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[man] And we're rolling.

Alright, here we go.

Strange beautiful grass of green

with your majestic silver seas

Your mysterious mountains

I wish to see closer.

May I land my kinky machine?

Although your world wonders me...

[Jimi Hendrix] with your majestic and superior

cackling hen.

Your people, I do not understand

So to you, I shall put an end...

and you'll...

never hear surf music again.

Those are the words of Jimi Hendrix

that have have been cited

thousands of times, as if Jimi was saying

surf music had died in the 60s

And it couldn't be further from the truth.

Hendrix was wrong.

[The Madeira plays “Sandstorm ” ]

[waves crashing ]

[The Eliminators plays “The Lonely Sea ”]

Just like Motown for Detroit and Reggae for Jamaica

It was a local regional music that came out

of the lives of young kids in Southern California.

The growth of surf music was

really quite phenomenal.

It started in 1961 in Southern California

with only a handful of bands

and a handful of recordings

And within a year or two, there were

hundreds of recordings by hundreds of bands

across the country.

In the beginning, it was just about the

music and the surfers enjoying the music

and embracing it and claiming it as their own.

[Howard Kaylan] Surf music is a bunch of kids on a beach around

a bonfire and just having the best time

without any social obligations or school pressures.

And there was no future and no war and no

economy and nothing to worry about.

[Bill Medley] I was attracted to the simplicity and the energy of it.

that's what rock and roll is and was...

was simplicity and energy.

I dropped the flute like a hot potato

because I loved the guitar.

[Bob Berryman] Because there were no sound systems

we knew that we couldn't hear the voice anyway.

And we were more interested in the melodic

and in the power!

Surf music truly is rock instrumental

with a reverb tank.

There's something about the sound of instrumental

surf music that flips a switch with people.

There's something magic that happens.

Something magic that happens with the audience.

They regress, they start feeling younger.

They want to get up out of their seats and dance.

[Will Glover] We had those amps.

It was that kind of music where they didn't care.

It was the fun of the music, because it was loud!

There's no pretension.

There's no hidden meanings.

There's no message.

It's just pure unadulterated fun.

[sound of static]

[sound of film projector]

In the early sixties my family lived

in Montclair, Southern California.

A little dry dusty town in the Inland Empire

on the edge of the Mojave Desert.

Montclair was removed from ground zero

of surf music by 40 or 50 miles.

But, I got a transistor radio in 1959

and that opened up the world to me.

[radio tunes]

K-Earth 101, the king of the surf guitar

Dick Dale and the Del-Tones.

[The Del-Tones play “Surf Beat ”]

And one day, in 1961...

I'm listening to K-MEN in San Bernardino

And they were the first radio station to actually play...

Dick Dale's first record.

Once I heard my first Dick Dale record

I was hooked on that kind of music

And I started collecting surf records left and right.

And at the same time, I was learning how to play guitar.

Bands like Dick Dale and the Del-Tones

The Challengers

they were like my teachers.

And a few years later, I realized

that I had several thousand records.

And I discovered that there had been surf bands

from every state in the Union

and from almost every overseas country.

It was just an amazingly diverse form of music

that had spread like wildfire.

And so I wondered where did this music come from

to begin with? What happened to it?

Did it really go away?

If it did, why?

[The Tom Morey Band play “Cannon Blues ”]

The outside world didn't really view

surfers, all that much at first because

there was just so few of them and it was

more or less seen as a...

He-man athletic pursuit

that was very rare.

or drawing of surfers would appear on

the travel magazines.

Surfing as a culture, kind of flew in the face

of mainstream culture.

It was non-productive, kind of hedonistic...

pleasure seeking, responsibility avoiding kind of thing.

And no, self-respecting, parent would

endorse their children pursuing that

in exchange for school and career...

because our parents were all children of the depression.

For them it was security.

As a surfer

you were getting the idea

that maybe that was a false god.

Maybe there were other things that were important.

There was a real high priority on

having a job, everybody wanted to have a job

and be productive and be contributing to society

and all of that kind of thing.

If you said you were a surfer, it was like

you were a drop-out of that.

And you were sort of.

By the time, surf music exploded

in Southern California

in the early 60s, surfing culture had pretty much

been firmly established here

at least since the late 50s.

As surfers, we'd drive to the beach and get jacked up

to the music on the car radio.

Interestingly, the music that we were

surfing to at that time was probably jazz.

[Jazz plays on radio]

We'd get some beer and go to some guys house.

Trying to get some girls to come over

and put on Jazz records.

Like Herbie Mann at the Village Gate.

Miles Davis, Henry Mancini,

the theme to Peter Gunn, theme to Black Saddle.

In Newport was a place called

The Rendezvous Ballroom and my parents found

out about the Rendezvous and started taking

me there when I was maybe fourteen.

And during a wonderful several year period

I heard every major big band that would come through.

Gene Krupa's band, and Les Brown, Woody Herman

Stan Kenton, Tommy Dorsey, Jimmy Dorsey.

To be there on the Bandstand and

watching the band and the vocalists

and the drummers and all that was

God, it was marvelous.

And then we start going down to the

Lighthouse in Hermosa Beach and there's a

bunch of guys from The Stan Kenton Orchestra

that are playing, there's Shelly Manne

is the drummer

Howard Rumsey on bass

Conte Candoli -trumpet

Shorty Rogers -trumpet, Bob Cooper -sax

Bud Shank -sax.

And one of the more innovative filmmakers was Bruce Brown

And Bruce Brown, would go down to the Lighthouse

'cause that's where the jazz was played.

[Jazz music plays]

The reason that jazz was adapted to surfing

by surfers, was that it had kind of a

lyrical flowing surf like environment it created

and surfing the wave was a sort of improvisational

and jazz was improvisational.

It was about virtuosity and Jazz was about

individual instrumental virtuosity.

So, there were really lots of

kind of symbiotic, aspects of the two forms of expression.

[Jazz music plays]

These artists like Henry Mancini

Les Baxter and Martin Denny were looking for

an atmosphere and that atmosphere really

gelled with beach culture, and ultimately

surf culture.

