Jeff,
Great to have you aboard! Listening to your track Icebeard right now. Like the hard hitting on the drums! Just bought me a download!

Icebeard by Solar Idolator

SolarIdolater wrote:

Good Morning!
My name is Jeff and I am a surf rock fan. I am also a drummer and multi-instrumentalist creating surf rock inspired music. I joined this community to share ideas and have conversations with others that share similar interests in music.

Surf.The most dangerous of genres...

Surfcat

MARCH OF THE DEAD SURFERS! (2024) - Agent Octopus
UPDATED Agent Octopus Bandcamp with videos

YOUTUBE - Agent Octopus Surf

Last edited: Mar 05, 2025 14:43:57

Hi!

I'm Martin, 24 from LA, and I've been a huge surf fan since I was 15. My favorites include dick dale, messer chups, daikaiju, satans pilgrims, and the eliminators (to name very few)

I play a squire jaguar (my baby!) and a '73 twin reverb with an oceans 11 reverb pedal- and I've been a student of the Surf since i started playing at 17.

I started my band "The Martian Sunset" a few years back, and in a nutshell, we're a B-Movie horror based Surf punk band with a little cult following in the local scene. We incorporate surf in our songs, often basing them out of many, and during our shows we love mixing surf standards into our original setlist. We also love dressing up as movie monsters, lol.
If you'd like to check us out, you can find us on

instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/themartiansunset?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==

and our spotify here!: spotify

Again, I'm always a student of the surf and would love to learn so much more from others, including jamming and trying out a new project!

Much love Surf 101!!See you at the next fest!

Last edited: Mar 08, 2025 00:32:35

Glad to have you aboard!!!!
Checking you out on Spotify.

Surf.The most dangerous of genres...

Surfcat

MARCH OF THE DEAD SURFERS! (2024) - Agent Octopus
UPDATED Agent Octopus Bandcamp with videos

YOUTUBE - Agent Octopus Surf

Hey Patrick! Great post.

Surf.The most dangerous of genres...

Surfcat

MARCH OF THE DEAD SURFERS! (2024) - Agent Octopus
UPDATED Agent Octopus Bandcamp with videos

YOUTUBE - Agent Octopus Surf

Hey guys and gals,

Been lurking the site for a while now and enjoying the content and wisdom. New surf rock enthusiast. My usual cup of tea is alt rock or laid back instrumental but I’ve always also enjoyed listening to and playing western/spaghetti western type music. This recently turned into a newfound appreciation for surf music — new & old. As an example, Discovering the song “Sleepwalk” and also a band called Daikaiju have recently blown my mind.

So much so I’ve picked up a Surfy Bear Classic on Reverb and have been thoroughly enjoying it. Also, just bought the first book in the Surf Guitar series and learning a lot of about the good themes and idioms of the genre. Look forward to being part of this cool group!

Any recommendations on some surf guitar 1-on-1 online lessons?

Hey Mathis, welcome to SG101! For some leads on lessons, go to Forums, Surf Music, Surf Musician. There you will find some threads talking about lessons with different teachers.

Patrick

nykfury, sounds great. I look forward to hearing some of your stuff. There is a lot of collaboration that takes place among the SG101 members. Perhaps you might find some kindred spirits here.

Patrick

nykfury, go to the Forums list and you will find a thread titled "Surf Videos."

Patrick

Hello all!

My name is Anthony, if you can tell from my forum name, I'm actually a drummer! I represent a new-ish So Cal surf/instrumental band called PaleoMan! and here I am with way more info than you ever wanted to know about me/us!! haha.

(clips from our first 3 shows)
https://www.youtube.com/@PALEO-MAN-666
https://www.instagram.com/_paleo_man/

All 3 members of PaleoMan are SoCal natives. There's myself, Erick, and James. Erick is our guitar player, mostly punk influenced but led to surf through surf punk and rockabilly influences. He also has a side gig with Baptized in Sin, a local metal band. James, our bass player, is Erick's son and is sort of along for the ride! Though myself and Erick met at work and started jamming in 2019, we officially formed into a unit with James in late 2024 and as of 2025 have begun playing shows!

::30 years of boring life story/lore nonsense!!:::

My personal journey with surf began with the classic early teenage dream of wanting to learn to play drums, in the early/mid 90's (I'm on the cusp of 45 here! haha). These thoughts began in the early 90's, when my best buddy growing up was learning guitar and was heavily into grunge; or essentially Nirvana haha. I wasn't much into that at that time, but the feeling of drums held inside me, despite my parents' objections! That movie That Thing You Do! somehow convinced us that we could be in a band and be successful to some degree, as 15 year olds....

In 95/96 or so, my oldest brother began playing bass in a Costa Mesa garage/punk band, which looking back, potentially softened my parents' stance on me playing drums. One day in 1998, I was out hanging out with my friends, but returned home to a monumental and completely unexpected gift from my brother-- a drumkit! One of his friends was getting rid of some old stuff, and there was enough of a kit there for me to get started; hi-hats, hardware, kick, toms, snare; I had to go online to find out what was missing and what I needed, but miraculously, my dad was on board, willing to invest a little bit to make it all work.

