Surf City USA

Credit the Pulp Fiction soundtrack, sure, and maybe mention one more time that Dick Dale's got local roots (Quincy). Townson has another theory -- though he's not a surfer per se ("I channel-surf," he admits), "There's been a lot of Atlantic storms and hurricanes, which have been good for East Coast surfing conditions." Whatever. Suffice to say that the audience for good, pounding surf hangs ten everywhere from bedrooms to beaches to 30th-floor boardrooms. "I like to call it the new alternative, because it's a new sound to a lot of people," says Townson. "There's no reason not to like surf music. It's still fairly underground with its own cult following, but you'll find people in the cult from 14 to 48."

The roots of the local surf scene go back a couple of years to when (actual surfer) Mickey Bliss started staging surf-festival nights at Club Bohemia at the Kirkland Café, with the Wellfleet Beachcomber on Cape Cod providing some essential atmosphere during the summer. Now, in the wake of the surf revival, similar surf-themed nights have popped up everywhere from the Midway in Jamaica Plain to the Rat to the Middle East. Bill's Bar recently inaugurated a Thursday-night surf/rockabilly series that will host the Tube Tour (the Derangers, Bald Guys, and Tidal Wave) on June 20. The tour heads to the Beachcomber on July 3, returns to Boston at Mama Kin on July 30, then begins a cross-country trek in late August.

But Boston surf is getting around in other ways. The Fathoms, whose "Incognito" and "Cervesa on the Mesa" are the highlights of the Tube Tour, just inked a deal with the California label AVI/Atomic Beat, which is best known for its rare surf and rockabilly reissues; the band's debut, Fathomless, is due in August. In a blind listening test, you'd be hard-pressed to distinguish the Fathoms from the early '60s originals -- which is just how guitarist Frank Blandino wants it. "It sounds like 1962," he says of their upcoming album. "I was around when that stuff was new -- I was about 12, 13. I always wanted to be in a surf band. Everyone always said, `No one wants to listen to instrumental music right now.' But maybe I'll actually be in the right place at the right time for once."

Blandino's also the leader of Cranky Frankie and the Cranktones, arguably the most potent rockabilly band in the Northeast, where he revives the nuances of the '50s with the same fervor the Fathoms draw on to reproduce the classic '60s surf sound. "I love old rockabilly, surf records, and desperate rock and roll," he says, "anything that's raw, raunchy, edgy, and has got some soul to it." "Incognito" has an almost Mediterranean feel, starting out with a Dick Dale rapid staccato riff and then easing into a sultry groove replete with a warm, juicy hunk of sax. "I almost think of it as kinda cinematic," says Blandino, "like a spy-theme/spaghetti-Western surf tune."

That description belies the quirky angles of Boston surf, which tends to eschew the time-honored Ventures/Dale tributes. Ennio Morricone figures in the inspiration for the Derangers' "Impaler" and the Bald Guys' "Let Loose the Kraken" (a tribute to Clash of the Titans). Several tracks make covert attempts at integrating Mancini-esque spy themes; the Ray Corvair Trio prove they've got the genre down cold. "The Spy Who Couldn't Get Any Action" has gotta be the James Bond theme's geeky twin -- with deep, chiming echo and buckling chords, it's swank and sedate and ominous in a campy kind of way.

The trio's other cut, "Theme from Ray," swoons dizzy and vertiginous over a trampy bass line, taking in the whole spectrum of reverb-drenched instrumental madness from Link Wray to Crypt's sleazy Las Vegas Grind compilations (both tracks, along with 10 tracks recorded last month, will make it on a cassette-only release as soon as the band get around to mixing them). Given that these guys (with additional guitarist Mary Ellen Leahy) are the Rumble-winning pop band Trona, you'd hardly expect such reverent, detailed renditions, or guitarist Chris Dyas's near-virtuosity with the form. Dyas put the trio together to kill time while he was forming Trona out of the ashes of Orangutang. "We were only gonna play a few gigs to hold us over," he says, " but a month and a half later Pulp Fiction came out, and we ended up with a steady Sunday-night gig at the Plough and Stars." He adds, "They didn't use to let people dance at the Plough, and I think we singlehandedly changed that."