Domenic Priore writes:

On Saturday @ 6, come by Stories Book Store, 1716 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California (Echo Park, just South of Alvarado) to hear surf instrumental combo The Boardwalkers live and in person.

They’ll be playing between 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. at Stories for a book event based around my new one with Brian Chidester, ‘Pop Surf Culture: Music, Design, Film and Fashion from the Bohemian Surf Boom.’

Pop Surf Culture

Several television monitors around the shop will be screening a wide variety of pre-1970 surfing movies as background eye candy (and for Pop effect) as The Boardwalkers play, and we meet, greet and sign books.

For more information and a ton of groovy pics, check:
dumbangelmag.blogspot.com
Comments on the blog site, very much appreciated. No one previous has presented The Rendezvous like this. Thanks, folk, and hope to see you @ Stories…

When I came across this little bit of info on a new documentary about surf culture related movies, I thought I’d pass it along to Domenic Priore. He is a renowned pop culture historian, specialized and based in Southern California. I didn’t think that much sending the link, but when I read his reply, the conflicting views became obvious to me in an instant. Having read his recent book Pop Surf Culture I had already a good idea about the strong “bohemian” element in 20th century surfing culture, quite the opposite of today’s dominant “jock” (competitive, corporate, surfer risking his neck for Pepsi) – kind of thing.

KK: Hi Domenic, do you know about this?

DP: No, Kahuna, thanks for the tip. It sounds really stupid, like, the opposite of what Pop Surf Culture has to say about the whole thing. It’s hilarious that “real surfers” have yet to outlive the beach movie stereotype they disdain, despite the years of vitriol they have aimed in William “I Love Lucy” Asher’s direction. Jocks don’t have a concept who The Pyramids are, put it that way, but will celebrate a republican like John Milius, who, in Big Wednesday, made a big deal about, well, his being pissed off that a health food restaurant replaced a hamburger stand in Malibu. God forbid they allow a different point of view to exist from their jock trip, sorry, but it pisses me off, again, because, I grew up having to read in SURFER about how “Surfers are blonde haired and blue eyed, those beach movies had ITALIANS playing surfers!” as if that was some kind of big problem. At the same time, I grew up observing “surfers” having gang fights with “cholos” who could care less, but these “surfers” were really just racist American white kids that had it in for Mexican-Americans, or the more activist Chicano movement as well. I’m not a fan of Frankie Avalon all that much (another family values creep) but he was, for the most part, a really good comedian in those movies, and surpassed his own singing career a few times singing Brian Wilson/Gary Usher/Roger Christian songs such as “Runnin’ Wild,” which is cool and actual rock ‘n’ roll… unlike Frankie’s own recording career. I get big, ironic laughs out of Avalon stuff like “These Are the Good Times” as well, though, I mean, what don’t these jocks understand about COMEDY?… especially MUSICAL COMEDY? Morey Amsterdam, Don Rickles, Buddy Hackett, Timothy Carey, Buster Keaton fer chrissakes, again, what’s the problem? We hear nothing but put-downs from “real surfers” with money to burn and a forum… never mind the evident enjoyment of less professional people who surf without NASCAR-style sponsorship. Besides, Big Wednesday is not even close to the coolness of Ride the Wild Surf in any way, shape or form. There. Can you please pass this email on to Greg MacGillivray, whose own surfing movies I pretty much love?

KK: With surfing as a topic of motion pictures I think it’s a field where the fact is always head and shoulders above the fiction. Avalon or Big Wednesday – it doesn‘t matter. And, I can only speak for Europe, here these films practically had no impact on pop culture, let alone the surfers. Yet the scene bears lot’s of similarity to America, from what I gather. Which can only mean that magazines and documentaries where the true forces in shaping the surfers’ representation through the years. People recall seeing Crystal Voyager. I saw a yellow surfboard attached to the van of a neighbor hippie son, as he came back from Morrocco in the late 70s, a little later I picked up a styrofoam bellyboard from their trash. The first german surfers on the island of Sylt had John Severson movies screen to the lifeguard car (horse carriage kind, instead of towers) on the beach in the 1960s and listened to The Astronauts and Beach Boys. My impression is that the jock thing only started here after windsurfing started to be too jock dominated and the cool guys just left it to them. Unfortunately the jocks followed faster than you can say thruster. I will attach a link to a home-movie of a trip to Mazatlan, with music that was obviously dubbed on at the actual time. Listen for the jumps in the music when the footage is re-spliced. It’s a great selection of surf tunes!

I added some links to Domenic’s pure text replys, I hope he doesn’t mind.

I can’t resist any video with a 1960s style main title inspired animation like this one. Click to view the video of Doctor Legume.

quote from Facebook:

‘El Supersonico’ by Docteur Legume et Les Surfwerks
Source: www.youtube.com
big ass surf + hi-tech gadgets + espionage action into a cotton candy-flavored kaleidoscope Reverb-drenched surf music performed by Docteur Legume Et Les Surfwerks / weird onemanband from Italy

From Otto von Stroheim’s Tikievents list:

Book event for ‘Pop Surf Culture: Music, Design, Film and Fashion from the Bohemian Surf Boom’ in Echo Park, L.A., Saturday, February 2st, 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., Stories book store.

