You are on the right track. Apart from a straighter rhythm feel surf is overall cleaner, and rockabilly is dirtier and faster. The 2 and 4 are more isolated in rockabilly, the snare is not ontop of the kick f.e.

You mention writing riffs. Well, in vocal surf the backing is not riffing. That is pretty straight, too. The vocals do the major melodic movements.

They both have different sorts of finesse. A fine Rockabilly song has moments of country and/or jazz. While a vocal surf song might have Phil Spector moments. The arrangement is more broken up for dramatics. While Rockabilly runs thru with maybe the band stop-and-gos ala Carl Perkins.

But in a sense they are close. Funf Fun Fun with a doublebass, an acoustic guitar and an archtop or tele would sound pretty rockabilly-ish.

We once recorded Jan & Deans Bucket T like that. They even had that overall tape-echo already.

KK

The Exotic Guitar of Kahuna Kawentzmann

You can get the boy out of the Keynes era, but you can’t get the Keynes era out of the boy.

Why does johnny b goode sound rockabilly? Because of the upright bass and the feel of the rhythm section, along with Chuck's hollowbody guitar. If the song had been recorded with Chuck playing a strat through a Showman and reverb tank, the bass player playing a Fender bass and the drummer playing with an eighth-note rock feel, it would sound like a 12 bar surf song.

surfneptune
If there are hot girls that look like Betty Page hanging around. It's Rockabilly.

Shouldn't that be "Big" girls that look nothing like Betty Page

The Thunderchiefs

TRUE... NOT!

We used to play a club in San Jose with the Cadillac Angels a few times a year, they drew a Rockabilly crowd... all the ladies had tight lil sweaters, cute ponytails and the required ink. I loved watching them dance that swing style. Heck even a "big girl" that did not look at all like Betty Page would improve surf's mostly "sausage party" fan base.

You guys need to get out... (I won't even say more often) PERIOD!

THe NEpTuNeS

surfneptune
TRUE... NOT!

We used to play a club in San Jose with the Cadillac Angels a few times a year, they drew a Rockabilly crowd... all the ladies had tight lil sweaters, cute ponytails and the required ink. I loved watching them dance that swing style. Heck even a "big girl" that did not look at all like Betty Page would improve surf's mostly "sausage party" fan base.

You guys need to get out... (I won't even say more often) PERIOD!

funny!
I can pretty much gaurnety I've been to more rockabilly shows than most folks here.

And your right there are more hot girls at rockabilly gigs than surf shows.
The gals like to hear the words.

As for getting out more or period, dude I live in Austin Texas.
I can go see a great band every night of week.

The Thunderchiefs

surfneptune
We used to play a club in San Jose with the Cadillac Angels a few times a year, they drew a Rockabilly crowd... all the ladies had tight lil sweaters, cute ponytails and the required ink. I loved watching them dance that swing style.

You guys need to get out... (I won't even say more often) PERIOD!

Rockabilly shows? Absolutely. The rockabilly gals I went to high school with, on the other hand, all looked like Meat Loaf's character from Fight Club.

-Warren

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

WR
Ricky Lake in Cry Baby?

Along those lines, but less feminine.

-Warren

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

cool, 14 replies and 2 real answers.

no it's cool i understand.

what if i dont have a strat? i have an epi wildkat, should that work to my advantage for the sound?

i have an old peavey raptor, i like its design better than a strat(its basically thinner looking) but its a real crappy guitar, and the neck and body dont curve, and im not used to playing that guitar anymore, and plus, my wildkat's p-90's sound better anyway.

The Tremblors on Facebook!

The Tremblors on MySpace!

Hearteater, when you ask how to make rockabilly sound more surflike, do you mean the tone and feel, or the actual song itself? Apart from Fun Fun Fun probably being recorded with a full Fender line-up of guitars and amps and reverb, another thing that makes it more surf sounding than Johnny B Goode is the fact that it has more chords in it. JBG has 3 chords. FFF has 5 or so chords in it. It's more intricate. Plus FFF has complicated harmonies as well. JBG doesn't. If you want to write vocal surf songs that don't sound rockabilly, DON'T write them in a 12 bar format. Put lots of chord changes in them. Invent melodies. JBG isn't a melody, it's a blues shout, which is what it was intended to be. However, if you WANT to write 3 chord surf sounding vocal songs, get the tank out and tell your rhythm section not to play like country boys.

IT is funnier than shit... Sorry that I hijacked the post, sounds like you got a great answer anyway. One of my favorite bands that could got a great surf sound out of a Gretch is Juevos Rancheros! P-90s have a great tone that works for surf, listen to the insect surfers! For me it's reverb vs slap-back echo that splits the two grenres.

And man Austin Tex is a GREAT town for muscians! I am really envious. We have to go door to door to get people away from the cable tv here in our cultural waste-land! Fat or not, I wish we had more females into instro music. What cant they live without the lyrics? To all you that are hanging, you rock beyond belief.

THe NEpTuNeS