April Birthdays 
On Saturday, May 21st will be the 20th anniversary of the release of one of the most iconic surf compilations of all time, which I believe is fetching huge bucks on eBay these days (or at least it used to). It was curated by the one and only John Blair, and here is his original announcement of the box posted on the old Cowabunga email list-serv, as well as the subsequent discussion. Enjoy!
Date: 17 May 1996 10:09:32 +0000
From: "Blair John" <Blair.John.MM5@MacMail1.nb.rockwell.com>
Subject: Cowabunga -- The Surf Box
To: cowabunga@UCSD.EDU
Yesterday, I had the great pleasure of seeing the new surf box from Rhino Records (it's due in stores here next Tuesday, the 21st). IT'S INCREDIBLE.
Forget for a minute that I was involved with it. Looking at it as objectively as possible, this is an amazing product! Rhino has gone out of their way to make this thing incredibly attractive and accessible. I think folks will be impressed with the work and love for the music that went into making this thing.
Get ready for a media blizzard, too. USA Today should have an article about it in next Tuesday's edition; the current issue of Billboard talks it up in a very nice and lengthy article by Chris Morris; VH1 is running a feature on the box in a week or two; and so is E! Television, and -- believe it or don't -- CNN!! Guitar Player magazine should have a review of it next month, and these are only the ones I know about right now. More to come.
IMO, "Cowabunga, The Surf Box" is going to have a similar affect on the music that we witnessed with the film "Pulp Fiction." Get Ready.....the summer begins to heat up next week (actually it's already begun with the new Dick Dale CD that I also just picked up yesterday but haven't had the chance to really hear yet -- I understand that there'll be a video placed in rotation on MTV soon).
john "y los paseros de la noche" blair
Date: Fri, 17 May 1996 13:38:52 -0400
To: "Blair John" <Blair.John.MM5@MacMail1.nb.rockwell.com>, cowabunga@UCSD.EDU
From: Chris Neff <cneff@ocm.com>
Subject: Re: Cowabunga -- The Surf Box
Can you give us a run down of who's on it?
Date: 17 May 1996 11:44:54 +0000
From: "Blair John" <Blair.John.MM5@MacMail1.nb.rockwell.com>
Subject: RE: Cowabunga -- The Surf Box
To: cowabunga@UCSD.EDU
There are 82 tracks, so you're asking a lot, but here goes:
Fireballs
Gamblers
Revels
Frogmen
Belairs
Dick Dale
Surfmen
Sentinals
Tornadoes
Fabulous Playboys
Chantays
Surfaris
Richie Allen/Pacific Surfers
Lively Ones
Chris & Kathy
Illusions
Beach Boys
Aki Aleong/Nobles
Gene Gray/Stingerays
Johnny Fortune
Honeys
Astronauts
Pharos
New Dimensions
Jan & Dean
Rhythm Rockers
Centurians
Al Casey
Jack Nitzsche
Blazers
Crossfires
Eddie/Showmen
Pyramids
Original Surfaris
Rotations
Dave Myers/Surftones
Sunsets
Chevells
Trashmen
Snow Men
Ready Men
Annette
Sandals
Trade Winds
Challengers
Fantastic Baggys
Rondels
Ventures
Sunrays
Fender IV
Bobby Fuller Four
Sea Shells
Jon/Nightriders
Malibooz
Surf Raiders
Corky Carroll/Cool Water Casuals
The Wedge
Surf Punks
Cruncher
Insect Surfers
Halibuts
Surfdusters
Looney Tunes
Teisco Del Rey
Laika/Cosmonauts
Man Or Astro-Man?
Phantom Surfers
Aqua Velvets
Boss Martians
Mermen
Eliminators
Set 1: Ground Swells (1960-1963)
Set 2: Big Waves (1963)
Set 3: Ebb Tide (1963-1967)
Set 4: New Waves (1977-1995)
Now, don't ask me to list the tracks, OK? You only have four days to wait and then you can check it out at the local rekkid store....
john "y los paseros de la noche" blair
From: AVIRS@aol.com
Date: Fri, 17 May 1996 15:49:36 -0400
Message-Id: <960517154936_303244977@emout18.mail.aol.com>
To: cowabunga@ucsd.edu
Subject: Cowabunga -- The Surf Box Track List
Taken from the Surf & Hot Rod board on AOL. Kudos to the guy that took the time to type all of this out!
