Here I list some boutique guitar makers (or luthiers) who have some designs that could be working well for Surf music. Obviously they often have features familiar from the various famous Fender guitars such as the Stratocaster, the Jazzmaster or the Jaguar. There’s also a new model which combines features of the Jazzmaster and the Jaguar, called The Johnny Marr Jaguar. My rule of thumb was really for them to have at least two single coil pick-ups and a vibrato unit. I haven’t played any of these, but from my experience of digging at Surf music since the late eighties I have an idea what works. You have to acustom yourself with a guitar, especially for instrumental music, and for some players the feel of the whole Fender package might be too far from their heritage, or the sound is too cookie-cutter-like.

The pictures are links.

OK, this might already be a controversial choice. But recently I find myself listening to Morpheus by The Toads who had a Gibson for lead, and it worked for them. This here is obviously based on Gibson’s Les Paul model, except for the unusual shape.

Harvester

Here we have a similar candidate, with a set neck too and even mini humbuckers. Isn’t it a beauty? The 1963 Mosrite Ventures model had a set neck as well, with no lack of attack for sure! This being a very boutique enterprise, the builder would probably drop in a pair of singles coils if you ask him to. Kindly.

Roadrunner Bazaar

Roadrunner Surfmaster

Roadrunner Grave Digger

Roadrunner Anty

These are creations by a frenchman. He seems to be into all the right bands and the inspiration for his guitars is as cool. He beats his own path, never copying a bodyshape, and coming up with different electronic layouts and color schemes. Unique stuff, perfect references for Surf.

Needham

Needham double cutaway

Needham Guitars from Austin, Texas. They remind me of Les Paul Juniors, Danelectros and a bit of Microfrets. Very nice, clean dual single coil designs.

Campbell Transitone

Unusual combo of Jazzmaster style pick-ups with a 3/3 headstock and a Stratocaster-style vibrato.

Micro-Frets Signature

This american 1960s and 70s company was revived in recent years. As far as I gather the company fits the boutique builder description. Carl Perkins and Buddy Merrill were famous Micro-Frets players.

Billyboy

The italians. Gone are accordion cover materials and pearloid fretboards, but this Billyboy is just as creatively weird in the style department as his ancestors of Eko and Galanti fame.

This one here by Fano looks like a cross between a Rickenbacker and a Les Paul – but if you are aware of the Chantays original recording of Pipeline you know they used a Barth guitar. Paul Barth was a southern California luthier who worked for Rickenbacker and Magnatone before making a few instruments under his own name. Pipeline happens to be a prototypical Surf instrumental, despite the lack of a vibrato on any guitar involved, so this guitar gets the blessing for its purist, Barth inspired style.

Wronski Slackercaster

Dave Wronski of Surf instrumental greats Slacktone is working for Fender Musical Instruments and got this one of a kind Surf-machine together. This could also be in the later Do-It-Yourself article in this series, but since a proper custom shop of a righteous guitar company is involved I decided to declare it a boutique guitar.

Billy Childish

Unfortunately I have no idea who made this guitar for Billy Childish. I certainly haven’t seen one before, so maybe it’s a one off, who knows? I would describe it as Bo Diddley meets Chuck Berry in the Höfner workshop. Sounds like a good description for Billy Childish’s music. The reason I don’t consider it a D.I.Y. project is that I can’t picture him building guitars instead of carving expressionistic woodcuts or recording punk-rock-rave-ups.

Here are two more links I couldn’t find proper photos for:
Galasso from Argentina
and Koll Guitars,
for which I have a very soft spot, the Gretsch design influence is a great variation, that few builders successfully pull off.

Ronnie Sargent Custom

Oops I almost forgot this guy. Maybe the weirdest, and a big inspiration for this post!
Ronnie Sargent Custom Guitars

As usual I demand of my readers to provide further info where I missed it! Please use the comment function below.

If you have The Cowabunga Box Set of Surf Music or the Taschen book about Leroy Grannis’ work you have already seen some of the greatest surf culture photography. What an incredible legacy for us late comers to witness these times through the lense of such a great photographer.

Malcom from Legendary Surfers writes (excerpt):

…Leroy Grannis — Granny — has fallen on hard times. Famous for his surfing photos and as an elder of the tribe — a local of Carlsbad and Hermosa — you would think he’d be able to supplement his Social Security and MediCal with modest earnings from his photography and his life savings.

