The Unnaturals live on Storm Surge of Reverb

This has been on the backburner for a while, kinda like the blog itself. I've had the Unnaturals on my show before, but wasn't able to make myself a copy. Well here they are again, a New Orleans surf & instrumental band, playing live on my radio show on August 22nd. Sound quality is rough and I can't say it was my best editing job either, but still sounds great!

7 songs:
Attack of the 50 Foot Betty
Miedo
Rumblebee
Holiday in Cambodia
Unnatural Progressions
Whiskey Surf / Misirlou
Unnatural Progressions

Also, here's the full show

The Satellites - Bodacious / El San Juan (1967)

Bodacious screams Joe Meek and all the spacey connotations that come with that, but oddly enough if you take a look at that cover you'll see that it's produced by Bobby Vinton of all people. Apparently one of the members was friends with Bobby. In any case, a killer instrumental, one of the best I've posted on here

El San Juan is a sleepy latin-tinged surf dreamer, great in it's own right but way less Joe Meek.

The Casino Royales - East Coast

Plain ol' 90s surf, fast and fun. I can't find a single thing about this band other than what the liner notes say, which are included so I won't say all that much more. It's off a split 7" with The Dimitri Gurevitch Quintette, which I deemed to be less of interest.

Escape to Bikini Island (strikes me as a terrible place to escape to)

Infiltration

Rendezvous in Red Bank

(pssst I got a scanner and a new sound card, this blog's posts may be rarer than they once were, but higher quality!)

The Bills live on WTUL

So I had one of our two New Orleans surf bands on my radio show this past week (I've had the other one, the Unnaturals, too, but I don't have that recording). If you're not familiar with them, they had a CD with a handful of great, dirty punk-styled surf called Knife in Yer Gut. I'm pretty sure it's floating around on the internet, and I guess that's OK since they're all out of copies of it.

Well this you won't find elsewhere. Ripped straight from my radio show on a vocal mic that clearly wasn't intended for it, this is RAW AS HELL and as fun as it was in the studio. Which is to say very fun, I've seen them a bunch of times and my own little personal performance there was better than any I've seen.

Get it here

The Electric Underground - Guitar Explosion

Get ready to FREAK OUT with this collection of mind-melting psychedelic...uh Surf Rock Songs. The titles, the 1967 date, the wording, everything about this suggests full-on-fuzzed guitar trip-outs for the NEW GENERATION but really you get some pretty mediocre covers of surf songs. I don't quite have them all picked out, but to give you the idea "Aerial Flip-Out" is "Rumble" except with less distortion than Link used. Don't make the same $15 mistake I made, there's much more exciting stuff out there that actually makes good on the promise. But if you're curious here it is

Storm Surge of Reverb: Surf Radio Show has moved timeslots

Apparently the citizens like the weekly shock therapy that is my radio show, so we're moving to Mondays from 4-6PM CST. You can stream it at www.wtulneworleans.com

If you want to check out playlists I'll be posting them at surfguitar101 here

and also making updates to this facebook fanpage

I think in the past I've posted links to where I sometimes put archived shows. I think I'll keep dumping them there

No-Fi: A Live Documentation of New Orleans Surf, Punk, and Garage

As a record collector I often tell people that surf didn't really hit New Orleans. That's not entirely true, but like everything else in this city, it happened way later. The Royal Pendletons are probably are longest lasting name to spring out of that (though more of a garage band than a surf band), but this compilation is a great example of a bunch of other bands that, aside from my beloved Famous Monsters, I probably wouldn't have known existed otherwise (I was in middle school or so).

Since then there have been other instro bands: off the top of my head there's currently the Bills, Unnaturals, and before those Spring Break Shark Attack (from Baton Rouge), Paradise Vendors sorta, and (soon to be reformed) The Sophisticats.

Backside for tracklisting:

And the benefit of ripping a copy from your radio station: Reviewer notes

And here ya go

The Dragsters - Hey Little Cobra + Drag City

And so here we have another surf/drag "budget" album, this time on Mercury Wing instead of Crown, which means possibly Davie Allan and/or Mike Curb involved rather than Jerry Cole. But the story's the same: the vocal tracks are throwaways, and the instrumentals are actually pretty great, particularly the two on side B.

