Notes
Surf The Dark Side with the Dead Sea Surfers. The brainchild of the Dead Sea Surfers is the singer & songwriter Aleister Tennyson Hobbs the vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist has performed with various projects & bands on many stages through the years, from LA to New York City and could be seen doing pick up jams from 1996 through 1999 in various venues in the tri-cities, located in upper east Tennessee. In recent years past Aleister Tennyson Hobbs lent his keyboard skills to The project, DE over a period of one year while performing in NYC in over a dozen locations in 2004. Despite being a fan, friend & hired gun performer for DE's music, Aleister regressed & reformed his older band, whose roots stem from a simpler earlier period, it's beginnings coincided with the post punk era & the band for all intensive purposes: Dead Sea Surfers was reborn. Mikey Stephenson was a Local native to the tri-cities and played in almost too many projects to list here but to name a couple Elijah Strange and currently Shades of Grey. While Mikey plays drums on 10 tracks of the self titled album, Aleister and Mikey have known each other for years and Mikey is actually the sound engineer of the self-titled Dead Sea Surfers album. Ian Briscoe is an electronics enthusiast and builds stomp boxes and keyboards from scratch in his small apartment. Basically when ever he can, He gives the band a whole new approach to recording instruments in studio, by twisting sounds into an art form and providing the band with live sound that is not out of the box. Aleister and Ian have known each other for years and played live shows together since 2001. Brian Ellis has played in several projects over the years namely the band Chain Saw Mascara and a relocation from the Washington DC metro area dumped Brian right into a large Horror punk scene in the tri cities where he feels extremely comfortable. Brian gives the band an edge with his skill on the bass guitar which live covers such playing techniques as slap bass and a very intense drive not yet captured in studio recording although Brian is the newest member in DSS, he seems in all respect the heart and soul to the band. The Dead Sea Surfes was created to actualize & evocate Aleister's memories of post punk, synthpop, goth music Aleister grew up enjoying in his youth. The music expanse is deeply bass laden, synth-heavy but not completely synthetic music, translation: not 2 people with a laptop and 4 keyboards on stage) but a traditional rock band line-up with real instruments, Guitar, Bass, Live Drums, and a keyboard player in the post punk genre leaning gothic in fashion, style & substance. If the Dead Sea Surfers were performing in the early to mid 1980's there is no doubt they would have been a force to reckon with in the underground subculture. What would later be dubbed the goth scene. Their signature smooth, chart-topping sound is a fashionable blend, reminiscent of past goth classics but a sound that is smart, solid, enduring and bound with a newness in it's raw simplicity. (On a personal health note: Aleister was diagnosed with diabetes in July of 1999 fell into a diabetic coma for 3 months where he suffered multiple organ failures and was given a Tracheotomy in order to keep him alive & was later told he may never sing again & in the following months had to relearn to walk, and did not pick up and play a guitar for over a year) so to record the album & sing all the vocals seem quite the accomplishment at this point and it also seems fitting to mention that after Aleister's transfiguration where he took in over 100 units of fresh blood to sustain life in 1999 that his shape shifter abilities with respect to sound began to appear & filter down to an ability to mimic classic & modern gothic hymns but the question, which sound should he and the band ultimately pursue. You know what, to this listener, who cares when most of his songs are lucid, dark, catchy, perspicuous, well-arranged high quality re
