Post by petrolino on Sept 26, 2020 22:37:11 GMT
Shortboard Thruster : Surfing On The A-Frame
Blondie, the Ramones, the Cramps, the B-52's and the Dead Kennedys are among the many punk bands that have utilised surf rock techniques in their music. Surf punk has been called "a revival of the original surfing sound" and it's true there's a strong connection. Agent Orange recorded covers of 'Miserlou' (a folk song from the east Mediterranean reinvented by surf rock pioneer Dick Dale), the Bel-Airs' 'Mr. Moto' and the Chantays' 'Pipeline'.
"It wasn’t long after the invention of rock ’n’ roll that artists started making their own styles of rock, including the reverb-heavy surf rock, made most popular by Dick Dale and later, the Beach Boys."
- Alyssa Quiles, Alt Press
Surf Punks
'The Dummies' - Surf Punks
The pioneers of what might be called "pure surf punk" included the group Surf Punks who formed in Malibu, California, and Insect Surfers who originated in Washington D.C. which is technically landlocked. Insect Surfers opened for the B-52's in 1979.
"One of the best things about Surf Punks is they were exactly what they said they were. In the late 1970s, the Malibu band aimed to apply the no-frills surfer ideal to punk in the same way the Beach Boys had applied it to rock 'n' roll in the 1960s. It was a novel idea, for sure. But, for a time at least, it succeeded, even if the Surf Punks story was weird and fragmented.
Adding to Surf Punks' unlikely premise was the fact that co-founder, producer, and drummer Dennis Dragon was the younger brother of "Captain" Daryl Dragon of the soft-rock duo Captain & Tennille. In another odd twist, both Dragon brothers had played with the Beach Boys themselves.
Fronted by vocalist Drew Steele, Surf Punks self-released an album in 1979. It was later picked up by Epic, who issued it as My Beach the following year. Punk's first wave was already dying out, and the band moved to indie Restless/Enigma for the 1982 follow-up Locals Only. Then, they disappeared for six years."
Adding to Surf Punks' unlikely premise was the fact that co-founder, producer, and drummer Dennis Dragon was the younger brother of "Captain" Daryl Dragon of the soft-rock duo Captain & Tennille. In another odd twist, both Dragon brothers had played with the Beach Boys themselves.
Fronted by vocalist Drew Steele, Surf Punks self-released an album in 1979. It was later picked up by Epic, who issued it as My Beach the following year. Punk's first wave was already dying out, and the band moved to indie Restless/Enigma for the 1982 follow-up Locals Only. Then, they disappeared for six years."
- John Bergstrom, Pop Matters
Insect Surfers
'Up Periscope' - Insect Surfers
One of the most dedicated surf rock bands is Man Or Astro-Man? who draw heavily from punk music. They apparently released a split 7" single with Chrome in 1996 but I've not heard it.
Californian Super Surfer ~ Jennifer Aniston
'Told You So' - Paramore
- - -
Noseslide Grind : Skating To The Death Wobble
Around the same time that surf punk broke through, skate punk emerged as a major musical movement. Skate punk went on to become a global phenomenon whereas surf punk has remained a niche market. Suicidal Tendencies are one of the more innovative skate punk bands, blending thrash metal with hardcore punk to fashion an arresting hybrid. Suicidal Tendencies were formed in Venice, California which had a strong skate punk scene and was also home to Excel. As surf punk gripped the west coast, some of the leading skater punks could be found inland where they were spread across the south-west. The seeds of subgenre pioneers JFA (Jodie Foster's Army) were planted in Pheonix, Arizona though they also had links to California's punk scene.
“I decided to start a record label because I could see the future of punk.” Doug Moody, still laser-sharp well into his 80s, is the founder of Mystic Records, a California-based label that released early albums, singles and compilation tracks from many of the bands that would become synonymous with the skate-punk movement of the 1980s – bands like JFA, Suicidal Tendencies, Ill Repute, RKL, DRI and Dr. Know.
“I decided to record 500 bands, and they came from all over, everywhere, even Holland,” he says. “The trick for Mystic was to give a voice to people who wanted to tell the world how they felt. You can only capture that before you have the responsibilities of bills and children.
