THIRD ANNUAL BRIGHTON SURF MUSIC FESTIVAL

The Green Hornets / The Manges / Southern Domestic / Los Nachos / Surfin' Lungs / Dead Man's Curve

Brighton Beach 16/08/98

They said it couldn't happen. They said it shouldn't happen. The officious mandarins of Brighton council decreed that live surf music was 'inappropriate' fare for the beach and with haughty disdain they outlawed the town's third annual festival of raucous reverb and spectacular surf stompers. But the kids wouldn't be shoved around. No way José!! Raising a scornful middle-finger to authority, the local hep-cats pushed ahead regardless - audaciously sorting out the correct paperwork and fearlessly getting the right performance licences.

The bureaucratic zealots of officialdom in abeyance, there was now nothing to stand in the way of the third annual showcase for the cream of British surf twang. As has become the custom, the weather was glorious. A nonchalant sea breeze was an agreeable balm as brilliant sunshine beamed down throughout the day - proving, once again, that God has a big soft-spot for guitar-driven surf and garage mayhem. My Ray-Bans in place, my table piled high with pints of Foster's lager, I was primed for a day of sun, sand and surf frenzy. And I was not to be disappointed.

First up were the Green Hornets - Portsmouth's favourite sixties trash merchants. The Hornets' brand of snarling guitar licks and turbo-charged Farfisa is a potent cocktail and they never fail to deliver a rousing set. Today's high-points were undoubtedly Stolen Car and Samantha - both fuel-injected dynamos culled from their first album. Their version of the James Bond Theme, meanwhile, never pulls any punches - an all-action classic of which John Barry himself would be proud.

In the unlikely event that punk godfathers The Ramones ever appear in a tv commercial for Cornetto ice-creams they would, one suspects, closely resemble The Manges.
From Genoa, Italy, The Manges' brand of three-chord, two-minute, raucous power-pop gives more than a nod in the direction of the buzz-saw minimalism of old skool punk. In uniforms of striped tee-shirts, ripped jeans and filthy sneakers, these young guitar-slingers ripped like a tornado through a blitz of numbers that included Break Up Your Radio, I Wanna Be a Cunningham and Surfer's Are Back (a cover of the Barracudas' classic surf-punk anthem). A welcome addition to the bill, the hi-octane freneticism of the Manges would be hard to match.

Only a figure of the stature of punk rock legend Eric (the artist formerly known as Wreckless) could rise to the challenge. Under the name Southern Domestic, Eric has drawn together a motley assortment of local co-conspirators and today he showed that he has lost none of the gusto and panache that made him such a towering musical force in the late seventies. The high-spot of his set was undoubtedly the rousing rendition of Whole Wide World, the polished rhythm section bringing a vigorous flair to Eric's immortal ballad. The remainder of Eric's performance was nothing if not enigmatic. Indeed, I am unlikely to forget the spectacle of his free-form jazz version of Sign of the Chicken, which saw Eric maniacally berate passing tourists as they placidly filmed him with their cam-corders. Make no mistake, Eric is the Angry Voice of Today and you better watch out if you want to mix it with rock 'n' roll's answer to Albert Steptoe.

Los Nachos have come a long way since their first incarnation as surfed-up lounge lizards. They remain discerning men of style and distinction, though they have now found a unique niche with a suave, yet boisterously up-tempo brand of lounge-core that mixes equal measures of Man Or Astro Man? and Serge Gainsborough.
Still flushed with their recent successes on the baccarat tables of Monte Carlo, the Nachos launched into a set which confirmed their reputation as connoisseurs of sybaritic instro-sleaze. Pin High and Jackie-O come closest to their earlier sound of laid-back, insouciant cool - Hugh Hefner meets Simon Templar over high-balls and a round of golf. Binatone, Planet R.O.C.K. and Transmute are a little different - still brimming with smooth refinement, though with a fast-moving stridency. Imagine, if you will, Patrick McGoohan driving a Jensen Interceptor at top speed through Cape Canaveral and I think you'll have something close. After the throbbing intimacy of Pornographique and the dynamic energy of UFO there was only one question in our minds - how much longer have we got to wait for a complete album from these peerless arbiters of good taste?

Stalwarts of the UK surf scene, The Surfin' Lungs are always a force to be reckoned with. The Brighton festival has traditionally found them on fine form and this year was no exception. The Lungs have long proved themselves to be surf-meisters par excellence and their combination of the dulcet harmonies of The Beach Boys with the pace and energy of The Monkees is a recipe for something a bit special.
Ray Bans-Webb, the day's indomitable birthday-boy, laid down a punchy back-beat for the guitar wizardry of the other Lungs. With consumate dexterity the boys powered into a catalogue of their best numbers - Pray For Sun, Down at the 'B' Club and Quasimodo-a-Go-Go sounding fresh and uplifting against the background of a perfect summer's day. As always, Vostock One, the band's awesome instrumental tribute to Yuri Gagarin, cut a swathe through the stratosphere, followed up by a few new numbers that the band were taking out for a test flight. Their Car Club is a hot-rodders' classic of Wilson/Usher-esque proportions, while Flash Point is another breath-taking instrumental composition hot from Steve Dean's fearsome fret-board.

For a band's debut album to receive a glowing, full-page review in the hallowed pages of Pipeline magazine is no small achievement. Few bands could pull it off - but Dead Man's Curve are a breed apart.
And their triumphant performance on Brighton beach showed that every column inch of Pipeline's praise for 'the best young instrumental group in the land' (and they said this with no apparent irony - they must have a funny idea of what "young" means!- ed) was more than warranted. Today the young lads offered a set that contained some of the best tracks from World Catastrophe Generator, together with what sounded like some equally impressive new material. Watergate Wipeout and Sci-Fi Hi-Fi contain some of the tightest reverb and fuzz that I've heard for many a moon, while Sauza Gold remains one of my favourites from a collection that is abounding with highlights. As always, Johnny Deadman's organ gave an extra zing to proceedings (oo-er Missus!), while even The Ventures would be hard pushed to challenge the band's magnificent rendition of Hawaii 5-0 - an established crescendo in their set. I guess it was due to time constraints that we missed out on the Deadmen's version of Rumble - the only slight disappointment to a sterling performance which would surely have given the best West Coast surf aficionados a run for their money.

By early evening the sun was slowly setting on a superb day of sunshine, sea and surf music. Hopefully, next year will (if the council prove accommodating) see a fourth beach festival at Brighton, an occasion which has become a regular peak in Britain's surf music calendar.

Bill Osgerby

Photos from Jon and Julie Deadman