We hope your new year is off to a great start! Ours certainly is! We've got a lot of exciting news to share, some of which you may have already seen on Facebook if you've 'liked' us there (and if you haven't, why haven't you?? :) ).
First, we're extremely excited to announce that we will be releasing a new live CD in late April! It was recorded at the 2017 Surf Guitar 101 Convention in Torrence, CA by Mark Linett, the three-time Grammy-winning producer and engineer who has worked with the Beach Boys, Brian Wilson, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Jane's Addiction, Los Lobos, Frank Zappa, and many others. Mark also mixed the album, which will feature John Blair and Jonpaul Balak guesting on three songs and a tracklist focused on the "Ancient Winds" album. We feel like we really captured lightning in the bottle with this set and cannot wait to make it available to you all!
Second, there is also a compilation album in the works featuring live recordings of the bands that played the 2017 Surf Guitar 101 Convention! More info on this to follow, but this is going to be one amazing album!
Third, we already have many live appearances scheduled for this year, including two high-profile ones: First, The Hukilau in Fort Lauderdale, FL, the second-largest exotica & tiki festival in the US, on June 7th & 8th, where we'll be playing with Los Straitjackets, Martian Denny Orchestra, The Exotics, and many others! This is a full-on three-day party, and we're thrilled to be part of it for the first time! Second, on August 18th we will play the incredible Asbury Park Surf Music Festival in New Jersey, held on the beach! Vincent Minervino has been working very hard for the past several years to turn this into one of the greatest surf music festivals in the world, with an attendance of 1000+ last year! And we'll be playing with an unbelievable list of surf bands, including our friends Satan's Pilgrims, Surfer Joe, Frankie & the Pool Boys, the Coffin Daggers and Vincent's own fantastic band Black Flamingos! This is going to be a surf party for the ages!
Prior to these two epic shows, we're very happy to have a chance to play a handful of shows much closer to home in April and May, including the live CD release show at our home-away-from-home, Melody Inn in Indy, on April 20th, followed by shows in Bloomington, IN, Cincinnati, OH (actually Newport, KY) and even Kalamazoo, MI! We have some other shows in the works at the moment, so please keep an eye on our Gigs page and like us on Facebook, if you haven't yet, to get all the up-to-date info.
Finally, Ivan's former band the Space Cossacks have just announced that they will be reuniting (for only the third time since 2000) to play the Surfer Joe Festival in Livorno, Italy on June 23rd, followed by a short European tour. For more details, please visit their Facebook page.
2018 is shaping up to be one of the record books! We hope to see many of you at our upcoming shows! Stay tuned for more info about the live CD and the upcoming comp.
Wishing you a wonderful year ahead, and hope we all get through the winter unscathed - just six more weeks!
We have finally added information on purchasing the new Ancient Winds LP and the Stephen-Blickenstaff-designed Ancient Winds t-shirt to our Buy page. If you haven't yet picked up either, please consider doing so ASAP - there are NOT many blue translucent LPs or t-shirts left at this point!
We had an amazing time at the 10th Annual Surf Guitar 101 Convention, and are very grateful to all those that came to see us! Our set at Saturday's main event was a real scorcher and we were truly fortunate that it was captured 'on tape' by the triple-Grammy-winning producer Mark Linett (The Beach Boys, Brian Wilson, Frank Zappa, Red Hot Chili Peppers, and many, many more)! We are now working on releasing this recording (also to be mixed by Linett) next year - stay tuned for more info on that.
Finally, we'll be playing one more show this year - Saturday, December 9th at Tip Top Deluxe in Grand Rapids with our good friends the Concussions! Ivan's and Dane's Shadows tribute band (with Ivan Sr. on rhythm guitar) the Troubadours will also be playing that show! We really hope you can join us for that.
We have a couple of other exciting announcements in the pipeline that we can't wait to share with you, so please keep an eye on this page! Until then, enjoy the Fall!
