It's funny how the life of a rock 'n' roll personality seems to work out.

First there's the success, if you're lucky.

Success came to Dick Dale years before the song "Misirlou" gained fame in "Pulp Fiction."

Now the success, if you want to call it that, is the part that you dream of as a young, aspiring artist. The groupies, the drugs, the plaster casts of sexual organs, and god knows what else that comes along with fame (or at least, it did in the 60s).

Success also meant the respect that went along with being dubbed "king of surf guitar" by fans and critics.

But then you get old and bitter.

If the Rolling Stones had opened up for you in the 60s, and you found yourself playing at bars when you were 50, you would be bitter too. Mick Jagger has enough money to buy the Ivory Coast and you are drinking Budweiser, because Heineken is $3.50 a bottl e. Maybe I can sympathize.

Our party was determined to get an interview with Dale the night of his Club Congress gig, so we asked around. A Congress employee told us to try room 214.

"Is this Dick Dale's room?" I asked. "Yes, it is Dick Dale's room, but he is busy right now," the voice said back to me. I explained I was with the Wildcat . The voice told me that he would be available after the show.

Before Dale took the stage we were lucky enough to get to hear Chick Cashman and his Countrypolitans, who were very good. They did not sound very country that night, but rather played loud droning blues reminiscent of the Velvet Underground.

Chick Cashman, dressed in drag, looked sort of like Nico in a jacket. He left stage for Dick Dale, who arrived to cheers 20 minutes later.

It was clear that the man knew his way around a guitar. His style of playing is very distinct, with lightning-fast picking that has been famed to melt picks and heat up even the toughest strings. Dale played guitar south-paw style, loudly kicking the crow ds preverbial butt.

As Dale put it on a Web page for his new album "Calling Up Spirits," "I just kick some ass. And I break 60 gauge strings in the process." Even though I enjoyed the show , I did get the feeling that the man on stage was pretty full of himself, and dead-se t on getting people to buy his shirts, albums, and whatever else he was hocking at the show.

There was one song in particular that really impressed me, off the new album "Calling Up Spirits". In the middle of the song, there was a change in the feel and the bass player handed him a trumpet. With his guitar hanging off of him still, he played a Sp anish-sounding lick on the horn with a degree of accuracy that surprised me.

Just as my respect for the man was at a peak, he finished the song and began blabbing about how there are some songs with horn on an album named blah, that you could probably get at blah. Those whipper-snappers sure do love a good spot of horn. But they a in't buying the albums for some reason. Before the night was done, Dale did the classic "Misirlou" among other Dale classics and not-so-well-knowns. His hour-plus set was energetic, although redundant at times.

Overall I enjoyed the show, but it would have been far better if he would have kept his mouth shut. That is, except to play the trumpet.

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