The Legacy of Miserlou: the many lives of an epic song

This is my favorite video of Dick Dale performing his classic surf song, "Miserlou," in 1995.  He was about 58 years old at the time, rocking as hard as ever.  The reason I decided to do a post about this song is because I stumbled across this video of ukulele players Honoka and Azita playing "Miserlou".  I was skeptical, but these girls shred the ukes, and it has a very different, but still very surflike feel to it on ukuleles.

Most of you older folks, if you're not surfers, remember this song from Quentin Tarantino's breakout 1994 movie, Pulp Fiction.  What most pf you probably don't know is that "Miserlou" actually inspired Quentin Tarantino to make Pulp Fiction.  An instrumental surf song, a 1962 surf rock version of an old, romantic Egyptian song, inspired a young director to make his breakthrough movie, that launched one of the most original directing careers in Hollywood.  That's the power that a great piece of music, or any kind of art, can have.  To the right person, it can inspire other amazing things many years later, and keep inspiring others.

I don't know if any of the initial ideas for the movie came while listening to it, but young Quentin Tarantino, with only Reservoir Dogs under his belt at the time, wanted to make a movie with the same kind of energy that he felt in the song.  Here's Dick Dale, on stage, telling the story of how Tarantino contacted him about using "Miserlou."  Meanwhile, once Quentin got the ideas flowing, a lot more came into play, as you can see in this Charlie Rose interview.

As a Midwest turned Idaho kid, I didn't grow up in a surf culture.  But I moved into one, Huntington Beach, California, in 1987, as a 20-year-old BMX freestyler.  The first version of "Miserlou" I ever heard was this one, by surf punk band Agent Orange.  When I started working at Unreel Productions in late '87, I had to make a copy of the Vision Skateboards video, Skatevisions, one day, and I just dug the music.  After that, I would pop in a copy of the tape just to listen to the soundtrack sometimes while working.  From time to time, I'd be riding somewhere, and someone would have an Agent Orange cassette playing in their ghetto blaster.  So I heard this song form time to time.

Then, in 1994, Tarantino made Pulp Fiction, which put Dick Dale's original version of "Miserlou" back in the mainstream consciousness again.  Like all great pieces of music, it's been covered by all kinds of people.  Here's some of the best versions:

"Pump It" - Black Eyed Peas
"Miserlou" - William Joseph (piano), Caroline Campbell (electric violin), Tina Guo (electric cello)
"Miserlou"- the original Egyptian song
"Miserlou"- Pulp Fiction version with montage from movie
"Miserlou" - The Beach Boys
"Miserlou" - Chubby Checkers, singing in English
"Miserlou" - Old Arabic Version, singing
"Miserlou" - Atonis Simixis, acoustic guitar
"Miserlou"- The ShowHawk Duo, two acoustic guitars
"Miserlou"-  Ara Milikian, violin
"Miserlou"- De Fuego, two guitar, Spanish guitar style
"Miserlou" - Luca Stricagnoli, one man, acoustic guitar, percussion, foot guitars (just watch)
"Miserlou" - Comtemporary orchestra featuring flute and violin
"Miserlou" - Musician unknown, allgirlspace, mandolin
"Miserlou" - The Tarantinos (really, that's the band's name)
"Miserlou" - Adak Group, vocal a capella
"Miserlou" - Near East Brass, horny version
"Miserlou" - Surf Aid Kit, at 4:00, this young surf rock band is showing this epic song to a new generation...

Holy crap... this is one of those posts that took on a life of its own.  That clip embedded above of Dick Dale playing "Miserlou" is one I pull up and listen to every now and then.  It's one of those epic songs I just need to listen to on a regular basis.  But I just found one more version of "Miserlou" that I didn't know existed.  Here's Dick Dale playing the Viper Room in L.A. last June (2018).  He ends with "Miserlou,"  playing it at age 81, 56 years after his version of the song was first released.  It starts about 1:14:30.  Epic. 

Rock climbing wall and a river resident

 I saw three great blue herons on my walk along the river.  This guy was kind enough to let me take a close photo.

 I actually went down the riverside trail looking for a bunch of street art I know is there somewhere.  I went the wrong way for that, but found another really cool thing I'd heard about, this old bridge support wall turned climbing wall.  It's hard to believe now, but I got into bouldering (low altitude rock climbing without ropes) in '92, and maybe I'll get back to it someday.  This is some good motivation to keep losing weight.

 Sport climber nearing the top.

Another wide shot, with a climber hanging, trying to figure out the next moves.

Under the bridge downtown...

 For the whole five months I've been in Richmond, I've been fighting just to survive day after day.  I got here after my quick escape form NC, and landed in the bus stop with about $3 in my pocket.  It's been rough, starting out homeless in a city I'd never been to, not knowing anyone or where to go and not go in the city.  There hasn't been much time to wander around and explore, which is what I normally do when I get to a new city.  But on New Year's Day, I took the bus down to Manchester, and walked west on the walkway on top of the flood wall by the big James River.  Here's a few pics I snapped.  Above, cool looking bridge supports.

