Ethno-Aesthetics of Surf in Florida: Surfing, Musicking, and Identity Marking [1st ed.] 9789811574771, 9789811574788

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Ethno-Aesthetics of Surf in Florida Surfing, Musicking, and Identity Marking

Anne Barjolin-Smith

Ethno-Aesthetics of Surf in Florida “Much has been written about the importance of Hawai‘i, California, and Australia in global surf culture. Florida, which has produced some of the world’s most accomplished surfers, has received far less attention. With her innovative approach to surfing and music in the state, Anne Barjolin-Smith is beginning to rectify that. Those looking for a rich analysis of the culture and aesthetics of Florida surfers would do well to read this important new book.” —Scott Laderman, Professor of History at the University of Minnesota Duluth, USA

Anne Barjolin-Smith

Ethno-Aesthetics of Surf in Florida Surfing, Musicking, and Identity Marking

Anne Barjolin-Smith Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3 Montpellier, France

ISBN 978-981-15-7477-1 ISBN 978-981-15-7478-8 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7478-8

(eBook)

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover image: © AleksandarNakic This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. The registered company address is: 152 Beach Road, #21-01/04 Gateway East, Singapore 189721, Singapore

To my tiny ladybug.

Acknowledgments

These are strange times… We have heard this many times throughout 2020. I started writing this book during a typical work year (I am a French junior-senior high school teacher), and I finished and revised it during the COVID-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests ensuing the death of George Floyd. With my idealist’s eyes, I see these times as a tough but necessary transitional period, during which each of us can reflect and take action at our own level and with our own resources. This book is by no means an end or a solution to any of our contemporary issues. Still, it has been a way for me to reflect on questions of cultural appropriation, revisionism, nostalgia, and, ultimately, coloniality within my topic and my own practices as a white French female scholar living in the United States. Thus, besides its most apparent disciplinary purposes, this monograph aims to contribute to the pressing conversations regarding these issues in a context urging everyone to rethink their discourse, place, and role in this world. I humbly think that these times have afforded us momentum for change and are an opportunity to listen to those who have been stifled and whose history has been written for them. The past must be discussed without shame or resentment but in a vii

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collective effort to set the record straight in an open, creative, engaging, and respectful conversation. I was lucky enough to be born and raised in Reunion Island, a sort of racial and cultural anomaly. This small French island, biodiverse wonder, and surf paradise in the middle of the Indian Ocean is a rare instance of a relatively successful blend of races and religions. This book is the direct brainchild of my upbringing in Reunion. The theories and models are derived from my experience as a French Creole in mobility and a linguist. I am grateful for the opportunity to share my view of the world based on my cultural heritage in hopes of adding to a more inclusive and creative conversation about cultures and identities aiming to transform the academy’s structure. I am fortunate to have been able to share my background with someone who treasures multiculturalism and inclusiveness: my husband, Dustin. He is the first person that I would like to thank. It has been a real challenge to combine being a high school teacher and a scholar trying to live up to her purpose (research and writing) without sacrificing nights and weekends–family life. Thank you, Dustin, for your support and for understanding that my call for writing and working so hard is not only formal and tied to scholarly duties. It is an urge to discuss issues I feel passionate about, interact with my peers, and continuously question my own beliefs. Above all, Dustin has encouraged me to pursue my writing project even when other voices questioned the value of such a commitment. The same must be said of Claude Chastagner, who, as my dissertation advisor at Paul Valery Montpellier 3 University, engaged with earlier versions of the ideas presented in this book with an open mind and an open heart. This monograph is considerably different from the dissertation as it builds on additional data and new research. I hope he will enjoy the evolution and flourishing from the thesis to the book. There are other debts, less specific but equally important. I thank all my respondents and my interviewees for their time and precious input. Ricky Carroll, Bart Kelley, Sean Slater, Lance-O, Britty B., and Dustin S. all consented to do formal interviews with me and share their knowledge. Some interviews lasted well over the anticipated timeframe simply because my informants were so generous and eager to share their surfing

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and music experiences. In addition, Dusty B. spoke to me in a more casual conversation that helped me connect some dots. I am deeply grateful for my family, who has always encouraged my love for travel, arts, sports, and academia. They never saw a contradiction in my dedication to all because, fortunately, they also believe in these universes’ complementarity. A significant debt for anyone who supported my project and showed interest in it by asking questions that made me reflect on and consider alternative perspectives. Thank you, Michael Lacerra, for sharing your knowledge and for the book you offered me. Thank you Aunt Cheri /tЀEri/ for your valuable comments. I want to thank the reader, you, for your patience. English is not my first language, but I feel passionate about it, and I try to do it justice in my writings. So I apologize for any typos, and I hope that my prose lives up to this beautiful language. I thank the Palgrave Macmillan team for their trust. I am particularly grateful for Joshua Pitt’s interest in my project and support throughout the writing process. He has been patient and has always taken the time to answer my questions as a first-time book writer. I also thank all the reviewers for their valuable comments and insights that have helped me sharpen my arguments during the final stages of writing, genuinely helping make this work go from dissertation to book.

Contents

1

Introducing Ethno-Aesthetics of Surfing 1 Researching Surfing Culture and Surf Music in American Studies 2 Understanding Ethno-Aesthetics of Surfing: A Multimethodological Approach 3 Objectives: A Multidimensional Exploration of Surfing Culture 4 Ethno-Aesthetics of Surf in Florida: An Overview References

Part I 2

1 1 5 22 26 28

Florida, Surfing, and Surf Music: Overview of the Place, the People, and the Practices

Florida: Society and Cultures 1 Human Geography of Florida 2 Florida’s Social Structure and Organization 3 Focus on Brevard County and the Space Coast

39 40 45 54

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4 Observing the Musicking of Cocoa Beach Surfers References

58 63

3

Surfing Florida: History of an Underdog 1 How Surfing Made Landfall in Florida 2 Florida: A Singular Surf State 3 Floridian Surfing as Lifestyle and Subculture References

67 68 77 86 99

4

Specificities of Surf Music 1 Rise and Resurrections 2 From Sonic Style to Musical Movement 3 The Floridian Scene 4 Nature of the Links Between Surfing and Surf Music References

Part II 5

6

105 105 114 120 124 126

Effects of the Mobility of Surfing and Surf Music on Cultural Appropriation

Model One: The Ultra-Marine Model of Cultural Hybridization 1 Preamble: Localisms and the Glocal in Surfing 2 Representing the Glocal Evolution of Surfing 3 Creolization of Surfing and Surf Music 4 Emergence of a Regionally Adapted Musical Repertoire References Contextualizing Ethno-Aesthetic Mobilities: Toward Floridian Surfing and Surf Music 1 Connections and Distinctions Within Surfing and Surf Music 2 Spatio-Temporal Mobility of Surfing and Surf Music 3 Adaptation and Singularization of Surfing and Surf Music

131 131 137 142 146 152 157 158 172 178

Contents

4 Cultural Sociality in Ethno-Aesthetic Movements: The Dialectic of Rooting and Movement References 7

Model Two: The Phases of Cultural Appropriation 1 Representing the Articulations of Surfing Culture Appropriation 2 Types of Contacts with the Culture and Assimilation 3 Appropriation of Surfing Culture 4 Modification of Surfing Culture 5 From Cultural Capital Formation to Ethno-Aesthetic Belonging References

Part III 8

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187 189 193 193 200 206 210 216 218

The Question of Identity in Ethno-Aesthetic Belonging

Thinking the Questions of Identity 1 Relationship Between Identity and Surf Music 2 Representations in Endo- and Exogroup Relations 3 Identity Negotiations and Functionalities of Diverse Identities References

223 223 230 244 251

Musical Consumption and Postures Within Surfing Subcultures 1 Cultures and the Feeling of Belonging 2 Relation to the World 3 Modalities of Consumption of Floridian Surfers References

255 255 268 274 291

Ethno-Aesthetic Synthesis and Perspective 1 The Mobilization of Surfing’s Semiotic Resources 2 Realization of Identity Potentialities in Surfing

295 295 305

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3 Ethno-Aesthetic Valorization References

317 328

Epilogue: The Ethno-Aesthetic Paradox: Freedom From and Freedom To References

331 335

Index

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1 Introducing Ethno-Aesthetics of Surfing

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Researching Surfing Culture and Surf Music in American Studies

Surfing is at once a sport, a lifestyle, and a culture. Born in Hawaii, it was democratized in the 1960s in California, the cradle of surf music. This book examines the impact of the links between this musical construction and surfing culture on the identificatory trends of participants. As the title suggests, this work centered in American Studies was built at the intersection of several human and social sciences since it draws from history, sociolinguistics, ethnomusicology, sports, sociology, cultural anthropology, social psychology, and philosophy. I voluntarily transcend dominant disciplinary lines to unveil new dynamics in the study of US surf culture mainly undertaken today from the sociohistorical or physical performance points of view. Several scientific fields inspire my approach to examine the potentialities of a universe known to all but whose aesthetics are rarely explored. Galvanized by ambitious scholarship in surf studies, I experiment with new ways of thinking and presenting surfing that are meant to bring it closer to the lived experience of surfers while extirpating it from its fixed ideological canons. I engage the tools of human and social sciences as well as philosophical concepts, © The Author(s) 2020 A. Barjolin-Smith, Ethno-Aesthetics of Surf in Florida, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7478-8_1

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such as aesthetics and the ontological and epistemological questions that relate to it to create a passage between the intelligible and the sensible in the exploration of a way of living called the surf lifestyle,1 one of the major components of which is surf music. I particularly rely on the theoretical tools of sociolinguistics, social psychology, and ethnomusicology to understand the links that surfers maintain with music. This work is not only content with the analysis of empirical data derived from participant observation and interviews but also attempts to interrogate the practices and concepts of the disciplines that transcend it. Sociolinguistic theories are transposed to non-linguistic situations to propose new ways of exploring cultural belonging and identity, while social psychology is criticized upstream to make its tools more effective. Intrinsically linked to the sociocultural history of the United States, surfing examined with the help of these sociolinguistic, ethnomusicological, and psychosocial tools makes it possible to uncover new avenues of research in American Studies, and new perspectives on US society, as well as on surfing culture.

1.1

Situating Research on Surfing

Research on the history of surfing and its multiple dimensions as subculture, art, religion, and commodity is abundant. The literature presented here is not exhaustive, but it aims to illustrate that despite the wealth of writings relating to surfing, very few deal with or draw inspiration from Florida. The majority of these academic studies focus on Hawaii, California, Australia, South Africa, Indonesia, and France to discuss various aspects of surfing. A wealth of research covers the history of surfing in Hawaii in the pre- and post-contact periods, thus touching on issues of coloniality, cultural appropriation, and tourism (Brown, 2006; Clark, 2011; Coëffé, 2014; Kampion, 2003; Laderman, 2014, 2017; Lemarié, 1I

acknowledge the difference that Andy Bennett (1999) makes between lifestyle and way of life. The former describes active modes of consumption of cultural products endowed with expressive and identificatory attributes, while the latter is associated with communities of class (pp. 607–608). In my work, the term lifestyle, which will be defined in Chapter 3 in relation to sports, constitutes one specific way of living that does not lock communities into a particular class.

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2016, 2018, Nendel, 2009; Walker, 2011, 2007, 2017). A growing number of scholars have focused on issues of localism, tourism, as well as on the evolution of the sport and its effects on participants’ imaginary and sense of identity in various geographical contexts (Anderson, 2014; Bandeira, 2014; Beaumont & Brown, 2016; Buckley, Guitart, & Shakeela, 2017; Doering, 2018; Falaix, 2012, 2019, Hough-Snee & Eastman, 2017; Lawler, 2010; Olivier, 2013; Preston-Whyte, 2001; Usher & Kerstetter, 2015; Usher, 2017). Some work has focused on the different approaches or cultures of surfing, on the various styles and expressions of the practice, as well as on its religious and philosophical interpretations (Bennett, 2004; Booth, 2003, 2004; Ford & Brown, 2006; Kampion, 2003; Kreeft, 2008; Kusz, 2004; Rinehart & Sydnor, 2003). An array of scholarship has looked at the commodification of surfing as pop surf culture, including its music and derived forms of arts, as well at its marketing applications (Chiderster & Piore, 2008; Colburn et al., 2002; Cooley, 2014, Lanagan, 2002; Moutinho, Dionísio, & Leal, 2007, Stranger, 2011, 2013; Warren & Gibson, 2014). The questions of gender, masculinity, race, intersectionality, and national rhetorics have been increasingly investigated in the past ten years (Booth, 2001; Comer, 2010, 2017; Comley, 2016; Evers, 2004, 2009; GilioWhitaker, 2015, 2017; Harris, 2007; lisahunter, 2017, 2018; McGloin, 2017; Olive, McCuaig, & Phillips, 2015; Ormrod, 2007). Some have covered the history of surfing through biographical accounts of the sport’s legendary figures (Borte & Slater, 2004; Jarratt & Slater, 2008; Noll & Kampion, 2007; Verge, 2017). Many scholars from the humanities and social sciences have contributed to deciphering the rhetorics and semiotics of surfing as a so-called subculture, also labeled extreme or alternative, with the purpose of articulating its structure and social meanings in late-modernity or post-modernity (Donnelly & Young, 1988; Wheaton, 2004, 2013). I do not refer here to the wealth of research in lifestyles sports broadly understood and in subcultural and postsubcultural studies that will be introduced in Chapter 2 and referred to throughout this work, as needed. None of these essential authors in surf studies focuses on Florida. It was, therefore, necessary to reconstruct a history of Floridian surfing based on scares resources. I relied on the fundamental work of Matt

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Warshaw (2003, 2010) that explores the global history of surfing, as well as on Paul Aho’s (2014) photographic collection that provides the most extensive description of surfing in Florida along with a relatively short account of the history of its surf music, written by James E. Cunningham (2014). I completed their work with interviews conducted among local surfers and archival research at the Library of Florida History in Cocoa. Unfortunately, the archive contained almost no documents on the rise and development of surfing in Florida or on the Space Coast.

1.1.1 Entering the Conversation on Surfing and Musicking Many academic writings deal with music and surfing according to two main approaches: one geo-historical and the other ethnomusicological. The geo-historical approach describes surf music as a successive series of musical scenes constantly moribund and constantly revived by preachers of a historical, or what I call iconic scene that they inexorably connect to California, but that they also claim is doomed to disappear2 (Badman, 2004; Blair, 1995, 2015; Carney, 1999; Chiderster & Priore, 2008; Crowley, 2011; Dalley, 1988). This approach mainly focuses on the canonical artists of Californian surf music from the 1960s to the 1970s (Badman, 2004; Dalley, 1988) and is characterized by the authors’ temptation to reach a conclusive and definitive appreciation of surf music. The ethnomusicological approach involves understanding the relationship between surfing and music (Barjolin-Smith, 2018; Cooley, 2011, 2014) without being limited to canonical surf music. In Surfing about music, ethnomusicologist Tim Cooley (2014), explores how surfing as a cultural practice accompanied by rituals seems to aggregate into communities through music. The author traces the links between surfing and music through the history of Hawaiian chants (mele) and Californian surf music, but also through the analysis of concerts in Europe and interviews with professional surfers who have become musicians. He brings

2The

term scene is understood as a sphere of musical creation whose aesthetics are marked by a style, a community, and a place at a given time. A musical scene is formed when a musical program meets the expectations of an audience that can claim its repertoire because musicians have cooperated in the development of a social and aesthetic anchor point (Roueff, 2006).

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out three opening themes in his conclusion: first, there is a homology3 between participation in the musical act and the practice of surfing; second, through surfing and music, surfers create sharing communities; third, music allows surfers to express and share the bodily experience that drives them to the ocean. While his book has provided me with a robust theoretical impetus, my goal is to go beyond the notion of homology and to propose a reflection on aesthetics, cultural appropriation, and identity marking that does not appear in Cooley’s (2014) fundamental work.

2

Understanding Ethno-Aesthetics of Surfing: A Multimethodological Approach

2.1

Human Exploration Meets Philosophy: Defining Ethno-Aesthetics

2.1.1 Aesthetics as Potentialities and Realizations The notion of aesthetics is fundamental in this work as it transcends it and articulates it. Aesthetics make it possible first to establish the affective and cognitive links between surfers and their practice, and second, to introduce the criteria of interpretation, authenticity, and evaluation of the representations of what constitutes surf culture, including music. Surfers’ aesthetic relationship with surf music is apprehended as the activation of stylistic choices implemented according to the expressive and representational criteria of the various subcultures of surfing.4 This complex notion set in philosophy opens up a speculative conversation used here to initiate new avenues of research in human and social sciences. The notion of aesthetics raises ontological (potentiality) and

3 Homology

is understood as the correspondence between the social structure and the musical corpus’s organization (Bourdieu, 1979; Hebdige, 1991). 4 As I will further develop in Chapter 3, in this work, the term subculture relates to a regional unit of the global surf culture.

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epistemological (realization) questions.5 Relying on Edmond Husserl’s (2000) idea according to which all applied sciences have their theoretical foundations in pure sciences, it is possible to justify the crossing of the aesthetic question (speculative) with that of the ethnos (practical). The former gives the latter the necessary tools to overcome its factual and potential limits imposed by its reflexivity in order to uncover sensible realizations. It then becomes feasible to explore the interactions—whose existence is objective but whose nature is subjective—between a culture (individuals) and an artistic practice (aesthetics). Every science requires a level of abstraction in the creation of notions, relations, etc., illustrated, for instance, by mathematics and numbers. Along the same process, the goal of ethno-aesthetics is to display, analyze, interpret, and build sociocultural paradigms set in time and space.6 Cultural objects, such as music or surfing, offer a vision of beings in their context. Therefore, music can reveal specific aesthetic communities, and as a cultural object, can represent cultural paradigms (Pio & Varkøy, 2012, p. 111). The dual approach to aesthetics (ontological and epistemological) presented here makes it possible to understand communities through the modes of realization or actualization of their artistic and cultural practices. The ontological vision highlights a sort of unpremeditated cultural circumstance independent of free will, whereas the epistemological vision of aesthetics highlights social interactions as conscious and involving free will. Music understood as one or the other offers different perspectives on sociocultural phenomena. Therefore, I envisage music as the experience of a reality to which a dual aesthetic dimension is affixed. In this book, I contend that surfing, understood in its musical and cultural dimensions, possesses its own aesthetic characteristics, and it is through an exploration of its discourse, its implementation, and the validation of its musical and cultural attributes that an aesthetic doctrine of surfing can be defined in order to better understand the psychosocial ties 5I

acknowledge the controversies regarding these concepts particularly criticized in anthropology, but I argue that they are necessary for a preliminary reflection on the object of study. 6 I contend that the universal is built in the singular. From this perspective, I consider that paradigmatic principles put researchers at risk of enclosing a phenomenon in a subjective fixity unless the paradigm is understood within temporality and spatial dimensions.

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it maintains with its audience. Surfing in its two dimensions, practice and lifestyle, including music, is a popular art possessing an aesthetic value because an affective bond emerges from the interaction between the cultural object and individuals. The aesthetics of surfing are particularly interesting as they highlight the ways in which cultural customs become social facts generating among participants responses that are at once cognitive, affective, and action-stimulating, as this work will show.

2.1.2 Ethno-Aesthetics: Past and Revised Meanings Throughout this work, I revisit the anthropological concept of ethnoaesthetics borrowed from Jacqueline Delange (1967). Her study on ethnological and Eurocentric preconceptions of Western societies in regard to an alleged homogeneity of African arts provided the means to highlight shortcomings in the assessment of diverse surfing communities around the world. Indeed, the surfing world suffers from the same ills as that of African arts as they are both perceived through simplistic stereotypes about their alleged cultural and aesthetic uniformity. In other words, the world of surfing is represented through narrow and unilateral preconceptions by the audiovisual industry for the needs of mass distribution (not necessarily within the surf industry itself ). Thus, the ethnocentric approach of the characteristics of this lifestyle prevails (dominated by a North American mercantile thinking) and in a belittling way, systematically associates it with a type of music labeled surf music, epitomized by The Beach Boys.7 It is, therefore, necessary to deconstruct the monolithic image of the surfer who would be similar from one region of the globe to another for the sake of asking the question of the aesthetic relationships between surfing and music in the singular setting that constitutes each community in their capacity to be historically, culturally, and socially identifiable. The revised concept of ethno-aesthetics makes 7The Beach Boys were a rock band from the 1960s. Originally from California, the band was controversially regarded as one of the first surf bands (a group of musicians playing surf music). The debate over the legitimacy of The Beach Boys comes from the fact that their songs were about surfing but only one member, Dennis Wilson, actually surfed (Badman, 2004; Crowley, 2011; Warshaw, 2003). Nevertheless, the band played an important role in diffusing and popularizing surfing in the United States and worldwide.

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it possible to go beyond simplifications that consist in representing the world of surfing as being homogeneous in its aesthetic dimension: its relation to music. The problem is not new, and diverse factors undoubtedly cause this perception, including the staging of a stereotypical image of the white blond male surfer listening to The Beach Boys in the 1960s and 1970s. The problem may also be linked to the dissemination of images exploited for their commercial potential without acknowledging any cultural depth. The concept of ethno-aesthetics helps to show that communities of surfers vary from one region to the other, and that their singularities can be expressed through their musical choices. Observing a community of surfers’ aesthetic judgment provides an opportunity to analyze their sociocultural representations in the interest of better understanding their identity markings, in our case, that of a specific surfing community in Florida. In this revised approach to ethno-aesthetics, the vocable ethnos takes on an ethnographic meaning since I observed how a group of individuals implemented surfing discourses within their cultural group and society. Culture then constitutes the knowledge, the beliefs, the customary practices, and the skills acquired, applied, and shared by individuals and communities. The term culture implies the recognition of a surf experience shared but distinct from other constituent elements of the United States, and of the global surf culture. In this work, the surf lifestyle is categorized as a culture at the global level but as a subculture at the local level because it pertains to sociocultural communities, and it is not representative of a majority culture in the United States. My approach to the cultural is aggregated to an ethnos that goes beyond the ethnic and includes the social and aesthetic group constituted of beings of diverse origins and conditions, but who live together and share practices whose cultural discourse allows them to regroup by affinity. In the multitude of their identities, surfing communities gather in subcultures, the ideologies of which they compose and actualize through music.

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This book is devoted to the study of communities often compared to tribes8 by virtue of culturally marked social behaviors and exclusive intergroup relationships (Maffesoli, 1988, Moutinho et al., 2007). Therefore, these groups’ musical choices are thought of as representations of their belonging to sociocultural sub-groups. The notion of ethno-aesthetics combines human and social sciences (sensible) to a speculative science (intelligible). As such, it helps to theorize the sensible interactions of individuals with their music and according to its characteristics. I used ethnographic methods to observe surfers and to categorize them according to their sharing of a space of surfing practice and surf music consumption akin to sociocultural rituals and pertaining to artistic references observable empirically. I do not envisage a theory of artistic production but the sensible relationship between the artistic form and its users, thus making aesthetic facts observable through the groups in question. Two perspectives emerge from this approach: first, music becomes a sharing space for individuals with similar expressive needs (surfing is an individual sport so participants are alone in a natural surrounding without the ability to share emotions felt during the action); second, music takes on a new dimension when individuals experience it and validate its aesthetic specificities. The crossing of these two phenomena is likely to offer the empirical validation sought by an ethnographic study while including the notion of aesthetics, which then looks toward cultural practices, as opposed to its common attribution of evaluation of beauty in art.

2.2

Discussing People and Music with Ethnomusicological Theories

My approach to music is mainly cultural, even if I take into account its instrumental characteristics. While I acknowledge that music can be a cultural object, in this book, it is mainly conceived as an activity in 8I

will discuss Michel Maffesoli’s notion of neo-tribe throughout this work. I acknowledge the controversy regarding the sociologist’s research methods lacking empirical grounding, which has caused many French scholars to question his concepts and to label him a metaphysician rather than a sociologist (Magnin, 2015; Mucchielli, 2011; Quinon & Saint-Martin, 2015).

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accord with the precepts of musicologist Christopher Small (1998). He created the term musicking, a verb covering all the activities related to music, from its composition to its implementation, and all its forms of listening. Small (1998) defined musicking as “to take part, in any capacity, in musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing, or by practicing, by providing material for performance (what is called composing), or by dancing” (p. 9). The author illustrated his argument by describing the human interactions that are produced in classical music concert halls and by demonstrating that rituals take place that allow participants (and the researcher) to explore the relationships that constitute their social identity. I use this concept to examine how surfers build a sense of personal and social identity within surf music. One of the difficulties linked to the study of a cultural movement, such as surf music, consists in determining the nature of the musical phenomenon. Works on the topic discuss surf music in terms of genre (Blair, 1995, 2015; Crowley, 2011), but this categorization is problematic and the notion of genre must be explained. Genres exist within a larger system and are defined according to socially accepted rules categorized by David Brackett (2016) as, “formal and technical … semiotic … behavior … social and ideological … economic and juridical” (p. 6). Surf music does not meet this definition and cannot be considered a simple genre since it covers a set of genres, such as rock, punk, or reggae, whose social rules differ. In addition, genres that compose surf music are comprised here as belonging to pop-rock, defined by Motti Regev (2013) as a generic category characterized by specific sonic textures obtained by “amplification, electric and electronic instruments, sophisticated recording equipment … sound editing, modification, and manipulation devices” (p. 18). This conception of pop-rock as a subcategory of popular music is used to accomplish one of the objectives set for this book, that of redefining surf music as a generic or supra-genre, and mostly as a glocal movement. The concept of glocalization was used in sociology for the first time by Roland Robertson (1995) in his essay entitled Glocalization: Timespace and homogeneity-heterogeneity. As the sociologist indicated, it is a term that he borrowed from the business vocabulary in order to explain the production of global culture through the interconnectivity of various

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local cultures (p. 28). According to him, frontiers between the global and the local are blurry, but this does not mean that the world is becoming homogeneous (contrary to what the word globalization suggests). The local becomes one of the aspects of globalization since global processes gain meaning within local cultural processes, making the global and the local depend on each other. The notion is used in “writings on popular music to describe the appropriation of globally available musical styles and products and their reterritorialization and redefinition in local communities around the globe” (Kndusen, 2011, p. 88). The ideas of glocalization and glocal are used throughout this work to explain the changes relative to the evolutions of surf music and the cultural practices of American surfers.

2.3

Explaining Identities and Representations Using the Tools of Social Psychology and Sociology

In this work, ethnomusicological reflections are enriched by psychosocial and sociological theories. It is essential to anchor concepts (notably identity and representation) in a specific discipline as their meaning and their implementation can differ from one to the other. Attacks against the notions of identity and representation are founded on social psychology’s tendency in the 1990s to focus on the psychological—confined to laboratories and to move away from the social—empirical observations (Richardot, 2006, p. 43). Social psychology is a discipline resting on the quantitative and the qualitative. It is necessary to avoid moving away from the reality of the subjects observed and to rest quantitative work on qualitative work. The differences that exist in social, musical, and cultural realities must be taken into account and confronted with each other as well as with research hypotheses if an exploration of identity and representations is to be done effectively. In this work, I focus on individuals’ integration in a sociocultural space (the surf lifestyle as a fraction of the American population envisages it) and on the interactions between individuals and music. The

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study of the relationship between identity and a musical form as sociocultural phenomenon helps to clarify our understanding of the connections between these two notions (Rice, 2007). Ethnomusicological and psychosocial considerations are thus combined to examine the sociocultural contexts in which surfing culture (therefore, its components, like music) can be assimilated as the foundation of identity. The task is not easy, but opening the conversation to multiple disciplines can help to reveal new perspectives. Accordingly, the implementation of psychosocial theories of identity and representations rests on the idea that individuals are defined through a spectrum going from a psychological pole (personal) to a sociological pole (social) within which they mark their identity.9 On the one hand, personal identity corresponds to what makes us similar to ourselves and different from others. On the other hand, social identity acquired by belonging to different groups defines the particular place an individual occupies in society and corresponds to relations of discrimination between groups (Deschamps & Moliner, 2008, pp. 65–66). I use these two concepts to explain the phenomenon of identity marking of individuals and of the group as they are manifested in the surf lifestyle through participation in the musical act. Indeed, I define a conceptual progression stemming from the notion of identity construction and moving toward the notion of marking. Studies on the questions of identity (particularly on identity constructions) show that the notion is problematic (Avanza & Laferté, 2005; Baudry & Juchs, 2007; Waligorska, 2013, p. 2). Questioning the various statuses of music within identity construction reaches its limits quickly, whereas the idea of identity marking makes it possible to grasp the complexity of the sociocultural dynamics implemented in interactions with music. I do not completely discard the concept of identity construction because it is a part of the identificatory process, but it is only one of its stages and it belongs to a larger whole. Thus, one of my objectives is to show that it is possible to talk about identity constructions when the whole surfing 9The term marking implies the adoption of sociocultural values on the part of individuals who subscribe to a symbolic system determined by a given space and time. It is the appropriation of redefined symbols that makes it possible to define a singular identity and to belong to groups of value (social, cultural, aesthetic values) by giving them meaning. I develop the concepts of identity construction and marking later in this chapter.

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culture is taken into account (lifestyle, practice, etc.) because it contains enough determining factors to build an identity indeed; but it is not possible to talk about identity construction through only one aspect of a culture, such as surf music. The point here is to understand how identity markers are balanced and articulated in the relationship between surfing and music and how this phenomenon materializes itself. Representation is another disputed concept within academia, which is overhauled and redefined here as it is relevant to understand the identificatory dynamics pertaining to surfers. The term representation involves at least two primary meanings: the first refers to the action of making present something absent; the second refers to the idea of substitution, where the representation replaces its object (Deschamps & Moliner, 2008, p. 82). Cognitive representations cannot exist without being conveyed and actualized by individuals, so they are particularly relevant to this work. These are not simple substitutions of complex forms by schematic forms but phenomena of shared recognition of principles by individuals within their group as well as differentiated assessments of a similar reality from one group to another, as surfers’ participation in musical acts will show. The social and the cultural are built within glocal transformations. In my attempt to overhaul, define, and defend psychosocial concepts of identity and representation, I take into account these new dynamics in order to be as close as possible to social reality and to re-anchor the discipline in the social through a sample of the American population. I show that identity is not absolute and that the representational approach makes it possible to envisage sociocultural interactions according to diverse and original perspectives.10 My ambition is to deconstruct the idea that the verb be is the cornerstone of the identity rationale and to defend a conception of identity and representation which is not apprehended in the linguistic sense of a signifier for a signified, or of a word for a reality.

10 According to Laplantine (1999), identity is a fraudulent securement of meanings which always says too much, as it asserts with all its weight the Totality and the Absolute. On the other hand, representation is more discreet; it is modest and almost always timorous, never saying enough (p. 12).

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Instead, to ensure that the social reconnects with the psychological, I rely on sociological theories to explore surfing culture from an American Studies perspective, which has the potential to show the depths and complexity of the social dynamics at play in surfing, highlighting the notions of choice, competence, control, and individuality displayed by participants. While certain approaches of the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu (1979) can be criticized, including his classification of cultural practices, his theories on the social construction of tastes help explain the relationships that individuals develop and maintain with surfing and music. Bourdieu (1979) considered that there was a hierarchy of tastes and cultural practices that were more or less legitimate, noble or lowbrow, dominant or dominated. Accordingly, the culture of surfing would be a lowbrow cultural expression dominated by more noble and complex forms of culture. I do not agree with the bourdieusian dichotomy between forms of art that supports aesthetics of classes and distinguishes so-called noble art appreciated by the spirit on the one hand, and popular culture appreciated by the body and the appetite on the other hand. In opposition to this view, I claim that aesthetic judgment operates at different levels, through the body and the mind, whether the object is considered noble and legitimate or not, and I argue that aesthetic values are not innate but that they can be learned and refined. This idea implies that volition is key in collective and individual cultural construction and belonging, as it is exemplified in this work by surfers’ rejection of certain cultural products and practices and by their validation of others, notably in music. While surfing is a popular practice and form of expression, it is legitimized by surfers’ acquisition of cultural skills, their subsequent mobilization of know-how and skills, and their cultural capital. The formation of this capital includes a form of learning relating to the cultural, social, geographic, and aesthetic experience which results in the mastery of theoretical knowledge and know-how shared by the community. Bourdieu’s notion is used in this work in its “incorporated” form (Mauger, 2002), which focuses on the faculties to learn and maintain cultural knowledge. Moreover, in order to characterize the set of principles that determine the aesthetic preferences of the sample of participants observed for this work, I rely on the concept of habitus that allows the acquisition and preservation of cultural skills. According

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to Bourdieu (1979), habitus is an internalized device resulting from the effects of the environment of origin combined with the individual and collective journeys of each person (p. 190). The surf lifestyle corresponds to the tastes and practices characteristic of a given community and its members’ aesthetic preferences and cultural practices.

2.4

Modeling Cultural Mobility and Belonging in Surfing

The development and implementation of theoretical models constitute a crucial aspect of this book. The theoretical grounding in the form of models stems from a reflection about an adequate way to represent and explain human groups’ relationships to cultures. I developed two models based in sociolinguistics to explain, on the one hand, the birth and mobility of (sub)cultures, and on the other hand, cultural appropriation and identity marking in order to understand better the course of surfing culture from one region of the United States to the other, and to highlight the impact of local actors on the glocal evolution of the culture. The models are based on the idea that cultural phenomena (ethnos) can be explained by transposition with linguistic patterns (social and genealogical). Linguistic models offer tools that make it possible to represent the dynamics of two different cultural phenomena: the first being the evolution of mobile cultures in their new context (here surfing culture according to its historical and geographical courses), the second concerning the relationships between individuals and a culture or subculture (Floridian surfers and the surf lifestyle). Research in foreign language didactics deals with language acquisition and development but also with the links maintained by multilingual individuals with languages that have different statuses (Bowerman & Levinson, 2003; Dabène, 1994; Grosjean, 1982, 1993; Martinez, 2008). The parameters of expression, volatility, cognition, and representation explored in the didactics of languages make it possible to understand linguistic systems in a concrete manner. By transposing this knowledge to my theoretical models of cultures, I bring out the articulations of two aspects of my object of

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study: the relationship of individuals to their surf subculture and the evolution of the subculture according to spatio-temporal anchor points. The modeling approach of Claude Levi-Strauss borrowing theoretical tools from linguistics as well as studies in social psychology on identity processes and social representations have strongly influenced these perspectives. The combination of these two schools of thought brought out the idea that certain dynamics of language phenomena can be transposed to those that we maintain with cultures. Models offer the advantage of retaining only certain essential aspects of these situations to represent only the most relevant articulations (unlike the analogy, which tends only to represent similarities between two situations, the model allows us to get rid of specific aspects of situations at key moments of the representation without constraining the research to conformity at all cost). Moreover, specifically with surfing and music, questions of identity must be reevaluated since, as Cooley (2011) highlighted, “there are no models in ethnomusicology for studying affinity groups that form around a sporting affinity group, or that form around something other than place, belief systems, occupations, or occasionally musical systems” (p. 26). In this article serving as the preamble to his famous book, Surfing about music, Cooley (2011) noted that the lack of theoretical tools for the joint study of surfing and music was deplorable, as questions remained unanswered. The models’ aim is to provide possible answers. Therefore, models are relevant because they are developed as the extension of a theory, of which they are, in fact, a projection (Willett, 1996, p. 10). The first theory concerns the status of Creole languages (developed in Chapter 4 in the Ultra marine model of cultural hybridization). The second is that of the didactics of foreign languages (developed in Chapter 6 in the model of the phases of cultural appropriation). Both theories were transposed to my empirical observations in order to represent and to map the phenomena of mobility and cultural appropriation observed during fieldwork. My goal was to specify the aspects of reality about which we can identify important and significant similarities and differences between scientifically validated linguistic phenomena and cultural phenomena remaining to be validated. The models are not intended to be exhaustive, but they attempt to represent specific characteristics of the object of study, the ethno aspect of

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the question, to create links with the aesthetic aspect. The models are not too detailed for the sake of allowing subsequent generalizations to other phenomena. The two models presented here are cognitive as they serve to represent existing systems and to highlight their structural and functional properties judged to be the most important and most interesting (ibid., p. 11), which makes them applicable to other situations and areas of cultural studies. Put simply, these models manage to represent simple articulations of surfing culture as they are implemented in the third part of this book.

2.5

The Ethnographic Approach

2.5.1 Doing Ethnography This multidisciplinary and multimethodological study is based on ethnographic work consisting of participant observation that has made it possible to provide a reflection anchored in reality. This book is thus based on empirical research founded on field investigation, the basis of which is the use of interviews and surveys as well as my active participation in surfing and musicking activities. Data from participant observations and interviews are analyzed back-to-back with my observations as a researcher and participant. This data collection process allowed me to be included in the observed group, thus becoming an observer and participant. Sporting events and concerts provided primary data, and interviews took on a double function as they constituted primary data and allowed interviewees to reflect on their own condition within the subculture. Therefore, the qualitative research is semantically and semiotically rich and offers a wide range of interpretations. In this work, informants acted and spoke; I listened, observed, participated, recorded, analyzed, and explained. The plurality of discourses and experiences made it possible to categorize practices and to interpret them while avoiding two pitfalls: to give an ethnocentric perspective based only on personal observations and to become a subject and forget my status as a researcher. Furthermore, it is worth emphasizing that

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where anthropology tends to seek standardization within social interactions, the ethnographic tools used in social and cultural research make it possible, on the contrary, to highlight the singularities of individuals and groups. This approach implies to take into account the question of alterity, fundamental for a multilevel research on individuals claiming a particular idea of surfing culture. By apprehending otherness as a distinct reality in its integrity and by confronting it with its alter egos, its singularity can be brought out within intergroup relationships. Alterity is thus a key element in this work and the psychosocial dynamics analyzed in it. I engaged in ethnographic work by focusing on the idea of sociocultural belonging. It was conceivable that surfing could be perceived differently depending on the observed communities and, therefore, hold a different status and role in the socialization and identity marking of participants. The controversial work of Michel Maffesoli (1988) has inspired many writings on the nature of so-called postmodern subcultural communities, or what he called tribus, translated in English into neo-tribes.11 Partly inspired by his ideas, I envisaged that these postmodern communities were not fixed and had porous and fluid frontiers which constituted liminal zones of sociocultural belonging that could evolve depending on economic, social, geographic, cultural, and historical context. Participant observations had to confirm or infirm whether what gave these unstable communities coherence was their shared perception and evaluation of their surf lifestyle. If that were the case, observations had to establish whether or not my informants’ perceptions of surfing could be linked to their musical choices according to a functional principle of identity anchored in their community. Affiliation and the possibility of socialization by belonging to a surfers group would be manifested by the adoption of music validated by the community. Before detailing the conditions of the ethnographic research, I must clarify my relationship to the object of study since my position as a participating researcher evolved throughout the three-year-long observation. This study concerns only one geographically restricted observation site if one refers to the multitude of terrains available for the study 11 I am aware of the controversy regarding the legitimacy of Michel Maffesoli’s research. However, the questions he raised and his lack of answers have nourished this research’s preliminary reflection, so that his work could not be omitted.

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of surfing in Florida, on the Atlantic coast, or in the United States. Unlike a multi-site work, my research was not comparative as it was based on the premise that an ethno-aesthetic phenomenon (the relationship between culture and aesthetics) is a priori transposable. In addition, working on a geographically and socioculturally limited terrain allowed me to insert myself into the observed community. My perspective then is more emic than etic, even if the two approaches of the subculture are present in this work. On the one hand, my approach is mainly emic because it is ethnographic: it describes cultural behaviors according to the points of view of participants (including me), and it is long-term and focuses on a unique cultural group (Morris, Leung, Ames, & Lickel, 1999, p. 782). On the other hand, the research is etic because it was started according to an anthropological method by applying scientific factors (such as economics, history, or geography) to cultural practices, and because it describes phenomena likely to be applied across cultures (ibid., p. 781). However, where my approach no longer corresponds to the criteria of an etic research, it is in the fact that the observations do not concern several cultural groups in different spaces (ibid., p. 782). My personal and academic background illustrates these two aspects since when I started my fieldwork in 2015, I surfed about ten times a year (my favorite sports being wakeboarding and snowboarding). The immersion in the surfing environment led me to spend more time in the water and spaces of cultural practice, such as surf shops, concerts, factories, etc. So thanks to the evolution of my status as a surfer on the one hand, and thanks to my status as a researcher, on the other hand, I was able to set my research in both approaches, thus, avoiding criticism of either approach taken separately: emic and misconceived by the insider’s perspective or etic and ignoring the reality of participants (Morris et al., 1999, p. 183).

2.5.2 Places and People Observations took place over two and a half years (between June 2015 and January 2018), mainly on the Space Coast of Florida, on beaches, during concerts, or sporting events. Two musical events became the

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focal point and are described later in this work: Sonny’s Porch concerts hosted by Sun Bum, a Cocoa Beach-based sunscreen company, and Rootfire at the Park, a yearly reggae festival taking place in Cocoa Village. Out of 41 informants, 35 were surveyed about their experience with surfing and musicking, as well as about their sense of being Floridians, while six of them were interviewed in longer interviews. The sociological survey addressed to the 35 participants aimed to understand the links between musicking (musical choices and practices of musical consumption) and the subculture of surfing within a localized community evolving in a space defined socio-culturally and geographically. The concepts that guided the survey development were those of identity and representation and the joint expression of these two concepts. It highlighted the connections between participation in the subculture and idiosyncratic aesthetics in questions of identity. The key notions of otherness, glocality, and intergroup relationships transcended the survey in order to make it possible to analyze the responses from the perspective of the ethno-aesthetics of surfing in Florida. The answers to the questions empirically anchored the idea that the subculture is made up of coherent individuals who choose demarcation, locality, and affirmation through socializing practices and aesthetic action. The survey helped to highlight the implementation of performative (interaction) processes in subcultural belonging as opposed to the simple desire for symbolic belonging to a uniform world. The 35 participants are cited anonymously throughout this book. Demographics show that just over half of the male surfers were born in Florida. All generations are represented12 : around 20% Baby Boomers (born between 1946 and 1964), 20% Generation X (born between 1965 and 1980), 40% Generation Y (born between 1981 and 2000) who all had a university degree, and 20% Generation Z (born since 2001). The vast majority were white and worked in the surf industry, often in sales or marketing. The population that did not work in the surfing field represented diverse professional categories as employees of the health sector. Among women, demographics showed that the majority of them were from Florida. There were 12 A variety of age groups are represented in surfing so that generations must be taken into account as they affect the evolution of the culture and the relationships between its members (Lohman, 2017, p. 41).

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more significant disparities in education levels ranging from high school diplomas to Master’s degrees. Most lived in one of the coastal towns of Brevard County. The respondents mainly belonged to Generation X. All were white, sometimes from Asian or Amerindian descent. Most worked in the surfing field and some in other fields, such as health care. The constitution of the sociological interviews was done on the same reflexive basis as that of the survey, but they gave participants more freedom to express their interpretations and intimate experience of the subculture. In the ethno-aesthetic perspective, participants’ responses to these semi-structured interviews testified to their experience of the sociocultural object which fit into the chronology of their lives. All the interviewees had four characteristics in common: they were agents of their local surfing economy, pursued the lifestyle, had lived in Florida since birth or long enough to be considered natives or locals, and were all tied to the local music scene in some way. Unlike survey respondents, interviewees are named throughout the book, but in order to facilitate the narrative flow, I only state the interview dates in this section. Dustin and Britty both work(ed) for the sunscreen company, Sun Bum. At the time of the interview, on September 10, 2016, Dustin managed the Cocoa Beach office and implemented Sonny’s Porch concerts. The early millennial grew up surfing on the West coast of Florida. Britty, a white female millennial interviewed on June 15, 2018, was a representative for the brand and is also a jazz singer. I never mention these two informants’ last names because they are not public figures. Sean Slater was interviewed on June 7, 2017. He is a former professional surfer and a renowned surfboard shaper. Born in 1969, he is the oldest of the Slater brothers (Kelly and Stephen—Skippy). His views on surfing and what he called a lifestyle crossover were paramount to this work. Ricky Carroll and Bart Kelley gave a joint interview on June 13, 2017. Ricky Carroll is a famous surfboard shaper whose work has been recognized globally, notably through shape-off tournaments. The late Baby Boomer is also a musician in two bands, and he owns Endless Summer Radio, hosted by Bart Kelley, D.J. and Generation X surfer. Lance-O is the official D.J. for Sun Bum. The Gen-Xer was interviewed on January 16, 2016, as he was deejaying for Sun Bum at Surf Expo in Orlando. He specializes in reggae music and owns his label, Kulcha

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Shok Muzik, Inc. All these actors of the surfing world know each other and work together to promote a singular regional surf lifestyle supportive of a striving local surf industry. The participants’ sample reflects an attempt to cover the greatest demographic diversity while taking into account the inequalities present in reality. Thus, my sample does not consist of an equal number of men and women, or the representatives of certain generations because, for the sake of accuracy, I respected the proportions of the categories of individuals as they appeared in reality. Therefore, while in this work the disproportion of categories is voluntary, a wide range of demographic criteria was taken into account, including participants’ socioeconomic status, sociocultural situation, approach to surfing, gender, age, mobility (physical and cultural), port of entry into the subculture and status of surfing13 (first culture or belonging culture; types of cultural repertoires; types of acquisition processes), etc. As the sample shows, the female population is significantly smaller and less visible than the male population. The male participants forming my port of entry in the culture seldom presented female surfers as relevant references for the research. Fieldwork shows that there are female surfers, amateur, or professional, in the region, but they are clearly outnumbered, and the female figure simply does not seem to represent the adequate prototype when it comes to speaking about surfing.

3

Objectives: A Multidimensional Exploration of Surfing Culture

3.1

The Ethno-Aesthetic Argument

The purpose of this book is to understand to what extent the musical experience inherent to surfing as an activity and a lifestyle can be considered a marker of the identities of diverse United States subcultures of surfing. As Cooley (2014) has pointed out, wondering if a link exists between surfing and musicking is not the right question, and it is more 13The

notion of status of surfing culture is developed in Model Two.

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productive to consider this link as the realization of a cultural construction worthy of being studied and analyzed with the right tools (p. 5). Building on his suggestion, I posit that surf music as a cultural construction manifests as the sum of localized cultural appropriation phenomena within the global movement. I analyze it from an ethno-aesthetic standpoint through concrete examples informed by field observations, interviews, and surveys. I am specifically interested in the case of surfers from the Space Coast of Florida, as, in its singularity, the functioning of this microcosm can be representative of a macrocosm. My whole approach rests on the idea that cultures (sub-, popular, or otherwise) can be systematized and explained according to rationales similar to that of languages. Therefore, the effects of the relationship between surfing and musicking on participants’ identity marking are explored through the implementation of sociolinguistic tools already put to the test in constituted knowledge and transposed to the sociocultural setting under scrutiny. Music allows us to make sense of human interactions that take place through and for it (in all its forms). The 1970s empirical and theoretical studies explained the links between music, artists, and fans. Cultural consumption stems from a collective feeling of connection, participation, and camaraderie from their common interest and their shared taste for a music genre. These feelings are transformed into collective patterns through the construction of a lifestyle endowed with common aesthetics and supplemented with social and political ideologies (Regev, 2013, p. 126). This book is not about musical creation but about the people who participate in the musical act (listening, going to concerts, broadcasting) in their cultural context. I explain how music needs are manifested and what music brings to a cultural entity marked by its American history. In other words, it is the musical experience inherent to the activity and lifestyle of surfing as construction, reflection, and identity marking of American surf (sub)cultures that is examined here through the case of surfers from the Space Coast of Florida.

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Exploring the Aesthetics of an Overlooked Surfing Region Through Music

Given the lack of literature on surfing in Florida and on the links between surfers and music, one of the objectives of this book is to enrich the corpus relative to these two themes. The first step is to retrace the history of Florida’s surfing subculture as well as a history of surf music as it is commonly defined, and the second step is to set these two historical constructions within a glocal system. This process makes it possible to establish relationships between surf music and a local surf lifestyle included in a global system. Music is conceived through surfing, thus surfers, since they are the ones who determine the codes of the culture (musical forms do not determine the lifestyle). One of the objectives is then to understand how music organizes spaces where the subculture’s ideologies and myths are constructed and articulated. Surfers define the criteria of validity and then endorse spaces, behaviors, artists, etc., creating an aesthetic aura (Stranger, 2013, p. 69). Cultural products, such as surfboards, clothing, or music, as well as the spaces to which they are associated, assume a symbolic value or even a conceptual one, that surfers determine from the initial stages and then validate. Consequently, whether we are studying surf brands or surf music, it is surfers who prescribe the aesthetic legitimacy of cultural objects because these aesthetics constitute their ideal and not the other way around. In a process intended to be representative of surfers’ ethno-aesthetics, trying to penetrate the subculture directly through its music would have constrained me to build a musical corpus subjectively and artificially. This approach would have threatened the ethnographic and psychosocial aspects of the research because I would have observed the representations of musicians instead of understanding how surfers interact with the music and how these interactions contribute to marking certain identities. Therefore, the starting point of the reflection is the surf lifestyle in Florida, and the aim is to understand one aspect of the lifestyle: participants’ relationship with music. Surfing is the prism through which a certain idea of musicking is analyzed. It is an ideological construction of music as it is manifested in the surf music movement, which appears as the

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subjectivation of certain genres based on expressive, sociocultural, and aesthetic criteria. Thus, in their respective singularities, Florida and its surf practice, made it possible to observe how a community produces, consumes, understands, and uses music, as well as how this community is reflected, projected, and built in the music by including specific genres and artists in their pantheon of surf music. Through the observation prism of surfers, music can be apprehended as participants perceive it and implement it according to criteria they gave of it, according to their own reading of it. Therefore, a substantial part of this book redefines what surf music is since its paradigmatic conception (as a genre punctuated by successive resurgences), or what is referred to as iconic surf music in this work, is not appropriate. Indeed, first, its aesthetics no longer correspond to reality; second, surf music does not match the genre’s definition, as explained earlier. Thus, I show that surf music as a cultural movement constitutes at once a pop-rock element but differs from it because of its similar status as a supra-movement.14 Surf music is a generic term because it includes genres and practices that vary from one region to another.15 As Regev (2013) pointed out, the notion of genre focuses more on production than consumption (p. 129), and surf music is understood here as being determined as such by surfers. The musical consumption of surfers guided the writing of this book, so considering surf music as a genre would have been irrelevant. These considerations are based on the collection and analysis of data but also a certain understanding of the a priori elusive theme of human relationships with music within various societies and cultures. So conceptions of the musical world (its composition and experiences) must evolve. Music is shared through and thanks to new technologies. It has traveled and mixed, but this has not resulted in the homogenization of practices. If, as Regev (2013) explained, contemporary musical genres seem to belong to the pop-rock supra-category, access to music has enriched participants’ repertoires, and it is now their usage of music that gives it its diversity. Based 14 I

use the suffix supra- as it refers to the idea of encompassing main category placed above and taking precedence over the diversity of stylistic units which compose the movement. 15 As I show throughout the book, several artists appear as references for Floridian surfers. These artists play reggae, rock, and alternative, for the vast majority.

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on this perspective, I deconstruct the theoretical screed restricting and freezing surf music so that surfers can reclaim the movement that they contributed to form and transform—hence the relevance of the concept of musicking. By grasping what individuals do when they participate in the musical act, it is possible to begin understanding the role and the impact of music in human interactions. Merely paying attention to music constitutes in itself a musical act (musicking), and it is in the reaction to these small and lesser interactions with music that we can detect sociocultural behaviors relevant for the ethno-aesthetic analysis. Relationships are made with music and other participants when engaging with music. Thus, relying on the concept of musicking makes it possible to comprehend aesthetics as experience since it defines a group of American surfers’ interactions with their music.

4

Ethno-Aesthetics of Surf in Florida: An Overview

This book is organized in three parts containing theoretical considerations, methodological observations, as well as interpretive analyzes built on ethnographic work and historical investigation of surfing culture as it developed in American society. I enter the subculture through the musical practice of surfers, which allows me to redefine surf music to deal with musical experience inherent to the surf lifestyle and its impact on the identity marking of individuals adhering to the subculture. The first part presents the contextual framework and the research object. A brief history of Florida is proposed in connection with the movements of populations and society’s structure. Then the peninsula is split into cultural regions allowing centering on Brevard County, where the town of Cocoa Beach is located (the focal point of this book). The formation and transformation of two American specificities, surfing and surf music, are presented with a focus on Florida. The surf lifestyle is conceptualized and defined as a subculture to which ideological practices of surfing are associated. Floridian surfing specificities are described, then the distribution of surfing along the Florida coastline is regionalized. The last section covers the history and specificities of surf music along with

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the sonic characteristics of the original phenomenon. Questions about the global commodification of music are dealt with to better comprehend the local through the description of the Floridian scene. The field variables relating to the types of surfers are watermarked throughout this work in order to underline the representational dynamics at work in the subculture. The second part describes the manipulations to which the objective elements of the first part are subjected. This is where the Ultra marine16 model of cultural hybridization is presented and applied through the phenomena of creolization of surfing and surf music that caused the emergence of musical repertoires adapted to spaces, cultures, and periods. After having explained and illustrated the movements of surfing and surf music cultures as well as the circumstances of their anchoring in Florida, it is possible to deal with the effects of the mobility of surfing and surf music on cultural appropriation. The ethno-aesthetic movements of population and cultures are contextualized. The processes of connections and distinctions in surfing and surf music are described from the point of view of the memory and idealized constructions of cultures by individuals and societies. The spatio-temporal movements of surfing and surf music are put into perspective in the processes of cultural acquisition and construction of cultural capital, leading to the singularization and the production of a subjective subculture. Cultural sociality in ethno-aesthetic movements introduces the paradox of rooting and movement extending over the rest of the book. The model of cultural appropriation phases is presented and implemented to show that the Floridian subculture is singular but plays a role in the construction of the global surf culture. This part constitutes an effective link between the circumstances described in the first part, and the ethno-aesthetic implications developed in the last part. The last part of this book builds from the conclusions of the other parts in order to reflect on the question of identity as a concept and as an object within ethno-aesthetic belonging. I look back to the theoretical reflections on identity in order to determine the links between 16 I

chose the term ultra marine, which refers to overseas territories because it implies the notions of mobility and creolization of people and languages, as well as the idea of a rhizomatic resurgence of culture.

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identity and surf music. The representation issue is taken up again to explain endo- and exogroup relationships according to the symbolic and idealized constructions of the subculture in alternative postures opposing generic trends. Identity negotiations and the functionalities of various identities are explained and defined against certain anthropological theories. Then, it is possible to discuss the posture of the subjects within the subculture, and their modalities of musical consumption. The conscience of an ethno-aesthetic relativism modulates the phenomena of belonging, and the world of Floridian surfers is revisited according to the reflections on identity. I then enter the heart of the analysis on the connection between surfing and music to lay down the stakes of the glocalized ethnoaesthetics of surfing. This analysis makes it possible to suggest a transition toward a synthesis of ethno-aesthetics and new identificatory perspectives. The ways in which surfers mobilize the semiotic resources of surf music are analyzed. The realizations of identity potentialities are put into perspective by being placed on the unstable grounds of the question of authenticity and the paradox of cultural immobility mentioned in the second part to apprehend better the identity issue in relation to musical crossover. Finally, I characterize the singular ethno-aesthetics of Floridian surfing through the surfanization of Cocoa Beach.

References Aho, P. (2014). Surfing Florida: A photographic history. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Anderson, J. (2014). Surfing between the local and the global: Identifying spatial divisions in surfing practice. Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 39 (2), 237–249. https://doi.org/10.1111/tran.12018. Avanza, M., & Laferté, G. (2005). Dépasser la «construction des identités»? entification, image sociale, appartenance. Genèses, 61(4), 134–152. https:// doi.org/10.3917/gen.061.0134. Badman, K. (2004). The Beach Boys: The definitive diary of America’s greatest band, on stage and in the studio. San Francisco: Backbeat Book. Bandeira, M. M. (2014). Territorial disputes, identity conflicts, and violence in surfing. Motriz: Revista de Educaçao Fisica, 20 (1), 16–25.

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Barjolin-Smith, A. (2018). Surfing through music: Sharing the surf lifestyle on a reggae frequency. Riffs: Experimental Writing on Popular Music, 2(2), 42–47. Baudry, R., & Juchs, J.-P. (2007). Définir l’identité. Hypothèses, 10 (1), 155– 167. https://doi.org/10.3917/hyp.061.0155. Beaumont, E., & Brown, D. (2016). ‘It’s not something I’m proud of but it’s … just how I feel’: Local surfer perspectives of localism. Leisure Studies, 35 (3), 278–295. https://doi.org/10.1080/02614367.2014.962586. Bennett, A. (1999). Subcultures or neo-tribes? Rethinking the relationship between youth, style and musical tastes. Sociology, 33(3), 599–610. Bennett, R. (2004). The surfer’s mind: The complete, practical guide to surf psychology. Torquay: Griffin Press. Blair, J. (1995). The illustrated discography of surf music 1961–1965 (3rd ed.). Ann Arbor, MI: Popular Culture Ink. Blair, J. (2015). Southern California surf music, 1960–1966 . Charleston: Arcadia Publishing. Booth, D. (2001). From bikinis to boardshorts: Whines and the paradoxes of surfing culture. Journal of Sport History, 28(1), 3–22. Booth, D. (2003). Expression sessions: Surfing, style, and prestige. In E. R. Rinehart & S. Sydnor (Eds.), To the extreme: Alternative sports, inside and out (pp. 315–333). Albany: State University of New York. Booth, D. (2004). Surfing: From one (cultural) extreme to another. In B. Wheaton (Ed.), Understanding lifestyle sports: Consumption, identity and difference (pp. 94–110). Oxon: Routledge. Borte, J., & Slater, K. (2004). Pipe dreams: A surfer’s journey (2nd ed.). New York: Regan Books. Bowerman, M., & Levinson, C. S. (2003). Language acquisition and conceptual development (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Bourdieu, P. (1979). La distinction: Critique sociale du jugement. Paris: Éditions de Minuit. Brackett, D. (2016). Categorizing sound: Genre and twentieth-century popular music. Oakland: University of California Press. Brown, D. (2006). Surfing historic images from the bishop musuem archives. Bishop Museum Press. Buckley, R. C., Guitart, D., & Shakeela, A. (2017). Contested surf tourism resources in the Maldives. Annals of Tourism Research, 64, 185–199. https:// doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2017.03.005.

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Carney, G. O. (1999). Cowabunga! Surfer rock and the five themes of geography. Popular Music and Society, 23(4), 3–29. https://doi.org/10.1080/030 07769908591750. Chidester, B., & Priore, D. (2008). Pop surf culture: Music, design, film and fashion from the Bohemian surf boom. Santa Monica: Santa Monica Press LLC. Clark, R. K. J. (2011). Hawaiian surfing: Traditions from the past. University of Hawaii Press. Coëffé, V. (2014). Hawaï: La fabrique d’un espace touristique. Presses Universitaires de Rennes. Colburn, B., Finney, B., Stallings, T., Stecyk, C. R., Stillman, D., & Wolfe, T. (2002). Surf culture: The art history of surfing. Corte Madera: Ginko Press. Comer, K. (2010). Surfer girls in the new world order. Durham, NC: Duke University Press Books. Comer, K. (2017). Surfeminism, critical regionalism, and public scholarship. In Z. D. Hough-Snee & S. A. Eastman (Eds.), The critical surf studies reader (pp. 235–262). Durham: Duke University Press. Comley, C. (2016). “We have to establish our territory”: How women surfers ‘carve out’ gendered spaces within surfing. Sport in Society, 19 (8–9), 1289– 1298. https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2015.1133603. Cooley, T. J. (2011). Playing together and solitary play: Musicking and surfing. Ethnomusicology Ireland, 1, 21–39. Cooley, T. J. (2014). Surfing about music. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Crowley, K. (2011). Surf beat: Rock’n’roll’s forgotten revolution. New York: Backbeat Book. Cunningham, E. J. (2014). Florida surf rock, then and now. Surfing Florida: A photographic history (pp. 222–240). Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Dabène, L. (1994). Repères sociolinguistiques pour l’enseignement des langues. Paris: Hachette. Dalley, R. (1988). Surfin’ guitars: Instrumental surf bands of the sixties (3rd ed.). West Jordan: Robert J. Dalley Publications. Delange, J. (1967). Arts et peuples de l’Afrique noire (2nd ed.). Saint-Amand: Gallimard. Deschamps, J.-C., & Moliner, P. (Eds.). (2008). L’identité en psychologie sociale: Des processus identitaires aux représentations sociales (2nd ed.). Paris: Armand Colin.

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Doering, A. (2018). From he’e nalu to Olympic sport: A century of surfing evolution. In J. Higham & T. Hinch (Eds.), Sport Tourism Development (3rd ed., pp. 200–203). Bristol: Channel View Publications. Donnelly, P., & Young, K. (1988). The construction and confirmation of identity in sport subcultures. Sociology of Sport Journal, 5 (3), 223–240. Evers, C. (2004). Men who surf. Cultural Studies Review, 10 (1), 27–41. Evers, C. (2009). ‘The Point’: Surfing, geography and a sensual life of men and masculinity on the Gold Coast. Australia. Social & Cultural Geography, 10 (8), 893–908. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649360903305783. Falaix, L. (2012). Des vagues et des hommes: La glisse au cœur des résistances et contestations face à l’institutionnalisation des territoires du surf en Aquitaine (Doctoral thesis). University of Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, France. Falaix, L. (2019). Surf à contre-courant: Une odyssée scientifique (Online). Pessac: Maison des Sciences de l’Homme d’Aquitaine. Ford, N., & Brown, D. (2006). Surfing and social theory: Experience, embodiment, and narrative of the dream glide. New York: Routledge. Gilio-Whitaker, D. (2015). How American surf culture was built on a history of ingidgenous erasure. The Inertia. Gilio-Whitaker, D. (2017). Appropriating surfing and the politics of indigenous authenticity. The critical surf studies reader (pp. 214–232). Durham: Duke University Press. Grosjean, F. (1982). Life with two languages. An introduction to bilingualism. London: Harvard University Press. Grosjean, F. (1993). Le bilinguisme et le biculturalisme: Essai de définition. Travaux Neuchatelois de Linguistique (TRANEL), 19, 13–42. Harris, A. (Ed.). (2007). Next Wave cultures: Feminism, subcultures, activism (1st ed.). New York, NY: Routledge. Hebdige, D. (1991). Subculture: The meaning of style. London and New York: Routledge. Hough-Snee, Z. D., & Eastman, S. A. (Eds.). (2017). The critical surf studies reader. Durham: Duke University Press. Husserl, E. (2000). Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology and to a phenomenological philosophy (5th ed., R. Rojcewicz & A. Schuwer, Trans.). Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Jarratt, P., & Slater, K. (2008). For the love. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. Kampion, D. (2003). Stoked! A history of surf culture. Gibbs Smith Publisher. Knudsen, J. S. (2011). Music of the multiethnic minority: A postnational perspective. Music and Arts in Action, 3(3), 77–91.

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Kreeft, P. (2008). I surf, therefore I am: A philosophy of surfing. South Bend: St. Augustines Press. Kusz, K. (2004). Extreme America: The cultural politics of extreme sports in 1990’s America. In B. Wheaton (Ed.), Understanding lifestyle sports: Consumption identity and difference. Abingdon: Routledge. Laderman, S. (2014). Empire in waves: A political history of surfing. Berkeley: University of California Press. Laderman, S. (2017). A world apart: Pleasure, rebellion, and the politics of surf tourism. In Z. D. Hough-Snee & S. A. Eastman (Eds.), The critical surf studies reader. Durham: Duke University Press. Lanagan, D. (2002). Surfing in the third millennium: Commodyfing the visual argot. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 13(3), 283–291. Laplantine, F. (1999). Je, nous et les autres. Paris: Le Pommier-Fayard. Lawler, K. (2010). The American surfer: Radical culture and capitalism. New York and London: Routledge. Lemarié, J. (2016). Genèse d’un système global surf Regards comparés des Hawai‘i à la Californie: Traditions, villes, tourismes, et subcultures (1778–2016) (Doctoral thesis). Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense, Paris. Lemarié, J. (2018). Surf: Une histoire de la glisse de la première vague aux Beach Boys. Paris: Arkhê. lisahunter. (2017). Desexing surfing? Pedagogies of possibility. In z. D. HoughSnee & S. A. Eastman (Eds.), The critical surf studies reader. Durham: Duke University Press. lisahunter (Ed.). (2018). Surfing, sex, genders and sexualities. Oxon: Routledge. Lohman, K. (2017). Theories of punk and subculture. In K. Lohman, The Connected Lives of Dutch Punks (pp. 23–59). https://doi.org/10.1007/9783-319-51079-8_2. Maffesoli, M. (1988). Le temps des tribus: Le déclin de l’individualisme dans les sociétés postmodernes (3rd ed.). Paris: La Table Ronde. Magnin, B. (2015, March). Michel Maffesoli, “expert” sociologique de pacotille. Retrieved from Acrimed website: https://www.acrimed.org/Michel-Maffes oli-expert-sociologique-de-pacotille?recherche=maffesoli. Martinez, P. (2008). La didactique des langues étrangères. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Mauger, G. (2002). Capital cultural et reproduction scolaire. Sciences Humaines, 36, 1–7. McGloin, C. (2017). Indigenous surfing: Pedagogy, pleasure, and decolonial practice. In Z. D. Hough-Snee & Z. A. Eastman (Eds.), The Critical surf studies reader (pp. 196–213). Durham: Duke University Press.

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Morris, M. W., Leung, K., Ames, D., & Lickel, B. (1999). Views from inside and outside: Integrating emic and etic insights about culture and justice judgment. Academy of Management Review, 24 (4), 781–796. Moutinho, L., Dionísio, P., & Leal, C. (2007). Surf tribal behaviour: A sports marketing application. Marketing Intelligence & Planning, 25 (7), 668–690. https://doi.org/10.1108/02634500710834160. Mucchielli, L. (2011). La sarko-astro-pseudo-sociologie de Michel Maffesoli. À propos de: Michel Maffesoli, Sarkologies. Pourquoi tant de haine(s)?, Paris, Albin Michel, 2011. Lectures. Retrieved from http://journals.openedition. org/lectures/5576. Nendel, J. (2009). Surfing in early twentieth-century Hawai‘i: The appropriation of a transcendent experience to competitive American sport. The International Journal of the History of Sport, 26 (16), 2432–2446. https:// doi.org/10.1080/09523360903457049. Noll, G., & Kampion, D. (2007). Greg Noll: The art of surfboard . Layton: Gibbs Smith Publisher. Olive, R., McCuaig, L., & Phillips, M. G. (2015). Women’s recreational surfing: A patronising experience. Sport, Education and Society, 20 (2), 258–276. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2012.754752. Olivier, S. (2013). “Your wave, bro!”: Viture ethics and surfing. The consumption and representation of lifestyle sports (pp. 167–177). Abingdon: Routledge. Ormrod, J. (2007). Surf rhetoric in American and British surfing magazines between 1965 and 1976. Sport in History, 27 (1), 88–109. https://doi.org/ 10.1080/17460260701231075. Pio, F., & Varkøy, Ø. (2012). A reflection on musical experience as existential experience: An ontological turn. Philosophy of Music Education Review, 20 (2), 99. https://doi.org/10.2979/philmusieducrevi.20.2.99. Preston-Whyte, R. (2001). Constructed leisure space: The seaside at Durban. Annals of Tourism Research, 28(3), 581–596. Quinon, M., & Saint-Martin, A. (2015). Le maffesolisme, une “sociologie”’ en roue libre. Démonstration par l’absurde.” HAL Archives-Ouvertes. Retrieved from https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01127652. Regev, M. (2013). Pop-rock music: Aesthetic cosmopolitanism in late modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Rice, T. (2007). Reflections on music and identity in Ethnomusicology. Musicology, 7, 17–38. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190616885.001. 0001.

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Richardot, S. (2006). Regards sur la psychologie sociale. Les Cahiers Internationaux de Psychologie Sociale, Numéro, 71(3), 41–53. https://doi.org/10. 3917/cips.071.0041. Rinehart, E. R., & Sydnor, S. (Eds.). (2003). To the extreme: Alternative sports, inside and out. Albany: State University of New York. Robertson, R. (1995). Glocalization: Time-space and homogeneityheterogeneity. In M. Featherstone, S. Lash, & R. Robertson (Eds.), Global modernities (pp. 25–44). London: Sage. Roueff, O. (2006). L’invention d’une « scène » musicale, ou le travail du réseau. La programmation d’un club de musiques improvisées entre radicalisation et consécration (1991–2001). Sociologie de l’Art, 1(OPuS 8), 43–76. Small, C. (1998). Musicking: The meaning of performing and listening. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press. Stranger, M. (2011). Surfing life: Surface, substructure and the commodification of the sublime. Burlington: Ashgate. Stranger, M. (2013). Surface and substructure: Beneath surfing’s commodified surface. The consumption and representation of lifestyle sports (pp. 61–78). Abingdon: Routledge. Usher, L. E. (2017). “Foreign Locals”: Transnationalism, expatriates, and surfer identity in costa rica. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 41(3), 212–238. https://doi.org/10.1177/0193723517705542. Usher, L. E., & Kerstetter, D. (2015). Re-defining localism: An ethnography of human territoriality in the surf. International Journal of Tourism Anthropology, 4 (3), 286–302. Verge, A. C. (2017, November 21). George Freeth: King of the surfers and California’s forgotten hero. Retrieved April 7, 2018, from KCET website: https://www.kcet.org/shows/lost-la/george-freeth-king-of-the-surfers-and-cal ifornias-forgotten-hero. Waligorska, M. (2013). Music, longing and belonging: Articulations of the self and the other in the musical realm. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. Walker, I. H. (2007). Hui Nalu, beachboys, and the surfing boarder-lands of Hawai‘i. The Contemporary Pacific, 20 (1), 89–113. https://doi.org/10.1353/ cp.2008.0026. Walker, I. H. (2011). Waves of resistance: Surfing and history in twentieth-century Hawai’i. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Walker, I. H. (2017). Kai Ea: Rising waves of national and ethnic Hawaiian identities. In Z. D. Hough-Snee & S. A. Eastman (Eds.), The Critical surf studies reader (pp. 62–83). Durham: Duke University Press.

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Warren, A., & Gibson, C. (2014). Surfing places, surfboards makers: Craft, creativity, and cultural heritage in Hawai’i, California, and Australia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Warshaw, M. (Ed.). (2003). The encyclopedia of surfing. Orlando: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Warshaw, M. (2010). The history of surfing. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. Wheaton, B. (Ed.). (2004). Understanding lifestyle sports: Consumption, identity and difference. London: Routledge. Wheaton, B. (Ed.). (2013). The consumption and representation of lifestyle sports. Abingdon: Routledge. Willett, G. (1996). Paradigme, théorie, modèle, schéma : qu’est-ce donc ? Communication et organisation, 10, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.4000/commun icationorganisation.1873.

