JJ and Trash Dogs are the newest New Orleans surf band, I believe with only 4 shows so far, two of which I attended and somehow missed the band. Arg.
However, I've spoken to the other bands that played with them Friday night and everybody was pretty thrilled with what they heard, and there was a specific reason they cited: it's classic trad-styled surf, something that we in New Orleans have almost never had access too (trust me, I've been looking). Two guitars, bass, sax and drums and a nice classic reverbed twang. The songs on this EP aren't classic surf arrangements though -- three originals and one cover of the rag tune "Temptation". They're not the only instro group to cover that song, but it's indictative of their expressed want to cover jazz tunes as the Ventures did. There's a reason behind that too: they share members with the popular local jazz group Tuba Skinny, though they don't advertise that fact and appear to want to keep their projects separate.
This is only an EP with two of the songs on the mid-pace/moody side, so I don't expect them to set the larger surf world on fire just yet, but in our own New Orleans surf microcosm there's reason for excitement.
