September 3, 2010, 12:13 pm : It’s Good to be King for a Few Days, and Other Thoughts from the Hurricane Danielle and Earl Swells

Filed Under: Imagery, News, Surfing, Travel Tales
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So I have come to understand that this blog, this piece of WWW real estate is completely self indulgent. Sometimes. Because I do aim to serve up really good interviews and photos that all of you really can appreciate. But I have come to realize that when it comes to spinning a good surf yarn, a lot of the surfy stuff that spews forth is related to me and my stories and cohorts.

Yet, I am not apologetic for this. You see, even with social media making our sport to be something that should be instantly shared via YouTube and Facebook, the results of which have led to instantaneous sensory gratification for all surf fans, the essence of the experience remains the same. A surfer, their board, and waves.

It’s that simple. Getting the feeling doesn’t originate from sitting on those sites to see what your buddies or the ripping pros have scored, it comes from getting it yourself. And that means that experience, knowledge and luck have come together at once, to form a pure stoke. The kind which keeps your face smiling for more than a couple of days. The kind that you can go back to when your in the midst of a long spell with no surf.

The consensus on Danielle’s waves is that most of the East Coast did not see stellar or even good conditions. Too much wind, smaller swell than forecast in many areas… One place that got the goods was the Outer Banks. At the first part of the swell, the East facing side dealt with the same onshores that plagued much of the rest of the Eastern Seaboard. The South Side was annoyingly devoid of any really good sandbars, making for racy closeouts along most of the beach.

Then things changed, specifically the wind. Danielle’s energy kept flowing into the Outer Banks, and winds varied from slack to light onshore to light offshore for three days. And the barrel fest started. For some reason I won’t speculate on here, the best sandbar I found was directly in front of the house we were staying in. Not far from S Turns, but in a lot of areas including there, the sand was flat and closeouts were the norm rather than the exception.

Wednesday was the biggest day, but Monday and Tuesday were pure quality, ranging from 3-6 feet with some bigger peaks. Wednesday’s well-overhead peaks were makeable about 10% of the time, but by then it was time to pack and get out of Dodge instead of driving around to look for that ideal sandbar somewhere else. Oh well, some other guys did do that, and got the goods Wednesday, which I am sure will be well chronicled in the mags, but I’m riding one of those major stokes from what I reaped from that sweet little sandbar right out front.

Earl has also been weird in terms of swell. It seems that Long Island should have gotten bigger than it has been. Looking at the surfcam, it doesn’t look like it’s too much overhead in Western L.I. Montauk looks bigger, but kind of ragged. Hopefully my old home gets the goods from Earl before he jets by. And of course, let’s hope the rest of the Northeast is spared from any major damage or loss of life.

But damn it felt good to get amazing and uncrowded waves in Rodanthe for a few days. The smile still hasn’t waned.

August 24, 2010, 6:04 pm : Let’s Go See a Punk Rock Show – Guttermouth and The New Threat gallery

Filed Under: Genres and Styles, Imagery, Music, Show Reviews and Stories
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This will come off sounding funny, but it’s refreshing that we can still go to a venue to take in a real punk band in a day and age when hair gel, skinny jeans and Facebook have replaced actual substance in musical acts.

It’s also very telling that one of the top musical artists in social media can’t draw 250 fans to a decently sized venue, but Guttermouth can cram them in to the Black Cat in DC. There’s a lot more to success in music than compiling huge numbers of transparent “friends”.

So it is without further ado that I show the images from the Guttermouth and The New Threat show at the Black Cat in DC, from August 19th, 2010.

August 2, 2010, 10:21 am : The Legalize It Experience in Pictures

Filed Under: Imagery, Music, Show Reviews and Stories
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You can only write so many words about what it was like to be at a show without losing most of the experience. It can only translate insofar as people want to read about what they missed. Maybe a handful of serious fans will, but others will say, “Where are the photos?” Well here they are: Collie Buddz, Cypress Hill and Slightly Stoopid on photographic display.

July 21, 2010, 11:51 am : The Warped Tour 2010 Gallery

Filed Under: Imagery, Music, Show Reviews and Stories
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See it, feel it, love it. Ten hours of hot mayhem and young musicphiles.

April 11, 2010, 8:04 am : Some Snoop Dogg for y’all

Filed Under: Imagery, Music
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As I was looking back through my previous posts, I came to the gallery of Slightly Stoopid from the Blazed and Confused tour. Yet I never posted any of my Snoop Dogg pictures. Well it’s time to change that. Nevermind that the show was eight months ago, such a classic artist and entertainer is timeless.

The only knock, if I can find one, is that Snoop doesn’t mix it up with the rest of the ruffians backstage. He stays well within his circle of body guards, which is understandable but too bad, since it would have been great to score an impromptu interview with him.

P.S. – The current plugin I am using to generate image galleries isn’t working correctly. Sorry for the scrolling thumbnails. I’m working on a fix.

All images Copyright Jeff Schad, 2009