Surfin’ The Great Lakes: Kay Bank Studio Surf Sides Of The 1960s CD

Board-bustin’ surf from the frozen Midwest.

Surfin’ The Great Lakes pulls together a wild collection of surf and surf-inspired recordings cut through Minneapolis’ legendary Kay Bank Studios during the 1960s. It is a reminder that surf music was never just a California thing. Kids across the country were plugging into reverb tanks and chasing the same wave.

The compilation moves through a mix of instrumentals, garage rock burners, R&B-infused cuts, and regional oddities that spent decades flying under the radar. You get everything from The Trashmen’s twitchy energy to Mancini-inspired instrumentals from The Mustangs, plus cold-water surf classics like The Vaqueros’ “80 Foot Wave.”

There is a rawness to these recordings that makes the whole thing feel alive. Some tracks are polished, others rough around the edges, but that is exactly the charm. It captures the moment where surf exploded nationwide and took on its own regional identities far from the coast.

A deep-dive compilation that feels more like uncovering buried treasure than revisiting overplayed hits.

Why We Carry It

A killer archival surf compilation with real personality. Perfect for collectors looking beyond the standard surf canon and into the weirder, regional side of the genre. Some releases simply deserve to stay in circulation however people can experience them, and this is absolutely one of them.

For fans of: The Trashmen, The Ventures, regional garage rock, 1960s surf compilations, vintage instrumental rock