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The eMusic Dozen: Surf Rock Through The Ages
Surf Rock Through The Ages by Dan Epstein

A genuine American art form, surf music was born just as the Eisenhower '50s began to flow into the Kennedy '60s. Thanks to movies like 1959's Gidget and Slippery When Wet, surfing culture was exploding in southern California, and it was only a matter of time before surfers found a type of music to call their own.

Profoundly influenced by instrumental rock & roll acts like Duane Eddy, Link Wray and the Ventures — who carried the melodies of their songs with their guitars instead of their voices — surf rock pioneers like Dick Dale, the Belairs and the Pyramids were also inspired by the powerful physical, aural and spiritual sensations they experienced when riding the waves. Their rapid guitar picking (often given added presence by judicious whammy-bar bends, the spectacularly "wet" sound of the recently-invented Fender Reverb unit) and driving beats brought the sound and feel of the ocean into popular surfer nightspots like Newport Beach's Rendezvous Ballroom, and the music took off like a shot from there.

Like the proverbial perfect wave, surf rock's reign was intense but all too brief, lasting only from 1962 to 1964. The Beach Boys (who had covered Dick Dale instrumentals on their early albums in an attempt to achieve extra surfer cred) ironically dealt the music a blow when they started singing about cars instead of surfboards; and then, when the Beatles came along, beach culture suddenly seemed about as hip as Ozzie & Harriet.

But surf music simply refuses to die; since the late '70s, when Jon & the Nightriders and the Malibooz first plugged in their guitars and kicked up the reverb, the surf revival has experienced one gratifying new wave after another. Here, then, are twelve totally rad slabs of surf-rockin' goodness; some hailing from the original wave, some from as recently as last year. Each one of these records will totally enliven your day at the beach — or make you seriously wish you were spending your day at one! Cowabunga, dudes!

* Listen Killer Surf: The Best of the Challengers
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o Artist: Challengers
Release Date: 1994
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The Challengers began life as a straight surf combo made up of several former Belairs members, but gradually morphed into an all-purpose instrumental band that existed mostly in the studio. (Like many great L.A. pop and rock acts of the '60s, their recordings were often abetted by session drummer Hal Blaine and other members of the "Wrecking Crew.") Though they could muster a pretty convincing Tijuana Brass impersonation ("A Taste of Honey," "The Work Song"), the Challengers were truly at their best when hanging ten on surf numbers like "Cruel Sea," "Pipeline" or their lone hit, "K-39."

* Listen It Came from Pier 13!
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o Artist: The Bomboras
Release Date: 1997
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Part surf, part garage, and all the way off the Richter scale, L.A.'s Bomboras gleefully blew away the competition in either genre during their mid- to late-'90s reign. Even without the go-go girls or (literal) pyrotechnics of their legendary live shows, 1997's It Came From Pier 13! packs a serious trash-rock wallop, with Jake Cavaliere's Farfisa organ and Gregg Hunt's Fender Jaguar leading the charge through bitchin' surf instros like "Kamikaze," "Ninth Wave" and (of course) "Bombora Stomp."

* Listen Rock Don't Run Vol. 3
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o Artist: Various Artists
Release Date: 1998
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The '90s surf revival produced a number of genuinely exciting bands; but like their '60s forefathers, many recorded infrequently or generally suffered from limited exposure. Thankfully, Spinout's Rock Don't Run compilations have done a great job of rounding up some of the scene's top acts, and Vol. 3 just might be the best of the series. Los Straitjackets and '70s surf revival pioneers Jon & the Nightriders are the best-known acts here, but the more obscure likes of Satan's Pilgrims ("Devil's Punchbowl"), the Huntington Cads ("Lunar Luau") and the Insect Surfers ("Psychotronic") provide the raddest moments of the set.

* Listen People Of The Earth, We Are The Neptunes
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o Artist: The Neptunes
Release Date: 1999
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Though these Fresno-based surf rockers' big live gimmick — both guitarists play custom axes with one guitar neck and one bass neck, and fluidly switch back and forth between the two — is rendered totally moot by the audio-only experience, you don't need gimmicks when you've got tunes as gnarly as "Cement Shoes," "Spaghetti Luau" and "Dance of the Moorish Idol" up your sleeves. A stone gas from front to back, this 1999 album is impossible to find on CD, so surf aficionados are advised to grab it like a big wave while they still can.

* Listen Jetty Subject To High Surf
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o Artist: The Vara-Tones
Release Date: 2000
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One of the coolest things about surf music is that you never get too old to play it. Witness this super-fine debut album by the Vara-Tones, a band that formed in Pasadena at the height of the original surf music craze, but didn't get around to recording a full-length until 2000. Four of the tracks ("Vara-Tone Stomp," "Rendezvous Run," "Sunset at the Wedge" and "Groo-V-Chicken") on Jetty harken back to the band's early-'60s set lists, and the record also includes both new and original recordings of "Repeto," the band's rare 1964 single.

* Listen Supersonic Guitars In 3-D
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o Artist: Los Straitjackets
Release Date: 2003
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For a surf/instro band made up of guys dressed in Mexican wrestling masks, Nashville's Los Straitjackets have too often sounded oddly tame on record. 2003's gritty Supersonic Guitars In 3-D is one of the few efforts that lives up to their formidable Lucha Libre image; gnarlatious instrumentals like "Squid," "San Diego Showdown," "Tarantula" and "Time Bomb" (the latter unfortunately not a cover of the Avengers VI classic) are so nasty, it sounds like they were recorded using guitars with barnacle-encrusted strings.