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OC Weekly:How did you meet Nokie Edwards?
Deke Dickerson:He's one of those guys that's around—you've either got to know somebody or you just sort of stumble across him. He lived in this little town in Oregon. When we were touring to Seattle, I looked him up in the phone book and said, 'Hey, man, can we come by your house?' And we ended up spending the afternoon with Nokie Edwards. He's like a lot of those guys—they've got a mansion in the middle of nowhere but there's nothing to do.
What's an afternoon with Nokie Edwards like?
The funny thing about Nokie is . . . man, is he stoic. I don't know how much percentage Indian he is, but he's literally the wise old Indian chief. He kind of just sits for a while and doesn't say anything, and when you ask him a question, he says like one sentence and the conversation stops. In many senses it's like going to visit Yoda or Merlin in a cave somewhere. And it's so shocking—he doesn't have much to say in conversation, but put a guitar in his hands and oh, man—the wellspring of musical ideas! Nokie's a hell of a lot better guitar player than people give him credit for. The Ventures stuff is simplistic only because he was told to play simply. And he never talks on the mic. I think he appreciates when I back him up because I'm willing to say what needs to be said.
He's committed to the instrumental.
He's a guitar player—not a singer, not an entertainer. He's a guitar player. That's his whole deal.
What's the surf jam gonna be? En masse 'Walk Don't Run'?
I think we're gonna do 'Pipeline.' Everybody knows 'Pipeline' and I wanna hear all the guitar players together do the run: 'Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo!' I have to rent a generator this year. Last year's double-neck trainwreck we were trying to break the Guinness World Record—well, it wasn't a record, but we were trying to make one. We had 18 double-neck guitars with 36 people playing, and they were all playing 'Rumble' by Link Wray. And I don't know if it was Link speaking from beyond the grave, but we were literally doing a 120-minute version of 'Rumble' with Los Straitjackets backing it up and right when it was getting to be too long, the power went out! Perfect—the end of the show! But this year I'm going to rent a generator to make sure that doesn't happen.
Did you set the record?
Sadly I sent in my video and filled out my form and sent my $15 submission fee to Guinness and they wrote a letter saying, 'We regret to inform you that there is not a category for double-neck guitars. But if you want to break the record for most guitars played at the same time, it stands at 1,673 in a parade in Ontario.' Which we're not going to do. So this year I just want it to be as moronic and as much fun as possible.
DEKE DICKERSON'S FOURTH ANNUAL GUITAR GEEK FESTIVAL WITH NOKIE EDWARDS OF THE VENTURES, JIM FULLER OF THE SURFARIS, HERB REMINGTON OF THE TEXAS PLAYBOYS, KID RAMOS, A TRIBUTE TO AL CASEY AND DUANE EDDY AND MUCH MORE AT THE JOLLY ROGER HOTEL BALLROOM, 640 W. KATELLA, ANAHEIM, (714) 782-7500. SAT., 3:30 PM. $25-$30. ALL AGES WITH BAR. MORE INFO AT WWW.GUITARGEEKFESTIVAL.COM.
