DAYTONA BEACH — The World's Most Famous Beach just got its own soundtrack.
Although the new Hard Rock Hotel isn’t quite ready to open its doors, music fans and potential visitors already can experience a taste of the songs that will define the guest experience at the 200-room, music-intensive beachside luxury hotel slated to open in February.
Hard Rock this week released a specially created “Daytona Getaway!” playlist via the online music streaming site Spotify, more than 90 minutes of songs that range from vintage surf rock to sophisticated ultra-chill lounge music.
From guitar god Dick Dale’s classic surf instrumental “Misirlou,” known for its presence in the Quentin Tarantino film “Pulp Fiction,” to tracks by the Ramones (“Rockaway Beach”) and newer material from like-minded, if more obscure, international acts, the list is inspired by the company’s vision of Daytona Beach, said Jeff Nolan, Hard Rock International’s Orlando-based music and memorabilia historian.
Nolan is the curator of the Daytona Beach playlist, marking the first time a collection of music has been tailored to a specific Hard Rock hotel property.
“Daytona Beach is such an unusual place,” said Nolan, 50, a rock musician and writer who has worked for Hard Rock International for 13 years. “There’s a little bit of a John Waters-y vibe here, which is one of its big strengths.
“I wanted music that touched on that kitschy mid-century thing, but did it in a modern way. It resonated with our team, so they dug it and we ran with it.”
The “Daytona Getaway!” playlist will be played under the hotel’s porte-cochere entrance, at 918 N. Atlantic Ave., and throughout the lobby to shape the guest arrival experience, hotel officials said. It’s the first of dozens of playlists that Nolan and other team members will create before the hotel’s opening.
TELL US: Which songs would be on your Daytona playlist?
Although the Daytona Beach hotel marks the first time that customized music lists have been shared with guests, playlists created and shared internally among Hard Rock staffers are a part of the process for any project, Nolan said.
“When we start these projects it’s important to set a feel for how we’re approaching everything creatively,” said Nolan, who spent roughly a month working with other staffers to compile an initial Daytona Beach playlist that was seven hours long.
“It’s not so much about picking songs as it is about listening to the playlist,” Nolan said. “I’d peck away at it, and then listen to it myself as I’d drive around. Other team members would make contributions and we’d bounce it off each other. These lists, they take on a life of their own.”
'A bit more evolved'
In the end, Hard Rock’s musical vision of Daytona Beach favors a mix of clanging electric guitars and insistent rumbling drums, leavened by ambient moments drenched in echo-laden keyboards.
“I’m a huge fan of that genre of surf instrumentals,” Nolan said. “It was an era and, to this day, a type of sound that really captures what it was trying to express. From the moment you hear surf guitar and those amazing beats, you immediately feel like you’re at the beach.”
Obvious favorites by the Beach Boys or mainstream tropical troubadours such as Jack Johnson were excluded to make room for tracks by acts such as German surf rockers the Kilaueas and Laika & the Cosmonauts, a Finnish rock band active from 1987 to 2008.
“These playlists we make for ourselves are much more challenging and a bit more evolved than anything you’d hear from an average brand,” Nolan said. “These aren’t made by focus groups; they are made by people who love music.”
Nolan’s favorite selections include “1,2,3,4,” a propulsive rocker by Brazilian surf/garage band Autoramas. “They are so ridiculously good,” Nolan said. “I love to hear this kind of music played by people who are maybe not jaded as much as a group from Los Angeles, New York or London would be.”
Nolan also loves the infectious pop of “Feel It Still,” by alternative act Portugal.The Man.
“That song just grooves,” Nolan said. “I don’t know what it is about it. I just feel relaxed when I hear that song. It’s not an intellectual exercise, making these playlists. It’s an emotional exercise.”
Locals offer requests
In Daytona Beach, music lovers already had a few ideas for additions tied to an area that was home to the initial performances of Gregg and Duane Allman, as well as the base for other acts such as the influential 1960s garage-rock band the Nightcrawlers.
Reuben Morgan, a popular act in area bars and listening rooms, suggested a nod to one of the area’s marquee R&B stars, Floyd Miles, who once mentored a young Gregg Allman.
“Floyd, of course, would be right up there, with (the 1994 album) ‘Goin’ Back to Daytona,’” Morgan said. “You wouldn’t want to do any Daytona history without (bluesman) Mark Hodgson.”
At Atlantic Sounds, the venerable record store that has been a fixture on West International Speedway Boulevard for more than three decades, owner Mike Toole had a few song suggestions for Hard Rock’s Daytona Beach list that reflect the area’s musical history.
“The Allman Brothers and the Nightcrawlers should be on there,” Toole said. “Daytona really affected a lot of bands in the 1960s. The talent in this little town was just incredible.”
Toole envisions the new Hard Rock Hotel as a fitting addition to that musical history.
“They obviously do a great job and to have it come here, it just makes my day,” Toole said. “I’m so happy it happened.”
As for Toole’s song requests, there will be additions to the Hard Rock Hotel soundtrack, Nolan said.
“The music piece for a Hard Rock Hotel is never static,” Nolan said. “There’s no playlist that is such that it will forever be this way and that is the way it is. It’s a very fluid thing and it will be organic, the way that music is approached. That is something that’s happening constantly.”
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