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Eddie covered all the major bases in his report of our
show at the Surf Expo in Orlando and it was indeed a
great time. We met a couple of diehard fans (and
Carol from the list who pal'ed with us at the event)
who surprised us with what they knew (one guy in
particular, though I forgot his name).
The Novarays show was badass and it actually evoked
memories of some of the earlier rockabilly and garage
shows I attended in Atlanta and Savannah that were
dominated by guys who had pure punk rock backgrounds
that had picked up on all this cool stuff and started
their own bands. About 90% of those guys told me when
I asked that they'd all been in punk bands to start
with before getting into rockabilly/garage/surf. It
was how I discovered modern surf after sitting on just
a few first wave comps and LP's for years. Lewis and
co. have all that punk energy and a really edgy but
still somewhat trad tone (maybe because of their
Deluxes...those things sounded HOT but still good,
clean, and reverberated...I didn't see a tank either).
It's raw but still totally surf.
As for the audiences, I got a lot of interesting
feedback both at our show and The Novarays show. The
Surf Expo had tons of younger kids. I think I did a
bit more walking amongst the crowd than the other guys
did right after the show (to go to the bathroom...beer
+ small bladder) and got lots of passing compliments
but I also got stopped by a couple of older guys and a
couple of teenage kids who all told me how much they
enjoyed the show and how surprised they were by what
we did. There was one kid in a punk band that asked
me what the hell guitars we were playing because they
definitely weren't Strats (Jags and JM's) and he was
really inquisitive about the gear and the sound we
got. These younger guys were really sincere and
really curious about what they'd just seen and heard.
Surf rock, even in it's very trad form, is still rock
'n roll, and that's always going to appeal to people
(and kids) that like rock 'n roll that aren't the
radio pap-demographic that only listen to what's in
the rotation on what passes for a rock station where
they live. We'll always be a little fringe because
unfortunately that's the majority.
The Novarays show made me realize just how trad
sounding we are, relatively speaking (even though I'd
still consider them on the trad side) and if those
kids at our show liked The Surge then they would've
crapped their shorts over The Novarays. After their
set I went to the bar to settle out my tab and heard a
couple of late 20's/early 30's mettle heads that were
their to see the next band (a metal band billed with a
surf band...heh) shooting the bull about music. The
part I walked up on, "You know, they (The Novarays)
are really good for what they do, but it's just not my
thing...just not my sound," etc. I chatted with him
for a minute and told him that that was totally my
sound and asked him to elaborate a little; he said
that while "the surf thing" was cool that he just
couldn't connect with it because it was "stuff his
parents listened to" and "songs that were all written
30 years before I was born." I think there's always
gonna be that crowd of regular rock concert goers that
sees anything that's old as just old and disregard it
in favor of the flavor of the month or whatever their
preferred genre is. The retro-chic thing works both
for and against us.
The Novarays were all really cool guys as well as a
killer band and you should definitely check out their
website and myspace pages when you get the chance.
Richard
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