Surf Music!

General Discussion
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Surf music is a very specific genre. Many seem to think it encompasses a wide range of things. Those people are typically too young to know what surf music was in the 60s, so they don’t use the term as originally coined. As I believe I already mentioned, tthe Beach Boys are not surf music. They did songs about surfing, which is not the same thing at all.

There are current day practitioners of the style who hold true to what the genre was at its inception. Like I already said, if there’s vocals, it isn’t surf music.

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…hello SammyA, regarding The Ventures; yes, they are not a surf band but the best classic instro band. They have great songs, N Edwards used fuzz in instrumental pop music when almost nobody did it; constructed some songs with a very good structure (outside the norm of AABA so comon in the 60s); influenced lots of bands with their shows and sound. They had fine taste for melodies.

Saying all that, I have plenty of their records and saw them live in Tokyo (in a “mythical” place like the Sun plaza, where almost all big and not so big 70s and 80s bands played) last year BUT I was really dissapointed that they are a novelty act (except for the drummer) from long time ago, they played the same songs over and over again; all good but sometimes is better to appart from the comfort zone; more if you have such amazing repertoire.

Some of the bands you named I saw them live or played in the same show.

Well, Im not a purist in the sense of sound like a 60s band; Im not a cover musician; so I try to have my tone (with the instruments and with the music phrases); last month, I went to the studio and recorded some surf rock songs but my tone for that is not the typical Fender guitar, fender combo thin sharp sound.

Im a purist regarding natural pure tone; if its an acoustic instrument after the recording should be the same sound; for an electric one the same…what s the point to mask the real sound of the instrument with digital signals? Also, compression killed real music; even more outside rock or pop music.

-Surfteach, I use it mainly with a Gretsch 6120

-Kayu, Russians 5881 s do the job.

 

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Bluegrass musician/song-writer/performer Bill Monroe (September 13, 1911 – September 9, 1996), “Father of Bluegrass Music,” was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1997 for his influence on Rock and Roll…

Surf music’s reach/influence?  Donna Stoneman on electric mandolin, and family, do Bill Monroe’s  Bluegrass Stomp (1949) surf style on Hullabaloo (TV) in the 60s:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zrN-BXfiIY&app=desktop

It is said that Chuck Berry was inspired by Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Stomp also.
Bill Monroe and band performing "Bluegrass Stomp:"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7PETjncuMo&list=PL1E66458D6D1CACB5&index=1
Elvis Presley performed/recorded Bill Monroe's Blue Moon of Kentucky(1946) in 1954.
Elvis performs "Blue Moon of Kentucky (1954):"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AAOM-BRxcg
Bill Munroe performs Blue Moon of Kentucky:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4syA9aNnNa0
 
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Here are some links to some of the songs from the ‘Delightful Rain’ Australian surf music documentary .

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9u_CttIV7VY

Atlantics - Bombora

This song is 51 years old.

 

 

 

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC7bxEvGJwg

Atlantics playing a Midnight Oil song Wedding Cake Island.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3kL3ttTPSE

Dan Rumour and the drift.

 

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https://itunes.apple.com/au/artist/dan-rumour-the-drift/id265838587

The above link is to a preview of the Dan Rumour and the drift album.

Highly recommend this album.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3JYkjy_cA8

Peter Howe and Tim Gaze.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO4FbBxFRe8

Angry Tradesmen.

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From the 90s doesn’t get better then Ka’au Crater Boys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JvQwPxtNkw

 

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Cool tune. But, despite the title that isn’t surf music.

I’m a big fan of slack key guitar and other Hawaiian stuff. In fact, John Cruz is a good friend of mine. You may have heard of him?

But, I don’t confuse any of that with surf music, which started in Southern California in the early 60s.

 

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlAPWDASjWQ

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I was a teenager in the 60s.  When somebody says surf music, for me, the first two popular tunes that come to mind are Pipeline by the Chantays and Wipeout by the Surfaris.

I can hear the Mexican and Middle Eastern qualities in Dick Dale’s Misirlou and a bit of Mexican/Spanish/Spaghetti Western in Pipeline.  (But a lot of Mexican music has a strong German influence, one well-known style being Mariachi.)

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I misread the original post I thought he was  looking for music influenced by surf culture and surfers, but I read more and saw not.  

Although this has that good feel,

I guess still not surf music, but maybe you see the influence appear in surf music later. Maybe indirectly? 

