Showing posts with label SURF GUITAR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SURF GUITAR. Show all posts

4.17.2019

DICK DALE KING OF THE SURF GUITAR: 1937-2019

Dick Dale

Richard Anthony Monsour (May 4, 1937 – March 16, 2019), better known by his stage name Dick Dale, was an American rock guitarist, known as The King of the Surf Guitar. He pioneered and created what many call the surf music style, drawing on Middle-Eastern music scales and experimenting with reverberation.



Dale worked closely with Fender to produce custom made amplifiers, including the first-ever 100-watt guitar amplifier. He pushed the limits of electric amplification technology, helping to develop new equipment that was capable of producing distorted, "thick, clearly defined tones" at "previously undreamed-of volumes." 


The "breakneck speed of his single-note staccato picking technique" and showmanship with the guitar is considered a precursor to heavy metal music, influencing rock guitarists from the 1960s until eternity...


USA TODAY "Miserlou," which would become his signature song, had been adapted from a Middle Eastern folk tune Dale heard as a child and later transformed into a thundering surf-rock instrumental.

His fingering style was so frenetic that he shredded guitar picks during songs, a technique that forced him to stash spares on his guitar's body. "Better shred than dead," he liked to joke, an expression that eventually became the title of a 1997 anthology released by Rhino Records.

RIP DICK...our thoughts and prayers to all of friends, family and gazillion fans....

1.06.2019

DENIZ TEK:THE MAKING OF LOST FOR WORDS

Deniz Tek (Photo: Anne Tek)

LOST FOR WORDS
Deniz Tek - guitarist, chief songwriter and founding member of legendary Australian band Radio Birdman - delivers Lost For Words, his third solo album for Career Records in five years.

Music for the imagined film. Action, Western, Surf, and Spy. Ten guitars led instrumentals with the studio band heard on his previous two albums, Detroit and Mean Old Twister.

Ric Parnell – drums (Spinal Tap, Atomic Rooster, The Deviants - many more)
Bob Brown – bass, production
Ron Sanchez - keyboards
The Fleshtones’ guitarist Keith Streng and Radio Birdman’s keyboardist Pip Hoyle joined them for the album sessions.

Produced by Bob Brown Recorded at GLEA Bozeman and Ships In Billings
Mixed by Andy "Mort" Bradley with Bob Brown and Deniz Tek at Wire Road, Houston, TX

THE MAKING OF “LOST FOR WORDS”
Deniz Tek

The best time to record is after a tour - the playing is as good as it is going to get, everything is working, and the studio is a nice change from the road.

I had toured hard with my live band in the spring of 2017 - skateboard stars Art and Steve Godoy, and guitarist Keith Streng from The Fleshtones. We played 30 concerts in 29 days across the Northeast USA and Europe. After a short rest, my wife Anne and I headed to Montana and I put the studio band together.

They were the same veteran players I had on my last two albums - Detroit and Mean Old Twister - Ric Parnell on drums, Bob Brown on bass, and Ron Sanchez on keyboards. Joining us was Keith Streng, from the touring band.

Keith, Bob and I rehearsed for a couple of days at Bob Brown’s “Ship’s In” studio in Billings, to get the guys familiar with the songs. On a sunny morning in August, we all climbed into Bob’s Volvo station wagon and headed for Bozeman - a drive west on I-90 over the mountains.

Bob Brown (photo: Anne Tek)

Ric took the bus east from his home in Missoula and met us at GLEA, the recording studio, which stands for “Gods Little Ear Acre”: the home of Ron Sanchez’ label, Career Records. We checked into an Air B&B and went over to the studio to sort out amps, get things miked up and get sounds happening. We had dinner and drinks at Ron’s and got ready to start recording early the next day.

Deniz, Keith Streng, Bob Brown (photo: Anne Tek)

Ric Parnell is the son of Jack Parnell, the legendary British jazz drummer - the only other drummer Buddy Rich is ever known to have praised, in an interview. Ric grew up in London, and played in the 70’s progressive rock band Atomic Rooster, before going on to work with many dozens of greats, including Jeff Beck, Ravi Shankar, The Deviants, Toni Basil, Bette Midler, Cher, etc ...

