O.C. POP MUSIC REVIEW : Surf Rock’s King Plays a Bit Lighter With Heir

One way to tame a savage guitar gladiator might be to turn him into a doting daddy.

Dick Dale underwent that transformation Saturday night at the Coach House. After playing with customary sturm and sizzle through most of the first half of his 90-minute set, the surf-rock patriarch was joined on stage by his not-quite-3-year-old son Jimmy, behind a kid’s-size drum kit, and spent the latter part of the show paddling through generally calmer waters.

Overall, it was a nicely varied, entertaining performance that got across Dale’s extraordinarily forceful and spontaneous musical personality. But he and his band mates, veteran bassist Ron Eglit and newcomer Dave Haynes, didn’t get into the extended rides that Dale has been known to embark upon. Moving from crest to crest, they peaked often, but never quite went over the top.

Dale’s second career wave has been gathering force over the past two years with the release of two well-received albums, “Tribal Thunder” and “Unknown Territory,” which have made him--at 57--by far the oldest rocker to get the approval of a young hard-rock following.

Among his fans are those arbiters of headbanger taste Beavis and Butt-head, who gave their seal of approval to his video for the song “Nitro.” Now, his classic 1962-vintage recording of “Misirlou” is reaching millions as the opening-credits music in the hit film “Pulp Fiction” and the lead-off track on its hot-selling soundtrack album.

At the Coach House, he played to a nearly full house made up mainly of older fans. A fair number of them may have seen him back in the early ‘60s when he was inventing the dramatic, and still-influential, surf-guitar sound at teen-dances in Orange County. Now that he has grown accustomed to playing for riled-up kids, perhaps he doesn’t get as charged up by the older, sit-down crowd.

Also, he may find it hard to activate the savage beast that powers his playing when one of his sidekicks is a very cute toddler. Son Jimmy, who stayed for the second half of the show, displayed an impressive musical sense for a youngster, following Haynes or watching his dad for cues. He isn’t the second coming of Buddy Rich just yet, but heredity has done its work. (Dale the elder--who assured the audience that Jimmy was equipped with earplugs--is a natural musician who can play just about any instrument, and used to during shows when he led big bands with horns and keyboards.

(He gave up the large ensembles after discovering his extraordinary power in a trio format during a 1989 Christmas benefit at the Coach House).

Through the first 40 minutes of Saturday’s show, Dale garbed himself in the mystique and drama of a rocker with a rare gift for harnessing elemental forces in his playing. He came on in a leather jacket and a black headband, his stringy ponytail falling to the small of his back, and hammered out dramatic riffs from “Tribal Thunder” and “Unknown Territory” with body English to match.

Frequently he squared off with Eglit to play harmonized lines or to carry on a conversational give-and-take in the language of heavy guitar-rock. He and Eglit also enacted some playful, showman-like rituals: During a version of Link Wray’s “Rumble,” they presented, then rotated their matching gold-flake Fender guitars, as if they were palace guards performing some mysterious drill.

Dale played compact versions of “Misirlou,” “Nitro” and other hot numbers, but his exploratory side wasn’t entirely absent. “Let’s Go Trippin,’ ” a bouncy number from 1961, metamorphosed into something darker and grander, in the Spanish and Middle Eastern mode that he often favors. It was one of several pieces in the set that he said he intends to put on his next album, “Calling Up Spirits.”

Later in the show, as he went for more controlled playing and a more relaxed stage presence, some fans clearly craved more explosive displays: There were cries of “shred, Dick, shred” and “go, Dick, go.” He seemed about to oblige as he set off on a closing rendition of the Chantays’ surf-instrumental standard “Pipeline” (he dedicated it to Stevie Ray Vaughan, who teamed with him for a scintillating version of the song in the 1987 film “Back to the Beach”).

But after tossing in some grinding, revving passages from Henry Mancini’s “Peter Gunn” theme, he guided “Pipeline” into calmer waters--actually, he abandoned the surf entirely and ended the number, and the night, with a light, sentimental Mexican air that evoked dusty border towns.

In his quieter moments, Dale showed that he doesn’t have to shred to be interesting. One of his new tunes is an unusual piece with a temperate dynamic and an off-kilter, chromatic chord progression. Played in the first half of the show, it found Dale and Eglit executing some tricky tandem passages that called for delicate detail work rather than explosions.

A highlight of the second half came when Dale announced “a song I’m fiddling with and having a good time (playing).” It turned out to be Jimi Hendrix’s instrumental “Third Stone From the Sun,” and Dale got into its mood of exploration and wonder by trying out the memorable theme in various registers, dynamics and tones, including a bit of country twang.

It was fun to see him in a forum where he could play against his titanic type. But it would be an even greater treat to see what he might do given an opening slot on tour with one of today’s hot young punk or hard rock bands.

If Dale were to go on stage in front of a crowd of Metallica, Pearl Jam, Offspring or Green Day fans, they might go by appearances and wonder why anyone would invite a big, craggy, old dude to the party. But after 30 or 40 minutes of “shred, Dick, shred,” they would have a pretty good idea what he was doing there.

(Old Dale fans, new ones, and curious bystanders should note that he is playing a free show at 11 p.m. on New Year’s Eve at the Hard Rock Cafe in Newport Beach.)

Second-billed Cisco Poison could use reinforcements. Bolstering the hard-rock trio’s sound with a better guitar mix would have been helpful, but what’s really needed is another player. Led by Joe Wood, the former T.S.O.L. front-man, the band recently debuted with “It’s A Long Way to Heaven,” a strong album of stormy, brooding songs powered by full, layered arrangements. On stage, something was missing.

Wood played guitar capably if not distinctively, and the bass-and-drums team of Mark Rasmussen and Johnny Minguez provided a good, heavy foundation. But in virtually every number except a medley of blues standards, “Born Under A Bad Sign” and “Back Door Man,” there were gaps that a sharp lead guitarist could have filled.

With the support of somebody who knows how to embroider a chorus and complement and prod a singer, the raspy-voiced Wood would be able to concentrate on dramatizing the songs and serving as a visual focal point. Double duty as guitarist and singer/showman left him stretched too thin.