We hope you've been having a wonderful summer (or, if you're in the southern hemisphere, a nice winter) so far. We have some exciting news to report! Two years after the release of the Ancient Winds CD, the album is about to be released in the LP form! This is our first vinyl release - but hopefully not last. There will be a limited number of LPs on translucent blue vinyl, too. The LP was made possible by Chris Foresman and Multipurpose Records, to who we are VERY grateful! Big thanks also to Ferenc Dobronyi for redesigning the album artwork for the LP; Tom Borthwick for mastering the album for vinyl, and Sean Berry and Double Crown Records for their cooperation with the whole venture!
Along with the new LP, we have a brand new Ancient Winds t-shirt, once again designed by the one-and-only, the super-talented Stephen Blickenstaff whom we our honored to have as friend!
Both of these will be available this weekend at the 10th Annual Surf Guitar 101 Convention, where we will be playing TWO sets, with no overlap between them: our usual high-energy set on Saturday, at the main event at the Alpine Village in Torrance, CA; and our trad-surf/mellow/exotica set on Sunday at Surf Dog's in Huntington Beach, CA. This will be our third appearance at the SG101 convention (the first two being in '08 and '12), and we are thrilled to be returning and playing with some of the greatest surf bands of the past 20 years, including the Kilaueas from Germany, the El Caminos from Japan, as well as our friends the Exotics, Insect Surfers, Atomic Mosquitos, the Mystery Men, and many many more! See [here for more details](https://www.facebook.com/SG101Convention/). We hope to see many of you out there!
Finally, we're also very excited to announce that we will be playing at the great Radio Radio venue in Indianapolis on Friday, September 1st for the very first time ever! Our Indiana fans will be able to buy both the LP and the t-shirts in person at this show. This will also likely be our last show for the year, so make sure you don't miss it!
(For those unable to make any of these shows, stay tuned for the instructions on how to order the LP and/or the t-shirt by mail.)
Have a great rest of the summer, and we hope you like both the LP and the t-shirt!
We're extremely happy to announce that the Madeira will be playing two shows for the 10th Annual Surf Guitar 101 Convention - August 5th in Torrance, CA, and August 6th in Huntington Beach, CA, along with some of the greatest surf bands in the world today, The Kilaueas, The EXOTICS, Insect Surfers, The Huntington Cads, The El Caminos, Atomic Mosquitos, The Mystery Men?, and many, many more! We will be playing entirely different setlists at the two shows, no overlap whatsoever, so make sure you catch both! Check out our Shows page for all the details. BIG thanks to Jeff Hanson aka Big Tiki Dude for putting together another incredible convention (now extended to the entire weekend, for the first time ever!) and for inviting us - we cannot wait! (This will be our third convention, after playing the first one in '08 and then again in '12. It's a true pleasure to be returning once again.)
But we haven't forgotten about our Indiana and Ohio fans - we've got Bloomington and Indy shows with the mighty Coffin Daggers from NYC coming up in less than three weeks, and we are also excited to return to Cincinnati in May. We'll also be playing Radio Radio at the Fountain Square in Indianapolis for the first time in September! (Again, check out our Shows page for all the details.)
Due to unceasing efforts of an Aussie fan of the Madeira by the name of Garry Roach, our song "The Argonaut" (co-written with Jim Skiathitis, lead guitarist of the legendary Aussie surf band The Atlantics) will be aired on Australian radio on Friday, April 14th, 5.00-7:00 PM Sydney time, on "Cosmic Cowboy Cafe" hosted by Eddie White! (streaming live www.2rrr.org.au) Every show Eddie the DJ plays something completely different from its country format - and you can't get much more different than "The Argonaut"! Tune in, check it out, and spread the word!
Finally, Ivan and Dane will once again be touring with the Blair-Pongracic Band, playing across the Eastern seaboard of the US for the first time this June! Joining again with John Blair, the legendary surf guitarist, surf music historian and leader of the highly influential Jon & the Nightriders, and Jeremy DeHart of North Carolina's greatest surf band the Aqualads on bass, they will play a setlist filled with classic surf songs by Jon & the Nightriders, the Madeira, the Space Cossacks and a few surprises. They previously played the 2015 Surfer Joe Surf Festival in Italy (after which the festival organizer Lorenzo Valdambrini declared "It is without any doubt that the highlight of the festival was the Blair-Pongracic Band"), followed by a tour of Spain, and then a handful of shows in California last summer (after their show at Winters Tavern in Pacifica, Jello Biafra, the iconic frontman of Dead Kennedys and long-time surf music aficionado, declared it the best surf music show he had ever seen). Don't miss them if they come anywhere near you!
