As told by Jim Lindberg toMark McDermott We first got some interest from Epitaph Records in ’91. CDs were the whole game back then. I remember walking into this little office behind the Hollywood Palladium — a shack that had to have been from the ’20s. No sign. No glamour. Just stacks of boxes and …
Words ByMARK McDERMOTT It began with a thirsty and inquisitive man, grew to include his thirsty and increasingly friendly neighbors, and eventually grew into a homegrown institution. Because Smog City Brewing achieved that elusive thing that can’t quite be planned but can only be cultivated, then hopefully grown. It became a community. In 2002, Jonathan …
Read more “LONG LIVE SMOG CITY: 15 YEARS OF BREWING COMMUNITY AND BEER”
It was a warm September evening on Cypress Street. The smell of resin and cigarettes wafted through the air while the sounds of Vin Scully echoed out of a radio from one of the workshops or cars in the parking lot. I was in a shaping bay with two legendary fixtures of the South Bay …
Well sure, I’ve never hit the Powerball jackpot, and I might not be a millionaire. No, my great fortune is even luckier than that. I won the cosmic lottery when the dandelion seed of my life landed and sprouted from this soil by no design or effort of my own. Of all the times and …
Words ByGAVIN HEANEY Kenny Feinstein doesn’t wait for the world to come to him. The boundless bandleader of The Water Tower String Band has spent the better part of his life walking up to strangers — at freeway off-ramps, street corners, car windows rolled down at red lights — and playing music right in their …
Read more “WATER TOWERV S THE WORLD: OFF RAMP TRAMPS BRING THE BLUEGRASS”
Words ByGAVIN HEANEYPhoto ByTAKUMI MCINTYRE Pat Beers is devoted to the freak out. The Schizophonics’ frenzied frontman leads the group with electric swagger — diving and rolling across the stage, stopping only to sing into an upright mic stand that he kicks over and catches, then windmills to the ground to grind a guitar solo. …
Read more “SOUND AND FURY: THE SCHIZOPHONICS WILL SPLIT YOU”
A SOUTH BAYORIGINAL TAKESHER PLACE ONTHE WALK OF FAME by Mike Purpus Laurie Wilson: Hermosa’s Fearless Goofy-Footer She was tall, tan, and blond, a goofy-footer with fire in her surfing — a mean backside off the lip, threading fast rights with the kind of aggression that turned heads in an era when girls were expected …
Words BySTEVE O’BRIEN@ob_toonRYAN GORDON SHAW 5 JUNE 1981 – 19 MARCH 2026 Ryan Shaw surfed like a wildcat sprung from a cage. Shoulders hunched in a deep crouch, he’d spring off the bottom and attack the wave like a lighter to a cigarette, destroying lips across the South Bay for four decades. There wasn’t any …
Artist John Van Hamersveld traces hisaesthetic to his immersion in the South Baysurf and drug culture of the ‘50s and ‘60s. Words by Kevin Cody John Van Hamersveld taught a class called “Making Images” from 1975 to 1982 at the California Institute of the Arts, breaking each semester into line drawing and painting. He quit, …
by: Mark McDermott A room at the California Surf Club in Redondo Beach is named after Greg Browning. Jim Lindberg, frontman of Pennywise, was invited to help name the rooms when the club was coming together. When he walked into a snug little room behind the media room stage, he didn’t hesitate. “Well, we have …
Read more “GREG’SGREEN ROOM: Greg Browning’s lasting village.”