Post #417790 by Mongoloid on Fri, Nov 7, 2008 11:03 AM

Dont sleep on this people, this is part of Crazy Al's roots!

While at Art Center, Al would meet future APE band mate Eric Rindal. Eric was a fellow classmate who helped cement Tiki into Al’s life. Eric was in an old-school surf band, The Swingin’ Tikis. The band wore old Hawaiian shirts, jackets and small Tiki necklaces. Al
started going to their shows and this is where he acquired his “Crazy Al” moniker. “The band would play the song Wipe Out and I would go off and do this wild dance. They would always play the song, and I would always do that crazy dance,
and before you knew it they started referring to me as Crazy Al. The nickname has stuck ever since.” The Swingin’ Tikis also provided Al with his first opportunity to do Tiki carvings. He created wood Tiki necklaces for the band. This would lead to Al's first major 'Tiki Prodject'. One of Eric's final Art Center assignments was to mix the talents of Graphic Design, Illustration, Photography etc... in a joint project. Eric chose to do "album art" for the Swingin' Tikis based on his drawing of
little tiki-men band members. "I had now switched to a 3D illustration style," Al remarks, "and did one of my sculpted wood dioramas for Eric's project. It had a Tiki Island theme with real, miniature Lagoon and King Kong "Swingin' Tiki Wall". Fellow student Mitch Tobias, also now in APE, photographed my illustration. It ended up in the School Gallery."