Sept 15, 2011 - Surf Beat (author interview)
That cool music you hear in the movie Pulp Fiction - that's surf music, and here's how it all happened.
When most people hear the words "surf music," they immediately think the Beach Boys, yet there's so much more to that under-appreciated style. During a span of about five years between the late Fifties and early Sixties, surf music was king - helping literally shape the sound of the electric guitar, a crucial element to all the rock music that followed, while also producing durable songs like "Wipe Out," "Miserlou," and "Pipeline," that have continued to be included in movies and commercials. Author Kent Crowley has written a new book called Surf Beat - Rock n' Roll's Forgotten Revolution, which chronicles the rise and fall of this genre, as well as it's resurgence in the Nineties with the movie Pulp Fiction. Icon Fetch talks to the author about the long process of gathering information for the book, and some of it's unlikely heroes, including Frank Zappa, Ritchie Valens, and Bobby Fuller.