Domenic Priore, Brian Chidester, and The Boardwalkers will appear at Stories books, cafe, goods (1716 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles – near the corner of Echo Park Boulevard) on Saturday, February 21st from 6 to 9 p.m. The event is to celebrate the release of the Chidester/Priore book ‘Pop Surf Culture: Music, Design, Film and Fashion from the Bohemian Surf Boom’ (Santa Monica Press). The book traces surfing and Hawaiian music’s potent combo during early 20th Century Waikiki, directly to its landing on California shores, and their development into a true bohemian subculture by the late 1950s/early 1960s. Focus on Tiki, Surf instrumentals, Surf movies, Surf duds in the pre-1970 environment of Southern California is also offset by a look into Waikiki’s Lounge scene of the ’60s, and later revivals of Surf music during the punk/alt rock days as it mixed with Burlesque, Tiki culture and other things you are most likely a part of. So come down and have a ball, its FREE with live Surf instrumental music by The Boardwalkers and pre-1970 surfing movies projected throughout Stories’ book store. Again, the address is 1716 Sunset Boulevard, Los Angeles, California. Phone: (213) 413-3733.

Here’s more info on the book Surf Pop Culture by Domenic Priore and Brian Chidester.

View how a Riley solid balsa classic board is shaped and later ridden by Barton Lynch and friends. First they take the 9 footers for a try-out and at the end Lynch rides the 12 foot one. Check out how it glides through the big flat section. I guess if you have a board like that you will see familiar breaks with different eyes. You can connect peaks that you regard as singular take-offs when taking a shorter, foam board. My favorite break would probably be very good the longest right in Europe with one of these.

YouTube – Story on Riley Balsa Surfboards on RA hosted by Barton Lynch – http://www.balsasurfboardsriley.com.

Chinese Masquerade Party Video (Swing Content)

Crime

1. Lady in Cement
2. The Prisoner
3. Randall and Hopkirk Deceased
4. Duffy
5. Department S
6. The Saint
7. The Rockford files
8. La Polizia ordina: sparate a vista
9. The Avengers
10. The Baron
    
11. Columbo
12. Seven Golden Men
13. Cannon
14. Deadly Shots on Broadway
15. The Streets of San Francisco
16. Superargo

Comedy

1. Le Gendarme de Saint-Tropez
2. My Favorite Martian
3. Pink Panther

Intermission

1. No matter what shape your stomach is in

Animation

1. Menace from the Bottom of the World
2. Stingray
3. Rod Scribner Opening for UPA shorts
4. ?????????? ED
5. Ghost A Go-Go

Exploitation

1. The Cool Ones
2. Sor Yeye
3. The Mariners
4. American Graffiti

Spy

1. Assassination
2. The Man From U.N.C.L.E.
3. Gerak Kilat
4. Where the Spies Are
5. Spy Today Die Tomorrow
6. Spy in Your Eye
7. Some Girls Do
8. From the Orient with Fury
9. Master Stroke
10. Mission Bloody Mary

Adventure

1. Daktari
2. The High Chaparral
3. Der Schatz im Silbersee
4. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly
5. Robinson Crusoe

Romance

1. Love is a Many Splendored Thing
2. Arabesque
3. The Sandpiper

1. Koo Mei – Movie MV
2. Jungle Book Opening
3. Arthur Lyman Clip
4. Arthur Lyman at the Makai Bar
5. Connie Francis – Misirlou (1965)
6. Debra Paget: Beauty and Glory in the South Pacific
7. Afro Mood
8. Desi Arnaz – Similau
9. Desi Arnaz – Tabu
10. Efialths (voodoo dance)
11. Hoton me aisi baat- Jewel Thief
12. Karle pyar karle
13. Korla Pandit
14. Leon Berry – Beast in the Basement
15. Criborn plays Polynesian Village disc
16. Ethel Smith Live The Breeze and I
17. Three Caballeros – Baía
18. Mambo Brazilero
19. 1954 (Mambo)
20. Josephine Siao movie 1/4-dance
21. clip 5/5
22. not in current char set
23. Thelonious Moog – Take 5, 6 &7 The Long Version!
24. Ukulele – After the Fox
25. Ukulele & Melodica – Tequila
26. The Raymond Scott Quintette – War Dance For Wooden Indians
27. Soy Cuba clip: floorshow
28. Setsuo Ohashi – Ebb Tide
29. Santo & Johnny- Moonlight Serenade
30. Stranger in Paradise – Violin Solo in stereo
31. Keroncong
32. Raquel Welch: Space-Girl Dance
33. Exotica in Space
34. Pagan Love Song
35. Reg Kehoe and his Marimba Queens
36. The Lawrence Welk Show: Hindustan
37. 196x
38. (not in current char set)
39. Misora Hibari in Shichihenge Tanukigoten (clip 2)
40. Nat King Cole – Caravan
41. Miserlou: an Egyptian girl conquers America, Greek Song Music
42. Martin Denny – Quiet Village (from Hawaii Calls)
43. Les Baxter Music of the 60’s
44. Les Baxter – Tahiti A Summer Night At Sea
45. The Tikiyaki Orchestra – Exotique
46. Movie MV
47. GeLan / Grace Chang
48. 1950s Dancing Hillbilly Boys – Vintage 8mm Home Movie
49. Blue Bossa vibes solo
50. KTown Heroes ft. Jake Shimabukuro – Bodysurfing (cover)
    
51. Ernie Kovacs Nairobi Trio (original music)