You know, I don’t often post here saying “check out this YouTube clip”, but today I’ve got two, both featuring Dick Dale. The first one I saw was this interview, where Dick offers advice based on bitter experience that illustrates, were that needed, how dysfunctional the music business is. Then serendipity led me to this 1963 video of Dick playing Misirlou. Because, you know, there are many different genres of music stretching back over the decades and centuries, but it seems obvious to me that anyone with taste and intelligence would have to acknowledge that the surf-guitar-instrumental stands head and shoulders above all the rest as the pinnacle of human musical achievement.
Comment feed for ongoing:
From: Patrick Mueller (Apr 08 2007, at 23:27)
Hilarious. My 11 year old recently posted Misirlou as one of his "recommended" songs: http://samsuperandomaterial.blogspot.com/2007/03/songs-and-music-vids.html
I'm so proud.
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From: Bob DuCharme (Apr 09 2007, at 05:29)
Just last week I was pointing out to Danny Ayers what a great video that is. Danny's site seems to be down right now, so I'll reiterate one point: note how Dale is playing a left-handed Strat strung for a right-hander, so that the low E string is at the bottom of the neck as he holds it and not on top as it would be normally. (It's a pretty small club: Albert King, folkie Elizabeth Cotton, and more recently Doyle Bramhall, the third guitarist on Clapton's current tour.) It's part of what makes the YouTube clip's opening shot one of the greatest I've ever seen in a music video.
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From: Mark (Apr 09 2007, at 08:17)
And remember, he's doing that playing the guitar strung backwards, because he's a left hander who learned on a right-handed guitar.
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From: Robin (Apr 09 2007, at 18:07)
That is representative of the "pinnacle of human musical achievement?" I don't get it. Are you being sarcastic, and you really meant "nadir?"
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