When I was asked to DJ Exotica music on a boat recently I had to burn some vinyl of mine to CD. So I could see the sound waves and made two screenshots of the perfectly mastered Arthur Lyman album Bahia.

The reason I chose this one was that the loudest and first track I ripped peaked at 0dB without the limiter catching it. I just left the dials to their own devices and hoped I can capture the entire album with this “magic” setting. It was just plain luck. So I ripped this particular vinyl record without any additional limiting or compression, peaking at 0dB and all the music of that album perfectly relative to that peak.

When you see the soundwaves you will recogn that each one has got its own shape. This means that the creativity of the musicians is reflected in the volume at any given point in time, allowing for drama, surprises and expression. Sure there was some kind of processing going on even in those days, but it was to get a good, hi-fi sound at the end-consumer, with the goal being a natural room impression – heavy compression doesn’t allow that. See that one very quiet track – it’s meant to be that way. How they made it? They played their instruments softer. You have to be quiet yourself to clearly hear it, you start interacting with the music.

It all made me realize on a new level, what beautiful works of art music masters can be.

Here are two Heavy Metal soundfiles for comparison. It’s the same track, the upper, more dynamic one was given to a game company, the lower one is from the CD album. Wether this was a mistake or the less dynamic sound was considered more desireable I don’t know.

related posts:
Turn Me Up! | Bringing Dynamics Back To Music
Loudness Wars Explained
Article on Metallica‘s new album at Wired.

Video On Demand from Amazon

…the first two minutes of videos automatically play at no charge to customers when they visit the product detail page. At any time during this 2-minute viewing period, customers can choose to purchase or rent the title to watch it in its entirety…

The Bruce Brown movies prior to The Endless Summer are now available for download from Amazon. Personally speaking: You got to have them all.

For reasons unknown to me Barefoot Adventure is not available.

The exhibition I wrote about in the early days of this blog is now partially online. I like that!

visit Power & Taboo: Sacred Objects from the Pacific

I read the Spectro Pop site is recommending this highly. And the author, Stephen J. McParland, has been a prolific historian of the subject of Surf-, hotrod-, Skateboard-, Motorbike and related early to mid 60s musical styles since 1979, when he started his California Music magazine, from Australia.
read more about this book here.

Check out CMusic books while we’re at it!

Otto von Stroheim writes:

There is a HUGE Surf weekend event happening this weekend
All the details are listed below but if you don’t want to read all that boring text you can just check out the poster here:
https://surfguitar101.com/hosted/SG101convention2.jpg

If you have questions please contact Jeff at:
bigtikidude (at) yahoo (dot) com

Surf Guitar 101 Convention
Suzy’s Bar and Grill
1141 Aviation Blvd. (at Prospect)
Hermosa Beach, California
Noon to 5 or 7 pm, separate night show is 8 pm to midnight

a Swap Meet of surf music (cds, lp’s 45s -new used), and instrument/gear
shirts, posters, hats etc. if you have surf swag/merch to sell bring it, grab a free table and sell away.
Major Vendors will be.
Double Crown Records,
Dionysus Records,
Golly Gee Records
Gomez Amplification
Huntington Beach International Surfing Museum
John Blair with his re-issue of The 80’s album Stampede on CDw bonus trx
Machturtle Productions, and many surf bands cds.
plus many other bands members will be there selling their cds.
and there will be 1 table with Tiki magazine and other tiki related stuff
if you get tired of the Surf stuff.

**but Please save enough Money for the Night show, and their Merch. they need money too, as some of them are coming from The Mid West and
Nor. Cal.

and multi media presentations,
Dominic Priore’s Assistant Brian from the Dumb Angel Gazette and Surf Pop Culture Books, will have some of their books and mags.showing surf music clips from the 60’s and a slide show of historic pictures.
and Possibly have the Original Surfaris Sufari LP for sale.(Lmited qtys)

There will be a short trailer of the ‘Sound of Surf’ music documentary that is in production now, and they may be doing interviews at this event for the film.

Paul Johnson will be having the premier of the Pounding Surf! DVD
plus historic stories and footage from the 60’s surf scene.
plus all of the different cds he has for sale.

and Surf Show
4 Bands
The Boardwalkers, (LA)
Outterwave, (LA)
The Aquasonics, (Colorado)
Secret Samurai, (San Diego)

ALSO just added a short 4 song Eliminators set,
4 songs of Eddie Bertrand with the Eliminators,
and a 30 min Slacktone set.

