Venturing Into New Moods

Regular access to classic instrumental-rock acts is one of the unusual pluses of life in Orange County.

Several times a year, local fans can catch Dick Dale as he returns to his old stamping grounds to joust like a gladiator who traded mace and sword for a Fender Stratocaster. And the Chantays, authors of “Pipeline,” one of the most durably exciting songs ever composed by teenage Americans, remain musically vital more than 30 years on.

Nevertheless, this week’s return of the Ventures for the first time in about 10 years revealed that we haven’t been getting all of the instrumental best. It was a two-pronged visitation.

Nokie Edwards, the band’s original lead guitarist, played Monday at the Crazy Horse Steak House, backed by the Torquays, a quartet of veteran local players inspired by the Ventures’ clean, deft and diversified approach to instrumental rock. On Thursday, the four current Ventures, three of them old comrades of Edwards from the band’s 1960s heyday on the U.S. charts, headlined at the Coach House.

Japan, where rock fans first fell for the Ventures in the mid-’60s and never lost their taste for the band’s elegant guitar heroics, has long been the main focus for Ventures touring. But with the band’s symbolic fossilization in the concrete of the Hollywood “Rock Walk,” which was scheduled for Friday, the Ventures booked a rare set of Southern California dates.

Even though Edwards and the Ventures played largely the same batch of surf-rock chestnuts and other instrumental classics, the two concerts differed greatly in mood and purpose.

The Ventures came to put on a good oldies show--one in which familiar songs get treated with skill, energy and respect, plus a bit of showmanship.

Edwards came to play his guitar--specifically, a Nokie Edwards signature model Telecaster just brought out by Fender. His performance involved searching for fresh possibilities within a familiar repertoire, rather than simply polishing up gleaming moments from the past.

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Laconic and reserved under his 10-gallon hat, Edwards was the antithesis of a showman and the image of a stereotypical small-town sheriff. After an hour of concentrated guitar excellence, he seemed more like an unsung instrumental hero.

The excellence lay not in overpowering muscle, but in the details and decorations Edwards brought to such nuggets as “Secret Agent,” “Apache,” “Wipe Out” and “Ghost Riders in the Sky.” His playing was especially bracing when it took on a bluesy hue. On “House of the Rising Sun,” Edwards teased evocative sobs and groans from his strings. The schmaltzy movie theme “More” became so much more as he soloed with a thrilling run of twangy blue notes and chordal vibrato techniques.

A midset solo-acoustic interlude of “Imagine,” “Classical Gas” and “Vincent” was lovely and expressive. There were some balky moments on the acoustic during tricky chord changes, but those imperfections only underscored Edwards’ willingness to stretch out and take risks to make familiar material fresh.

The Torquays, who also opened for Edwards, established their skills in a set highlighted by “Wonderful Land,” in which Steve Soest, a veteran of Dick Dale’s band, used a variety of sensitive guitar voicings to heighten the Shadows tune’s graceful lyricism. Backing their hero after a single rehearsal, the Torquays mainly laid back and did a solid job behind Edwards until the end, when drummer Duff Paulsen engaged the headliner in spirited exchanges during “Wipe Out” and “Caravan.”

Edwards’ successor in the Ventures, Gerry McGee, is no slouch either. At the Coach House, he used an Edwards-like thumb-pick-and-fingers approach that emerged cleanly--to singing effect on “Telstar,” with darting nimbleness on “House of the Rising Sun” and with rocking bite on a couple of raw, basic garage-rock numbers. But McGee’s Stratocaster was part of an ensemble sound, not the dominant element.

Bassist Bob Bogle and rhythm guitarist Don Wilson founded the Ventures in 1959, and drummer Mel Taylor joined them in 1962. That gives the Ventures’ rhythm section 34 years of unbroken team interaction, and it showed. Taylor’s keen timing and sense of tonality and dynamics assured rhythmic interest, Bogle added mobile bass lines, and Wilson lent a jolt with rapidly strummed, percussive rhythm guitar work that made up for several lame jokes he told.

Three vocal numbers at midset were unremarkable except for Wilson’s strong falsetto on the chorus of “Do You Want to Dance.” The home stretch focused on Taylor, who went wild on his massive kit during “Wipe Out”--in which his cascading rolls were actually too proficient to capture the song’s signature tribal rawness--and “Caravan.”

The 85-minute set showcased a band that was confident, experienced, still happy to be rocking, giving some oomph to rock nostalgia--but not venturing anything fresh or risky.

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Young players exploring old styles is the dominant theme of ‘90s rock, and ‘60s instrumental music is attracting its share of new inheritors. Among them are Orange County’s Tiki Tones, who opened with an assortment of spirited, if far from virtuosic, takes on tribal-beat rockers and film-noir/spy-flick moods.

Bassist Steve Jacobs and guitarist Josh Agle have kept the emphasis on fun and silly iconography that marked their long-running folk-punk band Swamp Zombies. Drummer Jeff Utterback and fez-sporting Farfisa organ specialist Ponzer Berkman round out the group.

The Tiki Tones concentrated on original material from their new debut CD, “Idol Pleasures,” but nothing rose to the challenge that today’s wave of surf-instrumental rockers face: coming up with compositions so catchy and memorable they will become new standards.