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    Is Surfing Essential To Make Great Music?

    AKA, a Beach Boys thread.

    I'm fairly impervious to the early stuff - like the Beatles pre-1965, it says nothing to me about my life, for better or worse - but the burst of creativity between Brian ceasing touring and Brian losing control served up some gems.

    Boring and predictable Top 5:

    1. Heroes And Villains
    2. Good Vibrations
    3. Wild Honey
    4. God Only Knows
    5. Darlin'

    (There aren't enough tribute threads these days.)

    (Countdown to somebody pointing out that only Dennis surfed starts now).

    #2
    Is Surfing Essential To Make Great Music?

    I'll go tangential early on and mention my [second] favorite film soundtrack, the score to the 1968 Australian surf documentary Ride A White Horse by Sven Libaek. It's stunning, moody and evocative of a place and time I've never known. Just lovely.

    My first favorite? The score to On Any Sunday by Domenic Frontiere.

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      #3
      Is Surfing Essential To Make Great Music?

      I would like to try to change your mind about pre-1965, at least the ballads:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR3KlM6YTyg

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoNIbHrsRVU

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EUrKOTshIM

      Post-1967, I would go for Til I Die:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Oj0dLkiziY

      Favorite cover of a BB track:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlyQEqrx1vY

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        #4
        Is Surfing Essential To Make Great Music?

        Beach Boys:

        1 Hang on to Your Ego
        2 God Only Knows
        3 Heroes and Villains
        4 Here Comes the Night
        5 Good Vibrations

        Surf-rock/punk:

        1 High-School Drifter - The Roofdogs
        2 Point Blank - Man...Or Astroman?
        3 Pipeline - Dick Dale & His Del-Tones
        4 A Cry for Help in a World Gone Mad - Agent Orange
        5 Road Rash - The Mermen

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          #5
          Is Surfing Essential To Make Great Music?

          Some boring authenticity. True Surf classics — most of which were instrumental.

          Surf Beat — Dick Dale & The Del-Tones

          Penetration — The Pyramids

          Bustin' Surfboards — The Tornadoes (No not those ones)

          Wipeout — The Surfaris

          Pipeline — The Chantays

          And a couple of vocal fellow travellers:

          Here I Stand — The Rip Chords

          California Sun — The Rivieras

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            #6
            Is Surfing Essential To Make Great Music?

            Thanks for at least letting me know what I can't play, AdC. I can't stand it when people just post links to YouTube without explaining what they are.

            Having said that, I'm surprised that Wipeout hadn't already been referred to. It was the first thing that I thought of...

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              #7
              Is Surfing Essential To Make Great Music?

              Back to those chubby landlubbers, the original solo Brian vocal and harpsichord version of Wonderful is just that. Shivers down the spine stuff. Can't believe they released that tripped out mess of a version on Smiley Smile instead. Cabinesscence isn't too shabby either.

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                #8
                Is Surfing Essential To Make Great Music?

                Yeah BW included it on his CD of Beach Boys favourites too.

                Having said that, I'm surprised that Wipeout hadn't already been referred to. It was the first thing that I thought of...

                Indeed, along with Pipeline it was really the only "pure" surf single to become an international hit, and a far bigger one. It also made the US top ten twice in three years.

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                  #9
                  Is Surfing Essential To Make Great Music?

                  Satchmo Distel wrote: I would like to try to change your mind about pre-1965, at least the ballads:

                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR3KlM6YTyg

                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoNIbHrsRVU

                  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EUrKOTshIM
                  Absolutely, and Wendy isn't too shabby either (actually All Summer Long is their first truly great album so the cut-off point should really be 1964 anyway.)

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                    #10
                    Is Surfing Essential To Make Great Music?

                    Not one of those links are available for me in Ireland. Fuck sake copyright disputes.

                    In My Room, that's a really lovely early song.

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                      #11
                      Is Surfing Essential To Make Great Music?

                      Pacific Ocean Blue is really good, it withstands the wayward savant idolatry worship of yer Gillespie types. Has a really warm produced yet snowblind California sound. And poor old Dennis's limited range works much better with a cracked voice.

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                        #12
                        Is Surfing Essential To Make Great Music?

                        I really miss surfing, I wasn't great, but I had a lot of fun and that is the point; the best surfer is the one having the most fun. I could never understand people who got frustrated and aggressive in the line-up, sometimes I was happy just sitting there in winter, analysing the swell coming in, trying to get the strength together to paddle for another wave.

