There is an item that would be germane to this discussion and especially relevant to the original question. I remember coming across a sheet music book that was focused on Carl's guitar playing. It was printed very early on in their career. I'm not sure if it was tabs, as I saw it on ebay and was not able to inspect it thoroughly, but the focus was on guitar, not the songs.

Oh, and I freeken luv DIO!!!!

the Keef Richards of Surf Guitar

Carrie
And her site is wrong! 100%, without question WRONG!!!

I have come to not believe the vast majority of what certain session players say. They seem to want to take more credit for playing on sessions that they were never involved in. Jimmy Page, Bernard Purdie, etc, have very active imaginations, which never made sense to me. When you have such a huge discography, why do they feel the need to embellish it?

Shawn Martin
http://www.drummerman.net
http://www.youtube.com/GKacedrummerman
http://www.facebook.com/drumuitar

lonecat
My friend Tom is a schooled classical guitarist, with the posture and the stool and the manicured nails and the correct hand positions and the black suit and on and on. It's amazing to watch and amazing to listen to, and I could never play 99% of that stuff. I'm absolutely floored whenever I get the opportunity to see him play.
Yet he comes to my place...I'll be jamming away with the reverb and the amp cranked and he will beat himself up because he _cannot _tremolo pick,in fact he totally sucks when playing with a pick at all, it's completely alien to him. He's tried for years to do what most surf guitarists take for granted,and it frustrates the hell out of him.
Tom says when he tries to play Miserlou it's hard...I say playing Pagannini is hard.... In a lot of ways it's all relative.

Great point. I guess I've lit upon every lilly pad in the guitar pond at one time or another and I've been blessed to have some good instructors along the way as well. I'm pretty rusty at classical guitar these days but I had the techniques up to spec at one point. I've also done a lot of plectrum style picking from the elbow ala Johnny Smith yet a decent Surf tremolo is out of my grasp entirely.

I see Surf as a good type of music to teach good technique because cleanness, clarity and even volume are important. I truly find it more challenging than most Jazz. Surf modulates between Major and minor keys almost effortlessly. It relies upon a great deal of precision melodically and it is unforgiving of errors or sloppiness on the part of its players. That's not to say that every Surf player is another Segovia, but a Surf guitarist that knows his/her stuff will earn a good degree of command over their technique in the process of learning . . . at least IMHO.

Difficult chord changes and bizarre tone centers are not necessary in order for music to be worthwhile. Some of the Country material that Travis and Atkins played was harmonically simple but it was musically very effective. Another way to look at it is to think of what would happen if you tried to use complex chord substitutions and the like in a Surf song. In most cases the song would crash and burn. The entire character of a Surf song could be compromised if you got too Jazzy with it.

After 35+ years of being focused on Jazz guitar I was forced to admit to myself that I absolutely helpless at Blues, Rock and most other genres. Being able to play complex music doesn't make you a better musician that someone that makes the most of "three chords and the truth". It's all valid to someone. I personally don't like Shredding but I have to admit that it takes a great mastery of technique to do it.

I certainly wouldn't characterize dedicated Surf players as limited guitarists any more than I would characterize Country guitarists as limited because they spend a lot of time playing I, IV, V changes. A skilled Country player is something to behold. Their ability to solo creatively over simple changes makes them absolutely amazing when the changes have more variety.

I believe that every guitarist is benefitted by playing in a number of different styles but I don't see any one style as being inherently inferior to another.

JoshHeartless
from Carol Kaye's official website:

Surfin' USA - The Beach Boys (Elec. Rhythm Guitar, Billy Strange on Solo Lead Guitar - Union contract)
http://www.carolkaye.com/www/library/guitarhits.htm

there was, at one point in time, the Surfin' U.S.A. instrumental track posted on YouTube, since has been taken down, but states all of the studio musicians used on that specific song.

I take Carole Kaye's info with a grain of salt.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.

Carrie
In late 1963 David Marks walked away from The Beach Boys..

And there you have it - he made his choice and that's the way the cookie crumbled. I'm 51 - I've known who he is since was 16 - he's not 'forgotten' and he has his place in the history of rock n' roll. I don't want to diminish his contribution at all, but the fact is they were with him for a few years and without him for forty or so years during which they produced some of the most influential music ever. You can't expect him to be a household name.

He isn't bitter - I've seen his site - good for him.... I expect he realises - like most of us - that music isn't a sport and you can't expect a direct correlation between talent and success. I wish him well, accept his contribution was important .. and that's all there is to say.

http://www.myspace.com/thepashuns

Youth and enthusiasm are no match for age and treachery.