Part I Florida, Surfing, and Surf Music: Overview of the Place, the People, and the Practices

2 Florida: Society and Cultures

The Spanish, Juan Ponce de Leon discovered the Floridian peninsula in 1513. Despite what collective memory holds, it is on the east coast of Florida, in Saint Augustine, that the first permanent European settlement was established in 1565 in the United States. On July 17, 1821, the American flag replaced the Spanish flag in the capital of the time, Pensacola, in the presence of General Andrew Jackson, who became the first American governor of Florida after the English defeat. Florida became the 27th American state on March 3, 1845, during Andrew Jackson’s presidency (Florida Association of Museums, 2011; Gannon, 2013). Beyond its history, Florida differs from other states because of its unique geographical and climatic characteristics, which have been decisive in its evolution. Within 175 years, several geographical epithets have characterized the state: first “Old South,” then “New South,” and finally “South of the Sunbelt” (Mohl & Mormino, 2013, p. 497). In addition, all phases of its history have left a permanent imprint on Florida and its people. Indeed, national and international migrations have marked the state from its origins. Its formation and development did not happen continuously and uniformly, as Florida has reinvented itself through © The Author(s) 2020 A. Barjolin-Smith, Ethno-Aesthetics of Surf in Florida, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7478-8_2

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events related to the history of the United States, to its challenging environment, and the evolution of social and cultural movements (Revels, 2011; Volk, Hoctor, Nettles, Hilsenbeck, & Putz, 2017). Accordingly, Florida is a state of superlatives, and to understand the place of surfing culture in this context, it is essential to identify its geographical, social, and cultural specificities.

1

Human Geography of Florida

1.1

Influence of the Environment on the People and the Places

Florida’s history is directly connected to its environment, which influenced migrations as well as the territorial organization of the state over the centuries. Understanding the environment is essential to grasp the evolution of the state and the relationship of surfers to the state. Florida is mainly composed of swamps in its center, and mangroves and sandy beaches along the coasts. The Gulf Stream keeps the water relatively warm even in winter, so it seems natural that activities related to the ocean should have developed there, notably fishing activities and, of course, water sports. However, this idyllic portrait does not reflect how difficult it was for non-native populations to settle there. Indeed, in this hostile, humid, and hot environment, European settlers were quickly confronted with outbreaks of yellow fever, the cause of which no one knew. It is only during the Cuban War of Independence in the late nineteenth century that the cause of the disease was found. Through experiments carried out during his trip to the island of Cuba, Major Walter Reed discovered that mosquitoes transmitted yellow fever. Floridian authorities then launched an anti-mosquito campaign on the peninsula, marking the beginning of a large increase in the population (Graham, 2013, p. 289). In addition to its climate favorable to infections, Florida is located on the trajectory of hurricanes and tropical storms. While the Calusa, a Native American tribe, knew how to protect themselves by raising their islets using stacked oyster shells (Marquardt,

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2014; Marquardt & Payne, 1992), this was not the case of the settlers. Today the phenomenon delights surfers all along the Florida coastline. The environment has given a lot to humans—entrepreneurs, poets, sportsmen—but it has also been impacted by their presence. Wetlands have been drained for industrial and real estate purposes, and some species are now threatened, like the ivory-billed woodpecker, or have disappeared, like the South Florida rainbow snake or the red wolf (Davis, 2013; Volk et al., 2017). The construction of roads, including the Tamiami highway connecting Tampa to Miami as early as 1927, was almost fatal to the Florida panther. Several associations, including the Surf Rider Foundation, are striving to restore a balance between man and nature in order to reverse the trend. Many animals are now protected in Florida, such as manatees or tortoises, which have become symbols of the state, like the orange; however, natural spaces have been modified permanently. For instance, the construction of piers along the coast has altered waves (as in Sebastian Inlet, south of the Space Coast); retention walls have been built along the rivers; and laws on the protection of coastlines arrived too late to prevent promoters from building condos on the beaches, as in Clearwater Beach or Cocoa Beach to name a few.

1.2

Effects of Migrations on Modern-Day Florida

In order to understand the diversity of this state, it is necessary to conceive it through the migrations that have forged its culture and organized its territory. The first inhabitants of the Floridian peninsula were Native Americans—Appalachians, Creeks, Calusa, Seminoles— who were decimated by successive migrations of Spanish, French, and English Europeans, and by the reorganization of the territory by American entrepreneurs (Milanich, 2013, p. 11). Contacts with Europeans more or less wiped indigenous populations because of diseases against which they were not immune and because of exploitations requiring slaves or the displacement of local populations. The appointment of Andrew Jackson as governor of the territory marked the beginning of

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the forced migrations of Creeks and Seminoles. When he became president, Jackson passed the Indian Removal Law of 1830, which relocated Native American communities to reserves on the west of the Mississippi River (Schafer, 2013, p. 228). These laws had consequences and engaged the Native Americans in wars with the settlers, the Seminole Wars. Toward the end of the eighteenth century, the original populations had been destroyed. By 1934, there were only 500 Seminoles left, and the Indian New Deal was implemented to preserve the displaced communities (Rogers, 2013a, p. 321). At the beginning of the twentieth century, Florida was aggregated into a microcosm representative of the United States since it had imported its politics and cultures from other parts of the Union as well as from the Caribbean and other Latin or European countries (MacManus & Colburn, 2013, p. 427). As early as the end of the nineteenth century, black and white Bahamian populations settled in the Keys archipelago located on the far south of Florida; Cubans developed the tobacco industry and imposed their culinary culture in Miami; Greeks settled in Tarpon Springs to harvest sponges1 (Mohl & Pozzetta, 2013). At times welcoming and at times restrictive, Florida has based its migration policies on a form of economic opportunism. Despite its composite cultural and ethnic history, at the beginning of the twentieth century, Floridians expressed the need to preserve a cohesive American identity by controlling immigration. While the peninsula was one of the least populated states in the Union because of its challenging climate, and despite a feeling of mistrust toward foreigners, Floridian politicians understood that the only way to attract outside investors was to favor low taxation and promote a minimum of state intervention in the affairs of private companies. At the beginning of the development, in the late nineteenth century, the population was mainly concentrated in the north. The development of railroads engaged by Henry Flagler on the east coast of Florida and Henry Plant in central and western Florida in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries2 allowed greater mobility toward the south 1Tarpon

Springs still claims its Greek heritage today. M. Flagler was an entrepreneur from New York. In the 1890s, he developed the train system in Florida, which was introduced before him by Henry Bradley Plant in the 1880s. His

2 Henry

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and across the state (Gallagher, Deem, Bourne, & Schubert, 2018). New industries, such as citrus imported from Spain during colonization, or tourism, later on, allowed Florida to get out of the cotton industry, and above all, to attract new populations (Volk et al., 2017). It was during this time that Florida went from an unattractive state to the Sunshine State, as it is still called today. Hispanic, European, and Bahamian immigration has not stopped growing since the 1960s, and today, Florida also includes many Native Americans, Jamaicans, and Canadians (ibid.).

1.3

Urbanization and the Advent of Surfing

Before the 1920s, almost the entire population of Florida lived in the north, between Jacksonville and Pensacola. An imaginary line going from Tampa to Melbourne bordered South Florida, which was relatively unoccupied. With the advent of the train, the automobile, the plane in the 1920s, and air conditioning3 in the 1930s, cities expanded and developed a form of tourism initially dedicated to wealthy people from the north. After World War II, the state opened to individuals of all social backgrounds looking for an affordable paradise (Revels, 2011; Volk et al., 2017). Asphalt roads appeared in the 1890s, but it was with the advent of the automobile that the road network developed significantly, redesigning urban areas. At the start of the twentieth century, cars were introduced to Florida with a regulation system raising money to build more roads (Graham, 2013; Volk et al., 2017). In 1915, the Dixie Highway connected Jacksonville to Chicago, allowing tourists from the north to drive to Florida and take part in the new leisure industry combining seaside activities and love of the automobile. This new dynamic was also representative of the strong relationship between cars and surfing in the early days of the activity. It was at the start of the investment in the Plant’s Southern Railway marked the beginning of the rail expansion to the south of Florida (Gallagher et al., 2018; Graham, 2013). 3 Air conditioning did not democratize quickly. In the 1930s and 1940s, it was only found in certain public places, such as movie theaters or malls. Houses started to be equipped in the 1950s, cars and planes in the 1960s. In the 1970s, 60% of the population was equipped, 84% in the 1980s, and 90% in the 1990s (Mohl & Morminon, 2013; Volk et al., 2017). Today it would be unthinkable for a Floridian to live without air conditioning.

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automobile era, and according to this new mode of transportation that metropolitan areas developed horizontally rather than vertically. Parallel to the automobile expansion of the early twentieth century, Florida grew its real estate industry aggressively. In order to attract developers and families, land plots were sold remotely in auctions made popular by the low cost of homeownership in Florida. Bible verses were cited to attract investors (Rogers, 2013b, p. 300). The real estate boom of the 1920s marked the beginning of urban development, and it is estimated that within two years, between 1923 and 1925, 300,000 people moved to Florida beyond the north of the state (ibid., p. 300). Thanks to the road network and the train, urban development enabled 2.5 million tourists to visit Florida in 1925. The “Tin Can Tourists of the World” arrived in mass and developed tourist camps, which over the years, have become trailer parks for snowbirds4 (Desrosiers-Lauzon, 2011; Revels, 2011). The tripod gas station, diner, and motel (Mohl & Mormino, 2013, p. 506) became characteristic of Florida’s new face as it has been modeled by and for tourism. Urbanization was stronger in Florida than anywhere else, which gave it a dynamic image marked by opportunism, thus erasing the Confederate background of the culture (Florida Association of Museums, 2011). The last factor that contributed to populating Florida was air conditioning which allowed the architecture of houses to evolve5 and enabled the peninsula to develop quicker, especially toward the end of the twentieth century. Air conditioning turned tourism, a semi-annual activity, into a permanent industry. By the 1920s, Florida had established itself as a major international tourist destination. In the 1960s, it was the tenth most populated state in the country, and in the 1990s, it rose to fourth. In the 2000s, 12 million people settled on the coasts, 20 million tourists 4 Snowbirds

are retired people from the north of the United States who spend the winter season in Florida. They usually live in mobile homes or modular homes gathered in so-called trailer parks. 5 Houses were made of local wood (cedar or pine, resistant to termites) and were elevated to let the airflow and to prevent humidity and flooding. Dog trots or dogtrots, also called breezeways, were typical of the Floridian architecture. They are an open passage between the main independent parts of a building under one roof. It was a common style of housing in the south of the United States, especially in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Hinson & William, 2009, p. 285).

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visited them every year, and less than 4 million lived in the center of the state. In 2017, the population of Florida was approximately 20.9 million (U.S. Census Bureau, 2018). While today the state is nicknamed God’s waiting room because of its aging population (arguably caused by settling snowbirds), from 1950 to 1980, the Floridian population increased from 2.7 million to 9.74 million, and this increase of 250% only included 11% of individuals aged over 65. In the 1970s, the densest demographic group was that of the 10–14-year-olds (Aho, 2014, p. 1), and these are the people who are responsible for the advent of surfing culture in the peninsula.

2

Florida’s Social Structure and Organization

2.1

From Turpentine to Tourism: A Brief Story of Floridian Industries

The center of Florida became the heart of the social and economic life of the state as early as the 1820s (Schafer, 2013, p. 225). Cotton and sugar then made the wealth of slave farmers. In the nineteenth century, pine plantations fueled the turpentine industry, a fastidious work reserved for the poorest categories of people or African-Americans (Drobney, 1994). In Key West and around Tampa, tobacco manufacturing developed thanks to the Cuban War of Independence in 1868. At the heart of this industry, Ybor integrated a cosmopolitan community of Cubans, Italians, and Hispanics (Graham, 2013; Volk et al., 2017). As early as World War I, Florida showed that it had a favorable environment for aviation. Thus, the Pensacola Naval Air Station was one of the first pilot training bases, followed by Miami, and later Cape Canaveral with the Space Shuttle program. Homestead is still an active Air Force base, but since 2011, NASA has stopped its program. Between the north of Miami and Cape Canaveral, the east coast of Florida remains a hub for the military and new economies, including high-tech industries and research. Oranges, the symbol of Florida, made the wealth of the state during the twentieth century. Not endemic, citrus were imported early

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on by Spanish settlers, but by the 1980s, frosts and diseases decimated the production (Volk et al., 2017). Today, the number of orange groves keeps decreasing. In Orlando, they have been replaced by Walt Disney World, whose empire has not stopped growing since its creation in 1971 (Revels, 2011). This form of tourism firmly focuses on theme parks and maintains visitors in an artificial setting, preventing them from experiencing the authentic Floridian lifestyle: between beach and country.6 Activities related to the sea are essential for the economic dynamism of the peninsula. The Gulf of Mexico is known for the abundance of fish and especially for its grouper fish found in all local restaurants. In 2009, the Gulf provided 83% of the nation’s shrimp and 56% of its oysters. The sport and commercial fishing industries alone employ 60,000 people (Davis, 2013, p. 374). Florida is also the first national destination in terms of scuba diving, again, especially in the Gulf. Its clear waters, its tropical fish, and historical shipwrecks make it an exceptional touristic destination. Tourism has become a significant industry in Florida, and in 2011, the number of visitors was 86 million. In the 1990s, this industry was worth 32 billion dollars and became the foundation of the Floridian economy (Mohl & Mormino, 2013; Revels, 2011; Volk et al.).7

2.2

The Surf Industry in Florida

The surf industry has been able to develop and become successful thanks to the democratization of paid holidays. In the 1960s, Florida quickly became the place where tourists could go to undress under the sun. At this time, sun lotion was hardly used to protect from the sun and was meant to accentuate its effects and darken the color of the skin: it was in a Volusia County garage that a chemistry professor, Ron Rice, created the tanning oil, Hawaiian Tropic (Davis, 2013, p. 373). In this 6 Country

culture is understood here as a rural lifestyle promoting manual labor, outdoor activities, such as fishing or hunting (as opposed to the artificial environment of theme parks), and a musical repertoire centered on country music rather than urban music like rap or Disney music. 7 It is worth noting that very little is said on the dynamic industry of surfing despite numerous publications on the industries that constitute the economy of Florida.

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space, prone to the development of surfing, the surf industry became a complex network that cannot be summarized by the simple production of surfboards for a specific consumer type. The surf industry, globally and in Florida, has shuffled international, national, and local companies in all fields of the activity: from surfboards to swimsuits, sunscreen, and clothing, surfing has sparked the interest of local and global media and consumers alike (whether they surf or not). As is the case with most writings about surfing, accounts regarding its industry and surfboard manufacturing, including the work of Andrew Warren and Chris Gibson (2014), usually focus on three major regions: Hawaii, California, and Australia. Similarly, while in the collective imagination, California represents the epitome of United States surfing,8 Florida has developed a competitive industry, even at the international level. In order to compete with Californians and the rest of the world, Floridians have been creative and tenacious. One of their industry’s strengths has been the support of local businesses for each other, as this work will show. Three major branches of the surf industry have developed in Florida, as illustrated here through a synthesis of the works of Matt Warshaw (2003, 2010), Paul Aho (2014), articles from local newspapers and surf magazines, and as exemplified by emblematic local names: Ricky Carroll Surfboards for the manufacturing of the core equipment,9 Quiet Flight, Ron Jon, and Catalyst surf shops for the retail aspect, Sun Bum for the representation of the lifestyle. Surfing arrived in Florida in the early 1960s. In 1963, Californians Doug and Dan Haut, Jimmy Hoffman, and Jim Campbell opened Campbell Surfboards near Melbourne airport in Brevard County. This is where the shaper Robert Reeves teamed up with Campbell to create the first team of sponsored surfers on the east coast, the Campbell Competition Team. In the south, Dick Catri was making surfboards in Miami. On the Space Coast, Pat O’Hare created his brand, Surfboards by 8 Hawaii

has a singular status in the surfing world. As Isaiah Helekunihi Walker (2017) has pointed out, Hawaiian surfers are perceived and envisage themselves as independent from the United States. Walker (2017) argued that this is particularly obvious during international competitions in which Hawaiian participants represent Hawaii but not the United States (pp. 62–63). 9 Mainly the surfboard, the leash that connects the surfer to the board, the fins.

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O’Hare. At the beginning of the 1960s, Bill and Marjane Feinberg developed Oceanside Surfboards at Rockledge and opened a store in Cocoa Beach. In 1979, Ed and Jim Leasure, the founders of Quiet Flight surf shops, manufactured their Leasure Surfboards. Spectrum Surfboards was founded in 1980, but the production of boards stopped in the 2000s. Tom Neilson became one of the most recognized shapers on the Space Coast (today, the Neilson store is on the same street as some of the most emblematic surf brands from Florida, like Catalyst Surf Shop, Sun Bum, or Surfinista Cafe, in the historic downtown of Cocoa Beach). One of my interviewees, the shaper Ricky Carroll, manufactures surfboards in his name and other brands, such as Surfboards Hawaii. He lends his premises to other shapers, like Neilson, as the shaping of surfboards is regulated along the coasts because of the risks of pollution linked to the use of chemical components. Ricky Carroll is recognized as one of the best shapers of his time, a reputation reinforced by his numerous trophies as a surfer and as a shaper, notably that of Tribute to the Masters Shape-Off of 2007, 2008, 2012 at the Sacred Surfboard Expo in Del Mar, California (Surfer Magazine, 2020). From the beginning of surfing, all the shapers described here have created surfboards according to specific formal and functional purposes adapted to Florida. That is, the length of the surfboard, its thickness, its curve, the shape of its extremities, etc. have always been designed according to the types of waves and to the performance envisaged by surfers. During his interview, Ricky Carroll explained that in terms of construction and innovation, shapers of the Space Coast have always been ahead in this area. Local surfers have supported their local shapers’ creativity by buying their surfboards, which as Warren and Gibson (2014) have explained are cultural productions that enable surfers to assert their belonging to their local surfing community (p. 10), thereby representing and promoting it. Surf shops have developed with the production of equipment. There are many in Florida (and in the rest of the United States) but some have particularly marked the history of their state. Ed and Jim Leasure, the shapers of Leasure Surfboards, founded Quiet Flight in 1978. Their company became one of the cornerstones of the local surf industry and sponsored many of the best surfers in the state, including Kelly Slater, Damien and C. J. Hobgood, Matt Kechele, and others. Catalyst surf

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shop is one of the trade names of the company. Since its inception, Quiet Flight has opened many other stores in the state and continues to work with top American surfers and shapers, such as C. J. Hobgood and Matt Biolos, for the brand Lost. That said, despite the influence and the persistence of companies like Quiet Flight, two others have particularly stood out: Ron Jon Surf Shop founded by Ron Dimenna, and Cocoa Beach Surf Company founded by Bob Baugher, his direct neighbor. Their two main stores are near Canaveral Pier and have a shared history. Baugher started working for Dimenna, but their story ended in court. Baugher then opened a nonstandard surf shop, both in terms of the size of the building and of the variety of services offered. His building includes a three-story shop, a Sheraton Four Point Hotel, a Starbucks cafe, a restaurant, and a shark aquarium. Ron Dimenna opened his first Ron Jon in New Jersey, then a small shop in the center of Cocoa Beach in the 1960s, before moving to the current premises (Florin, 1999). Ever since, the store has opened franchises all over Florida and other states, including South Carolina, Maryland, and Alabama (Ron Jon, 2020). There is also a Ron Jon surf school run by former professional Craig Carroll in Cocoa Beach. Paradoxically, while local surfers agree to participate in events organized by the chain of stores, some consider Ron Jon an illegitimate supplier, a tourist trap. The diverging appreciations made by mainstream consumers and surfers of Ron Jon Surf Shops can be compared to the appreciations of the so-called surf band, The Beach Boys: non-participants usually consider them the ultimate symbol of surfing, while participants have denounced their lack of authenticity. The surf industry cannot be summed up by the construction of surfboards, as it includes products relative to the lifestyle, like sun care products. Sun Bum is a local sunscreen company (historically established in Cocoa Beach). It is a lifestyle brand that caters to lifestyle sports participants by specializing in products that accompany surfers or beachgoers in their practices. They rely on lifestyle marketing that Bennett and Lachowetz (2004) discussed in relation to the action sports industry. It is a mode of promotion that targets consumers’ lifestyle choices and addresses them by reinforcing their leisure pursuit. The surf and beach lifestyle targeted by the brand includes the use of products (sunscreen,

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beach equipment like towels or frisbees), activities (concerts, competitions, etc.), and modes of expression (tattoos, clothing, etc.). Initially, Sun Bum sold mainly premium sunscreen (including high-performance sunscreen for surfers), then the brand developed products ranging from hair care to lotions and baby products. The company has also touched upon practical aspects of lifestyle sports through partnerships with Lost or Mastercraft.10 Sun Bum has implemented strategies for selling a lifestyle centered on surfing but open to other lifestyle sports11 and has succeeded in reaching both specialized and mainstream consumers. The mission of the brand, as the founders defined it, is directly connected to the lifestyle: Our mission at Sun Bum is to create a quality brand of sun care products specifically formulated for people who live and love in the sun. A brand that captures the essence and aesthetic of the lifestyle while protecting us, and the ones we love, from the harmful dangers of the sun. A brand, with a little edge, that reminds our customers that we are like them and not a giant disconnected corporation. We’re just a small company with a big dream of becoming the most trusted sun care brand in the world.12

Sun Bun took on a significant role in my research because it was my port of entry into the Cocoa Beach surfing scene and because the company places particular emphasis on music for the dissemination and promotion of the surf lifestyle. Indeed, Sun Bum has made musical alliances with two local D.J.s and surfers, Lance-O and Bart Kelley, who agreed to interview for this work. One of Sun Bum’s practices that became essential for this book was their implementation of free concerts in their office backyard in Cocoa Beach. References to these concerts called Sonny’s Porch are made throughout this work as these microcosms 10 Lost surfboards were made in conjunction with Sun Bum. Mastercraft is known for its premium wakeboard boats. Much like surfing and snowboarding, wakeboarding is an action sport. Like waterskiing, wakeboarders are pulled behind a boat, but both of their feet are strapped to the board. The goal is to jump from one side of the wake to the other. 11 Lifestyle sports, discussed in detail in Chapter 2, are activities around which a way of living is developed and in which participants’ creativity may not be restricted by constraining norms (Wheaton, 2004). 12This is the company’s mission as it was described in 2011, one year after its launch.

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have proven to be privileged observation points of the construction of local surfers’ sense of identity.

2.3

Music and Tattoos: Lifestyle Aspects of the Surf Industry

The professional activity that has developed around surfing has gone beyond the practical aspects commonly associated with the surf industry (equipment and surf shops). Artistic practices, including tattoos and music, have emerged in relation to the surf industry and have formed one of the components of the lifestyle. Sun Bum was able to create bridges between the practical aspects (products and competitions) and the lifestyle aspect of surfing (concerts) while building relationships between the various actors of the field, as with the D.J.s mentioned earlier, or with the local tattoo artist, Mark Longenecker. The music industry is very dynamic in Florida for several reasons. First, there are many places dedicated to music, such as restaurants, bars, and concert halls. Second, local actors organize musical events (Sun Bum’s Sonny’s Porch concerts) in association with charities (Surfers For Autism or SFA).13 Some local music organizations have established themselves as actors of the surf industry, notably Kulcha Shok or Endless Summer Radio. These two entities have created partnerships with Sun Bum. They promote each other and sponsor events together, including a reggae festival, Rootfire at the Park (in which Ricky Carroll Surfboards and Endless Summer Tattoo also take part). Kulcha Shok is a label created by one of my interviewees, Lance-O, D.J. and surfer. The label, founded in 2009, was first a radio program, which has evolved into an organization bringing together artists (musicians or D.J.s) specializing in reggae music. Kulcha Shok Musik’s Web site describes the label as follows: 13 Surfers

For Autism, SFA, as participants call it, is a nonprofit organization that operates throughout Florida from September to April. The founders, Don Rian and his wife Kim, have retired now, but they set up a national organization to allow children with developmental delays to surf. Volunteers (some of whom participate on an ad hoc basis while others take part in most events) meet at dawn on the beach to supervise young people as they are pushed into the waves to surf. The goal is to stimulate their body, spirit, affect, and sociability.

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Kulcha Shok is all about Reggae Muzik. We are a Muzik company that focuses & specializes on reggae muzik. Everything Kulcha Shok does focuses on reggae: from our surf events, to our clothing line and to our live streaming Kulcha Shok Radio, the bottom line is REGGAE MUZIK [sic].

The company sponsors surfers and events centered on surfing, such as Surf Expo.14 It has also developed a line of clothing and accessories in reggae colors (green, yellow, red), allowing it to be present at concerts without participating musically but by selling derived products. The Web site intends to be a source of information for anything related to surf and reggae: “Kulcha Shok Muzik brings you daily surf and reggae news, keeping you informed with the latest in the industries” (Surf & Reggae News). Music is intimately linked to surfing, and this is not an exceptional case. Indeed, Endless Summer Radio (ESR) is a radio organization that combines music and surfing through its origins (it was created by surfboard shaper and musician, Ricky Carroll), and through its partnerships and participation in local events. For ESR too, reggae is the genre of predilection. The Web site offers information relative to surfing as a whole (swell forecast, surf festivals, competitions, etc.). The radio’s mission is described as: “We’re here to support our community and local artist [sic]. This station runs off positivity” (Endless Summer Radio), and in fact, the station broadcasts a program called “Sun Bum Positive Sunday” which the host, Bart Kelley, presents in his interview as laid-back and representative of the Sun Bum spirit—that of a lifestyle described earlier in the brand’s mission. Music is not the only vector of the surf lifestyle. Tattoos are associated with different subcultures, including that of surfing, even if today they can be sported by members of all sociocultural groups. Mark Longenecker’s tattoo shop, Endless Summer Tattoo, is located in Cocoa Beach and is mentioned here because it is akin to the entrepreneurial boom of Floridian surfing described throughout this work. The shop is located near Sun Bum, Neilson Surf Shop, and Catalyst, and the 14 Surf Expo is an essential trade show for surf brands (equipment and lifestyle) who must participate to stay up to date on new products and to be seen by competitors and potential customers. It takes place in Orlando twice a year.

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owner (artist, musician, and surfer) also supports local projects connected to surfing. For instance, each time Surfers For Autism (SFA) stops at Cocoa Beach (usually in June), Mark Longenecker sponsors the raffle by offering as a prize a surfboard on which he draws for the duration of the event. Endless Summer Tattoo participates in the Rootfire Festival and is described by the owner in these terms: “We are a good vibes tattoo shop located in the heart of Cocoa Beach, FL” (Endless Summer Tattoo). The theme of a positive approach to life is in all the local lifestyle brands’ and individuals’ discourses. This recurrence characterizes a lifestyle claimed in the surf town of Cocoa Beach, which provided an original field of observation.

2.4

The Beach Lifestyle

Florida’s geographical situation, close to the Caribbean,15 and its climate (subtropical and tropical from north to south) have allowed it to develop the beach lifestyle to which surfers and Sun Bum refer. Florida is the only continental state going beyond the temperate zone and in which tropical plants can develop. From rivers, lakes, or swamps, to the ocean bordered by white sandy beaches, water is omnipresent. Florida attracts populations looking for topicality (Revels, 2011; Volk et al., 2017). The wealthiest Floridians can travel to the Caribbean and import the lifestyle (reggae music, food, architecture, decorations, etc.) to the continent. Pirate legends, also imported from the Caribbean, are used by restaurants and the service industry as a whole. Florida has its history of sunken ships and buried treasures along its coasts. Houses are decorated according to the beach theme, and alongside properties, wooden signs can be spotted with the inscriptions “Gone surfing,” “Captain Morgan,16 ” etc. Seashells, pelican statues, mermaids, and pirates decorate most houses, as do dock posts carefully roped up in front of the homes of boat-less sailors. It seems that in connivance with local businesses, individuals cultivate the 15 According

to surfers interviewed for this work, Florida is in the heart of the Caribbean. Morgan is a very popular rum in the United States. According to the brand, the name comes from a Welsh pioneer, Sir Henry Morgan, who planned on conquering the New World in the seventeenth century (Captain Morgan® , n.d.). 16 Captain

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positive17 and laid-back lifestyle characteristic of the Floridian beach lifestyle.

3

Focus on Brevard County and the Space Coast

3.1

North to South: From Cape Canaveral to Sebastian Inlet

The focus of this book is on Brevard County. In the north of the county, the Space Coast is a territory spreading from the south of Titusville to Palm Bay, but I also look at Sebastian Inlet in the very south of the county. This space covers a narrow strip of land between the Atlantic and the Banana River in the north, which merges with the Indian River in Melbourne, in the center of the county. It is in Melbourne Beach that Ponce de Leon landed and discovered Florida in 1513 (Thomas, 1999, p. 10). After Florida became a state in 1845, Brevard County was first called Mosquito County because mosquitos were frequent due to mangroves and marshes. It was not until after World War II that airplanes started spraying mosquito repellent, which allowed the population to grow (ibid., p. 9). Roads and bridges started linking the islet to the continent as early as the 1920s. In the south, Sebastian was connected to A1A in the 1950s. In 1965, a bridge connected the inlet area to the north of the Space Coast and surfers’ territory. From an economic and social viewpoint, the Space Coast is a diverse and dynamic region, especially in terms of new technologies. Aeronautical engineering was developed there with the Florida Institute of Technology in Melbourne, aerospace research with the NASA Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, and military forces with Patrick Air Force Base in Satellite Beach. The success of Neil Armstrong in 1969 allowed the region to attract many young brains who were also interested in surfing. In addition, the tourism industry, and by extension that 17The

word “positive” was often used by informants to define their vision of surfing and the music they associate with the practice.

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of surfing, has contributed to the vitality of the region, which is served by Orlando International Airport, one of Florida’s main airports with Miami and Tampa. Cocoa Beach is the closest beach to Orlando, about an hour away, and welcomes tourists and students from the metropolis. As a whole, Brevard County includes communities from all social classes, and like the rest of Florida, from all ethnicities. Finally, one of the unique features of Brevard is its horizontal urban expansion. Indeed, the county’s municipalities are very spread out and connected which creates a conglomerate of towns that extends north to south and east to west, blurring the communal borders but promoting social and ethnic segmentation.18 Despite the segmentation in the organization of places to live, lifestyles that are represented there (surf, redneck,19 and beach lifestyles) promote entrepreneurship and appear to be inclusive, innovative, and creative. The rest of this work will define the characteristics that make this place conducive to the development of surfing.

18 According

to the US Census Bureau, in 2016, Melbourne’s population was 76,000, Melbourne Beach was 3000, Satellite Beach was 10,000, Cocoa Beach was 11,000, and Indian Harbor Beach was 8000. 19 Florida was called the redneck surf state by some of my interviewees. The definition of the term redneck has experienced a few variations over its 200-year history (Huber & Drowne, 2015, p. 434). If, in the beginning, the term referred to the white and poor workers of the south of the United States (whose necks were reddened by the sun), it was also applied in a derogatory way to poor white farmers and remains today assimilated to “Crackers.” Families of Florida Crackers arrived in the peninsula in the second half of the nineteenth century. The term Cracker refers to the crackling noise made by the leather whips that farmers used to keep their flocks. These peasants in search of cheap and fertile land were known for their antipathy toward Native Americans and African-Americans. They quickly became the majority in the state’s farming regions (Davis, 2013; Denham, 1994; Schafer, 2013). These racial antagonisms marked Florida from the beginning of its occupation by Europeans and became more marked during the American Civil War since Florida defended slavery for economic, social, and cultural reasons. On January 10, 1861, Florida signed its participation in the formation of the Confederate States of America, thereby making a legal affirmation of slavery, the establishment of a new constitution, and the adoption of a flag still claimed today as cultural heritage (FAM, 2011).

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Cocoa Beach et al.: The Archetype of the Floridian Surf Town

In Brevard County, two towns are named Cocoa but one is on an island (Cocoa Beach), the other is inland (Cocoa). Their respective geographical situation seems to have had an impact on their sociocultural and economic development. However, it should be noted that Cocoa is practically fractioned into two separate entities since its center, Cocoa Village, is distinguished from the rest of the city by its cultural and economic dynamism. There are sociocultural differences between the three Cocoas (Beach, Village, and City), even if there are only two distinct cities. From east to west (from the Atlantic to the land), the Cocoas go from a town centered mainly on nautical and touristic activities to a historical village centered on crafts and arts, to an underprivileged city struggling economically.20 While among my interviewees, none lived in Cocoa or wished to live there, the beach remains an inclusive space since all social classes and geographic situations are represented.21 Thus, the type of activity practiced there may betray participants’ origins since most of those who practice nautical activities are also those who live close to the water. Gus Edward imagined Cocoa Beach in the 1920s as a response to the success of Carl Fisher’s Miami Beach (Parrish, Field, & Harrell, 2001, p. 8). The town benefited from the rise of Cape Canaveral and its space program in the 1950s and 1960s. Today it is still a top-rated seaside resort for tourists from around the world. Surfers know Cocoa Beach for the Cocoa Beach Pier. It was built for recreative and commercial purposes, but its effects on nature have developed a different appeal: waves wrap around it in a particularly effective way, creating a surf 20The

price of housing gives a fairly good understanding of the socioeconomic differences that can exist between the three Cocoas. According to the US Census Bureau, the population of Cocoa Beach is about 11,760, with housing median value estimated at $270,000. Cocoa’s population is about 18,000, with housing going for $93,000, but there are also significant disparities depending on the neighborhoods. Average yearly salaries per home go from $52,000 to $32,000 from Cocoa Beach to Cocoa, and the poverty level is 7.7% in Cocoa Beach as opposed to 26.8% in Cocoa. Compared to the entire American territory, the median value of housing is $184,000, the average yearly salary is $55,000 per home, and the poverty level was 12.7% in 2016. 21 I conducted surveys on the beaches of Cocoa Beach and Melbourne Beach.

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destination known throughout the world. Since the advent of surfing and aerospace in the 1960s, and thanks to its proximity with Cape Canaveral and Orlando, Cocoa Beach has attracted many young white men, astronomers, and surfers. The town already offered everything that the public expected from a seaside resort: beaches, restaurants, strip clubs, and motels (Aho, 2014, p. 76). It is in Cocoa Beach that Sun Bum and other companies described earlier have settled. Urbanization policies have strongly capitalized on the nautical theme with coconut trees, moorings, etc., giving the town a laid-back atmosphere. Cocoa Beach is composed of two distinct parts: one in the north characterized by a sprawling urban plan, the other in the south constituting a city center with a denser architectural organization. While Ron Jon Surf Shop is offset to the north on the less intimate part of the town, smaller businesses considered by locals as the most authentic are concentrated in the heart of historic Cocoa Beach, around Minutemen Avenue, a major road serving a touristic beach and a popular restaurant, Coconuts on the Beach. It is also right across from Sun Bum that Surfinista, supposedly Kelly Slater’s favorite cafe, is located. The statue of Kelly Slater marks the entrance of this portion of the town as it is where the heart of the surf industry is located. Cocoa Village must also be contextualized as it hosts one of the music festivals discussed in this work, Rootfire at the Park. Also called Historic Cocoa Village, this neighborhood is located on the mainland, along the Indian River. It is separated from the rest of the city on the west by a highway and railroad tracks. Cocoa Village is the result of one of the most successful city center renovation projects in Florida. One of the marks of this success is the rehabilitation of an old theater called Cocoa Village Playhouse which has been listed on the National Register of Historic Places since 199122 (History of the Playhouse). This theater is one of the representations of the vitality of the town center, much like the River Front Park on the banks of the Indian River, where the Rootfire Festival and other concerts take place.

22The

National Register of Historic Places is a governmental organization of protection of historical and American archeological resources.

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Florida, like the Cocoas, is neither a uniform society nor the result of linear history. Based on the backgrounds of people who have settled there, various relationships were formed with and according to the environment, allowing the development of diverse and singular cultural practices. In this book, I observe those who have decided to live on the ocean side, and I question the place of music in their lifestyle as it is intrinsically linked to the surf lifestyle. The following section lays out the physical spaces chosen for their relevance to music, surfing, and participants.

4

Observing the Musicking of Cocoa Beach Surfers

4.1

Sonny’s Porch Concerts by Sun Bum

This work is based on a three-year observation of Space Coast surfers, which took place on the beach, during concerts, at competitions, at Surf Expo in Orlando, in surf shops, at the Cocoa Beach surf museum, and Surfers For Autism events. Radio programs and social media such as Facebook and Instagram were also investigated. However, in this book, the focus is on two major musical events that provided the raw material for the ethnographic research and constituted the case studies of the ethno-aesthetic analysis: Sonny’s Porch concerts in Cocoa Beach and the Rootfire Festival in Cocoa Village. Sun Bum hosts concerts called Sonny’s Porch on the back porch of its Cocoa Beach office. The old Florida house was renovated and offers an ideal decor to showcase the brand which takes advantage of it by welcoming daily anyone intrigued by the place, looking to know more about the brand, wanting to sit in the living room and chat with the team, or wanting to play a game of pool on a table that supposedly was in Camp David during John F. Kennedy’s presidency. This office looks like a real home with a living room, a small kitchen (the fridge of which is always stocked with beer), a bathroom decorated by a tropical mural, three former bedrooms used as offices, and a garage transformed into a lounge room where vinyl gorillas in the colors of the brand (yellow

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and brown) are displayed—each has been signed by the various artists who have played here. The backyard porch is where both concerts and brainstorming sessions take place. If the weather is not up for it, concerts may take place inside, creating a very intimate atmosphere despite the sonic power of some bands. This format produces the childish feeling of having escaped the storm after an impromptu surf session during a sunny spell. The porch is separated from the street by a hedge of Areca Palm Trees, very popular in Florida. At the entrance of the parking lot is a shower accessible to any surfer or beachgoer. The duration of the concerts is approximately half an hour. They are not promoted as they are only advertised through private groups on social media. Passers-by are invited to stop and take a seat in one of the sofas or on the ground to watch the show and drink a beer, which may be offered by the occasional event sponsor, Florida Beer Company.23 For each event, Dustin, the office manager, himself a surfer and one of my interviewees, selects the band according to his tastes. He then contacts the band manager and negotiates the terms of the contract according to the wishes of the artists (certain types of foods, etc.). During the concerts, we can see the familiar faces of local figures, including surfers, shapers, and surf shop or restaurant managers. Often, artists spend the night in the office lounge. After the concerts, the audience stays to chat with the musicians and to take pictures. Each band is asked to sign a vinyl gorilla (Sonny), which is then displayed in Sun Bum’s hall of fame. The commercial goal of these concerts is the promotion of the lifestyle. These concerts provide Sun Bum with a sonic signature24 and image through the bands who perform there, as they are affixed to Sun Bum’s environment. The events are filmed and photographed to create content for social media, like YouTube and Instagram or the brand’s blog. Typical pictures of the events usually capture participants’ physical singularities when expressing emotions of happiness and admiration toward 23 Florida

Beer Company is from Brevard County and belongs to Edward W. Scott. He is a former member of Jimmy Carter’s government and the founder of the Scott Center for Autism in Melbourne. 24The sonic signature includes the quality of a sound, and the goal of the concerts is to give a sonic identity to the brand through the singular characteristics of the artists chosen for their expressivity.

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the artists. Videographers and photographers capture a smile, a lock of sun-bleached hair, grains of sand on a tattoo, bare feet, etc. The ideal photography consists in portraying these moments with the Sun Bum logo in the background, as it can be displayed on stickers, t-shirts, hats worn by participants, etc. The audience plays the game of a spontaneous staging of the surf lifestyle envisaged by Sun Bum. During the observation period, there were about four concerts a year, including those of the Nude Party, Passafire, Swimm, Mike Love (not The Beach Boys’ member), Collie Buddz, and Donovan Frankenreiter.

4.2

Rootfire at the Park

Many concerts and exhibitions related to surf culture take place on the Space Coast. Each year in November, Rootfire at the Park (or Rootfire Festival) takes place. For three days, Cocoa Village hosts the festival in a park along the river. International and local reggae bands perform. During his interview, Endless Summer Radio D.J., Bart Kelley, insisted on the inclusion of local actors as one of the conditions for hosting the event. As a result, the festival’s Web site claims the inclusion of local businesses for catering, music, and lifestyle. Sun Bum and Kulcha Shok are two of the event’s sponsors. During these three days, activities like yoga or artistic workshops for children are offered, and the use of bikes is encouraged, even rewarded by a five-dollar rebate on a ticket that costs $89. The organizers describe Rootfire at the Park as follows: A music & lifestyle festival with the promise of exceptional music and thoughtful details that make a day outside better. Things like free sunscreen, games, and discounted tickets if you ride your bicycle. We are highlighting craft vendors who create thoughtful food, and local vendors who keep the energy close to home. In the beverage world, we extend the term craft to not only cover quality beer and wine, but to also offer a place to enjoy other beverages ranging from kombucha to kava kava, and beyond. (Foster, 2017)

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The festival started in Monterey, California, under the name Rootfire Soundclash (RF 001). The second avatar of the festival was called Rootfire at the Beach (RF 002) and took place in Avila, California. Rootfire at the Park (RF 003) took place for the first time in Florida in October 2016. Rootfire in the Emerald City (RF 004) was held in Seattle in the state of Washington. The goal of these concerts is to finance the Rootfire Cooperative, providing artists with zero-rate loans, thus, proposing an alternative to traditional recording labels. During the concerts, the reggae ethos is connected to surfing culture, making this festival a privileged place to observe the implementation of a surf lifestyle particularly representative of Florida. Participants articulate their social and personal relationships under their respective statuses of surfers, businesses, or artists, highlighting the proximity that exists between these three statuses. These concerts underline the values shared by the surfing and reggae lifestyles: the two cultures advocate consideration for the environment, the inclusion of children, respect and exploration of the body through physical activities and psychotropic substances,25 and cultural awareness.

4.3

Entering the Subculture Through Objective Microcosms

Musicking is a term that encompasses the production and consumption of music. In this work, surfers were observed to understand their relationship with music within their lifestyle. The interpretation of the elements making up surfing (sub)culture depends on the lens of observation: through the activity (surfers), the music (artists), or the commodification (industries). Here, it is done through the point of view of surfers. So the ideal approach consisted of finding an entity or a group of people involved in one or several aspects of the (sub)culture. Sun Bum employees, in particular Dustin, were essential in this regard because they offered their expertise built on several fundamentals of the (sub)culture: their surfing practice, their privileged position at the heart of the lifestyle 25These

may include marijuana or psychedelic mushrooms.

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manufacturing and commodification, their involvement in musical practices and events (Sonny’s Porch concerts and Rootfire Festival). Entering the subculture through Sun Bum gave me privileged access to all of these elements, which also included entry into the influence networks of the subculture. Sun Bum’s relevance was twofold for an exploration of the cultural and aesthetic community. The company’s examination of the cognitive, emotional, and cultural dynamics of lifestyle sports participants was enlightening. Furthermore, Sun Bum has an inclusive and grassroots approach to marketing, as actors from the corporate world, as well as surfers, are included in the conversation. Thus, Sun Bum became the object of study and a source of lifestyle sports expertise preventing me from forging canons on behalf of the culture (Rinehart & Sydnor, 2003, p. 2). Sun Bum employees offered endo- and exo-cultural knowledge as practitioners and analysts of their own culture. The actors of this growing company have understood the mechanisms behind the success and setbacks of the so-called Big Three: Billabong, Quiksilver, and Rip Curl (Warren & Gibson, 2014). These three giants have based their internal functioning and public image on the hiring of athletes and lifestyle sports participants. This gives the Big Three, as well as Sun Bum, their legitimacy with surfers and also in this study since employees are lifestyle participants who maintain contact with core customers of the surf industry (Stranger, 2013, p. 68). Cocoa Beach, where Sun Bum’s office is located, is a small-town surfing mecca where employees of various companies, from Neilson surf shop to Surfinista, can close the doors to go surfing as soon as the opportunity arises. Sun Bum team members reinforce the legitimacy of the brand by being surfers so they are often used as models for advertising campaigns, the content of which they create themselves with their smartphones. In order to be legitimate, the surfing industry must keep in touch with surfers and their founding experience in surfing because they are the ones who mark the link between corporate culture and the collective consciousness of surfing culture. Legitimate companies like Sun Bum represent a surfing culture in tension with the authentic lifestyle and the mainstream, and the regional and the global, hence their relevance as a port of entry in surfing (sub)culture. The next two chapters propose a genesis of Floridian

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surfing in connection with the formation of surf music, highlighting how the Sun Bum model was able to synthesize the surf lifestyle, thus providing this work on Floridian surf culture and music with an ideal observation platform.

References Aho, P. (2014). Surfing Florida: A photographic history. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Bennett, G., & Lachowetz, T. (2004). Marketing to lifestyles: Action sports and Generation Y. Sport Marketing Quarterly, 13, 239–243. Captain Morgan® . (n.d.). La légende du Capitaine Morgan. Retrieved July 25, 2018, from Captain Morgan® website: https://www.captainmorgan.com/frfr/la-legende-du-captain-morgan/. Davis, E. J. (2013). Florida by nature: A survey of extrahuman historical agency. In M. Gannon (Ed.), The history of Florida (pp. 353–388). Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Denham, M. J. (1994). The Florida Cracker before the Civil War as seen through travelers’ accounts. The Florida Historical Quarterly, 72(4), 453– 468. Desrosiers-Lauzon, G. (2011). Florida’s snowbirds: Spectacle, mobility, and Community since 1945. Montréal: McGill-Queen’s University Press. Drobney, A. J. (1994). Where palm and pine are blowing: Convict labor in the North Florida turpentine industry, 1877–1923. The Florida Historical Quarterly, 72(4), 411–434. Endless Summer Radio. (n.d.). Retrieved April 9, 2018, from Endless Summer Radio website: http://endlesssummerradio.com/. Endless Summer Tattoo. (2018). Home. Retrieved from Endless Summer Tattoo website: https://www.endlesssummertattoo.com. Florida Association of Museums (FAM). (2011). Florida Civil War heritage trail . Tallahassee: Florida Heritage Publication. Florin, H. (1999). Surf shop opens store at Sawgrass. Sun Sentinel . Foster, R. (2017, November 13). Rootfire at the Park 2017 . Retrieved from Rootfire website: https://rootfire.net/rootfire-at-the-park-cocoa-fl-rf005/.

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Gallagher, L., Deem, J., Bourne, B., & Schubert, C. (2018). Henry Flagler and Henry Plant: Entrepreneurship that led to the development of Florida— Critical Biography Research. Small Business Institute Journal, 14 (1), 31–43. Gannon, M. (Ed.). (2013). The history of Florida. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Graham, T. (2013). The first developers. In M. Gannon (Ed.), The history of Florida (pp. 276–295). Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Hinson, G., & William, F. (Eds.). (2009). The new encyclopedia of southern culture. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press. Huber, P., & Drowne, K. (2015). Rednecks: A brief history. American Speech, 76 (4), 434–437. Kulcha Shok Muzik. (n.d.). Retrieved April 9, 2018, from KULCHA SHOK MUZIK website: http://kulchashok.com/. MacManus, A. S., & Colburn, R. D. (2013). Florida politics: The States evolves into one of the nation’s premier political battlegrounds. In M. Gannon (Ed.), The history of Florida (pp. 415–443). Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Marquardt, W. H. (2014). Tracking the Calusa: A retrospective. Southeastern Archaeology, 33(1), 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1179/sea.2014.33.1.001. Marquardt, W. H., & Payne, C. (Eds.). (1992). Culture and environment in the domain of the Calusa. Gainesville: Institute of Archeology and Paleoenvironmental Studies, University of Florida. Milanich, T. J. (2013). Original inhabitants. The history of Florida (pp. 3–17). Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Mohl, A. R., & Mormino, R. G. (2013). Boom, bust, and uncertainty: A social history. In M. Gannon (Ed.), The history of Florida (pp. 497–528). Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Mohl, A. R., & Pozzetta, E. G. (2013). Immigration and ethnicity in Florida history. In M. Gannon (Ed.), The history of Florida (pp. 470–496). Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Parrish, A. E., Field, A. C., & Harrell, G. L. (2001). Merritt Island and Cocoa Beach. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing. Revels, J. T. (2011). Sunshine paradise: A history of Florida Tourism. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. Rinehart, E. R., & Sydnor, S. (Eds.). (2003). To the extreme: Alternative sports, inside and out. Albany, NY: State University of New York. Rogers, W. W. (2013a). The great depression. In M. Gannon (Ed.), The history of Florida (pp. 313–331). Gainesville: University Press of Florida.

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Rogers, W. W. (2013b). Fortune and misfortune. In M. Gannon (Ed.), The history of Florida (pp. 296–312). Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Ron Jon Surf Shop. (2020). Find a location. Ron Jon Surf Shop. https://www. ronjonsurfshop.com/location/. Schafer, L. D. (2013). U.S. Territory and State. In M. Gannon (Ed.), The history of Florida (pp. 220–243). Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Stranger, M. (2013). Surface and substructure: Beneath surfing’s commodified surface. In The consumption and representation of lifestyle sports (pp. 61–78). Abingdon: Routledge. Surfer Magazine. (2020). Ricky Carroll wins his third shape-off. Ricky Carroll Surfboards. http://randdsurf.com/ricky-carroll/. Thomas, J. F. (1999). Melbourne Beach and Indialantic. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing. U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Florida. (2018). Retrieved August 19, 2018, from https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/ca,fl/PST045217. Volk, I. M., Hoctor, T., Nettles, B., Hilsenbeck, R., & Putz, F. (2017). Florida land use and land cover change in the past 100 years. In P. E. Chassignet, W. J. Jones, V. Misra, & J. Obeysekera (Eds.), Florida’s Climate: Changes, Variations, & Impacts. https://doi.org/10.17125/fci2017.ch02. Walker, I. H. (2017). Kai Ea: Rising waves of national and ethnic Hawaiian identities. In Z. D. Hough-Snee & S. A. Eastman (Eds.), The Critical surf studies reader (pp. 62–83). Durham: Duke University Press. Warren, A., & Gibson, C. (2014). Surfing places, surfboards makers: Craft, creativity, and cultural heritage in Hawai’i, California, and Australia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Warshaw, M. (Ed.). (2003). The encyclopedia of surfing. Orlando: Houghton Miffling Harcourt. Warshaw, M. (2010). The history of surfing. San Francisco: Chronicle Books. Wheaton, B. (Ed.). (2004). Understanding lifestyle sports: Consumption, identity and difference. London: Routledge.

3 Surfing Florida: History of an Underdog

The evolution of surfing from Hawaii to California, extensively described in scholarly work (Alexander, 2019; Hough-Snee & Eastman, 2017; Laderman, 2014; Lemarié, 2016, 2018; Warshaw, 2010), illustrates the fact that there exist several ways to apprehend surfing relative to the environment and the history of the cultures in which it developed. In their universality, surfing as well as musicking are modified according to expressive and functional needs. However, some regions, such as Florida, are overshadowed by the historic significance of places like California and do not seem worth the attention. For instance, the idea that there are a limited number of surfing models illustrated by Hawaii, California, and Australia seems to be broadly accepted (Booth, 2003; Warren & Gibson, 2014). These regions appear as distinct models but Florida is never mentioned as a distinct paradigm. These three spaces (Hawaii, California, and Australia) cannot constitute the only models of surfing because the practice is conditioned by their ideal environments. In contrast, Florida’s inconsistent waves require a specific technique, thus a different approach to surfing. The culture of surfing is influenced

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by local sociocultural specificities—Florida is different from any other state in terms of population, geography, and culture.1 In the world of surfing, Florida is the great absent from academic, marketing, and media discourses nationally and internationally.2 Even though the peninsula looks west to Hawaii and California for its heritage, Floridian surfers have become an independent community by building up their own identity, observable through their practice of the activity, their habitus of consumption, and their aesthetic choices. This chapter proposes a short introduction to the development of surfing in Florida, followed by a section dedicated to the geographical, historical, and sociocultural specificities of Florida that had an impact on the advent of a surf culture adapted to the peninsula.

1

How Surfing Made Landfall in Florida

As early as the twentieth century, stand-up surfing, as opposed to belly-surfing, appeared on the Florida coasts. The phenomenon is documented in postcards dating from 1906 and the Daytona Gazette News of August 28, 1909 (Bernard, 2009). The real practice of surfing—the active mastery of the equipment—started in Miami Beach in the 1930s with Dudley and Bill Whitman3 when they met surfers from Virginia, Babe Braithwaite, and John Smith (Warshaw, 2003, p. 673). During the same decade, Californian, Tom Blake, introduced hollow-style surfboards to the Whitmans and then to Gaulden Reed in Daytona, where the first Floridian surfing community was forming (Gault-Williams, 2012, p. 157). During World War II, surfing more or less disappeared from 1 While

Warren and Gibson (2014) acknowledge that each surfing region of the world is different, they too focus on Hawaii, California, and Australia as “the three most recognizable surfing places in the world” (p. 8). These three archetypes of surfing represent three types of ideal wave settings in the Pacific Ocean so that Florida and other regions with less ideal setups, but dynamic local surf industries, are not represented by these models. 2 Paul Aho (2014) offers the most thorough depiction of surfing culture in Florida. 3The two brothers from Miami were known for being talented fishermen inspired by Hawaiian fishing techniques. Their love for underwater photography led them to invent an underwater camera box that was arguably less cumbersome than the equipment used by others at the time (Key West Citizen, 1947).

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Florida, even if hardcore surfers, such as Reed and Brewster Shaw in Daytona, David Aaron in Palm Beach, or Dick Catri and Jack Murphy in Miami Beach continued to practice (Aho, 2014, p. 6). Dick Catri was one of the first figures of Floridian surfing who marked the international scene on his first visit to Hawaii in 1985. This Miami Beach surfer-shaper co-founded with John Griffin the competition which would become the Cocoa Beach Easter Contest in 1965. He was at the origin of professional surfing in Florida, thanks to the creation of the Florida Pro Contest and the American Professional Surfer Tour in 1972 (East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame). During the official start of surfing in the 1960s, those who surfed were mainly young soldiers. This lifestyle fitted the image of the Sunshine State and a predominantly young population. Nevertheless, during the international boom of surfing in the 1960s, Florida suffered from a bad reputation: small waves of poor quality and low-level surfers by international standards. Despite good results in international competitions, Florida was only recognized after having provided the surfing world with multiple world champions including Gary Propper; Claude Codgen; Mike Tabeling,4 the first east coast surfer to win a competition on the west coast; Bruce Valluzzi; Mimi Munro; Joe Roland; Yancy Spencer; Frieda Zamba from Flagler Beach, four-times world champion who redefined the way women surfed by surfing more aggressively; Lisa Anderson, a pro-ambassador for Roxy, several times world champion who became an inspiration for female surfers; C.J. Hobgood; Kelly Slater, 11-times world champion. All these surfers contributed to sparking the interest of Californian shapers and industries who set the tone in terms of legitimacy. Today, Florida has a say and its participants’ creativity is such that it radiates in the rest of the country. The remainder of this chapter shows how these technical and marketing innovations peculiar to Florida have allowed it to distinguish itself from other spaces of American surfing.

4 According

to Aho (2014), Tabeling’s interview in Surfer of 1970 entitled “I love Cocoa Beach: An erotic east coast confession,” revealed the Space Coast internationally (p. 13).

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Southeast Florida: Counties of Miami-Dade, Broward, and Palm Beach

In Miami, southeast Florida, waves are occasional but well-formed. This area is where many of the first surf factories of the peninsula were created. Some major names have contributed to putting Miami on the surf destination map: Dudley Stanley, Bill Whitman, Dick Catri, and Jack Murf the Surf started there. Even the Cocoa Beach legend, Gary Propper, grew up there. In Miami, in the 1960s, surfing was confined to the tip of South Beach, east of Miami Beach Pier. In 1972, under the pressure of a booming surf culture, the county was forced to open more beaches to surfers. The first surf shop in Miami was Dudley Whitman’s Challenger Marine Showroom (Aho, 2014, p. 31). Bob Reeve had influenced the style with his Hawaiian approach and was among the first surfers to go north to Brevard County, where he started to build his own surfboards, Reeves Surfboards (Hughes, 2019). The Treasure Coast gets its name from the fact that many ships sank there during the seventeenth-century Spanish Conquest. The territory spans southeast Florida to the Mosquito Coast, which includes Brevard County further north. Palm Beach County is part of the Treasure Coast and its beaches are internationally known for being ideal party havens amid luxury hotels and clubs. However, the shores of the county also offer some of the best waves in Florida and have produced many surfers. The Gulf Stream warms the water and the deep ocean floors provide better and bigger waves. Winds are more favorable for producing good waves in the winter, which is also valid throughout Florida. Palm Beach Reef Road is a popular destination among surfers from the rest of the state. As it is often the case in Florida, constructions along the coast and in the ocean have made and unmade waves. In 1970, Florida Power and Light built two piers in Saint Lucie County, generating some of the best waves on the coast before the structures were destroyed in 1983. Another human intervention (involuntary this time) produced a famous wave: that of the Amaryllis, a Greek ship that wrecked near the shore during Hurricane Betsy in 1965. The ship sank into the ocean floor at a perfect angle north of Ocean Reef Park. Surfers who benefited from the wave until 1968, when the authorities dismantled it, renamed the

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place “The Ship” (Pesantes, 2011). North of Saint Lucie is Fort Pierce Inlet State Park, a beach where surfers stop on their way to the Space Coast. For a long time, tourists favored this location to the point that it became threatened, and it was the intervention of activist and Surf Expo creator, Ross Houston, along with the Eastern Surfing Association’s Beach Access and Preservation Program (ESABAP), which saved the park and the beaches at the end of the 1970s (Surfer, 2010). Fort Pierce is thus very dynamic and is also the hometown of Jeff Berg, one of Surfline.com’s presidents (it is arguably the most complete and popular surf application used in the world). During World War II, the inlet was the training ground for US Navy Frogmen, the forerunners of the Navy SEALs (Navy SEAL Museum, 2017). The region is still very dynamic and has produced many legendary surfers and shapers. John Parton was one of the first locals to use technology and computers to create sketches of his boards (Aho, 2014, p. 60). However, the development of surfing was not always easy in the region since, in the 1960s, North Palm Beach passed decrees banning the possession of surfboards within the town’s limits. Palm Beach also passed a decree prohibiting surfboards near the water. In 1968, after a lawsuit by the Palm Beach County Surfing Association, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that the city could regulate the sport but not prohibit it (Hayes, 2011).

1.2

Eastern Central Florida: Counties of Brevard on the Space Coast and Volusia

The Space Coast includes Cocoa Beach, the focus of this book. While the town was already promoted in the 1920s as being “one of the pleasure resorts of the States” for its “surf bathing comfortable” waters (Parrish, Field, & Harrell, 2001, p. 111), it became the historical hub of surfing on the east coast of the United States in the 1960s, thanks to Canaveral Pier. Peninsula surf pioneers like Jack “Murf the Surf ” Murphy and Dick Catri left their mark there. Murphy ended his career after being charged

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for murder,5 but Catri enabled surfing to evolve and contributed to placing Florida on the international surfing scene, thanks to his achievements in the seemingly unsurfable waves of Hawaii. He opened one of the first surf shops in Satellite Beach in the 1960s and gathered a team of exceptional surfers, including Mike Tabeling, Bruce Valluzzi, and Gary Propper—a Cocoa Beach local, the best-paid surfer of his generation, and the creator of the comic book Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (ECSHF). In 1966, Catri was included in the International Hall of Fame by International Surfing Magazine and represented the United States in the World Contest of 1968 in Puerto Rico (Walker, 2019). In 1966, among the ten participants in the World Championships in San Diego, six were from Brevard County. During this decade, Space Coast surfers made the transition to shortboards6 and competition, and surfing became popular in the region (Ottum, 1966, p. 6). In the 1960s, Sebastian Inlet and Cocoa Beach took the lion’s share in the most popular surfing areas for top surfers. Sebastian Inlet offered more powerful waves, but Cocoa Beach had everything else: regular waves, competitions, a vibrant cultural life revolving around surfing, great surfers, attractive beaches, something for each type of public, as well as direct access to Orlando. Sebastian Inlet was and still is, known for the presence of sharks and the lack of places to host non-surfers or after-surf sessions. Despite this, in the 1980s, the Inlet became the most photographed wave on the Atlantic coast and the most popular with experts (Aho, 2014, p. 76). It is on this wave, at First Peak, that Matt Kechele experimented with his aerials, leading the way for a new style of surfing. In 2001, the US Army Corps of Engineers created an extension of the jetty north of the Inlet, altering the wave at First Peak. However, the spot continues to be popular among power surfers7 and hosts one of the most important competitions on the Atlantic coast: the annual Quiksilver King of the Peak, launched 5 In

spite of his actions, Jack Roland Murphy was inducted into the East Coast Surf Legends Hall of Fame in 1996. 6 In the late 1960s and 1970s, there was what Matt Warshaw (2003) called the shortboard revolution. Surfboards went from 9’5” long to 6’5,” and from about 20 pounds to 10 pounds. This evolution allowed surfers to change their style and adapt their technique to a more aggressive approach (Shortboard revolution, Warshaw 2003). 7There is a difference between power surfers (a traditional way of surfing) and modern surfers. While the former is conceived as a way of surfing powerfully throughout the wave by including

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in 1995. This wave has become the place where Space Coast surfing went from recreational to competitive, while revealing new surf talents, such as Adam Wickwire and Tommy O’Brien. What has made Brevard County an exceptional space for surfing on the Space Coast is also its lead in the creation and production of surfboard labels and brands linked to the lifestyle (Ricky Carroll). This innovating movement started as early as the 1960s with Jack Murphy. Ever since, the demand for local production has steadily increased and Floridian shapers have managed to make a place for themselves on the national market despite the powerful Californian industry’ domination efforts. Many surf pioneers of the Space Coast launched their own labels, such as Claude Codgen with Sunshine Surfboards, or Tom Neilson with Creative Visions, before using their name as Tabeling and Catri did (Ricky Carroll). Today, the creative fervor of the Space Coast continues with experienced shapers, such as Matt Kechele and Ricky Carroll, but also with younger innovative entrepreneurs, including A. J. Finnan and his CoreVac system for his brand Cannibal Surfboards.8 Materials are redesigned for lighter, sturdier, faster boards allowing these shapers to be at the center of the international competition. Surfboard factories were accompanied by the booming of surf shops on the Space Coast, some of which have become real icons in Florida and beyond (Ron Jon Surf Shop, for instance). Others like Quiet Flight or the Longboard House in Melbourne Beach have managed to resist the temptation of conforming to the mainstream public’s expectations, unlike Ron Jon, from whom hardcore surfers generally do not get their supplies. New Smyrna and Daytona in Volusia County are located north of the Space Coast. According to Paul Aho (2014), even if the history of Floridian surfing began in Miami Beach with the Whitman brothers, Daytona was the first “surf city” (p. 85). It was indeed when the Whitman brothers began surfing in 1934, that the city made surfing history. One of the other pioneers of the city was Gaulden Reed. During World War II, surfing had almost disappeared and it was ill-advised to try because of the threat of German submarines in the region. Reed cutbacks and possibly barrels, the latter is conceived with aerials and rotations, thus, with less probability to use the whole wave. 8 CoreVac is a system which manufactures vacuum-bagged composite surfboards for more durability and solidity.

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was arrested after a nocturnal session because the authorities thought they had intercepted two men on torpedoes (ibid., p. 85). Nevertheless, surfing survived and it is in Daytona that it resurfaced in the form of foam and fiberglass surfboards. Dick Avery and Steve Slater (the father of the Slater brothers) were among the first to own these boards, creating a new generation of surfers. Today, New Smyrna Beach (NSB), on the other side of the inlet of Daytona Shores, is a popular place for surfers and has replaced Sebastian Inlet and Spanish House in the most technical wave rankings. Nevertheless, this recognition took some time. NSB entered the surfing world in the 1970s, with one of the best spots on the American coast, called Shark Shallows. It was an area located outside the south region of Ponce Inlet, which had been created by the Army Corps of Engineers to improve the Inlet. The media had focused on Sebastian Inlet so the recognition of NSB took a long time to come, and competition intensified between the two spots. It should be noted that the two beaches are also in competition regarding the presence of sharks with a slight advance for NSB, commonly nicknamed the shark bite capital of the world. Even if NSB remains the most attractive area, Shark Shallows is no longer the wave it was in the 1970s because of human intervention, as at Sebastian Inlet. NSB surfers have distanced themselves from other communities north and south, possibly because of the lack of media recognition, which has forced the NSB community to develop a form of underground surfing in Florida. They are now known for their territoriality and their identity assertion. Unlike other surfer communities along the Florida coast, those of NSB do not travel as much. The place is isolated and has allowed them to develop into a tight community. The presence of the Surfari Club and a regular wave has probably been favorable to the sedentarization of surfers. All this combined has resulted in NSB being regularly ranked as one of the best surf cities in the United States. Even if the first surf competitions were held in Daytona Beach, NSB has played an important role in the development of professional and amateur surfing since the 1960s by hosting competitions and participating in sporting and cultural events. The organizers of the Florida Surf Film Festival are from NSB.

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Northeast Florida: Jacksonville

Surfing in northeast Florida started in the 1930s but developed in the 1960s in Jacksonville. This region is the cradle of female surfing legends, such as Mimi Munro, Frieda Zamba, and Lisa Anderson (proambassador for Roxy). They were the best feminine athletes from 1960 to 1980. This concentration of women is explained by the support they received on behalf of their community in this world, still very much dominated by men (Aho, 2014, p. 119). The historical city of Saint Augustine is part of this region and is known for the Blue Sky surf shop established in 1979, as well as for Tory Strange’s Surf, established in 1984 (ibid., p. 120).

1.4

Northwest Florida: The Emerald Coast in the Panhandle

The Emerald Coast is located in northwest Florida, in the southwestern part of what is known as the Panhandle (Florida resembles a frying pan and this region is the handle). Panama City is a city on the Gulf of Mexico, where the first practice of surf-sliding was documented in the 1920s (Aho, 2014, p. 121), which seems contradictory when we think of the scarcity of waves in the Gulf of Mexico. The first local legend was Yancy Spencer III, who won the Gulf Coast Surfing Championships in 1970, and the first East Coast Pro in 1972 (ibid., p. 127). Farther east of the city, rare but well-shaped waves form at Mexico Beach. Many surfers from this region make their debut in the Gulf but quickly suffer from the lack of waves; they become “surf starved” according to an expression used by several of my interviewees, including Ricky Carroll. They are then even more motivated than others to become good surfers so they often move to the east coast, especially to the Space Coast, like Brian Waters in the 1960s. He started Islanders Surfboards and worked for Tabeling and Spectrum on the Space Coast before leaving for Hawaii (ibid., p. 131). In 1979, Steve Forstall followed the same path and worked for Tabeling and Spectrum but then moved to Indialantic, where he worked for Steve

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Forstall Designs and was recognized for his work with epoxy (ibid., p. 132).9

1.5

Western Central Florida: Tampa Bay

It is difficult to imagine that the heavenly beaches of the Tampa Bay area can offer good waves. Nevertheless, the region shows an entirely different face during tropical storms and hurricanes. The best surf zones include Venice Jetties, Siesta Key, and Indian Rocks. The Lopez brothers, Shay and Cory, as well as Dustin (an interviewee), grew up in Clearwater Beach and therefore learned to surf these capricious waves. Another local legend, Chris Lundy, learned to surf in Florida then moved to Hawaii, where he was invited to the Pipe Masters in 1982 and 1983. He was part of what the media called the Pipeline Underground and was the first to use a Thruster tri-fin10 on the gigantic waves of Waimea. These surfers testify to the will of Floridians to develop their activity and their skills by adapting the technique, the material, and the frequency of their practice to the environmental conditions of their region. Besides, since the Gulf does not offer consistent waves, local surfers have developed infrastructures for alternative board-sports, such as skateboarding or wakeboarding. The Tampa Rainbow Park was created by Kit and Linda Traverso, who kept surfing in mind when designing this skatepark. Others, like the Clearwater Skate Park or the Tampa Bro Bowl, have allowed skateboarding to develop during wave shortages. Water skiing parks have also opened in Florida, including one of the largest in Tampa: McCormick’s Cable Park. Finally, one of Florida’s oldest surf shops, Sun Coast Surf Shop, remains a benchmark for the variety of surfboards it offers. The owner, Joe Nuzzo, opened the store in 1966 in Treasure Island. Dustin (an interviewee) worked there from the age of 17–27 and sharpened his 9 One

of Sun Bum’s employees also left Panama City in order to be able to surf more. He first moved to Cocoa Beach and is now living in California. 10The Thruster tri-fin was invented in 1982 by Australian Simon Anderson. The surfboard has three fins instead of one for more control. The thruster allows surfers to surf more aggressively because even if one fin sticks out of the water during a cut back for instance, the two others maintain control. These boards are particularly used in Hawaii.

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knowledge of surfing, marketing, and management. He then helped develop Sun Bum under the guidance of three entrepreneurs.

2

Florida: A Singular Surf State

2.1

Style, Culture, Environment: The Notion of Strand

Scholarly writings tend to synthesize an idea of surfing based on Hawaii, California, Australia, and Africa and apply it to the rest of the world, including Florida. In reality, these studies put aside regions where the waves are not exceptional, like in Florida. However, the peninsula’s surfers have been able to work with their environment to make it a talent pool, especially in Cocoa Beach, on the Space Coast. Bob Ottum’s (1966) interview with Pete Smith, the owner of a surf shop in Virginia Beach in the 1960s, anticipated this phenomenon: “The East Coast may be the greatest training ground for future surfers…. If they learn to ride well here, they are ready for Hawaii” (p. 3). While regional variations reflected in surfing styles are often perceived as having an impact on the codification of the activity (Booth, 2004; Warren & Gibson, 2014), scholarship rarely considers Florida as one of these singular regions. In this work, I use the word strand to formulate a notion representative of these regions because the term reflects the idea of the existence of branches, thus of distinct elements connected by common roots. As a notion, strand represents the interconnected ideas of surfing style, local cultures, and local environment. If regional variations reflect surfing styles, the Floridian strand must be explored according to its sociocultural specificities and the singular needs of its surfers because the question of surfing interpretation according to culture, environment, style, and habitus of consumption is relevant. Many academics have focused on the extreme and therefore, on the dangerous aspect of surfing and have considered big-wave surfing the ultimate goal of any surfer11 (Beal & Smith, 2013; Booth, 2004; Kusz, 11 Michele Donnelly (2006) suggested that researchers focused less on core participants and more on everyday consumers of lifestyle sports.

