Dagnabbit, I live too far north!

This is Noel. Reverb's at maximum an' I'm givin' 'er all she's got.

Thanks Jeff for the great back-brief. Don't have to ask if a good time was had. Love to see these things really grow.

Wes
SoCal ex-pat with a snow shovel

DISCLAIMER: The above is opinion/suggestion only & should not be used for mission planning/navigation, tweaking of instruments, beverage selection, or wardrobe choices.

DesignSpy wrote:

I hope to check out a Stomp one day soon. Maybe December...hopefully.

Hopefully indeed... December is going to be a fantastic Christmas show!

• Jamie
  SSS Agent #181
  Cartoons drenched in reverb!
  The Mystery Men?
  El Capitan & The Reluctant Sadists

Wow, thanks for the great review, Jeff! So good to meet you in person and chat for a while!

I just returned home from Atlanta, so I'll write more later, but I wanted to post this great video right away. Enjoy!

Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube

To paraphrase Martin:
The red is the new red.

WOW!!!! M O R E

Wes
SoCal ex-pat with a snow shovel

DISCLAIMER: The above is opinion/suggestion only & should not be used for mission planning/navigation, tweaking of instruments, beverage selection, or wardrobe choices.

Ivan, that video was poor! I had to watch it 3 times to see if you were smiling. That was a great job. I was reminded of why I value my Penetrators cd's. That looked like a great evening of music. Congrats to all who are involved.

It was truly an incredible weekend and thanks to The AmpFibians and Ivan for playing and Jeremy and Jason from the Monterreys for driving from Charlotte and Jeff from the Crazy Aces for driving from Nashville. I should have some more photos and video up at the blog within the next week or so.

David, I do hope you get to come to one of the Christmas shows. Speaking of which,

The Squares - 1995-2002
The Mystery Men? - 2012-
MOONBASE - 2012-2017
The KBK - 2017-2022
The Frigidaires 2021-
Southern Surf Stomp!

I. Live. Too. Dang. Far. Away! More videos, please!

This is Noel. Reverb's at maximum an' I'm givin' 'er all she's got.

Last edited: Nov 26, 2014 08:04:30

What a wonderful time in Atlanta this past weekend! It started with a really fun get-together on Friday night at the legendary Trader Vic’s with a bunch of Atlanta surf music fans, organized by Bob Walk AKA Surf King – almost 20 people in attendance! So good to see Bob, Richard (the Mystery Men?), Elliott AKA Sticks (the Penetrators), Dan AKA Jet Powers (the Penetrators personal guard, currently singer/guitarist/songwriter in the Wheel Knockers), Stacy, Dave and Squid of the AmpFibians, Terry (the Mystery Men?), Jeremy Aqualad and his wife Carlton who drove down from Charlotte, NC (!), Jamie (the Mystery Men?), Sue Ellen and Chris, Chad (THEE Chad, of course!), Jay (the Mystery Men?), Bill, Lester, and a bunch of other people, some of whom I met for the first time. The Atlanta surf scene is just the best!! The Penetrators basically started it, but all sorts of wonderful people - like Chad, Bob, Eddie, etc. - are keeping it going, and God bless them! They’ve really got something very special happening there. Mai Tais and great conversation flowed for many hours…

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LOTS of music on Saturday, starting with a Noon outdoors performance (at a chilli cook-off, no less!) in downtown Decatur (an Atlanta suburb) by the Mystery Men, who sounded absolutely fantastic! Jay had to work, so Lester filled in on bass for him, and made it look like he’d been doing it all his life! Lots of families around (easily 150+ people), little kids dancing to the Mystery Men’ music (adorable!), people tasting chilly, on a gorgeous autumn Georgia Saturday, and the Mystery Men getting a lot of interest and great response – no surprise there! I bet you they sold a lot of CDs that afternoon to a lot of new fans! I was grateful to get a ride to Decatur by Jeremy and Carlton, giving us a chance to chat more – such wonderful people! The Atlanta surf music contingent was also there in full force to support the Mystery Men, as were the AmpFibians who spent the night at Jamie’s house nearby. Then at 5 pm, Chad's prog-surf band MOONBASE played at Criminal Records, a major (and huge!) Atlanta record store a block away from the legendary Star Bar, in the hip(ster) Little Five Points area of Atlanta. MOONBASE absolutely killed! They played really well, and it’s not easy music to play. They played their debut album, “Creation Myths”, in its entirety, in the album order, which was really cool to hear, having been listening to it a lot lately – and damn, they sounded if anything even slightly better than the record! The shop was full of people, most of them checking out the band, some looking through records while bopping in place to the music (it was the first time I ever saw a girl really getting into and dancing along to a 5/4 time signature! Wild!). What a privilege it was to see both bands that day, a true unexpected treat, and they both convincingly demonstrated why they’re getting such great reviews and are held in so much esteem by surf music fans worldwide. They really are among the best in the world today!