"Most of the bands were between the ages of 16 and 18. That’s when you have the vehemence, the drive to tell the world what you really think. I saw myself in these kids, and that’s why I started Mystic.”
Moody made his fortune in the 50s and 60s, recording soul and R&B acts on his Philadelphia-based labels Herald and Ember, including some early work with influential country and blues guitarist Lightnin’ Hopkins.
“When I moved to the US from England,” he says, “the only people that would accept me were black. So that’s the kind of music I recorded. The people that played this music were dirt poor, they’d come in with holes in their trousers, and with hand-me-down instruments.
"Fast forward to the 1970s, when I started recording punk bands for Better Youth Organization in California, and I saw the same things – kids with holes in their clothes, and with hand-me-down instruments. They were poor. It was like the 50s all over again. And I knew they were all skateboarders, because they would come into the studio with their skateboards.”
One of these early skate bands was Dr. Know. Brandon Cruz was their first singer, although he left the band before their more well-known ‘crossover’ era, and the frontman recounts how a bunch of scruffy, angry skateboarders started an entire musical movement.
“We were all skaters before we were punkers,” he says. Cruz was from a Los Angeles suburb called Oxnard, which quickly became ground zero for skate-punk. “In Oxnard, where Aggression, Ill Repute, Dr. Know and Stalag 13 all came from, we surfed year round and skated in empty pools when it didn’t rain.
In 1975 or 1976, this was before punk rock, they built a skate park in Oxnard, and all the guys from Venice would come up to skate there. Some of the guys from Venice included Jim Muir and his little, little brother, [future Suicidal Tendencies frontman] Mike Muir. We all skated, and we all skated to heavy metal and southern-fried rock back then.”
The following year, however, the musical landscape changed radically. “The summer of ’77 I came back from England, and there was a band from Moor Park called the Rotters. They started playing, and by 1978 they were playing high school parties, and we would go and crash the parties.
We heard those guys playing, and we said, ‘Oh, we can do that.’ The guys in Aggression were a few years older, so all us guys that would later be in Ill Repute and Dr. Know, we just sat and watched to see how they did it. Then we all sorta came together at my mom’s house. That’s where our guitar player Ismael coined the term “Nardcore”, and it all sorta got going from there. The band started in late ’79, and it really got going by 1981.”
“The original name for the music we put out was thrash, or skate-thrash,” says Doug Moody. “Punk music was Exploited, Discharge. The bands coming from England, and the bands that copied them were punk bands. The stuff we were producing was an original form of Californian music, thrash, or skateboard punk. It originated here.”
The movement was aided by the emergence of LA hardcore bands like Black Flag, The Circle Jerks and the Adolescents, bands that were fast and raw, which replicated the feel of skating. Soon, skate-punk bands starting cropping up all over California and, indeed, the rest of the country. Arizona’s JFA (or, as they were more formally known, Jodie Foster’s Army) are one of the longest running. Lead singer Brain Brannon recounts the early days of the scene.
“You had bands in Orange County and LA, you had Oxnard, which is central California, you had skate-punk coming out of San Francisco, like the Drunk Injuns, San Jose had a big scene. They were sprouting like weeds. It was going on all over. It wasn’t really a movement until Thrasher magazine started putting it all together. Thrasher was a really big catalyst in helping everybody join together. With it you can find out what town has what band so you can hook up and tour, go to their spots to skate and hang out.”
At the same time skate-punk began developing as a loosely-knit but far-reaching community, a per nicious influx of gangs crept into the LA skate-punk scene. The most notorious were the Suicidals, known as much for their low-slung bandanas as their propensity for brutality. Venice Beach skate thrashers Suicidal Tendencies were, naturally, at the eye of this particular hurricane. Their shows became so violent that by 1983, they could no longer even play in Los Angeles.
“Suicidal blew up ridiculously huge”, says Brandon Cruz. “A lot of the East LA guys delved really deep into the gang lifestyle, to the point where you couldn’t even refer to them by their real names anymore, they had all these nicknames and stuff. Back in the 80s, punk rock gang fights were, at the worst, somebody with a stick.
"They were fistfights. But after a while, people were getting jumped for no reason, and it just got stupid. The violence in that scene is legendary, but it was brutal to be a part of. I’m a small guy, but I got punched a bunch of times at gigs by people where I didn’t know who they were or what I’d done. It was like a random thing.”
