Davie Allan
Encyclopedia
Teen film
Teen films is a film genre targeted at teenagers and young adults in which the plot is based upon the special interests of teenagers, such as coming of age, first love, rebellion, conflict with parents, teen angst, and alienation...
and biker
Motorcycle
A motorcycle is a single-track, two-wheeled motor vehicle. Motorcycles vary considerably depending on the task for which they are designed, such as long distance travel, navigating congested urban traffic, cruising, sport and racing, or off-road conditions.Motorcycles are one of the most...
movies in the 1960s. Allan's backing band is almost always the Arrows (i.e., Davie Allan & the Arrows), although the Arrows have never been a stable lineup.
Biography
Allan grew up in the San Fernando ValleySan Fernando Valley
The San Fernando Valley is an urbanized valley located in the Los Angeles metropolitan area of southern California, United States, defined by the dramatic mountains of the Transverse Ranges circling it...
in Southern California
Southern California
Southern California is a megaregion, or megapolitan area, in the southern area of the U.S. state of California. Large urban areas include Greater Los Angeles and Greater San Diego. The urban area stretches along the coast from Ventura through the Southland and Inland Empire to San Diego...
, and learned to play guitar as a teenager. His career as a musician began when he teamed up with Mike Curb
Mike Curb
Michael Curb is an American musician, record company executive, NASCAR and IRL race car owner. A Republican, he served as the 42nd Lieutenant Governor of California from 1979-1983 under Democratic Governor Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown, Jr...
, a friend he met in the choir at Grant High School in Van Nuys, California, to form an instrumental surf
Surf music
Surf music is a genre of popular music associated with surf culture, particularly as found in Orange County and other areas of Southern California. It was particularly popular between 1961 and 1965, has subsequently been revived and was highly influential on subsequent rock music...
combo. In 1963, Curb founded Cude Records, the first of many labels he would run, and released the first Davie Allan single, “War Path.” 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
Sidewalk Records
Sidewalk Records was a record label based in Hollywood, California that was started in 1963 by Mike Curb at the age of eighteen. The company was first formed as Sidewalk Productions and later became a subsidiary label of Capitol Records. Many recordings by Sidewalk Productions appeared on the...
(which was distributed by Capitol
Capitol Records
Capitol Records is a major United States based record label, formerly located in Los Angeles, but operating in New York City as part of Capitol Music Group. Its former headquarters building, the Capitol Tower, is a major landmark near the corner of Hollywood and Vine...
subsidiary Tower Records
Tower Records (record label)
Tower Records was a record label from 1964 to 1970. A subsidiary of Capitol Records, Tower often released music by artists who were relatively low profile in comparison to those released on the parent label, including a number of artists—such as The Standells and The Chocolate Watch Band—later...
), brought Allan with him as a session musician, and secured a recording contract for the newly-formed Arrows. Curb had also made a deal to supply Roger Corman
Roger Corman
Roger William Corman is an American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for...
's schlock factory American International Pictures
American International Pictures
American International Pictures was a film production company formed in April 1956 from American Releasing Corporation by James H. Nicholson, former Sales Manager of Realart Pictures, and Samuel Z. Arkoff, an entertainment lawyer...
with soundtracks. Allan had come to Corman's attention from his playing on the soundtrack of Skaterdater
Skaterdater
Skaterdater is a 1965 American short film. It was Produced by Marshal Backlar, and written and directed by Noel Black and was the winner of the Palme d'Or for Best Short Film at the 1966 Cannes Film Festival. It was also nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Short Subject category...
.
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
The Wild Angels
The Wild Angels is a 1966 Roger Corman film, made on location in Southern California. The Wild Angels was made three years before Easy Rider and was the first film to associate actor Peter Fonda with Harley-Davidson motorcycles and 1960s counterculture...
to Allan and the Arrows, it would prove a breakthrough success. 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
Billboard charts
The Billboard charts tabulate the relative weekly popularity of songs or albums in the United States. The results are published in Billboard magazine...
for 17 weeks (it peaked at #37); the single, backed with “Bongo Party,” and the soundtrack album both sold well.
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
Devil's Angels
Devil's Angels is a 1967 American biker movie written by Charles B. Griffith and directed by Daniel Haller....
, Thunder Alley
Thunder Alley (film)
Thunder Alley is a 1967 film directed by Richard Rush and starring Annette Funicello and Fabian.-Plot:A race car driver retires after a blackout causes the death of another driver on the motorway. After the accident, he then begins working at a "Thrill Circus" as a stunt driver. There he meets the...
, and Born Losers
Born Losers
This article is about the song. You may be looking for the film http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Born_Losers"Born Losers" is the first single by Matthew Good from his third solo album, Hospital Music...
, as well as several studio albums. 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
MGM Records
MGM Records was a record label started by the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio in 1946, for the purpose of releasing soundtrack albums of their musical films. Later it became a pop label, lasting into the 1970s...
in the early '70s, continuing his association with Curb, but after that his career faltered.
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
Ramones
The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group...
songs, done Ventures-style.
Today, Allan enjoys a strong cult following, and continues to record and play concerts sporadically.
Musical legacy
Link WrayLink Wray
Fred Lincoln "Link" Wray Jr was an American rock and roll guitarist, songwriter and occasional singer....
invented the vocabulary of modern electric guitarists, but Davie Allan was a minor pioneer in his own right. He is often overlooked, chronologically caught between Wray's more innovative work of the late 1950s and early 1960s, and Jimi Hendrix
Jimi Hendrix
James Marshall "Jimi" Hendrix was an American guitarist and singer-songwriter...
's unrivaled technical brilliance of the late 1960s.
Allan's most notable contribution is the creation of the fuzz sound. While Link Wray was the pioneer of guitar distortion
Distortion
A distortion is the alteration of the original shape of an object, image, sound, waveform or other form of information or representation. Distortion is usually unwanted, and often many methods are employed to minimize it in practice...
, Allan pushed it to a new level, distorting his signal so much as to give his guitar tone a buzzing, grinding quality: “fuzzy.” Guitar sounds along similar lines would become a staple of 1970s 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
Sonic Youth is an American alternative rock band from New York City, formed in 1981. The current lineup consists of Thurston Moore , Kim Gordon , Lee Ranaldo , Steve Shelley , and Mark Ibold .In their early career, Sonic Youth was associated with the No Wave art and music scene in New York City...
.
Allan is also notable for being what has been called the missing link between surf music and the likes of garage rock
Garage rock
Garage rock is a raw form of rock and roll that was first popular in the United States and Canada from about 1963 to 1967. During the 1960s, it was not recognized as a separate music genre and had no specific name...
, 1960s punk and whacked-out psychedelia. 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 1970s and 1980s.
FUZ
The closest thing to a book about Davie Allan & the Arrows that exists is FUZ issue #1, a zineZine
A zine is most commonly a small circulation publication of original or appropriated texts and images. More broadly, the term encompasses any self-published work of minority interest usually reproduced via photocopier....
by Seth Wimpfheimer. 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).