Over the next couple years, I become a certified drum parts fiend™, collecting anything I can on eBay and saving any little potentially useful drum part and even non-drum parts that I could MAKE into drum parts...

I took lessons from Joe Zawucheria at West Coast Drum Center in Costa Mesa from 1999 to 2000 and I might had gotten a job there, if not for getting a job at the Edwards Irvine Spectrum 21 movie theater instead haha... I specifically remember spending my first paycheck on a 1967 Ludwig Supraphonic 500 snare drum off ebay! Even though I'd collected a dozen+ snares since this one, it's always been my #1 snare, and it's still my #1 main PaleoMan snare, and it's historically regarded as one of the most used/recorded snare drums in jazz/rock/blues! (unless that's changed??)

By this point, through upbringing, computer games, movies, pop culture etc, I had been into Dick Dale, Los Straitjackets, Laika & the Cosmonauts, The Ultras, The Ventures, Man or Astro-Man?; I was even a little into jazz thanks to local jazz station 88.1 KLON (now KJZZ) and a little push from my dad there, too (who was always into the blues). My dad had a bunch of old 60's surf vinyls he gave me (he was a little into surfing and surf culture in the 60's), and I was able to play them on my sister's old record player; I specifically remember one of the first albums I started playing along to on drums and bringing to Joe was The Ventures - Surfing. Funny, a 90's kid learning drums, playing 60's records on an 80's record player... Other newer stuff, of course, I could listen to and play with on CD or even... hehe.... tape! Aside from that Ventures album, Joe Z. also helped me break down some Booker T and the MG's and James Brown stuff, and helped me with my bass-foot work. (RIP Joe Z 2020)

Eventually, by my early 20's, my main influences were surf rock, jazz, and indie rock, and I was getting into mainstream and classic rock as well. My drumming focus shifted to collecting vintage drums and parts, while also amassing modern hardware and a mix of modern and vintage cymbals. I was never a technically advanced player, but I always liked having fun and a decent ability to be able to mostly play what I listened to!

I met a guitar player Dario somewhere around 2002, and we practiced a bit over the next year or two... We were always searching for a bass player, which never really materialized, though we had a good ~25+ classic surf/instro covers we were able to play well as a duo. Also around this time, I remember Dario and I got to jam with a guy named Armin Brown of the Goofy Foots? iirc? something like that. That was fun, that was where I learned Mr. Moto on the fly, but nothing came of that...

Dario and I were calling ourselves The Vectres and to my memory, as a duo, we played a bar in Newport (Martini Blues) and a Starbucks in San Clemente kind of impromptu, and then we were part of a 'surf jam' @ Bar Leucadian in 2004; I provided the drum kit for that event which was my 1967/68 Yamaha kit (very early Yamahas!) which at this point in time is my preferred kit for PaleoMan shows! The main band there, they didn't have a drummer so I filled in, and they were slightly impressed that I knew Lonely Bull (was able to pull from Laika & the Cosmonauts haha) and Soul Dressing by Booker T and the MG's, haha. Various people rotated in on songs and it was pretty cool...

But that was kind of it; The Vectres didn't really continue; and though I collected and built and customized drums and played them until late 2007, life changes occurred in 2008, I moved houses where I didn't get a garage anymore to play in; drums were put in storage-- and I more or less gave up my drumming hobby from 2008-2019 or so! There were little moments around 2008 and 2012-14 where I pulled out a kit to play with friends, but nothing happened then either. I never sold a thing; I always kept my drums in storage, kept all my parts and scraps of drum stuff hoping to one day use it again eventually, or at least it all just build value haha. Essentially I have a nice little stash of vintage+modern percussion that is totally perfect for surf music! =)

:::life story section over, hopefully:::

Fast-forward to 2025: we form PaleoMan, and play shows! One was a birthday party in Jan '25, followed up by two Doll Hut Anaheim shows in March and April 2025 supporting Baptized in Sin.

After that, we book a 6/12/25 show at Tiki Bar Costa Mesa, two more shows @ Doll Hut for 6/26 and 8/8/25, and another 6/29/25 show in Fullerton, @ Mi Vida Loca, again with Baptized in Sin. We likely will stick to around OC, and have definitely considered shows north of OC and down in SD as well, as well as slightly eastward of OC.

While we do hope to enjoy and grow playing shows, one of our main goals has always been to play a Surfin' Sundays at HB Pier!! In addition to that, we look to become So Cal semi-regulars, hopefully appearing in future BTD and related surf lineups!

Anthony
(SurfDrumMadness)
(Check out PaleoMan!)

Last edited: May 31, 2025 15:31:38

Hey there, Hello! My name is Mark and I'm a long long time reader.

I'm on again off again in my relationship to my guitar. A lot of records and gear purchases have been informed by this forum.

II love Surf and a lot of instrumental guitar music. I'm excited to be able to ask questions here and hopefully I'll make it to the convention this summer if I can work that out.

Have a great summer, thanks for posting so much information and opinions on the best stuff!