Rubber City Review

We’re in full holiday mode here in the Rubber City – plenty of white stuff on the ground and white people in our malls searching for Susan Boyle’s latest CD.

Now I’ve got nothing against Ms. Boyle, who recently released a Christmas album called “The Gift.” And I’m sure the album will hit its sales targets without RCR’s support. But when it comes to holiday-themed music, I prefer something with more of an edgy, go-for-broke, Santa’s been drinkin’ again vibe. The kind of music that typically doesn’t get piped into a Wal-Mart store. James Brown’s Funky Christmas. Blue Yule. Christmas Greetings from Jamaica’s Studio One. Hillbilly Holiday. Anything by Otis Redding, Billie Holiday, Amos Milburn or Sister Rosetta Tharpe will do just fine too.

With that in mind, here’s Rubber City Review’s second annual holiday song roundup – the perfect soundtrack for sharing a yule log with that special friend or loved one.

I love the fact that James Brown appears in “Ski Party,” a b-movie with Frankie Avalon about non-stop hi-jinx on the high slopes of Idaho (video clip at end of post). And I don’t think it’s ever fully explained how J.B. and his Famous Flames got there, or how they became the resort’s resident ski patrol. That’s a long way from Augusta G-A (although I’m sure the Godfather of Soul’s fabulous footwork would serve him well on the slopes). I’m far more comfortable with the idea of J.B. reinventing the classic Christmas song with more urban fare like Go Power at Christmas Time and Santa Claus Go Straight to the Ghetto. Here’s another fine funky take on the holiday season from the world’s most soulful Santa: Let’s Make Christmas Mean Something This Year/James Brown

When Jamaican music legend Clement “Cosxone” Dodd founded his Studio One label back in ’54, I don’t think he had holiday songs in mind. But when you record as many artists as he did – Bob Marley and the Wailers, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Toots and the Maytals, The Skatalites and The Ethiopians, to name a few – you’re bound to come up with a few holiday gems. The “Christmas Greetings from Studio One” collection delivers the goods and then some with tunes by Marley, Toots, The Silvertones and other masters of ska and reggae. Think Christmas on the beach with a string of lights hanging from a palm tree, a case of Red Stripe, some jerk chicken… well, I’ll just leave it at that. Jingle Bells/Roy Richards

Christmas in California is another alien concept to those of us who spend much of the holiday season chipping ice and blowing snow. But we can always dream. And sometimes we drift away on thoughts of bikini beach parties at twilight, with freshly scrubbed kids named Bif, Binky, Tad and Ginger dancing around an open fire to the sound of twangy guitars against the crashing surf. Then the snow plow slams into the curb outside and it’s back to reality. Screw it… Time to hit the hard stuff, drop the needle on “The Ventures Christmas Album” and start twisting the night away. Where the hell did I put that goose-down Speedo? Jingle Bell Rock/The Ventures

What about the guy who has everything? You know, Magnavox hi-fi, portable wet bar, leopard-skin furniture, Philco TV… Maybe he’s never had his mind blown by the exotic sounds of Esquivel – his piano, orchestra and chorus. Let’s go right to the liner notes from “Esquivel! Merry Xmas from the Space-Age Bachelor Pad” (Hoboken’s Bar/None label): “Mingle ‘round your tinsel-draped Sputnik, flick on the twinkling lights, fix up a libation if you like, and let Esquivel’s otherworldly sounds transport you into Santa’s saucer, high in the stratosphere on Christmas eve.” I’m sure this would’ve sounded great on my dad’s home-built Heathkit, if only he could’ve fixed that annoying buzz in the left channel… White Christmas/Esquivel

Many posts ago, we talked about the glory years of Cincinnati’s legendary King Records label and studio. And I’m surprised it’s taken me this long to come across “Merry Christmas, Baby,” a compilation of holiday-flavored King R&B. How can you lose with a lineup that includes Charles Brown (Merry Christmas Baby), Lowell Fulson (Lonesome Christmas, Pts. 1 and 2), Lloyd Glenn (Sleighride) and Johnny Moore’s Blazers (Christmas Letter)? Richmond, VA, native Mabel Scott scored a hit with this next tune back in 1948, a year before she became Charles Brown’s wife for about a New York minute. After a second marriage failed in the mid-‘50s, Scott went back to her gospel roots and left the more secular pleasures of boogie woogie behind: Boogie Woogie Santa Claus/Mabel Scott

