Release Date: July 2025
Label: Independent
Website: Bandcamp
The Mother’s Tavern in Sunset Beach, California, is a cozy little pub where thirsty bikers gather. It’s one of those quaint places where the walls are lined with mementos and scribbled banknotes. Here and there, you’ll find car parts, and even bras, hanging from the ceiling. They serve Corona and English brown ale, and local hot rod bands perform at weekends. In late July 2025, it was the Deweys who presented their album Search for Surf in this worthy setting.
Website: Bandcamp
The somewhat simple graphic on the record sleeve depicts the silhouette of a lifeguard cabin, a typical feature of California’s wide, sandy beaches. A “Catalina” maritime patrol aircraft circles in the sky above. We read the label “sixteen surf instrumentals” as well as the promising listener note “recorded in full dimensional deweyphonic sound”.
The Deweys are Armin (guitar), Jeff (guitar), Dave (bass), and Johnny (drums), who all call themselves “Dewey” by their last name. A band is like a family. Their mutual passion for surf music bonded them together, and we can smell the beach with every beat. They look neat on stage in their Henley shirts, like the ones Californian surfers wore in the early 1960s. Might they be setting a fashion trend?
Straightforward, no-frills surf music is what we hear, and it immediately captivates us. “AMX”, the album’s opening song, has us cruising the boulevards in a sporty coupé. The sound is homogeneous throughout; unpretentious yet sparkling.
Track 2, “Surfa Nova”. We check in at the Hotel California and meet Martin Cilia in the lobby. He has just arrived on the “Flight of the Surf Guitar”. This isn’t unpleasant at all.
“Victory at Mr. C’s” recounts a fortunate purchase at Mr. C’s Records, a renowned record store in Orange, California — the band’s hometown. A lucky fellow acquired an original Dick Dale record there.
Well waxed we continue on to “C.C. Slider”. “Slider” is surfing slang for a dude who rides a longboard. Honor to whom honor is due. There are handclaps for Curt Culver (C.C.), the band’s best surfing buddy.
The band is very compact yet still has a youthful vibe, reminiscent of a school band from the economic miracle era. The dynamic is thoroughly massaged and deeply relaxed. There’s no bandmate hopping around on stage thinking he’s in a heavy metal band.
Bob, an enthusiastic attendee of the release party, describes the foursome’s delicate Showmaster roaring in detail:
“With Armin on his clean Jaguar and Jeff on his lush and drippy Jazzmaster, they form the perfect two-guitar surf attack.”
Fullerton, where these electric instruments were manufactured initially, is nearby.
“All the guitars and amplifiers are by Fender — just how God intended it”, Bob raves, deciding that very evening to start his own surf band and learn the guitar.
In addition to the aforementioned division of tasks, it is the sequences featuring dual lead guitar that particularly delight. However, the most beautiful thing is when Armin and Jeff’s guitars flow together like ocean waves. This is where the band’s most significant potential lies. (Keith and Ron from the Stones would call this “guitar weaving.)
With every note, you can hear that the band members live by the Pacific Ocean. With their streamlined signature sound, the band has created a repertoire that listeners can enjoy all the way through for hours. (The band performs the entire album live in one set.) However, certain elements provide variety:
They strike some off-key notes in “Woe to Woe Fat” and “Off the Rails”, while “War Path” is based on an ancient Amerindian rhythm. The Tex-Mex interlude “Uncle Stanley” is a memorial to a colorful family member, who enjoyed drinking and dancing in a local country music bar.
In “Oasis”, the Deweys relish oriental scales in a sashay step change. “Talkin’ Tiki” is a gentle hammock song with a rimshot beat and a plenty of exotica flair. The moody “The Hidden Beyond” leaves us feeling deeply satisfied at sunset after a fulfilling day at the beach.
The catchiest song is perhaps “The Last”, which certainly would have deserved a more auspicious title. The album’s track listing could also have been arranged better. Two interesting cover versions round off the album:
One is by Neil Diamond — not the resounding stadium anthem, but “Solitary Man”, one of the singer’s earlier works. The choice of this song as a cover once again highlights the band’s elegance.
“Major Tom (Coming Home)” is likely to surprise German-speaking listeners in particular. Peter Schilling topped the German charts in 1983 with this robotic Neue Deutsche Welle pop song, which reached number 14 on the US Billboard Hot 100 charts the following year.
Although Search for Surf is their debut album, the band has a long history. The Deweys more or less emerged from the Torquays, a band formed in 1964. Armin Dewey took over on guitar in their later phase. He’s the surfer in the band and writes the songs, which let us smell the beach air with every beat.
This is how the Deweys emerge from the transfiguration of surf music history as if nothing had happened in between. Undoubtedly, this is not a mimicry of the first wave — this IS the first wave! It’s bands like the Deweys who make traditional surf music the lively folklore of California in the here and now.
Jimmy Dee, Staff Writer at Surf Music and Art
August 14, 2025
Tracklist:
01. AMX
02. Surfa Nova
03.
Victory at Mr. C’s
04. The Hidden Beyond
05. C.C. Slider
06.
Oasis
07. Overhead
08. Talkin’ Tiki
09. War Path
10.
Solitary Man
11. Woe to Woe Fat
12. Uncle Stanley
13. Major
Tom (Coming Home)
14. Off the Rails
15. The Last
16. Deweys
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