John Mason, former chairman of Nevada's Republican Party, came to Washington in May to lobby for an ambassadorship. For small talk, he recounted how he had been the teenage guitar slinger on "Wipe Out," the seminal 1960s surf-rock instrumental by the Surfaris.
Mason has told the story for years. References have appeared in newspaper profiles since he ran unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in 1994. "The life of the song is far greater than I thought the recording would be," he told a reporter in May.
Drum roll, please: Mason didn't play on "Wipe Out." The closest he came to being a Surfari was in 1963, when he was in a group that impersonated the band for several weeks. A fellow impostor says a club owner who discovered the ruse chased them out of Calgary, Alberta.
Nearly 40 years later, a puzzling trend continues. People with no role in "Wipe Out" keep trying to claim a piece of one of rock's most magical spontaneous moments — a frenzied, two-minute-37-second, drum-and-guitar rave-up by four teenagers that became every wannabe rocker's dashboard-banging standard.
"Since the day it started, there have been people claiming to have been there," says Robert Berryhill, the real Surfaris' rhythm guitarist. "It's too numerous to count — probably hundreds." Last year, a man tried passing himself off to San Diego newspapers as the Surfaris' lead guitarist. In March, obituaries for talk-show loudmouth Morton Downey Jr. said he wrote the song, a canard he floated years ago. Then there was the gas-company repairman who noticed a Surfaris album in Berryhill's home one day in 1967. "I was in that band," he told Berryhill's wife. "I was on rhythm guitar." Pointing to the rhythm guitarist on the back-cover photo, Gene Berryhill replied, "See this person right here, this is my husband."
Counterfeit oldies acts tour regularly, but the surfeit of fake Surfaris is part of another phenomenon — bogus minor celebrities seeking renown, not remuneration. People pretending to be one of the 30 genuine "Little Rascals" surface occasionally. Old bands are vulnerable because many used stand-ins. The Surfaris are especially so because, unlike the Rolling Stones or the Beatles, few ever knew what they looked like. "There really isn't enough limelight to go around, so people are looking for reflective glory," says Fred Wilhelms, a Nashville lawyer for Artists & Others Against Impostors.
The Surfaris formed in September 1962 near Los Angeles. The five teenagers liked surfing and emulated the reverb-heavy, staccato instrumentals of surf music's patriarch, Dick Dale. After a few months playing dances, they recorded their first song, "Surfer Joe."
They needed a B-side, so they made one up on the spot. Lead guitarist Jim Fuller, then 15, plucked a melody. Drummer Ron Wilson, 18, speeded up a cadence from his high-school marching band. Berryhill, 15, strummed his guitar and recommended drum-solo breaks. Pat Connolly, 15, played bass. Saxophonist Jim Pash, 13, had to work that night, so there's no horn on the record. Fuller suggested opening with a switchblade click and calling the song "Stiletto," but they opted for breaking a shingle to simulate a surfboard cracking. The band's manager, Dale Smallen, added a mocking cackle he did for laughs at parties and the immortal words "Wipe Out!"
Smallen had 2,000 copies pressed to sell at gigs. A few months later, Smallen sold the master tapes for a $200 advance and a four-cent-per-single royalty. The two producers who ended up in control of the songs, Richard Delvy and John Marascalco, in turn sold shortened, remastered versions to Dot Records for a bigger royalty. Then, after "Wipe Out" started selling big in Fresno, the band sold its four-cent royalty for $2,000 — chump change for a single that would sell 500,000 copies by year's end.
Fake Surfaris started popping up almost immediately, the first after Dot requested a whole album. One of the documents Delvy, himself a drummer, signed with the label listed members of his own band, the Challengers, as the Surfaris. The substitute Surfaris recorded the album's other 10 songs. According to affidavits filed later in a court suit, Dot released the album as the Surfaris' "Wipe Out" without knowing that none of the real Surfaris were on those 10 songs.
The real Surfaris say they recorded 10 songs, too, "but when we finally heard the album, everything but Surfer Joe' and Wipe Out' was somebody else," says Pash, whose sax wasn't even on those two songs.
By now, the Surfaris — and their parents — were wise. They fired Smallen, demanded that the album's credits be corrected, joined Decca Records, hired a lawyer and sued everybody involved. In June 1964, the four boys on "Wipe Out" secured a $47,000 settlement (today's equivalent of $270,000) and got back the future royalties they had sold. Pash, whose only complaint was having his image inappropriately used on the album cover, got $3,000 and the unique distinction of being formally disassociated from "Wipe Out." Lawyers got 20% of the boys' settlement and future royalties. Messrs. Delvy and Marascalco also retained shares.
After "Wipe Out" hit, a lesser-known group that had called itself the Surfaris first asserted a legal claim on the name. They lost and became the Original Surfaris — and then added "Wipe Out" to their repertoire.
Creating more confusion, a band called the Impacts released an instrumental called "Wipe Out" just before the Surfaris' song took off. "The chord progression is exactly the same," insists Merrell Fankhauser, the Impacts' guitarist and songwriter. "I still can't believe that it was a coincidence." He considered suing, but to untrained ears, the songs have nothing in common beyond an opening "Wipe Out" yell. His case is further hurt by a tape recording made some years ago in which he is heard introducing "Wipe Out" as "the tune that really got it started for me," and then starting his own song before shifting into something that sounds like the Surfaris tune. "The fantasy becomes the reality," quips the Surfaris' Pash, who supplied the tape. Mr. Fankhauser says he was playing a version of his own song.