Man..great stuff!

I hate I missed you guys at The Instro Summit Friday but we had a gig in Wilmington, NC that night.

The Black Cat Lounge is the coolest venue in Fayetteville btw; kind of an oasis in the desert.
We have a gig scheduled there in August.

METEOR IV on reverbnation

Barracudas, it's indeed a very cool club, and they treated us well, but there weren't very many people there, and the ones that were there, did not seem to be into our bands all that much, sad to say. So we just played for one another, and I have to say, I personally had an amazing time!! It was almost like I got a personal performance from the mighty Aqualads, and let me tell you, it doesn't get much better than that!!!

Paul, you got it! It was indeed a Dual Pro and a Vibro King. Hmmm, now where I have I seen that amp lineup before??? They both sounded great!

Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube

Ivan, we have to tell everyone about the place we ate at next door. There were about 7 patrons total in there besides us, and the food still took about 45 minutes! And there was an item on the menu that cost $2 million dollars, and you somehow still ended up with a fork in your eye?!?

At any rate, it was one of the coolest nights ever by far! How often do you get to sit there, practically alone, and see such an amazingly talented band as the Madeira, basically all to yourself! It was the absolute best! We were so nervous when we got on stage that we played everything like someone had changed the record speed from 33 to 45! Also that was actually the very first time we had ever played "Streets of Juarez" live, so you must forgive the issues please

Paul, you got it! It was indeed a Dual Pro and a Vibro King. Hmmm, now where I have I seen that amp lineup before??? They both sounded great!

Ivan, I'm in the dark here, who else had this amp lineup?

They did sound absolutely phenomenal however. I kept thinking that somehow when Ivan played through the Dual Pro that is was being put through a PA because it just sounded so full. It was amazing.

Jeremy

Ivan, thanks for posting the videos.

Count me in as a Aqualads Fan!!
I had the first 2 Aqualads cds since the late 90s early 2000s,
Got them from the legendary Go-boy records in Hermosa beach.
Sometime a few years ago,out of the blue,I got the Surf Surf Surf cd.
I didn't even know they were still around.
Then Fady gave me the Treasures cd at last years SG101 convention.
(thanks again man). I always liked the first 2 cds, but
Needless to say I was blown away by the last 2 cds they have done.
Definitely the Best of what is trad surf, but mixing in very tasteful
modern elements to liven it up a bit.
Great vibes of excitement in a lot of their songs.
Or very provoking of exotic moods.

If we live past Dec. 2012, I have told the Aqualads that I will
have them at the SG101 convention for 2013.

Jeff(bigtikidude)

Freaking awesome. Hard to believe that caliber of musicianship was going on and not getting attention.

Mike
http://www.youtube.com/morphballio

I'm w/ you, Jeff. While they absolutely kill the amp'd up stuff (think Surf! Surf! Surf!, Surfing with the Sharks, Reef Rider, Washout, etc...) and I love that side of them immensely, I love how they do the more mellow and often doo-wop'ish flavored stuff just as much.

See Crystal Cove (on Treasures), Bon Voyage (on Treasures) , Folly Beach (on Surf! Surf! Surf!), The Dog (on Surf! Surf! Surf!) and even some of the earlier stuff on the first 2 albums.

Samples on iTunes and CD Baby.

Fady

El Mirage @ ReverbNation

Thanks y'all, just so many compliments! Very much appreciated every one of them. Here was the highlight of my evening on Cinco De Maya! I missed the beginning of several of these as I shut off the recording to clap then promptly forgot to start recording again after a few sips of beer This is from my phone, which gives you an idea of how incredible the sound was for this show. No PA either. It was inspiring to hear these amps sound like this to say the least!

Also not much has been said about them, but Destination Earth sounded incredible this night as well, although I do not have any recordings from their set. I'd have to say their sound was phenomenal as well!

Jeremy

Thanks for posting the cool videos of us, Jeremy! Alas, I don't have a smartphone with a camera, so I didn't get to take any videos of you - bummer! I should say that those amps sounded pretty amazing when YOU played through them, too!

