The gentle weather conditions has meant few days with surfable waves. While the surf in Nova Scotia can be world class, waiting for the beauties to peel off the province’s plethora of point breaks can be downright depressing.

Even though the local buoy reports suggest that there are molehills rolling in, I’ve still taken a few drives to the beach to look and smell the ocean breeze. What the hell else is there to do?

Along the way, I’ve listened to Surf Trax, the new album by long-time Nova Scotia surfer and musician Doug Barron. The eclectic mix of instrumental tunes has been the highlight of my voyages to inevitable surf skunkery.

I added a track to the Haliwax rotation called Single Fin Soul Surfer, a dreamy tune threaded with a sleepy surf guitar riff. It will keep you calm while your wait for the ocean to wake up. (Below is a YouTube video featuring another track from the album, “Peter Kelly Must Surf”, which is a tribute of sorts to Halifax’s (in)famous outgoing mayor.)

According to the band’s Wikipedia page, The Torquays were formed in 1964 by a guitarist named Jerry Gordon in the surfing hotbed of Shawnee Mission, Kansas. After a few years of playing together, the band went dormant until the surf music revival in the 1990′s which was spawned by Quentin Tarantino’s movie Pulp Fiction.

The Torquays re-formed in Southern California 1994 and went on the to record several albums before disbanding in 2008. Undertow is track from the band’s 2007 album Somewhere In California. The track begins with a mysterious-sounding intro before breaking into some saucy surf guitar picking.

In addition to touring and appearing in television and radio, the band was featured briefly in the movie Tales Of The Rat Fink, a documentary film made by Canadian Ron Mann in 2006 about artist “Big Daddy” Ed Roth, who created the hot-rod icon Rat Fink.

The band is the brainchild of Sean Yseult, bassist for Rob Zombie’s former band White Zombie. Yseult, who was obsessed with the Addams Family and the Munsters as a child, formed the band in 1996 after White Zombie broke up.

Wearing glittery horror outfits, the three band members play the roles of drunken, monster beach party chicks. Yseult is Devil Doll, guitarist/vocalist Katie Campbell is Vampire Girl and drummer Carol Cutshall is She-Zilla.

For Yseult, the band was a non-serious, fun-filled diversion from the rock and roll drama of White Zombie. The Monsters put out two albums, In the Night!!! (1998) and Around The World In 80 Bikinis! (1999). Believe it or not, the second album features a recording from an actual Monster Party.

During their brief time together, the Monsters toured with bands like Man or Astroman, Quintron and Pussycat, and The Cramps. While the band is no longer making albums or touring, Yseult says on her website that the band never officially broke up.

The Monsters’ song I added to the Haliwax playlist is called Bloody Mary. The track is simple, dumb and scary fun.

After several years playing together, Smith and his other band mates, who are also surfers, released their first album in 2008 called Caballero Del Mar.

The album was a hit among fans of surf music and awareness of the band began to spread when “Rola La Ola” (Ride the waves) became the theme song in the popular surf DVD A Fistful of Barrels.

A second track, “Waves Beneath the Rain”, was featured in the surf documentary Riding the Waves, and multiple tracks were featured in the surf movie A Surfer’s Guide to Costa Rica.

The song I subsequently added to the Haliwax rotation is the title track of Primal Sky’s follow up album, Surf Stampede. A classic surf tune, “Surf Stampede” has a tasty spaghetti western twang.

Using surf music as a moody backdrop, the band tells tales about hit squads from Tijuana, Polynesian Tiki curses, shrunken heads, Zulu death masks, murderous African crocodiles, voodoo truckers, violent train-riding hobos, an annoying dude called The Mocker, and a psychopathic clown named Patches.

Roadside Cross, a song off Deadbolt’s 1999 Voodoo Trucker album, features a showdown between the villainous I-40 Killer (The Devil’s Trail Boss) and a highway hero named the Voodoo Trucker.

Deadbolt can tell a story in a song that will have tapping your feet while making you piss your pants laughing. If any of the members of the band ever find this page, I plead with you, please come to Nova Scotia to play! I think you’d find there are plenty of freaks up here that will provide you with quality material for an album aboot the Great White North.

Turns out there were some other great songs on the soundtrack, which I quickly snapped up after seeing the movie. One of those songs was “Surfin’ Dead” by The Cramps, a garage punk band from Ohio. According to Wikipedia, The Cramps were largely credited as one of the prime innovators of a genre of music called psychobilly. “Surfin’ Dead” likely falls into this category. The first appeared on The Cramps’ 1983 album, Smell of Female.

The Cramps had other songs with a surf guitar sound including “Goo Goo Muck”, which is on the 1981 album Psychedelic Jungle and is featured in the Haliwax rotation.

One of the instruments featured in Project: Pimento’s “Bali Ha’i”, off of the 2003 album Magical Moods of the Theremin, is a strange electronic instrument called the theremin. Invented by a Russian professor in 1928, the theremin produces a mysterious sound that meshes perfectly with the sultry voice of Project: Pimento vocalist, Lola Bombay.

I first heard the song on Little Steven’s Underground Garage, SiriusXM Ch. 21. Wicked guitar playing as usual with an exotic Arabian flavor ideal for a sexy belly dancer routine.

Dale is probably the most influential surf guitarist and is credited with the creation of the surf music phenomenon in 1961. According to Wikipedia, Dale “was a surfer and wanted his music to reflect the sounds he heard in his mind while surfing.” Dale is a left-handed guitarist who was initially forced to play a right-handed guitar upside down, like Jimi Hendrix.

An accomplished singer-songwriter, Connors co-wrote (with Ayn Robbins and Bill Conti) “Gonna Fly Now”, the theme song from the film, Rocky, which earned her an Academy Award nomination. Visit Carol Connors’ website.

“Rumble” will be familiar to those who have seen the movie Pulp Fiction. The song plays in the background while John Travolta and Uma Thurman talk about “uncomfortable silences” while eating at Jack Rabbit Slim’s.