An interview with John Tyner on Laphona’s debut album — When the heat dome struck the West Coast in 2021 and burned down an entire town, I channeled my conflicted feelings about summer into a playlist and then wrote about surf music every day for the month of July. I would have never guessed my daily devotions to surf music…

Introduction and index to 31 days of surf — Surf music is as specific as it is versatile in its oceanic tempos, splashy drums, reverb-soaked guitar, and spacious water-walls of sound. …

Dick Dale, The King of Surf — And then you get out in a wave. And then you get out and you start paddling, and you’re facing a six-footer or an eight-footer and — let alone a 10-footer. It is the most frightening thing in the world, and you just have to just dig down and go…

Non-White Legends — Yesterday, I detailed Dick Dale’s unique influence on Surf Rock but I’d like to take a breakneck tour of some of the other sounds that helped Surf Rock make sense. …

Back to the Beach — “Pipeline” is my internal surf song. The motorik guitar beat and soft sunset glow in the first chords take over my internal rhythms with the feeling of a time and place slightly out of reach. Directly descended from the stylings of Dick Dale, The Chantays crafted a perfect surf rock…

The romance of surfing — Yesterday, I divulged my guilty pleasure of watching Back to the Beach over 100 times, gratefully leading me to surf music. Among the amazing range of surf classics featured in the film was “The Lonely Bull” written by Sol Lake — a friend of Herb Alpert — and performed by…

Cross-dressing genres — It’s only day 5 on this 31 day challenge and the theme of genre bending is emerging. Surf music is just another example of how impossible it is to extricate one genre from another. This is why I stick to defining surf music as a mode more that a genre…

Surf, Flamenco and the infidelity of genre — Mr. Moto was recorded simultaneously with Dick Dale’s “Let’s Go Trippin’”, and both are considered the first surf rock songs. Both were responsible for defining the genre that would then attract the Beach Boys and Jan & Dean. …

Kids in the Hall, Surf and popular theme songs — Surf music made a big impact on theme songs in the ’60s that became so ubiquitous that most people forget they are surf songs. Surf rock created the foreboding tone of themes from Batman to James Bond. …

Surf Punk and Rockaway Beach — Punk reached its height in the late 1970s and bands influenced by surf married the tough attitude of Link Wray’s “Rumble” and Dick Dale’s cacophonous guitar muscle with more edge and postmodern sentiment. Punk was not just rebellious and raucous. It was angrier. …

Militaristic surf undercurrents — I wonder if the pioneers of surf music could have imagined their sound facilitating a punk bands’ post-war political message against fascist regimes. The Clash and Dead Kennedys did just that when surf punk was sweeping the suburbs. …

Depraved Bliss of Psychobilly — In the lively language of skittering tempos and dual guitars, The Cramps were punk meets rockabilly with an undercurrent of surf. They embraced smutty chic as an aesthetic and flaunted b-movie and horror themes in their lo-fi fishnet and latex garage glory. The Cramps are my favourite chimera of surf…

Camp goes surfing with The Deadbeat Club — …When we play “Rock Lobster” they just go a little bit nuts. No matter where we play it. And if we play in Europe people form a mosh pit on that song. It propels people to let their inner-freak fly. Something about that song gives people a license to let…

Sexism and surf: girls can be sleaze-bags too — When I was laboriously going over my working list of surf gems across decades, genres, and countries, it dawned on me that I could use The Go-Go’s. Then I said, “fuck yeah”. Why? The Go-Go’s arrived on a new wave, scrappy with ideas and techniques from previous punk bands —…

The Jesus and Mary Chain — Surf music’s influence around the world was not exclusive to straightforward rock in the first years. The subtle inflections of surf sound in alternative music is like an emotional cord through a song. …

Instrumental surf revival with a twist — After surf rock lost appeal during the British Invasion, it came back to life in punk then hit a dry spell in its classic, instrumental iterations. …

The Pixies and broken hearts — The shattered illusions of the world are mirrored in punk and The Pixies sharpened those pieces into a fine, eloquent edge. Kind of like the sweetness of longing that runs through a broken heart. Joey Santiago’s surf guitar glides on that edge drifting us into the ’90s with a post-punk…

Surf music in Japan — Japan’s affinity with the sea means modern surf culture is as lively and lengthy as in California; however, Japanese folk were was using an itago to surf centuries before American soldiers came with their boards. Japanese surf culture was born in Shōnan, which continues to be a quiet surf mecca…

Surf, Horror Punk and The Murder City Devils — By the approach of the millennium, a strong revival of instrumental bands were coasting on Pulp Fiction badassery and vocal surf descendants from ‘70s and ‘80s punk and garage lineage were proving the sunny sounds of surf can feel seductive in the shadows of dark imagery. Seattle’s Murder City Devils…

Wild variations of the surf genre — Surf music has branched into unimaginable variations and sub-genres that deeply contrast each other and it is delightful to hold contemporary acts like the psychobilly Reverend Horton Heat up to frothy surf-pop acts like Beach Bunny. So we arrive at a departure point before we dive into the prominent influence…