It's time to take that yearly trip over to the west coast for the premiere Surf festival in the US: The Surfguitar101 Convention. After a nice day on the El Segundo Beach, a nice meet & greet, and a warm-up at The Purple Orchid on Friday, I woke up Saturday ready for a day immersed in surf music.

I learned from past experience that I should have cash in-hand and show up at least an hour early. I took a half-second to behold the strange and wonderful sight of the Alpine Lodge, and proceeded inside where I paid my admission to familiar friendly faces.

I really really really really wish I could separate these two events, but now is the time to celebrate Dick Dale and our pledge drive can't be moved. Almost all songs will be Dick Dale or covers of Dick Dale.

You can donate here

My first interview with Dick Dale was back in 2012, which predates this website and I never got around to uploading it. Since Dick Dale passed away today, I did something I almost never do and allowed myself to listen to my own voice. Thankfully, that voice is a very small part of this interview, and I really enjoyed hearing this again. Dick talks about his innovations, his music, New Orleans, his animals, his ranch, his stance on drugs, Quentin Tarantino... and being a great guy you can tell he almost flips the script and tries to small talk me a few times.

It seems the King is dead. This morning social media was swirling with rumors of his death, but any sources seemed less than reputable. At this point enough people that have worked with him closely appear to be confirming it.

This playlist is pretty short since I was chatting with Dick Dale over the phone for half the show

This past monday Dick Dale asked GoDaddy tech support to call him back (for real) so that he could take a few minutes to talk with me. If you've ever heard a Dick Dale interview before (this was my second one), you probably know that he does a good job of interviewing himself. There are certain themes that will come up, but definitely a few things I'd never heard before: a surprising amount of Elvis, Glen Campbell, thoughts on traveling and what touring does for him, as well as insight into the ideas behind his music, talks with Leo Fender etc that often come up during interviews.

The King of the Surf Guitar is heading to New Orleans on April 12th (Sunday). Thanks to WTUL's ticket coordinator being pretty great at what he does, I've got a phone interview with him for the second half of tomorrow's show. This isn't the first interview I've done with him (trying to find the old one) and based on the last one chances are he'll run the show on his own, but I'm open to any suggestions for prompts. I have a few ideas of my own but I also used a bunch of them the first time around.

Of course, I'll edit it down for internet consumption afterwards.