The King of Surf is Dead. Long Live the King!

adorshki

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"You Will Never Hear Surf Music Again"
-"Third Stone From the Sun"-James Marshall Hendrix

From a Surfer magazine interview:
I read that when Jimi Hendrix said, “You’ll never hear Surf music again,” that was in reference to your battle with cancer. Is that true?
"You know what's so funny? Why didn't they say the rest of his sentence? Do you know what the rest of the sentence is?"
No, I have no idea. What is it?
I had never missed a gig in my life, and I had a temperature of 104, and I couldn't even talk…and had got hit real bad with rectal cancer. Jimi was recording in the studio and said, "I heard Dale did a no-show. That's not like him. You know?"
His guitar player said, "No man, he's dying."
They had given me three months to live.
Then Jimi said, "You'll never hear surf music again." And then he said, "I bet that's a big lie. Let's pack up, boys, and go home."
That was the full f–king sentence. "
 

Guildedagain

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Oh, the history...

Always loved the way he took Polka and Middle Eastern scales, and created a brand new quintessentially American sound, living proof of the melting pot.

Also HUGELY influential on Leo to make louder amps.

Damn, I miss my reverb tanks today!


Fender kept trying options, but Dale still wasn't satisfied. "We kept on making all these adjustments with output transformers, with speakers," Dale told Fresh Air, "and that's how I blew up over 48 speakers and amplifiers. They'd catch on fire, the speakers would freeze, the speakers would tear from the coils ... So he went back to the drawing board came up and invented the Dick Dale Showman amplifier, and the dual Showman amplifier with the 15 inch Lansing speaker. That was the end result ... along with the creations that we did on the Stratocaster guitar, making it a real thick body because the thicker the wood, the purer the sound."
 
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Quantum Strummer

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Hendrix had an impish sense of humor. By all reports his taste in music was wide-ranging and included Dick Dale's Middle Eastern/Indian-influenced fabulousness. :)

-Dave-
 

Guildedagain

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Supposedly going towards Jazz at the end, although Axis has plenty of really jazzy pieces already, fabulous stuff also.
 

wileypickett

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On one of the alternate mixes of *Third Stone From the Sun," they reinstated Hendrix's edited follow-up to "And you'll never hear surf music again": ". . . sounds like a lie to me!"

I was a fan of Dick Dale's music ever since I heard "Miserlou," one of the great rock instrumentals, on the radio.

I finally saw Dale perfrom live at Johnny Ds in Somerville, MA, some years ago. Dale had been born in Boston, and so a lot of his family came out for the show, including his grandmother, who was in a wheelchair. Dale was only a minute or so into his set, which was pretty over-the-top loud, when one of of Dale's relatives could be seen hurriedly wheeling grandma out of the club, her hands pressed tightly over her ears.

Dale, watching her exit, leaned into the mic and said, "I told her it would be too loud for her -- she wouldn't believe me!"
 

adorshki

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Supposedly going towards Jazz at the end, although Axis has plenty of really jazzy pieces already, fabulous stuff also.

Not just "supposedly", it was his primary reason for hooking up with Alan Douglas who'd already produced the likes of Art Blakey, Miles Davis, and John McLaughlin.
And as mentioned, jazz influences already showing up Axis, especially with Mitch Mitchell's background showing in "Up From the Skies" and a full-blown jazz piece in "Rainy Day Dream Away" on Ladyland.
There's also the frankly somewhat painful rehearsal outtake with some horn players on South Saturn Delta ("Midnight"?- don't have the CD right here)

But that's a digression I was going to leave unsaid until I heard a jazz cover of "Miserlou" while coming in to work this AM; courtesy of one of my favorite stations:
https://www.kcsm.org/jazz91/index.php
(you can listen to stream on the 'net)
 

Guildedagain

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Well, I just said the King, cause they did ;-)

Long Live The King!

I should have known better than to say supposedly ;-)

Mitchell was such an incredible drummer, mesmerizing... so trippy listening to Jimi saying "I'll Die when I wanna die, so let me live my life, how I want to", or something close to that. I may have serioulsy damaged my brain, by I can pretty much play the album in my head, and a lot of early Floyd (The Corporal Clegg era, I call it), and yeah, Ladyland, I may have almost worn the grooves from that album, underrated, what?

Electric Ladyland to be exact. Maybe Hendrix's finest solos captured on record. There is one side of that double album that could play in infinite loop and I would be fine ;-)
 

Guildedagain

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On one of the alternate mixes of *Third Stone From the Sun," they reinstated Hendrix's edited follow-up to "And you'll never hear surf music again": ". . . sounds like a lie to me!"

I was a fan of Dick Dale's music ever since I heard "Miserlou," one of the great rock instrumentals, on the radio.

I finally saw Dale perfrom live at Johnny Ds in Somerville, MA, some years ago. Dale had been born in Boston, and so a lot of his family came out for the show, including his grandmother, who was in a wheelchair. Dale was only a minute or so into his set, which was pretty over-the-top loud, when one of of Dale's relatives could be seen hurriedly wheeling grandma out of the club, her hands pressed tightly over her ears.

Dale, watching her exit, leaned into the mic and said, "I told her it would be too loud for her -- she wouldn't believe me!"

Geez, that's priceless ;-))


Wish I'd seen him. Tons of videos though, he's been on my radar for a long time.

Sad day, but the song remains the same.
 
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adorshki

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To me, Dick Dale really is not the King of Surf. That honor would go to Paul Johnson.

https://www.allmusic.com/artist/paul-johnson-mn0000020790

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bel-Airs
??
OK, I get "one of the founding fathers", but I still say the "king" is the guy with the most recognition and influence.
I think that's gotta be Dale.
Or else the Ventures. (!)
All the rest of 'em were basically one-shot wonders, and I don't count the Beach Boys as a genuine surf rock band.
 
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