The Sea in Every Sound
Chasing the Influence of Surf Music in America
$49.46
- Paperback
224 pages
- Release Date
27 October 2026
Summary
From Dick Dale’s reverb-drenched guitar leads to the Beach Boys’ wistful odes to California, surf music is historically viewed as a novelty of the early 1960s, sandwiched between the Elvis craze and Beatlemania. Worse, today’s mainstream listeners hear surf music as the sort of sonically straightforward, pleasantly inoffensive music that the Spotify algorithm supplies to any playlist with the words chill or vibes in their names.
Yet if you look more closely at the hi…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780897336956 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 089733695X |
| Author: | Matthew Shaw |
| Publisher: | Chicago Review Press |
| Imprint: | Chicago Review Press |
| Format: | Paperback |
| Number of Pages: | 224 |
| Release Date: | 27 October 2026 |
| Dimensions: | 152mm x 228mm |
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Critics Review
“Like an Alan Lomax for the surfing set, Matthew Shaw went broad and deep for this exhaustive, lively, and surprising study of wave riding’s influence on music. No pat recount of dripping reverb, writer/surfer/musician Shaw lays down the roots of surf sound from Sol Hoopii to Bud Shank to the Pixies. Surfing has long deserved this rigor, this open-mindedness. Shaw delivered.” –Scott Hulet, creative director of the Surfer’s Journal and author of Flow Violento
“The best music writing doubles as cultural history. Shaw documents how a spiritual and countercultural religion took root and spawned sounds immediately identifiable and forever associated with the beach, the sun, and sliding on waves. What is it about surf culture that has always captivated artists and the public? This is a great book for anyone who wants to see how an idea spreads.” –Jay Caspian Kang, columnist at the New Yorker and author of The Loneliest Americans
“The Sea in Every Sound is an immersive plunge into the vast and lively world of surf culture. Matthew Shaw’s heartfelt narrative history interrogates the inextricable link between music and surfing, illuminating the almost cosmic interconnectedness between them. A vivid blend of reporting and storytelling.” –Brady Brickner-Wood, contributing writer at the New Yorker
“Matthew Shaw writes the definitive history of music’s relationship to surfing, and vice versa, making it an essential read for students of either, or both. Better, though, is the writing itself: informative, sharp, and very witty. Even people who hate surfing or music will love it. It makes me jealous. Five out of five stars.” –Chas Smith, founder of BeachGrit and author of Welcome to Paradise, Now Go to Hell
Matthew Shaw
Matthew Shaw has traveled the world as a musician and as a features writer for Surfer’s Journal and Surfer magazine. As a music journalist, he’s contributed to NPR Music and NPR’s All Songs Considered, and produced radio programming for WJCT Public Media, an NPR affiliate in Jacksonville, Florida. He’s currently the arts and culture editor for Jacksonville Today, a nonprofit news organization. He lives in Atlantic Beach, Florida.
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