Surf Rock

Surf music is actually just the sound of the waves played on a guitar: that wet, splashy sound.

— Dick Dale

Surf Rock is what California sounds like.

Or, to be more specific: surf rock is a genre of Rock & Roll associated with surf culture, which originated in The '60s in Southern California.

Surf rock comes in two flavours, instrumental and vocal. Both versions are centred around some common traits, such as electric guitars using "wet"-sounding spring reverb ^note Earlier examples, including Dick Dale were recorded without reverb, but most were. (the central defining characteristic of surf music, arguably), vibrato and tremolo, driving rhythms, and in the case of vocal surf rock, doo-wop inspired vocal harmonies. While surf rock generally stuck to the guitar-bass-drums line-up and used some very specific guitar models (they loved the Fender, Mosrite, Teisco and Danelectro brands), there was occasional use of other instruments such as keyboards or saxophone. Notably, surf rock was one of the first genres to universally adopt the electric bass.

Surf rock was incredibly popular between 1961-1965, the period from which originated its iconic songs such as "Misirlou", "Let's Go Trippin'", "Pipeline", "Wipe Out", "Surfin' USA", "Fun, Fun, Fun" and others. Another label applied to some of these bands, who played songs about fast cars rather than surfing, was "hot rod rock". The genre's popularity was effectively killed by The British Invasion starting in 1964, with the only group that survived being The Beach Boys, who despite their association weren't really a Surf Rock band.

However, the genre proved very influential on several other rock bands, such as The Who, Dead Kennedys and The Pixies. It underwent a revival thanks to the use of several of its songs in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (most famously, "Misirlou" and "Bullwinkle Part II"), and new surf bands have appeared lately such as Man or Astro-man?, The Mermen and Los Straitjackets.

A good argument can be made that what we know as "spy movie music" borrows a lot from surf rock and just uses a lot more minor keys (case in point; the James Bond electric guitar theme, or the Peter Gunn theme).

---

Instrumental surf rock bands:

• The Astronauts ("Baja")
• The Atlantics ("Bombora") - Australian band, one of the few non-American surf rock bands.
• The Bel-Airs ("Mr. Moto") - the group later split into The Challengers and Eddie and the Showmen
• The Centurions ("Bullwinkle Part II", "Intoxica")
• The Challengers
• The Chantays ("Pipeline")
• The Dakotas ("The Cruel Sea") - Billy J. Kramer's band, another one of the non-American bands.
• Dick Dale and His Del-Tones ("Let's Go Trippin'", "Misirlou")
  • Surfers Choice (1962)
• Eddie And The Showmen
• The Frogmen ("Underwater")
• The Lively Ones ("Surf Rider")
• The Revels ("Church Key", "Comanche")
• The Sentinals ("Latin'ia")
• The Surfaris ("Wipe Out")
• The Tornadoes ("Bustin' Surfboards") - not to be confused with the British band of "Telstar" fame, although they later renamed themselves the Hollywood Tornadoes to avoid said confusion.
• The Ventures ("Walk Don't Run") - not exactly a surf band (they only recorded one album with surfing in mind), but often thought of as one, and their hits are mainstays of surf groups' repertoires.

Vocal surf rock bands:

• The Beach Boys: From 1961 to 1964 only, although Mike Love (rather unsucessfully) brought the band back to that genre in the early Nineties:
  • 1962 - Surfin' Safari
  • 1963 - Surfin' USA
  • 1963 - Surfer Girl
  • 1963 - Little Deuce Coupe
  • 1964 - Shut Down Volume 2
  • 1964 - All Summer Long
  • 1992 - Summer in Paradise
• The Fantastic Baggys ("Tell 'Em I'm Surfin'")
• The Hondells ("Little Honda")
• Jan and Dean ("Surf City")^note Equally renowned for their hod rod rock - see Dead Man's Curve, Drag City and The Little Old Lady from Pasadena
• Bruce Johnston
  • 1963 - Surfin' 'Round the World
• The Rivieras ("California Sun")
• The Super Stocks
• The Trashmen ("Surfin' Bird")

Revivalist surf rock bands:

• Best Coast
• Blue Hawaiians
• Dazey and the Scouts
• Dengue Fever
• The Eliminators
• FIDLAR
• Jack Johnson
• King Charles
• Los Straitjackets
• The Mermen
• Man or Astro-man?
• Meshuggah Beach Party, who have dedicated themselves to proving that traditional Jewish melodies work alarmingly well as Surf Rock
• Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet (who were so annoyed by this categorisation they wrote a tune called "We're Not a Fucking Surf Band")
• Skegss
• Smash Mouth
• Sublime has a few surf rock songs, notably "Paddle Out"
• Sun Room
• Tennis
• Wallows
• The Ziggens

And, to top it all off, even the Muppets have once made an album with a lot of surf rock:

• Muppet Beach Party (1993)