Press Release, OCEAN BEACH, Long Road Home Album Launch 2025
Ocean Beach is a 5-piece guitar band from Auckland who play crunchy pop-folk and cinematic cruisers. Their name is an ode to the (now defunct) Freezing Works that Gaz’s Tongan uncles worked at in the 1970’s. This album will be released under the Freezing Works Records Label.
Long Road Home is the tale of Gaz’s journey from anxious Southland kid to conscious father, partner, and mentor.
An opus of two halves. From Invercargill in the 70’s to modern day Grey Lynn. Spat out from a neurotic state highway of self-medication. Drugs, alcohol, and anxious delinquency fueled this unwarrantable heap from the bottom of the world, up State Highway 1, onto the Northwestern Motorway, to be ejected at the St Luke’s off-ramp.
Side A: Medication: The album opens with a sensational bucket bong instrumental (Savage Buckets) before Gaz invites you into the car for the musical roadie to enlightenment (On My Way). We visit Ōtepōti/Dunedin’s Crown Hotel – a favourite live music pub (Tower of Babel). We observe misogyny on the razz (Boys Club) before an interstellar incursion profoundly impacts the journey’s trajectory (‘Omuamua).
Side B: Meditation: A glistening celestial space waltz (Omnism) draws us into an ethereal, cosmic portal. We find ourselves attending a summer party in leafy Grey Lynn. Struck by the awe of the cosmos, a love epiphany occurs and the clarity appears in his lover’s brown eyes (Come Around). The understanding that we are all connected is realised through a love song
for meditation (Be Together) which also serves as a reconciliation for Gaz’ Pasifika/Scottish NZ heritage. Finally, we arrive home, through the instrumental cruiser and closer, (Long Road Home).
It‘s all here. A beautiful and enthralling musical journey. An aural, spiritual, inverted Goodbye Pork Pie, that starts in Waihōpai/Invercargill and arrives in Tāmaki Makāurau/Auckland. A story that begins in the cosmos and continues in the heart. A grand search for self, discovered and ultimately remembered through experiences.
The Long Road Home album release party 2025 – launch party Grey Lynn RSC Ballroom, Saturday May 17th with SCRAN
Engineered by Dale Cotton
Produced by Dale Cotton, Bryan Spittle & Gary Dalhousie
All songs written by Gary Dalhousie and performed by Ocean Beach
Ocean Beach are:
Gary Dalhousie, Vox, Guitars, BVs
Andrew Gibbons, Bass
Troy Stanton Kerr, Drums, Percussion, BVs
Bryan Spittle, Keys, BVs
Chris Jones, Lead Guitars
Cath Townsend, Backing Vocals
PR and Management Renee Jones
Album Art by the DWC, Roger Murray, Wayne Conway, Woz Elwin, Simon Coley
Distro/Mentorship Joost Langeveld @ Big Pop
Vinyl Consultant Jeffrey Stothers
