The Coastliners – Big Mike, the Sidewalk Surfer (1965)

The first half of the 1960s were the hey-days for Surf Music with a high percentage of bands being from California. Many of those bands also wrote songs about Skateboarding or what then was known as “Sidewalk Surfing” (I counted about 30 releases so far from that era, including bands from other genres). But there were also bands from such “exotic” places like Texas.

The Coastliners from Galveston, TX formed in 1964 and released their first 7” on Astro Records (cat.nr. 109) in 1965. The record included the songs “The lonely sea” (Beach Boyes cover) and their own “Big Mike, the Sidewalk Surfer”, a story about a six-foot tall guy named Mike, who is the best skateboarder you have ever seen. When there´s no surf, he organizes a skateboard team and the chicks dig his tan.

The band recorded a few more 7” records in the 1960s, some of them with a nice garage-punk / power-pop influence. They changed their name to the U.S. Males in 1968 and released one more 7” before they split.

The Coastliners reformed in 1995 and still play together to this day. They also re-recorded “Big Mike” and released it on two of their new CDs: “Summer Love” (Dear Daddy Music, 2010) and “Double Sunshine” (Dear Daddy Music, 2012).