Since the DVD of Tiki isn’t available at this point – I thought I’d post a link to this.
Commented slide-shows on the internet – why didn’t I think of that?
Duncan Scott, 1st December 2007, Mullaghmore Head, Ireland: photo Kelly Allen
from Surfers Villagee (via Surfrider blog)
Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 1 December, 2007 : – – As Ireland was battered today by the largest ocean swells ever predicted by the Marine Institute’s weather buoys (14 metres), a group of four surfers braved the stormy conditions to successfully take on the biggest waves ever ridden in the British and Irish Isles, off Mullaghmore Head, south Donegal Bay, Ireland. Duncan Scott (Newquay, Cornwall, UK), Alistair Mennie (Portrush, N.Ireland), Gabe Davies (Newcastle, UK) and Ritchie Fitzgerald (Bundoran, Co. Donegal, Ireland) motored out at first light on two jetskis to await the arrival of the massive, storm-driven swells.
video link
What a great find! Somebody on a audio recording board posted this link.
It’s an animated movie explaining “loudness”. It’s a high average volume level. Meaning there’s less softer parts in the music. If you read this you probably have a chance of enjoying old music. You probably think about the old recordings as being played by real musicians, on real instruments, projecting real emotions and so forth. All fine an dandy with me. But that’s not all there is to it. They recorded it differently! The guys at the record companies enjoyed loud parts coming after quieter parts. A scary movie is most scary when nothing is really happening, but your senses tell you that something could and probably will happen. Then when all the screams come on, its not scary anymore. You are scared in the fracture of a second actually, the transition from quiet to loud.
With modern music it’s like horror screams all of the time. No wonder most people eventually turn away from it. At first (your early teens) you think “cool – it’s really loud”. But as an adult you will find that the dimensions offered in music are richer for your enjoyment.
Many professionals in the recording industry think that this loudness war is one thing that is hurting the music business of today. Also consider the fact that an artist will sound wimpy on stage by comparison to his recordings. You didn’t read about booed off the stage superstars in the 50s, 60s and 70s. Or even the 80s. It’s fans robbed off another illusion. And they start realizing they have one voice.
Style!
Search for Rapa Nui Board Riding at www.boardridetv.com – longboarding in the land of the Moais!
Naturally born surfers.
Here’s their blog – old school. It’s all in spanish. Looks like a nice, fun bunch.
Saturday september 22nd was all about Tiki. The attendance could have been stronger – bad mana Berlin!
But many Ti-key figures came from different parts of europe. The Klang & Kleid guys (Switzerland‘s Lurker, who organized the complete series of events, what an effort, especially considering the timing problems…), of course Sven Tiki and Tanja & Jochen Hirschfeld were there in person to present their respective Tiki documentations.
I also met Virani (from Paris) and Sian the Beachcomber and Trader Jim (of Pocketiki from England), Carola & my old buddy Andreas, Liz & Chris from Cambridge and even though we live in the same city I hadn’t seen Moritz® in a while, but there he was.
Sven, as usual, had prepared a thoroughly enlightening slide-show on the Tiki Modern subject. He was first to present it in the Eiszeit Kino, not before just about everybody had sampled at least one of the 4 great cocktails supplied by the Aloha Luau. The Jungle Bird was a great new discovery for me. And the new book was on display (and for sale) to the enthusiasts. Everybody who bought one had it signed by Sven – they now have quite a heavyweight coffeetable load, considering this new book Tiki Modern has more and bigger pages, and more great pictures than the already huge Book of Tiki! The layout looks cleaner than in the Book of Tiki – which goes very nicely together with the modern subject.
Intermission allowed for another taste from Aloha Luau’s menu and then it was Jochen’s turn. He held a short speech explaining the pre-history of the Armchair Travelling project and the DVD started rolling in the darkened cinema. As I was involved with creating 8 tracks for the DVD’s soundtrack I had seen parts before and Jochen had told about his travels and who he had talked to in the course of making the film. But seeing the first part (about the 30s – 60s origins and beginnings of Tiki pop-culture) condensed into only 60 minutes, the giant afford that was done was at hand. It is something else. There were hours and hours of material edited into what we were presented here, in a great way. But you have to bear in mind that the two DVDs are going to be a hundred minutes each! I was under the impression that just about everybody who could say something profound on Tiki was contacted and interviewed. Of course speaking of the most interesting subjects, giving the most exciting details. So there’s interviews, but also old, private super-8 footage! Gathered classic urban archeaologist style at fleamarkets and garagesales. Another great ingredient were the animated stills. If you have seen Riding Giantsor Dogtown and Z-Boys you know what I mean. A new way of using still photographs in film to draw you into the subject – very effective! If you don’t know about it, it’s not apparent to you it’s stills often times. Just like in the other two docs I mentioned, combined with the right music it’s a great mood- and details-asset to a project like that.
Afterwards played Hulapunk from Hamburg, and a great time was had by all.
But Aloha Luau, in true spirit, had people last minute finishing his new, cute little mini Tiki bar in Oranienstr. while he was serving drinks at the cinema. So most everybody went to check that out, after Hulapunk were finished and the first chatting about the new enlightments was done. I had a Mai-tai (bit too sour) and another, fantastic Jungle Bird.
Nancy Sinatra put some photos of her and the late Lee Hazlewood online. Click here.
Thanks to Robbie on the Exotica Mailing List.
Dumb Angel Blog is delivering the goods here. The next best thing to being there at the time is knowing all the good stuff.
All the themed night-clubs. The recording studios and labels. The Doo-Wop groups, the R&B and soul acts. The garage bands who covered them. The cool jazz-acts. Early Doors, artists and mindblowing interior design. Pheww… You owe it to yourself to check out this update of the Dumb Angel Blog.
Quoting from their MySpace profile:
Surf Soundtracks 1964 – 1974 Released on July 2nd on Harmless Records
Never mind the Beach Boys, Chairman Of The Board is a collection of vintage soundtracks from iconic cult surf films. Underground film makers wanted original music, a harder sound to reflect the new wilder cinematic expression now possible on the face of a wave. The soundtrack they chose to enhance this visual experimentation was the mellower stoner blues and psychedelic rock, which perfectly captured the cerebral highs of living the alternative dream. The music featured on this compilation, some of which has never been released, originates from six of these classic surf films.
I have some of the films on VHS or DVD, and some of the released soundtracks on vinyl. It’s a really great genre with a very high musical standard. And it’s something you can play to people if they ask you what music surfers listened to, in the 60s (and early 70s in this case).
Ingfried Hoffmann – Plays Jazz for Secret Agents
Fantastic organ led spy-jazz cd. Mostly Bond titles from the early movies, but some great originals too. A nifty guitar player is involved here as well!!!
