Shoutbox

sysmalakian: Birthday month starts now!
362 days ago

diceophonic: Vampiro Classics 2024 reissue
343 days ago

SabedLeepski: Sunburn Surf Fest for some scorching hot surf music: https://sunb...
300 days ago

skeeter: I know a Polish sound guy.
228 days ago

skeeter: I know a Czech one too!
228 days ago

PatGall: Surfybear metal settings
148 days ago

Pyronauts: Happy Tanks-Kicking!
126 days ago

midwestsurfguy: Merry Christmas!
95 days ago

sysmalakian: HAPPY NEW YEAR!
88 days ago

SabedLeepski: Surfin‘ Europe, for surf (related) gigs and events in Europe Big Razz https://sunb...
49 days ago

Please login or register to shout.

Current Polls

No polls at this time. Check out our past polls.

Current Contests

No contests at this time. Check out our past contests.

Donations

Help us meet our monthly goal:

100%

100%

Donate Now

Cake March Birthdays Cake
SG101 Banner

SurfGuitar101 Forums » Surf Music General Discussion »

Permalink The Goldentones - 90's band from Detroit MI, USA

New Topic
Goto Page: 1 2 Next

I've made mention of this band here in passing, but am compelled to create a post dedicated to them.

Despite working in a record store in the early 90's and being vaguely aware of Pulp Fiction and seeing early releases from bands like Man ...or Astro-Man and Laika & the Cosmonauts come into the stores inventory, I never actually got into surf at that time. Dischord was more my bag then (Fugazi, Dag Nasty, Nation of Ulysses, etc.) Never the less and for reasons unknown, I picked up a stray 7" by Huevos Rancheros (Cindy with an "S"), and 2 CD's by The Goldentones - 1993's Atmosphere and 1994's Atlantis while working there.

Shortly after getting out of school, I had a job in retail where we could bring our own music in. Lyrical content was always a dicey proposition considering the ages and make up of the staff, so I always had Atlantis and Atmosphere on hand and they got quite a lot of rotation then. (Still not sure what took me so long to find this community - my next gig after retail was high-tech when BBS & news groups were all the rage. Surely I shoulda found Cowabunga or the Yahoo group. Anyhow, here now.)

Fast forward to today... I had some corrupt tracks in my iTunes library recently, including a few tracks from Atlantis, so this morning I took the opportunity to re-import both albums from CD (of course upping the import fidelity this time around!). That piqued my interest about the band again and caused me to do some searching for new information about them. Not much to be found, but I did discover 2 interesting artifacts since my last pondering about them, which I thought I'd document and share here.

First - a pretty great summary of the band in a review on Amazon:

Judith J. Brown wrote on December 22, 2012

Atlantis, The GoldenTones second effort is much more melodic and interesting than their first album, Atmosphere.

Fine maturity in songwriting and melody.

Formed in the front room of a house on the east side of Detroit in 1990, the brothers Zito (Dominic-guitar Joe-bass) teamed up with local rockabilly drummer Chad Lewis to launch The Goldentones.

Chad found Dominic playing a fender stratocaster through a marshall amp with a randy rhoades / ted nugent influence. Recognizing dominics talents chad introduced him to the ventures and quickly dominic was trading in his equiptment for a 1966 fender jaguar a 1970 mosrite and a fender super reverb amp.

The song writing flowed like magic and they quickly became a local favorite playing most of detroits legendary music venues. In a short time they were playing with many of the bands that had influenced them, opening for the Stray Cats, the Breeders, the B-52's , Shadowy men on a Shadowy planet, Laika & The Cosmonauts and their hero Mr. Dick Dale himself.

The surf revival was under way and The Goldentones found themselves at the forefront receiving airplay on hundreds of college radio stations, endless magazine reviews and write ups, fan mail from several countries. Unfortunately their star burned out as fast as it was lit.

While performing at the SXSW music festival in austin texas 1995 they received a phone call 15 minutes after exiting the stage that the zito brothers dad had passed away due to a sudden heart attack. this crippling news sent the band back to detroit leaving their dreams behind.

They left behind 2 full length cd recordings (Atmosphere, Atlantis) and a 7' vinyl ep (in stereo).

