It's hard to beat surf music in Southern California. Surfguitar101 was ostensibly a meetup for online forum members with a nice lineup of 10 bands, Today it stands as the premiere surf event of the US and possibly the world, with a globe-spanning lineup of over twenty bands, and I believe Saturday night was the biggest I'd ever seen it. Organizer Jeff "BigTikiDude" Hanson, modest pool cleaner by day, has been slowly tweaking the event and his support team to grow the event organically into something uncompromisingly accessible and genuine. While something so focused on entertaining deserves to swap the word "convention" for "festival", it's remarkable how this event avoids all the bullshit associated with that term, grassroots the whole way through, accommodating without penny-pinching, with legends intermingling with nobodies like peers.
Bluhhhh. What a boring paragraph for a three days of loud, wild, intensely fun music surrounded by friends and people I might make friends with next year. Should any of us go deaf tomorrow, at least we saw more great surf music than 99.9% of the world here. Let's get specific though.
Last year I missed the first night of the festival when my flight was cancelled. While my flight was delayed this time too, I had enough buffer to get there right as the doors were opening.
If you said hi to me during that first hour, I apologize because I was not myself. I was surf terminator, desperately looking to snatch up rare records before the rest of you. It wasn't my all-time best haul, but it might have been among by largest. I found that Lee from Dionysus Records had the best vintage surf, and picked up a few 45s and LPs from him. One of my favorite things about SG101 is the amount of new releases and pre-releases that pop up, and this year was a great one in that category. There were two noteworthy records released slightly before that this was functionally a release party for: The Scimitars' debut LP and The Boss Martians' first instro release in 23 years. But there were a few others! Desolate Coast had a new EP CD, Tikiyaki Orchestra had a new 7", and then there were even some that were shadow-dropped -- I don't think anybody expected them to be there. A new CD from Chillingsworth Surfingham (not performing) snuck into Band2Hand's merch booth, and MuSick actually received one party-way through Friday night, flown in personally by the pressing plant: a split 7" with 2 new songs each from The Fathoms (first since 2008 IIRC) and Draculina!
Friday night was a fun lineup, each a little different than your average surf band. Just three groups, but each of them juggernauts.
The Manakooras were first, a band that I've been desperate to see since their conception. Kane Manakoora a.k.a. Jeremy Dehart from The Aqualads and Lords of Atlantis, helms a pedal steel guitar playing a beautiful blend of surf and exotica, backed up by two guitars, bass, and two percussionists. a If pedal steel makes you think "Sleepwalk", then I guess that's OK, there's plenty of love for the brothers Farina here, but nothing sleepy! I was surprised how party-ready and even danceable they were on songs like "Harem Bells", which I don't think I've heard a recording of but I'd really like to. They were everything I thought they'd be, arranged thicker than you can even really process and fresh as anything, a nearly flawless set. "Nearly" because I was hoping to hear "Lujon", but to be fair there was nothing worth removing to make room for it.
The Insect Surfers were celebrating 45 years, which was kind of funny to me because you know how time seems to have just disappeared during COVID? I feel like they had just celebrated 40 years when I saw them in 2019 at Surfer Joe and Surfguitar101. I was determined to try to capture the Dave Arnson experience in still photos, and I'd say I largely failed because that's really not the correct medium. He's always in motion, and photos can't capture moments of marine biology education, "hat songs", "we tune because we care", and his trusty array of dance moves. When explaining the namesake of the song "Vaquita", an extremely endangered dolphin with only about six left in existence, Jonpaul (on bass obviously) joked "they've gotta be gone by now". I had also wondered how closely Dave was monitoring this, since I'd heard the same intro in 2019. Well according to the best information I could find, he was up-to-date, and he even informed me that a calf was recently spotted.
They finished up by bringing up three extra guitarists: Mike Vernon, Tony Fate from The Black Widows, and Marty Tippens. Dave, meanwhile, tossed on an electric bouzouki for the song Bouzouki. Really powerful finish for an already high-energy set. Looking forward to the 50th!
And then the final three hours were devoted for The Mermen. I think. I had woken up at 5am in central time, and at their first break roughly one hour in I would eventually give in to my body's demands for rest. A lot of people go bananas for Mermen, I'm not necessarily one of them, but I don't dislike them. I've heard several of their albums, and was looking forward to the set.
