SURF ME, MURPHY

Following my peripheral involvement in the compilation of the Tornadoes’ Now & Then CD, I thought it would be good to get the band to say a few words about themselves: their time working with Frank and subsequent appearance at the Zappanale. I spoke with bassist Gerald Sanders (GS – third from left in photo below), lead guitarist Norm “Roly” Sanders (NS - third from right), rhythm guitarist Jesse “The Hookman” Sanders (JS – first left), original saxophonist George "Wild Man Saxon" White (GW), current saxophonist Joel Willenbring (JW – first right) and the CD’s compiler, Greg Russo (GR - centre).

IB: I first read about your involvement with Frank in Greg’s excellent Cosmik Debris book. Until then, I knew nothing – and Pulp Fiction was already my favourite film! How did you find out that Quentin Tarantino wanted to use ‘Bustin’ Surfboards’ on the soundtrack?

GS: I received a call one morning from Karen Rachman, music supervisor for Pulp Fiction, and she said that Quentin Tarantino wanted to use ‘Bustin’ Surfboards’ in his new film. I thought, “Oh, another ‘straight to video’ film!” She said he had had our album from the 60s and liked our music and that the music came first and then the screenplay. It wasn’t until a few months later that I noticed that Pulp Fiction had won the Cannes Film Festival. I then began to follow the film with great interest! I was told that Quentin makes cassettes of his favourite music and then writes a story line around it. He was obviously a big fan of surf music.

IB: Tell me a little about how and why The Tornadoes came together, to play the sort of music you play.

NS: I think The Tornadoes came about out of necessity. We all had very limited funds for recreation. Getting together to play our music was a natural thing to do. It was great fun and free of cost. Our group truly was family. Not only the three blood relatives Gerald, Roly, and Jesse, but Leonard, George, and later Joel dovetailed perfectly into our “family.” Our early repertoire was probably split equally between vocals and instrumentals. Gerald would show up with the vocals he wanted to sing. Since I wasn’t much of a singer, my efforts were spent playing along and learning songs by The Ventures, Duane Eddy, Johnny Cash, and such.

JS: Because of the influence our parents had on us in their love of music and how that was such a bonding agent in our family, it just felt natural, and still does; I never gave it much thought. Hell, I guess I just thought everybody did what we were doing. As to the music, there was influence from groups like The Ventures, Link Wray, and a lot of others. But there was that foundation of country I feel has always been there; you know the ol’ saying: “you can take the boy out of the country…”.

GS: The three Sanders band members come from musical families. All our parents played guitar and my dad played mandolin also. They all sang as well and in fact our mothers had a professional trio that sang on the radio in the 30s in Birmingham, Alabama called The Flagpole Mountain Gang. After we moved to Southern California in 1957, Jesse met Leonard Delaney in the Redlands High School band - they were both drummers. Jesse and Roly were playing guitar also. Their mothers taught them. I was more interested in singing like Elvis. Leonard had his own set of drums at home, so Jesse invited him to come and play with him and Roly. I didn’t yet play bass, so I would just sing Elvis, Rick Nelson, and Fats Domino tunes with them. I didn’t hang out with them because I was older, so they got together by themselves sometimes and learned some instrumentals by Duane Eddy, Link Wray, The Fireballs, and later on The Ventures, et al. When we finally got together as a band and were playing small dances, our repertoire consisted of Top 40 tunes, oldies and instrumentals – all covers. I heard about this band on Balboa Island that was drawing a lot of people at The Rendezvous Ballroom and I went to check it out. Of course, it was Dick Dale and he just blew me away. I told the guys we needed to do some surf music, and so we got to thinking along those lines.

IB: And how quickly did Gerald learn to play bass?

JS: Gerald’s ability to master the bass was amazingly quick, as he had little desire to play it at first – after all, he was the lead vocalist – and that in itself was enough to keep him busy. As we ventured out and heard more ‘live’ bands, we began hearing music with a bottom end sound that was missing in our group, and we realized it was the sound of bass that was missing. Once we decided that’s what the group needed to round out our sound, Gerald mastered it very nicely.

IB: How did you meet Dave Aerni?

NS: I’ll let Gerald answer, as he will be more accurate than I could be. The truth is, I was so young; I really was along for the ride at that point. Hanging around with the older guys was a great source for good music, laughs, and beer (for the underage consumer)!

