It's been 10 years since my first Surfguitar101 Festival/Convention, which is not to say that this was my tenth, but I haven't missed one yet. While last year's was fantastic, the sting of two high-profile foreign bands dropping off due to Trump's immigration nonsense forced the event into safe mode this year -- all American bands, and reverting from Long Beach's Golden Sails hotel to the Garden Grove, CA Elks Lodge location last used the year before I first attended. That said, it wasn't that much of a backpedal -- Still a three-day weekender with a secondary stage, and with some very heavy-hitting bands on the bill, like former headliners The Bomboras and The Boss Martians in addition to top-tier gets Los Straitjackets and Slacktone.
DAY ONE
I always seem to have some sort of traveling hitch on the way over, enough that people asked "no horrible incident this time?" instead of "how was your flight?". This time I sat next to a person on the plane that smelled like a sneeze, I forgot a pair of headphones I liked in a Lyft, and I randomly got bombed by texts and calls offering insurance quotes on the 2009 GMC Acadia that I do not own, which were all tolerable enough that I'd file this experience under "fine". Garden Grove doesn't have much to write home about, at least from my few jaunts. A lot of strip malls, auto shops, and fast food chains. It seems to be a local tradition to put up signs for garage sales with nothing but an arrow and a day -- no time or address, and they trapped me with that a few times. I did find an arcade where every game accepted only nickels, with the most expensive game I found costing just six nickels. That's really all I've got to tell you about Garden Grove. But I'd barely see daylight this weekend, so that's fine.
Doors opened Friday at 6pm and as usual I went straight for the records so I could snatch-em-up before others did (though competition seemed pretty light). The highlight was Jonpaul Balak selling eleki LPs from Eddie Ugata's collection. Not exactly dirt cheap but not stuff you can find easily in the states, and all in fantastic shape. I bought about as much as my sense of guilt about a maritally shared bank account would allow. The MuSick Records table was another highlight. They usually have a special surprise for SG101 but this time they shadow-dropped THREE LPs! Draculina's debut (one week early), the new Tremolo Beer Gut (three weeks early), and a reissue of Pollo Del Mar's The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, which had not even been announced. I appreciated seeing a table for Swelltune Records, a surf & Americana label that's put out some great instro stuff in the past year or two. They were selling the reissue of Death Valley's Que Pasta. And I picked up a few 7"s from the always dependable Dionysus Records table. You also had a great collection of stuff from Band2Hand, Colorado Instrumental Fanzine (who had the new Slacktone 7"), the newest book from Tom Tourville, and of course tables from individual bands, and more. The second and third days featured tiki vendors, which I did take a glance at but it's rarely my wheelhouse.
Before we get into the music, let's talk about the venue. The Garden Grove Elks Lodge was a previous location from 2015, so I missed it by a year. It was smaller than The Golden Sails from the past few years, but I think it worked out well! It was just about the right size to fit everybody comfortably without feeling cavernously empty at times, which was the case sometimes at Golden Sails and the Alpine Village, and the second stage worked out well. Vendor layout was a little awkward but not enough to matter. The sound, as usual, was excellent, owing much to the incredible array of gear provided by Ran Mosessco. I'm a creature of light, and I liked that Golden Sails had a space outside for us to chill, whereas this location had me barely seeing sunlight the whole weekend. The food was a big step up from The Golden Sails, not only offering a decent array of bar staples, but a small buffet-style dinner in the other room that I enjoyed on two of the days. It wasn't a reason to attend, but it was reason enough not to leave! Unfortunately as somebody that doesn't drink alcohol, I was a bit frustrated by waiting in a drink line for a $6 coke (before tip), and no cooler to just get water. Lastly, I feel bad complaining about this as it probably doesn't matter much to people that aren't taking photos like me, but this was a step down from an already mediocre situation with stage lighting. The first day was an array of 8 lights up front pointing amber light that lit the musicians' feet better than their faces. The positions were slightly better later but still inconsistent across the stage. These colors rarely cycled and usually all the lights were the same color. It's a small stage, you can't expect much, but it's a bummer as a photographer to try to pull out good photos of bands that just didn't get a chance to look good. The stage in the Taboo Tiki Room at least had different colored lights from more than one angle.
