Go-Go Beach

Don’t misunderstand me – I don’t mean to say this is a great musical. I have only heard one of the songs and had enough.
The reason I had to include Go-Go Beach here is that I once recorded a track called Go-Go Beach! It was on one of my homerecording tapes, that interested parties could get through reviews in Pipeline and New Gandy Dancer, around 1990. In the track I tried to get some of the spirit of the Manchester bands like the Charlatans and Stone Roses coupled with instrumental guitar work.
When The Looney Tunes Band started, I stopped this tape thing. But somehow I remembered the track after the band broke up (the drummer wanted to include electronics, but I did not want the Loonies to change in that direction). Go-Go Beach then turned into Gogo Sitar and was the first track I did with my modified ES335 copy, homemade electric sitar.

So, there’s no connection for me with that musical, other than the coincidental naming. If you didn’t care for such information, you wouldn’t have read so far, would you?

New Documentary about California Garage Studio PAL, which Produced Surf Music Classics

The very studio where Paul Buff and Frank Zappa recorded one of my all time favorite LPs is The Hollywood Persuaders, featuring tracks like Drums a-Go-Go and Thunderbird.

freakoutincucamonga writes over at Surf Guitar 101:

Check out our web page for our documentary, “Freak Out in Cucamonga.”

www.freakoutincucamonga.com

For anyone interested in the Cucamonga studios in the early 60’s that brought you ‘Wipeout’ and ‘Pipeline’, as well as recording sessions from Johnny Fortune, The Tornadoes, Conrad and the Hurricane Strings, Johnny Barakat, and let’s not forget, Frank Zappa.

YouTube link to Cucamonga PAL Studio documentary video trailer

Scotty Moore’s Original Amp Cabinet on Ebay

Elvis’s first guitar player Scooty Moore had a costum made amplifier in the 50s that had a built in echo unit, the cabinet of this very amp is now for auction at eBay.

quote from eBay page:

The original Echosonic guitar cabinet used on most all the live and studio guitar work during Elvis Presley’s career (1955-1957).

You can hear it on all the hits from the early years including: Mystery Train, That’s All Right, Heartbreak Hotel, Blue Suede Shoes, Hound Dog, Don’t Be Cruel, Love Me Tender, All Shook Up, and more.

The Echosonic was designed and hand-built by Ray Butts. While only 68 ever being built, the Echosonic found a unique place in history with a built-in tape echo (loop) unit. …

Scotty’s amp

Official Hal Blaine Site

One of the great Los Angeles session men, he played drums on countless hit records, as well as some of the best instrumental studio productions of the sixties. Here’s the Official Hal Blaine Website

here’s his drumming on iTunes
The Gene Norman Group featuring Glen Campbell, Jim Horn, Al Delory, Lyle Ritz, and Hal Blaine - Dylan Jazz
Nancy Sinatra & Hal Blaine - The Essential Nancy Sinatra
Glen Campbell - Classic Campbell

The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain

Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain
Highly recommended – very fun stuff. Especially when they find endless variations of chord patterns which repeat throughout musical history and make a big mix out of it. Incredible stuff. Apparently been together for 28 years – with showmanship and chops to match!
Here’s the homepage.
Here’s their music at iTunes.
They have a CD and live DVD out. Review to follow here. Today I got the info they’re in Hamburg for the next two weeks – so don’t miss them!

Buddy Merrill

merrill1.jpg

I don’t have that many of his records – but I sure found a lot of his tracks at iTunes! He was very busy covering any style of popular guitar playing you can think of during the 60s and 70s. I guess most of you don’t know him, so for starters I made a little 42 track Buddy Merrill iMix, which you can find at Itunes.
Here’s what I wrote about it:

The versatile Buddy Merrill!
We start with a surfy/Ventures-style division before going into a nowsound/funky part. This turns over into his best bossa tracks on iTunes. After this we are exposed to a little gang of country favorites leading into Buddy’s steel guitar skills featured on his coolest hawaiian offerings. We go Exotica for the second to last bunch of tunes. This leaves us to close this collection with three tunes pulled from the classical catalogue – Where Czardas had briefly taken us during the bossa section.


Here’s his homepage www.buddymerrill.com.

Buddy on iTunes