Deadly Ones

You ready to catch a monster grave? Surf on this 1964 classic from the venerable Vee-Jay label! While this album has been reissued before, this is the first time it’s been cut all-analog straight from the original tapes. And there are some real treats to savor in all their pure sonic glory, like “There’s a Creature in the Surfer’s Lagoon,” which The Cramps must have heard a time or three. As always with these anonymous Halloween concept albums (see our Frankie Stein and the Ghouls releases), speculation has run rampant as to who’s playing on Monster Surfing Time; suspicion this time falls on legendary “Games People Play” guitarist Joe South, who penned five of the numbers here and whose first hit was, after all, 1958’s “The Purple People Eater Meets the Witch Doctor.” So we’re gonna go with him as a likely suspect.