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2004). Yet, this consensus rests on the paradoxical idea that “when the big swells arrive, excuses pour forth to explain absences” (Booth, 2004, p. 103). However, if this is plausible for Hawaii, it is not for Florida because on these exceptional days, parking lots fill up along the beaches as surfers organize a communication network to identify the best surfing zones based on winds and currents. Accordingly, the surfing community in Florida can be seen as an example of what Maffesoli (1988) called neo-tribes, these small groups of existential networks that rest at once on the spirit of religion and on localism (p. 79). The group’s individuals and collective expression develops and adjusts according to their cultural, ideological, and geographical context.12 Consequently, the consensual vision of surfing is disconnected from the popular lifestyle and does not reflect the everyday life of a majority of surfers in Florida and elsewhere, for whom the approach is not stimulated by intrepidity but by fun and technique. Thus, on the waves in Cocoa Beach, there is no fear; there is a desire to execute graceful movements on a longboard (Britty, an interviewee), or to perform perfect cutbacks and get barreled13 with a shortboard.14 Despite the mediocrity and frequency of the waves, Florida surfers have accomplished wonders in terms of technique and global reach because the peninsula has produced more world champions than any other state (the cases of Kelly Slater and the Hobgood brothers will be discussed later). Florida stands out in the professionalization of women, 12 It is worth reminding that Maffesoli’s concepts have been attacked for not being anchored in reality. However, I contend that discussed, criticized, and put to the test in empirical research as they have been in English-speaking subcultural and post-subcultural research, these concepts can provide interesting perspectives and research avenues. 13 A cutback is a fundamental surfing maneuver which consists in performing a powerful turn by digging the tail of the board in the vertical part of the wave. This movement was made possible thanks to the advent of fins after World War II (Warshaw, 2003). A barrel is a hollow wave in which a surfer must stand on his board as long as possible and be able to get out of it. All waves do not produce barrels because their formation depends on the seafloors: it is the abrupt appearance of a shallow section that generates them (Tube, 2003). These barrels exist in Florida, but they are small and very technical. 14 During informal conversations with Floridian surfers, this difference appeared clearly when they compared the diverging approaches of Kelly Slater and Laird Hamilton, representing two distinct surfing cultures. Florida surfers tend to think of Hamilton as a dork of the surfing world because he founded his fame on the invention of gadgets but not on his technical skills as a surfer.

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with athletes such as Frieda Zamba from Flagler Beach, who won the world championships four times from 1984 to 1988 (Warshaw, 2003), or Lisa Anderson from Ormond Beach, who also won four world titles from 1994 to 1997, and who wanted to surf, in her own words, “like a guy” (Warshaw, 2003). Since the foundation of the Association of Surfing Professionals (ASP) in the early 1980s, Floridians, by winning a large number of world titles, have become benchmarks of the organization (WSL, 2020). Today, the leading figures of Floridian surfing are celebrated for the impact they have had at the local and international levels as ambassadors for Florida.

2.2

Personal and Philanthropic Commitment of Floridian Surfers

Florida is not the only region to see the development of philanthropic movements around surfing; however, local organizations are so numerous and dynamic that they must be mentioned. Surfers and brands use their names and fame to engage in philanthropic causes to ensure a greater impact on the public. Arguably, the most emblematic surfing name in Florida today is Slater, specifically the three brothers Sean, Kelly, and Stephen (Skippy). In 2005, Sean and Stephen founded the Slater Brothers Invitational, an organization aiming to educate the public on skin cancer prevention and the dangers of the sun. The brothers organized competitions in Cocoa Beach to which they invited big names of surfing, including Floridian C.J. Hobgood. They partnered with the World Skin Cancer Foundation (WSCF), created in 2005 in Cocoa Beach, and together raised funds and offered free skin exams at competitions. The event took place every year in front of the restaurant, Coconuts on the Beach. In 2012, in five hours on the beach, 198 exams were performed free of charge, which revealed several positive diagnoses (WSCF). Ron Jon Surf School in Cocoa Beach creates partnerships every year with nonprofit organizations to implement events to raise funds for various surf-related organizations. Thus, the Surf Experience Days allows people with cystic fibrosis to surf while being supervised by volunteers.

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The Special Olympics State Surfing Festival supervises people with motor and mental disabilities in surfing competitions. They Will Surf Again uses Ron Jon’s surf instructors who help quadriplegics and paraplegics to surf (the last event took place in 2011). Finally, Smiley Riley Beach Bash for Down’s Syndrome, created in 2005 by a Ron Jon surf instructor whose child had been diagnosed, allows individuals to surf safely (Florida Today). Surfers For Autism (SFA) teams up with Ron Jon for its annual Cocoa Beach event in June. In 2007, Don Ryan and his wife, Kim, created this organization whose mission statement has been described as follows: “Unlocking the potential of children & adults with autism through advocacy and support of scientific research while educating the public and uniting communities through volunteerism” (SFA, 2020). The events taking place in different cities in Florida attract families of young autistic children from all the regions of the United States. Registration is free for families, and luxurious hotels offer lower prices to all the families and volunteers. Each event hosts several hundred people over one weekend. Even the Ritz Carlton in Naples (a city of well-to-do retirees on the west coast) welcomes the cheerful din of these hyper-sensory children who are often devoid of the notion of personal space, be it physical or sonic. Surfing Santas is a gathering of surfers dressed as Santa Claus, which takes place before the holiday season. The event serves to strengthen community cohesion and to raise funds for two local associations: Grind For Life is a group that finances long commutes to the hospital for cancer patients who live too far from the care places (Surfing Santas, 2020); the Florida Surf Museum works to preserve documents related to all aspects of surfing history and culture in Florida. All the organizations described here have in common the fact that they are sponsored by the Cocoa Beach-based sunscreen company, Sum Bum (except for Surfing Santas), and that they host events with local D.J.s and artists. In the analysis, I show how these ubiquitous musics make it possible to aggregate surfers and non-surfers in a common sonic space, promoting the sharing of the aesthetic experience of the surf lifestyle.

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Expressive Platforms for East Coast Surfing

Beyond music, which constitutes the core of this work, it should be noted that Florida has acquired a dynamic media apparatus allowing it to spread the surfing culture of the American east coast as a whole and of Florida in particular. The Florida Surf Film Festival was founded in 2012 by Kevin Miller and John Bruce, based in New Smyrna Beach. It is an organization promoting surfing culture and the artistic expression of the culture through contemporary documentaries (Florida Surf Film Festival). They travel along the Atlantic coast for the screening of films, which is generally followed by a conversation between the authors and the public (generally surfers) and by a draw for lots offered by local companies. For example, during screenings at Cocoa Beach, Sun Bum has provided bags of products. In terms of newspapers and magazines, Eastern Surf Magazine (ESM), created in 1991, is a surf magazine exclusively dedicated to the activity on the east coast of the United States. It is available for free in print and online and its rich textual and visual content makes it one of the most popular journals among surfers. It provides articles on current events like east coast competitions, equipment, and culture (concerts, etc.). The online version contains a tab titled “Girls” dedicated to female surfers, but unfortunately, the page does not deconstruct the objectifying portrait of female surfers since each article only features women in sensual shots as opposed to action shots (ESM, 2020). The question of gender and ethnic integration in the surfing world is only skimmed in this book as the issue requires to be dealt with at length in a dedicated work.

2.4

Florida, the Cradle of Surfing Legends

Florida is the cradle of generations of legendary surfers. In this section, I only describe a couple of exceptional contemporary surfers who have recently made it to the East Coast Hall of Fame, starting with the Slaters. Steve Slater is the father of Sean, Kelly, and Skippy Slater. He started surfing in Daytona during the transformation of the city into a surf town. It was later in Cocoa Beach that he taught his sons the practice without

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ever pushing them against their will (Sean Slater). Sean, the oldest was the first to surf, then Kelly started at the age of five on a styrofoam board. His talent quickly distinguished him, and as early as 1984, he won his first amateur competition before becoming a professional at the age of 18. Skippy started surfing when he was 15 in 1993 and became an excellent longboarder. Today, he is Kelly’s assistant. Kelly Slater, born in 1972, is a success story and a whole industry in himself. From the age of 14, he became Matt Kechele’s protégé. His fluid, fast but powerful way of surfing, and his ability to innovate by making aerials a central approach to competitive surfing, quickly placed him among the most respected surfers within several generations of participants. In the early 1990s, he won the most prestigious professional surfing competitions, such as the Rip Curl Pro in France, Triple Crown of Surfing, and Pipe Masters in Hawaii.15 He won his first world title during his first competition on the World Tour (Warshaw, 2003). Almost 20 years later, in 2011, he won his eleventh world champion title, a record in surfing history. He is also the youngest (20 years old) and the oldest (39 years old) to have won the title of world champion. Nevertheless, Kelly Slater is not only an exceptional surfer, he is also an innovative entrepreneur who has tried his hand in several fields. In 1992, he filmed ten episodes in the Baywatch series with Pamela Anderson, who was his partner for seven years. In the late 1990s, Kelly started a musical band called Surfers with other surf and music legends like Rob Machado, Peter King, Jack Johnson, and Donavon Frankenreiter. He described the experience as guitarist and singer in his second autobiographical book, For the love (Jarratt & Slater, 2008). In 1998, the song “Songs from the Pipe” was released but was not a success (Warshaw, 2003). Despite this setback, Kelly remains an avid musician because he considers that surfing, unlike most other sports, is naturally associated with music to form a coherent whole, a lifestyle:

15Triple

Crown of Surfing is an annual professional surfing competition sponsored by Vans which takes place on the North Shore on the island of Oahu, in Hawaii. Pipe Masters is also an annual professional surfing competition, but it is sponsored by Billabong and takes place at Pipeline, on the island of Oahu.

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I think you get that sort of thing happening in sport, in art, fashion, science, where people get together who have similar ideas and develop a path, but it’s not that common for sport and music to form a liaison, except maybe basketball and hip-hop. Surfing seems to go well with the guitar and ukulele, acoustic music. I think that comes from the fact that the culture began with people camping out at the beach and strumming guitars. (ibid., p. 128)

Kelly refers to his personal experience that he describes in the rest of the text as both a cliché and a reality. Beyond surfing, autobiographical writings, and music, he also launched Outerknown, a line of clothing for men rooted in the spirit of sustainable development (Slater, cited in Outerknown, 2020). But one of his most successful conversions was the launch in 2008 of the Kelly Slater Wave Company, which arguably allowed him to develop the best artificial wave ever conceived to finally meet the needs of surf-starved surfers. In December 2016, the wave was revealed to the public and has inspired others to develop new ways of generating artificial waves (Ferrara & Wieners, 2016). Kelly Slater’s accomplishments, as well as his personality, have been recognized by various institutions. In 2009, Surfer placed Kelly number one in its ranking of the 50 greatest surfers of all time. This recognition put him right in front of Duke Kahanamoku, second, and Tom Curren, third. In 2010, the House of Representatives honored Kelly for his sports achievements. GQ Magazine put him on the cover of its 2011 edition dedicated to the “25 Coolest Athletes of All Time,” an exclusive list which includes Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, and Arnold Palmer. The National Museum of American History at the Smithsonian exhibited one of Kelly’s surfboards in 2011 (Smithsonian, 2011). On November 17, 2010, the city of Cocoa Beach honored Kelly by inaugurating a 10-foot tall bronze statue on a bustling avenue at the entrance to downtown. The mayor officially declared this date, “Kelly Slater Day” (Warshaw, 2003). Kelly Slater’s career has allowed surfing to become an activity and a lifestyle accessible to all. His popularity has also placed Florida on the map of surfing hotspots, but academia has not paid attention. It should be noted that despite his Floridian origins, Kelly Slater has become a cosmopolitan figure. As he explained in his autobiography,

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he maintains solid connections with each major surfing place he has frequented, including Tahiti, Hawaii, Australia, South Africa, and even the west coast of France. He describes different adoptive families for each place. According to surfer Tom Carroll, “He’s in touch with so many people across such a broad spectrum. He’s a world person, not an American” (p. 171). Therefore, Kelly has become an international figure even if he has been very important for the influence of Florida in the world. Two other contemporary surfing figures of Florida, and the Space Coast, in particular, are twin brothers C.J. and Damien Hobgood. They were born in 1979 in Melbourne Beach, halfway between Cocoa Beach and Sebastian Inlet. C.J. started surfing at the age of five and won his first title at the age of 12 in the Eastern Surfing Association Championships, where Damien was second. In 1998, C.J. became a professional and was quickly recognized for his versatility, giving him the reputation of an all-condition surfer. That same year, C.J. won the Buondi Sintra Pro in Portugal, thus qualifying for the World Championship Tour (WCT). At 22, he won his only world champion title and has since featured in a dozen surf movies (Warshaw, 2003). C.J. and Damien Hobgood are difficult to differentiate on a surfboard even if, during competitions, Damien has never equaled the results of his brother. That being said, Damien was named “WCT Rookie of the year16 ” in 2000, placing tenth on the World Tour the year C.J. won the title (Aho, 2014, p. 205). Many already saw him as a potential substitute for Kelly Slater when he left the tour at the beginning of the millennium. The two brothers, who ranked among the ten best surfers in the world, are known today for their aerials and their skills in barrels, but also their kindness and their taste for country music (Warshaw, 2003). An article published on Surfline.com described the brothers in affectionate terms while restating their Floridian origins and the inferiority of Florida in terms of waves: “What anyone who surfs with them will tell you is that they always have fun, whether surfing grinding Pipe or piddly Florida, or posting funny blogs approach” (Borte, 2020).

16The

recognition of Rookie of the year is awarded at the end of the Rookie of the year race. At the end of the world championship, a surfer who is on the tour for the first time, receives the award. The goal is to expose new talents on this tour but also to motivate regulars to give the best of themselves in order not to lose to a rookie.

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In addition to the southern hospitality aspect emerging from this description, it is the perception of Floridian surfing that is interesting because it raises the paradox according to which Floridian waves are insignificant in terms of surfing but remain instigators of talents. Today, the two brothers focus on their fishing tackle shop, Salty Crew, that they define as such: For the hard workers. The searchers. The risk taking, mistake making, watermen with nothing to prove. For the seafaring, the wax sharing, the grommets, young and old. For the tried and true, who’ve paid their dues, for those who choose to stay salty and Find Refuge in the Sea. (Salty Crew, 2018)

Salty can refer to seawater, of course, but it also describes the marginal figure of the pirate, popular in Florida. The description of Salty Crew takes up the themes of the waterman that an authentic surfer is supposed to be. In the surfing world, the adjective authentic applies to individuals who know the culture and act without worrying about what others think, but it also means “for us and by us.” As Paul Aho (2014) pointed out, the Slater and Hobgood phenomena from Florida raise “the question of whether unfathomable accomplishments are driven by radical anomalies or are shaped by the summation of collective efforts” (p. 16). As evidenced by the diverse but converging stories of the surfers I interviewed, it seems that it was the mutualization of an effort to innovate and promote the subculture that generated these successes. Another example is in the fact that two Space Coast surfers are going to represent the United States in surfing’s first Summer Olympics in 2020.

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3

Floridian Surfing as Lifestyle and Subculture

3.1

Conceptualizing Surfing as a Lifestyle Sport

Surfing has several labels or stereotypes, probably reinforced by movies like Point Break 17 (Bigelow, 1991) in which the protagonists are antisocial characters, often using drugs and living for adrenaline. The reality is much more subtle, especially when we refer to the beginnings of surfing in the 1960s, a period during which surfers were, above all, athletes looking for a certain harmony with nature and what it entailed of beauty and danger (Crowley, 2011, p. 49). The expression lifestyle sport translates this mix between athletic practice and existential philosophy that is most commonly associated with activities like surfing, skateboarding, snowboarding, etc. The inclusion of the physical activity in a lifestyle of its own raises for participants questions of identification, practice, consumption, representation, interactions, choice, creativity, and expression, which have been extensively discussed in the past 15 years (Gilchrist & Wheaton, 2017; Wheaton, 2004, 2013). As Bourdieu (1979) stressed in La distinction, the spiritual cradle of these sports is North America, making Florida a privileged place for observing these phenomena. Before conceptualizing surfing as a lifestyle sport, it is important to distinguish the terms commonly associated with it: lifestyle, alternative, or extreme. Lifestyle sports are commonly assimilated to alternative sports because, even if they tend to be exclusive, they allow participants to leave the framework of classic sports activities, or achievement sports such as soccer, and to move away from their ideological values based on competition and team spirit (Coates, Clayton, & Humberstone, 2010; Thorpe & Rinehart, 2013; Wheaton, 2004). I make a distinction between lifestyle sports and alternative sports because the alternative category is vast and does not emphasize the development of a way of living cultivated around an activity. Lifestyle sports are also often 17 Point Break is a melodrama produced by twenty-first Century Fox in 1991. The film featured Patrick Swayze in the role of a bandit surfer on a quest for adrenaline, and Keanu Reeves in that of an FBI agent seduced by surfing but tormented by his sense of duty. Many lines coming from this movie have become cult among young surfers.

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assimilated to so-called extreme sports (Booth, 2004; Brymer, 2005; Rinehart & Sydnor, 2003; Thorpe, 2012). However, this terminology has been overused by media, specifically ESPN and its promotion of the X Games18 for sensational purposes (Thorpe & Wheaton, 2011). Finally, this formulation does not correspond to the words participants use to talk about their practice. Indeed, my interviewees spoke about lifestyle sports or action sports, but for them, the term extreme sports was perceived as kooky.19 In this book on surfing culture, I opted for emic terms emanating from agents of the culture, so surfing is understood as an action or lifestyle sport. This expression encompasses participants’ cultures and their identity while highlighting the importance of the socio-historical context in which their activities emerged, formed, and exist. Belinda Wheaton (2004) pointed out that lifestyle sports participants look for a way of living that is different and that grants them “a particular and exclusive social identity” (p. 4). Lifestyle sports are based on a paradox linked to the nature of what they are: social activities. Participants wish to differentiate themselves and not to obey the rules of normative institutions, but at the same time, they must comply with certain rules in order to exist because in their non-utopian acceptation, lifestyle sports, like any human activity, imply a more or less important form of socialization and consumption. That said, what singularizes lifestyle sports is the ways of consuming and interacting with the activity and other participants according to criteria of fun, cool, creative expression, and distinction encompassed by the notion of emancipation. In other words, the freedom of participants in lifestyle sports enables them to differentiate themselves aesthetically and thereby, to assert themselves in their uniqueness. Therefore, lifestyle sports represent a sort of audacious and fashionable social ideal. They constitute spaces for transdisciplinary creations based on extravagant practices that young people feed on, and that they also feed. The creative aspect is arguably the most valuable dimension of these activities and the one that offers 18The

X Games are competitions specialized in action sports. They are the brainchild of cable network ESPN in the 1990s (History of X Games, 2018). 19The term kooky was used many times during the interviews. It characterizes a person or an action that is strange, awkward, and out of context. It can be spelled kooky or kookie.

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participants the most significant freedom as well as the feeling of escaping the normative constraints of society by experimenting with the imaginary of their bodies, space, and communities (Chidester & Priore, 2008; Falaix, 2018). Each lifestyle sport is set in singular geography and history and develops its own aesthetics and identities, even though there exist similarities in the ethos of these sports, in their ideologies, and in the consumption industry that is inspired by them and strengthens them at once (Wheaton, 2004, p. 11). From the point of view presented here, the importance of lifestyle sports is found in the potentialities of exploration and self-expression that they offer participants (Wheaton, 2013, p. 3). Surfing and its artistic propensity provide an ideal observation platform to understand, within a lifestyle, not the reasons (why) but the articulations (how) of the links between forms of expression and activity. So what does it mean to speak about surfing as a lifestyle sport? Is it better to conceptualize surfing as a form of play, sport, or creative expression? Surfing approaches as play or sport are often confronted, but they are two realities that cannot be substituted because they represent two distinct ways to experience surfing, and are, therefore, both legitimate in terms of lifestyle: As play, participants enroll in the lifestyle without aiming at performance to evaluate and without creating a living from surfing, whereas as sport, participants evaluate their performance and can live from the practice in a more or less exclusive way. Even if surf professionals operate in an institutionalized, normative, publicized environment, they are nonetheless surfers who, when not competing, adopt a playful approach to surfing. Thus, surfing, just like other lifestyle sports, is transcended by creative expression and must be apprehended according to surfers’ diverse choices and the geographic spaces in which they are practiced. These choices often depend on factors, such as age, social class, gender, and race, and must be considered in relation to other dimensions of participants’ lives (a population dominated in Florida by white men) and their consumption habitus. In this book, I focus on how surfers build their culture, and therefore a certain identity I analyze their aesthetic expression as they articulate it in the way of life that they create and renew to distinguish their sporting and cultural practices and to break free from certain social constraints.

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Surfing as Global Culture and Local Subcultures: A Post-subcultural Approach

Elaborating a definition is a complex task, so before defining the notion of subculture as it is understood in this work, it is necessary to take into consideration the reflexive course and the theoretical proposals that have been opposed since the end of World War II. Surfing has been categorized as a subculture, a notion developed in American cultural anthropology by the Chicago School, at the beginning of the twentieth century. The notion suggests the idea of underground culture, thus subversive, even clandestine, and difficult to control, but which does not necessarily seek to oppose directly. In its equilibrium, a subculture would destabilize an established order or a way of thinking about the world and society by including so-called mainstream elements and by rejecting others. In the 1960s, subcultural theories developed by the Birmingham Council for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) focused on working-class youth culture to explain the relationships between style, musical taste, and resistance to the norms and their socioeconomic realities, as illustrated by the Center’s centerpieces, Hall and Jefferson’s (1976) Resistance through rituals (1976) and Hebdige’s (1979) Subculture: The meaning of style. The concept of resistance, as it was framed by the CCCS, consisted in the struggle between a dominant hegemonic culture and dominated ones (an idea also defended by Bourdieu). It was used to exaggerate power relations between the wider social middle-class model and the workingclass youth subcultures freeing themselves from this model through the consumption of mass-produced cultural goods, such as popular music. Applied to sports, the concept of resistance would be used to downplay the fact that some actors of so-called subcultures, like surfing, had made a conscious effort to support the commodification of their practice in order to gain more agency in the sports industry. The CCCS’s approach has been discussed and criticized at length in post-subcultural studies for its lack of empiricism, its firm reliance on cultural studies theories (Bennett, 1999; Muggleton, 2004; Muggleton & Weinzierl, 2003), its stance on the Gramscian idea of cultural hegemony, and its argument that resistance (through style) was symbolic and thus reinforced dominant social structures (Coates et al., 2010; Lohman,

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2017). Indeed, Hebdige’s (1979) differentiation between core or original subcultural actors and hangers-on, which he saw as the death of authenticity in postmodern subcultures, has been deconstructed based on the argument that mass-consumerism, instead of uniforming subcultures, gave its participants more material for bricolage of fluid and complex identities. Subcultures have been assimilated to Maffesoli’s neo-tribes, a form of tribalism tied to mass consumerism that has gained momentum in the postwar era and that has provided more opportunities for individual expression (Bennett, 1999). The emancipatory potentialities of subcultures against a social system such as capitalism are important to bear in mind. Clearly, the idea of a hegemonic cultural relationship between dominant and dominated classes is questioned here. Indeed, the diversity of cultures, the speed of their dissemination since the 1990s, the know-hows that must be available to master them, and finally, the porous borders between cultures seem to render obsolete any attempt at a binary distinction between so-called dominant and dominated cultures. These critics have raised conceptual and theoretical questions regarding the use of the term subculture, particularly in lifestyle sports cultures (Wheaton, 2007). The fluid and complex nature of these cultural practices, as well as their broad and ambivalent taxonomy, compels us to rethink their conceptualization and the nuanced power relations at play in their development so that the term subculture can no longer be summarized to a schematic confrontation between a resisting youth subculture and the establishment or global capitalism. Besides being categorized as a subculture, surfing is also often qualified as a counterculture, a notion implying a form of resistance to something like a social or political system. Countercultures, such as the 1960s and 1970s hippie movement, are a form of manipulation of the global reference culture to which they pretend to be opposed. Surfing cannot be summed up by its opposition to the social and political system in which it is embedded. Bennett (1999), drawing his argument from Maffesoli’s concept of neo-tribe, considered that these groups are “a series of temporal gatherings characterized by fluid boundaries and floating memberships” (p. 600). In other words, there is a certain fluidity between subcultures but also between cultures and subcultures. Thus, surfing must be defined here in relation to the concept of culture, which

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is understood as the sharing of a common way of life that includes activities and common spiritual values emanating from the choices of certain global populations. Culture is inseparable from the concept of social identity that will be developed throughout this work because culture and identity refer to the same reality seen from two different angles (Cuche, 2010, p. 7). Culture is acquired and relative; that is to say, each culture has its own expressive characteristics and practices that influence the behavior of individuals who adhere to it. As far as this work is concerned, the culture of surfing is understood as a set of cultural units that I call subcultures. The culture of surfing is thus a set of human groups that are part of a system of practices and beliefs related to surfing as a whole. The subcultural units of surfing (micro) create a dominating global culture (macro) (Coates et al., 2010, p. 28). Subcultures like surfing must be approached by taking into account their protean nature, their resilience, their paradoxical capacity for inclusion, and their creative potential. These characteristics make them coherent, more so than social or ethnic attributes. Surfing subcultures must be distinguished according to the way they are created, articulated, implemented, thought, and expressed—through music—in a given sociocultural environment (Howe, 2003, p. 359). The notion of subculture also implies the idea of choice, thus, of what can be included in the subculture. I refer to this assumption as the principle of relative inclusion. Subculture participants aggregate according to shared affinities in a transnational culture. In lifestyle sports, individuals differentiate themselves with dress codes, their physical appearance, their language, and their attitude in order to create a distinct lifestyle and a particular social identity in the continuation of a history that must be apprehended in diachrony because, as Coates et al. (2010) highlighted, subcultures are not stable and fixed phenomena at any given time in their history (p. 1083). As a sum, surfing developed in the 1960s and 1970s amid social movements that could be described as countercultural. As a lifestyle sport, it quickly distinguished itself from traditional sports because its practice was little or not at all regulated and supervised. In the 1960s, surfing was perceived as a counterculture in the United States, especially by the most conservative population. Nevertheless, over time, many agents, including Cocoa Beach surfers, such as Gary Propper, Mike Tabeling,

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Bruce Valluzzi, Claude Codgen, and after them Kelly Slater, have cleaned up the image of surfers (who were perceived as marginal individuals) by creating clubs and competitions open to all. The democratization of surfing has made it a subculture more than a counterculture. The practice of surfing is done in subcultural spaces in which there is little regulation, and except for competitions, the activity tends to move away from any type of institution unless it is local. However, as the definition of subculture encapsulates, the notion of choice and the principle of relative inclusion characterize surfing through its desire to play the capitalist game in order to remain a dynamic industry stimulated by and for surfers themselves. While adhering to a system of capitalization by democratizing the subcultural phenomenon, surfers have managed to keep a voice in the mainstream representations of their way of life, as they conceive it. That said, if the portrait of the subculture in the media is a reflection of surfers’ reality, then it remains exclusive and dominated by white males since minorities are still under-represented today, even at times discredited, as the next section highlights.

3.3

Surfing: An Exclusive World?

3.3.1 The Place of Women in Surfing The questions of gender and race constitute one of the significant challenges of the surfing world while the practice is gaining momentum globally and is becoming increasingly mainstream, as its Summer Olympic inclusion suggests (Doering, 2018). The lack of representation or the disqualifying characterization of minorities in specialized media and social media directly impacts how certain aesthetics, representations, and identities of surfing global culture and regional subcultures are shaped and maintained. These issues have been addressed in subcultural and surf studies since the 1990s. Surfeminism, as a form of critique of the male-dominated discourses of the surf industry, exemplifies one of the ways in which female scholars, including Krista Comer (2010, 2017), have forged new critical approaches to surfing by relying on crossdisciplinary scholarship, by creating partnerships with activists, such as

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former Roxy rider, Cori Schumacher, and by questioning power struggles and media representations of the female surfer. Clifton Evers (2004, 2009) has highlighted how the semantic field of feminity was used in surfing to express a lack of ability and courage (a man who is scared is a pussy). Cassie Comley (2016) and Rebecca Olive, Louise McCuaig, and Murray G. Philips (2015) have shown how women are marginalized and patronized in surfing despite the sport’s recreational and informal character. Lisahunter (2018) edited a collection that discussed gender but also issues of marginalization of otherness in surfing in a book that covers more than the usual main three regions of surfing (Hawaii, California, Australia) and extends to the Pacific and Indian Ocean regions. The question of exclusivity in the world of surfing arises in the practice of the activity and in aesthetic representations. Whether in Hawaii, California, or Florida, women have always been surfing. Before its colonization by Europeans and Americans, Hawaii was a place where women and men surfed together (Laderman, 2014; lisahunter, 2017; Walker, 2011). When Protestant missionaries settled in Hawaii in the nineteenth century, they condemned the practice because they did not conceive that men and women could share the public space in nudity. The controversial renaissance of Hawaiian surfing20 and its expansion toward California and Australia at the beginning of the twentieth century took place with a limited number of women21 who only appeared on rare photographs until the 1960s. During the following twenty years, women were considered the equal of men in surfing, even competing against them (Booth, 2001, p. 5). However, this equality was short-lived, which can be explained by several factors. Booth (2001) suggested that the emergence of shortboards in the 1960s precipitated the marginalization 20 Until

the late 1990s, English-speaking accounts accredited the resurgence of Hawaiian surfing to the promotion of the islands and the sport as a new tourist destination and attraction that started at the beginning of the twentieth century. Several scholarly writings have since shown that the practice never went extinct and had been kept alive by Hawaiians themselves. The work of Isaiah Helekunihi Walker (2011), Noenoe K. Silva (2004), and Scott Laderman (2014) are paramount in showing that the Hawaiians had been resisting space invasion and cultural destruction by preserving their cultural traditions, including surfing and mele. 21 Beaches in Australia were not mixed, but despite this segregation, women continued to surf (Booth, 2001, p. 5). Colleen McGloin’s doctoral thesis (2005) illustrated how surfing developed there as an expression of a white and masculine national identity.

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of women in surfing (p. 14). These small boards require considerably more effort than longboards to paddle and catch waves. Britty,22 a female informant, also considered that shortboarding is too vigorous and even aggressive. That said, summing up the question of women’s representation in surfing to technical and equipment issues would be too simple. According to Olive et al. (2015), “Marginalisation occurs through cultural understandings and expectations of the ways that activities should be performed, or assumptions about male and female performances” (p. 261). Similarly, the status of women in surfing is indicative of their status in the societies in which surfing is established. It should be noted that while some women attempt to resist the status quo, others are complicit so that the power relations do not merely consist in male versus female surfers. As Britty pointed out, while women are present on the line-up, they are generally in numerical inferiority. According to Booth (2001), “[i]n the United States, women made up just five per cent of the surfing population in the mid-1990s but by the end of that decade the figure climbed to fifteen per cent” (pp. 3–4). Despite their performances and their presence on the waves or in the media, women still do not seem to receive the same credibility as that given to men, as noted by Britty: In the surf industry, as far as working and socializing, I think sometimes you are, a little bit left out as a woman, like the men will kind of congregate and take control of the conversation, and you know you’re a woman, and it’s just kinda like, ‘Hey, I’m here too, hear what I say.’

From my ethnographic research engaging with recreational surfing, it became apparent that female surfers are rarely invited to participate in the conversation because men control the discourse in which women are mainly discussed in terms of objects and not agents. A form of masculine brotherhood combined with the sexual exploitation of the image of female surfers seems to hinder any development of gender equality in surfing despite women’s performances and activism in the media (Booth,

22 Interviewed

on June 15, 2018.

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2001; Comer, 2017; Olive et al., 2015). The following paragraphs illustrate how this fraternity manifests itself and its consequences on the representation of women in surfing culture (on the line-up and in the media). In the world of surfing, women are expected to experience surfing according to male standards, but they can hardly represent an alternative and legitimate version of the activity. Accordingly, lisahunter (2017) explained that modern surfing was framed by a patriarchal doxa (p. 265). This idea was supported by conversations I engaged in during my fieldwork and in which women were rarely cited as surfing references because they did not demonstrate the same physical capacities as men (an opinion shared by many male informants). One interviewee said that in surfing, women are either efficient but too masculine, thus not interesting for sponsors, or women are feminine (they are pleasant to look at from a male point of view), thus marketable, but they are not very good surfers. As Booth (2001) explained, “[a]thletic-looking females exposed tensions between notions of acceptable athleticism and femininity and found themselves derided as deviants and lesbians” (p. 1). Thus, there is a tension in surfing between two images of women which are difficult to reconcile because as many surf specialists have pointed out, on the one hand, male surfers seem put off by what they call dikes, and on the other hand, they seem to fear the loss of their dominant status in their practice, so they use women as pledges of their manhood (Booth, 2001; Evers, 2004, 2009; Olive et al., 2015). If they wish to be respected as surfers, women must be males, but in return, they are no longer respected as women. Beal and Weidman (2003) explained that in skateboarding, “masculinity was assumed to be the norm on which authenticity was evaluated. Females are not accepted as legitimate participants until they become guys (that is, like males)” (p. 345). If the performances of women are mediocre but their psychical appearance is pleasing, they tend to be either assimilated to models for lifestyle sports, or to groupies, that is, admirers of male surfers. Britty regretted that some female surfers are more publicized than others whose superior performance does not help their surfing career:

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I do think that the women are very much sexualized in surfing and the industry, and I think that they’re more valued in that sense sometimes and not necessarily the best surfer gets the most, you know, attention as far as publicity, maybe for the contests, yeah, but not as many people are watching the contest, so nobody really knows how those people are, they know who’s like the hottest surfer and you know, like Alana Blanchard,23 for example, she’s a great surfer but I think there’s a lot of other women that are great surfers and they don’t get that same, you know, publicity.

Women who surf are sexualized; in other words, their gender is their main distinctive trait in the world of surfing, whereas for men, it may be their equipment, sponsors, or surfing style. In surfing, respect is gained by displaying ability, strength, courage—as epitomized by the masculine body (Booth, 2001; Evers, 2009). Some female professional surfers, including Floridian pioneers, Lisa Anderson and Frieda Zamba, have managed to impose their style and become role models for other surfers, but these women remain exceptions. Kelly Slater described Lisa Anderson as “one of the guys” (Jarratt & Slater, 2008, p. 164), and Frieda Zamba, was known for her aggressive male surfing style. However, in the competitive world, women remain secondary players. Indeed, according to Britty, during sporting events taking place over the course of several days, waves of good quality are reserved for men, while women often have to settle for lower quality intervals. It is worth noting that until 2018, women were paid less than men during competitions. Even if inequalities still exist, the situation seems to be changing in favor of women. In January 2018, the Florida Pro Surf competition held at Sebastian Inlet offered the most substantial amount of money ever awarded to a female surfer in the United States, even exceeding the prize awarded to men (Florida Pro Surf Contest, 2018); On September 5, 2018, the World Surf League announced that as of 2019, women were to be paid as much as men on all events managed by the organization (Howard, 2018). 23 Alana Blanchard is a professional surfer from Hawaii. She is also a model for Rip Curl. She is very active on social media, particularly on Instagram (with 1.8 million subscribers or followers). She publishes many photographs, the majority of which depict her in sensual poses on the beach rather than in action despite her skills as a surfer.

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It is worth emphasizing that in the past five years, feminist and female voices in the surf industry and academia have occupied a larger space in the surfing world. Bethany Hamilton has launched a successful film that showed her struggles and performances as a professional surfer (Lieber, 2018). Activists like Cari Schumacher and scholars like Krista Comer have come together to form the Institute for Women Surfer in California in 2014 and to provide a platform for feminism. Activists have used social media to denounce surf brands’ sexist campaigns and to create collaborations with scholars (Comer, 2017), and professional surfers have raised concerns about the exploitation of their image. These actions are questioning the sponsorship system and have ultimately, engaged a structural reform of the surfing world.

3.3.2 Race and Coloniality in Surfing Over the past two decades, the questions of coloniality and race have become central in the study of surfing. A lot of research has focused on the annexation of Hawaii and the appropriation of surfing by white Americans and Australians. A growing number of scholars have deconstructed the myth of Hawaiian passivity cultivating the idea that the islanders let surf culture die, and Americans revived it (Laderman, 2014; Silva, 2004; Walker, 2011). Their reflections have given impetus to questions of coloniality, race, ethnicity, and identity (Hough-Snee & Eastman, 2017). The description of Cocoa and Cocoa Beach provided in the first chapter showed that the coastal regions were mainly populated by middle-class to well-to-do whites, while the interior was characterized by a much less affluent and half African-American population. While this group is represented on the beaches, field observations revealed that they do not practice surfing for the most part. On the Space Coast, whites and non-whites share the beach, but surfing is a sport for and by white people. In other regions of the world, the situation might be different. Indeed, based on his observations, Tim Cooley (2011) suggested that surfing “is heavily working-class and only slightly more white than any

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given host community” (p. 28). The nuance underlined by Cooley (2011) is undoubtedly real in places of the globe that he visited, but my field observations have confirmed that Florida’s political history has had an impact on the cultural practices of social and ethnic groups. As Kyle Kusz (2004) pointed out in his essay called The white male backlash, to understand racial representation in the discourse of extreme sports, we must also take into account the political, social, cultural, and economic contexts in which they were founded (p. 155). Many of my informants argued that African-Americans do not know how to swim and, therefore, do not surf. Very few informants took into account the recent history of the compartmentalization of spaces and practices according to ethnic groups in the United States and Florida in particular. Kusz (2004) uses the term whiteness to speak of what he says is not just a color but “a socially-constructed category shaped by historically specific social, political, cultural, and economic forces, conditions, and discourses” (p. 156). To understand whiteness, it is necessary to include class, gender, age, geography, sexuality, and nationality factors. It should also be said that the term is not necessarily synonymous with privilege. Indeed, a portion of the white population of Brevard was labeled as redneck or white trash by participants.24 Poor whites (starting with Florida Crackers) are a reality in whiteness and stand in an awkward position as they carry the white category’s burden, which includes a form of necessary mea-culpa concerning African-American history. These rednecks and white trash groups also surf, and some places like Sebastian Inlet or New Smyrna are known to be their surfing zones. These poor whites are often marginalized, which can push them to retreat to extreme stances to find a place in society or an identity—by rejecting difference and otherness. Conversely,

24 Rednecks are white workers living in rural areas and advocating the values of work and family. The stereotype of the redneck is that of a humble, friendly, and very welcoming person, manifesting the values of “southern hospitality” attached to the working-class’s lifestyle. Rednecks are often associated with pickup trucks and beer, but they are neither exuberant nor vulgar. White trash, on the other hand, are white people, poor and with degraded living conditions. They represent devaluing principles if we refer to American educational and behavioral standards. The stereotype of white trash is that of a vulgar and exuberant person, emaciated women marked by alcohol or drug abuse, or the opposite, obese women but wearing daisy duke shorts, and finally men wearing wife beaters (white tank tops that highlight tattoos).

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Kusz (2004) pointed out that in the 1990s, there was a movement of selfcriticism in rock and punk (Beck with “Loser” and The Offsprings with “Self Esteem”) that allowed their authors to avoid external condemnation because no one could attack them more acerbically than themselves, thus enabling a form of reconstruction of their sense of superiority (p. 157). Surfing is an activity born from a Hawaiian cultural and spiritual tradition, not from a movement of rebellion and conjectural adaptation, like other lifestyle sports inspired by it (skateboarding, snowboarding, etc.). However, by becoming a subculture on the American continent, surfing has developed a plurality of localized stereotypes. In Florida, the subculture does not seem to have completely managed to emerge from local history and the problems linked to the concept of race. According to Kusz (2004), “notions of race are closely linked to ideas about legitimate ‘ownership’ of the nation, with ‘whiteness’ and ‘Americanness’ linked tightly together” (p. 167). Other parts of this work will show that the persistence of whiteness and masculinity in American surfing has been reinforced in mainstream and specialized media, surf movies, surf brands’ promotional campaigns, and what I call iconic surf music.

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McGloin, C. (2005). Surfing nation(s)—Surfing country(s) (Doctoral thesis). University of Wollongong. Muggleton, D. (2004). Inside subculture: The postmodern meaning of style (Repr). Oxford: Berg. Muggleton, D., & Weinzierl, R. (Eds.). (2003). The post-subcultures reader. Oxford: Berg. Navy SEAL Museum. (2017). SEAL history: Origins of naval special warfareWWII . Retrieved from Navy SEAL Museum website: https://www.navyse almuseum.org/about-navy-seals/seal-history-the-naval-special-warfare-storys eal-history-the-naval-special-warfare-story/seal-history-origins-of-naval-spe cial-warfare-wwii. Olive, R., McCuaig, L., & Phillips, M. G. (2015). Women’s recreational surfing: A patronising experience. Sport, Education and Society, 20 (2), 258–276. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2012.754752. Ottum, B. (1966). Riding the wave of the east coast’s surfing boom. Sports Illustrated , 11. Outerknown. (2020). Sustainability. Outerknown. https://www.outerknown. com/pages/sustainability. Parrish, A. E., Field, A. C., & Harrell, G. L. (2001). Merritt Island and Cocoa Beach. Charleston: Arcadia Publishing. Pesantes, E. (2011). South Florida’s surfing history on display. Sun Sentinel . Rinehart, E. R., & Sydnor, S. (Eds.). (2003). To the extreme: Alternative sports, inside and out. Albany: State University of New York. Salty Crew. (2018). Salty Story. Salty Crew. https://www.salty-crew.com/pages/ salty-story. SFA. (2020). About us. Surfers For Autism. https://www.surfersforautism.org/ about/. Silva, K. N. (2004). Aloha betrayed: Native Hawaiian resistance to American colonialism. Durham: Duke University Press. Smithsonian. (2011, October 17). Champion Kelly Slater donates winning surfboard to National Museum of American History. The National Museum of American History. https://americanhistory.si.edu/press/releases/championkelly-slater-donates-winning-surfboard-national-museum-american-history. Surfer. (2010). 2010 Inductees to the East Coast Surfing Hall of Fame. Surfer Magazine. Surfing Santas. (2020). About Surfing Santas. Surfing Santas. https://surfingsa ntas.org/about/.

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4 Specificities of Surf Music

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Rise and Resurrections

Before getting into the heart of the ethno-aesthetic analysis, a brief history of surf music must be traced in order to understand its nature and its challenges, and what motivated a new approach to this musical movement intrinsically linked to surfing culture. Surf music and modern surfing took off at the same time in the 1960s in Southern California, which became the front runner of this cultural revolution for and by young people. Surfing and surf music formed an innovative phenomenon characterized by new sounds, semantics, and practices. For Kent Crowley (2011), “The new music was loud, vulgar, primitive, primeval, sexual, and sensual. … When local surfers embraced it as an expression of their experience, it became surf music” (p. 5). Indeed, surf music constitutes the expression of localized surfers’ experience, an expression apprehended here in its geographic and temporal diversity. For theorists working on globalization, the rise of mass media in the late twentieth century has enabled the dissemination of culture in multiple directions and with diverse reifications globally (Appadurai, 1996; Massey, 1993; Robertson, 1995). Surf music had California as its center but quickly embarked on national and global cultural flows, first thanks to the transistor radio as © The Author(s) 2020 A. Barjolin-Smith, Ethno-Aesthetics of Surf in Florida, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7478-8_4

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early as the 1950s and then through mass media. Doing so, it quickly became what Bennett and Peterson (2004) described as a transregional phenomenon, globally diffused and connecting diverse local scenes of surfers. Surf music has never been continuous or uniform, so in this work, it is designated as a movement, not a genre—a conception responsible for an excessive categorization limiting surf music to a space and time intrinsically linked to its Californian roots.

1.1

1960s California: The Iconic Surf Music Decade

Surf music emerged in California from the combination of several factors—three specifically, according to Chidester and Priore (2008). Hawaiian ukulele had been imported to the mainland in the early twentieth century and formed an ideal acoustic base for what was going to become surf music. Jazz and rockabilly were other influential elements, along with stompin’, a form of R&B dance vernacular, which inspired the surfer’s stomp in the early 1960s. The dance was practiced in legendary places, such as the Rendez-vous Ballroom in Balboa, still associated with the advent of surf music today, since it was there that Dick Dale & His Del-Tones recorded parts of the album Surfers’ Choice, released in 1962. What is designated here as iconic surf music was intrinsically linked to California and was marked by the various surrounding cultures that were fundamental in the evolution of the movement it was going to become. The last element was flamenco and Mexican guitars, which according to Surfaris saxophonist Jim Pash, “played a key role in the development of California’s guitar culture” (cited in Crowley, 2011, p. 30). The instrument appeared in early twentieth-century surf films, including those of surfer John Severson, the founder of Surfer magazine in 1960 (Chidester & Priore, 2008, p. 57). It also lent itself particularly well to surfers’ lifestyle, which included impromptu evening jam sessions on the beach, requiring inexpensive and easily transportable instruments. Therefore, the guitar played a distinct role in this new style of music compared to other genres, for instance, country music, in which the twang of the guitar complements the melody. In iconic surf music, the guitar was placed on the forefront and took on the function of

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percussion rather than harmony. While this helps to define the sonic characteristics of iconic surf music, in this work, the emphasis is on the context of reception of music that surfers listen to. In other words, I look at a surfers community’s modalities of musical consumption over time rather than just the stylistic criteria of a musical genre, which would be associated with a stereotypical representation of the surfer figure. Indeed, surf music is an aesthetically inclusive, temporalized, and localized style, hence its singularity and the inappropriateness of calling it a genre, unless we refer to its iconic version. It was during the late 1950s and early 1960s that the musical instruments that defined surf music were born and democratized. Instrumental surf rock developed thanks to the Fender Stratocaster guitar produced in southern California in the town of Fullerton when surfboards were starting to be made of fiberglass, and cars were becoming a full-fledged culture. The advent of the amplifier set up by Leo Fender made the acoustic guitar evolve into the electric guitar that allowed Dick Dale, in particular, to create the first sounds of surf music. Originally a percussion instrument, the electric version of the guitar allowed musicians to maintain notes over time, and to develop the technique of finger vibrato with a wrist tremolo, also called double-picking, later becoming the benchmark of surf guitar. In addition, the Dale-Fender association allowed to develop the sound capacities of amplifiers but also their mobility, which made it possible to quickly mount and dismount scenes without restricting the volume or the quality of sound. The title of Ernest Hemingway’s work, A moveable feast,1 was cleverly taken up by Kent Crowley (2011) to describe how the new Fender enabled artists to transport surf music anywhere (p. 86). While the music style was labeled surf music in the summer of 1961 (Chidester & Priore, 2008, p. 112), it is difficult to base the beginnings of surf music on the careers of artists who admittedly incorporated traditional sounds of the iconic style but did not necessarily define themselves exclusively as surf-musicians. Artists like Brian Wilson, Neil Young, or Ritchie Valens were moving in this direction, but according to Kent

1 Hemingway,

E. (2009). A moveable feast (1st ed., 1964). New York: Scribner.

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Crowley (2011), the style was too ephemeral and inconstant to perpetuate these artists (p. 40). Despite the inherent unstable characteristics of surf music making it difficult to categorize or assign to a precise stylistic origin, history has constrained it to relatively limited temporal and stylistic criteria rooted in the 1950s–1960s R&B and rowdy rock’n’roll epitomized by Dick Dale (Wheeler, 2004, p. 116). This style does not correspond to Florida and shows that surf music is a localized cultural construction before aggregating into a global phenomenon. When it comes to tracing the origins of surf music, not everyone agrees on the subject. Just as surfers see their subculture as a construction imbued with adopted and rejected legends (Warshaw, 2003), surf music is also made up of a series of instrumental innovations and references to the past. In California in the 1960s, music that resonated like the sound of waves was surf music, and it was materialized by Dick Dale or The Belairs, who started tapping the guitar strings to make them vibrate and interrupt the sound. Many of the artists favored by Floridian surfers today also demonstrate instrumental innovations, but at the same time and almost systematically, appeal to the sounds of the past, notably bands like SWIMM or The Jacuzzi Boys. According to Paul Johnson, the composer of “Mr. Moto” (The Belairs, 1961), an awareness of what surf music was going to be started to appear during the summer of 1961 (cited in Crowley, 2011, p. 63). In other words, the first songs of the style could not have been created as surf music. This decade also saw the rise of The Beach Boys, discussed in detail in the next section, in order to set out concretely the aesthetic representations of surf music. If the birth of surf music remains debated, artists and historians agree that simplicity was the key element to it. Unlike musical creations from previous decades, like jazz, surf music only required a few instruments, mainly guitars, fairly simple chords, and transportable equipment (which corresponds to the Floridian approach to current surf music). In its early rock’n’roll form born of blues and R&B, surf music allowed generations of self-taught teens to enter the recording studios as it was perhaps one of the first musical styles to be created only by adolescents. The Chantays, The Beach Boys, The Surfaris, and The Frogmen were all under 18 when they recorded their first album (ibid., p. 107). The advent of the vocal trend as opposed to the purely instrumental trend of the beginnings

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of surf music (1961–1966) marked a turning point in the movement’s history. The Beach Boys and Jan & Dean were very successful because their style allowed teenagers to sing with their favorite artists while dancing or stomping. In the early 1960s, female artists started to appear on the surf scene, including the Surf Bunnies, The Honeys (produced by Brian Wilson), and Kathy Marshall—the Queen of Surf Guitar (Dalley, 1988, p. 105). There were also songwriters, including the most famous Carol Connors, lead vocalist in the Teddy Bears and songwriter for Dick Dale (Chidester & Priore, 2008, pp. 143–144). Girls took part in musicking, but as with surfing, they were mainly groupies supporting a male-dominated surf industry. The music of the 1960s was created by a middle-class who had the means to entertain themselves and was looking to have fun, so it was different from what was to follow. If songs were not about surfing, they were about cars, girls, etc. Only the bands who understood the complementarity of these themes persisted and imposed themselves in the center regions of the United States, where the theme of surfing was certainly attractive, but where it was going to run out of steam. Indeed, surf music experienced a first decline in the second part of the 1960s because of the advent of The Beatles and a new awareness that music had to be more than a simple, frivolous, and irrelevant praise of happiness. It had to become an art, a form of resistance to the status quo, and a celebration of women (rather than women celebrating the exploits of surfers). With the arrival of English rock bands like The Beatles, Americans were confronted with a new way of approaching the musical function. For British bands who formed complete artistic productions, the vocal and visual aspects were more important than the instrumental aspect of music, whereas for Californians, the power of the Fender amplifier remained the essential element of their music. From then on, two aspects of the so-called English Revolution resulted in the decline of surf music: emphasis on the artists’ vocal abilities and the power of the texts. The Beatles understood better than surfers that the female audience played an essential role in the success of artists. A Paul McCartney would not ask a girl to wait for him on the cold Californian beaches while he surfed, but he would want to “hold your hand” (Crowley, 2011, p. 165). So while

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the 1960s show the importance of geographic and societal contexts in the advent of musical culture, the 1970s highlight the importance of the notion of aesthetic relativity: the same causes (surfing) do not produce the same effects (surf music), especially in terms of cultural representations: when a phenomenon increases and supply increases, demand diversifies and becomes singular (as the criticism of the CCCS’ theories underlined). The Beach Boys understood that there was a space to occupy, between too Beatles and too surf music. From the beginnings of the band, which many arguably describe as a surf band (a band playing surf music), Dennis Wilson was the only one to benefit from a certain legitimacy with surfers because he surfed. That said, the guitar skills of his brother Carl also played a role in granting the band its acclaim in surf music. In essence, the arrival of English bands in the United States is not the only cause of the waning of surf music. In 1965, Leo Fender sold Fender Musical Instruments to a subsidiary of the American network CBS, a moment that marked the origin of the decline of Fender’s reputation and the end of the so-called Pre-CBS Fender era (Orkin, 2014). The technological developments were seen as going in the wrong direction and breaking away from the iconic guitar that had given birth to surf music and to the sound signature of Dick Dale, who withdrew from the scene a year later because of cancer.

1.2

The 1970s: Punk and the Reinvention of Surf Music

As a prelude to the 1970s, the release of Bruce Brown’s film, The Endless Summer (Brown, 1966), had given surfing a musical background. While in the surf music world, the 1960s were characterized by the rise of surf bands, the 1970s saw the advent of the first punk bands from New York. A lot has been written about punk, but these writings rarely connect the various punk scenes to surfing. They acknowledge periods and places associated with various punk approaches, including but not limited to a destructive UK scene or a US Do-It-Yourself (DIY) scene conceived as authentic (Moore, 2004; Thompson, 2004; Thornton,

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1995). Yet, as Lohman (2017) has pointed out, both academics and punks have struggled to define punk (p. 50). Hebdige’s (1979) foundational book, Subculture: The Meaning of Style focused on the stylistic practices of young working-class people as symbolic resistance. His work has been criticized for being written from an outsider’s point of view, and for denying any type of agency to “hangers-on” versus original punks (p. 122). Against this idea limiting authenticity to the originals, there exists a consensus on the idea that punk is predominantly founded in DIY and anti-capitalist ideologies (Thompson, 2004), two ideologies that connect surfing and forms of punk. The musical evolution of surf music within two decades shows that surf music is not a genre in itself but that it results from the appreciative construction of an audience—surfers. In other words, punk’s popularity among surfers in the 1970s means that this genre can be included in the surf music movement. The 1960s surf music revolution was repeated in the 1970s through the punk revolution. Chris Fleming of Fender Musical Instruments explained: “If you think about it, early rock’n’roll and early surf music was punk music, really. That’s where it started” (cited in Crowley, 2011, p. 87). In the 1970s, the sounds of the first surf music revolution fomented by Dick Dale, The Surfaris, or The Beach Boys had been replaced by Woodstock, Maurice James (Jimi Hendrix), Black Sabbath, and the Allman Brothers. Far from the accessible, simple, and happy characteristics of music from the 1960s, transgressive, sulfurous, and carnal punk artists offered something more visual and in contrast with the tunes of the previous decade, which had become mainstream. Punk music, like surf music, was characterized by various styles and aesthetics from one continent to another and from one period to another. In the United States, this meant that it could represent liberal anarchism or, conversely, Reagan conservatism.2 At the same time, The Beach Boys were still present but had adopted a new style. The band then included two South Africans, Ricky Fataar and Blondie Chaplin. The public was better prepared to welcome their music since surfing

2 In

the 1980s, Iggy Pop sang “I’m a conservative” (Iggy Pop, 1980) and voted for Ronald Reagan during the 1980 presidential elections.

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culture had become more democratic. Arguably, some surfers considered that the band was able to express their concerns about the world and the pollution of the ocean due to growing tourism. This so-called second wave of surf music reached its peak in 1978 and absorbed punk, which corresponded to what surfers wanted at this specific moment. The contrast between punk and The Beach Boys helps to understand the debate over the band’s legitimacy as representing a certain surf culture. In the 1970s, surf music could still represent a relatively homogeneous whole from a geographical point of view. Today, it seems necessary to distinguish the historically established genre as iconic surf music from the music surfers listen to around the world—surf music. I would compare this taxonomy of surf music with the way we describe historic city centers: an agglomeration [read surf music] consists of a historic downtown [read iconic surf music] and an eclectic peripheral expansion forming a set of new and different cultures and neighborhoods [read scenes]. As an illustration, Jon and The Nightriders, the band formed by John Blair in Santa Monica in 1979, are responsible for the reinvention of 1970s surf music because they succeeded in capturing the attention of old-school surfers but also of those who had chosen reggae, ska, punk, or new wave as their mode of expression. This band marked the beginning of a phenomenon that has become surf music as it exists today: a permanent reinvention, like a language moved to a new place and reinvented according to local needs. Blair’s band did the opening for Surf Punks, a band that was inspired by surf culture and engaged in a form of artistic performance more than surf music as such: during their live performances, they featured girls in bikini, and in the background, lifeguard cabins. Insofar as this kind of performance gave context and subtext to a music claiming to be surf culture, some have considered that in the 1970s, surf music entered the folk movement since it had acquired a known and interpretable repertoire by any group claiming to be surf music. However, folk music is generally associated with pre-modern rural populations whose oral style is often described as unsophisticated (Regev, 2013, p. 22). It is a representation that hardly fits surf music and excludes the various sub-genres it generated and that differed from it in sound nuances and equipment. These included spy music, exotica, or hot rod (while similar to surf rock, it uses car sounds). Surf music and

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its sub-genres represented California, but the rest of the world developed their own ways of expressing their surfing revolution. Thus, in the 1970s, Californian sounds already had alter egos in Hawaii, Europe, and Australia.

1.3

The Nostalgic 1990s

The 1980s marked a sort of connection between the 1970s and the 1990s with DIY punk-rock, a shift from the compact cassette tape to the CD, and the fading of iconic surf music, which reappeared in the 1990s as if revived by a nostalgic trend.3 In 1994, the filmmaker Quentin Tarantino was influential in bringing back iconic surf music when he used “Miserlou” (Dick Dale & His Del-Tones, 1962) for the introduction of his hit movie, Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, 1994). The entire soundtrack of the film, which included The Tornadoes, The Centurions, Link Wray, The Markets, or The Revels, was part of a surf atmosphere that played on the disconnect between rock‘n’roll and spaghetti western in which the characters’ journey was the opposite of the surf lifestyle. Thus, for those who define surf music as a succession of waves, the first wave consisted of new bands playing new music, the second wave consisted of new bands playing new music based on old forms of music, such as bluegrass or folk-blues, and the third wave was launched by Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, 1994) and was intended to be a cohabitation of old and new bands. However, while surf music has a historical origin linked to the advent of surf and rock in the United States, it responds poorly to a categorization by waves since it is a cultural construction taking place over time and emanating from surfers’ communities around the world. In other words, surfers and surf music go hand in hand. Surf music has existed and will exist as a mode of expression that has manifested itself in forms of local re-appropriations of what global surf music is: a set of constructs relative to given cultures, moments, and spaces, whose constitution in terms of genre can vary according to the expressive needs of the communities that build it. 3The

idea of nostalgia developed in Chapter 6 is essential to understand the evolution of surf music.

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2

From Sonic Style to Musical Movement

2.1

Dick Dale and the Reverb Sound of Waves

The characteristic sounds of the first forms of iconic surf music are consensually associated with Richard Monsour and his band, Dick Dale & His Del-Tones. From the 1960s, this band and many others, like Jan & Dean, gave a sonic background to surfing, which became increasingly popular thanks to a technological revolution in the massive production of foam and fiberglass surfboards. Dick Dale was himself a surfer, and from his beginnings with the Del-Tones at the Rendez-vous Ballroom, his audience was mainly made up of surfers. Early on, Dick Dale imposed his style as the iconic sound of surf music, and many musicians of the time agreed that “Let’s go trippin’” (Dick Dale & His Del-Tones, 1962) was one of the founding songs of surf music. The Lebanese legacy of the artist undoubtedly influenced his sounds and techniques, thus, having an impact on his unique way of playing the guitar. One of the Lebanese culture’s instruments is the oud , a kind of lute from the Middle East, the strings of which are picked with a feather. According to the legend, Dick Dale poked the guitar strings so rapidly that his picks melted during his concerts. The peculiar sound of his guitar comes from the famous Fender Stratocaster (also used by Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens4 ). The Fender Stratocaster is the heir to the Fender Telecaster created in 1949 when Leo Fender modified his model by adding a third pickup giving it a more ergonomic shape. So the guitar was only one part of the electric guitar, and the other essential part was the amplifier. For many surf bands, the reverb tank was what made surf music, which would not have existed without it. Indeed, springs placed inside the amplifier propagate the sound in waves and create a wet sonic effect characteristic of iconic surf music, as illustrated in the song “Miserlou” (Dick Dale & His Del-Tones, 1962) used in Pulp Fiction’s (Tarantino, 1994) opening. This title that granted Dick Dale the status of legend is part of his cult album, Surfers’ Choice, and is the result of a challenge to Dick Dale from a fan who suggested that he played an entire song with one string. The 4 Buddy

Holly and Richie Vallens were Rock ‘n’ roll’s early stars. Their death in a plane crash in 1959 is referred to as “the day the music died” in Don McLean’s 1972 hit song, American Pie.

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American House of Representatives recognized Dick Dale as The King of Surf Guitar, and in 2009, he entered the Musicians’ Hall of Fame and Museum in Nashville, Tennessee (Musicians Hall of Fame, 2020). The importance of Dick Dale goes beyond musical sounds and lies in the artist’s approach to surf music that inspired the perspective envisaged in this book. Indeed, for Dick Dale, “surf music was about the audience, not the musicians performing it: that was the reasoning behind Dale titling his first album Surfers’ Choice” (Crowley, 2011, p. 66). For the artist, surf music, a living and performing art, had to be experienced. His vision translates well into the dynamic approach to surf music presented here as building an audience whose lifestyle includes an active relationship with music.

2.2

Surf Music: An Aesthetically Inclusive Musical Movement

Surf music can be understood as a musical style in the sense that it constitutes the sum of expressive traits specific to the culture of surfing, but it is above all defined here as a movement. Indeed, it is an emotional, cultural, and social reaction responding to an expressive need and manifesting itself in an aesthetically inclusive ideology, which from the start, marked the artistic and intellectual principles of surfing culture. In its debut, surf rock was above all a movement of young people that included two different genres, instrumental surf rock, and vocal surf rock. The first, as its name suggests, was based on the guitar and twangy sounds related to country music, while the second had closer ties to rock’n’roll and Chuck Berry’s blues. Thus, iconic surf music has a recognizable sound style, but in its temporality, it has not crystallized into a distinct genre because it has been at times rock’n’roll, ska, punk, reggae, etc. In addition, surf music differs from place to place because of the sociocultural and environmental influences of the places where it develops. In his article on surfing and musicking, Tim Cooley (2011) reported the point of view of Dennis Dragon, a member of a band called the Surf Punks in the 1970s: “The instrumental stuff wasn’t surfing music, ever, to me… To say that this is the exclusive music of the surf, I mean… that’s bullshit” (p. 25).

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While interpretations may differ, this comment highlights the idea that surf music is aesthetically inclusive, and it is not a genre but a plurality of genres constructed as all the potentialities of a movement. Surf music is multifaceted and amounts to the achievement of those who shape it. It is a spatio-temporal construction that started as a musical style, but that has diversified in response to a conjectural expressive need. It is then possible to consider that surf music differs from other musical movements because it was born from the convergence of several factors that are at the same time aesthetic, cultural, spatio-temporal, and social: a mixture of genres, a specific expressive need, a place and a time favorable to the development of surfing, a demographic group ready to welcome it. The 1970s marked the peak of the Baby Boomers who were then between 15 and 30 years old. That is to say, across the generational spectrum, there were adolescents promoting subcultures, and wealthy adults willing to spend their money on surfing and musicking. Baby Boomers are now at the end of their careers or retired, but they are still surfing and inspiring younger generations. These white middle-class adolescents were connected by an ethnically exclusive but musically inclusive subculture when we consider the evolution of the movement in mobility (starting in California and then spreading to the whole world). Surfing became the prerogative of white metropolitans living the Californian dream. In this surfing America, there was no place for the African-American population to whom blues, jazz, R&B, and later rap were assigned. Although black artists were the founding fathers of rock’n’roll (Fats Domino, etc.), this is where their contribution to surf music ended. In an interview published in Time in 1965, one of The Beach Boys’ members claimed: “We’re not colored; we’re white. And we sing white” (Time, 1965). These issues are part of the US history and identity and have not entirely disappeared today. The white-black divide still exists in different forms in the United States: reggae has entered American surf music, but the most popular artists are not necessarily black or surfers.

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The Beach Boys: Commercialization of Surf Music

In the early twentieth century, at the time of legendary Hawaiian surfer, Duke Kahanamoku, the term beachboys applied to native Hawaiian surfers hired by hotels to teach swimming and surfing to mainland tourists visiting Hawaii and looking for an exotic escape (Desmond, 1999). In the 1960s, when the band The Beach Boys formed, they appropriated the name, running the risk of being backlashed by the surfing community. But despite a difficult start due to their lack of legitimacy, The Beach Boys were able to create a niche for themselves. The band was originally composed of singer Carl Wilson, his brothers Dennis (percussions), Brian Wilson (bass), and guitarist Al Jardine, who was later replaced by David Marks. By adding lyrics to their music, The Beach Boys democratized surf music and surfing. Thus, they built an audience of non-surfers in search of the Californian dream.5 One of my interviewees, the D.J. and surfer, Bart Kelley,6 explained that being from Indiana, he had entered the world of surfing and its music thanks to The Beach Boys, who had made it a global phenomenon. However, from its inception, the band suffered from a lack of credibility among surfers. They considered the musicians to be posers who had damaged the image of the sport and the music. The themes of their songs were not exclusively those of the beach and surfing, at least initially, as they also celebrated the automobile, girls, food, etc. Besides, even if Mike Love and Bruce Johnston had tried to learn surfing, the band was not part of this community. Today, they would be considered impostors of the surfing world, and many of my informants have maintained this ambiguous image of the band even if, paradoxically, the Baby Boomers have granted them some redemption. What may have helped The Beach Boys maintain their popularity despite the early controversies, was that they had managed to surround themselves with surfers, and thus, to enter the culture to preserve the illusion. Their first hit, “Surfin’ USA” (The Beach Boys, 1963), probably owed its success to the fact that they borrowed sounds from Chuck Berry. Arguably, the only period during which the band 5 While

The Beach Boys introduced lyrics to their music, the instrumental part remained important. Jan & Dean were the ones who really marked a turn in surf music by becoming the first band to sing exclusively (Crowley, 2011, p. 112). 6 Interviewed on June 13, 2017.

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was considered an authentic surf band was when Marks was part of it from 1962 to 1963 because he could compete musically with other surf guitarists, like Eddie Bertrand of The Belairs. The Beach Boys’ critics have accused them of selling a sport and a lifestyle that did not belong to them through their songs.7 In this regard, Cooley (2011) quoted a telling exchange between a pioneer of Californian surfing in the 1960s, Greg Noll, and a sports journalist, Drew Kampion: Noll : The Beach Boys and all the rest of those guys that were jumping on the bandwagon to try and get in on the surf scene. For the most part we hated all that crap. When I had my shop, they’d send music to us and we’d say thank you very much and the minute they’d leave they go in the trash barrel. Kampion: As a surfer, we never really considered The Beach Boys to be surfer music frankly. It was overflow from the surf culture but really it seemed to talk to inland people or something like that (Cited in Cooley, 2011, p. 25).

This exchange highlights an important point: surf music is not selfdetermined, and it is still ill-advised today for bands to present their music as such because, in the end, it falls to the public of surfers to attribute this title to artists or to include them in the movement.

2.4

Lifestyle Celebration and Credibility Issues

During the waning periods of iconic surf music, artists always had the option to turn to other popular themes. The bands that survived the longest and occupied the most media space are those who, like The Beach Boys, were able to diversify. They nuanced their offer while managing to combine themes that were popular in the Midwest with those of the surfing world, such as automobiles and girls. This thematic adaptation of musical productions shows the impact of song content and non-verbal elements on the audience, and it raises two issues: first, the universality 7 In

a documentary on The Beach Boys called The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds (Smith & Longfellow, 2016), some members of the band explained that they adopted the theme of surfing because it was a popular scene not because they loved the activity of surfing.

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of the discourse of surf culture supposed to appear in mercantile music; second, the relativity of this discourse linked to the need for bands to propose the right themes to the right audiences. If focusing solely on surfing ran the risk of being trapped in an exclusive subculture, a celebration of the lifestyle’s satellites allowed artists to reach a larger population. 1963 marked a turning point in surfing and surf music as The Beach Boys and Jan & Dean turned it into a user manual for the Southern Californian lifestyle accessible to all and hitherto unvoiced. The alternative theme of the automobile guaranteed their continued popularity and was also linked to the surf lifestyle since surfers chased waves with their Woodie Jeeps. From a scholarly perspective, the challenge is to understand how and why The Beach Boys have remained the main icon of surfing culture despite their lack of legitimacy among the members of the culture. In their case, as in the case of other world-famous surf bands, it was a matter of marketing and branding. Thus, the controversial success of The Beach Boys may appear to be one of the reasons the question of authenticity is so present among surfers today. Indeed, from a marginal DIY culture to its instrumental musical representation based on implied wave sounds rather than explicit lyrics, surfing culture became a global phenomenon spread out by popular bands selling the surf experience to a global audience of non-surfers. The problem of legitimacy encountered by bands like The Beach Boys comes from the fact that musicians may not proclaim themselves surf bands making surf music as they could subscribe to a genre by respecting the musical standards of this genre. The surf music label must be validated by the members of the (sub)culture from which the name of the musical style came: surfers. The omission of this principle in the attempt to define surf music runs the risk of contradiction. Some claim that surf music is folk music because it has a text and subtext as opposed to popular music that they define as disposable music for idiotic minds (Crowley, 2011). The same proponents of this definition consider that The Beach Boys were a surf band playing surf music. This approach is contradictory because The Beach Boys do not match the folk music definition on account of the gap between the band’s productions and their reception. How can we legitimize the text or subtext of a so-called surf band whose members have

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admitted that they adopted the theme of surfing because it was popular (Smith & Longfellow, 2016)? The focus of The Beach Boys was not to address surfers but to address the masses: they sold a style but did not understand or control the subtext. In contrast, bands of non-surfers can offer a subtext validated by surfers without even having to promote the image of the surf lifestyle. What makes a band or a genre part of surf music is that their style and subtext speak to the various communities of the surfing world. Dick Dale played at the Rendez-vous Ballroom where young surfers went to dance the surfer’s stomp, and it was also there that Leo Fender and Fred Tavares (both non-surfers) went to listen to their artist, and to understand the demand of the audience and the needs of musicians. The credibility problem also stems from the fact that since its inception, surf music has been divided into two trends of different natures and different functions: instrumental (Dick Dale) and vocal (The Beach Boys). The first required being live to exploit its full potential through the energy of the musicians in synergy with the audience; the second granted musicians more freedom, but it is not guaranteed that their live performances matched the quality of the former—which was The Beach Boys’ issue. Among surfers, music is often made to be lived and shared, as illustrated in this work through Sonny’s Porch concerts, where surf music emerges from the meeting of two microcosms (surfers and artists), that come up with an original creation responding to an expressive and creative request at a given time.

3

The Floridian Scene

Florida developed its surf music in the early 1960s as a continuation of the Californian garage bands phenomenon8 which had been accentuated by easy access to inexpensive guitars and amplifiers. It is worth noting that while Florida no longer identifies as a Southern State in relation to the Mason-Dixon line, in the 1960s, the state maintained Jim Crow laws that hindered the broadcast of the influential sounds of early surf music, 8 Garage

bands were amateur rock bands who rehearsed in their garage and had an audience composed of friends or acquaintance. The rock they produced was relatively easy to play.

