"You'll never hear surf music again" - Readings Week 3

 In week three of the course, it was definitely Kent Crowley's chapters on "Surf Beat" that interested me personally the most. Crowley describes how the surf music revolution of the early 1960s got far less recognition in the musical history book compared to other rock music genres. Which is, of course, not fair at all, because we learned from the reading (and our own listening experiences) that surf music and the techniques used by surf musicians influenced a lot of genres (like folk-rock, psychedelic rock, and heavy metal) that are widely popular even today.

The article on surf music provided me with a fresh look on the music and made me re-listen to some old albums, that I have never looked at from a surf music perspective. The best example for me is how surf music obviously influenced the sound of Jimi Hendrix. I had only experienced Hendrix as a very great guitar player, the probably most famous psychedelic blues guitar player of the Woodstock era. During my High school years in Germany, I used to listen to Hendrix a lot with my friends, who were all somehow into playing guitar. But we always regarded the blues aspects of Hendrix guitar playing more than thinking of him as a surf musician. After I had read the Crowley text I decided to renew my Hendrix experience, and indeed - there is so much surf music in his sound! The twangy Fender Stratocaster sound he uses in his "more ballad-like" songs (sorry I'm really lacking better words) like Little Wing or Bold as Love, resemble a lot of the twangy sounds used in early Instro surf recordings (the twang, being one of the main features of surf guitar, is even enhanced by Hendrix' use of tremolo and vibrato effect pedals). But also his more straightforward psychedelic rock songs like Fire, Stone Free, Foxey Lady, or of course Third Stone From The Sun derive quite a lot of their sound from surf music. I think Hendrix often played with a very aggressive precision comparable to that of Dick Dale. And he also uses the concept of the amplifier-as-instrument to create his pressing, hard sound by overdriving his amps to the absolute fuzzy limit (I think in contrast to Dick Dale, who used an early Fender Showman, for his more clean, punchy twang sounds, Hendrix used a Marshall Plexi to get even more fuzz and aggression for his tone).

Now I talked a lot about Hendrix, who was just featured briefly in the reading. But I really have to say that I was really surprised by how much surf music influenced artist like him (also the surf influence on Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band is definitely a very interesting thing). It might be, because I am from Europe that I know very very few people who ever thought about surf music aside from Pulp Fiction  and The Beach Boys, but this reading showed me that the genre is clearly underrated when it comes to historical relevance. And I really hope that I am going to learn a lot more about the legacy of surf music during the course.