WindanseaBeachBoy
Joined: Feb 26, 2006
Posts: 133
La Playa, Mexico
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Posted on Aug 24 2010 08:43 PM
Before I really recognized them as such, I loved listening to the Raybeats back in the 1980s. I especially recalled their album "It's Only A Movie." What band, I thought, could be cooler? I think, years later, it was my recollection of that band that sparked my need to learn to play surf instro music.
I went on-line to try and find their recordings but, alas, no luck. Darnit! In this world where everything is available, no Raybeats! (There was an lp, which would be lovely, but I have nothing to play it on!)
Anyway, am curious to hear other SG 101 reminiscences of this great '80s surf band. Also, something on what happened to the band. And finally, anyone who can lay their hands on recordings or CDs - I am down to buy any of the Raybeat sound. 
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mattshaffer
Joined: Apr 13, 2006
Posts: 74
Aptos, CA
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Posted on Aug 24 2010 11:45 PM
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Brian
Joined: Feb 25, 2006
Posts: 19268
Des Moines, Iowa, USA
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Posted on Aug 25 2010 07:56 AM
I've told this story a few times, but here it is again. Back in the late 80's I was delivering pizzas while going to college. This local college radio show started their show every night with the Raybeats cover of "Jack the Ripper" (Link Wray). I had no idea who the band was, nor who Link Wray was (I know!). I just knew this super cool song that left me dumbstruck would come on at 11:00pm or whatever it was. I used to time my pizza runs so I could be in my car at that time so I could hear this fascinating song. I kept hoping the DJ would say the name of the song or band but he never did. I'd be racing along the main university drag at high speeds in my tiny datsun blasting this incredible song that really stood out (remember pop music in the 80's? ugh).
I also have vague memories of seeing a Raybeats video on the USA network's "Night Flight" show (remember cable TV in the 80's!!??).
A few years later in the early 90's I was watching a show on PBS about the history of Rock n Roll and they did a segment on Link Wray. That song started playing and I sat bolt upright trying to remember where I had heard that before. Then it came back to me, my pizza days. Shortly after that I got a Link Wray album. This was about the time I started getting into surf music.
I definitely think the Raybeats planted a seed in my subconscious.
— Site dude - S3 Agent #202
Need help with the site? SG101 FAQ - Send me a private message - Email me
"It starts... when it begins" -- Ralf Kilauea
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Tuck
Joined: Sep 02, 2006
Posts: 3166
Denver, CO
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Posted on Aug 25 2010 11:28 AM
Cool story. I'd never heard it.
I think I have heard that there are legal issues blocking rerelease of Only a Movie. Guitar Beat should be available, though. It's like the non-surf part of Only a Movie. Not as much fun somehow. "Not as good" would be rank injustice. But it's just a good record, not a sweet flowing spring in a dry, thorny wilderness of 80s pop. I used to skip over the non-surf songs 9 times of ten, which was not as easy with a turntable as it is now with a CD player, my friends.
As far as Guitar Beat: I think I may have been first successfully imprinted on saxophone by this album. Songs like Tight Turn, Searching, and Piranha Salad are probably where I learned to like "cool" sax. And why? Because it comes with cool drums and other things. Tone Zone is less a song than the sound track to a panic attack. Guitar Beat is more song-like, but a bit non-traditional in sound and so it has been covered by Planet Seven. Kind of bombastic and a natural theremin vehicle. Calhoun Surf, of course, is the blueprint for the Straitjackets' version. Sort of like "We thought we'd like to do a surf song, but we ran out of guitars and had to use this synthesizer thing instead." It was a breath of fresh air at the time, but I prefer the wind that breathed o'er guitar strings. Andy's + 1 is the one that would be the cute organ number if they did cute, but they never did, so it gets a bit odd at points. Throughout, really. It would be my candidate for the one the Bomboras would have covered, but I don't believe they did. An oversight? I seem to have no conscious recollection of either B-Gas Rickshaw, which is a sort of sophisticated Maid'n'Japan, or Cocktails. Maybe I always dropped out after Backstroke, which is a bit of a nod to "the Spanish thing" in instrumental music. Cocktails may be supposed to be a boogie record at a drunken party with the record stuck at the end. I see I have overlooked Holiday Inn Spahn, I mean Spain and Big Black Sneakers. The former is sort of Pacifica on (even more) valium. The latter is the prelude to Tone Zone, in the course of which we become increasingly uneasy at the thought of what is to come.
