Review: 'Surf-Age Nuggets: Trash & Twang Instrumentals'

I love The Beach Boys, but they never were a true surf band. They sang about catching waves and driving woodies because they just needed something to sing about, and really, surf music wasn't made for singers, even ones with voices as heavenly as The Beach Boys. Surf music was supposed to be something rougher, darker, more on the same wavelength as the actual sport, which is pretty dangerous. 

So you shouldn't expect sunny Brian Wilson—let alone goofy Jan and Dean—harmonies when diving into a collection like Surf-Age Nuggets: Trash & Twang Instrumentals. Like a legit Nuggets compilation, RockBeat Records' set aimed to convey the rougher underbelly of its subgenre. The Shan-Tones pound tom toms on "Sheba"like a bushy, bushy blond head pounding the rocks after a wipe out. The Velvetones wield guitar strings like switchblades on "Doheny Run". The screaming, rough-and-tumble "Don't Call Me Fly Face" implies what will happen if you do, indeed, insult The Reekers by calling them Fly Face. Even the band's name is nasty!

Some of the numbers get their nastiness across via telling song titles, such as tracks with horror slanted names like "Jack the Ripper", "Quasimoto" (sic), and "Surfer's Fright". The Emeralds' "Earthquake" and The Vacquero's "80 Ft. Wave" could only mean doom for even the biggest Kahuna. Even superheroes take falls in this set: 10.4 of Us' "Batman (Freefalling)" has zero Neal Hefti poise; it's just a descending riff suggesting a dark-timeline version of "Surf's Up! Joker's Under!" in which it's the caped crusader who goes down. 

RockBeat Records originally released Surf-Age Nuggets as a massive 105-track CD box set and a 14-track vinyl distillation in 2012. Back then the vinyl sampler was labeled "Volume 1", but another volume never followed. Fourteen years later, Liberation Hall is reissuing it without any mention of volumes, clearly resigning themselves to what will never be. Alas!

Mastering leaves much to be desired. The sound is compressed and harsh, although there is some variation from track to track. Opening number "Doheny Run" is one of the roughest sounding, but at least some, like "Jack the Ripper", have some low-end. 

Surf-Age Nuggets is pressed on eco-mix "laguna blue" vinyl, which is blue with some white waves running though it. There's just a hint of surface noise, but the vinyl is flat and well-centered.