I also discovered today that they have a slew of concert dates documented on theconcertdatabase.com:

concertdatabase wrote:

Event Date Venue City
Gangster Fun 05/16/1992 Saint Andrew's Hall Detroit Michigan USA
The Goldentones 05/26/1992 Blind Pig Ann Arbor Michigan USA
The Goldentones 06/18/1992 3-D Royal Oak Michigan USA
Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet 06/20/1992 Majestic Theater Detroit Michigan USA
Hot Cajun Gig 08/15/1992 Hart Plaza Detroit Michigan USA
The Goldentones 10/17/1992 Lili's Hamtramck Michigan USA
Witch's Ball 10/31/1992 Saint Andrew's Hall Detroit Michigan USA
Mod City New Year's 12/31/1992 State Theater Detroit Michigan USA
Club X 02/27/1993 State Theater Detroit Michigan USA
The Goldentones 03/06/1993 Paycheck's Lounge Hamtramck Michigan USA
2nd Annual Beach Rave 05/30/1993 Industry Pontiac Michigan USA
Gangster Fun 06/19/1993 Saint Andrew's Hall Detroit Michigan USA
Clutch Cargo's 11th Anniversary 06/26/1993 Phoenix Plaza Amphitheater Pontiac Michigan USA
X Fest 09/05/1993 Phoenix Plaza Amphitheater Pontiac Michigan USA
Dick Dale 12/01/1993 Industry Pontiac Michigan USA
11th Annual Detroit Music Awards 12/04/1993 State Theater Detroit Michigan USA
3rd Annual Beach Rave 05/28/1994 Industry Pontiac Michigan USA
The B-52's 07/05/1994 Pine Knob Music Theater Clarkston Michigan USA
Dick Dale 10/15/1994 Majestic Theater Detroit Michigan USA
The Goldentones 09/09/1995 Magic Stick Detroit Michigan USA

I'm still a big fan of these early 90's, lesser known releases by the trio from Michigan. With relatively little information about them out there, and the sticktuitiveness of this community (the people) and internet resource (SG101), I figured I'd take a few minutes to capture it for prosperity. Maybe by an off chance, some of y'all may be geeking out on this info too.

And who knows, maybe one of the brothers Zito (Dominic Zito - guitar, Joseph Zito - bass) or Chad Everet Lewis (drums) may see it and chime in! Here's to hoping anyhow.

To The Goldentones! Cheers

Fady

El Mirage @ ReverbNation

I have these 2 cds, have picked them up in bulk buys from people selling there whole collections. I liked them when I listened.
I saw the cds recently when looking for my Xmas music, will have to dig them out and re-listen. And play on my show.

Thank you for posting about them Fady!

Jeff(bigtikidude)

Last edited: Jan 10, 2017 11:41:15

That is amazing! I’m in awe off all of the concert dates and praise. Thanks for this, it brought back a ton of memories.
Joe

Welcome, cool cds for sure!

Jeff(bigtikidude)

Really glad you made this thread, I had never heard of this band. Glad to see one of them has created an account on SG101.

MooreLoud.com - A tribute to Dick Dale.

Thanks! It was a good time and I’m glad there are people that are still listening ... besides myself
Joe

WOW!!! This is like my message in a bottle tossed into the ocean and getting a response back from a far away land! So Cool! Thank you for signing up on SG101 and saying hello, Joe!

I'm not sure if you know Judith Brown (writer of that brief bio/back story review from Amazon) - sounds some close to the band wrote it. I would love to hear any stories you care to share about forming the band, recording the 2 albums, show memories or the rest. Where there other influences in forming the band or shaping your sound? How much of the 'first wave' were you guys aware of or influenced by? Have you considered reforming the band to perform or record again?

It's SOOOO Cool you found this site and post and said hello!!! Can't hardly believe it!

SG101!

Fady

Fady

El Mirage @ ReverbNation

Based on this thread, I've bought a used CD of "Atlantis" on Amazon. Finding "Atmosphere" is proving to be a little difficult. There is one available on Discogs but apparently my region (US-Maryland) is unavailable to ship to. Does anyone know if "Atmosphere" is available anywhere (via CD or legit download? Unfortunately, the albums are not on iTunes.

