February 8th, 2010
Over at LA Taco, there’s a great review of a cemita joint we’re just gonna HAVE to try the next time we find ourselves down so-cal way (here).
Now, while we love our friends and some of the amazing art and cars and generally bitchin’ stuff coming out of the greater Los Angeles area, we start itching at the thought of having to actually go down there. But places like this make us all, “Well, maybe dealing with the flatbillers and Affliction-shirted lemmings is worth it to get our mitts on a few Tetanics, yo!”
If you get to Las Cabronas before we do, report in, will ya? It’s not too far from Ed Roth’s fabled Maywood, so maybe we should just get a few cemitas to go and head over there to see if we can find that reet, radiused-wheelwell Chebbie of his…
Posted by Stoner Posted in
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February 5th, 2010
There aren’t many that know how to party like the Jamaicans. And as necessity is the mother of invention, the only outcome had to be the Soundsystem.
A precursor to the rave by 40 years, the Soundsystem is a temporary party, powered by generators and a mountain of speakers sometimes mounted to a truck or trailer, In the 50s and 60s the soundsystems were playing mostly American R&B but the sound evolved as the local musicians started producing their own brand of party music. Soundsystems made the DJ the star of the show way before Grandmaster Flash, Jam Master Jay or even Pauly D. While modern sound equipment makes it possible for one DJ to run the show, early soundsystems had a division of labor. The DJ was more of a master of ceremony, pumping up the crowd and making sure the crowd’s energy didn’t drop while the Selector is in charge of choosing and manipulating the songs, changing the tone or tempo and adding sound effects that sometime includes real gun shots. Soundsystems were early innovators for a lot of tricks and techniques that have become staples of every modern DJ’s arsenal. Call and response, bass drops, record back spins, mixing beats, DJ battles, and using white label remixes of popular recordings were all be being done by early Soundsystems.
As the local music and soundsystems evolved, it gave rise to a new brand of influential record label and recording artist. The most famous label was Studio One. “The Motown of Jamaica” recorded artists like Bob Marley, Toots and the Maytals, Lee Scratch Perry, The Skatalites and on and on.
Posted by Bounds Posted in
Friday Music |
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February 5th, 2010
Good friend/hotrodder/fertilizer junkie, Aaron Grote posted this up on a certain social media website that shall remain nameless (rhymes with shmace-shmook): a pic of him with legendary Van Halen Jack Daniel’s-bass player, Michael Anthony.
A little backstory: You’ve seen Aaron’s stuff here, here and here and his Hemi-powered bubbletop, dubbed “Atomic Punk” is truly indicative of his talent and personality.
If you’re anything like a growing majority of us, you grew up being slain by Van Halen’s self-titled very first studio album in early ‘78. DLR and the boys had us at “…my love is rotten to the core.” Changed our lives forever, dig? So when Aaron set about putting his bubbletop together, “Atomic Punk” was a fitting soundtrack and, ultimately, the car’s moniker.
Then, at this year’s GNRS –– holy of holies –– Aaron runs into none other than MICHAEL FREAKIN’ ANTHONY. Yep. Magical moment, really. Gives the ax-man an “Atomic Punk” tee-shirt, asks him for a pic, ends up with this shot. Grote’s caption for the pic: “I gave Michael Anthony an Atomic Punk Shirt…..he could care less.” You never want to meet your heroes, man. Trust us on that one. But that’s OK –– the Playboy Mansion girls sure dug the car!
Posted by Stoner Posted in
Builders, Culture |
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February 4th, 2010
So, the boys are back from the Pomona Fairplex and we didn’t make it down to what’s probably the best indoor car show in the U.S., but we’ll just have to deal with that. And it makes it a little harder when guys like socalcarculture.com post up a slew of pics from the setup days (here).
Now, we usually find ourselves scratching our oversized, oddly-shaped noggins when we see the grand winner of this show: the AMBR (America’s Most Beautiful Roadster) and the freakin’ gi-normous trophy bestowed to the roadster’s owner, but whatever –– there are so many great cars there in so many packed-to-the-gills buildings that it barely even matters.
