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Excellent points, Brian. I agree 100% with what you said. I think
the record company was anxious to "Cash In" on the Surfin' craze, and
cranked it out as fast as the band could. One thing I think is
interesting about this, is how much I like the Astronauts stuff,
and how little I like Richard Delvy produced songs. He made tons of
records with his band, the Challengers, and scores of other bands.
( non of which I can remember right now.) Most of his stuff sounds
like it was thrown together in a hurry. The Challengers were one
band that had lots of albums, and I can only think of a couple of
tunes I really like. They always sounded more like a copy band,
playing the style that was popular, but deep down, they didn't
really get the whole surf music mentality.
The other thing that seperates the Astronauts from some other
bands was they had a really great drummer. He doesn't play a
standard "Surf Beat" Much more Jazzy and Swingy. Is that a word?
Swingy?
How about this Brian, instead of playing each similiar Astronauts
song seperately, link 'em all together into one big surf monster
song. Try "Fire Water" " The Hearse" "El Aguila" and "baja"
together. they all have similiar chords and drums.
Chris
--- In , "Brian Neal" <bneal@i...> wrote:
> I was talking to somebody off list about The Astronauts. I love
> these guys to death, but have you ever noticed their surfy songs
> (most of which were written for them) sound like the product of
some
> tightly controlled formula? As brilliant as they are, when you
> listen to just their surf material back to back, they are
remarkably
> similiar. I wonder how much of this was a result of their surf band
> status being handed to them by their record company?
>
> I also think that some of this can be blamed on the 2:20 mandate
for
> all pop songs on the radio of the day. And the record company
wanted
> surf hits to sell to the kids. A lot of their songs just have one
> melody, and they don't even move it up or down an octave at least!
> There isn't enough time to do that!
>
> I love their 3 guitar sound. But do you think this is limiting in
> some ways? How would you like to be the guy doing nothing but
> the "chunking" on the low E string? I think that perhaps they could
> have explored this 3 guitar thing a bit more had the 1st wave
lasted
> longer. One guy always did the lead, one guy the chording, and one
> guy the chunking.
>
> Satan's Pilgrims also had 3 guitars for most of their career. They
> did a little more interesting and varied stuff with that lineup.
>
> Again, I really like them. Their unique 3 guitar sound, their use
of
> muting, reverb, and great songs (albeit cookie cutter) make them
> greats to me. I just wonder how much of it they actually enjoyed
> playing. They had to on some level, as it was brilliantly executed.
>
> BN