Now I had heard about their pedal boards but holy shit. I'm sitting here googling the noisiest artists I can think of and I think Jim Thomas still has an edge on Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine. He basically had an assistant on-hand to fine-tune. Their bassist had a bigger rig than any other band at the festival.
Was all this gear appreciable? Well, I really did enjoy their noisiness and the texture of their sound, but I can't say I heard the nuance or range that one might imagine from all that. But hey, it didn't bother me, it was actually a pretty fun novelty to see it, so go 'head Mermen. Their setlist was gigantic and they hadn't even gotten a third of the way through when I left, but they played a pretty good amount of old stuff and rockers -- "Pulpin' Line" was really cool to hear, for instance. While the performance wasn't exactly Dave Arnson jumping around the stage, I'd have to imagine that if you're a Mermen fan that wants to get washed over with sound, you were likely pretty saturated by this show.
Saturday
I feel like every year I do this I make at least one stupid decision, and this time it was going for a 4-mile run upon waking up. It's basically impossible to do it in the New Orleans air and I wanted to take advantage of it. The stupidest part was when I went steeply uphill for about a half mile. The run felt OK really, but I felt drained before I even stepped onto the Golden Sails property.
Thankfully the first thing of the day was a nice opportunity to sit down: a screening of Sound of the Surf, a documentary about surf music old and new, filmed over the course of decades by director Tom Duncan. Tom tragically passed away as it was in its final stages, and Jon Blair (of Jon and the Nightriders) has picked it up to bring it over the finish line. According to Blair, not much has changed since they showed it in 2023, so I won't rehash it. However, it sounds like just about all the song licensing has finally cleared, and the last step is to find a distributor. It's a fun film for surf nerds and a great primer for the genre to the uninitiated, and I really hope it will see the light of day very soon.
There have been some years where the early Saturday slots have gone to lesser-known LA-based trios, likely saving up bigger names for more attended times. The Strings Aflame were not that! Touring from Mexico, perhaps not the longest-running group (though their first EP came out 5 years ago), but with 5 musicians including a few that returning attendees have likely met before off-stage, and I've known quite a few people to be enamored with their recent releases, not to mention their shows leading up to this one.
They sounded great, both thunderous and nimble, a power-packed punch to start the day. They donned some fun kinda sci-fi motorcycle helmets for their version "Haulin' Honda" that were pretty fun for my camera. A real highlight was their instrumental version of The Gestures' "Run, Run Run", with the chorus feeling like a war march, particularly with an extra guitarist and that wonderful loud-as-hell backline. They got a lot of mentions when I asked people about their highlights.
To reiterate, often at 2pm you're watching the underdogs, but with Saturday's all-killer-no-filler schedule, you've got the latest surf supergroup Lords of Atlantis, featuring Ivan Pongracic (Madeira, Space Cossacks), Jeremy Dehart (Aqualads, Manakooras, A-Men), Jonpaul Balak (will be mentioned many times in this write-up alone), and Dane Carter (The Madeira). Being from all over, they're not an easily seen group. They made their live debut at Surfer Joe last year, and have since played two other festivals by my count on social media.
Lords of Atlantis' songs are progressive, imaginative, and powerful, and to be honest I wish the room were darker to let ears and imagine take over from eyes, but they sounded great. It was actually a pretty casual and friendly performance, and maybe when Ivan said "people say I talk too much on stage", that's what they're referring to, but I don't know, I appreciate the community at this event and I'm all about celebrating it, making people feel involved, not to mention giving some context to the music. At one point Ivan told a "story" about how Lorenzo "Surfer Joe" Valdambrino does so much because he made a deal with the devil, and in order to release him from his pact they had to write a song that incorporated surf, metal and bossa nova into a song, then they jumped into "Fiery Trident". Fun way to introduce the song, but also gave me more context about what they were trying to do with it.
The first of two back-to-back main-stage acts a whole pacific ocean away, Martin Cilia was on next. He played a nice mix of his own material, a few from his time in The Atlantics, and Ivan jumped back on stage for a cover of the vintage Atlantics song "Bombora" as a teaser for their shared stage the next day. He had Matt Quilter backing him up on bass and Dane Carter on drums. Nice set if you like some cleanly played twangy melodies.
