ROCHESTER, Minn. — “Surfin’ Bird” could have been one of the most annoying and forgettable novelty tunes in the history of rock ‘n’ roll music. Instead, it became the No. 1 hit in Minnesota in early ...

Dick Clark smugly asked those words in 1964 at the end of what has to be one of the strangest "American Bandstand" performances in the show's 47-year history. He clearly didn't expect Minnesota's ...

California, we were fighting the Vietnam War, gas cost 30 cents per gallon and Bob Dylan caused a folk music uproar by using an electric guitar. The Minneapolis-based garage band visited the West ...

Everybody’s heard about the bird, the catchy and weird “Surfin’ Bird,” released on this day in 1963 by the Twin Cities garage band the Trashmen. The Trashmen had been a decent cover band when they ...

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts. Reason No. 785 that “there will always be an England”: The U.K. pop ...

Tony Andreason, one of the men behind the Trashmen’s 1963 smash “Surfin’ Bird,” will be honored for his lifetime of contributions to the Minnesota music scene during the second annual Bill Diehl Award ...

Spring 1963: A year after forming, the Trashmen road-trip to California and come back as surf-rockers. Summer 1963: Drummer Steve Wahrer improvises an early version of "Surfin' Bird" at Chubb's ...

We must by now have reached the moment that The Trashmen predicted: At long last, it must be that everybody’s heard that the bird is the word. After all, when this local surf-rock band welded together ...

For me and for a lot of people like me, popular music has a way of defining a particular decade or a particular year. For example, when many people think of the year 1964, they think of the British ...

“Surfin’ Bird” could have been one of the most annoying and forgettable novelty tunes in the history of rock ‘n’ roll music. Instead, it became the No. 1 hit in Minnesota in early 1964, and made it to ...