The Vandelles kill Surf City

ILLUSTRATION by LUKE MCGARRY

Band Vandelles was once two littler bands called Del Black Aloha and the Mercenary Gang—one a Suicide-style bit-drums and nihil set-up and one just half-hour rafts of noise, says guitarist Dave Herbert, who (with guitarist/vocalist Jason Schwartz, drummer Suzanne Pagliorola, bassist Lisha Nadkarni and a yet-unchristened drum machine) will be touring Brooklyn’s Vandelles west, and who disputes a review calling Vandelles more attractive than Iggy Pop because, he says, “no one is more attractive than Iggy Pop.” Anyway: neat fusion of those two littler bands—what Herbert calls the noise, the surf thing, the Link Wray—now becomes two yet-to-be-sorted full-lengths-worth of crystallized Vandelles, who put fat Duane Eddy guitar leads over Psychocandy background screeming—“Lovely Weather,” the song that encompasses everything they try to do, says Herbert—or hollow out “Pale Blue Eyes” to sound more like “Rumble” and call it “Die for It Cowboy,” or write the sequel to the Dictators’ and the Ramones’ “California Sun” with “Swell to Heaven,” which is three chords delivered with the deliberate vigor of the Troggs’ “I Want You,” and which clause now concludes a sentence orders more convoluted than any of Vandelles’ cross-eyed dreamy little pop songs. Total moment of band fulfillment—surf and noise, visually rhymed on an EP cover of the USS Arizona exploding behind some palm trees—came on an opening slot for Dick Dale in beautiful Asbury Park, says Herbert: “When you start to play music and you count your true musical inspirations, you come up with three or four people. For something like that to fall in place—for us, it was like playing with the Beatles or Rolling Stones.”

THE VANDELLES WITH LSD AND THE SEARCH FOR GOD AND THE STEPHENSON RANCH DAVIDIANS PLUS DJ SHORT SHORTS THE PROSPECTOR | 2400 E SEVENTH ST | LONG BEACH 90804 | SAT 9PM | CONTACT VENUE FOR COVER | 21+ | MYSPACE.COM/THEPROSPECTORLONGBEACH OR MYSPACE.COM/BILLGAZER

Tags: link wray, Long Beach, mp3, Music, psychocandy, the prospector, the vandelles