Over the last few years, I've been developing a love of surf music. This started -- as it did for a lot of people -- with the opening music in Quentin Tarantino's movie, Pulp Fiction. That's Dick Dale, playing Miserlou. I searched out a CD that had the very cut Tarantino used, King Of The Surf Guitar: The Best Of Dick Dale & His Del-Tones and I was hooked.

It didn't take much. Surf music was crackling over the static on AM radios all around me when I was a kid, and the sound was intimately tied up with hot rods and the custom car culture I was steeped in as a boy. I've discovered that there's been a surf revivial in the last ten years, with lots of new bands covering classics like Pipeline, Mr. Moto, Walk Don't Run and the like, but also moving off in new directions with the basic ingredients of reverb guitar and driving beats.

A lot of the new surf sound digs into a closely related genre, loosely known as "spy-fi" -- the "spooky" sound of the theme music for the spy and cheap-o science fiction movies and TV shows of the 60s. I'm a complete sucker for this sound, and have delved into groups with related sounds, like Booker T. and the MGs.

MY SURF LIBRARY

• Dick Dale -- the universally-acknowledged "King of the Surf Guitar"
  • King Of The Surf Guitar: The Best Of Dick Dale & His Del-Tones
  • Tribal Thunder -- new sounds from the King
• Aqua Velvets -- Great eample of the new surf sound
  • Guitar Noir -- on the cool, jazzy side of surf
  • Nomad -- The cover of the title track is a modern classic of the surf revival
• The Ventures -- The original instrumental surf band
  • The Ventures Play the Greatest Surfin' Hits of All Time -- Walk Don't Run, Penetration, Surf Rider, Mr. Moto, Hawaii Five-o, Wipe Out: this collection's a must-have for any surf music library
  • The Ventures Play Telstar/Ventures in Space -- A combination of two original albums, the main thing here is Telstar, which was a big hit and definitely had that space thing going for it...
• Blue Stingrays -- more cool-ish surf nuveau
  • Surf n' Burn -- laid-back reverb instrumentals
• Jan and Dean -- Classic vocal surf duo
  • Greatest Hits -- must have for The Little Old Lady from Pasadena
• Booker T. and the MG's -- cool, cool, cool
  • The Very Best of Booker T. & the MG's -- includes Green Onions (my introduction to cool as a kid)
• Various
  • Lost Legends of the Surf Guitar -- Great stuff like Exotic by the Surfaris and El Gato by the Chandelles
  • Surf Guitar Greats -- the Mission Impossible theme by Laika & the Cosmonauts is a great example of modern spy-fi
  • Instrumental Fire -- Great collection of new surf-instrumental bands, with a mix of everything from good spy-fi to surf thrash
• Downloads
  • There's tons of great music for free to be had at band websites. This is a good list to browse. I've found hours of driving music there.

MY MUSIC PAGE