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chris wrote: "I think they like it because of the energy
surf music has...."
I would concur, I think the high-energy of surf tunes, as
well as the total accessability of the "no vocals" sound
really appeals to young musicians...the ones just starting
to get into music and performing (and purchasing) and all
that. Surf music is so cool, because it takes away all
that phoney-baloney stuff about having "a message" or even
much "style"...or whatever it is that vocal acts are trying
to accomplish these days.
Don't get me wrong, I like a fair share of "siging" type
music (as an old 80s punk dude, I like plenty of
sing-songs)... I guess what I'm really getting at is that
instrumental music has a simpler (primal?) and wider appeal
across a greater cross section of a potential
audience...the tune, the music, the sound, and the
performance all comunicate a very accessible sonic
"message" in a language everyone can understand and relate
to: the language of high-power amplified and reverberated
sound....the language of loud-electric-music-power...with
the added bonus of "fun" and "novelty" on top of it all...
Anyway, before I get all zen and start pointing away to the
moon and clapping one hand in the forest while a tree falls
while no one is there to hear it and all that...
let me wrap this up by stating the obvious: that what we
notice about younger audience members being "blown away" by
surf is simply a reflection of the times we live in...our
all-pervasive mass consumer culture...if it's not on one of
the 500 channels on Dish Network, or it's not at the Mall,
or it's not easily located during a Google Search
Query...well, then it simply doesn't exist...does it?
that's surf, try to find it at the Mall...try Hot
Topic...or even Best Buy...see what you find...you'll
probably find Black Eyed Peas/Dick Dale "pump it"...and
some Beach Boys CDs...right?
-dp
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one of the strangest gigs we ever did as Dead Man's Curve was in
London's Brixton. We were booked to play some dive, but there had
been complaints about noise, and there were decibel meters all round
the club which tripped the stage power if things got too loud. Well,
we turned down and down and down until we could barely hear
ourselves, but the drums still kept blowing the power, which had to
be reset each time. We draped coats and blankets over the snare and
toms, but we simply couldn't get the snare quiet enough. As soon as
the drummer hit it with any kind of velocity... silence.
We walked out and refused to play.
However, we were all psyched and we had a van full of gear, so we got
the crazy idea of going to every music venue we could think of that
night and seeing if we could muscle in as a support band.
Well, it worked. The third place we tried needed a support. So
without asking anything about the headline act, we piled out of the
van with about 10 minutes to showtime, set up, and hit the ground
running in our matching orange satin shirts.
Which was when we realized that the headliners were a death metal band.
The audience was completely full of what brits call crusties... long
dreadlocked rasta hair, tattoos, attitude to spare, a good 15 years
younger than the youngest of us
and us in our matching shirts
well, we threw caution to the winds, since just getting to play that
night was a bonus, and we frankly didn't give a shit what the
crusties thought of us.
as a result, of course, we played a completely storming set, and they
loved it
I also remember playing at a surf festival on the beach in Brighton,
and people lining up, crowding the promenade... mums and dads and
kids and teenagers and drunks and east asian families... it seemed
like a pretty universal appeal
--- In , DP <noetical1@y...> wrote:
> chris wrote: "I think they like it because of the energy
> surf music has...."
I always like to think that part of the appeal is the uncomplicated
happiness. There are totally happy vocal bands, like the pogues, manu
choa and what have you, but a large part of pop music, at least the
the part mostly appealing to the 15-20 age category, is either
aggresive (some punk, lots of metal) or totally depressing (gothic,
cure, new wave). When somebody's never heard surf, hears surf for the
first time unexpectedly, he'll start feeling joyful and will think
hey, this is cool. Imagine the same person unexpectedly for the first
time hearing NineInchNails.
I'm really not into the current state of pop music - but from a
personal perspective - at one point i did realize that i felt
attracted to heavy or depressing music, because that's how the
adolescent mind works (mine at least) - but what was happening was
that i paid lots of money to go out to a concert, and either got
totally depressed (I used to be totally into stuff like nick cave,
einsturtende neubauten, virgen prunes, early cure etc) - or to have
great night but feeling strangly out of place in the enviroment.
Going to a surf concert is about having fun, feeling great en
enjoying yourself - which is the sort of experience you want to have
when going out.
come to think of it, it's not only going to concerts, i stopped
playing punk-wave music for the same reason.
WR