June 16 (Fr) - Atlanta, GA - Star Bar w/ The Mystery Men? and The Surge June 17 (Sa) - Charlotte, NC - Snug Harbor w/ Aqualads & Phatlynx June 18 (Su) - Carrboro, NC - The Station w/ Phatlynx and El Mirage June 19 (Mo) - Washington, DC - Hill country BBQ/DC w/ Atomic Mosquitos June 20 (Tu) - Long Branch, NJ - The Brighton Bar w/ The Coffin Daggers and Blue Wave Theory June 21 (We) - Brooklyn, NY - Lucky 13 Saloon w/ The Coffin Daggers June 22 (Th) - Cleveland, OH - The Happy Dog w/ Surfer Rex & The Kahuna Kings June 23 (Fr) - Cincinnati, OH - Urban Artifact w/ The AmpFibians and Grateful Surf June 24 (Sa) - Indianapolis, IN - Melody Inn w/ The Katatonics and Thee Aquaholics
Have a wonderful Spring and Summer, and we hope to see you somewhere along the line!
We hope you are all doing very well and have had a great 2016! It was a bit slower for us compared to recent years, as you may have noticed. Several factors behind that but all can be summed up with: we're all getting very busy! Patrick has had great successes with both Five Year Mission, who among other accomplishments were the featured band at the *massive* 50th anniversary Star Trek Las Vegas Convention in August, rubbing elbows with the luminaries of the Star Trek universe; and also with The Shake Ups, who again among many other accomplishments and many, many gigs were recently chosen by Indianapolis' free weekly paper NUVO as the Best Local Pop Band and had their "Rock Candy" album selected as the runner-up for the "Best New Local Album"! (Please check out both bands, it's really great stuff!).
Ivan reunited with the Space Cossacks for five shows this summer, including the Surf Guitar 101 convention They also finally released their 1998 live recording "Live Supernova" which ended up being chosen by Pipeline Instrumental Review as the album of the year! Ivan and Dane also once again joined up with John Blair (Jon & the Nightriders) and this time Jeremy DeHart (Aqualads) on bass to play four shows in California, including one at Winters Tavern in Pacifica where they were approached by Jello Biafra (the legendary singer of Dead Kennedys) after their set to tell them that that was the best set of surf music he had ever seen! Dane has also kept busy getting his instrument flight rating so he can now fly even more and even farther than before! Todd has kept busy sending off one daughter to college in California, watching his son break state records and win many games as the varsity kicker of his high school's football team, starting a new job AND finding new romance! So, all in all, 2016 was a pretty unforgettable year for all of us!
Though everybody's very busy, the Madeira WILL ride again this year! We can already announce two great shows: we'll be playing in Bloomington, IN on Friday, April 21st with the amazing New York City surf band the Coffin Daggers and the local heroes Thee Aquaholics, and then the following night, Saturday, April 22nd, we'll be back at the Melody Inn in Indianapolis for another Surf Rock Night, again with the Coffin Daggers! We're also working on several Ohio shows for April and May - stay tuned for those, as well as a BIG announcement for this summer. (Sorry, we'll have to keep you in suspense just a bit longer!)
Please remember to occasionally check our Facebook page and our main website for new updates, and we very much hope to see you all at some point this year. Once again, happy new year everybody!
We hope 2016 is off to a great start for everybody! We have been awash in great news over the past month, definitely making 2015 another banner year for the Madeira! Probably the best news was that "Ancient Winds" was selected as one of two albums of the year by the long-running and highly-respected Pipeline Instrumental Review from the UK! Pipeline has in the past also picked "Carpe Noctem" and "Sonic Cataclysm" as their albums of the year, and "Sandstorm" and "Tribal Fires" as runners-up - they've truly been very kind to us through the years. In addition, "Ancient Winds" is in the "2015 Foreign Top 20" for Música Inclasificable from Mexico (along with albums by world-class bands such Clutch, Faith No More, The Sonics, Monster Magnet, Dead Weather, etc.), and was selected as the runner-up for "Gremmy Awards 2015: Best Modern Instro Record" by Hunter King, the DJ for the Storm Surge of Reverb radio show from New Orleans.
