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In his song 3rd Stone from the Sun from 1967, Jimi Hendrix pronounced surf rock dead - or at least appeared to do so, as it was later revealed that he learned the creator of surf muxic Dick Dale was dying (wrongly so, Dale lived on until 2019), a man Hendrix admired for his mastery of the guitar. From this launching point, this documentary moves back to the very beginnings of surf subculture, how it started out as a niche sport in the 1940s on especially the California beaches, and slowly gained traction through the 1950s. Interestingly, the music the surfers listened to back when was mainly jazz, also but not exclusively of the tiki jazz variety. Apparently Dick Dale and friends were among the first to bring electric guitars and amplifiers to tthe beach, initially just for entertainment - but their version of very visceral instrumental rock'n'rolol caught on with the surfing crowds that they were soon booked to play one of the most popular clubs of the area. were played on radio and started selling records. The success of Dale and friends of course led to many other surf rock bands, only a few of whom of course achieved greatness. Parallel to this development came Gidget, originally a novel by Frederick Kohner based on the real life adventures of his daughter Kathy Kohner, that was made into a Hollywood movie in 1959 that spawned to sequels, and Beach Party in 1963 launched a slew of Beach Party movies starring Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello - and suddenly the surfing subculture has turned mainstream, to the dismay of many serious surfers. Be that as it may, the real death knell to surf rock though was the arrival of the music of The Beatles in North America in 1964 that swayed musica interests of the youth into a total different direction. But as they say, you can't keep good music down ...

Now of course, to fully enjoy this movie it helps to be into popular music in general and vintage surf music in particular, and I confess I'm guilty of both. But even if not, this is well worth a look as it's a lively documentary that off-sets the customary talking heads (including many protagonists from the era) with many examples of their music and  tons of film footage from the era - which all of course helps to add a little colour to the subject and make this one a quite entertaining affair for sure.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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