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like black R&B—even with the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Chidester & Priore, 2008; Revels, 2011). That said, these rules did not prevent young people from gathering in clubs to listen to the new sounds that eventually lead to the emergence of surf music in several regions of Florida, including the Panhandle (Pensacola), the west coast (Tampa Bay, Saint Petersburg), the northeast (Jacksonville, Daytona, Cocoa Beach), the center (Orlando), the south (Miami). Local radio stations, like the WFLA in Tampa, supported local artists, which is also what the D.J., Bart Kelley, is striving to do today on the Space Coast with Endless Summer radio. Young Floridian musicians were inspired by Californian artists and covered their songs and albums. Historian Jeff Lemlich (1991), in his study of The Savage Lost, showed that garage bands were active in Florida as early as the 1960s. However, very few recordings exist today because artists lacked financial and technological means. The Dynamics from Auburndale and The Nep-Tunes with their album Surfer’s Holiday (The Nep-Tunes, 1963) were among the only ones to have recorded an album (Chidester & Priore, 2008; Cunningham, 2014). As in the rest of the country, a very small number of these surf rock bands were made up of surfers. However, there were exceptions, including The Roemans of Clearwater, Vanguards IV of St. Petersburg, and The Nation Rocking Shadows, better known as Shadows. With the bonds that formed naturally between the cultures of surfing and the automobile, some of these bands also recorded instrumental songs inspired by the new world of cars: The Miami Lincolns with “Night Drag” (The Lincolns, 1964), or The Surftones with “Drag baby USA” and “Speed demon” (The Surftones, 1995). Then under the leadership of The Beach Boys, many of these 1960s bands began to include vocal harmonies, like The Aerovons from Fort Lauderdale. They played for surfing competitions in Miami and covered Beach Boys titles. Few of these songs by Florida surf bands mentioned surfing except “A wave awaits” (The Gents Five, 1969) by Dave Tubin, “Surfbeat USA” (op. cit.) by the Surftones, and “Surfinanny” (Gram Parsons & The Shilos, 1979) by The Shilos (Cunningham, 2014, p. 230). In Florida in the 1960s, surf rock vocal songs focused on the theme of Florida beaches but not on what to do, surfing. For example, in 1967, Larry & The Loafers, originally from Pensacola, wrote “Panama City blues” (Larry & The Loafers, 1960) or

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“Let’s go to the beach” (Larry & The Loafers, 1966); in 1966 Steve Alaimo made a hit in Miami with his song “On the Beach” (Alaimo, 1966). Many of these bands performed at concerts but never recorded their work. These include bands like Surfin’ Vibrations, The Surfin’ Boys, The Stingrays, Bobby Cash and His Surfers from Cocoa Beach, The Surfin’ Tones, The Tides, and The Fort Pierce Sand Trippers, who were real surfers. As with the rest of the United States, the decades that followed saw ups and downs for instrumental and vocal surf rock. While today these bands could be well-known or self-produced and broadcast via YouTube, this was not the case. Like in California, in the 1970s and 1980s Florida, punk and the DIY movement prevailed in music as much as in surfing. Surf music of the second decade of the twenty-first century experienced a resurgence of surf rock, a moment described by Cunningham (2014) as “the fourth-wave surf rock movement” (p. 234). For him, it was a kind of contemporary renaissance that mixed the old and the new in sounds and instruments. Genres crossed and came together at a specific point in time and space to form a strand of surf music. Cunningham (2014) categorized the fourth wave of surf rock in Florida into two types: progressive instrumental surf rock and beach-oriented indie/noise-pop. In the fourth surf rock wave, Floridian musicians are Baby Boomers, former rockers or punks, who were or still are surfers and cover surf music classics but also compose their own songs (p. 234). One of the prominent bands from this wave is The Cutback (named after the maneuver). They are Baby Boomers from Fort Lauderdale. Their titles “Atlantico,” “Shark Pit,” “Secret Spot,” and “Conan the Surfarian” (Cutback, 2014) are all related to surfing in Florida. They express the Floridian surf lifestyle through their music, but it should be noted that they evolve in their own microcosm in Fort Lauderdale and do not represent a state of mind common to all of Florida. For instance, on the Space Coast, a bastion of surfing and its culture, Satellite Beach is home to surfer and musician Bill Yerkes, nicknamed “Balsa Bill.” Bill Yerkes is known for making balsa boards and for making ukuleles, very popular with local surfers, who particularly appreciate Polynesian sounds. He and his brothers have a surf music band called The Surf Chasers, which pays homage to The Beach

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Boys. The siblings authored a documentary about surfing in Florida called The Summer of ‘67 (Yerkes, 1967). Since the 1990s, so-called surf bands have played more and more classic surf with a mixture of punk and rock, but also reggae. For example, the Nova Rays are an instrumental progressive surf rock band from Orlando. Formed in 2003, they draw their inspiration from punkrock with, “an aggressive style and a DIY aesthetic with rockabilly fair to classic instrumental surf ” (Cunningham, 2014, p. 236). The Intoxicators are another band from Tampa, who bring to Florida “a funny, worldly, and aggressive hard rock aesthetic to instrumental surf rock” (ibid., p. 236). They won recognition from the Surf Guitar 101 Convention in California in 2012. There are other bands in Florida, like Skinni Jimmy and the Stingrays from Deerfield Beach. All show how much, if there is a movement called instrumental surf rock, it is well established in Florida and represents a Floridian beach culture particularly appreciated by hipsters.9 The themes of the Floridian beach and surf cultures associated with what constituted the sounds of iconic surf music seem to have connected these bands over the years. Surf music in Florida is no longer based only on surf rock since the styles included in the movement also depend on generations. For example, many young surfers are turning to alternative rock, rap, or indie, among other styles, thus, toward bands like Surfer Blood (West Palm Beach), Guy Harvey (Lake Worth), or The Jacuzzi Boys (Miami), who play on the musical tones of the 1960s with reverb sounds and vocal harmonies. Other generations are very reggae oriented, and this is reflected in the programming of many events related to surfing, like Sonny’s Porch concerts or the Rootfire Festival.

9The beach culture is often assimilated to surfing culture because they share a common lifestyle turned toward the ocean as well as a slower pace of living and lesser social constraints (notably, a more informal dress code). Hipsters are individuals who follow fashion trends inspired by marginal countercultures that oppose the mainstream. Thus, hipsters appropriate the aesthetics of the beach culture through clothing and music.

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Nature of the Links Between Surfing and Surf Music

In order to understand lifestyle sports and the relationships that their participants have with them, it is necessary to look beyond the activity toward what punctuates and shapes the lifestyle at a given time and place. Music is one of the fundamental aspects of surfing because the activity alone or the music alone gives an incomplete portrait of one or the other. These two aspects of the lifestyle (activity and music) were merged as soon as they appeared in California under the name, surf music: music for surfing. This is why they must be apprehended together to provide a concrete vision of the aesthetic, sociological, and cultural ties that unite them. Only this way can we grasp the interconnectedness of the experience, the image, the discourses, and the identities that are embedded in the contemporary cultural practice that constitutes surfing (Wheaton, 2004, p. 9). The experiences of lifestyle sports participants are difficult to express and share outside of the practice, but music makes it possible to shape both a verbal and symbolic speech that can be explored and interpreted to start a reflection on the musical consumption of surfers. From this perspective, it is also necessary to question how various musics are monopolized by other entities than surfers themselves to speak precisely to surfers. For instance, manufacturers create lifestyle products linked to music or sporting events integrating music, such as the X Games or even the Olympic Games, who all affix music to the physical performance (Beal & Smith, 2013, p. 55). Artists are associated with events, places, communities, and thus lifestyles because their music has been used in those singular spaces, or because they have performed there, as illustrated by Sonny’s Porch concerts: videos of the concerts are then posted on YouTube and the Sun Bum Web site. Localities sometimes reappropriate global phenomena, which is why surf music crystallizes in places that did not give birth to it. In this work, qualitative data made it possible to establish links between surfing and music and to analyze their nature and function. While some surfers tend to look for links between their sporting activity and their musicking to understand their surfing practice, others express themselves through other art forms. Whether through music or other

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forms of expression, there seems to be a common need among surfers for aesthetic expression. The focus here is on those who have chosen music as their mode of expression, not necessarily because they produce it but because they consider it a part of their surf lifestyle. My informants, representing a certain approach to surfing, insisted on experiencing and participating in both surfing and musicking. The term was coined by Christopher Small (1998) who defined musicking (the gerund of the verb to music ) as an action: “To music is to take part, in any capacity, in a musical performance, whether by performing, by listening, by rehearsing or practicing, by providing material for performance (what is called composing), or by dancing” (p. 9). Like surfing, musicking is a human, thus a sociocultural activity that includes listening to music (live or recorded), dancing, writing music, playing an instrument, etc. In this book, the focus is not on the types of music a relatively global group of surfers have created and associated with (Cooley, 2011, 2014), but on the idiosyncratic experience of musicking as a space for sociocultural construction and identity marking of a specific community of surfers. While their aesthetic expressive needs are apprehended as the instigators of musical experiences specific and meaningful to their community, the approach can be applied to other groups of surfers. Exploring these issues implies to understand why and how people listen to music. Pleasure resulting from participation in the musical act in all its forms (production or consumption) seems obvious. However, in addition, people music to find ways of expressing aesthetic, social, and cultural commonalities that may mark the contours of their communities composed of individuals culturally linked either by the form of their musical consumption or by its social function. In other words, music is intrinsically linked to human existence and serves to create communities where individuals can express feelings that allow them to understand each other. In this book, the links between surfing and musicking were posed as empirical facts by the inductive approach based on the observation of surfers’ environment (physical spaces and social networks). There are many types of correlations between surfing and music, but the only ones targeted here are those deemed legitimate in the ethno-aesthetics of surfing. These correlations are affective, sensible, and cognitive as they

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refer to surfers’ feelings, experiences, and capacity to reinforce their identity and that of their group—using music as their tool. The shaper, Ricky Carroll,10 expressed this idea when he said that the only thing that could replace surfing when there were no waves was music. In the next part of this book, I deepen the reflection on the links between surfing and music from the point of view of their re-appropriation. Two models make it possible to understand how surfing and surf music can contribute to marking a sense of social and personal identities by being recovered by a community and adapted to a new geographic and cultural context, in our case, Florida.

References Alaimo, S. (1966). On the beach [Vinyl, 45 RPM, Single]. ABC Records. http://www.45cat.com/record/10833. Appadurai, A. (1996). Modernity at large: Cultural dimension of globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Beal, B., & Smith, M. M. (2013). Maverick’s: Big-wave surfing and the dynamic of “nothing” and “something.” In The consumption and representation of lifestyle sports (pp. 46–60). London: Routledge. Bennett, A., & Peterson, A. R. (2004). Music scenes: Local, translocal and virtual . Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. Blair, J. (1978). The illustrated discography of surf music, 1959–1965. Riverside: J. Bee Productions. Brown, B. (1966). The endless summer [Film]. Aviva International. Chidester, B., & Priore, D. (2008). Pop surf culture: Music, design, film and fashion from the Bohemian surf boom. Solana Beach: Santa Monica Press LLC. Cooley, T. J. (2011). Playing together and solitary play: Musicking and surfing. Ethnomusicology Ireland, 1, 21–39. Cooley, T. J. (2014). Surfing about music. Los Angeles: University of California Press. Crowley, K. (2011). Surf beat: Rock’n’roll’s forgotten revolution. New York: Backbeat Book. 10 Interviewed

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Cunningham, E. J. (2014). Florida surf rock, then and now. In Surfing Florida: A photographic history (pp. 222–240). Gainesville: University Press of Florida. Cutback. (2014). Surfers journey [ITunes]. Cutback. https://itunes.apple.com/ us/album/surfers-journey/923660022. Dalley, R. (1988). Surfin’ guitars: Instrumental surf bands of the sixties (3rd ed.). Robert J: Dalley Publications. Desmond, C. J. (1999). Staging tourism: Bodies on display from Waikiki to Sea World . Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Dick Dale & His Del-Tones. (1962). Surfer’s choice [ITunes]. Deltone Records. Gram Parsons & The Shilos. (1979). The early years 1963–65 [Vinyl, LP]. Sierra Briar Records. https://www.discogs.com/Gram-Parsons-The-EarlyYears-1963-65/release/6469639. Hebdige, D. (1979). Subculture: The meaning of style (2002 ed.). London ; New Yor Routledge. Hemingway, E. (2009). A moveable feast (1st ed., 1964). Scribner. Hot Rod Music Albums. (n.d.). AllMusic. Retrieved May 8, 2018, from https:// www.allmusic.com/subgenre/hot-rod-ma0000011857/albums. Lemlich, M. J. (1991, July). Savage Lost: Florida garage bands—The ’60s and beyond . Plantation: Distinctive Publishing. Larry & The Loafers. (1960). Panama City blues [Vinyl, 45 RPM, Single]. Heart Recording Company. https://www.discogs.com/Larry-And-The-Loa fers-Panama-City-Blues-I-Want-You-To-Know/release/3986935. Larry & The Loafers. (1966). Let’s go to the beach [Vinyl, 45 RPM, Single]. Shurline. https://www.discogs.com/Larry-The-Loafers-Lets-Go-ToThe-Beach/master/899983. Lohman, K. (2017). Theories of punk and subculture. In K. Lohman, The connected lives of Dutch punks (pp. 23–59). Springer. https://doi.org/10. 1007/978-3-319-51079-8_2. Massey, D. (1993). Power-geometry and a progressive sense of place. In J. Bird, B. Curtis, T. Putnam, G. Robertson, & L. Tickner (Eds.), Mapping the futures: Local cultures, global change (pp. 59–69). London: Routledge. Moore, R. (2004). Postmodernism and punk subculture: Cultures of authenticity and deconstruction. The Communication Review, 7 (3), 305–327. https://doi.org/10.1080/10714420490492238. Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum. (2020). 2009 inductees. Musicians Hall of Fame & Museum. https://www.musicianshalloffame.com/2009-inductees/. Orkin, D. (2014, March 6). Fender and the CBS takeover. Reverb. https://rev erb.com/news/fender-and-the-cbs-takeover.

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Regev, M. (2013). Pop-rock music: Aesthetic cosmopolitanism in late modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Revels, J. T. (2011). Sunshine paradise: A history of Florida Tourism. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. Robertson, R. (1995). Glocalization: Time-space and homogeneityheterogeneity. In M. Featherstone, S. Lash, & R. Robertson (Eds.), Global modernities (pp. 25–44). London: Sage. Small, C. (1998). Musicking: The meaning of performing and listening. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press. Smith, R. M., & Longfellow, M. (2016). The Beach Boys: Pet Sounds [Documentary, Film]. Retrieved from https://itunes.apple.com/us/movie/ the-beach-boys-pet-sounds-classic-albums/id1140325424. Tarantino, Q. (1994). Pulp Fiction [Film]. Miramax. The Beach Boys. (1963). The Beach Boys [ITunes]. Capitol Records. The Belairs. (1961). Volcanic action [ITunes]. Sundazed Music. The Gents Five. (1969). A wave awaits [Vinyl, 45 RPM, Single]. March Records. http://www.45cat.com/record/69a7734. The Lincolns. (1964). Night drag [Vinyl, 45 RPM, Single]. ABCO Records. https://www.discogs.com/The-Lincolns-Night-Drag/release/9659916. The Nep-Tunes. (1963). Surfer’s holiday [Vinyl, LP]. Family Records. Retrieved from https://www.discogs.com/The-Nep-Tunes-Surfers-Holiday/release/241 4787. The Surftones. (1995). Drive-in a gogo (Vol. 2) [CD]. Collectables. https:// www.discogs.com/Various-Drive-In-A-GoGo-Volume-2/release/11196468. Thompson, S. (2004). Punk productions: Unfinished business. Albany: State University of New York Press. Thornton, S. (1995). Club cultures: Music, media and subcultural capital. Cambridge: Polity Press. Time. (1965). Rock’n’Roll: The sound of the sixties. Time. Warshaw, M. (Ed.). (2003). The encyclopedia of surfing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Wheaton, B. (Ed.). (2004). Understanding lifestyle sports: Consumption, identity and difference. London: Routledge. Wheeler, T. (2004). The Stratocaster chronicles: Celebrating 50 years of the Fender Strat. Milwaukee: Hal Leonard. Yerkes, B. (1967). The summer of ’67 [Documentary]. Balsa Bill. http://www. balsabill.com/TheSummerof67.htm.

Part II Effects of the Mobility of Surfing and Surf Music on Cultural Appropriation

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Preamble: Localisms and the Glocal in Surfing

1.1

Global Localism and Floridian Localism

The theoretical model presented at this point aims to highlight how cultures circulate and are reconfigured to meet the needs of local populations who appropriate them. But before developing this model based on the mobility of people and cultures, it is necessary to explain the importance of localism in the world of surfing because it illustrates certain consequences of this mobility. Localism is a form of regionalization of identity resulting from an attachment to the traditions of a particular place and opposition with another (Avanza & Lafarté, 2005, p. 136). Surf breaks and waves can be understood as finite resources. There are only a number of waves that can be surfed, and the more surfers there are, the fewer waves per surfer, so that localism and property rights have been used interchangeably (Buckley, Guitart, & Shakeela, 2017; Kaffine, 2009). Promoted by surf media, surf breaks have become tourist destinations exacerbated by © The Author(s) 2020 A. Barjolin-Smith, Ethno-Aesthetics of Surf in Florida, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7478-8_5

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the development of commercial travel, surfboard making technology, the global popularity of surfing heritage places like Hawaii, and the expansion of surfing in emerging surf destinations like Asia. In these high-demand places, beach access rights have become contested (Buckley et al., 2017; Daskalos, 2007). In other words, local surfers wanting to protect their local breaks rely on their status to legitimate restricting access to beaches (commons) to locals only. This phenomenon appears exacerbated in high-quality wave locations (Kaffine, 2009), which would explain why localism is more implemented in California than in Florida. Localism appears when surfers develop a sense of belonging to their local surfing community and a sense of connection and ownership to their local beach or break because they have surfed it for years (Anderson, 2014; Bennett, 2004; Lanagan, 2002; Usher, 2017). They do not want to be excluded from their own community (materialized by their surf break) or lose their right to enjoy the most waves (Beaumont & Brown, 2016; Buckley et al., 2017; Kaffine, 2009). The public beach becomes a surfers’ territory domesticated by masculine bodies knowing and taming the geography of a space reimagined according to their specific know-how (Evers, 2009). In surfing, localism emphasizes a hierarchical dimension defined by know-how, and a tribal dimension marked by rituals and a need to claim sociocultural belonging and relative domination.1 At a symbolic level, it can be demonstrated through the consumption of local surf brands’ products, including surfboards, clothes, stickers of local surf shops, etc. In practice, surfers usually implement a priority system to determine who gets a wave or its best part (the peak), but this code may be implicitly ignored when an outsider competes with a local (Bandeira, 2014). Nonlocals have to know the rules, acknowledge seniority, show respect, skills, courage, and some pride in order to be accepted (Evers, 2004). Thus, localism is not fixed and should be understood in relation to sociocultural, historical, and geographical contexts. Besides, studies have found

1 According

to Jeremy Lemarié (2016a), localism was born on the Californian coasts in the mid-twentieth century because of the democratization of surfing and the increasing use of surfing areas (p. 256). War rhetoric is assimilated to the phenomenon: locals seek to protect their territory by going so far as to physically assault those whom they consider invaders.

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that in some places, native surfers and foreign surfers who have established residency can both identify as locals but express different forms of localism, the former being less aggressive than the latter because of economic implications (Usher, 2017). Claims of belonging and the need for domination are not necessarily violent. They are expressed in different ways and different degrees, depending on the location. Localism is in many surf areas with scarce waves and is manifested by a lack of civility toward other participants. But this is not true for every surf area. Localism can range from benign to heavy and vary between locations and contexts (Beaumont & Brown, 2016). Non-locals who do not respect the rules and hierarchy can be punished by being dropped on in the water, verbally abused, assaulted on the beach or in parking lots (Bennett, 2004; Booth, 2001; Evers, 2004; Kaffine, 2009). That said, localism can have positive consequences, including creating stronger bonds within local communities and encouraging them to protect their environment (Usher, 2017). While in some places, such as Hawaii or Jeffrey’s Bay in South Africa, localism may be expressed through graffiti, bad looks in parking lots, insults on the water, material damage (degraded cars in parking lots, destroyed surfboards, etc.), or even physical assaults, this is not the case in Florida. So violent localism is not a global phenomenon in surfing,2 meaning that localisms can be asserted differently through cultural practices, aesthetic experience, and modes of consumption representative of a certain ethos. While unacceptable behaviors are globally prohibited by the rules or the etiquette of surfing, like taking a wave someone is already surfing, responses to these behaviors differ depending on the location. Unlike places 2 Steve

Oliver (2013) asserted that snowboarding, as it is much more regulated than surfing, does not face issues of territoriality and violence: “territoriality and violence are virtually unheard of on the slopes” (p. 175). This is an erroneous generalization used to justify an already fragile perspective. Freestyle parks (sections of the mountain with artificial features for jumping and other tricks) are places where individuals compete for access to the modules. Thus, in the lineup, it is not uncommon to see two snowboarders elbow against elbow pushing each other to access the features. Having spent a lot of my time in these parks, I have witnessed these behaviors, which sometimes, lead to two snowboarders jumping at the same time. Besides, conflicts between locals and visitors are common. Locals sometimes aggressively call out visitors on their lack of responsiveness or their incongruous positioning on the mountain. In contrast, in eight years in Florida, I have never witnessed a conflict on the beach (I am not claiming that they do not occur).

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where territoriality is marked by violence because the practice of surfing seems to have become socially, culturally, and geographically exclusive, in Florida, and specifically on the Space Coast, these extremes are mocked, and territorial surfers are quickly singled out as kooks (Sean Slater, Ricky Carroll, Bart Kelley, Dustin). For example, there is a competition on the Space Coast that makes fun of bad practices in surfing: the “Doctors, lawyers, and weekend warriors competition” is a way to play down the offense and remind everyone not to take themselves too seriously (Ricky Carroll & Bart Kelley3 ). Floridian culture has influenced the practices related to surfing since, as all my informants have stressed out, the know-hows of the peninsula’s population (their “southern hospitality”) has rubbed off on the attitude of Floridian surfers who consensually consider that the best surfer is the one who has the most fun (Sean Slater, Ricky Carroll, Bart Kelley, Dustin). That said, a more subtle form of localism takes place worldwide and also in Florida: the surfing space is contested between genders. While women do not experience the violent consequences of localism, they are marginalized in this male-dominated space, so they have to be more assertive by establishing their territory (Booth, 2001, 2004; Comley, 2016). As Britty testified in Chapter 3, women are treated differently in this masculine territory. They are often patronized, being offered waves and overly congratulated because their physicality is perceived as lesser so that they are never authentic surfers but surfer girls who are allowed to play in a masculine space (Olive, McCuaig, & Phillips, 2015). Their strategies are to surf different beaches, surf set waves, and surf with women only (Comley, 2016, p. 7). A form of territoriality exists since women either find their own lesser space or invade a masculine territory. Nevertheless, women do not experience the negative effects of localism, like physical violence (Daskalos, 2007; Evers, 2004, 2009; Olive et al., 2015). That said, in the last 15 years, women have increasingly expended their surf territory and visibility, challenging the status quo. More women have claimed to feel supported by a tight community, and in most places, localism remains location-based rather than gender-based (Beaumont & Brown, 2016; Wheaton, 2004). Localism develops because of dynamic 3 Interviewed

on June 13, 2017.

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relationships between space appropriation, translocal4 mobility, cultural status, and a sense of belonging. Thus, localism has had an impact on people and cultural practices coming into contact with each other.

1.2

The Glocal Dynamics of Surfing

Surfers develop regional and national identities (Beal & Smith, 2013), and observing them makes it possible to understand the differences in representations and consumption patterns in what is known today as the glocal . The term was imported from the field of economics by Roland Robertson (1995), who used it in the social sciences to explain the subtleties that exist between the regional, or the local, and the global in sociocultural phenomena. It aimed to limit polarizing approaches that would see a kind of incompatibility between the local and the global. Glocalization then constitutes the global production of the regional and the establishment of the global in the regional. Even if my focus is on the Space Coast of Florida, it is impossible not to take the global dimension of surfing and surf music phenomena into account. The regional is the focal point, but it is also necessary to analyze the articulations of the local and the global in order to understand how identities are formed, evolve, transform, and assert themselves in response to the effects of economic, social, political, and cultural dynamics, nationally and globally. The term glocal , applied to sports and music, describes the appropriation of activities and music available globally and redefined at the regional level by communities like that of the Space Coast surfers. Studies on hip-hop have highlighted how communities imported and appropriated global discourses in their culture through a rhizomatic system (Knudsen, 2011, p. 89). Similarly, Space Coast surfers interact with the global surf culture by importing certain codes and practices but by constructing a glocal hybrid subculture, as shown by their practical, social, and aesthetic experiences, described in the rest of this work.

4Translocality refers to fluid interrelations between places and people. These interconnections are enabled by mobility and migrations and result in identity formations and sociocultural modifications (Greiner & Sakdapolrak, 2013).

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Temporary or Permanent Localisms of People and Cultures

In this dynamic of glocalization, surfing is part of a cultural movement, a term connoting the notions of temporality, direction, and displacement. If certain aspects of a culture can seem stable and immutable (like certain practices or beliefs), a living culture is mobile and directional (it is distributed along axes determined by spaces and moments favorable to its anchoring5 ). The notions of temporary and permanent localisms focus on space, time, and mobility. Applied to cultures, they track their movements and anchoring in given places and times. Thus, in this work, the notion of localism, usually applied to people, is affixed to cultural phenomena. A culture’s temporary localism marks a phenomenon limited in time and space (like rollerblading in the 1980s and 1990s), while permanent localism marks established practices operationalized and authenticated as constituting the local (like surfing in Florida). When the notions apply to people, temporary localism marks a movement back and forth between the source culture and its periphery (like tourists going to Florida to surf ). In contrast, in permanent localism, individuals anchor their practice in continuity, while allowing themselves to temporarily borrow practical or ideological attributes from other cultures (thus, maintaining a temporary relationship with these). Whether it applies to people or cultures, temporary localism remains so until a repetitive pattern can be systematized, allowing prediction, in which case localism becomes permanent. As far as cultures are concerned, the temporary phenomenon stems from a tension between an attempt to appropriate the global and limited approval or resistance from the regional. Permanent localism marks the anchoring of a unique practice and its legitimacy in the collective imagination of a given community. Accordingly, for surfing culture, permanent localism is reflected in the fact that surfing has become established in a sustainable manner in various spaces. It was imported from Hawaii to California, then

5This point will be developed later in Model two: the capacity to determine the chronological and directional characteristics of a culture that is observed makes it possible to establish a paradigm in the classification of cultures according to these aspects.

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migrated, creating new communities that became themselves sources of new settlements. In surfing, there is a real migratory project characterizing the culture itself but also its participants. For the culture, surfing in Florida is characterized by permanent localism, while the elements of its music seem to be set in temporary localism (see Model two). For participants, my interviewees were part of a permanent localism, but some survey respondents on the beach were part of a temporary localism. Floridian surfing is glocal because the mobility of the culture and its inclusion in a permanent localism can only be envisaged through the tension between the regional and the global. Glocalization is similar to a pendulum moving back and forth between the source culture and the target subculture.6 Floridian surfers maintain ties with California and Hawaii (source cultures for surf music and surfing) that can be economic, affective, or spiritual. The two models developed in this work explain these relationships and their corollaries. The first model is presented here.

2

Representing the Glocal Evolution of Surfing

2.1

Modeling: Rationale of a Sociolinguistic Transposition to Surfing Culture

Modeling does not seek the absolute transposition from one phenomenon to another, but rather, tries to explain certain of its articulations through theories already validated empirically. The Ultramarine model seeks to represent the evolution of subcultures from their source culture. Surfing subcultures are then understood in a dynamic of hybridization or creolization.7 It is the contact of cultures and languages that generates creolization: this is manifested through the Creole person, 6 Sociolinguistic

notions are used throughout this work to discuss cultures as linguistic and cultural phenomena through homology. While the concept of homology is implemented it this case, its application is criticized when applied to music and societies. 7The notions of hybrid and creole are generally synonymous in sociolinguistic studies (Cohen, 2007a, p. 4), so they are used interchangeably here.

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who, by definition, is a person born in the host territory but is of non-indigenous origin. Creoles are thus distinguished from natives and the source culture. The term creole means creation and suggests the combined notions of being formerly foreign and becoming local (Cohen, 2007b). It refers to an entity that has created its own modes of expression by including the practices of a lifestyle, as well as its musical expression, and its various modes of consumption. The Creole language must be distinguished from the socio-historical phenomenon of creolization that caused it (Aboh & deGraff, 2016). Thus, in Model one, Hawaiian surfing is the source culture, and Floridian surfing, the result of creolization, transposed here according to its sociolinguistic principles. In Model one, new cultures and cultural expressions are conceivable on their own terms and are marked by their own history, turning them into sorts of primary languages.8 I do not use the notion of diasporic cultural form because it suggests a refusal to assimilate to the host culture. The focus is on the phenomena of creolization of certain cultural forms that take into account the host environment and its effects on the source culture. New identities are formed in new locations in continuation with history and according to new conditions (Negus & Velázquez, 2002, p. 138). So surfing left Hawaii to establish itself in the United States without breaking historical ties with its insular origins, but by including new sociocultural parameters relating to the continent. This process echoes key concepts developed in this work: cultural acquisition (Model two) and glocalization, according to which regional cultures are perceived in relationship with other cultures, and as a whole. Furthermore, since the evolution of cultures depends on their capacity to create meaning in relation to geographical spaces, as a paradigm, creolization poses the relationship between cultures and globalization. Creolization does not occur according to a single root pattern with limited dependent extensions, but as a rhizomatic pattern, unlimited and continuously growing in diverse spaces. It is also in these terms that the question of 8There is a distinction between Pidgin and Creole, the definitions of which help to understand the status I give to surfing in the dynamics of creolization. Pidgins are used for “vertical commands” whereas Creoles are “horizontal languages” (Cohen, 2007a, p. 6). In this homology, cultures become primary languages as opposed to Pidgins forced into reduced spaces and a lower status.

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identity is dealt with here since Model one consists in showing that the frontiers of cultures and identities constitute a liminal zone that is mobile and porous at the same time. Many studies have shown lifestyle sports’ potential for creolization in the ethnic, cultural, technical, and industrial spheres (Laderman, 2014; Snyder, 2011; Warren & Gibson, 2014; Wheaton, 2004, 2013). When a practice moves and mixes with local culture by borrowing stylistic elements from both the host and source cultures, creolization happens. These hybrid cultures bring out new identities that are monopolized by individuals, then reshaped to meet regional needs. Images, representations, and meanings circulate, are often recovered by individuals and industries (cultural or other), then are reused. The Floridian surf lifestyle is a hybrid form of global surfing because it has been reconfigured according to the needs of its participants who have adjusted its representations, aesthetics, and expressive forms. Mobility concerns individuals, but also ideas and cultures—the latter move with populations or through contact between an individual and a culture that has become a source. Cultures are subject to temporary and permanent mobility. When the inhabitants of a region practice a culture from elsewhere and this culture ends up anchoring itself in the host environment, it becomes a new form of itself, a creole or a hybrid. Before anchoring occurs, the first waves of local participants must undergo a preliminary phase of active determinism: they make choices and adopt new practices (see Model two). An imported and assimilated culture is initially a second culture that settles in a long-term temporality and becomes the culture of origin, or first culture, of new generations. Once this introduction has passed, the imported culture becomes a sort of creole of the source culture, hence the creolization of cultures and the name of the model.9 These hybrid cultures are pendular, that is to say, they maintain a link with the source culture. That said, they, too, can generate hybrids depending on the mobility of their participants and on exogenous contacts within their community. As is the case for languages, it is necessary with imported cultures to take into account the status of 9The model itself and its name are inspired by my own experience as a Creole from a French Island, Reunion Island, and by my own research in Applied Linguistics.

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other cultures involved, and to pay attention to phenomena of cultural diglossia 10 since a variable hierarchy of cultures may exist. In Florida, surfing is a recent practice, but already a primary culture for many. As a sport and way of life including surf music, it is a culture with its own codes and discourses. As a hybrid, Floridian surfing subculture is the result of a selection and rejection process of cultural elements deemed appropriate or not. The musical repertoires and the practices of individuals evolve according to encounters made via the mobility or migratory experiences of participants, and through them, of the subculture itself.

2.2

Borrowing from Sociolinguistic Terminology

At this point, a few definitions will help clarify the rationale that draws homology between the cultures of surfing and surf music, and the socio-historical and linguistic phenomenon of creolization. Creole is considered a full-fledged language like French, for example (Chaudenson, 2002). The difference lies in the status of the two languages: French as an official language does not need assertion to exist, while Creoles, not officially recognized, are only spoken in specific places and must maintain their status against attempts to homogenize societies. The precarious situation of Creoles has given rise to a desire among their speakers to assert belonging to cultures associated with them in order to affirm and maintain the status of Creole among speakers who identify with these languages (their first language). By applying these linguistic definitions to surfing culture, it is possible to show how Floridian surfing was built according to the context in which it developed. Indeed, like Creole, the subculture suffers from the beliefs of superiority of global surfing culture and of places where surfing has become almost official. However, the statuses of official and unofficial cultures are human constructions, not states of nature. Therefore, Model one makes it possible to understand the status of the Floridian surf subculture in the global space, and it also makes it possible to define its contours in order to better understand, on the one hand, the affective 10 Diglossia

is a linguistic term which refers to the social inequality of languages.

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and cognitive relationships that its participants maintain with it, and on the other hand, phenomena of identity markings.

2.3

Articulations of Model One: Surfing Culture, from Hawaii to Florida

In Model one, surfing culture proceeded from a starting point that formed its basis, Hawaii. This is where the culture was born and developed into a way of life. Mobile populations, either leaving the base or stopping over, have moved the culture with them. Surfing culture established itself in its new environment, the United States, via groups and individuals mastering the codes at the native level. It kept elements of the source culture while appropriating elements of the host culture. The new cultural variety and its expression have developed according to several factors: socio-historical, linguistic, psychosocial, and cultural. The creolized or hybridized culture is learned as a first or second culture depending on the learner’s exposure to the culture, as illustrated by Model two in Chapter 7 (I will draw a parallel with the acquisition of the Creole language, which depends on the combination of the following elements: the learner’s profile, the frequency of exposure to Creole, and the native contribution or lack thereof ). Once the anchoring of surfing culture was successful, it adapted to its new environment. Doing so, it developed a hybrid mode of expression, surf music, that borrowed from local and dominant discourses. This process was the first step in the creolization of American surfing, that migrated from Hawaii to develop in California and create a new mode of expression adapted to the local culture. This new base continued the process of creolization by repeating the phenomenon in Florida. Through this model, it is possible to show that the various subcultures of surfing are the result of the creolization of a culture that gave birth to its own modes of expression.

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3

Creolization of Surfing and Surf Music

3.1

From Hawaiian Surfing to Its Floridian Appropriation

The creolization of surfing and surf music are explained here according to a synthesis of the creolization models of languages and cultures presented in the work of linguist Bettina Migge (2003). Understanding the creolization of Hawaiian surfing on the American continent requires a summary of the socio-historical context of contact between the Hawaiian surfing culture and those who have reclaimed it. Americans became interested in the Hawaiian Islands very early. The Hawaiian territory was annexed or appropriated before surfing was because it offered Americans an exotic experience at once part and apart from their territory (Desmond, 1999, p. 84). Surfing as a cultural performance was first shared between Hawaiians and Westerners in Hawaii (Laderman, 2014; Lemarié, 2016a, 2016b; Walker, 2011). After the contact period (1786–1820), while Calvinists condemned surfing, some Europeans saw it as a sound practice worth being protected (Lemarié, 2016b). Surfing seemed to have almost disappeared from Hawaiian practice. Alexander Hume Ford was credited (or credited himself ) for reinventing the supposedly declining practice of surfing through his articles and the writings of his friend Jack London,11 in the English language. As research has shown, Hawaiian writings were translated too late to tell the world that surfing, he’e nalu,12 was never abandoned by natives and had been an active act of resistance against American colonialism (Clark, 2011; Silva, 2004; Walker, 2011). Even though Romantic writers had glorified Hawaiians and their practice in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, a foreign idea of surfing made its way to the mainland, one that already conceived it as modern surfing, a new form of ancestral surfing (Lemarié, 2016b). In the early twentieth century, wealthy Americans visited the archipelago in 11 In his travelogue, Jack London famously described surfing as “a royal sport for the natural kings of earth” (1911, chap. VI). In reality, all members of the Hawaiian society surfed, including women (Walker, 2011; Warren & Gibson, 2014). 12 In Hawaiian, the verb he’e nalu means to surf waves. As a noun, it means a surfer (Clark, 2011, p. 198).

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hopes of trying the new sport that native beachboys taught. The EuroAmerican representation of surfing rested on the image of these gentle, almost naive or primitive natives providing surfing lessons to women (Desmond, 1999, p. 127)—a form of ideal for nostalgic mainlanders. While surfing was difficult at first for haoles,13 a few individuals were able to master it and bring it back with them to the mainland United States. Thus, the first contact took place on the archipelago between a few individuals, but it was when it was imported to the continent that the process of creolization took place. Some Hawaiians were assisted in their mobility to introduce and develop surfing on the American continent. This is where the second contact between the Hawaiian culture and continental cultures took place, at a time favorable to the adoption of the practice in California. The context of emergence and expansion of the subculture on American soil is the manifestation of the creolization of Hawaiian surf culture. At this time, the distribution of power between the various agents was uneven. Indeed, surfing was a novelty that met certain social needs for interaction, expression, and creation, which diverged from a frame of reference that was being dissolved, but it was also a minority culture, a subculture. Thus, the hybrid culture first developed in California’s multicultural context, then in the rest of the continent and the world. The multiculturalism of California and Florida were both already marked by ethnic and linguistic pluralities (predominantly Anglophone and Hispanic in both cases), and sociocultural practices, such as rock, automobiles, or tourism, which combined, have accelerated the creolization of surfing. In the contact between an imported culture and local but diverse traditions, some elements were retained, while others were not according to the needs of the new users. Among elements coming from Hawaiian surfing, the technique as well as surfboard manufacturing methods were retained but quickly improved upon for ease of use and to meet the needs of an expanding surfing economy (Warren & Gibson, 2014). The traditional and linguistic elements were mostly lost: surfing was no longer associated with its ancestral Hawaiian origins, and English became the lingua franca of surfing. Therefore, in the reconfiguration of 13 A

haole is a foreigner (Silva, 2004, p. 12).

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the culture, there were structural elements common to the source culture and to the hybrids, as well as universal elements of socialization since the new subcultures made it possible to create social bonds, where they were established. The physical transfer from one region to another, from one local culture to another, from one society to another, necessarily creates sociocultural, linguistic, cognitive, and emotional upheavals that participants negotiate within the subculture. The elements of the source culture that have been retained are interpreted and reformulated; others are imagined or created, suggesting a cultural palimpsest (a point developed in the next chapter). The reformulation of a culture goes hand in hand with the necessity and the need of participants to be part of a shared history, that paradoxically they wish to be singular and not stigmatized (Ricky Carroll). It is even possible to speak of a form of emancipation from the source culture. Dustin14 explained some differences between Hawaiian and Floridian surfers regarding localism; thus, the treatment of otherness: Florida is really, really different. I guess the polar opposite to Florida would be like Hawaii… Hawaii is really, really localized, and it kinda had to become that way, I think, because of all the people, because it’s such a Mecca for surfing, so they have to kinda… If you actually live there, you have to stand up for your turf, I guess, your own turf. And we have some of that, at some of, like the key spots, like Sebastian Inlet, and New Smyrna, and Stewarts Rocks, and things like that, but it’s not anywhere near the scale that it is there… And it’s just the influence of Floridians, like the people who surf. Florida is such a diverse place, like everybody ends up there from all around the country, particularly like the east coast, from New York, from Canada, from all over. They all end up coming to Florida, so it’s just this melting pot that mixed in with the southern culture, some of the rednecks.

As Dustin explained, the behavior of surfers reflects the influence of local Floridian cultures and traditions. Beyond human aspects, Floridian

14 Interviewed

on September 10, 2016.

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surfers have developed a particular behavior in connection with the geography of the peninsula and therefore in response to the lack of waves. For Ricky Carroll, surfers are literally starving (they are hungry for waves): People get crazy, I mean, when the surf ’s flat for a month, and there’s talk of a swell coming, and it’s this big [one foot] and they’re talking about it being 10 feet, you know, it’s like ‘you guys are crazy, you guys are nuts!’ They’re like, ‘no, it was really good and you missed it!’ I take off work and everything, and you go up and look at it and it’s like… You’re surf starved, your mind is telling you it’s better than it is…

Music is one of the results of the contact between the source culture of surfing and the host cultures of California in the 1960s, and Ricky Carroll considered that it constitutes an alternative to the lack of waves on the Floridian coasts (a point developed in Chapter 9).

3.2

From Californian Sounds to the Hybrids of Surf Music

Iconic surf music is in itself a form of musical hybrid born from the contact between surf, rock, and the Californian youth of the 1960s. However, surf music has not been confined to an enclosed space or a definite genre. Surf music underwent creolization by following the movements of surfing and going to places where the sport was not practiced, like the American Midwest (Chidester & Priore, 2008). In the case of Florida, the strong influence of both Caribbean and country music characterized the contact setting’s socio-historical nature. The context of emergence was directly linked to the surf activity and the economic expansion resulting from the development of tourism in the region. Surf music made it possible to establish a way of life by giving surfers, a cultural minority, the possibility to be a part of the local but also to express themselves as Floridian surfers because their hybrid surf music developed within a multicultural, multi-linguistic, and multi-ethnic situation, as well as amid a considerable variety of musical genres. In line with the phenomenon of creolization, certain elements of iconic surf music have been retained and others not: the influences of Dick Dale

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and punk have been constant until today, as have certain themes linked to the ocean or the youth revolt. Nevertheless, what is also obvious is the aesthetic contribution of Caribbean cultures in the formation of this hybrid surf music. While 1960s surf music was designed from the start as a Californian phenomenon set in the broader American culture, it has also always been characterized by mobility and the dissemination of its practices and symbols. Thus, surf music has brought surfing to places devoid of waves. In the two creolization phenomena of surfing and surf music, there is a tension between rooting and movement specific to the mobility of people and cultures.15

4

Emergence of a Regionally Adapted Musical Repertoire

4.1

Geomusicality: Configuration of a Hybrid Surf Music

The processes of creolization of surfing and surf music being diachronically established, the following paragraphs explain how the strand of Floridian surfing comprising the elements of style, local cultures, and environment, have generated a musical repertoire adapted to the needs of surfers. I borrow from Elsa Grassy (2010), the notion of geomusicality to explain the semantic coordination between space and music. Music associated with a defined place, as in the case of surf music and California, would be synonymous with aesthetic authenticity, while its displacement would mark a lack of authenticity. This perspective pertains to the problem of the representation of iconic surf music and its hybrids. Geomusicality implies the imaginary construction of music used by a region’s inhabitants for their expressive needs and the economic needs of the place (like tourism). In order to explain the configuration of hybrid Floridian surf music, the following paragraphs take stock of the problems of semantic and aesthetic coordination of imported music, the low 15The

dialectic of rooting and movement is discussed in detail in the next chapter.

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aesthetic valence of local music, and the regional stylistic consensus that exists on the Space Coast. Imported music is understood as not being produced by local artists. Its mobility, linked to its (emerging) popularity, gives it privileged access to the glocal scene. This music is part of the process of creolization in the same way a dominant language is in a multilingual context. That is, it becomes more popular not because it is local but because it is functional and meets the aesthetic and emotional expectations of the places in which it is promoted. It is with this type of music not classified as surf music that surf music is hybridized: its semantics and its aesthetics are coordinated with the new context. Thus, music imported into Florida does not absolutely correspond to the iconic, even paradigmatic, model of surf music. The aesthetics of the very concept of surf music are modified; the consumption modes, and the selection and validation processes become hybrids. As in the process of linguistic creolization, the aesthetic reconfiguration of surf music involves the maintenance of certain traditional, semantic, and functional elements according to the needs of a local conscience. It is, therefore, important to remember that creolization is a process that is neither fixed nor final (Ménil, 2009). The valence given to texts and styles at a given time and space creates an endless glocal hybridization that makes any musical form included in this process viable. The music that my informants loved was very diverse and did not always match the paradigm of surf music. Dustin explained that it was difficult to say what he preferred in terms of music because his tastes were varied and because music evolves: “I have such a wide… Let’s see, I like… What am I into right now… It would have to be Cotton Johns, A Tribe Called Quest, and then somebody reggae, probably Culture.” Respectively, the music imported into Dustin’s musical repertoire comes from Maryland, New York, and Jamaica, and represents various styles, including psychedelic pop, hip-hop, and reggae. Their reallocation highlights the process of creolization of surf music, understood here as a movement whose existence is intrinsically linked to the musical consumption of communities of surfers. In the case of local surf music (emanating from artists recognized as regional surf bands), hybridization is intended to be semantic and stylistic by composing with the traditional elements of surf music and

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local cultures. This music’s weak presence in my interviewees’ musical repertoires is the result of several factors: artists are confined to the place in which they emerged, and they either imitate iconic surf music or create music that does not find its place in the community. When asked what surf music was for them, my interviewees mentioned, without great conviction, the artists whose style corresponded to the paradigm: Ricky Carroll : Dany Morris is the first one that comes to mind. He plays in that Dick Dale’s style, so it’s really easy to call him surf music because he plays in that style. Bart Kelly: There’s this guy Bill, right here, Bill Surf [laugh]. Is he the best? Is he, you know… I could tell you he lives the life. Ricky Carroll : The band that Bill plays in, just older guys, just kinda chill surf music. There’s all kinds of bands around here that pretty much call themselves surf music. Bart Kelly: Here, you can have that [Bart hands me the CD]. He’s also spacey surf [laugh]. He’s off his record! Ricky Carroll : But his whole style 100% was influenced by what original surf music was before punk, before all that, you know, it was The Beach Boys and Dick Dale, and that’s who he is, totally, totally, kind of tiki surf. He’s just coming at it from a different angle, he put his spin on it but it’s still, you can tell how he plays that he’s trying to emulate that sound. Bart Kelley: He’s put this spin on it, that tiki surf…

The terms used to describe local surf bands were derived from assumptions (it must be surf music since the sounds correspond to the paradigm), or they did not engage my informants’ opinion since “they call themselves surf music.” Finally, their style is often a pure imitation of iconic surf music moderated by attempts at acculturation. So local surf bands can be perceived as imitators or talentless artists, but sometimes, the local scene is simply unknown: I kinda feel like I’m out of, like the local music scene ‘cause I don’t go out to a lot of bars So I feel like you see those guys in local stuff, if you go to bars and kinda follow it. But I know that there’s a band that, growing up, they were called Elevated and they were kinda like a ska, Sublimesque kinda band, and I know there’s hundreds of them all around. I know

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there’s some good ones. I just don’t really know them, I don’t really follow. (Dustin)

Despite his love for music and his awareness of the buzzing of a quality local scene, Dustin is not interested in it. These artists fit perfectly into the so-called style they are supposed to represent, and their qualities as musicians are recognized. On the other hand, their artistic qualities, which make them creators and revealers of consciences, do not qualify them to belong to the informants’ musical repertoires. Consequently, local music rarely has the necessary strength to develop into a rhizome and generate creolization processes. Regionalization prevents these artists from competing against glocal musical hybrids. Surfers feel compelled to recognize these artists because of their physical and cultural proximity, but they do not include them in their repertoires because the artists cannot harmonize with the aesthetic and emotional range of local surfers. Despite the formal diversity of the musical repertoires of my interviewees, they share some commonalities. Firmly anchored in its Caribbean environment, Floridian surf music built by surfers presents a stylistic constant, mixing reggae elements to that of southern rock. Surf music is caught in a sort of stylistic vice-like grip determined to the south by the Caribbean influence of reggae and to the north by southern rock16 — a derivative of rock, country, and blues that are very popular in the southern states. It should be noted that while Florida is south geographically, the state is no longer considered to be part of the “American South” because first, the majority of its population comes from elsewhere, second, its culture reflects both the values of the south and those of the Caribbean, third, it is a state open to the world thanks to tourism (Revels, 2011). Representative groups of southern rock are mostly from states like Texas, Mississippi, or Georgia, and Dustin recognized the presence of these bands in Florida: “some of the surf bands that we have are from Florida, they have a southern influence to them. Even the more punk-rock stuff that people like, yeah, ASG was one of them. ASG was southern rock mixed with surf rock. So that’s unique to the south, for sure.” Despite the presence of southern rock, reggae remains a backstory 16 Southern

rock is a heterogeneous style developed during the 1960s and 1970s.

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common to all the personal repertoires of surfers, as suggested by the selection of artists for Sonny’s Porch concerts, the Rootfire Festival, the aesthetic orientations of Lance-O, Bart Kelley’s radio program, Sun Bum Positive Sunday, and the logo of Ricky Carroll’s company: “surf, skate, punk, and reggae.” In this regard, Ricky Carroll conceded that for him, these were the central values of surfing: “At least here. If you go to other areas, it’s different. The reggae thing is kind of a south thing. When you know, you go up north, and they don’t consider that surf music.” In addition to its expressive and cohesive qualities representing communities of surfers, surf music overlaps physical frontiers.

4.2

Toward an Ethos of Surfing: The Lifestyle Crossover

The ethos of surfing, or its fundamental character, can be identified in its multiple versions through the hybrids of surf music, the underlying elements of which can translate affects, regional beliefs and traditions, as well as shared sports and aesthetic practices between and within various surfing communities. The surf ethos is often qualified as counter-cultural because of participants’ clothing and musical styles for instance (Rinehart & Thorpe, 2013); however, while there are many universal or universalizing dispositions of surfing, there is also an ethos of surfing stemming from the processes of creolization that have been developed thus far. Lance-O17 talked about musical hybridization due to a large number of diverse regional characteristics within Florida: As far as scenes, you have to remember too, Florida is different. Tallahassee is very different than Miami you know, and Orlando is very different than Titusville, you know what I mean. … I would say three quarters of Florida is one of four things: it’s top 40, it’s country, it’s rock, it’s pop. Then you go south, you’ve got the Latin mix, you’ve got the Caribbean mix, they’re very prevalent markets. So you know, just in Florida alone, it’s different and there’s so much hybrid music. Everything is interbred with one another, you know. It’s hard to find pure breeds of

17 Interviewed

on January 16, 2016.

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anyone kind of music anymore. Everything is truly one genre. But you know, some of the biggest stuff in the world is several styles together.

The character of Floridian surf music, as described by Lance-O, is of such a variety that it becomes plural. It mirrors the structure of the community of Floridian surfers: individuals of diverse origins who have developed an inclusive practice and aesthetic of surfing and surf music. The ethos of Floridian surfing clearly shows the fluid nature of surf music, which cannot be confined to a given style, place, or period. Bart Kelly, for example, found it very difficult to define surf music exclusively because he was torn, like other informants, between the need to respond to the universal paradigm of surf music and the need to represent his own vision of music that characterized him as a surfer: Sometimes it’s kinda tricky and it’s kinda hard because you play the Ramones, or you play punk rock bands, that has nothing to do with surfing, but it has everything to do with surfing. Because, earlier, you know, you would watch videos, if it was skate or surf, once again that’s how you were introduced to music, and vice versa, so to me, surf music… I love Dick Dale, I love surf dance, but to me surf music is punk-rock because I grew up through that era in that stage where every video that you watched was a punk rock band playing…

The ethos of surfing as it emerges through surf music is, therefore, that of a lifestyle crossover18 that is fundamentally intimate, creative, inclusive, and optimistic. It is more than a counter-culture; it is the affirmation of a self that does not necessarily adhere to the paradigm but offers something new and adapted to a singular context. In that regard, Sean Slater19 clarified what he had said about the rationale of his Slater Brothers project, that he defined as a “lifestyle crossover”: Sean Slater: Well, I’ve known nothing but growing surfing my whole life with my family, and I was trying to crossover into, you know, basically 18The

expression is borrowed from Sean Slater. It very accurately represents the characterization of the Floridian lifestyle and surf music proposed here, which are constituted thanks to the crossing of various aesthetic and cultural practices. 19 Interviewed on June 7, 2017.

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your family life, not just surfing but fishing, camping, and surfing for a foundation… Just to make it simple because I think every family is involved in that. Barjolin-Smith: In the same article, you said ‘Our surfing lifestyle is made up of much more than just surfing, which the majority of Florida and East Coast surfers live in their daily routines…’ You did not mention music, but do you include it in the daily routine? Can you elaborate? Sean Slater: Absolutely, I mean, it’s like the religious part of it… I think all surfers have their, you know… Music is a huge part of their day. You see guys going on their heats, and they’re hopping around… I mean, music has always made my hair tingle, even though I don’t have much anymore… [laugh]. It was probably as big a part of surfing as surfing was… Music was such a hobby, you don’t even realize how much it means to you. Getting older and then getting into the marketing part of surfing, that’s when I really started getting into the inner core of music… I met a lot of bands, I met a lot of successful musicians, and um, you know, then it became… It was amazing.

For Sean Slater, music is akin to the spiritual and ritual aspects of the lifestyle. Surfing is to be undertaken with the various components of the life of a waterman and with music because the subculture is a lifestyle crossover whose practical, cultural, social, and aesthetic aspects are subject to the processes of creolization, a consequence of the mobility of surfing and surf music. The next chapter illustrates the notion of mobility conceptualized here, as it is implemented in the ethno-aesthetics of surfing and as it manifests itself in the ethos of Floridian surfing.

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Daskalos, C. T. (2007). Locals only! The impact of modernity on a local surfing context. Sociological Perspectives, 50 (1), 155–173. https://doi.org/10.1525/ sop.2007.50.1.155. Desmond, C. J. (1999). Staging tourism: Bodies on display from Waikiki to Sea World . Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Evers, C. (2004). Men who surf. Cultural Studies Review, 10 (1), 27–41. Evers, C. (2009). ‘The Point’: Surfing, geography and a sensual life of men and masculinity on the Gold Coast. Australia. Social & Cultural Geography, 10 (8), 893–908. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649360903305783. Grassy, E. (2010). Le lieu musical: Du texte à l’espace, un itinéraire sémantique. Poétique des catégories géographiques dans les musiques populaires américaines (1920–2007). Doctoral thesis. Université Paris-Sorbonne. Greiner, C., & Sakdapolrak, P. (2013). Translocality: Concepts, applications and emerging research perspectives. Geography Compass, 7 (3), 373–384. Kaffine, D. T. (2009). Quality and the commons: The Surf Gangs of California. The Journal of Law and Economics, 52(4), 727–743. https://doi.org/ 10.1086/605293. Knudsen, J. S. (2011). Music of the multiethnic minority: A postnational perspective. Music and Arts in Action, 3(3), 77–91. Laderman, S. (2014). Empire in waves: A political history of surfing. Berkeley: University of California Press. Lanagan, D. (2002). Surfing in the third millennium: Commodifying the visual argot. The Australian Journal of Anthropology, 13(3), 283–291. Lemarié, J. (2016a). Genèse d’un système global surf Regards comparés des Hawai‘i à la Californie: Traditions, villes, tourismes, et subcultures (1778–2016). Doctoral thesis. Université Paris Ouest Nanterre La Défense. Lemarié, J. (2016b). Debating on cultural performances of Hawaiian surfing in the 19th century. Journal de La Société Des Océanistes, 142–143, 159–174. https://doi.org/10.4000/jso.7625. London, J. (1911). The cruise of the Snark. London: The Macmillan Company. Ménil, A. (2009). La créolisation, un nouveau paradigme pour penser l ’identité? Rue Descartes, 66 (4), 8. https://doi.org/10.3917/rdes.066.0008. Migge, B. (2003). Creole formation as language contact: The case of the Suriname Creoles. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Negus, K., & Velázquez, P. R. (2002). Belonging and detachment: Musical experience and the limits of identity. Poetics, 30, 133–145. Olive, R., McCuaig, L., & Phillips, M. G. (2015). Women’s recreational surfing: A patronising experience. Sport, Education and Society, 20 (2), 258–276. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2012.754752.

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Olivier, S. (2013). “Your wave, bro!”: Virtue ethics and surfing. In The consumption and representation of lifestyle sports (pp. 167–177). Abingdon: Routledge. Revels, J. T. (2011). Sunshine paradise: A history of Florida Tourism. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. Rinehart, E. R., & Thorpe, H. (2013). Alternative sport and affect: Nonrepresentational theory examined. In B. Wheaton (Ed.), The consumption and representation of lifestyle sports (pp. 212–235). Abingdon: Routledge. Robertson, R. (1995). Glocalization: Time-space and homogeneityheterogeneity. In M. Featherstone, S. Lash, & R. Robertson (Eds.), Global modernities (pp. 25–44). London: Sage. Silva, K. N. (2004). Aloha betrayed: Native Hawaiian resistance to American Colonialism. Durham: Duke University Press. Snyder, B. C. (2011). A secret history of the ollie (2nd ed.). Delray Beach: Black Salt Press. Usher, L. E. (2017). “Foreign locals”: Transnationalism, expatriates, and surfer identity in Costa Rica. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 41(3), 212–238. https://doi.org/10.1177/0193723517705542. Walker, I. H. (2011). Waves of resistance: Surfing and history in twentieth-century Hawai’i. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Warren, A., & Gibson, C. (2014). Surfing places, surfboards makers: Craft, creativity, and cultural heritage in Hawai’i, California, and Australia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Wheaton, B. (Ed.). (2004). Understanding lifestyle sports: Consumption, identity and difference. London: Routledge. Wheaton, B. (Ed.). (2013). The consumption and representation of lifestyle sports. Abingdon: Routledge.

6 Contextualizing Ethno-Aesthetic Mobilities: Toward Floridian Surfing and Surf Music

The concept of cultural hybridization being clarified and implemented, it is now possible to analyze the challenges of the mobility issue in the subculture of Floridian surfing, which does not only constitute a sporting practice but is also a set of sociocultural experiences explored in this work through surf music. This analysis will logically lead to the implementation of Model two on the phases of cultural appropriation by placing it in its conceptual environment. That is, on the one hand, the potential for the mobility of cultures, and on the other hand, the appropriation of which they are the object, and that results from their typologies (internal characteristics of cultures responding to the needs of certain communities). In order to unveil the meaning of these cultural movements, it is appropriate here to contextualize the notion of ethno-aesthetic mobility (outlining the trajectory of a culture from its place of origin, its course, and its reception in new conditions marked by regional aesthetics) by looking back at the processes of cultural hybridization. The objective is to understand the psychosocial challenges of the appropriation dynamics of cultures migrating and interacting with other cultures.

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Connections and Distinctions Within Surfing and Surf Music

The notions of connection and distinction are essential to understanding the movement of cultures. Contact occurs when two cultural entities, whether from the same family or not (music, sports, etc.), meet, intertwine, create anchor points, and share commonalities. There is separation when two entities differentiate by disqualifying each other, either because the differences are too marked to be reconcilable, or because they are not marked enough and the association is not desirable—in this case, cultural agents seek to accentuate their differences (Azzi & Klein, 2013; Deschamps & Moliner, 2008). Therefore, the notions of connection and distinction imply movements between closeness and distance. These phenomena are observable in the culture of surfing through the implementation of the practice (a geographic space corresponds to a specific approach to surfing), and the way of life (a cultural space defines an aura). Thus, surf music is also one of the illustrations of the movements of connection and distancing vis-à-vis the source culture. Note that the term connection refers to identification, while distancing refers to the rejection of belonging. Within human communities, these two notions can be observed in discourses, nationalities, aesthetic representations, and social behavior, illustrated in the formation of networks. Furthermore, preserving the continuity of spatio-temporal links between a source (or original) culture and a hybrid can involve the construction of a lived or imagined genealogy, thus generating a sort of mythology. In the Floridian surfing subculture, this is illustrated by borrowing a form of intertextuality resembling cultural and identity bricolage1 composing an original account for the peninsula. These stories are comparable to myths whose foundation must be marked to legitimize

1The notion of bricolage is understood here in accord with the definition given by Claude LeviStrauss (1962) in The Savage Mind : “the characteristic of mythical thought, as of ‘bricolage’ on the practical plane, is that it builds up structured sets, not directly with other structured sets but by using the remains and debris of events” (p. 14). Residues and debris are here directly connected to the distance between the source culture and the hybrid culture. For Sayeux (2005), by building their universe through bricolage, surfers create social ties and belonging networks (pp. 232–233).

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a discourse partly imagined, but lived as real. For mythologists, one of the essential functions of the myth is to establish a genealogy in order to acquire prestigious ancestors (Bénard, 2009; Paul, 2014). A subculture as young as that of American surfing (born in the 1960s) has, from the start, created its own mythology through a genealogy intrinsically linked to Hawaii, and a continental destiny whose trajectory was to be set by Californian Aeneas and Ulysses, transmitters of knowledge and founders of new surfing nations. There is not one but several mythologies, and the world of surfing has, since the 1960s, forged various imaginaries even if the iconic myth remains the dominant one. Each region cultivates an artistic imaginary deeply rooted in the intimacy of a strong culture and identity claims, which can sometimes illustrate national manifestations. Surf culture has given life to alternative subcultures whose discourses are much more complex than the monolithic representation in which they have been enclosed.

1.1

Revisionism: Surfing and Surf Music as US Exceptions

Cultural patriotism comes into play in the movements of connection and distinction. Identification is a feeling of belonging awakened during the relationship with a (sub)culture at key moments for the participant (Walker, 2017). This sense of connection can occur during sports competitions where individuals belong to a group that represents them and that they represent, or when a local entity is recognized beyond regional borders (claiming proximity to these entities grants individuals the primacy of belonging). This feeling of exception founds the desire to build a story around a singularity or an exception, here surfing and surf music as American exceptions. The story is built on selected moments that must be told based on their very subjective relevance. This is why it is accurate to speak of plural histories because choices are necessarily made according to the wishes of those who build them. These choices concern the quantity and quality of information and the way in which it is presented. The history of surfing as an American exception born in Hawaii, developed in California, and adopted by the rest of the world is a

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revision, a conjecture firmly anchored in collective memory (Laderman, 2014). Many informants (survey respondents and interviewees) considered that, on the one hand, there are differences of perception between California and Florida on what surf music is, and on the other hand, that California has imposed its legitimacy as a state of surfing very early, using surf bands as propagators of this image. Most informants could not find a satisfying definition of surf music because the consensual definition seemed too broad and not representative of their lifestyle. They were also aware that The Beach Boys, for instance, helped to introduce a Californian representation of surfing to rural America (this is also one of the ways Bart Kelley was introduced to it growing up in Indiana), but the band did not translate or resonate with their surfing experience as Floridians. Therefore, it is necessary to question this consensus and determine the relationship that Floridian surfers have with this story that stigmatizes or forgets them, in order to restore the community’s place in the history of surfing. Surfing and surf music are, in the collective imagination, historically American. The surfer’s image refers to a white, blond, athletic Californian male from the 1960s to the present day. It is the one that has been described in American movies from The Endless Summer (Brown, 1966) to Point Break (Bigelow, 1991); it is the dream that is sold by the big brands of surfing but also by any company using surfing as a marketing background, like Coca Cola or Apple (Brower, 2015). The history of surfing and its music is, in this respect, similar to the history of other popular American cultural movements, such as jazz or country: they are given the status of American exceptions (Mann, 2008). In the collective mind, if country artists are not American, then they are not authentic and become exceptions whose music requires the attribution of an epithet, like French country. Surf music faces the same problem because it is intrinsically Californian, therefore American. The definitive history of surf music generally focuses on the contributions of Dick Dale or The Beach Boys, and this idealized discourse on iconic artists is one of the factors that has helped shape the well established canon of this so-called style. Even surfers, like Ricky Carroll,2 adhere to this consensus 2 Interviewed

on June 13, 2017.

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despite themselves. Indeed, the standard dictated by the collective imagination substitutes his speech for Ricky Carroll who does not consider the two bands he plays in as surf bands because they do not correspond to the label imposed by a certain American thought of what constitutes surf music: Classic rock and blues never really was considered surf music. Some of the alternative stuff was, if you look back at the old surf videos and stuff, a lot of it is, you know, ASG, and Pennywise3 … It was, you know, a lot of punk in the early surf videos, so you can classify that as more surf music than classic rock.

In his discourse, Ricky Carroll used the passive voice, which disengaged his opinion and placed the conversation in a bygone past. Without having carried out a self-examination of his own practices, Ricky Carroll excluded himself from an iconic classification that no longer corresponds to the reality of contemporary surf music. However, another informant made the difference between the Floridian and Californian surf music scenes: “a classic rock or Jimmy Buffet kinda island, no worries kinda music is big in Florida… California is very, I mean, SoCal.” To break away from the iconic monopoly, we must also break away from the consensus about it. The romanticized discourses on iconic surf music have been reinforced by rhetoric of authenticity firmly anchored in the canonization of specific geographical spaces: California, and specifically Huntington Beach. The discourse that consists of exclusively geolocating and ethnicizing a single origin of surfing and surf music is challenged, as the cultural movements are allocated multiple and equally legitimate spaces. While stereotypes make it possible to say “I know,” the goal here is to go beyond this consensual and superficial knowledge. I claim a new revised discourse insofar as the crossed history of surfing and surf music was made on the minimization, even the negating of preand post-Californian narratives (Daskalos, 2007). So the new revisionist moment is necessary because the canonical representations of surfing 3 ASG

is a metal group originally from North Carolina. Pennywise is a punk-rock band from California. The latter seems particularly popular among Baby Boomers and Generation X in Florida.

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and surf music can be deconstructed to reveal the wealth of these two phenomena. This change starts with addressing the anticipation that lies in the nomenclature: it is not necessary to specify Californian/American surf music because it is implicit; it is what we expect from these terms.4 So there is a clear need for both entities to allow themselves to recognize the creativity of others, by others, which is what Sean Slater5 did during his interview: “Australia has better surf music than we do. I think, I mean they always did. They had a band called Rose Tattoo that I really loved.” All kinds of parallels can be drawn in situations where an entity would assert itself as the legitimate and dominant authority over any other creative enterprise. Surfing and surf music remain under the memory umbrella of California and the United States. Furthermore, the problem encountered by alternative postures is that they remain fundamentally inserted into dominant stereotypical discourses. In the United States, California has taken the monopoly on the discourse of surfing, so Florida must emancipate itself from this dominant model in the same way that other communities without geographical or ethnic links with the United States have been able to do in the rest of the world. The transmission of an all American surf narrative has been reinforced by generations of surfers who, however, have also altered the narrative according to their own cultural reality.

1.2

Generational Transmission of an American Tale

1.2.1 Passing Down the Tradition Generational relationships are essential in understanding what it means to belong in a (sub)cultural community and maintain one’s status (Lohman, 2017; Thompson, 2015; Wheaton, 2017). Intergenerational tensions exist in surfing, and while different generations maintain strong 4 For

example, rap is no longer a phenomenon exclusively associated with the United States, which is why we talk about US rap, French rap, etc. Surfing is global, but its influence remains thought of as stemming from the United States, and its music has not broken the shackles of the historical nomenclature: there are Australian, Hawaiian, etc. surf musics but that is not what we are referring to when the terms surf music are used. 5 Interviewed on June 7, 2017.

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ties due to their geographic and social proximity, certain behavioral distinctions appear, relating to self-image, aesthetic, communicative, discursive, and technological preferences. When conceptualizing the notion of connection in cultural terms, the emphasis is on the passage of cultural capital from one person to another. Studies on the question of cultural transmission show that the most natural way to acquire this capital is first, by the parental route, then by the social circle, and finally by the environment, through a geolocated phenomenon, some aspects of which are attractive to the individual (Bowerman & Levinson, 2003; Fischer, 1987; Martinez, 2008). Family is, therefore, the strongest transmitter for both language and culture. For example, Sean and Kelly Slater were immersed in surfing very early through their father, a surfer who owned a fishing store, run later by Sean and Skippy. However, the ways in which my interviewees were introduced to surfing and its culture are very diverse. Indeed, not all of them grew up in a family whose members were surfers, but the majority grew up in a family environment dedicated to the ocean. According to Dustin,6 this culture and this way of life instilled by parents determine the entry into surfing culture. This echoes the description of surfers and watermen who practice activities that relate specifically to the aquatic and marine environment, as Dustin explained: I think the lifestyle that I grew up, it just kinda morphed into that. I think it’s not only about being the lifestyle of the surfer. I think it’s the lifestyle of a waterman. And so it’s feeling comfortable in or and around the water. It’s fishing, it’s boating, it’s the beach, water lifestyle… And so yeah, I guess my surroundings influenced the rest of it, like where I grew up; and I guess I still had to be interested in those things.

When Dustin was a child, his father sold boats, and his family lived in what they called the “beach house,” which was designed to look like a historic lighthouse from south Florida. The watermen Dustin referred to are excellent swimmers, avid fishermen, sailors, admirers of nautical

6 Interviewed

on September 10, 2016.

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landscapes, etc. In terms of cultural transmission, the family predispositions were conducive to the integration of a nautical subculture, such as surfing. That said, beyond family, the role played by the media, friends, and the environment is not negligible: it was during adolescence that my interviewees were affected by the desire to surf when their local heroes gave them the opportunity to try. These adults in construction discovered a new world, its cultural diversity, and the potential it offered: a valued social qualification, distinction between parents and children and intragenerational groups. These are the premises of identity marking. Concerning music, informants conceded differences between generations but also pointed out that family musical transmission existed at least until the Millennial generation. Baby Boomers noticed that Millennials listened to their parents’ music from the 1970s, probably thanks to the radio and the advent of the CD. This idea was confirmed by Millennial respondents, as one male explained: My parents had great love for music, which we share with my siblings. Some of my earliest memories are taking long car trips, you know, and all of us singing songs, and we’d put on a cassette on a long drive, you know…. I’m thirty years-old, growing in the 90s, and 2000s, and I love early music, you know 60s, 70s, and 80s as well.

Thus, the influence of parents can be decisive in the musical choices of young generations. Most informants from all generations agreed that classic rock was a common denominator between their generations. They considered that the intrinsic qualities of classic rock made it timeless music. For another Millennial informant who could not decide what his favorite genre was, classic rock was the one he would pick, and for Ricky Carroll, “there’s something in classic rock that’s never gonna go away.” This comment contradicted the consensual definition he had given of surf music at the beginning of the interview by saying that it could not come from classic rock. This contradiction shows that history can influence the discourse of active members of the culture, even those who shape it.

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1.2.2 Adopting or Moving Away from Tradition If some of my informants came into contact with the subculture during childhood through their relatives, others like Bart Kelley,7 the host of Endless Summer Radio, went to seek this dream far from their family. Originally from Indiana, he was among those who discovered surfing through the media coverage of The Beach Boys. He described his introduction to surfing as “ironic”: “Growing up in the Midwest, you watch it on TV, you watch the magazines, you want to live it so much, but you can’t because you’re in the middle of nowhere.” It was during adolescence that Bart Kelley developed affinities with a pseudo-culture of surfing by working in a surf shop in the middle of the country: “so when I was a teenager, I worked at a shop called Aloha, which was our skate shop, but it was also a fake surf shop in a way. We even had a surfboard there, which I could never really figure out why.” The name of the store is a Hawaiian term that constitutes one of the most significant stereotypes of surfing as a whole. Aloha 8 is a word associated with Hawaii, as well as with a certain aura of surfing. Like the term beachboys, the term aloha is one of surfing trademarks that has allowed several generations of nonsurfers to identify with the lifestyle despite the physical distance from dedicated areas. Bart Kelley also explained that he saw his experience in this store as a harbinger of what was to come: But the ironic thing is that we sold all the Locomotion stuff, and then the first day that I came here… Ricky Carroll shaped all the Locomotion’s boards, so it’s kind of ironic that a 16-year-old kid from Indiana had a dream, and then when he finally moves to Florida, he goes to the shop that actually makes the boards that he’s always looked at his whole life. So, it was meant to be.