But wait, there’s more! We found out just two days ago that we are The Atomic Grog's Band of the Week! They give us an extremely nice write-up, referencing the amazing “Ancient Winds” review by Chad Shivers (The Mystery Men?, Moonbase) on the Southern Surf Stomp blog, where he wrote “I might go so far as to say it's the greatest surf album of all time”! Wow! Finally, “Ancient Winds” also got a really nice review on the prog-rock site (!!) Progarchy.com. With all this praise coming its way, it’s been nice to hear from Sean Berry at Double Crown Records that the album has been selling really well, so thank you all for that!
All of these reviews are now available on our main website’s Press page if you wish to read them in full – or check out our front page (scroll down a bit from the top) for excerpts. While there you can also check out the info on our first shows for 2016, May 20-21 in Indy and Cincinnati. Stay tuned, more to come…
As always, thank you all for your support! We greatly appreciate it, and we hope to see many of you in person at some point this year!
We are excited to announce the release of “Ancient Winds” (Double Crown DCCD 65), our fourth full-length studio album (and our sixth release overall)! After ten years of adventures through the lethal deserts of the Sahara and the dark and mysterious depths of the sub-Saharan jungles, the Madeira have now set sail for the unexplored waters of the Mediterranean Sea in search of a sea monster to slay. The 13 songs (12 originals and a cover of the Atlantics’ “Coral Island”) take the listener on a nautical adventure unprecedented in the annals of surf music!
Here’s the full tracklist:
Journey to the Center of the Surf
Hail, Poseidon!
Ancient Winds
Sirena
Caravela
Farthest Shore
Dawn in Cadiz
Coral Island
Prelude to Launch
The Argonaut
Here Be Dragons
Leviathan
Into the Deep
“Ancient Winds” is also notable for songwriting collaborations with some of the leading classic and modern surf musicians: “The Argonaut” was co-written with the legendary surf guitarist Jim Skiathitis of Australia’s iconic surf band the Atlantics; “Dawn in Cadiz” was co-written with Alex Anthony Faide of Los Twang! Marvels; “Sirena” with Danny Snyder of the TomorrowMen; and “Hail, Poseidon!” with Jeremy DeHart of Aqualads! Each of these remarkable musicians put his own stamp on these songs, giving the album exciting new breadth and range.
You can now stream and/or download three songs (“Journey to the Center of the Surf," “Hail, Poseidon!” and “Ancient Winds”) on our Songs page. The official album release date is September 1, 2015 at which point it will be available from Double Crown Records, CD Baby, Amazon, iTunes, etc. You will also be able to buy the CDs at our Milwaukee Surf Cruise show on Saturday, August 29th (sharing the bill with the Revomatics – only a handful tickets left at this point, about 12 – get them quick if you wish to go!) as well as at our two album release shows: on Friday, September 4th at Mike’n’Molly’s in Champaign, IL (with the Revomatics and Go! Tsunami), and on Saturday, September 5th at The Melody Inn in Indianapolis (with the Mystery Men? and Thee Aquaholics). We very much hope you will join us at one of these very special shows – in particular the two CD release shows, were we plan to perform the new album in its entirety!
In addition to these, we will play more shows throughout the region this Fall, including Cincinnati and Chicago in October, Lafayette in November, and hopefully two more shows in December, yet to be confirmed. The Chicago show on October 24th will be a very special one – we were invited to perform at the Saturday night showcase for the first ever CD Baby DIY Musician Conference at the historic Congress Plaza Hotel. The conference is designed to address the needs of independent musicians and supply them with practical advice that will help move their careers forward. We are absolutely thrilled to be a part of such a wonderful event, and are very grateful to the organizers for including us. See more info here. Also, check out our Shows page for more details on the other shows.
We hope you enjoy the three new tracks, and look forward to seeing you at one of our many coming shows!
