Watang! Is a surf-instro project led by El Sentenza, former banjo player from the Legendary Kid Combo, together with Marla’O, guitar player from the all-female Italian garage queens The Cleopatras. This project was born in the summer of 2013, with the help of Barba San, from the Italian beat band The Albinos, Cecilia Ann, bass player and songwriter and Mimmi, one of the most eclectic jazz drummers of the Garda Lake area.
The former idea was to create a standard surf combo, then after a couple of weeks in the basement, the project took a different shape, mixing the musical tastes of all the musicians involved. The original surf sound took a different direction, moving towards the surf revival of the 90’s, the garage beat revival, and the traditional Oriental melodies from the Far East area.
All the imaginary and the artwork was inspired by the oriental Z movies, martial arts and fancied mysterious stories from ancient east. The band wear original Kung Fu kimonos and the (dragon) ladies are dressed like famous almond eyed movies star actresses. Main influences are bands like The Bomboras, Ghastly Ones, Satan’s Pilgrims, mixed with The Ventures, Takeshi Terauchi, The Fuzztones, Gravedigger V, Roky Erikson, The Pixies, The Cramps, Link Wray, Johnny Thunders, Dick Dale, Question Mark and the Mysterians.
They have already participated to some of the main international surf music events: Surfer Joe Summer Festival in Livorno (2014), and North Sea Surf Festival in Amsterdam, in September 2015!
Their first EP “Miss Wong” was released on CD (self-produced ad distributed by Area Pirata) and on 10″ vinyl as a co-production between the Italian label Area Pirata and the greek label Green Cookie Records!
Miss Wong (10″)