Alicia Wagner Calzada | 210sa Contributor

THE BAND: Saturday Night Satellites

THE MEMBERS: Phillip Sada, guitar; Joshua Bloodsworth, guitar; Randy Elliott, bass; Brian Parrish, drums; Kris Zebrowski, theremin

THE SOUND: The band plays mostly original instrumental surf rock with a trippy darker side than Dick Dale's tunes. They do a couple of songs with lyrics, including a cover of “Never Understand” by Jesus and Mary Chain. “We love surf music. Every time people hear guitar instrumental, they call it surf (think ‘Miserlou' and ‘Wipeout'),” Parish said. “We wanted a clearly very different sound than '60s surf.” Mission accomplished, but without overdoing it. “Everybody brings a nice kind of minimalistic simplicity to it,” Sada said. The theremin adds a spooky mystique. The instrument is an enclosed circuit board with two antennae. Distorted sounds are created by moving your hands closer and farther from the antennae. “It's the only instrument you play without touching,” Zebrowski said.

DOWNLOADS: Four of the band's songs can be downloaded from their MySpace.

THE WEB SITE: myspace.com/saturdaynightsatellites

THE BACKGROUND: Sada and Parrish started jamming together in the summer of 2006 as an offshoot of Sada's other band, The Lowtides. Elliott was a fan of Parrish's show on KSYM 90.1, The Casbah (which features surf, psychedelic, blues and garage music), and the band became a trio. “I forced myself on them,” Elliott said. Zebrowski soon followed. The band played its first gig in August 2007. The newest member, Bloodsworth, recently relocated from Pensacola, Fla. He contacted the band on MySpace and officially joined after everyone was mutually impressed. Bloodsworth said he's excited to be a part of what this band and other bands in Texas are doing. “Experimental music that's coming from this part of the country is affecting the rest of the country,” he said.

WHERE TO SEE THEM: 10 p.m., April 25 at Limelight

THE 210 TAKE: Surf music catches a killer wave with the Saturday Night Satellites. You don't know what you're missing until you hear “Pipeline” live. The band succeeds in sticking out from other sounds. Parrish summed it up best: “We're getting to a point where it's really starting to come together.”

Jennifer McInnis | 210SA