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The history of the Phantom Surfers is fairly uneventful. They have been
consistently pay homage to Los Angeles's surf music and to the North West's
garage-rock.
Formed in the San Francisco Bay Area and led by guitarists
Johnny "Big Hand" Bartlett and Mel "Frostbite" Bergman, they debuted with
the EP Banzai Washout (Estrus, 1991), whose title-track would remain one
of their live staples, as will the following single, Besame Mucho.
The early singles were collected on
A Decade of Quality Control (Secret Recipe, 1999).
18 Deadly Ones (Norton, 1991) is a set as derivative as possible
(Pleasure Point, Legend Of The Phantom Surfer,
Theme From Dead West , Twist Off ).
Play The Music From The Big-Screen Spectaculars (Estrus, 1993), featuring
Trent "Big Drag" Ruane of the Mummies on guitar, is a
collection of even more vintage covers.
The mini-album
The Exciting Sounds Of Model Road Racing (Hobby Hut, 1994), their first
concept, is humorous but frequently too predictable.
The singles
Fuck Surf Music (Planet Pimp, 1995) and
Istanbul (Lookout, 1996) fare batter, but the band is firmly anchored
to its retro` program, as proven by
The Phantom Surfers and Dick Dale (Crown, 1996).
The Great Surf Crash of '97 (Lookout, 1996) shows no progress.
Joined by 1960s' guitar legend Davie Allan,
the band celebrated its tenth anniversary with
Skaterhater (Lookout, 1998),
an instrumental rock opera which is
the ideal sequel to Noel Black's cult movie SkaterDater,
the first widely-released skateboarding movie
(Sidewalk City, Skate And Bait, Murder Can Be Fun).
Another surf musical, XXX (Lookout, 2000), sounds a bit more
punk-rock.
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