Surf Music

The Largest Surfing Encyclopedia

---

A-Z: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

---

Advertisement

A highly specialized, guitar-driven genre, surf music was defined in the late '50s and early '60s by the reverberant twang of still-reigning Fender king Dick Dale. Dale's fuzzed-out instrumentals, built atop frantic drumbeats and rumbling bass lines, somehow emulated the thunder of roaring surf and cascading walls of whitewater. Soon after Dale's 1962 landmark single "Let's Go Trippin," a host of principally California-based acts -- The Surfaris, The Chantays and Washington state's Ventures -- hopped on his tip, scoring hits with "Wipe Out," "Pipeline" and "Walk/Don't Run."

Playing his lefty Stratocaster (nicknamed "The Beast") upside-down, backwards and strung with ridiculously heavy-gauge strings, Dale's rumored to have blown up dozens of amps in intense R and D sessions with gear guru Leo Fender, eventually leading to the development of his own line, "The Showman." Dale's machine-gun staccato, as best exemplified on surf standards like "Miserlou" and "The Scavenger," continues to set the standard by which all surf musicians -- from traditionalists such as the unheralded Richie Allen to spacier contemporaries such as San Francisco's Mermen and Canada's Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet (best know for their theme song to the "Kids in the Hall") -- are measured.

Early surf filmmakers, most notably Bruce Brown, relied so heavily on the sound for their soundtracks that it's irrevocably linked to images of Greg Noll fearlessly charging Waimea monsters and Miki Dora cross-stepping at Malibu. Close to this time (the mid '60s) was the debut of television's "Hawaii 5-0" whose opening montage, featuring a cranking mysto left (thought to be the inside bowl at Sunset in reverse), was set to a blazing Ventures' number of the same name. That fiery instrumental has since become an instantly recognizable institution of Americana, appropriated by car commercials and beer spots.

Parallel to Dale's revolution was another sort of beach-related music scene as led by Southern California's Beach Boys. While the Beach Boys would later eclipse even The Beatles' finest with their sonic masterwork "Pet Sounds" (1966), they and their contemporaries -- Jan and Dean, Ronny and the Daytonas -- had their roots in lightweight, teenybopper pop songs about bikini girls, surf wax and hot rods. For these acts, simple but enduring hooks and soaring harmonies were king and well-groomed hair was the order. The girls swooned (as they do now for 'N Sync or the Backstreet Boyz) and America turned on to Gidget culture. Both acts would later discover hard narcotics and, quite literally, let down their hair as they loosened up their sounds.

For a long period following the mid-'60s, surf music lay dormant, eradicated by psychedelic rock (Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin) much the same way grunge (mercifully) erased metal in the early '90s. In 1967's lysergic "Third Stone from the Sun," Jimi Hendrix whispered "you'll never hear surf music again," though that barb was more directed at the Beach Blanket Bingo set than Dick Dale. In fact, guitar pioneers of the Woodstock era, Hendrix among them, invariably drew from guys like Dale, if not so much directly from their technique, from their brazen insolence for guitar tradition.

Today, surf revivalists like SoCal's Halibuts or The Blue Hawaiians continue Dale's great tradition, catering to a tiki-nation of retro-hipsters and cool daddy-os. More interesting still is the indie-rock offshoot of surf rock that fuses the tiny, garage-born sounds of The Ventures or The Trashmen with psychedelic noodling, interstellar fuzz and B-movie motifs. Acts such as Shadowy Men, The Mermen and Alabama's enigmatic Man or Astroman created a revolution uniquely their own, turning a new generation onto their forerunners in the process.

Recent trend finds the hyper-derivative, formulaic punk drivel of '90s surf flicks (Face to Face, Pennywise, Sprung Monkey) being referred to as surf rock, a term it in fact disgraces. Though many of these bands sport members who might actually surf, their sound bears no resemblance to that of Dale or his disciples.

Surf music devotees, old and new, or those curious about a uniquely American branch of rock would be wise to pick up Rhino Record's beautifully packaged and historically thorough, four-disc collection "Cowabunga: The Surf Box Set." -- Greg Heller, December 2000