BL!SSS Magazine | February 2015 | #90

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T H E

B A L A N C E

JOSH HARMONY

O F

O P P O S I T E S

GREYSON FLETCHER

ORDER

CHAOS

DAWN

DUSK

GOOD

EVIL

RVCA.COM

F E AT URED A R TIS T

ED TEMPLETON The RVCA Artist Network Program is an ongoing venture which aims to showcase the talent of accomplished as well as emerging artists who inspire our generation and push the boundaries of creativity; providing something of substance and culture.

JOSH HARMONY OAHU, HAWAII

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Creators & Innovators

Skeleton Coast Boardshort

Brendon Gibbens

Our Upcycled Coconut Stretch Board Shorts are made with yarns upcycled from coconuts. Upcycling is the process of converting useless products into new garments. This allows us to create performance garments with faster dry times and UV protection while reducing the amount of coconut husk waste in landfills.

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REPREVE is a registered trademark of UniďŹ , Inc. 3M and Scotchgard are trademarks of 3M.

KANOA IGARASHI

BL!SSS

CONVERSE CONS KA3

• LUNARLON SOCKLINER • CONS TRACTION RUBBER • GUSSETED TONGUE

RANDOMS // 26 PRODUCT REVIEW // 32 REBECCA MORGAN // 34 JOEL DANIEL PHILLIPS // 36 SCOTT HOVE // 38 CARL BEAZLEY // 40 DANNY HESS - SHAPER PROFILE // 42 INSA - MURAL OF THE MONTH // 44 ACTIVE COSTA MESA - SHOP OF THE MONTH // 46

INSTAGRAM // 48 SUPER TASTE // 52 KEIKI CATCH CRACKS // 56 RUDY GARCIA // 58 THE ART OF ROBERT WILLIAMS // 62 LASERWOLF PHOTO PROFILE // 70 MRZ PHOTO PROFILE // 76 FASHION // 84 BEN GAVELDA PHOTO PROFILE // 88

AGENDA LONG BEACH // 94 NYE MAMMOTH // 96 BOLINAS MUSEUM OPENING // 98 JACK NAME // 100 MUSIC REVIEWS // 102 GROMS // 104

Artist: Robert Williams

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NOW NEVER 15: ALL WE HAVE IS NOW

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Ezekiel Clothing Est. 1992

Photography Julian Berman

Spring Twenty 15 All We Have Is Now

— Ezekielusa.com

Ezekielusa.com

ALL WE HAVE IS NOW

Spring Twenty 15

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PHOTO - CASEY SULLIVAN

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF nick kalionzes nick@blisssmag.com

EDITOR joey marshall joey@blisssmag.com

CREATIVE DIRECTOR mark paul deren : madsteez madsteez@madsteez.com

ASSISTANT EDITOR spencer pirdy spencer@blisssmag.com

EDITOR AT LARGE liz rice mcCray liz@blisssmag.com

SNOW EDITOR jon francis jon@blisssmag.com

MUSIC EDITOR max ritter max@blisssmag.com

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CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS Jason Kenworthy, Dominic Petruzzi, Daniel Russo, Toby Ogden, Tom Carey, Brian Beilmann, Jack Coleman, Andrew Mapstone, Adam Moran, Dave Nelson, Pat Eichstaedt, Julien Lecorps, Ryan Boyes, Zach Hooper, Tim Peare, Michael Lallande, Bob Plumb, Peter Morning, Bryce Kanights, Arto Sarri, Anthony Acosta, Cameron Strand, Brian Fick, Deville Nunns, Gage Thompson, Derek Bahn, Tom Cozad, Robbie Crawford, Ryan Donahue, Joe Foster, Sean Sullivan, Delon Isaacs

CONTRIBUTORS Willie Marshall, Daniel Russo, Jason Arnold, Greg Escalante, Nathan Spoor, Tom Carey, Travis Millard, David Choe, Kai Garcia, Mickey Neilsen, Peter Townend, Hamilton Endo, Tawnya Schultz, Mike Murciano, Geoff Shively, Casey Holland, Steve Stratton, Robbie Sell, Andrew Miller, Pat Towersey, Raul Montoya, Ian Dodge, Richie Olivares, Eric Meyers, Kelly Shannon, JP Olson BL!SSS Magazine 413 31st Street

february 2015

Newport Beach, CA 92663 www.blisssmag.com Disclaimer: Although all best efforts are made to avoid the same, we reserve the right to publish unintentional mistakes and/or factual errors which may occur on a monthly basis. No responsibility is assumed by the publishers for unsolicited materials/articles/letters/advertising and all submissions will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication and copyright and/or appropriate licensing purposes subject to Blisss’ right to edit and comment editorially. The views and opinions expressed in this magazine reflect the opinions of their respective authors and are not necessarily those of the publisher or the editorial team. Blisss Magazine reserves the right to accept or reject any advertising matter which may reflect negatively on the integrity of the magazine. No part of this magazine may be reproduced in any form [print or electronic] without prior written consent from the publisher.

ARTIST: ROBERT WILLIAMS

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PHOTO: MATT WIGNALL

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500 SKATEBOARDS Here’s a relatively new brand by the name of 500 Skateboards that’s blending art and high-quality skateboards into limited-edition boards for everyone. Los Angeles born ‘n’ bred, the brand goes by the name 500 Skateboards because a limited run of 500 boards is made in each model, which are collaborations with different street artists and fine artists.

500 Skateboards was founded by three likeminded individuals who share a passion for skating, surfing, art and music. The trio saw an opportunity for curating compelling artwork in the market and give the artists the credit they deserve. Each board is numbered with a custom hangtag identifying their authenticity like a limited art print. Make sure to check the latest 500 Skateboards run out at any core skate, surf, and snow shops, premium boutiques or online at 500skateboards.com.

RIP RICARDO DOS SANTOS It’s with great sadness that we say goodbye to an amazing surfer, humble human and all-around beautiful ambassador for the sport of surfing – Ricardo Dos Santos.

Ricardo died at a hospital in Florianopolis, Brazil, this past month after sustaining three gunshot wounds due to an altercation in front of his home. At only 24 years old, Ricardo was an international star known for his hard charging in death-defying waves, having won Surfline’s Wave of the Winter (WOTW) during the 2012-13 North Shore season among many other accolades. The outpouring of love for Ricardo from all over the surf and action sports communities has been enormous, a true testament to Ricardo’s genuinely wonderful character. Our hearts go out to his family, and we wish him plenty of tubes in paradise.

element x donny barley Element and skate legend Donny Barley have joined forces to release a work-wear inspired collection aptly named Element Burley’s Collection.

The collection consists of a Burely pocket-tee, a matching black beanie, rugged chino pants, a hooded sweatshirt and his signature deck. Pretty much, everything you need to be a badass and destroy shit the way Donny Barley has for so long. If you’re a real man you’ll head over to elementbrand.com and order yourself this getup today.

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SHADE SUNSCREEN Many of you have heard about Shade Sunscreen, founded by perennial tube hound and surf commentator Strider Wasilewski. He’s been getting feedback from the reef passes of Tahiti to the movie sets of Hollywood and everywhere in between, and the feedback seems to be universally positive. Well, we were able to test some out ourselves and we all agree that Shade Sunscreen is seriously some of the best ‘screen we’ve ever tried. It applies and comes off with ease, plus Shade Sunscreen is oil free, kid safe, reef safe, alcohol free and very water resistant. Shade comes in either opaque or tinted SPF 30+ which is really all you could ever need no matter what tropical climate you’re traveling to. Do yourself a favor and get into some Shade Sunscreen today at your local shop or online at shadesunscreen.com.

GLOBE NOMAD BOOT Nate Tyler is a man’s man. Wait… does that sound weird? What we’re saying is that Nate Tyler is manly. He rips harder, airs higher and gets barreled more than any other man or bear in his Central California hood in the woods. Plus, he builds his own kinetic sculptures through forging metal and rock. Do any of you even know what forging is? That’s beside the point. Anyways, what we’re trying to say is that Nate’s manly acts require a manly boot. That is where Globe’s new Nomad Boot comes into play. Inspired by Tyler, this functional, stylish, rugged boot is all you need for work, play and anything in between. It comes in black or brown and is available in your local shops or at globe.tv. Get the Nomad Boot on your feet today and let your rugged manly side out.

