Thursday, November 02, 2006

Hawaiian Beat

Here's kind of a cool clip. The Ventures were a pretty kickass surf instrumental band from Seattle that had its first Top 40 hit in 1960, "Walk, Don't Run." They managed to remain successful throughout the 1960s, and one of their biggest hits came out in 1969. It was "Hawaii Five-0," the theme to the CBS-TV series written by Morton Stevens. I don't know if this is a Scopitone or something that was created to air on THE MUSIC SCENE or another music-oriented TV show, but it's worth watching. The audio and video are a half-second out of sync, but the song is an instrumental, and probably won't bother you much.



I don't know if The Ventures had any other hit singles, but they continued to be popular. Groups like The Beatles and The Go-Gos listed them as influences, and Quentin Tarantino used at least one of their songs in PULP FICTION. The Ventures are also huge in Japan. Of course, so is Alyssa Milano.

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