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I recently picked up the new Hypnotic IV CD "Go Baby Go"...its a real
winner. These guys are very tight, play great, and the CD sounds excellent
production-wise. The music is mostly upbeat and energetic with some real
surfy gems. The lead guitar is fast, fluid, and nuanced, with inventive bass
and solid drum work (including some bongos). I really enjoyed listening to
the rhythm guitar parts as well, especially when he plays at the hyper-level
on par with The Apemen ("SR vs The Man"). The role of the rhythm guitar is
clearly understood by this band. I am really struck by how well they come
across as a band, as a cohesive unit, and not just the usual "hot lead
guitar player with anonymous and undistinguished backing band" stero-typical
surf band.
The songs have some variety. As I said, some very cool surfy numbers
("Special X200", "Left Behind on 299"), a great cover of The Shadow's "Peace
Pipe" as well as "Ginza Lights" by The Ventures. They play "Ginza" a little
more reverently compared to Satan's Pilgrims mean and raw version. There is
an occasional organ and fuzz guitar thrown in which reminds me of The
Bomboras or The Treble Makers. But some real stand out tracks are the
Spaghetti Western flavored "Carmela" (with an oddly warbling trumpet) and
"Que Hombre", and the middle eastern flavored "Afternoon In Tunisia". Great
stuff!
There are a couple of kind of ho-hum songs. But these are more than made up
for, and again, there are some very memorable and original songs on here.
This CD, along with the Morricione Tribute, have been highlights for me in
the last few months. If I were the star giving type, I'd go with a solid 4
out of 5.
BN
Hi All,
Indeed "Go Baby Go" is a fantastic CD, as Brain discribes.
The Hypnotic IV recently did a Euro tour and guess what, I went to their
show THREE times!
I will give a short discription of one of their gigs, which were among
the best surf shows I ever saw.
Sat 3/8 at Gierle Belgium. This was the Hypnotic IV' 2nd gig in Belgium,
the played together with Belgian Pride "Reef Rider" which is a Mariachi
influnced instro Surf band with guys who know where the waves are
comming from.
Before the show started the Hypnotic IV played a match of table-football
against Reefrider, which they lost...(Table-football is a very popular
sport at Belgian Youth clubs, so the natives are hard to beat).
But a bit later the show started of. Reefrider opened with their high
Mariachi influenced surf, played a bunch of covers like High Tide,
Penetration, Pipeline and other classic surf tunes together with some
very nice tunes of their own. The band was tight and precise, the gear
used was also of High standard, A blonde Showman with 18" inch cabinet
and build in Reverb tank coupeled on a olympic white Jazzmaster for
lead, a nice drumkit, vintage (owned by the tour promotor "Surfing
Airlines") a Silverface bassman with nice Jazzbass and a Twin reverb
also silverface coupled on a Brown reissue reverb tank with a strat,
another strat and in the end a vintage Jazzmaster pre '68. (a lot of
strings broke, but once the Jazzmaster was played it stopped....) In all
a very energetic performance of high quality....
Next up were the Hypnotic IV, who recently got Mosrite Guitars from
Mosrite Japan, Andy the lead guitarist was "VERY" proud with this.
The Bass player and rythem guitarist als had their mosrite, damn fine
guitars (I'm not very familiar but Andy's mosrite looked like a Ventures
model, but a bit different)the both used Fender Twin reverbs, one with
eminence and one with JBL speakers, a Silverface Bassman combo and the
Same drumkit as "Reef Rider" (all their material aside from the Mosrites
was owned by their tour promotor)
O.K. on to the music, a very tight high octane set....marvelous playing,
a lot of tunes from "Go Baby Go" high energy "Miserilou, Penetration,
Mr. Moto, Peace pipe, and the show ended with a nice "Prefidia" cover,
after palying over one hour...whoeha...superb....
I went back the next day at "St-Gilles" 3/9 and a week later at
St-Niklaas 3/19 were "Reefrider was present as audience. (they played a
few song afterwards on the Mosrites, but is was very different from what
I heard about a week before. So I have to conclude, that every band has
it's typical sound and use of instruments. Fender Vs. Mosrites is very
different)
But the Hypnotic IV shows and playing was marvelous again. The last show
a saw was a bit shorter due to the high energy of the whole tour.
In all great guys, nice to talk to and a great surf band. The hope to be
back next year, and I'm looking forward to that!!
Well I hope the Nebulas will be next as I really want to see these guys
"Surf" Belgium as well.
Kind regards,
Jerry S. from Belgium
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jerry [mailto:]
...
> The Hypnotic IV recently did a Euro tour and guess what, I went to their
> show THREE times!
>
> I will give a short discription of one of their gigs, which were among
> the best surf shows I ever saw.
[...snip...]
Thanks for the show reports Jerry! I love seeing these just as much as CD
reviews.
BN
