The Challengers were an American surf music band active between 1962 and 1970, founded in Los Angeles by drummer Richard Delvy. Their debut album, “Surfbeat”, is one of the biggest-selling surf albums of all time.

In 1965, The Challengers released “At The Teenage Fair”, a supposedly live album which is actually a set of studio recordings segued by studio-added introductions and crowd noise (even count offs!). The album’s title refers to the fourth annual Teenage Fair held at the Hollywood Palladium in Los Angeles between April 9 and April 16, 1965. That’s the event where these performances supposedly took place (while The Challengers actually performed there, these recordings aren’t captured from their live set. None of this is a criticism. Just a fact observation).

The album has twelve cuts, being half of them instrumentals and the rest vocal numbers. And while the entire album is certainly enjoyable, all the vocal cuts excluding “Do You Wanna Dance?” have a “balladesque” character, while the instrumentals are pure energetic music. Actually, and being a surf band, instrumentals were The Challengers’ biggest strength.

Here are the six instrumentals from “The Challengers At The Teenage Fair”, captured from an original Colombian stereo pressing of the album, entitled “Ritmo De Juventud” (“Youth Rhythm”). BTW, I recently found a SEALED original US mono copy of the album and my plan was capturing the recording from it. But in all honesty, after receiving it I haven’t been able to pop its cherry and I don’t think I will. This LP is extremely special to me. Played it A LOT when I was a kid, and it feels like a crime to open such a treasure after 56 years waiting for me.

(00:00) Video intro

– (00:07) 01. Collision Course
– (03:11) 02. The Wedge
– (05:24) 03. Duck Waddle
– (08:07) 04. Small Fry
– (10:30) 05. Scratch
– (13:08) 06. K-39

Numark TTXUSB turntable – Nagaoka MP-500 phono cartridge – ART DJPRE II phono stage preamp – Vinyl record vinilo LP