The unit of survival is organism plus environment. We are learning by bitter experience that the organism which destroys its environment destroys itself. – Gregory Bateson
The father of the Beach Boys’ Wilson brothers was the personified dark cloud over the family. Now a lengthy letter surfaced on the internet that documents this. Apparently in his own words.
Quote from Letters of Note:
In 1964, less than three years after the release of their first single Surfin' and following many years of psychological and physical abuse, Murry Wilson was fired as manager of The Beach Boys by his son Brian. A year later, Murry wrote him the following eight page letter. In it, he blames Brian's mother for their ongoing rift due to her less severe punishment techniques, questions Brian's honesty and the actions of his friends in the music business, and even recommends that Brian dissolve the band as soon as possible in order to avoid any future problems. It's an incredibly interesting – albeit dark – snapshot of a showbiz family in free-fall, made all the more remarkable when you consider that just a few months after this was written, The Beach Boys began to record Pet Sounds, an album regarded by many as one of the best ever produced.
Quote from the actual letter:
No matter how many hit songs you write or how many hundreds of thousands of dollars you may earn, you will find when you finish this short cycle of Beach Boy success that you didn’t do it honestly and for this reason you are going to suffer remorse. I have been trying to fight you on every act of what I thought was not honest to protect you from yourself some five or seven years later; because I knew that when competition hit you between the eyes that you would not be able to cope with this vicious competition, regardless of how talented you are, because you got so much much too fast and the fact that you used your own father and then threw him away when you thought you didn’t need him will come back into your mind over and over again.
via Letters of Note: All I tried to do was make you all honest men.
from Tiki Kiliki via Lou Smith on The Exotica Mailing List:
Photos and Videos from Hukilau 2009
Here’s a few links to incredible photos from the weekend. If any of you would like to share your photos or videos, please send links to me so that I can send them out to everyone on the list:
Here I list some boutique guitar makers (or luthiers) who have some designs that could be working well for Surf music. Obviously they often have features familiar from the various famous Fender guitars such as the Stratocaster, the Jazzmaster or the Jaguar. There’s also a new model which combines features of the Jazzmaster and the Jaguar, called The Johnny Marr Jaguar. My rule of thumb was really for them to have at least two single coil pick-ups and a vibrato unit. I haven’t played any of these, but from my experience of digging at Surf music since the late eighties I have an idea what works. You have to acustom yourself with a guitar, especially for instrumental music, and for some players the feel of the whole Fender package might be too far from their heritage, or the sound is too cookie-cutter-like.
The pictures are links.
OK, this might already be a controversial choice. But recently I find myself listening to Morpheus by The Toads who had a Gibson for lead, and it worked for them. This here is obviously based on Gibson’s Les Paul model, except for the unusual shape.
Harvester
Here we have a similar candidate, with a set neck too and even mini humbuckers. Isn’t it a beauty? The 1963 Mosrite Ventures model had a set neck as well, with no lack of attack for sure! This being a very boutique enterprise, the builder would probably drop in a pair of singles coils if you ask him to. Kindly.
Roadrunner Bazaar
Roadrunner Surfmaster
Roadrunner Grave Digger
Roadrunner Anty
These are creations by a frenchman. He seems to be into all the right bands and the inspiration for his guitars is as cool. He beats his own path, never copying a bodyshape, and coming up with different electronic layouts and color schemes. Unique stuff, perfect references for Surf.
Needham
Needham double cutaway
Needham Guitars from Austin, Texas. They remind me of Les Paul Juniors, Danelectros and a bit of Microfrets. Very nice, clean dual single coil designs.
Campbell Transitone
Unusual combo of Jazzmaster style pick-ups with a 3/3 headstock and a Stratocaster-style vibrato.
Micro-Frets Signature
This american 1960s and 70s company was revived in recent years. As far as I gather the company fits the boutique builder description. Carl Perkins and Buddy Merrill were famous Micro-Frets players.
Billyboy
The italians. Gone are accordion cover materials and pearloid fretboards, but this Billyboy is just as creatively weird in the style department as his ancestors of Eko and Galanti fame.
This one here by Fano looks like a cross between a Rickenbacker and a Les Paul – but if you are aware of the Chantays original recording of Pipeline you know they used a Barth guitar. Paul Barth was a southern California luthier who worked for Rickenbacker and Magnatone before making a few instruments under his own name. Pipeline happens to be a prototypical Surf instrumental, despite the lack of a vibrato on any guitar involved, so this guitar gets the blessing for its purist, Barth inspired style.
Wronski Slackercaster
Dave Wronski of Surf instrumental greats Slacktone is working for Fender Musical Instruments and got this one of a kind Surf-machine together. This could also be in the later Do-It-Yourself article in this series, but since a proper custom shop of a righteous guitar company is involved I decided to declare it a boutique guitar.
Billy Childish
Unfortunately I have no idea who made this guitar for Billy Childish. I certainly haven’t seen one before, so maybe it’s a one off, who knows? I would describe it as Bo Diddley meets Chuck Berry in the Höfner workshop. Sounds like a good description for Billy Childish’s music. The reason I don’t consider it a D.I.Y. project is that I can’t picture him building guitars instead of carving expressionistic woodcuts or recording punk-rock-rave-ups.
Here are two more links I couldn’t find proper photos for: Galasso from Argentina and Koll Guitars, for which I have a very soft spot, the Gretsch design influence is a great variation, that few builders successfully pull off.
Ronnie Sargent Custom
Oops I almost forgot this guy. Maybe the weirdest, and a big inspiration for this post! Ronnie Sargent Custom Guitars
As usual I demand of my readers to provide further info where I missed it! Please use the comment function below.
I’m playing an evening of Yma Sumac songs with Chilean opera diva Katherine Prado Johnson & Cuban guitar whizz Ahmed Dickinson + musicians from Peru & Ecuador on 30th April at the Bolivar Hall, 56 Grafton Way, London W1T 5DL.
The show starts at 7.30pm, try and get there by 7. 15- it promises to be a great night! Try and come down! £7 on the door
