Pacific Ocean Park

The first ime I was introduced to Pacific Ocean Park was on a Surfer’s Mood surf comp in the early 90s, through two tracks from a promo 45 that were included by the Restless Surfer.
So now I found this video at YouTube about it. Thereabouts must have been the later Dogtown, where Tony Alva and fellow skaters developed their new skating styles in the seventies.

Watch the Pacific Ocean Park video here.

Save Independent Internet Radio

forwarded from Luxuriamusic:

Luxuriants,

A bill has been introduced that will save independent internet radio from the huge royalty payments that the CRB recently handed down. Call your Representative right now and ask them to co-sponsor the “Internet Radio Equality Act”, introduced by Representative Jay Inslee. This bill will set royalty rates that internet radio pays to the same reasonable level that satellite radio pays.

Please call the House switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to speak to your representative.

If you don’t know who your representative is, you can find them here

Go to www.savenetradio.org for more information

Then tell them:

– I am a constituent and I’m calling to ask Congressman/woman ________ to save Internet radio by co-sponsoring the Internet Radio Equality Act.

– Due to the recent Copyright Royalty Boards decision to significantly
increase royalty rates for webcasters. In the case of most independent
Internet radio stations, the royalties amount to several times their gross revenues!

– Without this bill, my favorite Internet radio stations will be forced off the air and I do NOT want that to happen. Please tell Congressman/woman ________ to co-sponsor the Internet Radio Equality Act, which sets royalties for Internet radio that is fair and in-line with what other digital radio services pay.

Other information you may want to share:

– Internet radio stations have been paying royalties, and are happy to pay reasonable royalties that fairly compensate artists for the music they make. But putting webcasters out of business by royalties that are
several times their gross revenues will actually harm artists who depend on independent Internet radio to get their music out to fans, build new audiences and sell their music. When internet radio goes off the air, so do artists.

Feel free to mention how much music you’ve discovered through LuxuriaMusic, or that you’ve learned about music that you never heard any place else.

Also, please forward this to your friends who love internet radio, and help get the word out. Since getting a bill passed in Congress is a difficult, we need to contact our representatives NOW!

Thank you for your help,

The LuxuriaMusic Team

Here’s a page on the subject.

Rare Gretsch Tiki Guitar

Tiki Talk made me aware of this rare bird from Gretsch a while ago. The guitar is based on the very rare Gretsch White Penguin, which is like a small bodied White Falcon. You can see one like this in the Beat Club appearance by the Small Faces, or here.

Update by baxter from the Gretschpages:

Couple of notes on the Easton White Tiki:

Vintage White Penguins are excruciatingly rare. A real Holy Grail guitar. Few people have ever even seen one. However, they have been reissued, and modern ones aren’t particularly difficult to come by.

The White Tiki itself doesn’t share much with the penguin beyond the white paint, although it was undeniably inspired by it. It’s actually much closer to standard signature model (6128EE, in Gretsch model numbers) only with the white finish and tiki trappings that Elliot’s a big fan of.

Response to the guitar was overwhelmingly positive, () but for whatever reason Elliot and Gretsch parted ways and that was the end of that. As far as I know, only the one prototype was made.

If I hunt, I maybe able to find the revised headstock treatment I created for it.

New Sven Kirsten Book Tiki Modern

After the groundbreaking book on Tiki Pop-Culture of the mid-20th century Tiki Modern follows up with the perfect companion, focusing even more on the interior design aspects of modern Tiki during his heyday.

Deutsch Kurzbeschreibung von der Buecher.de Seite:

Kurzbeschreibung: Dieses amüsante Buch bringt zwei der jüngsten Retro-Trends zusammen: Das Faible für die 1950er und 60er sowie den Tiki-Style. Mit einer Mischung aus Enthusiasmus und Ironie zeigt Autor Sven Kirsten, wie Naivität und Moderne Mitte des 20. Jahrhunderts Hand in Hand gingen. Im wahrsten Sinn des Wortes schrecklich moderne Möbel verbanden alten Kitsch und neue Heldenverehrung zum Beispiel Kreationen aus dem Hause Witco; dem Unternehmen, das Elvis Presleys ‘Jungle Room’ und Hugh Hefners Playboy-Pool schuf. Eine wahre Hoch-Zeit des Designs!

