INSECT SURFERS - REVIEWS

Insect Surfers - 1988 Demo Tape

      Perhaps todays best original surf group is The Insect Surfers. Original, meaning that rather than concentrating on covers, these guys spend most of their time writing new surf instrumentals, and thank goodness for that, because they've come up with plenty of whoppers! This is the first cassette by the new band, featuring Danny Sullivan. Dave Arnson has put out on LP (in 1980) and also a 45 and an EP. The new version of the group has become quite a popular attraction not only at Toe's Tavern, but also plays the Hollywood circuit quite a bit. Hence, the neccesity for a tape, I mean I always see people asking for their music, so Here Tis! The opening "Insect Stomp" is a ska tune, much in the style of The Halibuts. This here is a little twisted, however, featuring an organ part right out of "The Munsters". The real meat and potatoes rolls into high gear with Arnson's "Zuma Slam", a bodysurfing song supreme. It's about time that bodysurfers had an anthem! Some lyrics: "On a life with fins, el rollo and a belly spin"...Honolulu Lulu would be proud. The chords kinda come down with that WHOMP you get a Zuma...ouch! "Halley's Beach" is a melodic gutar tune, featuring sweet harmonics and an undercurrent rhythm, good listening, but next is "Polaris", which has become a surf mood classic...at least for those who get to hear it! This type of melody and feel is unique and powerful...kinda sticks in your head like surf wax on a board. Sullivan's dramatic "Outsider" rambles along in high gear, featuring stops and starts that highlight a perfect guitar sound...this one is really hot! Drummer John Convertino should be commended for his fine work here. Closing the all-too-short set is the miracalous "Sunbeam", no doubt a tune Mark R. Daver has been goin' nuts over. Opening with a superb dual lead guitar melody, just good and long enough to make you feel as if this is gonna be a hot instrumental...then....HARK! It's a vocal!...and a damn good one, too. This verse has a majestic, building quality to it, like an aspiration being fulfilled, then back to that hot chorus...then, the mid-break, which is the clincher of 'em all. Sounding as if you'd just stepped into a ritual flower-power dance at Swami's (famous surf spot over here near Carlsbad), complete with a fife-type solo right out of "California Dreaming"...then you hear some stock Hot Rod sound effects (sounds like a serious hemi to me) rumbling through the break, leading into Dave Arnson's over-the-clouds Flying V surf guitar solo...then back to that hot instrumental chorus...WOW! This is like the great lost surf group...if say the Crossfires or someone had the guts follow some missing link-progressive impluse all the way through to 1967, it still wouldn't have sounded quite like this. And I know this group has a lot more fantastic originals stocked up in their backlog, because I go to about half of their gigs, just to hear this stuff! Hopefully, someone with money and artistic intelligence (not to mention rock and roll spirit, a tought threesome to come by these days) will get it together and help get some of this brilliance out....till then, this cassettte does quite fine. SATISFACTION GUARANTEED!

Look! Listen! Vibrate! Smile! by Domenic Priore, Dumb Angel Gazette

The Insect Surfers are being sponsored by Body Glove.