Weekend Playlist: Surfin' Around the World

JasonToon had some videos to watch said
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Hey, it’s one of those weekend playlists I used to do, only now in the forums instead of on the front page. And on Friday, so you can actually enjoy it any time during the entire weekend. I’m tanned, rested, and ready to spin some choice imaginary wax - this time, it’s surf wax…

What does “surf rock” have to do with surfing? The unquestioned king of the surf guitar, Dick Dale, was indeed an enthusiastic surfer, and his sound was forged playing to rowdy surfer crowds in the beach towns of Southern California. But the music itself - sinewy, echoing guitar lines over pounding, rolling rhythms - exudes an exotic moodiness that touches people like me who will never shoot a single curl in their lives.

I prefer the description by Quentin Tarantino, who kicked off '60s surf rock’s mainstream '90s revival when he used Dale’s “Misirlou” in Pulp Fiction: “spaghetti Western rock ‘n’ roll”. The surf sound transcends subcultural boundaries - and, as we’ll see here, national ones. Let’s surf around the world with 12 tracks from 12 countries, from every inhabited continent, from the Equator to the Arctic Circle (also compiled in a YouTube playlist).

The Joy Boys - “Boots, Saddle and Surfboard” (Australia, 1964)
The Joy Boys were Australian rock ‘n’ roller Col Joye’s backing band, and included two of his brothers. In the only country in the world with a surf scene that could match the USA’s, they rode a string of melodic instrumentals with surf-themed titles into their own chart hits. The Joy Boys would play those songs to warm up the crowd for Col, a kind of setup established by British star Cliff Richard and his band, the Shadows. (More about them later.)

The Taifuns - “Big Ben” (West Germany, 1964)
A German band salutes the most English of landmarks with a quintessential California sound. Somehow it all makes sense.

The Panthers - “Malkaus” (Pakistan, 1968)
Whoa. When I first heard this song on a CD of vintage Pakistani pop, my jaw hit the floor. A brief Islamic-style wailing vocal gives way to a ruthlessly tight rock ‘n’ roll churn topped with dueling guitar and organ. What an amazing world we live in.

Echo Tones - “Low Down Guitar” (Canada, 1963)
All I know about these wailers is that they were Canadian, and that they imbibed deeply of the twang of Duane Eddy and the rumble of Link Wray, both key proto-surf guitar influences.

The Snapshots - “Black Magic” (Norway, 1963)
Norway produced a whole wave (sorry) of instrumental guitar bands so directly influenced by the Shadows (them again, yeah, we’ll get to them in a minute) that the genre was called shadowstida.

The Fantastic Baggys - “Ride the Wild Surf” (South Africa, 1966)
Weird story here. Two studio musicians in California (including P.F. Sloan, soon famous for “Eve of Destruction”) recorded a novelty surf record as the Fantastic Baggys, then promptly moved on to other things. Unbeknownst to them, it was released in South Africa and became a huge hit. So the South African record label recruited a local band, the Falling Leaves, to record enough songs to fill out two more albums as the Fantastic Baggys. This is one of those songs. There were very few other surf records released in South Africa despite its huge surf scene - more proof that the music and the sport don’t necessarily follow each other.

The Mefisto Band - “Monika” (Czechoslovakia, 1965)
The relatively liberal Czech communist regime kept the Mefisto Band as a kind of pet rock band to back up regime-approved pop singers who were straining to sound more contemporary. Their own records were heavily instrumental - not a bad idea when you’re living under an authoritarian dictatorship, even a “nice” one.

The Shadows - “Man of Mystery” (England, 1960)
Finally, the Shadows I keep talking about. Their day job was backing England’s homegrown Elvis, Cliff Richard. But bespectacled guitarist Hank Marvin was more than capable of holding the spotlight on his own. Their atmospheric instrumentals (and coordinated stage moves) made them stars in their own right. They certainly didn’t consider their music as having anything to do with surfing, and some purists would object to my including them here. But my reply is simple: listen to this song.

Takeshi Terauchi & the Bunnys - “Dark Eyes” (Japan, 1969)
Dig that crazy shamisen! The three-stringed Japanese instrument brings an unmistakable Asian flavor to this surf-rock version of an Eastern European folk tune. That kind of genre collision was guitar whiz Terauchi’s stock in trade: he also recorded albums of classical tunes and Christmas songs in his Japanese surf-rock style.

Johnny Devlin’s Devils - “Hamburgers and Coke” (New Zealand, 1960)
Another backing band stepping out on their own a la the Shadows and the Joy Boys. And another band that was surf rock before surf rock had a name.

Los Holy’s - “Holys Sicodélicos” (Peru, 1966)
These South Americans, on the other hand, came along after surf rock’s heyday, and paid lip service to the new psychedelic orthodoxy. But this brooding number is every bit a surf tune.

The Creations - “Crash” (USA, 1964)
Let’s bring it all back home. For every surf-pop hit machine like the Beach Boys and Jan & Dean, for every surf band that scored a left-field hit like the Ventures, the Surfaris, and the Trashmen, there were dozens of hopefuls across America waxing their own reverb-drenched two-minute symphonies. The Creations hailed from the un-surfy shores of Connecticut and released one single on the adorably named Top Hat Records. It went nowhere, and so did the Creations. Yet here we are, talking about it 53 years later.

Now you can casually mention to your friends that you’ve been getting into surf rock from Pakistan and Czechoslovakia, and they can all hate you for being such a pompous hipster. Or you can just put this playlist on and turn them into pompous hipsters too.

For real, y’all: it’s great to be back playlisting for the Meh crowd. Hope this one gets you cowabunga-ing in every language.

More obscurities can be dusted off in our past weekend playlists: