No Gnarly Quake Can Trip ‘em Up : Concert: Musicians and fans alike hang tough through twin temblors to get to Surf City’s First Annual Battle of the Surf Bands in Huntington Beach.

Jim Pash, an original member of the Surfaris, thinks he may have caught the ultimate wave Sunday morning--”a tectonic plate on a sea of lava. Now I know what it means to ride the epicenter.”

Pash sported a nasty facial gash as a result of the rough ride he’d taken at his home, north of the high desert town of Yucca Valley, just six miles from the epicenter of Sunday’s 7.4 quake. As he’d gathered his five children to take them outside, he tripped in the darkness over fallen debris and fell headfirst into a closet door.

Ever the trouper, Pash nonetheless managed to make his way to Huntington Beach for Sunday afternoon’s Battle of the Surf Bands, after a stop to get the wound stitched up at the High Desert Medical Center, where many of those hurt in the quake were taken.

“There were lots of people worse off than me,” Pash said after the band’s set here. The decision to go on with the show, he said, had been an easy one: “We figured there’s no sense in staying up there just to get shaken up some more.”

The Surfaris, of “Wipeout” fame, were part of a bill that brought back memories of surf music’s heyday in such now-defunct spots as the Rendezvous Ballroom on the Balboa Peninsula and Huntington’s own Pavilon Ballroom. Names from Orange County’s surf music hall of fame included Dick Dale, consensus King of the Surf Guitar, and the Chantays, who wrote the surf classic “Pipeline” as students at Santa Ana High.

Jan and Dean and Papa Doo Run Run also were part of what was billed as as “Surf City’s First Annual Battle of the Surf Bands.” A crowd organizers estimated at 5,000 attended the show at Huntington Beach High School football stadium, sunbathing on the grass and tossing beach balls while listening to twanging guitars and musical odes to waves, girls and convertible cars.

Organizers had hoped for a crowd of at least 7,000, but, they said, the show was still profitable. The object was to raise money for celebrations next month marking the opening of the new Huntington Beach Pier.

“We figure we lost a lot of walk-up business with the earthquake,” said concert producer Bill Hollingshead, who later played saxophone behind Jan and Dean. “Things were pretty quiet in town today.”

Backstage, Dale and others greeted a steady stream of fans sharing remembrances of shows in the early ‘60s at various surf music hot spots. Instrumental surf music peaked in 1963, then crashed with the coming of the Beatles in 1964, although its influence is still felt and its popularity still swells from time to time.

Chantays co-founder Bob Spickard said his band stays particularly busy during the summer festival season. And “Pipeline” remains a radio staple--Spickard said he heard it on three oldies stations during the last week alone.

The other inescapable topic of conversation Sunday, apart from nostalgia, was the quake. “You’re probably going to hear this a lot, but I was born and raised in Southern California and I never felt anything like that,” said Spickard, a 23-year resident of Huntington Beach.

Spickard said he’d spent Saturday at his cabin at Lake Gregory in the San Bernardino Mountains--not far from the epicenter of Sunday’s second big earthquake. He had considered staying there until Sunday morning, in which case he may have missed the show because of highway closures. But he had driven back down the mountain on Saturday instead.

Dale spent much of Sunday trying to learn the fate of his remote ranch home in Twentynine Palms, near Yucca Valley. He had performed Saturday night in Santa Monica and stayed in a hotel there. When the first quake hit, he said, he covered his infant son’s crib with his body, “waiting for the plaster to come down.”

Dale reached his parents, who live near him in the desert, by telephone and learned that his mother, a 77-year-old stroke victim, had hurt her back holding on to her bed during the quake. His 80-year-old father, meanwhile, was “walking around the house, trying to pick up all the knickknacks.”

Shortly before taking the stage Sunday, Dale learned from friends that his house looked intact.

Dale, full of proud Papa tales, did find time Sunday to conduct an important rite for the 5-month-old son of the King of Surf Guitar: his introduction to waters of the Pacific. “I thought for sure” the baby was going to cry because of the shock of the cold water,” Dale said, “but he just kind of looked up and said, ‘What’s this?’ ”