Dick Dale's Surf Guitar Cresting At The Backstage
Rock preview
Dick Dale, with the Monomen, 9 p.m. Thursday at the Backstage. Cover $10. 781-2805. -------------------------------------------------------------------
Jimi Hendrix, in the psychedelic scream and wail of the "Third Stone From the Sun," officiously and somewhat sanctimoniously declared: "You will never hear surf music again."
Jimi may have known about fuzz tones and feedback, but he was all wrong about surf music. While the crest-breaking, curl-shooting slice-and-twang sound isn't at the vanguard of popular music's never-ending guitar assault, its influence has been popping up here and there for more than 30 years, from the reverb-laden guitar riffs of the B-52s and the trebly tricks of the Pixies to the echoey backdrop of Chris Isaak's sultry ballads.
Thursday, the "King of the Surf Guitar," Dick Dale, resurfaces at the Backstage. This is a ride anyone who loves instrumental guitar music should - like a wave - try to catch.
As babies growing up in Southern California, we all considered Dick Dale a god. He played teen joints like Harmony's, the Rendezvous Ballroom and Retail Clerk Union Hall (the Southern Cal equivalents of Parker's and the Spanish Castle). Surfer boys in Pendleton shirts (why is plaid such a recurring fashion statement in rock music?), and surfer girls with teased blonde tresses and white-painted lips packed these places to hear Dick and the Deltones. When his first hit "Let's Go Trippin' " took the charts in 1962, it was like a local hero gone global.
He followed with "Misirlou" and "Surf Beat." He appeared on the "Ed Sullivan Show" and in some of those "Beach Party" movies. He spawned dozens of imitators like the Surfaris and the Chantays. Dale even preceded the Beach Boys.
He also worked closely with Leo Fender in developing the Fender Showman Amplifier. Dale blew up about 40 prototypes before he and Fender came up with an instrument that could handle Dale's power and volume. The Showman is still a Fender mainstay.
With the coming of the Beatles and the rest of the English invasion of the mid-'60s, Dale and surf music fell out of favor. Dale went to Hawaii and hid out. When he returned to the mainland, he found other interests. He became a pilot, trained wild animals and learned martial arts. He accrued a fortune in real estate and investments. He also played places like the Playgirl Club in Orange County and the Vegas-Reno-Lake Tahoe circuit. But that had more to do with traditional "show biz" than his surf-rock roots. He also successfully beat cancer in the late '60s.
But a bitter divorce in the '80s cost him most of his wealth. Dale hung up his ax in the late '80s, remarried and retired to an 80-acre spread in of all places, the desert community of Twentynine Palms, Calif. He and his wife Jill had a son in 1990.
Dale largely lived the life of a hermit until after the birth of his son when, encouraged by Jill and friend Joel Selvin of The San Francisco Chronicle, he came out of his self-imposed retirement. Dale received rave reviews playing in the Bay City and Los Angeles with his stripped-down raw rock sound.
He may be in his 50s, but he doesn't sound like it. He's recorded an album, "Tribal Thunder" - his first original work since 1964 - and it's a bona fide killer. Now he's actually hit the road, which, for the "King of the Surf Guitar," is a first.
There are a whole new slew of Dale devotees, both listeners and players, but guitarist Frank Novicki of San Francisco's Shockwaves may have summed up their collective feeling best:
"Jimmy Page," says Novicki, "couldn't carry Dick Dale's guitar case."