Hawaii the 1910s

Legendary Surfers made me aware of the Wax Cylinder Preservation Project, which features many a hawaiian recording from back in the days.

Hawaiian Guitar cylinders

Ukulele cylinders

Xylophone cylinders

Marimba cylinders

Hawaii topic cylinders

while we’re at it:

Japanese cylinders

German cylinders

Guitar cylinders

And they sent this article right along, which describes the dawn of modern surfing in the islands, in the 1910s.

Have You Seen This Guitar?

stolen telecaster style guitar

stolen telecaster style guitar, photo by Chuck Kelley

A guitar belonging to David Nowlen was stolen from his son’s apartment in Los Angeles on July 29. The guitar is a Jonathan Rose Tele with serial #57 stamped on the neckplate and “Rose” on the headstock. It’s been signed by James Burton, Duane Eddy and many others.

Nowlen, pictured here with the guitar, is a longtime friend of Brian Wilson and was a member of “The Survivors”  – a group produced by Brian consisting of himself, his roommate Bob Norberg, their next door neighbor Nowlen, and  Rich Alarian. Their single “Pamela Jean/After The Game” was released by Capitol Records in January of 1964.

The person suspected of taking the guitar lives in Alabama, so the hot guitar is probably somewhere between here (L.A.) and there. If you have a message for Dave about the whereabouts of the guitar, email me at chuck@luxuriamusic.com and I’ll forward your message to him.

Surf Guitar 101 Convention

Otto von Stroheim writes:

There is a HUGE Surf weekend event happening this weekend
All the details are listed below but if you don’t want to read all that boring text you can just check out the poster here:
https://surfguitar101.com/hosted/SG101convention2.jpg

If you have questions please contact Jeff at:
bigtikidude (at) yahoo (dot) com

Surf Guitar 101 Convention
Suzy’s Bar and Grill
1141 Aviation Blvd. (at Prospect)
Hermosa Beach, California
Noon to 5 or 7 pm, separate night show is 8 pm to midnight

a Swap Meet of surf music (cds, lp’s 45s -new used), and instrument/gear
shirts, posters, hats etc. if you have surf swag/merch to sell bring it, grab a free table and sell away.
Major Vendors will be.
Double Crown Records,
Dionysus Records,
Golly Gee Records
Gomez Amplification
Huntington Beach International Surfing Museum
John Blair with his re-issue of The 80’s album Stampede on CDw bonus trx
Machturtle Productions, and many surf bands cds.
plus many other bands members will be there selling their cds.
and there will be 1 table with Tiki magazine and other tiki related stuff
if you get tired of the Surf stuff.

**but Please save enough Money for the Night show, and their Merch. they need money too, as some of them are coming from The Mid West and
Nor. Cal.

and multi media presentations,
Dominic Priore’s Assistant Brian from the Dumb Angel Gazette and Surf Pop Culture Books, will have some of their books and mags.showing surf music clips from the 60’s and a slide show of historic pictures.
and Possibly have the Original Surfaris Sufari LP for sale.(Lmited qtys)

There will be a short trailer of the ‘Sound of Surf’ music documentary that is in production now, and they may be doing interviews at this event for the film.

Paul Johnson will be having the premier of the Pounding Surf! DVD
plus historic stories and footage from the 60’s surf scene.
plus all of the different cds he has for sale.

and Surf Show
4 Bands
The Boardwalkers, (LA)
Outterwave, (LA)
The Aquasonics, (Colorado)
Secret Samurai, (San Diego)

ALSO just added a short 4 song Eliminators set,
4 songs of Eddie Bertrand with the Eliminators,
and a 30 min Slacktone set.

Surf Jam/ (sign up list to join will be posted soon)many songs,
you play a Standard along with a Live backing band
here is the Link to the Tread with the list of songs to choose to play with Outterwave.
this list will be close soon, so join in now.
https://surfguitar101.com/forums/topic/6038/?page=1#81631

and get together/meet and greet

I am still talking to people about coming to it, and being involved.
But I wanted to Officially announce when it will be.

Later that night.
The Madeira from Mid west, Pollo Del Mar from Nor. Cal., Insect Surfers and Detonators are playing 8 pm till Midnight.

also
On Sun. Aug 3rd at the Huntington Beach Pier, 11 am to 5 pm will be.
The Fabulous Nomads, The Relix, Aquasonics from Colorado, Pollo Del Mar,
The Madeira , and The Surftones, Feat. Matt Q from Reventlos, and Kerry Chester ex of DD’s 80s band.

I Figured it would be best to announce it asap, as I know the sooner the better, for arranging for airfare and sleeping and car accommodations.