It really wasn't as much of an idea of a

California culture, it was like a transplanted

Hawaiian thing.

They kind of wanted to be like Hawaiians.

In that kind of later 50s time frame

the fact that the board went from 100 lb

piece of dense wood to a light 30 or 40 lb

fiberglassed balsa wood board

surfboards became even more

accessible when foam came out in ‘59

so, they could make as many boards as they

needed to fill the demand.

The sport had gone from maybe 500, 1500 surfers

to five, six, seven or 8000 surfers

And that's where it was

when the movie Gidget came out.

[Instrumental music plays]

One day, I came to Malibu and there was a

shack there and I think Harry Stonelake

and “Tubesteak ” built it.

Different guys would hang out there 'cause there

was some shade. Terry Tracy, who was living,

there was married and lived elsewhere, like

Englewood or something.

He was at the shack a lot and he would just

just hang there, you know, and hang

out with guys and get them to buy him some

beer and stuff like that, and he named Gidget.

There was a girl midget that arrived on the scene

and sets up headquarters.

She goes home and tells her daddy all this stuff.

Her daddy writes a book.

I remember the day that my father picked me

up at Malibu and drove me home.

It was in the Dynaflow Buick as my board

was sticking out of the back.

I turned to him and I said: “I'd like to write a story

about what's going on at Malibu. ”

And my father said: “Why don't you tell me

everything? And I'll write the story for you.

I'm the writer. ”

So I started telling him...

that I was called Gidget at Malibu

which meant girl midget.

I told him about Terry “Tubesteak ” Tracy that

lived in a shack with Harry Stonelake.

And I told him how incredibly interesting

the lifestyle that I thought Malibu was.

It was all about what was outside and I

thought the whole sorta lifestyle was

fascinating that there were surfboards... young men

There was somebody living in a shack and we

were waiting for the wave.

[Music plays]

That book really was... I don't know

they're going: “bitchin”, “rocket bombs ” and

“Go, Gidget, go! ” “Shoot the Curl! ”

God! Can you believe that? I can't.

Columbia Studios bought the rights to the novel

and in 1959, the Hollywood version hits theaters nationwide.

[Music plays]

The movie comes out, everybody loved the movie

except, for guess whom? Surfers.

The movie Gidget was kind of interesting.

These days, it would be pooh- poohed.

The surfers would sneeze at it.

But, when it came out, it was the first acknowledgement

by the mainstream world of surfing.

The theme song to the movie was sung by James Darren.

It became a top 100 hit record

in the spring of 1959.

When the Gidget film comes out, a teenage

culture, emerges in a completely different environment.

You're not seeing skyscrapers, you're not seeing

buildings, you're not seeing metal microphones,

you're seeing a shack in the sand next to

water and luminous waves that people are

zooming in and out of with these little boards.

This is just unprecedented and no one's

seen anything like this.

It may me cool

and it glorified the surf culture, even

though it did it sort of in a dorky way.

Every time Hollywood touches surfing

they goof it up.

Even when surfers try to do surfing...

they don't get it right.

So when Hollywood does it, what are they

going to get?

So, surfers were listening to jazz, and

rhythm and blues.

But where was the surf music?

[Film projector turns on]

There was no such thing as surf music at the time.

I never heard that expression.

Surf music?

[Bongo plays]

But, maybe somebody had a bongo drum.

When you're in the water

and Malibu is six to eight feet.

You're out there and here comes a set.

I guarantee you, you're not going to sit there

saying: “Oh, bro this is music to surf by. ”

You don't do that.

You just take off on waves.

Surfing films of the 1950s, were not seen

by all that many people.

Bud Browne had been making surfing movies

from about 1942, or ‘43

and showing them just at

lifeguard stations.

Greg Noll was making little

tiny films called Search for Surf .

Just before Gidget came out

Bruce Brown was doing his first movie

Slippery When Wet .

Gidget gives the ability

for these people to make full-length

features and draw larger audiences.

Once Gidget becomes popular, teenagers that

are into rock and roll, start gravitating

towards surfing.

In the surf movies, they wouldn't have

music synced on the footage itself.

It was just they turn on the projector.

He was just putting an album on and he put

on the soundtrack to Peter Gunn .

[Henry Mancini plays “Peter Gunn ”]

The Mancini Peter Gunn thing

was used for big waves at Sunset Beach.

We'd be looking at the screen and you'd see

this wave and you couldn't really tell what

was going on with it and all of a sudden you

see a couple of ants sweep up the face and

the driving “boom-boom-boom- boom ” and my God...

those waves were twenty-five feet.

And, you know, you just get jacked

out of your mind.

And so you started to see a lot of

interesting things come about from the filmmakers.

For instance, I remember a John Severson in

a film sequence at Secos of a hot

offshore morning, having Kemp Aubrey

play Flamenco guitar.

[Guitar music plays]

I honestly think that Bud Browne was

probably the first person to connect

instrumental music to the surf culture

because he acquired the Fireballs music,

right when it came out in the late 50s.

[The Fireballs play “Bulldog ”]

And he immediately started playing those albums

with his movies.

Things were changing

Civil Rights Movement was getting going.

Folk music was getting big

The Kingston Trio came along, so they were all

these kind of hints at what was going to

be developing culturally in the 60s.

it was still kind of in its youth.

Kids weren't really paying that much attention.

They were just doing their thing but in

reality 1959-1960 was a pretty bland

period musically.

What you were hearing on the radio just

before surf music broke was mostly teen idols in

heavily orchestrated material.

That was the era of Frankie Avalon and Bobby Rydell.

What are generally regarded as the

ones who tamed rock and roll down to

where it was safe and the early days of the

dangerous stuff were kind of over and

it was still about four years before

The Beatles came along.

With Elvis in the Army

and Chuck Berry busted by the Mann Act

and Little Richard finding religion

Jerry Lee Lewis getting busted for having a

wife who was 13.

On the flip side of that

big rock and roll stars were gone.

[sound of radio tuning]

We started to hear instrumental rock and roll

about 1956

with Bill Doggett and Honky Tonk .