In between I caught a moment of The Verbtones on the other stage. They had three sets to fill so they jumped around between originals and covers. That room is difficult, with a smaller, more subdued crowd, smaller stage, worse lighting and sound, but their guitarist Kyle was working it well. Side note, make sure to check out his Beyond the Surf project, which I believe will include a video of sorts about SG101. They revealed towards the end that they had just met the bassist right before this, and had zero rehearsal. I wouldn't have guessed! As I left one of their sets they were playing "Black Sand Beach", and as I walked into the next room the exact same song picked up where it left off, in this case played by the next band I'm going to talk about...
So way back in 2006 Ferenc of Pollo Del Mar/Frankie and the Pool Boys set up a west coast tour after seeing The WHYs in Japan. I was just getting into surf back then and was on the opposite side of the country, so I only saw people talking about them.
16 years later they put out another LP called A Day on Mercury on Green Cookie (it's excellent) and here we are two years later with them on American soil once more. I. Loved. This. Band. They sounded great, made you want to dance, and their performances, especially their guitarist Ruiko, were magnetic. Ruiko doesn't look like she's just executing a song she's practiced, her expression mirrors every note, switching from effortlessly cute, to devilishly savage, to floating in space moment-to-moment. It was great to see her geeking out at everybody else's sets for the rest of the festival, and even closed their set congratulating the Insect Surfers on 45 years.
It's funny how 2022's six-band mini-festival, which is bigger in my memory than it actually was, ended up being a bit of a preview for this year. That was when I first saw The Scimitars, who not only showed off a new sound of surf music steeped deeply in middle-eastern music, but threw in a weapon-wielding dancer for extra excitement. I was desperate to hear more of this sound, and thankfully this time they had a brand new LP that I had been listening to for a few weeks. In fact, they mentioned that this was basically their album release party.
Don't pidgeonhole Jonpaul.
They are not a modest affair, with two guitar-ish-ists, Jonpaul Balak on bass, drumset, and hand drums. Oh, and a belly dancer of course. So a lot of sound, a lot of it unfamiliar to the surf-trained ear, and generally played pretty quickly, loudly, and maybe not as aggressively as guitarist Ran's Astroglides, but if you're familiar with that group you'd know that he wants you to feel it like a punch. For extra flare, and sonic variety, Ran brought out an electric Saz on some songs, which did sound great and heighten the exotic feel, but when you think about it, it's pretty impressive that they can write songs that have that middle-eastern sound and feel without exotic instrumentation.
The belly dancer wasn't out for every song, but was a lot of fun, coming out with various props -- swords, fans, veils etc -- and even tossing the non-weapon items into the crowd for a moment of enjoyable awkwardness to whoever it landed on. While this clearly isn't outside her wheelhouse, her smile said that she was enjoying some degree of absurdity to it rather than just putting on a show, and I thought that was fun.
Ran asked if I thought this was better than 2022. Well, I have a terrible memory, but I really enjoyed that show, and didn't think there was a whole lot that they could do better, but I did appreciate that I this time I knew the songs and got to hear them in their full live glory. I'd happily see this band any day.
The Scimitars were followed by another group that's doing it a little different: Dirty Fuse. And I wish I could describe what that difference is! I mean, it's pretty obviously fresh when they pull out a bouzouki for rebetica-inspired tunes or giving a fresh coat of ear-paint(?) to "The Victor" or "The Wedge", but they have a unique sound even when they're electric guitar, bass, sax, and drums. Part of it is how the sax interacts with the guitar, some of it might be the keys they play in? This is the limits of my musical knowledge and my memory writing this a week later. In any case, their set seemed to span several albums and a few that I think haven't been recorded. I'd seen them before at Surfer Joe and for reasons that I again cannot pinpoint, they stood out more to me this time.
In between sets I went to check on the other stage and caught part of The Desolate Coast. And the moment I stepped in I thought "whoa". First of all, who doesn't like a three-guitar surf group? On this smaller stage they basically gave up and had two guitarists roaming the area in front (which sucks for photos unfortunately). But in their case three guitars hit different than other groups. Sometimes feels like each guitar part is a part of a chord, perhaps even octaves apart, and the way they drift in and out of that is fascinating on an active listening level, and feels impactful on a simpler level. But that's not the "Whoa". Nor are their outfits, though maybe a little. The whoa is because they were loud as fuck and playing like they deserved to be loud as fuck. Their music feels somewhat sweet on record, and explosive live. And those sweet bits are there are put them apart from a power surf band, but make no mistake, they were playing with power!