T H E R OA R K R E V I VA L VO LU M E 8: “ T H E G N A R O F DA K A R ” 2 0 1 5

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BYRD COMB Byrd just partnered up with Futures Fins on the first-ever pocket comb made from surfboard fin composite. This Byrd X Futures Fins pocket comb is engineered to be durable, flexible and comfortable for use on all hair types, and it comes in Byrd’s signature “just right yellow” color. Byrd is always helping to keep gentleman surfers groomed and primed wherever they go, and this comb will certainly keep you looking as slick as possible. The Byrd comb can be found at byrdhair.com and surf lifestyle shops including Surfside Sports, Seed People’s Market, Yokishop and Ron Herman. Be sure to grab one.

raise up for ben There’s been nothing but remarkably positive things happening since legendary Newport Beach Lifeguard and all-around waterman Ben Carlson’s untimely passing. The Ben Carlson Foundation has been established - a foundation that gives two scholarships annually to eligible students. And the Newport Beach City Council recently passed a vote to rename the Newport Beach Lifeguard headquarters in Ben Carlson’s memory. Now, the foundation and local community are coming together to raise funds for a memorial statue of Ben to be placed at the base of the Newport Pier. You can help in contributing to the Raise Up For Ben campaign, which launched on February 1st.

There will be a Hurley & GoPro art and photography show fundraiser - Be a Hero, Raise Up For Ben - on Saturday, February 28th from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. at Hurley Headquarters. There’ll be food, drinks, raffles and world-class art and photography on display, making it a perfect event for the whole family to have a great time while honoring Ben. Also, make sure to attend the Newport Beach Lifeguard Headquarters’ official renaming on Sunday, March 8th at 9 a.m. For more info on how you can donate, apply for Ben’s scholarship and more, visit bencarlsonfoundation.org.

hurley x tim hendricks Hurley just came out with an insane-looking collection with world renowned tattoo artist, our friend and past BL!SSS cover artist, Tim Hendricks. Tim has long been one of the best tattoo artists in the biz combining his own Californian heritage with traditional Asian and Hispanic artwork. Tim’s collection reflects his deep roots in skate and surf worlds with a line of tees, a hat and a pair of Hurley Phantom board shorts decked with white tigers, samurais and more. This collection is the perfect reflection of California’s melting pot of culture, so make sure to grab the whole line now at hurley.com.

skibs:slack-jawed kreed and crush Here are two new sunglass brands we’ve come across by the name of Kreed (for him) and Crush (for her) eyewear. Kreed and Crush are both based right down from us in Southern OC. Kreed gives guys plenty of value and variety to choose from while Crush offers women a premium look at an affordable price. We got our hands on two of their newly released shades: Kreed’s Slim Shaney and Crush’s Lyric.

Both hold endless amounts of style and are moderately priced making them a steal of a deal. Be sure to check them out in stores or online at kreedeyes.com and crusheyes.com.

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Our good friend and talented artist Craig Skibs Barker has been hard at work over the past few months painting pieces for his solo show, Slack-Jawed. Slack-Jawed is an exhibition of Craig’s new contemporary art. With all the time and effort Craig’s been putting into this show we can guarantee you’ll be slack-jawed as ever after checking it out. Slack-Jawed is on view from January 31st- February 21st at Thinkspace Gallery in Culver City. For more information, visit thinkspacegallery.com.

CLASSIC WOOD PRINTS This past month while at Agenda we chatted with the crew from Classic Wood Prints, a brand that’s uniquely merging photography and woodworking. Classic Woodprints utilizes a unique process of printing artwork onto Baltic Birch wood, with the end result being supremely high-quality images on a one-of-a-kind canvas.

Whether you’re looking for a print for your home, office or anywhere else, Classic Wood Prints is the place to go for all of your woodwork printing needs. Check them out at classicwoodprints.com today.

STANCE X WORKAHOLICS If there’s one thing that the Stance crew and the characters of Workaholics have in common, it’s that they are both experts at mixing business with pleasure. Parties and putting great ideas into action are all part of this, and in one of the more colorful care packages we’ve received we found out that the two have joined forces for a little collaboration. The collaboration consists of a three pack of mix-and-match socks featuring Blake, Adam and Anders as well as a ‘Free Karl’ pair. As a bonus we got some party favors as well including a Blake bobble head, Season Four of Workaholics, a Tecate, two foam hand signs and a few other goodies. We’re pumped on this collaboration and you should be too. Get out there and get Stance’s Workaholics socks and get weird!

FUJI SELFIE CAM Fujifilm has just come out with their new X-A2 camera. What makes this camera so special, you ask? Well it’s the first X Series model to be equipped with a 175-degree tilting 3-inch LCD screen. This basically makes it easier than ever to achieve that high-quality selfie you’ve been dreaming of, with the help of the Eye Detection AF, which hones in on your eyes to give you great image quality. The X-A2 comes with a wide array of shooting modes and WiFi capability that allows you to share images to your phone and/or computer almost instantaneously. The Fujifilm X-A2 has just hit stores this month, so make sure to grab yourself one for unmatched shooting quality and to take your selfie game to a whole new level.

805 Our good buddy, and San Luis Obispo native, Troy Powell made an inaugural visit to the BL!SSS offices this past month and he came bringing us some of the best gifts we could ask for – beer. Senor Powell has taken the role as Brand Manager for 805 Beer and stocked us up with some of the tastiest beverages on the market. For those of you unfamiliar with this brew, the Firestone Walker Brewing Company has hit another homerun with this blonde ale that mimics the California lifestyle. Easy to drink with a clean finish, it’s the perfect beer to follow up a surf session or reward yourself after a hard day’s work.

Get yours where finer adult beverages are sold.

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T-SHERMS TEES Steve Sherman is a photographer who has given us some of the most iconic surf and rock ‘n’ roll images of all time. Anyone who owns one of his pieces knows how lucky they are. Now, we all can own a piece of his amazing work, as he just launched a new t-shirt line that’s now available. His T-Sherms tees are perfect for all guys and girls who have a strong appreciation for timeless surf imagery that stands out amongst other boring graphic t-shirts. There are plenty of styles to choose from, and with all of the work Sherms has accumulated over the years we know his line will continue to grow. Make sure to grab one at Surfride, South Coast Surf, Hanger 94, and Birds Surf Shed or online at t-sherms.com.

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Interview: Liz McCray What mediums do you work with?

I work in ceramics and make paintings on panel, large graphite drawings on paper, and cartoons with ink, watercolor and graphite on paper.

Tell us about some of the rural stereotypes that are projected in your art?

There are the stereotypes that individuals from Appalachia are lazy, idle and unlearned and characterized by a vacant and indulgent persona; I am interested in the stereotypes of the backwoods hillbilly’s sexual deviance and sloth. The characters that I portray are the embodiment of a Dionysian, fantastical, farmer’s-daughter archetype, sowing their wild oats, often found carelessly frolicking nude in flowered fields. At the same time, there are individuals who deeply personally identify with the cultural signifier of “redneck” and “hillbilly” and fully embrace it – people are proud to be from the country and their lifestyle reflects that. However, drugs, lack of education, poverty and often the lack of occupational upward mobility certainly deeply impact Appalachia, and I try to touch upon that in some of my work. Some of the aspects of “stereotypical Appalachia” are certainly true and others are greatly exaggerated; I am interested in the middle ground, a deep reverence and reversion to both sides. In a lot of my work, I make the characters look like grotesque characters, seemingly looking like the inhabitants of the movie “Deliverance” or caricatures of an unfortunate looking Daisy Duke or the hokey depictions of Hatfields and McCoys, etc. For me, the ugliness and grotesqueness is not a direct jab at rural stereotypes or those that

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live in the country, but instead an homage to them. The face jugs, cartoons and paintings represent a kind of blissful ignorance; they’re totally fine with looking so hideous and awful, it’s of no consequence to them. In my mind, that gives them power – to be so confident and content, although covered in acne, wrinkles, and blemishes, is the ultimate love of one’s self and self-acceptance. These characters are blissfully unaware, unruly, wild and untamed. They are off the grid and free, not affected by anyone or anything’s influence, and I’m very attracted to that concept.

which sums up a lot of it. I was pretty wholesome; I never drank until my 21st birthday, just out of indifference. I think I’m probably more of a “stereotypical teenager” now then when I actually was a teenager.

