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Linda and I will be attending the Surf Guitar 101 Convention again this year. It is being held at Alpine Village located in Torrance. We will be there on Saturday the 4th. We will be selling copies of the 3rd edition of Surfiin' Guitars, Surf Raiders CD's and CD's from the 1980's and 1990's. If you have stuff from the Surf Raiders or my book and want autographs, bring it along. There will be some great surf bands at this convention. See you there.
Reverb Nation: Live at the 2017 Surf Guitar 101 Convention
(Entrée ERCD 2001)
Surf instrumental music, as an art form, was established in the early 1960s by bands such as Dick Dale & His Del-Tones, The Chantays, and The Surfaris. That reverbed, guitar-driven instrumental sound blasted out of Southern California over 50 years ago; today, it’s embraced and practiced by hundreds of bands in this country and around the world.
Every summer for the last 10 years, the Surf Guitar 101 Convention has attracted a great many fans to Southern California for a three-day feast of surf music. The event includes dozens of vendors selling CDs, t-shirts, and all sorts of swag related to surf music. The event not only celebrates the music, it also brings together many of those who habit the social networking website, www.surfguitar101.com (after which the Convention was named). It’s a time to renew old friendships and make new ones.
The big draw each year, however, are the many surf instrumental bands invited from all over the country AND the world to perform. The 2017 event featured some of the best surf bands from Southern California that included Outerwave, The Volcanics, The Tequila Worms, Par Avion, and The Insect Surfers (originally formed in 1979, this group is recognized as the longest running modern surf instrumental band). The rest of the country was represented by The Mystery Men (from Georgia), The Atomic Mosquitos (from Washington D.C.), The Exotics (from Wisconsin), and The Madeira (from Indiana).
Since this music has become truly universal, the 2017 Surf Guitar 101 Convention also featured The Kilaueas and The El Caminos. These two bands, from Germany and Japan, respectively, prove that surf instrumental music is not only loved and accepted on the other side of the planet, but the reverence that exists for the music’s traditional sound and style transcends language and cultural barriers.
In 2017, the event attracted the attention of three-time Grammy Award winning producer and engineer Mark Linett, who recorded Friday and Saturday night’s shows, and mixed and produced the tracks. Those performances are represented on the new compilation CD from Entrée Records, “Reverb Nation: Live at the 2017 Surf Guitar 101 Convention.”
The worldwide release date for this CD is 7 August. However, copies will be available at a special price for this year's SG101 Convention on 4 August.
I am pleased to announce the SurfGuitar101 2017 MP3 Compilation! Our 13th one! Just like before, this is a way for members to share music, recording tips, and to just have fun. The main emphasis is fun, so please send in an entry no matter what your skill level is. Here are the rules:
Please use the comment thread for this news story to discuss the compilation and to get information on how to submit an mp3. Please also use that thread if you'd like to find a fellow member to work with on the project. With the magic of digital recording and the Internet, remote collaborations are possible. Make your own virtual surf band!
Please check out our prior compilations by using the links in the bottom left sidebar of the desktop version of our site.
Let the comp begin!
Hey everyone! I've just finished uploading this year's MP3 compilation to archive.org. Please spread the word and share the link. You can download all the files in a few different formats as well as stream the individual songs.
SG101 2016 MP3 Compilation on Archive dot org
If you'd like to contribute some album artwork, or you've spotted a mistake, please leave me a note in the comments.
Finally, if you enjoy the service archive.org provides, please consider giving them a donation. They provide a valuable service and have a vast treasure trove of information, books, music, audio collections, and so much more, all for free!
Thanks to everyone who participated in this year's compilation and Happy New Year!
I am pleased to announce the SurfGuitar101 2016 MP3 Compilation! Our 12th one! Just like before, this is a way for members to share music, recording tips, and to just have fun. The main emphasis is fun, so please send in an entry no matter what your skill level is. Here are the rules:
Please use the comment thread for this news story to discuss the compilation and to get information on how to submit an mp3. Please also use that thread if you'd like to find a fellow member to work with on the project. With the magic of digital recording and the Internet, remote collaborations are possible. Make your own virtual surf band! Let the comp begin!
Please check out our prior compilations by using the links in the bottom left sidebar of the desktop version of our site.
Let the comp begin!
Saturday, August 13, 2016, Noon to Midnight
The 9th Annual Surf Guitar 101 Convention
Alpine Village
833 W. Torrance Blvd.
Torrance, CA 90502
For the 9th year in a row, the global Surf guitar community will focus its attention on its Southern California birthplace as the Surf Guitar 101 Convention takes over Alpine Village on Saturday, August 13, 2016. What began as a fairly intimate gathering of die-hard enthusiasts and members of the Internet's number one resource for all things Surf guitar, surfguitar101.com, has blossomed into the most important event of its kind in the USA.
