
Posted on Dec 14 2014 11:40 AM
So, WOW, that was FUN!!! This being our first time in Bloomington we had no idea what to expect, but it turned out to be one of the most memorable shows we've ever had! There were 98 paying customers there (!!), and they were INTO IT! Many women, lots of dancing throughout the night, great and extremely supportive and enthusiastic club owners and staff, just a wonderful night!
The Katatonics got the night off to an explosive start with their set of punky, MoAM-ish surf, made unique with the addition of standup bassist, slapping that thing in a true rockabilly fashion. They just added the rhythm guitarist, who was really good, and adds a lot to their sound. Chris on drums and Karin on drums are the heart and soul of the band, and are really passionate about surf music, though they are fairly new to it. But they had a lot of energy and many very cool originals! They started the evening off in rockin' style!
Thee Aquaholics have been playing around Bloomington for many years now, and I can't believe that we've never gotten together before now. The band is led by Ross Danielson on lead guitar, who's been playing surf since the early '80s. He recently lived in SoCal, where he got to know Paul Johnson, John Blair, Dave Wronski, Dusty, etc., and even got play in the Link Wray tribute show in LA a few years ago. Upon moving back to Bloomington he reactivated Thee Aquaholics, and they were truly impressive on Friday, looking sharp in retro suits, playing very faithful trad surf with a 4-piece lineup (both guitarists on Strats - yeah!
), almost all originals, with only two covers: the Ventures' "Fuzzy and Wild" and the Vy-Dells' "Unknown". These guys get trad surf! All the players are excellent and did their jobs exactly right with Zack on bass being the most recent addition to the band and adding some youthful enthusiasm and energy - he was into it! It was an immense pleasure to finally get to play with them, and Ross as well as the rest of the band (in addition to Zack, Dan on drums and Ian on rhythm guitar) went above and beyond in welcoming us and being truly kind to us! I'm sure we'll be playing together a lot more in the future!
We were a bit worried playing with our Showmen/Surfer amps as the ceilings are a bit low, but it turned out great. Almost from the first note we got an amazingly warm and enthusiastic reception, with at least 10-20 people dancing on the floor in front of us the entire set, which was really nice! We played eight songs that will be coming out on the next album, to be recorded in March, and you can see the videos for all eight songs in this thread: http://surfguitar101.com/forums/topic/25194/
The owners were thrilled with the turnout and were extremely nice to us afterwards, which was pretty great. All in all, we had a complete blast! We hope to be back in Bloomington again very soon, the scene there is HAPPENING. HUGE thanks to Ross, Zack, and Chris for doing such an amazing job setting up and promoting the heck out of this show - thanks very much, fellas! Oh, and big thanks to Chris Miller for driving to the show all the way from Louisville, KY, and taking and posting all the videos! GREAT to see you and your super-cool homemade Mosrite replica - what a beauty!
image
—
Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube