Davie Allan is a guitarist best known for his work on soundtracks to various teen and biker movies in the 1960s. The teen film (also called teen movie or teenpic) is a Film genre targeted at teenagers and young adults in which the plot is based upon the MotorCycle is the title of a 1993 album by Rock band Daniel Amos, released on BAI Records. Allan's backing band is almost always the Arrows (i. e. , Davie Allan & the Arrows), although the Arrows have never been a stable lineup.
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Biography
Allan grew up in the San Fernando Valley in Southern California and learned to play guitar as a teenager. The San Fernando Valley or The Valley is an urbanized Valley located in the north-western section of the city of Los Angeles California, United States Southern California, or So Cal, is defined as the southern portion of the U His career as a musician began when he teamed up with Mike Curb, a friend he met in the choir at Grant High School in Van Nuys, California, to form an instrumental surf combo. Michael Curb (born December 24, 1944, in Savannah Georgia) is an American Musician, Record company executive race car Surf music is a Genre of Popular music associated with Surf culture, particularly Orange County and other areas of Southern California In 1963, Curb founded Cude Records, the first of many labels he would run, and released the first Davie Allan single, “War Path. Events January 1 - The Beatles start a 5 day tour in Scotland to support the release of their new single "Love Me Do" ” Allan participated in recording a number of other singles for Curb's label, released under group names like the Sudells, the Heyburners, and the Zanies.
In 1964, Curb founded Sidewalk Records (which was distributed by Capitol subsidiary Tower Records), brought Allan with him as a session musician, and secured a recording contract for the newly-formed Arrows. Events January 1 - Top of the Pops premieres on BBC television Sidewalk Records was a Record label based in Hollywood, California that operated in 1963. Capitol Records is a major United States -based Record label owned by EMI and located in Hollywood California and New York City as Tower Records was a Record label from 1964 to 1970. It was a subsidiary of Capitol Records. Curb had also made a deal to supply Roger Corman's schlock factory American International Pictures with soundtracks. Roger William Corman (born April 5 1926) sometimes nicknamed "King of the Bs" for his output of B-movies (though he himself rejects this as inaccurate American International Pictures was a Film production company formed in April 1956 from American Releasing Allan had come to Corman's attention from his playing on the soundtrack of Skaterdater[1]. Skaterdater is a Short film that was released in 1965. It was written and directed by Noel Black and was the winner of the Palme d'Or
Early Davie Allan & the Arrows tracks were stereotypical instrumental surf numbers, with clear-as-a-bell guitar sounds and light, crisp drum work. Though these sides were good musically, and modestly successful commercially (“Apache '65” became a local radio hit), Allan would find his greatest success when his sound mutated soon thereafter.
When Curb assigned soundtrack duties for biker film The Wild Angels to Allan and the Arrows, it would prove a breakthrough success. The Wild Angels (1966 is a Roger Corman film made on location in Southern California. The song from the film's opening, “Blues' Theme” (sometimes listed as “Blue's Theme”), an aggressive, repetitive and very catchy instrumental showcasing Allan's new fuzzed-out (heavily distorted) guitar sound became their biggest hit (it was also one of the first songs Eddie Van Halen learned to play on brother Alex's guitar). The song stayed on the Billboard charts for 17 weeks (it peaked at #37); the single, backed with “Bongo Party,” and the soundtrack album both sold well. The Billboard charts are music sales airplay and digital ranking reports distributed to the general public by Billboard magazine
Davie Allan & the Arrows went on to record a number of other soundtracks for similar AIP films over the next few years, like Devil's Angels, Thunder Alley, and Born Losers, as well as several studio albums. Thunder Alley was an American television program a Situation comedy which ran for a season and a half (from 9 March 1994 until 4 July 1995 on the ABC Television All contained quality material, but none would prove as successful as “Blues' Theme. ”
By the time Tower Records and Sidewalk Records were dissolved in 1968, Allan had his name on some 14 albums and a prolific string of singles. Allan cut a few singles for MGM Records in the early '70s, continuing his association with Curb, but after that his career faltered. MGM Records was a Record label started by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Film studio in 1946
Beginning with the Loud, Loose and Savage album in 1994, a compilation of tracks recorded over the previous 10 years, Allan (with all-new Arrows in tow) began a bid to revive his career. The album was well-received by critics, and since then he has released several more albums, including a collaboration with the Phantom Surfers, Ramonetures, an album of instrumental versions of Ramones songs, done Ventures-style. The Ramones were an American rock band often regarded as the first Punk rock group The Ventures are an American Instrumental rock band formed in 1958 in Tacoma, Washington.
Today, Allan enjoys a strong cult following, and continues to record and play concerts sporadically.
Musical Legacy
Link Wray invented the vocabulary of modern electric guitarists, but Davie Allan was a minor pioneer in his own right. Fred Lincoln "Link" Wray Jr ( May 2, 1929 – November 5, 2005) was an American Rock and roll Guitarist He is often overlooked, chronologically caught between Wray's more innovative work of the late '50s and early '60s, and Jimi Hendrix's unrivaled technical brilliance of the late '60s. James Marshall Hendrix (born Johnny Allen Hendrix) (November 27 1942 – September 18 1970 was an American Guitarist, Singer and Songwriter
Allan's most notable contribution is the creation of the fuzz sound. While Link Wray was the pioneer of guitar distortion, Allan pushed it to a new level, distorting his signal so much that his guitar sounded raw and overpowering, almost “fuzzy. A distortion is the alteration of the original shape (or other characteristic of an object image sound waveform or other form of information or representation ” Guitar sounds along similar lines would become a staple of '70s rock and Allan's penchant for extreme, heavy, noisy guitar work displayed on tracks like “Devil's Rumble,” “Cycle-Delic” and “King Fuzz” presaged 1980s acts like Sonic Youth. Sonic Youth is an American Alternative rock band formed in New York City in 1981
Allan is also notable for being what has been called the missing link between surf music and the likes of garage rock, '60s punk and whacked-out psychedelia. Psychedelic music is a term that refers to a broad set of popular music styles genres and scenes that may include Psychedelic rock, psychedelic folk, Psychedelic By fusing the simple, clean, guitar-focused musicianship of surf with these heavier, tougher, more vocal-centric styles, Allan, in his own manner, helped pave the way for the “guitar hero” idiom of rock music that dominated the '70s and '80s.
FUZ
The closest thing to a book about Davie Allan & the Arrows that exists is FUZ issue #1, a zine by Seth Wimpfheimer. A zine (an abbreviation of the word Fanzine, or magazine ziːn "zeen" is most commonly a small circulation non-commercial Publication It has a complete history of Allan's career and an exhaustive discography. It is still in print and available (more information is available on Allan's official homepage, below).
External links
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