Surf Trash – Whammy Back Room: January 13, 2023

Surf Trash are an indie rock band from Newcastle in Australia who slammed out an appropriately lean, mean and nasty show in the dark musical mosh pit that is the Whammy Back Room.

Advertised as a three-piece, but they have brought a plus-one extra rhythm guitarist for tonight’s show. The core group is Andrew Scott drums and lead vocals, brother Nicholas Scott bass, and their best mate Lachlan Jackson on guitar.

In the five years they have been performing, from local pubs to hitting the road around the country, they have built up a good word-of -mouth following. They have cited Hockey Dad as one of their favourite influences, and that will give you a good idea as to general approach.

They waste no time, and the machine is revved up and firing on opener Over My Shoulder. Repeated hard-edged rock’n’roll riff merchants. The first half-dozen songs covers most of their EP Busy Doing Nothing from 2019.

Mayhem is propelled by aggressive rhythm guitar riffs. Everyone’s running amok in this goddam town.

Wave M8 spins out some speed rockabilly like X and especially what guitarist Billy Zoom used to do in the early days of Los Angeles punk. To be honest, the melody seems to have been cribbed from Gun Club’s Fire Spirit. That’s a good thing.

There is a brand-new EP Under the Radar to be released in a week and they cover the title track tonight. Power pop with a large amount of punk attitude.

Park Rd

Park Rd is a five-piece power pop group from Auckland to open the show. Interestingly they came together at the Rudolph Steiner school in West Auckland.

A good part of the audience squeezed in here tonight are from their local fanbase, as they sing along to at least half of their set.

Tom Chamberlain, lead vocals and keyboards, Angus Hampton Carr, lead guitar, Leo Crawshaw-Bond, guitar and vocals, Carlos Martin, bass and Te Kapua Pene drums.

The two opening songs Golden and Like You are a good representation of what they do. Solid rhythm riffs around which they weave melodic lead breaks, mostly from guitar and intermittently the keyboards.

Did it Any Way is bright and sunny, with a slower bridge. The coda that follows sounds like the one that the Isley Brothers did for their expanded version of Seals and Croft’s Summer Breeze.

They can get a little harder and rougher with a punk edge like I Got You and Outta My Hands.

One highlight of their set was River. There certainly are some funk lead lines from the guitars as the singer tells us. He also sings Take me down to the river. So, they can venture into a little rhythm’n’blues.

Surf Trash

What defines surf music in these current times? Originally it was heavy on instrumentals with a characteristic of solid rhythms. Then add some fast double-picking lead guitar. Singers were there to support this rather than lead over the top.

The Beach Boys did do it at the start, but they were more a pop vocal group. It had its genesis in the evolving rockabilly of the Sun Studios, to Richie Valens and ended up inside the heart of Led Zeppelin. With of course the genre-defining work of Dick Dale, of whom Jimi Hendrix paid his dues to in Third Stone from the Sun.

All those elements are still there in some form. I would say this progression started with the great Surf Punks from California. They combined surf with punk and came up with a lost cult classic album My Beach in 1977. Check it out on Spotify or YouTube.

These guys may also be giving a back-slap to the Trashmen of Surfin’ Bird infamy. Then you consider the Ramones and the chainsaw guitars, and everything fits into place.

That’s the Night. Punk pop with the rhythmic drive of The Who’s Substitute.

The tempo is slowed with For You. Slam back in with the good and nasty All My Problems.

The use a jangle guitar intro once, on Wrong or Right.

Did I hear him say that Happy Man is a blues? They start with gun shots from the drums, followed by punchy rhythm riffs. Shake it down/ Have a happy end.

Surf Trash are the surf punks of the glorious present.

Rev Orange Peel     

Surf Trash Tour Dates : 

Jan 14 Palmerston North

Jan 20 Lyttelton

Jan 21 Queenstown

Feb 4 Perth (u18s)

Feb 4 Perth

Feb 18 Adelaide (u18s)

Feb 18 Adelaide

Mar 3 Wollongong

Mar 4 Sydney (AA)

Mar 10 Gold Coast

Mar 11 Brisbane (u18s)

Mar 11 Brisbane

Mar 25 Melbourne (u18s)

Mar 25 Melbourne

 

Ticket link for all tour dates : https://www.surftrashband.com/shows