IVIV surf music

[Joe Allonby]

It gets weirder when it comes from places without surfing like Denver
(The Astronauts) or Finland (Laika and the Cosmonauts).

I've heard Cambodian surf music (real fucked up) but that's not that
big a stretch when you consider that it was popular in Viet Nam even
though we know that Charlie Don't Surf.

On Tue, Oct 13, 2009 at 6:20 PM,  <malignd at aol.com> wrote:
> I think it would be useful to define terms.  Pet Sounds isn't surf music,
> even though recorded by the Beach Boys.
>
> I suppose you can say that some of their early stuff is surf music, since it
> has lyrics about surfing -- Catch a Wave, Surfin' Safari, Surfin' USA, etc.,
> but I think of this as just Beach Boy music and something likely forced on
> them, along with their car songs by Capitol Records and success.  I doubt
> Brian Wilson knew a skeg from a cam shaft.
>
> Surf music IMO is Dick Dale and the Ventures and a few others.
>
> Most of the lyrics of early Beach Boy music would drive away anyone who
> didn't start listening to it when they were fourteen.
>
> I gues it's hard to impart to US p-listers just how weird (and not
> necessarily in a good way) surf music sounds/feels to European
> ears/sensibilities. Can't speak for all of Europe, of course, but to me the
> Beach Boys were like aliens. I *still* haven't learned to love Pet Sounds. I
> kinda admire it, and there are loads of interesting noises on it, but where
> are the *songs*?
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John Carvill <johncarvill at gmail.com>
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Cc: Doug Millison <dougmillison at comcast.net>
> Sent: Tue, Oct 13, 2009 5:39 am
> Subject: Re: IVIV surf music
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Good stuff, Doug.
>
> I gues it's hard to impart to US p-listers just how weird (and not
> necessarily in a good way) surf music sounds/feels to European
> ears/sensibilities. Can't speak for all of Europe, of course, but to
> me the Beach Boys were like aliens. I *still* haven't learned to love
> Pet Sounds. I kinda admire it, and there are loads of interesting
> noises on it, but where are the *songs*?
>
>> Aabove all the early 70s "hippie" scene was a
>> hard-partying scene, lots of sex, drugs, rock'n'roll, just like in
>> Rolling Stone magazine where Pynchon's old roomie was a journo, the
>> one who took P to meet the Beach Boys and who knows, maybe that's when
>
> Wouldn't it be nice....to get Jules's opinion on IV? I recall him
> saying he went to visit PYnchon just before going to interview DYlan,
> and Pynchon saying he would be better interviewing the Beach Boys.
>
> Rewinding a bit to an earlier thread, I also recall Jules saying they
> (i.e the counterculture folk) always regarded Tim Leary as "a CIA
> stooge".
>
>
>> Charlie Manson was still connected to the Beach Boys? I don't know.
>
> Neil Young had a lot of interesting stuff to say about all that,
> particularly frustrated pop star Charlie's interactions with people
> from the pop music world. Wasn't NY's song 'Mansion on the HIll' about
> that? Maybe not...  But there are loads of Neil Young resonances in
> IV, from the cover art to 'On The Beach' and those sinisted 'dune
> buggies' rollin' down the hills... Pulls in Manson, the Kent State
> shootings, the yin and yang of 'The Sixties'.
>
> One random scattered thought on Manson: can Ronald Reagan be
> considered as Charlse Manson writ large, doing for 'America' what
> Manson did for 'The Sixties'?
>
>
>
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>