The Astronauts. From the picture on the back of the "Surfing With" album (recording dated May '63) Lead is played on a stock Jazzmaster. Two rhythm players on stock Jaguars, and the bass is a Fender Jazz. The amps look to me like blonde Showman 12" tone ring cabs for each player. I think a good average date for the gear is c.1962. I see two, (and perhaps three) brown tolex reverb tanks, which given the date, must be pretty new.

That album is widely considered by many the best recorded surf album. RCA had a famous echo chamber which could be a reason so many find the sound and drip so deep and hard to capture today.

The Chantays...I know that Pipeline was not recorded on Fender instruments (I think that's accurate). Later they got all sunburst Stratocasters with factory custom black pickguards.

And of course, they aren't plugged in

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Keep in mind that the Astronauts most likely were recorded using those fabulous RCA ribbon mics. Not to mention that their records were produced in the best recording studio west of the Mississippi River.

Their early recording engineer went on to record the Jefferson Airplane, Linda Rhondstat and a host of others.

The single 12 tone ring cab is the mac daddy of them all for absolutely amazing tone mic'd at close range. Probably had D-131 JBL's in them at that point in time.

Don't forget that the Astronauts could play their butts off either.

For my money, Pipline is the best surf/instro record ever made. Although Baja and several of the A-nauts tracks sound simply amazing, the moody expression and Brian Carmen's glissando are absolute perfection that has never been duplicated or taken to a higher place. For kids that weren't old enough to have drivers licenses, they did THE right thing at THE right time. Damn, what a great sounding record.

ed

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

Although it's probably a staged pic, here's The Astronauts recording at RCA. Most fans tend to agree that this is the best produced Surf record of the 60's. It's the room, the mics, the gear and the great playing, plus the producers and song writers including sax session ace Steve "Shutdown Douglas, Lee Hazelwood, and Gary Usher that made their two surf albums so great. Interesting that The Astronauts only wrote one song "KUK" on these two albums. The rest were mostly Hazelwoood and Douglas.

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Just a reminder for those that might be reading this and not have it....I know that many of us agree that the Japanese comp Movin', which compiles 22 Astronauts instrumentals, is still the best single-disc collection available.

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websurfer wrote:

I got that little tid-bit of info from the caption under that very pic as reproduced in Tom Wheeler's "American Guitars":

"The Chantays of "Pipeline" fame show off their Strats (with dark pickguards, unusual for the time) on a 1963 visit to Fender."

But tortoiseshell pickguards were most certainly not unusual for the time. Obviously Jazzmasters had them since '59 or something, Jaguars since '62, and they were even not that uncommon on Strats during the first wave, the most famous examples being:

image

(That's Paul Johnson & the Galaxies.)

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IvanP wrote:

But tortoiseshell pickguards were most certainly not unusual for the time. Obviously Jazzmasters had them since '59 or something, Jaguars since '62, and they were even not that uncommon on Strats during the first wave, the most famous examples being:

Exactly...and presuming Wheeler is also aware of that, made the fact that he pointed out the pickguards for special mention as "unusual and dark" led me to believe this was a custom feature of some kind. In any case, not a great description on his part.

In the past, I have watched the Welk appearance to see if I can see this feature. During the beginning intro, the the pickguards on the two Strats do look much darker on the high contrast B&W broadcast in comparison to the Precision bass, (which I believe is tort) and which looks much lighter and washed out.

It would be nice if someone could just ask Bob Spickard!

JONPAUL wrote:

Just a reminder for those that might be reading this and not have it....I know that many of us agree that the Japanese comp Movin', which compiles 22 Astronauts instrumentals, is still the best single-disc collection available.

Word!!

Jeff(bigtikidude)

The Pipeline guitars are a Paul Barth (of Magnatone and Rickenbacker fame) with a single bridge pick-up and, I believe, a Harmony with a single neck pick-up.

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