I never thought of it as South Bay, but it's definitely close by.

-Warren

That was excessively violent and completely unnecessary. I loved it.

But in defense of San Pedro there are some great Restaurants there.
and the Port O' Call used to be really cool.
yes its always about food.

Jeff(bigtikidude)

port of call is great as is The Bee. Anyone know if the Bee is still there? John Pilgrims cousins all live there and one of them was the merch guy for the minutemen and firehose.

http://www.satanspilgrims.com
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Satans-Pilgrims/8210228553
https://satanspilgrims.bandcamp.com/
http://www.surfyindustries.com

Yep Busy Bee's still there - sandwich line still stretches out the door pretty much every day. Funny story, a few years back I was giving Dusty Watson a tour of our little town and we cruised by Busy Bee. There was a firetruck out front with 3 or 4 police cruisers and a line of people going down the block. He asked me what was happening and I told him that was just the usual lunch crowd. He couldn't believe it! We ended up eating here: http://www.yelp.com/biz/pacific-diner-san-pedro

Bill S._______

HELLDIVER on Facebook

remora1
Well I guess I always felt more south bay than harbor area because our local paper is the harbor edition of the south bay's Daily Breeze. I guess that makes us south bay wannabes. It's either that or hangin' with the Wilmington gangbangers, Compton N.W.A. types, or Long Beach riffraff!

Oh, and our south facing beaches have some of the best surf in the area, whereas the other harbor towns don't.

"Long Beach Riff Raff" Hey, I resemble that remark!

And remember to call it Peeedro. The locals love it! It's like calling San Francisco "Frisco" or "San Fran"

OK, I'm glad this got some nice responses. I still need to follow up on some of the helpful links.

For what it's worth, Rare Surf Vol. 1: The South Bay Bands has tracks from

The Journeymen
PJ & Artie
PJ & the Galaxies

I kind of figure from various other things, like where they played, etc., that Rare Surf Vol. 2 must also be South Bay:

The Nocturnes
Wheely McSidewalk
The Revelairs
The Vibrants

I'm less sure about Rare Surf Vol. 3, which is

Johnny Fortune
John Barakat & the Vestells

Of course I realize that the Bel Airs would be in the list and pretty much any place PJ hung his guitar back in the day which includes things above.

The Challengers would follow from band genealogy and locality and the sound seems to fit, too.

I've heard Eddie & the Showmen described as "defecting to Orange County" (more or less in those words), but most of their material that I've heard sounds more like the bands above, so I'm glad to see them listed in South Bay above.

I notice that the Crossfires are questionmarked, which is consistent with the sound to some extent, though they were plaining operating in South Bay territory, and some of their material is certainly pretty similar to other South Bay bands.

As I say, I haven't pursued all the links recommended yet, but so far I'm not seeing anything but "locale" and "genetics" to characterize the sound. Maybe there's a certain amount of intuitive "sounds like" going on in people's heads.

So far the only characterization I've come up with myself is that there seems to be an underlying conviction in South Bay bands that pretty much anything can be rock if you add jungle drums, electric guitar and sax. The songs have anything from a folk to a pop feel - very eclectic in general.

This may be very wrong: By contrast most OC stuff sounds more R&B-inspired. However, I believe Dick Dale is considered to be OC, right? But a fair amount of his material actually seems closer to South Bay in character.

In Dumb Angel No. 4 (Dominic Priore / Brian C.)'s 'All Summer Long'
there is a fold out "South Bay Surf Groups 1961-1965" map and surf family tree of sorts that helps clarify all this. They also suggest that you should read 'Surfin' Guitars' by Robert Dailey for a more detailed picture, but theirs is pretty detailed.

I used to love to go to Port O' Call when I was little! I forgot all about that place.

BillyBlastOff
Well I'll be dipped. I went to Bishop Montgomery too, along with 4 brothers and four sisters. (Mom and Dad had no Tv, ;D). My oldest brother Danny, (Cool Hand Uke), graduated with Paul Johnson, and just a couple years ago I brought him with me to Paul's 60th B-Day party. Talk about a reunion.
When did you graduate from Torrance Doug?

1. My first band was with 4 guys from Bishop who also graduated that year. One of them was Carlos Rios, who later wrote some songs with Lionel Ritchie and was also in the band for the short-lived Pat Sajak show.

Tuck,
The Nocturnes were from Santa Ana, and I think rehearsed in Anaheim(OC)

not sure about.
Wheely McSidewalk
The Revelairs
The Vibrants
or
Johnny Fortune
John Barakat & the Vestells

maybe others or John or Phil could chime in.
I don't have Surfiin Guitars by Bob Dalley so this is all from memory.

The Crossfires were South Bay band, but also played up North of LAX,
and towards Santa Monica area sometimes, so they were not 100% south bay, in area and or Sound.

as for sound.
South bay sound is usually described as little or no reverb,
and 2 counterpoint guitars, kinda like the Fireballs or Vnetures more than surf per say.

where as the OC sound was typically more lead guitar over staccato reverbed rhythm guitars.

of course this is a generalization, but for the most part fits.
but there is the odd exception to the rule.

Eddie was a south bay band, but to me sounded like a OC band.
part of the Reason he left the Belairs if I am to assume correctly.

Jeff(bigtikidude)

Tuck

spskins
It's a peninsula that juts out on the south end of LA, northwest of Borange County. It includes Hawthorne, Redondo Beach, Manhattan Beach, Palos Verdes, but not our little Pilgrim enclave in Pedro.

I think it's where I got lost last Summer when my freeway of choice "ended" - what kind of freeway just ends!? - and dumped me on a pier at 2:00 AM. Or maybe the pier was later ...

there are 4 freeways like that I can think of.

the 110 Pasadena/San Pedro frwy South, ends in San Pedro.
and I am sure there are a few Piers in San Pedro, its a shipping harbor,
but I didn't know they had any actual people/pleasure piers.
Maybe Near Ports O' Call

The 710 (Harbor Freeway) goes south form LA to Long Beach shipping Harbor, might be a Pier down there, but not sure.

the 90, Marina Freeway.(shortest freeway in Ca.-
goes from the 405 to Marina Del Rey area- 5 miles at the most)
and if you go around that, you can get to the Venice beach pier.

and the 55 Freeway goes from North Orange County to Newport Beach,
and turns into Newport Blvd.- if you keep going you end up on Balboas peninsula, and there are 2 piers there. Newport and Balboa piers.

so you could have gone to any of those from the 405 freeway when you left Suzy's last year.

by the way yes I did put the in front of all the freeway numbers because its a proper way of speaking.
(Nor. Cal. people love to make fun of us for saying The before the Freeway number- saying thats how you can tell were from So, Cal.)

guilty.

Jeff(bigtikidude)