What is surf music, anyway?
I claim to hate talking about music and food. But I will do either incessantly given the slightest chance. A friend has indicated a complete lack of knowledge as to what surf music is. There are actually books on the subject, but I will summarize my take on it and provide some brief examples.
Surf music started as an evolution of instumental garage in the early 60s (which itself came from rockabilly and instrumental garage from the 50s, which came from...). While it was often performed in beachside clubs on the west coast, much of its innovation occured inland in crazy places like Ohio. However, most of the big names were, in fact, from California. There are several versions of history depending on which dogma you want to believe and which self-proclaimed experts you respect. At any rate, it tends to have a few things in common:
- Lack of vocals. The Beach Boys and so on, while at times singing about surfing, and borrowing sounds from surf music, were actually "beach music" and exist as a discrete genre. At the same time, there are instrumental guitar bands often mistakenly considered surf, and they may even cover some surf songs (such as the Ventures doing Wipeout), yet they are not proper surf bands.
- Deep spring reverb. The music in general is meant to convey the physical sensations of the sport. While skate rock provided adrenaline, it could actually be listened to while skating. However, for obvious reasons, surf music is meant to provide the feeling of surfing, not literally accompany it. Its to amp up on the road to the beach, and to wind down at parties afterwards. The inclusion of spring reverb on (usually) Fender amps of the era had the unexpected byproduct of creating a "dripping" sound when turned up past usually recommended levels. This level was later maintained for the whole song, creating sensations of riding in the tube, and swells of sound not unlike waves crashing and washing up on the beach. Other techniques to provide physical emulation of the surfing experience are the rapid stacatto picking, muted picking (again conveying the bumpy sensation of riding on chop) and deep waves caused by gradual detuning with a tremelo bar.
- Tropical and exotic influences. As surf safaris were sometimes taken to exotic locales, these regional flavors started to appear in the music. Scales from Mexican music were quickly adopted as trips to Southern and Baja California were common. Mexican music itself is heavily inspired by European and Asian influences (Spanish Flamenco, Gypsy, Arabic, Turkish) so these threads express themselves. One of the more interesting elements of surf music to me is how it can blend exotic modes from India and Persia with more conventional blues and rock in an almost seamless manor.
- The usual arrangement is a simple drum kit, a bass guitar, a rhythm guitar (or 2), a lead guitar, and sometimes a piano/keyboard and/or saxophone/other instrument. I by far prefer the most common traditional arrangement of 2 guitars, a bass, and drums. A cliched equipment setup would be Fender Stratocaster or Jaguar guitars (single coil pickups, twangy and "bell-like" tone, played almost always on bridge pickup, tone turned to high), Twin Reverb or similar amps (nitpickers can list out all the similar options in comments), outboard reverb tanks, a drum kit with a few but not copious cymbals... and uh I dunno about the bass but probably Fender.
None of these are hard and fast rules. In general, surf music is intuitively obvious, and the songs tend to have revealing names such as "Hammerhead", "Gray Lagoon", and so on. The band names tend to also be formulaic, "The Somethings", where Something is quite often a surf-related term (The Seahorses, The Mantas, The Salty Dogs).
There were a few movements in surf music, referred to, pun-intended I am sure, as waves. The first wave was made up of the acts from the early-mid 60s (and on) who created the genre such as the Lively Ones and Dick Dale (both familiar from the Pulp Fiction soundtrack). The 2nd Wave took place in the early 90s as a sudden explosion of retro surf bands tried to faithfully create first wave sound. The Phantom Surfer, Los Straightjackets, Satan's Pilgrims, Space Cossacks, and so on are typical examples. The Third wave came shortly after (and perhaps actually started before the 2nd in some cases!) and is "non traditional". These bands use synths, computers, and other equipment not available to the 1st wave acts. Pretty much any current surf band will fall into 2nd or 3rd wave, that is to say, will be either "traditional" or "other". Time will tell what the 4th wave may bring.
As I am not interested in 3rd wave, I will provide a slightly unknown 1st wave track, another one you have probably heard, and a favorite 2nd wave track. For the third wave, you are on your own.
Mar Gaya - The Fender IV
This is not at all unknown to surf music afficianados, but it is generally not familiar to those who have not explored the genre. I love it as a crytsal example of what the "surf sound" is, and how different it is from the "Beach Blanket Bingo" stuff that the non-initiated assume makes up surf music. It is a good example of the darker, scarier tones. Indeed, the lead guitarist, Randy Holden, went on to form the psychedelic heavy rock band Blue Cheer.
Pipeline - The Chantays
This is one where people will usually say "oh yeah, I know that one. I guess I did know what surf music is". Its a little interesting in making very good and non-annoying use of a keyboard to add to the tinkly sensation of water spraying.
Intruder - The Madeira
My favorite Second Wave band, this is actually a cover of a Surf Coasters (yet another Second Wave band from Japan) song, which is in part inspired by First-Wave standard Latinia. I really like how they split it into an almost acoustic movement and then a very electric portion. An excellent example of the technical proficiency a demanding surf tune can demand.
Hopefully you've enjoyed this little excursion; now its up to you to buy a chipped up longboard at a garage sale, make it into a bench, ice some beers, and have a backyard party.
Comments
That purity was something that occurred to me very early on in my attempts at song writing: I'd come up with a decent song, one that sounded good when I was sitting in my room with my amp and guitar, then I'd try to think of words and everything that came to me was so pat, so mundane that I eventually gave up on lyrics for a long time. Even now if I write lyrics, they're either so minimal as to just be an additional sound or just goofy. I've always liked the idea of being in an instrumental band, and I love playing around with Dick Dale/Duane Eddy/Link Wray style when it's just me and my amp, but every band I've been in has always had someone who thinks they should be singing, so I always have admiration for those bands that stick it out and say "screw the lyrics".
Maybe it doesn't really qualify under your guidelines, but there was a number of bands that came out of the hardcore punk scene of the early 80's that took a lot of the surf tunes to heart and created a resurrected interest.
Bands like JFA and Agent Orange come to mind....