185-641: The Aquabats are an American rock band formed in Huntington Beach, California , in 1994. Throughout many fluctuations in the group's line-up, singer the MC Bat Commander and bassist Crash McLarson have remained the band's two constant fixtures. As of 2024, the Aquabats' members include saxophonist Jimmy the Robot , drummer Ricky Fitness , guitarists Eaglebones Falconhawk and Chainsaw,
370-461: A symphony orchestra , the horn section is the group of symphonic musicians who play the French horn (or German horn or Vienna horn ). These musicians are typically seated to the back of the ensemble and may be on either side at the director's discretion. Placing them to the left with their bells toward the audience increases the prominence of the section, whereas on the right, the sound reflects off
555-529: A July 2007 news update announced that preliminary recording had already begun, no new material ever surfaced from these sessions or was ever performed live. As the band resumed touring throughout the United States and Europe, fewer updates were reported on the album's progress until all plans were abruptly ceased in April 2009, when The Aquabats were dropped from Nitro Records due to "trying economic times and
740-509: A brief hiatus in January 2007 to focus on writing their next album. During this period, Jacobs had been pursuing a career in television production with his creative partner and longtime Aquabats collaborator Scott Schultz , independently filming prospective pilots for family television shows. In 2007, Jacobs and Schultz successfully sold one of their pilots, a preschooler show called Yo Gabba Gabba! , to Viacom ' s Nick Jr. Channel . As
925-514: A certain degree doesn't care if it's popular. — Bill Wyman in Vulture (2016) The sound of rock is traditionally centered on the amplified electric guitar, which emerged in its modern form in the 1950s with the popularity of rock and roll. It was also greatly influenced by the sounds of electric blues guitarists. The sound of an electric guitar in rock music is typically supported by an electric bass guitar, which pioneered jazz music in
1110-643: A comic book aesthetic by incorporating onstage stunts and mock battles with costumed villains, antics which were originally ploys to get the band's friends into shows for free. Jacobs' brothers Parker and Tyler, a cartoonist and graphic artist , respectively, were brought in to help develop the band's cartoon-influenced visual style, designing their logos and promotional material as well as playing characters in The Aquabats' stage shows and mythology. In 1995, The Aquabats independently produced and recorded their debut album, The Return of The Aquabats , pressing
1295-514: A comprehensive mythology reflected in the band's music, stage shows and promotional material in which the members are in fact a team of musical crimefighters on a quest to save the world. Detailed in their lyrics, liner notes , website and television series , The Aquabats have developed a small but elaborate fictional universe surrounding this mythology, describing the band's fictitious history and outlandish adventures as well as conceiving an extensive roster of enemies and allies, many of whom are
1480-407: A continuation of season two. These three specials aired from December 21, 2013, to January 14, 2014. In a Huffington Post feature on the band prior to the 2014 San Diego Comic-Con , Jacobs revealed that The Hub had opted not to renew The Aquabats! Super Show! for another season following extensive network rebranding by Hasbro and Discovery, effectively canceling the series. Jacobs admitted he
1665-413: A deliberate thing [to stop playing ska], but I think it just naturally happened because there's a lot of different styles of music that we play. I've always been into bands like Ween and things like that, that can chameleon-like drift from genre to genre and play whatever music they want...there's no boundaries. If you set yourself up as a punk band, then you pretty much just have to play punk. Or if you're
1850-400: A different set of matching costumes for every concert, ranging from chef's uniforms to grass skirts and fezzes , all with an individual persona — during one show wearing chef outfits, for instance, the band hosted an actual onstage barbecue . When the group's props and get-ups soon became more cumbersome to transport than their musical equipment, it was ultimately decided a singular costume
2035-519: A fondness for a good beat, a meaningful lyric with some wit, and the theme of youth, which holds an "eternal attraction" so objective "that all youth music partakes of sociology and the field report ." Writing in Christgau's Record Guide: The '80s (1990), he said this sensibility is evident in the music of folk singer-songwriter Michelle Shocked , rapper LL Cool J , and synth-pop duo Pet Shop Boys —"all kids working out their identities"—as much as it
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#17327807739462220-481: A foundation of simple syncopated rhythms in a 4 meter , with a repetitive snare drum back beat on beats two and four. Melodies often originate from older musical modes such as the Dorian and Mixolydian , as well as major and minor modes. Harmonies range from the common triad to parallel perfect fourths and fifths and dissonant harmonic progressions. Since the late 1950s, and particularly from
2405-628: A frequent addition to the established rock format of guitars, bass, and drums in subsequent progressive rock. Instrumentals were common, while songs with lyrics were sometimes conceptual, abstract, or based in fantasy and science fiction. The Pretty Things ' SF Sorrow (1968), the Kinks' Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (1969), and the Who 's Tommy (1969) introduced
2590-630: A key feature of psychedelia. Psychedelic rock reached its apogee in the last years of the decade. 1967 saw the Beatles release their definitive psychedelic statement in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band , including the controversial track " Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds ", the Rolling Stones responded later that year with Their Satanic Majesties Request , and Pink Floyd debuted with The Piper at
2775-473: A live recording of a 2018 performance of The Fury of The Aquabats! , as exclusive digital downloads for Kickstarter backers. In June, preceded by the release of the single "Cobraman Theme!", The Aquabats! Super Show! Television Soundtrack: Volume One was given a wide physical release on The Aquabats' self-operated label Gloopy Records, premiering at 165 on the Billboard 200 and number one on Top Heatseekers,
2960-573: A loud amplified sound, often centered on the electric guitar, based on the Chicago blues , particularly after the tour of Britain by Muddy Waters in 1958, which prompted Cyril Davies and guitarist Alexis Korner to form the band Blues Incorporated . The band involved and inspired many of the figures of the subsequent British blues boom, including members of the Rolling Stones and Cream , combining blues standards and forms with rock instrumentation and emphasis. The other key focus for British blues
3145-587: A mainstream audience with hits including " Blowin' in the Wind " (1963) and " Masters of War " (1963), which brought " protest songs " to a wider public, but, although beginning to influence each other, rock and folk music had remained largely separate genres, often with mutually exclusive audiences. Early attempts to combine elements of folk and rock included the Animals' " House of the Rising Sun " (1964), which
3330-431: A major band announcement, The Aquabats launched a high-profile Kickstarter campaign with the goal of raising a minimum of $ 1.1 million to help finance an entire return season of The Aquabats! Super Show! , as well as the production and release of three albums: a new studio album, a Super Show! soundtrack and a re-recorded greatest hits compilation. The campaign video featured a slew of celebrity cameos voicing support for
3515-495: A major element of progressive rock. From about 1967 bands like Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience had moved away from purely blues-based music into psychedelia . By the 1970s, blues rock had become heavier and more riff-based, exemplified by the work of Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple , and the lines between blues rock and hard rock "were barely visible", as bands began recording rock-style albums. The genre
3700-429: A major influence on subsequent electronic rock . With the advent of punk rock and technological changes in the late 1970s, progressive rock was increasingly dismissed as pretentious and overblown. Many bands broke up, but some, including Genesis, ELP, Yes, and Pink Floyd, regularly scored top ten albums with successful accompanying worldwide tours. Some bands which emerged in the aftermath of punk, such as Siouxsie and
3885-420: A mere 35 on Billboard ' s Top Heatseekers. Despite the album's underwhelming performance, Goldenvoice nevertheless granted The Aquabats a small budget for a music video, which the band instead used to film a five-minute promotional video as another prospective television pilot, The Aquabats! In Color! , an action-oriented series styled similarly to Japanese tokusatsu shows. Despite potential interest from
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#17327807739464070-410: A more basic form of rock and roll that incorporated its original influences, particularly blues, country and folk music, leading to the creation of country rock and Southern rock. In 1966 Bob Dylan went to Nashville to record the album Blonde on Blonde . This, and subsequent more clearly country-influenced albums, such as Nashville Skyline , have been seen as creating the genre of country folk ,
4255-486: A multibillion-dollar industry and doubling its market while, as Christgau noted, suffering a significant "loss of cultural prestige". "Maybe the Bee Gees became more popular than the Beatles, but they were never more popular than Jesus ", he said. "Insofar as the music retained any mythic power, the myth was self-referential – there were lots of songs about the rock and roll life but very few about how rock could change
4440-429: A musically oriented program, Yo Gabba Gabba! featured several guest appearances by The Aquabats, appearing onscreen performing both old and new songs and starring in various sketches. The series went on to become an award-winning international sensation, bringing a generous amount of media attention towards both Jacobs and The Aquabats, just enough to persuade Gabba ' s production company Wild Brain to help produce
4625-589: A national phenomenon. It is often argued that the surf music craze and the careers of almost all surf acts was effectively ended by the arrival of the British Invasion from 1964, because most surf music hits were recorded and released between 1960 and 1965. By the end of 1962, what would become the British rock scene had started with beat groups like the Beatles , Gerry & the Pacemakers and
4810-534: A new pilot again based on the band. Shot on location throughout California in early 2008, The Aquabats' third television pilot, titled The Aquabats! Super Show! , was a fully realized half-hour episode featuring both live-action and animated storylines starring and featuring original music by the band. The Aquabats spent the remainder of 2008 heavily promoting the Super Show! pilot through extensive viral advertising and further touring, including appearances at