GS: Dave Aerni was a dance organizer for The Inland Empire and had hosted such bands as The Belairs, Dick Dale, The Ventures, The Markets and many others. He had heard about the 15 year-old guitar phenom named Roly in Redlands and came to one of our dances to check us out. He liked us and basically became our manager. He booked us at his and George Taunton’s dances as well as other gigs. He knew some of the local DJs and got us some gigs that got us radio exposure, but no pay.

IB: Had you met Paul Buff or Frank before Dave Aerni took you to PAL Studios?

GS: We never met Paul Buff or FZ until PAL. I don’t recall having met any of the other Mothers, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t; we met tons of folks back then that I don’t recall. We didn’t meet Frank or Paul Buff until late in 1962.

IB: What were those PAL sessions like?

GS: The PAL sessions were fun – relaxed, high-energy sessions with an informal (some may say messy) atmosphere. William Locy’s studio (our previous studio) was friendly, but more formal and uptight. The engineer there was an older gentleman who seemed like your Sunday school teacher. The band members were separated from each other with movable partitions and I played the bass and sang in the control room separated from the other band members. PAL, on the other hand, had us set up like we were on stage and we all played together. That made an enormous difference in the energy and feel we generated! Paul and FZ were young and made you feel as if you were more a part of the process.

JS: PAL Studios was very relaxed compared to Locy. I felt more like we were just at home jamming, with no pressure to get it perfect.

IB: How did your invitation to play at Zappanale come about?

GS: Greg Russo is totally responsible for getting us invited to Zappanale. I’ll let him relate his story to you.

GR: After the 14^th Zappanale, I was thinking one day that The Tornadoes would be perfect to play at the next one. I was expecting people to say, “The Tornadoes - who? What do they have to do with Frank Zappa?” Well, I thought that this sort of ignorance had to come to an end! Since they recorded 10 tracks with FZ engineering – and I have to add that it was his first engineering job at PAL Studios – The Tornadoes are as much a part of Zappa’s history as anything else that he was more known for. Quite simply, Frank Zappa learned how to be a recording engineer by working with The Tornadoes. Zappa fans know that all aspects of his work in a recording studio were just as important as the material itself. For example, think of how We’re Only In It For The Money would have sounded if someone else edited it! This point was very clear to me, so I e-mailed Gerald and told him to contact Wolfhard Kutz of The Arf Society to express their availability for Zappanale #15. I gave Wolfhard background on The Tornadoes and mentioned how important they were to Frank’s development as a recording artist and musician. Soon after, they were offered a slot at Zappanale in July 2004. Between late 1962 and the middle part of 1963, The Tornadoes listened to FZ’s thoughts about recording their material and, between all of them, The Tornadoes came out of PAL Studios with a series of recordings that they remain very proud of. A perfect example of this is ‘Moon Dawg’, on which FZ asked Gerald Sanders and his late buddy, Jack Sessums, to bark like dogs. The sound that Frank got on that track cannot be duplicated. Another example was the exciting first take of ‘Shootin’ Beavers’. When The Tornadoes re-cut ‘Shootin’ Beavers’ at William Locy Studios months later, none of the excitement that FZ recorded on the original version was present. Without question, Zappa captured the essence of The Tornadoes at PAL and, because of this, The Tornadoes have the right to appear at any Zappanale held in the future!

IB: Did you hear the calls there for you, Norm?

NS: I did hear the ‘crazy man’ yelling “Roly, Roly!” It really gave me a warm feeling inside. What a wonderful memory our week in Germany will always be.

IB: Well, that soldier was me! In his liner notes, Greg mentions that you played the festival with borrowed, unruly guitars that refused to stay in tune.

NS: I had some serious tuning issues with my guitar. The kind gentleman who loaned it to me uses very light gauge strings. I tend to really stretch and bend the notes I play, so I pulled the strings out of tune several times. If you listen closely, you will hear me trying to re-tune as we play some of the songs. Oh well, it was great fun.

IB: Having played Bad Doberan, is there a chance we’ll see you in Europe again?

JS: We had such a great time in Germany, it was truly an experience that none of us will forget. If given the opportunity, I’m sure we would do it again. Almost every time the group gets together, the subject of our Germany trip is brought up and we re-live it again in ‘remember when’s’.

JW: The trip to Europe was a great party for us. We hope to do it again sometime.

