Customer Reviews

Bombora

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Once upon a time in 1962, a surf instrumental group named themselves the Surfaris. The group consisted of Larry Weed on lead guitar, Chuck Vehle on rhythm guitar, Jim Tran on bass guitar, Doug Wiseman on saxophone, Al Valdez on piano and Mike Biondi on drums. Around the same time, another surf instrumental group called the Surfaris released a single. They had a huge hit with the song "Wipe Out." They sued for ownership of the name and won, forcing the other group to change their name to the Original Surfaris. "Bombora" was inadvertently issued as being by the Surfaris, and it was pulled from stores before it had a chance to chart. The accompanying album, scheduled for release in 1963, was scrapped and hasn't seen the light of day until this reissue.

"Bombora" is a rip-roaring instrumental, with the heavy guitar sound being very reminiscent of Dick Dale. The sax and piano parts greatly enhance the song and help to distinguish it from the guitar groups. To further confuse matters, the Original Surfaris included a song called "Wipeout" on this album. It is NOT the familiar hit song mentioned earlier. It's a good song but suffers by comparison to its classic counterpart. There are some great rocking instrumentals, such as "Vesuvius" and "Surfari." Then there's "Surf Angel," which sounds like a leftover from the fifties, and "Beep Beep," which is dangerously close to being a novelty song. With only twelve songs clocking in at under half an hour, this CD is a very good representation of the Original Surfaris, but is not one of the greatest surf instrumental albums of all time.

There were two surf bands that called themselves "The Surfaris" back in the early 1960s. The band featured on this CD apparently used the name first, but the other band had the hit record with "Wipe Out". The groups went to court over the name, and the "Wipe Out" guys were allowed to use the name "The Surfaris". The other group was allowed to call themselves "The Original Surfaris". "The Original Surfaris" are the group featured on this CD. This is a previously unreleased album from 1963. It is a solid instrumental surf album. There are five group originals here, the best known one being "Bombora". The group must have been big fans of legendary pre-surf instrumental group The Revels, because they cover three Revels songs on the album. All the songs are well played, with the group having a different sound than other surf groups, since they were one of the few groups that had a pianist. By the way, the track called "Wipeout" here is a different tune than the hit by the "other" Surfaris. This is a fun album that fans of surf music should enjoy, but I should mention that the CD is only 28 minutes long.