For once allmusic is a little helpful on this one though mostly saying the same thing as alla this

Side A

1. Hey Little Cobra
2. Drag Strip
3. Ferrarri II
4. Go Little Tiger
5. Jag XKE

Side B

1. Drag City
2. Super Charger
3. Crazy Cobra
4. Hot Rod Queen
5. Sting Ray

Here it is. DO IT

The Dartells - Hot Pastrami

This is a silly record. It has its slower moments such as Surf Dreams and St. James Infirmary, but the high points are undoubtedly goofy songs like "I Scream" (they are screaming for ice cream) and Hot Pastrami, not to mention other songs inspired by the culinary arts. 

Who are they? The Dartells weren't exactly a sensation, though Hot Pastrami hit #11 on the pop charts back in the day... interesting when you consider the fact that it was essentially a cover of "Mashed Potatoes" (hey look! they even mention it straight off in the song!). They've been somewhat canonized into the surf craze, but it's not exactly written all over the record. There's a song called surf dreams, yeah, and there are some bare instrumentals on here, and Hot Pastrami was covered by, I believe, The Chantays, but that's about it.

I'll be honest though, while it has its fun parts, this Dartells album is a victim of pretty poor recording. It seems like there's a lot going on, but the sound is so subdued that it doesn't really get to the action that I think the band is really pumping out. This is a somewhat recognizable album that some of you may be familiar with, so you're welcome to disagree.

You can get it here

A few things I've been listening to

First of all, I got a surprise message from the French surf rock group The OK Kings, who graciously sent me a promo of their brand new album to play on my show. Phil Dirt gave it 5 stars but really, I've never dug Phil Dirt reviews, especially with his lo-fi dismissals. So here's my short review: it rips.

The OK Kings - Washout

Their Myspace is right here

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Also found on Myspace: The Space Agency
This is a pretty DIY effort and their myspace looks even worse than mine, but the previews were good and my well-developed gut feelings were screaming at me so I placed an order for their first album. It was expensive to begin with and coming from the UK didn't help, but it was worth it. Fuzzy lo-fi weirdo surfy stuff that, honestly, out-psychs the new Satan's Pilgrims album (not that I don't like that album). I seem to remember finding something saying the lead guitarist went to grad school studying Indian music or something, I don't know

The Space Agency - You Make Me Nervous

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Alabama Kid - Rockin' Jalopy

this was on some garage compilation somewhere. I don't know anything about it... I don't even know if it's being played at the right speed considering that there's two other Youtube videos at different speeds. I do know I listened to it on repeat for a little while

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Lastly, here's some of the most kickass old-style zydeco I've heard. The only information I've been able to find so far is from a goldband records site saying he only recorded about five songs. 

Thaddus Declouet - Shake it Up All Night Long

Thaddus Declouet - Lake Charles Doo-Doo-Dia

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Hope we all had some fun. I'd love to hear about anything cool you've heard lately, I'm by no means some sort of guru (if you've been checking this site out often that much should be clear).

AND

Storm Surge of Reverb starts at 4PM today (2 hours from posting time) at www.wtulneworleans.com

The Hot Rodders - Big Hot Rod

Yet another Jerry Cole/Crown Hot Rod release, but really despite the budget label I think this is a fantastic album, better than yesterday's post with The Winners and on par with some of the more established surf classics. Not only are all the instrumentals fun in some manner, but the vocal tracks are as well. In fact, I'd say that without a doubt the standout here is "Spirit of America' in which an exploitation-film-style monotone voice tells you about an 11' tall, 60' long unbeatable dragster between evil laughs. This is the weird stuff y'all, and if nothing else this is worth it for that track alone

Side A:

1.  On the Track
2. Fine 39
3. 27 tub
4. Super Charged
5. The Screamer

Side B:

1.  Red Hot Rod
2. Spirit of America
3. Drag Shoot
4. Wild Willys
5. The Creamer

GET IT HERE

The Winners - Checkered Flag

The Winners are another of the many Crown Records surf/drag budget albums that (according to this blog) had Jerry Cole behind them. I love Jerry Cole dearly and at first the word "budget" seems a little unfair for this album, as it's all pretty competent and even has some songs that I'd call a lot of fun. But when considered alongside other Crown records budget releases (I found this alongside The Hot Rodders - Big Hot Rod (probably next up on this blog) and a few others), you'll find that they recycle songs from one album to the other. They're played differently, but it's pretty funny to see them attach so many different names to "Hey Bo Diddley". 

