Personaly I don't care much about tributes but this one intrigued me, I expected good sound that's announced but it's to much agressive for me (loudness).
https://www.supraphonicssurfcombo.com/the-supraphonics-play-the-ventures.html
Peter Marinus:
The older ones among us will remember the Ventures . This was an instrumental band from Tacoma, Washington, best known as a slightly polished version of a surf band. And with that term you really do the Ventures short because, in addition to the surf material, this band also showed that they knew their way around psychedlic rock, soul and even funk.
It is therefore not for nothing that this band had no fewer than 14 singles in the Billboard Top 100 in the 60's and was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame in 2008. The Ventures are still very popular in Japan.
The Supraphonics therefore came up with the idea to record a tribute album to honor the Ventures. In fact, we are dealing here with a one-man band, multi-instrumentalist Geoff Curran from Pulaski County. Geoff was planning to form a live band but then came the COVID-19…….
Geoff has opted for songs on this album, which are written by the Ventures themselves. So no covers, which is what the Ventures were most famous for.
It will not surprise you that the guitar is central on this album. Geoff has chosen to make his surf guitar sound very loud.
As in the opener The Swingin' Creeper . A smoothly grooving song with Geoff's cutting twang guitar but also with a very soulful Booker T. like organ.
Packed with raspy and grinding guitar sounds, He Never Came Back is an exciting pumping, bluesy, track. Geoff harks back to the original Ventures sound in Surf Rider with crystal clear reverberating guitar playing. Also in Lonely Girl Geoff stays true to the original Ventures sound.
In Psychedelic Venture some psychedelic sounds can be heard very carefully in a lightly twanging swinger. In the very driving Pedal Pusher , the surf sound is mixed with a bubblegum-like pop sound. Geoff plays a blistering hard guitar sound here.
Driving Guitars has a nasty, almost garage rock-like sound with fierce guitar work.
Guitar Freakout is a languid swinging, bluesy song. As soon as Geoff starts freaking out on his guitar, it fades away… a shame! The sound of Hank B. Marvin and his Shadows is also present in the neatly arranged Reflections and the softly floating ode to the love goddess Love Goddess Of Venus.
Prize song is Mod East in which Geoff's guitar almost mixes Arabic sounds with a cutting wah-wah sound.
The Supraphonics have/has succeeded in paying the Ventures a very respectful and therefore impressive tribute. I'd like to check out some Ventures albums!