But Ric is best known for being in Spinal Tap, as the unfortunate drummer Mick Shrimpton who spontaneously combusted... and later as Mick’s twin, Rick.

Bob Brown played bass on my first solo tour in 1992, along with drummer Scott Asheton and Chris Masuak. I’ve been close friends with Bob and worked with him ever since.

Keith Streng (photo: Anne Tek)

Ron Sanchez, longtime friend, and label boss is the brain behind Donovan’s Brain. He engineered the sessions and played keyboards.
Keith Streng, guitarist and founding member of NYC’s Fleshtones, is a recent addition to my touring lineup.

He currently splits his time between Stockholm and NYC when he’s not on the road. He flew in for the sessions with a narrow window of time between other commitments.

The rest of us had worked long and hard rehearsing the songs, but not Ric. He doesn’t need to. It works like this. We are sitting in the studio. I say “OK, here’s how this next song goes.” I play it to him on guitar. He listens, thinks about it, and comes up with a beat.

Then we run through it a couple of times and he is ready to go. After a successful take, Ric goes outside for some “fresh air” meaning to smoke, and then in 15 minutes, we are down in the studio getting the next track together.

I played an 80’s Japanese Stratocaster, plugged directly into a Fender Blues Junior. I used no pedals or effects. We all sat in the room together and played all the songs live. One song, “It Shall Be Life”, has a fade - we even faded the song out live. “It Shall Be Life” is named after the famous line, spoken by Ten Bears at the end of the film “The Outlaw Josey Wales”.

Ric Parnell (Photo: Anne Tek)

During breaks, we loved listening to Ric’s stories. Aside from recounting his adventures with Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck and others, he enjoys talking about the making of Spinal Tap. I had always wondered how it could have been so accurate. Even though it’s meant to be a satire, the band situations depicted in the movie are astonishingly real.

I always figured that it couldn’t have been done without the actors being actual rock musicians, who had been through all of that stuff in real life. Ric says that the band improvised a lot of the script - I believe it.
All the basic tracks were recorded in two days.

Keith flew back to New York to play a gig at Yankee Stadium, and I spent an extra half day with Ric and Ron getting a few percussion parts done before Ric went home to Missoula. The following week, I recorded some guitar solos and added some acoustic and 12-string parts at Ship’s In with Bob.

One of the tunes is an instrumental version of Pip Hoyle’s song “Zeno Beach” from the 2006 Birdman album of the same name. I asked Pip to overdub keyboards on that, as well as on another tune “Vanished” which I had written for Radio Birdman, but never used. He generously recorded his parts in Sydney and sent them over.

Deniz Tek and Ron Sanchez (Photo: Anne Tek)

Erik Olson, the young genius multi-instrumentalist from Powell, Wyoming came to Ship’s In and played the fabulous sax solo on “Eddie Would Go”, a song about the fabled Hawaiian big wave surfer Eddie Aikau; and channeled Booker T. on Hammond B3 for the simple but killer groove in “Boneyard”.

Bob and I got together about six months later. I arrived in Billings in 15 below zero temperatures and blowing snow so deep that cars parked on the streets were half buried. Of course, we barbecued outside that night. We did some prep work and then went down to Houston to mix the album with Andy “Mort” Bradley.

Andy is a multiple Grammy nominee, having engineered or produced over 1000 albums in his career. He started out as a Radio Birdman roadie and sound man in 1977, and eventually became chief engineer and owner of Sugar Hill Recording Studio in Houston, where he and I worked on many albums together. (Sugar Hill is the oldest operating studio in America. Worldwide, only Abbey Road is older.)



Mort left Sugar Hill a couple of years ago and now freelances at Wire Road. That’s where we mixed Lost For Words. During the mixing sessions, an intern happened to be in the room at one point. She was probably 18 or 19 years old.