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On to the evening Southern Surf Stomp gig at the Kavarna, back in Decatur (across the street from the Mystery Men performance earlier in the day). Very good attendance, probably around 60-70. I came with Larry “Moon Dawg” White (we were both in Atlanta this last weekend for a conference, and were joined at the show by a few other colleagues, too), and it was wonderful to get to hang out with him again. It was also a true pleasure to meet in person and get to talk to Jeff Senn of Crazy Aces, who drove down from Nashville! (There was also a couple that drove down all the way from Kentucky for this show! Incredible!) And of course, once again LOTS of wonderful Atlanta surf music fans around, too, some of whom I've known for many years, and it was just great seeing everybody. Even Greg Nicoll was there! Greg used to write for Creative Loafing in the ‘90s and early ‘00s, and did a LOT to promote the budding Atlanta surf music scene back then. Hadn’t seen him in many years!

The first band was Jeffrey Butzer and the Bicycle Eaters, with Chad on guitar – not surf, but kinda quirky and mellow music, seemingly with a somewhat postwar-French influence, piano-led but also with some unusual instrumentation and featuring a female singer. It was quite pretty and enjoyable, and Chad played some gorgeous guitar on it (a Jazzmaster through a silverface Princeton on about 4 – yum!). Next up were my friends the AmpFibians from Cincinnati, who played the best I'd ever heard them! They truly have their own distinctive and very cool sound, a fresh take on surf music. In the past year they’ve added photographer-extraordinaire Stacy Fenner on bass, and this was my first time seeing him play with them – not only did he do a great job, but I really think he is the perfect bassist for them! The band has many originals and different takes on a few covers, and with lead guitarist Dave’s vintage hollowbody Mosrite guitar into a vintage Traynor combo amp (made in Canada in the ‘70s!) and unique jazz/blues-colored take on surf music, they sounded not only distinctive but just really good! Really love this band!

And then onto to the set I played with Chad, Jay, Sean, Sticks, and Jet, which went extremely well! It was a real honor and pleasure to play this gig, and truly a very special night for me. Big thanks to Chad for suggesting it and putting it all together – the amount of work he puts into promoting these shows, and then on top of that, this time around also preparing for our set, well, it’s quite amazing! Especially given that this was the FOURTH band that he played in THAT DAY! Who does that?? Unbelievable! It's funny, I had basically no nerves beforehand, which is weird, given we were about to play an entire set without ever having practiced even a single song of it together! But I had such complete trust in Chad that I just couldn't get worried. And that trust was 100% justified. Chad had his stuff down, as did Jay of the Mystery Men? on bass and Sean Zearfoss of Chad’s band the Silent Knights (also his long-time musical partner and friend) on drums. I was truly impressed by all of them – many of the songs we played are quite difficult, but they pulled them off with aplomb! I already knew that Chad and Jay are really excellent players, but I quickly found out the same about Sean. It was a pleasure to play with all of them, also because they are SUCH NICE PEOPLE! Never having played together before we were definitely flying by the seat of our pants, which made it much more exciting and fun for us, and hopefully for the audience, too – I think so, since they gave us a wonderful reception! For the last four songs we brought up Sticks Stechkin AKA Elliott of the Penetrators, played Red Sunrise by the Space Cossacks, and then three Penetrators songs, starting with Checkpoint Echo and Redlined, and that was simply fantastic! Playing those incredible Penetrators songs with Sticks on drums was a profound pleasure. Jet Powers, the old friend of the Penetrators who was an Air Force pilot, joined us on acoustic guitar for the final song, Southern Surf Syndicate Theme, which really took things over the top! A perfect way to end a perfect day. Just an amazing time, with tons of great vibes.

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Thanks very much again, Chad! I really really appreciate everything you did for this, I am honored and thankful, and so glad we were able to make it happen and pull it off so well! And Chad, I’m going to embarrass you now – but you truly are a huge talent! I'm beyond thrilled to see you using that talent for the cause of surf music. And thanks to all the Atlanta surf music fans for making me feel so welcome, it was wonderful to see you all! Here's hoping we get to do it again at some point soon!

Ivan
Lords of Atlantis on Facebook
The Madeira Official Website
The Madeira on Facebook
The Blair-Pongracic Band on Facebook
The Space Cossacks on Facebook
The Madeira Channel on YouTube

Sounds like an awesome 2 days.
Real surf family quality time.
Wish I could have been there.

Jeff(bigtikidude)