4995-494: A part of Orange County's burgeoning third wave ska scene, much of the band's early material was rooted in the genre. Boasting an eight-piece line-up featuring two lead guitarists , a keyboardist and a horn section consisting of two trumpets and a saxophone , The Aquabats' style of ska was primarily driven by brass and guitar, incorporating elements of surf rock and punk rock . Their second album, 1997's The Fury of The Aquabats! , while still predominantly ska-based, found
5180-497: A positive audience reception, The Aquabats started performing more local shows, soon becoming familiar faces within the Orange County underground. With professionalism far from foremost concern, The Aquabats' earliest band line-ups changed with almost every concert, occasionally featuring as many as twelve to fourteen musicians at a time onstage, with the majority typically playing brass instruments. As they gradually developed
5365-459: A preacher, prosecutions of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry and the breaking of the payola scandal (which implicated major figures, including Alan Freed, in bribery and corruption in promoting individual acts or songs), gave a sense that the rock and roll era established at that point had come to an end. Rock quickly spread out from its origins in the US, associated with the rapid Americanization that
5550-444: A prog rock influence and while ranking among the most commercially successful acts of the 1970s, heralding the era of pomp or arena rock , which would last until the costs of complex shows (often with theatrical staging and special effects), would be replaced by more economical rock festivals as major live venues in the 1990s. The instrumental strand of the genre resulted in albums like Mike Oldfield 's Tubular Bells (1973),
5735-420: A punk rock and new wave sound greatly influenced by Devo and Oingo Boingo , two of The Aquabats' biggest inspirations. The band also began widening their genre experimentation to encompass such disparate styles as electronica , synthpop and even hip-hop , elements which persist in their sound to present day. During The Aquabats' career lull in the early 2000s, several of the band's key members departed from
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5920-472: A record label. After an unsuccessful search for a new label, the band eventually turned to the Internet to independently manage and promote themselves while the members resumed their day jobs to continue funding the band. Jacobs likened the experience to a superhero's alter ego , working by day and fighting crime [read: being an Aquabat] by night. While The Aquabats could not secure a proper recording contract,
6105-446: A rigidly delineated musical definition." In the opinion of music journalist Robert Christgau , "the best rock jolts folk-art virtues—directness, utility, natural audience—into the present with shots of modern technology and modernist dissociation ". Rock and roll was conceived as an outlet for adolescent yearnings ... To make rock and roll is also an ideal way to explore intersections of sex, love, violence, and fun, to broadcast
6290-625: A rock-informed album era in the music industry for the next several decades. By the late 1960s " classic rock " period, a few distinct rock music subgenres had emerged, including hybrids like blues rock , folk rock , country rock , Southern rock , raga rock , and jazz rock , which contributed to the development of psychedelic rock , influenced by the countercultural psychedelic and hippie scene . New genres that emerged included progressive rock , which extended artistic elements, heavy metal , which emphasized an aggressive thick sound, and glam rock , which highlighted showmanship and visual style. In
6475-721: A route pursued by a number of largely acoustic folk musicians. Other acts that followed the back-to-basics trend were the Canadian group the Band and the California-based Creedence Clearwater Revival , both of which mixed basic rock and roll with folk, country and blues, to be among the most successful and influential bands of the late 1960s. The same movement saw the beginning of the recording careers of Californian solo artists like Ry Cooder , Bonnie Raitt and Lowell George , and influenced
6660-496: A ska album, The Fury showcased a more ambitious musical streak than The Return , incorporating stronger elements of punk and surf, as well as featuring instrumentals , parodies of ragtime and tango music , and a variety of unconventional instruments including sousaphones and banjos . Released at the commercial height of the American ska revival, The Fury earned The Aquabats minor mainstream success, peaking at number 172 on
6845-410: A ska band, you just play ska". Chad Larson, speaking on the same matter, explained "Having the same guitar rhythm for every song gets kind of boring...even on the earlier albums that had ska rhythms we were focusing more on the 'adventure' songs than really 'ska' songs. So as we grew as musicians, we wanted to experiment with different rhythms", adding "we were never really a good ska band anyway". Since
7030-481: A slogan one only began to hear in 1972 or so, mobilized all those eager to believe that idealism had become passe, and once they were mobilized, it had. In popular music, embracing the '70s meant both an elitist withdrawal from the messy concert and counterculture scene and a profiteering pursuit of the lowest common denominator in FM radio and album rock . Rock saw greater commodification during this decade, turning into
7215-567: A steady following and began playing shows with more regularity, the band settled into a tighter and more manageable unit consisting of around eight to nine musicians, filled out by a horn section , two guitarists and a keyboardist. It was with this type of line-up that The Aquabats began recording, independently producing the demo tapes The Revenge of the Midget Punchers in 1994 and Bat Boy in 1995. Initially, The Aquabats intended to make each of their performances unique by wearing
7400-534: A struggling musical landscape", according to Jacobs. With a glum confirmation of "no record company, no record", The Aquabats' future seemed once again shadowed in doubt. Despite the lack of a record label, The Aquabats continued to tour internationally throughout 2010 and 2011, headlining tours of the United States and the United Kingdom, as well as appearing at the 2010 Soundwave festival in Australia —
7585-530: A style which has also been described as some publications as " nerd rock " owing to the band's lyrical emphasis on pop culture. In recent years, The Aquabats have introduced an increased presence of keyboards and synthesizers into this style, with critics noting their 2011 album Hi-Five Soup! as featuring more noticeable elements of synthpop and electronica. Although the band continues to incorporate occasional elements of ska into their music, The Aquabats have since distanced themselves from their association with
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7770-555: A tentative release date beyond "later this year". The album's official title, Kooky Spooky...In Stereo , was revealed in February 2020, followed by the album's second single, the couch potato -themed "Pajamazon!", on April 10. Inspired by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic in the United States , which necessitated mass self- quarantining and social distancing , "Pajamazon!" was promoted by a music video primarily made up of self-submitted videos of fans and friends of The Aquabats dancing to
7955-476: A total of eight Daytime Emmy Award nominations and ultimately winning one. Following a successful Kickstarter campaign, the series was independently revived as a YouTube series from 2019 to 2021. In the early 1990s, musicians Christian Jacobs , Chad Larson and Boyd Terry met and befriended each other while living in Brea, California . Having all been active in various local punk and alternative rock bands,
8140-464: A variety of directions, including Dylan and the Byrds, who began to develop country rock . However, the hybridization of folk and rock has been seen as having a major influence on the development of rock music, bringing in elements of psychedelia, and helping to develop the ideas of the singer-songwriter, the protest song, and concepts of "authenticity". Psychedelic music's LSD -inspired vibe began in
8325-529: A variety of sources such as the Tin Pan Alley pop tradition, folk music , and rhythm and blues . Christgau characterizes rock lyrics as a "cool medium" with simple diction and repeated refrains, and asserts that rock's primary "function" "pertains to music, or, more generally, noise ." The predominance of white, male, and often middle class musicians in rock music has often been noted, and rock has been seen as an appropriation of Black musical forms for
8510-501: A young, white and largely male audience. As a result, it has also been seen to articulate the concerns of this group in both style and lyrics. Christgau, writing in 1972, said in spite of some exceptions, "rock and roll usually implies an identification of male sexuality and aggression". Since the term "rock" started being used in preference to "rock and roll" from the late-1960s, it has usually been contrasted with pop music, with which it has shared many characteristics, but from which it
8695-423: Is centered on the electric guitar , usually as part of a rock group with electric bass guitar , drums , and one or more singers. Usually, rock is song-based music with a 4 time signature using a verse–chorus form , but the genre has become extremely diverse. Like pop music , lyrics often stress romantic love but also address a wide variety of other themes that are frequently social or political. Rock
8880-540: Is credited with first using the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the music. Four years later, Bill Haley 's " Rock Around the Clock " (1954) became the first rock and roll song to top Billboard magazine's main sales and airplay charts, and opened the door worldwide for this new wave of popular culture. Other artists with early rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry , Bo Diddley , Fats Domino , Little Richard , Jerry Lee Lewis , and Gene Vincent . Soon rock and roll
9065-472: Is generally agreed that garage rock peaked both commercially and artistically around 1966. By 1968 the style largely disappeared from the national charts and at the local level as amateur musicians faced college, work or the draft . New styles had evolved to replace garage rock. Although the first impact of the British Invasion on American popular music was through beat and R&B based acts,
9250-555: Is in the music of Chuck Berry , the Ramones , and the Replacements . The foundations of rock music are in rock and roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and quickly spread to much of the rest of the world. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various black musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music , with country and western . Debate surrounds
