INSECT SURFERS - REVIEWS

Live music review: Insect Surfers

If you’re reading this, you are probably a South Bay purist. You actually like the cold that channels in from San Gabriel Mountains and you are emphatic about the wind that glides in off the ocean; it means clean air, big surf and the likelihood of snowboarding soon. It also means you will put up with the summer crowds and the endless subdivisions. And you do it because of a few small luxuries - The Strand, the surf and the music that was birthed from the two.

The Insect Surfers, the four-member bona fide piece of South Bay nostalgia, brought out the purist in me last week at the Pitcher House.

Playing the Beach Cities’ scene since the summer of ’79, David Arnson (lead guitar) and his friends have been part of our community and part of its rich history of surf lore since the introduction of the thruster fin. A quarter decade later and they still have the same punch to their music - the only music actually coined after a sport.

Not unlike most music, surf music is best served live. The Insect Surfers are proof of that statement because the all-instrumental music that hasn’t changed in 50 years carries a heavy performance burden. You have to play it well and you have to play it with a passion. Only a live show can bring out the two mandates for the music. The Insect Surfers fill the quota and bring with it a performance that seems timeless, complete with lava lamps and a drum kit decorated for the season.

Just a blip on the radar after the invention of surf music by Brian Wilson (another South Bay son), the Insect Surfers have been steadily keeping the Jones for surf music fixed.

Arnson admits, "We aren’t the most prolific band, but we’ve been together and we’ve always been here."

I don’t think any of us would really understand the dynamic of where we live without bands like the Insect Surfers, or the Halibuts, or even those three McGlynn Brothers (who look more like the Slap Shot-famed Hansons than they do a surf band) bringing the music to us on a regular basis. It’s truly an essential cog in the machine that makes our coveted world hugging the coast so priceless.

Along with Arnson, Dano Sullivan (guitar), Dan Valentine (bass) and Adrian Anthony (drums), the Insect Surfers have modified the original sound to meet the needs of today’s more techno savvy listeners’ expectations. The more "vintage" equipment included a Fender Stratocaster with a Fender Twin Reverb Amp - heavy on the reverb. The Insect Surfers say, "We’ve moved to Gibsons through a more modern Fender Super Reverb with (four) 10’s," (in reference to the amount and the diameter of speakers in the amplifier cabinet). The effect seems to generate less reverb noise pollution (the hollow sound) than the old standard produced, without actually losing the essential element that identifies the music - the reverb. The end result, by way of listen-ability, is that it’s much cleaner.

With the sound just right, the mood set by the music and the air-dried sea salt on the bodies of the crowd, the Insect Surfers prattled through the two-hour set of surf standards and original music. A small shout out to the surf town of Coolangatta (Queensland, Australia) was probably not heard by its residents, but it made for a cool start to the musical surf adventure. From there it was all Hammerland to Haggerty’s.

The Wilsons may have started the craze. Jan and Dean, the Surfaris, Dick Dale and a kid named Gidget may have given it a heavy head of steam in the ‘60s. But it’s the Insect Surfers of today, and some daydreamers at Redondo Union and Mira Costa of tomorrow, who will fulfill our need for great surf music well into the future. ER

by Ryan Beachkofski, Published December 7, 2006 Live music review: Insect Surfers

The Insect Surfers are being sponsored by Body Glove.