Check this out.

Does anyone have this book? Not much was posted about it here surprisingly.

Site dude - S3 Agent #202
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"It starts... when it begins" -- Ralf Kilauea

I do have the book & thought it was pretty great. Bearing in mind, I'm no historian, but I learned a lot & it is well written. I'd recommend it--besides, how many books are out there on the history of surf music?

Matt Heaton & the Electric Heaters
Boston's Premier Surf/Noir Combo
http://www.heatonsurf.com

I'm guessing the Gary Hoey part?

Site dude - S3 Agent #202
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"It starts... when it begins" -- Ralf Kilauea

My wife got me the book and I thought it was pretty good, but then again, I have little knowledge of the history so it all sounded pretty plausible to me. I would be interested if someone wanted to PM me about some parts he got wrong.

https://www.facebook.com/index.php?lh=9353f9155b5ff32e14c998495fd00da4&#!/rich.derksen.7

Also Everybody has their opinions on how stuff went down.
People can't be at every show, or own every album, or be at every recording session. So some things are just conjecture.

Jeff(bigtikidude)

I'm still in the process of reading, but he seems to be a wealth of info. I was fascinated with what he had to say about the legendary Gold Star Studios in particular. I just don't have a lot of background knowledge on the 50's Cali music scene, so it all seems plausible to me so far.

Mike
http://www.youtube.com/morphballio

Last edited: Feb 07, 2012 08:21:40

Pappa_Surf wrote:

I would be interested if someone wanted to PM me about
some parts he got wrong.

Rich, I was going to PM you with my impression of the book but I decided, what the heck, let me post it here for discussion. After all, that’s what we’re here for, right?

I don’t want to get into a lengthy critique of his book. He’s obviously a big fan and I actually agree with many of the things he has to say, so I’ll just stick to the statements that he makes in this clip. I respect him for wanting to tackle this under reported moment in time so with all due respect allow me to touch on some of the things I have a problem with.

Dick Dale on Del-Fi.

DD didn’t put out any surf music on that label. He was never officially signed to the label and never released anything on Del-Fi that would make it a turning point for the dawn of surf music. He only cut a demo for his pre-surf Rockabilly tune, “Ooh-Whee-Marie” that eventually surfaced in the early nineties when Bob Keane put it on a Del-Fi comp. Dick had a falling out with Bob Keane and released his three pre-surf rockabilly singles on his Deltone label with his dad. His surf singles and first LP where on Deltone and from his second album on he was on Capitol.

Frank Zappa and Surf music.

Well he did work at PAL when Wipe Out was recorded in 1963 and did record some other surf bands but I don’t think he made a substantial impact on the development of Surf Music.

Heavy Metal and Surf.

Even though this is repeated a lot I don’t think Surf influenced Heavy Metal. The loud amp connection simply isn’t enough.

Jan and Dean was the first vocal surf band.

Actually, Brian Wilson wrote and sang on the first surf-themed Jan & Dean hit “Surf City”. At that point The Beach Boys were established hitmakers and high on the charts with their vocal surf songs.

Jan turned Brian on to the Wrecking Crew.

Brian was already enamored by the crew through his worship of Phil Specter long before he started working with Jan.

Beach Boy’s using session guys.

This often repeated blanket statement needs to be put to rest. Brian began using session aces sporadically on their third album AFTER they firmly establish themselves with chart topping hits. And even then the session guys didn’t play on every track. The boys, yes even Denny on drums, played on their early hits. The Wrecking Crew would eventually play a big role on Pet Sounds in 1966 but by then they had long since moved away from the sound of the early surf/hot rod stuff.

And Gary Hoey? I won’t get into that one.

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Last edited: Feb 07, 2012 08:48:33

This is really a cool thread. Don't get me wrong, I'm not into criticizing folks or this book, but you can bet that 50 year old recollections are likely to be a bit on the foggy side. It's not like anyone was actually documenting a freight car load of unknown bands to have the history correct. I was playing in one of the unknown bands in '64 as a High School freshman. Some of what I heard on the interview raised the occasional eyebrow. But it's cool that he made the effort to get this stuff documented. I think PJ's commentary in another thread was spot on.

What makes me question some of the lesser known details was the lack of knowledge of the reverb tank technology. Reverb, though not the main criteria in the early surf tunes, became the big deal pretty quick. And to get the mechanics of that so wrong "thickens the fog" so to speak. Heck at 13 I built my own reverb with a speaker and a mic with springs in between. ( sounded terrible, but it did "work" )

With regard to the "metal" connection, I can sort of see a connection there. If you start with early rockers of the 50's (Duane Eddy, Eddy Cochran, Jorgen Ingman, etc.) and follow the progression of player abilities over a fairly short time frame, virtuosity became more and more important. Surf guitar was one stepping stone in the process. However, you could technically point at any form of guitar based music and make this connection. I think the Gary Hoey connection likely comes from a recording of Dick Dale and Hoey playing Miserlou. Then you could make the point that Surf impacted the blues because SRV learned Pipline when he was a kid. Then does a version with Dick Dale. Pretty thin. But the influences on most guitarists of the early surf genre is there. It's like the impact of Hendrix on "all" players. I spoke to Jamie Glaser ( Jean Luc Ponty, Manhattan Transfer, Chic Corea and many more ) and he came up as a classical musician, Berkley grad. Said he'd never listened to Hendrix. So I guess I just dislike seeing things categorized so neatly. Look how many surf tunes are borrowed from other instrumental genres.

OK, sorry, I'll step down from the soap box now..

I bought the book when it came out. I was completely overwhelmed with reading material at that time (last Fall), so I just leafed through it before setting it aside. However, even just leafing through it, I caught a lot of errors, which made me really wonder about the book. I think it's part of the reason why I haven't gone back to it yet, though I do plan to in the next few months. Seems like nice summer reading.

I don't mean to be too negative. I think it's really wonderful that there's finally a book on the history of music, and it can only help in the larger scheme of things. I'm very grateful to Kent for putting in the work, and it overall seems quite good, and certainly a great introduction for anyone just getting into surf. But I do wish there was a bit more work done on fact-checking and editing. I hope to post more thoughts once I read the whole thing.

Ivan
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CaptainThunder wrote:

I wish there were other books written from different perspectives.

May I suggest these two great books, SURFIN' GUITARS by Bob Dalley and THE ILLUSTRATED DISCOGRAPHY OF SURF MUSIC 1961-1965 by John Blair. These two books are chock full of no-nonsense info and interviews. Pick these up instead. They're hard to find but so worth it...

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Last edited: Feb 11, 2012 17:18:08