Unfortunately, what ‘estate’ he had has been eaten up by executors, and others.…

Granny no longer can afford to stay in the assisted living home he has been living in and has moved to his son’s home. John Van Ornum has been helping Leroy’s daughter Katie get the word out and is exploring setting up a fund for donations. For more information, you can reach John at: jvo_v101@yahoo.com

To read about Granny’s contribution to surfing, please go to the Legendary Surfers chapter, updated 2/15/2005: LeRoy ‘Granny’ Grannis

Here’s a great spherical (360° x 360°) photograph of a beautiful coral reef in the pacific ocean.

via Boing Boing

It’s still brandnew, so not much to see so far. And it’s in german. I intend to write about graphic design with a focus on vintage style and also music marketing and design.

visit 20 Greatest

When I came across this little bit of info on a new documentary about surf culture related movies, I thought I’d pass it along to Domenic Priore. He is a renowned pop culture historian, specialized and based in Southern California. I didn’t think that much sending the link, but when I read his reply, the conflicting views became obvious to me in an instant. Having read his recent book Pop Surf Culture I had already a good idea about the strong “bohemian” element in 20th century surfing culture, quite the opposite of today’s dominant “jock” (competitive, corporate, surfer risking his neck for Pepsi) – kind of thing.

KK: Hi Domenic, do you know about this?

DP: No, Kahuna, thanks for the tip. It sounds really stupid, like, the opposite of what Pop Surf Culture has to say about the whole thing. It’s hilarious that “real surfers” have yet to outlive the beach movie stereotype they disdain, despite the years of vitriol they have aimed in William “I Love Lucy” Asher’s direction. Jocks don’t have a concept who The Pyramids are, put it that way, but will celebrate a republican like John Milius, who, in Big Wednesday, made a big deal about, well, his being pissed off that a health food restaurant replaced a hamburger stand in Malibu. God forbid they allow a different point of view to exist from their jock trip, sorry, but it pisses me off, again, because, I grew up having to read in SURFER about how “Surfers are blonde haired and blue eyed, those beach movies had ITALIANS playing surfers!” as if that was some kind of big problem. At the same time, I grew up observing “surfers” having gang fights with “cholos” who could care less, but these “surfers” were really just racist American white kids that had it in for Mexican-Americans, or the more activist Chicano movement as well. I’m not a fan of Frankie Avalon all that much (another family values creep) but he was, for the most part, a really good comedian in those movies, and surpassed his own singing career a few times singing Brian Wilson/Gary Usher/Roger Christian songs such as “Runnin’ Wild,” which is cool and actual rock ‘n’ roll… unlike Frankie’s own recording career. I get big, ironic laughs out of Avalon stuff like “These Are the Good Times” as well, though, I mean, what don’t these jocks understand about COMEDY?… especially MUSICAL COMEDY? Morey Amsterdam, Don Rickles, Buddy Hackett, Timothy Carey, Buster Keaton fer chrissakes, again, what’s the problem? We hear nothing but put-downs from “real surfers” with money to burn and a forum… never mind the evident enjoyment of less professional people who surf without NASCAR-style sponsorship. Besides, Big Wednesday is not even close to the coolness of Ride the Wild Surf in any way, shape or form. There. Can you please pass this email on to Greg MacGillivray, whose own surfing movies I pretty much love?

KK: With surfing as a topic of motion pictures I think it’s a field where the fact is always head and shoulders above the fiction. Avalon or Big Wednesday – it doesn‘t matter. And, I can only speak for Europe, here these films practically had no impact on pop culture, let alone the surfers. Yet the scene bears lot’s of similarity to America, from what I gather. Which can only mean that magazines and documentaries where the true forces in shaping the surfers’ representation through the years. People recall seeing Crystal Voyager. I saw a yellow surfboard attached to the van of a neighbor hippie son, as he came back from Morrocco in the late 70s, a little later I picked up a styrofoam bellyboard from their trash. The first german surfers on the island of Sylt had John Severson movies screen to the lifeguard car (horse carriage kind, instead of towers) on the beach in the 1960s and listened to The Astronauts and Beach Boys. My impression is that the jock thing only started here after windsurfing started to be too jock dominated and the cool guys just left it to them. Unfortunately the jocks followed faster than you can say thruster. I will attach a link to a home-movie of a trip to Mazatlan, with music that was obviously dubbed on at the actual time. Listen for the jumps in the music when the footage is re-spliced. It’s a great selection of surf tunes!

