Thanks for posting these, Noel.  I'm not a big fan of the surf genre and I've never understood why the Ventures were tagged as such.  They had ONE LP devoted to surf music.  Of the toons posted El Gato was intresting B cawse it sounds very much like Endless Dream from Super Psy album.  Now I know where they got their idea for the toon frum.

I agree that the Ventures changed the makeup of the instrumental combo. And, because of how well they marketed their music, most people still think they wrote early surf music. Who do most people think wrote Telstar, or Pipeline, or Wipeout, or Walk, Don't Run? The Ventures played better, recorded better and more professionally, marketed better and toured agressively. Rather than sink or disappear with dropping surf/instro singles sales after the British invasion, or abandon instrumental music and become a vocal pop band like the rest, they dug in and recorded some of the best and best-selling instrumental concept albums ever, and they made their albums top sellers without number one hit singles.

Sometimes it doesn't matter what you call yourself; the audience classifies you. After all, this is how surf music got its name, and it's how the music of Dick Dale and the Del Tones, the Belairs, the Chantays and the other pioneers of surf music acquired the label, "surf music." I think it was simply applied to The Ventures after the fact because that's also how they sounded. It didn't happen to Link Wray or Duane Eddie.

I also think Don Wilson might have acknowledged something like this when he named his signature amp the Surf Reverb, not the Instrumental Reverb.

Almost as if it's to prove the point, this clip is from a documantary about surf music. Guess who they're all trying to sound like? If you say, Don Wilson, you're right. He didn't do it first, but it's his glissando that everyone still tries to copy. Except Dick Dale. His is totally different.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znTIw5WKaVg&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1&safe=active

Being thought of as a surf band after surf dropped off the radar didn't help. The arrival of vocal groups as the dominant force in pop music spelled the end of many types of musical acts, not only instrumentals. Wasn't the last jazz standard to be a big hit Hello Dolly by Louis Armstrong? Then about 2 years later Sinatra had the last pop standard to make No 1 with Strangers in the Night. Wasn't that 1967? I think I have the years close enough. After that instrumental groups were in the same situation. Except rarely, their singles didn't get radio and they didn't chart very well. One or two exceptions a year. Sergio Mendez had a run, Herb Alpert had some hits, there was Classical Gas and Dueling Banjos. Maybe some others, but these are are all that come to mind right now.

The odd thing is that no one noticed that instrumental music was still very influencial among aspiring musicians and was spreading around the world.

Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac had a number one with Albatross in 1969...

That is a GREAT idea!

With my shoulders both getting operations this year I won't be playing guitar for a while, but I'm buying a Yamaha PSR-E333 keyboard so I can keep learning music and playing. Right-handed first and then left-handed. It isn't really obscure, but I'm going to learn to play Red River Rock as my first Ventures keyboard tune. When you get away from the surfy stuff, there's a lot of interesting Ventures keyboard music to play. I'm excited about the opportunity.

But the music that's being uncovered by the people contributing to that thread is simply terrific.