IB: Gerald, tell me a little about The Gross Prophet, the band you were in in the 70s. What sort of music did you play?

GS: The Gross Prophet was the band I started when Roly got married, started a family and moved to San Diego in 1969 to study aviation and ultimately become an airline pilot. My best friend Jack Sessums, a lead guitarist, left his band – The Never So Few – and we joined up with Roy Parker on B3 organ and Carl Hubert on drums to form The Gross Prophet. We played night clubs for about five or six years and then started to play private events: weddings, festivals, shows, conventions, parties, class reunions – you name it, we played it. We were the most popular band in the Inland Empire for years. We did Top 40 covers; Hendrix, Beatles, Stones, Elvis, Creedence, etc. In 1985 Jack had to leave the band because his movie special effects company was becoming too demanding. He did TV shows like The Dukes of Hazzard, Airwolf, Knight Rider and others. His movies included: Speed, Broken Arrow, La Bamba, and Tough Guys. He also did videos for people like Neil Young. When Jack left, Mike Gooch (E.B.) took over as lead guitar and played with The Prophet until 1994 when George White and I left to re-join all the original Tornadoes for a big surf concert in Huntington Beach with Jan and Dean, Dick Dale, The Chantays and The Kingsmen. I forgot to mention that George White, original sax for The Tornadoes, played with The Gross Prophet for many years.

JS: The Gross Prophet did mostly vocals, with a few instrumentals in the mix once in a while – after all, The Beatles had already come through and ruined it for all the surf groups. The GP was a group with a very wide range of sounds; we did country, oldies, and a lot of current songs that were popular in that era. The GP was a group that had sounds that were, and still are, very much in demand for nightclubs. With Gerald’s wide range of vocal abilities, we could do just about any song we wanted.

IB: George, having been with The Gross Prophet and in and out of the Tornadoes on and off over a number of years, you obviously remain very close to the guys to this day.

GW: We were more than a band, we were the Five Musketeers - like, “one for all and all for one.” It should be noted that from my perspective, we were the progenitors of Punk Rock. Our audiences were rowdy and boisterous and so were we. We were definitely not ‘girly men’. Gerald Sanders has always been, and will always be, one of my very best friends. We were all like family back in the day and had many an exciting adventure together. Gerald and I, in particular, got into a lot of fun mischief.

IB: Tell us a little about some of that mischief!

GW: Well, there was the time we all got into Jack Sessums old Hudson or Packard or something, we had all had too much alcohol, we decided it would be fun to put a couple of us in the trunk – I believe it was myself and a friend of mine named Bub Salticof in the trunk – and cruise the local burger bar hangout. When we arrived at the burger bar, Jack backed into a spot in front of the windows, someone got out and opened the trunk, and there was Bub and I, bent over with our asses bared and equipment hanging down. This was followed by much horror and consternation by the employees and patrons, and much merriment and laughs by all of us. Someone hurriedly shut the trunk and we sped off into a night of much frivolity but, much to our dismay, someone called the local gendarmes and we were stopped and taken in to the local constabulary where we were grilled about our mischievous deed. Very fortunately for us, the detective doing the interrogation was none other than Jesse Sanders brother, Jerry. It was explained to us that we could be considered sexual offenders and we would have to register as such in each new town we entered. Wouldn’t that have been the berries! “Tornadoes arrive in town tonight, playing at your local Armory. Parents, keep your children home: they are known to be sexual offenders.” My everlasting thanks to Jerry Sanders.

IB: And what about how you were auditioned and initiated into the Tornadoes?

