Riding a ‘60s Splashback

When the edgy industrial-rock band Ministry came through town recently for a pair of shows at the Hollywood Palladium, the group attracted a fashionably alternative crowd--tattooed, pierced and largely dressed in black. The fans no doubt came for a cathartic wallow in Ministry’s high-intensity urban angst, but before they got their blast of all that, they were confronted with the music of sunshine, summer and unstoppable up-tempo fun: surf music.

The opening band on the bill was Laika & the Cosmonauts, one of the many groups currently finding inspiration in the music of early-’60s instrumental surf rockers such as Dick Dale, the Surfaris, the Chantays and the Ventures. From San Diego to Seattle to Laika’s improbable hometown--Helsinki, Finland--surf is up as young listeners discover the old records and new bands revive and revitalize the surf sound.

That sound, traditionally built of simple chords, steady beats and heavily reverbed riffs plucked on Fender guitars, hasn’t ever completely disappeared from the pop subconscious. Rock fans of almost any age can probably recall the manic giggle of the Surfaris’ “Wipe Out” and the precise guitars of the Chantays’ “Pipeline,” both hit singles from 1963.

However, since Dick Dale’s explosively energetic 1962 single “Misirlou” resurfaced in 1994 to power the opening titles for Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction,” a full-scale resurgence of interest in surf rock and instrumental rock in general has taken place.

It isn’t likely that this return to surf will lead to a storming of the pop charts--even at its peak, between 1961 and 1965, only seven surf records cracked the national Top 10. None of the new surf groups has even sold enough copies to dent the lower rungs of Billboard magazine’s weekly list of the nation’s Top 200 albums. In terms of the number of bands now playing the music and the depth of passion behind that playing, however, surf is riding its biggest wave since an earlier revival more than a decade ago.

For the newly stoked surf-rockers, the rewards of the music are self-evident.

“This has been my favorite kind of music since the mid-’80s, when I started buying Ventures records at thrift stores,” says Josh Agle, who, under the nom de surf Shag Lono, serves as guitarist for the 2-year-old Orange County-based instrumental group the Tiki Tones. “We had no idea we were part of any scene when we started, but I’m very happy that there are enough people interested in this kind of music so that I can be in a band playing it full time.”

“It’s not like it’s some smart money scheme to ‘Go surf,’ but it’s a lot of fun,” adds Jake Cavaliere, organist and songwriter for L.A.’s surf-instrumental combo the Bomboras. “I love the sound, the era, all of it. Compared to a lot of what’s out there now, surf is easier to follow and a lot more inviting. And it’s happier music. Way happier. Everybody now sings about drugs and dying and how life is crap. I’d kind of prefer to ignore all that and enjoy myself for a little while.”

For the last two years, the Bomboras have worked the local club scene and recently released their debut full-length album on Dionysus, a Burbank label specializing in new surf and garage-rock. While the Bomboras take a fairly traditional approach to their instrumentals, making use of such vintage gear as Fender reverb units and Farfisa organ, they also pump up the traditional sounds with a more modern rock ‘n’ roll energy. That energy occasionally leads to Cavaliere’s dousing his Farfisa with lighter fluid and playing while it flames.

“We find some different ways to keep things entertaining,” he says with a laugh. “A lot of old surf bands sounded exciting but weren’t much to look at. You could turn your back and go get a drink and you definitely wouldn’t miss anything. We want to give more bang for the buck.”

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A surf-rock revival makes sense in sunny Southern California, but the bone-chilling waters of Helsinki, Finland?

That is where the members of Laika & the Cosmonauts fell in love with the wicked surfin’ riffs of Dick Dale, the Shadows and the Astronauts. Relaxing in a Hollywood motel room after their first Ministry gig, clad appropriately in a bold array of polyester Hawaiian shirts, the group seems excited to have made it to the part of the world where surf-rock began.

“We haven’t been to the beach yet,” guitarist-organist Matti Pitsinki says. “We’ve only been walking around Hollywood Boulevard.