Ricky Carroll made Locomotion boards, and one of his models was displayed in the Aloha store. For Bart Kelley, the teenager, this board

7 Interviewed

on June 13, 2017. concept of Aloha implies graciousness, affection, welcome, and love (Clark, 2011, Desmond, 1999). 8The

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carried an imaginary of surfing that he had built for years before he could work alongside his model, Ricky Carroll. While Ricky Carroll and Bart Kelley were not from the same generation, there did not seem to be a substantial gap between their two approaches of surf culture; however, informants from generations before Z thought they detected an aesthetic difference between their musical preferences and those of the youngest. Dustin, a Millennial, explained: I think it’s changed a lot. I think, I feel like younger kids have gotten further away from the traditional surf-related music, the kind of Sublime type of music, and they’ve gotten to more urban music and especially like the electronic stuff… Some of the kids are in EDM [Electronic Dance Music] and dub step9 and things like that.

For Dustin, as for a majority of surfers pre-generation Z, there is a music traditionally associated with surfing. The term tradition carries the idea of cultural and aesthetic transmission from one generation to another, but according to him and other informants from previous generations, this transmission does not take place with the youngest. Dustin took the example of Sublime, a band widely recognized as a modern ideal of surf music, halfway between punk and reggae. By favoring a more urban music like rap or electronic, the youngest ones stand out from the principles or the doctrine of surf music from its birth until the advent of Generation Z. For Dustin, all previous generations agree on what can be integrated into the musical sphere of surfers, which consists of acoustic or electric sounds but not electronic. According to him, no identification is possible with so-called electro music. Sean Slater shared this opinion and felt disconnected from Generation Z: Now, I kinda don’t understand it so much… I mean I’m 48 now, and since the Pennywise days… Pennywise is still rocking, but… That was it you know…. Every surf music video… And then it started changing into this emo rock’n’roll on the world tour … I didn’t understand it. I think 9 EDM

and dubstep are two types of electronic music. The former is a broad category which entails a large spectrum of electronic music. The latter is characterized by the accentuation of the bass.

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a lot of people didn’t understand it, but it falls into a different thing. [Dustin: Now it’s gone even further into electronic and stuff.] It’s kinda sad, it’s strange, you know, but it’s probably not strange to them at all! I think I just grew out of that, but when I hear that, I don’t think of surfing at all, you know, if you pop in some surfy pop rock…. I don’t wanna cry before I go surfing, and I don’t wanna have some guy yell at me in that rap, you know!

Like Dustin, Sean Slater explained that he did not understand the gap between the youngest and the rest of the surfers. Whether it was videos or competitions, what he considered the aesthetic standard was marked by rock, punk, reggae influences that reflected both a rebellious approach to authority with Pennywise, but also a positive vision of the lifestyle with reggae. According to Sean Slater, the musical tradition is replaced today by a more dramatic aesthetic exacerbating negative emotions compared with the standards of surfers of previous generations: emo rock comes from 1980s hard rock and offers very personal texts openly exposing artists’ intimate emotions, which is why Sean said he did not want to cry before going surfing. On the other hand, rap is perceived as an overly aggressive musical expression disagreeing what it means to belong to the Floridian subculture. The Space Coast is not a hyper-urbanized region, and young surfers are, for the most part, brought up in an environment focused on the beach lifestyle. According to Britty, this discrepancy can be explained by the ubiquity of new communication technologies in the lives of new generations from an early age: I think it’s just a matter of technology and how it influences our lives and what we’re exposed to. I think a long time ago, your influences was what was played on the radio and who played in your town, and that’s who you knew of…. Now, I think that our younger generation is getting more influenced by that, by you know, the Instagram and what’s this and what’s that, you know. It’s taking away a little bit from, like the natural sense of things.

Based on Britty’s idea, the almost infinite reservoir of resources available on social media allows young people to create a repertoire rather

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than being restricted to options selected by regional musical intermediaries. Furthermore, surf music is not the only aspect of the subculture to experience a generational break since, according to many informants, the use of different types of surfboards reflects the practices of certain generations. Younger people tend to use shortboards while older people tend to use longboards, as a Millennial male explained: I think there’s an older population that’s very… They just go into longboard versus shortboards. There’s a lot of older people that grew up on longboards and associate surfing with that old school freedom… And you know, those people tend to differ a little bit. You know, old versus young, doing modern kinda new stuff.

These choices are not necessarily based on valid technical reasons but stem from a need for differentiation between generations. Shortboards are more popular among young people because they are more publicized. These are the small technical boards that professionals use during competitions. No matter the level or type of wave, for Ricky Carroll, a majority of Generation Z surfers want to be able to identify with their idols and surf with the same boards that are not adapted to Florida. When older individuals get attached to these board, it is, according to Ricky Carroll, to demonstrate to other participants that they can still do so: There are a lot of guys out there, my age, who are struggling riding these little performance shortboards, and all they’re doing is trying to hold on to their youth. It’s all they’re doing. They’re doing nothing for their surfing, they’re doing nothing for their fun. All they’re doing is saying, ‘look at me, I can still ride a shortboard. I’m not an old fat guy yet,’ but they really are, and they really should be on a bigger board, but they just can’t admit it.

This behavior highlights two phenomena: first, some individuals refuse to adapt their style to their new condition and develop a nostalgia for a bygone but real experience; second, there is a need to identify with a hegemonic ideology that does not correspond to the pragmatic and singular needs of Floridian surfers. In other words, in this conception

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of surfing, that is deconstructed here, all aspects of surfing, including surf music, must match the stylistic canons of the culture’s dominant spaces (which Florida is not a part of ) in order to be considered authentic. This observation calls for the exploration of the notions of cultural nostalgia and hegemonic power responsible for the significance of an idealization of a certain culture of surfing.

1.3

Cultural Nostalgia, Hegemonic Power, and New Canons of Surfing

The history of surf culture is a continuous construction in space and time. During interviews, two distinct moments marked my informants’ awareness of this history: firstly, they reported a cultural lineage of surfing that goes back to the advent of the practice in the United States and to what it meant to become a surfer (breaking free from certain social constraints and living an alternative lifestyle). They referred to the states of surf culture from the 1960s to the 1980s as anchor points where the ideological, moral, and aesthetic values of surfing would have been built. Secondly, the cultural lineage disclosed a contrast between Florida and California, whose monopoly in the surf industry and territorial approach to surfing were denounced. This dismissal of Californian values lead to my informants’ calling attention to musical forms that did not conform to their local aesthetics. Thus, my interviewees recognized the historical ties that unite them to California, but all of them mentioned the practical and aesthetic differences that have developed between the two states. The example of The Beach Boys expresses this paradox that seems to persist. Indeed, although informants were not convinced that The Beach Boys represented surfers or surf music, none of them categorically rejected the idea because they placed a certain value on the fact that the band contributed to disseminating the culture. Through formal and aesthetic productions from California, many individuals, like Bart Kelley, discovered surfing in places where the practice was impossible, like in Indiana:

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So if you live in California, and you live in Florida, and you listen to The Beach Boys, that’s one thing. But when you live in the Midwest and that’s the introduction to that lifestyle, that’s everything. So even if they never surfed or even if they weren’t surfers, you hear it on the radio, they’re surfers, they’re the most famous surfers in the world because that’s all we talk about. You learn their lifestyle through their songs.

In places where surfing is practiced, different approaches and forms of expression have developed, but in regions where surfing has only arrived through the media, the most publicized entities have constituted a narrow representation of surfing, a form of surf lifestyle epitome, as were The Beach Boys for Bart Kelley. In addition, according to their idea of surfing culture, a majority of surfers expressed frustrations regarding the evolution of music sought after by young surfers or used in new videos. This form of cultural nostalgia is the result of a growing temporal distance from the values represented by the original surfer figure. The ideological and aesthetic anchorage in Californian surfing in the second half of the twentieth century remains, for Floridian surfers, a benchmark from which they were able to build their own conceptions of surfing and its music. Arguably, Millennials constitute the last generation in contact with Baby Boomers who transmitted to them their version of a story that they built themselves, while Generation Z built their knowledge of surfing in part thanks to social media—a culture of the instantaneous, not the past. That said, generations may display inappropriate nostalgia, as is the case with many Millennials who express this feeling toward a time that is not theirs when they refer to early surfing legends, anthological films, or artists of the 1960s. Cultural nostalgia may celebrate only one aspect of a culture. For example, many bands that have played at Sonny’s Porch, like The Jacuzzi Boys, Nude Party, or The Growlers, reproduce the echo of the reverb sound10 from iconic surf music. This process immerses Generations X and Y in a past imagined to be shared with the Baby Boomers. Therefore, the effort to create a distance from California can only be relative because, up to now, the ideological and 10The

effect of reverberation happens when sounds balance off the surface of a space, causing the repetition of the sound but in such an intricate way that it is difficult to interpret the replicas as being successive sounds (Pearsall, 2017).

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aesthetic anchoring has enabled California to keep the monopoly on the history of surfing and surf music. Cultural nostalgia is thus responsible for two hegemonic movements: the first dominated by California insofar as it maintains cultural supremacy in the collective imagination, and the second that encompasses the culture of surfing in a relationship of resistance with its subcultural expressions. According to Ricky Carroll, the hegemony of California has always forced Floridian surfers to innovate to exist: There’s a lot of talented guys around here [in Florida] who know how to do good boards. I think it’s because it started way back in the days with guys like Dick Catri, … and the guys that followed. The bar was set very high, very early and the reason that was, it was because as east-coasters, we’ve always fought the stigma that California is the golden child, and they knew how to surf and build surfboards, whereas the guys on the east coast are a bunch of kooks, and we don’t know what we’re doing.

The Floridian subcultural distinction is not limited to the practice or the construction of equipment. It must be considered as a whole, as a way of life that finds its expression in the aesthetic practices implemented by agents of the subculture: the interviewees who maintained regional Caribbean sonic influences were musicians (Ricky Carroll, Britty, Sean Slater), D.J.s (Bart Kelley, Lance-O), influencers of the live scene (Dustin). Highly involved surfing communities allow the subculture to negotiate with and resist the hegemonic and the mainstream (the former generating the latter, as the American history of surfing gained mercantile value) while creating opportunities for surfers. Sun Bum, for example, has grown into a multi-million dollar company, but its success rests in part on local surfers hired to run the business, set up events like Sonny’s Porch concerts, create and sell products imagined by surfers and for surfers. This Cocoa Beach-founded business was built on a vision validated by real surfers, while exploiting the commercial potential of the image of the carefree surfer—a sun bum. They bet on the lifestyle aspect of surfing clearly present in their slogans: “For those who live and love in the sun” or “Protect your lazy ass.” So while the image of the beach bum can be negatively exploited by the media, as in the

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early days of surfing, the same image has become a powerful marketing message to legitimize the brand. The notions of connection and distinction are thus manifested through tensions between traditional and new surfing canons, but also between forms of being and wanting to be. Local agents who influence and represent the subculture in its past, present, and future relationships with the hegemonic and the mainstream, enable the construction of surfing subcultures in touch with the roots of iconic surfing culture, yet different from it.

2

Spatio-Temporal Mobility of Surfing and Surf Music

2.1

Movements of Surfers and Their Cultural Practices

In this book, I transpose concepts developed in sociolinguistics to cultural settings to illustrate the phenomena of connection, distinction, and mobility of surfing and surf music. The notion of mobility as it is understood in sociolinguistics includes a migration aspect (Thamin, 2007; Totoricaguena, 2007). The term mobility carries the idea of the potential for movement of entities that can be moved from one place to another without disappearing. In sociology, mobility is the ability to undergo a certain number of social changes and move quickly from one state to another. In migration, people, objects, ideas, and therefore, cultures move spatially and temporally to integrate into new systems. Cultural capital is then transferred from one point to another with the variations that this implies. Thus, mobility can be geographic, linguistic, social, psychological, professional, or cultural (Thamin, 2007, p. 64). Surfing was able to leave Hawaii and establish itself in mainland America. By integrating a new social order, the subculture has developed its own language. Indeed, the terms applied to surfing are mostly English all over the globe (for instance, the French speak of line up, cutback, etc.), and one of the only Hawaiian terms still in use is aloha. The culture has also developed its own transnational sociality (it is no longer solely the politically and religiously infused Hawaiian cultural practice)

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and its own culture (a surf music whose movements are complex: born in California, it migrated and transformed while keeping sonic, semantic, or memorial links with its Californian origins). The notion of movement has been key in the construction of American identity since the birth of an American consciousness. If movement is at the heart of the endogenous and exogenous imaginary of America, the national construction of the United States, based on migration and colonization, gives rooting a no less crucial place (Marche & Vallas, 2016, p. 3). At the heart of the cultural approach, the movement and rooting of surfing culture are intrinsically linked to Floridian consciousness. The history of Florida, as it is described in Part one, suggests the importance of the concept of mobility in the state’s construction from the point of view of cultures that have developed there. The advent of means of transportation, then the Internet have allowed people and ideas to travel faster from one point of the world to another. The commodification of objects, ideas, and lifestyles has reconfigured certain cultural practices, like surfing, by moving them and forcing them to adapt to their new contexts. The physical boundaries (including the ocean) have been erased, and paradoxically the cultural and ideological boundaries have grown stronger, as the glocalization of surfing has shown. Mobility is marked by the displacement of populations and ideas, which by taking root, crystallized in subcultural communities. While it can be tempting to talk about cultural diasporas, the term quickly reaches its limits because it implies a distance from the host place, while the emphasis is on the faculty of integration of the subculture.11 Furthermore, while diasporic movements involve the possibility to track paths taken and borders crossed, the approach to cultural mobility envisaged here is rhizomatic, so that the links with a specific source culture, as well as the paths, 11 I

suggest an explanation of the concept of diaspora, taking into account the debates that exist around it. The typology of William Safran (1991) serves as a starting point for my definition: diasporas involve the dispersion of a people from different places, the collective memory of the place of origin, the feeling of not being accepted in the host place, the idea of a necessary return to the place of origin, its restoration, the maintenance of relations with it (pp. 83–84). However, as Clifford (1994) pointed out, certain aspects of Safran’s (1991) definition do not or no longer address the problems of national conscience, resistance to assimilation by taking control of the host place, and facilitation of the transport of people and ideas (p. 307). My understanding of the term diaspora then stems from the definition of Safran (1991) to which I add the idea of boundaries that a group or a culture must cross or control in order to maintain its identity. The notion thus defined does not correspond to the way of understanding the mobilities of surfing and surf music and their corollary, as they are defined here.

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are not clearly marked. Indeed, where the notion of hybridity insists on the constitution of a complex, heterogeneous, and multiform whole, the notion of diaspora carries the idea of a mobile whole fragmented but more or less uniform (diasporic migrations having fewer effects on the mobile entity, be it people or cultures). Subcultures’ persistence in new places generates a mixture of populations and sociocultural differences caused by the birth of new affinity groups, such as surfing. In the case of Florida, three forms of non-ethnic migrations take place: the first concerns fluxes of surf refugees, those who, like Bart Kelley, fled the cold of the northern states to implement the imagination of the surf lifestyle that they had forged. The second concerns Floridian individuals living on the wrong side of the peninsula, on the west coast, like Dustin. The third concerns Floridians eager to explore other waves of the world like those of Hawaii, Indonesia, or Australia, as highlighted by the following conversation between Bart Kelley and Ricky Carroll: Bart Kelley: To me the funniest thing about Florida is once you’re here for so long, then it becomes a Hawaiian thing. Everybody from Hawaii is here, everybody wants to go to Hawaii, everybody wants to be a part of Hawaii, to where that culture now… which is the furthest thing in a way… is now part of that, to where, you know, I mean how many people… Ricky Carroll : I think Floridians would say, if I could go somewhere on a trip, it would be to Hawaii before California.

Surfers are tempted by temporary migration, similar to exploring a place of worship from which one returns after a pilgrimage. Places of departure become host or transit places. Practices move with individuals, especially through public figures showcasing specific places, like Kelly Slater for Cocoa Beach. The mobility shown by these individuals is a form of representation of “this is what we have created,” a local product, an American or regional pride that takes up an already hybrid culture and exports it again as a model. A certain number of interviewees explained that they were proud to travel under American and Floridian banners, representing know-how and interpersonal skills that promoted them.

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Fluidity of Surfing and Surf Music

The mobility of surfers and their cultural practices necessarily implies a modification of the global surfing culture and a diversification of surf identities interpretations. California created a first version of American surfing, but identity is an eminently shifting and unstable concept relying on its own interpretations as well as on series of snapshots that can only grasp partial punctual portraits of reality. The idealization of a Californian culture of surfing in memories is subject to interpretation, and surfing as a cultural practice is mobile, granting it protean aesthetic characteristics. These transformations are observable in time and space, as Sean Slater explained: Surf music now, it’s Jack Johnson and Donovan12 …. Surf music, when I was younger, was Surf Punks, Hulu Gurus. Before my time actually, Matt Kechele, they would listen to Tom Stillby and Joe Jackson, you know. We started getting into Hulu Guru and all the new wave stuff, then that carried us into The Cure and all kinds of stuff, but nothing that was really geared towards surfing except for the Surf Punks, basically, we loved them. Or Talking Heads…. There was a whole era there for a long time when I was on the road, there was a bunch of bands, so Pennywise, and ASG, and NOFX, the Descendants, Bad Religion.

Sean described how surf music has evolved. It is not part of a single genre and is manifested in a variety of sounds, including rock and reggae. This plurality suggests that the stereotypes of the surfer and surf music that are deconstructed in this work are labels that allow a cognitive economy made necessary because of the unstable and fluid nature of these two phenomena. Furthermore, surfing and surf music are made up of networks of discourses that generate a certain knowledge and subjectivity of themselves in given places and times. While canons of surfing are established, agents’ independence voids any attempt to anchor the subculture in a single model. As social individuals who subscribe to these discourses, participants are shaped by them, but they also model them in a bilateral relationship. These discourses that intersect within 12 Sean

refers to his Hawaiian friend, Donovan Frankenreiter.

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a system comprising unstable hegemonic relationships are themselves moving. Then participants are in any case imbued with roles of instigators or followers at different times (Model two determines their impact on those changes). Finally, a subculture’s specificity is to be on the fringes of a standardized and a priori uniform system in which the different and the spontaneous would be contained or placed on the social ideal’s periphery, thus becoming a subculture (Portwood-Stacer, 2013). At the foundation of the surf lifestyle is the ability to abandon any form of conventional activity when there are waves, which is what all my informants did, as Dustin pointed out: “We got in the industry… We do this because is it the lifestyle. You create a job around the lifestyle.” The spontaneity of surfing culture is reflected in the emergence of a multitude of subcultures, sorts of original creations evolving according to their own needs. Thus, access to culture, its acquisition, and mastery raise issues of physical and emotional proximity without which all transmission would fail. Bart Kelley seemed particularly attached to this idea: Now there’s a lot more interaction between band and fan. If your mom listened to Franck Sinatra, how many times did she meet him? Zero, you know. If you listen to Agent Orange, how many times do we actually get to see them? Every other year. And it’s not a matter of they show up and this and that, they show up, and they party with you, and they have fun. So I think that’s a huge factor. My daughter is more attracted to punk rock bands that I’m attracted to because there’s a relationship there.

Despite the instability of surfing culture as a whole, cultural transmission is facilitated within the community and the family by the proximity with the components of the subculture, whether they are icons of surfing or music. Adding to Bart Kelley’s view on the importance of relationship, there is a facilitated connection between individuals and their culture, but its instability forges stereotypes that, by nature, become endogenous.

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Surf Culture in Transition

While the subculture can be transmitted relatively unconsciously through family, at the individual level, participants can claim other cultures acquired simultaneously or subsequently. With these cultures, they can create an identity distant from that of their peers. The sociocultural group of belonging can make unanimous claims in relation to the primary culture, but each group is nevertheless composed of a plurality of cultures and identities. To explain this phenomenon, the Canadian ethnomusicologist, Beverley Diamond (2000), developed a model that reflects the evolution of cultures within society. Her work focuses on First Nations whose members explain how they distinguish their cultural identity by using certain traditional sounds at the risk of being reiterated in the form of stereotypes (Diamond, 2000, p. 399). The same phenomenon occurs in the culture of surfing. Indeed, in contemporary surf music as my informants have delimited it, the sounds of iconic surf music, such as the reverberation, are still used. On the other hand, artists synthesize these styles according to their cultural capital13 composed of elements from other cultural traditions than that of global surfing, such as the Caribbean influence of reggae, which shapes the contours of a surf music particularly representative of the peninsula. Surf music is increasingly defined beyond its original Californian attribution in two ways: it is now regionalized or mainstream. Historical changes have redefined aesthetic and identity boundaries. Thus, surf music has gone beyond its frame of reference, and this raises the questions of how participants intervene in the negotiations to cross aesthetic borders, how they position themselves and their musical choices, how they build their musical identity in connection with the tension between anti-essentialism and the necessary recognition of iconic surf music. Just because individuals are categorized as surfers, it does not mean that they fit the stereotype. They claim their cultural pluralism, their varied ethnocultural roots in connection with their cultural heritage and their aesthetic choices. The identity project is, therefore, linked with

13The

cultural capital is what allows an individual to mobilize appropriate skills and attitudes.

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choices of coherence and distinction of stylistic elements. Musical experiences, rather than merely sonic material, are shared among communities. Surf music is a movement experienced in an intimate way beyond a sound associated with the first hours of surf rock. This conception takes us back to the relationships between a modern experience of the music and memories of socially shared stories. In surf music, there is a form of simultaneity of the traditional and the modern. Beyond ideological borders, the stylistic borders are porous and entry and exit ports are multiple (Diamond, 2000, p. 424). This fluidity relates to the instability of surfing culture in all its aspects, its intertextuality, its space-time mobility, its acquisition potential, making it a culture in permanent transition.

3

Adaptation and Singularization of Surfing and Surf Music

The statutory movements of surfing subcultures are illustrated here by focusing particularly on aesthetics to understand how the surf lifestyle, including surf music, is adopted by communities, then singled out through its music. In this regard, Beverly Diamond’s model of mainstreamness and distinctiveness of cultures is enlightening. She considered that subcultures range from distinction to mainstream to re-distinction (Elliott & Smith, 2010, p. 18). Surfing has emerged in the United States as an alternative youth culture breaking with the social norm. Then, thanks to its media coverage through films and a musical movement, the culture entered the mainstream at the same time as it re-established itself in various regions of the globe as a multitude of hybrid subcultures. In this last stage, surfing culture adapted to its new environments. This anchoring involved an appropriation of the culture by local communities. That is, it has become a personal component of the cultural capital of groups and individuals. It stood out because it was transformed to meet cognitive and emotional needs linked to local societies. This transformation brought out the creative abilities of the participants who adjusted the culture to their expressive project. In surfing and surf music, there are hyphenated identities when several cultures combine to create

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a new one: it is the creolization of cultures, which involves processes of inclusion and exclusion in the formation of a hybrid identity. Surfers communities are neither completely global nor completely local but are part of a tension between the two that is exacerbated by endogenous and exogenous cultural codes.

3.1

Cultural Appropriation of Surfing by Palimpsest

Going from a shared culture anchored in a spatio-temporally and aesthetically bounded past to a form of re-appropriation of this cultural form anchored in a present open to the future, the subcultures of surfing substitute to the notion of iconic surf music, that of a pragmatic, lived, lively, and present surf music. It is a re-imagined writing, marking a modern aesthetic expression that sometimes mixes with a kind of voluntary anachronism allowing to play with musical forms and textures. The case of the so-called surf musician, Bill Surf, illustrates this rewriting. The Floridian artist had appropriated the sounds of Dick Dale while proposing his own aesthetic signature. There is a tension between tradition and innovation in Bill Surf ’s music. Thus, two dynamics of appropriation of the musical movement emerge: one nostalgic, which allows stereotyping surf music and anchoring the mainstream between known landmarks, the other innovative, which allows distinction and innovation in a dynamic of singularization of the culture. The point of view on the past is multifaceted because the entry ports are multiple, which has brought surf music out of its historical shackles.14 So what is substituted is not the idea of surf music (limited to a period and a place as it can be in historical or nostalgic dynamics), it is the idea that it would have existed only in waves. Indeed, when my interviewees did not refer to surf music in terms of waves, they often started their sentence with: “to me, surf music is what I listen to…” They talked about modern music that they listen to according to their mood, for example, thinking of a future surf session. Some bands rely 14 Although

many consider that surf music no longer exists (Blair, 2015; Crowley, 2011) because they only consider it in its historical/iconic form.

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on certain tones or themes that connect them to the various so-called waves of surf music in a rhizomatic filiation. That is, they start from a system having its own standards, but they freely implement some of its characteristics by contextualizing them without a priori links with the source. Others stand out, like emo rock, discussed by Sean Slater. This new memory of surf music also manifests on social media and constitutes the sonic palimpsests of surf music. The palimpsest is a psychological mechanism in which newly memorized facts replace those that preexisted them in memory (Galisson, 1993). Therefore, surf music can write something new with the old or be completely different from it. These two possibilities reflect ways of thinking about surfing that are specific to communities (like that of Floridian surfers) and subgroups (of generations, sexes, etc.). The palimpsest can be cultural because it occurs beyond sonic memory, in multiple aspects of surfing: in lexicon (Anglophone terms have replaced Hawaiian technical terms and have spread in the rest of the world); in history (the Hawaiian origin of surfing is transformed into mythology, while the Californian birth of surfing remains tangible); in the practice and ideology (the Hawaiian national sport has become a counter-culture for some). We can even speak of acculturation through palimpsest insofar as surfers in permanent mobility can adapt to the new cultural reality as first or second generation (for instance, Bart Kelley is not from Florida but was completely assimilated by the locals, thus adapting holistically). The palimpsest can be iconic in the etymological and metaphorical senses of the term since both images and iconic figures can be replaced (Galisson, 1993, p. 43): the Floridian, Kelly Slater, replaced the Hawaiian, Duke Kahanamoku, as one of the epitomes of surfing.15 However, the palimpsest is above all linguistic. Like the rest of this work will show, the linguistic and the cultural are two inseparable notions of the cultural anthropology of surfing since it is necessary to have the linguistic and cultural tools necessary to decode the substitutions, or at least, to appreciate their fundamental subtleties. Palimpsests, when taken in their linguistic context, highlight tangible verbal transformations. Decoding sounds, cultural practices or historical 15 On

the international scene, Kelly Slater tends to represent American surfing as a whole.

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memory according to the verbal palimpsest model makes it possible to highlight the abundant intertextuality in the discourse of the subcultures of surfing. Consequently, palimpsests are excellent indicators of culture (Galisson, 1993, p. 42). The coding and decoding induced by the palimpsest imply a knowledge of the culture of origin and the target culture, giving participants the means to recognize themselves and mark out their communication space. The ability to decode the new message makes individuals feel their legitimacy within the group. It is a confirmation of their membership that flatters the ego since having succeeded in deciphering the message, individuals can afford to fuel the conversation of insiders of which they are a legitimate part. Membership can be illustrated by the use of a surfboard adapted to a region (a fish in Florida, but a big-wave gun16 in Tahiti), or by the knowledge of artists validated by a given community even if it seems to go against the mainstream culture (reggae D.J.s like Lance-O equate with surfing in the Space Coast community). Successful membership occurs when individuals can refer to the collective memory of a culture that they share. It is not enough to learn the elementary codes of a culture on the surface to be able to claim it. The quality of the cultural repertoire (including linguistic, practical, ideological, aesthetic knowledge, etc.) contributes to marking the identity of a group despite the evolution (or potential of mobility) of the culture in question. Thus, members of a surfing community can recognize themselves and manifest their identity as belonging to a culture or not. Only surfers are thus equipped with cultural, linguistic, and aesthetic tools, on the one hand, to respond appropriately to a marked sociocultural situation, and on the other hand, to make it evolve away from stereotypes.

16 A

fish is a shortboard particularly adapted to Florida’s small waves, whereas a big-wave gun is a long and narrow surfboard that allows to surf the big waves of Tahiti, for instance. It is not uncommon to see beginners on these boards that they buy used without knowing their function.

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Cultural Mandate and Localisms in the Subjective Construction of Surf Musics

The triad surfers, strand of surfing,17 and surf music is the bearer of a subculture whose codes and symbols are created, transported, transposed, preserved, and manifested by or through this triad. Among the multiple means of expression at surfers’ disposal, like films, arts, etc., music is the only one to be omnipresent in their life since it constitutes the background of the lifestyle. It is imagined during the action; it is superimposed on motion pictures; it fuels professional or amateur competitions; it reinforces other forms of expression18 ; and above all, it gives texture to ordinary moments of everyday life when the waves are no longer there. Surf music becomes a cultural vector, that is to say, it is a means of disseminating the subculture, or rather the way it is perceived (Bénard, 2009, p. 70). That said, surf music alone cannot bear the weight of such a mandate, and it requires the support and endorsement of local cultures to implement its power of transmission, representation, and cultural marking. Thus, the cultural mandate of surf music is conferred on by surfers whose aesthetic and representational requirements may differ according to local traditions. The cultural mandate cannot be understood in a dynamic of duality between the representative and the represented. Other elements must be taken into account to create a dialectical situation and overcome an enclosing dichotomy. So it is not enough to simply understand the relationship between surfers and surf music, we must also look at the relationship between surfers, surf music, and regions. Modern Florida developed at the same time as surfing in the twentieth century, so the practice is part of the local culture.19 Taking into account the cultural chronology of a place is fundamental to understand the phenomena of assimilation or rejection of contemporary subcultures. 17The

concept of strand applies to surfing and includes the style of surfing, the culture or cultures of the place in which the subculture developed, and the geographical environment. 18 One of Gary Propper’s last art exhibits at the Florida Surf Museum hosted local bands. 19 Florida’s population expanded in the twentieth century, thanks to the creation of the interstate and thanks to the advent of air conditioning (Revels, 2011; Volk, Hoctor, Nettles, Hilsenbeck, & Putz, 2017).

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French ethnologist, Adolphe Maillot (2005), pointed out that surfing constitutes a social field in its own right (p. 67) since a form of social weaving can be observed that reveals the interactions between individuals of different groups. He explained that from a symbolic point of view, not all surf zones are created equal, as surfing is not a monochromatic world (p. 67). Indeed, the culture of surfing comprises a multitude of subjective constructions that, beyond the characteristics specific to each, are envisaged according to two visions: one endogenous, the other exogenous. In the collective imagination, subjective constructions are thought of as a symbolic hierarchy according to which certain regions are more legitimate than others in terms of surfing representation. One informant argued that “California’s the leader in the industry, and a lot of your goods are coming from there, but then again, Florida has a lot to offer too … In California, a guy doesn’t know the best boards for Florida, and a Florida shaper does.” As Ricky Carroll pointed out too, stigmatized and devalued places, like Florida, are working hard to gain legitimacy and break this image. This macro-version of localism highlights the challenges of the global influence of surf regions by opposing them to each other. A micro-version of localism tends to oppose endogenous and exogenous communities in any given region. However, as we saw in Chapter 5, localism is not necessarily linked to a form of hierarchy, as the notion of otherness is not always to be taken vertically (Usher, 2017). Depending on the place, localism can also simply reflect the joint efforts of a community in a given place to develop a specific practice, thus generating a local history blended with the preexisting history of the place. However, this does not mean that only locals can contribute to this narrative: Florida is a sort of crossroads physically connected and open to the rest of the country, with miles of beach punctuated with surf areas, making it more inclusive, as Dustin explained: The west coast [of Florida], it’s tight in here [west coast of Florida], but a larger geographic area is tighter knit if that makes sense, ‘cause there’s fewer surfers there, and there’s fewer breaks and fewer consistency, and fewer days that it gets good. So like, you see, you can go anywhere

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between Clearwater and Venice, Florida, which is a pretty big geographical area, like it’s a pretty long distance, and you’ll see the same people, like, you’ll know a lot more of the same people. Whereas here, so many people surf. It’s definitely… There’s enough people where you don’t see the same people.

Dustin’s description illustrates that hierarchical localism is not exacerbated in Florida for two reasons: on the one hand, surfing areas are spread out, and on the other hand, the large number of surfers facilitates their anonymity. In Cocoa Beach, the locals promote a culture of surfing meant to be shared, an activity where the best surfers are the ones who have the most fun, regardless of their home beach. So there are two types of localisms: inclusive or horizontal and exclusive or vertical. Their nature depends on the society, the environment, and the history of a place. One informant thought that surfing in Florida, “You’re happy when you see more people in the water… Compared to California… You’re happy to see another surfer when they’re not everywhere, as abundant… So I think people are accepting, and just having fun, and being friendly, and wanting to share the water.” Florida has developed thanks to the beach and surf tourism, which has had an impact on its culture and society. As shown by the conversation between Ricky Carroll and Bart Kelly on the differences in surfers’ behaviors according to regions, Floridian surfers claim their inclusive approach to surfing: Ricky Carroll : [There is] definitely a difference between the cultures. Just area to area, even here, not only worldwide, but just you can go one town and the majority are into some type of clic or whatever, and you go to another town, and it’s the total opposite, so it’s pretty localized what guys are into, what their culture is, and what they’re into…. Florida is pretty diverse because we have a wide variety of surf. You’ve got small waves, you’ve got no waves, we have good waves, you’ve got storms or big hurricane waves, so you have to be a little more diverse as a surfer who lives here and surfs… Bart Kelly: I always like to say that nobody’s from here, so nobody has this mind… So, do you feel that way? [to Ricky]. Ricky Carroll : I grew up here, and a lot of people definitely came here from somewhere else. It’s one of those states, more people come from outta state…. So you can’t stick your flag in it and say it’s yours. Bart Kelly: You know what, that’s one thing that’s attracted me to this area, and even, like in Miami or Jacksonville, it’s still kinda different, but it’s

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just this area that I feel is a little bit different. I’ve been to Venice, and I’ve been to Miami, you know, wherever there’s a beach, even Lake Michigan in Indiana, they surf there too, there’s still clicks and there’s something different in my mind about Brevard County.

Floridian localism is not hierarchical but is illustrated by the fact that surfers are aware of the cultural differences that exist from one region to another, and from one surf area to another. The mobilities that characterize the Floridian population have consequences even in the way of understanding the culture of surfing. No one can claim a surfing area because very few people are indeed from Florida. That said, the inclusive behavior of surfers does not mean that they have not developed their own aesthetic of surfing through their musicking. One of the best ways to illustrate horizontal localism (embodied by the relationships between local and imported cultures) is through music. Adolphe Maillot (2005) described the meeting, on a French island in the Indian Ocean, between American surfer Tom Curren (a Californian surf pioneer and musician) and the Maloya (traditional music and dance from Reunion Island). The encounter ended on the failure of the cultural exchange supposed to take place, as the two groups were culturally and aesthetically too distant. In understanding localism, this shows the importance of taking into account the historical and cultural backgrounds of individuals and regions as well as the trajectories of the cultures in mobility. The failure of the exchange between the two musical cultures can be understood as a desire from a community—Reunion— to protect itself from otherness whose codes they did not have. Thus, localisms marked by the maintenance of aesthetics determined by the history of a place in connection with its cultural construction may be only the affirmation of an aesthetic identity in relation to another of equal value but culturally too distant. Many informants underlined that in a space as relatively small as the north of Florida, sensitivities and musical appreciations can diverge from one place to the other, depending on their status as city or beach town, and depending on their geographical locations. For instance, from east to west, the cities of Tallahassee and Jacksonville (165 miles apart) represent two nuanced approaches to the subculture through the practice of surfing and the musical aesthetics that

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developed there. Therefore, if within such a limited space, it is possible to distinguish nuances in the implementation of a subculture, it is easy to imagine that the meeting of two subcultures built on different cultural foundations could fail. The surf lifestyle and aesthetics are not uniform despite the idea of cultural globalization, and this is what caused the meeting between Tom Curren (surf icon) and Reunion Islanders to fail. Similarly, and despite geographic and cultural proximity between the Floridian regions, Ricky Carroll noted differences in musical approaches that may exist in Florida, a state that an outsider could read as being culturally united: You know, I go traveling up the coast, and I would much rather see a live band than listen to a D.J. or house music, anytime… And when I go traveling and finally decide to stop, and you’re not familiar with the area… I’ve gone and asked people, ‘Where is there live music?’ And they look at me like I’m from another planet, ‘What are you talking about? This is not a weekend or something,’ or it’s like ‘Oh there’s a concert next weekend.’ I’m like, no, right now, just a band…

The way of consuming music is part of localism, as are the mental associations made about cultural phenomena linked to certain places. Regarding surf music, that of California persists in the collective imagination, even though there are musics consumed in the various surfing contexts for which iconic surf music does not reflect physical and affective proximity. According to Sean Slater, music that makes sense in a given place does not need to be called surf music; it is local surf music: “I think dance hall reggae… If you’re in Barbados, and they’re playing reggae and everyone is drinking rum and you’re surfing, I mean it just kind of all fits together. You don’t have to make it surf music, it is.” Iconic surf music describes a particular geographic attachment established in California, but today musical influences are diverse, and the notion of aesthetic localism synthesizes the idea of a localized plural surf music.

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Cultural Sociality in Ethno-Aesthetic Movements: The Dialectic of Rooting and Movement

Reflecting on the challenges of mobility and cultural appropriation developed here implies understanding the contexts in which a culture, such as surfing, can be established. I borrowed the idea of the dialectic of rooting and movement from Grégory Benedetti (2016) in his work on the show Black-ish. This dialectic highlights the notions of chronology, society and culture, symbol and archetypes present in the relationship between the mobility and rooting of a given culture. The emphasis on the multiple influences that have enriched surf music through its mobility and the description of its hybridization up to this point have made it possible to understand how the words surf music reveal a tension between mobility and rooting, applicable to both the physical space and the musical canon, and its resulting representations. The history of surfing, inseparable from surf music, is that of a myth, the symbol of the successful rooting of a culture that has become American. That is to say, it fits naturally into the history of the United States built on the migration of people, ideas, and practices, and from which emerged a plural community characterized here by the notion of ethno-aesthetics. The feeling of a shared history and destiny defines these communities. Building on that feeling of belonging to a common lifestyle, surfers constitute one of the many American ethno-aesthetic groups (like rappers, for example). This approach to the culture of surfing in its ethno-aesthetic dimension corresponds to its rooting and moving character. Indeed, surfing is rooted because it offers its participants a feeling of collective belonging through shared practices and common founding myths, like that of surf music; surfing is also mobile because it is not limited to an ethnic group whose existence is restricted to a particular land and a common genetic heritage (Vanel, 2016, p. 135). Surfing culture was exported beyond Hawaii, took root in the broader American culture, has blended with it, and differs from it. Therefore, surfing culture is rooted in the United States’ land, culture, and history because this is where its modern and popular version was

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born. It is also from there that it is defined in mobility within and outward from the United States. The multidimensional portrait of the subculture presented here makes it possible to envisage it in both its subjective and objective forms and, therefore, dynamically characterize the communities of surfers despite the idea of rooting. In addition, references to certain stereotypes and prototypes punctuate this work to highlight what Benedetti (2016) called fixity and identity mutation (p. 107) of subcultures. The tensions between fixity and mobility, the subjective and the objective, the archetypal and the real are set in social interaction dynamics within surfing culture, defined as sociality.20 The concept applies to the study of interaction processes between individuals and groups, and between groups themselves. Cultural sociality arises from these interactions understood here in the surf lifestyle and its relation to an artistic form, surf music, suggesting the idea of musical sociality. Indeed, all music is a priori social even if musical sociality is more or less subjectively marked by individuals depending on whether they have the cultural codes of the music in question or not. Thus, surf music allows cultural sociality because it has two major social functions: it can support, promote, and inspire the practice of surfers, so it is designated here as conative music, or it can replace surfing by accompanying surfers in their everyday life, in which case, it is designated as lifestyle music.21 The characteristics of the two categories are based on stylistic eclecticism (ranging, for instance, from reggae to punk), generational, individual, or collective validations, and finally on temporal inclusion based on the principle of relative inclusion developed in Chapter 5. Instead of considering the musical sociality of the surfing world in terms of musicians’ performances for their listeners, it is the whole of the symbiotic transmitter-receiver creation that is taken into account since it is the collective movement that creates sociality. Therefore, cultural practices are not categorized 20The

concept has been interpreted by many, including Jack Attali (1985) and Michel Maffesoli (1988). For the former, sociality is synonymous with music, as it is performance and a substitute for representation. For the latter, it defines the common characteristics of humans and founds what enables social life. It is operated at the micro-level beyond class borders and within consuming and lifestyle groups who collectively imagine and built communities of peers. 21These points will be developed in the last part of this book.

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according to their common origins but according to a set of social, aesthetic, and pragmatic parameters. These cultural practices provide a glimpse of socialization through the different approaches to surfing in conjunction with those of surf music. Thus, I delimit the structuring of the elements of the social whole, the organization of this whole, and finally, the unstable creative and identity patterns resulting from it. The cultural sociality induced by surf music results from processes of hybridization which did not occur in resistance to fixity, but in favor of a permutability between mobility—that of influences and external contributions—and fixity—that of a geographical anchoring rapidly supplanted by the diversity to which it lead (Dupetit, 2016, p. 128). Sociality is the actualized potential of life together, and cultural sociality is a branch of it consisting in approaching life together through its cultural aspect. It includes recognition and, therefore, the inclusion or exclusion of people and ideas. Consequently, the cultural sociality of surfing and its music (thus, the cohesion of the group) is not so much based on memory as on the relational issues between members of the group and the cultural object. As the next chapter illustrates, Floridian surfers aggregate into a community of belonging characterized by their local experiences and interpretations of global surfing culture.

References Attali, J. (1985). Noise: The political economy of music (10th ed.). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Azzi, A. E., & Klein, O. (2013). Psychologie sociale et relations intergroupes. Paris: Dunod. Bénard, N. (2009). Les mythologies hard rock et métal: Bricolage identitaire ou récit original? Sociétés, 104 (2), 65. https://doi.org/10.3917/soc.104.0065. Benedetti, G. (2016). Dialectique de l’enracinement et du mouvement dans Black-ish: Une série post-raciale? Revue Française D’Études Américaines, 149, 100–114. Bigelow, K. (1991). Point Break [Film]. Twentieth Fox Century. Blair, J. (2015). Southern California surf music, 1960–1966 . Charleston: Arcadia Publishing.

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Bowerman, M., & Levinson, C. S. (2003). Language acquisition and conceptual development (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brower, R. (2015, March 18). 10 commercials that show ads have been using surfing to sell things for awhile. Network A. www.networka.com. Brown, B. (1966). The endless summer [Film]. Aviva International. Clark, R. K. J. (2011). Hawaiian surfing: Traditions from the past. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Clifford, J. (1994). Diasporas. Cultural Anthropology, 9 (3), 302–338. Crowley, K. (2011). Surf beat: Rock’n’roll’s forgotten revolution. New York: Backbeat Book. Daskalos, C. T. (2007). Locals only! The impact of modernity on a local surfing context. Sociological Perspectives, 50 (1), 155–173. https://doi.org/10.1525/ sop.2007.50.1.155. Deschamps, J.-C., & Moliner, P. (Eds.). (2008). L’identité en psychologie sociale: Des processus identitaires aux représentations sociales (2nd ed.). Paris: Armand Colin. Desmond, C. J. (1999). Staging tourism: Bodies on display from Waikiki to Sea World . Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Diamond, B. (2000). Theory from practice: First Nations popular music in Canada. Repercussions, 7–8, 397–431. Dupetit, G. (2016). Loud Motown: P-Funk, Pure-Funk ou Punk-Funk? La création musicale de Funkadelic à travers le prisme de son hybridation. Revue Française D’Études Américaines, 149, 115–130. Elliott, R., & Smith, G. E. (2010). Music traditions, cultures, and contexts. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. Fischer, G.-N. (1987). Les concepts fondamentaux de la psychologie sociale. Montréal: Dunod pour les Presses de l’Université de Montréal. Galisson, R. (1993). Les palimpsestes verbaux: Des révélateurs culturels remarquables, mais peu remarqués. Repères, 8(1), 41–62. https://doi.org/10.3406/ reper.1993.2091. Laderman, S. (2014). Empire in waves: A political history of surfing. Berkeley: University of California Press. Levi-Strauss, C. (1962). The savage mind (G. Weidenfeld, Trans.; 1966 ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Lohman, K. (2017). Theories of punk and subculture. In K. Lohman (Ed.), The connected lives of Dutch punks (pp. 23–59). https://doi.org/10.1007/ 978-3-319-51079-8_2. Maffesoli, M. (1988). Le temps des tribus: Le déclin de l’individualisme dans les sociétés postmodernes (3rd ed.). Paris: La Table Ronde.

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Maillot, A. (2005). “Roulage-cari-sous-de-riz”: Le localisme aux creux de la vague. Mediamorphoses, 66–70. Mann, G. (2008). Why does country music sound white? Race and the voice of nostalgia. Ethnic and Racial Studies, 31(1), 73–100. https://doi.org/10. 1080/01419870701538893. Marche, G., & Vallas, S. (2016). Mouvement, enracinement, fixité. Revue Française D’Études Américaines, 149, 3–13. Martinez, P. (2008). La didactique des langues étrangères. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Paul, H. (2014). The myths that made America: An introduction to American studies. Bielefeld: Transcript. Pearsall, K. (2017, August 11). Effects guide: What is reverb? https://www.fen der.com/articles/tech-talk/pedal-board-primer-reverb. Portwood-Stacer, L. (2013). Spontaneous sensation over sensible stability: The Beat Generation. Representing Subcultures and Social Movements. Revels, J. T. (2011). Sunshine paradise: A history of Florida tourism. Gainesville: University of Florida Press. Safran, W. (1991). Diasporas in modern societies: Myths of homeland and return. Diaspora, 1(1), 83–99. Sayeux, A.-S. (2005). Surfeur, l’être au monde: Analyse socio-anthropologique de la culture de surfeurs, entre accords et déviance (Thèse de doctorat). Université de Rennes 2. Thamin, N. (2007). Dynamique des répertoires langagiers et identités plurilingues de sujets en situation de mobilité (Doctoral thesis). Université Stendhal. Thompson, G. (2015). Surfing, gender and politics: Identity and society in the history of South African surfing culture in the twentieth-century. (Doctoral thesis). Stellenbosch University. Totoricaguena, G. P. (Ed.). (2007). Opportunity structures in diaspora relations: Comparisons in contemporary multilevel politics of diaspora and transnational identity. Reno, NV: Center for Basque Studies, University of Nevada. Usher, L. E. (2017). “Foreign locals”: Transnationalism, expatriates, and surfer identity in Costa Rica. Journal of Sport and Social Issues, 41(3), 212–238. https://doi.org/10.1177/0193723517705542. Vanel, C. (2016). Le mormonisme, une culture en mouvement, enracinée aux États-Unis d’Amérique. Revue Française D’Études Américaines, 149, 131–142. Volk, I. M., Hoctor, T., Nettles, B., Hilsenbeck, R., & Putz, F. (2017). Florida land use and land cover change in the past 100 Years. In P. E. Chassignet,

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W. J. Jones, V. Misra, & J. Obeysekera (Eds.), Florida’s climate: Changes, variations, & impacts. https://doi.org/10.17125/fci2017.ch02. Walker, I. H. (2017). Kai Ea: Rising waves of national and ethnic Hawaiian identities. In Z. D. Hough-Snee & S. A. Eastman (Eds.), The critical surf studies reader (pp. 62–83). Durham: Duke University Press. Wheaton, B. (2017). Staying ‘stoked’: Surfing, ageing and post-youth identities. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 54 (4), 387–409. https://doi. org/10.1177/1012690217722522.

7 Model Two: The Phases of Cultural Appropriation

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Representing the Articulations of Surfing Culture Appropriation

1.1

Transposing Language Acquisition Systems to Cultural Situations

The model of the phases of cultural appropriation is meant to highlight the meaning of the relationships that individuals and groups develop with a culture or a subculture. The premise is that language acquisition theories can, by transposition, make it possible to articulate affective and cognitive dynamics between individuals of a given group and their subculture.1 Sociolinguistics,2 which deals with questions of multiculturalism, identity constructions, appropriation, sociocultural 1 In

a similar process, Roman Jacobson’s communication schemes were transposed to the didactics of languages as it allowed to highlight interesting facts, such as partners asymmetry in contexts of communication, the difficulty to interpret the place of the foreign observer, and the importance of context (Martinez, 2008, p. 10). 2 Sociolinguistics are broadly defined as “The study of the relationship between language use and social context” (Carr, 2008, p. 160). © The Author(s) 2020 A. Barjolin-Smith, Ethno-Aesthetics of Surf in Florida, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7478-8_7

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representations, and belonging, already allows us to understand empirically and rationally the dynamics of sociocultural systems that remain speculative and subjective in the cultural field of surfing. This model aims to articulate the relationships between surfing and music and its impact on identity. Just like a language, a culture is acquired or learned, practiced, transmitted, and it engages individuals as they exist with their life experiences, beliefs, and knowledge. If the ability to speak is the instrument of human communication and languages are the manifestation of this capacity (Martinez, 2008, p. 16), sociability is the instrument of community cohesion, and culture is the manifestation of this capacity to create social ties. As with linguistics, understanding cultures presupposes a theory of human interactions as well as an analysis of the faculties to distinguish oneself from the social body (through the creation of new linguistic conventions, or in our case, aesthetic ones). The proximity of languages and cultures is undeniable; this is the reason why linguists theorize about both simultaneously (Grosjean, 1993). This proximity also supports the relevance of models transposing linguistic facts to cultural situations. Many studies have attempted to explain the homology between music and identity, or its construction through music (Rice, 2007), but the question of identity building raises several issues. There is a wide variety of music, and it is unlikely that we would listen to it 24 hours a day. Therefore, it is too simplistic to say that music would amount to identity construction: “If music can construct identities then what identity is being constructed when white people listen to black music?” (Negus & Velazquez, 2002, p. 137). Model two takes up this questioning at its initial point to represent how individuals appropriate a culture according to specific stages and modalities. The same question is tackled but from a linguistic perspective to propose a theoretical path empirically anchored: wondering what identity is built by interim listening to music would then be like asking what identity is built when a Frenchman speaks English. Research in linguistics has shown that the conditions for acquiring and using a foreign language are decisive, and identity construction cannot be reduced to a simplistic approach (Bowerman &

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Levinson, 2001). For example, if an individual hums a song by Manu Chao,3 this does not mean that this person belongs to a multicultural Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese community representative of the artist’s mode of expression. If, however, the individual can bond linguistically, ethnically, or ideologically with the music, then there is potential for identification to the music, worth being explored. Therefore, this model based on language acquisition can help understand the interactions between cultures (or subcultures) and users to analyze the psychosocial implications highlighted in these interactions. In the ethno-aesthetics of surfing in Florida, the model represents only one step (essential to understanding identity dynamics) and makes it possible to consider identity beyond its simple construction.

1.2

Borrowing (Again) from Sociolinguistic Terminology

The terminology rests on the choice to discuss cultural phenomena in linguistic terms as they are defined in studies on the didactics of foreign languages (Gumperz, 1971; Martinez, 2008; Thamin, 2007). The term culture replaces that of language to discuss notions of first, second , original , and belonging cultures in order to account for complex sociocultural situations, such as those concerning the relationships that a community’s individuals maintain with multiple subcultures. These subcultures all constitute the identity of an individual, at different levels, and according to various modalities and functionalities. As its name suggests, the first culture is the first culture subjects are exposed to via their peers. It is acquired first and refers to the immediate family environment since its transmission is parental. Being acquired as opposed to learned, it has a specific role in the socialization of individuals. The designation first takes into account the function of the culture inherent to individuals in the construction of their identity. The immersion of the child in the predominant family culture makes it a 3 Manu

Chao is a multilingual and multicultural artist born in France from Spanish origin. His work constitutes a crossover between various languages and cultures (Arabic, Portuguese, French, Spanish, etc.) and various musical styles (salsa, pop-rock, etc.).

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primary culture. Thus, an individual like Sean Slater, having grown up in a family whose lifestyle was mainly that of surfing, has surfing as a primary culture. The second culture can be learned in sports clubs, schools, etc., but not in the family environment. It can also be a culture adopted by newcomers in an allo-cultural environment—the prefix is taken from the word allophone, meaning that the spoken language does not correspond to any languages spoken locally. Second cultures have a special status because an imaginary has been developed toward them before their learning (this would be the case of Bart Kelley). Just as a bilingual individual is the meeting place of languages (Weinreich,4 1951, cited in Martinez, 2008, p. 22), a multicultural individual is the meeting place of cultures, hence the importance of distinguishing first and second cultures. Furthermore, just as there are families of languages, there are families of cultures, such as that of lifestyle sports. So, the cultural repertoire of individuals must be apprehended as a whole to understand their interactions with (sub)cultures with different statuses (first, second, etc.). The proximity of the subcultures or their distance can interfere with the aesthetic choices of the subjects. On a larger scale, the culture of origin refers to the culture of the community of origin. This notion implies the idea of individual mobility and the notions of proximity and distance. The culture of origin is mainly acquired through contact with the family and can, therefore, include one or more primary cultures if, for example, the parents have several. Subjects are exposed to those during the socialization period in a place different from that of the culture of origin. Therefore, there is a notion of choice directly linked to the fact that individuals have several cultural repertoires, one specific to the origins of the family, the other specific to their direct social environment. Thus, like the language of origin, the culture of origin is invested with a fundamental symbolic function, which is revealed both at the level of cultural awareness and that of allegiance (Billiez, 1985, p. 99). So the social environment, as well as the family history, is marked by this culture, allowing socialization to 4 Weinreich,

U. (1951). Research problems in bilingualism, with special reference to Switzerland (Doctoral Thesis). Columbia University.

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take place with several primary cultures. For example, it would be a form of country culture for both Dustin and Bart Kelley, whose families are from Indiana. In addition, cultures of origin can be permanently banned by individuals who then must find a culture of belonging, like a new identity, an emblem specific to their quest for singularity. Concretely, this can be seen in the rejection of country culture for that of surfing. The culture of belonging is claimed and deals with the subjects’ attitudes toward the culture and its social functions. It defines community belonging and integrates symbolic, identity, and emblematic functions (Dabène, 1994, p. 24). This culture is the visible symbol of group membership and identity, and it can be a culture of origin. People do not have to be experts to claim this culture as long as they know some of its aspects. The links between these cultural appellations vary depending on the subjects, as surfing and music occur at different times and according to different criteria. The point here is to understand to which culture the subjects feel the closest affectively and how they articulate these preferences in their identity markings.

1.3

Theoretical Construction: Multiculturalism as Synthesis

Individuals can be multicultural to the extent that they master the practical and symbolic skills of the cultures they handle: they understand them, know their semantic fields, and can apply them in appropriate contexts (Grosjean, 1982). This multiculturalism is illustrated by Cocoa Beach surfers, who all juggle multiple cultures, as the rest of this chapter will show. Cultures take on social functions since they can be called upon to meet a need for integration or continuity in the community. This function touches on the new theories derived from the linguistic relativism of Whorf and Sapir, which consist in attributing a form of utilitarianism to the language according to contexts (Gopnick, 2003). In our case, it could be a response to expressive needs relating to community belonging, and therefore, to identity marking. Regular use of one culture or another involves choices on the part of individuals. If languages turn to language skills to determine their proficiency level, cultures turn to

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performative skills for social integration and identity marking. Any individual is multicultural to a certain degree, and each cultural variation has a social function. Borrowing more from linguistics (Calvet, 2009), socalled diatopic variation focuses on varieties of the same language from a geographical point of view (we also speak of regiolects, which correspond to specific spaces and make it possible to identify languages). In the case of (sub)cultures, this would concern the differences in the practice of surfing according to geographic spaces. The diastratic variation corresponds to what is called sociolects, that is to say, the different uses of the same language according to social origin. It may then be possible to determine if the uses of certain cultures can highlight social differences or, on the contrary, if the (sub)cultures assume the role of a social leveler. The diachronic variation concerns the evolution of languages over time. Transposed to cultures, this evolution is visible through the various generations of subjects discussed here. Finally, the diagenic variation accounts for the difference between men and women in the use of words according to their linguistic representations, socially acceptable or not, depending on gender (Bigot & Papen, n.d.). This variation is particularly strong in the surf subculture, so it cannot be ignored. This multicultural approach to surf culture makes it possible to illustrate the concept of marked identity. It also raises the question of the future of the subculture’s status in subjects for whom it would be the only reference culture, by contrast with multicultural subjects (for whom surfing but also other lifestyles, like country, would be reference cultures). The influence of all the cultures of origin and belonging must be taken into account to understand a certain discourse of surfing and identity markings. These satellite cultures can be reference cultures, depending on the geographic or social contexts (aesthetic preferences can vary depending on the social level and on individual and community experience), or they can be cultures learned through contact with peers (sharing musical references or discourses of a certain class). In this model, the notion of language repertoire is borrowed from linguistics to understand the discourses of surfing culture. In its first meaning, a language repertoire is a set of national, regional, social, and functional varieties of languages, as they are used in communication situations to which the individual or the group are confronted

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(Dufour, 2014; Gumperz, 1971). It includes all the communicative resources mobilized by a subject to communicate, in particular social and cultural situations, such as the beach or concerts, regardless of the degree of control that subjects have, or the status, functions, and social values assigned to these languages. Gumperz (1971) defined the verbal repertoire as “the totality of linguistic forms regularly employed in the course of socially significant interaction” (p. 152). Thus, in multilingual speakers (holders of two or more linguistic varieties), languages seem to be distributed according to various tasks and be in interdependent relations relative to the context. This notion of language repertoires is relevant here in its initial sense but can also be applied to cultures in the two models. Thus, individuals with varied sociocultural capitals should be able to adapt their discourse and behavior to various situations. This approach lays the groundwork for a dialectic of plural identity; that is, if identity is linked to the community and the social context, it is possible to envisage several identities for the same person or even an identity repertoire. Arguably, languages, cultures, and aesthetic values can be learned. However, some individuals are better equipped or educated on their subtleties and conventions, and will then be able to appreciate their qualities more fully and effectively. The properties of the discourse of surfing are marked by a specific vocabulary and by idioms probably born from semantic needs related to the culture and the environment (a vision close to neo-whorfianist theories). There is grammatical, lexical, syntactic, and semantic regularity in these discourses. It is then possible to say that surfers have their own grammar marked by the orality and the power of expression of their culture in the artistic spheres (plastic and musical). It is a sort of dialect that is too systematically stereotyped through expressions broadcast in cult movies, like The Endless Summer (Brown, 1966), or through songs by artists, like The Beach Boys. Therefore, the notion of repertoire is essential to decipher the dialects of surfing culture and is lacking in scholarly work. Here, the Floridian repertoire is highlighted for a reflection on identity phenomena in the surf subculture. The diagram proposed below represents the different phases of Model two, contextualized in the rest of this chapter.

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Types of Contacts with the Culture and Assimilation

The first phase of the model corresponds to an individual’s initial contact with a culture. The modes of entry into the subculture are distinguished according to whether it is first, second, or original. The role of intermediaries, that is, groups that have put the individual in contact with the culture, is decisive in the way the individual will apprehend it, identify with it, or reject it. Two types of contacts are modeled here: a passive determinism that takes place during the child’s socialization phase and that corresponds to the induction of the first culture by the family or the community of origin (the endogroup); and an active determinism that occurs later, at the age of social independence (corresponding to adolescence, even entry into adulthood). Here, subjects come into contact with the second culture through the intermediary of an exogroup (outside the family circle) and can make the subculture their culture of belonging by pledging allegiance to it. The impact of the physical, cultural, and social environments must be taken into account in these two determinisms. Assimilation is directly linked to the contact (via a port of entry) with the culture or cultures. After a successful first contact, assimilation can take two forms: that of first culture acquisition (C1, see Fig. 1) in the sense that cultural heritage is built in an induced manner without modifying a previously established system; that of second culture learning (C2), which involves volition and modifies an existing behavior by adding or replacing determining cultural elements in the social construction of the person. Several (sub)cultures can be acquired simultaneously, thus allowing subjects to build themselves in a diversity of cultures (origin or second). Logically, passive determinisms give rise to early acquisition while active determinisms give rise to late learning in a natural environment or an institution, like in surf schools, for example (as a reference culture). The nature of assimilation suggests a different approach to cultural repertoires. In the case of first or original culture, the repertoire (the methods of acquisition as well as the types of cultures acquired) is imposed by peers as a socializing practice preceding other possibilities, whereas, in the case of a second culture, a choice is available, and cognitive and affective operations are made a posteriori.

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Fig. 1 Phases of cultural appropriation

This approach allows two types of hierarchies of cultures and their functional distribution at the micro-social level, that is, at the level of the individual and the small cultural group (e.g., the surfer community in Cocoa Beach). On the one hand, the culture of surfing can be considered in relation to other regional and national cultures (particularly those that

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are imported by subjects with multicultural repertoires); on the other hand, the coexisting cultures of the surf lifestyle, like music, fishing, etc., can be considered on their own. This cultural categorization highlights phenomena observable in languages. Accordingly, two linguistic notions can be transposed to culture: diglossia (a social situation in which two languages coexist with different statuses) and bilingualism (an individual faculty to use at least two languages).

2.1

First Culture: Sean Slater and Lance-O

In the cases of Sean Slater and Lance-O, it is possible to speak of passive determinism and early acquisition because the two subjects grew up in the surf culture characterized by the surf ethos, or the crossover lifestyle that was defined in Model one and that includes family, activities linked to the ocean and the music. The three elements do not always have equal value, but they are all present. In the case of Lance-O,5 music and surfing were passed on to him by the family: There was a lot of music being played when I was growing up, and music was always a very intricate part of my life. … I started collecting records from an early age, and you know, it came that time of my life where my mom told me, she’s like, ‘you know, make sure you do something you love, that way you’ll always be happy’.

Surfing and music were promoted by the family environment as positive values and have been the socialization tools of Lance-O. Entry into the culture was therefore determined relatively passively. Subsequently, the artist resolved to turn a family practice into a social practice. At the same time, surfing was also transmitted to him by his family, then the practice was reinforced by contact with his peers: I’ll say with surfing, what happened with me was my uncle surfed, and every time he would come around, we would surf. … It was kind of three things, my uncle who kinda planted the seed, me getting in the car [with 5 Interviewed

on January 6, 2016.

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his friends to go surfing], and my friend kind of, you know, pushing me to go.

While Lance-O was exposed to surfing through a family member, he was also active in maintaining the culture through acts of volition of which he appeared to be aware. Sean Slater6 was born in the heart of the surf lifestyle because his father was one of the pioneers of Floridian surfing: “My father, he was a surfer. He was a beach guy, he surfed, he fished, he owned a tackle store, and he used to catch bait and gill-netting before it was illegal, and he was a shrimper, a fisherman, a lifeguard, a bouncer. I mean, he was a Floridian beach guy!” In the case of Sean Slater, the cultural elements of surfing and fishing were particularly strong in his socialization. The family was completely involved in the waterman lifestyle in an almost archetypal way, by being exclusively turned toward what represents the ethos of surfing. Sean Slater and Lance-O acquired the culture as children learn their first language, without having to think about its metalanguage or its representations. The cultural repertoires of Sean Slater and Lance-O are based on the ethos of surfing. As individuals, they were not constructed according to a priori antagonistic cultural forces, nevertheless, they possess multicultural skills specific to the ethos of the subculture since they master coexisting cultures, such as fishing or music. Both Lance-O and Sean Slater displayed concordant cultural repertoires that were almost exclusively built on the fundamental principles of Floridian surfing. That said, it is unlikely to find mono-culturalism situations since Florida is a multicultural and multilingual region. In the cases of Lance-O and Sean Slater, the family culture was also the dominant culture of the public space (Florida), and the hypothetical displacement toward another surfing space, like for example Hawaii, only poses a problem of relation of peer to peer but not variety to variety in cultural terms. So there are variations in global surfing culture, but it is always the same culture (in keeping with our linguistic transposition, it would be the difference between British English and American English). 6 Interviewed

on June 7, 2017.

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Second Culture: Ricky Carroll, Dustin, Bart Kelley, and Britty

Ricky Carroll, Dustin, Bart Kelley, and Britty are set in the framework of active determinism and late learning. The four subjects entered the subculture at different times in their lives, and in different ways: Ricky Carroll during childhood, Dustin during adolescence, Bart and Britty in adulthood. In addition, the differences between their respective first cultures and that of surfing are not equal since Ricky Carroll and Britty were in situations of mobility during their childhood, as both their fathers worked in the army.7 Dustin grew up in a family whose lifestyle revolved around the ocean even though his parents are from Indiana, and Bart entered the subculture late. Their respective mobilities are comparable to migrating situations of second-generation for Dustin, and newcomer for Bart, who chose to settle in Florida late in life: I’ve been coming to this area for about fifteen years. I used to travel with the Nascar circuit… Then it became only if there was a beach around, and then for some reason, this place has always attracted me… I’ve always been attracted to it, so we’ve been vacationing here and every time I would go back to Indiana, I would get just depressed and unhappy. So finally, we made the move to actually move here, so three years ago.

Bart talked about depression, pushing him to gradually abandon the symbols of his first culture and devote himself entirely to his culture of belonging. Dustin’s8 situation was different because he was not born into a family of surfers, but he thought his family’s proximity to the ocean allowed him to live the lifestyle very early on: I think, I feel like a lot of people like especially in Florida, if you surf, chances are your parents may not surf, but they probably spent a lot of time on the water boating, and in and on the water. Or you lived in a beachside community, and so that’s why I said earlier, I think that 7 Ricky

Carroll comes from New York, and he had his first contact with surfing on the Japanese island of Okinawa; Britty is originally from Florida but only settled there in adulthood. 8 Interviewed on September 16, 2016.

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economics have something to do with that, and also it’s your family and so many of the guys that have been surfing since they were young, their parents were sailors. It’s just part of the waterman lifestyle.

As Dustin pointed out, the late learning of surfing in Florida is not exceptional since populations migrate, like his parents or Bart Kelley,9 in order to live the tiki or beach lifestyle. According to him, “Florida is such a diverse place, like everybody ends up there from all around the country, particularly, like the east coast, from New York, from Canada, from all over. They all end up coming to Florida….” Even if he grew up in a marine environment, surfing is not a primary culture for Dustin because his parents do not know it, and their first culture remains inherent to that of rural Indiana despite their taste for the ocean. In addition, as he explained, his first contacts with the subculture took place during adolescence: A neighbor of mine named John, he used to collect pretty much anything that people would leave outside his house. And he gave me a surfboard when I was probably 11 or 12. And I’d done some bodyboarding and stuff before that, but he gave me that board, and I was instantly like… I couldn’t wait, like, it only had two fins, one of the side fins had broken off, and it was super dangerous because there was fiber glass poking out everywhere, and yeah, I was like, “alright, let’s do this!” And I took it out and started surfing.

Dustin, Ricky Carroll, Bart Kelley, and Britty were exposed to surfing culture as teenagers through their peers, making surfing one of their second and main cultures. Indeed, these subjects are characterized by their mobility and their heterogeneous cultural repertoires, which imply the need to make choices relating to cultural belonging. All of them have multicultural skills, that is, they master the experience of several cultures to varying degrees while managing their entire cultural capital. Individuals in mobility already have a cultural repertoire that can sometimes be the opposite of surfing, as in the case of Bart Kelley and his passion for Nascar. Gradually, Bart became identified with the subculture of surfing 9 Interviewed

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more than that of car racing, and this is reflected in the programming and themes of his radio broadcasts focused on the surf lifestyle. Dustin has maintained two cultures, that of surfing, and another decidedly more country related to the family farm in Indiana. Britty entered late into the cultures of jazz and yoga, the former being considerably remote from that of surfing.

3

Appropriation of Surfing Culture

The term appropriation represents the ability to adapt a culture to a usage or a function determined by a person by going beyond the simple learning of the culture. In linguistics, appropriation amounts to monopolizing a language that stands out from others not only through its lexicon, intonations, or syntax but also through the cultural markers associated with it. Language-culture becomes a marker of identity. For example, in the United States, rurality may be associated with country music. A need for expression dominates these associations between language and external markers (influenced here by the Floridian context); in other words, these languages associate with their own forms of expression. Surfing and surf music are part of this logic. This is where sociocultural and aesthetic representations and differentiations come into play: relationships with endo- and exogroups are marked, and the integration of singularizing elements, such as music, clothing, and attitudes start to appear. Next is the phase where the communities of belonging stand out. Surfers can, therefore, differentiate themselves from other surfers through their musical choices or the assertion of a style in the practice of surfing, as it is cultivated in their region. This phase is crucial because it articulates the culture of surfing in the subculture. Surfers are faced with a choice: identify with a group, as opposed to other groups, and maintain this identity, or go further to the fourth phase of the model in order to have an impact on the subculture, thus on the individuals who compose it. In this phase, there is a need to associate with modes of expression that characterize the culture of belonging. The model, therefore, shows how this need is articulated, and the analysis makes it possible to understand its meaning and the identificatory corollaries.

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207

Intergroup Representations: Surfing Subcultures

Representations are linked to the questions of identity toward which this work is funneling. Identity inflections are produced by social, family, or collective representations emanating from influential groups. Surfers belong to groups whose individuals share practices and beliefs. These groups necessarily exist in contrast to other groups of surfers (Florida versus California, or the Space Coast versus New Smyrna). Indeed, the identity of individuals is what differentiates them from others, but the identity of a group is what makes the individuals of this same group similar. Floridian surfers belong to a global community since they identify with the culture of surfing, but they also differ from it by their affiliation to the Floridian subculture, distinguished by its geography and its sociocultural history. A glocal identity is envisaged here in which a local formation would be inscribed in a broader national and global design (like Russian dolls looking alike but whose size fundamentally changes their density, their weight, their volume, thus marking their distinctive characteristics). By creating groups, we simplify our environment by reorganizing it according to structures and a system of perception, allowing cognitive economy (a practice implemented daily when, for example, we imagine a surfer: we visualize a surfboard and board-shorts but not the whole community meeting the various surfer criteria). This phenomenon generates a stronger marking of the differences between groups and similarities within a group in order to facilitate discrimination between categories. These stereotypes are then part of the intergroup representations since they allow an evaluation of “Us” and “Them” according to concrete criteria like the territorial or aggro behaviors of surfers, as the participants describe them. The distinction between different groups is generally accompanied by an appreciation of the endogroup and devaluation of the exogroup. Thus, stereotypes fulfill not only a cognitive function but also have an evaluative function (Deschamps & Moliner, 2008, p. 32). This qualitative assessment of exogroups takes different forms. For example, Floridian surfers may consider other communities to be role models (this is the case with the Hawaiian archipelago thought of as an ideal of surf culture), or they may

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see them as rivals (this is the case for California from its industry and international influence standpoints). If stereotypes come into play mainly in intergroup relations, prototypes are the point of reference within the same group. A prototype is an element that is considered to define best or represent the category. For example, in Cocoa Beach, Kelly Slater and C. J. Hobgood are two local icons who have become international. Thus, groups are distinguished from each other by stereotypes, a partial and almost cliché view of reality (the Hawaiian Wahine, the white trash Floridian, the handsome Californian surfer), while individuals gather around an original or authentic10 model validated by the agents of the cultural group. The status of surfers considered authentic validates their musical choices as representing a Floridian surf music constituting one of the subculture’s traits.