GW: Ah! The infamous Tornadoes audition story. To preface, I had a band called Little George and the Crescendoes. This was the summer of 1962, around the first of July. Being a sax player, the band was a rhythm and blues band. I was an avid surfer and liked surf music, but it wasn’t the music I wanted to play. I had another sax player in my band also. Anyway, we had a gig to play at the Ontario National Guard Armory, it was an entirely surf music gig featuring Dick Dale and The Deltones, The Ventures, The Belairs, The Tornadoes and Little George and The Crescendoes. Why my band was put on the bill is something I’ll never know. My band was the opening act, so we played and then stuck around to hear some of the other bands. I believe The Tornadoes were next up on the bill and I liked their sound. I think it was Gerald – could have been all the guys - came up to myself and the other sax player in my band and asked us if we would be interested in auditioning for their band. We thought things over, and said “What the heck, why not?” The next week, we drove to Redlands to audition for the Tornadoes. It was like a phantasmagorical experience. After the initial amenities had been dispensed with, all the guys never looked us in the eyes again until after the audition. Now, you have to understand, this lasted a couple of hours. They stared at our genital area the whole time, sometimes pointing at one or the other of us, muttering things like “I bet he’s a good suckie,” and other such off colour remarks. Well, it finally came time for a break, so me and the other sax player went outside, to get away from their incessant stare of our genital area. The other sax player was really freaked out by their behaviour and wanted to get out of there pronto. As for myself, I tried to tell him they couldn’t really be “for real.” I think he must have led a very sheltered life as he was scared to death. I thought it must be some bizarre auditioning ritual they went through, as I could tell it was all in fun. But it sure was unnerving. I guess the guys made up their minds as to who could handle their particular brand of humour and who couldn’t, as they chose me to be in their band. I don’t think I ever spoke to the other sax player again after driving him home. This was the beginning of a friendship that lasts to this day. They were really a great bunch of guys and, I might add, so were their parents and families. I spent more time at their houses than I did my own for several years.

IB: Do you have any memories of Frank Zappa from that time?

GW: There was a club named The Broadside in my home town of Pomona, CA. Sometimes after a Tornadoes’ gig I would drop by The Broadside and catch the last couple of sets. There was an awesome trio that played there called the Mothers. I couldn’t believe the musical expertise I was hearing, and all this from a trio. I stopped by there every chance I got just to hear them. Little did I know that the leader of this band was the same guy who engineered our cuts at Paul Buff’s studio a few months earlier, Frank Zappa. I was a big fan of Frank’s. I heard him at UCLA’s Pauley Pavilion with the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra with Zubin Mehta conducting. By this time they were called the Mothers of Invention. The Philharmonic had an inch thick score on their stands and the Mothers didn’t have anything except Frank leading them through it all, with his jumps and kicks. It was an awe inspiring performance by some of the best musicians I’ve ever heard, and a man who was definitely before his time.

IB: Greg, your involvement with the band seems like a labour of love for you. Tell me a little about the how you discovered the band and, aside from putting the CDs together and writing ‘Bottom Feeder’, what else did you do on these compilations?

GR: During the six-month process of updating Cosmik Debris, I found out that the Sundazed label released two CDs by The Tornadoes. When I looked at the label’s site, I discovered that The Tornadoes recorded at PAL with Frank engineering. It turned out to be Zappa’s first engineering gig. My first response was, “How the hell did everyone (including me) miss out on this?” These CDs came out in 1993 and 1999, and it was the first time that The Tornadoes mentioned recording with FZ. In the booklet for the second CD (Beyond The Surf), Gerald’s fax number was included. I sent Gerald a fax and I soon got a call from him! After getting original copies of every Tornadoes release, it was clear from listening to both CDs that all of the recordings were transferred from either records or acetates, and the sound was really lacking. So, after I recorded ‘Bottom Feeder’ with The Tornadoes, I mentioned to Gerald that I could put together something that was more to everyone’s liking. While at Gerald’s house, he gave me a cassette of five unreleased cover versions that the band did in 1995. I figured that these tracks could be combined with some older stuff and some Zappanale tracks, along with ‘Bottom Feeder’ and your excellent suggestion (‘The Cruncher’) for a really definitive Tornadoes CD. The covers were included on the side of the cassette called “Now”, with the other side consisting of 60s tracks called “Then”. I used this approach for the CD Now And Then and kept refining it along the way. I assembled and laid out the CD booklet, wrote the notes and selected from a wealth of photos in Gerald’s collection. No one else has researched The Tornadoes to this extent. The band’s history had to be given more than the typical superficial CD treatment. The Tornadoes mean a lot of different things to different people, and I wanted to make sure all of their abilities and accomplishments were presented fairly and equally. Surf purists will probably not like the more recent stuff, but more recent fans might prefer the fresher tracks. There’s something here for every type of music fan, who The Tornadoes actually appeal to. They don’t play favourites with fans – if you enjoy any type of music they do, you’re part of the family. The Tornadoes love being appreciated for their surf-oriented material, but they equally enjoy performing other people’s songs as well. After all, at this late date, who would have figured that they would still be playing? That speaks volumes, and no surf-only fanatic can stop that!

IB: Joel, tell me a little about The Lively Ones – and how you wound up joining the Tornadoes.