“But right away it makes sense that the music would come from here. There’s something in the air. And something in the water too, I suppose.”

The band has been together seven years, but only recently have the members been able to graduate from Finland’s understandably small surf-rock scene and tour extensively. Their most recent West Coast swing also included a show at L.A.’s House of Blues.

“The scene back home was us and maybe two other bands,” Pitsinki says. “It took us five years to play outside of the same club in Helsinki. For a long time, we were playing just to have fun, but now there seems to be a lot of people who want to hear this music, and we find ourselves traveling all over the world to play it.”

At the Ministry shows, early arrivals expecting gloomier entertainment were almost immediately won over by Laika & the Cosmonauts’ combination of maniacally upbeat spirits and expert musicianship. Mixing original surf-style tunes with bravura versions of the themes from “Mission: Impossible” and “The Avengers,” the band had the crowd dancing with abandon and hollering its approval by the time the short set ended.

Cosmonaut drummer Janne Haavisto believes the simplicity and familiarity of the surf sound are the keys to its current revival.

“It’s primitive, energetic music--that’s what’s kept it alive for so many decades, and what makes it sound so right at this time,” he explains between sips of a cola. “But it’s old. In the back of every person’s mind there is a surf soundtrack, and it’s our job to simply turn up the volume.”

The band may be even better equipped for that task very soon.

“We’re going to get surfing lessons from members of the band Agent Orange,” Pitsinki says, “real California rockers who can stay up on their boards. We hope to be seriously inspired.”

The original surf-rock of the ‘60s began as a Southern California phenomenon, enjoyed a brief moment of national fascination and virtually came to an end in 1964 with the Beatles’ first Ed Sullivan appearance and the arrival of the British Invasion.

In those few years, hundreds of bands sprang up in Los Angeles and Orange counties, creating a raw, guitar-based sound that was largely a reaction to the polished pop of such contemporary teen idols as Frankie Avalon and Fabian.

The scene produced a few giants, such as Dick Dale, an inveterate surfer who became known as “King of the Surf Guitar,” and is generally credited with establishing many of the conventions of the surf-rock sound.

Dale, still an active recording artist, says that surf rock owes its name mainly to his early audiences.

“The sounds I created in the late ‘50s were called surf rock because it was only heard at first by the 17 guys I surfed with. They were the ones who came to my first shows, so everything I did got named by them and for them. They said, ‘You’re the king of the surf guitar,’ and I said, ‘Sure.’ It stuck.”

With a few less surfers in the crowd, the music might have ended up with a very different tag.

“I was definitely trying to capture the power of the water in my music,” Dale explains. “But I was also trying to use my guitar to duplicate the roar of the lions and tigers I kept. And one of my biggest desires was to sound like Gene Krupa coming through a guitar amplifier. If things had gone a little differently, we could just as easily be calling all of this ‘beast rock’ or ‘Krupa rock.’ ”

The early surf scene also gave rise to Brian Wilson, whose early work with the Beach Boys added splendid harmonies and teen paradise lyrics to the surf sound.

Generally though, surf was a scene of short-lived instrumental groups releasing local singles. Some bands were made up of teens working up their sound at high school dances, such as the Westchester-based Crossfires, who had a 1963 local hit in Southern California with “Fiberglass Jungle.” (When the surf scene ebbed, several band members had greater success as the Turtles.) Other bands, such as the Mar-Kets (“Surfer’s Stomp”), were strictly studio creations.

Though several popular surf bands had a surfer or two in the lineup, often the only real connection between the sport of surfing and the music was in the song titles and band names: “Paradise Cove” by the Surfmen, “The Rising Surf” by Richie Allen & the Pacific Surfers, “Surf Rider” by the Lively Ones. In fact, some of the most exciting surf music was played by oceanless bands like the Astronauts (“Baja”) and the Trashmen (“Surfin’ Bird”), who hailed from Colorado and Minnesota, respectively.