[Bill Doggett plays ”Honky Tonk "]

And then Bill Justis had "Raunchy" in ‘57

And that had a really neat little echoey

Nashville sort of guitar twang to it.

[Duane Eddy plays “Rebel Rouser”]

And that was really exploited by Duane Eddy

who came out with " Rebel Rouser" in 1958.

On the flip side of that you had Link Wray,

"Rawhide" and " Rumble", and eventually " Jack the Ripper" .

Then, there was Johnny and the Hurricanes

with their full band, organ, saxophone

guitar riffs...

The Fireballs were from New Mexico

a little more Tex-Mex style

and starting to get a really tough, rock and

roll sounds that were based in guitar.

As a young guitar player, what really held

the fascination for me and the cool factor

was this new sound, this instrumental

guitar led rock and roll.

I was particularly attracted to the instrumental players

Duane Eddy, Link Wray.

That was probably the most vital stuff that

was going on at that time.

It was spontaneous and

exciting.

And they pretty much started

the kind of music that evolved into surf music in California.

And ultimately that

led to The Ventures.

[The Ventures plays “Walk Don't Run ”]

The Ventures had "Walk Don't Run" which was

like with Fireballs a straight guitar sound

with no saxophone.

And that was like the shot heard round the

world in 1960.

Walk Don't Run was a national Top 10 record

that inspired and influenced, thousands of

kids learning how to play guitar at the time

myself included and all the bands that we

played in, would play Walk Don't Run

as well as all of the other

guitar dominant instrumentals, that we were

hearing on the radio at the time.

[Sound of waves crashing]

It was 1955

that I found, my dad went crazy

A 1941 WLD Flathead Harley.

It was like it just came out of the military the way it was.

It was wild.

I lived in Southwest LA

My buddy Ray said to me, one day

“Let's go down to Balboa, check out the babes. ”

So we went on down there and pulled into

that town and it was something like

Alice in Wonderland.

It had the ferry that would take you

across the channel to Balboa Island.

You were on a peninsula

that was three miles long.

Because of our motorcycles I guess we scared

some of the people maybe and the police

invited us to leave.

So we left and came back in the car

brought our guitars with us.

A couple of guitars.

[Sound of film projector]

Well, as you walk down Balboa Boulevard,

you have the Fun Zone on the left, which is

bordering the bay and you have the

Rendezvous on the right after you've passed

the Balboa Theater, you're at

The Rinky-Dink.

This is an area that was populated with

people coming down for Easter Break.

For the summer time. We were playing

at the Rinky Dink on weekends

our audience, became primarily surfers.

And these were people that heard about us

from other surfers, from other people

even from Dick.

Everybody that was there looked

at least like they were part of the surf culture,

so this looked like a surf culture happening.

The Vox was for adults.

The Prison of Socrates was for folk music

so, the kids had no place to go.

So, when we moved to the Rendezvous, we were

a magnet.

Dick didn't set out to be a surf guitarist.

He wanted to be a country western singer.

What happened was he started playing at

the Rendezvous Ballroom, even though he

wanted to be up there singing

the kids say: “Play an instrumental. ”

Next week, Dick Dale was playing this song called

Let's Go Trippin' , that he made up.

[The Del-Tones play “Let's Go Trippin' ”]

The kids used to say: “Let's go trippin' down to the

beach, to hear Dick Dale play. ”

So, he wrote a song about it and it became

an anthem.

And from that grew another instrumental,

that grew another instumentral

and Dick wasn't calling it

surf music, he was calling it

The Dick Dale sound.

We went to the Rendezvous, we went there to

listen to the music and to dance and to

just be part of the celebration of all of

us having the common interest of surfing

and surf music.

I was surfing with seventeen surfers and I said:

“I'm playing tonight at The Rendezvous Ballroom

the biggest ballroom on the

peninsula.

Come on down, and have fun. ”

17 surfers.

That was my first audience.

They go: “You're the king, man

You're the king. That sound on your guitar. ”

Once we heard the Dick Dale surfer thing

it was like there's no turning back.

We had started surf music.

[Dick Dale & the Del-Tones play “Miserlou”]

Miserlou was an Eastern Mediterranean folk song

that had been around for centuries.

But I took it, from listening to my uncle playing

on an oud, the traditional way where it goes:

“Dong, da dong, da dong

dong, da dong, da dong. ”

And the belly dancers would come out.

And I said: “Well, that's too slow to play.

So, what do I do the Gene Krupa

drumming picking?

Tickety tockety, tickety tockety, tickety tah... ”

So, I went:

“Yeeeeoh...Dockety dah dun dun, dockety, dun dun dun

Diggity, dockety, diggity dockety, dah! ”

That's how that came to be!

And this song comes on the radio and I had never heard

anything like that before.

It really changed everything.

So all of a sudden kids were talking about

who's going to drive this weekend

to go down to the Rendezvous

to go to a Dick Dale stomp.

He was awesome.

Dick Dale was obviously a big influence and we would

all go down there and watch him, you know,

every Friday or Saturday night.

Everything was tight, strong, with an attitude.

With the combination of the bass, the rhythm guitar,

and the drums gave that animal feel to it.

Dick Dale's sound was just totally unique

from anything I'd ever heard before.

This sound was intense

and it was big.

Our music was the template of surf music in 1960

and we didn't have a name for the band yet

and it happened that Dick's sister Shirley

invited people to suggest names and somehow

the name Del-Tones came out.

So we were called Dick Dale and the Del-Tones

later it was changed to Dick Dale and His Del-Tones.

We just started filling

up the place.

Playing with The Del-Tones was just a gas.

It was like a dream come true.

I mean, I never thought in a million years

that I would end up doing anything like that.

And for a guy with all the little surf girls

around here, the place being packed

just seeing the lines of kids around the block

waiting to get in.

I didn't care about getting paid.

I didn't care about anything.

I just want to be a part of it.

We had a new sound, Dick emphasized being loud.

I wanted that tribal sound and I couldn't

find an amp that was powerful enough

to sound like Gene Krupa's drums

until I met Leo Fender.

He was like Einstein.

