‘Woody’ Brown Died

From the Honolulu Advertiser:

KAHULUI, Maui — Renowned surfer Woodbridge Parker “Woody” Brown died Wednesday at Hale Makua, Kahului. He was 96.

“He was the essential surfer, an iconoclast: extremely independent, futuristic and, most especially, healthy — which explains why he lived for 96 very productive, wonderful years,” said Hemmings, the 1968 world surfing champion who inaugurated the world professional surfing circuit in 1975. “… I only hope more of us who call ourselves surfers can live the way Woody lived.

Brown, who surfed regularly until he was 90, rubbed shoulders with Charles Lindbergh, Duke Kahanamoku and old Hawaiians who lived the life of a former era, he said.

Book on Miki Dora

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.

Here’s the author’s (David Rensin) page.

Here’s a Miki Dora interview on YouTube.

Seaworthy Trailer

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

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mX83wOvsQwE

Thanks to 70percent.org

Wallpapers in my Flickr

Rare 60s Standel guitars

Mosrite guitars promotional print

Rare vintage Gretsch guitars

Coral (vintage Danelectro) guitars

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.

Newquay Surfing in the Early 1960s

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.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRgjIe-qc20

My Custom Guitar

…if I could have it my way.

jm

I created this picture in the dressing room at offset-guitars.com.

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!

Surfwise
Paskowitz Family Documentary

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.

Surfwise – A film by Doug Pray

The Demise of The Ditch

Over at Cleanestline.com Gerry Lopez writes about his experience with a standing wave. It’s a nice and long text, that I will give a second look on the sofa, apparently coming from his book Surf is Where You Find It. That is a title after my taste. This should be every surfer’s motto, how else could the crowds be dispensed?

… Since it’s gone, I guess there’s no reason to keep the secret any longer. What we had was a pretty neat surf spot almost 200 miles from the ocean. For the last three years, it’s been double top secret. Even so, like everything else in the surfing world, the word got out. That’s why it got taken away. Too many people knew and were having too much fun.

We got talking and discovered that he never had ridden a wave in the ocean. He had surfed a few other standing waves in the area, but had just heard about this one. His board was Oregon-made in a shop out in Lincoln City. He found it in a second hand store here in our desert town and it worked well for him.

The Cleanest Line: The Demise of the Ditch

1930s Waikiki Beach Boys

from Legendary Surfers

Beach Boys of Waikiki, circa 1930s

… ‘Anyway,’ wrote Karen Cotter, ‘from amongst my aunt’s books I acquired two old poetry books by Don Blanding, published in 1923 and 1925 respectively, and in the back of one, written in pencil, is a list of ‘Beach Boys of

Waikiki’ in my aunt’s hand which I thought you might find of interest…’

The listing – by no means complete, but still the largest list of 1930s Waikiki Beach Boys I have seen anywhere – is as
follows, in the order it was written: …

read the names here: 1930s Waikiki Beach Boys