9435-411: Is often distanced by an emphasis on musicianship, live performance, and a focus on serious and progressive themes as part of an ideology of authenticity that is frequently combined with an awareness of the genre's history and development. According to Simon Frith , rock was "something more than pop, something more than rock and roll" and "[r]ock musicians combined an emphasis on skill and technique with
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#17327807739469620-399: Is termed as a rock band or a rock group. Furthermore, it typically consists of between three (the power trio ) and five members. Classically, a rock band takes the form of a quartet whose members cover one or more roles, including vocalist, lead guitarist, rhythm guitarist, bass guitarist, drummer, and often keyboard player or another instrumentalist. Rock music is traditionally built on
9805-416: Is the Band." Horn section A horn section is a group of musicians playing horns . In an orchestra or concert band , it refers to the musicians who play the "French" horn , and in a British-style brass band it is the tenor horn players. In many popular music genres, the term is applied loosely to any group of woodwind or brass instruments, or a combination of woodwinds and brass. In
9990-486: The Billboard 200 and number 12 on its Top Heatseekers , while lead single " Super Rad! " found regular airplay on MTV and Los Angeles' influential KROQ-FM . On July 25, 1998, they fought the alien rock band Gwar during The Ska Parade. The Aquabats spent 1997 and 1998 touring extensively behind The Fury , carrying out both supporting and headlining tours of the United States and traveling internationally as part of
10175-535: The Billboard Hot 100 . The British Invasion greatly influenced garage bands, providing them with a national audience, leading many (often surf or hot rod groups) to adopt a British influence, and encouraging many more groups to form. Thousands of garage bands were extant in the United States and Canada during the era and hundreds produced regional hits. Despite scores of bands being signed to major or large regional labels, most were commercial failures. It
10360-524: The American folk music revival had grown to a major movement, using traditional music and new compositions in a traditional style, usually on acoustic instruments. In America the genre was pioneered by figures such as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger and often identified with progressive or labor politics . In the early sixties figures such as Joan Baez and Bob Dylan had come to the fore in this movement as singer-songwriters. Dylan had begun to reach
10545-480: The Fox Family Channel prior to their acquisition by Disney which cancelled all development deals, the pilot again failed to generate any interest, bringing The Aquabats' career to a standstill. Following the huge financial losses Goldenvoice suffered from the inaugural Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival in 1999, the company was eventually forced to cease operations, leaving the Aquabats without
10730-513: The G4 program Attack of the Show , performing Charge!! ' s lead single, " Fashion Zombies! ". While the following year would present even more lucrative touring opportunities for The Aquabats, the band's renewed success would also have its drawbacks. In May 2006, it was announced that guitarist Pollock had reluctantly departed the group after 12 years, claiming the band's increased touring activity
10915-541: The National Museum of African American History and Culture and confirming a new digital release date of August 21, 2020. On February 29, 2024, the band announced their seventh album, Finally! , as well as the return of Chainsaw The Prince of Karate and Catboy and introducing Gorney. The album dropped on June 21st. Over the course of their career, The Aquabats have experienced several radical evolutions in their sound and musical style. Having originally formed as
11100-682: The United Kingdom with Army of Freshmen supporting Bowling for Soup on their "Get Happy!" tour. In celebration of the 20th anniversary of 1997's The Fury of The Aquabats! , the band worked with veteran producer and engineer Cameron Webb on a complete remaster of the album which was independently released on vinyl and CD with bonus material on April 6, 2018. The following day, The Aquabats played two sold-out shows at Los Angeles' Fonda Theater where they performed The Fury of The Aquabats! in its entirety, joined by former members Pollock, Terry and Deibert. Notably, Travis Barker appeared during
11285-422: The garage rock / post-punk revival in the 2000s. Since the 2010s, rock has lost its position as the pre-eminent popular music genre in world culture, but remains commercially successful. The increased influence of hip-hop and electronic dance music can be seen in rock music, notably in the techno-pop scene of the early 2010s and the pop-punk-hip-hop revival of the 2020s. Rock has also embodied and served as
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#173278077394611470-417: The protest song , rock music has been associated with political activism , as well as changes in social attitudes to race, sex, and drug use, and is often seen as an expression of youth revolt against adult consumerism and conformity . At the same time, it has been commercially highly successful, leading to accusations of selling out . A good definition of rock, in fact, is that it's popular music that to
11655-454: The 1950s saw the growth in popularity of the electric guitar, and the development of a specifically rock and roll style of playing through such exponents as Chuck Berry, Link Wray , and Scotty Moore . The use of distortion , pioneered by Western swing guitarists such as Junior Barnard and Eldon Shamblin was popularized by Chuck Berry in the mid-1950s. The use of power chords , pioneered by Francisco Tárrega and Heitor Villa-Lobos in
11840-448: The 1960s Batman TV series, mixing live-action storylines with cartoon shorts, parody commercials and musical interludes featuring new original music and songs written and performed by the band. After spending the majority of 2011 in production, the first season of The Aquabats! Super Show! ran for thirteen episodes from March 3, 2012, to June 16, 2012, meeting with a largely positive critical reception and consistently high ratings for
12025-467: The 1998 Warped Tour . By this time, the band had settled into a stable touring line-up of Jacobs (The Bat Commander), Larson (Crash McLarson), Terry (Catboy), drummer Travis Barker (The Baron Von Tito), guitarists Charles Gray (Ultra Kyu) and Courtney Pollock (Chainsaw, the Prince of Karate), trumpeter Adam Deibert (Prince Adam) and keyboardist/saxophonist James Briggs (Jaime the Robot, later Jimmy
12210-467: The 19th century and later on by Willie Johnson and Pat Hare in the early 1950s, was popularized by Link Wray in the late 1950s. Commentators have traditionally perceived a decline of rock and roll in the late 1950s and early 1960s. By 1959, the death of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens in a plane crash, the departure of Elvis for the army, the retirement of Little Richard to become
12395-490: The 2008 San Diego Comic-Con , where the pilot was publicly debuted for fans, high-profile festivals including the Bamboozle Left and Groezrock in April 2009, and opening for Blink-182 on two dates of their 2009 reunion tour . Though The Aquabats continued to be a popular touring draw, the band experienced a tumultuous period of pre-production on their proposed fifth studio album lasting for nearly two years. Though
12580-450: The Aquabats have continuously evolved over the course of their career, initially starting as a ska band before reinventing themselves in the early 2000s as a new wave –influenced rock band. The band's current musical style mixes rock and punk with elements of new wave, ska and synth-pop . The Aquabats have released six studio albums, two extended plays, one compilation and one soundtrack album, among other recordings . To date, three of
12765-574: The Aquabats' albums have charted on the Billboard 200 : 1997's The Fury of The Aquabats! , 2011's Hi-Five Soup! and 2019's The Aquabats! Super Show! Television Soundtrack: Volume One . The Aquabats' seventh studio album, Finally! , was released on June 21, 2024. From 2012 to 2014, the Aquabats also created and starred in The Aquabats! Super Show! , a live-action musical action-comedy television series which aired on American cable channel The Hub . The series ran for three seasons, earning
12950-477: The Banshees , Ultravox , and Simple Minds , showed the influence of progressive rock, as well as their more usually recognized punk influences. In the late 1960s, jazz-rock emerged as a distinct subgenre out of the blues-rock, psychedelic, and progressive rock scenes, mixing the power of rock with the musical complexity and improvisational elements of jazz. AllMusic states that the term jazz-rock "may refer to
13135-628: The Beatles, demonstrating "to the rock generation in general that an album could be a major standalone statement without hit singles", such as on The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan (1963). Folk rock particularly took off in California, where it led acts like the Mamas & the Papas and Crosby, Stills, and Nash to move to electric instrumentation, and in New York, where it spawned performers including
13320-617: The Byrds ' shift from folk to folk rock from 1965. The psychedelic lifestyle, which revolved around hallucinogenic drugs, had already developed in San Francisco and particularly prominent products of the scene were Big Brother and the Holding Company , the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane . The Jimi Hendrix Experience 's lead guitarist, Jimi Hendrix did extended distorted, feedback-filled jams which became
13505-431: The Byrds adopted rock instrumentation, including drums and 12-string Rickenbacker guitars, which became a major element in the sound of the genre. Later that year Dylan adopted electric instruments, much to the outrage of many folk purists, with his " Like a Rolling Stone " becoming a US hit single. According to Ritchie Unterberger , Dylan (even before his adoption of electric instruments) influenced rock musicians like
13690-547: The CDs themselves. Having already amassed a sizable cult following for their increasingly eccentric live shows, the band managed to sell a respectable 20,000 copies of their album without any marketing or distribution. With the growing mainstream popularity of ska music, The Aquabats quickly rose to prominence within Orange County's booming ska scene, regularly touring alongside the likes of such commercially successful bands as No Doubt , Sublime and Reel Big Fish and bringing them to
13875-594: The Dominos , followed by an extensive solo career that helped bring blues rock into the mainstream. Green, along with the Bluesbreaker's rhythm section Mick Fleetwood and John McVie , formed Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac , who enjoyed some of the greatest commercial success in the genre. In the late 1960s Jeff Beck , also an alumnus of the Yardbirds, moved blues rock in the direction of heavy rock with his band,
14060-575: The East Coast. The following July, the band carried out five more dates across California, Washington and Oregon, then announced eleven more dates covering six states across the western half of the country. Following another stretch of relative inactivity for most of 2015 and 2016, The Aquabats announced a 13-date tour of the American Midwest and East Coast in May 2017, supported by Reggie and
14245-491: The Floating Eye of Death! , and its companion piece Myths, Legends, and Other Amazing Adventures, Vol. 2 , further exploring the multi-genre eclecticism which had been hinted at with The Fury . A conscious decision by the band to write more diverse material, these albums saw a near-complete forfeit of the brass-driven ska of their previous albums in favor of more guitar and synthesizer -structured songwriting, embracing
14430-422: The Floating Eye of Death! , marked an abrupt stylistic shift, completely abandoning the ska rhythms which dominated their previous albums in favor of more punk and new wave-influenced textures, emphasizing guitar and synthesizer -driven melodies over brass and woodwinds. With the total absence of The Aquabats' formerly marketable ska sound, Goldenvoice expressed mixed feelings over Floating Eye , reportedly telling
14615-656: The Full Effect , C. J. Ramone and Kepi Ghoulie , subsequently followed by a six-date tour of the West Coast in October with Dog Party . Ticket options for these shows included "Super Rad Packages" with bonus exclusive merchandise, most notably a split 7" single of full-length versions of the Super Show! songs " Burger Rain " and "Beat Fishin'", The Aquabats' first new studio recordings since 2011's Hi-Five Soup . In mid-February 2018, The Aquabats played nine dates in
14800-507: The Gates of Dawn . Key recordings included Jefferson Airplane's Surrealistic Pillow and the Doors ' self-titled debut album . These trends peaked in the 1969 Woodstock festival , which saw performances by most of the major psychedelic acts. Sgt. Pepper was later regarded as the greatest album of all time and a starting point for the album era , during which rock music transitioned from
14985-471: The Jeff Beck Group . The last Yardbirds guitarist was Jimmy Page , who went on to form The New Yardbirds which rapidly became Led Zeppelin . Many of the songs on their first three albums, and occasionally later in their careers, were expansions on traditional blues songs. In America, blues rock had been pioneered in the early 1960s by guitarist Lonnie Mack , but the genre began to take off in
15170-506: The Joint " (1949), also covered by Bill Haley & His Comets in 1952; and " Rocket 88 " by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (in fact, Ike Turner and his band the Kings of Rhythm ), recorded by Sam Phillips for Chess Records in 1951. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music (then termed " race music ") for a multi-racial audience, and
15355-503: The Lovin' Spoonful and Simon and Garfunkel , with the latter's acoustic " The Sounds of Silence " (1965) being remixed with rock instruments to be the first of many hits. These acts directly influenced British performers like Donovan and Fairport Convention . In 1969 Fairport Convention abandoned their mixture of American covers and Dylan-influenced songs to play traditional English folk music on electric instruments. This British folk-rock
15540-454: The Prince of Karate , trumpeter Cat Boy and keyboardist Gorney. Easily identified by their masks and matching costumes, the Aquabats are perhaps most recognized for their comedic persona in which they claim to be crime-fighting superheroes . This theme serves as subject for much of the band's music and as part of their theatrical stage shows, which typically feature various stunts and fight scenes with costumed villains and monsters. Musically,
15725-592: The Robot). This line-up would last The Aquabats up until 1998, when, in the middle of a tour with pop punk trio Blink-182 , Blink unexpectedly fired their drummer Scott Raynor and recruited Barker as a last-minute replacement to sit in for the rest of the tour. By the tour's close, the band was so impressed with Barker's performance that they invited him to join Blink-182 as a full-time member, an offer which Barker accepted, amicably parting ways with The Aquabats. Barker
15910-476: The Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds , were much more directly influenced by rhythm and blues and later blues music. Soon these groups were composing their own material, combining US forms of music and infusing it with a high energy beat. Beat bands tended towards "bouncy, irresistible melodies", while early British blues acts tended towards less sexually innocent, more aggressive songs, often adopting an anti-establishment stance. There was, however, particularly in
16095-588: The Searchers from Liverpool and Freddie and the Dreamers , Herman's Hermits and the Hollies from Manchester. They drew on a wide range of American influences including 1950s rock and roll, soul, rhythm and blues, and surf music, initially reinterpreting standard American tunes and playing for dancers. Bands like the Animals from Newcastle and Them from Belfast , and particularly those from London like
16280-672: The Seeds ) to near-studio musician quality (including the Knickerbockers , the Remains , and the Fifth Estate ). There were also regional variations in many parts of the country with flourishing scenes particularly in California and Texas. The Pacific Northwest states of Washington and Oregon had perhaps the most defined regional sound. The style had been evolving from regional scenes as early as 1958. "Tall Cool One" (1959) by
16465-724: The Southwestern United States. In April 2013, the band carried out a six-show tour of Europe and the United Kingdom, concluding with an appearance at the Groezrock punk rock festival in Belgium . The following June, The Aquabats were once again featured on the Warped Tour , though only played eight shows in the Southwest region. Despite playing a limited portion of the tour, the band were regularly featured on
16650-676: The US was becoming dominated by lightweight pop and ballads, British rock groups at clubs and local dances were developing a style more strongly influenced by blues-rock pioneers, and were starting to play with an intensity and drive seldom found in white American acts; this influence would go on to shape the future of rock music through the British Invasion . The first four years of the 1960s has traditionally been seen as an era of hiatus for rock and roll. More recently some authors have emphasised important innovations and trends in this period without which future developments would not have been possible. While early rock and roll, particularly through
16835-619: The USSR and South Africa from 1955 to 1957, influencing the globalisation of rock. Johnny O'Keefe 's 1958 record " Wild One " was one of the earliest Australian rock and roll hits. By the late 1950s, as well as in the American-influenced Western world, rock was popular in communist states such as Yugoslavia, and the USSR, as well as in regions such as South America. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, American blues music and blues rock artists, who had been surpassed by
17020-470: The United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, developing into a range of different styles from the mid-1960s, particularly in the United States and the United Kingdom. It has its roots in rock and roll, a style that drew directly from the genres of blues , rhythm and blues , and country music . Rock also drew strongly from genres such as electric blues and folk , and incorporated influences from jazz and other musical styles. For instrumentation, rock
17205-751: The Wailers and " Louie Louie " by the Kingsmen (1963) are mainstream examples of the genre in its formative stages. By 1963, garage band singles were creeping into the national charts in greater numbers, including Paul Revere and the Raiders (Boise), the Trashmen (Minneapolis) and the Rivieras (South Bend, Indiana). Other influential garage bands, such as the Sonics (Tacoma, Washington), never reached
17390-527: The advent of rockabilly, saw the greatest commercial success for male and white performers, in this era, the genre was dominated by black and female artists. Rock and roll had not disappeared entirely from music at the end of the 1950s and some of its energy can be seen in the various dance crazes of the early 1960s, started by Chubby Checker 's record " The Twist " (1960). Some music historians have also pointed to important and innovative technical developments that built on rock and roll in this period, including
17575-442: The audience, with The Aquabats ultimately winning most—but not all—encounters. For some performances, in place of a villain, The Aquabats will feature a sketch with one of their "allies": for example, to segue into their song "Magic Chicken", the titular character— a man in a chicken suit — will come onstage to hand out fried chicken to audience members. Audience participation is a common element of The Aquabats' stage shows. Both
17760-853: The back of the stage. Most of the time, players are seated right to left from the director's view based on seating, with the principal horn (first horn) being seated on the right and fourth horn seated on the left. The section is ordered in this way so the principal horn may be heard by all players, as the principal sets the timbre and intonation of the section. Horn sections are an integral part of musical genres such as jazz , R&B , blues , soul , funk , calypso , Afrobeat , and gospel . Most of these horn sections feature some combination of saxophones, trumpets and trombones. More rarely, other wind or brass instruments such as flute , clarinet or tuba may be added. Other popular musical genres , such as rock , pop , hip-hop , latin , and country music also use horn sections. When only woodwinds are involved,
17945-409: The band and their onstage characters regularly interact with the crowd, including initiating mass games of beach ball volleyball or spraying them with substances like Silly String and fire extinguishers. Additionally, a few of The Aquabats' enemies are known only to be "defeated" by fans by being pelted with projectiles supplied by the band, usually large quantities of plastic balls . Acknowledging
18130-570: The band did negotiate a distribution deal with Fearless Records , releasing a collection of outtakes and demos from the Floating Eye sessions entitled Myths, Legends, and Other Amazing Adventures, Vol. 2 before slipping back into a period of relative inactivity. With a lack of label support leaving the band to finance themselves entirely out of pocket, The Aquabats indefinitely postponed all plans for future recording or extensive touring, limiting their activity primarily to sporadic shows in
18315-450: The band starting to expand their sound into newer territory, featuring more pronounced punk and surf influences and tongue-in-cheek experimentalism, including several instrumentals , pastiches of ragtime and tango music and the utilization of such unconventional instruments as clarinets , electric sitars and even manualism . In 1999, The Aquabats underwent a significant shift in style for their third studio album, The Aquabats vs.
