<\/p>\n
Santa Cruz is of course no stranger to surfing and surf culture. Naturally, surf music is a big part of that. Jeff \u201cStretch\u201d Riedle, the drummer and leader of local outfit The New Shockwaves, brings an evening of surf music to Balefire Brewing Co. this Saturday.<\/p>\n
I caught up with Riedle to talk about this Saturday\u2019s show and decided that a surf music 101 discussion was a good way to start. \u201cEveryone knows surf music when they hear it,\u201d Riedle said. Basically, \u201cit\u2019s all instrumental and heavily based with reverb. There\u2019s a standard drum beat that repeats. And if you can play that, you can be a surf drummer like I\u2019ve been the past 40 years. There are usually two guitarists. And over the years, some surf bands have added keyboards or sax.\u201d<\/p>\n
He continued, \u201cWith no lead singer, there\u2019s still a front person. The guitarist is considered your lead. Sometimes you get guitarists who blend in really well with the bass and drums. And other times,\u201d he quietly added, \u201cyou get a guitarist with an ego, and then you have a regular band.\u201d<\/p>\n
In addition to being a surf drummer, Riedle has years of music experience behind him. He did radio at Foothill College from 1980 to 1987. (Fun fact: He trained Mick Gray, who is now one of our regular DJs at KPIG). Riedle worked at several record stores over the hill, including running his own store for five years. He also has the distinction of being employee No. 1 at Streetlight Records in San Jose. After breaking from record store retail, he landed a gig running the drum department at The Starving Musician here in town.<\/p>\n
Riedle was the original drummer for The Shockwaves, a precursor to The New Shockwaves, starting back in 1985. \u201cWe were a four piece, and we were playing a lot,\u201d he said. This was also back in the late 1980s before the big resurgence of surf created by the Dick Dale track \u201cMiserlou,\u201d which opens Quentin Tarantino\u2019s movie \u201cPulp Fiction.\u201d After that, there were surf bands everywhere.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Shockwaves disbanded in 1992,\u201d Riedle recalled. \u201cI was playing in other bands including Fascinating Creatures of the Deep, The Concaves and The Submersions, but I decided I needed to put my own band together. And I had to come up with a name. I knew I didn\u2019t want to just reproduce what I did in the \u201980s with The Shockwaves.\u201d<\/p>\n
Even then, he added, \u201cWe weren\u2019t traditional surf, had a lot of oddities in our decision making and liked to mix things up.\u201d Riedle talked to Randy Hyden, the bass player from the band, and said he wanted to do some of their old songs in a new band. Hyden said, \u201cJust call yourself The Shockwaves,\u201d but Riedle wanted to go in a slightly different direction.<\/p>\n
\u201cAround town, I have still this nice reputation as \u2018Stretch, the guy from the Shockwaves,\u2019\u201d Riedle said. To namecheck his old band but give allow room to expand, he decided upon The New Shockwaves. \u201cWe played some of the old songs,\u201d he said, \u201cso we weren\u2019t starting from scratch. I also pulled songs from The Submersions. I had 15 years of being in two surf bands that I could pull songs from.<\/p>\n
\u201cI also knew that I wanted to try and appeal to a new crowd with this new band. In the \u201880s and \u201890s, the audience would always be old guys in Hawaiian shirts.\u201d He laughed and added, \u201cYou know: Guys my age. The most natural thing to do was try something that would appeal to a wider range of ages.\u201d<\/p>\n
Their new record, \u201cFrom the Beginning,\u201d covers that range well. It features their own takes on surf covers and well-known tunes including \u201cBatwipe\u201d (the Batman theme), \u201cLouie, Louie,\u201d \u201cEddie Goes Surfing\u201d (a surf take on Pearl Jam\u2019s \u201cBetter Man\u201d) and a few originals from back in the days of The (original) Shockwaves that Riedle said, \u201cWe never got a chance to record.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added, \u201cWe\u2019re an instrumental, psychedelic surf band. We\u2019re definitely not traditional.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael Gaither is a performing songwriter, radio DJ and the music writer for The Santa Cruz Sentinel.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n What: The New Shockwaves.<\/p>\n When: 6:30 p.m., Saturday.<\/p>\n Where: Balefire Brewing, 21517 E. Cliff Drive, Santa Cruz.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.santacruzsentinel.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Santa Cruz is of course no stranger to surfing and surf culture. Naturally, surf music is a big part of that. Jeff \u201cStretch\u201d Riedle, the drummer and leader of local outfit The New Shockwaves, brings an evening of surf music to Balefire Brewing Co. this Saturday. I caught up with Riedle to talk about this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2277830,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25179],"tags":[22691,21741,22034,308544,22764,308545,37713,441090,416209,22482],"class_list":["post-2277829","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-music","tag-california","tag-entertainment","tag-events","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-music-and-concerts","tag-newsletter","tag-santa-cruz","tag-santa-cruz-county","tag-things-to-do"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/The-New-Shockwaves-bring-surf-music-to-Balefire-Brewing-Co.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2277829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2277829"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2277829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2277831,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2277829\/revisions\/2277831"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2277830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2277829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2277829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2277829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}IF YOU GO<\/h3>\n