 A group of kayakers doing a little brown water rafting.  The river was high from recent rains, so the water was pretty brown with sediment.

 The direct line down this bridge's supports.

 Rapids downtown?  Hell yeah, Richmond's got 'em.  I even saw what I think was a young bald eagle soaring above this island.  It looked too big to be a hawk, and the head was still brown.  A sign on the walkway said there are nesting bald eagles in the city limits here.  Cool.  There are also muskrats, beavers and even otters in this river.  Crazy.

 Looking northwest from under the bridge with the arches.  Pilings from a long gone bridge, and the big pedestrian bridge, with a lot of people out on New Year's Day.

Downtown Richmond (aka RVA) from across the river in the Manchester area.  Every section of the city has a long established name here. 

January First Friday Art Walk at Workshop in Richmond

For the December First Friday Art Walk in Richmond's Arts District, I just wandered around, and wound up at Workshop,located a 420 W. Broad Street here in Richmond.  You'd think one of the bong shops would have snapped up that address, but they haven't.  Those places are a bit farther west, close to both VCU campus and lots of munchies, which makes sense.

Meanwhile, Workshop is a really cool idea brought about by the non-profit, Engage, as a place to bring creative people together, primarily young, college age people who need a place to pursue and work on a wide variety of creative pursuits.  Last month, I wandered in there late, met the two main guys making it happen, Sean and Justice, and showed them my big Sumatran Tiger drawing.  They were stoked on it, and also were totally down to help me get my artwork shown and hopefully sold, after hearing of my current situation.  I took them a few of the prints of my small drawings before Christmas, and they've been sitting up on the wall since.

Yesterday, I realized I lost my big sketch pad while I was rushing around to ship out some of my BMX zine packs.  I was sure I left it at the post office, but they didn't have it yesterday when I went back to check.  Anyhow, I never did find it yesterday, which bummed me out, because my big tiger drawing was in it.  Because of all of that, I wandered into Workshop a little after 7:00 last night, a while after things started.  I didn't contact any of the local people I know here, because I wasn't sure what would be going on.  Last month, it was just Sean and Justice hanging out when I showed up. 

Last night, for the RVA's First Friday Art Walk, the place was hoppin'.  There was a DJ with music blastin'.  On the tables by the entrance there were about six people with art, T-shirts, hats, and other fashion items to check out and buy.  So I talked to Justice, let him know I was there, and took up a spot at the table.  I put out my four, different, 8 1/2" X 11" prints, a couple of my zines, and some homemade stickers to hand out. 

There was a pretty good turnout of people there, and a bunch who roamed through in the course of the night.  What's funny to me, is that I'm a middle aged, old, fat, ugly, homeless, white guy, who does some cool and unique stuff with Sharpie markers these days.  Somehow, I keep winding up hanging out with highly creative young, primarily ,creative people.  Back in Winston-Salem, I was hanging with L.B. the Poet, Reece Johnson, and several other great poets.  Here I stumbled into the Workshop group, and it's a cool fit.  Lots of people were checking out my work and asking about it, as I worked on a doodle drawing.  I sold some prints, met a bunch of cool new people, and had a great time.  I also had J.B. from Against Fake Love give me a new stocking cap, which I've been wearing a lot today.

All in all, it was a great night, and I wandered back to my "place" stoked on the night's happenings.  So a big thanks to Sean and Justice for helping me out, and giving me a place to show people what I do. 

Even better, I went to the local dollar store today to get some junk food I didn't need, and there, where I drop my bags when I go in there every time, was my trash bag covered sketch pads, just where I left them Thursday.  So I didn't lose my big tiger drawing, or the big David Bowie drawing I'm doing for a friend right now, which is 3/4 done.

Next month for First Friday, I'll have more stuff to show off, and I'll let all my BMX friends here, and other RVA locals I know, that it's going on.  There's great artsy stuff to check out, and it's a cool vibe, so you all need to come by and check it out.  #sharpiescribblestyle

60,000 Page Views!

When I brought all my blogs together into this single blog just over a year and a half ago, I honestly had no idea if anyone would check this blog out at all.  Thanks for reading everyone, even the cops, the Russian bots and people looking for polar bear videos.  Another big round number of page views achieved.  60,000 page views in a year and a half.  Pretty good for the weird mix of things I wrtie about.  Thanks!

Hogshit Rides 2018 Year End Edit

This showed up yesterday, courtesy of Jody Donnelly.  I watched it, and now I'm jonesin' to go ride (and to lose a ton more weight to make that happen).  Watch it, then get that New Year's session underway.

It's 2019, society as we know it is imploding... TIME TO ROCK!

I had tickets to a Rush concert in 1983, I got in trouble for something stupid that was probably not much of anything, and didn't get to see this epic band live then.  That sucked.

What you say about his company is what you say about society...

No, his mind is not for rent

To any God or government

Always hopeful, but discontent

He knows changes aren't permanent

But change is... 

-Rush