This gives me the idea of having an invisible recording studio in the living room… Should be possible!

Introducing the Musical Rumba Series! Musical Furnishings is very excited to introduce the Musical Rumba Series. Design your own personal drum table with durable, interchangeable and rearrangeable percussion inserts. Choose from four different sized tables to suit your musical and space needs. The smallest table accepts four of the smaller instruments and the largest accepts sixteen. Make sure to watch the videos below and carefully consider which inserts you desire. The tables are easily shipped UPS and only require the legs to be attached (very easy requiring no tools) All orders are hand built by NW Artist Tor Clausen in his Studio in Olympia WA.
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Unless otherwise noted, these are single modules (8?x 8?x varying depth). Note that the large 4×4 table has all of the 12 modules and the snare and cajun drum are larger thereby explaining why 12 modules can fill a 16 module table.

1 ) Tamborine
2 ) Snare Drum (takes the space of two modules, 8?x16?)
3 ) Medium Bongo
4 ) Low Bongo
5 ) High Bongo
6 ) Shaker
7 ) Chimes
8 ) Bell
9 ) Cow Bell
10) High Hat (adjustable)
11) Cajon Bass Drum (takes the space of 4 modules, 16?x16?)
12) Cymbal Crash

Musical Furnishings

Welcome info about this design show in UK from Jacquelin on MySpace:

Our next Dulwich Midcentury.Modern show is on Sunday 30th March 2008, Dulwich College, Dulwich Common, SE21 7LD. View location on Google Maps.

Set in the light and bright 60’s concrete and glass Christison-designed refectory and the South Cloisters at Dulwich College. Situated on the A205 South Circular near College Rd, SE21 7LD. Nearest train – West Dulwich (trains leave Victoria BR and take approximately 10 minutes). 5 minute walk to college. Other local galleries and museums include The Horniman and The Dulwich Picture Gallery. Refreshments on site. Car parking with college boys showing visitors to spaces

Opening times, 10am–4pm (admission £5). Early admissions for trade from 9am

(£7). Children under 14 are welcome and do not have to pay.

Email us for our latest designer and dealer updates. Designers and dealers, apply to take part.

If you are looking for the best in design from the last century or the latest in future collectables from this one, look no further than Midcentury.Modern. Recognising the eclectic way people dress their homes Midcentury.Modern has fast established itself as the number one destination for sourcing the antiques of the future without the huge retail mark-up. …

read more here

I checked this book out a while back and I confirm it’s a must have. Here’s a quote from the New York Times.

The cool was born in New York. It was in Manhattan that Miles Davis and the nine-piece group he convened in the late 1940s forged a tightly understated alternative to the hot expressionism of bebop and recorded the hugely influential tracks later collected in the album “Birth of the Cool.” But it was in California in the 1950s that cool jazz and cool art in general took root and flourished.

The story is well told in “Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design and Culture at Midcentury,” an exhibition here at the Addison Gallery of American Art. Organized by Elizabeth Armstrong, chief curator at the Orange County Museum of Art in Newport Beach, Calif., where it originated, the show examines cool style of the ’50s in several disciplines, including painting, furniture design, architecture, film and photography.

The multidisciplinary approach could be confusing, but it all hangs together in ways both entertaining and thought provoking. What emerges is not just a style but a spirit and an ethos that are in many ways diametrically opposite those of East Coast Abstract Expressionism. Angst-free, not monumental, anti-grandiose:
California cool is laid back yet cleanly articulated, impersonal yet intimate, strict yet hedonistic, and seriously playful. …

Birth of the Cool – California – Art – Review – New York Times

Thanks to Lou Smith.

Thanks to Boing Boing for informing us about this great looking book on hodad photography. Finally a book to hear Davie Allan & The Arrows by.

Danny Lyon’s 1960s biker photography – Boing Boing

book at amazon.com
Wikipedia about the photographer Danny Lyon

also from Smithonian.com
Two for the Rogues By Stephen Franklin

Cowboy and Sparky,
two pals on bikes. They’ve just been to a motorcycle race in Schererville, Indiana, and their girlfriends will soon get off work from the Dairy Queen. It is November 1965, and CowBoy—Irvin P. Dunsdon, who uses the capital B to this day—is 23 years old. He feels he’s on top of the world.

I just saw this and so I don’t have it. But I bet many people wouldn’t want to miss this book by Shag himself, so here’s the link.
Fantagraphics Books

Shag: A-Z at Amazon

Ben Strawn, who is an awesome artist, just sent a bulletin about this upcoming California artshow at The Light Gallery. I really would go see that if I lived on that continent!

Quote from his Bulletin:

To All Los Angeles MONSTERS! I’m gonna be in another show soon with over 70 Krazy Artists!This is gonna be BIG man!

SurfBEAT group art show!

don’t miss this EPIC group art show that will feature original artwork from over 70 prominent SURF, HOTROD, TIKI and other “outsider” artists.
The show opens MARCH 15 at The Light Gallery in Costa Mesa.
Please check out the flyer below and watch for show updates at https://myspace.com/surfbeatgallery

Some of the amazing group of surf, outsider and tiki artists who have committed so far:

The Pizz, Rick Reitveld, Jeral Tidwell, Drew Brophy, John Bell, Candy, Miles Thompson, Ben Strawn,Damian, BigToe, Mr.G, Doug Dorr, Grimb, Steve Caballero, Ken Ruzic, Dave Lozeau, Bamboo Ben, Fudemae, Max Grundy, Aaron Kraten, Fudemae, Squindo, James Mcleod, Keith Ciarmello, The mysterious 13:11, Dirk Hays, Buddy June, Crazy Al, Scott Aicher, Chongolio, Doug Horne, Atomic Kitty, Justin Barry, Chainsaw Chuck Majewski, Von Poot, Dale Sizer, Nik Scarlett, Dark Vomit, Paul Torres, Joe Vitale, Bob Penuelas, Augie pagan, Mike Sosnowski, Tiki ray, TV-1, Ryzart and many more talented artists from all over the globe!…

MySpace.com – SurfBEAT – Costa Mesa, California

Just sit through this video.

I have no idea. But it looks somewhat Witco-like to me. Considering it’s on an island belonging to Europe’s mainland Tiki-mecca Spain, which blossomed shortly before the decline of Tiki in the seventies, this could easily be from that period. The major property developement in this place dates back to that era as well.
I don’t mean there are Tikis anywhere in this picture, but it reminds me of abstract late 60s and 70s works by William Westenhaver, as seen on page 216 in Tiki Modern by Sven A. Kirsten. Any hints?

Thursday, 14 February 2008
Japanese ‘Yakuza’ gangsters have launched a campaign of intimidation to force a media blackout on the furore surrounding the country’s killing of dolphins and whales, it was claimed yesterday. Australian surfer Dave Rastovich attracted world headlines after he and conservationists including actress Isabel Lucas travelled to the Japanese fishing village of Taiji last year to protest at its annual dolphin kill. Rastovich, the global face of surfwear giant Billabong Australia’s environmental campaigns, said the multi-billion dollar Japanese surf industry had been experiencing the ‘heat’ for his anti-whaling activities. He said he had been told of intimidation from Yakuza thugs – the feared Japanese mafia – who had been visiting Japanese surf shops in search of the outspoken activist. ‘These are the goons from the fishing industry who are visiting surf stores intimidating people and threatening to punish them financially,’ Rastovich said.

Pacific Longboarder News / Reviews / Events

A new office furniture invention. The Hawaii Chair.
Thanks to Lou Smith on the Exotica Mailing List.