3.2

Integration of the Musical Element: Choice of a Representative Repertoire

In Model two, individuals complete the phase of cultural appropriation by selecting attributes offered by the culture that allow them to situate themselves within this culture. Depending on subjects’ trajectories, they will seek to distinguish themselves from other groups but also from other individuals in their group. This is where music comes into play.11 The experience of culture now adapted to a usage determined by the subject transforms the relationship with others and with society since it allows the individualization of the person. Thus, subjects who include the musical element can redefine their relationship to others through the processes that lead to the singularization of their aesthetic claim. According to their personal experience, their vision of others and the subculture evolves, and they are also perceived as a distinct value by others. Singularizing factors may appear in the playlists shared on social media but also through direct claims, such as “to me, surf music is….” While my subjects all had a common idea of what surf music 10The

question of identity is developed in the last part of this work. this model, any singularizing factor can be substituted. Instead of music, tattoos could be a factor in a different study. 11 In

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implied (mostly rock music of the 1960s), they used their interviews as a moment of reflection about something they knew but had never considered deeply, so that by the end, they all managed to define their own surf music. It shifted away from the iconic movement by including various genres and artists, but in each case, elements of reggae were incorporated. The notion of repertoire borrowed from linguistics implies a dynamic process of appropriation and transformation of knowledge (Dufour, 2014, p. 180). In the surfers’ musical repertoires, music is part of a reciprocal relationship. There is a form of continuity between elements of the repertoire that are linked to the cultures of the subject. Thus, a musical repertoire is built according to a cultural context ranging from the family to the close sociocultural group to the other groups. Repertoires are fluid because they evolve according to events and periods in individuals’ lives (encounters, musical novelties, etc.), and to what best meets their emotional situation. The musical varieties contained in a repertoire are representative of the cultural capital of the individual (plural in our subjects) who makes use of them according to appropriate sociocultural contexts. With Ricky Carroll, this meant playing alternative rock with one of his bands, Lady and The Tramp, or rock country with his other band, Karalyn and Dawn Patrol. For Britty, it was singing jazz in public places or listening to reggae in everyday personal situations. Individuals appropriate the subculture by developing their own musical repertoire according to possibilities that are offered locally and globally, and which are not always extracted from the consensual repertoire of surf music. The musical repertoire makes it possible to mark membership, but also non-membership. These choices enable a sort of autobiographical writing of the subjects since the musical repertoires allow us to explore and answer the questions: Who am I as an individual and a surfer? Where do I stand in my community and the world? These repertoires render it possible to make self-awareness tangible. Thus, the musical element allows singularization at the group level and the individual level by marking the culture of belonging. The goal, however, is not to achieve such a degree of differentiation that all ties are broken with other members of the group. It is essential to find one’s place with accuracy in a balanced social structure whose personal choices contribute to building a common but flexible musical repertoire.

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4

Modification of Surfing Culture

4.1

Cultural Personalization

At the modification stage, individuals master the (sub)culture enough to be able to personalize it (transform it), then create (reinvent it), and finally radiate through it (disseminate their personal vision). Before creating, individuals must learn to personalize the subculture’s components by appropriating them and modifying them. Personalization is a fledgling creative effort that all of my subjects went through when, for example, they salvaged and repaired broken surfboards to learn how to surf, composed their musical repertoire while leaving the surf music paradigm, put stickers of the brands that best represented them on their car, etc. The goal of personalization is not extreme individualization, which would make individuals lose sight of group belonging. The goal is to get closer to the process of authentic creation, achieved by all my subjects, and which makes them agents and references of surfing culture.

4.2

Creation: Emergence of Ethno-Aesthetic Signatures

Creativity is understood as proposing something new and unique to the subculture. It is the ultimate mastery of a subculture’s codes, and this level of appropriation can be achieved both by individuals for whom surfing is the first culture and by those for whom it is the second culture. In this regard, Dustin’s description of his journey in the surfing world (his second culture) also served as a framework for the design of the stages of this model: “It started off as a hobby, and then it evolved into a lifestyle, and it evolved further into a career.” Like the other subculture’s agents, after entering it, he appropriated it and then modified it. At this point, surfers can create their own models of surfboards, their media images, their songs, etc. Therefore, beyond simple abilities to alter the object, surfers who have reached this phase can also influence behaviors within the subculture, and thus, modify or reorient it ideologically. This ability relates to the performative power of the subculture’s discourses, applying

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particularly to surfers who, without creating concrete objects, invent new ways of thinking the lifestyle. That said, the most obvious creations are the material ones. Thus, the creators of equipment, like Sean Slater and Ricky Carroll, manufacture a technical object for a specific public, from specific environmental data. All shapers and a majority of surfers started making surfboards out of necessity or passion; Sean Slater and Ricky Carroll have made it a profession. At their level, the goal is not to make surfboards by imitating existing models, but by proposing something new in order to stand out, and in turn, inspire other shapers, as Sean Slater explained: “I try to get creative with my surfboards by making themed boards, and then a couple of guys caught on and started doing things that were really fun… That’s how I see it, it’s fun. When the fun is gone, I don’t want to do it anymore.” Ricky Carroll started making surfboards at the age of 13 because his big brother would not let him use the only board they shared. He did not think he was going to make it a profession, but as for all my interviewees, his passion for surfing led him to creation by and for surfing: “I mean it’s just a passion… As a kid, once I did it, it’s like, that’s all I wanted to do… I got into the surf industry just kinda by chance, not that that’s what I wanted to do. I didn’t think there was a career in making surfboards, but I soon discovered that there was, and once I did, I never went back.” This career choice is not usually linked to the financial perspective but to the lifestyle that allows shapers to work to be able to surf. Again, for both Sean Slater and Ricky Carroll, the concepts of happiness, fun, and passion were fundamental to their approach to surfing as lifestyle and creation. Ricky Carroll12 explained: I’m really passionate about what I do. You don’t make surfboards all of your life unless you’re passionate about it. It’s not something you do and go, ‘Oh I’m gonna make a ton of money doing this.’ It’s hard work and you have to have a passion for it. And I’m one of those people who’s very competitive. When I started surfing, in competitions and stuff, I wasn’t going to enter competitions unless I was gonna win. I didn’t go in here just to be a part of it. And when I started my own company, I had worked

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for many years for another company, and the ‘work hard’ ethic has always been a part of who I am. But the ‘surf hard’ was kind of saying, you know, if you’re gonna do something put your all at it instead of just go out to surf and say ‘I’m a surfer.’

Involvement in the surf industry was, for Ricky Carroll, a choice dominated by passion and a sense of accomplishment taken to the extreme. The competitions that Ricky Carroll talked about have not only to do with the practice of surfing, but they also refer to the multiple shaping competitions he won before setting up his own company. The goal was to reproduce models by hand, as precisely as possible. Before becoming the surf icon that he is today, Ricky Carroll had to imitate to the extreme to prove his talent. In addition, the slogan of his company, “Work hard, play hard,” reflects a consensual vision of surfing according to which, whether surfing is a sporting practice or an aesthetic creation, surfers claim action and are wary of postures. If equipment overall constitutes the technical objects of surfing, practical ideology is what transforms the sport into a lifestyle by including social, cultural, and affective dimensions. Two dynamics linked to creation seem to surface in the lifestyle: one relating to the creation in itself, the other being a reflection on the inherence of the act of creation in surfing. Lance-O considered, for example, that sports and music have in common that they are organic phenomena; that is, they are constructed according to principles concerning all living beings. His approach to music, exclusively reggae, is thus very spiritual: So for me, I feel there’s a very deep connection [between surf and music], you know, because music comes from a special place, you know, and it’s a creative process. And some of the most talented people that make music are special people because it’s coming from a very special place. And you know, most music is made through something that they have experienced. … Most of the time, we’re surfing where we live and believe it or not, because say surfing takes you there, it can, in some shape or form, take you to that place to create music as well because it’s in that solace. It’s that kind of quiet place in your head, and I mean, a lot of time, you can just get an idea while surfing or you can get all kinds of ideas because if

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the topic could be without any stretch of the imagination stretching it to fit this topic, ideas come out all the time so….

According to Lance-O, surfing and artistic practice are part of an intimate experience enabling individuals to reach a state where the faculties of imagination can be unleashed to allow creativity to express itself. The balance between the sensible and the intelligible transcends the artist’s vision of the surf lifestyle. Britty represented her vision of the lifestyle in brightly colored paintings, characteristic of Floridian and Caribbean aesthetics. According to different creative methods, Bart Kelley creates and proposes radio programs representing his vision of the surf lifestyle: positive and fun. He chose the name Endless Summer Radio because it characterizes the Floridian way of life: an endless summer. A final observation on the musical aspect of the lifestyle was highlighted by Sean Slater about his friend, surfer, and musician, Jack Johnson, who found “his niche,” a word often used during interviews, which marks the importance of finding one’s place within a group, a society, an industry, etc.: It’s funny, about Jack, Jack Johnson, we use to joke that he was the poorest guy we know, and now, he’s the richest guy we know because everyone would sit around and play guitar… All of a sudden Jack, he found his niche, it’s crazy! … Donovan tried all kinds of different musics, and I mean, they cruised around in a van, like a 24-foot van.

Jack Johnson and Donavon Frankenreiter, two Hawaiian artists and surfers, both represent a contemporary consensus on what surf music can be today: acoustic music produced by former professional surfers, the semantics of which reflect values of surfing without falling in the enclosing cliché of artists who were never able to create their own aesthetic signature. In the case of Sean Slater, creation is anchored in surfing co-cultures: his goal was to promote elements serving as links within the surf lifestyle, such as family, ocean-related activities, music, community, and participant protection. His most important contribution here is his concept of lifestyle crossover that he wanted to implement through his organization, Slater

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Brothers Invitational, and that characterizes the ethos of Floridian surfing. The image of the surf lifestyle that Dustin has been tasked to develop for Sun Bum under the supervision of Tom Rinks (creator and president of the brand) is very heterogeneous: Dustin has executed several marketing operations meant to fit the brand in the subculture in the most likely way. Thus, he assisted in developing impromptu surfing competitions (Bum Rush Tours), intimate concerts on the back porch of the Cocoa Beach office (Sonny’s Porch concerts), and a partnership with Mastercraft wakeboard boats, among other things. All this was made possible thanks to Dustin’s status in the subculture and all of his contacts. As he explained, he created a job around the life that he wanted: “We got in the industry… We do this because it is the lifestyle right? You create a job around the lifestyle.” These events are always filmed or photographed. This modus operandi allows the brand to create a repertoire of media images anchored in the reality of the subculture through the use of surfers, which in the case of Dustin, represent a regional vision of the subculture. For him, Sun Bum is one of the emblems of Cocoa Beach surfing: “I think our brand [represents the surf lifestyle around here] in a big way. All the marketing, the imagery and social media and all that stuff is all wrapped around the Florida lifestyle, the Florida surfing lifestyle, and how it kinda differs from other places.” Sonny’s Porch concerts were created because surfers appreciate the conviviality of a musical gathering after a surf session. The concept of Sonny’s Porch was developed accordingly: “we love the music, so we wanted to capture the music on film and share with everyone else kinda what we like and what we’re about… And we just like having concerts at our office.” Whether it is marketing services or products, surfers create what they need for themselves. This approach is what differentiates the mainstream from the authentic: “Everything that you do can’t be scare tactics. … We started making sunscreen for us, and we made it for us so that it would work well, and then we wanted to share with everybody else.” As the last part of this work shows, the notions of absence and shortage are some of the creative impulses of these surfers who have made their lifestyle an offer to their own demand. Thus, legitimate objects and behaviors are easily

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distinguished from others by their functionality (board-shorts or surfboards must be designed in anticipation of the action) and their ability to harmonize with the affect of surfers, as music can.

4.3

The Influence of Surfers on Cultural Repertoires

The influence of the creators of cultures as they could be named is of two different natures: on the one hand, the activity of the shapers, like Ricky Carroll or Sean Slater, is very specialized and is addressed to participants only. On the other hand, lifestyle agents can reach a much wider audience because it is not necessary to be a surfer to enjoy a concert, use sunscreen, listen to a radio that plays music associated with surfing, but also with the Floridian beach lifestyle. Lance-O talked about his music, reggae, like music created to give a voice to those who could not be heard: You know, reggae was born as a voice for the voiceless, and people that struggled, people that were oppressed, people that weren’t allowed to do everything that everyone else was allowed to do. It’s injustice, inequality, you know, but it also evolved into you know having fun, dancing, love.

The practices and discourses implemented by the subjects all have in common that they have a form of impact on others. Thus, by monopolizing the subculture, they have reinvented it according to their needs and have exposed it to the world by seizing spaces usually occupied by the archetypes of surfing: Hawaii, California, and Australia. Therefore, these local actors challenge the supremacies of surfing imagined as the only legitimate ones in terms of places, practice, and cultural and aesthetic symbols of their time. By participating in the production of ideas, speeches, images, and sounds and by committing to the global construction of a surf psyche, Floridian surfers with agency have managed to articulate new discourses that gradually liberate Florida from its stigmata and highlight it as a key player in surfing. They have taken control because they are the ones who master the connections and disconnections between the diktats of surfing and their own understanding of the subculture. Through Sun Bum, Dustin succeeded in

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diffusing a Floridian discourse reflected in some of the brand’s marketing events, thereby exceeding the limits and difficulties linked to the status of the Floridian underdog. Sun Bum has carved itself a space in the global surfing sphere by gaining consumers in the capitals of surfing: California, Hawaii, and Australia. The brand’s marketing models are spread both physically and virtually through its events, including Sonny’s Porch concerts, as they are broadcast on social media.

5

From Cultural Capital Formation to Ethno-Aesthetic Belonging

The last movement of this chapter relies on the findings of the model to synthesize the discussion on the formation of a cultural capital of surfing. This section makes the connection between the challenges of cultural appropriation and those of ethno-aesthetic belonging, illustrated in the last part of this work. Cultural capital is understood in this work as what allows an individual to mobilize appropriate skills and attitudes in a more or less conscious manner. The formation of this capital includes a form of learning related to cultural, social, geographic, and aesthetic experiences, resulting in the mastery of theoretical knowledge and skills shared by the surfers’ community. The culture of surfing has built its capital on its mobility. Although established in Florida, the subculture does not ignore its Californian past or its Hawaiian roots (even if the relationship is unilateral). The cultural capital of surfing is then built up in different movements: in the mobility of the culture itself and the individual learning of the subculture anchored at a given point. The capital is this fundamental good that groups of individuals promote, and that grows according to the contribution of participants and social conjectures. Bourdieu (1979, 1980) considered that economic and cultural capitals were the most determining factors in individuals’ social construction. Without ignoring this economic aspect, I have focused on the cultural aspect of the socio-identity structure. The cultural capital of surfing is then the construction of knowledge relating to the subculture, as illustrated by the model of the phases of cultural appropriation. Learning from a global system, the ramifications that evolve over given

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periods and are specific to geographic regions, provide individuals who learn these know-hows with specific skills so that they can identify and distinguish themselves from each other. Thus, Dustin explained that a poser would be quickly discovered: “anybody who surfs would sniff it out instantly, so they don’t… It may sound like an insider but if they talk to anybody who actually does the activity on a regular basis, they’d sniff it out right away. Like you can’t fake it to somebody who’s like [a real surfer]….” This capital is a construction (hence the idea of identity construction), that is done according to anticipated objectives, modes of application, tools, needs, desires, and codes. I have borrowed the notion of cultural capital from Bourdieu (1979), in its “incorporated” form envisaged by Gérard Mauger. It focuses on the faculties to learn and maintain inherited or instructed cultural knowledge. As Mauger (2002) pointed out, cultural capital, which disappears with the death of its holder, cannot be transmitted instantaneously by hereditary donation or transmission, purchase or exchange. It requires an effort of inculcation and assimilation, as well as work from the subjects on themselves, which costs time: it is cultivated (p. 2). The work in question does not systematically require a prior will of conscious and active learning on the part of the learner because knowledge can be transmitted by immersion and by contact with peers, particularly during the child’s socialization. This process echoes the model of cultural appropriation. On the one hand, there is a cultural heritage transmitted and erected as cultural capital (early acquisition for Sean Slater). On the other hand, there is a cultural object integrated as a constituent of an existing cultural capital (late acquisition for Bart Kelley). The transmission of the capital in the first case takes place, essentially, without any explicit will to transmit it, through the educational effect that the objectified cultural capital integrated into the family environment exerts, and through all the implicit forms of transmission linked to the use of language, contributing to the social construction of habitus (ibid., 2002, p. 2). Thus, the cultural capital construction is done either by late integration into the existing capital or by transmission according to the model developed here.

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References Bigot, D., & Papen, A. R. (n.d.). Formation en linguistique variationniste. Concordia University. http://uoh.concordia.ca/sociolinguistique/res/ module1_1.pdf. Billiez, J. (1985, Décembre). La langue comme marqueur d’identité. Revue Européenne de Migrations Internationales, 1(2), 95–105. Bourdieu, P. (1979). La distinction: Critique sociale du jugement. Paris: Éditions de Minuit. Bourdieu, P. (1980). L’identité et la représentation: Éléments pour une réflexion critique sur l’idée de région. Actes de la recherche en sciences sociales, 35 (1), 63–72. https://doi.org/10.3406/arss.1980.2100. Bowerman, M., & Levinson, C. S. (2001). Language acquisition and conceptual development (3rd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brown, B. (1966). The endless summer [Film]. Aviva International. Calvet, L.-J. (2009). La sociolinguistique (6ème). Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Carr, P. (2008). A glossary of phonology. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Dabène, L. (1994). Repères sociolinguistiques pour l’enseignement des langues. Paris: Hachette. Deschamps, J.-C., & Moliner, P. (Eds.). (2008). L’identité en psychologie sociale: Des processus identitaires aux représentations sociales (2nd ed.). Paris: Armand Colin. Dufour, M. (2014). Du concept de répertoire langagier et de sa transposition didactique. Lidil, 49, 179–194. Gopnick, A. (2003). Theories, language, and culture: Whorf without wincing. In C. S. Levinson (Ed.), Language acquisition and conceptual development (3rd ed., pp. 45–69). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Grosjean, F. (1982). Life with two languages: An introduction to bilingualism. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Grosjean, F. (1993). Le bilinguisme et le biculturalisme: Essai de définition. Travaux Neuchatelois de Linguistique (TRANEL), 19, 13–42. Gumperz, J. J. (1971). Language in social groups. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Martinez, P. (2008). La didactique des langues étrangères. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Mauger, G. (2002). Capital culturel et reproduction scolaire. Sciences Humaines, 36, 1–7.

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Negus, K., & Velazquez, P. R. (2002). Belonging and detachment: Musical experience and the limits of identity. Poetics, 30, 133–145. Rice, T. (2007). Reflections on music and identity in ethnomusicology. Musicology, 7, 17–38. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190616885.001. 0001. Thamin, N. (2007). Dynamique des répertoires langagiers et identités plurilingues de sujets en situation de mobilité (Doctoral Thesis). Université Stendhal.

Part III The Question of Identity in Ethno-Aesthetic Belonging

8 Thinking the Questions of Identity

1

Relationship Between Identity and Surf Music

1.1

Music as Reflection or Construction of Identity?

One of this book’s objectives is to understand the impact of the links between a lifestyle and the qualities of a given musical experience on the production of individuals and communities developed by these individuals. Identity has been approached here according to principles of fluidity and mobility1 . While it is clear that surfing and surfing music are part of what my interviewees are (the verb be having the function of introducing the notion of identity), there remains to explain precisely how individuals who have appropriated a lifestyle and a culture, sometimes (re)shaping it, situate themselves and define themselves according to it. 1 In

social psychology, Georges Herbert Mead (1934) conceptualized identity as the Self (marked by social norms and values) in relation to other elements composing the individual: the Ego (the individual as an object in relation to others), and the I (the individual’s sense of himself in relation to his social situation).

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At first glance, it seems legitimate to think that music could be a reflection of a lifestyle and, therefore, of the individuals who build it. However, representation, not in the psychosocial sense pertaining to the social (intelligible) perceptions of the individual, which will be discussed later, but in the sense of sensible reproduction of reality, appears restrictive and inappropriate. Art is not a true copy of reality, and in the case of music, it is the interpretation made by those who consume it that gives it its valence.2 More than a simple reflection of surfers’ reality, surf music is neither an exclusively semantic expression of surfing nor a homogeneous representation of all the world’s surfers. Music becomes popular among certain communities because it is socially relevant to those who validate it. Indeed, within the same community of surfers, some recognize themselves in punk, others in alternative rock, and others in electronic music. Even if there is a consensus within the community, individuals are built according to their own experience, their education, their generational context, etc. For Dustin,3 for example, electronic music that young surfers listen to is not qualifying according to his vision of the lifestyle: “to me electronic, it couldn’t be [representative of surf music] ‘cause I don’t think it’s anything to anybody. Like, I don’t think electronic is associated to any particular type of person. It’s just… Some people like electronic music, it’s gotten more popular, so maybe that’s why.” For Dustin, electronic music means nothing to anyone despite its proven popularity among the youngest. His speech is neither new nor surprising, but it highlights important notions: first, for music to have meaning, it must exist in cognitive and affective associations. Then, after disqualifying electronic music, Dustin revised his position by realizing that after all, the genre is very popular among young surfers. What he introduced there was the idea that these musics, rather than being the reflection of an identity, allow certain identities to manifest and articulate within a cultural group. The issue then is to understand the difference between the conditions of production and consumption of music, which disqualifies the idea of music as a 2I

make no difference between classical music, which can be considered as high art according to Bourdieu, and popular music in which surf music is inscribed. 3 Interviewed on September 10, 2016.

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reflection of identity. Considering classical music, the inventor of the concept of musicking, Christopher Small (1998), discussed the nature and function of the links between music and society and indicated that it is the circumstances of music production from one place to another, from one audience to another, and especially from one era to another that are relevant to understanding the links between music and society. He explained that musical repertoires represent certain modalities of human interaction (groups united according to their will and in the understanding of accepted social conditions) but not their identity. Likewise, the musicking of surfers does not represent their identity properly speaking, but the way in which a community made up of diverse identities in formation interact according to a common will and direction at given times and in given spaces. Identities in formation raise the problem of their construction through music. Even if we can concede that music contributes to the construction of the self (Frith, 1987, 1996), it is necessary to go beyond this relationship because, on the one hand, many other elements come into play in the formation of identity. On the other hand, the term construction 4 implies the stable and definitive shaping of a structure that would aim to be finished, while identity is fluid (Muggleton, 2004). Identity evolves in a more or less intense way according to life periods through contact with and learning of new cultures. Any individual can thus appreciate varieties of music a priori distant from their primary culture to include them in their cultural capital or not. In order to make sense of surfer’s love for musics going from reggae to country, it is necessary to move away from the idea that musical creation must account for a particular symbolic system since, as Frith (1996) pointed out, “while music may be shaped by the people who first make and use it, as experience it has a life of its own” (p. 109). Individuals are active in their cognitive and affective associations, and therefore, in what they choose to implement in the invention of themselves. They actively constitute themselves by borrowing sociocultural models surrounding them (Foucault,

4 Construction

is defined in movement, but this movement tends toward a final project, and it is precisely this idea of finality that is inappropriate to speak of identity.

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1997, p. 291). Choices are neither indefinite nor entirely free for individuals since they are offered, even imposed by the culture and the society to which they belong. However, as the two models developed in this work have shown, individuals can appropriate specific characteristics of these cultures and redefine them, thereby creating new identificatory possibilities.

1.2

Beyond Reflection and Construction: Cultural Synthesis in Identity Marking

Before suggesting a new approach to identity, the notion of musical genre must be restated because it raises the problem of classification and association of certain musics according to unequal, even sometimes obsolete ethnic, regional, and cultural criteria. Surf music is not intrinsically linked to an ethnic type or a specific genre of music, like jazz or country. Therefore, it is difficult to speak of reflection or construction of identity through music when musical movements are so volatile and the notion of genre so delicate to delimit (Brackett, 2016, p. 3). What must be questioned in surf music is rather how the relationship between surf culture, its participants, and the music that makes up the movement is articulated, and more precisely, how surfers perceive their relationship to the music. For example, (beyond the apposition of the surf music category to the culture), Lance-O5 made it possible to understand that the two phenomena can be considered as markers of identity intrinsically linked: Not a doubt [there is a link between surf and music]. Because they’re both organically based, um, the music is made from the soul and… Surfing and music both feed the soul. There’s a very, specially the stuff that’s more organic it, um, it’s very spiritual, and surfing definitely is a spiritual cleansing. So there is in my opinion, there is a deep connection, especially for me because my two favorite things in the whole world are surfing and music.

5 Interviewed

on January 16, 2016.

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Other interviewees also viewed surfing and music as working together and as being of particular importance in their daily lives, even if very few of them could explain it. Lance-O’s answer highlights his preliminary reflection as D.J. and surfer on his own practices, and it underlines the spiritual, emotional, and lively nature of the two phenomena (surfing and music). Once again, the ideas of active participants, dynamic cultural entities, and the quest for satisfaction are very present. The issue of musical genre is often intrinsically linked to the way individuals identify with different types of music. It is not the musical genre that creates identity but the collective will that gives birth to a genre (Brackett, 2016, p. 32). Stylistic boundaries are porous because those who create and those who consume evolve while marking their own course or aesthetic history. For example, at the macro-social level, surf music remains strongly associated with California (especially for the general public) because it is the expression of the construction of a distinct white Anglo-Saxon cultural reality received as such by those who live it6 . However, surf music is also a constellation of stylistic units not built to represent surfers but aggregated in their minds because it constitutes an ideal. Indeed, individuals are not forced to adhere to a musical movement, it is a voluntary act which involves searching for a certain pleasure (physical, intellectual, emotional, etc.) and enables participants to claim who they are (Small, 1998, p. 43). Therefore, any musical event (the creation of a genre or participation in a concert) can only exist through individuals’ experience in line with their visions of the event and their identificatory objectives. Identity experience is both a social and aesthetic process that connects the individual, the group, and society (Frith, 1996, p. 110). Consequently, music cannot be considered a mere reflection of an individual’s or a community’s identity, nor the only element of the identity construction of individuals or sociocultural groups. On the other hand, the musical movement linked to surfing is the unstable result of an aesthetic construction that constitutes one of the tools for marking identities. In this work, aesthetics are the 6 In

this book, surf music is apprehended as a musical movement composed of distinct stylistic units.

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experience of a reality associated bilaterally with the social identity of individuals and their group. The aesthetic frontiers highlighted by individuals correspond to certain mobile, permeable, and temporary frontiers of the identity of social groups who might feel represented by specific genres (Roy, 2002). The term feel insists on the subjective character of the relationship, and the term represented is understood as social perception in-line with its psychosocial acceptation. Thus, individuals in their membership to sociocultural groups appropriate the values and aesthetic principles of the shared entity, in this case, a certain sensibility relating to surfing. However, aesthetic identity is not a pure appreciation of the judgment of taste. It does not mean either that each group member adopts the group’s aesthetic standards, as was the case with Generation Z and electronic music. Instead, the aesthetic identity reflects a social construction (the surf lifestyle encompassing all aspects of the culture) based on the perceptions of each of the cultural realities that composes it. At this point, a defense of the notions of identity and representation against certain anthropological objections must be constituted (keeping in mind disciplinary perspectives). Far from neglecting the ideas of time and the contradictory nature of the reality of existence (Laplantine, 1999, p. 142), this work takes into account time, languages, and the contradictions of a reality revealed by fieldwork that has made it possible to propose new avenues of reflection on these key notions of social psychology and ethnomusicology. This approach is the reason identity marking rather than identity construction is discussed here. The noun marking offers semantic possibilities likely to translate the malleability of the identity. The individuals and societies under scrutiny can thus enter and leave a cultural space, leave a trace of the accomplished path, use all kinds of tools (the marking can be done with music, language, etc.), distinguish different markings, sign with aesthetic affixes, highlight but also conceal, signal their presence, etc. It is a term that has everything to do with identification, but that does not enclose it, and that, on the contrary, serves as a point of reference in given spaces and times. Identities, cultures, and societies are constantly evolving, and the selection of music, places, and methods of listening corresponds to the operations undertaken by beings in the process of becoming. Individuals think of

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themselves and the cultures with which they associate in a unique way and mark this personal vision with the help of their interpretation of the music included in their repertoires. Music, as it is understood by my informants, is the implementation of an aesthetic experience that allows them to detach themselves from the iconic surf music model imposed by thinkers of the movement (journalists, specialists, etc.) in order to recreate, without their knowing how to name it, subjective music that allows surfers to more or less strongly mark their role and their attachment to a community. For Frith (1996), musical experience “is an experience of identity: in responding to a song, we are drawn, haphazardly, into emotional alliances with the performers and with the performers’ other fans” (p. 121). This phenomenon is envisaged in the idea of marking that focuses not on the construction or the reflection of identity but on the construction of a sense of identity. This imagined cultural narrative, as described in the second part of this work, helps explain the questions of identity in ethno-aesthetic belonging, as developed here.

1.3

Ethno-Musical Transition: Identity and Surf Music

Aesthetics, as the experience of reality and the functional evaluation of certain musical forms, constitute the establishment of a feeling of sociocultural identity that underlies the notions of roles and status within societies of membership. The implication of each individual defines their status in the lifestyle, which determines, on the one hand, the legitimacy of participants; on the other hand, the roles they have to play in the evolution of their subculture, its aesthetic characteristics, and its social function. A distinction has been made between consumers of the lifestyle and those who determine its evolution. My interviewees had different statuses and occupied different roles in the world of surfing, but they all influenced the subculture. Other surfers surveyed on the beach were not necessarily involved professionally in the surfing world, but as surfers, they listened to certain types of music in relation to their subcultural practice. The cultural identity of surfing then is a space where several

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types of individuals come together, at different degrees: those who only participate and those who shape and normalize the culture (in its practical, ideological, and aesthetic aspects). All share this identity since they recognize its characteristics, but the two groups do not practice these habits and codes the same way. Identities are unstable and continuously reshaped because there is no quintessence of identity but a continuous markup based on the tensions between emotional, cognitive, and historical similarities and differences. There is not only one form of difference or one trait of similarity since a culture is a living entity that often includes identification with subordinate or parallel categories, such as class, ethnicity, nationality, or political positions. Individuals can belong to and identify with a subculture of surfing to different degrees provided that they identify with one or more aspects of its culture, music being one, and know how to master certain codes (know-hows and soft skills).

2

Representations in Endo- and Exogroup Relations

2.1

Surf Music and Representations

The notion of representation, like that of identity, may seem problematic depending on the disciplinary approach. In this book, representations are envisaged in their psychosocial sense and are a theoretical tool that makes it possible to state certain perceptions that individuals have of themselves, their society, and others7 . They reveal how subjects perceive surfing and surf music, and the absence of representations also makes it possible to highlight what they do not perceive. Indeed, the subculture has various meanings and can be imagined in several ways. Surf music, therefore, means something at the level of the global culture but something else at the level of regional subcultures. The definitions and

7The concept of representation is derived from two founding approaches of social psychology: Durkheim’s (1898) work on collective representations as a space where individuals’ representations meet, and Moscovici’s (1961) ensuing idea that individuals’ representations depend on their social milieu.

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meanings of the subculture have evolved in conjunction with the evolutions of participants themselves. A variety of cultural markers can thus claim to be tied to surf culture today: Dick Dale’s rock, Sublime’s punk, Mike Love’s reggae, skateboarding and snowboarding cultures, artistic, technological, environmental concerns, etc. There is not only one way of representing surfing, and it is when a culture and its components (including music) are posed as a dogma erasing the different sensibilities that constitute them that they turn away from themselves, as surf music did. Similarly, speaking about skateboarders, Jeff Howe (2003) explained that their representations depend on their endogenous or exogenous status (i.e., on their actual or speculative experience in the subculture). However, it should be noted that within cultures, the subscription of individuals to regional groups marks differences that are not stereotypes or erroneous simplifications of the culture but aesthetic interpretations of the subcultures and their evaluation, which is especially noticeable in music. If we consider music to be created by artists to express their own vision of the world (not necessarily in the name of surfers), representations allow different groups of surfers to appropriate various music by affixing their own conceptions of the experience they wish to constitute. Therefore, a distinction must be made between expression and representation. According to Searle (2009), the former “conveys information about the world” while the latter intentionally communicates about the world (p. 72). Music (accompanied by lyrics or not) expresses a state of mind that can be imagined in a certain way through production, and another through reception by being affixed different intentions from one end of the spectrum to another. Representations imply a form of intentionality that links a signifier (music) to one or more signifieds (one or more surf music), while expression (artistic creation) has no criteria for evaluating the true or false since it is purely subjective, which makes it objective. Representations explain why the movement of surf music is so heterogeneous from a stylistic point of view. By affixing their aesthetic and semantic representations to the music they choose, surfers create codes and ideals, but this does not mean that the notion of homology8 8The

notion of homology, as defined by Bourdieu (1979), appeared too structural to account for the exchanges between the culture and the individuals who articulate their sense of identity in it.

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(a perfect correspondence between social structure and organization of the musical corpus) is relevant here.

2.2

Symbolism of the Subculture’s Codes: Groups in Question

The concept of representations has multiple definitions but is understood here as a series of actions. Representations are modular and make it possible to think about inconstant objects. They are linked with symbolic systems that allow the marking of personal and social identities9 (Bird, 2003; Deschamps & Moliner, 2008). In other words, by reevaluating their surfing practice and their musical consumption according to new offers, participants confront their perceptions of the subculture with the codes that defined it and with new variable ones, like musical trends, clothing codes, etc. Cognitive and symbolic representations are necessarily conveyed and actualized by individuals, and in some cases, can be shared by several individuals (Deschamps & Moliner, 2008, p. 83). These shared representations are modulated to adhere to one’s own beliefs and make the subculture participants individual and collective beings at once. So representing a culture or a subculture consists in reconstructing it in a coherent system based on beliefs specific to each individual who composes it: Cocoa Beach surfers display a certain musical diversity but also group cohesion in their affective, spiritual, and behavioral approach to the subculture. For Serge Moscovici (1961), social representation is an organized corpus of knowledge and one of the mental activities thanks to which humans make physical and social reality intelligible, become part of a group, free the power of their imagination (pp. 27–28). The imaginary, often collective, is a creative force capable of shaping a certain aesthetic aura of surfing that exists as perception through the way individuals look at it and characterize it. Perspectives and images influence representations and give substance to subjective realities (illustrated 9The

concept of social identity is derived from Tajfel’s (1974) proposition that individuals acquire their social identity by belonging to various social groups (thus discriminating others), which determines their place in society. This idea goes hand-in-hand with Turner’s (1981) concept of personal identity, which differentiates the self and others within the group.

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in the tensions between professional surfing and the image of surfers as outcasts). Thus, imagination has performative properties, which is why surfing and surf music can, for instance, be considered American attributes. Surf music, as defined in specialized literature (Blair, 1978, 2015; Chidester & Priore, 2008; Crowley, 2011; Dalley, 1988) or as understood in the collective imagination, is a prototype and often a stereotypical representation of contemporary American history.10 It is a symbol of postwar carelessness, of the tourism industry and the cult of the sculpted and tanned body under the Californian sun. Symbols like the beach are reclaimed, codes are defined, and representations are recognized by all (participants and non-participants). This description of surfing culture is very broad and inclusive, and in cultural representations, it generates an American identity, even though surfing is not purely American. Thus, American surf culture has rewritten its past, defined its representations, and transformed its own identity genome. There are several levels of representations that can be put in tension in order to grasp the relevance of the concept. We can compare endogenous and exogenous representations (individuals enrolled in the culture, and individuals not enrolled in it), inter-group representations (between two distinct subcultural groups enrolled in the culture), and intragroup representations11 (from an individual to another within the same subculture). Depending on their representations, individuals and groups readjust the marking of their own identities but also of the subculture itself according to whether the cultural experience is authenticated12 and validated, or disguised and refused. To be validated, the cultural referent (the meaning of a surfer’s identity) must be intelligibly represented in surf music. In addition, to differentiate themselves more clearly from exogroups, subjects must make supplemental efforts to implement the cultural practices that they associate with their subculture. According to Deschamps 10 Prototypes

are elements that are supposed to represent a category the most accurately (Deschamps & Moliner, 2008, p. 74,). Stereotypes are mental constructions that simplify individuals’ common characteristics and are consensually accepted within a group (Leyens, Yzerbit, & Schadron, 1996; Tajfel, 1974). 11 Intra-group recognition is discussed in the last chapter. 12The notion of authenticity is understood here as a reflection of the “Us.”

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and Moliner (2008), there is only one way of presenting oneself different from others while respecting social standards: it is to assert oneself as being in greater conformity than others to these standards (p. 43). For example, my interviewees often differentiated themselves from California or Hawaii through their positive and fun approach to surfing. Inter-group representations, if they are marked, seem to encourage individuals to homogenize their sense of identity in order to differentiate themselves from exogroups: sharing common representations could lead individuals to implement, in a substantially identical manner, similar identity processes (ibid., p. 86). Thus, interviewees seemed to find in symbolic, behavioral, and aesthetic consensus, a form of reinforcement of their sociocultural identity, despite the need to assert a personal identity through various musical choices. The language used, the surfing styles, the reasons for surfing, and finding oneself in a coherent community are some of the codes that mutualize the subculture. There are ways of doing and being that fall under codes that must be known to assert oneself in the subculture and differentiate oneself from the exogroups. In Cocoa Beach, good surfers can be considered kooks because they are aggressive on the water. Artists can be disqualified even if their music meets the stylistic expectations of surfers because the semiotics of their videos are considered kookie (this was the case of a reggae artist, Collie Buddz,13 who played at Sonny’s Porch but whose ulterior videos no longer matched the surfers’ aesthetics). Consequently, the codes allowing evaluation, representation, and identification with the subculture are imagined in symbolism but also in action. For instance, there are right and wrong ways to act broadly within the subculture but also during punctual subcultural moments, including concerts. The use of marijuana and beer has some resonance among surfers, but hard drugs or wine, for example, are not the right substances. These codes are not imposed by the subculture, but result from a community construction whose experience is synthesized in surf music (particularly through concerts).

13 Collie Buds is a type of marijuana. The singer, Colin Patrick Harper, is from Bermudas. He is particularly known for his song on marijuana “Come around” released in 2007. The videos that made him not so popular among my interviewees stage him in a gangster style away from the laidback spirit of Cocoa Beach surfers.

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Imagination and Memory Constructions of Identity

2.3.1 Experience Imagined A culture is thought and built in the imagination of its participants and non-participants. Representations should not be understood as a rejection of the imagination but rather as its support since the perception of the world makes it possible to create images adapted to the experience of a desired reality. Representations allow the movement of thought because they are constantly updated according to new data without which neither surfing nor surf music would be able to evolve. Thus, the importance of active individuals has been highlighted in this work, as they determine the subculture’s practical and aesthetic characteristics. Surfing does not subscribe to identificatory fixity. It is part of a movement of memory, imaginary, and symbolic reconstruction which promotes its renewal in its practical and expressive aspects. With its sociocultural diversity and its ethnic history, Florida is a space where ethno-aesthetic identities have hitherto been imagined in a movement against but also in continuity with the national and global surf culture. Thus, cognitive processes stem from a desire of surfers to appropriate a culture through the establishment of a system of symbolic representations (Searle, 2009, p. 16). The creation of images is used for the presentation of the self and the highlighting of otherness. Besides, the word image is connoted. The image of oneself and others is what one wishes or must show according to specific expectations. Many informants explained that image was important, particularly in terms of style. One survey respondent explained that: “Style is everything to me, especially in surfing, I mean. There’s only so many things you can do on the water as far as tricks, and maneuvers, and turns, or whatever. So style is big, and that makes something your own.” Similarly, for Ricky Carroll,14 image in surfing was something very important: “Oh definitely, yeah [it is important]! They have an image of what a surfer should be and if you’re not that, then you’re a kook.” The use of the conditional shows the subjective value of the image, 14 Interviewed

on June 13, 2017.

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thus, of the imagination and its intentions. This comment also shows how meaningful images are if given any meaning, and that is precisely what the imaginary is. Someone who does not surf can neither read images properly nor implement the imagery of the subculture appropriately. Thus, images correspond to (imagined) statuses that become fully-fledged constructions of reality. Accordingly, the surf imaginary is one of the factors that have made it so difficult for women to be accepted as legitimate surfers. Imagination is then the capacity to create and maintain systemic realities that have no intrinsic value, which is the case with kooks, for example. Searle (2009) suggested that this is the ontogenic origin of the human capacity to create an institutional reality (ibid., p. 121). It seems incongruous to reject ontology in human sciences when subjects under study implement it in their own imagination, and when it makes it possible to generate avenues for research. Therefore, once a shared form of expression, like music, has been established, it becomes possible to speak of community, thus of society. In addition, statuses are a form of categorization that does not apply only to people but also to ideas, or in this case, to music. Indeed, genres are a creation imagined to satisfy a need for organization, cognitive economy, and ease of identification.15 Genres are not born according to the will of individuals, but they are built to give meaning to reality and consistency to musical immateriality. The imaginary can thus become a reality and an object of cultural appropriation. However, the imaginary of a musical corpus’s meaning is not enough to determine a genre since, for instance, not all surf musics speak of surfing, and certain musical genres are devoid of words. For a genre to emerge, listeners must feel that others interpret the signs in the same way as they do (Brackett, 2016). Therefore, it is in peer-to-peer recognition, as well as in the relation between music and listeners, that genres come together. This phenomenon is confirmed in participation in the musical act, as in concerts where the imagined relationships between participants are idealized and replace a tangible reality (Small, 1998, p. 49).

15 It is human nature to want to classify and categorize all phenomena and entities sensible and intelligible.

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Sonny’s Porch concerts follow this logic of superimposition of an idealized experience with an objective reality. According to the same dialectic, imagined identity is to be considered in relation to temporality because it is provisional. Concerts, stylistic standards, etc., are part of a context that is not fixed and endlessly renewed, but paradoxically, the place of history, and therefore of memory, is important in relation to a musical movement, as shown hitherto. According to Brackett (2016), there are two ways to understand the relationship between music and identity: “A nostalgic or retroactive relation, in which an identification is mapped onto the past … and imaginary identifications that prefigure an emergent, and potentially homologous social grouping” (p. 20). With regard to surf music, these two ways of thinking the music characterize each individual in two ways. First, surfers display a form of cultural nostalgia due to the historical monopoly of California maintained in the collective imagination as the normative American exception. Second, surfers display a form of identification with musics that they know do not necessarily belong to the iconic genre of surf music. A sort of aesthetic schizophrenia then arises between what is to be understood as surf music and what surfers love and associate with their personal implementation of the sport and lifestyle. All my interviewees distinguished what “We” call surf music from what “I” listen to as a surfer. They had to find ways to articulate knowledge and adherence to the sociocultural norm with their personal experience and their assessment of qualifying music on a personal and social level. According to Brackett (2016), the notion of articulation is essential because it suggests that the relationships between genre and identity are not natural, “but rather must be sutured together through the repetition of social practices in which a generic label brings together categories of people” (p. 20). Surf music was never imposed on 1960s Californian surfers or today’s Floridian surfers, but it was the repetition of these surfers’ practices (stomping, musical improvisation on the beach, intimate concerts between surfers) that gave the movement its name. However, if the movement consists of a form of super-category, at the micro-social level, it is fed with sub-categories by individuals whose varied aesthetic affinities determine the relationships between music, individuals, and social groups.

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Thus, groups of surfers can find each other based on their practice and a musical consensus allowing social bonds. It is neither necessary for them to know the individuals that compose the group, nor necessary to be in physical contact with these individuals to be able to imagine a community of belonging. The reproduction of images and sounds through the media “created the possibility of imagined communities: individuals dispersed in space related to one another through the consumption of the same [musical] object” (Brackett, 2016, p. 22). Beyond mere consumerism, what creates surfing subculture is the interpretation of the musical object. Thus, the reggae consumers community can include Floridian surfers, French students, and Jamaican Rastafarians, but it is the interpretation made by Floridian surfers that aggregates them around the meaning they give to their practice and that they associate with reggae.16 The aesthetic constructions of surfers are therefore imagined and then concretized in the validation of the statuses of individuals and music. What is left to understand are the social and personal relevance of these practices.

2.3.2 Between Ideal and Realization An ideal is something that a priori only exists in the imagination. It is the idea that we have of something and toward which we tend because the world affixes a positive characteristic to the idealized thing. An ideal is conceived through the desire to align an intelligible reality with the subjective qualities of a sensible world. For instance, in surfing, the ideal was framed by a North American patriarchal doxa (lisahunter) championing the white male’s image. In other words, in surfing and surf music, the ideal may not correspond to the original culture, or on the contrary, the latter can be idealized and therefore rethought by being attributed fantasized characteristics which are not always specific to it. It is the initial reaction of surfers who imagine Hawaii as an ideal and, after

16 I asked surfers what types of music were most representative of surfing values. Responses were diverse, but artists affiliated to reggae appeared to be the most common. Besides, the majority of my interviewees referred to reggae as a distinctive element of the Cocoa Beach surfer community and the Space Coast as a whole.

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having lived there, are confronted with the reality of localism, drugs, and a struggling education system (Dustin; Ricky Carroll). There is a distance between an abstract ideal and actual practices. Sean Slater,17 for example, had an ideal image of what the surf lifestyle/crossover should be but the realization of his project came up against the constraints of reality: “Well, the reason I was doing that with my Slater Brothers Invitational is I wanted to bring my family back together. I wanted to bring my brothers together and have some fun with it.” Idealization arises from a need to correct an unsatisfactory reality. Here, Sean wanted to unite his brothers around a common project because, with Kelly’s international career, he felt the dissolution of his family as a manifest danger. Therefore, surfing seemed to be the ideal meeting point for the three brothers. He had chosen the theme of the Three Stooges,18 a program he watched with his brothers when they were young: So the Three Stooges, we used to watch the Three Stooges when we were younger… Um, Joe Dirt19 , yeah, it kinda has something to do with the Florida redneck. And it’s really funny, ‘cause I did have a mullet one time, not by choice. I would put my pony tail in a rubber band and it would rip my hair out, you know, and then after a while, I just had a yeah… a neck warmer [laugh]. But yeah, I did the Po Boys, Three Stooges, it didn’t really matter. It was all about helping people out. I really wanted to build this big event that was a lot of fun for families. You’d get free screenings and it was developed by my friend Drew, and I just thought it was gonna be a great event. I thought it’d be a really good one to have our family take off for generations. But it’s a lot of work doing it on your own so…

There is nostalgia in Sean’s speech because the ideal can exist in a past that would have become a point of reference, and at the same time, it can tend toward a future as one of the possibilities of reality (in his project, 17 Interviewed

on June 7, 2017. Three Stooges was a troupe of American comedians from 1922 to 1970. Sean and his two brothers featured on t-shirts designed according to the iconographic style of the original Stooges. 19 Joe Dirt (Gordon, 2001) is a film starring David Spade as Joe Dirt, a young, simple-minded redneck looking for his parents who abandoned him in the Grand Canyon. 18The

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Sean thought of the coming generations of the Slater family). The ideal then becomes the reflection of cognitive and affective associations of moments, ideas, and key people in the life of individuals. The ideal relationships that Sean tried to recreate through his organization could have been done through music since music makes it possible to implement and repeat these associations by soliciting memory and by enabling the materialization of social articulations idealized by participants—during a concert for instance. Indeed, each musical act has its own types of relationships (an opera concert and an outdoor reggae concert do not involve the same interactions from participant to participant, artist to participant, space to participant, etc.). Whether they are events related to surfing or music, they can only be successful if participants are able to explore their ideal relationships with the event, object, space, and other participants. While only participants can know the nature of these ideal relationships (Small, 1998, p. 49), we can characterize their function, which is social, and their objective, which consists in establishing a feeling of pleasure, even of hedonism—in other words, the experience of music is an experience of the ideal (Frith, 1996, p. 123). Getting involved in the musical act and feeling emotions is reality. So this is how the ideal materializes; this is how Sean understood it, and how Dustin, through Sonny’s Porch, managed to give life to his surfing lifestyle imagination. So if the ideal takes shape during social events, the sense of identity can develop according to the social project’s success (or its failure), and the marking of an ideal identity can thus be undertaken. For Frith (1996), “identity is always already an ideal, what we would like to be, not what we are” (p. 123). I would argue that identity is already an ideal if it consists in what we want to become, a verb that is more dynamic than to be, which implies fixity. Understood this way, identity is open to what individuals are not, and it allows ideological boundaries to be broken. This view relates to the notion of identity marking, which precisely constitutes all the possible tendencies toward a self in the making. There is something of the order of hope in identity thought this way because it makes it possible to consider all the potentialities of individuals.

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2.3.3 The Tradition of the New Identity is not just an abstract process. If it can be imagined and idealized, it can also materialize through the musical act, in the artist, in the participant, or the birth of a movement. Action is part of the individual’s biography. Mutualized actions form the basic fabric of cultural movements that develop according to trial and error experiments. What does not work (that in which participants cannot build a sense of identity) is abandoned, and what works is retained, developed, transformed. In these experiences, it is no longer the result that counts, but participation and what comes out of it that is deeply personal. Thus, the same movement can reinvent itself endlessly, which places it in the paradox of “the tradition of the new” developed by Harold Rosenberg in the twentieth century. This paradox characterized movement at the heart of American arts’ rooting. Surfing and surf music stem from this logic of a fundamental movement rooted in the United States (tradition) but which allows its agents to explore it and to subscribe to it in temporal mobility (the new). The concept is central to the assessment of movement in the sociocultural construction of regional American identities in the world of surfing. As Marche and Vallas (2016) pointed out, movement sometimes takes root, and we can travel at home, in a territory of which we have an intimate knowledge and which allows an exploration of the self; the West becomes metaphorical for those who know how to travel in the known, the everyday, shift their point of view slightly and rediscover sameness endlessly (p. 9). The metaphorical West of surf culture allows it to continue to be written in the familiar but by inventing its own story turned toward a multi-directional future. Like pop-rock and other artistic fields, the canons of surf music, established in the second half of the twentieth century, imposed a kind of stylistic and intellectual hierarchy legitimized by history; however, new canons are created, sometimes as a form of regional resistance to the global implemented in the ethno-aesthetic affirmation of communities, such as the one observed here. The world of music, including pop-rock, seems to be marked by struggles between the canonical and the new (Regev, 2013, p. 25). Surf music also has canonical artists and thinkers, but they must be questioned precisely because of their imposed vision of the subculture that

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seems to have run out of steam. The genres and artists that meet the emotional and aesthetic expectations of Floridian surfers do not necessarily correspond to the canons of surf music (iconic surf music). Thus, my approach adheres to the tradition of the new on two levels: it offers not only a new inclusive artistic canon but also a new way of producing meaning.

2.4

Dominant Trends and Alternative Postures

The preceding paragraph testified to the existence of a dominant thought (among the participants and the theorists of the subculture) and of alternative postures. Douglas Booth’s (2003) conception of extreme sports translates one of these dominant visions of surfing whose absolute and definitive aspects I attempt to deconstruct as they appear through this assertion: “the concept of lifestyle always involves an element of the extreme—whether it be of fashion, language, or behavior—and … in a ‘sporting’ lifestyle, the extreme involves physical risk” (p. 330). It is not the apposition of the adjective “extreme” to the concept of lifestyle that I moderate, but the idea that danger, participants’ aggressiveness, and their quest for superlatives are intrinsic to lifestyle sports (Booth, 2003, 2004). As Ricky Carroll explained, action is guided by various intentions even if dominant trends (like legitimacy attributed to a single type of surfboard in a given place) threaten the implementation of alternative approaches: I was in Puerto Rico a couple years ago. I went there for a longboard contest, so I had a longboard, and I paddled down the beach to this spot that was a shortboard spot. So I’m out there with my longboard, and this guy who was a semi-pro… I didn’t know who he was. He didn’t know who I was obviously ‘cause he paddles up, he goes, ‘no longboards!’ I just looked at him and then, when somebody does that to me it’s like a challenge to me to show him: well, I may be on a longboard but I can still surf. And so he was paddling back out, I caught this wave and just did this thing, went right over top of him… Hopefully, shut him up you know. It doesn’t always happen, but for somebody who says it, there’s probably ten other guys in the water thinking it. They just don’t say it

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‘cause they don’t want to get beat up or something… But there’s still that ‘what do you ride a longboard for…’

Depending on locations, choosing the right surfboard can mean a lot. Longboards have a special status because beginners often use them, but they also allow experienced surfers to perform very technical maneuvers.20 In addition, many shortboarders do not like to surf among longboarders because it is easier for them to get into waves (the surface of the board and its buoyancy allows them to paddle faster). Ricky Carroll’s experience in Puerto Rico (a place known for surfer’s aggressiveness) shows that the legitimacy acquired by mastery (practical and theoretical) makes it possible to impose difference as being a possibility, or even as an impetus for new trends among young people, a phenomenon noted by Ricky Carroll: I still see that changing though. That’s more and more being accepted down the line in the younger minds that it’s ok to ride a wider board, it’s ok to ride a bigger board. But for a while there, you were called a kook if you showed up with a board like that… So that’s kinda gone and people are accepting that your surfboard can be whatever you want it to be.

These different approaches make it possible to give meaning to the subculture. It is in otherness that both surfing practices and surf music can stand out and allow groups to articulate their sociocultural relationships. These systems of differentiation by the depreciation of the other’s values are necessary for the creation of meaning in music (Brackett, 2016, p. 7). For example, my respondents were not intimately convinced that The Beach Boys offered music by and for surfers. In addition, at the generational level, a certain disdain of Generations X and Y for the genres chosen by Generation Z was noticeable. Trends are part of dynamics of oppositions and convergences of flux circulating within spatial and temporal systems. Once cultural entities have been defined, they evolve in these systems by interacting with the other 20 For

example, Hanging 10 consists in surfing on the nose of the surfboard and allowing the toes to hang from the board. This implies being able to walk on the board as it is moving, which is relatively difficult to do without falling.

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forces involved. However, their dominant status is not fully guaranteed since dominant positions, thus hierarchies, are unstable and prone to shifting. Surf music has evolved as well. Starting from a cultural movement marked by its socio-historical context, it has encompassed various musical genres, which, in turn, have become sorts of canons of global surf music (particularly surf rock or punk). Nevertheless, it is at the regional level that the founding principles of music are created, the function of which is no longer to sum up generically a way of life but to articulate a multitude of local identities. The mainstream is paradoxical in that it takes on its full meaning thanks to its heterogeneity.

3

Identity Negotiations and Functionalities of Diverse Identities

The consciousnesses that make up surfing subcultures are mainly based on generational, ethnic, sexual, and cultural distinctions, but also on the following parameters that can only be brought to light by an in-depth study: situations of mobility, early or late multiculturalism, rejection or preservation of the cultures of origin according to more or less favorable contexts, the will to impose or not one’s personal choices on the following generations, openness to others, ways of expressing these positions (in the indicative, the performative, in the coherent or contradictory marking between private and public spheres). Approaching surfing and surfers according to an identificatory angle required to take all these parameters into account and to put them in tension with the idea that situations of human contacts generated by mobility have some effects on the (re)construction of individual identities. The result provided a window on the positioning of subjects in the subculture and in relation to it. Surfers evoked their belonging to the subculture in a more or less marked way as their comments related to identity issues have shown. Their statements were very complex, even confused because they did not always know how to assess their own feelings and behaviors vis-à-vis the subculture. For example, they changed their minds during interviews on issues related to the posture of their community in the surf culture. However, it is precisely on these contradictions, on certain key

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details, and on the ways in which participants interpret the questions that the coherence of their discourse rests. Thus, words without a priori high relevance or pauses in their speeches constituted precious clues to decipher the complex nature of their identities that were plural, fluid, imagined, implemented, then reformulated endlessly. Identity is not only being; it is action and thought so that we move away from a static vision of identity to perceive its multiple dimensions: explicit, implicit, visible, or hidden (Thamin, 2007, p. 240). Allowing surfers to express what they think of their own cultural backgrounds through interviews and observations has made it is possible to bring out the abundance and dynamism of identities within the subculture.

3.1

Social and Personal Identities: We, I, and the Multiple Self

Surfers’ difficulties in characterizing their community without contradicting themselves during their interviews stem from the fact that they assert their belonging to the global surf culture while claiming to be part of a local subculture. Their reflection is part of a glocal dynamic without their being aware of it since they define their place in a global cultural space while distinguishing themselves from other regional groups. This relationship to culture and group(s) can be explained by a dichotomy but also a complementarity between social identity and personal identity. While social identity applies to a feeling of similarity to (some) others, personal identity applies to a feeling of difference compared to the same others (Deschamps & Moliner, 2008, p. 8). Consequently, individuals must negotiate their identity constructions and their representations in order to be able to satisfy the need to be assimilated to the culture of surfing despite satellite (maybe contradictory) cultures or their need to assert their “Self.” According to the precepts of Georges Herbert Mead (1934), the “Self ” includes the “I” (personal) and the “Ego” (social), which means that there is a tension between what solidifies subjects to their group and what sets them apart. Contacts with others are then essential because it is according

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to these relationships that individuals as a whole are built and negotiate their identities (we are moving away from the Bourdieusian idea according to which economic capital would be the most determining factor in identity constructions). Furthermore, if an individual has several identities, the influence of the different membership groups can modify the degree of identification with one of the groups regardless of their status. This is the case of participants who have chosen multiple identities whose characteristics are a priori distant, even contradictory in the common sense (e.g., Nascar and surfing for Bart Kelley or jazz and surfing for Britty). Sociocultural trajectories, including intra-group and inter-group interaction processes, are therefore essential to understand the various links that subjects maintain with the surf culture, which, unlike others, is not intrinsically associated with a class system (everyone can surf regardless of their income). Therefore, an individual is a member of different groups (adult, teacher, Protestant, etc.) themselves in interaction with many other groups (child, student, skateboarder, etc.). We can therefore see how complex and dynamic the manifestations of identity are. An individual’s multiple identities are not separable, but one or the other can take precedence depending on the context. So identity markings manifest themselves through distances and connections operated according to sociocultural contexts (in surfing and musicking practices), within the endogroup (group to which the subject belongs), and in relation to the exogroup (the outside group). The implicit goal of participants is then the success of an appropriation of the surf subculture through appropriate communication of its values and principles. These dynamics relate to the notions of connection and distinction developed earlier, and that are fundamental to understanding the phenomenon of appropriation of a mobile culture, such as surfing. Comparably, the notions of similarity and differentiation are essential to explain identity, which becomes the space in which the Self and others meet and diverge. For Stuart Hall (1997), this separation implies an exclusive form of stereotyping: “[it] reduces, essentializes, naturalizes and fixes ‘difference’. … It symbolically fixes boundaries, and excludes everything which does not belong” (pp. 258–259). Thus, the social identity of surfers assimilates them to the global culture and the local subculture but distinguishes them from other cultures and subcultures, while

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their personal identity individualizes them in relation to each other. The term marking then takes on its full meaning in opposition: marking social and personal identities consists in adopting qualifying values and symbols, while its opposite, demarking, consists in freeing oneself from otherness or dys-qualifying symbols (making sociocultural membership impossible). These phenomena are observable in music, which for Frith (1996) symbolizes and offers the immediate experience of collective identity. In contrast, personal identity is the accomplishment of a narrator rather than the attribute of a character (pp. 121–122), a point which will be developed further in the analysis of Sonny’s Porch concerts. The question of “We” as a sharing community in a collective consciousness and that of “I” (an individual) in the name of a “We” (his/her community) is intrinsic to surfing culture and its music. Surfers share a collective knowledge and aesthetic assessment of their cultural practice, which allows them to develop their sense of social identity— as a group. This sense of cohesion is the reason my interviewees spoke of Brevard as a place where the implementation of the surf culture is differentiated by the solidarity of its members and the inclusive approach to the activity. In addition, surfing, although considered an individual practice (surfers are alone on their wave), offers each participant the same privileged relationship with the ocean. Every surfer is aware of this privilege, which forms the basis of a tacit relationship based on this extraordinary experience from the physical, spiritual, and emotional points of view. Without falling into an anecdotal discourse, it is important to objectively emphasize the intensity and the singularity of the sensible experience of surfing. Sean Slater pointed out the saying that only experience can account for feeling: “only a surfer knows the feeling.” Despite individual experience, there is the awareness of a shared experience. Stranger (2013) spoke of a transcendence phenomenon, when time stands still as a surfer enters in synchrony with the wave (p. 63). The consciousness of the “We” comes from an experience shared by surfers globally and from implicit links between those who act and know, as opposed to those who think and imagine. Surfing constitutes an intimate relationship with the ocean, but the experience is shared during socializing events, like concerts. The call for gathering and the response of participants come from this shared knowledge of surfing aesthetics

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(this intimate experience with the ocean) articulated as a “We,” which simultaneously produces an outsider (Guilbault, 2010, p. 286). The community thus linked attenuates the distinctions between the subcultural “we” and the “I.” The interviews revealed this mixture of pronouns. For example, Dustin was responsible for choosing the artists for Sonny’s Porch concerts. My question to him was, “How do you choose the artists?” In his response, he used a “we” in the name of an “I”: “It’s mostly just bands that we’re fans off, and we find out when they’re coming to town, and we send them an invite, say, ‘hey, you guys wanna come and play on the porch?’” Individuals mandated by the group can thus speak on behalf of the community but also be legitimately assimilated to this community while protecting their personal identity. Surfers, even if they have dedicated their lives to the activity, are not and cannot be closed to other social and cultural fields. The identity of surfers can be marked by their musical culture, professional training, other passions, etc. Ricky Carroll also recognized himself in music as a musician or in mechanics as a craftsman: “Well me being a craftsman, I like working on cars you know, that’s a passion that I have. I wish I could do that more but this [shaping boards] consumes so much of my time, I don’t get to do it as much as I want to. It’s just another card. It’s working with my hands.” Consequently, the “Me” is necessarily multiple because the cultures in which it is built are never independent creations. The surf lifestyle is part of a system that includes sports cultures, music, crafts, environmental protection, etc. To go any further, it is necessary at this point to overhaul, deepen, and defend one of the theoretical concepts underlying this work: identity. The specificity of a culture or an individual comes from the infinite combinations that can be produced, from arrangements of heterogeneous, dissimilar, different terms, in short, from the reformulation of several inheritances (Laplantine, 1999, p. 49). Identity can be thought of in the multiple, that is, the singular and the universal, so it must be approached in a copulative way (favored by social psychology), not a restricted and enclosing way (favored by a branch of cultural anthropology). The semantics and semiotics of identity must be revisited, taking into account the concept of hybridization, an endless process of bricolage.

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Otherness: From Generic to Cultural Particularism

In conformity with the critical approach adopted thus far, the notion of otherness (fundamental in the identity perspective) undergoes a theoretical overhaul, deepening, and defense to overcome certain points of conceptual blockages. In the conception of identity presented in this book, the multiple has been taken into account in the individual, the community, and the overall surf culture.21 I have based my approach to subculture on the concept of cultural mobility seeking above all to highlight the aesthetic potential of the subculture. Relying on the apparent contradiction of the dialectic of movement and of rooting, I have proposed a reflection on otherness within individuals, their group, and the global culture. Being is much more than univocality22 since, for instance, surfers share experiences in surfing and music. This is where they manage to differentiate themselves because otherness allows them to define themselves personally and socially. Thus, the identity approach makes it possible to envisage otherness. Another example lies in the meeting of Hawaiian and Californian cultures that allowed surf music to emerge. It is through it that the identity articulations of surfers of the 1960s were manifested. Therefore, otherness is not necessarily foreign and a threat to identity, it is also a source of inspiration. Furthermore, it would be wrong to say that differences only condemn individuals to rejection. On the contrary, they allow people to assert themselves, as Dustin explained: “I think the main part about it is just being different, everyone just wants to be an individual. So I think it’s just setting yourself apart, I think, that’s about it.” The expression “to set oneself apart” is important because it indicates several aspects of commitment to the subculture. First, differentiation from others is an active decision of individuals. Second, it is an expression that involves a comparison with others 21The

notion of otherness is used to confront distinct approaches to surfing culture (other subcultures). Thus, while I acknowledge the essential question of gender and otherness, it would go beyond the scope of this monograph and would require to be discussed in a book entirely dedicated to it. 22 Laplantine (1999) claimed that identity reflections entirely controlled by the primacy of the verb to be are shaped by attribution judgments which most often present a character of total reducibility to univocity (p. 33).

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and that aims to enhance the ones who seek to differentiate themselves. The choice of tools and the intensity of the effort to differentiate both result in the emergence of new cultural movements capable of expressing otherness. Therefore, what creates awareness of surf music is the fact that it is recognized by a community but also by people outside the group. In addition, the media and social media fuel this awareness of alter ego and otherness. Indeed, surfers are aware that non-surfers listen and play the same music, but thinking about otherness allows them to aggregate into an aesthetic community. Any listener can only think of a community made up of unimagined individuals (relatives and family), and individuals imagined as having common attributes and offering opportunities for exchange (economic, musical, etc.). According to this principle, surf music is made up of stylistic units that are not necessarily dedicated to it since “the components (be they musical, social, material, expressive, et cetera) that may characterize a genre at a given point in time may also participate in other genres at the same time, or in the past or the future” (Brackett, 2016, p. 10). A musical movement, such as surf music, is not a homogeneous organic whole. On the contrary, over time and depending on the place, its components have taken on their full meaning in their interactions and thanks to their differences. So the identity approach is not refractory to otherness since the subcultures of surfing and their surf music include musical, cultural, material, social, ethnic, aesthetic, etc., elements assimilated to other cultural movements, such as the colors green, yellow, red of Jamaica notable in the chromatic palette of surfers and artists of Cocoa Beach. In order to illustrate how multiple identities and otherness are negotiated within the subculture, I call upon the Kinesphere of Rudolf Laban, who imagined a sphere around the human body delimited by the maximum extension of the limbs according to a fixed point materialized by the foot. The imaginary space moves according to the transfers of body mass and represents a private or personal space beyond which one enters the generic space. The Kinesphere is likely to model the complexity of the identities that make up the surf subculture. The notion of center is important because it is, according to this center, that we can extend the sphere more or less (which in reality is not one). When the movements of two individuals make them enter the space of the other,

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they leave the generic space and the personal space to enter a space shared with two moving centers that coordinate to remain in balance in sharing, or even joining together to form only one gravitational center. They can also be mutually exclusive. The objective is to try to understand and to name what is not entirely representable and distinctly identifiable, which supposes to let go of the reassuring unity of the homogeneous (Laplantine, 1999, p. 147). The Kinesphere shows that situations of human interactions arise from a reality that is not static and can be transformed according to several possible combinations. The boundaries of the sphere are invisible and imagined just like the boundaries of identity, which, like the different spaces of the Kinesphere, becomes more complex depending on the number and nature of interactions with others. The more the space is populated, the more social identity is strengthened and distinguished. In the same way, the stylistic units that make up surf music can replace the human bodies of Laban’s principle. Thus, the generic space becomes surf music, and the Kinesphere becomes the genres that compose it, which illustrates the idea that surf music is a space of sharing and creation always in motion.

References Bird, S. E. (2003). The audience in everyday life: Living in a media world . New York: Routledge. Blair, J. (1978). The illustrated discography of surf music, 1959–1965. Riverside, CA: J. Bee Productions. Blair, J. (2015). Southern California surf music, 1960–1966 . Charleston: Arcadia Publishing. Booth, D. (2003). Expression sessions: Surfing, style, and prestige. In E. R. Rinehart & S. Sydnor (Eds.), To the extreme: Alternative sports, inside and out (pp. 315–333). Albany: State University of New York. Booth, D. (2004). Surfing: From one (cultural) extreme to another. In B. Wheaton (Ed.), Understanding lifestyle sports: Consumption, identity and difference (pp. 94–110). London: Routledge. Bourdieu, P. (1979). La distinction: Critique sociale du jugement. Paris: Éditions de Minuit.

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Brackett, D. (2016). Categorizing sound: Genre and twentieth-century popular music. Berkeley: University of California Press. Chidester, B., & Priore, D. (2008). Pop surf culture: Music, design, film and fashion from the Bohemian surf boom. Santa Monica: Santa Monica Press LLC. Collie Buddz. (2007). Collie Buddz. Sony BMG Music Entertainment. Crowley, K. (2011). Surf beat: Rock’n’roll’s forgotten revolution. New York: Backbeat Book. Dalley, R. (1988). Surfin’ guitars: Instrumental surf bands of the sixties (3rd ed.). West Jordan: Robert J. Dalley Publications. Deschamps, J.-C., & Moliner, P. (Eds.). (2008). L’identité en psychologie sociale: Des processus identitaires aux représentations sociales (2nd ed.). Paris: Armand Colin. Durkheim, E. (1898). Représentations individuelles et représentations collectives. Revue de Métaphysique et de Morale, 6, 273–302. Foucault, M. (1997). The ethics of the concern of the self as a practice of freedom. In P. Rabinow (Ed.), & R. Hurley (Trans.), Ethics: Subjectivity and truth: Vols. 1 Essential Works of Foucault, 1954–1984 (pp. 280–301). London: Penguin Press. Frith, S. (1987). Towards an aesthetic of popular music. In R. Leppert & S. McClary (Eds.), Music and society: The politics of composition, performance, and reception (3rd ed., pp. 133–150). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Frith, S. (1996). Music and identity. In S. Hall & P. DuGay (Eds.), Cultural identity. London: Sage. Guilbault, J. (2010). Politics through pleasure: Party music in Trinidad. In R. Elliott & E. G. Smith (Eds.), Music traditions, cultures, and contexts (pp. 279–294). Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Hall, S. (Ed.). (1997). The spectacle of the “other.” In Representation: Cultural representations and signifying practices (pp. 223–290). London: Routledge. Howe, J. (2003). Drawing lines: A report from the extreme world (sic). InTo the extreme: Alternative sports inside and out (pp. 353–369). Albany: State University of New York. Laplantine, F. (1999). Je, nous et les autres. Le Pommier-Fayard. Leyens, J.-P., Yzerbit, V., & Schadron, G. (Eds.). (1996). Stéréotypes et cognition sociale. Bruxelles: Mardaga. Marche, G., & Vallas, S. (2016). Mouvement, enracinement, fixité. Revue Française D’Études Américaines, 149, 3–13.

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Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society (2015th ed.). Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Moscovici, S. (1961). La psychanalyze, son image et son public. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France. Muggleton, D. (2004). Inside subculture: The postmodern meaning of style (Repr). Oxford: Berg. Regev, M. (2013). Pop-rock music: Aesthetic cosmopolitanism in late modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Rosenberg, H. (1994). The tradition of the new (3rd ed.). New York: Da Capo Press. Roy, W. G. (2002). Aesthetic identity, race, and American folk music. Qualitative Sociology, 25 (3), 459–469. Searle, R. J. (2009). Making the social world: The structure of human civilization. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Small, C. (1998). Musicking: The meaning of performing and listening. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press. Stranger, M. (2013). Surface and substructure: Beneath surfing’s commodified surface. In The consumption and representation of lifestyle sports (pp. 61–78). Abingdon: Routledge. Tajfel, H. (1974). Social identity and intergroup behavior. Social Science Information, 13, 65–93. Thamin, N. (2007). Dynamique des répertoires langagiers et identités plurilingues de sujets en situation de mobilité [Doctoral thesis]. Université Stendhal. Turner, J. C. (1981). Toward a cognitive redefinition of the social group. Cahiers de Psychologie Cognitive, 1, 93–118.