I didn’t have much of a scope of outside culture. I knew there were lots of things out there, but had no way of accessing them, pre-Internet. There was a bookstore 45 minutes away and a very limited music store in town. I had absolutely no idea what a “hipster” was until I moved to Brooklyn when I was 22 and then I was in the epicenter of it all.

You grew up in central Pennsylvania.

Will you tell us a little bit about growing up there? Do feel you were a stereotypical teenager?

My grandfather was self-taught and made really weird folk art drawings and cartoons.

We would draw the same subject or a still life together. I was very young. In about third grade I started taking private art lessons from a local artist, but I never really understood that I could be doing art in some way as a profession, like Al Jaffee or Harvey Kurtzman, who I was obsessed with from my Dad’s old MAD Magazines. I always liked the pride of being a “country girl” and admired small town fun, traditions and slowness. However, Central Pennsylvania is very conservative and overall it was pretty isolating to come across new things or pursue interests. I wasn’t exposed to art except what I occasionally saw in magazines and television, so in retrospect, that is the saddest part about growing up so rural. I was happily nerdy and was in marching band and choir/show choir, theatre and all of that stuff.

I skipped a lot of school; I was voted “Least likely to be seen in class and Most Artistic,”

Where do you call home? Does your current environment play a role in your artwork?

I currently live in my hometown of Clearfield, Pennsylvania, where I was born and raised.

It is a very rural and small town, high in the mountains in the middle/western part of the state. It is about 2.5 hours from Pittsburgh and 4 hours from Philadelphia and New York.

I go to New York City one to two times a month to go to openings, get supplies and see friends and it is a huge part of my life.

I always hoped I would get to live in New York and when I finally did, when I went to graduate school at Pratt Institute, the romanticism of both the urban and the rural situated me liminally in-between: the work that I make comes out of this discomfort as I try navigate wanting both. I have great pride and reverence for the country that inspires me, but in a lot of ways, it’s constricting; I want to reflect both a constant critique and a defense of rural living. Living in the country provides an endless resource of inspiration.

A lot of the images I make include props from my upbringing, Pennsylvania Dutch Hex signs, hunting camps, blue ribbons from the

fair, hunting dogs, the deep woods, the downed dead buck – the list of archetypes goes on. Aesthetically, for me, there isn’t much not to love, and the environment constantly inspires me and informs the work that I do, mostly just by being aware of the environment, sponging in the scenery, paying attention to conversations, watching interactions, exploring or pursuing anything unique unto the country.

What percentage of your time is devoted to your artwork? What fills the rest of your time?

I think it would be hard for an artist to quantify how much time is devoted to art work; I think my personal life is intertwined with the art work I make – there are no lines to differentiate. Even when I’m not actively sitting and working on something, I am still working, thinking about my next move, combing through the Internet for source material, reading or looking at other artists and exhibitions. I spend a lot of time traveling back and forth to New York and Pittsburgh and going for drives. I am enamored with the Internet; it is inspiring to me that anyone, even in remote places, can navigate and be finely tuned in to the contemporary art scene through social media.

Where can people check out more of your art?

I am very active on instagram (my username is @rebeccamorgan10) and my website is www.rebeccamorganart.com. I am represented by Asya Geisberg Gallery in New York, so that is where you can see my work in person!

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“The only way to truly understand something is to draw it.” – Jean Le Corbusier

these requires the artist to touch and explore each facet of the subject’s existence.

This is the center of my work – an attempt to sincerely grasp what I see around me through the tip of a pencil and a piece of charcoal. At its root, the act of drawing necessitates a concentrated study of not only the physical attributes of the subject, but the emotional as well. Every line and crease in a face tells a story, and rendering

My work focuses primarily on portraiture at a monumental scale.

I am fascinated by the intricacies and commonalities that we share as humans, and I search for moments when our projected senses of self are transparent, allowing deeper, more truthful emotions to become visible. I pursue ways to peel back the

protective veils that we all display to the outside world, striving to capture the unbidden spontaneity of experience.

emotions and truths that inform not only the particular instant captured, but more importantly the story leading up to it.

Central to this search is a focus on the significance of narrative in human existence. Our lives are not linear, with one instant leading solely into the next, but rather circular, with each experience formed and defined by others. A portrait functions in the same manner, teasing out

A true portrait is far more than a rendering of physical form – it is the capturing of the vulnerable, un-invented narratives that make us human. Seeing and understanding these is my ultimate goal.

To see more of Joel Daniel Phillips’ art, go to joeldanielphillips.com.

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Interview: Liz McCray Will you please introduce yourself to our readers... a little synopsis, if you will?

I am Scott Hove, mixed-media artist from San Francisco now living in Los Angeles. I am known for my dualistic immersive installations and sculptures collectively called Cakeland.

You have been in the process of installing an art show in LA. Will you tell us about it?

For the LA Art Show I was commissioned to make a grand entrance to the Littletopia section of the fair, which features 16 or so pop surrealist galleries. I ended up creating a 14-foot-high triumphal arch, in pink and powder blue, encrusted with frosting and fruit. In each of the supporting columns there was a viewing porthole, one with a mirrored vignette suggesting a heavenly scene with flowers and a chandelier, the other with an infernal hell scene with fire, smoke and arms reaching out. In the peak of the arch was a turning disco ball, sparkling with light. The whole thing was very well received.

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We all love cake, or at least have a love/hate for it. Viewing the environments from your body of work entitled “Cakeland” is an attack of all sensations, which are heightened and evoked emotionally. The smell and taste are crippling, the vision is dreamlike – almost as if entering Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory – but it’s a “Cakeland,” with a twinge of crazy. Will you tell us about your sculptural cake/installations and the environments?

I spend a good deal of my time creating a fantasy of transcendental comfort.

This means I visualize endless beautiful spaces, saturated and uplifting, and play with theatrical lights, mirrors, and materials that suggest delicious cake. I tweak the materials and spaces until they feel totally believable and enjoyable. To add contrast and a sense of depth I also include elements of threat, decay and damnation. In the end, the experience represents a process of emotional polarity that is intended to integrate the threats we experience into what we love. The crazy aspect comes from the fact that I am a grown man sitting alone all day in a fantasy. I am grateful that I have been

able to get away with it thus far.

How have people reacted to your work?

People’s reactions usually follow a course of curiosity, seduction, consideration, repulsion, and then satisfaction. Occasionally someone will get upset, or someone tries to eat something. Once I had a very proper-looking woman walk in and have what appeared to be a loud orgasm. Immediately after she looked embarrassed, but then she was lurking around me for the rest of the night trying to hug me. My art attracts a lot of people with what I would describe as having a voluntary dissociative disorder... fulltime Hello Kitty folks with blue hair who project candy onto everything and themselves as a means to cope. I love them and anyone else who finds resonance with my pieces. I want people who experience “Cakeland” to leave feeling satisfied and happy, and maybe a little paranoid.

Can you give us some insight to your creative process? Do you use traditional cake decorating techniques? If so, how/when did you learn these?

I use traditional cake decorator’s tools and have been slowly teaching myself techniques for the last 10 or so years since I ventured into this line of art. I have never taken a course, though I really should.

Have you ever baked and decorated an actual cake, and then eaten it?

Just curious…

I have no interest in baking an actual cake. The hassle, the fleeting nature of the medium, and I don’t even have an oven. I did have someone make a beautiful edible version of one of my cakes, and I must say it was exquisitely satisfying to eat it.

Do you have a “sweet tooth”?

I can have about one bite of something sweet and then I am done!

Where can people check out more of your work?

