an ordinary boy an ordinary name

Last night instead of doing work I said to myself I would get up this morning and attack it "both guns blazing!". Anyways I did a chunk of what I was supposed to do, like pay my visa bill (now that I work in the world of credit I need to practice what I preach!). But now I sit here at the university library trying to write a god damned master's thesis and I'm here on the Internet. Ugh. Today is a beautiful sunny day and I had a sweet BMX ride. I felt at one with the force. We're going with some historical stuff today, the theme is SURF MUSIC!


OK so apparently surf music divides itself into to 2 main sub genres. SURF ROCK and SURF POP. Let's start with with a surf rock band. THE ATLANTICS from Australia and their biggest hit BOMBORA. For those who don't know a bombora is an indigenous word for a big ass wave that breaks over underwater rock shelves. Listen to this first and we will go into more detail about surf rock.



Now lets move on to the creator of the surf guitar and one of the biggest influences in the advancement of electric guitar technology. DICK DALE, the first guy to play on a 100watt amp he and Leo Fender forced JB Lansing to make a speaker that could handle the raw energy. Anything loud and distorted can be traced back to Dick Dale. He is by far one of my favorite musicians. Most recognized by his song MISIRLOU in Pulp Fiction. He was a true L.A. King being number 1 on the L.A. charts against the British Invasion stuff that was popular in the 60's. Surf rock is this "wet" reverb-ed fast music that makes you think of waves crashing against a beach. It was also liked by surfers. MISRLOU is actually a greek song that literally means Egyptian girl. Dick Dale took it to the next level. The video is also REALLY cool.



Now we must head into SURF POP. Where surf rock sounds like surf, surf pop TALKS about surf. I really love both. THE BEACH BOYS. They started out as straight surf pop but as they(Brian Wilson) evolved they went into some severly mind bending shit. The internet has talked about Smile / Smiley Smile enough already but hey what can I do, it's the nature of the beast. GOOD VIBRATIONS. A song he wrote while he was on a touring break from the Beach Boys cause his dad abused him or something messed up like that. Glen Campbell actually replaced him on that tour (wtf). Anyways Smile was an aborted album cause it was too hard for the band to play and his dad/manager thought it was too weird. Pet Sounds was a compromise of sorts. Listen to how amazing GOOD VIBRATIONS be ( yeah I said be).



BONUS ENVY.

Now I give you a shittier version of the beach boys, JAN AND DEAN. Brian Wilson sings falsetto on their biggest hit Surf City which tells you something. They still kind of have an influence on punk though. This song is SIDEWALK SURFIN. The first song about skateboarding. pretty fucking rad.