I was looking at my son’s Wish List at Amazon this morning, and was surprised (and pleased) to see a bunch of rock instrumental CD’s on it. He’s 40, so he wasn’t born when these songs were popular, but he grew up listening to them.
Duane Eddy, The Virtues, Santo & Johnny, Bill Doggett, Link Wray – great stuff.
I haven’t kept up with today’s music. The radio is always tuned to NPR and I don’t watch any of the music channels on TV.
Does anyone still do them? I suppose there are instrumental versions of songs, but does anyone still produce original instrumentals?
And while I’m here, what are some of your favorites? Anyone still listen to them?
'scuse me while I put my 45 of Apache on the turntable.
There is still an underground scene of instrumental surf bands out there, some of which are fantastic. Los Straitjackets perform in Mexican wrestling masks and matching suits, Man… Or Astroman? bring a sci-fi theme to their bizarre surf-inspired music, and even the great Dick Dale is still out there, playing reverb-drenched Stratocasters through Fender tube amps. The Volcanoes, Laika and the Cosmonauts, and the Hellbenders (who play more of “spaghetti western”-style music, like Ennio Morricone’s soundtracks to the Sergio Leone/Clint Eastwood westerns) also come to mind as great instrumental bands–and we can’t forget the original Ventures.
I have Hellbenders and some Dick Dale but hadn’t heard of those other bands. Cool!
It’s good to know someone is still doing it. I keep hoping instrumentals will make a comeback and be as popular as they were in the 50’s.
My mind is wandering again – why are some groups strictly instrumental? None of them can sing? They didn’t want to write lyrics? The music is more important to them, the words get in the way? Silly questions, probably, but it seems like most instrumental bands were never as popular as bands with singers, even if the more popular bands with singers had less talented musicians. Something to think about.
Dickie Dale blew through my area this summer - definitely glad I finally was able to catch him live.
And there’s a guy based here that records new rockabilly stuff, Dexter Romwebber. His stuff, especially Chased By Martians should fit in well with your son’s tastes.
If he’s into good rock instrumental music, you’d do him a huge favor if you got him some Liquid Tension Experiment. Those guys are just sick (and I mean that in a good way ).
Showing my age a bit, I suppose, but the first thing that came to mind from reading the OP was The Raybeats. If the Ventures had been over-educated New York club scene veterans in the late 1970s, they’d have been the Raybeats. Bassist Danny Amis went on to feature in Los Straitjackets, mentioned by Big Bad Voodoo Lou.
In a somewhat different vein, but from roughly the same era, were Love Tractor. They came out of Athens, GA at about the same time as R.E.M. and the rest, but were somehow different from any of the other Athens bands – partly because they were strictly an instrumental group through their first few albums. Love Tractor rarely made use of the campy, sci-fi/surf/movie soundtrack cultural references of the Raybeats, but nevertheless were often interesting, usually appealing, and occasionally musically witty.
Let me second Laika and the Cosmonauts. Just terrific, terrific stuff inspired by surf-music. Full of whammy bar, Vox organ, and related touches. Best of all - they’re from Finland.
Also got to second Link Wray. “Rumble” is still a great song, even after all these years.
In popular music, I’d say we don’t have nearly as much as back in the heydey.
That said, I work in bluegrass and jamgrass, and there’s definitely a long traditon of instrumentals there - starting with Bill Monroe and stuff like ‘Raw Hide’ or any of the thousands of filddle tunes we play.
Currently my average performance set is at least 1/3 instrumental, more if I’m including any jazz or gypsy stuff in there.
Are the Mermen still around? They were outta SF and played great surf instrumentals…
On purely hard-rock basis - there of course is Joe Satriani’s Surfing with the Alien
My all-time fave instrumental CD (that’s not jazz) is Freddy King’s Just Pickin. It packed his infamous Let’s Hideaway album onthe same CD with one from later in his career. It just doesn’t get any better than Freddy (also spelled Freddie) King for poppy-blues-y instrumentals from the 60’s.
AuntiePam
The Wailers? Wow I haven’t heard that group name in decades. They were popular in the US Northwest in the early 1960’s. Among other things, they did a rendition of “Louie, Louie” which the Kingsmen (another group from the Northwest) copied when they did their version. (The Kingsmen’s guitar solo is the same and the lead singer yells “Okay let’s give it to 'em right now !!” right before the solo).
I remember Paul Revere and the Raiders (yes, also from the Northwest) being interviewed and they said that in their early days, they were hoping that they might even become as famous as the Wailers. LOL
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