Friday, July 20, 2007

Summer Time @ Classic Television Showbiz



Time to celebrate summer with some fine fine surf music.

Gary Usher and Roger Christian did great work for The Hondells, swell California surf rockers of the 1960s. What better way to get in the summer mood than to watch a clip from a movie called ... Ski Party (1965). Here are The Hondells rocking on the beach.

Dick Dale and the Del-Tones speed through a rocking distortion of Miserlou in the 1963 B-Movie A Swingin' Affair!


RCA Victor recording artists The Astronauts are one of the forgotten bands of the nineteen sixties. When they sang, which was most of the time, they were mediocre. When they shut up and just played their damn surf guitars they were one of the most exciting bands of the decade. Here they are in the film Surf Party (1964), a drive-in picture that starred Bobby Vinton and also featured Scott Walker!


Bikini Beach (1965) is easily my favorite of the Frankie and Annette beach films and one of the reasons is this integrated skinhead surf band, The Pyramids. Want backflips with your surf music? Yes, please! Don Rickles? Yes, please! Boris Karloff? Little Stevie Wonder? Yes! Yes! Yes!



Bob Denver played a beatnik in the rare beach film For Those Who Think Young (1964). Here he sings the song Ho-Daddy. The picture also starred comedian Woody Woodbury - read more about Woody and this movie over here.


The Beach Boys make their British television debut in 1965 on the popular teen rock program Ready, Steady, Go!


The Beach Girls and The Monster (1965) was kind of a low-budget version of The Horror of Party Beach ... er ... wait a second.

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