Like we said last year and the year before that; NEXT year’s our year…
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February 3rd, 2010
Dov Charney’s American Apparel brand is looking for a few good butts (here) in a global search for the next American Apparel rearend. Seriously. Hate to say it, but this is the kind of contest we can really get behind. Thank you, thank you –– we’re here every night this week…
Posted by Stoner Posted in
Culture |
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February 2nd, 2010
‘member when we brought you Erik Brunetti’s FUCT line of bitchin’ Vietnam-era inspired camo? Well, his new line is starting to street (apparently only in Japan, from what we can figure, but if you know different, drop us a line, wouldja?) and we, of course, are digging the denim.
Dubbed “SSDD” or Same Shit Different Day for you long-form guys, the new denim line is this week’s Product Review Tuesdays feature (here). Made from Okayama selvedge denim –– named after the area of Japan the stuff comes from –– the first two jeans have been dubbed ‘raw’ and ‘dirty washed.’ We’ll take ours in RAW, please. Two pairs.
In Erik’s typical obsessive and slightly insane attention to detail, the hardware on the jeans are perfect little replicas of the Scovill trim, which was used on the earliest American dungarees. Now, while it doesn’t appear the SSDD line features the nut-frying rivet in the crotch that forty-niners of yore encountered while standing ’round the campfire on chilly northern California nights, Brunetti’s line-up is just the oh-so-right mix of vintage inspiration and modern good looks that we really need to have for ourselves.
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Uncategorized |
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February 1st, 2010
There’s been more than one occasion we wish we would’ve been born a decade or two earlier. And when we look at Jeff Divine’s photography (more here)–– especially his documentation of the American surf culture in the acid-dipped Seventies, we just wish so hard that we were born in, like, 1954. Matter of fact, we kinda wish we were hanging out with Chewy’s little brother, here…
Posted by Stoner Posted in
Art, Culture, History |
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January 29th, 2010
“Jazz washes away the dust of everyday life…”
–– Art Blakey
In 1955, a young Jazz drummer named Art Blakey put together a quintet of hard-living, all-nite driving, hell-raising and immensely talented musicians and called them the “Jazz Messengers.”
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted by Stoner Posted in
Friday Music, History, Music |
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January 28th, 2010
Remember when we showed you Dave Tanimura’s gennie SO-CAL Speedshop roadster (here)? Well, he left for Pomona, CA and the 2010 Grand National Roadster Show with it this morning. He and Rick Najera took off with a trailer in tow and are loading the car into the vintage race car building at the Pomona Fairplex as of this writing and he called to tell us the lineup is “bitchin.” That’s all we needed to hear.
What’s so great about this Morris Brothers-built, SO-CAL Speedshop roadster is not just that it campaigned and trophied in just about every style of racing available from the Forties through the Seventies, not just that it’s extremely well documented in magazines and historic photos and existing trophies and not just that Alex Xydias (founder of SO-CAL) remembers the car that he allowed the Morris brothers to paint in the legendary speed shop’s color scheme…
…no, the really big deal here is that Dave has proven that it’s possible to acquire such a car and restore it to its original glory simply by paying attention to details, respecting the history and taking the time to do it right. Well, the fact that he knows what he’s doing doesn’t hurt, either.
Dave chose the roadster’s Forties-era trim to bedazzle it in once more and we couldn’t dig on it harder. ‘Specially the soaped-on numbers –– just like olden tymes on the dry lakes, bro!
Stop by to see Dave and the car this weekend at the GNRS and chug a Diet Coors for us while you’re there.
UPDATE: Dave just sent in this shot from the floor of the GNRS:
Posted by Stoner Posted in
Auction Block, Culture, History, Inspiration |
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January 27th, 2010
We’ve posted plenty about Estevan Oriol’s “LA Woman” book that’s just been released. But if you really want to catch a glimpse of the aesthetics of lowrider culture – and the tenets of car culture in general, this video is a punch right to the nose. Girls and cars, kids. Doesn’t matter how many times we hear some guys complain that it should “just be about the cars, man…,” we know better. It’s NEVER just and only about the cars. EVER.
Posted by Stoner Posted in
Culture |
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