18500-453: The band that the album had no potential single material and would be difficult to promote. In a 2005 interview, Larson retrospectively lamented upon Floating Eye ' s lack of a commercial sound, noting that while he and the band felt the material was strong, it "probably wasn't the record we should have put out at that time". True to their predictions, Floating Eye failed to match the commercial success of its predecessor, charting only at
18685-490: The band which introduce and close each show, as well as fake commercials for fictional Aquabats-brand products which serve as impromptu " commercial breaks " between songs. These visuals, along with the band's props and costumes, are regularly changed to accommodate special seasonal performances, in particular The Aquabats' annual holiday shows. Perhaps even more so than for their music, The Aquabats are widely recognized for their eccentric superhero identity which adheres to
18870-453: The band would release their first DVD, Serious Awesomeness! , featuring a full live performance filmed in Pomona, California , and numerous clips spanning their entire career. In 2004, with almost five years passed since having released any official studio material, The Aquabats independently recorded and released the five-track EP Yo! Check Out This Ride! as an attempt to both satisfy
19055-439: The band's fanbase and serve as a potential demo to attract interest from record labels. As their first recording with only six members and no use of a horn section, Yo! Check Out This Ride! marked the most drastic shift yet in The Aquabats' sound, taking the band even further into keyboard-driven rock and new wave-influenced songwriting. This would also mark Deibert's final recording with the band, as he would officially retire from
19240-485: The band's first ever visit to the continent. In August 2010, The Aquabats suddenly announced on their website that they would be independently releasing their next studio album in November of that year. However, following a last-minute distribution deal with Fearless Records , the album's release date was postponed to 2011 to provide for proper marketing and promotion, and an EP containing its first single, Radio Down! ,
19425-408: The band's highest placement on each chart to date. Starting September 28, 2019, The Aquabats! Super Show! was officially relaunched as a biweekly YouTube-exclusive web series entitled The Aquabats! RadVentures! . "Skeleton Inside!", the first single from The Aquabats' sixth studio album, premiered on the band's YouTube channel on October 25, 2019, though did not make mention of an album title or
19610-405: The band's live shows, while Palmer was replaced by former Assorted Jelly Beans drummer Ricky Falomir (Ricky Fitness). With this more stable and compact line-up, The Aquabats returned to the studio to record original music for Evan Dorkin ' s Welcome to Eltingville , a 2002 animated television pilot which aired on Adult Swim but was ultimately not picked up as a series. The following year,
19795-498: The band's shift in genre, Charge!! effectively revitalized The Aquabats' career as the band recommitted themselves to regular touring. Days after the album's release, The Aquabats headlined a successful 34-city tour of the United States with similarly theatrical bands The Epoxies and The Phenomenauts , followed by tours of the United Kingdom and Japan, the latter supporting Nitro Records founders The Offspring . On September 23, 2005, The Aquabats made their national television debut on
19980-533: The band, though most prominently featured actor and musician Jack Black , who was confirmed by Billboard to serve as executive producer for the series' return. Along with the launch of the Kickstarter, The Aquabats began releasing a series of metafictional Super Show! "mini-episodes" exclusively to their YouTube channel, depicting the MC Bat Commander's quest to reunite the estranged Aquabats following their show's cancellation. By August 28, mere days before
20165-442: The belief that it could possibly be their last album. After several months of production and much online hype, The Aquabats released their fourth album, Charge!! , on July 7, 2005. Continuing with the direction set by Yo! Check Out This Ride! , Charge!! was a bold introduction to The Aquabats' new musical style of guitar-driven, new wave-influenced rock. Released to a largely positive critical reception with many critics praising
20350-585: The biggest selling rock band of all time and they were followed into the US charts by numerous British bands. During the next two years British acts dominated their own and the US charts with Peter and Gordon , the Animals, Manfred Mann , Petula Clark , Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders , Herman's Hermits, the Rolling Stones, the Troggs , and Donovan all having one or more number one singles. Other major acts that were part of
20535-504: The brink of achieving mainstream recognition. By late 1996, propelled by the multi-platinum success of No Doubt and Sublime, ska had broken through into the American mainstream to become one of the most popular forms of alternative music. With record labels now turning their attention towards ska bands, The Aquabats were promptly signed to Goldenvoice Records and released their second album, The Fury of The Aquabats! , in October 1997 through Time Bomb Recordings . While still predominantly
20720-433: The campaign's end date of September 1, the Kickstarter had only raised $ 601,629 of the band's desired $ 1.1 million goal. The funding was voluntarily cancelled and the campaign was significantly restructured, resurrected the same day with a new goal of $ 100,000 for a new album and continuing production of Super Show! "mini-episodes". The $ 100,000 mark was met within minutes and the project ultimately raised over $ 600,000, which
20905-405: The chart. Their first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964, drawing an estimated 73 million viewers (at the time a record for an American television program) is considered a milestone in American pop culture. During the week of 4 April 1964, the Beatles held 12 positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, including the entire top five. The Beatles went on to become
21090-462: The concept to several networks, Buena Vista Television eventually agreed to help produce a short live-action pilot in 1998, directed by comedian Bobcat Goldthwait . Titled simply The Aquabats! , the pilot followed the fictional misadventures of the eight band members in an intentionally campy style similar to Saturday morning cartoon shows. The pilot, which has yet to be made available for public viewing, failed to attract any network interest and
21275-424: The delights and limitations of the regional , and to deal with the depredations and benefits of mass culture itself. — Robert Christgau in Christgau's Record Guide (1981) Unlike many earlier styles of popular music, rock lyrics have dealt with a wide range of themes, including romantic love, sex, rebellion against " The Establishment ", social concerns, and life styles. These themes were inherited from
21460-599: The earliest days of the band, The Aquabats have earned a reputation for their theatrical live performances featuring a variety of comedic stunts and antics based around their superhero-themed persona. During the 1990s, when their concerts were at their most elaborately staged, a typical Aquabats performance would often include choreographed fight scenes with costumed villains, the use of numerous props, acrobatic stunts and varying degrees of pyrotechnics , ranging from small fireworks to The MC Bat Commander fire breathing . While many of these elements were eventually phased out of
21645-455: The early 1970s among existing blues-rock and psychedelic bands, as well as newly formed acts. The vibrant Canterbury scene saw acts following Soft Machine from psychedelia, through jazz influences, toward more expansive hard rock, including Caravan , Hatfield and the North , Gong , and National Health . The French group Magma around drummer Christian Vander almost single-handedly created
21830-460: The early 1970s, Robert Christgau wrote in Christgau's Record Guide: Rock Albums of the Seventies (1981): The decade is, of course, an arbitrary schema itself—time doesn't just execute a neat turn toward the future every ten years. But like a lot of artificial concepts—money, say—the category does take on a reality of its own once people figure out how to put it to work. "The '60s are over,"
22015-462: The early stages, considerable musical crossover between the two tendencies. By 1963, led by the Beatles, beat groups had begun to achieve national success in Britain, soon to be followed into the charts by the more rhythm and blues focused acts. " I Want to Hold Your Hand " was the Beatles' first number one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 , spending seven weeks at the top and a total of 15 weeks on
22200-519: The electronic treatment of sound by such innovators as Joe Meek , and the elaborate production methods of the Wall of Sound pursued by Phil Spector . The instrumental rock and roll of performers such as Duane Eddy , Link Wray and the Ventures was further developed by Dick Dale , who added distinctive "wet" reverb , rapid alternate picking, and Middle Eastern and Mexican influences. He produced
22385-477: The evening show to play three songs as his Baron von Tito persona, marking the first time Barker had performed with the band since 1998. Three weeks later on April 28, this extended line-up performed as part of Barker and John Feldmann 's Back To The Beach ska festival in Huntington State Beach , where Barker again joined the band for three songs. On July 31, 2018, after several weeks of teasing
