The unit of survival is organism plus environment. We are learning by bitter experience that the organism which destroys its environment destroys itself. – Gregory Bateson
Hawaii 1963. A guy walks down to the shore with his red 5′ board in hand, paddles out and catches some waves. And rides them well, like he does so every day. A shortboard! In 1963! OK, it’s a paipo board which is usually ridden on the belly. It’s radical! Check out how close he rides to the wall towards the end. His body english is very relaxed there. Phew!
Legendary Surfers highly recommends this. So I’m sure this is a good read. If you don’t know who Miki Dora was you haven’t seen many sixties surf films. He was one of the original Malibu locals until he was so pissed off by the crowds that he left to tour the world. He worked as a stuntman in the Beach Party movies. He was not known for riding big surf, but he would do it, like in Ride The Wild Surf. If I remember correctly, there are rides from that season in Endless Summer. Of course he’s also featured at Malibu in that film, were he displays his perfect command of that classic California right hand pointbreak. When I mixed the first Surf me Up, Scotty! album, they sent me a short audio clip of Miki Dora talking on the beach, to mix it under the music. Where they found it I have no idea.
This is another beautiful trailer for a new surf video. I like the unusual and extreme choice of boards ridden and the impressionistic piano music. It works very nice, and casts yet another light on surfing. Very, very nice
Let me add that they are so dark for a reason: they will drop way into the background, you still see enough details. It’s like wearing shades, dig? The size is 1280×1024 pixels.
Flickr: Photos & Video from Mr. Miff
You can also get my surf music related (partly) desktop icons here.
Great to see this kind of historic footage come up. Makes me wonder what other pioneering locals captured on super 8.
Along with Biarritz in France, Newquay in Cornwall was one of surfing’s first footholds in Europe. Believe it or not, but lifeguards on the northsea island of Sylt surfed by that time as well. Getting boards from France and one guy making a surf trip to Cornwall, about the time this video was shot.
Structure I would have a Jazzmaster body made from mahagony with maple-top. A Mosrite/Gretsch scale, set neck, maple with ebony fretboard (Mosrite radius). The neck-profile copied from my e-sitar. Neck-binding, zero-fret and the smallest frets available (Framus NOS?) I probably would have a Bigsby instead of the jm-vibrato, but the jm-bridge. These appointments are based mostly on one of my all-time favorite guitars, the 1975 Gretsch Country Rok, which I sold long ago.
Electronics For pick-ups I would have three Novak Fender XII replicas. Jaguar style three on/off switches (rather than the Stratocaster switch in the pic) The rhythm circuit to give additional pu-combinations, since the 3 pups have two coils each. Maybe like this: upper-bout switch turns on north of bridge, south of neck, but not breaking the main selector circuit. The outside coils should be humcancelling and hollow like a Jazzmaster. I just love the sound of the Fender XII, which I used on Wild Action (Modern Sounds of The Looney Tunes Band). The pick-ups are not as thin as DeArmond single coils, and not as fat as Supertrons. More like Jaguar ones, but hum-cancelling.
Cosmetics Color: ocean turquoise with matching headstock and gold hardware, Kluson-style tuners. Pickguard either gold-aluminium or vintage white. I wanted a gold guard guitar ever since I got The Wildest Guitar by Mickey Baker. I never had a blue-ish guitar before. It looks so green because I chose the aged look in the dressing room. The finish is bluer when new. It looks fancy, I see that. But it’s supposed to be a custom, they have to look fancy!
Monday night, April 14th, 7 – 10 pm PST: Come celebrate Martin Denny’s 98th birthday on Strike’s Kitsch Niche! Strike will celebrate the Earl of Exotica with a 3-hour exotica special! Tune in to hear his attempt to play a track off of every Martin Denny record, do an extended Quiet Village cover set, play some rare Tiki Room stuff, and play one of the rarest exotica records in existence…a vocal version of Quiet Village sung by Darla Hood of Our Gang fame!! Don’t miss this alluring and enticing night of beautiful and strange music this Monday from 7 – 10 pm PST, only on LuxuriaMusic!
I knew about this big back-catalogue re-issue being planned before, but I somehow never could view the web-page until now.
Arthur Lyman died a couple of years ago, and it was a great loss to the people into Exotica and Tiki as he was still performing. He used to play with Martin Denny before he ventured out with his own group. Both artists released similar styled albums, but Lyman kept more Hawai’i in his music as the sixties went on, being hawaiian might be a reason. He had some of the deepest, most atmospheric and soulful Exotica recordings, combining authentic ethnic instrumentation with modern jazz. Another interesting point of note are humorous tunes he often selected to appear towards the end of his LPs. He may not have had a Sandy Warner on the covers, but many are very beautiful, classic Exotica designs. Taboo 2 had an authentic shrunken head on the front, until it was repackaged with a shot from the Pele roll of film.
Kevin Crossman writes on the Exotica list:
Collectors has released 18 Lyman albums in their entirety as 9 two-fer CDs. … Don’t be fooled by lame, generic cover art. each release has the cover of both LPs printed in full color. All you have to do is take the front booklet out and fold it backwards to show the cool orig Lp cover art! The CD also contains a reprint of one of the Lp back covers … Look for the double titles separated by a slash. Steer clear of the Greatest Hits package – it is not bad but I’m sure you would rather have the full experience of a Lyman lp in its original format …
Every once in a while a man takes his life into his own hands. I can’t wait to see this! I guess Paskowitz should be a household name to a guy with a 9ft Malibu in the corner of his home office, but I’m afraid you have to look elsewhere for further info on this obviously very special family. Wait, the movie should make me that much wiser.