page_title: Balboa Fun*Zone
section_title: Background and recording
hierarchical_section_title: Balboa Fun*Zone / Background and recording
caption_attribution_description: English: Fun_ZonePhoto_D_Ramey_Logan
context_page_description: Balboa Fun*Zone is the third studio album by the American punk rock band the Adolescents, released in 1988 on Triple X Records. Titled after the Balboa Fun Zone amusement area of Balboa Peninsula, Newport Beach, it is the band's only album recorded without singer Tony Brandenburg, who had left the group the prior year. Electing not to replace him, guitarist Rikk Agnew and bassist Steve Soto alternated lead vocals on Balboa Fun*Zone. The album also features the return of original Adolescents guitarist Frank Agnew, who had been absent from their prior album, 1987's Brats in Battalions. Balboa Fun*Zone is also the final Adolescents studio album to include Rikk Agnew and drummer Sandy Hanson. The band broke up in April 1989, reuniting in later years with different lineups.
context_section_description: The Adolescents had spent much of 1987 touring in support of their second album, Brats in Battalions, but by the end of that year singer Tony Brandenburg and guitarist Dan Colburn both left the band. Brandenburg stated in 1989, "I was interested in other things (I had joined another band, the Flower Leperds), and the Adolescents touring cut into my school work". Bassist Steve Soto said there were also disagreements between Brandenburg and the other band members over taking the band's music in a more melodic direction. Soto, guitarist Rikk Agnew, and drummer Sandy Hanson decided to continue as the Adolescents, with Soto and Agnew sharing lead vocal duties. They recruited guitarist Paul Casey, who left after a few months of touring. Rikk's younger brother Frank Agnew, who had been one of the band's founding guitarists and had left a few months after their 1986 reunion, rejoined the group.
  Soto and Rikk Agnew wrote the material for the band's next album, moving away from the Adolescents' prior hardcore punk sound and themes of politics and adolescent desperation in favor of exploring more openly melodic pop rock influences and writing songs that reflected their personal experiences. "Punk, which started out as being a totally liberating kind of music, can put a lock on you", Soto said. Agnew agreed: "The original idea of punk was individuality and breaking limits. So why not go out and break your own limits?"
  They titled the album and its opening and closing tracks after the Balboa Fun Zone, an amusement area of Balboa Peninsula, Newport Beach, even though they had not visited there regularly and Hanson and Frank Agnew had never been there. "Balboa Fun Zone (Riot at the Beach)" was written by Soto to evoke the wildness of the band's early days, set to a fast punk beat with lyrics chronicling rioting that took place there in April 1987 involving about 700 youths. Soto had not experienced the riot, but based his lyrics on newspaper accounts. He also wrote "Allen Hotel", about a hotel in the band's hometown of Fullerton, California that was populated by drunks and drug addicts. "It's one of those last-chance hotels," he said, "the kind of place you could live in if you didn't have a job and you were scrounging on the street. People I knew that were into drugs and drinking, sure enough some of them started moving in there. It went from being a scary place to a possibility, and that was a scary thought. If I'd kept on doing the things I was doing, I would have been there myself, and so would everyone in the band. Fortunately for us, we didn't let it get that far. We woke up to it." Soto also wrote the album's closing song, "Balboa Fun Zone (It's in Your Touch)", a drastic departure from the Adolescents' earlier work due to it being a folk rock  number played on acoustic guitars with lyrical singing about putting a past phase of life behind and looking toward the future.
  Rikk Agnew's songwriting contributions included "Just Like Before"; written about his longstanding relationship with his girlfriend, it begins with anger over problems in a relationship but then transitions to calm reflection about how the romance endures despite the ongoing friction. Agnew said the lyrics could also apply to the Adolescents' career, since the band broke up in 1981 when the members were young and immature, but now had a chance to grow as they became adults. He commented, "Being a little older, you can realize that when one member is ragging on the others about the music, it has nothing to do with anything personal. Instead of having obstinate egos, we just have strong egos." He also wrote "It's Tattoo Time" about his fondness for tattoos—by 1988, he had over 30 tattoos on his body. The song's bridge features the sound of a tattoo machine; this was a recording of Agnew having his arm tattooed by artist Mark Mahoney.
  Balboa Fun*Zone was recorded at Casbah Recording Studio in Fullerton with recording engineer Chaz Ramirez, and was co-produced by Ramirez and the band members. The band included a cover version of the John Lennon song "Instant Karma!" 
caption: The album is titled after the Balboa Fun Zone amusement area of Balboa Peninsula, Newport Beach (pictured in 2010). The album cover is a photograph of the Fun Zone taken at night, showing the lights from the Ferris wheel and other attractions.
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