Subj: Rhino Box Track Listings
Date: 96-05-13 17:39:06 EDT
From: JeffH129
The Rhino surf box titled "Cowabunga" will be in the stores next Tuesday, May 21.It will retail for $59.95. The four cds are broken down by years. They are titled Set 1 Ground Swells 1960-1963, Set 2 Big Waves 1963, Set 3 Ebb Tide 1963-1967 and Set 4 New Waves 1977-1995. I will attempt to list one cd track by track each of the next four evenings.
Disc one contains:
Bulldog Fireballs
Moon Dawg Gamblers
Church Key Revels
Underwater Frogmen
Mr Motto Belairs
Lets Go Trippen Dick Dale
Surfers Stomp Mar kets
Surfin Beach Boys
Paradise Cove Surfman
Latinia Sentinals
Bustin Surfboards Tornadoes
Miserlou Dick Dale
Surf Beat Dick Dale
Cheater Stomp Fabulous Playboys
Pipeline Chantays
Surfer Joe Surfaris
Wipe Out Surafaris
Rising Surf Richie Allen
Surf Rider Lively Ones
Shoot The Curl Chris & Kathy
Here's the track list for disc 2 Big waves 1963
KFBG Jingle Beach Boys
Surfin USA Beach Boys
Jezabel Illusions
Body Surf Aki Aleong & the Nobles
Surf Bunny Stingrays
Soul Surfer Sohnny Fortune
Shoot The Curl Honeys
Baja Astronauts
Pintor Pharos
Cat On A Hot Foam Board New Dimensions
Surf City Jan & Dean
Breakfast At Tressels Rythym Rockers
KIng Of The Surf Guiter Dick Dale
Surfin At Mazatland Centurians
Surfin Hootenanny Al Casey
Lonely Surfer Jack Nitzache
Surfer Girl Beach Boys
Beaver Patrol Blazers
Fiberglass Jungle Crossfires
Mr Rebel Eddie and the Showmen
Dics 3 Ebb Tide 1963-1967 consists of the following
Penetration Pyrmids
Bombora Surfaris
Heavies Rotations
Moment Of Truth Surftones
Little Surfin Woodie Sunsets
Let There Be Surf Chevells
Surfin Bird Trashmen
Ski Storm Snow Men
Disintegration Ready Men
Beach Party Annette
Theme Endless Summer Sandals
Mailbou Run Fender IV
New Yorks A Lonely Town Trade Winds
Misirlou Bobby Fuller Four
Tell Em I'm Surfin Fantastic Baggys
Hit The Surf Sea Shells
Walk Don't Run 64 Ventures
I Live For The Sun Sunrays
Disc 4 New Waves 1977-1995 includes:
Storm Dancer Nightriders
Goin To Malibu Malibooz
Wave Walkin Surf Raiders
Night Of The Living Wedge Wedge
My Beach Surf Punks
Tan Punks On Boards Cool Water Casuals
The Rebel Cruncher
Spanish Blue Aqua Velvets
Polaris Insect Surfers
XKE Boss Martians
Chumming Halibuts
Killer Dana Chantays
Save The Waves Surf Dusters
Honeybomb Mermen
Desert Bound Looney Tunes
Punta Baja Eliminators
Pier Pressure Teisco Del Ray
Wingnuts Theme Sandals
Night In Tunisa Laika & Cosmonauts
Esperanza Dick Dale
Reverb 1000 Man Or Astro Man
Banzai Run Phantom Surfers
Date: 17 May 1996 14:42:58 +0000
From: "Blair John" <Blair.John.MM5@MacMail1.nb.rockwell.com>
Subject: RE: surf box/Johnny Thunders
To: cowabunga@UCSD.EDU
Fellow Cowabungians:
I tried real hard but I just couldn't resist:
I see how the Surf box set had four discs, and they covered the period of
surf between 1960-1963, 1963, 1963-1967, 1977-1996. Surf music was dead for
basically ten years...
Sort of a misconception. Surf music has never "died." It's never "gone away." At least here, in SoCal. There have always been the odd surf instrumentals or some local band wearing Hawaiian shirts and white levis playing for a company luau (or on one of the many stages inside Disneyland). In terms of the 67-77 period, let's not forget the great band Papa Doo Run Run and Jim Pewter's legendary "revival" show in L.A. in -- when was it? -- 1973? It was at the Hollywood Palladium I believe. With Dick Dale, Surfaris, et al. In fact, all during this period, Dick Dale played regularly at his clubs in Riverside (I can't recall the name) and then in Santa Ana called, at first, The Playgirl,
then the Rendezvous II.