He says: “Here, I just made this one trying

to get the bugs out of it

why don't you bang on it and tell me what you think. ”

That gave me this big tribal

thunder where I'm going:

“Dun-Dun-Dada, Dun-Dun-Dada. ”

Like that.

Leo used to say: “If it can withstand the

barrage of punishment of Dick Dale, then it

is fit for the human consumption. ”

Leo Fender listened and worked with musicians at the time.

It was the work he did with Dick Dale

that led to the revolutionary

development of the Showman Amplifier

the most powerful amplifier at the time.

He also worked with Dick to develop the

Fender Reverb unit in 1961.

[music plays]

This was a device that gave a wet kind of a

drippy sound to the guitar and later that

sound became strongly associated with the

sound of surf music.

As soon as we started playing

they were on the dance floor.

Everybody reacted to the music.

Obviously, or they wouldn't be lining up to get in.

You could see that everybody was feeling the music

not listening to it, but feeling the music.

And thus, they started the Surfer Stomp

that went along with it.

[sound of stomping feet]

Of course you couldn't miss the sound of the Surfer Stomp.

I remember the couples, facing each other

just stomping away.

Kind of shuffling.

[The Del-Tones play]

There was an old wooden floor at the Rendezvous.

The floor would move up and down

you could kind of feel the whole building

moving, you know, it's sweaty

it's hot, they're stomping, it's loud, it was great.

It goes up to 4,000 people a night and

I kept adding to my band, bigger and bigger and bigger.

[sound of spotlight turning on]

[sound of typewriter]

Our music, attracted some attention with the

city officials.

[sound of police siren]

They said the guitar music was evil and

devil music.

There was a suggestion that we leave town.

They fired me and they didn't realize that

people were standing out in the line coming

in from all these places to watch us do

what we were doing.

And all of a sudden bands started playing

this new style of rock and roll that Dick Dale

and the Del-Tones were doing

this sound called surf music.

We were hanging around Torrance Beach in the early

summer of ‘61 and I kept hearing the surfers

they're talkin' about: “Hey man,

are you going down to the Rendezvous this

weekend? We're going down to see Dick Dale. ”

I had no idea what it was all about.

We went down ourselves to see what was

going on.

I was blown away.

[music plays]

I met this guy

Eddie Bertrand on a school bus in 1959,

and we discovered that we were both

fledgling guitarists.

Both Duane Eddy fans.

We got together and played guitars

one day and went: “Wow this is really neat. ”

I developed a style of rhythm guitar

playing that covered

it to sound complete with just Eddie and I.

[The Bel Airs play “Mr. Moto ”]

And that, ironically came to sort of be

regarded as the surf-style of rhythm playing.

The sound that we got

just fascinated us. So, we got a drummer

and we got a sax player.

It became a band.

We just decided we needed to be a band.

I was still learning my basic chords and I

was just learning how to play a bar

position B flat, and I was switching back

and forth between that and the D minor chord.

I started hearing this melody in my head

to go with that.

Right about that time

there was this wrestler in LA called "Mr. Moto".

That's the name for the song! So, we titled it

"Mr. Moto".

"Mr. Moto" was one of the first 45 rpm records

I bought as a kid.

I really liked the chord changes

and the melody.

It was probably the first instrumental

I learned how to play on the guitar.

I did the musical arrangements and Eddie

played the lead guitar and Delvy was the business manager.

I said to them: “Would you guys

like to make some money? ”

And they said: “Sure. ”

So, I booked us a sock hop at the high school I was going to.

The first dance we threw, we passed out

flyers around the beach and sure enough

We got about 200 kids to come.

Most of them were the surfers.

I remember one surfer came up to me and

he simply said: “Wow man, your music sounds

like it feels out there on a wave.

You oughta call it surf music.”

I don't know if the Bel Airs ever considered

themselves a surf band at first

I think people digging the band kind of just

tagged us that.

The world of surfing claimed us, so to speak

as theirs.

We went from 200 kids

begining of the summer, to 1500 kids at the

end of the summer.

We made an amazing amount of money.

I couldn't believe it being a kid making

all this money

everytime we did a dance.

That first dance we threw, I remember going home

and we had about 600 bucks.

We threw it out all on a mattress and we're

like you know doing this with it.

We played at a party

and took that money and went to Hollywood

and decided to make a record.

We rented some time at Liberty recording studio.

Went in and spent about an hour or two and recorded

five tracks.

"Mr. Moto" had two takes, 'cause I didn't like how

I played the chorus.

Other than that, it was all first takes

and we were out the door.

The record came out

and it didn't do anything for like six months.

So, we started hyping the record to the

radio stations.

We got our friends to call in and request it.

And at that time, KRLA was running

these things where they play the top 10

from high schools every night.

Sam Riddle's show.

Came on at nine o'clock every night and was called Topic Youth .

Every night, he would highlight a different

high school and he would play the top 10

records that that High School submitted.

We started creating these phony surveys.

So I sent him a list of the top 10.

Of course, "Mr. Moto" was number one.

I created a whole bogus top ten for the

Redondo High School, where I was going.

And that night, it was all about

Redondo High School and

"Mr. Moto" was number one on the Redondo High School survey.

And then one night he plays the top 10

from Palos Verdes High School

He says: “I don't know who you guys are, but good luck.”

And there it goes and I went just nuts.

If you saw the movie "That Thing You Do"

you know exactly what it was like

for a bunch of young kids to hear the

song playing on the radio.

I got a-- I got a big boost

every morning at 8 o'clock, as I'm getting ready

to go to school

I could turn on the radio and hear "Mr. Moto".

Big thrill.

After "Mr. Moto" became a small hit, I'm getting phone calls

from parents in the group trying to

tell me what their direction is for the group.

Some of these people, I'd never even talked to.

I got real upset and my mother said:

“Well quit the band.

Start another one. ” I said: “I can't do that. ”

I remember crying.

Something happened to kind of split that

group apart and that something that

happened was the Fender Reverb unit.

Eddie Bertrand, decided he really wanted to

start using that to modify his sound in the band.

Paul Johnson, the other guitar player,

really didn't want to go in that direction.

So there was a separation of the ways.

