Some waves, elsewhere

other coast (Thanks Jamie)


Far


Near

Readers rides. There's hope for some of these where I'm at this week too....

Santa Cruz Sacred Craft Next Week

A trip north, a weekend of surfboards in Santa Cruz, a collection of good folks (including Trefz and Joe Curren who will be exhibiting in the Artists Lounge)- why wouldn't we go? If you're in the area come on by, it'll be fun and we will have some high style surfboards. An assortment of Mackies naturally, a surprise or two from the December Snowskates guys, the Ninelights compsand I'm not rushing to give back to Jeff and a few of the latest from Ekstrom and the Swift boys, including some of these very cool Hydroflex boards. Cutting edge tech and mad design- it gets no better.

Flex Path pt3- Winterstik inspired

For reasons known only to himself, Mick Mackie decided to send this board up. It's one of the original Winterstik inspired experiments that have heavily influenced his shaping trajectory (as featured beautifully in Kidman's new film), and it's around 10 years old which makes it even more mad and amazing. A decade ago most people were still getting their heads around traditional fish and Mick was already this far out there? Brilliant. Despite being a little battered and used as a notepad for Mick's observations and instructions, the idea is to get it set up again, this time with a set of Simmons keels out on the pins, and under the feet of some of the kids. Ekstrom has volunteered to refin it (if there's a man who knows about board experiments it's Carl Ekstrom) and hopefully we'll get Ryan Burch on it amongst others. The board will undoubtedly be coming on any surf related mission I make too, so pictures will follow I hope. Thanks for sharing it Mick.

Flex Path pt2- Nat Young and the Winterstik

Nat Young rides the Winterstick
Uploaded by messire. - Discover the latest sports and extreme videos.

This odd and wonderful little clip came via Kevin Brennan of the excellent Snowskates blog. Nat Young in the snow, seriously old school bindings and Milovich ripping it up. Brilliant stuff. KB builds these mad dual deck skateboards for the winter stuff and is an OG supporter of the Simmons stuff for summer. He built a fantastic asymmetrical skate deck and is now doing asym snowboards. Check his stuff out, it's well cool.

Mackie and a path of flex evolution....

More on that first board very soon as it's sitting in my front room now....

Three Wishes

It's the Academy Awards this weekend correct? If Aleks Petrovich doesn't win at least one it'll be a horrible miscarriage of artistic justice.

Brisick In New York

In one of those great turnarounds, bon vivant, raconteur and Malibu 'loke' Jamie Brisick will be showing slides and holding forth in New York the same night Glen E. is showing in LA. We're proud to be providing art and entertainment for both coasts simultaneously. Nothing is too much trouble for you fine folks. Go check Jamie out, he's a legend, it should be me doing the talk and telling Briso stories. I'd never seen that Madonna shot either, so big thanks to KLM and his fine Lenape Joking blog for sharing that one. Brisick info here or via Lenape. Jamie's 'Martinis' book is a classic and was the first to carry the ConSafos logo. If you want one they're $25, email info @ foamandfunction.com as always.

Friedman Show

3 Shots from the Venice Skatepark and GEF's last roll of Kodachrome, an official end of an era situation. Glen is in LA this coming week to be part of the 'Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die' show, a sort ofphotographic history of California punk. The show opens this coming Friday the 25th at Subliminal Projects, 1331 Sunset Blvd. More info here. Should be a classic, and there's still a few slightly shopworn Dogtown books kicking around, half price if you want one. info @ foamandfunction for the details.

Ether Wheneverly- More Curren/Hynd crossover

with a little bonus Skip Frye....





From the Ether book. All shots by Kidman in the Hebrides 2001. info @ foamandfunction.com. It's really good, and you honestly need that new film of Kidman's.

Video Genius

Shot on iPhone and edited by the mighty Aleks Petrovich.

Derek Hynd by Joe Curren

More from Joe soon, and he has an absolutely brilliant series of photos from a recent trip to Haida Gwaii up on his blog. Worth a look for sure. Derek's hair is nearly as bad as mine if it gets some length. Must be a New Zealand thing.

A few from Mackie...

The boss has taken a few weeks off, bit of a break from the shaping bay to go on a snowsurf mission. He always seems to come back full of inspiration which can lead some very interesting places with surfboards. I'm hoping he has a fine time once again.

Kidman, Sutho and the channels.

Lifted straight from Kidman's site. He's been busy shaping it seems and Mark Sutherland has had his hand in there too. Fine looking stuff, especially that 6'5" widowmaker.