(a lot of facts here and I'm probably not getting everything right)
There was an interesting little 10-incher that came out of England in the mid-70's I think with surf covers played in a punk style (including a cool interpretation of "Rhapsody In Blue" that they called "Surf Rhapsody") -- I forget the name of the band right now.
, and I wonder if everyone's favorite herion addict,
Johnny Thunders, got any credit in the resurgence. It was in 1977 that he
recorded his first solo album, So Alone, which he recorded with some of the
biggest members on the music scene in England (who were all fans of Johnny
when he played lead guitar for the New York Dolls), and the album leads off
with a cover of "Pipeline", in which he is does a duel lead with Steve Jones
of the Sex Pistols and has a rythym section of Paul Cook (Sex Pistols) and I
think Paul Simonon (Clash).
My memory of that album is that "Pipeline" was what drew attention to it...not necessarily that it was Thunders' first solo outing. It was a good version, too.
Also, Johnny, who was a major influence musically as well as a performer (he
was damn exciting to watch), also loved doo-wop, and does some doo-wop on
that first solo album. It's quite funny and good. I'm sure that he was
considered uncool at the time making all of these punks do these different
styles of music, but So Alone is really good.
I'm sure the album is a good one and I'm sure Thunders' fans are quite fervent, but "a major influence musically"??? Maybe to The Ramones or Cherry Vanilla, but I'm not sure how much of an influence he was to anybody south and west of the Holland Tunnel.
Phil, oh Phil Dirt!!!! You're being unusually quiet...
JB
Date: Sat, 18 May 1996 00:29:12 -0700 (PDT)
From: Brian Gordon - SF Film Society <blgwc@well.com>
Subject: Three Gripes
To: Cowabunga@ucsd.edu
NO, not the box (finally, Heavies on CD! Yay! I hope the booklet explains how it got sampled on the Mothers' We're Only In IT for the Money -- didn't Zappa produce The Hollywood Persuaders on Original Sound?)! The credit card is waitin' to be whipped out! But boy, did Tompkins in the Bay Guardian write a stupid review or what? Surf music has no "vision thing ('cause it wasn't socially relevant)?" Sheesh. This is a shame as the paper has had stuff supporting the surf scene in the past.
--Brian
To: Matt Umurhan mumurhan@igpp.llnl.gov
Subject: Surf vs. Beach?
Cc: Cowabunga@ucsd.edu
Did anyone else read the S.F. Bay Guardian article by Tompkins about
surf music. This guy is a limited fool. I could be coaxed into writing
it up for you non-bay-area readers....matt-o
You can read the whole sordid affair on the web at:
http://www.sfbayguardian.com/AnE/96_05/051596surf.html.....
On The Beach
Rhino's Cowabunga! The Surf Box documents the good, the bad, and the ugly in California surf music. By J.H. TompkinsIt took the Beach Boys, with their first national hit, "Surfin' U.S.A.,"
to bust surf music out. But as inexorably linked to the scene as the group
was, they weren't typical, musically or lyrically, of the original surf
bands. "Surfin' U.S.A." was lifted -- melody, guitar licks, and all - from
Chuck Berry's huge 1958 hit "Sweet Little Sixteen." And the very fact that
the Beach Boys had vocals at all set them apart from other surf bands,
including most of those featured on Cowabunga!
I'm no surf music historian, but doesn't this guy pretty blatantly mix-up 'surf music' and 'beach music'?
I'm learning bits about music science, surf in particular. I recognize that the Beach Boys are a different animal. Fun in their own way, but not surf. I've heard Cowabunga discuss some of the (rather enlightening) differences between the Beach boys and surf music, but do they have anything technically in common with surf?
What kind of name should Beach Boys music go by?
Actually wondering,
Shoe.
Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 00:45:56 -0500
To: Cowabunga@UCSD.edu
From: intmedia@dbtech.net (The Penetrators)
Subject: J.H. Tompkins is a moron
(Warning: this is kind of long, but I think the subject demands it)
This J.H. Tompkins guy is obviously a minion of the Rolling Stone/Spin-critic rock & roll-was-really-born-with-the-Beatles & no one-could-play-guitar-until-Hendrix school of thought. In short, an idiot.
Rock & Roll History for Bleating Sheep goes something like this: after Elvis got drafted, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Gene Vincent, and Eddie Cochran were killed, the Killer married his cousin and Chuck Berry's interest in Sweet Little 16 landed him in jail, rock and roll was dead in America. Tits up. Finished.