22570-581: The example set by the Beatles ' 1965 LP Rubber Soul in particular, other British rock acts released rock albums intended as artistic statements in 1966, including the Rolling Stones ' Aftermath , the Beatles' own Revolver , and the Who 's A Quick One , as well as American acts in the Beach Boys ( Pet Sounds ) and Bob Dylan ( Blonde on Blonde ). Garage rock was a raw form of rock music, particularly prevalent in North America in
22755-498: The first record, and worldwide hit, for the Virgin Records label, which became a mainstay of the genre. Instrumental rock was particularly significant in continental Europe, allowing bands like Kraftwerk , Tangerine Dream , Can , Focus (band) and Faust to circumvent the language barrier. Their synthesiser-heavy " krautrock ", along with the work of Brian Eno (for a time the keyboard player with Roxy Music ), would be
22940-455: The folk scene. The first group to advertise themselves as psychedelic rock were the 13th Floor Elevators from Texas. The Beatles introduced many of the major elements of the psychedelic sound to audiences in this period, such as guitar feedback , the Indian sitar and backmasking sound effects . Psychedelic rock particularly took off in California's emerging music scene as groups followed
23125-513: The format of rock operas and opened the door to concept albums , often telling an epic story or tackling a grand overarching theme. King Crimson 's 1969 début album, In the Court of the Crimson King , which mixed powerful guitar riffs and mellotron , with jazz and symphonic music , is often taken as the key recording in progressive rock, helping the widespread adoption of the genre in
23310-417: The group later in the year, reducing The Aquabats to a quintet. In the summer of 2004, The Aquabats were signed to independent label Nitro Records and began work on a new studio album in the fall. Despite this fortuitous turn of events, the group were still uncertain of their future following their semi-hiatus and radical shift in line-up; Jacobs later admitted that the band spent the recording sessions under
23495-483: The idea of matching costumes. Jacobs simply recalled in a 2013 interview, "We wanted to combine Devo with surf music and ska". Rehearsing only once in a house Jacobs and Larson shared at the time, The Aquabats played their first show a mere week after forming at a house party in August 1994. Larson remembered this show as merely "a joke...we weren't trying to be a band. We were trying to have fun". Nevertheless, encouraged by
23680-458: The impetus was soon taken up by a second wave of bands that drew their inspiration more directly from American blues , including the Rolling Stones and the Yardbirds . British blues musicians of the late 1950s and early 1960s had been inspired by the acoustic playing of figures such as Lead Belly , who was a major influence on the Skiffle craze, and Robert Johnson . Increasingly they adopted
23865-467: The invasion included the Kinks and the Dave Clark Five . The British Invasion helped internationalize the production of rock and roll, opening the door for subsequent British (and Irish) performers to achieve international success. In America it arguably spelled the end of instrumental surf music, vocal girl groups and (for a time) the teen idols , that had dominated the American charts in
24050-517: The label were R&B oriented white rock bands that made use of jazzy horn sections, like Electric Flag , Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago , to become some of the most commercially successful acts of the later 1960s and the early 1970s. British acts to emerge in the same period from the blues scene, to make use of the tonal and improvisational aspects of jazz, included Nucleus and the Graham Bond and John Mayall spin-off Colosseum . From
24235-446: The late 1950s and 1960s. It dented the careers of established R&B acts like Fats Domino and Chubby Checker and even temporarily derailed the chart success of surviving rock and roll acts, including Elvis. The British Invasion also played a major part in the rise of a distinct genre of rock music, and cemented the primacy of the rock group, based on guitars and drums and producing their own material as singer-songwriters. Following
24420-509: The line-up, eventually reducing the former octet down to a mere quintet of vocals, guitar, keyboards, bass, and drums. This inevitably had a profound impact on The Aquabats' sound, in particular the complete loss of their once characteristic horn section. 2005's Charge!! , the first release featuring this reduced line-up, marked an abrupt shift from the eclecticism of their previous records, firmly establishing The Aquabats' current rock-based musical style, mixing elements of punk, new wave and ska,
24605-566: The live shows in the early 2000s, the one consistent staple of every Aquabats concert has remained the band's onstage "battles" with villains and monsters. These villains, typically played by The Aquabats' road crew , will crash the stage at one or two moments in the show and exchange humorous banter with the band before engaging each other in mock combat. These fights have ranged from short, improvised fistfights to fully choreographed stage combat utilizing breakable props, maneuvers such as flying kicks and back flips , and sometimes spreading out into
24790-410: The loudest, wildest, most electrified fusion bands from the jazz camp, but most often it describes performers coming from the rock side of the equation." Jazz-rock "...generally grew out of the most artistically ambitious rock subgenres of the late '60s and early '70s", including the singer-songwriter movement. Many early US rock and roll musicians had begun in jazz and carried some of these elements into
24975-476: The many recordings which have been suggested as "the first rock and roll record ". Contenders include " Strange Things Happening Every Day " by Sister Rosetta Tharpe (1944); " That's All Right " by Arthur Crudup (1946), which was later covered by Elvis Presley in 1954; " The House of Blue Lights " by Ella Mae Morse and Freddie Slack (1946); Wynonie Harris ' " Good Rocking Tonight " (1948); Goree Carter 's "Rock Awhile" (1949); Jimmy Preston 's " Rock
25160-617: The mid-1950s by white singers such as Carl Perkins , Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and with the greatest commercial success, Elvis Presley . Hispanic and Latino American movements in rock and roll, which would eventually lead to the success of Latin rock and Chicano rock within the US, began to rise in the Southwest ; with rock and roll standard musician Ritchie Valens and even those within other heritage genres, such as Al Hurricane along with his brothers Tiny Morrie and Baby Gaby as they began combining rock and roll with country- western within traditional New Mexico music . In addition,
25345-609: The mid-1960s the Left Banke , the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys, had pioneered the inclusion of harpsichords , wind , and string sections on their recordings to produce a form of Baroque rock and can be heard in singles like Procol Harum 's " A Whiter Shade of Pale " (1967), with its Bach -inspired introduction. The Moody Blues used a full orchestra on their album Days of Future Passed (1967) and subsequently created orchestral sounds with synthesizers. Classical orchestration, keyboards, and synthesizers were
25530-479: The mid-1960s and so called because of the perception that it was rehearsed in the suburban family garage. Garage rock songs often revolved around the traumas of high school life, with songs about "lying girls" and unfair social circumstances being particularly common. The lyrics and delivery tended to be more aggressive than was common at the time, often with growled or shouted vocals that dissolved into incoherent screaming. They ranged from crude one-chord music (like
25715-435: The mid-1960s as acts developed a sound similar to British blues musicians. Key acts included Paul Butterfield (whose band acted like Mayall's Bluesbreakers in Britain as a starting point for many successful musicians), Canned Heat , the early Jefferson Airplane , Janis Joplin , Johnny Winter , the J. Geils Band and Jimi Hendrix with his power trios , the Jimi Hendrix Experience (which included two British members, and
25900-401: The mid-1960s onwards, rock music often used the verse–chorus structure derived from blues and folk music, but there has been considerable variation from this model. Critics have stressed the eclecticism and stylistic diversity of rock. Because of its complex history and its tendency to borrow from other musical and cultural forms, it has been argued that "it is impossible to bind rock music to
26085-471: The modestly sized channel, eventually earning a Daytime Emmy nomination for Outstanding Children's Series, which it ultimately lost to fellow Hub series R. L. Stine's The Haunting Hour . In October 2012, production began on the series' second season, which premiered on June 1, 2013, with a short run of five episodes. The following October, three additional episodes were filmed, though The Hub later explicitly referred to these episodes as "specials" rather than
26270-465: The new music genre zeuhl with their first albums in the early 1970s. Greater commercial success was enjoyed by Pink Floyd, who also moved away from psychedelia after the departure of Syd Barrett in 1968, with The Dark Side of the Moon (1973), seen as a masterpiece of the genre, becoming one of the best-selling albums of all time. There was an emphasis on instrumental virtuosity, with Yes showcasing
26455-608: The new music. In Britain the subgenre of blues rock, and many of its leading figures, like Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce of the Eric Clapton -fronted band Cream , had emerged from the British jazz scene. Often highlighted as the first true jazz-rock recording is the only album by the relatively obscure New York–based the Free Spirits with Out of Sight and Sound (1966). The first group of bands to self-consciously use