They played three sets and I dropped in and out of them. I've seen videos to suggest that they did indeed slow down for some songs. But I was sitting there with Kurt from the Jagaloons and Pete from The Coffin Daggers and we were having a bit of a "we're all witnessing this, right?" moment. I also spotted Lukas from The Delstroyers and Northwest super-surf-maven Tien Doan planted there every time -- both of them from roughly the same area, have seen Desolate Coast before, both of them will again, and they still stayed there rather than see the main stage acts. And I'm not just saying all this because Eric gave me a ride back to my hotel on Friday. But thanks for that ride, Eric, it was great talking to you.
This was very far from being my first rodeo seeing Surfer Joe, and I'll say how I always feel: his melodies really gain something with the force of a loud, live backline like this. A fun bonus here is that Lorenzo's kids joined him for the trip, and I was standing next to his son, watching him play. He even gave his daughter a shout-out as the artist of his album World Traveler.
I was very curious about The Surfaris, who at this point are literally the Bob Berryhill family band, with his wife on bass, his son Deven on rhythm guitar (whom I had recently seen in the Tourmaliners) and his other son Joel on drums/vocals. I'm cool with this, how can you not appreciate the wholesomeness of a family of surf musicians? Do I wish I could see a version with Jim Fuller on lead alongside Bob? Or another member? Gosh yes, but they have all taken very permanent retirements so to speak, so this is now uncontroversially the Surfariest Surfaris you can get. Personally I think since they're a family they should all legally change their surnames to Surfari to really lean into it, but that certainly would be an undertaking.
I had whined about the modern incarnation of The Ventures, and I'd say The Surfaris were much of what I hoped the Ventures would be. I was skeptical at first when they opened with "Apache", a song they didn't write and aren't particularly known for (I believe the Ventures played it as well when I saw them), but that was not indicative of what came after. Bob is great on the mic, and during voice breaks he told stories about The Surfaris, such as the origin of the song "Scatter Shield". I not only liked hearing these, but I thought he told them very well. After all, this configuration has been around for roughly 20 years I think, so they've got it all pretty dialed in at this point. For a few songs, Deven took the drummers seat while Joel did a few vocal tracks like "Surfer Joe". As much as this crowd is about as hostile as it gets towards vocals, I appreciated hearing that cornball tune, and I thought Joel's delivery of it was with just the right amount of sincerity, which is to say not too much.
I thought it was very interesting watching Deven Berryhill in this band after seeing his band The Tourmaliners at Surfer Joe. The Tourmaliners are a high-energy act, and I think he and his bandmates put a lot of work into what their live show looks like. Here, Deven is still a great performer, but he's clearly adopting a supporting role. Entirely appropriate and smart, it's just interesting to see him adopt a different mode.
Unfortunately their set was cut short for time concerns, though having glimpsed at their setlist it seems we got most of the Surfaris originals that they planned on playing.
I've been a big Coffin Daggers fan ever since I started digging into surf, but I had never had an opportunity to see them live, so this was high on my priorities. Song choices were great, a pretty even mix of their material (excluding the eleki album that was reserved for the next night). Though I think of them as a hard-hitting punk-influenced group, they really aren't always that way.
Unfortunately I had a major complaint: there was something off in the mix. Bass too loud maybe, but most importantly the guitar was too low, an issue that nobody had at this event. Maybe it stemmed from them using a different amp than the standardized backline that everybody else was using. The especially sad this about this is that their records typically sound phenomenal, recorded on analog equipment with a lot of attention to detail. I was still able to enjoy their show because I was familiar enough with their music that my brain compensated a bit, but I'm not sure I feel that I've crossed them off my list just yet.
Deke Dickerson is no stranger to SG101 -- I feel like I've seen him at least 4 times in the 8(?) years I've been going, each time in a different combo. But this time we're going way back to the one that put him on the map: The Untamed Youth.
Perhaps this is somewhat of a digression, but sometimes I think I listen too closely to the everything of a record. I get distracted by strong or weak audio production, while I think others are able to boost it up in their mind and hear a song as it wants to be instead of how it is. A lot of 90's surf suffers to me because of this, and I think the accessibility of decent recording tools today is part of what makes this genre so vibrant these days: any dummy can come out of nowhere and put something amazing on bandcamp without a label or without even touring. So during this show when somebody said to me, "I didn't know they sounded like this!", I think it's because they didn't sound like that. But also they probably did. This is a very roundabout way of saying that The Untamed Youth sounded as loud and raucous as their name implies, and maybe that's a result of having a better idea of what they're doing 30 years later, but moreso I think a loud concert like this was never properly translated to a recording. And I'm not ragging on those records, they've made a lot of fans with them, but they're mostly just fun. There was an edge to seeing them live that I hadn't heard before. Btw, apparently new Untamed Youth record incoming.
So anyway, I've seen enough Deke shows at this point to know that stage banter is half of it, and as appreciated as the jokes were, it was cool that a lot of it was restrospectin' on The Untamed Youth: how it started, where it went etc. Oh wait and I almost forgot the stunt that he opened with, saying he had received his check in the mail for SG101, pulled up a gigantic crudely written contract that in 1' tall letters said "no instrumentals", then ripping into a medley of terribly played vocal songs, before apologizing to Jeff for ripping on him. Loved it. More prop humor at SG101 please.
I knew people like The Ghastly Ones, but this was the most people I'd ever seen at SG101 (and indeed it was sold out for that night). Moreso, as we waited for them to start, just listening to people around me made it clear that most of these people weren't here because they think The Ghastly Ones are cool. These were fans. They knew their pseudonyms, they were talking about where they had seen them -- this reunion meant something to them. I think a lot of people had seen them multiple times in the past and were very ready after 14 years to see them again.
And I'd imagine it was what they were hoping for. Though Baron Shivers was barking out little tidbits between songs, he never let things get cold, and as I remember it, it was a song-after-song onslaught of Ghastly classics. A few nice little details: the lighting stayed static on this one, sticking to a green and blue that felt very appropriate. Naturally each member looking creepy in coats and top hats. Stage left/audience right had a smoke machine for extra spookiness, and amazingly I believe the festival had gone this far without the appearance of a fuzz pedal on "Fuzzy and Wild", which sounded amazing.
All-in-all, Saturday was pretty amazing, with so many special bands and moments that it was hard to process everything we'd seen.
SUNDAY
So I had heard that the bus was a good option to get from my motel to the Golden Sails hotel. My only problem: I had zero change, and the bus was $1.50. I figured I'd walk until I saw a corner store then hop on the bus and find some breakfast nearby the hotel. Turns out there's not a lot of corner stores along Pacific Coast Highway, so I ended up walking the whole way. It took over an hour, I was kind of wondering why I was doing it the whole time. But compared to New Orleans, the weather was very nice!
I got there partway through Jonpaul Balak interviewing Will Glover of the Pyramids and Tim Fitzpatrick of the Lively Ones. Will Glover was a lot of fun to listen to, full of jokes and good humor. Some fun anecdotes he provided: The Pyramids had a number of stunts that their manager would put them through: wearing trenchcoats and stripping down to shorts on stage at the Rendezvous Ballroom (getting them banned from the venue but also into the papers), riding up to a venue on elephants to upstage The Beach Boys, and riding up in helicopters also to upstage The Beach Boys. Meanwhile Tim's memory of a lot of the events were pretty hazy, but I was struck by his story of meeting Dano from the Dynotones while getting his window repaired, and joining his band. He pointed out that he was in the Dynotones much longer than The Lively Ones! As Tim tried to recall details of his time, Will pointed out to him "You what's amazing? That these people know more about us than we do!"
I believe things started and ran a little late, pushing back Ivan Pongracic, Martin Cilia and Dane Carter's Atlantics and Shadows tribute. It is kind of funny to pay tribute to both of these bands at once, but both Ivan and Martin are pretty overt fans of both bands (in Martin's case, he was a member of the later incarnation of the Atlantics and has released a Shadows tribute album). It was a fairly compact set and so naturally you're not going to hear everything from each band (no "Theme for Young Lovers" for instance), but at least in the case of The Atlantics they got most of the big ones. Ivan came out wearing a "Straight Outta Atlantis" shirt that I'm guessing he wanted to wear the day before but his band played in a uniform.