Eddie Bertrand left the group to form

Eddie and the Showmen and continue with his

powerful reverb, driven guitar instrumentals.

[Eddie and the Showmen play “Squad Car ”]

"Squad Car" was written by Paul Johnson but

Eddie recorded the most powerful and

frantic version of the song that became a

local radio hit.

It was kind of an easy

thing to do and it all happened within,

probably, a couple-- three weeks

after The Bel Airs broke up.

We played the Rendezvous

Ballroom in Balboa, and we just kept

playing louder and louder and louder.

[screaming guitar riff]

By the end of the night that speaker was shredded.

I thought, well I'll go to Fender

he'll fix this.

Showed up, and he looks up, he says "Now, how can I help you?"

I said: “Well, I have

a Bandmaster piggyback and

I ripped the speaker to shreds.

I was just thinking, what if we put two

speakers in there? ” And he said: “Tell you what,

you leave that stuff with me.

I'll give you something to play out of until then. ”

Went back in two weeks

and here's this cabinet with two speakers in it.

And I played it...

[Eddie and the Showmen play “Squad Car ”]

And I went: “My God, this thing sounds huge. ”

The last thing Leo said to me: “Whatever

you do, don't tell anybody what we've done

because we don't produce these amps. ”

Other musicians would come, like, bam up to the stage.

“What's that? ”

And I'd say: “What's what? ”

Anyway, within probably a month

I'm guessing, it became the standard

Bandmaster, had two 12s from then on.

He wanted to model his sound

after Dick Dale's sound.

He was totally blown away by the power of that Fender

guitar, reverb and amp combination.

They really got a foothold locally when

they became the house band at

the Retail Clerks Hall in Buena Park

and started to attract

as many kids there, actually on weekends as

Dick Dale was bringing to Harmony Park.

In November of 1962, we came out with an album

called Surfers' Choice.

A number of the songs

on the album were recorded at the Harmony

Park Ballroom in Anaheim.

[Dick Dale & the Del-Tones play]

In 1963, Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, were

having such success that they booked a tour

up and down the East Coast.

[radio chatter]

Must have been ‘63, where we had

a small tour back East.

Mainly, we played at this nightclub in

New Jersey.

Of course, it was a drinking crowd

much different crowd than we had in Southern California.

And when we went on stage and played, it

was like we were from Mars, they could not

relate to this music.

Now here's the youngster, you read

about recently in Life Magazine, here from

Boston and Quincy Mass and now the coast

Dick Dale, Surfing' and a Swingin'

So, let's have a fine hand!

[sings]

It was a disappointment for Dick.

We had to play behind a curtain while

Dick was up front, probably because they didn' t want

to pay us union scale or whatever.

[Dick plays guitar riff]

Let's have a nice hand for this youngster.

Capitol in their wisdom had decided that they didn't want to use

the Del-Tones on the records.

They want to use studio players, big mistake, I think.

Dick said: “Well if I can't have my band, I

got to have at least one of my guys, ”

and he chose me, thankfully.

While we were back East...

[The Beach Boys sing “Surfin' Safari ”]

The Beach Boys

had like their first hit.

The talk around the beach was:

“Who are these gremmies? ”

The whole feeling behind it was that

these guys were just a bunch of inlanders

who were trying to jump on the trend

as it was developing. It only sounded

vaguely like it related to the kind of music

we were playing, there was a big question mark

as to how authentic this was.

In fact, some of the surfers were so annoyed

this was candy coating

and commercializing the sport.

And I remember hearing a bunch of surfers

saying: “Hey, let's go beat those guys up. ”

This is my favorite sport next to skydiving.

[audience laughs]

Look what just drove up.

Looks like a couple of senior citizen drop outs.

[The Beach Boys sing “California Girls ”]

The Beach Boys were booed

vegetables and fruit were thrown at them on the stage

by the surfers because they thought they

were quote: “Rank ”.

“Who wants to hear these stupid lyrics? ”

It wasn't heavy duty, it wasn't power.

I remember listening to the radio and going:

“How do they get to spread the word about

surf music? And here we are trying to do it

and here's Dick, the innovator

the father of surf music.

You know, he doesn't get to partake

in spreading this word. ”

Dick Dale is the

originator, not one of the originators

THE originator.

Here are The Challengers .

[The Challengers sing “Seventh Son”]

I just quit, walked away from The Bel Airs

and I started The Challengers .

I was booking these little Legion Halls

I call up the Pepsi company to bring down a truck.

I call Brian Wilson, I have him come down and

It'd be us and The Beach Boys

Next thing you know the place was crowded and then

cops and fights would break out and then that was the

last time we could use that hall.

That happened to us about three or four times.

The Challengers were the hardest working band.

We backed more artists, made more recordings

than all of the bands combined.

We were always the dependable band that

could back you live and then do our show

and draw a certain the number of people to

the venue, so that really set the stage for

credible appearances on television and radio and we

would play the theme song for Lloyd Thaxton's

TV show.

My name is Lloyd Thaxton.

So what!

The Lloyd Thaxton Show was hugely popular

here in Southern California.

We would all rush home from high school to

watch Lloyd Thaxton.

His was the only TV dance hop

that featured surf music on a regular basis

including The Challengers .

In fact, they asked him to endorse their

second album, Surfing With The Challengers .

[The Challengers sing “Secret Agent Man ”]

I played what I wanted to play

and it just so happened that I liked

the music that the kids liked.

Here they are, The Astronauts !

Most shows came from New York and they had

the New York look.

No one saw the surf music back East. They didn't see this.

But, they could come to California by turning on their

television set and watching The Lloyd Thaxton Show .

That's what made surfing move

out of Southern California

to go all across the nation and

eventually, all over the world, and it

happened because of the Dick Dales

happens because of The Challengers, they brought the

surf to me.

The Challengers gained a national

reputation and became one of the most

successful surf instrumental bands by

virtue of their many appearances on local

TV shows and syndicated TV shows like

Hollywood a Go-Go and Shebang.

On behalf of myself

and the rest of the guys in the group, we

would like to thank you all for making our

song Pipeline such a big hit throughout the nation.

