Howabout "Dance To The Surfing Band" by Hal Blaine and the young cougars--- great tune!!

OK, if folks aren't willing to consider the vocal contribution in things like Wipeout (two of the three, anyway) or Stoked, let alone things like Move It or Yep as "vocal," I will try to remember to go with the received wisdom for formal purposes. I hope I have made it clear that I don't think or claim these vocal addits amount to a "vocal" in the strict sense - a song.

I have just been suggesting that they make the piece a little more than a pure instrumental. I believe these little acts of vocal turpitude are something of a characteristic of surf "instrumentals," not unlike reverb or tremolo picking.

Another way of looking at it is to say that the vocal bits are a part of the piece as originally performed, not an incident that happened at the same time and got included in the recording by accident. Leaving them out amounts to rearranging the piece, and is an act on a par with rewriting it to provide an organ part or omit a saxophone one or change the number of guitar parts, etc.

Ma, eppuor si muove.

ah hell, if just a line or two that makes a song a vocal song then the journeymen's 'surfer blues' is the best.

the worst surf vocal, the new dimensions 'soul time'. no, wait, 'monster surf.' wait, 'soul flip' yeah definitely soul flip.

Tuck, I think you are up to something. I wouldn't reduce the phenomenon just to short vocals, but also to the incorporating of real life sound, like the sound of waves for example or fast going cars on hot rod tunes. More recently I think there is a tendency to incorporate short samples from trashy b-movies - some bands think it being so essential to their songs that they even try to do this on live shows (bands that use live samples are the Messer Chups from Russia or The Irrradiates from France for example).

I might be wrong, but I guess that this is a device to give the songs a sort of meaning (the title is another means to achieve this) without sacrificing the essential instumental nature of their tunes. And it's much more interesting than fully blown up vocals, which annoy me in 99% of the surf bands that do it (normally there is a cause why they are instrumental bands: nobody can sing very well).

mtkoltan
I wouldn't reduce the phenomenon just to short vocals, ...

I agree. All kinds of things get added, including engine sounds and lately B movie extracts, just as you say. And adverstising and promotional clips, etc. I'm not sure a definitive classification is possible, but someone should try it. Definitely if a band tries to include it in their live performances you know they consider it a part of the song. I've heard live versions of Wipeout by the Surfaris with The Laugh, for example. The Laugh is part of the original, not a recording incident.

I might be wrong, but I guess that this is a device to give the songs a sort of meaning (the title is another means to achieve this) without sacrificing the essential instrumental nature of their tunes.

At least it's another dimension to the art. The absence of a vocal in the standard sense is a sort of statement, too, and including something that is vocal but anti-lyrical is almost an exageration of that. An intuitive sensitivity to that aspect of it may explain why some people are taken aback when I call these "vocals." I'd be happy to call them something else. In a pinch instrumental will do, but it's more instruments "plus."

And it's much more interesting than fully blown up vocals, which annoy me in 99% of the surf bands that do it (normally there is a cause why they are instrumental bands: nobody can sing very well).

I had sort of a double agenda with this thread, or a fuzzy one. I wanted to point out that surf bands - the originals and the more recent ones, too - have always used their voices a lot more than maybe we admit to ourselves or the non-cognoscenti. Not only do they often just plain sing - produce real vocals, maybe a bit guiltily - but they are usually anything but restricted to their instruments in what we normally think of as "the instrumentals." I think we have fallen into a habit of using that phrase more in the sense of "without a standard lyric" not in the literal sense of "instruments only, no voice."

Surfing band vocals (real ones) used to annoy me too. Some of them were just plain weak vocally or lyrically, but I think a lot of the annoyance came from an exagerated, more or less religious devotion to "instrumentalism." I've been going back and listening to the stuff I used to skip over and a lot of it is actually pretty good. Most of it sounds more like garage bands singing (which it is, really) than the Beach Boys sound, but I think it's always been recognized that the Beach Boys were a bit unusual in the lyrical vein.

I think one problem here is that behind the second wave dictum that real surf music should be instrumental (and guitar instrumental at that) there has been a covert backup position that if it did happen to have vocals then they had to be "Beach Boys vocals" in style and the subject matter had to be surfing, cars, and possibly high school romance. So, things like Hot Pastrami or Louie Louie were not only impure, but disloyally impure.

Last edited: Jan 24, 2011 12:31:25

JakeDobner
I think it wrong to call surf songs with samples or voices at the beginning vocal, because they most certainly are not. However, they are not absolute music.

Well, there's a start at a different terminology, but maybe not quite the term I'd like. I think mostly the song is the program. The non-instrumental part is added to that rather than the other way around. Maybe augmented instrumental? Extended instrumental? (See, I'm admitting they are basically instrumental.)

The additions are not always at the beginning, but that is a common pattern. There's one by Al Garcia & the Rhythm Kings, called Pachuko Soul, that is interesting because even though it is formally band chatter -"Spanish soul, oh-oh-ah!" Go, Al, go!" and so on - it actually seems to be a loop. Or else the chatter has verses.

One of my favorite bands, M83, created their own narratives for songs. One song, Car Chase Terror has a female narrating the song, definitely not vocals and it is more so a instrumental song, but it creates the feel of the track.

Sounds sort of like Hemi Charger by "Kill Switch ... Klick, featuring Super Amanda." As a song it's more in the vein of Goofy Footer Ho-Dad - more a recited poem with instumental accompaniment than a song. If I had to divide things along simple vocal vs. instrumental lines I'd call Hemi Charger an instrumental any day.

"Let's Go!" by the Routers (and also the Ventures)...

What HAVE you guys been listening to?

ed

Traditional........speak softly and play through a big blonde amp. Did I mention that I still like big blonde amps?

Well, since I generally dont care much for vocals in my instrumental music, I submit these two:

"Caveman" by LSJ
"Never get out of the Boat" by Fifty Foot Combo

2012-2013: FILTHY POLAROIDS

I like the Mobsmen's "Scelerats Syndicate" a lot recently and I noticed, that it's one of those very few surf records I have where I don't skip the vocal tracks, I actually repeat them sometimes. I absolutely love "Holy Gold" and "Raven Girl" !

Squid
"Let Me Be the One" by the Shadows. This is a full vocal. It is also their only good vocal. All their other good recordings are instros.

Judged by sales, the most well-liked vocal done by an instrumental group is probably "Sugar Shack" by the Fireballs. I don't care for it, but many fine people do.

Basically this thread is about incongruities. So I should mention the two most incongruous vocals I can recall:
1. "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" sung by William Shatner
2. "Proud Mary" sung by Leonard Nimoy.
Woof!

aging myself here but i remember hearing 'sugar shack' on the radio when i was 5 and the song has stuck with me since then. i just googled it......released in 1963, so i was 11, not 5. musically a long time ago for me.

www.surfintheeye.com

Last edited: Feb 05, 2011 16:52:54