People can find my work at www. mshove.com, my facebook art page, and best of all my instagram @ scotthove. I post most of my best stuff there because it is so easy and has such a wide reach.

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Interview: Liz McCray Can you please introduce yourself to our readers?

My name is Carl Beazley and I’m 26 years old. I was born and still live in Reading, England. It’s not the most exciting place in the world, but if you jump on a train you can be in the center of London in less than 30 minutes. It’s also pretty close to the countryside, which can be quite nice. Since I left school I’ve tried my hand at various things from being an apprentice in a tattoo studio to driving an Ice Cream van. At the moment, I embroider and print T-shirts for a living but in my spare time I love to experiment with portraiture.

You’re a self-taught artist. I was surprised to read that you just started painting in 2012.

Yeah, I started relatively late actually. The first step is always the most difficult, and it took me much longer than it should have to get myself going. I’ve been trying to cram in as much as I can these past couple of years in an attempt to try and compensate for the years I wasted. One of my biggest regrets is not starting earlier, but I think it took a few years of treading water to realize that I had a

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lot to offer in terms of creativity. It’s actually amazing how much you can get done in a short space of time if you push yourself and put the effort in.

What are some of your consistent influences?

Weirdly enough I get a lot of inspiration from reading interviews and watching films.

I read a book of interviews with Francis Bacon a while back and it was a complete revelation. Everything he said about art seemed to mirror exactly how I felt at the time. It really struck a chord and gave me a lot of confidence in myself. It might be the art that initially catches my eye but the person behind it is what can truly inspire.

The way a certain artist’s brain works is what interests me the most, because if you get too caught up in being influenced by the art itself then the chances are you will always be striving for something that’s already been done – it will never be as good. Whereas if you go down a completely different route to them in terms of style, only taking in their attitudes and how they achieved what they did, then there’s a much better chance you will create something original. A lot of people think it’s nearly impossible to come up with something unique these days, as they think

it’s all been done before and everything goes in cycles, but I think you have to strive for originality. Whether you achieve it or not is a different matter, but for me it’s important to try. That’s what I look for in other artists. I recently discovered an American artist named Matthew Barney who I find fascinating. His imagery is so unique that it imprints itself onto your brain and stays there long after you’ve seen it. I do find a lot of filmmakers incredibly inspiring, directors such as Alejandro Jodorowsky, Jan Svankmajer, Stanley Kubrick and Lars Von Trier. In my view, these people are brilliant contemporary artists.

What do you hope people get from your art?

Hopefully a feeling or atmosphere, something that their brain can’t quite process because it has nothing to compare it with. That’s the ultimate goal but I don’t think I’ve achieved anything near that yet. The main thing at the moment is to get a reaction.

I like art that can be processed differently depending on the individual viewing it. Some people might laugh at my paintings, some might be disgusted, while others might find them confusing or pretentious. I just want people to have an instant reaction that will

potentially stay in the back of their brain somewhere.

You started painting in your kitchen, and you just moved from the kitchen to your garage? How would you describe your new studio atmosphere?

It’s surprising what a difference that has made actually. Just having a space dedicated solely to painting is amazing. I think that was the turning point for me. When I was painting in the kitchen there were so many distractions, as the space was being primarily used for something else. It was a nightmare.

But now when I go into the garage, I shut the door and instantly I’m surrounded by the art and nothing else. It’s like having your own office. I work so much better in a solitary atmosphere. Just me and the paints!

Where can people check out more of your art?

I have a website you can visit, www. carlbeazley.com. I’m also pretty active on Facebook and Twitter, so come and say hello if you get the chance. There’s nothing better than when people contact you to say they either love or hate your art. It makes it all worthwhile!

Words: Spencer Pirdy Photos: Freunde-von-Freunden Don’t go looking for shaper Danny Hess when a 10 feet @ 16 seconds west swell is assaulting the shores of San Francisco accompanied by stiff offshore winds.

He will be hard to find on land. Instead, he’ll most likely be out testing his own equipment at Mavericks or in giant Ocean Beach, just a few blocks from his shared Noriega Street showroom, the Woodshop.

He’ll be humbly proving to anyone who happens to witness that he’s just as adept to getting the wave of the day as he is to building you the board of your dreams. For Hess, his shaping has been a self-taught venture that began around the age of 16. From then until now he’s combined his woodworking background and a passion for surfing with an urge to

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do what’s less environmentally impactful to create a unique surfboard for all types of wave riders to enjoy.

A glimpse into the Woodshop reveals a quiver of eclectic wooden wave crafts ranging from twin-fins and shortboards to longboards and guns, even hand planes, all made from reclaimed wood.

The wood’s grain catches the eye and would make anyone lucky enough to have one question whether or not to ride the beauty or preserve it as a wall-hanging piece of art. But a good majority of surfers in the Central to Northern California area and beyond choose exclusively to ride Hess-built boards – and for good reason. They’re the perfect blend of sustainable materials that enhance durability without sacrificing performance. Dan Malloy is a lover of

Hess’ boards, having scored the cover of Surfer’s Journal on one of his crafts.

It’s in his discovered technology that he’s found success. His “Single Skin Technology” is made up of a recycled EPS core and a vacuum-formed 1/8thinch thick deck glassed with entropy bio-epoxy. Then, there’s his “Full Wood Technology,” which is a perimeter frame constructed using a system of molds and templates that consistently create each board’s outline, foil, and rocker.

This combined with 1/8th-inch wood skins give the board plenty of strength, lessening the amount of fiberglass needed to glass each board. It’s a lot to take in, but Danny’s R&D, combined with feedback from customers, has allowed him to pinpoint the exact woods to use in different areas of the board. “Salvaged Redwood, Fir, Cedar and Amapola work

great for light, really strong tail parts, as well as great glass on fins with lots of drive,” Hess says.

If you order a board from him don’t expect it to come without investing a bit of time and money, as his wait list is long and building materials are expensive.

But do expect to receive a board that will function with all the quality and finetuned ability of a world-class surfboard, has a lifespan 10 times that of your average sled, all while boasting exquisite craftsmanship. All of this makes it well worth it in our opinion.

For more on Danny, visit HessSurfboards. com. Also, make sure to check out his new collection with Vissla dropping in stores this month or online at Vissla.com.

Interview: Liz McCray It is not surprising that our mural of the month goes to INSA and the world’s largest animated GIF. This mural is massive and is visible from space by satellite. INSA is the pioneer of animated street art and is always pushing the boundary of limitations, which we must say keeps it fun for the viewer. We were able to catch up with INSA and ask him a couple of questions about his latest and greatest (biggest) mural. Make sure to check out more of INSA’s animated street art.

This is the world’s largest animated GIF, a gigantic mural visible from space; will you tell us about your Space GIF-ITI? The Space GIF-ITI is an evolution of my GIF-ITI work. We did this one in six days, which is pretty ridiculous when you think about the size compared to my previous works. We had three days on the first layer and then because of the earth and the satellite positioning according to its rotation, we had exactly 24 hours to paint each of the next three frames. Due to

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legal reasons, four days is the longest you can hire a satellite to take pictures - so there was no room for errors, no chance of any extra time.

It’s pretty amazing. What inspired this project?

The desire to go big! The desire to explore how far you can take an idea. I’m inspired by the time and the earth turning and how I can try to capture my work. This all kind of fueled the idea. It all came about without considering the challenges; I think if I’d thought about the obstacles first I wouldn’t even have suggested it. The idea of painting something visible from space is graffiti mentality – trying to go massive.

Will you tell us how you chose the location?

Brazil is a place I always want to see and work in, and when we were coordinating the satellite for the GIF shots, we needed somewhere that had consistently good weather at that time of year [November].

After some location scouting with the team it made perfect sense to do this in Rio. It’s such an amazingly beautiful place; I feel inspired having that view as

my surroundings while painting.

How is Ballantine’s (scotch whisky) involved?

I was approached by Ballentine’s, who said they loved the work I was making and asked if I had any crazy ideas for pushing my work to another level. I said, “Um…YES. I want to paint something big enough to be seen from space, and I want to animate it!” To my surprise about a week later they came back and said, “Great, we’d like to help you do that.”