In stepped the corporate-sponsored prefab teen idols like Fabian and the rise of The Producer, a la Phil Spector and his girl groups. Rock and Roll had been made safe for middle America, and as such was as exciting as a Miracle Whip & Velveeta Wonder Bread sandwich. (No argument there) Elvis got out of the army and started making more shitty movies. Neil Sedaka could get laid in any city in America. This country was up the creek, and too dumb and complacent to even know it. Then Kennedy got shot. Life was shit, despite (and possibly because of) cheap gasoline. Nobody anywhere in the United States was making any rock & roll whatsoever. (BIG argument there)
Well, thank God for British sailors who bought R&B records they could bring back to port cities like Liverpool, so that rock & roll could be saved. The Beatles spearheaded the Invasion, discovered pot and that rock & roll music needed sitars and harpsichords, etc. etc. You know the rest.
(Sidebar related to another thread: Bobby Fuller's "Let Her Dance" or "Never To Be Forgotten" or "Another Sad & Lonely Night" or "Fool of Love" are so much more sophisticated in arrangement, structure and recording without one ounce of pretension than anything the Beatles were doing at the time w/ three -- no, make that four tons of pretension. And look what happened -- Bobby Fuller was killed by thugs and the Beatles ruined rock & roll for a long, long time. Lennon & McCartney had the talent to pull off most of their flights of fancy, but everyone imitating them didn't. Even the "bad boys" like the Stones -- ever heard "We Love You"? "Listen to the Flower People" indeed!)
By 1967, rock (notice the absence of "and roll") was made safe for people like our friend J.H. Tompkins -- self-indulgent, self-important, "relevant," and easy to sit stoned in a beanbag chair and listen to. Seriously -- would YOU want to have a beer with anyone who could bring William Westmoreland into a discussion of surf music? I would guess that even if you did, Mr. Tompkins would order a Zima.
You'll notice that in this Sheep History I've sketched out, not one mention is made of the actual music. This is because critics like our Guardian friend are not musicians, but third-rate sociologist/revisionist-historians. If you never had the discipline to learn how to play guitar, it's pretty tough to fake that. By contrast, if you never had the discipline to get a Ph.D, it's easy to fake that -- write "music" articles like J.H. Tompkins'.
It is precisely because of pseudointellectual dolts like Tompkins and his overfed but undernourished sense of rock & roll history that surf music resonates so strongly for listeners both veteran and neophyte today -- because it's (by his standards) simple music that is refreshingly free of the bullshit that Mr. Tompkins and his ilk think makes music have "vision," as he says.
He just completely misses the point. Of course it doesn't have "vision." The best surf music is the primordial articulated -- it goes back to the egg, before the bird hatched, was fed worms and became impressed with its own colorful feathers and mating calls (and had people like J.H. Tompkins looking up its ass with a flashlight for something "relevant").
Anyway, that's what I think.
Best reverbs,
Rip
The Penetrators
Southern Surf Syndicate HQ
reverb@dbtech.net
http://www.dbtech.net/penetrators
"When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro."
-- Hunter S. Thompson
Date: Tue, 21 May 1996 02:24:56 -0500
To: cowabunga@ucsd.edu
From: rob@automedia.com (Rob Warmowski)
Subject: Re: J.H. Tompkins is a moron
[rock history 101 for greying ponytails courtesy of mr. thrillby snipped]
Seriously -- would YOU want to have a beer with anyone who could bring
William Westmoreland into a discussion of surf music?
Well, it's not too much of a stretch to say that Francis Ford Coppola did exactly that with his surf-obsessed Air Cav commander character in Apocalypse Now, Col. Kilgore. And sure, I'd have a beer with Francis.
It's tough to argue with Rip's railing against the mentality of the paid guardian of Important Rock Culture, of which Tompkins certainly seems an example. So I won't.
I will suggest, though, that he is dead-on accurate in his context of surf as the original white suburban expression it is, and that it was the first populist (as well as popular) musical expression in the US that directly owed its existence to disposable income and consumerism. To cop to this in print is a fairly rare thing for your garden variety hack critic who even deigns to examine the idiom. So the piece isn't entirely valueless.
Seems he doesn't want to celebrate the origins, though. Seems that the pedestrian beginnings are something to be ashamed of. He suggests indirectly that it is a diminishment.
Fuck that noise. He does indeed miss the point.
