A Date with the Torquays

RELEASE
June 29, 1999
LABEL
Tork-A-Disk Records
GENRES
Pop/Rock, Surf Revival

Album Review

Guitar repairman extraordinaire Steve Soest, and his three Orange County, CA surf/ho-daddy cohorts, strap on and plug in to the vintage gear, delivering a set of strictly instrumentals that sound like they were all cut in 1962. There's a real unpretentiousness and straightforwardness about the group's playing on this 17-track collection that gives their retro take on the material here a refreshing edge; they're playing this music this way because they're into it and have the form fully mastered. There are highlights galore with great takes of "Journey to the Stars," "Ghost Riders," "Shake 'N' Stomp," "Bumble Bee Twist," and the fuzzed-out-to-the-max "Nervous Tic," closing things out with the beautiful acoustic-based "Peace Pipe." There's retro and then there's just flat right and the Torquays truly deliver the goods on this disc. Consider this the great lost Del-Fi or Capitol surf album for the late 1990s.
Cub Koda, Rovi

Track Listing

  1. Journey to the Stars
  2. Latin'ia
  3. Hopscotch
  4. Twilight at Trestles
  5. Penetration
  6. Jack the Ripper
  7. Bumble Bee Twist
  8. (Ghost) Riders in the Sky
  9. Tide Pool Q
  10. Yellowjacket
  11. Dead Sea Stroll
  12. Wonderful Land
  13. Shake 'N' Stomp
  14. Twitchin'
  15. El Sleazo Chorizo
  16. Nervous Tic
  17. Peace Pipe