Pop Surf Culture Music, Design, Film, and Fashion from the Bohemian Surf Boom

by Chidester, Brian; Priore, Domenic; Zuckerman, Kathy; Bengston, Billy Al

• ISBN13: 9781595800800
• ISBN10: 1595800808
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-06-10
• Publisher: Santa Monica Press

Summary

From original beachcomber personalities like the Waikiki Beachboys to the rise of Venice Beach as a creative center for music, art, and film, Pop Surf Culture traces the roots of the surf boom and explores its connection to the Beat Generation and 1960s pop culture. Through accounts of key figures both obscure and popular, the book illustrates why surf culture is a vital art movement of the 20th century.

Pop Surf Culture includes essays about the popular “beach” movies of the fifties and sixties, which featured such stars as Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon and the music of Dick Dale & His Del-Tones, Brian Wilson, the Pyramids, Gary Usher, James Brown, and Little Stevie Wonder.

Sixties art figures Michael Dormer and Rick Griffin—as well as the surf magazines which promoted their art—are featured alongside the progenitors of “surf music,” from the little known (the Centurians) to the wildly popular (the Beach Boys). Duke Kahanamoku, the Gas House, Gidget, surfing on television, the bohemian surf aesthetic, surf music hot spots, Mickey “Da Cat” Dora . . . the entire spectrum of pop surf culture is covered within these colorfully illustrated pages.

Author Biography

Brian Chidester is a staff editor for Yahoo.com and the co-editor of Dumb Angel #4: All Summer Long. He has been a segment producer for documentaries by the BBC, PBS, Showtime, and the Carl Wilson Foundation. Chidester lives in New York City.

Domenic Priore is the author of Riot on Sunset Strip: Rock ’n’ Roll’s Last Stand in Hollywood, Beatsville (with Martin McIntosh), and Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson’s Lost Masterpiece. He has written documentaries for Paramount Pictures Inc. and American Movie Classics (AMC). Priore lives in Los Angeles.

Kathy Zuckerman is the real life inspiration for the fictional character of Franzie “Gidget” Lawrence from the 1957 novel Gidget, written by her father, Frederick Kohner. She was named No. 7 in Surfer Magazine’s 25 Most Influential People in Surfing. Zuckerman lives in Los Angeles.

Billy Al Bengston is an American artist and sculptor whose work is found in many public and private collections, including the Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), LACMA, MOCA (Los Angeles), MOMA (New York), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York), the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), and the Whitney Museum of American Art (New York). Less famously, he is/was the original "Moondoggie." He lives in Los Angeles.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Kathy Kohner Zuckerman (aka Gidget)

Foreword by Billy Al Bengston (aka Moondoggie)

Introduction

CHAPTER 1 Tiki Surfah

CHAPTER 2 The Waikiki Beachboys

CHAPTER 3 Surf-Riding Comes to California

CHAPTER 4 A Tribute to Bob Simmons: The Engineer of Pop Surf Culture

CHAPTER 5 “Da Cat”: Tale of the Young Surf Rebel

CHAPTER 6 Beatnik Beach: Southern California Surf Merges with the Beat Generation

CHAPTER 7 The Independent Surf Filmmakers

CHAPTER 8 Bohemian Surf Aesthetic: The Early Design Style of Surfing Magazines

CHAPTER 9 The Beatnik Fink Art of Michael Dormer

CHAPTER 10 Surf Duds: The Fashion of Beachside California

CHAPTER 11 What Was the First Surf Record?

CHAPTER 12 The Essential Surf Album Discography

CHAPTER 13 The Surfer’s Stomp Dance Craze

CHAPTER 14 Surf Music Nightclubs

CHAPTER 15 Deauville Castle Club: Surf Battle of the Bands

CHAPTER 16 Stock Surf: The Beach Boys’ Surfin’ U.S.A. and Surfer Girl

CHAPTER 17 Vocal Surf in the Studio

CHAPTER 18 The Pineapple Trick and Other Surf Exploitation Albums

CHAPTER 19 Surf Music at the Drive-In: The Beach Party Film Genre

CHAPTER 20 These Boys Did Not Meet the Maharishi: The Midwest Surf Scene

CHAPTER 21 The East Coast Surf Music Scene

CHAPTER 22 The Music of the Beach: A History of the Nightclub Acts at Waikiki’s Kalakaua Avenue

CHAPTER 23 Surfing on Television

CHAPTER 24 An Essential Surf Library

CHAPTER 25 Brian Wilson, 1966

CHAPTER 26 Psychedelic Surf Pastiche Washout

CHAPTER 27 For Surfers Only, 1972: How Five Summer Stories Defined Hippie Surf Culture

CHAPTER 28 The Second Wave of Surf Music

CHAPTER 29 The Third Wave of Surf Music

CHAPTER 30 The Mollusk Crew: Return of the Bohemian Surf Aesthetic in Art and Design

Bibliography

Photo Credits

Index