26640-471: The psychedelic rock and the Canterbury scenes came Soft Machine, who, it has been suggested, produced one of the artistically successfully fusions of the two genres. Perhaps the most critically acclaimed fusion came from the jazz side of the equation, with Miles Davis , particularly influenced by the work of Hendrix, incorporating rock instrumentation into his sound for the album Bitches Brew (1970). It
26825-653: The regional hit " Let's Go Trippin ' " in 1961 and launched the surf music craze, following up with songs like " Misirlou " (1962). Like Dale and his Del-Tones , most early surf bands were formed in Southern California, including the Bel-Airs , the Challengers , and Eddie & the Showmen . The Chantays scored a top ten national hit with " Pipeline " in 1963 and probably the best-known surf tune
27010-464: The rest of their career. To accompany their distinct new uniforms, The Aquabats constructed a backstory which alleged they were actually superheroes hailing from the distant island of "Aquabania", though Larson admits the entire mythology was simply made up piece by piece as they went along from one interviewer to the next. As their mythology grew, the members soon adopted superhero stage names and identities, and began tailoring their live shows around
27195-448: The rise of rock and roll in the US, found new popularity in the UK, visiting with successful tours. Lonnie Donegan 's 1955 hit " Rock Island Line " was a major influence and helped to develop the trend of skiffle music groups throughout the country, many of which, including John Lennon 's Quarrymen (later the Beatles ), moved on to play rock and roll. While former rock and roll market in
27380-475: The romantic concept of art as artistic expression, original and sincere". In the new millennium, the term rock has occasionally been used as a blanket term including forms like pop music, reggae music , soul music , and even hip hop , which it has been influenced with but often contrasted through much of its history. Christgau has used the term broadly to refer to popular and semipopular music that caters to his sensibility as "a rock-and-roller", including
27565-522: The same era, and by percussion produced from a drum kit that combines drums and cymbals. This trio of instruments has often been complemented by the inclusion of other instruments, particularly keyboards such as the piano, the Hammond organ , and the synthesizer. The basic rock instrumentation was derived from the basic blues band instrumentation (prominent lead guitar, second chordal instrument, bass, and drums). A group of musicians performing rock music
27750-401: The scene. While later attending a ska show in Orange County, Jacobs was exposed to the area's burgeoning ska scene and was impressed by its ethos: as he recalled, "No one was fighting or pushing each other but having a good time". It was then decided that they would start a ska band instead, "to be part of the fun". With Jacobs assuming vocal duties, Larson on bass guitar and Terry on trumpet,
27935-555: The second half of the 1970s, punk rock reacted by producing stripped-down, energetic social and political critiques. Punk was an influence in the 1980s on new wave , post-punk and eventually alternative rock . From the 1990s, alternative rock began to dominate rock music and break into the mainstream in the form of grunge , Britpop , and indie rock . Further fusion subgenres have since emerged, including pop-punk , electronic rock , rap rock , and rap metal . Some movements were conscious attempts to revisit rock's history, including
28120-585: The second season of Fuse ' s Warped Roadies , a reality series documenting the road crew of the Warped Tour, where they were most notably the subject of one episode in which they incur the wrath of a stage manager for repeatedly playing over their set times. On March 17, 2014, in celebration of their 20th anniversary as a band, The Aquabats announced the first leg of their "20th Anniversary Tour" for May, their first extensive headlining United States tour in years, covering fifteen shows in nine states on
28305-546: The singles format to albums and achieved cultural legitimacy in the mainstream. Led by the Beatles in the mid-1960s, rock musicians advanced the LP as the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption, initiating a rock-informed album era in the music industry for the next several decades. Progressive rock, a term sometimes used interchangeably with art rock , moved beyond established musical formulas by experimenting with different instruments, song types, and forms. From
28490-402: The ska genre after having moved away from an overtly ska-based sound in the early 2000s, having since labeled themselves as simply a "rock band" in their official press biographies. In a 2012 interview, singer Christian Jacobs stated "I don't think we ever considered ourselves a ska band. We were just The Aquabats. And some of the songs we happened to play were ska", noting elsewhere, "It was never
28675-413: The skills of both guitarist Steve Howe and keyboard player Rick Wakeman , while Emerson, Lake & Palmer were a supergroup who produced some of the genre's most technically demanding work. Jethro Tull and Genesis both pursued very different, but distinctly English, brands of music. Renaissance , formed in 1969 by ex-Yardbirds Jim McCarty and Keith Relf, evolved into a high-concept band featuring
28860-700: The song in their homes, marking The Aquabats' first music video since "Fashion Zombies!" in 2005. While Kooky Spooky...In Stereo was originally scheduled for a June 20 release date, manufacturing delays resulting from the coronavirus pandemic as well as political tensions from the ongoing George Floyd protests which began in late May 2020 prompted the band to postpone the album's release; in an uncharacteristically serious public statement, The Aquabats acknowledged that "There will always be time for goofy, rowdy rock...but it doesn't feel right to us to be loud and self-promoting at this moment in time", encouraging open discussion about race and racism and linking to resources from
29045-400: The southwest United States. The loss of touring income, coupled with the band members' return to their jobs and families, eventually contributed to the departure of several key members: in 2000, guitarist Gray left the band, followed by Palmer and co-founder Terry in 2002. To avoid the financial constraints of hiring two new members, Adam Deibert assumed a dual role as trumpeter and guitarist for
29230-442: The subjects of specific songs and have appeared as part of The Aquabats' stage shows in mock fight scenes or comedic skits. Over the years, this mythology, and in particular the fictional backstory regarding their origins, has continually changed, evolved and occasionally been retconned to explain changes in the band's line-up. Rock music Rock is a broad genre of popular music that originated as " rock and roll " in
29415-401: The three eventually conceived the idea of forming a joke band satirizing the Orange County punk scene, which Jacobs described at the time as being overwhelmed with "testosterone, beer and people fighting". The concept was to start an unabashedly silly punk band as a complete antithesis to the genre's more aggressive and humorless bands, with the intention of performing at punk shows to poke fun at
29600-615: The three-octave voice of Annie Haslam . Most British bands depended on a relatively small cult following, but a handful, including Pink Floyd, Genesis, and Jethro Tull, managed to produce top ten singles at home and break the American market. The American brand of progressive rock varied from the eclectic and innovative Frank Zappa , Captain Beefheart and Blood, Sweat & Tears , to more pop rock orientated bands like Boston , Foreigner , Kansas , Journey , and Styx . These, beside British bands Supertramp and ELO , all demonstrated
29785-432: The trio recruited several more musician friends from other local bands to piece together a full ensemble. Each member of the original line-up had musical backgrounds in various genres, including ska, punk, surf and new wave , all elements which were incorporated into the band's music and aesthetic: for example, the name "The Aquabats" was created to sound like a classic surf band, while a shared admiration of Devo inspired
29970-409: The vehicle for cultural and social movements, leading to major subcultures including mods and rockers in the U.K., the hippie movement and the wider Western counterculture movement that spread out from San Francisco in the U.S. in the 1960s, the latter of which continues to this day. Similarly, 1970s punk culture spawned the goth , punk, and emo subcultures. Inheriting the folk tradition of
30155-585: The venue via crowd surfing , and assisted stage diving , in which between songs the MC Bat Commander will gently throw children into a waiting audience so they may experience their "first punk rock moment". On the visual end of these performances, keeping in line with their cartoon and pop culture -inspired aesthetic, The Aquabats' stage shows are accompanied by a large video screen backdrop which plays montage clips of various cartoons, movies, TV shows, and stock footage specifically edited to match each song. This screen also plays prerecorded comedy videos starring
30340-480: The work of the Beach Boys , formed in 1961 in Southern California. Their early albums included both instrumental surf rock (among them covers of music by Dick Dale) and vocal songs, drawing on rock and roll and doo wop and the close harmonies of vocal pop acts like the Four Freshmen . The Beach Boys first chart hit, " Surfin ' " in 1961 reached the Billboard top 100 and helped make the surf music craze
