Hit the gas
Back to the Beach connects classic cars with rock’n’roll
By Steven Booth 04/24/2008
It is impossible to listen to an oldies or classic rock station for more than 15 minutes without hearing a car song.
Whether it’s the meditative “Racing in the Streets” by Bruce Springsteen or the bouncy pop of “Little Deuce Coupe” or “409” by the Beach Boys, it seems rock songwriters frequently had cars on the mind. If they weren’t singing about them, they were often sharing album covers with them. A quick glance at popular records by Dwight Yoakam, ZZ Top and the Stray Cats shows them completely giving up center stage to some automobile or another. You can write a doctorate thesis or four on the rock’n’roll car culture, on how cars and music go hand-in-hand.
Car and/or music aficionados will be able to get their fill of both at the upcoming Back to the Beach car show at the Ventura County Fairgrounds. Three bands and a DJ will provide a soundtrack to a veritable army of classic cars and motorcycles that will include woodies, hot rods, lowriders, muscle cars and choppers, among others. The event is in its 10th year, its fourth since moving from its old home in Huntington Beach. It will include a silent auction of work from custom culture artists, the proceeds go to Alzheimer’s disease research, and a special award will be given out to the event’s original founders, Richard and Penny Pichette.
The Pichettes, who are considered very influential in the car show world, owned the show for six years before Richard was struck with Alzheimer’s. They sold the show to its current owners, John and Jenny Parker of Trophy Queen Productions. They also own the Primer National Hot Rod Show, one of the top of its kind. To the Parkers, when they took up the show, they were well aware of whose footsteps they were following in.
“They set the bar very high,” John Parker says. “All of us strive to hit [the Pichettes’] level of quality.”
According to the Parkers, they also took the music end seriously, hiring bands that fit in well with the car culture.
“Jenny and I worked really hard to bring great music to the show,” John says. When asked about his philosophy on exactly what the right music was, he put it simply: “We tried to hire bands that would sound great blowing down PCH on your car radio.”
Among the bands booked are Ventura’s Phantom Riders, a three-piece featuring ex-Saccharine Trust drummer Tony Cicero and guitarist Joe Baugh, who also play with the Johnny Cash tribute band Big River, among other group. They have been a fixture on the scene for most of the decade, playing surf music with some blues and other elements thrown in.
To further cure the surf music jones will be the Eliminators, a band from Orange County featuring an old-school traditional approach, using all 1960s-era Fender equipment to play their mix of originals and surf classics. They have been all over the place, from backing surf guitar legend Eddie Bertrand to appearing on The View all the way to opening for Jimmy Buffett. Their goal, according to lead guitarist Joe Kurkowski, is to “play surf music the way it was played in the 1960s.”
Providing a little musical twist will be Dave Gleason’s Wasted Days, a nudie-suit-wearing band of country rockers from Bakersfield who play constantly up and down the state. Gleason’s fans include Chris Morris, the host of Watusi Radio on Los Angeles’ 101.3, who says “Dave has proven himself in every category, as a strong singer, a solid, tradition-savvy songwriter and a guitarist of nearly unsurpassable gifts.” Even the San Francisco Weekly has chimed in, saying, “shrink-wrapped emotions don’t have any place in the music of honky-tonk heroes like Dave Gleason. Gleason and his Wasted Days are welcome beacons for folks craving roots tunes with genuine heart.”
Aside from it being another gig, the cars and rock’n’roll connection isn’t lost on these musicians. The Eliminators’ Kurkowski, for one, is quite the historian on surf music culture — even his band’s name is a drag racing term.
“There are a lot of surf music songs about cars,” he says. “If you look at the history of surf music, the kids were into cars, surfing and cruising. There is a definite connection.”
ack to the Beach Hot Rod & Motorcycle Show takes place April 26, beginning at 8 a.m. at the Ventura County Fairgrounds (10 W. Harbor Blvd., Ventura). For more information, visit www.backtothebeachventure.com.
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