Surf Jam/ (sign up list to join will be posted soon)many songs,
you play a Standard along with a Live backing band
here is the Link to the Tread with the list of songs to choose to play with Outterwave.
this list will be close soon, so join in now.
https://surfguitar101.com/forums/topic/6038/?page=1#81631

and get together/meet and greet

I am still talking to people about coming to it, and being involved.
But I wanted to Officially announce when it will be.

Later that night.
The Madeira from Mid west, Pollo Del Mar from Nor. Cal., Insect Surfers and Detonators are playing 8 pm till Midnight.

also
On Sun. Aug 3rd at the Huntington Beach Pier, 11 am to 5 pm will be.
The Fabulous Nomads, The Relix, Aquasonics from Colorado, Pollo Del Mar,
The Madeira , and The Surftones, Feat. Matt Q from Reventlos, and Kerry Chester ex of DD’s 80s band.

I Figured it would be best to announce it asap, as I know the sooner the better, for arranging for airfare and sleeping and car accommodations.

There is also a San Diego show with Pollo Del Mar,Madeira,Secret Samurai, and Zombie Surf Camp, on the Fri. nite. Aug 1st. If anybody would like to go down there to get an early st

Virani from Paris has a nice Flickr photostream with pics form Berlin Wassermusik 08 here.

Along with seeing and hearing Waitiki and Latin Lovers it was great meeting Virani, Jochen and Tanja Hirschfeld, Forbidden Paradise’ Hai Kai and Michael. It made me really happy to hear that the first part of Armchairtravelling in the World of Tiki DVD will be available later this year. I enjoyed seeing the work in progress on the big screen, especially interested how the pictures work with the music, I had the pleasure to record for it. It’s going to be a definitive must have for Tiki-philes. …once it’s actually available.

Latin Lovers (Berlin)

This band was opening the Tiki weekend at Wassermusik 08. The horn heavy line-up was proof to the theory that many ways lead to Exotica.

The Mayor of Exotica in Sumo dress

He didn’t quite look as big wearing his stage suit. An Exotica flute heavy weight if there ever was one!

Waitiki at Wassermusik 08

Accomplished performances by all musicians, beautiful arrangements and cheerful stage presence – it was a great experience seeing them. Thanks! Oh, and the birdcalls by Lopaka Colon – so great and all done while providing perfect groove in polyrythmic bongo-playing. Several people noted to me that we were listening actually to Augie Colon’s son. Playing again today with Don Tiki.

I had written a nice text about how I was introduced to The New Dimensions in the 80s. But I lost it trying out the new “Press This” feature of this blog software. It boiled down to the essence that any surf music fan worth his salt has to know this great teenage band from 1962.

Michael Lloyd, lead guitar; Jimmy Greenspoon, piano; Art Guy, drums, Danny Belsky, saxes; David Doud, bass; and Craig Nuttycombe, rhythm guitar.

The band never had any singles released. We worked with these hustler types by the name of Robert Hafner and Tony Hilder. They had a deal with a tiny budget label called Sutton to issue the New Dimension albums as ‘rack jobs.’ Essentially that meant their records would be pressed on cheap vinyl normally reserved for placemats, packaged in fairly generic sleeves, and shipped directly to the cut out bins with no hope of promotion, airplay, or royalties. We had three studio albums, ‘Surf ‘N Bongos’, ‘Soul’, and ‘Deuces & Eights’. We were part of a live album from the Santa Monica surf fair titled ‘Shake! Shout and Soul!’

Read the interview here.

First of all: it rained, so the two Surf shows and The Endless Summer projection took place indoors. The attendence was fair sized, could have been a little better, if outside sure some passer-bys would have joined the fun.

The first time I saw the Surfaris, and it was overwhelming. They cover the entire field of classic California Surf Music and each player added his personal style to great effect, especially Paul Johnson has to be noted here, a flawless player.

July 25 – 26, 2008

Enchanted Tiki Luau Blow-Out
An Egyptian Theatre exclusive!

After the success of our Tiki events the past three summers, we’re back again with more exotic ephemera: more fun feature films, diverting oddball shorts, vendors, food, music and more! We’ll be showing old-school island adventure pics Fair Wind to Java, Aloma of The South Seas and Her Jungle Love (all in gorgeously saturated color) will screen along with artist Kevin Kidney’s collection of rare, island-themed TV surprises. Join us in the Egyptian’s Courtyard for a Royal Southern California-style Luau with exotic musical entertainment from King Kukelele and his Friki Tikis and the Polynesian Paradise Dancers. There will also be Tiki vendors and other special surprises in the courtyard on Saturday from 1:00 PM until we shut it down.

read more at Tiki_Weekend_ET