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| These were men either in, or just after, high school. #OldeTyme |
I flirted with the idea of combining The Surfaris and The Chantays into one post, but opted against because dropping them into a bucket called “surf rock” felt like short-changing both bands. As it turns out, though, neither band did much beyond putting out two famous hits, both in the same year, and in a musical movement that everyone agrees got crushed under the British Invasion, and that few seemed to miss when it left. To contextualize that argument, I lifted this from the LA Times’ obituary from founding Chantay, Brian Carman:
“On his debut album in 1967, Jimi Hendrix promised his listeners that ‘you'll never hear surf music again.’”
Surf came and went, mostly within 1963, and Hendrix still felt like he had to crap on it four years later…
The Surfaris had “Wipe Out” (a brief history of the band and the song) and The Chantays had “Pipeline.” The differences don’t quite end there, but they don’t go much further either. Both bands formed in high school (The Chantays were a bit older, collectively), and wrapped up as going, creative concerns shortly after. Both came from southern California, both looked up to and borrowed from the same bands/artists – e.g., The Ventures, Dick Dale, and The Rhythm Rangers, whose line-up included Carman’s older brother, Steve (just for the record, the Orange County Register’s obit on Carman calls them The Rhythm Rockers). Carman and his friends formed The Chantays for the oldest reason people go into entertainment. As Bob Spickard, the other half of the band’s brain said, “Hey, these guys were making money and getting all the girls, so maybe we ought to think about that.”