My apologies: this is why I should never be allowed to write reviews - and most of the other reviewers, too - because now that you have read it, if you did, what do you really know about the album anyway? You'll still have to listen to it to see what I mean.
Last edited: Aug 30, 2010 11:08:12
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dp
Joined: Feb 26, 2006
Posts: 3546
mojave desert, california
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Posted on Aug 25 2010 12:45 PM
Brian: here's the video you saw on "Nightflight":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOwC6XAHIlQ
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dp
Joined: Feb 26, 2006
Posts: 3546
mojave desert, california
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Posted on Aug 25 2010 12:51 PM
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hlieboff59
Joined: Jun 27, 2008
Posts: 576
Marlboro, New Jersey
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Posted on Aug 25 2010 01:04 PM
Wow, I faintly remember them, but would have to hear their songs to remember their sound. But dig these album covers.
http://tralfaz-archives.com/coverart/R/raybeats_roping.html
http://tralfaz-archives.com/coverart/R/raybeats_guitar.html
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Rio
Joined: May 22, 2006
Posts: 500
Hamilton, Ontario
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Posted on Aug 25 2010 01:41 PM
My memory may be all messed up (can only guess at the reasons) but I seem to remember the Raybeats as a late '70s band. I remember them as part of the punk/new wave thing, which is also how/when I discovered Link Wray-- the Bullshot LP, around 1978, I think, along with the Robert Gordon records. I have a copy of _Guitar Beat _on vinyl somewhere in my place.
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insectsurfer
Joined: Mar 22, 2006
Posts: 363
Los Angeles
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Posted on Aug 25 2010 04:01 PM
One of the main and hippest venues for punk/new wave (it was still the same thing then) in NYC 1979-82 was 'Hurrah's'. It was a pretty big dance floor space with a stage at one end, carpeted platforms around the edge instead of seats, mirrored disco ball,etc. see - http://www.amazon.com/Live-Hurrahs-New-York-City/product-reviews/B000ENC7R2 for a link to a dvd comp from the place. Access was up through a huge freight elevator! We opened for 'The Revillos' there once,too.
ANYWAY our 1st gig in NYC was there in spring 1980, opening up for Long Beach's 'Suburban Lawns' (great single-"(Gidget goes to Hell!). Our SECOND gig at Hurrah's was opening for the Raybeats. They were essentially guys from the art rock scene and a few of them were playing with Lydia Lunch's arty and semi-abrasive '8-eyed Spy'. Their Raybeats thing was kind of a side project for them ,but they had definitely found joy in doing an instro combo. It was definitely surfy, but with a jazz/lounge approach. Very tight, and very cool image (suits!) and sound . I had a great conversation with the very creative founder/bassist George Scott afterwards , and I was gonna make him a tape of Davie Allan stuff (who he was unfamiliar with). Sadly, he OD'd a few weeks later, and we dedicated our 1st lp 'Wavelength' to him on the inside groove. They got Danny Amis to replace him on bass- Danny had had his own surf band 'The Overtones' together in Minneapolis, their 1st and only 7" EP featured the great tune 'Calhoun Surf',which he brought in as part of their repertoire. Danny did a great job ,these guys were really good musicians, and I saw them play a few more times where I lived, in Wash.DC. Awesome guitarist Jody Harris didn't do much public playing after they broke up, but keyboardist/guitarist Pat Irwin played with the B52's on tour and in the studio until just recently. Viva the Raybeats!!
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Hogfysshe
Joined: Feb 25, 2008
Posts: 165
Northeast
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Posted on Aug 25 2010 05:16 PM
very good Raybeats tribute page
http://tonezone.wordpress.com/
insectsurfer
...... saw them play a few more times where I lived, in Wash.DC........
I also saw them once in DC, at the 9:30 club. "It's Only A Movie" was out. Dave Hofstra was on bass this show. Even though it is a Danny Amis song, we yelled for "The Calhoun Surf" as an encore. They said they weren't sure they could play it but went ahead with no problem.
At the time, I was also listening to The Monochrome Set and The Milkshakes, alot.
Jody Harris later played with The Golden Palominos. Saw them play in DC and recall an incredible performance of their song "Buenos Aires." Beautiful harmonizing by Syd Straw and a second female vocalist.
"Big Black Sneakers" is one of my favorite Raybeats songs. "Holiday Inn Spain" is another and was the first song of theirs I heard, ...on WHFS of course.
