NOTES FROM THE UNDERGROUND
Ok, we’re getting good at this 2024 thing, right? Well hold on, it’s gonna start getting real weird. But until then, here’s a few ways to get weird this weekend. Notes from Underground for February 12-18th.
[Above art: Dragon medallion Period: Ming dynasty (1368–1644) Date: 16th century Culture: China Medium: Silk and metallic-thread tapestry (kesi)]
-Chinese New Year celebrations are underway and culminate on Feb. 24th with the Lantern Festival. The Yeah of the Dragon is meant to be the most lucky year and we know we could use a bit of luck with how the past few years have been.
-The “Death” of Surf Photography: A Lesson in Three Images is out, and so is the book that inspired the short film.
-Epokhe just launched a new series called “Visitors” logging surfs around the hometowns of the team. Jaleesa Vincent and Macy Callaghan lead the way in episode #001 around Australia’s Gold Coast.
-Seager went to Hawaii to shoot their SP2024 campaign with Skip McCullough, Finn McGill and others, check that here.
Oh, and watch Skip’s iconic ride in Surf Film 2 below:
-Memo PST: 7” release party: our friends in Memo PST are celebrating the release of their new 7” with a show at Scribble tomorrow night (Saturday). Tickets here.
-One of our favorite Frenchie’s, Juliette Lacome, just wrapped up editing a new piece shot on a trip to the Ments with pals Coco Ho, Laura Enever and Frankie Harrer. Shot by Layne Stratton and Lachlan Mckinnon.
-Taco Bell unveiled new menu items and handed out awards at their Live Más Live event in Las Vegas. Among the list of influential attendees was Kai Lenny, earning himself “Best Live Más Moment” at the 2024 Bell Awards.
-Pop Goddess and OC legend Gwen Stefani is showing up for a special performance at Cali Vibes Festival this weekend in Long Beach, CA with ya know, Sublime and a bunch of other weed aficionados.
-Easy Rider: Freedom loving, cold beer crushing surfers Rob Machado, Nate Florence and Matt Meola are some of the ambassadors behind the launch of the new Light American Lager.
-DIIV announced a new record Frog in Boiling Water coming this May. They also released a new song, “Brown Paper Bag” as a single. Listen here, DIIV always works.
Here’s what they had to say about the new record’s title Frog In Boiling Water:
If you drop a frog in a pot of boiling water, it will of course frantically try to clamber out. But if you place it gently in a pot of tepid water and turn the heat on low, the frog will sink into a tranquil stupor, exactly like one of us in a hot bath, and before long, with a smile on its face, it will unresistingly allow itself to be boiled to death.
We understand the metaphor to be one about a slow, sick, and overwhelmingly banal collapse of society under end-stage capitalism, the brutal realities we’ve maybe come to accept as normal. That’s the boiling water and we are the frogs. The album is more or less a collection of snapshots from various angles of our modern condition which we think highlights what this collapse looks like and, more particularly, what it feels like.