Time to drag Santa through the honky tonk, pour some whiskey over his head and toss him out the back door. Last year we featured Daddy’s Drinking Up Our Christmas by Commander Cody – one of several roasted chestnuts on “Hillbilly Holiday,” a great collection of country-flavored Christmas tunes. Let’s revisit that bonanza of backwoods fun with Brenda Lee, the 4 foot 9 inch dynamo from Atlanta. Lee scored a hit in 1960 with Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree, which actually was recorded two years earlier. But it wasn’t her first holiday rodeo. This next tune was the B side of a 1956 single (w/ Christy Christmas) aimed squarely at the kids, but with just enough of the honky tonk in it to keep the barflies happy too. I’m Gonna Lasso Santa Claus/Brenda Lee

I’ve always wanted to spend the holidays in New Orleans. But I fear my Christmas spirit would be tested in a city where the nights are far from silent and holy. At least I could sober up listening to the sacred sounds of the world-famous Zion Harmonizers. They started as a quartet of teenagers back in 1939, singing traditional spirituals in the churches of New Orleans’ old Zion City neighborhood. Now they’re a powerful sextet that likes to mix it up a little bit with more modern arrangements of tunes like Down By The Riverside, and tourists can sometimes catch them at the House of Blues’ Sunday Gospel Brunch. I’m sure more than a few omelets go uneaten when they launch into this tune (special thanks to Bill Austin in St. A for this one): White Christmas/The Zion Harmonizers

As long as we’ve got the gospel spirit, let’s close this one out with the pride of Cotton Plant, Arkansas – Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Here she gives O Little Town of Bethlehem the sanctified treatment. Sister Rosetta also recorded a few blues and R&B numbers during her remarkable career, and she never got enough credit for serving as an inspiration to Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash – virtually anyone who recorded at Sun Studios during the ‘50s. And brothers and sisters, could she play some guitar (visual evidence provided in video below). Dear readers, repent for your sins… throw away those holiday CDs by Sting, Michael Bublé, Mariah Carey and the like, and get right with someone who really knows how to throw down a Christmas song: O Little Town of Bethlehem/Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Here’s James Brown and his Famous Flames entertaining a ski lodge full of shiny happy prepsters (notice how quickly J.B. and Flames head out the back door when the performance is over)…

And here’s one of the few living documents – video or otherwise – of Sister Rosetta’s amazing prowess on electric guitar:

I have this theory about the Beach Boys… that people who live in northern, land-locked areas, where it’s brutally cold nearly half of the year, have little patience for their well-crafted odes to the surfer lifestyle.  And this theory has, for the most part, proven true – although it doesn’t begin to explain why people in the Midwest have no problem dressing up like Carmen Miranda to go to Jimmy Buffett concerts.

Great Northern Parrothead

One thing is certain:  There are few greater pleasures in rock ‘n roll than a finely executed surf instrumental.  And if you expand the definition to include “surf-influenced” songs, then you bring into the tent some of the best guitarists of any genre – from Link Wray and Lonnie Mack to Freddie King and Albert Collins.

Sure, there are the classic surf instrumentals that even my mother could reel off – Walk Don’t Run by the Ventures, Telstar by the Tornados, Wipe Out by the Surfaris, Misirlou by Dick Dale and the Del-Tones, Pipeline by the Chantays… all flawless songs that belong in the “Surf Guitar Retrospective: A Half Century of Reverb” at the Smithsonian.

But that’s just the tip of the board (let me shut off this metaphor machine before it spits out “hidden treasures in the sand”).  In fact, modern surf-guitar gems are being cut by the likes of Southern Culture on the Skids, Los Straitjackets and James Wilsey.  And it’s our job here at Rubber City Review to give you the digital warning signs you need before wading into these murky musical waters (where is that goddam switch?).