Five months have passed without any news updates, so it’s high time we let you know what we’ve been up to! After spending January and February getting ready to record our fourth studio album, we were back at the Pop Machine studio in Indy in mid-March where we successfully laid down all the album tracks in one weekend. (You can see Ivan’s studio diary and many photos from the sessions here) Since then we’ve been working with our engineer and Pop Machine co-owner Eric Klee Johnson on the mixing, now nearly complete. Work has recently also started on the artwork for the CD, which will be titled “Ancient Winds”. The album is turning out extremely well and, as much of a cliché as it may be, we are sure that this will be our best album yet! Our hope is that it will be out in late July or early August, to be followed by not one, not two, but – count ‘em – THREE CD release shows: another Milwaukee Surf Cruise with the Revomatics on Saturday, August 29th, and then Champaign and Indy the following weekend (September 5th and 6th) – stay tuned for the details on those two shows. We will also play two shows before then: in two weeks, on Saturday, June 13th, back at our home base of the Melody Inn in Indy with our friends the Revomatics (Milwaukee) and the AmpFibians (Cincinnati), and then our first time at Spike’s Beach Grill in Warsaw, IN on Saturday, July 25th, an outdoor show with the Troubadours opening, followed by TWO sets by the Madeira. We very much hope that some of you will be able to join us for some of these shows!
We should also mention that Ivan and Dane will soon be embarking on quite a surf adventure: they will be joining legendary surf guitarist and THEE surf music historian John Blair, the founder of the highly influential pioneers of the surf music revival Jon & the Nightriders, for a performance at the incredible Surfer Joe Festival in Livorno Italy on June 21st (playing along with great surf acts such as the Bambi Molesters, Satan’s Pilgrims, the Boss Martians, Los Coronas, the Kilaueas, Messer Chups, Daikaiju and many MANY others), followed by a week of shows in Spain! On bass we are privileged to have Jonpaul Balak of Insect Surfers and the Tikiyaki Orchestra and the host of the Fiberglass Jungle internet radio surf show. We will play a mix of tunes by Jon & the Nightriders, the Madeira, the Space Cossacks as well as a handful of surf classics. It should be heaps of fun! Check out their Facebook page (This same band minus Dane – with Duff Paulson on drums instead - will also be performing a tribute to Jim Messina & the Jesters at the 8th annual Surf Guitar 101 Convention in SoCal on August 8th).
Whew, LOTS going on, all fun and very exciting! Stay tuned for more news on “Ancient Winds” soon and hope to see you at the Melody Inn in two weeks!
Our 10th anniversary year has turned out to be truly amazing, most certainly our best yet! Some expected and many more unexpected things happened. Here’s a recap:
1) We started the year off by being featured in the March issue of the Guitar Player magazine, out in mid-February, a very welcome surprise and a harbinger of lots of other good things to come!
2) In April the NUVO Indianapolis Free Weekly paper selected “Carpe Noctem” as one of their “100 Best Hoosier Albums Ever,” sharing the honor with many legendary artists, among them Wes Montgomery, John Mellencamp and the Jackson 5!
3) We celebrated our 10th anniversary in June with a wonderful show at the Melody Inn in Indianapolis and the release of our first-ever live album, “Sonic Cataclysm,” recorded at the Melody Inn the previous December. The long-running UK-based surf music zine Pipeline Instrumental Review recently selected “Sonic Cataclysm” as their Album of the Year, which was a real shock but also a huge thrill! They also described it in their review as “surely the best live album of the modern surf age.” What else can we say but, thank you very much, Pipeline! (Check out all the great Sonic Cataclysm reviews here)
4) We got several other awards and recognitions this year: in October North Sea Surf Radio ran a Top 101 Surf Revival (post-1980) Albums show, voted on by their listeners as well as Surf Guitar 101 participants - Tribal Fires placed at #9, Carpe Noctem at #29 and Sandstorm at #65; also in August we won "The Best Throwback Act (Surf & Rockabilly)" in The Melody Inn’s Punk Rock Night Indianapolis 13th Annual Awards Show.