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Tuck
Joined: Sep 02, 2006
Posts: 3166
Denver, CO
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Posted on Aug 25 2010 05:24 PM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raybeats (1979-1984)
Danny Amis was a member 1979-1982, before It's Only a Movie. B-gas Rickshaw is a cover of a Jan Berry song. The instrument I refered to as a keyboard thing (or maybe I said or thought the dreaded word synthesizer) is identified by one of the links above as an "Acetone compact." "Pat Irwin Saxophone, Acetone." That may be the tone reference in Tone Zone.
I'm pretty sure that Soul Beat/Intoxica on IOAM is based on the Jim Waller & the Deltas renditions of those songs on what is now called the Surf Crazy compilation CD (mostly stuff originally recorded by Tony Hilder). Soul Beat Pt II is a kind of Green Onions like organ thing by Waller and the Deltas' cover of Intoxica is pretty distinctive.
Last edited: Aug 30, 2010 11:03:46
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windmill
Joined: Mar 22, 2006
Posts: 269
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Posted on Aug 29 2010 04:40 AM
I had read a reveiw about Guitar Beat in Rolling Stone mag in mid 80's.
While I was working outback on th eother side of the country a couple of years later, during a break in town I checked out an indie record shop and came across the cassette of Guitar Beat. So I brought it unheard on the strength of the RS reveiw.
Glad I did 
— Freshwater Surfin'
The Murray Basin
Australia
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matt
Joined: Oct 18, 2010
Posts: 650
Boston, MA
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Posted on Nov 02 2010 05:10 PM
I used to obsess about the Raybeats. I was in high school at the time, and it killed me when they played a show in Pittsburgh and I couldn't go. (under 21. and 10pm on a monday)
The first time I saw Los Straitjackets I went up after and said "was one of you guys in the Raybeats?" We chatted about the band for a minute, and a younger rockabilly guy said, "wait, what year was this band?" Danny said "80s" and the guy said, "How the fuck old ARE you?"
does anyone know if there is any live footage of the raybeats? I can never find any on youtube.
matt
— Matt Heaton & the Electric Heaters
Boston's Premier Surf/Noir Combo
http://www.heatonsurf.com
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matt
Joined: Oct 18, 2010
Posts: 650
Boston, MA
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Posted on Apr 11 2011 08:59 AM
Holy Crap! I was in a used record store in Saratoga Springs & I found a compilation called "Start Swimming" that Stiff Records put out back in 1981 and it has TWO LIVE RAYBEATS tracks! Maybe everyone already knows about this, but I was pretty psyched. 
Someone wrote a blog about it here
— Matt Heaton & the Electric Heaters
Boston's Premier Surf/Noir Combo
http://www.heatonsurf.com
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Tuck
Joined: Sep 02, 2006
Posts: 3166
Denver, CO
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Posted on Apr 11 2011 11:16 AM
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dp
Joined: Feb 26, 2006
Posts: 3546
mojave desert, california
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Posted on Apr 11 2011 09:54 PM
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dp
Joined: Feb 26, 2006
Posts: 3546
mojave desert, california
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Posted on Apr 11 2011 09:56 PM
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Tuck
Joined: Sep 02, 2006
Posts: 3166
Denver, CO
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Posted on Apr 12 2011 10:49 AM
dp wrote:
Casanova plays Raybeats playing Mancini (Banzai
Pipeline
cover)
I love this song too. 
Best version I recall is the Eldorados covering the Raybeats covering the Astronauts covering Mancini. I'm pretty sure I could hear the Raybeats in it. Not on line anymore, that I know. It was on their MySpace page for a while. Heck, I like the Mancini version I've heard, too.
Lately the Royal Aces have been doing it. I need to try to catch that on video! This is not an easy song at all, with multiple parts and odd rhythms, and I'm amazed anybody can make it work with a 3-piece band. I would love to hear the Surge tackle this one. Or maybe there's a ballsy group of volunteers who would like to try it at SG101? I will hold your coats.
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matt
Joined: Oct 18, 2010
Posts: 650
Boston, MA
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Posted on Apr 12 2011 11:59 AM
We've been doing Banzai Pipeline--it is kind of tough with a trio since it is nice to have both the rhythm guitar part holding down the fort AND the active bassline. But we soldier on. . .
— Matt Heaton & the Electric Heaters
Boston's Premier Surf/Noir Combo
http://www.heatonsurf.com
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matt
Joined: Oct 18, 2010
Posts: 650
Boston, MA
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Posted on Jun 23 2011 02:24 PM
REUNION!
(at least one show)
— Matt Heaton & the Electric Heaters
Boston's Premier Surf/Noir Combo
http://www.heatonsurf.com
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