The cleanness in the guitar tone + THE REVERB! Plus living in socal helps, the beaches are cool.

Well, a lot of spot-on things have been posted on this thread already, and I'd echo most of those sentiments. I think aqualadia nailed it well when he said something about how many songs and bands we dig up until the singer starts singing.

That's a lot of it for me....I just increasingly prefer instro music. Not only surf, but all kinds. I still enjoy a lot of the vocal music I grew up on from old classic rock to punk rock and everything else I've absorbed, but I can almost not take current music with vocals. Sometimes I'll be liking the tune, but the #@$!% singing comes in and ruins it for me.

I'm 46 now. I have listened to SO MUCH music in my life. I guess in a way I feel like I don't hear anything really new when it comes to lyrics--anything I haven't heard a million times (but usually done better) and I really don't care to listen to some angst-ridden 20- or 30-something sing about love or loss of love or how "Daddy never understood me!" or how bleak things are or just vocalizing what IMO is essentially bad poetry.

But underlying all of that, in an even deeper way, is the fact that so much surf and other instrumental music is truly evocative in a way vocal music really can't be. At least for me, the way it impacts my ears and emotions and guts and imagination is so much more profound...as if, separated from the grounding element of a "story in song," there is something much more multi-layered and freeing.

I love so much of it. I am deeply into first wave surf and other early instro stuff like The Mighty Link Wray, Duane Eddy, Davie Allan & The Arrows and a host of far more obscure acts that maybe released a single or two in the 50s-60s then vanished back to anonymity. Or local bands that never made ripples much outside their hometowns (Bailey's Nervous Kats is a good example of this.)

As I say, not just surf, but early rock and roll (Bill Haley's early bands did a lot of cool instro stuff) and rockabilly, as well as soul / R&B (Mar Keys, Booker T, a lot of early Ike Turner instrumental sides) as well as bands that are commonly considered surf just because they are instrumental while, to my mind, they aren't necessarily "surf" bands, but instrumental rock bands (The Shadows, The Vantures.) But that's nitpicking, I know. It does bother me a little when people classify all instro rock as "surf." I just don't think it always applies. To me, Link Wray isn't "surf." Or for a more recent band, Impala. Great instrumental band, but I wouldn't call them surf.

At any rate, I am getting far afield of the topic and I apologize. I talk too much.

To come back to surf specifically, it just brings to mind a different era. Even the non-retro stuff (maybe thinking Mermen here, who pepper traditional surf elements with a lot of psychedelia and other ingredients to great effect) puts me in a different headspace. Sort of OUTSIDE time and place. I am in love with The Ocean (the Pacific especially) and I don't get to spend time there anymore since we moved back inland to a flyover state. Good surf music takes me back there, but it is more expansive than that too.

I love the way a lot of great surf bands (then and now) add little exotic flairs--flavors of other cultures and such. Even the very rocking stuff is pretty relaxing to me somehow. Just in the sense that it makes me feel so good, physically, mentally, spiritually. It eases my stress. Again, even the real rocking, upbeat stuff.

Most of all, I guess it's the way the tunes themselves tell a story. Some bands managed to pull off little three-minute symphonies in their tunes (I think The Atlantics were masters of this, but definitely not the only ones.)

This has been discussed on this thread and elsewhere on this forum, but I do hear people say "Don't you get tired of all the surf and instrumental stuff? To me it all begins to sound the same."

Well, to me an awful lot of Teenage Top 40 Pop sounds all the same...modern county BS all sounds the same, most indie/hipster pop/rock these days is pretty derivative and samey, most heavy music (metal, doom) is cheesy or repetitive or soundalike...and (as previously mentioned) don't even get me started on white boy blues, or post-1950s electric blues in general. Sheesh.

grayn wrote:

There's a ton of reasons but my favourite thing is that I rarely want to put the guitar down, when I've got that surf tone dialled in.
It's just a magic sound and I usually only stop, because normal life calls me back, for some reason or the other.

I would call this an effect more than a reason but I have the exact same experience. And then it's late in the evening and I'm surfin on the couch with my guitar and the tube is on and I realize I'm too tired to even position the guitar correctly and I say 'Well I guess I'm done'.

Da Vinci Flinglestein,
The quest for the Tone, the tone of the Quest

The Syndicate of Surf on YouTube

http://www.syndicateofsurf.com/

http://sharawaji.com/

http://surfrockradio.com/

I didn't mean to mince words on you grayn- your point is the point. Surf music is great music. And we become her maker.

Da Vinci Flinglestein,
The quest for the Tone, the tone of the Quest

The Syndicate of Surf on YouTube

http://www.syndicateofsurf.com/

http://sharawaji.com/

http://surfrockradio.com/

What Muddslide said above, I concur.
I have a 12 yr old daughter and the way she listens to music appalls me, except that she likes Beatles. While lots of surf bands are nothing to write home about, as a whole the genre is just more listenable to my mature ears than Pop Hits ad nauseum. I suppose I could be listening to classical music but I like the harsher tones of amplified guitars. As for making surf music on my own, that's a work in progress because it's an ensemble thing and without a rhythm section solo surf guitar is just practice for forming a surf band.
I guess the dream of playing surf us less far fetched than joining a Pop Hits band and appealing to 12 yr olds.

Squink Out!

shivers13 wrote:

a desire to escape to a place that's not like today in anyway, and the delusional thought that others like it too for the same reason.

This is a major part of it for me as well. Music was just better then. Most scenes were just better then. Or at least that's the ideal I (and I imagine many of you) subscribe to.

Another part is, for me at least, a bit generational. The 90s had this HUGE retro revival (burlesque, tiki, surf, rockabilly, swing, lounge, etc) that has stuck with me ever since.

Look at the modern retro scene and you'll find a TON of folks who were young adults in the 90s. So now the escapism mentioned above is factored in two fold: Not only do these scenes help us to escape the banality of today back into the ideal of the much cooler 60s, but we can also relive a bit of our youth in the 90s as well.

Last edited: Aug 18, 2015 10:12:11

ncgalt1984 wrote:

So I can wear funny costumes in public.

How do those guys wear full face masks, on stage?
I get hot with just jeans and a t-shirt.

http://soundcloud.com/graham-pike

thomastaylors wrote:

...Plus living in socal helps, the beaches are cool.

Beaches are cool here too. Well, for a few months anyway!

^ Great Explanation man the one thing about the surf scene is everyone seems to support each other you never see anyone trashing anyone else or making petty remarks its a small but very repeatable community that we all should be proud of

These are great points about the support and spirit and generosity of the community. These aren't the reasons why I love/play surf, but it definitely helps keep it going for me.

As a struggling beginning-to-moderate level musician, I've gotten a TON of help from so many people in this community. Not just in advice and great info on this forum, but actual physical help from some of these members! Plus when I was a member of The Counselors, so many people in person and online reached out to encourage me! It felt so great!

I've been invited on stage several times to play with GREAT bands! I've been on stage with The TomorrowMen, Frankie & The Poolboys, and the Kilaueas!! How cool is that??? Danny and Ferenc have taught me and encouraged me so much! Not to mention, as a two time camper at Sierra Surf Music Camp, I also got some hands on instruction and direct encouragement from so many other greats in our genre (Danny, Ferenc, Paul Pyronaut, Bob Bitchen, Dave Wronski, Dusty Watson, John Blair, Matt Quilter, etc!!).

And that's not even mentioning the inspiration I get from so many great musicians in the community! So much awesome talent!!!

I'm indebted to so many of you.

Cheers!