Menu
Hi Ivan! (BTW, you have mail)
See, this is what I miss...we might not see eye-to-eye on everything
all the time, but I'd rather hear an intelligently-voiced difference
of opinion than simple affirmation.
--- In SurfGuitar101@y..., IVAN PONGRACIC <ipongrac@m...> wrote:
> I love "Mexi-Melt", but I don't think we can assume that Rick didn't
> record it with a Fender. In fact, I've seen him play a Tele live
more than a few times.
Very good point...I've seen pictures of Rick with a Jazzmaster, for
that matter...BUT I have heard him play that specific song live a few
times, and both times he used this totally beat-to-hell Danelectro
double-cutaway (old, not reissue) that had the input jack caved into
the body so that his lead cord just disappeared into a jagged hole in
the body, plugged into some kind of Matchless amp, maybe a DC30...and
he sounded almost exactly like he does on the record!
> I think Deke has the most amazing rockabilly sound I've ever heard,
but I
> felt that his surf tone always left much to be desired. It was
thin,
> trebly, pretty dead sounding
Hmmm...Deke's tone on the Untamed Youth records sounds alot like the
Trashmen to my ears, and I love the Trashmen sound. I think Deke
souned awesome on stuff like "F.U.J.I.M.O." and the Untamed Youth's
versions of "the Hearse" or "Haulin' Honda".
And yes, the stuff Deke is doing now with the Eccophonics is quite
awesome, definitely on a whole other musical level than the Untamed
Youth, who were basically a drunken frat band (not that there's
anything wrong with that)! Deke's recent stuff is essential listening!
> I would say that I believe it is definitely possible
> to achieve a personalized sound using those same basic tools
Oh, no argument there. I was just trying to say that no matter how
personalized you get with those specific tools, it's a recognizable
sound...you know - "oh, that sounds like a Jag or Jazzmaster through
a reverb tank and a brownface piggyback amp with a closed-back cab".
Sure there's LOTS of variation inherently possible with that kind of
setup (Dick Dale's 60's tone sounds nothing like the Astronauts' tone
or like Randy Holden with the Fender IV, for example) but it's still
pretty easy to identify as being that type of setup.
I'm just trying to narrow it down to what works or doesn't work for
ME. I was quite satisfied with a Jaguar or Jazzmaster when I only
needed that one sound in a band, but they don't feel right for say,
Merle Travis fingerpicking or 40's jump blues or Johnny Burnette
influenced psycho/rockabilly!
Now that I'm in a band that will actually do all the above genres
within any given set I appreciate the versatility of something like a
Gretsch Tennessean. It just happens to work (and well, at that) for
the musically eclectic situation I'm in right now.
> On the other hand, I've always wanted to combine the Astronauts/DD
tone
> with Hank Marvin, and that's what i tried to do on the two Space
Cossacks
> albums. Those are not supposed to go together, either, so there
you go.
There you go - see? I think that the genre gets more interesting when
you start messing with it, unless of course it's self-indulgent and
annoying like the Mermen.
I think the reason your stuff sounds so cool is that you soaked up
that Atlantics influence and the drama and melodicism of their style
is strongly reflected in your writing.
Another thing - you used a Vox AC30 on some of the songs and I
remember you giving me a detailed list of exactly where and when the
Vox was used, but it ends up sounding like a Fender once you stick
enough reverb in there (at least to my ears, which have probably been
permanmently cooked after standing in front of a 120 watt Leslie
blasting Farfisa high notes for so long).
I doubt that the results would have been nearly as interesting if
your goal had been merely to reproduce "the sounds of 1963 in a
specific part of SoCal".
Don't get me wrong, I love that sound, it's just that I don't see
any "trad" surf bands actually IMPROVING on the Fender IV or Jim
Messina & the Jesters, so I'd rather listen to the real deal than
some contemporary imitation thereof, and that goes for other kinds of
music, too.
I'd rather hear someone use the 60's surf sound as a springboard for
some kind of original style (as the Cossacks did).
Like I said - I LOVE the original 1st-wave surf sound, but part of
what I love about it is that it was this wild, futuristic,
testosterone-charged rebellious stuff played by teenage kids on a
sugar high, kids that were simply thrilled to be alive and expressing
that thrill, not by middle-aged record collectors who are conciously
trying to reproduce a 40 year old style of music and are expressing
their knowlege of vintage gear and obscure surf covers.
