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Colorado Springs is a lonely town, when you're the only surf guitarist around. But after playing guitar and learning guitar here for a few years, I was down at the local guitar store when a new American Vintage Jaguar showed up as a custom order. It was a beauty of a surf maching, in surf green nonetheless, and I knew there just had to be a kindred spirit in town.

I was right....

The store owner gave me the phone number of the Jaguar owner. And pretty soon, I met Paul Vittorio, a longtime guitar player dedicated to playing surf music. Vittorio had the chops and songwriting skills that I only dreamed about, and when he came by my place with his new Jag, turns out he'd gotten the perfect surf tone too.

For the past six months, Paul has been working on a five-song surf music recording. He recorded the lead and rhythm lines for the songs, and brought in a rock drummer and bass player for the sessions.

Paul prefers the studio to playing in a band (though I am trying to get him to form a band to promote his music - with hopes of being able to play rhythm behind him). Paul recently posted on of his songs, "Momster," on the SG101 Yahoo! site, and I really encourage everyone to check it out and provide some feedback.

A little-known fact in surf guitar history: Johnny Smith, the jazz great who wrote the biggest-selling instro surf song of all time, Walk Don't Run, has lived in Colorado Springs for more than four decades! When Smith heard The Ventures version of the song, tho, he scarcely recognized it as his own.

Mahalo!

Gavin