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Artist: Dick Dale
Reviewer: Maggot

Review:

Many of you out there may have been adopted as children, such as myself. Being adopted as a child, really never knowing your original parents, is hard. Well, such as life, we create little mind tricks to keep our heads glued on straight. One of my mind tricks was to have an image in my head of who my original father was. Young boys like me have wondered these things. Since my "adoptive" father was a rocker and was heavy metal knowledged, i tried to look to him for inspiration, but there was always that questionable void. Then i heard of the legendary surf guitarist, Dick Dale, "the Father of Heavy Metal!" Being the metalhead i am, i felt as if this was to cool. Dick Dale was the man i imagined to be my natural father. He created metal, i eat, sleep, and breathe metal. Why not, we all have our coping mechanisms. Well here it is years and years later, I've had many dreams about Dick Dale, his shows, his guitars, and the man who guided me and lead me to the force known as metal!!! This is my review of my encounter with Dick Dale, heavy metal father, and entertainer of top notch epic proportions. Dick Dale has done the music for Pulp Fiction, Escape From L.A., Barbed Wire, American Vampire, and soon to be Charlie's Angels 2. He has also done many t.v and commercial themes. The man is just such a part of American life, and you probably didn't know it. Dick Dale has been playing with a passionate vengeance since probably before the 50's. He was self taught and plays his guitar in a most interesting way. He plays left handed upside down. The chords are made for a right handed person, which has made it hard for a lot of lefties unless they changed the strings. Dick never did!!!!

This is about a show that has taken place in St. Louis Missouri at a lil classic bar venue known as Mississippi Nights on June 4, 2003. Due to the fact Dick Dale is the master there was no playlist, as he does not believe in them. For this reason, i do not have one to share with you in this review. Just imagine how his band feels. Talking about true spontaneous originality.

My buddy Garrett was the one who originally had brought up the idea of going to the Dick Dale show, on the day of the show. If it wasn't for him i would have been trying to go to the show on the day i thought it was, which would have been the wrong day. So we arrived at the venue, only to catch the last few songs of the opening act, which I have no idea to this day who they were. So we sat around and people watched. We seen young people wearing various pop band t-shirts, older folks who seemed to be talking about golf, and hottie lil Dick chix everywhere. Culture shock! It would take a miracle to get some headbanger folks such as Garrett and i to actually engage in a conversation with these folks. Not because we are ignorant, but not interested and awaiting the mighty Dick Dale to take the stage. We head to the front of the stage and stand around for a few moments. Then the lights go dim and the drummer and guitarist step out on stage and start things a rollin. Then......

Like from behind the gates of heaven, he appears from the left hand side of the stage. All dressed in black, as sometimes good guys don't wear white, with little flaming guitar patches on his shirt, he grabs "The Beast." "The Beast," is his Fender Stratocaster, i assume a later version of the one he used when he was working his way into new levels of music, like metal. Which actually he had became dubbed the "Father of Heavy Metal" when he pushed the low volume level of 4 to a thundering 10 on the Single Showman Amp. Anyway, in all his dark outfitted glory, Dick Dale starting cranking his talented signature guitar sound, which was made to convey the feeling of riding the waves on a surfboard. The audience went absolutely apeshit. To be consistent through the show there was more applause then if we all had been offered millions of dollars, people moving and shaking all over the place, masses of smiles and full blown entertainment.

Dick Dale used the whole stage, something most bands these days don't do. He kept on making "the beast" crank out song after song, and solo after solo, with the base of the music being laid down by the drummer and the bassist. Dick loves chicks and they love him. All the girls were drawn to the front to see or even be touched by Dick. I guess it's true, if you feel 20 you will be 20. With such style, grace, and passion Dick played and played with the girls. Sometimes he was so quick you wouldn't even notice that his hands left the guitar, but you knew it did because there would be a hot chick in front of him and she was smiling. Besides, the guitar playing, making women happy, captivating the hearts and minds of the audience, Dick also displayed many other talents. Dick Dale played a trumpet (i think). Reminded me of the music you hear when you go to a mex style restaurant, very calm and very passionate. He told the audience that he couldn't read music, just played it by ear. He had a method for keeping up with this trumpet section he was wanting to play. He had this girl stand on stage in front of him and hold this cardboard piece up, that had fractions of the numbers 1-3. He then showed us the three buttons on the horn and how they corresponded with his cheat sheet. It was really cool. Dick also can articulate the sound of the instruments he plays, with his mouth. I do not know the whole scoop, but from what i gathered he was taught by Tibetan monks how to do this or the way they learned was to make them articulate the sound of what was being played via their mouth. They could not touch the instrument until they could mouth their piece first. Wow, I really want to find out more about this method.

Dick Dale also interacted with the rest of the band and their instruments. While the drummer busted down some mean surf percussion, Dick Dale got right next to him and started pounding away on the drums at the same time. What a frenzied drum solo that was. Dick also interacted with the bassist and played his instrument at the same time he was. Wow!!! Dick also plays but did not play at the show the organ, keyboard, trombone, banjo, ukulele, the accordion, and other instruments. I tell you Dick Dale is "bitchin."

Dick also did an acoustic jam with the bassist. I was unfamiliar with the songs they, played at that moment. I knew every song up until that point. But he passionately played his acoustic and even sung a little. It was an interesting little treat. Speaking of interesting treat...it was so nice that after getting the audience all wound up, he never left the stage for an encore. He just talked a minute and blasted back the guitar once again. What sweet music he makes. Reminds me of early thrash music.

After playing for about an hour and a half Dick was ready to set down "the beast" and hang out with his fans. He calls them family and we consider ourselves to be Dick-heads. Garrett and i got to hang out with the whole band and get autographs and other tokens of our Dick experience. I got an autographed drum stick, a Dick pick and a pic with Dick. What an incredible experience. I truly feel a part of Dick Dale's life. I may not be his son, but he'll always be my father......of metal!!!

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