about Music. By Timothy J. Cooley. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2014. [xvii, 218 p. ISBN 9780520276635 (hardcover), $65; ISBN 9780520276642 (paperback); ISBN 9780520957213 (e-book), $29.95.] Online music examples, illustrations, companion Web site, bibliography, discography, filmography, index. While music and sports have shared a close connection throughout their existence and (separately) have received a great deal of scholarly interest, very little research has been conducted on their intersection. During past few years, a growing amount of research has been published, though mostly on more mainstream sports such as soccer and baseball (Anthony Bateman and John Bale, eds., Sporting Sounds: Relationships Between Sport and Music [London: Routledge, 2009]; Ken McLeod, We Are Champions: The Politics of Sports and Popular Music [Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009]). The connection between music and surfing, a more regionalized sport, provides an interesting case study because it differs from achievement such as football, Olympic sports, and basketball, and is more of a sport instead (p. 172). In about Music, Timothy Cooley contends that the music that surfers associate with surfing is key to what surfing is, or rather many things that surfing is, as well as to who surfers are and aspire to (p. 6). He effectively supports his claims through examining various facets of surfing culture and conducting ethnographic research on those involved in it. For many, surfing and musicking, verb coined by Christopher Small that is adopted by Cooley throughout book, are intertwined and provide complementary means of expression for surfing community. Musicking provides a means of affirming communal elements of surfing, while activity of surfing itself is generally a solitary affair between surfer and ocean. Cooley covers various elements of surfing culture and lifestyle, including its early development in Hawaii, its spread to California, its celebration in surf movies, and musical activities of amateur and professional surfers. Cooley's personal voice is a presence throughout text, and he admits that this is a deeply personal book, as he is a surfer himself and freely switches between roles of writer--scholar and surfer--musician. In addition to his own voice coming through in book, Cooley also effectively maintains voices of his interviewees, which further invites you into community of surfers. Interspersed throughout text are various figures, photographs, and illustrations that further demonstrate media and images surrounding surfing and assist in bringing Cooley's interview subjects to life. In addition to text, Web site for book includes various online audio and video clips of examples Cooley analyzes in text, which are especially helpful for some of lesser-known or harder-to-find songs and films. In introductory chapter, Cooley poses several questions that will be addressed throughout book, including primary questions of how is music used to mediate experience of surfing? and how does surfing, and changing notions of what a surfing lifestyle might be, affect surfers' musical practices? (p. 3). Cooley also generally describes connection between music and surfing, identifies qualities that define surfing, and establishes surfers as an affinity group. is main cultural practice that brings voluntary participatory group together, although surfers also use music to form and define their group. Thus music plays an important role in surfing lifestyle and culture, and assists surfers in defining, and redefining, themselves. The first three chapters are structured historically. Chapter 1, Trouble in Paradise, describes evolution of surfing from pre-revival surfing in nineteenth-century Hawaii to New Surfing of twentieth century in California (and other locales) as surfing spread. …