The 12 hour affair, which runs from Noon to Midnight, will feature one of the greatest lineups of modern Surf instrumental bands from around the globe. This year’s performers include Crazy Aces from Nashville, TN; The Secret Samurai from San Diego, CA; Kelp from Santa Barbara, CA; Tikiyaki 5-0 from Los Angeles, CA; George Tomsco of the legendary group The Fireballs from New Mexico; a historic reunion of the Northern California supergroup The Mach IV and the reunion and 20th anniversary celebration of Washington D.C.'s highly influential Space Cossacks. Representing the international contingent will be the return of Italy's Bradipos IV, the highly anticipated appearance of Russia's masters of horror-Surf, The Messer Chups and the American debut of Dutch trailblazers The Phantom Four, featuring not only Phantom Frank from the legendary Treble Spankers, but very special guest guitarist John Blair, Surf music historian and revival pioneer of Jon & The Nightriders.
In addition to the 10 main performances, there will be an extended live set of music featuring some extremely special guests from the original 60's era bands, an all-star tribute to The Original Surfaris, an exclusive performance by local favorites The Hot Rod Trio demonstrating products by Nocturne, and a generous all-day raffle of sponsorship products that includes prizes ranging from CDs, DVDs, T-Shirts, guitar pedals by Nocturne, guitar and bass accessories from D'Addario, an amplifier by Quilter, a guitar and bass from Fender and a very special exclusive Eastwood Senn Model One guitar!
Alpine Village, the expansive new all-ages venue for the convention, features top-notch international cuisine and beverages, a deli and marketplace, ample parking and spacious areas where vendors from some of the leading Surf instrumental record companies and collectible dealers will gather to sell their wares.
For more information, please see this forum thread.
Direct Inquiries: bigtikidude@yahoo.com
Hey everyone! I've just finished uploading this year's MP3 compilation to archive.org. Please spread the word and share the link. You can download all the files in a few different formats as well as stream the individual songs.
SG101 2015 MP3 Compilation on Archive dot org
If you'd like to contribute some album artwork, or you've spotted a mistake, please leave me a note in the comments.
Finally, if you enjoy the service archive.org provides, please consider giving them a donation. They provide a valuable service and have a vast treasure trove of information, books, music, audio collections, and so much more, all for free!
Thanks to everyone who participated in this year's compilation and Happy New Year!
It has been a very long time coming, but today I am overjoyed to announce that SurfGuitar101.com is now running on a secure https connection. I'm really sorry it took so long to get here, but there were nearly 10 years of hot-linked images in the forums that had to be dealt with. It would be unthinkable to just discard them, so a script was developed to copy all these thousands of images into cloud storage, then rewrite all forum and comment posts to use the new secure image locations. I then had to develop a way to let users either upload images to our cloud storage, or copy hot-linked images there. There were lots of other little details to attend to also. But it's finished and I'm going to grab a beer!
SG101 cares about your privacy and security!
We may have missed a few pages, so if you see browser warnings about non-secure pages or so-called "mixed content" issues, please send me a link to the page as soon as possible!
I am pleased to announce the SurfGuitar101 2015 MP3 Compilation! Our 11th one! Just like before, this is a way for members to share music, recording tips, and to just have fun. The main emphasis is fun, so please send in an entry no matter what your skill level is. Here are the rules:
I have created an Official 2015 MP3 Compilation Forum Thread. Please use that thread to discuss the compilation and to get information on how to submit an mp3. Please use that thread if you'd like to find a fellow member to work with on the project. With the magic of digital recording and the Internet, remote collaborations are possible. Make your own virtual surf band! Let the comp begin!
Please check out our prior compilations if you haven't seen them already: 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014.
The Surf Guitar 101 2015 Convention will have t-shirts! A Denver based company called ilaughoutloud is bringing a limited number of these, so be sure to purchase early. Shirts are available in a range of adult shirt sizes and will be $20 each. Proceeds of shirt sales help fund the convention! Contact GINNY at imagesinthewind@gmail.com to pre-order and pre-pay with PayPal to be sure your size is available. While supplies last, shirts will be made available three days: Friday night a the Purple Orchid, Saturday at the Convention, and Sunday at the HB Pier Surf show. Pre-order or contact Ginny to let her know you're interested so she can bring enough!
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