BAND OF FREQUENCIES at the Sound Lounge, Currumbin

Sorting the wheat from the chaff, as the term “surf musician” gets flogged to within an inch of its life

Far from dead, as the late great Jimi Hendrix once proclaimed, surf music appears to be alive and well and morphing and evolving into a stunning variety of hybrid species. Jack Johnson’s new album, To The Sea, leaps straight to the top of the charts. Those dudes from Midnight Oil and Violent Femmes are calling themselves The Break, and playing surf twang ditties named after surf breaks (Cylinders, Winiki Pop, Massacres, get it?) Tom Curren, Donovan Frankenreiter, Beau and Nava Young, Timmy Curran,  Andrew Kidman and his Brown Birds, The Beautiful Girls, the astounding Goons of Doom - the list of surfers turned musoes is long and strange and getting longer and stranger. Everything from nuevo folk hippy warbling to thrash punk to speed metal can lay claim to the surf music tag these days.

Now, some of these folk are more musician than surfer, claiming the surf tag as an easy marketing contrivance. Some are more surfer than musician, bedroom noodlers who thought the muso makeover might add to their career CV and woo sponsors. Short of staging some kind of appalling battle of the surf bands shindig, with heats in the water by day and gigs by night, how do we begin to ajudge the genuine leaders of this dynamic cultural form? That is, top flight musicians who are also lifelong accomplished surfers. Despite my enormous fondness and regard for many of the afore-mentioned talents, I’d like to use this self-appointed platform to cast my vote for one Shannon “Sol” Carroll, and his various musical collaborations - Band of Frequencies, Affro-dizi-act, the Life Like Liquid soundtrack, and a vast catalogue of  irresistible, good-vibing tunes and memorable live performances.

I caught a recent set by BOF at the stupendous Sound Lounge, in downtown Currumbin, and was stunned all over again by the musical powers of this prodigious talent. Shannon has the music gene in his DNA - he’s the son of the drummer of 70s band Moonstone, Alan Carroll. On stage,  he appears to be having as much fun as a teenage kid playing the tennis racket in his bedroom, almost oblivious to the crowd, transported by the music, eyes closed, fingers dancing over the neck of his Stratocaster, husky vocals emanating like expressions of pure rapture. The only performer I’ve seen attain such a state is the late Jeff Buckley but Shannon probably has more in common with Jeff’s old man, Tim - old school, rockin’ funk ‘n’ groove that transcends time and genres.

Rasta, a regular guest musician with Band of Frequencies. Like Dylan before him, he's unafraid to plug in.

The band are tight and the intimate familiarity shared with long-time bassist OJ “the Juice” Newcomb and drummer Mark Henman allow them to improvise and turn each song into a spontaneous jam. Lesser bands tend to have more fun doing this than the audience, but BOF take the crowd with them on these dizzying ascents into improvisation and it would take a cold corpse indeed to remain immobile through their set.

Dave Rastovich is among a regular floating pool of guest musoes who play with BOF, and on this night he takes the stage armed with a humble “kalimba” or thumb piano, a small, hollow wooden instrument with metal keys which one plays with the thumbs. Now, I am an unabashed admirer of Dave and his various creative and environmental endeavours. But as he mounts the stage this night, resplendent in his “Save the Pelicans” t-shirt and armed with his little African folk instrument, the cynic in me wonders if there is any quaint indigenous instrument and worthy eco-cause safe from his attentions. I sense an impending “Spinal Tap” moment, akin to the miniature Stone Henge descending from the heavens. How Rasta plans on joining in the Frequencies’ wailing, funk grooves on his thumb piano seems beyond me. With almost comic effect he plugs the thing in to an amp. Of course, it is an electric kalimba! This will be good, I chortle to myself. Dave is a wholly untrained musician jumping on stage with some of the most accomplished players in the country, yet remains gloriously undaunted. Lo and behold, he starts up a hypnotic, chiming riff on the kalimba and one by one, the band joins in until the whole thing takes off into a freeform, spontaneous, spacey groove, the sort of thing we  might beam into other galaxies to try and communicate with higher life forms in a universal language.

There are plenty of accomplished musicians out there. But only a few manage to attain a state where they become a finely tuned antennae to swirling cosmic forces, channeling unseen spiritual energies and transforming a live music performance into a transcendental experience. I know, I’m gushing,  but I just happen to believe Band of Frequencies and their  other-worldly frontman are that good. Catch them if you can. - Tim Baker

For upcoming tour dates and more check their myspace page.

Who are  the most notable "surf musicians"? Leave a comment...