Pipeline was the first song I learned on guitar when I was a kid, of course that was in the 80’s for me :) 

Out of curiosity, what were the guys, i.e. Noll, Grigg, Thrailkill, etc… listening to when they came to Hawaii back in the 50’s and 60’s? I know you hear the Sandalls on endless summer, but what would you hear on the radio out here?

 

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I thought Surf Music was the apres surf music the waikiki beach boys played when they finished for the day, came in to the banyan tree and got drunk in the 30’s and 40’s. Chick Daniels guys…Most surfers were also pretty decent musicians back then.

probably bongo’s, a tamborine. murachas(sp?) some guitars, ukuleles and nothing more especially anything electric, unless it was an electric steel peddle guitar with a slide.

Didn’t all the rhe rest just come from what Gidget spawned?

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http://www.billboard.com/archive/charts/1960/hot-100

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I have to agree with SammyA.  Surf music as a “specific genre” arose in the early 60s (1963?), was purely instrumental and had solid roots in some form/variant/hybrid of rock and roll.  IMO it had nothing to do with Gidget et. al.

It is/was about the actual experience of surfing.  Leonsurfer’s thread got me going backward for origins rather than forward for modern influences.  Spaghetti Western music has always reminded me of surf music, specifically Ennio Morricone’s compositions in the “Man with No Name” dollars trilogy.  To me, the Spaghetti Western music was a stylized interpretation of Mexican/Spanish music.  After listening to a bit of classic spanish guitar music today, it seems like surf music has an El Torro-Malagueña and pasodobles/bullfighting music feel to it.

The obvious experiential analogy being the Matador (surfer) and El Toro (the wave).  Add a variant of rock and roll…

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…hey Oneula,  when you say pretty decent musicians; I say that all is relative; I mean, playing some basic diatonic cords in the Ukelele, guitar, etc does not convert some one in a decent musician; of course lots of musicians can have the ability or the music itself to provide feelings to the listener, but it is limited; limited to the same song over and over again. Im referring to the Harmonies (cord progressions) and the possible melodies that implies; again, you can say a lot with few words but if you really know a language or if you know more than one, etc what you have to say (after you thought about something/anything) would or could be better; at least expanded and you can put yourself in other level of comprehension. The reality is that if a person reachs more complicated levels of uderstanding, his/her senses can appreciate better other forms of art; in this case more demanded music.

Im saying this but I really like simple diatonic songs but as a musician, my brain and soul also want more intrincated but fascinating music.

-regarding this thread; again, surf music or surf rock is a subgenre of rock. A style that s defined by a sound drenched in spring reverb (so not digitally) mainly with guitars as lead instruments. No vocals. The melodies and rhy should say all what you want to say.

Inside this style (like with many others) there are different approaches regarding picking style, overall sound and inspiration.

They are bands that have a remarkable style so they are not only followers of a 60s trend.

Also surf rock is a part of instro rock, where you can have different (but with similar roots) things like The Ventures, Dick Dale, Duane Eddy, Link Wray, Davie Allan;  finnish style-rautalanka-, Aussie style; Laika Cosmonauts, Insect Surfers, Daikaju, Mermen, Man or Astroman? Huntington Cads, Galaxy trio, Ghastly ones, late 50s sleazy bands etc

Some of these are surf bands some do not but all are instro rock/pop bands. All are differents and sounds different inspired in different things but with the same type of root.

Where in the world J Johnson is surf music!?

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If you want to take the word of a person who speaks of himself in the thrid person, Dick Dale basically invented surf music. Even though he’s an eccentric egomaniac, many folks (like me) agree. He pretty much invented the genre.

In the broadest sense, it is sub genre of rock that was heavily influenced by Middle Eastern and Spanish music. Even then, much of Spanish music has an Arabic influence. Dick Dale is from Massachusetts. He’s half Lebanese and half Greek. Real name, Richard Monsour. Tunes like Misrlou are Middle Eastern in origin and Dale put his own spin on it to make it a ‘surf tune’. The earliest surf records pre date Spaghetti Western music, but they share commoin roots. Thus, the similarity.

A Fistfull of Dollars, scored by Ennio Morricone, was released in 1964. If one style influenced the other, it’s that Morricone picked  up something from surf music, not the other way around.

Prior to the advent of surf music, many surf films used a rock or jazz soundtrack. Such as, the first two Bruce Brown films, Barefoot Adventure, and Slippery When Wet. Both original scores by Bud Shank.There was a time when the word “jazzed” was synonymous with stoked, in fact. Phil Edwards once used the phrase “the legions of the unjazzed” in reference to people who didn’t surf. If you were jazzed, you were in on the secret.

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