Photo of the Day

(I received this from Dick Dale via email)

thank you all for your caring on jimmy dale's healing and recovery...we feel it

After performing two explosive concerts with his dad dick dale, one being a lifetime achievement award from so cal music awards at the Warner Grand Theater in San Pedro, Ca.

Then the following weekend with bow wow at The Henry Fonda theater in Hollywood, Ca.

then the next day, Jimmy ripping on the drums with the pros at The Guitar Center in Hollywood and then playing dueling guitars with his dad in the guitar room only to be struck down from a freak accident while riding the desert with his friend out at the dry lake bed in joshua tree.

his friend shot out in front of him kicking dirt up in his face and they were both at a high rate of speed and before jimmy could shut down he hit a large rock and was thrown from his 250 dirt bike landing directly on his elbow breaking it into 3 pieces and shattering and driving the bones of the elbow 6 inches up into his arm.

jimmy's arm was stitched up at the High Desert Hospital in Joshua Tree, Ca. and after viewing the xrays the decision was immediately made to rush jimmy to Loma Linda Hospital in Loma Linda, Ca..

the surgeons reviewed the xrays and were negative in the outcome. they thought jimmy would lose the use of three of his fingers from nerve damage and that jimmy would have to battle a bone disease for the rest of his life from the dirt driven up into the bone.

After a day of surgery from the greatest surgeons to be, their talent produced the outcome that they feel that jimmy would make a full recovery in time, but would have to live with a steel plate in his elbow along with two large steel rods traveling inside his arm. jimmy is moving his fingers at this time...

he is now walking around with a robotic arm cast and freaking out people when they see him.

we are praying for his complete healing and that jimmy will be able to play his guitar and his drums with his dad dd, stronger than ever....

The Moral of this story...... PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE - ''YOU YOUNG RIDERS'' out there...... if you think you are invincible ....

please take a lesson from Jimmy...... PROTECT YOUR ELBOWS and everything else on your body when you ride...... DICK DALE

In celebration of the release of their new CD "The Year of the Rooster", Pollo Del Mar is running a contest with a truck load of fabulous prizes! Head on over to the contest page for the rules and the quiz questions. Hurry up because the deadline is March 31!

I pulled this article from the Yahoo Group archives. Ferenc from Pollo Del Mar created this great post on songwriting way back on 16 December 2002. People still refer to it to this day, so I had to archive it here on the new site. Enjoy!

In order to seed the new Tablature section, I have submitted a tab I did a long time ago: The Nebulas arrangement of The Astronauts classic "Surf Party". Well, it's the lead guitar part anyway. Anyone got the rhythm part figured out?

Please leave comments and corrections!

I thought I would create a new topic called Tablature, where, well, people can post tablature! These tablature "stories" will be archived on the site. The advantage of publishing tablature as stories as opposed to just making text files available for download is that people can leave comments on them. Thus, we can get a little peer review action going.

The current difficulty with posting tablature as a story is we need a way to display the tablature in a non-proportional font so all the staff lines line up correctly. The current javascript editor I have installed doesn't let you do that, yet. I will look into configuring it to do so. The other option is that I throw away that javascript editor (as it doesn't like the Mac Safari browser anyway), but that would force people submitting tab to pick up a little HTML. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this, so leave a comment below.

Until we get this editor business sorted out, if you would like to submit a tab that you have created, just email it to me and I'll format and post it for you.

Read on for this show report from Carol, aka mom_surfing. She caught The Ventures live at The Birchmere in Alexandria, Virginia on March 15, 2006.

I have just installed an event calendar. If you have an event (show date, release date, etc.) that you would like to publicize, just click on the Calendar and then Submit Event Info. Fill out the form, paying careful attention to the event date (it defaults to today). Then click Submit Event to send the info to me for approval. Please leave a comment here if you have any problems or questions. Thanks!

(This review submitted by Carol, aka mom_surfing. Big thanks to Carol for submitting the first review for this site!)

I have been playing guitar for 7 years and concentrating on surf instrumentals for almost the last 2. I am just someone who has a passion for playing and play at least 2 hours a day. I've been on a quest these last two years to find the 'perfect' surf guitar, asking a lot of questions and opinions of others and trying out different instruments. My first guitar was/is an American standard strat. I also have a PRS custom 22 (definitely not surf) and happily stumbled onto a ventures model MIJ jazzmaster. I have fairly small hands and long fingers and found the neck on the jazzmaster a little fat up past the 12th fret, but what a nice tone it has, especially for rhythm. My search for an in-stock jag, white with the red tortoise pick guard, or any jaguar for that matter, yielded none. I had to order one. Fender didn't have any in stock so I patiently waited four months for it's arrival. And, it was well worth the wait. Fender ships these from the factory with 10's, so I had the tech set it up with 11's before I took it home. He commented on what a nice instrument it was and said he did very little to it (one little shim) and a slight truss rod adjustment. To my eyes the workmanship is A+. My primary sound set up is a fender deluxe reverb and a RI outboard reverb (I also have a twin reverb but it's too heavy to drag around, so it's my back up). From the first few notes i played i knew it was the sound i've been looking for! With so many switch combinations it's easy to find the right 'voice' for leads and rhythm. The neck is comfortable in my hands. I know we all play differently and hear things differently, but for me I feel I've finally found the 'perfect' surf guitar. It was money well spent.

The Double Crown On The Rocks Podcast is back! I tried doing a show last year, but gave up after 5 shows because it wasn't turning out very good with the equipment I had at the time. I now have an iBook with Garageband 3 and doing good-sounding podcasts is a snap now. I hope to do at least one new show each week. This week's show features two tracks from The Nebulas' brand new, self-titled CD. Check it out at:

http://doublecrown.blogspot.com/

or

http://www.dblcrown.com/podcasts.html

I will be working on getting it up on iTunes as well.

Thanks,

Sean
Double Crown Records
www.dblcrown.com

Here is part 2 of my Exotica 2005 show report, dug out from the archives of the SG101 Yahoo Group. Enjoy!