I don't see any big surprise in that. Simplicity in your subject doesn't help you to pay the bills as a paid rock writer. What's more, this guy is (as are all free-promo-copy-cashing publicity flacks) unlikley to alienate any large segment of his true audience (his editors, other rock critics, promo directors at big 6 labels) by dismissing this "visionless" idiom.
And I hope that this guy's equating the "smallness" of surf music with "punk collections of cleveland garage bands" only continues to demonstrate clearly that simple whiteboy american basement fury of both punk and surf flavors are peas in the same pod. If you were never there, never felt that vibe, then you can't possibly expect to be taken seriously as an observer of same. I'll bet my legs that this putz has never picked up an instrument and made it say something in his life.
-r
::
Rob Warmowski
Automatic Media Group / Chicago, IL
http://www.automedia.com
Date: 22 May 96 05:30:44 EDT
From: "Jay J. Hector" 70243.3034@CompuServe.COM
To: Cowabunga cowabunga@ucsd.edu
Subject: The Surf Box
I called the local Moby Disc store here in L.A. to see if they had received Cowabunga, The Surf Box. They said they did. I was going to wait until tomorrow to get it, but I decided I had to have it tonight before they closed. While I was paying I asked the clerk how many copies they had received. He said I was holding it. How large a pressing of Cowabunga was made? It's kind of sad they won't have a copy to attract attention to the release until their stock is refilled if and when it is. After all, since there's only about two million people within a ten mile radius of the store, I'd have thought they'd need at least two copies.
Date: Wed, 22 May 1996 07:32:03 -0400
To: cowabunga@UCSD.EDU
From: dbrochu@odyssee.net (Denis Brochu)
Subject: About that article
One thing strikes me after reading the posts concerning the article written in the Bay Guardian (Thanks to the poster of the article), it's how much cowabungans have the deepest love for their music. I think it's someone from the Penetrators who said something about the impact of the Beatles on the demise of surf music at the time. It's funny, because I often said that when the Beatles appeared in 64, they simply killed the fun in music. For example, I bought the Doo Wop Box from Rhino. The result? Blissful smile. I expect the Surf Box to split my face in half from grinning. Now, where are the Beatles albums in my collection? Sorry Paul!
Now, I could picture myself easily at the wheel of a Hot Rod with Baha-Ree-Ba blasting away, smiling all the way. I could never do that with the Beatles on, or worse, Rap, a style of "music" I have the deepest hatred for.
Keep this list alive with that kind of excellent posts.
Denis
From: IVAN PONGRACIC ipongrac@osf1.gmu.edu
Cc: Cowabunga@UCSD.EDU
Subject: Re: The Surf Box
The Surf box is great. The liner notes on Dick are amazing, and I haven't really gotten to the rest of it yet. However, I'm curious: my copy of the booklet seems to have suffered at the hands of printer who was inspired to dip a bit too much into the ole' Jack Daniels. My pages run in the following order: 1-16, 21-44, 17-20, 45-65. Does anybody else have the same problem, or did I just luck out?
The other two things that I'm not crazy about (granting that it's an awesome thing) are inclusion of Annette's vocal, plus some other vocals, which really isn't that big of a deal, and the fact that the poster inside is of surfers! Who cares about the surfers?! Why didn't we get Dick and Eddie and the Astronauts, etc.? But, gripe, gripe, John did a great job, and liner notes are almost worth the price of the admission alone.
I would like to mention that his book is still available from Popular Ink press, who is also just about to put out the second edition of Robert Dalley's Surfing Guitars, which is a MUST-HAVE! They are already taking orders for the book, though it'll come out next month. They are each $50, or both for $80. You can call them at 1-800-678-8828
Enjoy,
StratoCossack
From: g.nicoll@genie.com
Date: Thu, 6 Jun 96 06:26:00 UTC 0000
My dear fellow Cowabungans,
Into every life a little rain must fall, and this week a stormcloud broke
over the office of CREATIVE LOAFING Atlanta when Mr. Rex Patton, the "oldies records guy," got to the Rhino Surf Box before I did. His review of it appears in the issue which hit the stands yesterday. (Hence my black armband and very grumpy mood.)
Believe me, Rex is a real cool dude. In addition to writing about music and working for a movie prop/set company, Rex plays a Fender bass for 'Lectrifying Sissies (a Georgia Satellites side project, with Darryl Rhoades on drums) and he was even in the band Cruise-o-Matic that opened here for the Sex Pistols at their first-ever American show back in '78. I like Rex, both as a writer and as a person. His recent pieces on Jerry Lee Lewis and on the Drifters were stunning examples of scholarship as well as damn fine prose.