It rained on one of the days of painting. How did this affect the adaptation of this piece?

Yeah it was pretty nerve-racking. We were working against the clock as the satellite was scheduled to pass at the same time every day, [so] the painting had to be finished. Obviously in Rio, tropical storms can suddenly come out of nowhere. That storm was particularly heavy and came just after we’d put down the first layer. My biggest worry was that it would wash all of the paint we’d just put down away, but we were lucky it didn’t ruin anything!

When and how did you get the idea of hand-painted, animated street art?

I had the idea a few years ago; I’d been thinking a lot about how people were actually seeing my work. Even if I painted a huge mural anywhere in the world, I realized more people were looking at the few photos that circulate online. It seemed a shame the level of work that was going into something that was only going to be seen as a small image online, but then I just thought why not make the Internet, and those few images, the best way to view my work – even make it the only platform for seeing the final work. GIFs are the ultimate Internet fodder.

What’s next for you?

It’s going to be impossible to ever go as ‘big’ as the satellite project, but I have several new concepts for the GIF-ITI that I’m working on and will announce soon!

Where can people check out more of your art?

Go to insaland.com. And if you download my new app, “INSA’S GIF_ITI VIEWER” you can see these pieces move! It also lists and maps all works out in the world.

Words: Lena Siv Photo: Brandon Jensen When you walk into an Active Ride Shop you might assume that a guy will walk over to you if you need help in skate. Well, not at Active Costa Mesa, as the gals probably know a little more about skate than most guys there, and they can do a better grip job. Then again, the boys aren’t too shabby either. Featuring a very interesting, unique and diverse staff, it’s crazy how much love there is in this store. They’re not just co-

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workers, but a family with nothing but positive vibes all around. The employees are welcoming and treat everyone that walks through the door like a long-lost friend rather than some random customer. They want to know what you’ve been up to, what cool shows or parties are happenin’ and even make plans to go skating with their new homies at the Volcom Skate Park.

each and every department. There are exclusives and sometimes even early releases if you’re looking to be the first on the streets with the newest product. And for the ladies that have never stepped foot into an Active Ride Shop it’s time to start doing so, because there’s a great selection for you too. The shop supports skate footwear and those companies support them!

At Active Costa Mesa, you can find the latest and greatest in skate, apparel and footwear, and the employees are knowledgeable in

Active Ride Shop Costa Mesa and all Active Ride Shops in general are pushing no corporate agenda.

They’re local and stay true to

their roots – the community, skateboarding and “The Active Experience.” If you have yet to experience that then be sure to check out Active Costa Mesa, grab some food at one of the many tasty restaurants nearby and walk it off cruisin’ around the shop while listening to some classic rock. The Active CM Shop is located at The Camp at 2937 Bristol Street in Costa Mesa, CA. And make sure to follow them on Instagram as well @activecostamesa.

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Photography: Derek Bahn @dbahnphotos Model: Kayla Lewis @kaylareneelewis She’s simple, a “t-shirt and jeans” type of girl. She was born and raised in Southern California. She grew up on a small-town ranch and then moved to the beach. She’s an animal lover and volunteers at a horse rescue center in her spare time. She has played every sport possible and has mastered them all. She loves anything to do with the outdoors.

When you Google “perfect girl” her name pops up. Her name is Kayla.

She is… the Super Taste for the month of February. Stay Taste-y, my friends.

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Jamie O’Brien 56

Words: Jamie O’Brien Photos: Jake Marote

Jason Frederico

Kaikea Elias

Jason Frederico

I saw this swell and it looked perfect for Keiki’s. I definitely knew the swell was going to be there, but then we showed up and it was really, really big – like the biggest we’ve ever surfed it. It was 12-foot shorebreak, and when you get 12-foot shorebreak it’s death defying. It becomes the heaviest situation you could probably ever put yourself in, especially at Keiki Beach where there’s lava rocks on both sides of you. So, I told the boys, “Get out there!” And they looked at me like I was crazy. I told them I was putting the contest on for them and not for me.

I remember it took Koa Rothman and Koa Smith a couple of tried to even make it out the back. Koa Smith came up to me and said, “You guys actually do this for fun?” And I told him yes. My friend Ruben almost drowned. He was paddling out and lost his board and then was swimming in the rip for 20 minutes. When he hit the beach he collapsed and was foaming out of the mouth. It was pretty heavy. Josh Redman came and did a beach entry for the contest. He actually got a few bombs and then got swept down the beach trying to come in. He had to climb up onto sharp, dry rock and waves were hitting him. He got washed up over the rocks.

It was funny because we had this ghetto surf contest in some of the heaviest shorebreak going down and we had a crowd of people who were stoked. The event was pretty grassroots and it was an opportunity for the boys to go pull into some closeouts and get paid. Jason Frederico just went ham. He had dollar signs in his eyes and wanted to win every division. It didn’t matter how big or what the problem was with the wave, he was going – he killed it. Kalani Chapman got some sick waves. Josh Redman had the best wave of the day, but he let go on the bottom turn and lost it. That won him best wipeout of the day. We gave awards to Best Wipeout, Best Overall Performer, Best Floater and Best Racecar. Next year I hope it’s not as big. It was intense and scary. I was glad when the day came to an end and no one died. With this contest we’re not kicking people out of the water; it’s more that people don’t want to go in the water on these days. So, it works perfectly. Next year we’ll have a couple of lifeguards on hand. I want to thank Catch Surf, Pupukea Grill and Kahuku Grill for giving us food for the event, and all the guys who came and made the 1st Annual Keiki Catch Surf, Catch Cracks Pro happen.

Photos & Interview: Bruno Park What’s good Rudy, where you at right now?

Barcelona, Catalunya.

Seems like you’ve been going there a lot lately, any particular reason?

The girl of my dreams is out here.

All right, Casanova. Let’s knock off the basic questions. How old are you? Where are you from? When did you start skateboarding?

I’m 23, I’ve been skating for 11 years and I’m from El Paso, Texas.

How was it growing up in El Paso?

Growing up in El Paso was rad! All the homies out there are always down to catch a skate sesh. The spots are also really good!

How is the skate scene in El Paso compared to Los Angeles?

The skate scene in El Paso is as good as the one in LA. All the homies out there are always on a mission. The only difference are the spots and the talent. El Paso has spots but not as many as LA. Also, everyone in LA is super talented… it’s crazy.

Who got you into skateboarding?

My cousin Alex gave me one of his old boards and since then I never left it.

Does your Cousin Alex still skate?

Nah, he doesn’t.

Who is your favorite skater of all time?

My friend Gustavo Servin from Mexico. The homie can visit LA for a month and film a mind-blowing part. What’s sicker is that I grew up skating with him. There is nothing more enjoyable than to see your homies kill it. Another one of my favorites is my homie Mark Villero. He has the sickest style and can switch hardflip anything.

Do you work or go to school?

I study film at the Art Instituted of Hollywood and I’m a videographer, distribution manager, and team manager for Sunshine Distribution.

How long have you been filming and taking photos?

I’ve been filming for 10 years. I started filming with my friends a year within skating. I’ve been shooting photos for about two years.

Video or photos? Which do you like best and why?

I love both but I prefer making films!

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Kick Flip

What are the biggest influences in your life right now?

My parents sacrifice for my career, my girlfriend’s [Èlia] desire to spend the rest of our lives together and all my friends that spread the good vibes.

What does your basic day in the life consist of?

I usually go to school twice a week. After I’m done with classes I have the rest of the week to skate and do homework. I usually wake up, eat a breakfast burrito and try to go ride.

Who do you usually skate with?

I skate a lot with a local filmer in LA named Erick Sandoval, A.K.A. @travelinman. Chad Fernandez also jumps on the sesh and films with Erick. I also film with the Pedlow Crew from the Valley who are working on a VX project directed and filmed by Felix Soto.

Any skate-related project you’re working on?

Right now I’m working on a VX project and once I’m done I will start on another one. It’s always fun trying to film video parts.

