Ether Monthlyish 14.1- The Website is Go.

Lost in the Ether from Andrew Kidman on Vimeo.

Well done Mr. Kidman. Go to www.andrewkidman.com and take a stroll around. There's some very nice work there.

Ether Monthlyish #14- Kidman on the go

An update from the world of the edit shed where things have only seemed quiet. Young Andrew has been keeping very busy, a nice show at the LoFi Space in Sydney this past month hasn't keep him from working. The new website will up and running very soon for starters, and you can see him doing his thing in the fine Patrick Trefz film 'Idiosyncrasies'. It just screened at the New York Surf Film Festival (hence the tribute Lightning Bolt pizza from chez Kidman) and will be playing, along with a lot of other quite good stuff at the 1st Annual Canadian Surf Film Festival, which are some of the many events of late I wish I could have attended. The culture seems to be thriving, and many thanks to our East coast brethren for doing their part in keeping it so.

The Zen Of Asymmetry

The above item, dear friends, is a 5'10" regular foot asymmetrical surfboard designed and built by Carl Ekstrom. Carl lives in a elegant yet unassuming house in a quite lovely grove of Eucalypts. He designed and built the house himself, which is sort of a theme with him. Inside the house (which is incredibly organized and immaculate given what he does there) he has not only a museum quality array of cultural ephemera but a functional shaping bay to build these boards in and a workspace where he is designing and building some impressive fins. I will admit to being enthused by surfboard fins, and Carl's set up was the proverbial candy store- carbon fibre, flex resins, new jig designs for fin boxes- I was frothing to put it mildly, and he hadn't even shown me his flex board concept at that point. Needless to say it was an utterly enjoyable visit and should any of you be interested, Carl will build you a custom version of the above board, which is a very nice deal. This one belongs to Aussie Paul who is going to be a very happy bloke in a week or so. He's a mad bastard though, the wave below is one he plans on surfing.

Outside

Winter's coming. It got better here this past weekend too with the south, solid glassy closeouts that were surprisingly fun. The flextail worked it's magic, pure projection off the bottom and around sections on the few that had corners. I'm still feeling the glow, and those new Mackies will be here on the 4th. More boards very soon as I have a finished Ekstrom to collect tomorrow....

Offshore

All photos by Mick Mackie. If you think these are impressive, wait til you see the boards that are on the way. One is Mick's own lightly used flextail rocketfish, which will be a nice score for some lucky devil. Pictures soon I promise.

Merch Box and Some Tiddlers

So I surfed this past weekend. Generally LA beach + weekend is to be avoided, but there was talk of it being 'good' and even some mumblings about 'size' and 'south filling in, crowds at points'. so when I found a window in the AM I went for it. The 'size' was knee to thigh high breaking in knee deep water with a few waist high set waves- clean little waves to be sure, but little. I cursed the teller of tales and the fact that I hadn't got around to throwing a mat or a paipo in the truck for these sort of days, but having blamed other people and my equipment decided to go for it. I'm a surfer I told myself, we're meant to be into this wholeheartedly, big days, little days- it's the love of the glide and the ocean and the culture. The waves were working on somne level as there was a 1/2 mile string of longboarders down the beach, but I managed with a bit of a walk to find a nice little corner and sure enough there were some clean little ones. It was all about a low center of gravity and finding that line, turns were a bit pointless but you could slide one into the sand with care. I started realizing how much I like turns as opposed to sideslipping up and down the tiny faces. I rode a few on the knees to keep it interesting. I found going straight is more fun on the backhand, little dropknee tucks into the shallows. I scored a macker, legitimate belly high wave and managed something close to a turn at least, from the bottom of the wave to the top and back to the bottom, nose changing direction and both rails used at least a little, and decided to quit on that high point. Where am I going with this? Well, some days you just need something else to do, and I found so fun stuff while unpacking the merch box. Above you see copies of "___", fresh from Australia, numbered zine/DVD editions for $30. There's also 'Last Hope' DVDs ($25) and Kidman/Brown Birds CDs ($22) for your audiovisual pleasure. Literary action too- signed copies of Patrick Trefz's 'Thread' ($30), the last few copies of the wonderful 'Kook' newspaper ($6) and Jim Newitt's brilliant little 'Point Never' zine ($8). As the temperatures cool, there's even a few lightweight hoodies to keep you comfy while imbibing all this culture- Swift and Simmons designs, only $30. Postage is included on all this stuff because we like you, and you can order by emailing to info@foamandfunction.com. I'd also like to direct you towards Foulweather. Pete sent a couple of his zines and they are really fantastic, totally worth your support. Very simple, just non fiction writings on an oceanic theme, but exactly what a zine should be- entertaining, engaging and personal. $5 and you're set, it's an absolute bargain. Sorry for the mercenary nature of this post, but honestly these are all things worth supporting. This is the creative edge of the culture asserting itself on it's own tiny scale. None of the people doing this stuff have house on bluffs somewhere or take long exotic boat trips with the proceeds of self produced films or zines. This is simply done for the love of doing it, and I'm glad these folks are out there.