As if random face-mashings weren’t enough, around 1983-1985, a strange new influence crept into skate-thrash: heavy metal. Seemingly overnight, scores of once-staunchly anti-metal punk bands began to add scorching lead-guitar solos and wailing vocals into their songs.
It was a like some sort of lead-infused virus, and it claimed an impressive roster of skate-friendly punk bands, including Dr. Know, DRI, Suicidal Tendencies, Corrosion Of Conformity, Septic Death, Agnostic Front, SSD and many others. Brandon Cruz was one of the few purists who refused to ‘go metal’.
“I don’t know how it happened,” he shrugs. “I just remember in 1983 hearing the initial rough versions of songs that were going to be on our Plug-In Jesus record and looking at our guitar player Kyle and realising, ‘Wow, he’s growing his hair out and listening to a lot more Motörhead and Black Sabbath lately,’ and this isn’t what I thought we were going to do."
“I decided to record 500 bands, and they came from all over, everywhere, even Holland,” he says. “The trick for Mystic was to give a voice to people who wanted to tell the world how they felt. You can only capture that before you have the responsibilities of bills and children.
"Most of the bands were between the ages of 16 and 18. That’s when you have the vehemence, the drive to tell the world what you really think. I saw myself in these kids, and that’s why I started Mystic.”
Moody made his fortune in the 50s and 60s, recording soul and R&B acts on his Philadelphia-based labels Herald and Ember, including some early work with influential country and blues guitarist Lightnin’ Hopkins.
“When I moved to the US from England,” he says, “the only people that would accept me were black. So that’s the kind of music I recorded. The people that played this music were dirt poor, they’d come in with holes in their trousers, and with hand-me-down instruments.
"Fast forward to the 1970s, when I started recording punk bands for Better Youth Organization in California, and I saw the same things – kids with holes in their clothes, and with hand-me-down instruments. They were poor. It was like the 50s all over again. And I knew they were all skateboarders, because they would come into the studio with their skateboards.”
One of these early skate bands was Dr. Know. Brandon Cruz was their first singer, although he left the band before their more well-known ‘crossover’ era, and the frontman recounts how a bunch of scruffy, angry skateboarders started an entire musical movement.
“We were all skaters before we were punkers,” he says. Cruz was from a Los Angeles suburb called Oxnard, which quickly became ground zero for skate-punk. “In Oxnard, where Aggression, Ill Repute, Dr. Know and Stalag 13 all came from, we surfed year round and skated in empty pools when it didn’t rain.
In 1975 or 1976, this was before punk rock, they built a skate park in Oxnard, and all the guys from Venice would come up to skate there. Some of the guys from Venice included Jim Muir and his little, little brother, [future Suicidal Tendencies frontman] Mike Muir. We all skated, and we all skated to heavy metal and southern-fried rock back then.”
The following year, however, the musical landscape changed radically. “The summer of ’77 I came back from England, and there was a band from Moor Park called the Rotters. They started playing, and by 1978 they were playing high school parties, and we would go and crash the parties.
We heard those guys playing, and we said, ‘Oh, we can do that.’ The guys in Aggression were a few years older, so all us guys that would later be in Ill Repute and Dr. Know, we just sat and watched to see how they did it. Then we all sorta came together at my mom’s house. That’s where our guitar player Ismael coined the term “Nardcore”, and it all sorta got going from there. The band started in late ’79, and it really got going by 1981.”
“The original name for the music we put out was thrash, or skate-thrash,” says Doug Moody. “Punk music was Exploited, Discharge. The bands coming from England, and the bands that copied them were punk bands. The stuff we were producing was an original form of Californian music, thrash, or skateboard punk. It originated here.”
The movement was aided by the emergence of LA hardcore bands like Black Flag, The Circle Jerks and the Adolescents, bands that were fast and raw, which replicated the feel of skating. Soon, skate-punk bands starting cropping up all over California and, indeed, the rest of the country. Arizona’s JFA (or, as they were more formally known, Jodie Foster’s Army) are one of the longest running. Lead singer Brain Brannon recounts the early days of the scene.
