Disco Mike's Surfer Stomp

Whether waacking, shuffling, jiving or jeet koon-ing, when fifty-six-year-old Michael Park starts moving, the dance floor clears and he takes center stage.

Photos by Emon Hassan

Real surf rock music is instrumental. It’s hard and fast, and heavily amplified with a reverb twang reminiscent of waves crashing against the shoreline. There are no lyrics to get lost in, and no lyrics to get locked into.

If you’re a dancer, that means you won’t lose a step to words. You can jive, or shuffle, or mimic sultry burlesque dancers. Surf rock doesn’t demand set steps or moves. Before it became a style of music it was just a dance called “the surfer’s stomp.”

The surf rock scene is New York is small, and unless you’re in it, you probably haven’t heard much about it. But on a Saturday night, if you happen into an East Village bar named for the archaic practice of shrinking heads—prominently displayed in a glass case not far from the glow stick-adorned, tiki-drink-slinging bar—you might hear the strains of a bygone era from the back room. The music resembles the tempered marriage between the good-times, everything-is-just-dandy, pitch-bending pop of ‘60s gi…