Anyway, the music started!
Friday leaned exotica, which made for a bit of a nice-and-easy ramp-up, and kicking it off was Hilo Hi-Flyers I'm familiar with them but hadn't listened to them much as they're not really a surf band, more of a fun mix of exotica, hawaiian, and whatever else they pick up along the way. This is a bit of a back-handed compliment and I don't mean it in a negative way, but the easy energy and lack of loud electric guitar was nice because I could talk more easily, catch up with people, and get reacquainted. There were a number of fun covers they did, probably the most memorable being a version of The Indiana Jones theme. There were a bunch more opportunities to catch them in the Taboo Tiki Room later on.
Next up was Little Kahuna, an actual surf band, though still a bit more easy-going than a lot of the acts to follow. I'd seen little moments of Little Kahuna on the secondary stage at a past SG101 and much like then, nice stuff, well-played.
Tikiyaki 5-O is the stripped down, more guitar-oriented offshoot of Tikiyaki Orchestra, though the impressive spread handled by their percussionist (separate from drumkit) was anything but stripped down. I've quite enjoyed their released material, and it's always great to see Jonpaul Balak performing -- the only time he did this year! I've seen guitarist and bandleader Jim Bacci around the festival for years but since I previously missed Tikiyaki Orchestra this was my first time seeing him perform. Great set with a few energetic versions of exotica classics like "Taboo" and "Bali Hai", and I love their cover of "Eleanor Rigby".
Shorty's Swingin' Coconuts have snuck up on me as a band I really enjoy. Their LP Surf Shack Shindig was great and has grown on me over time, and their EP from this year Mai-Tai in Hi-Fi Pt. II is absolutely fantastic. And while this is basically irrelevant to their live set, I think Shorty Poole is among the best best in the biz as a surf sound engineer and mastering technician. I had actually always assumed that Shorty would be lead guitar for the band named after him, but he actually plays rhythm and steel guitar. Lead guitar duties were handled by Mike Sobieski, who nobody would call "Shorty" unless for comedic effect. In keeping with the theme, they dipped into a more exotica direction at times, using steel guitar and even their own gong -- I love when bands prioritize touring with something so niche and unwieldy. They were excellent.
Last up in Friday's shortened lineup was Eddie Angel's Guitar Party. While I had never seen Los Straitjackets, I had seen an act billed by the same name as this at Hi-Tide Summer Holiday in 2019. Much like then, this was not a set simply replaying his 1997 album Guitar Party. I think I counted three songs from that. In a way this felt like a warmup to the next night's show with the rest of Los Straitjackets, running through a couple of classics of theirs like "Calhoun", "Close to Champaign", and "Lonely Apache". He also tosses in a couple of covers like "Cry for a Shadow", "Pink Dominoes", and closing out with a Link Wray medley. He was playing with an unmasked Pete Curry on drums, Deven Berryhill (Tourmaliners and Surfaris) on rhythm guitar, and a woman on bass whose name I never caught, and I thought they did great -- a regular guitar party.
DAY TWO
As usual I didn't get my act together in time to get a place at the host hotel, so I opted for the even closer Motel 6 just a 10 minute walk away. It seemed fine enough; very basic, but I don't ask for much. That said, I woke up the next morning with my nose feeling irritated and a little painful, though not especially sick. My operating theory is that I snorted one of the many ants I found around my room. Would not recommend the Motel 6! But it was close to a Denny's that I went to for breakfast, and even saw a few other "surf people" there! Since I had time I tried to chase down a few signs for garage sales, as I frequently do at home. However, it seems to be the custom here to just write "garage sale" and an arrow on a sign with no other relevant details such as date, time, or address, which sent me on a few wild goose chases during my trip. I never actually found one.