hier geht’s zum Buecher.de Shop

2nd Tiki Art Exhibition Amsterdam

Forwarded from Hankabilly on MySpace:

Tiki Art Exhibition opens by Shaman Lapu Lapu from Tiki Island.
Sun April 15 from 4 pm
“2nd Tiki Art Exhibition” till May 20 2007

This group show of new work inspired by Tiki by
Sam Gambino (usa)
www.samgambino.com
Heather Watts (can)
www.theartdeck.com
Tiki Tony (usa)
www.tikitony.com
Tiki Racer (uk)
www.tikiracer.com
Jasper Fijnvandraat
www.jasperwerk.nl

Van Hamersveld

Endless Summer by Hamersveld

The graphicdesigner who designed the timeless Endless Summer poster for the Bruce Brown movie from 1965.
Here are more 60s works by him.

Rock Hall Voting Scandal (MySpace Bulletin Repost)

This interesting Bulletin came thru this morning on MySpace:

Rock Hall Voting Scandal: Rock Group Actually Won

According to sources knowledgeable about the mysterious ways of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, British Invasion group The Dave Clark Five and not Grandmaster Flash finished fifth in the final voting of the nominating committee and should have been inducted on Monday night.

According to sources, Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner, who recently appointed himself chairman of the Foundation after the death of Ahmet Ertegun, ignored the final voting and chose Grandmaster Flash over the DC5 for this year’s ceremony.

“Jann went back to a previous ballot instead of taking the final vote as the last word,” my source insisted. “He used a technicality about the day votes were due in. In reality, The Dave Clark Five got six more votes than Grandmaster Flash. But he felt we couldn’t go another year without a rap act.”

R.E.M.
, Van Halen, The Ronettes and Patti Smith were the top four vote-getters, with Grandmaster Flash finishing fifth when the votes were counted on the first date ballots were due in to the Rock Hall office.

But when all the ballots were counted a few days later, the DC5 had pulled ahead. Wenner decided to ignore that and stick with the earlier tally.

“We begged Jann to allow all six acts to be inducted. But he insisted that he couldn’t because there wouldn’t be enough time,” my source said. “He wanted to have Aretha Franklin come and perform in memory of Ahmet Ertegun.”

The Ertegun tribute, while very nice, was deemed unnecessary by members of the main committee because the Atlantic Records co-founder will be memorialized in New York on April 17.

“But Jann wanted to do his own tribute. It was insane, especially since he took over Ahmet’s position on the board before Ahmet even had a memorial. Jann simply sent papers around informing everyone that he was now the chairman,” my source said.

The Dave Clark Five ballot tampering, however, stings the most. The group, part of the British Invasion of the ’60s, should have been inducted long ago for their hits like “Glad All Over,” “Bits & Pieces” and “Catch Me If You Can.” Making them wait has turned out to be a huge mistake, as their fortunes have not been great.

In December 2006, sax player Denis Payton succumbed to cancer at age 63. Lead singer Mike Smith has been paralyzed since 2003 after falling off a ladder at his home in Spain.

In August 2005, a terrific fundraising effort for Smith at B.B. King’s in New York was supposed to be the prelude to finally recognizing the group that had several memorable hits in the mid-’60s.

Wenner’s cruel axing of them from the show and the Hall of Fame should be painful to many who are intimately involved with the Hall, like Paul Shaffer, who runs the Hall of Fame band and produced and emceed the Smith tribute.

So what happened here? My sources also say that Wenner’s motivation may have sprung from a controversial speech that was delivered by new administrative head Joel Peresman to the nominating committee last winter.

“He stood up there and told us that we should vote for who we thought would be most commercial, and who be best on the TV show,” a source said. “It was outrageous. Some people tried to stop him and asked him to leave, but he wouldn’t. He said, ‘I’m not leaving.’ The director is never supposed to speak to the nominating committee.”

Peresman came to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation last year when Wenner arbitrarily ousted the long-time chief of the group, Suzan Evans Hochberg, after two decades of loyalty.

“We couldn’t believe Jann stood up there last night and said Suzan was retiring. But when the seating plan went crazy the other day, Jann called and begged her to come in and help. Peresman knows nothing about the business,” a source said.

