Surf rock appeared in the mid 1950th in the United States (in the surfing California) and right from the beginning was a style that was not very friendly to experimentation. The pioneers of this genre like the Beach Boys, Dick Dale and the Ventures have set strict standards for basically everything from guitar sound to outfits. And there seemed that no one could bring up something new to the genre…
Meshugga Beach Party with their 2005 release “20 Songs of the chosen Surfers”, a 45 minutes record packed with traditional Jewish songs played in surf style proves that surf is alive and well. These five guys dressed up as orthodox Jews, just rip everything apart with their combination of surf sound and famous Jewish melodies like Shalom Alechem, Oh Hanukkah and Shalom Haverim. Their biggest on the record is the first song, which is a spectacular combination on Hava Nagila and famous Mirslou, by Dick Dale. They got the beards, they got the surfboards and most important, they got the groove. So much to say for the crazy (meshugga – is Jewish for crazy) inventors of klezmer surf.
