Post #201882 by BC-Da-Da on Tue, Dec 6, 2005 3:32 PM

Thanks Sven and Jeff. I really appreciate the compliments. Though I have to say that it wasn't intended to be a bible on the pop surf culture. DAG #4 was really devised to look at how surfing, as a pop medium, went international. I wanted to devote a whole issue to the ALL SUMMER LONG album, just as volumes have been devoted to SMILE. It was ALL SUMMER LONG that sent the Beach Boys off to Europe, with Brian Wilson standing in front of the Roman Colliseum. So that was the one that hit around the world, and I thought the music, the design style and the whole package deserved to be held up and analyzed. It ended up being much more than that, as the "running start" that I originally concieved as being the background information on how we got to ALL SUMMER LONG just ended up being so great that it became a sort of journal/book-reader on Southern California vernacular teenage music... the music that came out of this geography more than any other music ever created here.

That said, I'm not sure this issue alone is the final word on SoCal's pop surf culture scene, though if you have all four volumes of DUMB ANGEL, that might do the trick. Domenic and I were thinking of re-doing #'s 1-3 in color and having a boxed set out. Not sure if that'll happen, though. You also have Jon Blair's surf music discography (1961-65), which is more of a reference book than a coffee table/literary thing. But Bob Dalley's SURFIN' GUITARS is still the ultimate tome on surf music. It's not about the clubs and the geography, like the DUMB ANGEL series is, but no one ever did more research on the bands themselves. So, if you have those two books, plus the four DUMB ANGELs, you've got the surf scene down pretty hardcore, in terms of graphic design, clubs, geography, surf cinema and surf instrumental (and vocal) music.

But again, thanks for the compliments. I hope DAG #5 is even better.