Why do some Jackets of this album have a white tape label with PIPELINE, over the first track Pipeline, on the front?
Sample attached?

Jim L Buzard

The Chantays version of "Pipeline" was number 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 In May, 1963. The Ventures "Surfing" album was released in 1963. The Discogs listings for the many issues of this record in 1963 only show one with "Pipeline" on white tape. The white tape highlighting "Pipeline" was likely done to draw the buyer's attention to that song.

I go with the idea of an early form of Sticker Hype to hi-lite "Pipeline, with out having to redo a jacket and utilize existing stock. So obvious once you pointed it out!
Thanks!

Jim L Buzard

Marketing 101. Thanks for sharing the album cover!

Surfcat

From Atlantis with Love (EP) - Agent Octopus
Agent Octopus-Spotify
Christmas on the Beach (Single) - Agent Octopus

Angle of Attack (CD) - Reverb Galaxy
Ghost of Tom Returns (single) - Agent Octopus

Surf, the most dangerous of all musical genres...

Back in the day, it was totally routine for LP album covers to have one or more added stickers highlighting one or more tunes that the marketeers thought would draw attention to something they thought was hot at the time. Sometimes they were taking advantage of one or more of their own single hit(s) to try to push an album. Other times, they'd be pushing a cover of someone else's smash hit. Again, totally routine.

Tht thing about the Ventures is that they could play anything, and often did. So surf purists won't call 'em a surf band, even though they played plenty of surf music. But I think they were going for a wider audience. And they succeeded admirably.

The Delverados - surf, punk, trash, twang - Facebook
Chicken Tractor Deluxe - hardcore Americana - Facebook and Website
The Telegrassers - semi-electric bluegrass/Americana - Facebook

ArtS wrote:

The Ventures were notorious for pilfering other bands songs and making them bigger hits. Great band.

Just a side note. I think they were definitely a surf band if for no other reason they have influenced a large portion of the surf instro community and have a plethora of surf hits.

Were they also some other type of band besides surf, definitely. They were multi-faceted.

If you had asked the average person in the Midwest which Surf band they liked, the answer would probably have been The Beach Boys. If you refined your question to instrumental bands only, the answer would likely have been The Ventures, or maybe “the band that played Pipeline”. My older sister would have been in high school when Surf was getting the most airplay, but I doubt that names like The Chantays, The BelAirs or Dick Dale would have meant much to the average midwestern teen, back then.

But they all knew Walk, Don’t Run, even kids in my grade school knew that song, along with Pipeline and Wipeout. The Ventures were well known, from my second grade perspective, my sister’s high school perspective and even my dad’s middle aged perspective. The first Rock instrumental album I remember seeing was The Ventures Play Telstar and the Lonely Bull.

It may have been more defined on the West Coast, but for middle America, the distinctions were fuzzier. We all grooved to Walk, Don’t Run, but I doubt that very many members of the youth market would have known that it was written by a Jazz guitarist who, by then, was leading a quiet life running a music store in Colorado Springs. When I was a kid, it was just guitar music, and very few people thought about it more deeply than that.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

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

ArtS wrote:

synchro wrote:

When I was a kid, it was just guitar music, and very few people thought about it more deeply than that.

LOVE IT! Or as we used to say in Fort Washington, Md "Play that geetar music!!"

I can only speak from the memories of a kid, as I was at the time, but your statement is pretty much how it felt. When we heard bright, clean, electric guitars playing lovely melodies, we loved it. The kids I went to elementary school with loved the same sort of tunes. We would have had the same reaction to Duane Eddy or Link Wray, as we would have to Dick Dale, the Chantays or the BelAirs. The Ventures would have been categorized the same way.

That’s not to detract from the core Surf which came out of the LA area; there was some amazing material, but to kids, most of whom had never been anywhere near the ocean, we just liked the guitar sound.

The artist formerly known as: Synchro

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

synchro wrote:

ArtS wrote:
well said. Good point

synchro wrote:

When I was a kid, it was just guitar music, and very few people thought about it more deeply than that.

LOVE IT! Or as we used to say in Fort Washington, Md "Play that geetar music!!"

I can only speak from the memories of a kid, as I was at the time, but your statement is pretty much how it felt. When we heard bright, clean, electric guitars playing lovely melodies, we loved it. The kids I went to elementary school with loved the same sort of tunes. We would have had the same reaction to Duane Eddy or Link Wray, as we would have to Dick Dale, the Chantays or the BelAirs. The Ventures would have been categorized the same way.

That’s not to detract from the core Surf which came out of the LA area; there was some amazing material, but to kids, most of whom had never been anywhere near the ocean, we just liked the guitar sound.

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I hope of the "Seven Others' they have Honky Tonk. Love their version but the Beach Boys with Carl and Mark (Pre-AL) trading links is killer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A3upRF1pEc

More Fun than Profit

Last edited: Aug 11, 2024 20:16:04