Week Four Entry: Crowley

This week we learned about surf guitar and the importance of music within the surf culture.  My favorite readings this week were from Kent Crowley’s book Surf Beat, which included chapter 5 “Stoked” and chapter 6 “Moment of Truth”.  I liked this article because I love learning about the basis of a movement and cultural phenomenon.  I am also very interested in music and their historical aspects.  After learning about the origins of surf music I feel as if I understand how important music is to surf culture.  Surfers use music is used to describe the feeling of being in the water as best they can.  They do so with the help of the guitar.  Bands then started taking this form of music and expanding it until it became a movement that defined a decade.

In chapter 5 Crowley tells the story of the beginning of The Beach Boys and the Wilson brothers.  With the success of The Beach Boys many more people were aware of surfing and surf music.  They reached out to a much wider audience by adding lyrics to their songs.  But with their success came criticism.  The argument over what real surf music was began.  Only one of the Beach Boys surfed and not all their songs were about the beach.  Therefore real surfers found them to be amusing.  An important aspect to their music was the way in which the bass was used.  Paul McCartney once spoke about Brian Wilson and said, “he’d put a note where it wasn’t supposed to be.  It still fit, but it gave you a whole new field of harmonic opportunities”.  The band took advantage of the new technologies in the era, the electric bass guitar in particular.  Learning about The Beach Boys was very interesting to me.  Growing up in Southern California I heard a lot their songs but always took their music for granted.  I believed that they were the definition of surf music but after reading this article I realized that they were just the beginning.  I did not realize they were so influential to the community.    

In chapter 6 Crowley explains that The Beach Boys, in an effort to differentiate themselves from folk music and eventually establish what is now known as “surf music”, they used the guitar in a more percussive way.  The rhythm guitar could switch between being a drum, a bass, a horn section and keyboard all within one song.  One greatest critique of the band was whether they were a real surf band or just some posers riding the surf bandwagon.  This criticism haunted them throughout their entire career.  Their success gave them the “surf musician" status but to their hecklers however they were selling a lifestyle that didn’t belong to them.  In my opinion The Beach Boys are the founding fathers of this genre and introduced this new style to mass audiences.  That deserves some recognition.