JW: I was asked by Gerald to play a New Year’s gig in Death Valley for 2000. After that gig they asked me to stay on permanently, which I did as saxophonist and back-up singer. I love being a member of The Tornadoes. All of the guys are like brothers to me and we all get along very well. I was one of the original members of The Lively Ones who also had a song, ‘Surf Rider’, in the Pulp Fiction movie. I also worked with many well-known singers and musicians as a sideman. In addition to the saxophone, I also play a little piano, guitar, trumpet, and banjo. The Lively Ones were the remnants of a band called The Surfmen around the time of Dick Dale. The Surfmen disbanded and reformed as The Lively Ones. We got Jim Masoner to play lead, and I played sax. The rest of the guys were from the old group. We made about four albums and some singles around that time, and played with bands like The Beach Boys, Chantays, Tornadoes, Jan & Dean, Lou Rawls, Glen Campbell, Ann Margret, and others during that period. We were a very good surf band and got the ear of Gene Weed, who was a jockey on KFWB (at that time, the radio station was a music station). Gene got us going and helped us through the beginning years with venues and concerts. There are many books written which include information about us during the early years and our dealings with Del-Fi Records, which in my opinion held us back from doing GREAT. It is amazing, I get emails on our http://www.thelivelyones.com website asking all kinds of questions about The Lively Ones; I guess we are some kind of classic big guys in the surf music area. We were all surprised when we showed up in Pulp Fiction. Most of the guys were not playing anymore. I was still working with bands, and so was Jim Masoner when the Pulp Fiction thing arrived. I understand Ron Griffith also did some music stuff after The Lively Ones.

IB: What else have you been up to lately?

JW: I recently recorded some stuff with The Dynotones on their The Dynotones Beach Party a Go-Go CD. This is Tim Fitzpatrick’s new band (Tim was the drummer for The Lively Ones). They are all very nice guys and it was a pleasure working with them. Jim Masoner and I are beginning a new CD project that will include all new songs written by Jim and me. We don’t have a backer yet, but we hope someone will pick it up. It may take some time before it is complete.

IB: Of course, I was thrilled when you guys played ‘Grunion Run’ at Zappanale, but gutted that you ran out of time to play ‘The Cruncher’. So when Greg first told me about Now & Then, it occurred to me that, as you’d rehearsed the tune, it probably wouldn’t be too difficult to record it for inclusion on the disc. When this suggestion was followed up, I was naturally dead chuffed. It’s a great way to end an excellent CD.

GS: We changed ‘The Cruncher’ quite a bit. No waves: been there, done that. No piano: Roly did that part on the guitar. The original had no bass, but we added a rudimentary bass part – so as not to be intrusive. Joel does his own sax part, but he does a great job. Bottom line: it is still ‘The Cruncher’, but our ‘Cruncher’.

IB: Greg, earlier this year, you had plans for the group to record some other Cucamonga-era stuff – like ‘The World’s Greatest Sinner’.

GR: I wanted the band to record some other early FZ or Roy Collins songs like ‘Jessie Lee’ and ‘Deseri’ – basically, all the early Donna/Original Sound singles that FZ or Ray Collins wrote. Roly’s unavailability at the time put that idea on hold but, yes, I’d like The Tornadoes to record some other tunes.

NS: Andrew, if your travels ever bring you to California, please call us. We will personally perform ‘The Cruncher’ and ‘Grunion Run’ for you!

GS: Yes, if ever you get a chance to come to Southern California you’ll have five mates to show you around. Hopefully, it would be in the summer when most of our gigs and other concerts take place.

IB: Thanks, guys.

***

Sadly, it seems unlikely that this interview will ever appear in a future edition of T’Mershi Duween, but you never know. Photo of the Tornadoes, with Greg Russo and engineer Roy Sweeden at the ‘Bottom Feeder’ session, appears courtesy of Greg.

The Tornadoes’ Now & Then CD, featuring four tracks engineered by Frank in 1962 and five from the Zappanale performance, is available now from: http://www.crossfirepublications.com; http://www.amazon.com; http://www.cdbaby.com; and http://www.gandsmusic.com/Tornadoes.htm. Later this year, the second Greg Russo compilation, Charge Of The Tornadoes, will add spruced-up versions of all the other tracks recorded at PAL Studios – as well as more songs from their Zappanale performance.

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