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Cultures and the Feeling of Belonging

The psychosocial concepts of identity and representations being clearly illustrated with examples extracted from the ethnographic work, we can look at sociocultural potentialities as they take shape in music. In this chapter, first, I explain the way surfers develop a sense of belonging toward surfing culture, as it is observable in their musicking. Indeed, it is participation in social events, such as concerts that embody the feeling of belonging. Second, I put in tension the notion of belonging through the analysis of participants’ relationships with the rest of the world in order to better understand their posture in the glocal surfing community. Finally, I revise the specific characteristics of musical consumption modalities of Floridian surfers to identify the challenges of the ethnoaesthetics of glocalized surfing.

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Surfing: Individual Practice and Communities of Practice

There are many stereotypes about the surfer figure, but two are particularly well established in the collective imagination. The surfer is either conceived as a solitary being in search of transcendental harmony with the ocean or as a tribe member living on the fringes of society. The reality is much more subtle because even if surfing is an activity that can be practiced alone, it is the presence of others that allows its participants to develop an awareness of a social self able to share the unique experience of an ineffable reality. However, some lifestyle sports scholars have pointed out the decline of participants’ shared and collective values and the refocusing on oneself in a phenomenon of individualization, particularly in surfing (Comely, 2016; Wheaton, 2013). Although the accentuation of this phenomenon is notable, the community remains an essential element in surfing culture on the professional and personal levels, but the modalities of implementation of the collective have been transformed. Britty1 explained that it was her community of surfers that had enabled her, as a single mother, to surf again: “for a long time, I couldn’t surf ‘cause I had Charlie by myself and there was no way to really get out and do it. And then, we became friends with like a little family and we’d have like a little surf tribe community on the beach, so everyone would take turn watching the kids.” The community’s social function is noticeable as it protects and aggregates its members without making others strangers or enemies. These communities are in permanent transition since they constitute interactive spaces creating a common identity awareness formed through the action of groups of people who are brought together (during concerts, for example) and who develop a kind of transcendence of the self within the group. Collective consciousness is part of space and temporality and takes shape in the narrative interpretation made by the media but also by surfers themselves (Stranger, 2013, p. 64). The story of Cocoa Beach’s surfers is that of a united community built around

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surfing, as Dustin2 explained: “Cocoa Beach is just… That’s kinda where surfing really took off… And like, the community embraces, and the community is built around it so… Like, the mayor surfs…” By emphasizing the singular fact that the mayor of the city of Cocoa Beach is a surfer, Dustin sought to show that all the members of the community are involved in one aspect of the beach lifestyle, including individuals whose function and social status do not seem to match the lifestyle. The community has claimed a territory and has capitalized on its history, as surfing’s birthplace on the east coast of the United States. There is a sort of territorial right that unites the surfers of Cocoa Beach, and that gives them legitimacy. It allows them to display a form of self-confidence devoid of animosity toward strangers, as illustrated by Sean Slater’s3 comments on the behavior of certain kooks from elsewhere: “We’re the ones who’ve been surfing here for so long. What are they gonna say [laughs] you know! We know the etiquette and you know, we’re all happy, so everyone else is gonna be happy!” Community belonging thus requires knowledge of the codes. These can be universal surfing codes, like priority on the wave or the language used: “People who actually participate probably won’t ever use that term, extreme sports. Because it’s really kookie [laughs]. It’s not very humble and it’s kinda… That’s why they call it, it’s action sports industry, it’s the term that’s used” (Dustin). But there can also be regional codes (Olive, McCuaig, & Phillips, 2015), such as Cocoa Beach surfers’ relaxed approach to surfing as opposed to that of “aggro” surfers from other regions. The promotion of local products, like surfboards or clothing, and modes of interactions between surfers are also differentiating codes. If individualistic behaviors have existed and still exist, the community of Cocoa Beach represents the successful effort of cultural sharing that comes from the solidarity of actors of the community, as Ricky Carroll explained: “For the longest time, the guys didn’t work together very well. It’s kinda of a realization that you gotta work with your competition somewhat because we’re all in the same boat and we would die as an industry if we didn’t stay together.” The sharing of the culture stemmed 2 Interviewed 3 Interviewed

on September 10, 2016. on June 7, 2017.

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from a need for survival on the part of small local businesses in the face of the world market and large Californian and Australian companies. This practice not only helped the survival of local shapers, but also made it possible to develop a sense of “We” that was at once uniting, affective, and determined to aggregate a common and resolutely singular identity in the surfing world. Bart Kelley4 explained how Ricky Carroll has been one of those who promoted and endorsed this solidarity: This is one thing I like to say about Ricky. You see Ricky’s facility compared to anybody else’s facility, um, Ricky helps other people. So Neilson’s boards are finished here in this factory because if he wasn’t, and if it didn’t, he wouldn’t exist. He would have to go somewhere else or do something else. So Ricky helps out a lot of people. And the niche there, I said niche and we don’t even like to call it a niche, we don’t even like to call it marketing. It’s just who we are or what we do for our community and within our community. Um, and I like to almost think that when you’re with people and you’re helping people, that kinda shows who you are and what you are doing, you know what I’m saying? So in a way that’s the niche, helping everybody out… You know, there’s times when Ricky’s helped people, and there are several times when we have huge events and this other stuff… And we lost, everybody else won, you know, and it was our thing that we gave. That’s what we do in our community, so I think to serve the community to help others…

Contrary to the diktat of commercial reason, Ricky Carroll allows his competitors to use his premises because the relevance of the product that leaves his factory lies less in the hegemony of an independent brand than in the promotion of local know-how. Cocoa Beach agents work for and with their community. Local surfers participate in the construction of the community by supporting each other in many ways.5 Without being utopian, the actors of the surfing industry in the community of Cocoa Beach act according to principles of affinity arising from friendship and solidarity because, beyond the brands, individuals (all surfers) 4 Joint

interview of Bart Kelley and Ricky Carroll on June 13, 2017. first time I met Ricky Carroll was in 2015 during a fundraiser for the family of a local surfer who had just passed. Ricky Carroll had invited all local vendors to his factory to allow everyone to participate in the effort. Sun Bum participated as well. 5The

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are the ones shaping the industrial effervescence of the region, as illustrated by Bart Kelley’s comments on the partnership between Endless Summer Radio and Sun Bum: The Sunday was because of the support that Sun Bum supplies. You can see there’s two Sun Bum hats there, there’s Sonny here, there’s Duke6 there, behind you is a whole bag full of everything, and a banana! Every time somebody comes here, they’re getting something. So it’s kinda like just support right back. Once again, that’s not a niche thing or a marketing thing, it’s part of our community, and giving back to the people… And you can ask anybody at Sun Bum, it was never really asked or it was never really talked about. It’s just something that happened. Just like, you know, the backyard sessions, the porch sessions. That just happened, you know. He let us come right along with it and it was fun, you know. I think it’s the cool thing about what happens here, just with surfing and everything else. You see cool things that happen and you wanna support it, be a part of it, and next thing you know, you’re in it. It’s not… It’s let’s do this, you help me, I help you and this is how this works.

Once more, the notion of mutual support is the backbone of the community. Commercial relations are implicit, agreements are tacit, and human interactions are created naturally. Spontaneity makes these companies authentic entities in the eyes of surfers because any individual endowed with social skills can participate in the spontaneous (it is enough for them to share their knowledge of the local experience of surfing). In addition, if the community hosts an event from outside, the members involved make sure that local actors benefit from it. It is the case with the international organization of the Rootfire Festival that asked Bart Kelley to promote the Cocoa Village event on his radio program. Bart took this opportunity to involve local vendors, those of his surfing community: It’s like when Rootfire came, once again, being a part of the community… Rootfire came and they wanted me to help promote. So I said, ‘I’ll tell

6 Sonny

is the gorilla representing the brand, and Duke is the infant gorilla representing the baby products.

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you right now, my number one problem is Slightly Stoopid came and not one local band was there. So you’re charging people $40 a head, and nobody’s local. You’re not supporting anything local.’ So the first thing they said was, ‘Ok, give me a local band.’ So I gave them a local band and I said, ‘There’s no local companies involved either.’ So that’s how Sun Bun got involved with that, then we’re there… So it’s just those little bitty small seeds that you get to plant and help other companies and other bands… That’s why I love being a part of the surf community.

Local surf lifestyle companies, caterers, clothing retailers, and event organizers are present at these concerts, and even if they compete against each other in their respective fields, they find a way to help each other and to represent Cocoa Beach’s surf culture and values. They showcase the regional surf lifestyle, as Sean Slater explained: I think that my local brand does [represent local surf values], and I think Kelly’s surfboards. I think Bagel’s done a good job; Dan Capuano7 has done a great job… But I mean, we’ve got quite a few, we’ve got Jeff Haney8 … Matt Kechele9 has always been true to his roots of surfing and he’s so dedicated too… Ricky Carroll, yeah those are local brands.

The notion of family is also important because this is how each member considers the community. As in a family, new members are regularly added through partnerships that create new relationships within existing families. That said, this phenomenon is not unique to the Cocoa Beach community, as Sean Slater argued:

7 “Bagel,”

Daniel Capuano, is a Cocoa Beach shaper. Among other things, he was trained by Sean when he joined the Quiet Flight surf shop team. His label is called Pelican Surfboards, and the name comes from the moments he spent watching pelicans with his two friends, Sean and Skippy Slater. 8 Jeff Haney is the creator of Ocean Image Surfboards in Cocoa Beach. 9 Matt Kechele was born in Cocoa Beach in 1962. He was one of the pioneers of aerials in the late 1970s. He is known for what is called the “Kech Air.” He is the founder of Matt Kechele Surfboards and was Kelly Slater’s mentor when he was a teenager.

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I worked for Black Flys,10 so I’m basically Black Flys family. Those are sunglasses… So Black Flys and Sublime… They were one of the sponsors for Sublime and friends, and so we were just kind of a giant family with Black Flys and Skunk Records,11 and those guys introduced me to all those guys, from Eek- A-Mouse12 and all those guys from Sublime, and Slightly Stoopid,13 Filibuster,14 Corn Doggy Dog15 and all the bands that they had in the label. Every year we’d go to Salsipuedes [California], and we’d have a Skunk festival. They’d have a little stage set up in the car parking lot, and everyone would just go down there, and bands would play on all day and all night, and it was a lot of fun, you know. By day three, the toilet’s overflowing and there’s trash everywhere, and you know, it just became a scene and then, couple years later, a lot of people found out about it that kinda didn’t get what we were doing… They started flooding down there, you know, and there was… They think you can go down there and just trash the place… And that’s not what you do, and I think after that, it was kind of, it was done… No one wanted to do it, there wasn’t… It didn’t have the flavor that it did before anybody found out about it, so that didn’t happen anymore, and then Bradley16 passed away…

Black Flys was a trendy sunglasses brand in Californian subcultural spheres in the 1990s. As in the case of the partnership between Endless Summer Radio, Ricky Carroll, and Sun Bum, actors from different sectors of the subculture came together in a meaningful community, blurring the distinction between relationships of work and friendship. These associations have in common that they always aggregate around a musical scene, here that of Salsipuedes. The festival ended when people unaware of the know-hows and the “flavor” of the event invaded the 10 Black

Flys Sunglasses was created in 1991 in California in the spirit of the west coast skate and surf subculture (“Black Flys”, 2013). 11 Skunk Records is a Californian recording label founded by Bradley Nowell, the singer of Sublime, in the 1990s. 12 Eek-A-Mouse is a reggae artist from Jamaica. 13 Slightly Stoopid is a band from San Diego, California. The group described its work as a fusion of genres ranging from rock to reggae to blues and metal. 14 Filibuster is a ska group from Sacramento, California, created in the 1990s. 15 Corn Doggy Dog is a rock band close to Sublime. 16 Bradley Nowell was Sublime’s singer.

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premises. The term flavor illustrates once more the idea that thinking about subcultures cannot replace the (shared) experience of its reality. A flavor can be explained, but it is only by tasting that one can become aware of the sensory universe that it activates. This idea also applies during musicking—a musical experience where social ties are articulated and the participants’ sense of social and personal identities develops.

1.2

Ethno-Aesthetic Relativism: Surfing and Music as Experiences of a Cultural Reality

Musicking in the context of surfing is one of the identificatory procedures for surfers and, therefore, does not fit into any monism. Attacks on identity and representational approaches rest on the supposedly absolute nature of identity that would be used as a theoretical end (Laplantine, 1999, p. 25). However, as this work has shown, identity is porous and manifests itself in different forms and various ways, hence the difficulty of defining its contours (which I am not attempting to do since my goal is to understand the identificatory articulations observable in surfers’ musicking). Therefore, speaking of identity is not the equivalent of asserting that there are truths to take or leave—an absolute approach that would bring the conversation to an end and defeat the purpose of my transdisciplinary project. Identity is not an affirmation of the absolute, and it does not maintain an aversion for the unusual and randomness. As for representations, it is not their linguistic acceptation that is envisaged here, as it is semantically disconnected from reality (there are no natural relationships between the world and language), but the psychosocial acceptation, which takes into account the need for expression and realization of the potentialities of individuals’ relative realities—a phenomenon observable through the implementation of surf music. Individuals’ interpretation of the world depends on a multitude of factors, including their cultural background. There is a connection between discourses of surfing and a form of cultural proximity with some of these discourses. A cultural object includes several possibilities of interpretation, and it is also the case for surfing. Intertextuality

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invites listeners to use their own cultural background to decode polysemic texts (Fiske, 1987, p. 108). Surfing (music or lifestyle) includes a set of linguistic and symbolic signs whose reception may vary depending on the recipient’s cultural repertoires, as in the case of televised messages. The interpretation of these codes is important for the message, and that poses the problem of signs’ relativity. If entering the culture is done through its linguistic, behavioral, aesthetic codes, etc., it is necessary to know their implied and explicit meanings. Words and objects are indeed polysemic since they become symbols, like the longboard, for instance. Depending on surfing communities and on generations, this practice may seem outdated or, on the contrary, in conformity with a certain approach to the surf lifestyle. For Britty, it is a graceful, simple, and natural practice, even a melancholic one (she used the term “soulfulness” to describe it) opposed to shortboarding, that she mainly saw as an aggressive sport (she used the term “jock” which evoked a pejorative image of arrogant sportsmen obsessed with their physical appearance17 ). These objects that are representative of different approaches to surfing are ritualized and take on different meanings depending on communities and individuals. Consequently, the meaning given to cultural objects and the way of perceiving them have an impact on the interpretation of each individual’s sociocultural realities. In other words, the surf subculture is attached to a collective experience and to the way it is perceived and interpreted individually by each participant. Words and objects are not the only elements that give meaning to the subculture. Reality is also made up of unvoiced elements and gestures that carry value in the cultural experience of the surf lifestyle. In their interpretation of Nigel Thrift’s (2008) non-representational theory18 (NRT), Rinehart and Thorpe (2013) related the experience of certain sports practices and their propensity to develop an awareness of others, of their environment and self, thus generating new expressive, ethical, and 17 During

informal conversations between Britty and other surfers, her description of the practice of shortboarding was not unanimous. 18Thrift, N. (2008). Non-representational theory: Space, politics, affects. London: Routledge. The NRT of cultural geographer Nigel Thrift aims to show that the inexpressible has value and that one can find meaning in the body’s movement, in the evocation, in the unspoken and the immediacy.

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moral needs (p. 220). Thrift’s (2008) theory, even if it cannot constitute the only explanation of the links between surfing and music, nevertheless fuels the idea of surfers’ extraordinary experience with their environment that was referred to earlier. The perception of reality cannot be understood without taking into account the intelligible and sensible experiences of the participants. In addition, the crossing of the various experiences shared by a community makes it possible to construct the narrative of a reality adapted to the group’s cultural awareness. This story can take shape through the images and sounds that are recovered by local industries to promote a local subculture, as Dustin explained about the image adopted by Sun Bum: All the marketing is kind of, the imagery and social media, and all that stuff is all wrapped around the Florida lifestyle, the Florida surfing lifestyle, and how it kinda differs from other places. We found that even with the California office, we hired a lot of east coast people from Florida to kinda bring that vibe there because it’s refreshing to a lot of people. Like you don’t just say ‘hi’ to people walking down the street, and there’s not that southern hospitality in California, and so you kinda catch people off guards. But I think it’s a positive thing.

Floridian behaviors are noticeable in a Californian environment, underlining the complexity of the object of study, which cannot be grasped solely by the observation of tangible phenomena. Dustin spoke of a “vibe” to describe the Floridian surf lifestyle, thus not a graspable object but a feeling because the subculture is the experience of a relative cultural reality. The culture of surfing is not a monolithic block but an interpretation of reality based on a localized experience that takes on meaning thanks to the sharing and recognition of certain codes. There is not one surfing culture but several, and it is the porosity of cultural spheres that allows their interaction and the implementation of unique cultural movements: the Floridian culture has transformed that of surfing. Likewise, in the practice of surfing, absolutes are difficult to defend because what is true in a given place or for an individual may not be elsewhere or for other participants. As Sean Slater explained when

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defining what constitutes a good surfboard: “I think a good all around surfboard is really simple, consistent, good for your weight, and your talent, you know.” Monism does not correspond to reality, and any attempt to standardize practices would be futile to explain cultures. That said, we can still identify trends and a real common desire from participants to build a reality in which they can identify with other individuals. It is in the nature of individuals’ relationships with others and cultures that identity trends emerge. Reality is not an absolute; its only significance is given to it by the individuals who constitute it. A surfing competition or a Sonny’s Porch concert only assume value because their social existence is a cognitive construction expressing the emotional and social needs of a given community. As Small (1998) pointed out, “Reality may be socially constructed, but no individual is bound to accept unquestioningly the way it is constructed. Musicking, being exploration as well as affirmation and celebration, is one way in which the question can be asked” (p. 134). The construction of the real and identifying processes is therefore relative, but regardless of the value given to an event, its structure remains the same. The identificatory perspective makes it possible to envisage the existence of the singular that opens up the universal since, for instance, competition remains a meeting of participants judged on their performance independently of the evaluated practice, and a pop-rock concert remains a musical gathering regardless of the repertoire and the intention of the organizers and the audience.

1.3

Plural Affiliations and Distinctive Speeches

Belonging to one or more cultures means that individuals can develop a sense of self as long as the culture allows them to build their reality within it. Identity is not an authoritarian entity that assigns individuals to a particular membership or origin forever, so belonging is neither definitive nor conclusive, but it is a temporal process. The origins of individuals are understood in their plurality. They are not affixed but traced, and above all, they are one of the points of reference in identity marking, a point from which subjects can turn away. Consequently, surfers’ posture does not proceed from the definitional, the definitive, or

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the conclusive. However, to account for the world, it is natural for any individual to create categories—subjective constructions. Categorization allows identification, but again, the borders are porous, which allows an individual or a group to identify with several categories. Our conception of the world is constructed according to our interactions with the elements that constitute it (Small, 1998, p. 130). Subcultures, cultural movements, and societies follow this logic of subjective assignment of values to the objects and people with whom contact occurs. When these experiences are categorized and then evaluated positively, networks of identities can come into contact and create new positive relationships. This process is how a Floridian surfer can refer to a Californian surfer as an ideal while invalidating the Californian approach to surfing as a whole. Identity networks are created because categories and discourses can be refined. In the same way, surf music is not a homogeneous category because it is refined by the contributions of the various communities of belonging. Surf music allows us to take a glimpse at the articulations of belonging discourses relating to these communities. In the transition from global to local, the refinement of these discourses can be observed, hence the importance of speaking of plural affiliations allowing singularizing discourses at the individual level. The more elements of identification are introduced, the more we shift away from a generic identity. Indeed, when asked if they considered themselves primarily Floridian surfers, informants’ first reaction was to think of surfing in its entirety. Most initially claimed to see no difference between their community of surfers and those of others: “We are all surfers of the world”; then, their discourse became more refined as they recalled certain regional characteristics that can be rewarding or devaluing for the communities in question. Thus, Brazilian surfers were too territorial and aggressive in their eyes, while Caribbean surfers tended to be more welcoming. Consequently, the implementation of the lifestyle and its interpretation are subject to change at the local level, while they are understood as a collective impetus at the global level. Surfers are provided with an inventory of cultural symbols that they fit together according to their identificatory needs (Stranger, 2013, p. 71). In this rhizomatic approach to culture, a generic surf culture is envisaged whose different ramifications would lead to various results depending on the elements

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present in the new context. Accordingly, even if the links with the generic culture or another subculture are not visible, the emotional or ideological proximity (not the physical) can generate a feeling of plural belonging. The feelings of closeness, bond, intimate knowledge, and identification with certain surfers who are not necessarily Floridians are illustrated here by Dustin’s comment: [John John Florence], to me he’s the new Kelly Slater. Like he’ll do things particularly in really critical waves that, he’s so comfortable, he doesn’t… other guys will grab the rail of the board to stabilize themselves. He’ll go on his back hand not even touching the board and skimming his shoulders off the back of the wave, just do things that most people don’t even think was possible.

The comparison with an athlete (Kelly Slater) who had already been validated by Dustin in the marking of his own identity as a surfer makes it easier to validate identification with a new model (J. J. Florence), and therefore, the membership of one or more identificatory categories in which he fits (like his approach to surfing). Beyond the generic and global surfing culture, plural membership is also marked at the local level by affiliation with various communities, certain characteristics of which intersect: “Yeah, it’s the beach community, it’s the boating community, it’s fishing … . To me it’s anything associated with the water” (Dustin). The feeling of belonging and the singularizing speeches become a way of apprehending the way of life, as Sean Slater pointed out: As soon as you really get into loving surfing, it kinda moves toward that whole thing. And it becomes that. It’s a fun thing to do. You do it by yourself, and I don’t know… There used to be a saying, ‘only a surfer knows the feeling…’ And there’s so much truth to that, but um, you can go almost anywhere and just do it… You meet good people, a lot of free spirits, I don’t know… It’s just a great thing and you just start living doing what you love to do…

The word feeling can refer both to the physical sensation that the activity provides and to the feeling of belonging to the “family” of surfers (the idea of family is very present in Sean’s discourse). The practice and

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the community of surfing are global, but their modes of implementation differ depending on regions. Sean’s description of the surf lifestyle, while it may seem generic, reflects a particularly Floridian reality: he spoke of pleasure, love, and openness, far from the aggressive behaviors that characterize certain communities of surfers from California (Kaffine, 2009) or Brazil (Bandeira, 2014), for instance. These various conceptions of surfing are articulated in the music implemented by these communities, as the rest of this work illustrates.

2

Relation to the World

2.1

The Fantasy of Cultural Autonomy

As far as particularities within surfing culture can be distinguished, the idea of complete autonomy of subcultural units is objectively false, but the trend toward this autonomy is subjectively possible if we consider a form of emancipatory willingness in relation to the generic trend.19 Micro-social observations reveal that there are groups of identity within surfing culture that are not represented through the visual arts, academic discourses, and representations of all kinds. For example, writings that tend to contemplate surfing from the standpoint of big wave surfers (Booth, 2004) are not representative of Florida. In other words, various experiences of surfing call for different representations or ways of apprehending the same object of representation. Music is one of these cultural objects that can be interpreted in different ways depending on sociocultural contexts and the intentions of the audience. Thus, just like individuals, communities can think of themselves as autonomous and prove their autonomy by the way they experience the cultural object. Small’s (1998) description of a classical music concert illustrates this point. He explained how the spectators of a classical concert are strangers

19The term generic is preferred over dominant because I do not think here in terms of a hierarchy of power but of a superimposition of particularisms having as a corollary the erasure of their respective differences.

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to each other and seem to feed this form of individualism by the banishment of all forms of communication (p. 41). This example highlights the idea that cultural autonomy is indeed a fantasy. Absolute isolation does not exist because, despite their efforts to proscribe connections (physical, communicative, emotional, etc.), all participants go to the concert because they share a certain aesthetic sensibility for this art form. Besides, without their collective desire to participate in the concert, there would be no concert. As Frith (1996) stressed, “Identity is thus necessarily a matter of ritual, it describes one’s place in a dramatized pattern of relationships — one can never really express oneself ‘autonomously.’ Self-identity is cultural identity” (p. 125). Cultural, social, and identity expressions are only manifested in the relationship with others (similar or distinct). It is also the case at the level of subcultural groups since communities of surfers develop their cultural identity according to their own singularities, which only exist in relation to others. Cultural identities are not built in self-sufficiency,20 as illustrated by the example of Floridian surfers who have links with other surf subcultures, such as those of Hawaii or California.

2.2

Looking West: Relationships to Hawaiian and Californian Surf Subcultures

Many Floridian surfers experience Hawaiian life temporarily. Surf retreats in idealized places, such as Indonesia or Hawaii, help to legitimize individuals’ status through their surfing in areas requiring an advanced level of mastery. One of the effects of these more or less long displacements is also to reaffirm the Floridian identity by contrasting it with the local practices of these regions. This reflection is done a posteriori. The idealization of these exotic places for Floridians is not obvious. In his interview, Ricky Carroll, like many respondents, began by explaining that the quality of Floridian waves makes surfers wish to explore mythical places of surfing like Hawaii: “I think Floridians would say: ‘if I could go somewhere on a trip, it would be to Hawaii before 20 Hall

and Du Gay (1996) defined cultural identification as “a process of articulation, a suturing, an over-determination not a subsumption” (p. 3).

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California.’” However, the sociocultural reality of these places comes up against its idealization. Thus, relations with Hawaii are power relations which can be tolerable if they are reduced as equals, or intolerable when the contrast with Florida becomes too great. Dustin, for example, was able to fit in Hawaii cyclically, that is to say, thanks to the status of equals that his position within Sun Bum conferred upon him. He was thus able to develop friendly ties with the Hawaiian Water Patrol21 team which supervises all surfing competitions, like that of Pipeline: I got in through Sun Bum. Like we support it, a lot of the guys, we work with, the Hawaiian Water Patrol, and they’re sort of the enforcers for the North Shore. They’re like the unofficial police. But they also work to keep everybody safe in the water. They do the surf contests, rescue people, they travel the world, and they train other communities. Like officials had them do rescues so we, like, they’re in the protection business, we’re in the protection business, so we support them.

Business relationships can facilitate access to the Hawaiian surfing community, but this is not a guarantee. The fixed length of Dustin’s stays seems to promote the success of the relationships, while his permanent settlement in the archipelago would make long-term relationships more difficult, as Ricky Carroll explained based on his experience: It’s hard to come there as a Haole, which is mainlander, and fit in, but a lot of people do… But um, when I was younger, I was thinking this would be great to get a job over here. I could move over here and work, but as I got older and had kids… You don’t wanna raise your kids in Hawaii ‘cause the school system is terrible. They’re like two years behind us, and it’s like you just don’t wanna raise kids there. There’s more and more people who lived in Hawaii that move here because they say that, ‘this place reminds me of Hawaii so I like it,’ and the schools are better and it’s less expensive to live. Everything is a little more accessible, and a 21 I met Kavika’s team while in Hawaii. He and his family have informal control over the beaches and community of the North Shore. One day Dustin did not have a surfboard, so Kavika took the board from a passer-by and gave it to him without the other surfer being able to object. Before saying good-bye, Kavika went to the souvenir shop and prompted the manager to give him six souvenir glasses for his friends, which the manager did.

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lot of Hawaiians do actually move here, even the ones that were brought up there through the military. They stay there for many years and then when it’s time to retire or change, they come here because they don’t wanna bring their families up in that environment. It’s a tough place to live, it really is.

The culture of surfing cannot be dissociated from its sociocultural environment, which is why none of the surfers interviewed for this study chose to settle in Hawaii. The contrasts between wave quality, idealized surf culture, and experience of local cultural and societal realities were not enough to justify this life choice. It is this observation that is made a posteriori from trips to Hawaii. If imagination values Hawaiian culture, the contrast with reality plays in favor of Florida. Furthermore, after each informant mentioned that Hawaii was one of their destinations, they were asked if they would consider living there. All replied negatively, justifying their answer in contrast to Florida’s qualities. For example, Dustin explained: I could maybe live in Hawaii, but it’s kinda of like the same sort of deal. It’s like Florida just has, like the, to me it has everything, the best of a lot of those things where it may not be the best waves, but it’s less expensive. There’s like a pretty good community, it doesn’t get too aggro. California can get really aggro, there’s still, to this day, people who get pulled out of the water and get beat up for surfing the wrong place, and you don’t have quite that ego here. And I feel like in California, there’s less of a waterman culture, like you don’t have the boating element that we have here in the sailing and all that stuff ‘cause I don’t think people can afford to do it. And the coastline isn’t conducive for it, whereas here, I feel like there’s in some ways… Hawaii is a good example, Hawaii has like tons of boating, it’s centered around the water so… Yeah.

Florida is valued in a reflection common to all participants and that touches on pragmatism, far from the spiritual principles supposed to guide surfers in their lifestyle (Evers, 2009; Taylor, 2007). It is about finding a compromise between lifestyle (surfing) and quality of life. Life in Florida is inexpensive compared to Hawaii or California. Surfers, like the rest of the Floridian population, are generally welcoming, their egos

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are like the waves, modest, and do not dominate community relations. In addition, like Hawaii, Florida enables surfers to live their ideal life of watermen since they can go boating, fishing, and surfing in one day. The contrasts in the relationships between Florida and Hawaii are more about social comfort, and there is a mutual respect that seems more uncertain between California and Hawaii than between Florida and Hawaii, as Ricky Carroll explained: I told you about the stigma between the east coast surfers and the west coast surfers. Hawaiians like east coasters better than they like Californians, and you would think the opposite. You would think they would like the Californians and appreciate what they’ve done for surfing but they don’t. They feel like the east-coasters are more laid-back and not so full of themselves, and the Californians are a little more full of themselves. They are a little more entitled or whatever. They think they invented surfing, which is super ironic because surfing was invented in Polynesia, closest to Hawaii than anywhere else in the world. But Californians took up on it later, but culture-wise around the world, people would think that surfing was invented in California.

The humility of Floridian surfers relative to their status as “underdogs” seems to facilitate the maintenance of non-competitive relationships between the hybrid culture and the mother culture. Tensions are more marked with California because of a sense of primacy and sovereign privilege built on the revisionism discussed earlier. Restating the position of Florida vis-à-vis the two places at the origin of surfing and surf music seemed necessary at this point because it constitutes an important anchor point in the perspective of the ethno-aesthetics of surfing in Florida, which is part of the glocal and stems from a Western past—essential to found continuity and to be able to envisage a future.

2.3

Opening to the World

Paradoxical to its image of individual activity, surfing is conceived in sharing and opening up to the world—through surf trips (Laderman, 2014; Samuelson, 2017; Stranger, 2011). Surfing is both the purpose of

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the trip and its pretext. Surfers travel to surf, and they surf to travel and discover new places, new cultures with which they develop affinities that inspire them models to bring home. Sean Slater traveled a lot for his surfing career. He differentiated each place, not in terms of waves, but in terms of local surfers’ culture and behavior, as well as in relation to the interactions he may have had with them. Accordingly, he explained what territoriality meant for him: You know, yeah, you definitely see that… Some are worse than others. Some I try to completely avoid and others are just super welcoming. Like if you go to Tahiti, it’s like old school, like people are so nice there, you know… It’s wonderful, you’re out on the water, and it’s so weird, someone is being nice to you… I love Tahiti… Barbados is getting a little aggressive, but they’ve always been very nice. It’s just so crowed and everyone gets irritated… So here, because of all that chaos, I like to find a street where there’s no one at, or near my house in Cocoa Beach, and maybe go out there.

Sean Slater illustrates why surfing is a culture: it is designed according to human interactions whose characteristics are defined by the social uses of their connecting elements. Nevertheless today, in the digital age, sharing and traveling are also to be understood in virtuality. Cultures are brought into contact in new ways through social media, like Facebook or Instagram, reshaping the lived experiences and the representations of surfers globally (Olive, 2015). Sounds and images have multiplied, allowing communities of surfers to come into contact virtually. Indeed, the surf experience has gone from personal, to shared through sounds and punctual images, to shared through unlimited sounds and images— creating inventories to choose from in the marking of identities. It has transformed the way communities imagine themselves because they can build their reality from regional tangible elements as well as from foreign virtual ones. In music, the live performances of foreign artists in local intimate concerts, such as Sonny’s Porch, help to create close ties between regional cultures that otherwise would not have been in contact. Certain pieces of music nourish surf paradises’ utopias like Hawaii with the ukulele, California with the surf guitar, or the Caribbean with the alliance of percussions and bass, characteristic of reggae. However,

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when artists move to an area that is not theirs, and they manage to gather crowds, it is because the subjective interpretation of their music has allowed other communities to build meaning with sound and image. As for the concert, it gives substance to this interpretation in the musical act. Music consumption is private and public. It is the result of relationships between openness to the world and withdrawal from it. The way Floridian surfers articulate their cultural identity within their community and in relation to the rest of the world when they are in the musical act reflects how they balance their relationships with the various components of their surf lifestyle, as the next section illustrates.

3

Modalities of Consumption of Floridian Surfers

There is no doubt that surfers have a particular relationship with music. Arguably, their activity gave its name to a musical movement. Some speak of a correlation between the waves of the ocean and those of music. Lance-O considered that surfing and music are both organic elements; Britty explained that musical performance gave her the same sensations as a well-ridden wave; Dustin maintained that music accompanied the daily life of surfers: When I surf, a lot of times, especially if the waves are good and I’m in a good mood, I sing to myself in my head [laughs]. Like, I’ll have that song stuck in my head. I don’t know, it’s just one of those… You could argue that music goes with most anything, but um, yeah it’s just… I don’t know how to answer that question better than that.

It is complex to explain on the spot why music is so important. The starting question should interrogate the cause of the need for music. We must then understand how this need is satisfied to finally understand the function of music in the expressive modalities of surfers.

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Music as a Substitute for Surfing

3.1.1 Starved Surfers When I asked informants which term would define surfing in Florida and best summarize the atmosphere related to surfing, some described surfers as starved by the lack of good waves characteristic of Florida. Surfing conditions have a direct impact on the behavior of surfers. Indeed, in Florida, while they appreciate not having to wear wetsuits to protect themselves from the cold, they must, in return, be content with contingent waves (they are likely not to occur over relatively long periods, unlike California). This irregularity in the practice imposed by the environment has repercussions on the lifestyle of surfers. Since waves are a rare commodity, surfers have to be available when they occur. In other words, in Florida, surfers have to organize their lives and schedules according to the ocean’s vagaries, as Ricky Carroll pointed out: Like I use the analogy a lot where in the Gulf Coast, when they surf, and especially up into the Panhandle, there is a big surf community over there. There are a lot of surfers and we make a lot of boards for a lot of people there, and they’re more surf starved than we are. So we think we’re surf starved; living on the Gulf Coast, they get waves way less than we do. Most of them will jump in the car and drive across the state to surf over here on a day, and then go back to work you know.

The expression “surf starved” is strong, but it often came up in the discourses of Floridian surfers. They are hungry and will do whatever it takes to feed what is already more than a need, an addiction. Some areas of Florida are more deprived of waves than others, like the entire Gulf of Mexico coast, which only produces decent waves during hurricanes. When surfers are hungry because there have been no waves for a long time or they cannot get around, they turn to specialized media: And up in the Panhandle, there’s guys up there that are so surf starved that they have nothing better to do than to watch videos, look at magazines, look online. And I feel like some of the surfers in the Panhandle area are more specific about what they want in their surfboards, to measurements

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to within an eighth or a sixteenth of an inch that don’t make any difference at all, and they’re so into it, and they’re even more into it than guys that live here should be into it ‘cause they have more time to think about it than actually do it! (ibid.)

The scarcity of the activity pushes many surfers to participate in the lifestyle by proxy through films, magazines, etc. What they consume are not only surf images but also sensations produced by the music that accompanies the videos. The time they spend not being surfers, they spend it reproducing the emotions and sensations that surfing gives them. According to Bart Kelley and Ricky Carroll, this lack produces depressive, even delusional behaviors among surfers that music can overcome: Ricky Carroll : Yes, it continues… [Music] can be the drug that keeps you going, the compensation… Bart Kelley: When the lake comes, when it’s Lake Atlantic, and you’re…. So [the music] helps you, ‘cause there’s a depression that takes place, there’s a mental thing.

Surfers are so hungry that they imagine more favorable conditions than there actually are. If music seems to help surfers get through these periods of scarcity, musicians encounter the same problem in Brevard, as Ricky Carroll, himself a musician, explained: Like musicians who play in bands around here, sometimes you can’t get gigs a lot because there’s only so many places that play and so many bands, and there’s open mic nights or jam nights at different places… I know guys that play pretty regular, but if you go to the open mic night, they’re there too, waiting for their turn to get up there and play because they need that drug. They need more of it to get on stage and play. It’s the same relatable thing that surfing is to surfers as playing on stage is to musicians you know.

Brevard’s music scene is particularly active. Many restaurants and cafes offer free concerts in a musical vitality fueled by the multitude of bands in search of available scenes. Thus, Ricky Carroll’s parallel between the surfing world and that of music is particularly relevant here since it

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emphasizes a mode of consumption common to both worlds, that of a propensity for excess (in use, approach, and feeling) probably due to the intensity of the feelings and emotions generated by the two activities, the need to feel them, and the rarity of their implementation.

3.1.2 Addictive Behaviors Some studies have highlighted the addictive aspect of surfing triggered by the stoke, the thrill of risk-taking (Evers, 2004, 2009; Stranger, 1999) or what an informant called “a golden experience on a surfboard, on the wave that just brings you back to it again, and again.” Some compared surfing and music to drugs. Both cultural spaces are not free from stories of narcotics use (illustrated, for instance, by the fatal overdoses of two figures of surfing and surf music: Andy Iron and Bradley Nowell). In addition, the surfers interviewed for this study often characterized themselves as having addictive personalities, that they connected to their proneness for Attention Deficit Disorder (ADHD): “A lot of people, including myself, have always said a lot of surfers do come from a background of some sort of ADHD, or you have just too much energy, hyper, you know” (Dustin). According to some, this propensity to create addictions to products or sensations can be controlled if surfers have access to the activity or music—in the absence of which dependence on products (drugs or alcohol) could worsen. Lance-O22 described himself as follows: It’s who I am, almost completely. I mean, I’m a very all or nothing person. I have an addictive personality, so you know, it goes hand in hand. I’m all or nothing you know, there is only four main things in my life, surfing, music, my son, and my diet, and that’s it, you know. Everything else is about less than five percent, you know. It’s the balance of a mix but it’s just who I am, especially now, you know, with the time that I have between my family and work. I go from one to the other and back, you know, so it’s just how it is, that’s what I am in my life.

22 Interviewed

on January 16, 2016.

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The behavior is absolute, it is all or nothing, and there is no limitation to the approach taken. Surf, music, vegan food, and his son are no longer just a part of Lance-O’s life; they define him as a whole and without compromise. Since he spoke of a balance between these four elements, it is legitimate to consider that if one of the elements were missing (like the waves or his son when he grows up and becomes an adult), then the others would take over and be more relied on to compensate for the imbalance. This ties in with informants’ view that music is a substitute for surfing and vice versa. This excessive behavior can be partly explained by one of the paradoxes observed in these individuals who are all agents of the subculture. In their professional relationship to the surf culture, they all project themselves into the future while trying to innovate and to propose new concepts to advance the subculture, but on a personal level, they are anchored in the present in search of immediate satisfaction (if a possibility of implementing surfing or music appears, all other activities cease). Instant gratification is characteristic of addictive behaviors in which the important is to feel good in the present, as Bart Kelley explained: I’m 44 years old, I’m just living the dream of what I am right now… I don’t know, to me, yeah sure, it’s fun, this is where we are right now. Like Ricky said, it consumes your life and even when I’m not here, then it’s all you think about. That’s the reason why we’re here, that’s the reason why we’re good at what we do. It’s because, it’s just um, it’s a drug, it’s a bug, it’s a something special, and the cool thing about it… Sometimes people don’t understand, my wife doesn’t understand.

The terms used are very powerful to speak about surfing, and in the case of Bart Kelley, about music. Both activities consume and devour the lives of the participants when they are not concretely satisfied. It is a virus, a disease, and again, only those who have experienced it can understand it, hence the fact that Bart’s wife does not understand his obsession. This vision of addictive behavior on the part of surfers (toward surfing, music, alcohol, or drugs) was validated by Ricky Carroll (and Sean Slater):

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It’s hard for people who don’t surf to understand what it is. Like what you [Bart] said about the drug thing. I’ve had a lot of issues with my son and drugs and stuff and… My other son… And I’ve seen it with many surfers who come up to me at some point in time who hadn’t known my issues, and have said to me, ‘Yeah, I got into it and I quit surfing, you know the whole drug thing, and I quit surfing, but I’m good now because I found surfing again and I wanna be healthy. I wanna be in shape in order to be able to go out and surf.’ And it may have been the one thing that saved them, it really saved their life. They had this passion for something, and I’m sure that other people through music or whatever… I’ve heard so many surfers… I know surfers that grew up here that could have been right on the tales of Kelly Slater in the pro career but they blew it by choosing the drug route. The guys that figured it out, surfing is a drug, it can be a good kick.

One of Ricky Carroll’s sons became involved in the use of drugs. They are readily available in Florida and can take the form of crack, methamphetamine, heroin, or just prescription painkillers. If surfing seems to particularly satisfy addictive behaviors, it can help get out of “bad” addictions, as Ricky Carroll explained, since he also considered surfing and music as drugs. These practices (surfing, musicking, taking drugs) replace each other, but the first two offer an alternative to surfers that is less physically and socially dangerous than hard drugs, as Bart Kelley pointed out: You know, it’s your life, it’s your lifestyle to where it’s all you know. You wake up and you wanna watch it and you wanna hear it, you know. That’s where the Endless Summer comes into play, you wanna listen to it, you wanna hear something. You know, before you can come to this area and you can go anywhere, and that’s one thing I really don’t understand... When you turn on the radio, why don’t you hear surf music in a surf town? Um, so… it’s just the lifestyle, it consumes you, just like music consumes you and anything else. It’s something that we need to pick and choose. We choose bad things or we choose good things… I don’t think surf is a bad thing…

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Bart Kelley’s description highlights the need for continuity in the implementation of the feeling of living the surf lifestyle whose components must fulfill the sensory life of the surfer at all times: in practice, visually, and aurally. Interruption is synonymous with emptiness and causes a feeling of withdrawal. Without going into biological considerations, we know that endorphin23 (the happiness hormone) and dopamine24 (our reward system) are secreted during physical activity and while listening to music (Levitin, 2016, p. 32). However, the adrenaline rush25 (the excitement hormone) of which surfers speak when they are on the wave also creates a depression because the increase in adrenaline is accompanied by a decrease in dopamines, a depression factor. The emotions caused by surfing or music create cravings when they are no longer there and are linked to the symptoms of dependence described in this chapter. Surfing and music come together in their potentiality to generate behaviors of dependence on emotional states caused by participation in activities (Small, 1998, p. 138). Since the ability of music to replace surfing in the lives of surfers is posed, it is necessary to determine what guides the choices of surfers in their musical consumption.

3.1.3 Importance of Moods The contexts of music listening and the choices that surfers make are based on sociocultural and affective assessments. Indeed, they are primarily cultural because the choices are influenced by what the subjects have been conditioned to love throughout their lives. Evaluations are also 23 Endorphin

is a natural opiate released during physical activity to neutralize pain (BNA, 2003, p. 10). 24 Dopamine is considered “the neurotransmitter of happiness” and can be activated by risktaking or drugs (BNA, 2003, pp. 9–10). 25The adrenaline rush is the rapid surge of adrenaline caused by the situation the surfer finds himself in. It has a euphoric effect. Britty may not surf for a long time and not feel starved, but she nevertheless compares the sensations caused by her musical performances to those caused by her surfing practice: “I enjoy the performance because it’s just like exhilarating and I think in that sense there’s a bit of an adrenaline rush, which I think you also get with surfing, not so much with yoga, you know. You catch a very steep wave and you’re just getting down the line getting barreled and you’re like, ‘Wow!’ You know. It’s kind of the same excitement I get when I’m about to go on stage and perform but I’m just like, ‘Oh okay, you can do this, you can do it!’”.

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affective because the choices depend on the ability of the music to match the desired emotion. For Motti Regev (2013), tastes depend on the affective correlation of three elements specific to music: “The first is rhythm as bodily experience… The second element is rhythm as experience of time… Finally, the third element consists of the voice as experience of personality”26 (p. 66). Rhythm allows everyone to feel the music. For example, a fast tempo can help motivate a surfer before a surf session, while a slow tempo is suitable for situations where calm is desired, such as after surfing, a moment often described by surfers as euphoric. Music as a temporal experience allows us to focus on the present, which is characteristic of the surfers I interviewed. Finally, the singer’s voice, if there is one, personalizes the music and gives it the character of the public figure supposed to represent certain ideals. On the other hand, if the character seems fake or if the implementation of his/her speech is not evaluated positively, he/she will be rejected (which was the case for Collie Budz). To explain their musical choices, informants often spoke of moods (the receptive states a person is in at any given time). The readiness to receive sensitive information is a temporal state, that is to say, one can go from one receptive state to another depending on several factors specific to the person but which can be influenced by the context. Therefore, the musical choice is made according to the music’ conformity to a state of receptivity at a given moment. Dustin explained how he adjusts his music in relation to his mood: Surfing is so personal and you get in your head a lot. Like you get a lot of time to think about things that are going on. Or even the way that I surf is affected by my mood so that I think it really just comes down to the type of mood I’m in. There’s days when I’m like, I wanna get really pumped up and I wanna be really aggressive on the waves, then I’m gonna listen to music that’s aggressive. If there’s days that I wanna be kinda cruisy, I’m just gonna go with something that’s more metabolic…

The tempo plays a metronome role in the way to apprehend surfing in action or everyday life. Many surfers associate the practice of surfing 26 Motti

Regev elaborated on the work of Simon Frith in Performing Rites (1996), which he considered relevant but incomplete because too generic.

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(in fact and in the movies) with music at a high tempo while they more often associate the lifestyle with slower music like reggae.27 Therefore, the choice of music depends on moods but also listening circumstances. If the musics are often chosen to match a mood, they can also, in certain cases, be used to modify it. The mood is a receptive state, so if the one in which individuals find themselves does not correspond to what they wish to feel, they are inclined to receive music which will modify their mood as they wish, as Lance-O explained: “[W]hen I was in a bad mood, I just wanted to go surf. I wanted to go listen to music and just listen to my favorite songs, and it would take me to a better place. It would put me in a much better mood, so it’s almost instantly if it was the right song.” Lance-O attributed the same mood-changing abilities to surfing and music. For Regev (2013), the pop-rock aesthetic28 is based on five elements constituting the modes of expression used in music to transmit and express emotions, moods, and meaning: “They are sonic textures of electric instruments, complexity and sophistication of studio work, techniques of vocal delivery, rhythmic drive and the song’s lyrics” (p. 68). Each more or less exhaustive implementation of these elements allows the evaluation of the music as corresponding or not to the listeners’ moods. Music becomes an art instigating emotions to various degrees, and therefore, a carrier of particular aesthetics. When Dustin chooses, for example, to listen to NOFX before going surfing, it is because the five expressive elements or part of them form an emotional declaration matching a specific mood. In other words, NOFX corresponds to an aggressive way of surfing thanks to its fast rhythm, the rough texture of the guitar, and the voice of the singer. However, aggressiveness is not the only mood expressed by surfers. On the contrary, we have seen that in Florida, it is above all well-being and joy that are claimed by surfers. According to Regev (2013), the different moods that can be expressed in pop-rock “are either those of rage, anger, frustration, bleakness, and despair (which could be interpreted as the ‘rock’ aspect), or those of fun, extreme joy, pleasure, and bliss (which might be 27These

results came from the surveys. Regev (2013), the pop-rock super-category includes all music produced using an electric or electronic amplification device, voices, and recordings, thus including genres as varied as rock, reggae, disco, etc. (p. 18).

28 For

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interpreted as the ‘pop’ aspect)” (p. 69). Cocoa Beach surfers are somewhat receptive to the pop side of music, as illustrated in their focus on fun and positivity. The next and final chapter focuses particularly on the notions of pleasure and hedonism that seem to be an ideal toward which the surfers of Cocoa Beach tend. However, before that, the approach chosen in this work to assess the modalities of surfers’ musical consumption must be restated: it is an attempt to understand the role of music in surfers’ everyday life in order to comprehend the way their sociocultural identities are articulated in their musical experience.

3.2

Surf Music: Cognitive, Affective, and Conative Associations

Surfers consume music in two primary ways. On the one hand, they listen to it in a performative mode in relation to a surf session: before the action (listening stimulates their motivation), during (remembering maintains their motivation), after (listening prolongs the state of euphoria aroused by the surf session)—they consume conative music. On the other hand, they listen to it in a supplemental mode: in recorded and live forms, to accompany everyday life—they consume lifestyle music. These two modalities of musical knowledge are experiential (Regev, 2013, p. 132) and make it possible to observe identificatory behaviors directly linked to the cognitive and affective perception of subjects for certain genres and artists.

3.2.1 Conative Music and Performative Function Music often accompanies board-sports, such as surfing, snowboarding, or wakeboarding. Many participants claim the need to listen to music during their performance. For instance, this connection to music is observable during snowboard halfpipe competitions29 where music 29The

halfpipe is a structure that resembles the cross-section of a swimming pool. For winter sports, halfpipes are constructed by piling up a large amount of snow, which is then cut to form a half tube on the slope. The dimensions of a competition halfpipe are at least 500 feet long, 65 feet wide, and 20–22 feet high.

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consumption is quasi-systematic and almost ritualized. Objectively, music is not directly responsible for the quality of sports performance, but it has an impact on the moods and minds of athletes (Levitin, 2016, pp. 38–39). Furthermore, the kinds of music that can have a beneficial effect on performance differ from one athlete to another.30 Reality is therefore transformed by the subjective perception of music and its effects on sports performance. It is a form of self-persuasion linked to the emotional state and tastes of the individual. Depending on surfers’ affective and cognitive interpretations, certain types of music can have an impact on their action. According to Searle (2009), “perception, memory, and beliefs” pertain to cognitive faculties, while “desires, prior intentions, and intention-in-actions” pertain to conative and volitional faculties (p. 15), with which every individual is endowed. The conative concept applied directly to music highlights music’s power to act on subjects (receivers) and alter their action. “The conative-volitional states … are not supposed to represent how things are but how we would like them to be or how we intend to make them be” (ibid.). Conation relates to the notion of imagination developed earlier that makes it possible to match a will to reality and can thus create cultural and institutional realities through repetition. When the nature of music is conative, its function is performative. In other words, by being listened to or used, music alters moods and transforms social and cultural realities, as well as the relationship with the world. Performativity is inherently human and is essential in the construction of individuals’ reality (Schieffelin, 1998, p. 199). Performativity, in this sense, is the shaping of practices that implement identities and articulate them within sociocultural categories. There remains to understand the different ways surfers integrate music into their practice. When asked if there can be surfing without music, surfers’ answers are nuanced, as shown in the following exchange between Ricky Carroll and Bart Kelley: 30The

idea of the need for music in sport came from a reflection on my personal practices as I need specific types of music during snowboarding sessions. Depending on the songs I listen to while in action, my performance can be very different. For example, when I listen to electronic music, like The Prodigy, I make technical mistakes because it makes me ride too aggressively, while other music with a pronounced but slower rhythm, like Muse, allow me to find the right rhythm. Besides, it is impossible for me to go into the halfpipe without music playing in my headphones (I have a playlist called Ride created specifically for snowboarding).

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Ricky Carroll : I think, there can but it’s not, for most people, not likely. Most people if they didn’t have music, they would feel like their surfing is missing something, they’re not amped up, they’re not getting that mood but… Bart Kelley: I can say there cannot be surf films, so it’s really relatable to the surfer… Ricky Carroll : But you know, there’s plenty of times when I’d be driving to the beach, and there’d be a song on the radio and I’m thinking about it, but as soon as I got out of my car and looked at the water, the song was out of my head and it was like, I’m looking at the waves, I’m looking at what I think I’m gonna do, where am I gonna paddle out, whether I have the right board, and so then the music thing becomes less of an issue for me while in the water… But when I’m on the water, I see guys saying, ‘I wish I had headphones on so that I could listen to the tunes while I surf ’. There’s a certain thing, you can get lost in surfing while you’re surfing, and think about music and do that, but if you’re really serious about your surfing, you’re thinking about surfing, not about tune in the back of your head.

For Dustin and many other surfers, music seems decisive in the mood with which they approach a session, but for Ricky Carroll, music serves as a foreword, or as he explained, a substitute for surfing, but it is not conative. Similarly, for Lance-O, music is not necessary during the action: I’ve always heard a lot about that for surf contests. I’ve heard a lot of the guys say, ‘Oh, what gets you amped?’, ‘What gets you going?’. And it’s different, like some guys just want to hear, really, a lot of energy stuff that gets them pumped. But then, you’ll hear guys that might listen to hip hop and hard rock, and they wanna listen to Beethoven before they go out, just to be calm and relaxed. … Music has never, not for me really, unless you’re at a party and it gets you kinda hyped up, just enjoy yourself, have more fun dancing or whatever. For me, in sports, I never really went, it never really was meant to be something about… It never became that type of element.

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Despite a few surfers for whom music was not conative, a majority of surfers surveyed on the beach considered it necessary for their practice.31 It seems that for surfer-musicians, such as Lance-O and Ricky Carroll, music is mainly a substitute for surfing, whereas, for those who do not play any music, music is a pleasure that dresses reality with a distinct sound in order to alter it and conform it to their expectations. Finally, for surfers who implement the performative function of music, the choice of a musical genre depends on the mood of the individual as explained by Sean Slater: It depends on my mood. There’s never one thing. It can be all the way from Jimmy Buffet, to Nihilists, to a lot of old school new wave stuff like Talking Heads. ‘This must be the place’ is one of the best songs I ever heard in my life from the Talking Heads… It brings up a lot of memories… You can’t pinpoint a memory, you just feel it… There was a whole era there for a long time when I was on the road, there was a bunch of bands, so Pennywise and ASG, and NOFX, the Descendant’s ‘Bad religion’.

This passage shows that beyond the musical elements taken into account in the constitution of taste, memory plays a fundamental role in the formation of surfing’s aesthetics. Musics chosen for action refer to moments that are favorable or pleasant for the individual. They then have the power to transform the mood so that it corresponds to the desired situation. In addition, although the correctness of the rhythm and the voices are fundamental elements for the positive evaluation of music according to the contexts, knowing a music and being able to anticipate on these movements and articulations also comes into play in the faculty music has to modify the performance of the sportsman, hence the importance of also taking memory into account in conative music.

31 In my surveys and interviews, even surfers who did not use music for performative purposes acknowledged that a majority of surfers do.

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3.2.2 Lifestyle Music: Musicking and Sonny’s Porch Concerts Apart from the performative function of music, the contextual function of music (the one that supplements the lifestyle by providing it with a background) seems fundamental in the realization of the lifestyle. This music is the one that surfers listen to every day without associating it with the practice. Subscribing to the surf lifestyle, thus living the subculture through the practice, the skills, and the activities related to surfing, gives individuals the power to turn the music they listen to into lifestyle surf music because surfing does not stop on the beach. Lifestyle surf music is one that surfers listen to at home, for example, when they barbecue with friends. It can be similar to conative music: “[Good background music] is the same thing, it’s whatever mood I’m in. If I get excited, I think I listen to the same music. It just depends on the mood” (Dustin). But lifestyle surf music is also one in which individuals decide to participate by going to concerts. It is this type of musicking that is the focus here because it implements sociocultural dynamics, which make it possible to observe identifying articulations of individuals constituting the subculture. Many of the artists my interviewees listened to are neither from Florida nor programmed on local radio stations, but they are becoming popular thanks to the establishment of an insider network system. In other words, the aesthetic values of individuals who have acquired a certain legitimacy through their evaluation of the surfing world and their influence on the culture are normalized. Their musical conceptions are not validated simply because these individuals declare that the bands are good but because they stage them in specific contexts during concerts, in playlists shared on the Internet, or at events related to surfing. Therefore, the term life in lifestyle surf music gives two meanings to this music: everyday life and live concerts. A concert is a place where one tacitly accepts to create proximity with strangers and, therefore, to create a community around a musical performance. The artist, as a focal point or social bond of this temporary community, is at the heart of this system of values. Accordingly, the next paragraphs provide an analysis of how Sonny’s Porch concerts make it possible to celebrate an aesthetic reality built around surfing.

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Dustin is one of the actors of the lifestyle who has an impact on its evolution and who offers a space of music consumption through Sonny’s Porch concerts. The audience for this event is composed of insiders who have the privilege of receiving a private invitation. Even if the backyard remains open to passers-by during the concert, the event is promoted on social media in private groups created for each occasion. This system allows Dustin to control the number of people likely to attend the concert because the space is relatively limited (the terrace is about 100 square feet). The place is not a traditional concert space in which the decor must be artificially recreated to contextualize the performance. The architectural style of the house used as an office takes up all the symbols of the surf lifestyle. Thus, the musical performance is directly associated with the culture in which it is contextualized. In addition to providing a space for gathering and collective sharing of the musical experience, Sonny’s Porch concerts help to confirm a sense of identity firmly focused on the spirit of surfing in Florida. Space is no longer just physical; it becomes cultural through the symbols of surfing and Florida, as well as social through human interactions and their various modalities. Artists are placed on the patio a few inches away from the audience, either seated on the floor or the sofa, or leaning against the wall of the house. The beers are in the office fridge within anyone’s reach. The pool table is ready to be used. The concert is free, and there is no security service, which, added to the decor and organization, gives the impression of a private party set up by a friend on a Saturday afternoon. Therefore, participation in the concert is a right conferred on individuals by their belonging to the community. Even if they do not necessarily know each other, they have in common to belong to a community of aesthetic values aggregated by a collective experience of the surf lifestyle. The format of the intimate concert allows them to envisage each other—they can put a face and therefore, an identity on other participants. This format contrasts with a standard concert in which the volume and the lighting centered on the stage tend to anonymize the crowd gathered in the pit and aggregated into a uniform mass of non-participating but paying consumers. Sonny’s Porch concerts allow the audience to participate and interact with artists, organizers, and other spectators. Artists chat with participants before, during, and after the concerts to ask them what they want

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to hear or what they have enjoyed. The point is not to buy and consume the music since everything is free. The point is to have people come as they are to share a special moment with artists from remote locations, like Donavon Frankenreiter or Mike Love, or with Floridian artists like The Jacuzzi Boys or The Nude Party. Sonny’s Porch concerts do not rest on sexual dramatization between the artists and the fans. There are no bodyguards, no implicit or explicit call for extreme behavior (drugs, promise of endless nights, etc.), so that the events are simply the expression of a desire to share a moment of aesthetic cohesion. The success of Sonny’s Porch concerts is a good indicator of the collective success in the implementation of social interactions evaluated as ideal by participants in the context of the surf town that is Cocoa Beach.

3.3

Challenges of the Ethno-Aesthetics of Glocalized Surfing

One of the problems relating to the theme developed here stems from a difficulty in naming what punctuates the lives of surfers. It is not easy to assess one’s own practices and even less to qualify them, which explains why during interviews, individuals indicated never having thought about the question of the links between their surfing practices and their musicking, not having an answer, or not knowing how to answer. This difficulty also explains the perspective shifts during interviews, for example, on the question related to defining surf music. Therefore, one of the challenges is to name surfers’ practices in order to give them corporeality as acts with sociocultural significance. This issue can be addressed by broadly considering surfing as the formal language of surfers and surf music as its informal language. Indeed, surfers necessarily communicate something through their practice because there would otherwise be no reason to get in the water and perform maneuvers, all bearing names, and values (Howe, 2003, p. 367). The expression only a surfer knows the feeling (that they cannot explain) illustrates the idea that participants know and understand this language intuitively in spontaneous practice, but standardized frameworks, such as competitions, reduce spontaneity

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in performative language. The gap between free practice and competition is similar to the gap between intimate concerts (Sonny’s Porch) and standard concerts described earlier. This point touches on the challenge of understanding the construction of a sense of identity (or its marking) in the musical practice of surfers, and how they articulate it in the social construction that constitutes the musical act (musicking). Another challenge consists in replacing the ethno-aesthetic phenomenon in its glocal dimension, that is in the production of the global in the local. My interviewees were producers of meanings who share their tastes and their intimate knowledge of the surfing world according to their own creative methods (making surfboards, developing products, implementing concerts, etc.). They have a local influence on the lifestyle to which they assign their evaluation criteria, their canons, and their vision. When they organize concerts, program radio shows, or invite artists to perform at local festivals, they create a local aesthetic doctrine legitimized by participants’ validation. From the identification perspective chosen here, it is necessary to take into account that the categorization of activities and people is neither true nor false but ideological. This subculture’s ideology goes beyond the regional when the brands that these individuals represent become national or transnational, as is the case for Sun Bum. This point illustrates the expansion of surfing culture in rhizome, as discussed earlier. Surfing allows the establishment of connection points that cross the world but do not cover all of its territories (Guilbault, 2010, p. 282). This configuration is why some artists can receive the same aesthetic assessment in Hawaii and Florida but not right next door, in Alabama. Sometimes, the difference can even be marked from one city to the next, as Ricky Carroll explained: I think each area just kinda does their own thing and claims it as that’s their surf music, you know, around here, there’s still a lot of bands that are considered a little more surf music bands than if you go to Orlando, or if you go to Jacksonville… Well Jacksonville, maybe a little bit… but you know, you go to Tallahassee and you don’t find this surf music…

The reception, interpretation, and use of cultural products, such as music, differ according to sociocultural contexts. There is a new way of

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understanding the links between culture and identity, which comprehends the world as a sociocultural reality made up of distinct units. Surf music is made up of various incarnations in different places, and the challenges of a reflection inscribed in a glocal system involve accepting and understanding that there are differences that should be noticed, processed, and integrated (Koskoff, 2010, p. 104). This work strives to integrate a regional singularity (cultural unit) into a global cultural system. The point is to underline the complexities of a reality as it presents itself to us, not as we wish it to unfold before our eyes of ethnographers. Therefore, the last chapter is based on the embedding of descriptions and analyses given throughout this work to put into perspective an ethno-aesthetic synthesis based on the identity issues developed thus far.

References Bandeira, M. M. (2014). Territorial disputes, identity conflicts, and violence in surfing. Motriz: Revista de Educaçao Fisica, 20 (1), 16–25. Black Flys. (2013). Black Flys. https://flys.com/about_us. BNA, British Neuroscience Association, & European Dana Alliance for the Brain. (2003). Neuroscience: Science of the brain. An introduction for young students. British Neuroscience Association. Booth, D. (2004). Surfing: From one (cultural) extreme to another. In B. Wheaton (Ed.), Understanding lifestyle sports: Consumption, identity and difference (pp. 94–110). London: Routledge. Brown, B. (1966). The endless summer [Film]. Aviva International. Comley, C. (2016). “We have to establish our territory”: How women surfers ‘carve out’ gendered spaces within surfing. Sport in Society, 19 (8–9), 1289– 1298. https://doi.org/10.1080/17430437.2015.1133603. Evers, C. (2004). Men who surf. Cultural Studies Review, 10 (1), 27–41. Evers, C. (2009). ‘The Point’: Surfing, geography and a sensual life of men and masculinity on the Gold Coast, Australia. Social and Cultural Geography, 10 (8), 893–908. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649360903305783. Fiske, J. (1987). Television culture. London: Routledge.

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Frith, S. (1996). Music and identity. In S. Hall & P. DuGay (Eds.), Cultural identity. London: Sage. Guilbault, J. (2010). Politics through pleasure. Party music in Trinidad. In R. Elliott & E. G. Smith (Eds.), Music traditions, cultures, and contexts (pp. 279–294). Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Hall, S., & Du Gay, P. (Eds.). (1996). Questions of cultural identity. London: Sage. Howe, J. (2003). Drawing lines: A report from the extreme world (sic). In To the extreme: Alternative sports inside and out (pp. 353–369). Albany: State University of New York. Kaffine, D. T. (2009). Quality and the commons: The surf gangs of California. The Journal of Law and Economics, 52(4), 727–743. https://doi.org/ 10.1086/605293. Koskoff, E. (2010). Is fieldwork still necessary? In R. Elliott & E. G. Smith (Eds.), Music traditions, cultures, and contexts (pp. 101–112). Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Laderman, S. (2014). Empire in waves: A political history of surfing. Berkeley: University of California Press. Laplantine, F. (1999). Je, nous et les autres. Paris: Le Pommier-Fayard. Levitin, J. D. (2016). The world in six songs: How the musical brain created human nature. New York: Dutton. Olive, R. (2015). Reframing surfing: Physical culture in online spaces. Media International Australia, 155 (1), 99–107. https://doi.org/10.1177/132987 8X1515500112. Olive, R., McCuaig, L., & Phillips, M. G. (2015). Women’s recreational surfing: A patronising experience. Sport, Education and Society, 20 (2), 258–276. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2012.754752. Regev, M. (2013). Pop-rock music: Aesthetic cosmopolitanism in late modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Rinehart, E. R., & Thorpe, H. (2013). Alternative sport and affect: Nonrepresentational theory examined. In B. Wheaton (Ed.), The consumption and representation of lifestyle sports (pp. 212–235). Abingdon: Routledge. Samuelson, M. (2017). Searching for stoke in Indian Ocean surf zones: Surfaris, offshoring and the shore-break. Journal of the Indian Ocean Region, 13(3), 311–325. https://doi.org/10.1080/19480881.2017.1351853. Schieffelin, L. E. (1998). Problematizing performance. In F. Hughes-Freeland (Ed.), Ritual, Performance, Media (pp. 199–212). London: Routledge. Searle, R. J. (2009). Making the social world: The structure of human civilization. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Small, C. (1998). Musicking: The meaning of performing and listening. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press. Stranger, M. (1999). The aesthetics of risk: A study of surfing. International Review for the Sociology of Sport, 34 (3), 265–276. https://doi.org/10.1177/ 101269099034003003. Stranger, M. (2011). Surfing life: Surface, substructure and the commodification of the sublime. Burlington: Ashgate. Stranger, M. (2013). Surface and substructure: Beneath surfing’s commodified surface. In The consumption and representation of lifestyle sports (pp. 61–78). Abingdon: Routledge. Taylor, B. (2007). Surfing into spirituality and a new, aquatic nature religion. Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 75 (4), 923–951. https://doi. org/10.1093/jaarel/lfm067. Wheaton, B. (Ed.). (2013). The consumption and representation of lifestyle sports. Abingdon: Routledge.

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The Mobilization of Surfing’s Semiotic Resources

1.1

Praxis and Hermeneutics of Surfing in Floridian Surf Music

In the last movement of this work, I put into perspective the identity and aesthetic reflections that have been carried out thus far in order to give meaning to the sociocultural practices of Floridian surfers. Establishing how they mobilize the semiotic resources available for socialization purposes, I then present the realization of identity potentials based on sociocultural paradoxes, which nevertheless allow communities of belonging to enhance their aesthetic identity through both collaboration and emancipation. Having explored the modalities of consumption of surf music, it is now possible to analyze certain aesthetic tendencies (understood as experiences of an idiosyncratic reality) specific to the community of Cocoa Beach through speeches and signs representative of its culture.

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There are several levels of symbols, representations, and identity associations depending on the distance between an object (like a text) and its consumer (its reader) (Barthes, 1957). It is therefore difficult, even futile to speak of the semiotics of the discourse of surf music since it does not constitute a coherent genre, like country music for instance, which in the United States, is consistent in terms of theme (quickly schematized as manual work, truck, love, and beer), voice, and instrument (twang,1 banjo, guitar). Surf music is a super genre that includes a multitude of musical genres whose inclusion depends on their ability to correspond to the expressive and affective needs of the individuals who build surf music according to their place, time, and cultural and aesthetic predispositions. However, trends can be identified, and concerts are the materialization of these collective trends. Thus, a look at the semiotics2 of a singular surf music, such as the one built in Cocoa Beach, can allow the analysis of the articulations of certain sociocultural behaviors through symbolic and representational systems. The goal here is not to establish a surfers’ discourse whose decoding would translate identity, but rather to understand identificatory dynamics of surfers participating in the musical act (Frith, 1996a, p. 115). Thinking the aesthetics of surf music in terms of speech to decode would imply questioning its symbols’ status as myths or as subjective realities according to a relative distance between the object and the individual. This approach would relate to the mythical history of surf music (a nostalgic and collective conception of the music challenged in this work since it exclusively defines it as intrinsically linked to white California from the 1960s to the 1980s). If the current texts of surf music do not always relate to surfing, the instrumental characteristics marked by the texture of the reverberation of the guitars still function 1The twang is a vocal technique that allows the singer to make a powerful but nasal sound. It is characteristic of country music. 2The analytical suitability of musical semiotics in the study of popular music has been a point of contention is musicology (Dunbar-Hall, 1991; Tagg, 1987) However, a number of approaches have emerged that have proven suitable. There are two broad branches of musical semiologies: Analytical semiotics, deemed neutral, focuses on the intrinsic meaning of a musical system. Interpretative semiotics focuses on the links between “musical events and extra-musical concepts” (Dunbar-Hall, 1991, p. 129). It looks at the symbolic aspects of music and what musical events represent. I use interpretative semiotics as a way to explore the meaning of music and musicking for Floridian surfers.

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as a reminder of the original history of surf music, which is mythified in a sonic discourse. Anyone (surfers and non-surfers) can associate such music with the history of surfing. In this work, it appeared more relevant to focus on music that does not have these obvious sonic or textual characteristics of iconic surf music and which can only be understood as surf music by insiders sharing the knowledge and connection to the culture tested by the experience of the surf lifestyle. A discourse (which can be textual or sonic) with all the codes, symbols, references, and cultural know-how that it contains can be interpreted in several ways according to the cultural capital of listeners but also according to their volition of interpretation. Various audiences can use music for various purposes because a song can become a completely different entity from one listener to another, and from one group to another depending on each person’s perception and rating systems. However, surf musics, more than a set of symbols, play a functional intermediary role in the social systems of the communities that build them. In this chapter, the aesthetics of Floridian surf music are thought in their semiotic dimension because they articulate the being, thinking, and social action of a certain category of surfers within their American society.