The idiosyncratic Harbour Bill

'Idiosyncrasies' is now available, as an actual DVD or some sort of download setup. It's a fine film, Trefz has the the touch and you should own it. Personality driven is I suppose how you'd describe it, the worlds of some slightly crazy but surf obsessed folks rather than the surf mag perfect wave shredding action. There's no shortage of exceptional wave riding going on though, and some of the best was from the Mulcoys. Trefz says the above photo is Harbour Bill a decade or so ago at the spritely age of 50. The man is a legend.

Afoot & afield in the North with a 5'5" & some tropic wax

Here's a tip for an Oregon secret spot. It's off the 5 of course, as there's no surf in Oregon- wind, fog, sharks and cold there's plenty of, but no surf so ignore the coast road. So exit the 5 at Central Point OR and find the Rogue Creamery. Buy some of the insanely good cheese (I was partial to the Caveman Blue) and a bottle or two from the expansive selection of beer and wine. Drive a bit further up the 5 to the Rogue River park, and have a picnic with your cheese and the apples and pears you bought earlier from a farmstand. Stoked. Actually did surf a bit between WA and L.A., and the mini Sim was perfect. Waves were fun, chest to head at best and colder than Lappland. At the mushier spots the planing deal came into full play and a few mediocre waves felt like an aquatic snakerun. At the better spots it was all speed and rail grabs, and the whole venture wound up with a little central cal peak being shared quietly with a goofy footer. That dog is still asleep and utterly worn out.

ADDENDA

I'm getting good at these- this was in the emails and I bet it'll be a lot of fun. If I can muster the time and willpower to get back in the truck I'll hopefully be there with Way Of The Bird books and the like.

On The Road (soon)

A digression here. At several occasions over this past summer, I've had visits from friends who are serious travelers. I've talked about Hokkaido and Chile with Joe, the Hebrides and Morocco with Dan, Spain and Morocco with Arshia- you get the idea, a comfortable evening spent imagining epic trips, hopefully with a surf element. It's been a classic surfer preoccupation since Simmons bounced up the coast in the frame of a car. The ideal road trip/camping vehicle debate is a fine way to while away a few hours, and here's a favourite of mine- the Czech built Tatra. Serious off road capabilities, probably fixable with duct tape and fence wire, and that looks like an easily customized load space. For about town they built a few interesting looking cars too- it'd be nice to roll into the carpark of the local in a T-87. All this is round about way of pointing out there will be a lull of blogging as I'm road tripping north for a week or so. SERIOUS board photos on return though, there's an Ekstrom finished, there's Hydro planing hulls being finished, there's the new Mackie- check back and have a fine week.

ADDENDA

If you're in San Diego or environs this weekend, swing by the Hydro loft at 340 16th St on Sat 4th. There's an open studio event going on and RK will as always have something interesting happening there.

Sacred Craft III- Wegeners

bodyboards

bluegill

One of the personal high points of the whole board show deal is that aside from letting me slide into their booth with a few books and Mackies, the Hydro crew have partnered up with Jon Wegener and his creations for the last few shows. From the set up where Jon and Rosa (who is both 'petite' and 'elegant') quickly assemble a simple functional booth in the the time it takes us to break the TV and realize we've brought the wrong boards from the van to the teardown where we bail and leave them standing in a pile of our debris, the Wegeners make this show a much better experience. And they have a stash of good snacks that are poorly supervised. Jon makes Alaias obviously, but generally I'm more moved by his finned creations. He had an epic hollow wood fish shape this time, and more of the bluegills which are basically the missing link between an alaia and a surfboard. The folks I know who own one all seem to get as wild eyed and fanatical about them as the worst of the wide eyed alaia fanatics. Jon also had a few nice looking bellyboards, and with this coming up, it's getting me thinking about a few prone slides.