I added some links to Domenic’s pure text replys, I hope he doesn’t mind.

Only $10 could win you a balsawood Malibu shape or shortboard. Well spent money, helping with the Australian bushfires. Quote from Riley Surfboards Facebook page:

Riley Balsawood Surfboards teams up with the ASP and United Links to raise funds for Victoria fire victims
Sydney, Australia – February 13, 2009

The victims of the deadly bushfires in Australia need assistance and support as soon as possible. Therefore Riley Balsawood Surfboards has teamed up with the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) and United Links to lend their support and raise funds for the victims of the Victoria bushfires.
Funds will be raised by holding a raffle where the first prize is an Australian made Riley balsawood surfboard signed by the 2009 top 44 WCT surfers and past surfing world champions (this is an inestimable prize). Further prizes include Australian made, 100% organic cotton t-shirts and shaping DVD’s. All proceeds of the raffle will go directly to the 2009 Victorian Bushfire Fund which was launched by the Red Cross in partnership with premier John Brumby and the federal government of Victoria. The fund assists the individuals and communities affected by the horrendous fires.
Raffle tickets can be purchased on www.balsasurfboardsriley.com for $10 each. Additionally, for every Riley organic t-shirt sold until March 26th $10 are donated to the fund and the customer automatically enters the raffle. The raffle drawing will be held on 26.03.09 at 12 pm and the winner will be contacted via email and phone and will be announced on the website. The prizes will be sent anywhere around the world courtesy of United Links.

Waitiki at Wassermusik 08

The highly recommended Exotica live-act Waitiki playing live in Massachusets in the middle of february.
Quote form the Exotica Mailing List

Who: The Waitiki All-Star Exotica Septet

When: Monday, 2/16/09, 7-9 PM

Where: The Lily Pad (Inman Sq: 1353 Cambridge St., Cambridge, MA), 617-395-1393 COST: $10

Website: www.waitiki.com
Come See Our All-Star Exotica Band: 2/16 in Cambridge, MA

Waitiki’s next show will be on President’s Day (Monday, February 16) from 7-9PM sharp! See our All-Star Exotica band make its first performance in the northeast at The Lily Pad [1353 Cambridge St., Inman Square].

Flying in direct from Hawaii: Percussionist and birdcaller extraordinaire Lopaka Colon (son of famed percussionist/bird caller Augie Colon, of Martin Denny’s band). Our co-founder and drummer Abe Lagrimas Jr also makes the wintry trip to Boston from Los Angeles.

Suggested donation is $10; All ages are welcome (bring the kids or your folks—it’s all music; finally, no burlesque or anything risque!).

Also in the band: Tim Mayer (sax, flutes), Helen Liu (violin), Zaccai Curtis (piano), Jim Benoit & Greg Parerandy Wong (bass). We may have a few special guest performers too! (vibraphone),

This is the same band that played its European Debut last July at the Wassermusik Festival in Berlin, Germany, and its American Debut at the Celebration for the 500th Retro Cocktail Hour show last November!

Your favorite classic exotica tunes… your favorite Waitiki hits… brand-new arrangements and newer-than-new originals—hear them all at The Lily Pad show. Following us at 10 pm is The Fringe, the avant-garde jazz trio led by tenor man George Garzone.

The next day we record the long-awaited Waitiki All-Star Exotica Septet album!! Hope to see you there!!!!

Skateboard Sense is a safety film. The skating is stylish bankriding and nose wheelies and it’s just a great window into a time before skating was becoming more radical. So the action here could be from the sixties with a little shorter hair and clay wheels. Amazingly the music selection fits the skating style perfectly, the movie even starts with a nifty cool surf-instrumental that I didn’t know before. It’s a very competendly crafted tune. The other music is blues rock and slapstick/silent-movies oldtime music. A Sid Davis Production.

link to the page at the Prelinger Archives

More Sid Davis Productions:

• Summer of ’63 (1972)
• ‘LSD’: Trip or Trap! (1967)
• The Cool Hot Rod (1953)
• The Dropout (1962)
• Gang Boy (1954)