But GAWD, his review of the Surf Box really churns my guts.
He opens by quoting as authority the Hendrix "You'll never hear surf music again..." line which all of us are already sick-to-death of discussing, and then he goes on to slam Dick Dale by claiming that the Fireballs "invented" surf music a year before him. (Did Dale ever claim to have "invented" surf music? I thought he just took it over and became the "King".) Rex then mentions some modern surf bands, such as -- Laika and the Astronauts! Yep, you read that right. Oh, well....at least he doesn't claim that surf music was eclipsed by the Brit Invasion sounds of Herman's Pacemakers or anything.
The worst bit is the last paragraph: "While some critics point to PULP FICTION as vindication for their long-expressed prediction of a surf music revival, it ain't gonna happen. Surf music is no more popular today than it was in the middle of the British Invasion. Instrumental music has been out of fashion for more than 20 years and this isn't going to bring it back...."
Well, guys, maybe all those folks lining up to buy the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE soundtrack CD actually think it contains Tom Cruise's singing voice or something.
Next week's paper is supposed to contain my VIVA! LOS STRAITJACKETS review, so perhaps there's a glimmer of hope on the horizon.
-- GREGORY NICOLL
"Atlanta's a lonely town,
When you're the only surfer around...."
Date: Thu, 06 Jun 1996 20:12:42 -0500
To: cowabunga@ucsd.edu
From: novapup@ix.netcom.com (Dave Becker)
Subject: Cowabunga Press- Bay Area
Doing my due-diligence,
Here's the transcription from the San Jose Mercury News on Tuesday June4th:
HEADLINE:
'Cowabunga' Brings Back Surf Music's Days of Cresting Glory
TEXT:
Sure you can go to any record store and find plenty of Beach Boys albums. But what if you're dying to hear the New Dimension' 1963 bid for surf-rock immortality, "Cat on a Hot Foam Board"? Or the Chevells' "Let There Be Surf"?
"Cowabunga!: The Surf Box," a four-CD boxed set released by Rhino, makes finding these songs, and others like them, as easy as catching rays. A collection of 82 songs recorded from 1960 to 1995, this is easily the most comprehensive compilation ever devoted to the surf-rock phenomenon.
"Cowabunga!" doesm't kow-tow to the stars: There are only four Beach Boys songs and one apiece from Jan & Dean and the Ventures. Nor does it focus exclusively on the genre's 162-1963 peak, but strats with the songs that set the stage for the explosion and ends with the efforts from groups that have kept surf music alive in the 80's and 90's.
Non-aficionados may connect "surf music" with good-time celebrations of California sun and beach girls, but these songs are in the minority here. More common are the instrumentals whose heavy-reverb sound creates a watery feel and whose breakneck speed and careening melodies sonically recreate the big, dangerous waves surfers seek.
Guitarist Dick Dale, master of the wild surf instrumental, gets more attention than any other artist, with five numbers in the set. They include, "Miserlou", the influential 1962 single that appeared on the "Pulp Fiction" soundtract; "King Of The Surf Guitar," a 1963 bid for pop success, with vocals by Darlene Love and the Blossoms; and "Esperanza," a selection from his dazzling 1993 comeback album, "Tribal Thunder."
On the non-instrumental front, selections range from the wistful (the Beach Boys' "Surfer Girl") to the wacky (the Trashmen's "Surfin Bird). In the sad, sweet song "New York's a Lonely Town", the Trade Winds find a fresh slant by transplanting a surfer to New York, where his board stands in the snow, while he's inside, missing California.
The fourth CD makes for fascinating listening, with surreal treats such as "A Night In Tunisia", a 1990 surf version of the Dizzy Gillespie jazz standard done by Laika & The Cosmonauts, and "Tan Punks On A Board" (Corky Carroll & The Cool Water Casuals' 1979 spoof on the Tubes' "White Punks On Dope"). But it also contains the boxed set's low point: "My Beach," a 1979 release by the Surf Punks. "My beach/My chicks/My waves/Go home," they chant, putting a disturbingly dark spin on this eternally sunny form of pop music.
Personal ironies;
The day I went to buy the Cowabunga Surf Box at my local CD Warehouse, I was wearing my Los Straitjackets TShirt and as I walked up to pay, they were also playing the new Viva! Los Straitjackets album. Cashier goes, "Very cool TShirt!".
