Hey, Man, Is That Freedom Hawk?!
So you heard how the waves got big enough this week-averaging over 20 feet in height-at Oahu's famed Waimea Beach to hold the prestigious Eddie Aikau big wave surfing contest for the time in five years? San Clemente, California's Greg Long won the event by riding the "monster drop" of the day, a 40-foot wave that broke during the competition's final heat. Totally awesome, for sure. Also awesome is the above video, put together by the contest's sponsors that assembles footage of the biggest waves and craziest wipeouts from The Eddie over the years. The song that makes the soundtrack is good. It's called "Land of the Lost," by a band called Freedom Hawk.
Armed with that sublimely ridiculous name, Freedom Hawk hails from Virginia Beach, Virginia (maybe they know The Clipse?) and provide a pretty dead-center brand of Black-Sabbath-by-way-of-Queens-of-the-Stone-Age stoner rock. ("Rawk with the Hawk!," their website instructs.) But that is okay. In my opinion, there is not enough of this music in the world.
Here's a question, though: When watching that surfing video, and rawking with the Hawk, and lifting a hand in a gesture of salute, are we to extend only thumb and pinky finger, indicating the surfer's "hang loose?" Or also extend the index finger, so as to pay to tribute to the goat's-head horns of our metal lord Satan? Confusing. And important.
Oh, and in case you need to watch it again, here is the "Freedom Rock" commercial.
Needs more shark.
Wow, that is the song that Black Sabbath totally should have included on "Paranoid".
I can watch surfing wipeouts so much easier than skateboarding wipeouts, which make me nauseous. These guys are insane and awesome, but mostly insane. And awesome. Yeah.
That Freedom Rock ad, in addition to being awesome, reminds me that there's an entire subindustry — companies that put together themed hits compilations for people who only wanted the awesome songs from their favorite decade/genre — that has been wiped out by file sharing/iTunes/whatnot. Sic transit gloria!
Back in the day, my friends and I could recite the entire ad, song-clips and all. Which we would do while playing hacky-sack.
I finally bought it on eBay a few years ago. It does have it all, man.
Oooh ooh! I could totally do this, too! (And I still occasionally bust it out whenever I hear the soulful strains of, "Lord I was born a ramblin'man…")
Eddie would go.
Not only is the Eddie the best surf tournament in the world, it provides the state of Hawai'i with some much-needed revenue, thanks to aggressive ticketing on Kamehameha Highway: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/20091208/BREAKING01/91208033/1352
Radical!
My brother took me surfing at Waimea once. Asshole.
My brother took me swimming there ONCE. On a day of calm seas. Asshole.