Surfing through music Anne Barjolin To cite this version: Anne Barjolin. Surfing through music: Sharing the surf lifestyle on a reggae frequency. 2018, pp.42-47. hal-02133185 HAL Id: hal-02133185 https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-02133185 Submitted on 15 Jul 2019 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution - NonCommercial - NoDerivatives| 4.0 International License Surfing through music Sharing the surf lifestyle on a reggae frequency approach to surfing and allows them the experiences of various Floridian Anne Barjolin-Smith to collectively define their local surfers, among whom are two DJs: When I say I try to understand community in a global surf culture2. Lance-O, a specialist of reggae the ways in which surfers interact Reggae is not the only music surfers music, and Bart Kelly, the anchor with music in their everyday life, listen to but it seems to be the of a local surf radio station called I hear a lot of “Yeah, the Beach common denominator among Cocoa Endless Summer Radio. Both DJs Boys!” or “Yeah, the Jack Johnson Beach surfers. Through concerts and work in coordination with local effect!” I am not really sure what radio programs, reggae has enabled surf businesses such as Sun Bum, this means. What I do know, as surfers to share their culture with a lifestyle brand, which hosts in a lifestyle sports participant and their beach community, “getting its backyard free intimate concerts former snowboard instructor, is that everybody on that frequency.” In called Sonny’s Porch4 (reggae music has always been an important my research3, interviews with local artists like Mike Love and Collie part of my practice on and off the surfers highlight the ways in which Buddz have performed there—see terrain. When I moved to Florida six a sense of social identity is built, videos). The two DJs and the surf years ago, I was astonished by the articulated, and shared through brands sponsor musical events effervescence of its surf industry. musicking, a concept borrowed including the annual Rootfire at the The peninsula is known for its poor from Small (1998) for whom Park festival in Cocoa. In order to surfing conditions but in spite of this “To music is to take part, in any understand how these surfers share bad reputation, the Space Coast is capacity, in a musical performance, their lifestyle through their surf recognized as the crib of surfing on whether by performing, by listening, music, they and I had to consciously the East coast of the United States. by rehearsing or practicing, by question the paradigm of historical The beach lifestyle has blended providing material for performance surf music. I asked participants to with a surf lifestyle influenced by (what is called composing), or by reflect on their own musicking and the Caribbean and the intrinsically dancing” (p. 9). This piece reflects to define their aesthetic preferences diverse nature of the Floridian because in my research, I do not just population to form a singular surf 2 Forming the hub of the surf work on subcultural communities, culture in which surf music has industry on the East coast of the United States, Cocoa Beach surfers have I collaborate with them. This become a local surfers’ construct. contributed to build the global surf culture perspective has enabled me to In this article, I look at the ways and industry through their technical and argue that surfing is characterized in which surfers from Cocoa practical innovations (some of the world’s by a lifestyle crossover founded on Beach1, while acknowledging the best surfers and surfboard shapers such as a cultural palimpsest: surf music historical heritage of surf music, Matt Kechele, Kelly Slater, or the Hobgood can only be known as such by have developed a taste for a style of brothers are from the area). participants whereas non-surfers music that reflects their laid-back 3 In my doctoral thesis, entitled may simply view it as reggae, rock, 1 Cocoa Beach is a surf town Ethno-aesthetics of surf in Florida: Musical located south of Cape Canaveral expression and identity marking (translated 4 As part of my research, I and an hour east of Orlando. The from French), I explore the ways in which participated in these concerts—sometimes city has developed a strong tourism Floridian surfers interact with music in as a photographer for the events (Sun Bum, industry based on surfing and the their everyday lives. n.d.). beach lifestyle. 42 punk, etc. According to a surfers’ Surf music does not constitute a the social ecosystem of the surf saying, “only a surfer knows the consistent and homogeneous genre lifestyle. feeling,” then only they know such as for instance, country music, what constitutes the surf music which arguably in the United States Reconstructing surf music that they use as a platform to share follows a consistent thematic logic through palimpsests their subculture. Therefore, my (oversimplified as manual labor, approach to surf music as a cultural trucks, love, and beer) as well as In my research (Barjolin-Smith vector is a three-step process that characteristic vocal and instrumental 2018), I claim that regional first deconstructs the paradigm of techniques (twang, banjo, guitar, contemporary surf musics (each historical surf music, then lets the etc.). On the contrary, surf music is surfing community builds a surf lifestyle participants redefine their a movement or a super-category that music from various music genres) music through sonic, semantic, and comprises a multitude of musical have diverged from a generic cultural palimpsests so that finally genres determined by spatiotemporal movement and emerged following only they can claim ownership of factors as well as by the cultural and two different processes: by creating their ethno-aesthetic5 signatures aesthetic capitals of the subculture’s new content with old content, or founded in a lifestyle crossover that members. In my work, I question by completely shifting away from is shared through local reggae radio the canons of surf music that rest on the historical movement. Hence, programs, concerts, and festivals. a nostalgic and idealized conception surf music has been subject to of surf music that intrinsically a form of cultural palimpsest, Deconstructing the aesthetics confines it to white California which in its original acceptation of surf music from a set period spanning from is a physiological mechanism that the 1960’s to the 1980’s (Crowley allows newly memorized data In this article, aesthetics is 2011; Blair 1978, 2015). What I call to replace those that pre-existed conceived in relation to surf historical surf music is characterized in memory. In the surf culture, music: it consists in the activation by semantic and sonic elements such palimpsests happen beyond sonic of stylistic choices implemented as the texture of the reverb sound memory and can be cultural. according to expressive and repre- of electric guitars still functioning They occur in the surf lexicon sentational criteria of various surf today as a reminder of a so-called (anglophone words have replaced subcultures. The aesthetic trend authentic surf music discourse. Hawaiian technical terms and have we look at here is understood as Anybody who does not surf can become the norm around the world), the experiences of an idiosyncratic assign this music to the surf music in history (the historical Hawaiian reality6 that pertains specifically to category. Therefore, a more relevant origins of surfing are mythified the Cocoa Beach surfers community approach is to identify surfers’ while the birth of the Californian through their construction of musics (constituting strands of surf surf culture is enthroned), in the a surf music adapted to their musics) that are deprived of these practice and the ideology (the implementation of a surf lifestyle. obvious sonic characteristics and Hawaiian royal sport7 has become that can only be understood as surf a global counter culture). To 5 My doctoral thesis is based on music by participants who share a a rehabilitation of the concept of eth- understand a cultural palimpsest, no-aesthetics developed by anthropologist knowledge of their subculture built one must possess the linguistic and Jacqueline Delange (1967). I use it to through collective praxis. Their cultural tools to decode and perform determine the aesthetic relations between implementation of semantic and the substitutions and to appreciate surf and music in the singular space of a sonic discourses distinct from the their sonic, cultural, practical, given surf community constituted through historical surf music rests on their identifiable history, cultures, and society. and historical foundations. The 6 There are various ways of cultural capital, their identificatory palimpsest is not meant to provide conceptualizing surf culture. The needs and appropriation skills. In an interpretation of the surf lifestyle idiosyncratic approach focuses on the other words, one musical genre but it is meant to highlight cultural possibilities to organize one generic surf can bear different meanings and variations within a subculture, discourse in different ways according to foci according to its audiences’ the affective, experiential, and cognitive and to allow participants to keep inclinations of each individual. Cocoa socio-cultural objectives, control of their subculture. The Beach participants consume commodities perceptions, evaluation, and means coding and decoding induced by but also produce trends and evaluate surf of implementation.