3 posts tagged “history”

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.

This is a half-baked thought-train which has been rolling today while I try to get my dayjob done.  I'm not bothering to add images or cite any claims, but rather just getting it "on paper" before I forget.

In 1966, the Western world was beginning to turn intself inside-out.  Electric guitars were emitting fuzz, men were wearing long hair, women were wearing pants (and getting jobs!), and the youth were realizing that their elders had made a near-lethal mistake in underestimating the power of this new generation.  The countercultural scene exploded and splintered into a thousand fragments, united only in wanting -change- (and perhaps in hating the Governor, Ronald Reagan).  Motorcycle gangs roved the highways, Victorian mansions turned into enormous labyrinths of lifestyles experiments, and farms were bought by back-to-the-land hippies trying their hand at vermicomposting, dope-growing, and basketry.  LSD was still legal, and readily available.  It seemed like there was a chance of bringing about a new world.  The only problem, and perhaps the main reason for the downfall of this cultural revolution was a lack of unity in vision. 

Jump forward 20 years to 1986, when Reagan was still hated, but this time as president. Nearly all traces of the hippie culture have been sanitized, save for the masses following the Grateful Dead, and as laughingstock media caricatures.  Punk and New Wave had since risen from the ashes, ushering in a new type of rebellion.  As the corporatization of the nation continued, the "diy" ethic spread throughout music and publishing.  Kids lived in squats, and still did a ton of drugs, although newer and more dangerous varieties (some of which were indirectly supplied by the government) were replacing the psychedelics and the mind-expanding approaches of the hippies. 

A resurgance in conservative Christianity gripped the nation, and the failure of the flower children to build heaven on earth was harped upon in a cautionary tale against any type of liberal idealism.  It is perhaps a pale echo, but the cycle indeed bears fundamental similarities to the culture of the 60s.  Its execution was very different, but the desire for deep change was the same.  A disgust with the failed vision of suburban utopia, a disdain for the corporatization of every element of life, and a contempt for needless authority and moral policing left a new legacy of protest music.

Has the cycle provided another wave?  Perhaps in the midst of experience, it is difficult to see.  It seems, however, that these movements were anomolies, or perhaps the punk revolution was merely an aftershock of the 60s shakeup, which has now completely diminished.  While MTV might still claim that there are punk acts, followers of the music are hard-pressed to agree.  DIY applies to websites more than to zines, and if new rebellions are being plotted, they are kept ominously secret.  Everybody seems distracted by their various techniques of self-medication, althoug this time around the electronic media are seeming more seductive than the chemical.  Disgust with the mess humans have created has not gone away, but the common reaction seems to be cynical acceptance (or more chillingly, even embracing it through ironic re-appropriation of iconography).  Branding has become folk-art as people register vanity domains, create personal logos, and market themselves to improve page-rank as a tangible (and lucrative) form of prestige.  As the overall body of music continues to grow, tight-knit musical scenes are diminishing into obscurity.  Nearly anyone with a hundred bucks to spare is able to carry around the equivelant of thousands of pounds of record albums with them-- far too much to be intimately familiar with for the typical brain.  The top 40, commercial, and even "alternative" radio are dying breeds as people move into their own customized cocoons of taylored media experience.  There is no palpable sense of a generation coming together to bring about its new vision, unless that vision involves easy-to-implement dhtml APIs or one-click shopping from cellphones. 

Two minor movements warrant mention, however.  As punk breathed its death sighs, some of its refugees still wanted to rage, and what is best known as "grunge" emerged.  This was a much larger, subtler, and important movement than is commonly considered; the eventual commercial success of the music is what history paid attention to, and all that people outside of the scene were aware of.  That being said, the cultural and political contributions of grunge are trivial when compared to the 60s or arguably even the punk and new wave booms.

Along a similar timeframe, another subculture was burgeoning.  The technologically skilled yet underground "cyberculture" of the 90s did an amazing job of moving itself into a position of tremendous leverage.  Electronic music mushroomed out of nowhere to reach near total saturation among a whole generation.  In Black Rock City, an entire town complete with electric grid and sanitation was built from scratch-- each and every year.  You could sit next to any 20-something on the bus in Seattle or San Francisco and odds were that they knew what apache was, and could probably compile it.  These kids took their enormous paychecks and flew around the world to parties, bought houses in nice neighborhoods, and generally had the ability to do whatever they imagined.  Perhaps they got greedy and did not prepare for the dotcom crash, perhaps they were distracted by the very technology they helped create, but for whatever reason, techno-utopia has not been brought into existance, and the whole rave scene seems now like little more than a multi-year MDMA hangover.  This, compared to grunge, seemed to be a true cultural golden child, albeit a stillborn one.

Chipped fragments of all of these movements still exist.  If one looks hard enough, there are some hippies left in the hills and cities.  Some punks are still doing shows.  The grunge record producers still run the same labels, and the neo-futurists are still putting out desire-inducing magazines about expensive toys. 

It is possible, if not probable, that I am merely too old to be involved in whatever might be brewing.  It might be that while it is occurring, it is too subtle to witness.  Regardless, there is a very sad lack of optimism, of idealism, and of potential for change in the air these days.  It seems to have been replaced with an outlook of obvious doom, hopelessness, cynicism, and apathy.  The common approach seems to be to find solace where possible, largely through fictional television (or the even more insidious "reality" tv), the internet, drugs and drinking, and above all, consumerism -- the endless pursuit for a magic bullet.  While it is possible to find growing evidence of downshifters, functional dropouts, or practitioners of voluntary simplicity having an effect on culture, there does not seem to be much going on which is really threatening to throw a wrench in the works as in the past. 

Have we missed the boat?  Has it been proven too many times that the juggernaut cannot be stopped?  Is the overmind telling us to give up?  Is this the calm before the eschatological storm?  Is it just me? 

All you need to know about what to eat and what not to eat and how to make it.   Its the Joy of Cooking for the new millenium, as well as the old.  By returning to common sense and whole ingredients, we can forget the nightmare of industrialized ersatz food and inhumane animal production as rapidly as possible.  By taking a look backwards at what has sustained humans for many thousands of years, we can possibly discover where we went wrong in the past hundred.  Includes an awesome treatment of lacto-fermentation (think kimchee, sourdough, and natural pickles).