The doofus formerly known as Snorre
Surfysonic on YouTube
World Famous Philistines: 2014 - 2015
K39: 2013 - 2014
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gv9JADQ4ukw

https://thegoldentonesdetroit.bandcamp.com/ https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?vanity=DJTomZito&set=a.1635209053245859 Thanks for all the kind words and appreciation and DETAIL!!!!!

Damn that's some nice scrapbooking!

Thanks for putting those on bandcamp, I grabbed Atmosphere earlier this morning

Storm Surge of Reverb: Surf & Instro Radio

Thanks! This is a good way for people to hear it!

Wut?!?!?!?!!!! Lightning strikes the same place twice! Unreal!

Thank you, @DJTomZ for joining SG101, posting here, “scrapbooking” on Facebook, AND uploading your work to bandcamp!!! Worship

Facebook has its place, but would you be ok if I were to also mirror and post the collection of flyers and photos here? Happy to do the legwork!

To everyone else who doesn’t have the Goldentones CD’s and 7 inch, go to bandcamp and buy it!

Surf’s up y’all!! Cool

Fady

El Mirage @ ReverbNation

It's hard to believe that almost 30 years have passed since I first heard of The Goldentones. Played the crap outta both CD releases back in the '90s. Atmosphere was a gift from a friend, and Atlantis was sent to me directly from one of the Zito brothers, just before they ran out of inventory.

1961, the final track on Atlantis, is one of my all-time favorites. I got the guys in The Goofyfoots to learn it, play it, and love it.

Thanks for the music!

  • Surfbeatnik

Fady wrote:

Wut?!?!?!?!!!! Lightning strikes the same place twice! Unreal!

Thank you, @DJTomZ for joining SG101, posting here, “scrapbooking” on Facebook, AND uploading your work to bandcamp!!! Worship

Facebook has its place, but would you be ok if I were to also mirror and post the collection of flyers and photos here? Happy to do the legwork!

To everyone else who doesn’t have the Goldentones CD’s and 7 inch, go to bandcamp and buy it!

Surf’s up y’all!! Cool

Sure that is fine. Totally cool with that and thanks for doing that. We really dug making these CD's Dominic came a long way from Yngwie Malmsteen and Metallica, but I can hear that influence here and there on all three releases. Thank you glad you are digging it !

Last edited: Mar 12, 2021 08:10:42

SXSW '95 w/ Goober & the Peas - yes that's Jack White talking to Dominic (he played drums for Goober then)
photo

photo

SXSW '95
photo

photo

photo

photo

photo

...and with the Stray Cats from that show
photo

photo

Live @ Hart Plaza, 1992
photo

Fady

El Mirage @ ReverbNation

photo

photo

photo

photo

photo

photo

photo

photo

photo

photo

Fady

El Mirage @ ReverbNation

photo

photo

photo

With The King!
photo

photo

photo

photo

photo

photo

photo

Fady

El Mirage @ ReverbNation

photo

photo

photo

photo

photo

photo

photo

photo

photo

photo

Fady

El Mirage @ ReverbNation

Goldentones backstage with Kate & Fred after opening for the B-52's at Pine Knob July 5, 1994

photo

Goldentones & Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet @ the Majestic Theatre, Detroit 06/20/1992

photo

photo

photo

Filming a segment on "Klefsigns" TV with Keith McKinnon in the Burns Room (now the "Society Room," @ Saint Andrew's Hall

photo

photo

photo

photo

photo

photo

Fady

El Mirage @ ReverbNation

Last edited: Mar 13, 2021 08:56:27

photo

photo

photo

Cristina & Goldentones backstage at the Industry 3rd Annual Beach Rave 1994

photo

Al Sutton @ White Room Studios Detroit producing 5 tracks for our 7" EP and first album "Atmosphere." 1992

photo

Joel Martin @ 54 Sound Ferndale producing 4 tracks for 1st album "Atmosphere" 1992

photo

Dave Feeny @ Tempermill Studios Ferndale producing 11 of the tracks from "Atmosphere." The Goldentones 2nd album "Atlantis" was recorded and produced by Dave as well.

photo

photo

Chad Lewis (Drummer)

photo

Record Time Roseville - Goldentones window display

photo

'Amazing wall' at St. Andrew's (since painted over)

photo

Fady

El Mirage @ ReverbNation

Last edited: Mar 16, 2021 08:31:44

Goto Page: 1 2 Next
Top