We would like to play it for you now.

What ended up becoming Pipeline

it was at one time called 44 Magnum.

Next time, we called it Liberty's Whip

but, we went to this Bruce Browne movie

they showed the sequence of Banzai

Pipeline, and we're going: “Whoa, this is cool.

Why don't we call the song Pipeline? ”

The first time I heard the opening glissando to

Pipeline , I was impressed.

It was the first time I'd heard anything like that.

And as a result of Pipeline , the glissando

became a standard technique used by surf bands.

When Pipeline came out, we were playing at the

Rendezvous Ballroom, we'd have thousands of

people in there doing the Surfer Stomp.

All the surfers will show up in their huaraches

and the whole place would start rocking

'cause everybody stomping on the floor.

It was wild frenzied dancing, you know

the people would just let themselves go.

Every time I walked into that Retail Clerks Hall

or the Rendezvous, either one of those

giant places, I would have to hold my ears

and it would take me ten or fifteen minutes just

to get through the DB level, that was being

pumped through that room.

Everyone sort of jumped up and down

in unison to the music

and the building would move like a wooden

gym floor and it was flexible.

And I think it bounced the musicians on

the stage, from the crowd going up and down.

The Rendezvous was a lot of fun, but also

kind of dangerous.

But there were confrontations between the

people from the beach and the Inland people.

And I can remember, going out dancing

and some big nasty looking biker

type hodad coming up to me and saying:

“You dance shitty. ”

A whole line of people would link arms

and then facing them was

another line.

They would run up to the other line. They

would come up like this and go back...

destined for trouble.

[stomping to the beat]

This guy got into a fight with this other guy

one of the fighter's girlfriends got involved

and started mouthing at the other guy

all of sudden

this guy pulled out a switchblade and

stabbed at the guy and missed him and hit

the girl, and it went into her eye or something...

and my girlfriend and I just fled, never went back.

Surf music was a male-dominated cultural event.

And that's why

Kathy Marshall's presence on the scene was

extremely significant.

She could have been a huge star if the future

had unfolded a bit differently, but she

does deserve a unique place in the history books.

Kathy never released a commercial

recording, but she went in the studio with

Eddie and the Showmen to record a demo of

Bullseye .

Being a girl and playing guitar

I don't know if I was good enough to have

said: “Come on in, let's play, ” like a guy but

it also rubbed me wrong when:

be good for a girl.

I want to be as good as the guys.

My grandmother had a little get-together on

a Sunday afternoon and she invited one of

her friends and he brought his electric guitar.

I just was mesmerized.

The transistor radio was how I learned

how to play the guitar.

[radio chatter]

I would come home from school, turn on the

transistor radio, pick up my guitar and

learn whatever song was on the radio.

I was so devoted to it and I think my mom

could see me getting better at it.

It was her suggestion that I take guitar lessons.

The first time I heard a surf band live

was the time I played with one.

My sister was having a graduation party at her

house and so, they hired a local band

called The Blazers and my mom mentioned that

I played guitar.

Their manager says: “Let me hear her.”

So, I sat down and I played Pipeline.

So, the day of the party I got up and I

played with The Blazers .

When the party was over with, their manager

said, to my mom: “I don't think I've ever

seen a girl rock and roll electric guitar player before.

What do you think about her playing with The Blazers ?”

And she said: “Okay.”

The Blazers

they were all surfers.

We'd get up at five in the morning.

My mom would take us all down to Huntington Beach.

They would surf

and we'd sit on the beach and just

play our guitars.

It was surf music.

The Retail Clerks Union Hall in Buena Park

it was like the mecca for all the stars to go.

It's the first time I ever saw Eddie and the Showmen play.

Eddie and the Showmen , to me

were like a huge step up in musician quality

and I was kind of in awe of them.

He's a good-looking guy.

What impressed me more, was his presence.

Just before The Righteous Brothers

were to go on, Eddie's dad came to my mom

and said: “Would she go on with Eddie and the Showmen ?”

And my mom said: “Yes. ”

I would play a lick and then he'd play a lick.

It was like a battle going back and forth.

Then, the next thing I know, he starts stepping

on my licks and I walked up to his guitar

like I was really going to watch him play

and I just pulled his plug.

[feedback]

After that, I had a really good following

because of this little rivalry that went on between Eddie and I

from that point on.

I was fourteen.

Eddie was 18, or 19

our relationship was rocky at times.

I don't want to say a love-hate relationship.

I mean, I cared for him and I think

he liked me and I liked him.

It seemed like he resented me at times

but he always tried to help me, too.

And he was the star, 'cause he had the presence.

He was very patient with me.

Dave and the Marksmen , Eddie and the Showmen

and Kathy Marshall, went out on

the road and toured California, like a little review.

And it was just like one big, happy family

having a great time on the road like that.

We had some really great times on those tours.

The first time I heard Dick Dale

play live was the day I played with him.

I was not allowed to go to Harmony Park,

which is where his venue was, most of the time.

Harmony Park had a

reputation of being a kind of, a rough place.

So, I never got to see him in person.

My manager, booked me to play with him at

the Huntington Pavilion.

And I was scared to death.

I had heard stories that he's very rough

and he's not a nice guy and all this stuff.

When they brought me up on stage, he was

playing with me at the same time he was

just like being a rhythm guitar player

playing behind me and he stopped what he

was doing and he walked over and he stood

there for a minute in front of

the whole crowd and then he threw his hands up

like he couldn't compete and went over and

put his guitar down and stood off to the side.

I gave her a title and I called her

Queen of the Surf Guitar.

I never heard of another girl

rock-and-roll, electric guitar player

at the time.

I was an anomaly, I mean, it was something

very different.

I didn't think about being well known, or

being even compared to someone like Dick Dale.

My impetus was, I just want to play guitar.

None of us really

could comprehend how big it was going to get.

Within a short period

the large movie studios

saw an opportunity and started producing

teen exploitation movies in the form of

beach party films.

The mainstream jumped on it and began to

merchandise the heck out of it.

It was just like in the movies.

Those depictions of fights and stuff like that

those fights actually happened!

Beach Party with Frankie and Annette.

