Pop Surf Culture: Music, Design, Film, and Fashion from the Bohemian Surf Boom »

Brian Chidester is the editor of If Everybody Had an Ocean: A Visual History of Surfing in Popular Culture and Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece. He is the coproducer and director of Feel Flows: A Tribute to Carl Wilson and was the research archivist for Showtime's Beautiful Dreamer: The Story of Brian Wilson & Smile. Domenic Priore is the author of Beatsville and Smile: The Story of Brian Wilson's Lost Masterpiece, a contributor to Billboard magazine and Pulse!, and a producer at BBC, Paramount, and PBS. They both live in Los Angeles.

From the original beachcomber personalities like the Waikiki Beachboys, to the rise of Venice Beach as a creative center for music, art, and film, this intelligent study traces the roots of the surf boom and subsequent culture of the 1950s and 1960s. This insightful chronicle explores the connection between early surf culture, the Beat Generation, and pop culture of the 1960s through accounts of key figures—artists and musicians such as Mike Dormer, Rick Griffin, The Trashwomen, and The Beach Boys—and illustrates why surf culture is considered a vital art movement of the 20th century. The advent of surf magazines and the immense popularity of “beach” movies, starring Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon, are also discussed.

Austin Chronicle

An ambitious survey of the surf aesthetic's influence on American culture, from Moondoggie, the Gidge, and Pet Sounds to burlesque and the Mollusk crew's new wave return to surf's boho design roots.