There is also a San Diego show with Pollo Del Mar,Madeira,Secret Samurai, and Zombie Surf Camp, on the Fri. nite. Aug 1st. If anybody would like to go down there to get an early st

Wassermusik, Part VI

Lushy at Wassermusik 08, Berlin, Germany

Lushy at Wassermusik 08, Berlin, Germany

Yesterday was a little calmer, starting with Coconami (I somehow missed snapping a picture of them, sorry!) who used to be in the Tiki Tiki Bambooos, a Surf band from Munich, they now are a Ukulele duo, with mostly female vocals. This has to remind me of Petty Booka, if just by the sound of two ukes and japanese ladies singing. Maybe a smaller venue would benefit their delicate presentation more, but on the other hand Wassermusik successfully aims at presenting a wide range of music styles.

Lushy – the most contemporary sounding act in the Tiki series of events at least, if not the entire set of Wassermusik events. It’s hard to compare Seattle and Berlin for me. However I can say that there is an artificial element, not unlike in the B-52s for example. Like a yellow plastic Tiki mask at Trader Vic’s, they stuck out of the set of Wassermusik performers by having said cartoonish lounge approach coupled with some electronics. I think this could be a really groovy thing, but probably working best with a dancing party crowd in a small club.

Wassermusik, Part V

I Belli di Waikiki

I Belli di Waikiki

Don Tiki at Wassermusik 08

Don Tiki at Wassermusik 08

Don Tiki

Don Tiki

Don Tiki

Don Tiki

I Belli di Waikiki must be one of the busiest acts in europe in the Hula-Rock’n’Roll field, o.k. there aren’t that many, but I heard they play a lot outside their native Italy. I always enjoy the good time music and fun presentation. It’s been a smart move to pick-up the fifties connection of Polynesia and Rock’n’Roll, as so many aging Rockabillys join the Tiki afficionados. I must say that I really dig their style and especially the sound of the steel guitar and the Dearmond/Bigsby Tele – he practically nails my ideal guitar sound with it! They had given some accomplished pin-striper a go on their ukulele and guitar, looks very neat.

Don Tiki – probably the best show this side of Esquivel in Vegas! Unfortunately my phone camera couldn’t capture the fury of the dancers, the drama of the performers or the wealth of customes and make up. It was the biggest crowd at Wassermusik so far – and I like to think they witnessed something to tell their grandchildren about.

The New Dimensions Interview by Lance Monthly

I had written a nice text about how I was introduced to The New Dimensions in the 80s. But I lost it trying out the new “Press This” feature of this blog software. It boiled down to the essence that any surf music fan worth his salt has to know this great teenage band from 1962.

Michael Lloyd, lead guitar; Jimmy Greenspoon, piano; Art Guy, drums, Danny Belsky, saxes; David Doud, bass; and Craig Nuttycombe, rhythm guitar.

The band never had any singles released. We worked with these hustler types by the name of Robert Hafner and Tony Hilder. They had a deal with a tiny budget label called Sutton to issue the New Dimension albums as ‘rack jobs.’ Essentially that meant their records would be pressed on cheap vinyl normally reserved for placemats, packaged in fairly generic sleeves, and shipped directly to the cut out bins with no hope of promotion, airplay, or royalties. We had three studio albums, ‘Surf ‘N Bongos’, ‘Soul’, and ‘Deuces & Eights’. We were part of a live album from the Santa Monica surf fair titled ‘Shake! Shout and Soul!’

Read the interview here.

Wassermusik, Part III

I really enjoyed Boom Pam. The Klezmer influence has been displayed by Meshugga Beach Party from San Francisco, but they don’t have a tuba like Boom Pam has! A very enjoyable set, really, really good players, too.

I’ve seen the Bambi Molesters a couple of years ago when they still toured and had the other bassplayer. You can’t escape the dense atmosphere they create and have a really great guitar sound while doing so. They choose fitting covers and have written many beautiful originals. I don’t recall them playing so much on the edge of distortion like yesterday. The albums sure sounded cleaner, but it worked well with the audience the way they did it now.

Surf Playlist on Jon Dyer’s Blog

I recently became aware of this blog through a plug-in Jon developed, and was amazed by a similarly huge Doo-Wop playlist. When I left a comment there, he mentioned the possibility of a Surf playlist and here it is. You will find the player to listen to it right on his blog article and all the tracks are listed. Awesome!

Back To The Beach: The Surf PlaylistThe Dyers.org fake surf album It’s summertime, and all the surfers and hodads are once again sharing that sandy divide between land and sea. No matter which side of the divide you’re on, there’s nothing like some reverb soaked surf-strumentals to make that grey cubicle feel more like a day at the beach.

Back To The Beach: The Surf Playlist – Jon Dyer’s Blog

Spacedog live in Berlin 21.6.

Wer Spacedog noch nicht gesehen hat sollte das nicht verpassen!
Ich hab sie bei der Wassermusik Preview gesehen und war äusserst angetan.
Sebastian schreibt:

Liebe Leute,

es gibt wieder was auf die Ohren und in die Tanzbeine:

Rosengarten im Park am Weinbergsweg (Mitte)
Sa., 21.06.
Nachmittags ab ca. 17h

Rosengarten
Spacedog

Freu mich,
Seb.