3 Balls of Fire

Jet Set Guitars (Deep Eddy)

With their latest shaken-and-stirred salvo, local surf-rock institution 3 Balls of Fire takes a more sophisticated tack that evokes Palm Springs as much as Redondo Beach. Guitarist Mike Vernon and crew prove their endless summer mettle right off the bat with staccato-fueled “Wild Fire,” but they also take a cue from venerable instrumental rockers like the Ventures and branch out. The vibraphone-heavy title track cultivates a boozy, adult-contemporary mood that wouldn’t be out of place between Les Baxter and Herb Alpert. “1970” acknowledges the hazy echo of psychedelia as a flash-fried drive-in movie score, then p(l)ays tribute to West Texas-bred proto-surf rockers the Fireballs with a jaunty version of “Las Vegas Scene” featuring pianist Earl Poole Ball. A wordless cover of the Beach Boys’ “God Only Knows” sounds cherry-picked from a vintage LP of 1960s instrumental gold. As its title implies, Jet Set Guitars goes to places a surfboard can’t take you to.

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This article appears in April 11 • 2008.

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Greg Beets was born in Lubbock on the day Richard Nixon was elected president. He has covered music for the Chronicle since 1992, writing about everyone from Roky Erickson to Yanni. Beets has also written for Billboard,Uncut, Blurt, Elmore, and Pop Culture Press. Before his digestive tract cried uncle, he co-published Hey! Hey! Buffet!, an award-winning fanzine about all-you-can-eat buffets.