5) In July we got to open for the King of Surf Guitar, the legendary Dick Dale at the sold-out Melody Inn! DD convincingly showed why even at 77 he’s STILL very much The King – he had the crowd eating out of his hand while ripping it up, as loud and proud as ever. We also got to take a photo of the whole band with him, which is pretty much as good as it gets! It was a deep honor and pleasure to play this show – thank you, Melody Inn!
6) We played some other great shows this year in addition to our 10th anniversary and opening for Dick Dale, with stand-outs being our first ever visit to Bloomington earlier this month; Champaign, IL in November; the “Makahiki – A Night of Tiki” show in Indianapolis in September; and another Milwaukee harbor cruise in August. We got an amazing reception at each of these shows, and hope to be back in ’15! Big thanks also to all the fantastic bands with whom we had the pleasure of sharing the stage this year. (Check out some videos from all these shows on our YouTube channel, including eight songs to be recorded for the next album from the Bloomington show)
7) On the publishing front, two things of note: Patrick conducted a 2-hour phone interview with Dick Dale in June and turned it into a fascinating and lengthy article for the NUVO Indianapolis Free Weekly – check it out. And Ivan finished the second and final part of his epic interview with the Aussie surf legends the Atlantics, published in The Continental #22.
8) Speaking of the Atlantics, Ivan and Dane played a tribute set to them at the Surf Guitar 101 Convention in Los Alamitos, CA in August with our good pals Danny Snyder (the TomorrowMen, Frankie & the Pool Boys, Meshugga Beach Party) and Jonpaul Balak (Insect Surfers, Tikiyaki Orchestra), earning great reviews and an enthusiastic reception. Ivan also played a ‘solo’ show at the monthly Southern Surf Stomp in Atlanta in November, backed by a crack band led by Chad Shivers (the Mystery Men?, Moonbase), playing songs by the Madeira, the Space Cossacks, a few choice covers and even a mini-tribute to the local heroes the Penetrators. (Ivan also did an interview for a Southern Surf Stompcast in the lead-up to this show)
9) And last but most certainly NOT least: In April Patrick and Savannah tied the knot! Once again huge congratulations to them - rarely are two people so perfect for each other, true soulmates! (Ivan and Dane were honored with providing the music for their wedding with their Shadows tribute band the Troubadours.) Patrick also had a pretty remarkable year with both of his other bands, Five Year Mission and the Shake Ups, playing some HUGE conventions, getting great reviews on their releases, and amassing large followings! Check out their FB pages to see everything they’ve been up to.
Whew, what a year it’s been! Absolutely incredible, a true banner year. What will 2015 bring?? Who knows, but we *are* scheduled to record our next album in mid-March, tentatively titled “Ancient Winds,” returning to the Pop Machine Studio in Indianapolis. Also, Ivan and Dane will be joining forces with legendary John Blair (Jon & the Nightriders) and Jonpaul Balak to perform at the Surfer Joe Festival in Livorno, Italy in June, followed by a week-long tour of Spain! (See more details here)
Our HUGE gratitude to all of you for all of your enthusiasm and support. It would be pretty lonely just playing in our basement if you didn’t come out to our shows and bought our albums! So, thank you! We wish you a truly happy new year, and we hope to see you in person at some point in 2015!
We hope you are all doing great, and having a wonderful summer so far! Just wanted to remind you that this Saturday we'll be playing the 2nd Milwaukee Surf Cruise, with Milwaukee's own The Revomatics! Come hear some rockin' surf music as you cruise around the Milwaukee river and harbor for two hours! We had an absolute blast last year, one of our most fun show ever. And we'll be playing without Patrick for the first time ever - filling in for him we'll have the immensely talented Chad Shivers of our good friends The Mystery Men?, coming in all the way from Atlanta! Hope to see you there - it's gonna be amazing!
Five months have passed without any news updates, so it’s high time we let you know what we’ve been up to! After spending January and February getting ready to record our fourth studio album, we were back at the Pop Machine studio in Indy in mid-March where we successfully laid down all the album tracks in one weekend. (You can see 
We should also mention that Ivan and Dane will soon be embarking on quite a surf adventure: they will be joining legendary surf guitarist and THEE surf music historian John Blair, the founder of the highly influential pioneers of the surf music revival Jon & the Nightriders, for a performance at the incredible 