The day started with the tradition of Jonpaul Balak interviewing a surf legend, in this case Al Valdez of The Original Surfaris. It was a kind of funny interview. I think everybody was struck by Al's relentlessly sweet and gracious attitude. As far as learning details about the era, a lot of credit goes to Jonpaul for "remembering" things for him, he'd clearly done a lot of homework in advance. The most interesting detail that I remembered (I can't fault him for forgetting a lot of things, as I'm prone to it myself!) was when Wipeout came on the radio. The members of his band -- then just called The Surfaris -- heard people at their school talking about this song by The Surfaris on the radio, and they thought it was their song! It was actually a very rough time for them, because when people figured out it was a different band also called The Surfaris, people would ridicule them and call them frauds. Naturally, they eventually changed their name. Anyway, amazingly Al is still playing weekly gigs, mostly playing old hits to people at retirement facilities. It was great hearing him talk with with such sincerity about how much of a gift it's been to not only be able to play music his whole life, but to be able to share it.
Also a custom for SG101 is Matt Quilter doing some form of tribute band. This time he focused mostly on pre-surf instrumentals and other not-quite surf favorites. It was cool, relatively low-key and a nice warmup. Admittedly I was seeking out new vendors and perusing for records I might have missed.
It's always fun when one band hits you out of nowhere, and I think a lot of people would say SPF1985 might have been that band this time. I was familiar with them, especially their covers of songs that millennials such as myself might love, but I felt like these guys knew they were under the radar and were really going to come out swinging. Their lead guitarist was one of the most animated of the entire festival, constantly in motion and whipping his hair around. He had a bloody lip that he later told me was not a rad performance injury but a busted chapped lip from surfing the other day (or something like that). At least it was surfing!
Their sound was a little less traditional surftone and a little more alt, but the energy was infectious and drew people to the stage at an hour when people often keep their distance. Their drummer was a fill-in but you couldn't tell. There were also two cute kids in the audience and I tried to guess who their dad was. I correctly guessed the drummer from the occasional quick glances that seemed to point in their direction.
The Seismics were next, a band that I think has built a presence for themselves in the past two years. They went big with it! Aside from the core band, they had an extra percussiost/dancer, go-go dancers, and brought in two trumpeters for songs that had a bit of a mariachi flair. They made a small stage feel big. Great energy, great sound, good band!
Then were The Valiants, I believe the first representatives of the buzzing PNW contingent. They had recently reformed and put out a fun EP this year, a follow-up to their last one from 1999. I kind of assume that anybody that was releasing surf music in the 90's was at least a different generation than me (I was 14 in 1999), so I expected people that looked a bit older than myself, but nope! Anyway, they kept a streak of high-energy energy surf bands going, and I'm glad that they're back, even if I wasn't aware of them until they were.
I feel like every year there's one act that is BigTikiDude's "this one's for me" choice, and I believe this year Death Valley would be it. And I'm pretty sure that resonated with a bunch of other people too. Despite enjoying a lot of spaghetti-surf bands, their album Que Pasta was a blind spot for me, but for Jeff it was his introduction. While I certainly had no trouble enjoying this set, and I've since been very much enjoying the reissue that was available at the festival, I think for some people this was a meaningful experience very comparable to how The Hellbenders were for me at a previous SG101. And talk about magnetic frontmen, Joe Emery is constantly jumping and thrashing, but in a way that's not just for show -- he's feeling what he's playing!
Speaking of what he's playing, please note that self-made guitar!
I've recently gone on at pretty decent length about the mystery of Draculina. Going into the festival, I had heard five tracks from this album in advance and was quite impressed by them, so for the first time I was pretty excited to see Draculina instead of being cautiously curious. This had Maline Vammen of the Pandoras on keys (same as last time), and Chris Barfield on guitar (no Evan Foster, which is fair because we'd see a decent amount of him later), as well as the core of Larry Mullins and Polina Draculina. While I wish I knew the music as well as I do it now after listening to the album multiple times, I thought it was great! They were very danceable and fun while remaining creepy and strange. Vocals are key to their music, even if they're used sparingly, and they certainly added to the fun. I polled a few people on this set afterwards as I was very curious, and everybody I spoke to seemed to like it.
Pollo Del Mar were next, who I've seen a few times before, but this time they were celebrating the vinyl re-release of their album Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. My friend Bob mentioned some audio issues but I was actually pretty struck by how resonant and almost shoegazey this sounded played live. Though no gazing at shoes here -- they were having a regular party on stage. Admittedly I hadn't spent a whole lot of time with this record and this set convinced me to give it some more attention (on brand newly pressed vinyl no less). Glad I did!
The Bomboras played SG101 in 2023 and were one of my favorite bands I'd seen at the festival. And sure enough, faces melted -- mostly theirs, from sweat interacting with facepaint. There was one major change since then: the addition of the brothers Foster from The Boss Martians. This didn't change that much to the overall vibe -- as was the case last time, my brain just sort of switched off and rode the wave of wild surf noise, but their kinetic style of performance gave it another 10-20% of frenzy. Keyboard acrobatics, swingin' guitars, fire, glowing skeletons... it was a sensory barrage.
They opened their set saying "this is our last song", which is a solid joke that I'm surprised I've never heard before, and they ended with a cover of "The Crusher". Which I realized despite having listened to that song many times, I don't actually know how to do The Crusher. Feel free to teach me... or demonstrate on somebody else if it needs a victim.
Once the adrenaline settled, it was time for Los Straitjackets. So many people over the years have told me "I used to see them all the time!", even New Orleanians ("I used to see them at the Rock 'n Bowl!"). Well this was my first, and it was a significant showing. Danny "Daddy-O Grande" Amis was playing, which he hadn't for a long time, and many people there assumed they were seeing his last performance (as of writing, I don't know for sure one way or the other). What I didn't know until just recently was that it that Pete "Pedro Del Mar" Curry had decided to retire, so that was his last performance too! Danny did seem a bit restrained by his health issues on stage, but his fingers did just fine, and he still stood the whole time, still did a few coordinated movements with the band.
It was a vintage set -- their new album Somos featured Greg Townson on guitar instead of Danny, so I don't believe any songs from that record made the set list, but I don't think anybody was complaining about hearing "Kawanga", "Jet Set", "Calhoun Surf", or... anything really. They've got enough of a catalog that while they might not have time to play your sleeper favorite, it's hard to choose what should be cut to make room. Even though it very likely might be a historic set for the band, it felt relaxed and intimate. Maybe that's the effect of a small stage, but I'd suspect that for those that have seen them before, it wasn't all that much different. Anyway, I can finally cross them off my list. It was great.
DAY THREE
I woke up the next morning rested pretty well, waking up at a reasonable time, to the point that I worried I had fully converted to this time zone and feared how it would affect me on the way back when I have to wake up at 4AM PST/6AM CST to get my kids to school. I don't remember how that turned out, so I'm going to assume I was too exhausted to form a memory of it.
The vibe at the Elks Lodge was nice and easy when I came in around 11 to catch Jonpaul Balak's interview with Tracy Longstreth of the Rhythm Rockers. I've heard and love the Rhythm Rockers' LP, but I wasn't aware that they were the Rendezvous Ballroom band straight after Dick Dale left to go on tour. His interview did a good job of painting the scene of that legendary place. He talked about his recent book The Birth of Blue Eyed Soul, and Jonpaul nudged him a bit on how the drumming was a lot more soul inspired than traditional surf drumming. Then Tracy related a story about how Mike Curb noticed the Rhythm Rockers, and how that eventually spun into him recording with The Osmonds. I always love these interviews, and Tracy was a great choice.
Aaaand here's the truth: I don't play an instrument. I think the idea of having a seminar with each member of Slacktone on their instruments was a cool move, and part of me thought I should stick around because I like learning stuff, even if it doesn't apply to me necessarily. But I'm also a creature of sunlight, and that was in short supply here, so I went outside and checked out the aforementioned nickel arcade. I came back to catch a smidge of Dave Wronski's guitar seminar, and it was interesting. But you'll have to get details elsewhere!
The seminars ran a bit late, and I found myself in a quandary. I haven't talked much about what was going on in the Taboo Tiki Room because it was taboo I was only in there for moments at a time, but I was dismayed to learn that the vintage swimsuit contest coincided with Jonpaul's Jon & the Nightriders presentation. It wasn't necessarily a difficult decision; I was here to consume surf music as much as possible, and vintage swimsuits weren't in that category, but I still thought the contest was fun in previous years. Last year, contestants would present in the Tiki room, then the results were on the main stage. This year it was all one event, and the only hint I got at it was a go-go dancer wearing the winner's sash later on.
But Jonpaul's presentation on Jon & the Nightriders was great. Sure, I'd heard the story from John Blair himself in a previous year, but part of why I think you'll never see me really pick up the surf historian badge that both of these people wear is because my memory is garbage! Jonpaul had free license to inject plenty of praise and fanboyism where modesty might prohibit Blair. And it is pretty damn absurd that this one surf nerd wrote a tome about a neglected genre (still in contention for being the tome today), and then thought "huh, maybe I'll form a band and play this stuff", and that band was Jon & the Nightriders, which more than any other band kickstarted surf revival because they were really, really good. Amusingly, occasional questions were casually kicked over to Dusty Watson in the audience (John Blair was not there).
And then Dusty transitioned from audience to stage, as Slacktone played a micro set of Jon & the Nightriders songs. I believe John has retired from playing guitar, so this version with two members and one pseudo member (Sam Bolle) was as close as you're going to get. Dave Wronski even wore John's shirt. It was fantastic, and I think everybody would agree, the biggest problem was we wanted more.
This is an aside, but among the tapes I picked up from Bob Dalley at last year's festival was a clip of Jon & the Nightriders on Merril Fankhauser's show, including a video for "Ready Steady Rock Jetty" which is even faster and more intense than the recorded version. You should watch it.
finally, it was time for a real set of music, starting off with The Breakers, who I had just seen in their Chicago hometown not two months before. They had a much more progressive set than a lot of bands in the lineup, a good mix-up from the rest, with some fun sax thrown in. Jim from The Breakers has a friendly face at a bunch of these, and it was great to see him on the other side of the stage.
Speaking of friends on stage, I had a summer where met Eric Penna in New Orleans, then saw him in Livorno and California a few years ago. Even if I didn't know him, I'd be excited about Trabants. in 2019 when I saw them they were playing a lot of material from their Spaghetti Western album, and now that they had just released their great psychedelic instro album Mirage, that sound dominated this set. Confession time: there were a lot of bands using fuzz pedals last year and some of them had me thinking "you know, not ALL fuzz is great." Not gonna name names. There was not much fuzz this year... but boy howdy did Trabants' bring enough to compensate, with some of the most lush fuzz guitar I've heard in person.
I'm not surprised that this went over well. For one, I'd heard some strong unsolicited praise from people that saw them at Surf x Surfwest in Seattle. And last year's set from The Space Agency was much more popular than I expected from a band that leans as hard into psych as surf. And as psychedelic as it all was, Trabants almost always keep it moving pretty well with a strong, fun beat. The crowd grew as they played, and by the end people were begging for an encore.
The Thunderchiefs were packaged in with the Death Valley deal as they both featured Joe Emery on guitar, so we were treated to the same passionate energy in a different outfit, playing much more traditional surf music. Along with Death Valley, I'm a little undereducated on their music, but this one thing says it all: this was probably the peak of movement on the dance floor for the whole event. What a party!
The penultimate band of the night was The Boss Martians. I'd seen them a few times at this point, and while it may not have been remarkably different, their show is such a well-oiled machine that I really don't care. Last year Jackie and the Cedrics had me thinking a lot about the concept of a "showman" being alive in surf music more than other modern genres, and I'd absolutely point to Evan Foster as an example. Sure, he plays guitar lines so fast in a way that feels like he doesn't even have to think, and he understands more than anybody there how to move and adopt a striking stance, but I want to talk about his face. He has this look about him as if he's scanning the crowd for a victim for his songs. He's clearly played these songs to death, but his face still says devilishly, "how'd ya like that?". But amazingly, Evan Foster might not have been the most interesting person here.
They had a new drummer, teenage Luka(sp?) Manzo, certainly the youngest performer that night, possibly the youngest person in the room, and the son of their saxphone player. This kid ruled. He could not only keep up with this bronco of a band, he looked like he was in hog heaven, absolutely smashing the kit and sticking out his tongue in a way that you could tell just meant he was in the zone. This kid, Ben Marazzi of The Bomboras (Volcanics too but they didn't play this year), and Dusty Watson were the three most enjoyable drummers to watch at this festival, easy, and I'm not even going to try to rank those three. I found myself thinking "This is going to be short. A young kid with talent like his is going to be courted by a band his own age in a genre that people his age listen to." Buuuuut I mean... are those bands going to put him to work like The Boss Martians? Un-fucking-likely.
And so the final act was Slacktone, who haven't exactly been dormant (I saw them in 2024 at Surfer Joe) but hadn't appeared on an SG101 lineup since 2014. More notably though, they hadn't released any new material for two decades, and then here they are with a new 7" just in time for the festival. Bathed in a blue light (for blue sparkle?), they of course played those two as well as many of their classics. To tell you they were fantastic musicians is kind of eye-rolling: each member is basically known to be top of the surf food chain on their respective instrument, and they left no room for dispute. What I appreciate about them is that they balance beauty with intensity, like flying through a hurricane with jaunts above the clouds for moments of serenity. They were great, sounded pretty much just like the recordings, at least as they sound in my head. They wrapped up with a cover of Hawaii 5-O, then Misirlou and Rumble -- why not cap off the festival with a tribute to the holy trinity of American rock&roll instrumentalism?
And so that was it! Everybody packed up and left, no official afterparty, and I think I even turned down an invite for a bite to eat in favor of going to bed early. It's a lot!
I felt like this was kind of a year of scaling back to safety, which I understand after some surprise cancellations last year from two big international groups. There weren't quite as many surprise hits as previous years (though there were some!), few unexpected gimmicks, cameos, or twists. It was just three days of surf music, plain and simple... and that works! I just love surf music, and every year, including this one, is basically an affirmation of something special. With Surfer Joe Summer Festival pretty much done for, there's not much to debate: this is THE surf event. There's a bunch of great looking ones that have sprung up in recent years, but at best one of their days can rival one of this event's three days. The main thing it's missing isn't international acts, though I can't wait for them to return, but surf fans. And this seemed well-enough attended to me! But I think there's so many people that listen to surf music but aren't willing to take the plunge and go to a three-day surf festival because they don't see themselves as being on that level. Here's the thing: while it may leave a brand on your soul, your skin remains untouched -- nobody has to know you're a surf fan! You can just be somebody that likes surf music. Worried you won't know anybody? That you're too awkward? There's plenty of awkward to go around! But we're all in on this secret. We all listen to surf music, we probably don't know THAT many people who do, and if you just talk about surf music to people here, there's a very good chance they'll want to talk back! That's what this is. It's an upside-down place where everything else is obscure, and these bands aren't trying to win over an audience that sees them as a novelty, they're playing to a hungry audience that can't wait to hear them. That rules, and it's why I'm pretty sure you'll see me there next year.
Note: I'm still putting together my full album of photos. I'll update this page when they're done.