Of course, there are countless treasures from the heyday of surf guitar, the early Sixties.  Unfortunately, the best collection of Sixties surf instrumentals I ever came across – “Guitar Player Presents Legends of Guitar: Surf, Vol. 1” – has long been out of print, and I’m fairly certain that Rhino Records never got around to issuing Vol. 2.  The beauty of this collection is that it assumes you already have the touchstones like Wipe Out and Telstar and are looking to dig a little deeper.  It’s a great mix of the familiar and obscure, and everything on it is first-rate.  Here’s the track listing (and four samples) in case you want to try to find these tunes online:

1. A Run for Life – Dick Dale
2. Surf Rider – The Lively Ones
3. Beyond – The Chantays
4. Latin’ia – The Sentinels: Latin’ia
5. Baja – The Astronauts
6. Squad Car – Eddie & The Showmen
7. Tidal Wave – The Challengers
8. Tally Ho! – PJ & The Galaxies
9. Diamond Head – The Ventures Diamond Head
10. Soul Surfer – Johnny Fortune Soul Surfer
11. Bombora – The (Original) Surfaris
12. The Jester – Jim Messina & His Jesters
13. Gypsy Surfer – The Avantis
14. Our Favorite Martian – Bobby Fuller & The Fanatics
15. Bustin’ Surfboards – The Tornadoes
16. Point Panic – The Surfaris
17. Mar Gaya – The Fender IV Mar Gaya
18. Fiberglass Jungle – The Crossfires

The more adventurous can check out a five-disc series of surf instrumentals on the Sundazed label – “Lost Legends of Surf Guitar.”  The handy All Music Guide calls it “good, though not nearly as good as the very best ‘60s instrumental surf music anthologies, and can be confidently recommended to surf collectors.”  The “Lost Legends” series makes a distinction between surf and “hot rod” or “drag” tunes, a fine point I’m not sure I can grasp (when I hear tires peeling at the beginning of a song, I know it’s “hot rod”!).  Regardless, the New York-based label is an excellent source of American roots music – from garage/punk and psychedelic to country/rockabilly (including a 3-CD set of Jimmy Bryant – check out our earlier “Speed Demons of the West” post) and blues.  Sundazed also reissues original albums by surf-guitar standouts like The Challengers, The Surfaris, Ronny & the Daytonas and many more.  You can find them here.

Nephew Dan turned me on to this next one – a top-shelf collection of instrumentals recorded by Norman Petty (Buddy Holly’s first manager and producer) in the early-’60s at his studio in Clovis, New Mexico.   “I think of Norman Petty as a southern, white version of Berry Gordy and Motown Studios,” Auerbach said.  “Just like the setup at Motown, Petty was cutting edge and experimental with the recording equipment and techniques.  And he used his own stable of musicians – mostly members of the Fireballs (and their great guitarist George Tomsco) – for a lot of his stuff.”  Although his voice is one of the more recognizable in rock, Auerbach certainly appreciates the appeal of the guitar-based instrumental.  “First of all, it’s not easy to find a good singer – especially if you run a studio in Clovis.  But Petty could create a real band almost instantly with a guitarist who could pick out a few melodies.”

The great irony of the surf influence on “That’s Swift” is that most of Petty’s bands were from New Mexico and West Texas (Wes Dakus and the Rebels came all the way from Canada).  Auerbach sees a connection between Petty’s operation and the Rubber City:  “I bet Clovis is a lot like Akron… I’m sure Petty’s musicians heard a lot of influences, but didn’t see them up close.  They definitely heard the records and saw the pictures, but had to figure out how to do it on their own.”  Here’s one of Dan’s favorites from “That’s Swift”: Sour Biscuits/Wes Dakus and the Rebels

Next-Generation, Post-Neo-Surf/Drag/Hot Rod Guitar-Based Instrumentals…

Surf music didn’t get buried by the Beatles – who, as it turns out, were big fans of Brian Wilson.  But maybe it’s not the right label to describe the best examples of contemporary, surf-influenced songs.  Maybe “reverb-drenched instrumentals”?  Whatever you choose to call the genre, it’s pretty clear that a whole slew of latter-day rock, blues and country pickers owe a huge debt to the first generation of surf guitar slingers – including living legends like Nokie Edwards of The Ventures, who continues to play and record today.

