[bomp] Re: How Surf died the second time around

[Joe Emery <jemery@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

re: mermen
they seemed like nice enough guys, but yeah, their music had more in common
w/ eric johnson or even stuff like phish than surf music.  i have no problem
w/ people doing their own thing w/ instro music, but i'll never understand
why people insist on calling all instro music surf.

but what really killed surf music wasn't the mermen -- that's giving them
more credit than they deserve.  yeah, there was (and still is) a lot of
exciting surf music out there, but over the past 10 years there was also a
glut of really mediocre surf/instro music as well.  going back through the
many, many records i bought by instro bands in the 90s i really don't hear a
lot of stuff w/ any lasting quality (there are exceptions, like the amazing
laika & the cosmonauts).  i also think that aside from a handful of bands
like the phantom surfers, untamed youth (who were really much more than a
surf band) and jackie & the cedrics there really weren't many bands going
out of their way to capture the excitement you hear on the sounds of the 60s
recs.  and i wasn't around then so i can't speak for the 60s but in the 90s
it was mainly embraced by dork guys like me and ZERO chicks for the most
part -- people don't dance at shows like i'm guessing they used to, which
also doesn't help the excitement factor.  lastly, a problem w/ post 60s surf
and garage (and music in general) is simply that the songwriting is nowhere
near the caliber it was in the 60s.  yeah there are some exceptions but a
catchy tune is a catchy tune -- and i doubt that 30 yrs from now many people
will choose the instro/surf records of the 90s over those of the 60s.

joe

> ------------------------------
> 
> Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 10:57:53 EDT
> From: ItsBoss9@aol.com
> Subject: [bomp] How Surf died the second time around
> 
> sat through about 45 minutes of funky grilled-cheese-stink, ugly chicks
> with BO and hairy armpits, noodle-dancing douchebags and shitty
> doodly-doo-doo-doo guitar playing,
> 
> Yeh, and... this is the same thing I experienced when I tried to give the
> Mermen a chance.  That dope Phil Dirt has been bashing me on his radio show
> and 
> on line for years now because I don't like the Mermen.  Well, the above
> description perfectly suits what the Mermen tried to pass off as Surf... and
> the 
> stupid Rock mags just ate it up.  Even the Weeklies in the big cities did big
> stories on the Mermen, and fucked the real thing.  I think the whole Mermen
> hype, 
> and the ignorance of the Rock mags who chose them as the Poster Boys for Surf,
> is what killed the Surf thing in the '90s.... that, as well as over-exposure
> of all bands who formed after PULP FICTION.  Meanwhile, the good stuff like
> the Untamed Youth and Jackie & the Cedrics, well, what Rock mag would write
> about them?  I did a huge piece in Tower Records' PULSE! about the real stuff
> in 
> 1996, but was outnumbered by Rolling Stone and other publications who got it
> way the fuck wrong.
> 
> Surf music is like the antidote to smelly hippie stuff.  That, the press
> didn't understand.
> 
> Domenic Priore

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