But if we take a look at what this album is, first I'd like to include the review from the flea market vendor who sold it to me (who had some pretty kickass old hot rod magazines too), "I think it's just a recording of a bunch of hot rod race track sounds". I knew he was wrong but I still thought "YESSSSSSSS". And sure enough, there's plenty of that interspersed throughout

We're looking at about half and half vocal and instrumental tracks. The vocal tracks, even though I've gained a pretty big love for hot rod vocals, are nothing special or even particularly funny. I think this album really gets fun right on the second side with "down lok", "up lok" and the real choice cut "Cops and Rodders". Three points to whoever can identify the real names of some of these, listening to all these Crown releases has kind of gotten me confused.

Side A:

1. Drop That Flag
   
2. Uptown Model A
3. Big Boss Man
4. Checkered Flag
5. Stick Shiftin

Side B:

1. Wind Her Up
2. Runnin Second
3. Down Lok
4. Up Lok
5. Cops and Rodders

GET IT HERE

1. 
   

The Delusionaires - Destination Poon

I don't really remember how I found the Delusionaires, but it was clear what I liked about them: these is crass, lo-fi surf & greasy instrumentals.  They have an outdated website but their material is currently unavailable. Note that they sell just as many panties as they do T-Shirts, clearly a good indicator.

I e-mailed the site to see if I could get a legit copy of their album. No, but I was told it's been posted on a French blog with their blessing. So what's another one

http://www.4shared.com/file/105638035/9eac8d9a/The_Delusionaires_-_Destination_Poon.html

Apparently they just recently reformed and played a show somewhere on Thursday. Keep an eye out

Go Go With The Buddies

What's this? Rock & Roll Hoo-Ha What What updated?
Yes!
And it's an LP?
Yes!
And it's not another budget album of trash?
Almost!

As the book Pop Surf Culture point out, this album was a budget-priced cash-in on the surf craze (wasn't it all a cash-in?) and it even tries to catch a few more crazes with songs about skiing, hot-rods, and motorcycles. The thing is, it actually doesn't suck at all!

I must have bought this album years ago and likely heard a trace of vocals, instantly puked all over the place, and never returned until this past week when I was contemplating whether to include it in my upcoming garage sale. Now that I'm not such a big baby, I sat through those vocals and to be honest, really kind of enjoyed them. In particular "I'll Surf Around the World", where the vocalist vastly underestimates the amount of surfer girls in the world and pledges to surf with them, and "Sickle Rider's Rule" which stands as a Smithsonian example of surf lingo overused to a comic effect.

But really, I'm holding back on the killer part: Davie Allan provides the backing tunage and the album includes some sizzling skateboarding-themed instrumentals such as "Sidewalk Surfin' Scene" and "Skateboard U.S.A.", which was covered by the Krontjong Devils on their "On Tour!!!" album.

Krontjong Devils - Skateboard USA

I have to hand it to the producer Mike Curb too -  Ski Jump is an instrumental with songwriting credits going solely to him and it's just as good. Really, it's a seriously good album and none of the songs are bad. It even made me go and give my Fantastic Baggys album another try. Puked everywhere.

Side A:

1. Little Iddy Biddy Buddy Rider
2. Skateboard USA
3. I'll Surf Around the World
4. Ski Jump
5. Wanda On Her Honda

Side B:

1. Ski City USA
2. Sickle Rider's Rule
3. Sidewalk Surfin' Scene
4. The Surf Is In
5. Mean Little Monza

GET IT HERE

STORM SURGE OF REVERB NOON CST TODAY

I wish that weren't so busy that I could squeeze some good music posts in between radio posts. But that's not the case so in the meantime check out www.wtulneworleans.com @ noon for some blistering instro

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post show playlist:

El Ray - Volcano
THe Sentinals - Surf 'n Soul
The Sidemen - Persuaders
The Bambi Molesters - Beach Murder Mystery
The Bahareebas - Dunewalking

