Recliner

In the summer of 2003, guitarists Ward Evans and Kevin Seidel joined drummer John Benson—each previously active in the Bay Area ska and surf outfit the Swamis—and ex-3-Minute World bassist George Carney to establish San Francisco’s Recliner. The quartet’s output centers on aggressive, harmony-laden guitar rock that has drawn parallels to the Pixies, Cheap Trick, Social Distortion, and Fugazi. Members characterize their sound as that of “a smiling, well-dressed man with a knife.” The group’s self-titled debut EP, Recliner, surfaced in fall 2003 via its own imprint, Poison Pen Records, while the full-length Make a Friend, tracked at John Vanderslice’s Tiny Telephone Studios, followed on the same label in 2004.