Notes from Underground: 6-21-24
Big weekend. Summer solstice, full moon tonight (the strawberry moon!) and there’s ripping on water and on stage. New books. New records. New shows. Film premieres and a Japanese airshow. Let’s get to work, endless hot girl summer and all that.
-The trailer for Sid Abruzzi’s long-awaited documentary about his landmark surf shop Water Brothers dropped today. Read our resident pirate Joel Van Wyk’s dispatch on the impact he’s had on the Newport, Rhode Island community and really the entire East Coast here and here. This trailer is fantastic. Can’t wait for this movie.
-Brixton is premiering their new 16mm film tonight in Laguna Beach. It’s called 50w Baja — a film by Mark Kirklan. Live music by Cardiel and a photo show by Ken Nagahara. Details here.
-The US Surfing Championships are happening down at Lower Trestles all weekend. If you’re extra frothy for surf comps, the groms will be vying for National titles and it’s all broadcast on live stream with Ryan Simmons on the mic. Watch a few heats, groms are rippin and Simmo rules. Here’s a link to all the webcasts and details.
-Stab High is going off in Japan. If you have a premium subscription, I think it’s free, otherwise, there’s a bunch of surf shops and pizza stores playing it. Check that here. We’d be lying if we said it didn’t look fun to throw sushi rolls while eating sushi rolls with the crew down there.
-For Ping Pong lovers and electric bike enthusiasts there’s a table tennis tourney going down at Murph Electric Bikes in San Clemente, CA. Enter here.
-There's something that has received very little coverage called the JBay Classic going on — a specialty invite event going on at Jeffreys Bay. I’ve only seen snippets of Steph Gilmore, Juliette Lacome, Mikey February, Josh Kerr and Coco Ho going off on fishes and twin fins, which sounds fun as hell to watch, but hard to find for some reason. They shoulda called us, we woulda went and live streamed. At your service! Watch it here, (I think).
-Been Stellar — a band I’ve been trying to decide if I love or hate for over a year now — have their debut full-length record coming out. In fact it’s out now here on Spotify. So maybe I can decide once and for all if its any good. This is what hooked me in the first place (a hangover, go figure!). Either way, I’ve enjoyed the process of trying to figure it out. So maybe there’s my answer? They’re on tour and playing Baby’s All Right in Brooklyn tonight. Get tickets here. Go if you’re a New Yorker. Let us know how it is. Still on the fence.
-There's a good show at Wayfarer Saturday night in Costa Mesa, CA featuring our friends in Your Favorite Color. Think Something Corporate meets All American Rejects with the Killers as an extra topping would roughly describe their sound. Intrigued? Go check em out yourself tomorrow night. Tickets here.
-Hot Water Music is at the Observatory Saturday, June 22. Here’s who that is (think Taylor Steele vids, 90s, core, vintage, etc). Tickets here.
-Rachel Cusk has a new novel called Parade out. You should know who she is and check out this, or any of her books. Somehow Louise Bourgeois (the giant spider artists above) is involved in the book too. So we’re in of course.
Here’s what it says on the back cover:
Midway through his life, the artist G begins to paint upside down. Eventually, he paints his wife upside down. He also makes her ugly. The paintings are a great success.
In Paris, a woman is attacked by a stranger in the street. Her attacker flees, but not before turning around to contemplate her victim, like an artist stepping back from a canvas.
At the age of twenty-two, the painter G leaves home for a new life in another country, far from the disapproval of her parents. Her paintings attract the disapproval of the man she later marries.
When a mother dies, her children confront her legacy: the stories she told, the roles she assigned to them, the ways she withheld her love. Her death is a kind of freedom.
Parade is a novel that demolishes the conventions of storytelling. It surges past the limits of identity, character, and plot to tell the story of G, an artist whose life contains many lives. Rachel Cusk is a writer and visionary like no other, who turns language upside down to show us our world as it really is.
And if all else fails, well it’s officially summer and Spindrift makes an alcohol version. There's a combo swell and it’s hot. Parking sucks and bikinis and being sandy are back in style. Time to bask in the glory that is being a surfer. Just make sure you listen to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds a few times throughout the weeken so you don’t get too sunburned.
New song from Fontaine’s D.C. — or “Zoomer U2” as they’re referred to at my house — we love. They’re blowing up, but we’re fans.
Oh, and we’re going to see Diiv next weekend in LA too. Get into it.