1.2

The Symbolic Values of Surfing

Florida is embedded in US culture and society, so it is essential to probe the existing symbolic links between the nation, the state, and surfing culture. Throughout the chapters, a multilayered symbolic marking between the culture of surfing, Florida, and the United States has emerged. On the one hand, surfing in all its dimensions has become one of the symbols of the United States, including Florida, and on the other hand, the United States, or rather a certain conception of Americanness epitomized by Hawaii, California, and now Florida, has been one of the symbols of surfing. The cohesion of a group (national or cultural) requires its members to recognize its symbols (citizens or participants). Surfing as a United States symbol and Americanness as an emblem of surfing in its social, economic, and artistic dimensions constitute a set

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of practices and codes that are important for the formation and expression of national and local cultural identities. Surfing as a United States symbol is then essential in the construction, the maintenance, or on the contrary, the evolution and the marking of fundamentally national and regional American identities. Surfing being a culture and a subculture at the same time, its symbolic representations affect the communities to which they refer insofar as representations raise, on the one hand, a collective conscience of “Us” and our history of surfers, but also of “Them” and their values from which “We” distance ourselves. Thus, Americanness becomes a bank of symbols that manifest in our case in the form of a specific culture and its music. Thus, they become emblematic markers of the sociocultural identity of a group made up of different factions. Like stereotypes, these symbols offer shortcuts to the groups they represent in a subjective dynamic that creates (aesthetic) boundaries. Communities come together through concrete surf symbols, such as surfboards, statues, icons, or they recreate their own representations of surfing by using its aesthetic symbols (listening to music, participating in concerts, watching videos, forging a meta-discourse, etc.). Just like intergroup representations, symbols can have an integrative function since identity constructions put forward practices and shared ideologies within the group even though the meaning and importance of the symbols can vary among the members (for some, The Beaches Boys are a surf band, for others, they are a sham). They can also have an exclusive function since this is how a sense of collective identity is built. For example, the symbols of the electronic music community are dismissed by some surfers and denounced as being simply “nothing” and representing nothing (Dustin3 ). Furthermore, symbolic systems, like identities, are active constructions, and those of surfing are no exception. Indeed, much like Peterson’s (1997) cowboy and hillbilly characters, the image of the athletic blond surfer was “a constructed image created selectively out of available symbolic resources and contemporary styles” (p. 68). Symbols are manufactured but remain malleable so that their meaning is subjective (allowing appropriation). That is what makes them effective. Groups and communities are mental constructions made of 3 Interviewed

on September 10, 2016.

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representations, and these mental constructions are tools that allow individuals to give meaning to their reality. Symbols communicate to the group a certain idea of the representations, but they also allow cohesion between individuals, as well as antagonism with the exogroups. In this regard, I diverge from Bourdieu’s theory of social domination because popular cultures are capable of symbolic productivity when they forget the domination of others and manage to organize symbolic coherence (Pasquier, 2005, p. 63) By forming a cultural identity rooted in American surfing at large, and Floridian surfing in particular, the characterization of representative symbols and rituals allows community members to define themselves and justify their belonging to the same group. These cultural communities are in themselves the expression of symbolic boundaries, and it is possible to put forward the idea that the demand for symbols is likely to increase if the groups’ identity is threatened. These symbols have something to teach us about the character and identity of a cultural group and a collective conscience. Community symbols, as systems of representation and collective action, are therefore essential to allow individuals to join a group and ensure its continuity. When using these symbols and practicing rituals, groups are most aware of their identity (surfing, participating in concerts, clothing choices, etc.). These symbols provide a form of anchoring in a changing world open to the outside. In order to understand how the symbols of surfing culture and its music allow its participants’ identity to be marked, the relationships between these symbols and the communities they represent must be analyzed through the discourses and semiotics of the surf lifestyle (surf music being part of the lifestyle). These emblems are representations and expressions of these individuals and allow us to glimpse at their multiple identities: surfer, American, Floridian,4 etc. As they were built on a shared and validated history, these symbols provide, by association, unique access to local and national memory inscribed in a global whole. Thus, they guarantee the preservation of identity. Therefore, surf symbols offer the glocal community references that they are free to adjust to their cultural 4 Identities

are represented by nouns that state the being rather than by adjectives that affix a characteristic to the being.

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heritage to constitute signs of group belonging. Symbolic representation can be perceived as a metonymy since the symbolic object designates a whole that is either absent or difficult to represent in its entirety, like surfing. By bringing attention to themselves, symbolic objects can provoke cognitive and affective reactions that will define the aesthetic relationship. The mental assemblies performed by surf lifestyle participants (agents and consumers) are metonymies relating to their daily experience in connection with the subculture so that the functioning of everyday life’s cognitive activities highlights the symbolism of a behavior that determines aesthetic processes.

1.3

Sonny’s Porch Micro-Social Structure: Intimacy and Proximity

In order to understand the role of music in the definition of the social, I present here the micro-social structure that Cocoa Beach constitutes, then I explore the translation of the phenomenon in the macro-social structure. The term structure expresses all the components of the life of a given society’s members. It includes, among other things, collective events that are essential to society and represent the sociocultural life of the subjects. These are concerts like Sonny’s Porch, which is the basis for this analysis. Participation in the musical act implements observable dynamics of differentiation and collaboration of a micro-society (Small, 1998, p. 133). During Sonny’s Porch concerts, individuals are united around aesthetic values. However, they all present themselves according to a mood, a social status, more or less marked affinities with the artist, the organizer, the other members of the audience, and especially with their own ways of socializing (some express themselves and interact, others just listen, some leave the group with which they arrived, others hide in it, some dance, others freeze, some show their belonging to the world of surfing thanks to their clothes and the language they use, others neutralize their belonging to any culture so that it is impossible to know what moves them). The concert is a laboratory where we can observe these human relationships made of words, attitudes, body language that articulate social relationships. Music produces and expresses cultural

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sensibilities. The ways in which individuals respond to their implementation sets them apart (ibid., p. 142), which is the social force of music. The concerts are in the image of human relations, set in time. In the long run, Sonny’s Porch’s success may erode because the format or the guest artists no longer correspond to the desires of the local society. The most regular participants, those who take part in giving an identity to the event, can stop coming and change the group dynamic. In the short run, what changes during a concert are the interactions between participants (artists and organizers included). During a concert, they learn to collaborate (there are sometimes technical problems, and everyone implements strategies consisting in maintaining the atmosphere of the moment, whether it means singing cappella, serving beers, or bringing the audience into the house because a storm is about to break); they meet strangers; they discover an artist who deeply affects them (and who would have them less marked without the intimate format of the concert allowing proximity to all participants). The notions of intimacy and proximity then become essential because they transform the dynamics of the concert and the human interactions. The format of Sonny’s Porch concerts illustrates these notions, making those concerts unique spaces for the observation of the community. Intimacy allows contacts, and therefore, socialization (Guilbault, 2010, p. 282). Sonny’s Porch concerts allow both spatial proximity and contacts between all the participants, including the audience, the artists, and the organizers. The stage and the audience are on the same level. This setting allows a real collaboration between the two spaces for the collective success of the event. All participants are fulfilled by their participation in the friendly implementation of a shared lifestyle. Memories are created, connections are formed, and the learning of new behaviors as well as musical and social know-hows takes place. Everyone is invited to share this moment, and from a symbolic point of view, the concert is implemented without distinction of generation, class, or filiation. That said, these concerts have a commercial interest for Sun Bum, which, by publicizing them, promotes their own vision of the surf lifestyle, as describe in their motto. The concerts make it possible to highlight the phenomenon of social structure transformation by the collective and subjective recognition of

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the cultural object. This human ability allows them to transform their social reality by adding functions to their surroundings (Searle, 2009, p. 7). In other words, an object or a person can be assigned different social functions that will become (subjective) realities if they are recognized collectively. So to transform the social structure, the group must paradoxically think of it objectively: facts become objective thanks to the collective will and acceptance of a systems’ functions (ibid., p. 10). Therefore, Sonny’s Porch is a surf music concert because it is organized by surfers and for surfers who wish to share their way of life through their sociocultural practices and their aesthetic experience. In other words, Sonny’s Porch relates to the non-conformity of the Cocoa Beach’s social space marked by the absence of a public, yet home-style, place to meet and listen to music after surfing. However, when the world does not correspond to the objective reality with which a group can affiliate, then the group transforms the world so that it corresponds to the content of its expressive mode: Sun Bum has successfully filled the gap by proposing this private practice (the gathering of friends around music after a surf session) in a public setting. In addition, repeating the event has allowed participants to change their personal and social identities by being regularly immersed in the intimate universe just described. This point echoes the performative understanding of identity described in Chapter 8, which refers to the transformation of identity through repetition (Brackett, 2016, p. 24). Regular participation in this type of concert implies evolution (in the long and short terms) and allows individuals to be put in contact with people whose social and cultural objectives are common. Repetition strengthens the social conventions to which they collectively adhere during these gatherings. Beyond the micro-social, the aesthetic proximity observed during the concerts echoes certain global dynamics. The aesthetics of surf music, its sub-genres, its discourses, and its meanings resonate in particular ways in the regions where it develops. This relative commonality is what ethno-aesthetics entail since they constitute the relationships that groups, thus sociocultural units, maintain with artistic forms, such as music, in a glocal whole. The various iterations of surf music throughout the world are listened to in similar contexts, thus, creating proximity between regions of the world in their experience of the surfer’s identity.

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303

Discursive Legitimation: Socialization Through Surf and Surf Music

The cohesion of a group requires to mutualize the values relating to the group’s own reality. Language, for example, is a symbolic element which makes it possible to create a common reality around a communication mode that has become a collective tool. However, semantic representation may not be linguistic and may consist of acts and institutions as in the case of the community of Cocoa Beach which gives meaning to surfing through the various manifestations of its members: manufacturing industry, competitions, arts, and of course, concerts. The discursive elements in question here are all of the meaningful entities that aggregate and form a society’s narrative (at the micro- or macro-levels). A narrative allows artistic practices to be structured so that they fit into a social reality. Consequently, the success of a concert such as Sonny’s Porch rests on rhetorical truths and on the ability of music to convince participants that their performance makes sense and that it is important. The goal is not to represent certain values but to give them substance through the performance and the active participation of the participants in their recognition and their evaluation of “We.” Forming the narrative of a cultural community at the micro-social level is objectively easier than determining the cohesion of a group at the national or global level. Intra-group recognition means that individuals composing a community can recognize themselves as belonging to the same community of values thanks to the understanding and shared knowledge of the narrative relating to the group. It is possible to mark the terms of a common narrative through the notion widely used by Regev (2013), of expressive isomorphism inspired by the works of Meyer5 (2000) and Bourdieu6 (1993). While the notion of homology presented by Bourdieu is not validated here (substituting music for social structure to explain its functioning), the notion of isomorphism appears particularly relevant because it aims at comparing equal structures while 5 Meyer,

J. W. (2000). Globalizations: Sources and effects on national states and societies. International Sociology, 15, 233–248. 6 Bourdieu, P. (1993). The field of cultural production. Cambridge: Polity.

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keeping them in their distinct groups. Therefore, there is no structural substitution or reproduction from one group to another, but proximity and overlap of certain elements between different groups. Isomorphism is illustrated in the narrative of surf music being indeed the result of a construction and transformations founded in iconic surf music and of the successive additions of all the other genres in rhizomatic manifestations of both these various genres and surf music itself. The discursive framework of surf music is thus set in the parameters of an ideology of independence relating to genres, listening modes, artists, and meaning given to lyrics. Consequently, it is necessary to distinguish between moments of collective recognition and those of cooperation: the former makes it possible to give substance to an existing cultural movement; the latter makes it possible to maintain and consolidate it. For cooperation to happen, there must be collective recognition (Searle, 2009, p. 57), here of the narrative of surf music. Cooperation takes place only at the micro-social level during events involving participation, such as concerts. Socialization involves learning and sharing a way of thinking about reality. It takes place throughout life. Thus, the musical act can become one of the biases of socialization when it takes the form of a common language. Participating in social gatherings around music allows participants to socialize, get to know each other through the eyes of others, and at the same time, it allows us, as observers, to understand how socialization takes place. A first step, which consists in deciding to come together in a given context, offers socializing opportunities allowing, first, to develop a knowledge of oneself and others in a given context, second, to validate or invalidate the collective situation. Therefore, in concerts like Sonny’s Porch, but also during more standard productions,7 such as the Rootfire Festival, it creates a sense of community on the part of the participants who take comfort in knowing that all expect a type of behavior particularly suited to the situation. For example, given that in both cases, they are so-called family events and focused on surfing, participants expect a certain social comfort (in which social identities are not

7The term standard indicates that the format is conventional: entry is chargeable, there is a security service, vendors, and the number of participants is high.

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put to the test), as well as a protective atmosphere that they must maintain (which constitutes an example of cooperation). Participants aware that they are all present according to a mutual understanding of the event can socialize during the concerts. However, socialization is only possible at specific moments in the concert, not during the listening (Small, 1998, p. 42). In addition, the concerts are themselves punctual moments in socialization. They are sometimes a port of entry into the culture, sometimes a reinforcement or a readjustment of sociality in the cultural journey of the individual. A less blatant but more regular form of socialization takes place through membership in a movement that involves being accepted by the group. To join means to participate and unite in a group, to form a community of values and share a certain idea of oneself within the membership group according to a common experience. Identity strengthening is one of the functions of the social group (ibid., p. 131). In addition, the group preserves itself by transmitting values to new generations and new members. In our case, the group consists of surfers using surfing and music as a social bond. It is natural for sociocultural communities to use music as an aesthetic process through which individuals can discover themselves in their relationships with others (Frith, 1996a, p. 118). The next section uncovers how these identity potentials can manifest themselves according to the different interpretations that communities and individuals have of their subcultures.

2

Realization of Identity Potentialities in Surfing

2.1

Finding Authenticity in Surfing and Surf Music: The Marked Identity

The term authenticity is connoted and decried by some academics as a kind of intellectual suitcase or umbrella term. However, it is an essential concept in surfing, so it must be explored. Discussing skateboarding, Beal and Weidman (2003) and Beal and Wilson (2004) assessed authenticity as the most important factor of inclusion into a subculture. They defined

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authenticity in terms of commitment to the practice, non-conformity to normative standards, and masculinity. They also explained that the quest for authenticity included the need to control the representations of the practice. More recently, discussing surfing, Dina Gilio-Whitaker (2017) assimilated authenticity to Americanness and the need for the United States to build their legitimacy in modern surfing through origin narratives in which “cultural authenticity equals racial purity” (p. 228), and we might add, masculinity. Olive, McCuaig, and Phillips (2015) showed how women were not considered authentic surfers because the status quo maintained the ideal surfer as a masculine figure. These approaches to the notion of authenticity show that it can be discussed within a variety of frameworks. In this section, the authentic participants I refer to are predominantly white males, as they represented my population sample. I discuss the subcultural community as a whole and confront it to the mainstream, not to other group members or subgroups, such as minorities. I acknowledge that the gender, race, and authenticity issue is a pressing one, but it would require a full-blown discussion that would go beyond the scope of this book. I address the theme of authenticity in surfing through the lens of trading institutions that govern the culture’s image and evolution. One way to find authenticity in surfing culture is to observe the differences between its mainstream meaning and its meaning for agents (lifestyle professionals) and participants (everyday surfers). Many surfers (professionals, amateurs, academics) have pondered the question of authenticity, which would make a group, a person, or a practice legitimate. Our exploration of surfing culture seems to indicate that authenticity proceeds from the validation of standards likely to be shared by surfers’ communities, each offering original approaches to the lifestyle (e.g., the unique technical and creative capacities of the Space Coast surfers). They are authentic because they play a specific role and defend the values of surfing globally and regionally. Members of these communities are like whistleblowers and are very quick to report fraud. They do not buy a product because the photo of Kelly Slater is on it. Authenticity determined this way remains a challenge for manufacturers like the big brands, Quiksilver or Billabong, who have strayed too far from the roots of the subculture by trying to align with supermarkets’ non-lifestyle brands

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(Warren & Gibson, 2014). For instance, according to many informants, even if Quiksilver still sponsors athletes, the brand’s outwear is outdated. Loyalty to a way of life and the defense of regional singularities mark authenticity. The “why” and “how” of consumer habits and aesthetic choices reflect voluntary actions that play a role in determining unique identities and deconstruct the notion of passivity. According to Belinda Wheaton (2004), “Local cultures interpret and respond to global cultural flows of commodities, media and images in complex and nuanced ways” (p. 20). Floridian surf culture is what people have made of the surf industry’s products and practices. Using Bourdieu’s terminology, in terms of popular cultures, authentic surfers are the dominant players in a field that requires legitimate knowledge, involvement, and skills.8 The power of popular cultures lies in their ability to counteract the so-called high cultures and dominant powers. Contrary to the idea that subcultures and popular cultures do not challenge the established order, surfers’ communities have managed to penetrate the system to act from within insidiously and de-franchise the driving forces that relied too much on capitalist imperialism and abandoned regional cultures. Brands come and go, like music, but surfers remain (evolving with their time), and they determine the characteristics of each area of the lifestyle through their research and innovation: Kelly Slater and his artificial wave, Sun Bum, CoreVac technology from Cannibal Surfboards, Surf Rider Foundation, Skin Cancer Foundation, etc. So surfing has created its own values, myths, and validation criteria. Trusting the aesthetic choices of these authentic committed surfers as they have been defined in this work makes it possible to delimit cultural spaces animated by authentic forms of expression, such as music, and to observe the action, that which denotes a need, a vision, a way of doing things. Surfing is a popular sport, but above all, a lifestyle sport, a (sub)culture accessible and not monolithic; the world of surfing is rich, dynamic, and active, and its peculiarities are visible even in a small state like Florida. Authenticity comes into play in the socialization of participants of the subculture. Beal and Weidman (2003) identified two ways of understanding life in society: by accepting the status quo, or by choosing 8These

dominant players are mostly white males.

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the standards to which one wishes to adhere9 (p. 342). Surfers advocate non-conformist behaviors and prefer creativity. So, authenticity is marked by the adoption of a subculture’s values, which are participant control, personal expression, and attenuation of the competitive aspect since these values implicitly challenge those associated with traditional sports. Thus, non-conformism vis-à-vis the mainstream becomes an indicator of authenticity (ibid., p. 344). The surfing industry is constructed and deconstructed according to its own strategic choices, giving it a certain legitimacy. Therefore, it is possible to say that authenticity stems from the emphasis on the lifestyle rather than on competition, from cultural nostalgia (the idealization of a common history of surfing), and from several strategic factors10 : a good understanding of the subculture, the ability to sponsor legitimate athletes, individualism and nonconformism, insiders’ palimpsest (participants re-appropriation of the subculture to which they alone have the codes). For example, participants appreciated Sun Bum because all the representatives of the brand have a good understanding of surfing culture and have often been hired to meet local needs (surfing in Florida, outdoor activities in mountainous states, etc.). The brand also sponsors professional and amateur surfers by offering them sun protection and stickers in exchange for free advertisement campaigns (stickers are displayed on surfboards). Professionals being sponsored by other big brands, this gives Sun Bum an exposure that would be difficult to achieve on its own (at least when the brand was launched in 2010), and assimilation to other brands brings its identity a new dimension: it has become a major actor in the surf lifestyle world. In videos and other promotional campaigns, surfers often relate to the way the lifestyle is portrayed. Like many brands before, Sun Bum has hired surfing employees with a good knowledge of the environment and who could also represent the brand physically. These employees appear in homemade videos used for the brand’s marketing campaign (a strategy 9The status quo refers here to mainstream ideologies, but we could argue that the status quo is surfing’s masculine dominant discourse, which is still viewed as surfing’s authentic discourse (Olive et al., 2015). 10The strategies described by Beal and Weidman (2003) are: self-selection, sponsorship, advertising, participant control, de-emphasizing competition, individualism, and non-conformity, insider mentality, masculinity, commitment to the sport/lifestyle (pp. 346–350).

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which emphasizes the DIY and authentic aspect of surfing, and reinforces this lifestyle brand’s legitimacy). In another instance, a Sun Bum T-shirt was designed based on the portrait of a Cocoa Beach employee’s laidback looks. This strategy echoes the idea of palimpsests in surfing and surf music developed in Chapter 5. It is a very effective strategy to appeal to the closed circle mentality desired by hardcore participants. In some advertising campaigns, only insiders who are aware of the palimpsest can decode the messages, which allows brands to legitimize themselves, as outsiders are excluded. From the perspective of participating consumers who are not part of the surfing industry, we must start by looking at what is visible to find authenticity. Whether they are surfers, skateboarders, or snowboarders, the standards differ from those of society even if this is not obvious to the uninitiated eye. Participants dress according to certain codes, have a particular language or jargon, and their daily lives more or less follow the precepts of the subculture. If culture binds identity (Beal & Weidman, 2003, p. 338), then those who have forged this cultural identity are also the ablest to detect the fraud of amateurs misusing a term, trying too hard, or wearing an un-qualifiable outfit with regard to the subculture. In surfing, these non-legitimate individuals are called kooks. They wear the most famous brands (like Quiksilver), which is often despite themselves a faux pas. They buy the latest and most expensive equipment, but they do not know how to use it (or even hold it). They use all the jargon that they can place in a sentence. They ask their spouse to take their photograph in the most “radical” poses (the ones they estimate to best represent surfing in action, but that only constitute proof of amateurism for surfers). Authenticity is found in the idea that, unlike kooks, legitimate surfers act for fun without worrying about the rewarding image that the activity can bring. Action and commitment are key to determine authenticity, and the same holds for aesthetics. For example, in terms of music, punk was particularly appreciated by surfers in the 1980s and 1990s because of what it represented: it was about living the punk ideology across all aspects of life and not just during the weekends. Being continuously engaged in the subculture and putting into practice its fundamental values is what creates a certain aura of authenticity.

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The specific case of Sun Bum in Cocoa Beach is compelling because it represents both a non-authentic form of culture (fueled by a surf industry based on tourism and the promotion of the town as a vacation space) and an authentic counterpart, more discreet but more active on the front of the evolution of the culture. This aspect reflects Dustin’s understanding of authenticity in surfing coming down to the idea of action for and by surfers: Authentic is like a company that’s operated, run by the community for the community. But there’s an expression too in the surf industry that core is poor, meaning that if you really are an up and coming brand, you’re probably not making any money. So there’s a fine line and you have to walk between the two. … Quiksilver has done it a little bit but they haven’t done a good job, where you literally will make things specifically for core surf shops, for core surf, but then they’ll have other stuff that they’ll sell to everybody else in the world, so that to set it apart. Vans has done the best job at doing that than anybody else. I wanna say they have ten different catalogs and they only give them out to certain retailers, and they scale it that way where they have classics and only certain retailers can buy those. So they’ve done a good job at like pushing people away just far enough where it’s cool.

Sun Bum, as a so-called lifestyle brand, sells a way of life. For the company, this implies knowing qualifying and disqualifying discourses since Sun Bum relies on looks and spectacular actions to convince consumers of their legitimacy (confirmed subsequently by their products). Dustin explained that in order to grow but remain credible, the surfing industry must diversify its offer in order to be able to target a limited “core” audience (surfers), which generates little profit and a large audience (image consuming non-participants), which generates the most profit. According to him, it is necessary to find the right balance in order not to fall into the mainstream and lose authenticity in the eyes of “core” consumers but also to develop this market in order to remain competitive. Therefore, it is the nature and intensity of surfers’ and industries’ commitment to the subculture that affords them an authentic identity (Coates, Clayton, & Humberstone, 2010, p. 38). The point is to adopt

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an attitude toward the subculture but not according to it, as Dustin indicated. Wearing a Quiksilver T-shirt or claiming to be surf music does not turn people into surfers. A statement can neither replace action, nor fake authenticity. Finally, the term authentic refers to a truth of the matter, that is to say, that a phenomenon must correspond to an identificatory reality, such as the surf music narrative or the community of surfers because authenticity is the expression of “We.” For Frith (1996a), “authenticity … is a quality not of the music as such … but of the story it’s heard to tell, the narrative of musical interaction in which the listeners place themselves” (p. 124). In lifestyle brands, promotional projects as spontaneous as they might appear, take into account the need to express the experience of “We”: this is what Sun Bum understood by implementing Bum Rush Tours and Sonny’s Porch concerts. These events are judged on their ability to produce truth in surfer’s shared narrative.

2.2

Identity Crisis in Surfing: Sociocultural Resistance

According to Dustin, lifestyle sports in general and surfing, in particular, are experiencing an identity crisis relating to a dichotomy between the original image of members of subcultural communities and modern participants. If surfing and skateboarding were a form of resistance to a capitalist society and to the established order, their industry’s democratization made them accessible to the general public and certain aspects (often aesthetic) were recovered by the non-participants. You have rich white kids … listening to gangster rap that’s talking about shooting people and selling drugs. These kids are not doing any of that. They’re the whitest white kids ever! … But to have like some of the younger kids listen to real hardcore hip hop, trap music… Or whatever… How can you even relate, there’s no relevance whatsoever to the lifestyle that they live so… And electronic, it’s whatever, there’s no connection, anybody could… I don’t feel like electronic is really… It’s noises, it’s not like… It’s not associated to any sort of lifestyle but going to the clubs and doing drugs.

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A part of Dustin’s work is to analyze consumer behavior to understand audiences targeted by certain products. Therefore, these comments stem from a serious reflection on the habits of consumers and their contradictions. The identity crisis he talks about stems from the schizophrenic gap that has formed between a music supposed to represent a lifestyle and the conception of this lifestyle. Urban musics or electronic musics might fit skateboarding, but they do not seem to match a laid-back surfing lifestyle. This gap echoes the rejection of homology expressed earlier: music cannot replace social or cultural practices to explain them. As in surf music, the themes of the songs are not performative statements. The identity crisis stems from the fact that music is consumed in different ways that liberate from a restrictive model reducing specific genres to specific activities. If sociocultural resistance meant punk and rock in the 1980s, the contexts have changed, and new forms of resistance have developed, such as the rejection of an old assignment of board-sports to genres affiliated with rock music. Lifestyle sports intersect, and so do their aesthetics. For instance, one of the greatest all around-boarders of all time, Shaun White, is representative of the intersection of skateboarding, snowboarding, and surfing. These disciplines have influenced each other in terms of practice but also in terms of aesthetics. So it is not surprising to observe such a diversity of musical genres shared across these three cultures. Sociocultural resistance is, therefore, not self-evident and can take insidious forms. Borrowing the concept of cultural immobility from Benesch11 (2012), Dufaure (2016) described a form of resistance that tends to criticize the paradigm of mobility by putting forward the idea that attachment to places or established values relates to a need for anchoring and stability in a dedicated space (p. 88). According to the concept of cultural immobility, the space dedicated to immobility can be designed as an experimental laboratory. In this space, culture does not simply expand and spread as such. It is produced and transformed to give birth to new cultural forms appearing sporadically in a rhizomatic dissemination, as this book has illustrated. Cocoa Beach is one such 11 Benesch, K. (2012). Cultural immobility: Thoreau, Heidegger, and the modern politics of place. Amerikastudien/American Studies, 57 (3), 403–418.

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cultural hub. The surf town is a laboratory for surf culture, and Sonny’s Porch is one of its experiments. That is why the city is called the west coast surf hub of the United States. The region plays an essential role in the preservation and evolution of the Floridian surfing cultural identity and, therefore, in the preservation and evolution of participants’ social identities. Dealing with the problem of protecting the social identity of the individual or the group involves understanding the nature of the threat. A principle of protection can be illustrated without falling into extremes. It is unnecessary to feel attacked to establish forms of protection (the term carries with it the proactivity expressed by the prefix pro, meaning before). Protection, however, indicates taking personal and social otherness into account. In surfing, individuals’ identity can be threatened when their practices are questioned by other participants or by their own physical abilities diminished by any factor, including age, as Ricky Carroll pointed out earlier regarding older men struggling to ride performance shortboards.12 The equipment used in surfing is connoted. It is difficult for many young and old surfers to accept that they cannot conform to the practice’s ideals, which remain attached to the use of professionally promoted shortboards. While this aspect of identity protection should be noted, what is particularly relevant here are the strategies implemented by communities to protect their collective identity, as illustrated by Floridians’ response to their lack of recognition from the surfing world. The community transformed the negative evaluation into a creative force: That stigma still exists today. It’s still there. And so when guys started building boards, and competing in competitions, they had to do it better than they did. We had to prove that we were something, and that just followed through the years, through all of the guys… There are guys here who may not build the best boards, there was a long line of guys ahead of them that knew that they wanted to make it as a surfboard builder. They had to do a good job because the bar had been set so high. (Ricky Carroll)

12 Interviewed

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So the weaknesses of the community pushed it to bet on its creativity. The surfboards, the concepts, and the surfers developed in Brevard’s laboratory, have changed the world of surfing in both its technical and aesthetic aspects. Surfers are aware of these unique qualities that they have learned to maintain and claim. Therefore, defending the culture of Cocoa Beach amounts to a broader protection of Floridian surfing’s identity against the Californian surf giants: That’s the tough part in today’s market. It’s been overrun by imported boards from all over, and also the Californian companies figuring out, ‘here’s how we get more of the east coast market, is we take up the rack space in the shops by consigning longer terms.’ And that really hurts us over here as builders wanting to get paid for what we do. (Ricky Carroll)

There is a real marketing war in the surfing world, the implications of which go beyond purely commercial aspects. This conflict concerns a region with a cultural identity centered around a certain understanding of the subculture. Therefore, the challenge is to defend each member of the community collectively and, as Bart Kelley13 pointed out when speaking about the Rootfire Festival, this involves protecting musical life: I have a problem with California reggae bands coming here charging $40 a ticket and supporting nobody local. You know, The Dirty Heads… So you know Slightly Stoopid, well the thing is, I think they found the white guy reggae club because Dirty Heads was just here, and then two months later they come back, and it’s just kinda like, come on dude, nobody can afford $80 to go out on a date.

The protection of the identities of the various surf subcultures is not just a question of the influence of regional approaches to surfing throughout the United States. It also depends on the modalities and possibilities of implementation of the surf lifestyle. As Bart Kelley pointed out, if certain practical and aesthetic elements of the global culture can be assimilated to local subcultures, this must be done and can only take place with respect for the people and institutions that 13 Interviewed

on June 13, 2017.

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make up these subcultures. The relative failure of the meeting with Dirty Heads and Slightly Stoopid is based on the two bands’ refusal to adjust to the lifestyle of the Brevard surfers community. This situation resulted in several pitfalls, the most important of which was the price of tickets. Indeed, the Floridian standards of living are much lower than the Californian standards of living.14 Moreover, the community is inclusive, but such tariffs are prohibitive for the less well-off, which includes a considerable number of young surfers from the region. Finally, the reference to a “white reggae club” points to the fact that Cocoa Beach surfers, despite their belonging to a typically white subculture, include reggae in their approach to the surf lifestyle and do not wish to be considered as mere consumers of an exotic cultural product in vogue—an expensive one. This last element raises the question of the effects of displaced musics, like reggae, in the identity marking of Floridian surfers, an issue developed in the following sections and constituting the high point of the ethno-aesthetic analysis.

2.3

The Aesthetic Crossover

In music, a crossover is a combination of genres or the story of a transgression. It differs from hybridity, which is a form of “borrowing, mixing, and translating” (Stockhammer, 2012, p. 14). Indeed, hybridization consists in borrowing certain surrounding cultural elements to form a new and autonomous entity while the crossover is the meeting between at least two distinct entities that are still intact and recognizable in the cultural space. The concept refers to the notion of authenticity putting back to back the motivations of artists and the inseparable links between genres and identities (Brackett, 2016, p. 281). The musical crossover is thought of as a transgression of social categories since by mixing different genres, we also mix ethnicities, social statuses, societies, etc. It carries the idea of crossing a frontier (the word boundary marks a linear limit and separation, while the word frontier marks a liminal area of integration or sharing, so it is preferred here). This passage or transgression is illustrated 14 In

2016, the average salary in Florida was $48,900 per year compared to 63,790 in California (U.S. Census Bureau).

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by the presence of seemingly incongruous musics in a lifestyle sport— discussed earlier as a form of identity crisis. So it can mean reggae in surfing. For Brackett (2016), this phenomenon is explained by the emergence of discourses on the idea of crossover, which “responded to changes in how categories were understood and in how they were functioning, but that had not yet materialized in the appearance of actual popularity charts” (p. 283). Therefore, the crossover is the response to a need to express the aesthetic experience and reality of new community groups to which the artificial boundaries of categories no longer correspond. The crossover then poses the problem of delimiting the mainstream, the core, and the margins of the musical categories, as illustrated through surf music. In our case, the crossover is reggae in American surfing rather than rock or punk. It refers to social, cultural, and aesthetic mobility (not in contradiction with the notion of cultural immobility developed earlier but rather in concordance with it) since according to the evolution of music, new audiences and new combinations are formed who imagine new aesthetics corresponding to their experience of the sociocultural reality. Members of a social or cultural group have different ways of engaging in the musical act and their interpretation, even if it differs from the artist’s intention, is consistent in its misconception (perhaps in contradiction with the original intentions of the artist, who for example here, did not necessarily create his music for it to become surf music). A concert is a space where the crossover is validated by everyone insofar as participants consider it legitimate because it meets the aesthetic and sociocultural expectations of their way of life. Even if strangers are present, the concert remains a safe place since each participant comes for the same reasons. These places make it possible to express emotions related to the lifestyle, thus allowing the realization of the social individuals’ identity potentials.

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Ethno-Aesthetic Valorization

3.1

A Place in the World: Space and Temporality of the Subculture

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Music, regardless of its stylistic characteristics, is a way for participants to demonstrate a sense of belonging. This notion involves inclusion and exclusion relationships, as well as an awareness of the world and the voices that represent its different experiences. Belonging then manifests itself by adhering to one or more of these voices materialized by affinity groups, movements, regions, and nations. Musical belonging takes shape through the complexity of sociocultural, regional, national, and multinational forces that give birth to communities on the beach, in concerts, or during competitions. Finally, belonging sets cultures and subcultures in space and time through the implementation of discourses justifying their geographic, temporal, sociocultural, aesthetic, and identity legitimacy: their place in the world. Sean Slater15 has traveled extensively for his professional surfing career. He has therefore experienced many ideal places for surfing, but he justified his attachment to Cocoa Beach despite its shortcomings in terms of waves: [I live here] because of the fishing, and my friends, and I’m born and raised in Cocoa Beach, for 48 years. But you know, I still like the waves in Cocoa Beach. It’s not the greatest but it’s probably the greatest place to learn. There’s so many different things to do as far as fishing, and sporting things around the water here, and it’s great. You’re kind of right in the middle, so you have the Keys, or you can go to the Bahamas, and you’re a pretty quick shot to the Caribbeans. I just like Florida. It’s getting a little bit overrun with tourists, and it’s hard even to get to the grocery store but we like Florida.

Sean placed Florida at the center of a Caribbean world, which seems ideal to him but is otherwise not accurate. His justification begins with “I” but ends with a “We” marking the voice of his community of origin, Floridian surfers. After explaining his attachment to the physical qualities 15 Interviewed

on June 7, 2017.

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of the peninsula, Sean recalled the uniqueness of Cocoa Beach in terms of the production of exceptional surfers, along the lines of his brother Kelly Slater: I tell you what man, we have some good upcoming kids, and they are some good people. And I think there’s an era for a while when like, the families were getting a little bit overzealous because Kelly was making all this money, and he’s number one, and winning all these titles, so they’re, like on the beach, like football coach, screaming at their kids on the water, and I hope to god the era’s gone. I haven’t seen a lot of that in the last few years.

The families of Cocoa Beach surfers have set their sights on an ideal, Kelly Slater, whom they identify with because he is from home. He is a local hero, and if he was able to make it, then others can too. Like Ricky Carroll, locals seem to think there is something in Brevard’s water. They justify their behavior and belonging to the community by the exceptionality of everything that comes out of Cocoa Beach. There is an amalgam between the objective geographic structure and the construction of the sociocultural identity that does not stop at the practice of the activity of surfing but includes the way of life, and therefore, the way in which surf music is conceived. Floridian surfers are at the crossroads of several cultures (Caribbean and country according to physical proximity, but also Hawaiian and Californian according to ideological proximity) and several identifiable fluxes (surf lifestyle and alternative statuses linked to work, social origins, mobility, etc.). Finding one’s place in the world thus means confronting one’s alternatives. For Benedetti (2016), becoming aware of the movements and interactions of these multiple identities is part of an “identity dilemma” consisting in the members of a community “constantly navigating from one culture to another in order to find their place in society” (p. 110). Music is where this dilemma takes shape and allows individuals to reorganize their place in the world. Surf music is a mixture of genres, which in its temporality, has brought meaning to the communities of surfers who have enriched it with their aesthetic experience. Nevertheless, the construction of realities materialized by music is not done in a self-sufficient manner. Whether

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associated with a sociocultural movement or a geographic space, musical genres, develop within a global network. Glocal dissemination of cultures implies taking into account other cultural units and the direction of exchanges between them. However, glocalization does not mean that there is a homogenization of cultural diversity. It marks the integration of the exogenous into the local production (Regev, 2013, p. 8). The glocal thus takes into account regional social units and places them in the global. The notion of global microstructures comes from work on finance and terrorism and develops the idea of “sociocultural ‘structures of connectivity and integration that are global in scope and microsociological in character” (Knorr Cetina,16 2005, p. 215, cited in Regev, 2013, p. 137). Surf culture is made up of units spread all over the planet. These units communicate with each other through social media, by traveling (for competitions or surf trips), and by sharing music (in surf videos, during competitions, at events like Sonny’s Porch, Rootfire Festival, etc.). These so-called microsociological scenes interact with each other but manifest a unique identity through their ethno-aesthetic signature.

3.2

Ethno-Aesthetic Signatures: Caribbean and Reggae Influences

The aesthetic signature question comes from the reflection on the difficulty of precisely marking the frontiers of surf music. To overcome this difficulty, we can proceed by analogy, starting by comparing traditional sports and surfing. In most traditional sports, practice conditions do not change. A stadium remains a stadium, whether it is in Paris or Florida. The movements can be repeated endlessly and with increasing precision because the terrain does not change. Even in sports where participants move on uneven terrains, such as skateboarding or snowboarding, they can anticipate, learn the details of the environment, and take the same path or trail. In surfing, the terrain is constantly changing under the surfer’s feet at any given moment, on the same beach, from one hour to the next, and from one region to another. The anticipation time is 16 Knorr

Cetina, K. (2005). Complex global microstructures: The new terrorist societies. Theory, Culture and Society, (22), 213–234.

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short, and movements cannot be exactly duplicated as they have to be adjusted to new conditions. Thus, surfers develop a singular capacity to read their environment and to adapt to it. Depending on where they practice, they develop a style appropriate to the type of wave based on the range of conditions they offer. In surf music, the same capacities to adapt to a range of environmental characteristics that constitute the geographic space and the cultures that they carry can be observed. The same problems of temporality, instability, and adaptation are found in surf music. Consequently, the ethno-aesthetic signature corresponds to the stylistic tendencies of a community and its implementation of music as a cultural tool. This echoes Laban’s Kinesphere, which analogically illustrates the fact that music passes from the occupation of the entire space of the Kinesphere, toward a reduced space of the musical genre, to an even more reduced form of the cultural musical movement. The trends observed in the subjects thus converge toward a surf lifestyle based around the “fun and simplicity” axis influenced by the Caribbean reggae culture. My interviewees all had the same vision of surfing, sometimes in contrast to other regions. The practice and lifestyle should be laid-back and simple because the goal is to have fun, as Sean Slater explained when describing what makes him a good surfer: I used to say when I was younger that I liked anybody who was having the more fun than anyone. … I like someone who’s dedicated, I like someone who’s nice, someone who keeps their attitude, doesn’t change it… I used to like surfing with Todd Chesser, and Clark and Tom and Sui, and some of them moved on… My little crew in Hawaii, Shawn Dory and Kelly, it was a lot of fun… That crew is probably my favorite surfers.

Surfers who have the most fun are the best surfers. They are also the ones who do not take themselves too seriously and do not change their behavior toward others because they benefit from a certain prestige. The point is to keep things simple. In music, simplicity and the pleasure of

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surfing translate into music that must carry a positive message. As LanceO17 explained, A lot of the music I listen to is either, it’s very deeply rooted in a positive message, it’s about love, or it’s about having fun. The three main topics in pretty much all music. So it’s very organic, and a lot of what I love, I’m a melody junky, I love melody, I love melodies, and some people like to call it the hook. That’s what gets me, the hooks of songs.

According to Lance-O, music must contain three semantic elements: optimism, love, and joy. The melody must be able to express these notions, which for Lance-O come from reggae. Bart Kelley shares the same semantic imperatives in the programming of his show, Sun Bum Positive Sunday: First of all, I try to keep everything positive, and I try to keep everything fun. I try to keep everything cool. It’s just a little bit more laid-back but still fun, ‘cause it’s also fun day… It’s just whatever is good at that time. It’s never anything too negative and if it is negative, it’s still fun ‘cause it’s punk-rock.

For the show, Bart mainly programs reggae, which he sees as a positive and “fun” surf music representative of surfing. In his mix, he sometimes includes punk-rock even if he considers it negative (the semantics are more pessimistic than in reggae), as the instrumentation remains a source of fun for many surfers. In the case of the two D.J.s, Lance-O and Bart Kelley, pleasure goes beyond listening and lies in the possibility of assembling music and proposing sequences or mixes and, therefore, participating in the formation and the implementation of the local surf narrative. Iconic surf music was built on the principles of rebellion, hedonism, and sonic experimentation. Floridian surf music was built as a cultural aesthetic inspired by the hedonistic aspect of the iconic movement and by betting on exalted joy in the experimentation of sonic and semantic possibilities. A feeling of happiness that Small (1998) defined as “the representation in consciousness of the presence of an entity that is 17 Interviewed

on January 16, 2016.

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loved or desired … while sorrow is the response to its loss” (p. 137). The music surfers speak of here implements the perception that surfers have of their practice. The programming of the D.J.’s music, as it is designed, allows listeners to experience the relationships that surfers have with their activity: in a positive and fun spirit. The success of Bart Kelley’s and Lance-O’s shows (both in partnership with Sun Bum) and Sonny’s Porch concerts are the pledge of music’s success to give body to the emotions of surfers in ideal relationships between sounds and the aesthetic reality of surfing. Pleasure can thus become a social force. As Guilbault (2010) explained, desired and shared feelings allow communities to form and perpetuate (p. 287). In the demonstration of pleasure (during concerts or through repertoires founded along this axis), participants adhere to the aesthetics of the Floridian surf subculture and value the character of their community, which is based on a spirit that they qualify as positive and which must above all provide pleasure. Music reflects this state of mind, and even if surf music is made up of distinct stylistic elements, a trend is emerging among Floridian surfers. The majority includes reggae in surf music in a movement that goes beyond the principle of collective consent. Indeed, data from interviews, surveys, playlists, and musical programming (radios and concerts) show that Floridian surfers all have their own reggae repertoire. Dustin defined surf music as so: “I think it has some sort of element of rock and roll, and then some sort of element, I feel of reggae, I kinda think, where it’s slower, and just associated to those things, the sunshine, the beach, the water, things like that.” Once their dogma-like knowledge of what constitutes surf music was exceeded, my interviewees assigned reggae the capacities to best represent their way of life: the beach, the sun, and a simple and relaxed approach to surfing. For Lance-O, it is music that promotes an optimistic message, but it is also a music of resistance: “Reggae was born as a voice for the voiceless and people that struggled, people that were oppressed, people that weren’t allowed to do everything that everyone else was allowed to do. It’s injustice, inequality, but it also evolved into, having fun, dancing, love.” Bart Kelley and Ricky Carroll pointed out that reggae is specific to Florida because of its central place in Caribbean culture (they shared Sean Slater’s view):

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Bart Kelley: You can go up north on the beach and they don’t want a red, yellow, green anything. Which is kinda weird. Ricky Carroll : They don’t identify with the culture for some reason. The surfers here identify with the whole Caribbean culture, whereas up there, it’s foreign to them.

The colors of reggae (green, yellow, and red) are visible during the concerts that take place on the Space Coast. These are symbols that surfers identify with because they have developed a hybrid identity at the crossroads of the multiple cultural identities that make up Florida and those that make up surfing in the glocal. Thus, surf music has been transformed according to the same surfing hybridization processes to respond to their expression. Reggae is not the original music of surfers, but today it is one of its manifestations since surfers can cite it. Surf music is thus constituted by the expression that is supposed to be its result. For Britty,18 reggae is the expression toward which Cocoa Beach, that she completely assimilates to an island, gravitates (the town is connected to the mainland by bridges and by a strip of land on the north): I think it’s the energy of the music is just very laid-back, it’s kind of like, you know, I think living by the beach, we don’t have that hustle and bustle of the city here, it’s more of a small town. We’ve got that laid-back kind of island style. … I always tell people, ‘Oh you know, I’m on island time,’ whatever, and literally, like we are, so what!

Reggae is associated with both the surf lifestyle and the city of Cocoa Beach, conceived as an island and whose lifestyle meets the characteristics of island cultures. In the last part of this chapter, I put into perspective the way in which local surfers appropriated the urban space thanks to a surf music that meets both the aesthetic criteria of their surf lifestyle and those of the beach lifestyle in a collaborative momentum.

18 Interviewed

on June 15, 2018.

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Surfanization: Surf Music in the Typology of the Surf Town

From the physical space in which music comes to life to the mythology built around an ideological scene, the place in which a type of music develops and is consumed plays a vital role in its evolution and preservation. In the most representative, even the most stereotypical places, there is an effort to cultivate, support, and maintain musical activity in order to activate new forms of creative cultures and identities locally. This last section on Floridian surf music focuses on the implementation of the surf lifestyle through surf musics anchored in geographic and social spaces prone to cultural creativity. These places allow the development of representational and inclusive aesthetic dynamics, as illustrated by Sun Bum, who dedicated its office space to musical performance in order to promote the surf lifestyle associated with the surf town. In this last movement shifting away from the myth of surf music marked by Californian borders and exclusive aesthetics, I highlight the characteristics of a legitimist music used as a platform contributing to mark local economies, policies, and identities by promoting a singular surfanization. I propose this term as a reference to urbanization done according to the surf lifestyle codes, including surf music. Using Sun Bum’s professional space as a stage is one way to relocate surf music: it is moved, labeled, and exhibited as one of the identities of the Cocoa Beach’s surf lifestyle. Local surfers see it as a validation of their unique identity while tourists associate these musical events with the surf town. The infrastructures developed by the aesthetic, social, and geographic communities have enabled the growth of a subculture that was adopted, commercialized, and reorganized according to regional codes. This process enables the activation of know-hows and clarifies the space-music-activity relationship and the way in which it can be cultivated and supported locally. Although it would be wrong to assert that the tastes of all the inhabitants of a city can be thought of homogeneously, the works of Regev (2013) and Small (1998) have shown that individuals develop their sense of taste in relationship with each other in a collective effort and in order to strengthen their social identity.

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3.3.1 The Soundscape of Cocoa Beach: Surf Music as Urban Sound Music has become an urban sound,19 and urban communities expect music around them to validate their collective aesthetics because music accompanies their everyday life. Walking through the streets of Cocoa Beach, one may hear Anglo-American music coming from shops, restaurants, bars, cars, etc. Such music organizes the public space as they constitute its musical soundscape (Regev, 2013, p. 159). These songs are associated with a particular place since they build its unique aura and have an impact on individuals and collective memory. Each song does not need to be recognized to reflect the cooperation of the community and support everyday actions (eating, driving, surfing, drinking, or simply walking around the city). In the surf town, music is the backdrop for the surf lifestyle and offers the city the equivalent of a soundtrack. This section synthesizes the social function of surf music associated with all aspects of the surf lifestyle that do not directly concern the surf activity but that engage the community, like during participation in concerts. The implementation of this social function of surf music highlights how the urban environment is used to construct a sense of collective aesthetic identity. Sonny’s Porch concerts are a good illustration of this.20 The concerts held on the back porch are not acoustic, and technology is used

19 Keeping

in mind Gurney’s (1999) definition of noise as “a sound which is out of place (p. 6),” I focus on music as sound while confronting it to the notion of noise. 20 Sun Bum was inspired by Florida’s laid-back beach lifestyle to build its image. The concerts take place in the backyard of the Cocoa Beach office, hidden from the street by a hedge of palm trees. The rationale behind the implementation of the concerts was that surfers like to get together over a beer and music after a surf session Tom Rinks (Sun Bum’s creator and president) wanted to reproduce for the public, the experience of this backyard party with friends. Dustin implemented the events in accord with his own experience as a surfer. The artists invited to Sonny’s Porch may come from Florida or elsewhere as long as they correspond to the subjective construction of the community’s surf experience, which must promote the “fun and positive” approach. The artists invited to Sonny’s Porch represent, for example, Hawaiian reggae with Mike Love (different from Mike Love of The Beach Boys), Barbadian reggae with Collie Buddz, Californian psychedelic rock with The Growlers, Florida garage rock with The Jacuzzi Boys, or Hawaiian surf rock with Donavon Frankenreiter. The office is in the heart of the city, at the intersection of the beach, Neilson surf shop and Surfinista (supposedly, Kelly Slater’s favorite coffee shop). It is a few hundred feet from Cocoa Beach’s most popular restaurant, Coconuts on the Beach.

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to amplify the sound. Anyone who hears the music from the street is invited to stop by and participate since Sonny’s Porch is free and open to the public. In this process, the surfers (organizers and participants) take possession of the public space through the musical events in which they participate. Although there is a diversity of musical genres played across the city, a trend emerges which corresponds to the programming of Sonny’s Porch. It is a type of music that generates emotions of joy and maintains a relaxed aura rather than a fast or aggressive rhythm (comparing Cocoa Beach to cities like New Orleans and jazz or zydeco, Las Vegas and modern music ranging from rap to electro, or Miami and Hispanic music in the art deco district helps to represent how the surf town manages to define itself through its music). Although not all of the musics played originate in Florida, they seem to be perfectly integrated into the town’s atmosphere. A lot of the music played in the public space is not from the United States, so that new musical textures, rhetorics, and cultures are imported and included in local surf music. For example, the inclusion of reggae in Floridian surf music has also led local surfers to adopt its characteristic colors (green, yellow, red) and its philosophy of life. Many Cocoa Beach surfers sport the colors or support the Rastafarian doctrine intrinsic to reggae. It is the case of Bart Kelley (he presents a program in partnership with Sun Bum, entitled Sun Bum Positive Sunday), of Lance-O (whose label, Kulcha Shok, specializes in reggae culture), but also to a lesser extent, of Dustin who invites many reggae artists to Sonny’s Porch. These three individuals occupy public space with their music, and they share it with other musical sensibilities, like country music, for instance. Thus, foreign music like traditional reggae, and local music like country make Cocoa Beach share “much common aesthetic ground with those of other urban settings in the world” (Regev, 2013, p. 171). The inclusion of the global in the local and the interconnection of the local in the composition of the global is what Robertson (1995) called glocalization (p. 31). Surf music thus constitutes a glocal soundscape made up of stylistic subunits with which any individual can be familiar (it is not necessary to be a surfer to recognize rock or reggae). Furthermore, surfers and surf towns are glocal due to the movement and hybridization of cultures. Therefore, each individual’s musical knowledge

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gives them the ability to belong to the local and the global at the same time through a shared urban space.

3.3.2 Cocoa Beach and Its Surf Music: Spatial Appropriation and Identity Music and the geographic spaces in which it is performed share concordant or even common cultural elements. Certain musics are associated with specific regions of the world and with certain socio-political spaces (such as the city for rap or the countryside for country). Sound in general and music, in particular, allow us to occupy space and define the frontiers of the known. Thus territories and music are domesticated and help define the threshold of a community such as that of Cocoa Beach surfers. I use the term domestication because music is mobile and extends in a rhizomatic way by settling in environments that are not hostile to its aesthetics. Doing so, it testifies to human affinities in space and time. Music materializes in bodies and space thanks to what Regev (2013) defined as “sonic textures and effects devised by studio technology as well as the timbral signatures of the most emblematic musical instruments” (p. 162). The corporeality of music (as texture and invader of the body and space21 ) aggregates those who live with it in communities of belonging. Membership in these communities promotes a collective aesthetic identity that is built up through repeated encounters with music that becomes familiar and appreciated—what Frith (1996b) called “performing rites” (p. 273). These rites give shape to the cultural life of the city and its collective identity. In other words, a surf town like Cocoa Beach is formed and modified as a cultural object by the materialization of sound in a mixed form of reggae and local genres. Music, as it is played by surfers who have taken over the sound space, proceeds as a full-fledged agent in the city and the surf lifestyle. The combination of specific sounds representing Caribbean style, local popular music, and iconic surf music like rock, punk, or ska creates the soundscape of Cocoa Beach. Thus, music becomes instrumental in the 21 Music

has effects on the body as it makes people dance and triggers emotions. Music also occupies space in its multidimensional organization.

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singularization of ethno-aesthetic communities. New music has passed the frontiers of Cocoa Beach surfers’ ethno-aesthetic community, redefined traditional or iconic ways of conceiving surf music, but it has also given the surf town a new cultural dimension. The inclusion of new sounds could have generated a feeling of anomaly linked to the invasion of music incoherent with the identity of the town. However, instead it has generated a sense of approval arrogating legitimacy to the new sounds in a successful overall dynamic. This phenomenon is notably illustrated by the reggae tones introduced by musical intermediaries, such as Sonny’s Porch, Kulcha Shok, or Endless Summer Radio. These entities governed by surf lifestyle agents facilitate the integration of music from elsewhere and the dissipation of the feeling of sonic intrusion, thus transforming their cultural space. The recovery of new elements allows the inhabitants of the city to take part in social interactions in their own reality and to articulate a feeling of belonging through the sonic reorganization of the city. Furthermore, what gives its aesthetic identity to the surf town of Cocoa Beach is the repetition of the musical patterns and musical dimensions described in this work and which have become cultural because of the memory they have built in association with the urban space. Music, envisaged in its ethno-aesthetic dimension, allows individuals and communities to mark their aesthetic identities within cultural spaces inscribed in a glocal network of identities. While music is shared across the world, its diversity does not disappear since, on the contrary, cultural mobility allows the emergence of hybrid music that forms and renews unique cultural spaces, as illustrated by the surfanization of Cocoa Beach. Thus, the singular example of Floridian surfers has shown how a certain embedded identity could be marked by the appropriation of mobile cultures, first revisited by the US society, and then singularized by one of its diverse geographic and cultural communities.

References Barthes, R. (1957). Mythologies (2005 ed.). Paris: Éditions du Seuil.

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Beal, B., & Weidman, L. (2003). Authenticity in the skateboarding world. In E. R. Rinehart & S. Sydnor (Eds.), To the extreme: Alternative sports inside and out. Albany: State University of New York. Beal, B., & Wilson, C. (2004). “Chicks dig scars”: Commercialisation and the transformations of skateboarders’ identities. In B. Wheaton (Ed.), Understanding lifestyle sports: Consumption, identity and difference (pp. 31–54). Oxon: Routledge. Benedetti, G. (2016). Dialectique de l’enracinement et du mouvement dans Black-ish: Une série post-raciale? Revue Française d’Études Américaines, 149, 100–114. Bourdieu, P. (1993). The field of cultural production. Cambridge: Polity Press. Brackett, D. (2016). Categorizing sound: Genre and twentieth-century popular music. Oakland: University of California Press. Coates, E., Clayton, B., & Humberstone, B. (2010). A battle for control: Exchanges of power in the subculture of snowboarding. Sport in Society, 13(7–8), 1082–1101. https://doi.org/10.1080/17430431003779999. Dufaure, S. (2016). The “Appalachian Renaissance”: An ecocritical form of cultural immobility? Revue Française d’Études Américaines, 149, 88–99. Dunbar-Hall, P. (1991). Semiotics as a method for the study of popular music. International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, 22(2), 127. https://doi.org/10.2307/836920. Frith, S. (1996a). Music and identity. In S. Hall & P. DuGay (Eds.), Cultural identity. London: Sage. Frith, S. (1996b). Performing rites. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Gilio-Whitaker, D. (2017). Appropriating surfing and the politics of indigenous authenticity. In Z. D. Hough-Snee & S. A. Eastman (Eds.), The critical surf studies reader (pp. 214–232). Durham: Duke University Press. Guilbault, J. (2010). Politics through pleasure: Party music in Trinidad. In R. Elliott & E. G. Smith (Eds.), Music traditions, cultures, and contexts (pp. 279–294). Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Gurney, C. (1999, April). Rattle and hum: Gendered accounts of noise as a pollutant: An aural sociology of work and home. Presentation presented at the Health and Safety Authority Conference, York. Olive, R., McCuaig, L., & Phillips, M. G. (2015). Women’s recreational surfing: A patronising experience. Sport, Education and Society, 20 (2), 258–276. https://doi.org/10.1080/13573322.2012.754752. Pasquier, D. (2005). La “culture populaire” à l’épreuve des débats sociologiques. Hermès, 42, 60–69.

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Peterson, A. R. (1997). Creating country music: Fabricating authenticity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Regev, M. (2013). Pop-rock music: Aesthetic cosmopolitanism in late modernity. Cambridge: Polity Press. Robertson, R. (1995). Glocalization: Time-space and homogeneityheterogeneity. In M. Featherstone, S. Lash, & R. Robertson (Eds.), Global modernities (pp. 25–44). London: Sage. Searle, R. J. (2009). Making the social world: The structure of human civilization. New York: Oxford University Press. Small, C. (1998). Musicking: The meaning of performing and listening. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press. Stockhammer, P. (Ed.). (2012). Conceptualizing cultural hybridization: A transdisciplinary approach. New York: Springer. Tagg, P. (1987). Musicology and the semiotics of popular music. Semiotica, 66 (3), 279–298. U.S. Census Bureau QuickFacts: Florida. (n.d.). Retrieved August 19, 2018, from https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/ca,fl/PST045217. Warren, A., & Gibson, C. (2014). Surfing places, surfboards makers: Craft, creativity, and cultural heritage in Hawai’i, California, and Australia. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. Wheaton, B. (Ed.). (2004). Understanding lifestyle sports: Consumption, identity and difference. London: Routledge.

11 Epilogue: The Ethno-Aesthetic Paradox: Freedom From and Freedom To

This work set in American Studies focused on the implementation of the Floridian surf lifestyle through surf music anchored in a geographical and sociocultural space scarcely observed by surf specialists, yet particularly prone to cultural creativity and the development of aesthetics that are both unique and inclusive. I explored the cultural practices of Space Coast surfers in Florida through an ethnographic study conceptualizing ethno-aesthetics and drawing from multiple fields and methodologies. Authors from different areas of the humanities and social sciences were brought together around an interdisciplinary theme for which no reference work has been proposed so far. There are many writings on surfing and music; however, none has considered challenging the paradigm of surf music or proposed theoretical models freeing it from its conceptual shackles and affording the freedom to question the consensus around the fundamentally American construction of surf music. The object of study itself has highlighted its emancipatory potential. Surfing and surf music allow at once to belong to a glocal community and to free oneself from a movement by claiming an alternative, free, and spontaneous approach to the lifestyle. The ethno-aesthetic paradox of surf music lies in the fact that it has been tied to a history bounded © The Author(s) 2020 A. Barjolin-Smith, Ethno-Aesthetics of Surf in Florida, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7478-8_11

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by geographic, cultural, and temporal frontiers from which this work has tried to emancipate it. Surf music is thus liberated from an enclosing image to allow endless creativity, without geographical or cultural boundaries as long as it is validated by the population whose name it bears. Accordingly, the paradox of movement and rooting of the subculture takes on its full meaning in temporality: to understand it, one must look to its past and its future at the same time while taking into account the individuals who articulate their identities in it through their participation in the musical act. Thus, surfing and surf music are based on the aesthetics of participation.1 It is through interactions that surf music produces pleasure. During concerts, individuals from different backgrounds come together to celebrate a way of life in which they participate in their daily lives or by their approval during an event. In Florida, the proximity of surfing means that one cannot exclude oneself simply by not practicing it. If all of the Floridians are not responsible for the construction of the surf town or surf music, it is nevertheless together that they build them by claiming them as symbols of their region. Surfers and nonsurfers develop a sense of belonging made possible by sharing aesthetic pleasure based on common emotions and musical space. Mutual understanding and respect is developed through the recognition of the good brought to the community by agents of surfing and surf music. As Sonny’s Porch concerts or the Rootfire Festival have illustrated, the differences between participants exist, but surfing and, therefore, surf music allow them to create a bond of solidarity. Beyond affective well-being, the attraction for surfing and its music can be explained by the feeling of freedom they bring in terms of creation and in terms of the possibility to reject inappropriate standards on behalf of the group or the individual. There is no rigid hierarchy in surfing or the need for an authoritarian or normative institution (Beal & Smith, 2013, p. 50). The surf lifestyle is free from the predictability of other sports or lifestyles, even if paradoxically, it maintains solid relationships with the media and is anchored in American capitalism, which has allowed it to develop and maintain its popularity. Surfers 1 Jocelyne

Guilbault (2010) borrowed the expression “aesthetic participation” from Packman, J. (2007). ‘We work hard at entertainment’: Performance and professionalism in the popular music scenes of Salvador da Bahia, Brazil (Doctoral Thesis). Berkeley: University of California.

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have agency and are the voice of their lifestyle. They act and free themselves from a system by using it for their own ends. In so doing, they have enabled other board-sports, such as skateboarding, snowboarding, or wakeboarding, to emerge, develop, and create new practices. As Howe (2003) pointed out: “At least one thing is certain: Surfing begat skateboarding begat snowboarding. In the years following their respective births, they have wandered away from one another, then returned to influence the others” (p. 358). Despite their status as deviant activities, these lifestyles have conquered spaces that were forbidden to them. These sports all have within them the ability to irritate individuals who do not conceive that one can monopolize public space other than by the norm (ibid., p. 358). Riders break free from these standards and can rediscover spaces, use them as play areas, and make them sources of inspiration. In this work, surf music appeared as surfers’ soundtrack, evolving according to their approach to the lifestyle and the way they perceive themselves: “My musics have changed. Now I genuinely listen to softer music” (Dustin). Surf music works as a sound signifier of periods, generations, specific places, moods, and identities. This statutory identity is both individual and collective and only works thanks to the collaboration of individuals organizing their own space of freedom, the surf lifestyle. In this space, surfers are free to create, include, distinguish, and free themselves from the aesthetic, sociocultural, and memorial diktats assigned to their subculture by observers (media, academics, industry, etc.). Thus envisaged, surfing and surf music are only constrained by those who practice them and can become authentic civilizational phenomena again. Further research should expand on my attempt to legitimize glocal subcultures of surfing and surf music. Surfing is a lifestyle sport but it is also a space of cultural diversity. In this space, dominant ideologies have reshaped heterogeneous realities, such as the musical dimension of surf culture. Surf music is one of the expressions of coloniality within surf culture. The myth of surf music has relaid and reinforced a dominant discourse that exclusively sets surfing as a North American practice aesthetically anchored in Californian sounds. Indigenous musics are usually absent from scholarly writings on surf music, or they are called something else, and regional forms of surf music are disregarded. Further research should look at the ways iconic surf music

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(a North American construct) has contributed to globally diffuse a North American acceptation of surfing, while challenging and sometimes erasing other local approaches to surfing and musicking. Surf music, as a representation of Californian surf culture, has influenced the ways in which surfing, as sport and subculture, was brought to the world and constructed in history. Some of the questions I have raised in my research include: Is surf music really what surfers listen to around the world? Since surfing is an ancestral practice from Hawaii that has developed around the world and has become prominent in places like Australia, why is surf music confined to a twentieth-century Californian musical phenomenon? Since surfing was appropriated, then is surf music a byproduct of colonialism? I have focused on Florida to show that surf music and surfing, in general, underwent a form of cultural appropriation through palimpsest and revisionism. However, expanding my research to other parts of the world is necessary to compare regional practices and get a better sense of what surf music is and means globally. It would be relevant to look at Hawaii and Australia to compare their trajectories, as I anticipate that minorities have been suppressed from the aesthetic discourse of global surf culture through surf music. The dominating white North American discourse has occupied the cultural space. However, there exists a diversity of surfing cultures which compels us to acknowledge the diversity of surf musics around the world. At the 2019 NASSS2 conference held in Virginia Beach, Tricia McGuireAdams3 explained that decolonization means to return what has been stolen. This is true, and it includes returning cultural spaces. Besides, I agree with her when she said, “decolonization must unsettle everyone,” which is why I propose an unsettling approach to surf music that is 2The North American Society for the Sociology of Sport held its 40th annual conference in November 2019 in Virginia Beach, Virginia. The theme of the conference was Sport sociology and the responsibility for decolonial praxis: Decolonizing minds, indigenizing hearts. I organized and presided a panel titled The making of surfing: Appropriation, coloniality, and revisionism. This conference convinced me that more research should be seriously undertaken on the implications of surf music and coloniality worldwide. 3 Professor McGuire-Adams from the University of Ottawa was a member of the Program Committee for NASSS 2019 conference. She organized and presided sessions. She presented in a panel called Indigenous-settler allyship in sport studies: A critical conversation. She also presented during the plenary sessions around the theme of Decolonizing sport sociology is not a “Metaphor”: Decentering colonialism, unsettling whiteness, & indigenizing sport sociology.

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questioning the status quo, the mainstream, the white North American norms.

References Beal, B., & Smith, M. M. (2013). Maverick’s: Big-wave surfing and the dynamic of “nothing” and “something.” In The consumption and representation of lifestyle sports (pp. 46–60). Abingdon: Routledge. Guilbault, J. (2010). Politics through pleasure: Party music in Trinidad. In R. Elliott & E. G. Smith (Eds.), Music traditions, cultures, and contexts (pp. 279–294). Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press. Howe, J. (2003). Drawing lines: A report from the extreme world (sic). In To the extreme: Alternative sports inside and out (pp. 353–369). Albany: State University of New York.

Index

B

Beach Boys 7, 117, 118, 325 Brevard County 26, 47, 54–56, 59, 70, 72, 73, 185

C

Cape Canaveral 45, 54, 56, 57 Caribbean 42, 53, 145, 146, 149, 150, 171, 177, 213, 266, 273, 317, 318, 320, 323, 327 Catalyst 47, 48, 52 Catri, Dick 47, 69–73, 171 Cocoa Beach 21, 26, 28, 41, 48–50, 52, 53, 55–58, 62, 69–72, 76–81, 83, 84, 91, 97, 121, 122, 171, 174, 184, 197, 201, 208, 214, 232, 234, 238, 250, 256–258, 260, 273, 283, 289, 295, 296, 300, 302, 303, 309,

310, 312, 314, 315, 317, 318, 323–328 Creolization 27, 137–143, 145–147, 149, 150, 152, 179 Crossover 21, 28, 151, 152, 195, 202, 213, 239, 315, 316 Cultural Capital 14, 27, 163, 172, 177, 178, 199, 205, 209, 216, 217, 225, 297

D

Dale, Dick 106–111, 113–115, 120, 145, 148, 151, 160, 179, 231

E

Eastern Surf Magazine (ESM) 81

© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2020 A. Barjolin-Smith, Ethno-Aesthetics of Surf in Florida, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-7478-8

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Index

Endless Summer Radio (ESR) 21, 51, 52, 60, 121, 165, 213, 259, 261, 328 Endless Summer Tattoo 51–53 Ethno-Aesthetics 6–9, 20, 24, 26, 28, 125, 152, 187, 195, 255, 272, 289, 302, 331 Ethnography 17

I

Identity Marking 5, 8, 12, 15, 18, 23, 26, 125, 141, 164, 197, 198, 228, 240, 246, 265, 315 Isomorphism 303, 304

K

Florida Surf Film Festival 74, 81

Kechele, Matt 48, 72, 73, 82, 175, 260 Kinesphere, Laban 250, 251, 320 Kulcha Shok 51, 52, 60, 326, 328

G

L

Geomusicality 146 Glocal 10, 11, 13, 15, 24, 135, 137, 147, 149, 207, 245, 255, 272, 290, 291, 299, 302, 319, 323, 326, 328, 331, 333 Glocalization 10, 11, 135–138, 173, 319, 326 Gulf of Mexico 46, 75, 275

Localism 3, 78, 131–137, 144, 183–186, 239

F

H

Hawaii 1, 2, 47, 48, 67–69, 72, 75–78, 82, 84, 93, 96, 97, 113, 117, 132, 133, 136–138, 141, 142, 144, 159, 165, 172, 174, 187, 203, 215, 216, 234, 238, 269–273, 290, 297, 320, 334 Hobgood, brothers 78 Homology 5, 137, 140, 194, 231, 303, 312 Hybridization 16, 27, 137, 147, 150, 157, 187, 189, 248, 315, 323, 326

M

Melbourne 43, 47, 54–56, 59, 73, 84 Mobility 15, 16, 22, 27, 42, 107, 116, 131, 135–137, 139, 140, 143, 146, 147, 152, 157, 172–175, 178, 180, 181, 185, 187–189, 196, 204, 205, 216, 223, 241, 244, 249, 312, 316, 318, 328 Multiculturalism 143, 193, 197, 244 Musicking 10, 17, 20, 22–24, 26, 61, 67, 109, 115, 116, 124, 125, 185, 225, 246, 255, 262, 265, 279, 287, 289, 290, 296, 334

N

Neilson Surfboards 258

Index

P

Palimpsest 144, 180, 181, 308, 309, 334 Q

Quiet Flight 47–49, 73, 260 R

Representation(s) 5, 8, 9, 11–13, 15, 16, 20, 24, 28, 47, 57, 86, 92–95, 98, 107, 108, 110, 112, 119, 135, 139, 143, 146, 158–161, 170, 174, 182, 183, 187, 188, 194, 198, 203, 206, 207, 224, 228, 230–235, 245, 255, 262, 268, 273, 296, 298–300, 303, 306, 321, 334 Ricky Carroll Surfboards 47, 51 Ron Jon Surf Shop 49, 57, 73 Rootfire Festival 53, 57, 58, 60, 62, 123, 150, 259, 304, 314, 319, 332 S

Slater Brothers Invitational 79, 214, 239 Slater, Kelly 48, 57, 69, 78, 79, 81–84, 92, 96, 163, 174, 180,

339

208, 260, 267, 279, 306, 307, 318, 325 Sociality 27, 172, 188, 189, 305 Sonny’s Porch 20, 21, 50, 58, 62, 120, 123, 124, 150, 170, 171, 214, 216, 234, 237, 240, 247, 248, 265, 273, 287–290, 300–304, 311, 313, 319, 322, 325, 326, 328, 332 Space Coast 4, 19, 23, 41, 47, 48, 54, 58, 60, 69, 71–73, 75, 77, 84, 85, 97, 121, 122, 134, 135, 147, 167, 181, 207, 238, 306, 323, 331 Stereotype(s) 7, 86, 98, 99, 161, 165, 175–177, 181, 188, 207, 208, 231, 233, 256, 298 Strand 77, 122, 146, 182 Sun Bum 20, 21, 47–53, 57–63, 76, 81, 124, 150, 171, 214–216, 258, 259, 261, 264, 270, 290, 301, 302, 307–311, 321, 322, 324–326 Sun Coast Surf Shop 76 Surfanization 28, 328 Surfers For Autism (SFA) 51, 53, 58, 80 Surf Expo 21, 52, 58, 71 Surf Rider Foundation 41, 307