Not everyone's a surf musician or a Cowabunga aficionado, but Surf Music is IN!
Cowabunga All!
-Dave Becker
From: g.nicoll@genie.com
Date: Fri, 14 Jun 96 18:19:00 UTC 0000
To: cowabunga@ucsd.edu
Subject: Rev. Rex Fights Patton!
Dear Cowabungans,
Remember that awful "review" of the Rhino Surf Box written by Rex Patton, which prompted so much dismay (and so many comebacks) a week or so ago?
Well, in the current issue of CREATIVE LOAFING Atlanta there's a letter to the editor written in response by another guy named Rex -- no less than Reverend Rex Reverb, the bearded & balding dancin' machine who's a fixture at Star Bar surf shows. (He's usually oveshadowed by his shapely redheaded companion, Soozie the Floozie, though. Think Jessica Rabbit....)
Here's the letter:
SURF'S UP
Regarding Rex Patton's review of Rhino Records' COWABUNGA -- THE SURF BOX (see Record Reviews, June 8): I wish he'd spent more time reviewing the product and less time slamming surf music and providing misinformation.
Contrary to Mr. Patton's assertion, surf music is undergoing a tremendous revival. Mass-market record stores often have a dozen surf titles in stock (unlike a few years ago, when they had none), and hardly a month goes by that a surf band doesn't play locally (a few years ago, Atlanta had no surf shows at all). With surf groups like Laika and the Cosmonauts (not "Astronauts," as Patton wrote) being asked to tour with Ministry; and surf music backing half the commercials on TV, it's obvious that surf music is in the midst of a revival.
As for Mr. Patton's reference to Jimi Hendrix, he seems unaware that Dick Dale taught the young Hendrix some of his licks (one Hendrix biographer says Dick was the only person Jimi ever paid for guitar lessons). Mr. Patton called Dick the mere "appropriator" of surf music, but Dick defined the genre, and most of the original surf bands claim him as their inspiration (even the Beach Boys covered his instrumentals).
Non-surf performers like The Who (Keith Moon had Dick play on his solo album), Frank Zappa, Jim Messina, and Bobby Fuller were also inspired by Dick's mastery to create surf music. Ironically, Dick has outlasted them all, but such is the power of surf music.
-- Rev. Rex Reverb, Marietta
Date: Sun, 23 Jun 1996 13:27:53 +0000
To: cowabunga@ucsd.edu
From: colinh@wimsey.com (Colin Hartridge)
Subject: Surf Box
I finally bought the "Cowabunga" 4-CD surf box today, and two words describe it: VERY impressive!
Jon, you & your staff did an excellent job of the packaging, annotation and song selection (not to mention the painstakingly researched liner notes). Sure, I've got a lot of the tracks elsewhere, but this is definitely a primo collection. I'm stoked!
Thanks again...
Keep on rockin,
Colin
Date: 29 Jun 96 02:45:51 EDT
From: "Jay J. Hector" 70243.3034@CompuServe.COM
To: Cowabunga cowabunga@ucsd.edu
Subject: Cowabunga! L.A. Weekly review
The following article appears in the current (June 28-July 4 1996) issue of L.A. Weekly:
THE SOUND OF WAVES
by John Payne
(Senior Editor)
Copyright 1996 Los Angeles Weekly, Inc.
Surf's up: Cowabunga!
Some folks don't understand it,
That's why they don't demand it,
They're out tryin' to ruin,
Forgive them for they know not
what they're doin'.
--from "It will Stand"
by the Showmen (1964)
You could be forgiven for not understanding (or demanding) surf music in 1996; indeed, you could have been forgiven for not relating to it in any way, shape or form from the time of its birth back around '61 or so. That's because this pretty squinky and All-American (sports-rock) music was mainly the no-brain child of really white people--goony, naive white people--and you may have been blessed with a different birthright. But that's cool.
As I check out Rhino's definitive new four-CD Cowabunga! The Surf Box 1960-1995, my mind is touched with these profound thoughts having to do with cultural identity. "Who am I," I'm asking myself, "if this music that is, realistically, quite often so clunky and squirrelly, makes me gaze out to sea, longingly? What kind of dreamer (goon) am I? Hey, and what happened to the dream?" Then I remember: Vietnam, the civil-rights
movement, trickle-down, disease. Surf music come from the very end of that so fondly recalled postwar "age of innocence" when everything in the future was looking just pee-chee, etc. And it didn't work out that way. I mean, obviously . . .
