North Sea Surf Festival 2015, Vol.5 @ Melkweg, Amsterdam (26.09.2015)

North Sea Surf Festival Vol.5, Melkweg, Amsterdam, 26 sep 2015

Surf music is back! After the huge succes of previous editions of North Sea Festival the surffrenzy takes place again in de Melkweg. It’s the fifth installment of the biggest festival in North West Europe dedicated to instrumental surf music. Apart from live shows of nine bands in the Old Hall, four surf movies will be shown in the Cinema and there’s a surf market in the Theatre.

The festival, which main goal is to promote surf music to a wide variety of music lovers, has contracted a number of bands that have never played in The Netherlands before. This year the Dutch audience can see Swedish bands The Barbwires and The Illuminators, Spanish Els A-Phonics, Italy’s Watang! and Los Fantasticos from the UK live for the very first time. Besides hosts The Phantom Four and Russian cult legends Messer Chups the Belgian surf scene is represented by The Scrammers and Humanga Danga, two bands that already blew the crowds of Pacific Parc away during one of the returning North Sea Surf Nights.

On top of the nine bands playing at the venue of course there will be surf movies again at the Cinema. The festival presents exclusive screenings of the underground film ‘Wet Dream’, about the life and search for good waves of the famours surfer and shaper Tyler Warren, and of ‘The Fisherman’s Son’, a powerful new movie of Chris Malloy (180° South, Thicker Than Water, A Brokedown Melody) chronicling surf ambassador Ramon Navarro’s rise to the top of big wave surfing, as well as his life as an environmental activist for the coast of Chili. Also the experimental 70s style movie ‘Expencive Porno Movie’, the Alaska surf adventure ‘Cradle of Storms’ and the atmospheric longboard film ‘I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night’ will be shown. Before the movies recent short films ‘Chasing Rumors’, ‘Coming Up For Air’ and ‘Waveform’ will be shown, three films with a poetic and experimental style.

In the Theater of Melkweg there will be a surf market with collectable surf records. All bands will be doing a signing session at the market after their show. At the Café renowned international DJ’s will be spinning 50’s and 60’s vinyl; DJ Zombierella from Russia (bass player of Messer Chups), DJ Kike Louie from Spain, DJ Monkey Ju from Belgium and DJ’s Groove Motions and Mz. Siren from the UK.

More info:
agenda/north-sea-surf-festival-26-09-2015

WATANG!: “Miss Wong” (10″)

cover with sticker

★ Out 02.march.2015 ★

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★ One-sheet (pdf) ★ facebook ★ youtube ★

★ order-now (vinyl € 12.00  incl. digital download) (digital download € 5.00) ★

(c) & (p)
Green Cookie records, P.O. Box 50501, 54013 Thessaloniki, Greece. www.greencookie.gr
Area Pirata records, Via Manetti 5, 56031 Bientina (Pisa), Italy. www.areapirata.com

BIO

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 at the beginning of the summer of 2013, with the help of Barba San, from the Italian beat band The Albinos, Cecilia Ann, famous bass based indie-pendent songwriter and Mimmi, one of the best and 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. 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…

This first rate Italian Garage/Surf band comes with their own brand of wyld instrumental kink, mixed the influences of The Bomboras, Fuzztones, The Ventures and Dick Dale with bloody Far East vibes. Hi-Profilic Reverb/Fuzz/Organ driven tunes as ya all wanna meet here on Surfadelic.

Their sound creates a cinematic surf experience like it was made for some lost 70’s Hong Kong Kung-Fu flick, alternative soundtrack for “Enter the Dragon” or some Takashi Miike KILLER extravaganza. One of the best new surfin’ stuff I heard lately, so don’t you dare miss it! Say… WATANG!