OK - you may want to read this in installments. Trust me, though, it's all inspired stuff.
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A lot depends on what you mean by "hard rockin'," "really traditional surf," and "psychedelic." It's safest to name examples. So, Misirlou and the Mermen were more help than the aforequoted generalities. Specific terms like reverb drenched and "fuzzed out" are helpful, though even the former tends to become a bit generic among surf music fans. Reverb drenched at what settings?
You can usually hear enough of a sample of a CD on an online vendor's site to know if you'd like the CD. The trouble is which CDs to seek out and listen to samples of. So, I'm not sure I'm on target, but you can easily check the recommendations out. Collections are a good place to start, if you're still not sure.
As far as where to look, well Amazon is a large slow target, but the smaller dealers are often the best way to go. I was lucky to start with Ferenc Dobronyi of Pollo del Mar when he was a dealer - Pop Records(.com). He never listed anything he didn't recommend, and he never recommended anything I didn't like. Well, maybe once. The only real trouble was deciding which to get first and getting it before he escaped the business. Once you have a slight idea what you like you can make sense of the candy store that is Phil Dirt's Reverb Central on-line review collection.
Hey, let us know if and where we hit the target. Scratch a music fan and find a not very well-concealed closet DJ.
Occam
1) I'd like to find a couple of bands that either are really aggressive, hard rockin' surf bands but still very reverb drenched surf like Misirlou on crank.
OK, definitely Satan's Pilgrims. You decide which CDs. Numerous CDs in press ... uh, in etch? Smeared on plastic? Most of the rest don't match the available output of bands like Satan's Pilgrims or the Mermen.
Probably also the Fathoms (try Fathomless on Bikini World) , Eliminators, and the Sir Finks (first few and last few songs on Instrumentals in the Key of Boss). But I'm emphasizing less surfy, still "reverb drenched" and taking "hard rockin'" as invoking as much or more intensity and coolness than speed picking. Almost everyone plays a mix of fast and slow, and there are moderate and slow songs on the CDs of most bands. If you play all fast numbers people lose interest, and you have to play faster and faster for them to notice it's fast. Slip in Sleepwalk or Atlantis and moderate is back to fast.
Actually, I'm not even sure where fast really fits in your scheme of things. A lot of people say "fast" when they mean "heavy, intense." And then, is it the tempo, or the playing you want fast? Is fast rockin', anyway? A fast number by, say, Bread, is not necessarily more rockin' than a slow number by Cream. (Guess when I graduated from high school. No peeking.) Anyway, in a surf music vein you might prefer, say, a moody Cecilia Ann (moderate) to Napuljska Gitara (frantic). Or not. Hard to say. Rockin' is an emotional reaction, not a tempo.
You might like the Woodies or the Bambi Molesters (an earlier suggestion) (try earlier CDs - the Bambis get more and more produced and mellow as they go on). Or, say, the Looney Tunes. Maybe the Torquays or Vara-Tones?
I'll venture to recommend a local Denver band, the Beloved Invaders, starting with Tamarindo, since you (probably) can't hear them live.
Actually, go hear any band live. What makes it onto the CDs is not usually either quite typical material, or entirely typically presented. Most bands play cranked up, often wacked out versions of Miserlou and The Wedge, but relatively few of them record them. Most songs improve with being played for a year or two, so what seems a bit modest on CD may be a knockout live next year.
If you want loud and intense modern sounding instrumentals without that much reverb - without that plangent marimba-like quality of the modern trad bands, anyway - try Man or Astroman or Get Three Coffins Ready (the latter another Denver group and maybe a bit hard to find).
If you want up tempo or intense "post-surf" instrumentals more than reverb, try Davie Allan & the Arrows, and start with Loud, Loose and Savage. Or the Insect Surfers and start with Death Valley Coastline.
A good starter "modern" sounding instrumental collection is Beyond the Beach.
2)I'd like to also find some more bands that combine psychedlia and surf like the Mermen. Be it either trippy or just mellow and blissed out stuff.
Slacktone, Pollo del Mar and the Surf Kings are all pretty avant garde, often rocking in the intense way, and PdM is sometimes psychedelic. Slacktone and the Kings are more restrained in that vein. Or try the Insect Surfers' Mohave Reef, which is closer to the Mer-sound. For my money the Space Cossacks and the Madeira (Ivan Pongracic's bands) are also pretty avant garde and definitely more or less trippy, though not in a psychedelic way. More eery or exotic than distorted. Not really mellow.
If you want psychedelic try Kelp! (the bang is part of the name). They're more intense-moody psychedelic (Doors, Airplane?), however, than trippy psychedelic (new Animals, Butterfly?), barring Happy as a Clam. The clam is definitely on something, probably speed. (In that speed freak vein, but not psychedelic, try the Phantom Surfers' Sloth in Molasses on Bikini World or Sir Bald Diddley's Chaeto, same place.)
For just plain psychedelic instrumentals try Simon Jones. He's definitely channeling White Rabbit in Spaish Guitar, except when he switches to Malaguena for variety.
Oh, hey, I forgot the Aqua Velvets. Definitely trippy, as in "hash." Maybe a bit too mellow for some people. If you tend to fall into a peaceful sleep during some of the Mermen's more elaborately early Pink Floydish stuff, your attention may wander during an AV CD. Anyway, don't use their CDs in your alarm clock M-F. On the weekend it may depend on who you wake up with.
3) I'd also like to find some surf bands that mix in some fuzzed out moments like Hendrix through a few daisy chained Fender tanks. I'm not too into the really traditional surf stuff out side of the more rockin' Dick Dale stuff.
Given your favorable reaction to DD's more rockin' stuff, it might help to know - privately, if you like - what "traditional surf" you've been exposed to that you <u>didn't</u> like. This is like saying you've seen some impressionist pictures you didn't like, while others were great. Since the epithets mean different things to different people and cover a lot of territory, different people will hear very different things in what you say. If you like Dick Dale's "more rockin'" numbers, I'd guess you like about 25-50% of all traditional surf, no matter who is playing it. You may sometimes not be in the mood for older style arrangements. So you go for recent covers.
I suspect you actually just like certain production values, or treatments, and dislike others, or, perhaps, you like songs in a certain style - Spanish, Middle Eastern, say, but not in others - maybe not the odd Tex-Mex ballad or old movie sound track number. Maybe you like things based on old r&b riffs, but not resurrected big band numbers. Or the reverse. Surf bands are addicted to novelty and genre numbers. Some of them are considered to be novelty or genre numbers. The rest are considered to be surf standards. It's a very eclectic kind of music. I like that about it my self. 
If you want fuzzed out moments more or less continuously, check out Davie Allan. I think his guitar shaves twice a day.
Agent Orange?
Simon Chardiet Surf the Wild Gowanus on Surf Gutar Greats.
Satan's Pilgrims and the Sir Finks have a fuzzed out song or two.
If you want 1 + 2, try Planet Seven. It's like Deep Purple doing Shadows tribute albums. No, that's not it. You'll see, though.
Generally, however, on this forum you are in territory where fuzzed out means "exotic novelty number." There are people here who develop dry mouth and irritable bowel syndrome just listening to fuzzed guitar. "Fuzzed guitar? No, thanks. I'm feeling a bit dehydrated. Actually, do you have any beer?"
Last edited: May 01, 2007 20:45:27
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