When Tiki Meets Surfboard

Some of these look good to me, of course they’re impracticle as surfboards, more like ritual paddles, spears and guaras.

*HUA Sculptured Surfboards
WHAT ARE THEY?

HUA (Polynesian Soul) SCULPTURES are the work of Aaron Kereopa – a young Maori surfer and artist.
Aaron designs and then carves these characters into stripped back, old – dis-used surfboards. Each of them represents a part of a Maori warrior tree.
Aaron’s works are now only available by commission.

Surfa.com.au – the Art, the Sport and the Lifestyle of Surfing

Berlin Beatet Bestes

I found this blog by accidents – looking for the publisher of a Chubby Checker song. The first time I stumbled across a great blog by someone I know personally and I didn’t know he was doing it!

Berlin Beatet Bestes is where Andreas Michalke presents his odd vinyl findings. I think it’s just 7”s. He has a talent for finding incredible stuff of all kinds (and not just records). Often with great sleeves – being a comic book artist he wouldn’t let a nice artwork illustration pass by. It took a while until I gathered how to listen to his samples in the stream player on the right sidebar. Maybe this would be a good plug-in for his WordPress? He could have the sound where the article is – and not alphabetically crammed into a small box. Anyway, I totally dig this. Check out the thorough descriptions he writes for the records. He loves vinyl oddities. If you’re similarly adjusted have a look and a listen.

Musical Furnishings

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.

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

Midcentury Modern Show (UK)

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

Birth of the Cool

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.

birth of the cool

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.

Wrecking Crew Movie

via Moritz ®

A film by Denny Tedesco
What is the Wrecking Crew?

The Wrecking Crew were a group of Studio Musicians in Los Angeles in the 60s who played on hits for the Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Nancy Sinatra, Sonny and Cher, Jan & Dean, The Monkees, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, Mamas and Papas, Tijuana Brass, Ricky Nelson, Johnny Rivers and were Phil Spector’s Wall of Sound. The amount of work that they were involved in was tremendous. …

here’s the trailer

Song List (the links go straight to iTunes):

5th Dimension
Let the Sunshine in/Aquarius
Stone Soul Picnic
Up Up and Away
One Less Bell to Answer

Association
Windy
Never My Love

Beach Boys
California Girls
Don’t Worry Baby
Fun Fun Fun
God Only Knows
Good Vibrations
I Get Around
Sloop John B

Byrds
Mr. Tamborine Man
Turn Turn Turn

Glen Campbell
By The Time I Get to Phoenix
Gentle on My Mind
Wichita Lineman

Captain and Tennille
Love Will Keep Us Together

Carpenters

Close to You
We’ve Only Just Begun

Cher
Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves
Half Breed

Chipmunks
Chipmunks Theme

Nat King Cole
Ramblin Rose

Sam Cooke
Twisting the Night Away
You Send Me

Crystals
And He Kissed Me
Da Doo Ron Ron
He’s A Rebel

Bobby Day
Rockin’ Robin

Defenders
Taco Wagon

Shelley Fabares
Johnny Angel

Richard Harris
MacArthur Park

Jan & Dean
Dead Man’s Curve
Surf City
Little Old Lady From Pasadena
Balboa Blue

Gary Lewis and the Playboys
Everybody Loves a Clown
Sure Gonna Miss Her
This Diamond Ring

Barry McGuire
Eve of Destruction

Mamas & Papas
California Dreaming
Creque Alley
Dedicated to the One I Love
Monday Monday

Henry Mancini
Pink Panther

Marketts
Out of Limits
Surfer Stomp

Dean Martin
Every Body Loves Somebody

Scott McKenzie

Are You Gonig to San Francisco

Monkees
Mary Mary
Valerie

Chris Montez
Let’s Dance

Ricky Nelson
Fools Rush In

Wayne Newton
Danke Schoen

Jack Nitzsche
Lonely Surfer

Harry Nilsson
Everybody’s Talking At Me (Echoes)

Partridge Family
Come on Get Happy

Elvis Presley
A Little Less Conversation
Viva Las Vegas

Paul Revere & the Raiders
Indian Reservation

Righteous Brothers
Unchained Melody
You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling

Rip Chords
Hey Little Cobra

Johnny Rivers
Poor Side of Town

Tommy Roe
Dizzy

Ronettes
Be My Baby
I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

Routers
Let’s Go

Sandpipers
Guantanamera

Lalo Schifren
Mission Impossible

Simon and Garfunkel
Mrs. Robinson

Frank Sinatra
Strangers in the Night
That’s Life

Nancy Sinatra
These Boots Were Made for Walking
Drummer Man

Sonny and Cher
The Beat Goes On
I Got You Babe

T-Bones
No Matter What Shape Your Stomach Is In

Nino Tempo & April Stevens
Deep Purple

Tijuana Brass
Lonely Bull
Spanish Flea
Taste of Honey
Whipped Cream
Zorba the Greek

Ike and Tina Turner
River Deep Mountain High

Ritchie Valens
Donna

Bobby Vee
The Night Has a Thousand Eyes

Ventures
Hawaii 5-O

Mason Williams
Classical Gas

Roger Williams

Born Free

Danny Lyon’s 1960s Biker Photography

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.