                        Something I always found amazing about surfing was that if you went regularly, and most surfers do, you begin to feel the tide within your body. You lie down in bed and you feel it pulling and pushing inside your bloodstream and the song that represents that push and pull for me is "Ocean Size" by Jane's Addiction. Nothing makes me feel the emotion of surfing more than that song, the video also encapsulates the beauty of a great session:

                        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVIev94s7Mo

                        I'm not a massive fan of Jane's Addiction, like everyone, I liked Been Caught Stealing, but I got into them more after learning how to surf.

                        A weird thing I find about typical surf guitar, Dick Dale type stuff, is that it's the sound of surfing from the point of an observer rather than participant. When you're riding a wave (which was never a regular event for me!) time slows down incredibly. I can still remember every moment of the best waves I surfed, those rides probably lasted no more than 10 seconds, but I can visualise my drop, the ride, the turn, the wave breaking - it's all there and Dick Dale or Surfing USA are most definitely not the soundtrack in my head.

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                          #13
                          Is Surfing Essential To Make Great Music?

                          The worst thing bout surfing is the amount of aggressive snobbish cunts it attracts. For some reason Australian surfers abroad seem to be obnoxiously racist towards the locals, doing little to dispel the stereotype of Australians as racist boors.

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                            #14
                            Is Surfing Essential To Make Great Music?

                            Beautiful post, steveeeeeeeee – that bid about the 'inner tide' is amazingly evocative. The last bit is fascinating, too: it implies the glacial swell and break of the music in a Sigur Rós song, say, is a more accurate match to the in-the-moment sensation than the rise-and-fall de-da-da-dum da-da-dum beat of a typical "surf" song. Really interesting, speaking as someone who used to live by the sea in west Wales and got occasionally asked if I surfed (only due, seemingly, to my having long blond hair) but who lacks all physical prowess necessary and who retains a vague background admiration of/bafflement at those who can and do.

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                              #15
                              Is Surfing Essential To Make Great Music?

                              Beautifully written Steve. Although, in fairness to Dick Dale, he was the real deal when it came to surfing. I've heard interviews saying he and his band would, literally, come off the beach and plug in at the ice-cream parlor where they'd gig — often still soaking wet. He was definitely trying to capture the experience musically:

                              Dale was a surfer and wanted his music to reflect the sounds he heard in his mind while surfing. He was among the first guitarists to use reverb—which gave the guitar a "wet" sound that has become a staple of surf music. Dale's staccato picking, however, is his trademark. Being left-handed, he initially had to play a right-handed guitar, but then changed to a left handed model. However, he did so without restringing the guitar, leading him to effectively play the guitar upside-down (Hendrix, for example, restrung his guitar), often playing by reaching over the fretboard rather than wrapping his fingers up from underneath." Wiki

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                                #16
                                Is Surfing Essential To Make Great Music?

                                I think the twangy surf-guitar in the instrumental music from Endless Summer feels more "ocean" like than most of the more aggressive surf-music.

                                An aside on surfing - I'm never going to do it, but I kind of love the culture. I was in a sushi bar in Oceanside last night and the chef and one of the regulars were chatting about catching waves, and another guy walked in, hair still wet off the beach, talking about the swell and all that. I don't pretend to understand any of it, but despite it all being 50 or 60 years old the culture remains deeply cool.

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                                  #17
                                  Is Surfing Essential To Make Great Music?

                                  I imagine Dick Dale would be quite aggressive in the line up, given the urgency of his music. I always found aggressive surfers to be the ones who had x amount of time to catch y waves, or else! So probably those surfers have a much more energizing soundtrack in their head than I did.

                                  Nature was a massive thing for me. The single greatest surfing experience I had didn't involve a wave, it involved a family of dolphins swimming past me out of the Tagus estuary into the Atlantic. I was sat with a couple of strangers in the line up and we just whooped with joy.

                                  Surfing is an addiction, once you're hooked you can think about little else. When there's no swell, your whole mood turns dark. I had a massive come down when I left Portugal. A big fear I have when I eventually return to live there is whether or not I will still be able to surf. My knees are no longer strong enough to run, but I'm still a strong swimmer, so I hope I'll be okay, just got to keep my weight in control.

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                                    #18
                                    Is Surfing Essential To Make Great Music?

                                    Yes, I'm aware of the compulsion. Last weekend there were over twenty kite surfers on the beach at the end of our road. We also spend time on the West Coast of Vancouver Island where the waves are huge, particularly in Winter. Surfers from all over the world seem to flock there, working in the hotels and resorts using their downtime to catch waves.

                                    If you can track it down there's a neat little movie 49 Degrees (the temperature of the water.) It's the story of Long Beach surfers on VI. The originals were draft dodgers from the US who set up camps in the bush by the beaches. They eventually turned them in houses, raised kids, now they're growing the third generation of cold-water surfers.

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                                      #19
                                      Is Surfing Essential To Make Great Music?

                                      No.

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