The “Acoustic Territory” of Venice Beach

This project examines the intersection of music and sport in one specific sporting geography: Venice Beach, California, a vibrant enclave of Los Angeles that is recognized globally for its free-spirited ethos, artist colonies, and famed boardwalk. As home to the legendary Muscle Beach gym, oceanfront basketball courts, skate park, and Breakwater surf spot, Venice Beach is central to mythical representations of eccentric Southern California life. At the same time, it is a sought-after global destination, ranking second behind Disneyland as the “largest tourist attraction in Southern California,” and hosting roughly 10 million or more visitors per year.

Sports films, such as Skatetown, USA, White Men Can’t Jump, and Lords of Dogtown, foreground the spaces and places of Venice Beach. At the same time, artists like Brian Wilson of The Beach Boys, Snoop Dogg, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers (re)activate Venice’s sonic geographies through music videos and lyrics that highlight these well-known sporting spaces.


Venice thus presents a dynamic locale for interrogating how music and sport alert us to the cultural distinctions of a particular region. Here, we consider how community, identity, authenticity, and belonging are constructed and challenged through the sporting sounds of Venice Beach, as well as the mediated representations that reconfigure this space, continuing to travel and circulate beyond the boardwalk.

Related Projects & Publications

Johnson, P.B., & Cox, C.M. (2020). “The dream didn’t fade, it was taken”: Sonic regulation and roller skating on Venice Beach.  Cultural Studies Association Conference. Chicago, IL.

Johnson, P.B., & Cox, C.M. (2019). “Where debris meets the sea”: Exploring the acoustic territories and sporting spaces of Venice Beach. USC Graduate Research Symposium. Los Angeles, CA.

Cox, C. M., & Johnson, P.B. (2018). Mall grab: Authenticity and appropriation in action sport branding. North American Society for the Sociology of Sport Conference. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Johnson, P.B., & Cox, C.M. (2018). “A melody that sets you free”: Venice’s mythical sporting sounds. North American Society for the Sociology of Sport Conference. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.