.

Last heard playing behind Jack Black as the "School of Rock" band on the anthemic title track from hit film comedy, the Mooney Suzuki turned to the red-hot production team The Matrix (Avril Lavigne, Liz Phair) for the group's latest effort, Alive & Amplified.

"We wanted to make a record that sounded like the Beach Boys, the 5th Dimension and Phil Spector," says Mooney Suzuki frontman Sammy James, Jr. "The Matrix felt to us like the current incarnation of that L.A. pop tradition, so we moved to L.A. to make an unabashedly pop, bright and ornate Hollywood rock 'n' roll record. This is the most Mooney Suzuki-sounding record we have ever made."

Tracks on Alive & Amplified include: "Primitive Condition," "Alive & Amplified," "Legal High," "New York Girls," "Shake That Bush Again," "Sometimes Something," "Loose 'N' Juicy," "Hot Sugar," "Messin' In The Dressin' Room," "Naked Lady," and "Love Bus."

"All of our previous recordings were very raw and stripped-down," says James about the new record. "With Alive & Amplified, we went to the other end of the spectrum. We wanted to create an explosion of dense, layered, kaleidoscopic MAXIMALISM!"

Formed in the late 1990s in New York City, the Mooney Suzuki quickly developed a reputation as one of the Big Apple's most energetic and powerful new rock & roll bands.

Drawing inspiration from classic 60s rock -- the MC5, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks -- the band's live shows became the stuff of local legend as the Mooney Suzuki began selling out shows all along the East Coast, without the benefit of a booking agent, a record label, or band management.

"The Mooney Suzuki are not just ass-kicking live," wrote the Alternative Press, "but ass-razing."

By 1999, the Mooney Suzuki's reinvigorated brand of guitar-fueled "Maximum R&B" was earning the group coveted opening slots for original 60s acts like the Pretty Things and the Zombies. In November 1999, the Mooney Suzuki became the youngest band to perform at New York's Cavestomp! garage rock festival. In September 2000, the Mooney Suzuki's first album, People Get Ready, charted at #12 on the CMJ Top 200 and earned the band a place on many a savvy critic's "Best of 2000" year-end lists. Following the album's release, the Mooney Suzuki embarked on a non-stop tour lasting more than a year, logging three consecutive laps around the United States, often performing two shows a day in each city.

Coming off the Donnas/Bratmobile tour in spring 2001, the Mooney Suzuki began work on the group's second album, Electric Sweat, recorded over three sweltering days in August 2001 by Jim "Diamond Jim" Diamond at Ghetto Recorders in Detroit, Michigan. The legendary Electric Sweat saw its major label release on Columbia Records on March 11, 2003.

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SOURCE: Columbia Records

CONTACT: Benny Tarantini, Media, Columbia Records, New York,
+1-212-833-5858, benny_tarantini@sonymusic.com

Web site: http://www.columbiarecords.com/
http://www.themooneysuzuki.com/
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