Posted on Apr 29 2015 11:45 AM
I finished reading this book about 10 days ago, and thought I'd finally write a bit about it.
Who else but John Blair could have done this book?? NOBODY! The man is truly THEE surf music historian, and simply a fount of knowledge about our beloved genre! And what a treasure-trove of photos and posters - the result of a lifetime of collecting all this stuff - and now it's all in one place! How incredible is that?? How fortunate are we that we finally have access to all this material in one highly-professional book?? If anybody ever asks you again, what do I read to learn more about surf music, the answer is now very easy - this book is simply the perfect introduction to surf music. What I like the best about it is that John was able to capture the romance of surf music, which I suspect is the biggest part of what drew most of us to it. Through photos and short but highly effective descriptions, band histories, chapter introductions, etc., John captured the FEEL of that era. There's just that short period, '61-'64 really, where the music and the lifestyle, all in one of the most perfect settings imaginable, came together. To be a teenager in SoCal in those three years, to drive your hotrod or hearse or woodie to the beach and surf during the day and then go to a surf music show at night (at least in the summer and the weekends), well, does it get better than that? I think not. That's the romance of this genre, what hooks most of us, I believe.
And then we start listening to the music - and you realize, holy crap, this stuff was GOOD! Inspired by this book, I've been listening to a ton of 1st wave surf the last couple of weeks. After not having very much of it on my iPod for a couple of years (having gotten burned out on it a few years ago after listening to it way too much), I put nearly 200 tracks on there and have had those on shuffle lately. What struck me AGAIN - as it has many times before - is how incredibly creative and individual so much of this music really was! There was clearly a unifying sound and approach, but I listen to what all the different bands did with those elements, and my mind is simply blown. These bands were constantly pushing the envelope, trying to do something different, something more - and they in general DID. And they did it despite all basically using the same tools - and mostly LOOKING the same! The uniformity of the band images was certainly not translated into uniformity of sounds, which I personally find fascinating and deeply attractive. Here are the fairly limited tools - use them to unleash your imagination and creativity, with the only restrictions being these instruments and what you are able to do with them. Turns out that these restrictions are not really very, well, restrictive. And that is absolutely remarkable.
Reading John's book brought back all these aspects of why I fell in love with surf music in the first place. As I mentioned above, it's easy to become jaded after doing this for many years - I've been deeply into surf music for 21 years now. That's a long time, and I do on occasion lose sight of what makes this genre special. Thank you, John, for rekindling those feelings inside me.
The fact that this book was made possible because the publishers contacted Brian through SG101 who in turn put them in touch with John, only makes it even more special. Everything came together to make this book the perfect document of the first wave of surf music. It's a true gift!!
PS My favorite quote (which I had seen before but forgot about) came from Murray Wilson, the father of the Wilson brothers from the Beach Boys as well as the manager of the band, describing the sound of surf music on page 61: "The basis of surfing music is rock and roll bass beat figuration, coupled with a raunchy-type weird-sounding lead guitar... Surfing music has to sound untrained with a certain rough flavor to appeal to the teenagers." 
—
Ivan
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Last edited: Apr 29, 2015 11:49:28
December Birthdays 
Just placed my order! 
