Jerry Cole & His Spacemen: Surf Age (Capitol/1963 & Sundazed Music/2008)

Jerry Cole was one of the most sought-after session guitarists of the 1960's Los Angeles scene. He was a member of The Wrecking Crew and regularly appeared albums by The Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Paul Revere & The Raiders and Little Richard. He also had a little band of his own known as The Spacemen. Jerry Cole & The Spacemen released three albums which were all released on Capitol Records. The second of these, Surf Age, has been reissued by the fantastic Sundazed Music (along with Hot Rod Dance Party) in a limited pressing of 1,000 copies on colored vinyl.

Surf Age is an instrumental surf rock album with your standard guitar, bass, drums arrangement. Songs are occasionally ornamented with organs, sometimes saxophones and lots of percussion. The album was produced by Jim Economides (who also wrote about half of the material) and it's a nicely recorded/produced album. The material is sometimes danceable in an old-school way. It's definitely a wonderful relic of its' time. I personally like the bass saxophones but I could do with out the sax solos - they're the one thing on the entire recording that "date" it, oddly enough. Whereas the standard guitar-bass-drums surf rock set-up is fairly timeless. The riffs are great but the material as a whole is somewhat on the forgettable-side.

However, these releases are a guilty-pleasure of mine as I'm way into this period of music (especially surf rock from the West Coast) so I'd recommend this to other like-minded fans as well. 

Here's the video review: