Surf Rock: Dick Dale
Is it possible to overstate Dick Dale’s influence on surf rock? No. No, it is not.
(Photo credit: Getty Images)
Some call Dick Dale the “King of the Surf Guitar,” but he was more than that. He was like some sort of surf rock God. Or at least Svengali. I mean, we’re talking about a Lebanese guy who could take a traditional Jewish folk song, steep it in reverb, sprinkle it with a bit of Mexican spice and — with the stage as his altar — deliver it all communion-like to 3,000 towheaded worshipers at the Church of the Perfect Wave.
That’s right: In 1962 Dick Dale could get more surfer kids to show up once a week for “Hava Nagila” than Trump could get fanatics to a rally in 2020.
Just take a listen:
That rapid fire staccato at the beginning is classic Dick Dale —a reflection of his admiration of famed drummer Gene Krupa (oh, yeah, BTW Dale started out as a drummer). Many emulated the style, and of course the highly evocative and exciting rapid picking guitar became a hallmark of surf music. But nobody mastered it like Dale. This was partly because Dale’s sound was so rooted in, well, his
roots
. He grew up listening to his family play Lebanese music, and at an early age learned to play the tarabaki and the oud. (Miserlou was actually an interpretation of a song his Lebanese uncle used to play on the oud.) The influence is also apparent in a song like “The Victor,” which pretty much evokes what it would be like to belly dance on a longboard:
Cultural influences and boundless, savant-like talent notwithstanding, one of the biggest reasons for Dick Dale’s distinct sound was actually the way he held his guitar. By which I mean:
the wrong way
. True story. His picking staccato was so unique because he was a lefty that played a right-handed guitar upside down, but
without restringing it
.
And, of course, when you’re on track to becoming a music deity, you don’t stop there. No. You play with strings so fucking thick that few mere humans can master them. Strings designed with one thing in mind:
volume
. Because don’t confuse Dale’s brand of surf music with some sort of elevator pablum. No. This was music to be played louder than loud. Literally.
Fender had to reinvent their amps just to create one that he couldn’t blow out
.
It’s why Dale was also dubbed the “Father of Heavy Metal.” I don’t know whether I agree with that or not, but I will make an argument that he was the Holy Spirit of punk rock. Hell, I don’t know about religion so I’m mucking up this metaphor. Fine. Skip the metaphors. I’m going sort of tentatively on record to say that maybe, just maybe,
there’s no punk rock without Dick Dale
. At the very least, he was proto-proto-punk. Take “Demolicion” by Los Saicos (one of the earliest garage punk bands, who themselves ended up being highly influential):
Tell me there’s not a little of Dale’s blood coursing through these early punk veins?
Blood donor, god, father, godfather, guru … whatever. All I’m saying is: no matter the genre — surf rock, garage rock, punk rock, heavy metal — if you hear some fierce-as-fire staccato guitar picking with a heavy bite on the bass strings, and it blurs the lines of influence and eschews technical limits, and it’s played REALLY FUCKING LOUD, then probably toss a coin in the coffers for good old Saint Dick. There, I’ve officially slaughtered any semblance of a cohesive metaphor. I’m just following Dale’s lead and breaking all the rules. I even typed this with my keyboard upside down.
And now we’ll let the music speak for itself. Today we’re listening to 1962’s
Surfer’s Choice
and its 1963 follow up, the appropriately named
King of the Surf Guitar
.
Early on in my playing career (early 1970's) I realized that the only way you could play "Pipeline" correctly is to use a pick about two inches thick and turn the reverb and tremolo to 11.
And SRV led me to Dick Dale, so Thanos bless Saint Stevie. Great post, sir.