Next was the Legends of the 60s Jam, which I didn't catch all of and my notes would be inadequate even if I did. Matt Quilter was the master of ceremonies, narrating the handoffs between musicians. I messaged him for the full run-down of who was involved:
Our Legends core band this year consisted of: Tom Potts, gtr, Lee Rengert, bass (The Chancellors). Tracy Longstreth, drums (The Rhythm Rockers). Jack Freeman, sax (The Del-tones, Fabulous Nomads) and myself, filling in on guitar as needed. Our special guests were Tim Fitzpatrick, drums (Lively Ones), Will Glover, gtr (Pyramids), Bob Spickard, gtr (Chantays), along with Dusty Watson on Drums (Slacktone, Dick Dale).
The highlight of this was probably hearing "Pipeline" played by Bob Spickard, who was not only the original guitarist but credited as a writer of the song. He also played "El Conquistador", mentioning that it was featured in a commercial for UberEats featuring Michael Cera, and thanked UberEats once or twice more. He played well, had some great charisma on the mic, and to be honest I wish he were in that interview portion!
Even though things were running late, they squeezed in a quick tribute to the late, great Duane Eddy, with Buddy and Suzy from Hot Rod Trio. It was just a taste, certainly not comprehensive, but nice and smooth and I'm glad they got it in there as I love Duane Eddy.
Somewhere along the way I got to watch the first ever Surfguitar101 Vintage Swimsuit contest. It was a small, quick thing on the other stage with each model describing where they got their suit and any features the audience might not initially notice. It was only maybe 10-15 minutes, but it was fun. Unfortunately I missed the conclusion where a winner was crowned, but I hope they do it again next year.
It was finally time to jump back into the present day! Let's not waste any time, Surf Zombies ruled. There's nothing zombie-like about them, in fact the word "lively" comes to mind. They're extremely energetic, but nothing especially punk or menacing to them; light-hearted and fun from start to finish.
Surf Zombies are a hardened live-performance machine -- somebody was saying they do more live shows than Daikaiju, just within a more limited range. I'm not gonna run the numbers on that, but they act like it. Some of the coordinated moves they do to the songs had me wondering if their stage performance factors into the songwriting. If so, the songwriting doesn't suffer -- their latest record "In Color" was one of my favorites that year (my friend Brandonio, next to me for much of this show, could not accept that it didn't win a Gremmy). I also dig that even though their uniforms were very basic, they were uniforms right down to the shoes.
I've always thought 3 Balls of Fire was a difficult band to pin down. One moment they're playing fairly traditional surf (props to them for digging deep covering Wes Dakus on "Las Vegas Scene) , then the next they're leaning into Mermen-esque psychedelic territory. As mentioned earlier, the schedule was pretty off at this point and every band's set was shortened. 3 Balls of Fire were clearly a bit destabilized by the news that they had only a handful of songs left.
One of my favorite quotes from the weekend was when they said they would play "Classical Gas" because somebody came up to them earlier and gave them $5 to play it. Which was funny on its own, but then they said "we can use it to buy some CRACK. Let's everybody do some CRACK. We're a CRACK band by the way." I have no idea where that came from but oooooooooooooookayyyyyy!
This marked my third time seeing The Volcanics at SG101, and it's always a pleasure. Not only do I love their rock-solid traditional but not-too-studiously-boring approach to surf, but each member has great personality that the audience can pick up on and enjoy.
Fun little thing here: a few new songs! They had just released a single, but I reckon another release is probably fairly close.
I think this is a good point to mention The Evanstones and The Seatopians on the other stage. I barely got to see much of either group, so mention is probably the most I can muster. I enjoyed hearing some nicely done vintage covers from The Evanstones. I'm very happy that The Seatopians didn't suffer the same tragedy as their last appearance when their car was broken into with laptops and gear stolen. Their bassist requested that he be sent any photos taken of him so that his mom could see, so hope she likes these.
Before they started, Jeff gave a little intro saying that The Nebulas played the 2022 festival, but that was such a low-attended event before COVID was fully over that he thought they deserved a bigger spotlight. I had seen them there, bought the apparently very limited (less than 10) yellow T-shirt that the band was very amused to see, and thought they were great.
