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I've been playing bass in my punk 'n roll band for
months now, but we wound up scrapping most of our
instro numbers by the time our drummer came on board.
A friend of mine here in town is a very good drummer
and usually does this experimental kind of thing with
a bunch of guys that all play over my head. I jam
with them for S&G's, but that's about it. Well, the
kid ALWAYS wants to play, and is always bugging me to
bring my guitar over, so I said ok, went and picked
him up and had him listen to some surf tunes. The
Ventures, "Walk, Don't Run" and the other two surf
albums I had the in the car, The Nebulas, "Nebula One"
and Big Ray and The Futuras, "Desolation Planet." The
kid is a huge appreciator of great drumming and
immediately picked up on most of the nuances of surf
drumming.
So we get to his place and I plug into his guitarist's
Line 6...now I know that this is just a digital
emulator-amp, but I gotta say it sounded REALLY good.
I put it on "jazz clean", turned the reverb up to
about 6, and put the pedal setting on "compression."
It's the best I've ever sounded, period, and I
discovered that my little Cyclone II has got some
BITCHIN' tone when I put it to the test. He kept
remarking on how great it sounded. So anyway, we kick
it off with all the songs I know backwards and
forwards; Walk, Don't Run, Pipeline, Misirlou,
Wipeout, Penetration and Camp Blood by Gein and The
Graverobbers. I discovered while playing with a
drummer and at band-level volume that I'm not nearly
as proficient with these numbers as I thought I was,
but it wasn't too shabby for a dry run, and the sound
was absolutely great. (I've slacked off my guitar
playing alot while playing bass with the band.) My
drummer buddy picked up on surf drumming remarkably
well...and I gotta say, after watching him, who is a
pretty accomplished drummer for his age, struggle with
getting the rolls and everything right and nailing
down the signature "swing beat" of surf drumming, that
I have an even greater appreciation for all those
great drummers (as does he) we get to hear on these
albums, like TooFastJim and Paul from Big Ray and The
Futuras. My buddy was blown away by the speed and
proficiency of these guys.
Sooooo, to make a long story short, we both decided
that what we were doing was definitely worth doing
again and have decided that we're a surf-duo. Heh, my
first side project!
Richard
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Richard, that's awesome!
[...]
> Sooooo, to make a long story short, we both decided
> that what we were doing was definitely worth doing
> again and have decided that we're a surf-duo. Heh, my
> first side project!
>
> Richard
>
Richard!
Right on man! In your buddy's initiation into surf music, you managed to
canvas all of Boston's surf bands in the last 5 years or so with one
exception. You forgot The Fathoms.
Congrats on keeping it together playing with people. One session
rehearsing with other people is equal to ten sessions in the closet at home.
The tightness curve is really steep here, so if you do it a couple more
times I think you'll see yourselves getting significantly tighter with each
rehearsal.
One of my favorite surf cuts of all time is on Big Ray's "Desolation
Planet" - the tune is "Sputnik". One night after seeing a Big Ray gig, I was
hanging out on some steps of some apartment building with Paul the drummer
from Big Ray and a couple of other friends of ours. This random girl pulls
up in a big caddy and motions me over to her car, so being a true American
youth, I go over to see what she wants. She asks me for a light so she can
light her cigarette. I don't smoke, but I knew Paul did, so I yelled up to
Paul to come down and help her out. By the time I got to the steps we were
hanging on, Paul had jumped into the girls car and left with her. Turns out
she was this nice girl from Russia who Paul wound up being pretty good
friends with later on. Big Ray and crew asked her to be on the album and her
voice is the one speaking Russian at the beginning of "Sputnik". Always felt
that if a surf tune deserved a video, it was that one.
-Dano
-=The Nebulas=-
>From: Richard <>
>Reply-To:
>To:
>Subject: [SurfGuitar101] Played with a drummer for the first time
>Date: Sun, 28 Sep 2003 17:49:15 -0700 (PDT)
>
>
>I've been playing bass in my punk 'n roll band for
>months now, but we wound up scrapping most of our
>instro numbers by the time our drummer came on board.
>A friend of mine here in town is a very good drummer
>and usually does this experimental kind of thing with
>a bunch of guys that all play over my head. I jam
>with them for S&G's, but that's about it. Well, the
>kid ALWAYS wants to play, and is always bugging me to
>bring my guitar over, so I said ok, went and picked
>him up and had him listen to some surf tunes. The
>Ventures, "Walk, Don't Run" and the other two surf
>albums I had the in the car, The Nebulas, "Nebula One"
>and Big Ray and The Futuras, "Desolation Planet." The
>kid is a huge appreciator of great drumming and
>immediately picked up on most of the nuances of surf
>drumming.
>
>So we get to his place and I plug into his guitarist's
>Line 6...now I know that this is just a digital
>emulator-amp, but I gotta say it sounded REALLY good.
>I put it on "jazz clean", turned the reverb up to
>about 6, and put the pedal setting on "compression."
>It's the best I've ever sounded, period, and I
>discovered that my little Cyclone II has got some
>BITCHIN' tone when I put it to the test. He kept
>remarking on how great it sounded. So anyway, we kick
>it off with all the songs I know backwards and
>forwards; Walk, Don't Run, Pipeline, Misirlou,
>Wipeout, Penetration and Camp Blood by Gein and The
>Graverobbers. I discovered while playing with a
>drummer and at band-level volume that I'm not nearly
>as proficient with these numbers as I thought I was,
>but it wasn't too shabby for a dry run, and the sound
>was absolutely great. (I've slacked off my guitar
>playing alot while playing bass with the band.) My
>drummer buddy picked up on surf drumming remarkably
>well...and I gotta say, after watching him, who is a
>pretty accomplished drummer for his age, struggle with
>getting the rolls and everything right and nailing
>down the signature "swing beat" of surf drumming, that
>I have an even greater appreciation for all those
>great drummers (as does he) we get to hear on these
>albums, like TooFastJim and Paul from Big Ray and The
>Futuras. My buddy was blown away by the speed and
>proficiency of these guys.
>
>Sooooo, to make a long story short, we both decided
>that what we were doing was definitely worth doing
>again and have decided that we're a surf-duo. Heh, my
>first side project!
>
>Richard
>
>__________________________________
>Do you Yahoo!?
>The New Yahoo! Shopping - with improved product search
>
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