I've added one from each of the past 3 shows:

British Club:
image

Suzy's:
image

HB Surf Museum
image

"Turn the knob to 10 and break it off!" -Baja Marty

Really looking forward to two Kilauea nights in Portland next week - Tuesday with DD at the Doug Fir is my bday taboot. And Duff's on Thursday with The Verbtones and The 'Verb. Must be summer!

Rick

Rick

It's 2:30 in the morning: I just got home from the Kilaueas
show in Albany, California, and all I can say is...................
H-O-L-Y C-R-A-P!!!!! They are unbelievably great! I'll get into
more detail tomorrow after I get back from the Kilaueas' show
at theHotel Utah in S.F. also featuring the Pyronauts and Pollo
Del Mar. Life is GOOD!!!

Bob S.

Bob

tonybologna
WOOO! Kilaueas kicked ass today in SF!

You have a new fan!

It's so true!!!

I went to both their shows up here in SF area, and I was blown away by their great sound. They got the chops, yet keep it loose enough to draw you in to the energy of the performance. I can learn a thing or 2 (or 10) from these guys. It goes without saying, that like almost all surf people I've met, they're really nice people.

As a bonus, Volker showed me the way to get that sound on the Fender IV Malibu Run - I could never find the right voicing for it.

Dare I say, before I met these guys, this meshugganner never considered the possibility of even wanting to visit Germany.

Danny Snyder

"With great reverb comes great responsibility" - Uncle Leo

Playing keys and guitar with Combo Tezeta

Formerly a guitarist in The TomorrowMen and Meshugga Beach Party

Latest surf project - Now That's What I Call SURF

My daughter who lives in San Francisco went to the Hotel Utah gig and it was disappointing to hear that maybe no more than 15 people showed up. I hope her math sucks and there were more than that. Man, that is with three top notch bands playing. We may be too jaded with surf music here in California but we gotta do something to bring this music out there and appreciated. As far as I am concerned, and the rest of my band mates feel the same way, A band like The Kilaueas should be playing in much bigger venues, like the CoachHouse or the Whiskey. Maybe next year, if the Kilaueas decide to come over again, we can really prepare and get some good shows planned. The Kilaueas are the kind of band than can keep surf music going.

DannySnyder
The Kilaueas told me they were glad that atleast in NorCal people stood up and watched the band, not just sit at their tables - BTD
They understand that live music in general is much less popular here in the US than in Europe.

Ive heard that too from Europe touring US bands - more standing (VERY few venues actually have chairs), more dancing, better attendance most of the times. I was surprised to hear that.

WR

Rules to live by #314:
"When in Italy, if the menu says something's grilled, don't assume it is."

https://www.facebook.com/The-Malbehavers-286429584796173/

Damn lazy Americans don't want to even stand at shows, let alone at work.

Jeff(bigtikidude)

Jeff(bigtikidude)

This topic has come up several times in the past on various places. I know from our experience in playing and seeing other bands, it is really difficult to attract a large group of people to shows if you are playing pure/trad surf. Probably not a popular opinion on this board, but when we play at our local club (Suzy's in Hermosa), the majority of people in attendance are our friends and not specifically surf music fans. Over the years, I've noticed three things that will hopefully get people to shows (and keep them coming back):
1. Fun recognizable songs to which the audience can connect.
2. Creating a rapport with the audience through jokes, banter and gimmicks.
3. Making it fun for people to be at the shows. People can really tell if the band is having fun and people like to see bands that are enjoying themselves as well.

It's too bad surf music doesn't have the draw that it does in some places (Europe for example) but if we want to draw more people into the fold, we'll need to make the music more "user friendly" for the outsider. I love it when a band plays some obscure tune, but let's face it, we are a incredibly small percentage of the potential fans for this music. With instrumental music in general, we need to do other things than just play the obscure stuff to appeal to people in the way that will make the shows better attended.

htoughts?
Ted from the Det's

Hey guys, or Brian, can we move the last few posts over to the new thread I started about show attendace. or leave them here and double post them there also.
I think there is some good info that should be in the other thread.

Thanks.
Jeff(bigtikidude)

Jeff(bigtikidude)

First of all, I want to thank all of you who have come out to see the Kilaueas play in California. I talked to them the other day (Friday) and they were very happy with the way the tour has gone so far. Yes, there could have been more people, but they are really treating this as a vacation first, working tour second. They just really wanted to come to the US and play surf music where it all started. They also said merch sales have gone well - they actually sold almost all of their CD's and I had to send an emergency stash to Portland so they'd have CD's for the Dick Dale show there tonight.

In my mind a couple of things have hurt attendence at each of the shows. 1) They are playing a few too many shows, which is due to the fact that they wanted to be in the US for three weeks. They wanted to play as much as possible, so we booked probably 2 or 3 more shows than we probably should of. 2) Because they came over without amps, reverb and drums, we had to pair them with at least one other surf band willing to let them borrow gear for their set. If they had their own gear, I definitely would have tried to book a mix of surf and non-surf bands. I think bills involving a surf band are most successful (attendence-wise) if there is a mix of surf and non-surf. Like mentioned earlier, surf is not popular here in the US these days, but live music in general is as popular as it's always been.

Please don't feel bad that they've come all this way to play to 30-40 people per show. Yes, ideally, there would have been more each night, but our expectations weren't too high. And the merchandise sales help a lot. Bands these days can double their take on sales of CD's and t-shirts. Heck, I sold merch for Satan's Pilgrims and the Nebulas in Seattle a few months ago - they got a few hundred dollars each at the door, but overall I sold about $600 worth of merchandise to a crowd of about 75-100 people. The other thing is that the shows coming up will probably do better than the CA shows - they play with Dick Dale tonight, which'll be good, then shows in Portland, Seattle and the big one in Bellingham on Saturday.

Sean
Double Crown Records / The Continental Magazine
P.O. Box 4336 - Bellingham, WA 98227-4336 - USA
www.dblcrown.com
http://doublecrown.blogspot.com

Sean
Double Crown Records
www.doublecrownrecords.com

Surf CD's / Vinyl / Fanzines / DVD's
Aloha Screwdriver - Lunar Wobble CD
The Nebulas - Euphorion LP / CD
Supertubos - The Fourth Drive CD
Continental Magazine - Issue #37 w/17 Song CD