30525-533: The work of established performers such as the Rolling Stones' Beggar's Banquet (1968) and the Beatles' Let It Be (1970). Reflecting on this change of trends in rock music over the past few years, Christgau wrote in his June 1970 "Consumer Guide" column that this "new orthodoxy" and "cultural lag" abandoned improvisatory, studio-ornamented productions in favor of an emphasis on "tight, spare instrumentation" and song composition: "Its referents are '50s rock, country music, and rhythm-and-blues, and its key inspiration
30710-404: The world, except as a new brand of painkiller ... In the '70s the powerful took over, as rock industrialists capitalized on the national mood to reduce potent music to an often reactionary species of entertainment—and to transmute rock's popular base from the audience to market." Roots rock is the term now used to describe a move away from what some saw as the excesses of the psychedelic scene, to
30895-446: The younger members of their fanbase, The Aquabats often incorporate any children in the venue as part of their shows, inviting them to dance onstage with the band at the end of their sets. With parents' permission, children can also take part in onstage games and activities with the aid of the audience. The most common of these have included "pool floatie races", where two selected children mount inflatable rafts or pool toys and race across
31080-582: Was John Mayall ; his band, the Bluesbreakers , included Eric Clapton (after Clapton's departure from the Yardbirds) and later Peter Green . Particularly significant was the release of Blues Breakers with Eric Clapton (Beano) album (1966), considered one of the seminal British blues recordings and the sound of which was much emulated in both Britain and the United States. Eric Clapton went on to form supergroups Cream, Blind Faith , and Derek and
31265-681: Was 1963's " Wipe Out ", by the Surfaris , which hit number 2 and number 10 on the Billboard charts in 1965. Surf rock was also popular in Europe during this time, with the British group the Shadows scoring hits in the early 1960s with instrumentals such as " Apache " and " Kon-Tiki ", while Swedish surf group the Spotnicks saw success in both Sweden and Britain. Surf music achieved its greatest commercial success as vocal pop music, particularly
31450-473: Was a major influence on subsequent rock-influenced jazz artists, including Herbie Hancock , Chick Corea and Weather Report . The genre began to fade in the late 1970s, as a mellower form of fusion began to take its audience, but acts like Steely Dan , Frank Zappa and Joni Mitchell recorded significant jazz-influenced albums in this period, and it has continued to be a major influence on rock music. Reflecting on developments that occurred in rock music in
31635-494: Was conflicting with his business schedule. Pollock was succeeded by former Death by Stereo member Ian Fowles (Eaglebones Falconhawk), though he would continue to contribute guitar tracks to The Aquabats' studio albums and perform with the band as a second guitarist for their southern California concerts and major festival shows. After releasing a limited-print tongue-in-cheek "One Year Anniversary Edition" of Charge!! , The Aquabats carried out another national tour before announcing
31820-424: Was continued in the 1970s by figures such as George Thorogood and Pat Travers , but, particularly on the British scene (except perhaps for the advent of groups such as Status Quo and Foghat who moved towards a form of high energy and repetitive boogie rock ), bands became focused on heavy metal innovation, and blues rock began to slip out of the mainstream. By the 1960s, the scene that had developed out of
32005-424: Was formally announced via press release that The Aquabats! Super Show! had been acquired as a series by family cable channel The Hub , a joint venture between Hasbro and Discovery which launched in 2010 as a replacement for Discovery Kids . Created and produced by Jacobs, Schultz and Jason deVilliers, the series followed the fictionalized adventures of The Aquabats in a deliberately campy style inspired by
32190-575: Was founded in Britain), and Band of Gypsys , whose guitar virtuosity and showmanship would be among the most emulated of the decade. Blues rock bands from the southern states, like the Allman Brothers Band , Lynyrd Skynyrd , and ZZ Top , incorporated country elements into their style to produce the distinctive genre Southern rock . Early blues rock bands often emulated jazz, playing long, involved improvisations, which would later be
32375-402: Was later openly disowned by the band themselves. By the time The Aquabats began writing new material for their next studio album in 1998, the group had begun to feel pigeonholed by their public status as a "cheesy ska band" and consciously decided to start exploring more diverse musical styles rather than merely returning to a ska-based sound. As such, the band's third album, The Aquabats vs.
32560-464: Was released in its place. Hi-Five Soup! , The Aquabats' fifth full-length album, was released on January 18, 2011, becoming the band's highest-charting album since The Fury , debuting at number 181 on the Billboard 200 and number 5 on Top Heatseekers. In promotion of the album, the band embarked on a 21-city national tour supporting Reel Big Fish , followed by a performance at the 2011 Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival . On March 24, 2011, it
32745-417: Was required. Terry, a future apparel designer who was employed by the wetsuit manufacturing company Aleeda at the time, acquired a large amount of spare rubber and neoprene and fashioned together a set of helmets and rashguards for the band members. The addition of customized vinyl belts, donated to the band by then-unknown artist Paul Frank , effectively completed the style The Aquabats would maintain for
32930-517: Was stated to be used to independently produce "at least twelve" mini-episodes of Super Show! , two new Aquabats studio albums, one live album, and two Super Show! soundtrack albums. Throughout 2019, The Aquabats worked resolutely to fulfill their Kickstarter-funded projects. In March, the band simultaneously released The Aquabats! Super Show! Television Soundtrack: Volume One , a soundtrack compilation of songs from Super Show! ' s first season, and The Fury of The Aquabats! Live at The Fonda! ,
33115-400: Was succeeded by Gabe Palmer (Doctor Rock), solidifying a line-up which would last the remainder of the decade. With the band now finding enough success to generate both an adequate income and media visibility, Jacobs — a former child actor with ties in the entertainment industry — began to conceive the idea of adapting The Aquabats' superhero mythology into a television series. After pitching
33300-651: Was surprised by this turn of events, noting "Everything we heard was that the show has been a real Cinderella story for the Hub and that it was rating really well with viewers. We just assumed that we'd eventually go back into production or at least get picked up for Season 3", but ultimately concluded "it is what it is" in regard to the network's decision. Since the 2012 premiere of The Aquabats! Super Show! , The Aquabats largely cut back on extensive touring in order to accommodate their television production schedule, once again limiting their live shows to occasional performances within
33485-526: Was taken up by bands including Pentangle , Steeleye Span and the Albion Band , which in turn prompted Irish groups like Horslips and Scottish acts like the JSD Band , Spencer's Feat and later Five Hand Reel , to use their traditional music to create a brand of Celtic rock in the early 1970s. Folk-rock reached its peak of commercial popularity in the period 1967–68, before many acts moved off in
33670-614: Was taking place globally in the aftermath of the Second World War . Cliff Richard is credited with one of the first rock and roll hits outside of North America with " Move It " (1959), effectively ushering in the sound of British rock . Several artists, most prominently Tommy Steele from the UK, found success with covers of major American rock and roll hits before the recordings could spread internationally, often translating them into local languages where appropriate. Steele in particular toured Britain, Scandinavia, Australia,
33855-499: Was the first commercially successful folk song to be recorded with rock and roll instrumentation and the Beatles " I'm a Loser " (1964), arguably the first Beatles song to be influenced directly by Dylan. The folk rock movement is usually thought to have taken off with the Byrds ' recording of Dylan's " Mr. Tambourine Man " which topped the charts in 1965. With members who had been part of the café-based folk scene in Los Angeles,
34040-430: Was the major force in American record sales and crooners , such as Eddie Fisher , Perry Como , and Patti Page , who had dominated the previous decade of popular music, found their access to the pop charts significantly curtailed. Rock and roll has been seen as leading to a number of distinct subgenres, including rockabilly, combining rock and roll with "hillbilly" country music, which was usually played and recorded in
34225-455: Was the most popular genre of music in the U.S. and much of the Western world from the 1950s to the 2010s. Rock musicians in the mid-1960s began to advance the album ahead of the single as the dominant form of recorded music expression and consumption, with the Beatles at the forefront of this development. Their contributions lent the genre a cultural legitimacy in the mainstream and initiated
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