It's been a crazy ten days for me since returning from NC. Things are finally calming down now, so I'll finally write about Aqualads at the Fayetteville show. As I mentioned before, the audience was sparse and mostly dead, so we were basically playing for each other, which I have to say was pretty amazing, and it led to me becoming a mega Aqualads fan that night! Their set just blew me away. I saw them play the night before at the Instro Summit, and enjoyed the hell out of it. But being able to take in the band from right in front, without anybody getting in my line of sight, and having them sound SO INCREDIBLE, well, for a surf music fan, I can honestly say it doesn't get any better than that. I was in heaven! I suppose we've all fantastised about one of our favorite bands giving a private performance - I basically had that experience. And it was everything I could have imagined!

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, they started off with Border Town by Eddie & the Showmen, followed by, ah damn, I thought I'd remember! (My memory ain't what it used to be!) Malaguena? Whatever it was, it was another Mexican-themed classic. From there they proceeded to play almost their entire 2011 album Treasures, plus a big chunk of their 2004 album Surf! Surf! Surf! (including the amazing It Came from the Sea, Trantula, and Rodeo Gals), and Swimming with the Sharks from their second album, Revenge (I didn't recognize any other songs from their first two albums). They also played a ton of cool covers. One that really blew me away was Storm Warning by the Australian '60s surf band the Nocturnes. It's an obscure track that was compiled on the great Board Boogie comp some years ago. Very Atlantics influenced, and they just they tore it up! They were also kind enough to dedicate ther song Curse to me - it's an uber-cool combination of the Wailers "High Wall" and "Fifth Dimension" from the Surf Creature comp (credited to an unknown band). Sounded so eeee-veeeel! Yes!

This band IS WAY underappreciated among surf music fans. I don't think people realize how incredible they really are. They've got the songs, they've got the sound, and they've got the chops - damn, to they have the chops! Having started in 1997, and having basically been playing since then, they really know what they're doing. They've got it down to a science! Jeremy and Greg swich off on lead, often times within the same song. Jeremy's got the huge Jazzmaster tone, usually playing on the bridge pickup, while Greg's got the classic in-between Strat tone, sounding more than a bit in the Jim Messina vein - that raspy, heavy reverb sound. And boy, they can both play. Jeremy seems more studied and a bit more cerebral but extremely melodic in his playing, while Greg's style seems like pure instinct, almost no thought (and he double-picks like an animal - I don't think I've ever seen anyone double-pick quite as fast!). Yet they both played with a great deal of feeling and JOY - joy was just radiating from them! You can tell they LOVE THIS MUSIC! Jimmy on bass was just perfect, played exactly the right thing at the right time, pure taste and deep melodic sensibility. Darrell on drums was a revelation - a trad drummer worthy of the modern greats, people like Ted Pilgrim, the Fathoms' drummer, etc. He could play really tasty or REALLY fast, with endless snare rolls (Dane at one point told me that his wrists hurt just watching Darrell play!).

The overall impression is of a truly world-class band, one that is loaded with talent, both in terms of musicianship AND songwriting and that deeply loves what they do. They were having fun on stage, which was really nice to observe. At the end of Swimming with the Sharks, Greg fluffed the final run, shouted "Doggone it!", pulled a funny face and started laughing. But he made up for it with a really cool addition to the end of Vientos del Sur, a little tag that's not in the studio version, and that seemed to catch his bandmates by pleasant surprise. It was just little moments like that, where you could closely see the reactions and interactions of the band members, that made this a very special show.

It occurred to me that in some ways Aqualads are a sort of modern-day Fathoms. They approach their music with that same trad spirit, but have the ability to write the most amazing songs that really aren't all that traditional when you truly think about it, that go to places that '60s surf didn't really. And yet, it sounds as authentic as it possibly can be. A hell of a trick!

So, count me in as a huge Aqualads for life as a result of this show! Can you believe that in these 15 years of playing they've only played ONE out-of-state show? It was the Clarksville, GA (outside of Atlanta) surf fest a few years ago. Is it any wonder that so few people are aware of what an amazing band they really are??? This has got to change, we've got to get these guys OUT OF NORTH CAROLINA! A slot on next year's SG101 convention would be a great beginning - though I sure hope it happens even earlier than that!

So, in closing, all I can say is - AQUALADS FREAKIN' RULE!!!!! This was a night I'll remember for a long time.

Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube

Last edited: May 17, 2012 23:41:18