What does skateboarding mean to you?

Skateboarding saved my life.

Any last words?

Thanks to my family, friends, Èlia, Foundation Skateboards, Dekline Footwear, Ashbury Eyewear, Underground Wheels, So5a Grip, Rad Division, Mike Sinclair, Tyler Culbertson, Walter Lhor, Rocky Chavez, Lance Hacker, and Erick Sandoval for keeping me rolling. Also, big thanks to Bruno Park for coming through with this interview.

B.S Krook

B.S Lipslide

B.S 5-0

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Interview: Greg Escalante with assistance from Nathan Spoor Cultural instigator and godfather of the modern lowbrow art movement, Robert Williams has already had a fascinating career that’s more action-packed than any three people you know. He’s survived biker gangs and knife fights as a youth and grown into a career that sees his masterful paintings shown around the world to great acclaim. Williams has rubbed elbows with the greats of many arenas, noting that his paintings reside in the collections of a “Who’s Who” of the influential and famous: Leonardo Di Caprio, Timothy Leary, Debbie Harry, Mark Parker, Anthony Kiedis, Nicolas Cage and Yoko Ono, to name but a few. But what has this powerhouse creative mind been up to the past four years? Painting!

Painting a body of work that will debut this February 21st at the Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery in Barnsdall Park. Join us as we catch up with the legendary artist, Robert Williams, as he returns from New York with some classic stories both fresh and fantastic.

As we’re meeting up to talk, you’ve just come back from an extended weekend in New York talking with the Society of Illustrators, correct?

Yes, the Society and the Comic Book Defense Fund have a get-together at the old Armory site of the historic 1913 Art Show in New York. I was invited as an honored guest and they really treated us as royals. I also had business with my New York gallery, Tony Shafrazi. As you can imagine, there was a lot of partying and eating and drinking and carrying on. Oh, did I tell you about the jumper? Well, we got about 30 feet out the door of the hotel and about 20 feet behind me I heard a really big BANG! We turned around, my wife Suzanne and our friends, and a jumper had just hit the pavement. Ron, Suzanne, Nancy Ferguson and her boyfriend Jim had walked a few steps ahead of me, I was bringing up the rear of the expedition, and this fellow had taken this horrible sacrificial swan dive on to the pavement. The sound was not a pop like a pistol, not like gunfire, but like a crate fell off the back of the truck or something. His head disintegrated, his head went straight into the pavement. Boy, that ruined our day and it put sort of an emotional touch on our trip.

Wow what a heavy-duty experience. On a lighter note, can you give us any insight into your forthcoming exhibition?

This is going to be the best show I’ve had so far. This time I’ll have three sculptures and my best oil paintings to date, no kidding. It’s four years of my best work ever. The show is called Slang Aesthetics, and I’ve got a book to go with it. The theme of the show goes into questioning the value of sophistication.

It really challenges the reasons we depend on sophistication, and how it’s all smoke and mirrors and a ruse to make money.

And that, as Picasso so eloquently stated, “Sophistication is the enemy of imagination!” Bitterness got me on this theme - all the functionaries and the museums that hide behind a thin membrane of sophistication. I do have a penchant for bitterness, and even with that I’ll quickly come to the defense of those that oppress me. I defend abstract expressionism even though I wish it had never come about. Art is very subjective even though people don’t want it to be. It’s a cross between religion and a philosophy, and the people in the upper echelons want it to be like a corporation. Reasoning all of this out is like trying to juggle jello.

How much does imagination play into the value of art?

How much does the art world even weigh imagination? You can be the king of imagination for this lifetime, and it all boils down to simple question of how you come up with an idea for a painting.

Let’s take that use of imagination and let that sit to one side for a minute. Yes, imagination fits into the art world, but up to 100 years ago the imagination was considered a deviation. Intelligent people and people with good imaginations considered it a risk to their health and didn’t let their mind run hither and yon. The people that did, led their mind too far afield and were considered to be mentally ill. Society okays imagination only as it pertains to religion. If you want to incorporate metaphysics or superstitions, then for years until more recently the only approved avenue was religion as used by society. More recently in history, the more wild, unbridled imaginations started showing up in comic books.

The real salacious pulp imagery was blamed for creating social problems - people that used drugs. That was the ‘60s, and that wild image was really frowned on. I’m older and I remember going to military school and having seen the ‘40s and ‘50s. It was very different and more conservative, constipated in those days. I have a mind like a gorilla in a birdcage; the imagination I have in my mind wouldn’t stay on schoolwork and does irrational things.

I thought when I grew older and got around artists I would find kindred spirits. But artists are mostly really sensitive people that don’t really exercise their imaginations. They follow what others are doing like herds of cattle - you look back in history and see rare exceptions like Bosch and Dali. Bosch got away with it by creating these incredible religious illustrations, and Dali got away with it by playing crazy.

So did you go to school for art or have art classes as a kid?

Well, I didn’t do that good in school. I was dyslexic and had attention problems. I liked to look at the girls and wasn’t really a candidate for a good citizen award. But it was art that saved me in school. I fell short in other studies and I made up for that because teacher would watch me draw. I had draftsman skills far beyond the class, and the teachers conferred that Bobby could draw but they referred to me as a cabbage that never got any sun. They thought I was dumb, that I was retarded! One really defining moment was in grade school when the teachers had a project on butcher paper out on the wall in the hallway. I came by and saw they had no composition! And I took all their efforts and made a landscape with perspective that gave a practicality to their attempts. Going further back, about the time I got out of diapers I got proficient with crayons.

My parents put me down on some butcher paper and I drew a red skeleton down to all the bones because I saw a Halloween skeleton.

I was inquisitive from a young age! There was a song called ‘Devil with a Darling Eye’ and I drew an eye with a devil in it. I had a lowbrow lurid interest in stuff from a young age. I don’t remember when I started liking girls, but it was way early on - way early on. There were some little girls from across the street that asked if they could take me out to play and we went a cross the street to their playhouse.

They said they wanted to take my clothes off and I said ok. Then, when I realized that it was their turn they said, “No, that’s not the way it works!” That really set the pace for how I saw women deal with things from then on. We lived in small towns and it was difficult to relate to most people. I could sense conformity and the most interesting people were the ones with criminal tendencies. They stepped away from the norm, their imaginations were much more lush and uncontrolled. So later in my youth when I was getting into knife fights I realized that that scene wasn’t what I was looking for.

I happened to find the bohemians – these were borderline criminals that weren’t so into getting into trouble. And then DC Comics made a big influence on me way early on... Way early on. The comics had great contrasting colors, sexual suggestions, interesting energy and I saw that energy as the same that charged the Renaissance Arts. And then I saw that the arts were only interested in dumbing art down into nothing and pretending that it’s interesting.

Where did all this youth and growing happen, was that in New Mexico?

Well, a long time ago you couldn’t just live with each other; shacking up was frowned upon by society. So under that regime my mom and dad were married and divorced four times. I went back and forth from New Mexico where my mom was, to the Deep South where my dad lived. My father was a Southern Baptist and mother was a Presbyterian from Indiana up north.

So did you come out to California at some point and go to art school?

I did, but long before that in Albuquerque I had an art teacher that had an effect on my growth. I used to skip my other classes and go back to art classes and spend my time there instead. The assistant principal and art teacher got together on the matter and told me that if I got to class on time they won’t pursue truancy in the other classes. They decided on this, instead of suspending me again, and I had been suspended several times at this point so it was a good way of keeping me in school.

You were lousy in school? So how did you make it from high school to art school? At some point you got a tremendous grasp of history and worked it into your art in a way that only a highly intelligent mind could grasp. So how did you make that transition?

The history of things is just so interesting to me. You see, the average person will get a college degree and not retain much of the information or knowledge that they’re

supposed to gain in school. It’s so significant that our wave is crashing to the shore and our time will pass, these days will have effect on the future. And it’s amazing to me how people don’t see the effects of the past and how that creates the present. In 1854 there was a tremendous Crimean War where thousands of people died and no one even brings that up! There used to be days and days of dead people being carried up the Thames by the boatloads.

