I have listened to quite a lot of surf music over the years. Growing up in Australia in the 60s and 70s it was The Atlantics that turned me on to it from a young age. They were all young immigrants (like The Easybeats, AC-DC, BeeGees...) and injected some of their Greek musical influences into early 60s guitar surf music. Case in point Bombora.
My recording studio is all digital. I use Cubase 6. What do you have that you need to blow the dust off?
I've got some Atlantics CDs I like. I've even got one where they went vocal (was the singer called Johnny Reb?). Sounds like you're well into it. I've got a cool Surf Coasters story which I'll turn into a post before too long. And I recorded a surf arrangement I made of Chinese Song, Moby Grape's Skip Spence's Hollywood movie fake Chinese music instrumental.
I used to wonder why nobody knew the Centurions' Intoxica but I don't think their other stuff matched it and it was a cover of a tune that half the So Cal surf bands covered. I think every band on Del Fi recorded it (I think the producer of the Centurions might have owned some of the publishing on it).
Yes, Johnny Rebb. Died in 2014. Wanna hear your arrangement of whatever that is you mentioned (will YouTube the original, sounds intriguing).
I saw a local Ventures ‘tribute’ band here a few years back. Elderly Japanese gentlemen with Mosrites and a keen sense of what the Ventures were about. I think they (Ventures) still tour here, they are very well loved.
Fortunately, I got Bernard Yin to play most of the guitar. He's really good and his current surf band is Par Avion which is Bernard and his wife with a rotating cast of drummers. Since he's half Chinese (other half is Greek), the project intrigued him. Drummer Bob Lee is mostly a punk guy but he's a big Keith Moon fan and I think his drums worked fine.
If you don't know Moby Grape, they're one of my all time favorites. Chinese Song is a radical outlier - Skip was well on his way to the beyond by then. I'll send links to some of their recordings if you're interested.
Thanks for the comparison links... wow!! The surf version is fantastic!! I have been aware of the name Moby Grape forever. Bob's drumming is just great. Wow, more YouTube rabbitholes for me!
Caution, rant follows: Because they formed during the San Francisco Sound psychedelic days, people didn't notice that Moby Grape was a sort of grand roots rock synthesis. They were the missing link between the Band and the Beach Boys except they rocked harder. The critical consensus back in the day was that the first Moby Grape was a perfect album. I normally scorn the critical consensus but in this case... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVXHvqH7mAA&list=PL2Ew3ACprIHnVnSs3JU4tBy1yr3sGTxja 13 songs in 31 minutes. And the critics always denigrated their later albums but that's where they're wrong.
I have this interesting guy who really knows his digital stuff advising me but he's tough to get a hold of. But he had me get a Harrison Mixbus 38c. I originally got a Universal Audio $$$ interface and it took 6 months to find out that it had a firmware defect that made it not work with PCs. There was a quick fix that required a Mac with Thunderbolt 3 but I didn't know anybody who had that and the place I bought it closed up for COVID. Etc Etc. Now I've got an SSL 2+ & an Intel NUC and they seem to work with each other but the NUC crashed (during the wild storms we were having here) so I've got to restore some software. And some other software I'll get to after I come to grips with the Harrison. I think I've got to read the manual and flail for a while and then I'll have some questions. The last time I did any recording was with a Roland VS-1680 20 years ago.
Gosh, I’m gonna have to research all those, but it sounds like an incompatibility nightmare I had years ago. I’ve been on windows 7 using Cubase 6 for the last 12 years here in Japan and it’s not given me any grief. I did buy a Steinberg UR44 interface, which matches Cubase like a brother, so no nightmares here. I can give you some recording, mixing, composing tips when yr up n running.
The Harrison is interesting. Their old analog board was very popular with the pros in Nashville in the 70s (I think) & 80s & maybe the 90s. When they went digital, they did a software model of every single component (every resister, every capacitor etc.) in the old analog board. And they added the other functions to make a DAW of it. I'm going to try to figure that out first. Then I want to retrieve two sample libraries I had: I bought Hollywood Strings and downloaded a percussion library Sennhauser in Germany was giving away to promote their microphones (which they used to record the samples). I eventually had to buy a program from Native Instruments in Germany to play the perc samples when NI's deal with Sennhauser expired. Then I lost some of the samples from a power outage.
Yes, I'm in Japan. Before I moved here I lived in Melbourne, Australia. My friend there bought a Harrison desk that was used by Eagles on their Australian tour in 2004 (I think), maybe earlier. Huge monstrous thing!!! A sea of knobs and faders. Another friend bought it and had it converted into channel strips.
Yeah, I've seen pictures. The DAW costs about $350 nowadays but they have it on sale every year around Christmas for around $80. There are videos on You Tube of crusty old studio types raving about how it's just like analog.
Thanks. Have you listened to much surf music? Anyway, I'll be doing my first post to start on Substack soon. After that, a kind of goofy one that has a good story. I'll be looking at LFDRS soon. I was looking for something about digital recording as I have some gear and software that I need to get working. I probably should spend my time in some users groups.
