NOTES
Banzai hot
doggers, the
Phantom
Surfers (right),
are true to the
surf. From left
to right: Mel
"Frostbite"
Berlman,
Michael
"Daddy Love"
Lucas, Rollin'
Danny Seelig,
and John
"Big Hand"
Bartlett.
Mermen
drummer
Martyn Jones
(below) keeps
the beat to a
wet but not
watered-
down modern
surf sound.
Pure surfer reverb floats through the
fog, carrying the songs of a nation of
wave riders. It echoes over the lonely
sand and rolls with the strums of end-
less point breaks. Without words, surf
sounds evoke images of pirate wave
riders snaking each other in the line-
up, kooks getting pummeled by in-
coming sets and the infinite beauty of
the ocean. Since its inception in the
late fifties, the tide of instrumental
surf music has come and gone count
less times, but a strong undercurrent
has always remained. The Phan-
tom Surfers modulate thick and
authentic big wave tones on vintage
Fender guitars, amps and reverb
units to convey the profound sound of
pioneer bands like The Crossfires,
The Lively Ones and the once and
forever father of the surf guitar, Dick
Dale. "You can never have too much
reverb," says bassist Michael Lucas
He describes the Phantomic sound
as "Big and wet. It's cavernous, like
when the waves crash into a big
cave. And it's definitely dripping." The
watery echo of reverb on the guitar
creates secondary tones that com-
bine with primary tones to spawn the
mysterious harmonics Lucas calls
phantom notes. "The whole notion of
reverb puts something between you
and what you're listening to," he
says. "In the process of trying to pick
out the melody line, you hear phan-
tom notes that aren't actually being
played, but you get these elusive
images of them. It creates subhar-
monics; stuff that's still echoing
around combines with stuff that's just
being played. It captures a sound that
a lot of people haven't heard in
awhile. An album entitled 18 Deadly
Ones on Norton flaunts the Phan-
tom's sound in full masked West
FROM THE
UNDERGROUND
had heart attacks. We have to get
people with heart conditions to leave
before we bring her out. Soon, people
will have to sign waivers saying we're
not responsible for any sudden death
brought on by high notes or dancing."
...Surfers like Jim Thomas of The
Mermen will always put waves first
and music second. "For me, guitar
playing and surfing have been com-
pletely entangled," says Thomas,
who lives near Ocean Beach in San
Francisco, where the surf gets as tall
as telephone poles. "My favorite thing
in the world has been surfing and liv-
ing at the beach practically homeless
and having a guitar and a couple of
surf boards. I love surfing more than
Coast fashion with chunky, haunting anything, more than playing the gui
instrumental ravers like "Sewer
Peak," "Horror Beach" and "20,000
Leagues Under The Surf." A five-
song, seven-inch includes "Banzai
Washout," "Orbitron" and a
76 TAHER MAGAZINE
cover photo of official
Phantom go-go girl.
Danielle. "When
she gets up
and shakes
it, people's
eyes bug
out," says
Lucas.
"We've
tar. The Mermen's self-produced
tapes Krill Slippin and Live: Unre-
leased Tracks showcase original
instrumentals that project melodic
images of enchanted surfscapes with
tunes like "Over the Falls," "Neptune's
Revenge" and "Big Day at the Bay"
Write the Mermen at 3100 Vicente.
#202, SF, CA 94116. Jon Ander
son played guitar in seminal surf
bands Eddie and The Showmen,
The Deltones and The Challengers
in the sixties, and nowadays he plays
surf sounds in a Santa Cruz combo
called the Neon Spores. Rhythm gu
tarist Roger Rush says, "John just
leans back and plays the meanest
surf music around. It's clean guitar,
no distortion and very few effects,
mostly outboard reverb that gives that
little watery, popping sound. We're
trying to get the feeling of the waters
crashing over you with the guitars...
Radio DJ Phil Dirt spins traditional
and modern surf sounds every Satur-
day night on KFJC from Foothill Col
lege in Los Altos, California. He says
surf music is alive as ever. There's
jazz surf, country surt and plenty of
metal bands that will do 'Pipeline' or
Wipeout," he says. "The Jesus and
Mary Chain were actually working on
a full surf music album, but they only
recorded two songs. MOD did a
surfin' metal album. There's surf rap
with the Surf MC and Thermo.
There's a real long rap that mentions
just about every surf spot from S.F. to
Santa Cruz. The only thing I can think
of that I haven't seen is cajun."...
Modern master of kaleidoscopic art
Robert Williams says. "Hot rod
music and surf music are cousins. If
you went back in time, you'd run into
this really wild rockabilly and country
and western music," he says. "Hot
rod music always had a real driving
kind of beat. It's what they used to
refer to as tough; I think they call it
bad now." Williams collected forty-
three songs testifying to fast drag
action and placed them on a double
picture disc set etched with illustra-
tions of racing roadsters to make an
essential collector's album called
Chrome, Smoke & Fire. The music
spans the years 1946 to 1989 and
includes everything from country and
rockabilly to rock and roll, surf music
and some good, old-fashioned, in-
your-face punk... John Blair of Jon
and the Nightriders says you don't
have to surf to play surf music, but
you have to at least know the power
of the ocean. "Real good surf music
is always real heavy and powerful,"
says Blair. "It's for anybody that's
ever surfed or been out in the ocean
up to their necks and felt the power of
waves. That's what real good surf
music reminds me of the power, the
force." Blair compiled Guitar Player
Magazine's Legends of Guitar-Surf
Volume One which features a virtual
who's who of early surf music. Dick
Dale double-picks towering leads on
"A Run For Life, then there's The
Lively Ones" "Surf Rider," The Chan-
tay's follow-up to "Pipeline" called
"Beyond," the original "Baja" by The
Astronauts (an early surf band from
Boulder, Colorado) and the fiery
"Squad Car by Eddie and the
Showmen, to name a few. Blair also
compiled a Best Of Dick Dale, which
showcases the legendary "Dick Dale
sound" and is essential listening for
any serious student of surf. The
Nightriders have a long-awaited new
album out called Stampede that rum-
bles on with studio precision rendi-
tions of classic pounding surf tunes.
Blair is also the author of two books
The Mustrated Discography of Surf
Music and The Illustrated Discogra
phy of Hot Rod Music, published by
Popular Culture Ink... There's an
incredible amount of surf sounds out
there. Dig Primal Twang by San
Jose's Shockwaves. Some Kind of
Fun and More Gone Gassers by The
Untamed Youth. Catch some vintage
surf blasts with Diggin' Out, featuring
Fenderized cuts from 1962-65 by
Dave and the Customs, The Chev
elles and The Lonely Ones. Waikiki
Surf Battle is a chronicle of concerts
from '63 and 64 which included The
Renegades and the all-female Angle
& the Originals -Brian Brannon
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