The early music has been kept alive with CD-reissues from such specialty labels as AVI and Sundazed, and a historical overview of the surf scene is presented effectively on a recently released four-CD set from Rhino Records, emphatically titled “Cowabunga!” The set was produced by longtime surf-rock enthusiast Jon Blair, whose band the Nightriders was a pivotal force in the mini surf revival of the early ‘80s. (See review, Page 89.)

In response to the renewed interest in surf, Blair has recently gotten the band back together to record a new record and begin playing shows again.

“I’m absolutely delighted that there’s so much interest in the music right now,” he says. “I’m not sure why this revival is happening now, except that basically this is fun music to play and fun music to listen to. Even when it gets aggressive, it does it in a fun way. There’s no message, no politics, no anger or depression. It’s just a lot of danceable beats and some very nice musical imagery--the beach, the surf, good weather and skimpy bathing suits.”

Freedom from the explicit images of lyrics seems to be a main appeal of the music to its players. The San Francisco-based Aqua Velvets grew out of a soundtrack project taken on by guitarist Miles Corbin, who believes that surf music at its best can have a kind of free-flowing, filmic quality.

“Without words and a lead singer telling a story, a lot is left to the imagination--the music becomes a soundtrack for whatever images a listener wants to conjure up,” Corbin explains. “And there’s something very pleasing about that. I know I always have a grin on my face when I’m playing.”

For the Tiki Tones’ Agle, who spends his days working as a graphic designer of CD art, surf instrumentals are actually a refreshing escape from wordiness.

“It’s really disheartening to spend a day typing in lyrics that are just horrible. The Tiki Tones are definitely a refuge from that. And I’ve come to believe that instrumental music can set a mood more effectively than vocal music. I don’t ever feel limited as a songwriter.”

Seattle may seem to be as unlikely a place to catch a wave as Helsinki, given the city’s climate and its status in recent years as the birthplace of grunge.

But a love of the surf sound and the classic surf era seems able to transcend even the strongest of pop trends. Guitarist Evan Foster of Seattle’s Boss Martians began writing some very traditional surf-style tunes four years ago, just as that city’s grunge sound was exploding into national prominence.

“It felt a little strange at the time,” he recalls, “because everyone was looking to Seattle expecting to hear grunge bands. But, quite frankly, we didn’t give a damn. We had little or no interest in what was coming out of the city right then. Seattle has produced some great rock ‘n’ roll bands, but to me that grunge period was a dry heave.”

Compared to the darkness and intense self-examination in the music of such bands as Nirvana, Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains, the Martians’ mix of instrumental and vocal songs might seem slight, with titles along the lines of “The Martian Stomp” and “You Better Run, Girl!” But Foster, who played in hardcore punk bands before forming the Boss Martians, says he finds the lighthearted approach more satisfying.

“I got really bored with having to ‘say something’ in a song. When the majority of your songs are focused on surfing, hot rods, girls and beer, you may not have a very deep message, but at least you’re enjoying yourself.”

Though virtually all of the newer surf instrumental bands share the same heroes and influences--Dale, the Ventures, the Astronauts, England’s the Shadows, et al--they take some very different approaches to their own music.

“There are two distinct schools of modern surf right now,” says Scott Hulet, founding editor of the 4-year-old, Orange County-based Longboard magazine, which covers the surf music scene extensively.

“The first is historically reverent, straight note-for-note, sound-for-sound duplications of the early-’60s sounds--dripping wet, reverb-laden guitar; basic, blues-scale guitar; and vintage gear like Fender Jaguar, Mustang or Jazzmaster guitars. The second school is more free-form and takes its cues from the DIY [do it yourself] movement that came out of late-’70s punk.”

Perhaps the freest approach to the surf form is taken by San Francisco’s instrumental trio the Mermen, who layer free-jazz improvisations and Hendrix-style guitar assault on top of surf-inspired rhythms. The band’s record sales and increasingly busy touring schedule indicate a growing fan base, but there are some surf purists who take a dim view of their experimentations.

