Pretty much a true story. What's not mentioned, though, is that "Wipe Out" is actually Duane Eddy's "Yep" on steroids.

john

www.johnblair.us
www.soundofthesurf.com

Last edited: Apr 03, 2011 13:57:28

FredBaltazar wrote:

Drummer Richard Delvy of the
Challengers was watching us record in Ted Brinson's
studio in L.A. that day. Producer Tony Hilder told
Delvy to go out in the car and get more publishing
contracts, and we signed our rights away. ... It's interesting
Delvy went on to work with The Surfaris and even played
drums on a lot of tracks on their first LP.

I don't think either of those guys had any involvement the first time the Surfaris recorded "Surfer Joe" and "Wipe Out."

That was excessively violent and completely unnecessary. I loved it.

Me either. There are problems with this account of things on scores other than the lack of similarity of the music, too. Delvy got involved with the (Glendora) Surfaris' Wipeout/Surfer Joe by purchasing rights to it for himself and Marascalco some months after it was recorded. He had nothing to do with recording it at all. He plays drums on that first Surfaris record because the whole record except for Wipeout/Surfer Joe was a cuckoo's egg that he put together with his band the Challengers and attempted to pass off as "by the Surfaris" with Dot when Dot asked for an LP to go with the single he had famred them the national rights to. (And he farmed the Commonwealth and International rights to yet another company.)

There's a bit of sophistry involved here - the band he used was called the Surfaris for purposes of the recording and signed releases as such. (This is described in Dalley's Surfin' Guitars.) He gave Dot what they asked for in legal terms. Just not what they probably wanted or what we might consider appropriate in moral terms. The only legal flaw was that a picture of the Glendora Surfaris was used on the album cover. And that may have been Dot's gaffe. Presumably they were not completely aware of what Delvy had done. They paid up for that and worse yet (for them) since they had no agreement with the Glendora Surfaris at all and had thoroughly pissed them off that band ended up signing with Decca.

Hilder definitely worked with the Original Surfaris, a completely different band which actually at that point was still calling themselves just the Surfaris. They actually did record a song called Wipeout, and it actually is Merrill Fankhauser's song Wipeout, to which Hilder at that point actually did have rights. He later ceded them back to Fankhauser, whose story on this is included in Dalley's article on the Impacts in Surfin' Guitars.

It is commonly accepted that the Original Surfaris changed their name from the Vogues to the Customs because Victor Regina prefered the latter name for the single he recorded off them and then from the Customs to the Surfaris because they independently came up with the same play on Safaris that the (Glendora) Surfaris started out with.

There are quite a few songs called Wiepout or Wipe Out or something Wipeout, etc., as we have discussed elsewhere on this forum. Jeff Hanson pointed out several of them to me when I was still only aware of the Impacts/Original Surfaris and Surfaris versions. I think we are up to six now ...

Whether Tony Hilder had any idea that there were two Surfaris and two songs called Wipeout in play around the middle of 1963 is not a matter of record. The Original Surfaris recording of Fankhauser's Wipeout actually appears in a compilation of the period credited to the Surfaris. It also appears on the 1980s release of their aborted Delfi LP. They only switched to calling themselves the Original Surfaris very late in 63 after Decca - or maybe it was Dot? I forget! - complained and the various parties agreed to have the case mediated. I would love to know who mediated and where the decision is logged or recorded. Not to mention what it actually says. The mediator always referred to simply as "the judge" is reported to have believed that the (Original) Surfaris had been using the name Surfaris longer than the Glendora band, and so to have allowed them to call themselves the Original Surfaris. They were definitely old by a year or two as a band, but the chronology of using the name Surfaris is less clear.

The worst decision the Vogies aka the Customs aka the Original Surfaris ever made was going with that name. No one has been able to keep them straight from the Glendora Surfaris ever since. Not that the poor Glendora folks have had much luck being remembered as a band and individuals either. As far as I know the Original Surfaris never actually claimed to be the Glendora band or to have played their song, but nearly everybody else has!

It is pretty clear from the earliest stories that the Impacts (including Fankhauser) and the (Original) Surfaris were both under the impression that maybe their recording of Wipeout was the one that was being played when their friends told them about a song called Wipe Out "by the Surfaris" that they had heard on the radio. In fact, it was all a big mixup due to the coincidences in names of bands and songs.

The Original Surfaris were gifted by Hilder with several nice songs by other artists. The New Dimensions first heard their Psyche Out played on air by the (Original) Surfaris. However, it should be realized that Hilder seems to have had every band he worked with record everything he had any rights to. The list got longer as he went along. This is why there are so many versions of things like Exotic and Intoxica and Church Key, etc. They were some of the first things he glommed onto.

Another example of things he had people cover is Moment of Truth, for that matter, and that actually is an Original Surfaris original. The well known version of that now is the one by the Surftones, and both it and another Original Surfaris song Kalani Wipeout were also covered by the Surf Teens. There's also a nice cover of Moment of Truth by the Rhythm Kings. I rather think it's the best of the lot.

Last edited: Apr 07, 2011 19:23:00

Brian wrote:

Personally I've never heard any kind of reuse in the
Surfaris Wipe Out from the Impacts Wipe Out.

I think the only person who does is Merrell Fankhauser.

That was excessively violent and completely unnecessary. I loved it.