[singing]

That made more money than Cleopatra did.

So, find the beauty in commercialism.

The good part is, they woke up the world

to the world of surfing.

And that blew it up into a hula hoop

kind of fad, from which it never recovered.

Thank you very much Keith.

Thank you, Mixtures .

And, um, just about ready?

Eddie and the Showmen got to do the Hollywood Bowl

which in itself, was insane.

I'd like to tell you about Eddie and the Showmen

I walked out and here's 10,000 plus people!

These boys come from the South Bay, Palos Verdes.

The feeling I had was like, whoa...

Allright Eddie, tell them what you're gonna play...

[music playing]

Is surfing a fun sport?

There was a period of time that you could

open up Time Magazine, Sports Illustrated

and surfing was included as part of mainstream America.

It just became an

industry, just like music business.

And they got swept up into this romantic wave

that if you go out west, it's not movie stars.

It's the beach, it's blondes, it's surf music.

It's all the freedom that you could ask for

because there wasn't anything else on the horizon yet.

The media just glamorized it even more,

but it was glamorous.

There was this desire for everybody to have

this identity with the surf culture.

Suddenly you're bleaching your hair

you had a flat top, with a little bit of peroxide on it

so you look like you've been to the beach

but you haven't been there, but you look like it.

Kids would drive around in the Midwest in the United States

with the half a surfboard

hanging out the trunk of the car to emulate

being a surfer and they never seen the ocean.

The surfing community

at the time wasn't really thrilled

about going national

having surfing get that big.

because, now it's bringing a lot of people

who aren't really true surfers into the field

but it happened, because of the music.

In 1961, there was a literal explosion of

bands and dances and 45 RPM records

Within a short period

thousands of garages across Southern California

began to fill with teenagers,

who were eager to form their own bands

and jump on this new phenomenon.

[music playing]

The 45 RPM record became a way for these

bands to market themselves and their music.

The number of recordings steadily escalated

and peaked during the summer of 1963.

But only a handful found their way onto the

radio and even fewer were picked up by

major labels and became hit records such as

Pipeline by The Chantays or Wipeout by The Surfaris.

[drum solo]

Ronnie being the consummate musician he was

starts this drumbeat and we go:

“Well, we better put some chords and a

melody to this, because it'll be a drum solo if we don't!”

Got a shingle from the roof.

Bob cracked it over his knee

sounded like a surfboard cracking and then Dale had

this crazy laugh that he did at parties.

[ “Wipeout” plays]

Pretty soon, Wipeout went worldwide.

So, we were having a really good time.

Then...

[music playing]

When The Beatles came out

surf music suffered, a lot.

The Beatles changed everything.

I don't think people wanted to sit and just

listen to instruments anymore

they wanted lyrics, and they wanted voice.

The song, instead of being about surfer girl

or your hot rod, it became

protest songs, and it just became a very

unhopeful time.

The surf bands

for the most part, just sort of like

one day, they were not there anymore.

The marketing people were just gearing up

to really cash in on the surf culture.

when The Beatles showed up.

I had other bands after The Bel Airs in the surf vein,

but it all was gone by 1965.

The folk rock thing was just starting

and I jumped on that.

Lyrics tell you what to think.

Instrumental music doesn't.

It gives you the freedom to think what you want

and go where you will.

That's why I loved instrumental music.

To me, it was bubble gum

because, once again we were doing this rock and roll

and rhythm and blues.

The artists that were just breaking out

climbing up the charts

it was just like they hit a brick wall.

In 1966,

the Rendezvous Ballroom, the legendary home

to Dick Dale and the birthplace of surf music

burned to the ground.

Surf music should never be anything but fun.

It just happened

that it ended and it couldn't support.

It couldn't pay its way, anymore.

The music changed and the people changed

and their attitudes changed.

And you'll never hear surf music again.

Jimi Hendrix may have been right.

Surf music experienced an existential crisis,

the music of the 70's was characterized by

long drawn-out solos, overproduced

arrangements, conceptual album music with

hidden meaning.

And there was disco.

I mean it just seems like nobody was

interested in surf music anymore

but that wasn't true for me.

So it occurred to me one day, that it might be

fun to put a band together and make a surf record

which is something I wanted to do

back in the 60s

but I never had the chance.

[music plays]

Surf music died a long time ago.

Nobody even knew

what surf music was.

There were no surf music crowds.

There was no such thing, unless The Beach Boys

big-name bands, like that

Jan and Dean probably were

doing something somewhere.

As time went by

in music, in the 70s, everything was overblown

overproduced, big guitar, big hair

I think people started getting tired of that.

I think the main appeal of Jon and the Nightriders

It was just the pulse. It was primal to the nth power.

[music plays]

This was recorded at a friend's house in

Orange County on a 4-track

Reel-to-reel tape recorder, and I took the

tape into Los Angeles, to have it pressed up

by a record company and I asked them to do it

on blue vinyl, because I thought it looked cool.

[music plays]

I took this record and I drove it to

K-ROQ, which were in Pasadena, I walked

right into the control room and I said:

“Hey, you got to play this record. ” And they put it

on and they played it immediately right on the spot.

That's how cool the station was.

And then we booked a studio in Los Angeles

and recorded

What eventually became Surf Beat ‘80.

This album hadn't been out longer than a couple

months when I had a phone call from a

concert promoter, who wanted to hire us to open

a big show at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium.

It's historically known as the

concert that revived surf music.

It was The Surf Punks and Dick Dale

at the Santa Monica Civic and we're the opening act.

[music plays]

Jon and the Nightriders, we were like doing

lightning speed versions of... I mean we were

like surf music on drugs or something.

That just opened the door.

All the LA bands like The Go-Gos and

Missing Persons , they all wanted

Jon and the Nightriders to open for them.

Alright, surf's up!

More and more people

were picking up on this sound.

I mean, in the 1960s, I don't believe any

surf band ever played at The Whiskey a Go-Go

and yet in the 80s

several surf bands played at the Whiskey A Go-Go.

[music plays]

The only gigs they could even get were

with areas of the punk rock audience.