Point Never

Jim Newitt is a friend of ours, and a very talented designer. He worked with Andrew Kidman on Ether amongst other things, and in his spare time produces Point Never. It's a beautiful, minimal little fanzine, 32 pages long and this issue features the art of Ann-Marie James, Ray Potes (of Hamburger Eyes infamy), Noritake, Nolan Hall, Jeremie Gindre and Benbo George. Neat, sweet and petite as the Addams Family put it, or as Jim more elegantly says "Point Never is an independent publication devoted to the diffusion of images and texts relating to surf and skateboarding culture; a portrayal of multiple truths, mythologies, abstractions, antipodes, commonalities and communities" A copy can be yours for $8, shipping included, with a portion of the price going to the National Geographic Society Oceans Project. Direct inquiries to info at foamandfunction.com. I'm aware this gets mentioned a lot, but it's really a wonderful thing that there's still people willing to produce independent and creative projects in the morass that is corporate surf culture. Your support helps and is very much appreciated, even on the basic level that you're looking at this rather than or as well as a slick corpo website.

Sacred Craft II- Ekstrom,Trefz, Simmonsesque and a bit of Curren

The Rogues Gallery. Portraits of Lucas, Burch and John Elwell by Ryan Field. His portraits of the Hydro players and boards are beyond jawdropping.


Carl Ekstrom's model. You think this is epic, wait until you see the fins he's doing.


The asym is a gloss & polish stunner that was auctioned at the UCSD Cancer research charity luau, and the red board is a Pat Curren gun Carl was brokering a sale on. That is a lot of serious history in one crappy photo.


The night included a screening (on a full size screen) of Patrick Trefz's 'Idiosyncrasies' film. It's really good and there will be more on it later. RT also showed his new trailer. We will definitely be bringing some of this wonderful culture out on the road soon.


More history.

Sacred Craft Gems- Mark Thomson and Jeff Ho

Another Sacred Craft survived, and here's what was, in my humble opinion, a couple of the best things I saw (that weren't in our booth). A total high point was the appearance of one of the single most stoked human beings alive, the mighty Mark Thomson. He was in town to show his brand new mat design off, and as a bonus brought a couple of the totally off the hook carbon fibre fishes he's been doing. Mark's been deep into the mat world for a long time, he's worked with the masters and surfs a mat as well as anybody alive, and these are what he rides. They sport a non skid decking and actually have concave and rocker. He's selling them for $150 shipping included through his website and there maybe a chance of getting one direct while he's up here if you're interested and we can find him....




Jeff Ho has a few new projects coming, all of which are quite epic, and here's the first- it's an old school Zephyr skate that you won't have to pay collectors prices for. It's made entirely in the USA and sports Tracker trucks and some nice black wheels Jeff sourced. It'll be available in the next week or two and will run around $130 complete. It's the first of a few new skate models Jeff will be doing and from what I've seen, they're all totally styling.

More soon, the new Trefz movie was really good, the party raucous and surfboards nice, but I need to recover a bit.

It's On! (with extra Derek Hynd for good measure)

Again Richard Kenvin throws open the loft doors and we launch ourselves into the nether world of surf culture. This time you have Patrick Trefz screening 'Idiosyncrasies' with bonus joy from RT and Derek Dunfee, there will be boards, no doubt Carl Ekstrom will put in an appearance and I'll be there with a stock of fine product, copies of "___" and The Kook among it all. Sacred Craft happens during the day over at the convention center so it's well worth a visit to lovely downtown San Diego. Come on by and say hello. As a bonus, here's a clip of Derek Hynd blowing minds in Morocco (that turn in the lip at about 2'15"!)


You should have seen this already because I swiped it from Kurungabaa which undoubtedly you check regularly as it's about as good as a surf related blog can get.