She asked, “Oh my God - is that surf music??” We confirmed that it was. These three old guys sitting around mixing a surf album, and this
kid is super enthusiastic about it. That was a good sign.

As a youngster at age 12, the first song I learned how to play on the guitar was “Walk Don’t Run”. Growing up I listened to and loved the Ventures, Ennio Morricone, The Shadows, Booker T and the MG’s and still do. I always wanted to make my own all-instrumental album. With the help of my friends, here it is. We’re all very happy with it.

I hope you are too. xDeniz

Other Deniz Tek LPs Available:

7.09.2015

GUITARIST GARY HOEY AT CALLAHANS JULY 17


Auburn Hills, MI. – One of the top 100 guitarists of all time! The world-renowned rocker and guitar aficionado takes on the Blues with his latest album, Deja Blues! Gary will also be performing songs from his latest release, “Deja Blues,” available now on Wazoo Music Group. “This is an album of original blues songs I’ve wanted to record for a long time.

The Blues has always been near and dear to my heart. I have so much respect for it. When I’m recording a blues song, it’s a 5 minute journey and you can’t take a breath, you can’t keep punching in the recording button to fix stuff or it loses the vibe.”



At sixteen, Hoey often lingered outside Boston's renowned Berklee College of Music making friends and offering to pay for lessons. To devote more of his time to music, the prodigy would cut high school classes so that he could hone his guitar playing skills all the while playing Boston's local clubs and teaching guitar to avoid a day job and keep the guitar in his hand

Hoey’s first break came in 1987 when Ozzy Osbourne showed up in Boston looking for a guitarist. Osborne liked Hoey’s tape enough to fly him to LA for an audition. The gig went to Zakk Wylde but Ozzy suggested Hoey move to LA seeing his talent. He took Ozzy's advice and with $17,000 he saved from teaching Hoey loaded the U-Haul and drove across country to LA. In 1992 Hoey released "Heavy Bones" on Warner Bros. a rock vocal album with Frankie Banali on drums from Quiet Riot.

Heavy Bones got caught in the grunge backlash and the album went unnoticed with a million dollar debt after album cost, promotion and video the band got dropped. 1993 Hoey asked Warner Bros. if he could record a low budget album for fun of instrumental rock. He recorded the successful "Animal Instinct" album ($15,000 budget) which included a cover of the Focus hit, "Hocus Pocus".

Not only did the hit rocket into the Billboard Top 5, outpacing all other singles as the most frequently played rock song of the year, but the album went on to reach classic rock notoriety. With a collection of 19 albums it's no wonder Gary Hoey is listed as one of the top 100 guitarists of all time.

1994 Hoey scored the successful “Endless Summer II” soundtrack and had another radio hit with War's "Low Rider." Other film clients have included Walt Disney films, ESPN, New Line Cinema, scoring the music to "California Screaming" (Disney Roller Coaster), as well as songs placed in movies such as "Office Space," "Deck the Halls” (Danny Devito), and Beethoven III.



Recently, Hoey produced and co-wrote The Queen Of Metal Lita Ford’s latest release “Living Like Runaway” for SPV records to rave reviews. “It was a thrill to work with Lita… She is a true rocker and a pioneer for woman in rock. And lastly, she’s a kick ass guitar player”.

To this day the guitar aficionado continues to tour extensively, endorsing Fender guitars and Amp, Monster cable, GHS Strings, Rocktron to name a few. He has been involved with the Rock n Roll Fantasy Camp as music director to include his stint at “Campalooza 2013 in NYC jammin' with legends like shred-maestro Yngwie Malmsteen, blues icon Johnny Winter, Robben Ford, the time-honored rocker Leslie West of Mountain and co-founding member of KISS Peter Criss.

Hoey has toured and traded licks with the likes of Jeff Beck, Brian May of Queen, Joe Bonamassa, Ted Nugent, Joe Satriani, The Doobie Brothers, Foreigner, Styx, Steve Vai, Eric Johnson, Peter Frampton, and Dick Dale.

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