And if Jon and the Nightriders came out and rocked

they'd slam dance to them, too.

As long as you ducked the beer cans

It was fun!

A very exciting time in Hollywood.

Lot of punk bands playing

LA Weekly and Bam Magazine, and all these

trades were talking about the band.

The punk scene had been given birth, you had

X and The Germs , that whole scene was going on.

People had just embraced it again into

this whole era of the early 80s.

But when you got off into surf punk world

we just found our little slot right in that.

So there was a whole instrumental revival

like nobody'd ever seen before, and it started

happening all over the world.

All of a sudden John says: “Ok guys, we're going to Europe.”

That was almost shocking.

Are these people nuts?

They want surf music in Europe?

That first show that we did in Holland

was at a huge rockabilly festival.

At the time

what was very current and trendy and

popular in Holland, was the Clark Gable movie

Gone With the Wind . And they were all

like into the southern motif.

We were playing in a very large Hall and

there must have been several thousand

rockabilly fans there.

And I remember being constantly booed

by the audience.

And then a bunch of German rockabilly guys

were kind of yelling at us:

“Rockabilly, man, rockabilly!”

The promoter had told us before we left:

“You need to learn the Song of the South

surf style.”

So we flew right off into Dixie.

[music plays]

The moment we did that song that crowd

erupted and loved us.

Everybody in the crowd, man

just started waving flags and everybody

started cheering.

The crowd did a complete 180-degree change in their

attitude and we walked off that stage

as heroes.

I think if we wouldn't have done that, they

may have stormed the stage

Jon and the Nightriders may have never

come back to America, you know.

I remember thinking on the flight home that

European audiences, really weren't that

much different than those in the states.

It was obvious to me that surf music

had a universal appeal.

There was a place for it in the pop music scene.

[music plays]

We came home to do more tours.

Make more records and play more venues.

Throughout the 80s new surf bands continued to form.

Bands like The Surf Raiders , Paul Johnson and the Packards

The Evasions , The Surf Punks

The Insect Surfers and the Malibooz

were among a growing number of surf bands

that all helped draw attention to the music.

Dick Dale was featured in a segment on KABC's

Eye on LA

He was interviewed at his home in Newport Beach

when he felt he was ready for a comeback

after battling cancer and being absent from

the concert scene throughout the 1970s.

And he did come back to tour and record again.

It was really great to see somebody make a

comeback like that.

The Ventures , who toured

exclusively in Japan for years, returned to US

stages after a decade of absence.

Reunion concerts were held.

[music plays]

And people remembered the fun again.

And then something happened in 1994 that

sparked the popularity of surf music to a

greater degree than ever before.

[narrator reading]

For just sheer rock-charged viscera

I think it would have to be Miserlou .

Pulp Fiction really cemented surf music into the

consciousness of the world.

As a result, surf bands started forming in even greater

numbers all across the globe.

This time period became known as the third wave.

All around Europe, the same story is repeating

Pulp Fiction clearly presented

surf music to a wider audience, instead of

using the words surf music, a lot of people now

tell us: “You're playing Pulp Fiction music.”

Founded in the late 80s, the Huntington

Beach International Surfing Museum

continues to support the surf music

community with Sunday afternoon concerts

during the summer.

For the last several years, Livorno a small

Tuscany town on the west coast of Italy has

been the location for a huge three day

International surf music event, called

The Surfer Joe Festival .

The Surfer Joe Summer Festival was born from my idea

a few years ago, with the purpose to put together

all Italian surf bands.

But people was thinking that I was crazy

trying to put together shows and push the

entire surf music movement in Italy.

We had the first Festival in 2003 and the

festival was absolutely great.

[Los Straightjackets play “Calhoun Surf ”]

Los Straightjackets have recorded over thirteen

albums to date and have appeared several

times on the Conan O'Brien show.

Not surprisingly, they're hugely popular

in Mexico.

The first time Los Straitjackets went to Mexico

We weren't sure how they were going to receive us.

If they would have thought that we were

making fun of them or something, which we

weren't, we were inspired by their culture.

There were two shows, one in Mexico City and

one in Guadalajara and they were both sold out.

It was a shock.

We had no idea we were that popular there.

Dick Dale started to tour, headlined in

Vegas and made records again.

And every so often I'd hear about surf bands

popping up in some of the most surprising

places like Japan, Finland, Croatia. Countries

you'd never expect to hear surf music from.

The appeal of the music was

cross cultural.

And even more diverse than before.

Surf music had experienced a full-fledged

revival.

It became obvious to me

that surf music was very much alive with a universal

appeal that I hadn't imagined a few years earlier.

Surf music is my life.

Unfortunately.

Surf music for me, it's a religious

life form, it just gets in your heart it gets in your soul, it gets in your spirit.

For me, it's my childhood.

Takes me back.

It’s all in the melody and the beat.

It's still all about escapism.

Enjoying the moment, dancing, having fun.

[soulful music plays]

Even though we're slowly losing the

pioneers and the people who first played

around with it, it's bigger than it's ever been, by far!

The spirit of surf music fans

has not been dampened by the test of time.

That spirit still represents

all of the things that made the sound of surf

popular in the days before The Beatles .

It's commonly assumed that when

Jimi said: “You'll never hear

surf music ever again, ” that he was saying: “We're

here now and screw you, ” but he apparently

was a really big fan of Dick Dale and the

real reason he said it was there'd been a

false news report at the time that Dick Dale

was ill and dying.

I had collapsed.

And then I was at the hospital.

Jimi was recording at the time.

“Hey, I heard Dale did a no-show. ”

And his guitar player said:

“No man.

He's dying. ”

And then Jimi said: “Man, you'll never hear

surf music again. ”

But he knew what a fighter I was and he said...

“That sounds like a lie to me. ”

I have that on tape.

Somewhere.

The King of Surf Guitar has passed away.

Dick Dale, led the way for generations.

Dale performed

at blazing speed until the end.

Dick Dale was 81 years old.

You'll never hear surf music again.

That's a big lie.

[crowd cheers]

[music plays]

Duh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh-nuh

Da-nuh-da-nuh-da-nuh

That's about it.