“We’ve been called controversial,” says guitarist Jim Thomas, laughing. “That’s so ridiculous. Listen to John Coltrane or Miles Davis if you want controversy. I think that people who get into that strict, strict revival thing are pretty brain-dead. Sorry, but music evolves and creativity can’t be controlled that way. I’m rooted in Dick Dale’s music, indubitably, but for his power of expression--not for the precise sound he got 30-some years ago.”

In fact, Dale himself has continued to record and tour, and his later records, including the recently released “Calling Up Spirits,” are works of thoroughly modern, loud, noisy guitar virtuosity. His current work bears some connection in soul and groove to his earliest recordings, but sonically, he still works the cutting-edge.

“I have no desire to be an oldie-but-goodie,” Dale says with a laugh. “But the one thing that’s never changed for me is that I play from the heart. That’s why it’s a waste of time to try to copy the Dick Dale sound--it comes from inside of me. That’s why Segovia sounded like Segovia, Dick Dale sounds like Dick Dale and the Mermen sound like the Mermen. The secret is, you’ve got to play from the heart.”

He laughs again and adds, “And you’ve got to sweat. If you’re not sweating, you’re stealing their money.”

Guitarist Pitsinki of the Cosmonauts endorses a freer approach to surf sounds. “The style allows a lot of freedom to fool around. The more orthodox surf bands might be limited, playing the same riffs and chord progressions. We want to be somewhat authentic and honor and accept our influences, but we also want to experiment. That way we end up having some serious fun.”

Agle of the Tiki Tones is just as serious about the fun he has taking a traditionalist approach. “We’re pretty hard-line in some ways--I don’t want to do anything that wouldn’t have been done in ’64 or ’65. I might take things from that period and mix them up, like using the Farfisa organ, which was of the time but wasn’t really part of the surf band sound. We play vintage equipment and try to record simply, the way things were recorded back then. I don’t think I could tell you why, but I just really enjoy the old sounds.”

The expanding audience for surf sounds seems willing to accept the music in either vintage or vanguard form, and the variety of approaches has in fact helped make new surf a cross-generation phenomenon.

“It’s one of the most peculiar things about this revival,” editor Hulet says. “I’d expect the baby-boomer crowd to embrace the music out of pure nostalgia, but what is shocking is that kids 14 to 21 are finding the music hip also. I think that’s probably because it sounds raw and honest compared to so much of the overproduced dreck that gets out there as what we call ‘alternative’ becomes more and more commercial.”

Blair, who learned to play guitar as a teenager picking along with Dick Dale records during surf’s first wave, is very happy to be riffing again for younger listeners.

“They’re the main reason I re-formed my band. I find these days I’m playing for people who loved surf music the first time around, along with a brand-new audience, and it’s those younger fans who are really powering this revival. I’m delighted they’re out there.”

The surf instrumental revival may offer a broadening audience to the latest fleet of surf-rockers, but that attention does come at a price.

“I used to be out in the water almost every day--a dedicated surfer,” the Mermen’s Jim Thomas says. “Now I’m more of a desiccated surfer. We just did four months on the road, and it’s pretty hard to try to get to the beach every day in between gigs and motel rooms.”

Agle says the budding revival has actually threatened the Tiki Tones’ job security. “We started the band without the intention of quitting our day jobs and touring. But it seems like things are really taking off. It’s getting a little harder to fit in all the playing and recording without getting our bosses upset.”

Cavaliere, of the Bomboras, has no qualms about the revival, and is enjoying his band’s gigs more than ever as surf rock garners a few more moments in the sun.

“For a while, no one paid attention to us, and now all of a sudden we’re ‘in.’ We used to play to the same couple dozen die-hard surf-rock fans all the time. Now we get a big enough crowd where I don’t actually know everybody watching us. And it’s a broad crowd--I’m sure there are some people who dig us who have never even heard of the Ventures.

“I’m happy to be a part of the surf explosion,” he continues. “I don’t want it to get too out of hand--this is the music I love, so I don’t like thinking of it being used to sell soda and cars. But if the explosion means more places to play, more people to play to and having this kind of music really enjoyed--that’s cool with me.”