June Birthdays 
I love those 90s bands - the Bomboras, the Ghastly Ones, the Boss Martians. All the ones Norm mentions (and/or was in)! So many of them had great keyboards, all different in style. And they had a fresh approach too - appreciative of their roots, but totally in the spirit of the times. I loved that. I kind of caught up with most of it about five to ten years late, but it was a joyful experience. I wish somebody would revive that!
But, Norm, I wasn't clear. I don't actually want to blame the second wave or the revivalists or whatever we should call them for the state of saxophone in modern surf. They kind of laid down the law about "no vocals," and not unreasonably in my view, considering what they were up against in terms of the surf music = Beach Boys thinking of the time. However, I suspect that in (largely) omitting saxophone they were just unconsciously doing things in line with that spirit of the time. In the same way more recent bands tend to leave out the rhythm guitar.
I wouldn't actually want to blame it on the British Invasion either, in spite of the prevalence of (v)/g/g/b/d bands there. But it was a general trend, present already in "first wave" surf music, though mostly toward the end. The later bands tend to be g/g/b/d, and you run into narratives of sax players switching to guitar or keys or shifting to jazz, etc. Saxophones are still found in British Invasion and Garage bands, but they become fewer and are gradually omitted. The (non-surf) US garage bands already largely lacked sax even before the British Invasion.
The sea change (or maybe it would be a B-flat change) in pop music that is reflected in all this was so complete by the time the first surf revival began that I suspect leaving out saxophone was just natural. The revival bands were reviving and adapting a sound and some songs, not a whole process.
Revivalists always claim they're doing it exactly how it used to be done, but they're always adapting something to fit their revival to its new context, because they have the sensibilities of that context. Drop a modern rockabilly in Spanish Harlem in the 50s and he'd be lucky to get out alive. Just compare Flash Cadillac or other early "50's bands" with a modern rockabilly band. The parodies are very different, from each other and from the original(s) too. I suggest this parallel because I think sometimes it's easier to see something if you're not as close to it.
Anyway, the general trend away from saxophone as expressed in the second wave instrumentation, combined with the modern tendency to mix surf music with the music of the many non-surf g/g/b/d instrumental bands of the 60s results in a perception of surf music as exclusively g/g/b/d music. The nagging presence of saxophone in a lot of first wave surf music is easily filtered out mentally if you're not actually trying to make the song last 2:50 without a sax break.
I do think a lot of people now regard saxophone and keys in surf music as impurities on a par with vocals. For example, periodically someone just out and says something like that here. People feel like it may have been something that happened back then, but it's not part of the package for them now.
This all kind of reminds me of Merrell Fankhauser's report that he told the Impacts he would join up if they ditched the trombonist. His instincts about what would work were probably sound here, though I do kind of wonder what the Impacts sounded like with a trombone in the mix.
Last edited: Oct 10, 2014 19:54:57
Ha! I meant I was Stoked people were enjoying the discussion. But yes, Stoked by The Beach Boys has no sax, neither does their version of Moondawg or Misirlou for that matter! The break on Misirlou that's reserved for trumpet or in some cases sax, Carl plays on guitar! Hmmm, interesting.