“You had bands in Orange County and LA, you had Oxnard, which is central California, you had skate-punk coming out of San Francisco, like the Drunk Injuns, San Jose had a big scene. They were sprouting like weeds. It was going on all over. It wasn’t really a movement until Thrasher magazine started putting it all together. Thrasher was a really big catalyst in helping everybody join together. With it you can find out what town has what band so you can hook up and tour, go to their spots to skate and hang out.”
At the same time skate-punk began developing as a loosely-knit but far-reaching community, a per nicious influx of gangs crept into the LA skate-punk scene. The most notorious were the Suicidals, known as much for their low-slung bandanas as their propensity for brutality. Venice Beach skate thrashers Suicidal Tendencies were, naturally, at the eye of this particular hurricane. Their shows became so violent that by 1983, they could no longer even play in Los Angeles.
“Suicidal blew up ridiculously huge”, says Brandon Cruz. “A lot of the East LA guys delved really deep into the gang lifestyle, to the point where you couldn’t even refer to them by their real names anymore, they had all these nicknames and stuff. Back in the 80s, punk rock gang fights were, at the worst, somebody with a stick.
"They were fistfights. But after a while, people were getting jumped for no reason, and it just got stupid. The violence in that scene is legendary, but it was brutal to be a part of. I’m a small guy, but I got punched a bunch of times at gigs by people where I didn’t know who they were or what I’d done. It was like a random thing.”
As if random face-mashings weren’t enough, around 1983-1985, a strange new influence crept into skate-thrash: heavy metal. Seemingly overnight, scores of once-staunchly anti-metal punk bands began to add scorching lead-guitar solos and wailing vocals into their songs.
It was a like some sort of lead-infused virus, and it claimed an impressive roster of skate-friendly punk bands, including Dr. Know, DRI, Suicidal Tendencies, Corrosion Of Conformity, Septic Death, Agnostic Front, SSD and many others. Brandon Cruz was one of the few purists who refused to ‘go metal’.
“I don’t know how it happened,” he shrugs. “I just remember in 1983 hearing the initial rough versions of songs that were going to be on our Plug-In Jesus record and looking at our guitar player Kyle and realising, ‘Wow, he’s growing his hair out and listening to a lot more Motörhead and Black Sabbath lately,’ and this isn’t what I thought we were going to do."
- Ken McIntyre, Louder
Suicidal Tendencies
'Tapping Into The Emotional Void' - Excel
Big Boys and the Dicks both played in Austin, Texas and were a key influence on the Red Hot Chilli Peppers' funk-fuelled sound. Together they recorded a joint album, 'Big Boys & The Dicks -- Live At Raul's Club' (1980), which is now enshrined as a skate punk classic. There were countless hardcore bands active in cities like Dallas, Houston and San Antonio that pretty much sounded the same, but several bands in Austin sought to add groove to their frenetic thrash.
"Skateboards and the cinema are no strangers. They’ve had a relationship stretching back more than 50 years. One of the earliest examples is Skaterdater, a 15-minute short with zero dialogue. It’s a classic boy-meets-girl story soundtracked by the surf rock group Davie Allan and the Arrows, which was released way back in 1965.
Skating or ‘sidewalk surfing’, as it was known back then, was almost lost to history as a passing fad until the 1970s saw the invention of the polyurethane wheel, which allowed riders to hit bigger and tougher terrain. Soon, skaters such as Tony Alva and Jay Adams, members of the legendary Z-Boys skate crew, were pushing all previous boundaries, and photographers and filmmakers were keen to capture their exploits on camera. This resulted in a 70s spike of skate-based films, including Freewheelin’ (1976), Skateboard (1978) and Skateboard Madness (1980).
Narratively shaky, these were essentially cinematic vehicles for skaters to showcase their skills and tricks. The budgets were low but the enthusiasm behind them was enough to give the new genre traction, leading to the release of an increasing number of skate-inspired films. Before long, more mainstream movies began to have central characters who were skaters, as the skateboard became emblematic of youth identity or rebellious unconventionality."
