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It’s ej from Grizzly Records with this news: “We just put up the new Kynan single/video, hope you can check it out.” So I do: the track is a fusion of pop styles at the heart of which lies an ancient keyboard sound resurrected from the albums of the surf rock bands of old. But don’t call it surf rock.
Call it beach. Beach is the new surf rock.
“A lot of indie bands right now really have that beach sound.” I catch Kynan, who is Joel Kynan Williams at home in Point Loma. He thinks the West Coast indie sound is all about a byproduct of real estate. “Going to the beach every day and being in the sun? It definitely has an effect.”
Kynan is 19. He says he has a wicked earache brought on by a lingering head cold. He snuffles through our talk. “There’s so many bands that call themselves beach. I don’t. There’s beach house,” he says, “beach wave. There’s all kinds of, just, beach. But most people that claim that title don’t even live near the beach. Like the Beach Boys.”
Well, of the Beach Boys, Dennis Wilson actually did surf but you could say that his older brother Brian lived up to Kynan’s complaint. Although Brian Wilson lived near the beach physically, his mind was often light years away from the surf culture he romanticized for the rest of the continent. Drugs and mental illness would addle Wilson, and his once iconic Beach Boys would break off into a series of bad franchise bands.
Surf rock was popular for a small window of time during the first part of the 1960s. It came in a variety of clean-cut flavors: rambunctious guitar-fueled instrumentals, instrumentals or vocals with yakkity sax raves, full-on novelty records, pop radio crap, or the kind of quasi-high art that Brian Wilson was painstakingly orchestrating for the Beach Boys. It was all a bit of a train wreck, surf rock, but it was a genre we owned: made in California.
Who killed surf rock? The Beatles.
Surf was the music of my childhood. The first band I ever played in was a surf rock combo in the sixth grade. We learned a song called "Wipeout" by the Surfaris because of Chris Anderson. He was a drummer who, at the age of 11 could actually keep his toms rolling all the way through. I played sax, but I was not their first choice. A far superior alto saxman named Herbert Lepor was the front man but had to quit; his dad forbade him to be in such a band. We wore our smileys with white socks, considered anti-establishment by those who thought of surf rock as a gateway to drugs.
“People like to jump on the trends.” So, is Kynan beach? “I don’t really try to be, but people tell me yes.”
Kynan, who in the past was part of a group called D/Wolves is now a one-man band. “I play trumpet and keyboards. I sing, and I also program loops. I have one hand on a keyboard and one hand on a drum pad.” Does his gig require a lot of advance planning, considering that he must, with one of those busy hands, pick up a trumpet now and then?
“Yeah, it does.”
He’s played the Tin Can Alehouse and the Soda Bar and he still lives at home. “My parents said they would support me for a year after high school. The year’s up.. I have to get a day job or move.” He’s thinking Los Angeles, but with reservations.
“No, I don’t really expect to make it in music, but who knows?”
Kynan’s first physical record ever, a 7”, will be released by San Diego’s Grizzly Records soon: Kynan’s not sure when. “Last year I released four albums on the Internet. Grizzly wants to re-release them on cassette.” It’s sort of a faddish new trend, cassette, but who among us still has a player?
“People with really shitty cars,” Kynan says. “That’s the audience.”
It’s ej from Grizzly Records with this news: “We just put up the new Kynan single/video, hope you can check it out.” So I do: the track is a fusion of pop styles at the heart of which lies an ancient keyboard sound resurrected from the albums of the surf rock bands of old. But don’t call it surf rock.
Call it beach. Beach is the new surf rock.
“A lot of indie bands right now really have that beach sound.” I catch Kynan, who is Joel Kynan Williams at home in Point Loma. He thinks the West Coast indie sound is all about a byproduct of real estate. “Going to the beach every day and being in the sun? It definitely has an effect.”
Kynan is 19. He says he has a wicked earache brought on by a lingering head cold. He snuffles through our talk. “There’s so many bands that call themselves beach. I don’t. There’s beach house,” he says, “beach wave. There’s all kinds of, just, beach. But most people that claim that title don’t even live near the beach. Like the Beach Boys.”
Well, of the Beach Boys, Dennis Wilson actually did surf but you could say that his older brother Brian lived up to Kynan’s complaint. Although Brian Wilson lived near the beach physically, his mind was often light years away from the surf culture he romanticized for the rest of the continent. Drugs and mental illness would addle Wilson, and his once iconic Beach Boys would break off into a series of bad franchise bands.
Surf rock was popular for a small window of time during the first part of the 1960s. It came in a variety of clean-cut flavors: rambunctious guitar-fueled instrumentals, instrumentals or vocals with yakkity sax raves, full-on novelty records, pop radio crap, or the kind of quasi-high art that Brian Wilson was painstakingly orchestrating for the Beach Boys. It was all a bit of a train wreck, surf rock, but it was a genre we owned: made in California.
Who killed surf rock? The Beatles.
Surf was the music of my childhood. The first band I ever played in was a surf rock combo in the sixth grade. We learned a song called "Wipeout" by the Surfaris because of Chris Anderson. He was a drummer who, at the age of 11 could actually keep his toms rolling all the way through. I played sax, but I was not their first choice. A far superior alto saxman named Herbert Lepor was the front man but had to quit; his dad forbade him to be in such a band. We wore our smileys with white socks, considered anti-establishment by those who thought of surf rock as a gateway to drugs.
“People like to jump on the trends.” So, is Kynan beach? “I don’t really try to be, but people tell me yes.”
Kynan, who in the past was part of a group called D/Wolves is now a one-man band. “I play trumpet and keyboards. I sing, and I also program loops. I have one hand on a keyboard and one hand on a drum pad.” Does his gig require a lot of advance planning, considering that he must, with one of those busy hands, pick up a trumpet now and then?
“Yeah, it does.”
He’s played the Tin Can Alehouse and the Soda Bar and he still lives at home. “My parents said they would support me for a year after high school. The year’s up.. I have to get a day job or move.” He’s thinking Los Angeles, but with reservations.
“No, I don’t really expect to make it in music, but who knows?”
Kynan’s first physical record ever, a 7”, will be released by San Diego’s Grizzly Records soon: Kynan’s not sure when. “Last year I released four albums on the Internet. Grizzly wants to re-release them on cassette.” It’s sort of a faddish new trend, cassette, but who among us still has a player?
“People with really shitty cars,” Kynan says. “That’s the audience.”