This term covers a
lot of ground, all of which is on the west coast. It originated in the
late 50's with the wild guitar of surfer legend Dick Dale in LA. His
instrumental style went national with the Ventures, but the Beach Boys took it
in a vocal direction with lyrics about girls, beaches and cars. What they
all had in common was that this was, first and foremost, "party" music.
Rock Out with Dick Dale and his Del-Tones: Live at Ciro's The Ventures: Live in Japan 65
Recorded at the hip Hollywood, CA. club & released in 1965, this has "Let's Go Trippin'", the first song Dale released as a single in 1961, Peter Gunn and others.
Dale, known as the king of the surf guitar, invented surf music. Born in 1937 in Boston, Mass, among his early musical influences was his uncle, an oud player who performed belly dance music. Dale said the rhythm on his song "Misirlou" was taken directly from a belly dance piece. In 1954 he moved to southern California and began surfing & performing at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa, CA. Guitarmaker Leo Fender gave Dale a Fender Stratocaster and a Fender Amp and told him to beat it to death and tell him what he thought of it. Dale proceeded to blow up forty nine amps and speakers. He said he played so loud because he wanted to create a sound like that of jazz drummer Gene Krupa. He tried to imitate the sounds of native dancers in the jungles, the roar of mother nature's creature's and the roar of the ocean. This CD combines 2 albums, Concert which was recorded by the Beach Boys inSacramento in 1964, and Live in London which is a collection taken from live shows recorded during their 1968 European tour.
The group started up in Hawthorne, CA, a southern suburb of Los Angeles. They rented instruments (with Brian Wilson on bass and brothers Carl on guitar and Dennis on drums) and recorded "Surfin'". The single was released in 1961 on and billed to the Pendletones, a name based on a popular shirt style of the time. In mid-1962 the Beach Boys released their major-label debut, Surfin' Safari. This song hit the Top 20 and helped start the surf rock craze in Southern California. By 1964 they had 5 albums, including Concert, on the record charts simultaneously.
Originally released only in Japan, this live set was recorded at the peak of the band's '60s popularity. The 29 songs here cover most of their big hits. All electric, all instumental, this is what surf music was all about.
The Ventures' were formed in 1959 in Tacoma, Washington by Bob Bogle and Don Wilson. That year they recorded "Walk-Don't Run", a song they had first heard on a Chet Atkins LP. The single was released in 1960 and it became a big local hit after being played as a news lead-in on a Seattle radio station. They went on to release 250 albums. The Ventures slipped off the American charts in 1972 but continued to be popular in Japan where they began recording albums specifically for the Japanese market. The group sold over 40 million records there and became one of the biggest American influences on Japanese pop music. Of course, they were also a tremendous influence in the US with their 2 "Play Guitar with the Ventures" LPs, which taught countless American kids how to play guitar. This was the band's first LP. It was compiled from a live recording done in 1963 at The Chase, a teen nightclub in Milwaukee, Oregon. It includes the studio version of their first single, "Louie, Louie", with added crowd noise to simulate a live performance. "Money," their second single, is also here.
The Kingsmen formed in Portland, Oregon in 1959. They recorded "Louie Louie," a song played by many Northwest rock & roll bands at the time, in 1963. They paid $36 for the recording session to produce a tape for an audition for a job on a cruise ship bound for Australia. The cruise line hated it but it became one of the hottest records ever made thanks to the wildest guitar break ever heard and a controversy regarding the unintelligible lyrics, which many thought were sexually explicit. The record was banned in Indiana and elsewhere. They weren't exactly a surf music band but "Louie" was a surf standard and they were featured in the beach party movie, "How to Stuff a Wild Bikini".
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Rock Out with Dick Dale and his Del-Tones: Live at Ciro's
Recorded at the hip Hollywood, CA. club & released in 1965, this has "Let's Go Trippin'", the first song Dale released as a single in 1961, Peter Gunn and others.
Dale, known as the king of the surf guitar, invented surf music. Born in 1937 in Boston, Mass, among his early musical influences was his uncle, an oud player who performed belly dance music. Dale said the rhythm on his song "Misirlou" was taken directly from a belly dance piece. In 1954 he moved to southern California and began surfing & performing at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa, CA. Guitarmaker Leo Fender gave Dale a Fender Stratocaster and a Fender Amp and told him to beat it to death and tell him what he thought of it. Dale proceeded to blow up forty nine amps and speakers. He said he played so loud because he wanted to create a sound like that of jazz drummer Gene Krupa. He tried to imitate the sounds of native dancers in the jungles, the roar of mother nature's creature's and the roar of the ocean.
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