I have listened to quite a lot of surf music over the years. Growing up in Australia in the 60s and 70s it was The Atlantics that turned me on to it from a young age. They were all young immigrants (like The Easybeats, AC-DC, BeeGees...) and injected some of their Greek musical influences into early 60s guitar surf music. Case in point Bombora.
My recording studio is all digital. I use Cubase 6. What do you have that you need to blow the dust off?
I've got some Atlantics CDs I like. I've even got one where they went vocal (was the singer called Johnny Reb?). Sounds like you're well into it. I've got a cool Surf Coasters story which I'll turn into a post before too long. And I recorded a surf arrangement I made of Chinese Song, Moby Grape's Skip Spence's Hollywood movie fake Chinese music instrumental.
I used to wonder why nobody knew the Centurions' Intoxica but I don't think their other stuff matched it and it was a cover of a tune that half the So Cal surf bands covered. I think every band on Del Fi recorded it (I think the producer of the Centurions might have owned some of the publishing on it).
Yes, Johnny Rebb. Died in 2014. Wanna hear your arrangement of whatever that is you mentioned (will YouTube the original, sounds intriguing).
I saw a local Ventures ‘tribute’ band here a few years back. Elderly Japanese gentlemen with Mosrites and a keen sense of what the Ventures were about. I think they (Ventures) still tour here, they are very well loved.
Here's the original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RsBn8hRovrQ
Here's my version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcK4HR3TBhM
Fortunately, I got Bernard Yin to play most of the guitar. He's really good and his current surf band is Par Avion which is Bernard and his wife with a rotating cast of drummers. Since he's half Chinese (other half is Greek), the project intrigued him. Drummer Bob Lee is mostly a punk guy but he's a big Keith Moon fan and I think his drums worked fine.
If you don't know Moby Grape, they're one of my all time favorites. Chinese Song is a radical outlier - Skip was well on his way to the beyond by then. I'll send links to some of their recordings if you're interested.
Thanks for the comparison links... wow!! The surf version is fantastic!! I have been aware of the name Moby Grape forever. Bob's drumming is just great. Wow, more YouTube rabbitholes for me!
Caution, rant follows: Because they formed during the San Francisco Sound psychedelic days, people didn't notice that Moby Grape was a sort of grand roots rock synthesis. They were the missing link between the Band and the Beach Boys except they rocked harder. The critical consensus back in the day was that the first Moby Grape was a perfect album. I normally scorn the critical consensus but in this case... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVXHvqH7mAA&list=PL2Ew3ACprIHnVnSs3JU4tBy1yr3sGTxja 13 songs in 31 minutes. And the critics always denigrated their later albums but that's where they're wrong.
I have this interesting guy who really knows his digital stuff advising me but he's tough to get a hold of. But he had me get a Harrison Mixbus 38c. I originally got a Universal Audio $$$ interface and it took 6 months to find out that it had a firmware defect that made it not work with PCs. There was a quick fix that required a Mac with Thunderbolt 3 but I didn't know anybody who had that and the place I bought it closed up for COVID. Etc Etc. Now I've got an SSL 2+ & an Intel NUC and they seem to work with each other but the NUC crashed (during the wild storms we were having here) so I've got to restore some software. And some other software I'll get to after I come to grips with the Harrison. I think I've got to read the manual and flail for a while and then I'll have some questions. The last time I did any recording was with a Roland VS-1680 20 years ago.
Gosh, I’m gonna have to research all those, but it sounds like an incompatibility nightmare I had years ago. I’ve been on windows 7 using Cubase 6 for the last 12 years here in Japan and it’s not given me any grief. I did buy a Steinberg UR44 interface, which matches Cubase like a brother, so no nightmares here. I can give you some recording, mixing, composing tips when yr up n running.
The Harrison is interesting. Their old analog board was very popular with the pros in Nashville in the 70s (I think) & 80s & maybe the 90s. When they went digital, they did a software model of every single component (every resister, every capacitor etc.) in the old analog board. And they added the other functions to make a DAW of it. I'm going to try to figure that out first. Then I want to retrieve two sample libraries I had: I bought Hollywood Strings and downloaded a percussion library Sennhauser in Germany was giving away to promote their microphones (which they used to record the samples). I eventually had to buy a program from Native Instruments in Germany to play the perc samples when NI's deal with Sennhauser expired. Then I lost some of the samples from a power outage.
Are you in Japan?
Yes, I'm in Japan. Before I moved here I lived in Melbourne, Australia. My friend there bought a Harrison desk that was used by Eagles on their Australian tour in 2004 (I think), maybe earlier. Huge monstrous thing!!! A sea of knobs and faders. Another friend bought it and had it converted into channel strips.
Yeah, I've seen pictures. The DAW costs about $350 nowadays but they have it on sale every year around Christmas for around $80. There are videos on You Tube of crusty old studio types raving about how it's just like analog.
Wow, just the first 5 seconds of this had me! I'm gonna binge on your Recalcitrant Radio posts for a while, thank you!
Thanks. Have you listened to much surf music? Anyway, I'll be doing my first post to start on Substack soon. After that, a kind of goofy one that has a good story. I'll be looking at LFDRS soon. I was looking for something about digital recording as I have some gear and software that I need to get working. I probably should spend my time in some users groups.