But wait a minute--this is revisionist horsepoo. I may have been dinky small fry back then, but I was there, and I distinctly remember a lot of people losing their jobs and drinking themselves to death, having nervous breakdowns 'cause they couldn't take the strain of being Mr. and Mrs. Joe Average Normal Jr. anymore, even getting out of the habit of going to church every Sunday. And right here in SOuthern California, from North Malibu all the way down to San Clemente, there hovered in the hot, coppery-brown air an inkling that things weren't right, 'cause all you had to do was drive half a mile in almost any direction to see how the other half lived--and they lived poorly.
Meanwhile, plenty of little white twerps' indulgent parents were buying them Fender guitars and sparkly drum sets, most likely from Wallachs' Music City, at a convenient location to serve you throughout the greater Los Angeles area. The kids had been hearing about this Lebanese-American guitarist guy named Dick Dale who'd been rippin' 'em up at the Rendezvous Ballroom down in Huntington Beach. Formerly the home of the big bands during the '30s and '40s, the Rendezvous was now drawing thousands of fresh-faced teens (and their dates) to hear Dick's special brand of greased-up rock & roll, which he'd whip out in extremely force-of-nature staccato fashion through his Fender Dual Showman amp and spring-reverb unit custom-made to his specs by Mr. Leo Fender himself. (Mr. Fender took one listen to Dale's aggressive style and felt a premonition: music was going to be very loud.) That reverb box of Dick's gave his songs a moist aura, like the roll and report of immense waves.
THough other watery-sounding pop songs had hit the charts circa '60-'62 (the Frogmen's "Underwater," the Revels' "Church Key," "Mr. Moto" by the Belairs), Dick Dale's local hits such as "Surf Beat" and "Let's Go Trippin"' ushered in the surf-music craze as they lapped onto the ears of local dweebs like the Hawthorne Hopefuls (eventually the Beach Boys), the Chantays ("Pipeline") from Santa Ana, and Long Beach homies the Pyramids ("Penetration"). Glendora's Surfaris ("Wipe Out," "Surfer Joe") spread the news up the coast to Obispo's righteous Sentinals ("Latin'ia"), and the surf-music phenomenon eventually washed over into such notoriously hot surfing spots as Colorado (the Astronauts' "Baja") and Minnesota (the Trashmen's "Surfin' Bird," highly "influenced" by the Rivington's doo-wop hit "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow"--they settled out of court).
This mostly instrumental music was decidedly a Pacific Rim job best left to those who'd experienced firsthand the curious mix of often minor-key and mysteriously melancholy Latin, Polynesian and Middle Eastern musical
strains that festered here in the Southland, from Dick Dale's "Miserlou," originally a Greek folk melody, to numerous hats off to Mexico ("Surfin' at Mazatland" [sic] by the Centurians, "Bombora" by the Surfaris). Even so, some of its finest practitioners were foreigner hodads who, in venerable pop fashion, heard from afar a fuzzy emanation of the surf source, dicked it around and beamed a big mutated new mess back out into the air. You've gotta hand it to Texas' Bobby Fuller Four, 'cause they incorporated "Malaguena" into their epic live version of "Miserlou," and it's a wicked sound.
Surf could embrace a wide variety of subject matter, all the way from sand to cars and girls (and back again), but to my knowledge its only foray into serious commentary was the Tornadoes' early animal-rights protest song "Shootin' Beavers." Mainly, the idea was to sell America on this hokey illusion that here in Southern California was a kind of Shangri-la wherein all you had to do every day was hang out at the beach, work on your tan, look at girls and plan the menus for the big luau later on that night . . . Come to think of it, that is all we did every day.
Wow, what a judiciously selected set of tunes! Cowabunga! includes all of the above-mentioned classics plus a sprinkling of surf-themed pop vocal hits (Annette Funicello's funky "Beach Party," the Tradewinds' Spector-drenched "New York's a Lonely Town"), and a disc devoted to the surf revival of the '80s and the current crew of boss heavies such as Finland's Laika & the Cosmonauts and Frisco's awesome prog-surf Mermen. And dig, too, John Blair's loving and spectacularly comprehensive liner notes, which guide us along the path as we come to fully grasp surf music's timeless message: water.
##############
The preceding is another fine example of prose by a goony, naive, no-brainer pseudo-journalist. For one to be a revisionist historian one has to know the history.
L.A. Weekly
Sue Horton, editor
P.O. Box 4315
Los Angeles, CA 90078
Ivan
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