Released: 1963
They don’t do much surfing in Minneapolis, but The Trashmen found themselves not out in the cold for too long. A quartet featuring Dal Winslow, Bob Reed, Tony Andreason and Steve Wahrer on drums, they named themselves after a honky-tonk song written by city contemporary Kai Ray called Trashman’s Blues, a dirty reference for a clean cut band.
This being an era which, like all the ones which produce great leaps forward in culture, everybody was borrowing cues off everybody else, there was a degree of spontaneity to the creation of Surfin’ Bird that owed much to admiration-as-theft. Doo wop outfit The Rivingtons released the nonsense rhyme Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow in 1962 and then followed it up with the further novelty The Bird’s The Word, and their practical similarities were enough to spawn a slightly demented rock n’ roll hybrid a year later.
A hard gigging outfit, one night during the summer of 1963 The Trashmen were playing Chubb’s Ballroom in Minnesota, when they improvised a soldered together version of both the Rivigton’s tunes. Part way through Wahrer then began to ad-lib, the gibberish somehow adding to the slightly manic feel. Once finally recorded it captured some of rock n’ rolls more primal urges, an outing with an edge that hinted a little at madness; no wonder it became a staple of The Cramps live set.
They don’t surf much in Minneapolis. But they do love a strange, good time.
The Voice Of Unreason 
Sorry, but no!
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