Big difference here though: this time they were supporting their first LP in 18 years, Euphorion. Well, I suppose it's not that big of a difference, because Euphorion mostly served up what Nebulas fans expected and wanted: loud, powerful surf riffs with heavy momentum -- just this time with a fun little garnish of spacey psychedelia. And yeah, we got that. They were loud and hard-hitting, and the skull masks looked great. Can't blame them for taking the off towards the end through, I too am a big fan of breathing.
I love The Nebulas, you love The Nebulas, the guy standing next to me on the right really loved The Nebulas. He was head-banging and jerking, responding to every note, particularly when "Rhino Chaser" started. I tapped his shoulder and put out my hand for a hi-five, which he enthusiastically accepted. I think that acknowledgement of what he was feeling might have pushed him towards supernova, he was about as amped as I've seen anybody at a surf show. Just wanted to recognize you, dude. Anyways, The Nebulas absolutely delivered -- it's hard for so many bands to be called a "highlight of the show" but they were.
Well, uh, I just wrote a paragraph about how I'd seen a band before, and that they were great, but they have brand new material out now so it's extra exciting. I wish I had another angle, but yeah, that's the case for two bands in a row. This time The Boss Martians.
Doesn't mean I wasn't excited though. As was the case last time I saw them at Hi-Tide Summer Holiday, The Boss Martians were just on another plane of existence. In my head it plays back in fast-motion because it feels like there wasn't a moment to breathe. The way Evan leans over the audience sticks in your brain, the way he plays guitar feels like he's not even thinking about it, the sort of whip-back thing that he does with his brother -- it's all a rush.
Here's a confession: I have tried and failed to become a fan of The Boss Martians' recorded material. I've picked up records, but it always feels like I picked up the wrong ones. And a reminder: I've seen them before, I know that they are well beyond good. Maybe this is a retread of what I said about The Untamed Youth, but here's the reason I mention it: I don't have to say that anymore because they have a brand new record that, despite only being six songs, feels like a decent snapshot of their live show, and feels representative of what hype for Boss Martians would lead me to expect of them.
I talked to a few people that were a little thrown off by The Outta Sites being on the bill. Vocal garage group? Second to last slot of the lineup? Well, the plan was an instrumental set, and the bandleader is also drummer for The Untamed Youth and Los Straitjackets. OK, those credentials quality, and they had a fun set of mostly instrumental classics. Sure, they threw in "Surfin' Bird" at the end. OK. I did think it was a little strange that they announced they were going to deviate from their setlist to do The Who's "Substitute". Great song and all, but not even an instrumental version. But I don't want to be too hard on them, it was a lively, fun set overall.
And here we were at the end, with a second set from The Coffin Daggers, this time dipping into their most recent album full of eleki covers. Although surprisingly, that was not how it started, with a two songs that I believe might have been new, and a cool version of Similau that, if memory serves, was boldly leaving melody to the keys.
However, it breaks my heart to say that the issue with the mix persisted from their other set to this one, perhaps worse. And I was standing squarely in front of Vic, probably hearing his amp more directly than anyone else, and yet I still felt like the rhythm guitar on the other side of the stage was louder. I considered saying something to him between songs, I did say something to the sound guy, and I felt like I was going crazy because others didn't seem to be having a hard time, but it made it a bit hard to me to fully appreciate it. Hopefully I'll find another opportunity to see them again, these things happen, bad experience but good band.
It did give me a little bit of opportunity to wind down, take it in, wrap up with people. I don't believe there was an afterparty, though I jokingly dubbed the handful of friendlies waiting outside for an uber as one. As monstrously long as this is, it can't capture everything -- in fact I keep mentioning the people I meet and talk to, but that doesn't convey the actual interactions. And since I have no idea where else to mention it, the gender difference is flattening a bit, with the running joke that there was actually a line to the womens' bathroom this year. But seriously, this is something special, and as I sort of said before, it's made out of love and a feeling that it should exist, not to exploit a phenomena (there are probably much more exploitable ventures).
Jeff looked like a shell of himself by the end of it, and I'd imagine he scarcely gets the chance to enjoy it like we do. But it's truly a gift, and I want to thank not only him, but the many people that have stepped up to save him a little energy and let him enjoy it just an ounce more. See y'all next year, to both the same old faces, and hopefully some new ones.
All hail Jeff "BigTikiDude" Hanson