Al Casey - Surfin' Blue
Treblemakers - The Hearse
Lord Limey 'n the Yanks
Mysterious Tape Man - Track 1 (meant to play Asteroid. Whoops!)
Gnee Walker & His Combo - Empire City
Dave Myers & THe Surf Tones - Church Key

Tremolo Beer Gut - Last Booze Fighter
Galaxy Trio - Strip Search
Jerry Cole - Stinger
Richie Allen - Put It On
Earthworms - Fishtail
Jan & Dean - Barons, West LA
Jim Waller & The Deltas - Surfin' Wild

Johnny Thunders - Pipeline
Jonny & the Shamen - Agent 13
Royal Pendletons - Cross Firing
Gallon Drunk - Get Ready (another whoops)

Bo Diddley - Scuttle Bug
Ernie Freeman - Puddin'
Ernie Fields - In The Mood
The Bikinis - Boogie Rock & Roll
The Yellow Jackets - Chickee Town Rock

Mach Kung Fu - Fever
The Fleshtones - One Four Five
The Tiki Men - Theme From the Unknown
THe Blue Demons - East Bay
Urban Surf Kings - Snow Plow
The Volcanos - War Drums

The Atomic Mosquitos - The Liquidators
Impala - Jet Action Brunette
Swiv-o-Matics - She Dances On Bars
Switch Trout - Searchin' For My Boots
Atomic 7 - Theme From Atomic 7
The Ramblin' Ambassadors - Kamikaze

Dick Dale - Peppermint Man
Spring Break Shark Attack - Blood Ocean
Surf Teens - Surfin' Tragedy
The Shadows - Frightened City

Stories in Sound - Space Battle

SSOR Tomorrow at NOON EST

So my surf show is now at a listenable time and, for the summer, a half-hour longer. In fact, I'm going to be DJing for the hour preceding SSOR, but I don't think anybody wants to listen to 3 hours of surf any more than I want to DJ it.

That's Thursday, May 14th at Noon CST @ www.wtulneworleans.com. As always, playlist will follow broadcast

Apemen - Shake Your Hoover
Preston Epps - Bongo Rock
The Tiki Men - That's The Way It Goes
Mustangs - Dartell Stomp
Virg, Murf & Prof - Way Out
Ernie Freeman - Raunchy

The Revels - Comanche
The Bikinis - Bikini
Lee Allen - Cat Walk
Irving Ashby - Big Guitar
Baby Cortez - Getting Right

Jorgen Ingmann - Apache
Guitar Gable -Guitar Rhumbo
Classie Ballou - Classie's Whip
The Dynatones - Steel Guitar Rag
Flat Duo Jets - Dexter's Lament
Teisco Del Rey - Camel Walk
Freddie King - Heads Up
The 5.6.7.8s - Green Onions
Lonnie Mack - Wham!
Chuck Berry - Berry Pickin'
Tom & Jerry - Rumble
(a break somewhere in there)

Jerry Cole & His Spacemen - Power Surf
The Chantays - Pipeline
Jon & the Nightriders - Depth Charge
The Busters - Bust Out... at 33rpm

The Busters - Bust Out at 45
Richie Allen & The Pacific Sufers - Surfer's Delight
The Super Stocks - Rendondo Beach
Urban Surf Kings - Moguls
The Lively Ones - Surf Rider

The Pyramids - Penetration
The Halibuts - Surf Drums
MOAM - Static Ding
The Volcanos - Pompeii
Ramblin' Ambassadors - Frank Slide Song
Switch Trout - COLAL

Barbwires - Thor Island Thunder
The Bills - ?
The New Dimensions - Misirlou
The Royaltones - Royal Whip
Los Straitjackets - My Heart Will Go ON

Mediocre Surf Double Post: The New Hawks and Pat Salvador

Although it's certainly nice to post really good music on this blog (and I've got some comin' down the tubes), the main thing I like about this blog is having these things up here for others to fill in the missing information on (huge thanks to the guy who dropped some Johnny Zorro knowledge recently, that's one of my favorite things on here (and my first post)). I believe that all music deserves to have that information preserved and to have some sort of internet acknowledgement of its existence. Especially if it's surf. So neither of these are particularly wonderful, but... I don't know. They're definitely kind of interesting in their own ways.