Twentyfirst Century Asyms

Carl taking it to a new tech level. Prototype Hydroflex asymmetricals. The boards are built with a vac bag setup that sort of bonds the skins to foam fibres in the blank making it ultra strong, and the boards are literally inflated to the optimum pressure. I'm not sure how someone like me who barely changes his wax ever would do with having to check board pressure every session, but it's interesting stuff and hopefully Carl will be at the Santa Cruz Sacred Craft- a few of his boards will definitely make it. On the compsand thread, the Jeff Beck twin is getting surfed every session and it's a gem, light as can be but it feels solid and springy under foot. The swell here in Socal has been very nice indeed so that even those of us stuck surfing barely adequate beach breaks have had some good moments. Hope you're all getting a taste too.

Ether Wheneverly- Occy!

Kidman's photo of Occy at Bell's Beach 1997 from 'Ether'. Sooooo good.

Some Moving Pictures For Your Pleasure

Jon Frank, who collaborated with Kidman on 'Litmus' has currently been working with the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the result is this which I think is absolutely stunning. No idea what the completed project will be, but I look forward to it.



The kids are doing it too, scoff at their hipsterdom if you will, but they went to Maine and built some very tidy wooden boards with the good folks at Grain, and then surfed them well. Good stuff indeed.

On the subject of wood, the Jeff Beck modern twin in the post below is absolute magic, and I'm saying that after 2 sessions in closeout beachbreak. On a wave that stays up longer than 5 seconds it will be mindblower. One pocket of face allowed for a full on 'I Don't Have To Ride This Out So What The Hell' hack, pure fat Occy on the comeback action and the board was like butter- I swear I could have ridden that out. There's swell coming, I'll report back....

NInelights Field Trip

The only good thing about breaking a board is that I get to go down to Huntington and see Jeff Beck of Nine Lights. When he's not fixing boards I've ruined (he'll get at least one of those kids of his through college thanks to me, although maybe only a crappy local one as his prices are good) he builds some fantastic surf craft. Much of what he does is compsand construction which interests me greatly, and geeky as it is I love the education I get on each visit. He's doing some wildly hitech yet old school finless vehicles as well, and has a new website with some nice video here. Best of all, the modern twin I posted a little way back is currently in my house. Frothing like mad over it, and if it rides half as good as it feels under the arm I may negotiate an adoption plan.

Thank You Mr. Kidman

'Lost In The Ether' came yesterday. It is really, really good. Fucking amazing actually. A total salute to surfboard design and surfer/shapers that make it happen. There's a lot to process, the first 5 minutes or so involve a very clear and concise analysis of MP's 'Morning Of The Earth' board, and that's just the jumping off point, it gets really interesting from there. Mackie shredding the local Bommie is worth price of purchase alone. Fitzy and Simon Anderson are heroes. I could happily go on and on, but I'll simply say if you have any interest in why surfboards are so wonderful, you owe it to yourself to get this. The limited edition packaged in a quite stunning book is worth every penny, and I am beyond stoked.

Twentyfirst Century Mini Simmons For Sale.

Starting the year off with a few deals is a fine idea, so here we go. San Diego has stirred, and there's 3 very nice surfboards ready for homes. Two 3 fin Simsters- 6' and 5'10" and a quad 'Fourke' - 5'8". All are the real deal Hydrodynamica boards, built by Hank Warner (who's been doing some outrageously lovely work lately, his Caster family channel bottoms are the business, but more on that later) from EPS and with Gephardt keels. Purebred bloodline, straight from the original Bauguess/Elwell/Kenvin collaboration, none of that copied from an internet picture stuff here. Straight up $900 each, can be shipped anywhere you'll pay for them to be shipped to. If had some folding money to hand that quad would be mine. Something for the skaters too- a few slightly shopworn 'Dogtown- Legend Of The Z-Boys' have turned up post Xmas, so out the door they go at half price- $17.50 plus $5 shipping inside the US (overseas you pay actual shipping cost). Email info@foamandfunction.com and get the goods.

Ether Wheneverly- Joe & Pat Curren

A few posts back you saw Joe Curren's quite lovely handcrafted card set, which prompted this post. Joe's skills as a craftsmen have been hard earned, but there's a bit of a genetic imperative too given his dad is living legend Pat Curren. A few years back Pat decided to not only shape his first 'modern' surfboard but to make it for his son. The process is beautifully documented moving picture style in Kidman's 'Glass Love' as well as in 'Ether'. There's something fantastic about a father building his son something on any level, but when it's Pat Curren building a board that Joe & Tom ride there's an extra level of fantastic. You can buy your own copy of Ether by emailing info@foamandfunction.com and feel free to do so, you'll be helping fund a book of Joe's photography.