Terrible things have happened that no one realizes, or wants to recognize.

How is there not a History of the World According to Robert Williams? And how did you find this all pre-Internet? And even NOW you don’t have the Internet!

I look at things through the eyes of a paleontologist we come from monkeys. We didn’t come from apes, we are apes! We’re just the ones that stood up. We’re not convincing ourselves that we’re here from magic; our ancestors used to eat each other 15,000 years ago. We evolved from a bacteria and it’s quite humbling.

So where did you start this massive craving for history?

Even as a little child there are things that fascinated me.

As a very young child I was stuck in this big mansion in Florida with my grandfather. I told you that my father was from the Deep South, and this mansion was a massive estate. I had no comic books while I was there and nothing much else to do but wander around this giant house. One day I found a large collection of heavy books called the Comptons Encyclopedia, and I went through every fucking Comptons Encyclopedia reading every page in there. And I got to the dinosaurs and it blew my fucking mind! I made my grandfather read every word. My grandmother was convinced that it was hogwash. That’s how religious folks deal with facts that don’t add up to their magical belief system, hogwash.

That love of history translated into producing your own fine art paintings, and at this point it’s without question clear you have a vast grasp of history.

But could you tell us a little about one painting in particular, that piece about the delusional King Farouk, the last dynastic sovereign of Egypt (A Life of Delusion, 1998)?

That’s what a painting looks like through my interest, as interpreted in a comic book style. Comics are the easiest way to express some of these heavy topics. Farouk is a big fat guy that got all the money and all the pussy, and I wanted to tell the world about this interesting guy. I did it with paintings and you go out and look at the milky way and look into the galaxy, and you hold your finger up in the sky and point the telescope to that point and there’s more galaxies in that pinpoint than there are even sands on the beach. And you try to put that into an understanding that we can see and make a living at that – making art that tells a fantastic story but finding a way in, a way to make it interesting and also dumbed-down enough to not drive away some asshole that doesn’t know he might be learning while being entertained by a painting. Art like this must be lurid! Some of the works are licentious and as lecherous as I could make them, and it’s not to stimulate you but get your mind charged up and be ignited over that. That’s what those early zombie mystery paintings are - to raise your heart rate.

What are your favorite books or favorite things you’ve read?

Well, I really like art textbooks. I like lurid stuff like Basil Wolverton. I like to read interesting stuff on the Weimar Republic, books about murders, aircraft, WW1, lots of pornography, lots of books from Emily Post about etiquette and I’ve got my nose into everything! You see, I’m attracted to a certain aesthetic but I’m not politically affiliated by the Imperial German helmets in my collection.

Rembrandt was wealthy and collected armor and went bankrupt. If I was wealthy I’d collect armor! The things I’ve collected I started early on with. I collect antique cars, and the cars and those helmets are almost priceless you have to be a millionaire to own even one. I think one of the most important associations between us is the auspices of starting Juxtapoz; I don’t think if we hadn’t done it that it would have gotten done. I would like to think someone would, but things are so shallow, and young people are so complacent. Juztapoz came out of an underground world of psychedelic posters and surf art and that’s too brutal for people these days. When you’re watching The Daily Show or Colbert you’re being handed a version of the news. It’s very good but what we did wouldn’t have come about without our generation of living in a very inhibited constipated world. There would be no punk rockers without hippies. Without the ‘60s, gays would still be hiding. When I paint I listen to punk rock when I’m doing fast strong work, but I listen to classical when I’m doing concentrated detailed work.

So at what point did you make the decision somehow to come to Los Angeles and make your way to art school? Is that where you met Rick Griffin?

I met Rick through Mouse at RAW studios. But Rick did go to Chouinard, and I took extension courses there, which is called CalArts now, in Valencia.

So how did you meet Ed Big Daddy Roth?

My father in the Deep South was an adventuring kind of man – motorcycles, stock car races, the kind where you took old jalopy cars all souped-up on to dirt tracks to race. That’s where it all started for me, my dad had a bunch of stock cars in a stable and I got a sense of masculinity from dad and the motorcycles and hot rods. You see, in those days, the bravest men would drive them and they were running alcohol and had the bravado, the male ethos. Not sports. Sports?

Baseball put me to sleep, but auto racing was mechanical.

There were these loud knights on horseback in kind of a modern day carrot race – these were cars made in early ‘30s with boxy tops that teen culture called hot rods. And these outcast teens drove these amazing death traps on the street in ‘52 and ‘53. My dad bought me a ‘55 Ford coupe when I was 12 and…

Wait, your dad bought you a car and you were driving when you were 12?

Listen, yes, I had a hot rod and had to drive it on back roads and be careful. But by then I’m driving tractors and farm implements already. You see, I lived on a farm. And at this time my parents had separated for the final time and I moved to Albuquerque and went to a car show and saw Ed and I went up to talk to him. Now a couple years later, I realized that hot rodding was dragging me down and I wanted to be an intelligent artist and friends told me about a low tuition college that I could get into. I tried to stay away from hot rods and, as you know, went to work for Big Daddy Roth. At this time the only art around was abstract expressionism, and I had zero interest in that nonsense.

I had different appetites and I ended up being born for working with Roth. He said, “If I knew you were alive I woulda hunted you up!” I sat right next to him at his drawing board, and at that time I’m 22 and he’s 34 and I’m making all his business decisions. He’s like a father figure; he was like a saint to me. I didn’t like him at first when I met him in New Mexico because everyone from CA was some kind of operator. And he hung out with rasslers and he must be a con man… but people always came out on the best end of the deal with him. I was really wrong, it turned out. Then I met Stanley Mouse there too, who would come visit with Ed. He liked my work from the ads, and later when I got into ZAP, Rick would come over to my house and hang out.

The Ed Big Daddy Roth outlaw biker showdown story: Ed Roth was starting to get away from cars and into chopper motorcycles, and he’d been friends with a certain notorious motorcycle club for years. Choppers were considered to be the scourge of society and commerce would have nothing to do with outlaw bikers and choppers. They saw bikers as heroin addicts and child molesters. But Ed got into the idea of chopper bikes and started pushing that tough guy image.

I was concerned, I said, “Ed, these guys are a bunch of felons,” and Ed was a big guy, and tough. Those guys didn’t bother him. He was close with the president of one of the clubs and said that the president started saying that Ed was making a lot of money off their images. Well, Ed agreed to some sort of extortion, today you might call it a licensing fee or some kind of usage. But over a time they agreed to a split of profits. Well, the president went to prison on the RICO Act and the biker element went away for a while. Along the way, Ed started a magazine called Chopper Magazine, that’s getting out there and Ed’s probably losing money on. But they don’t know any of that, so they think he’s rolling in the dough. The guys from the club eventually came around to the garage while Ed was working on a car, guns drawn. They had a new President, a morbidly obese character named Fat Pat. The club demanded at gunpoint that Ed was going to start paying again. Ed said no. The bikers left. Ed came back in to the office and said, “I’m not paying these guys another goddamn cent!” Now, this didn’t sit well with the club, and word started getting around that they were going to have to put the squeeze on Ed. That’s one chapter, but they have lots of chapters. And word started getting out and they were going to meet over at Roth’s and clean house. Now, Roth had a friend from back east that was a biker and sold drugs, and a friend that ran drag motorcycles that hated bikers. Ed gave them a call and these two guys show up to the garage.

These guys from other chapters of the notorious outlaw biker club start coming in early in the week acting like fools in the building like it’s going to be a problem. Ed told me that I didn’t need to be mixed up with them and hands me a nickelplated little pistol that he kept on a speaker. Ed and the two buddies would go out in the middle of the day and practice shooting, so I’m there at the shop with a nickel-plated pistol – it’s not a masculine gun is what I’m saying. Then, when things started getting more heated, his buddies would pull up mattresses on the roof to guard the place and sit up there with rifles. Not hiding at all. The police came around just once to tell him to not get on the roof or it’s premeditated, but they were just making a social call and then they didn’t come around again. We’d go home from work each day and nothing would happen. Then we’d come in each day and there would be more and more bullet holes in the walls from their guys driving by and shooting up the place a little more each time. So here’s the story you really want; Roth told me to never tell this story and I swore I wouldn’t. I can tell this story only because Ed himself told it publicly just one time at a public seminar years ago. But I’ve never told it… So Roth and his two buddies were working on a Saturday night, and 12 to 15 outlaw bikers from this club came in to the shop. Immediately, one of Roth’s buddies pulls out his pistol and makes them drop their guns. It was the guy that runs

the drag motorcycles and hates bikers.

