Present-Tense here giving daver a bit of a break. He’s currently wrapping his sharpies in protective coating (CENSORED) to prepare for April’s festivities. I’m helping daver to dig deep into the 2014 Coachella Music Festival lineup, featuring one band per day. The purpose of this piece is to assist in difficult decisions that inevitably you’ll need to make, as well as, serve as a fun countdown to Coachella Week. Note: All bands appear in a completely random order… Enjoy, and let the countdown continue.
Surfer Blood are an alt-rock quartet representing West Palm Beach, Florida. While you may think their band name is stupid, their first stab wasn’t much better (Jabroni Sandwich). At least the Surfer Blood name is probably better at selling more t-shirts. Surfer Blood play some catchy surf inspired alt rock which would have felt right at home on your FM radio dial back in the 90’s when KROQ and the like would actually play some decent music and break some decent bands. I think Surfer Blood would have been bigger than Marcy Playground back in the day.
Surfer Blood’s first album Astro Coast was a solid collection of songs that couldn’t be ‘beat’. “Swim” was an excellent single and had a lot of play on indie and alt-rock stations alike. Surfer Blood was riding high even touring with the Pixies!!! (There is a daver quota for Pixies related posts in a given month). Surfer Blood subsequently released Tarot Classics and then I began to lose interest (along with a bunch of other people). I’m not quite sure why, maybe I just wasn’t into them anymore? 
Or it might have had something to do with a certain incident involving the lead singer and his girlfriend. I don’t want to go into too much detail on that. Let’s just say he wouldn’t appreciate a ‘thumbs up’ at the show if you see him.
Surfer Blood’s recent release “Pythons’ was their first album on a major label (and their last – for now – as they were dropped by Warner Bros). Hopefully they can continue to take ‘punches’ like this and go on to have a decent career. I admit, I haven’t given them a fair shake in recent years but I’ll check them out at Coachella (conflict notwithstanding). It’s been a while since I’ve seen the band ‘hit’ the stage.
Day 30 = Surfer Blood
Performing = Sunday
Visit the Surfer Blood website here: www.surferblood.com
Recommended Listening:
Swim
Demon Dance