Sunday, May 11, 2008

The Tornadoes - Greatest Hits- Beyond The Surf

Not To Be Confused With The Tornados Of "Telstar" Fame, the tornadoes are one of the most overlooked surf bands from the early 60's. This CD has a lot of great, raw, surf music that any fan of the genre will enjoy. Some of the tracks were recorded, produced and engineeered by Frank Zappa/Paul Buff at their Cucamonga recording studio (infamously known throughout the free world as Studio Z). They consisted of Gerald Sanders on lead vocals and bass guitar, Norman "Roly" Sanders on lead guitar, Jesse Sanders on rhythm guitar, George White on saxophone and Leonard Delaney on drums. Their signature song, "Bustin' Surfboards," was one of the first regional, surf instrumental hits to receive national airplay in 1962. The sound of crashing waves gives way to the drums playing a stomping beat, followed by a twangy guitar playing the memorable melody. "Beyond The Surf" was a slow song, which featured a heavily echoed guitar, while the drummer played the cymbals to simulate the sound of waves. Gerald Sanders sings the tale of the "Phantom Surfer," an unfortunate dude who died in a mean riptide, and whose ghost surfs the waves for all eternity!

This collection concludes with a 1999, 25 minute talk by all five members of the group discussing the good old days. Nice, but .. the music is what counts here. Quentin Tarantino included the song "Bustin' Surfboards" in his movie Pulp Fiction and its subsequent soundtrack album. The popularity of that led to the Tornadoes reuniting and recording the album "Bustin' Surfboards '98," some 34 years after their first album, included here in it’s entirety with a few singles and 3 unissued cuts to round out the collection. A must have for all surf fans.

1. Bustin' Surfborads 2. Beyond The Surf 3. Moon Dawg 4. Shootin' Beavers
5. Bumble Bee Stomp 6. The Swag 7. The Gremmie 8. The Inebriated Surfer
9. Malaguena 10. Phantom Surfer 11. Who Was That?!?! 12. Vaquero
13. The Tornado 14. Johnny B. Goode 15. Charge Of Tornadoes
16. The Gremmie Pt. 2 17. Raw-Hide 18. Lightnin' 19. The Tornadoes Talk!

beyond

the surf

1 comment:

zerohero999 said...

Thanks so much for this and all the other great stuff you post.I have discovered so much great music on this blog.

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