Given the fact that we Americans have a habit of neglecting our most prized musical treasures, it makes perfect sense that one of the leading proponents of modern surf guitar is from Finland: Laika and the Cosmonauts.  Unfortunately, it appears the band’s 22-year career has come to a close.  A shame, really, because these guys seemed to have a knack for reinventing the surf instrumental – throwing in healthy doses of sci-fi, vintage soundtracks and other exotica to create instant classics that defy categories.  Their guitarist, Mikko Lankinen, is no slouch, but he clearly prefers melodic invention over Dale-like shredding.  Here’s a tune from an album released back in 1992, “Instruments of Terror” – still one of my favorite all-instrumental records. Note Crisis/Laika and the Cosmonauts

Even New York City’s post-punk, downtown music scene got in on the act, spawning “neo-surf” combo The Raybeats back in 1979.  The band’s long-gone album from 1983 – “It’s Only a Movie!” – is a curious mix of quirky, synthesized soundscapes and straight-ahead tributes to Booker T and Link Wray.  Guitar Player magazine called it “one of the top 10 instrumental albums of all time”… but it’s difficult to find, and very little has been written about the band or its members (except for former Raybeat and current Straitjacket Amis). It featured a rootsy yet innovative guitarist from Kansas, Jody Harris, who went on to record with The Golden Palominos and former Lou Reed guitarist Robert Quine (he described Harris as “tragically underrated”).  Here’s a tune from “Movie” that belongs in the surf hall of fame, wherever that is… Soul Beat-Intoxica/The Raybeats

They’re the Godfathers of Mexican Surf.  They’ve got a strong fan base in Spain and Russia.  Their annual Christmas Pageant is one of the holiday season’s hottest tickets (if you conveniently ignore some bloated, heavy-metal steamroller).  And their cover of My Heart Will Go On, the love theme from the movie “Titanic,” reportedly had Celine Dion contemplating early retirement.  When it comes to surf-based instrumentals expertly played by grown men in Mexican wrestling outfits, there’s only one band worth talking about: Los Straitjackets.  The fact is, these guys are damn good.  Just ask The Ventures or Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers – or, if you could bring them back from the great beyond, Link Wray and Ronnie Dawson.  This next one sounds like the theme from a long-forgotten TV show… a damn good one at that! Pacifica/Los Straitjackets

If there is such a thing as a hot-rod/hillbilly concept album, it was released in 1995 by Southern Culture on the Skids.  “Dirt Track Date” was a major-label release with a used condom on the cover.  And it sings the praises of the white trash lifestyle with heartfelt songs about Cadillacs (with eight slappin’ pistons under the hood), shiny pants, pointy tipped shoes, fireflies, Tony Joe White, Little Debbie snack crackers, eight-piece boxes of chicken and, of course, hookin’ up at the dirt track races.  But once you get beyond the broad jokes, you quickly realize these three can flat-out play.  Rick Miller’s guitar is almost as greasy as the chicken, and he’s clearly a sucker for an over-fried tube amp.  He also knows how to throw together a catchy instrumental, like this twangy homage to the galley slave… Galley Slave/SCOTS

I guarantee you’ve heard James Wilsey.  Remember that signature, moody lick from Chris Isaak’s huge hit, Wicked Game?  That’s Wilsey.  The former punk-rocker played in Isaak’s band until 1991, when he left to pursue a less-hectic lifestyle – one better suited to the sparse, understated sound of his guitar.  But he’s back with a new band, and he calls his all-instrumental originals “space-age hillbilly stuff, little-haunted-house-on-the-prairie music.”  He sounds like a perfect fusion of Duane Eddy and Link Wray, if you dragged them through the hot Arizona desert at High Noon.  If you’re looking for evidence that the surf-guitar instrumental has evolved over the years, check out this original from Wilsey’s latest, “El Dorado” (released in 2008)… El Dorado/James Wilsey

Quick hits… Not quite surf, but wouldn’t you rather have these guys at your beach party than Frankie and Annette?  (For you young ‘uns, think Carson Daly and whatever bimbo he brings along.)

Here’s a nasty slice of sinister from the late Link Wray – a favorite of directors Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez… Jack the Ripper/Link Wray

The Iceman Picketh – Sounds like the Master of the Telecaster, Albert Collins, had his ear cocked to a few surf records back in the early Sixties… Frosty/Albert Collins

If you’re more familiar with the Grateful Dead’s version (or even the original by Bobbie “Blue” Bland), you need to shake hands with the man from Aurora, Indiana: Lonnie Mack… Turn On Your Love Light/Lonnie Mack

Bonus video from the heyday of surf guitar… Dick Dale and the Del-Tones play their classic Misirlou in the 1963 movie “A Swingin’ Affair.”  I love the bass player (I’m guessing he handled the books for the band), and it’s pretty cool that they let dad play drums: