SST

The awesome SST Records label.

There was quite a long period of my life when 99% of all the music I listened to was produced by just one Southern Californian record label - SST.

Along with Black Flag (SST founder Greg Ginn's band) they released albums by Minutemen, Hüsker Dü, Meat Puppets, Saccharine Trust, Sonic Youth, Bad Brains, Descendents, fIREHOSE and Dinosaur Jr among others.

There was no need to go elsewhere really...

FINTASTIC

It's a beautiful fin...

Following on from Wheardo's new fin post over at the Log Blog I thought I'd mention the new rudder I'm running in my 8'6" diamond tail.

When I got the board shaped, I'd always imagined that quite a thin, smoothly raked fin with a bit of flex would suit it, and recently got hold of a Fluid Foils 8" Soul Flex that I thought would fit the bill.

Wow, what a difference a fin makes! This new fin works with the board perfectly for the waves I've been riding lately. I can feel the drive from it so positively and it gives a nicely measured response out of the turns too. Very happy with the fin set up now.

Fins really do make a big difference to the way a board rides, and probably more noticeably so on longboards. Of course fins work in combination with a multitude of other factors such as rocker, rail, tail etc, etc. But you can totally tune up your ride by simply changing the fins on yer longboard.

LOCATION-LOCATION-LOCATION

It's all about location...

A smaller property with limited parking, but very good access to the beach.
From LIFE picture archive - late 50s to early 60s, somewhere in Kernow.

EARTH-HOUR

Turn off the lights for one hour on March 27th.

PINK WAVE

Detail of a painting by Pete Fowler.

This is a painting that Pete did for us a few years ago (it was a b-day prezzie for R). Pete's done album cover work for Super Furry Animals and Magic Numbers, as well as animation for Kia Motors he's also the creator of a whole series of designer toy characters and is involved in a myriad of other artistic endeavours. He just never stops producing good stuff... Check out Pete's blog here and his Monsterism site here.

DOH!

New board - first ding. That's life...

SLAINTE

Hope you have a Happy St Patrick's Day (and enjoy a pint of the good stuff too).

Framegrab from Guinness surfers advert 1999.

Painted on a beam at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin.

PEACEOUT

Hope you have a colourful weekend.

Rollover image to turn the volume up!

VINCENT

A tortured soul, but he sure knew how to make his brush flow...

Starry night.

Vince G - self portrait (on his good side!)

KIDS EYES

I let the kids loose with the camera at the weekend - interesting to see the beach through their eyes.

Shadows.

By Tyde, aged 9

By Cealan, aged 9

By Tyde, aged 9

By Cealan, aged 9

SUPERCLEAN

... and super small unfortunately.

HAPPY ST PIRAN'S DAY

St Piran, patron saint of tin-miners, and also regarded as the patron saint of Cornwall.

Kernow pride in the Perranporth dunes.

STINKER MAGAZINE

Skaters like Chris Miller would never throw anything but tuck-knee, the only excuse for a skater doing a stinker is if they're learning. Photo by J Grant Brittain.Check the shadow for altitude.

There are two ways to do a frontside air - the right way...

... and the wrong way!

Unfortunately a lot of surfers seem only able to do 'em stinkbug - which no matter how impressive the manoeuvre may be, to my mind it's still stinky. April 2010 cover of Surfer.

USE BOTH SIDES

The best ideas are the simple ones.

Being a family of scribblers means we get through a fair bit of paper (and yes, we always recycle it), but we've also implemented the 'use both sides' policy. All we have to remember is that the other side of the paper we've just doodled/scribbled/messaged/listed on is still a blank piece of paper. Bingo! One more piece of paper to play with, one less in the recycling bin.
No pieces of paper were used or abused during the production of this message.

MEMO

*Note to self.