Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Come and "Listen to the King of the Surf Guitar"

The venerable Dick Dale is visiting H-town tonight, once again, but this time he's playing at a far less annoying venue: The Continental Club. The last time Dale visited was about a year and a half ago at the House of Blues which was a hard sell, even to a diehard fan like myself.

There will be the inevitable question from some of, "who is Dick Dale?" and to that I answer, an American, surf-rock, treasure, paralleled by none. To those people ignorant of Dick Dale's greatness, I usually pose the question, "Have you seen Pulp Fiction?" and they'll normally nod yes. I'll continue, "Remember that bad ass opening song right after the robbery starts?" and then the mental gears will start to turn and there will be an unmistakable look upon his or her face of, "Oh yeah, I see, he's the shit."

Dale has a varied history of rockabilly, gypsy, and proto-metal music that goes back as far as 1959. He started off playing catchy pop ditties about drag racing and cars but eventually became known more for his scorching tremolo picking and reverb-laden guitar work. You can still get tickets here. I hope I can still shred that hard at 74.

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