The SurfinTynes: Gordon Minette and Chris Palmaro want to reinvent surf music

Awarding winning producers, arrangers, and musicians Gordon Minette and Chris Palmaro are founders of the music group The SurfinTynes.

Surrounded by concrete and steel, one day, Minette and Palmaro - both from New York City - starred out the window of Gordon's recording studio on 14th Street, tired and burnt out from the pressure and demands of city life, and almost in unison said, "we've got to go back!"

The duo's new debut album - entitled "Surf Music for the 21st Century" - is a journey into surf, sand, and fun in the sun.

The SurfinTynes call it a "concept album" with the concept being: what if surf music continued beyond the 1960s?

"We all know that the heyday for surf music was the 1960s," Gordon Minette and Chris Palmaro tell SurferToday.com.

"It was totally in the mainstream, and you heard hits from bands like The Ventures' "Walk, Don't Run," The Chantays "Pipeline," and The Surfaris' "Wipeout," #2 in 1963. But after 1970, surf music disappeared."

"Although it was still around, it no longer made its way into the charts and was basically gone from the mainstream."

But what if that never happened? What if it remained as popular in the 1970s and beyond? What might it sound like today?

The SurfinTynes: the van seen inside the packaging of the band's debut album 'Surf Music For The 21st Century'

Well, The SurfinTynes offer a window into that possible reality.

The band contends that, like other musical forms, it might have progressed beyond the confines of guitar, bass, and drums.

Other instruments could have been brought in to augment the sound like strings, horns, vocals, and keyboards to create sounds and textures not associated with the genre.

The SurfinTynes explore this possibility throughout the 12 tunes on their debut album.

The result is a unique blend of influences from the past combined with the sounds of today, and with a vision toward the future.

The group invites you to break the "time and sound barrier" with "Surf Music For The 21st Century."

Gordon Minette Biography

Musical polymath, Gordon Minette grew up in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, listening to the Rahbani Brothers and Umm Kulthum, Toscanini's Beethoven, and Bruno Walter's Brahms, Brenda Lee and Percy Faith.

He went on to earn a Bachelor's Degree from the Mannes School of Music and a Master's Degree from The Juilliard School, both in piano.

A gifted multi-instrumentalist, Minette also plays the guitar, drums, trumpet, and valve trombone.

In the 1970s and 1980s, he was in several bands, including Infra-Dig, with William Basinski, Tony Mangurian, and Dan Cameron, who aptly noted that Minette had spent his career "mining that rich but narrow seam that lies somewhere between Beethoven and Lesley Gore."

He started his work on television as Suzanne Ciani's music director and went on to write commercials for Ciani Musica, JMS Music, Madmonk, and Tomandandy.

Since 2001, he has worked for Human Music, where he has written and produced music for hundreds of commercials and won numerous awards, including a Lion d'Or from the Cannes Festival.

In the 1990s, Minette worked with Anton Sanko, arranging, orchestrating and conducting television series and feature films.

He was a member, along with Sanko, of the Jim Carroll Band and participated in the writing and production of Carroll's album "Pools Of Mercury."

He also produced several projects for Philip Glass.

Minette has composed music for the concert stage, including "The Marble Faun," a cantata for three singers and percussion ensemble; "Galgenlieder," settings of four poems by Christian Morgenstern; and "Das Morgenholz," a work for piano four-hands, which appears on the CRI compilation "The Alternative Schubertiade."

His EP "The Eden Aspect," released in 1994, grew out of his music for theater and dance.

Minette has continued to write and produce records, most recently for Aerial East and The Surfintynes.

Current album projects include "The Cycla-Mates," a band covering Minette's own songs from the 1980s; "The Ghost On The Staircase," an album of autobiographical material; and "Das Mondschaf & Vice-Versa," a collection of art songs.

Surf Music for the 21st Century: The Surfintynes' debut album

Chris Palmaro Biography

Chris Palmaro started his career as a working musician playing live and recording with various artists until 1975.

The then moved to New York City and began working in the advertising business writing hundreds of national TV and radio commercials for one of New York's top jingle companies called Crushing Music.

During his 15-year stay there, he wrote music for products such as Nisson, Mastercard, Honda, Pepsi, Burger King, 7 Up, Coke, Chevy, Peugeot, Time magazine, and Budweiser, to name a few.

Chris also wrote theme songs for TV shows like NBC Movie of the Week, News 4 New York (for NBC), Cinemax, HBO, NBC (theme song), ABC (theme song), and more.

He also worked as a keyboard player/multi-instrumentalist, singer, arranger, and orchestrator.

Around 1990, Chris moved to another jingle company called JSM Music.

While there, he wrote music for hundreds of products such as Dr. Pepper, American Express, Volvo, Converse, Goodyear, Showtime, AT&T, BMW, 7-11, Shell Oil, and Lincoln-Mercury, just to name a few.

During his time at JSM, Chris wrote the HBO movie theme, which ran for ten years and also wrote many of their musical bumpers.

He also wrote the Cinemax movie theme, which ran for about ten years and wrote many of their musical bumpers.

During his time in the jingle business, Chris worked on commercials with such artist's as Whitney Houston, Luther Vandross, Billy Preston, Felix Cavaliere of The Young Rascals, Chubby Checker, Valerie Simpson of Ashford & Simpson, Ronnie Spector, South Side Johnny, John Sebastian, Dr. John, Delbert McClinton and more.

From 1981 through 1984, Chris Palmaro was a member of The Saturday Night Live band working with artists such as Aretha Franklin, Debbie Harry (Blondie), and Olivia Newton-John.

He played keyboards behind Eddie Murphy whenever he did his "Mr. Robinson's Neighborhood" skits, as well as other skits.

During this period, he continued to work as a studio musician and played on many records, including the hits, "Walking in Memphis" by Marc Cohn and "They Don't Really Care About Us" by Michael Jackson.

Chris wrote many pieces of music for the acclaimed smooth jazz guitarist Jeff Golub.

One of his compositions entitled "No Two Ways About It" went to number on the smooth jazz chart and stayed there for three weeks.

He also co-wrote and co-produced the album "Gotcha Rhythm Right Here" with the great NYC studio guitar legend John Tropea.

The album received 4.5 stars in DownBeat, America's premier jazz magazine, and was named one of 2015's best releases by the publication.

Chris has performed numerous times at Sting's Rainforest Fund Benefit, which takes place annually at Carnegie Hall, backing artists like Sting, Elton John, Billy Joel, James Taylor, Don Henley, Jeff Beck, Smokey Robinson, Patti Labelle, Nina Simone, Wynonna Judd, Bill Murray and more.

Chris Palmaro left the jingle business in 2005, after 30 years.

He is currently active in writing, producing, and performing with artists of all genres of music.

Some of these diverse artists include Billy J. Kramer, one of the great artists from England to have hits in the US and came to America during the British invasion with The Beatles.

In 2016, Chris began working with The SurfinTynes, a group whose music they refer to as "Surf Music for the 21st Century".

Chris Palmaro currently resides in Weehawken, New Jersey, where he writes, produces, and records at his home studio.

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