Hello all!
We very much hope you’re enjoying the summer. We wanted to update you on all the recent and upcoming activities in the Madeira camp.
First of all, our short SoCal tour was an unqualified success!! We played San Diego, Hermosa Beach and Huntington Beach between August 1st and 3rd, and each show was better than the previous one – and together they are probably the highlight of our four years together. You can go here to read some comments posted on the Surf Guitar 101 forum by various witnesses (we compiled the comments about the Madeira only, since the original forum thread is currently up to 15 pages!) . You can also see photos from all three shows here. It was great to see so many old friends, make several new ones and play with MANY amazing surf bands (including Pollo del Mar, Slacktone, the Secret Samurai, and many, many others)! In particular we must thank Ryan Ruiz of the Secret Samurai for going way above and beyond the call of duty helping us set up the San Diego show, make available his band’s practice space AND provide his band’s gear to us; also, Ferenc Dobronyi of Pollo del Mar and Frankie & the Pool Boys for helping with all three shows. We should also recognize the amazing work done by Jeff “Big Tiki Dude” for the Surf Guitar 101 Convention on Saturday at Suzie’s in Hermosa Beach, which was an unforgettable, even legendary, event and one that made our whole trip so much more special! Finally, we would like to thank Linda Miller of the Huntington Beach International Surfing Museum for adding us to the Sunday’s lineup and providing an opportunity to play our probably most memorable show to date (and also lining up some incredible amps, owned by Matt Quilter of the Reventlos, and drums for us). Playing right in front of the Huntington Beach Pier, next to the beach, close to where it all began for surf music, on a perfect day – well, it doesn’t really get any better than that. (Please at the very least take a look at the Huntington Beach photos to get some idea of the weekend we had!) We certainly hope we can do all this again next year.
Second, we are THRILLED to announce that we will be in the upcoming surf music documentary called “Sound of the Surf”. This is a fully professional production with highly active involvement by legendary guitarist and surf music historian John Blair (Jon & the Nightriders). We were recorded performing seven songs in hi-def with multiple cameras and multitrack audio in a controlled studio environment the Monday after our SoCal shows. We also did a lengthy on-camera interview with two of the founders of surf music, Eddie Bertrand (Eddie & the Showmen, the Belairs) and Paul Johnson (the Belairs, the Surfaris), as well as John Blair, to be included in the movie. That was quite surreal and pretty incredible. The movie is scheduled to be released in the Spring or Summer of ’09, so we’ll all have to be patient (the plan right now is to market it heavily, including advertising on network TV, and hopefully a theatrical release before the film comes out on DVD, too). We would like to extend our deep thanks to producer/director Tom Duncan, John Blair and Tim Ferrill for including us in this film, which we expect will drastically raise the profile of the entire genre – and may in fact launch it to heights previously unseen! (Incidentally, one of the more remarkable experiences of our SoCal trip was having Eddie “Squad Car” Bertrand singing our praises – even on camera – and taking a keen interest in making us look good during the video shoot! Absolutely remarkable. One could call it a dream-come-true, but who’d ever dare dream of something so completely fantastical! See some photos from the taping here)
Finally, we are not done yet for the year. We will be headlining “Surf Explosion 2” on Friday, September 19th, in Cincinnati, OH, for which we will be joined by our good friends the Surge (Atlanta, GA) as well as Don’t Fear the Reverb (Cincinnati, OH). The most amazing thing about this show is that it will be held in the historical Memorial Hall which seats 610 people, and it will be vigorously marketed far and wide, including bringing big-name sponsors on board. This will be by far the biggest show we have played yet, and we expect it to be very special. We hope many of you that are not in Cincinnati but within driving distance will consider making the trek to be there – we think you’ll find it worthwhile. The promoters of the show are also aiming to increase the public awareness of modern surf music to the point where they can hold larger surf music events several times a year – and we think you will all agree that this is a VERY worthy goal! (We also hope to play a show in Chicago the following day, Saturday, September 20th, with the Cocktail Preachers and Roger & the Wraybands. We already booked a venue but just a few days ago found out out of the blue that it is closing down permanently, so we are now looking for an alternative location. We hope we can find something – please keep an eye out on our Gigs page for any updates on that.)
That’s it – whew! Lots going on. Thanks for reading this far, and we hope you have been enjoying “Carpe Noctem” for the last couple of months (and if not, you clearly haven’t gotten it yet – so, what are you waiting for?? :). We also hope to see some of you in Cincinnati and maybe in Chicago.
Best regards,
Ivan, Patrick, Todd, Dane
The Madeira