Last edited: Sep 23, 2008 15:19:55

This thread has a topic?

Ralph
The Storm Surfers

Be at one with the universe. If you can't do that, at least be at one with your guitar.

Perhaps the thread could be retitled, "Was Karl Marx a surf balalaika player?" No, no, ... I see the Marxist stuff has been moved. How about "I now pronounce rambling thread #1 open for free association." Or to keep with what I think might now be an established tradition, "Can that Fankhauser pick surf flautists or what?" Of course, no mention of Fankhauser or flutes would be required (or even recommended) for participation.

Actually this thread has helped me a lot. It made me realize that all the dark muttering about the Beach Boys and studio musicians applies to their post surf period stuff, which, for my money, was mostly pretty decent stuff whatever it was and whoever played it.

How old was he when he recorded Miserlou? Surfin' USA? As another Right Coaster, his guitar work influenced me, as did the Beach Boys, to play Beach and Surf Music. I use surf guitar in a lot of my non surf vocal songs but I'm a surf guitarist. Yes Virginia, Carl is a surf guitarist...

Oh to go back in time and be there!!!

Surf.The most dangerous of genres...

Surfcat

MARCH OF THE DEAD SURFERS! (2024) - Agent Octopus
THE JOURNEY HOME - Free download (2025) - Agent Octopus (Single)

BANDCAMP - Agent Octopus
YOUTUBE - Agent Octopus Surf
BANDCAMP - Reverb Galaxy

Last edited: Aug 17, 2021 18:08:13

What a great read this entire thread is! I wish Big Papu or Zak would chime in now. Do Zak and Jake D still think that being a “surf guitarist” is something to be avoided? The beginning definitely reads like some sort of screed against surf music. All those old users! Where are they now?

Dan

Daniel Deathtide

DeathTide wrote:

What a great read this entire thread is! I wish Big Papu or Zak would chime in now. Do Zak and Jake D still think that being a “surf guitarist” is something to be avoided? The beginning definitely reads like some sort of screed against surf music. All those old users! Where are they now?

Dan

What I don’t understand is the fine distinctions that exist. Dick Dale, the “King of Surf Guitar” thought of the Beach Boys as Surf music. Having lived through the era, I can state from firsthand experience that we thought of The Beach Boys and Jan & Dean as Surf music and made no distinction between these bands and The Chantays or The Surfaris. We knew that some was instrumental and some was vocal, but we saw this music as part of the same phenomenon.

Most Top Forty material of that era tended to use bright guitars and reverb. It was like Duane Eddy meets the Twist and much of the music of that era, whether there were vocals or not, employed a sound which, at the very least, employed a sound similar to Surf guitar.

Genres are as much about marketing as they are about anything else. When I’ve had song ideas, I have tended to follow my heart, and not some arbitrary expectation which pigeonholes it into a Genre. In its earliest days, Rock n’ Roll was as much a treatment as it was a genre. Think of the Doo Wop version of Blue Moon from the fifties. The song was a ballad, but it was covered in a new style, and is remembered to this day.

That sort of thing happened all the time. Electric guitars and amplifiers greatly simplified the possibility of guitars and electric basses being able to be heard over a drum set. Music changed, from Elvis early Rockabilly days (with an acoustic double bass) to Billy Butler’s work on Honky Tonk; to Duane Eddy’s use of a water tank as an echo chamber; to the Twist phenomenon; to Surf.

Surf, as I understand it, was a happy coincidence of where music was at the time, developments which brought reverb out of the studios and onto the stage, the social phenomenon of Surfers in SoCal, and the creativity of a handful of people, like Dick Dale, The Beach Boys (who sang about surfing) and any number of other gifted people that created songs to with that new sound. It started in SoCal, but quickly reached afar, with people like The Astronauts in Boulder and The Trashmen in Minneapolis. I’ve spent decades living near Boulder and can state with some authority that the waves on Boulder Reservoir wouldn’t make for exciting surfing.

Rather than splitting hairs, I prefer to enjoy the music that has grown up around Surf. Beach Boys? Love it! Ventures? Love it! Los Straitjackets? Love it. Some college professor playing great instrumentals on a Strat? Love it! And some guy near Tucson that plays some of the Surf tunes he remembers from when he was in grade school? Hey, I love doing it.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

When Surf Guitar is outlawed only outlaws will play Surf Guitar.