The New Hawks actually have some information about themselves here and there, but frankly I wasn't that interested. What made me appreciate this 45 was not the obvious surf covers on the B-Side but the hilariously cheesy voiceovers on

The James Bond Theme

I mean, these really aren't poorly executed, but don't have the oomph for me to want to put them on all that often. In fact, I think their cover of Walk Don't Run (with Pipeline in there too) is less boring than most renditions I've heard. But then again, I hate that song.

Walk Don't Run\Pipeline

Now Pat Salvador and the Dufrene Brothers is a little different. Really, it's a stretch to call it surf since we're talking covers of the pre-surf instro band Johnny and the Hurricanes and Santo and Johnny's classic not-really-surf song Sleepwalk. Now I have no idea when this was, but judging by the Houma Records and the name Dufrene, I'd wager these guys are coming from the Louisiana area, which explains the delivery pretty well. It's more jazzy than rockin'... and pretty cheesy
Red River Rock

Sleepwalk

Wiggles and Waggles - Hey! Mr. Hoolihan \ Rock and Roll Session

Wiggles and Waggles are a joke band as far as I can tell, though I'm not able to find anything more than this single. The songwriting credits go to Roy Bennet and Sid Tepper, who have written tons of songs for Elvis, Dean Martin, Andy Williams, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Eartha Kitt, Frank Sinatra, Cliff Richard, just look up Roy Bennet on wikipedia. Given the nature of these songs, I would venture a guess that this is their own little project, since there doesn't seem to be any other star involved, at least in a prominent way.

I held off on posting this because if you'd take a gander up there, my copy of Rock and Roll Session is completely destroyed, but I knew I'd heard it somewhere. Sure enough, I turn to the Las Vegas Grind series of compilations, who have what sounds like the exact same thing (it's not exactly coverable) under the name Louie Overseas with the song title changed to "A Studio Session". Sure, sometimes compilations foul up the name in hopes to get away without paying royalties, but this doesn't even give a hint. So here's their copy, not in terrificly better shape than mine. I've renamed it to the real thang
Rock and Roll Session

Hey! Mr. Hoolihan is much more musical (I've played it on my surf show). It's a fun rock & roll instrumental with occaisional vocal bits contemplating the vaguely scandalous thing affecting their friend Mr. Hoolihan.
Hey! Mr. Hoolihan

Other blog watch

So I had a sort of "secret weapon" by The Goofers that I was ready to post but somebody beat me to the punch. Sure, they weren't really spotlighting the song, but it's a much better quality version than I would have posted. In fact, I've been calling it "surf rock with bagpipes" until I heard an actual non-scratchy-45 version which, well you'll see. Then again... my side didn't say Take 2! I might give it another listen. Regardless, it's really fun, and while I'm posting the MP3's I got from his blog post, the entire album can be got at Be Bop Wino's blog. It's a cool album, check it out. But if you just want to hear the Goofers, here's your shortcut.

The Goofers - Scotch on the Rocks (take 2)



The Goofers - Head Hunters is jungle themed, this time I'm pretty sure. This is always cool in my book

I would post a picture of the label but I'm on a ski trip.

Meanwhile, Kahuna Kawentzmann made an excellent post recently with all sorts of incredible links of the history of surfing. Not much about the music, but I'm always digging for some of the pictures you can get in those links.

Porky Harris & His Fantabulous Five - Porkypine \ Pigpen

I don't know what's up today, I don't have any stupid comments to write about this mystery band with a stupid name. I guess it's all kinda laid out for you. Dude somehow earned the nickname Porky and went wild with it, made a single. Did he ever make another one? Not that the internet has been finding for me. The closest thing I've found is a discography of Crystalette 45s which would indicate "no, he didn't", though finally for one of these 45s I've got a date: 1958

So soak up the Porky Harris you've got here, you won't get any more. Porky Pine is plain ol' instrumental R&B with plenty of wailin' saxamaphone
Porkypine


Pig Pen is a similar deal, though employing the wondeful instrumental tactic of stopping the music to announce the name of the song, sorta like Church Key. A note though, there was one tiny little bump of scum on the 45 that I couldn't get out. I've tried to doctor the skip it produced but it doesn't sound TOTALLY natural. But unless somebody else has this 45 (and ebay searches don't make it seem too promising) this is all you're going to get.
Pig Pen