Peresman came to the Foundation from gigs booking shows at Madison Square Garden and with Clear Channel, the radio giant that many feel has strangled the music business with intransigent radio play policies and suggestions — actually, government investigations — of payola.

In the old days, such a hire would have been considered anathema by Wenner.

None of this should come as any surprise to those who have followed the roller-coaster world of the Rock Hall. According to the group’s most recent tax filing, for example, they gave only $9,000 to indigent musicians from their $11 million in holdings.

Even worse: Wenner sent a tax-free $10,000 to something called Jazz Casuals in San Francisco. It’s really just the archives of Ralph J. Gleason, the late jazz writer who periodically wrote for Rolling Stone in its early days. It was the only donation made by the Foundation to any group last year.

“Again, outrageous,” a source said. “With all of Jann’s money, he could have just sent a check. He didn’t need to use the Foundation’s money.”

By contrast, the Foundation gave only $53,000 to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum in Cleveland. Attorney Allen Grubman’s law firm took another $50,000 for legal services rendered. Evans received her usual $300,000 salary. Peresman is said to be receiving even more.

And then there’s the matter of who has left on the nominating committee. I’m told that nearly half the group is gone, leaving 32 members. Many of the remaining members are former or current Wenner employees, like Rolling Stone’s Nathan Brackett, David Fricke, Jim Henke, Joe Levy, Brian Keizer and Anthony DeCurtis.

Jon Landau, Bruce Springsteen‘s manager and a former Rolling Stone writer, is the chairman of the committee and considered the last truly mediating influence on Wenner.

There are only three actual musicians: Paul Shaffer, Steven van Zandt and Robbie Robertson. Three are female. One of them is black. There are only two other black members: journalist Toure and Reginald C. Dennis

Wenner, I’m told, “weeded out everyone he didn’t like.” He even got rid of the veteran New York Post and Vanity Fair writer Lisa Robinson.

Wenner almost bumped Claudia Perry, a Newark Star Ledger sports writer and former pop music critic. After a scuffle, she managed to hang on, which was good news. As a black woman she fulfilled two minorities on the board (Edna Gundersen and Elyssa Gardner of USA Today are the other females).

“This is the opposite of what Ahmet would have wanted,” a source said. “He liked a big committee that reflected lots of different tastes.”

Got Myself One of Those Old Magicstomps

For a very long time I was contend with my Boss DD3 echo pedal. Of course it’s generic and cold sounding compared to old tube-tape or disc delays like the Dynacord I once owned. But trying to get spare parts for those was impossible in pre-internet days, at least for my amptech back then. And the old echos require collectors money – when I just wanted a tool, not a museum piece. The earlier delay modelers like the Line6 tried to do too much I don’t want and too less of what I want, the variations of multihead delay patterns. I always found them a little too expensive! Now the Magicstomp recreates tape and multihead delays very well. And timebased effects like echo and reverb escape the detached feeling latency encountered with other digitally generated effects, like amp-modeling and distortion. I got mine used and it’s of the first variety, later versions include a headphone jack.

What really convinced me beside the current low prices for them, was finding this page, where a dutch guy programmed a large number of sixties tape echo patches for the Magicstomp, mostly Meazzi and Vox. There’s also a Roland, and the patch really resembles the sonic signature. You can download patches from Yamaha’s site or dedicated www-groups (2 on Yahoo!) and install them with your pc or mac with OS9 and built in usb. Just connect an usb cable and start the Magicstomp editor. You can deep edit a lot of effect parameters and store them to 99 user presets.

Integrating the effectbox into a live-set-up brings some problems. Read this message from one of the Yahoo! Magicstomp boards:

I’ve finally got round to attaching my magicstomp to my board only to
find a considerable drop in volume when patches are engaged. Tried
reducing the input level but no change.
Is this yet another defect (along with the half second pause between
patches) that has lead to this product being discontinued?
Here’s another point. I’ve decided to use my stomp to replace certain
effects that I only use occasionaly – phaser,flanger, uni-vibe and for
delays etc…problem is that I thought I could navigate up and down
and then just use the on/off footswitch to activate the chosen effect.
Turns out that even though the display reads “reverb” for example, I
still have a bloody harmoniser. Have to go back to the patch that the
sound corresponds to and then move up or down. Useless. I never
noticed this before when I used it as a stand alone effect. Anyone had
similar problems ar know something I don’t?????
Cheers.