Skating or ‘sidewalk surfing’, as it was known back then, was almost lost to history as a passing fad until the 1970s saw the invention of the polyurethane wheel, which allowed riders to hit bigger and tougher terrain. Soon, skaters such as Tony Alva and Jay Adams, members of the legendary Z-Boys skate crew, were pushing all previous boundaries, and photographers and filmmakers were keen to capture their exploits on camera. This resulted in a 70s spike of skate-based films, including Freewheelin’ (1976), Skateboard (1978) and Skateboard Madness (1980).
Narratively shaky, these were essentially cinematic vehicles for skaters to showcase their skills and tricks. The budgets were low but the enthusiasm behind them was enough to give the new genre traction, leading to the release of an increasing number of skate-inspired films. Before long, more mainstream movies began to have central characters who were skaters, as the skateboard became emblematic of youth identity or rebellious unconventionality."
- Tom Jones, The British Film Institute
Robert Rusler & Pamela Gidley relaxing on set during the filming of 'Thrashin' (1986)
'Institutionalized' - Suicidal Tendencies
The great legacy of skate punk is the world-conquering bands it's inspired. NOFX, the Offspring, Green Day, Pennywise and Blink-182 are just some of the rock groups that owe a huge debt to the skater scene. What was perhaps most shocking however, were the rabid levels of machismo fostered in skate punk circles. At times, it seemed like hardly any women were active within any of the major bands.
"Skate punk is something taken seriously in the desert. We're always looking to finish an argument about what constitutes a good slab of skate punk wax. Phoenix has a long history with both skateboarding and the music most closely associated with it. Skate punk (or skate rock, which many see as interchangeable terms), is any music created by skateboarders and/or a provider of the sufficient inspiration to risk life and limb on four wheels and a deck of wood.
Local heroes Jodie Foster's Army (JFA) debuted in 1981 and are considered by some to have started the whole thing. However, JFA actually does have peers that predate the Phoenix quartet in terms of first gigs and recordings so we won't coronate them as the original skate punks just yet. For many of the progenitors of the genre, the sound is equal parts of the following bands: The Sonics, The Ventures, The Who (specifically the early '70s Isle of Wight-era Who), Black Sabbath, Ramones, and Devo.
The popularity of skateboarding on a national and international level has grown steadily since the mid-'80s, but it has been a popular sport in our "but it's a dry heat" corner of the globe since the 1970s. It is also safe to say we no longer need to preface the word "sport" with "alternative" or "extreme" in 2015, as skateboarding finally has matured enough to no longer be seen as a fad or anomaly in the sports world. To put it in perspective in another way, we're just a little over a year away from having a 40-year-old skate shop in greater Phoenix, as Scottsdale's Sidewalk Surfer will celebrate its ruby anniversary in 2017."
- Tom Reardon, Pheonix New Times
Local heroes Jodie Foster's Army (JFA) debuted in 1981 and are considered by some to have started the whole thing. However, JFA actually does have peers that predate the Phoenix quartet in terms of first gigs and recordings so we won't coronate them as the original skate punks just yet. For many of the progenitors of the genre, the sound is equal parts of the following bands: The Sonics, The Ventures, The Who (specifically the early '70s Isle of Wight-era Who), Black Sabbath, Ramones, and Devo.
The popularity of skateboarding on a national and international level has grown steadily since the mid-'80s, but it has been a popular sport in our "but it's a dry heat" corner of the globe since the 1970s. It is also safe to say we no longer need to preface the word "sport" with "alternative" or "extreme" in 2015, as skateboarding finally has matured enough to no longer be seen as a fad or anomaly in the sports world. To put it in perspective in another way, we're just a little over a year away from having a 40-year-old skate shop in greater Phoenix, as Scottsdale's Sidewalk Surfer will celebrate its ruby anniversary in 2017."
- Tom Reardon, Pheonix New Times
JFA
'Blatant Localism' ~ JFA
No Doubt were an accomplished rock group who married ska punk with skate punk to create their own unique sound and aesthetic. Vocalist Gwen Stefani at times seemed like a lone voice in the wilderness. When the class of the 2000s emerged with strong record sales, there were again hardly any women active on the scene. As such, Canadian skater Avril Lavigne (she surfs too) became a figurehead for the movement, as did songwriter Hayley Williams who fronts influential rock band Paramore.
Californian Collegiate Skateboarder ~ Jodie Foster
'Hard Times' - Paramore