Surfing About Music

"Roth Family Foundation music in America imprint"--First printed page.

"Roth Family Foundation music in America imprint"--First printed page.

Surf by Day, Jam by Night is seasoned bluesman and surfer Ash Grunwald's deep dive into the extraordinary. Ash takes to the road, interviewing 15 of the world's top surfer–musicians. From Kelly Slater to Stephanie Gilmore, Jack Johnson to Dave Rastovich, Pete Murray to G. Love and many more, like Ash, these are people doing life their own way. Soulful and candid, these conversations offer insights into the lives and minds of some masters of both surfing and music. Spanning stories of heavy wipe-outs and heaving crowds and riffs on style, the flow state, career longevity and jamming vs shredding, this book is an often light-hearted, wide-ranging meditation on what it really takes to live your dreams. If you've ever found yourself in any kind of rut and wondered if there's something more out there, here's a call to wake up, take your life into your hands and dare to follow your passions.

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.

Dick Dale & the Del-Tones began holding weekend dances at the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa, California, in the summer of 1960. Over the next year and a half, Dale developed the sound and style that came to be known as "surf music." The result was the development of more powerful guitar amplifiers, a dramatic increase in the sales of Fender guitars and amplifiers, and a shift from New York to West Coast recording studios. More and more people were drawn to the sport of surfing, which became an important part of teen beach culture at the time. Even landlocked teenagers were captured by the moment, carrying surfboards atop their woodies in Phoenix or bleaching their hair blonde in St. Paul. For hundreds of thousands of kids, though, the attraction was not the connection to surfing; it was the connection to the music pioneered by Dick Dale.

SURF BEAT: ROCK AND ROLL'S FORGOTTEN REVOLUTION

Surf by Day, Jam by Night is seasoned bluesman and surfer Ash Grunwald's deep dive into the extraordinary. Ash takes to the road, interviewing 15 of the world's top surfer-musicians. From Kelly Slater to Stephanie Gmore, Jack Johnson to Dave Rastovich, Pete Murray to G. Love and many more, like Ash, these are people doing life their own way. Soulful and candid, these conversations offer insights into the lives and minds of some masters of both surfing and music. Spanning stories of heavy wipe-outs and heaving crowds and riffs on style, the flow state, career longevity and jamming vs shredding, this book is an often light-hearted, wide-ranging meditation on what it really takes to live your dreams. If you've ever found yourself in any kind of rut and wondered if there's something more out there, here's a call to wake up, take your life into your hands and dare to follow your passions.