This guy is rough; I was told this guy was a hit man and had done time. You ain’t gonna get a giggle outta him. He doesn’t do drugs; he’s a good Christian and could easily have been a Marine sergeant. He said to their president, “You know, why don’t we just solve this. Let’s just let you two have a fight and solve this now?” Now, Ed Roth is a black belt in karate but a humble one. He’s a big stocky man’s man, and this obese biker guy President starts rasslin’ and they’re fighting, and it’s like two cub bears rolling and sliding! They tumble into a rack of supplies and all this automobile paint crashes down. It’s a mess. Still one-on-one, no gun. And these two bear-men are in a fight, one man more than the other one. Ed just beats the shit outta that fat bastard and then stands up, congratulates him on kicking his own ass, and squashes it then and there. How can you be mad at a guy that admits to being defeated after he’s destroyed you in a fight? They were bewildered and then they all go wandering off into the night.

Not Roth – he goes back on the roof with a gun. The next day is Sunday and I’m not at the shop yet. But by this time all these little chapters have showed up and come by to see the finale. They want to straighten Roth out, so they all gather out in the alley in Slauson. And Ed’s buddy came out again. No gun. And before anyone can say anything he says, “Let’s

just solve this right here and now. Let’s have a one-on-one between you (points at their President Fat Pat) and Ed (thumbs over his shoulder at Ed).” And everybody stands still AND FAT PAT TAKES OFF! Hahahaha! You can imagine that was the end of any of that. There’s no saving face after that happens.

So your painting ‘Appetite for Destruction’ became super famous, but you saw how that was going to go, didn’t you?

I had done a series of paintings called Super Cartoons, which were meant to be arcane fine art paintings. Well, Axl Rose saw ‘Appetite for Destruction’ and wanted to make an album cover out of it. You see, I cautioned him on how he’s going to get in trouble and all that. But he was only interested in this image and I respect that.

When they started out I let them have this license to use for practically nothing, and that thing went on to sell 14 million records. I’m very proud of that piece of artwork and it’s got all the parts that I had to defend on record and in newspapers for a long time. Feminists were threatening to kill me, and it’s still to this day a bitchin’ piece of artwork. Now, it’s only good as a record cover though.

You have a natural way of expressing your thoughts honestly, and in getting others interested in art, inspiring

people with your art and thoughts.

Have you ever given lectures or taught art classes?

On a number of occasions I’ve been a guest teacher at OTIS. People that are educators in art have made the mistake by telling students that it’s fun: “Look at this fun messy thing!” And art is not always that; it’s hard work. With me, it’s a compulsive discipline. The fun comes with its completion and reflecting on it in time. The actual execution is not fun. I write out the ideas, create sketches, make sure it’s really interesting, has lyricism and harmony. I work sketches around that and if that doesn’t work I clean out my mind and usually find elements in each attempt to use in the final thing. You make yourself sit for that time by trying to climb a ladder without the first 10 steps. You must do drawings. You must transfer the idea or drawing to the canvas. You must have a working knowledge of color to go with that drawing on the canvas. The process is slow. And coat after coat you make a painting. You are limiting yourself by not taking the difficult road and doing the subject an injustice by trying to cheat any step out of that process.

Do you have any remarks to pass on to readers to cap off your thoughts today?

Listen, I was an artist back in the ‘50s and ‘60s and there was only one kind of art –

abstract expressionism. A lot… A LOT has happened since that time, and now is the most opportune time to commit to really doing great work. Painting is more popular now than I’ve ever dreamed about. On the other hand, you can’t go into it willy-nilly.

The very hardship gets rid of this legion of people that think they’re going to be this big new thing artist. In reality, you have to be this serious person and stay on top of your work and learn your craft well. I’ve been in the company of some very famous people and have worked in important collections, and both the alpha collector and the unknown people collect my artwork. Walter Hoops was the one person that helped me the most. He was the top museum curator in the world; he introduced me to Tony Shafrazi and got me into his gallery.

What do you have in the works?

Where can we see your paintings soon?

Releasing my next book with my forthcoming exhibition called Slang Aesthetics. And you may want to check out a recently completed documentary about me called Mr.Bitchin’, which was 20 years in the making and is winning awards. I’ll be having a show an art exhibition at Los Angeles Municipal Art Gallery at Barnsdall Park February 21st to April 12, 2015.

Interview: Spencer Pirdy Batman is Bruce Wayne, Superman is Clark Kent, Spiderman is Peter Parker and Laserwolf is… well, we can’t tell you just yet. By now you’ve heard the name, Laserwolf, you’ve seen his work; it speaks for itself with images that’ll make you stare in astonishment. So, who is Laserwolf? Who is this superhero-like water photographer?

Well, you’ve got to keep reading to find out.

Give us a little background on where you grew up.

I’m from Melbourne Beach, FL. I grew up surfing and fishing Sebastian Inlet, which used to be the best wave in Florida and probably the whole East Coast until the state remodeled the jetty and killed the wedge (1st Peak).

You’re now living on the North Shore fulltime, right?

Yeah, I moved here in the summer of 2009. It was the best thing I ever did. My daughter was born here; I met my wife here and have made some lifelong best friends.

Not to mention all the barrels.

What’s your daily routine on the North Shore during the winter?

Once I’m up, I drown myself in black coffee, check a few cams, do a couple stretches, kiss the Mrs. and daughter and I’m out the door either surfing or shooting.

I’ve recently gotten into mountain biking.

We’ve got some sick downhill stuff around here so if the waves are bad I’ll go ride. I always make sure to find time for the family throughout the day. Then it’s lights out.

Early to bed, early to rise makes a Laserwolf healthy, wealthy and wise.

Your real name is Brandon Campbell, but tell us where the name Laserwolf came from.

It came to me on an intergalactic spirit quest, hahaha. I was doing an art show a few years ago with all these graffiti artists.

I was the only photog and they had all these cool art names (tags). My real name didn’t really flow with the vibe of the show so I signed all my stuff Laserwolf and rolled with it. Now I use it for all my photo credit and art shows. I think the only people that don’t call me Laser, Laserwolf or Wolfie are my family. It’s pretty funny but it’s great for business. Laserwolf stands out and people remember it. I’d be lying if I said I thought my photos were any better than the next guy’s. It’s just all about branding and marketing these days, and I know using a unique name has helped me get to where I’m at. I heard of this photog going by the name Cobrasnake. I wouldn’t remember his real name but who’s gonna forget Cobrasnake or Laserwolf? If I’m a company, I wanna mingle with those guys!

Who’s your favorite subject to shoot?

Mason Ho, for sure! Next to Kelly Slater, he’s my favorite surfer and definitely my favorite to shoot. He’s real fun to travel with and super photogenic in the barrel, but it can also be a challenge because he’s so creative with his surfing. You never know what he’s going to do so you have to be ready for anything, especially when you’re shooting water.

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Kalani Chapman

A lot of people are unaware but you’re actually an underground big-wave guy who likes to tackle outer reefs, Jaws and the like.

Have you always been into surfing big waves?

Haha yeah, something like that. I just love riding waves. Big waves, small waves, 11-foot gun, twin fin, longboard, bodysurf, whatever. I had never surfed anything really big until I moved to Hawaii but before that I had surfed some spots in the Caribbean that can hold up to around 20-foot plus, give or take, on the right swell. I’d been to Puerto Escondido a few times when it was pretty solid. I guess just growing up in Florida, the lack of overhead surf makes us hungry. We would wait all year for a hurricane swell or a surf trip, so when we finally see real surf, we’re out there. There was no sitting on the beach ‘cause it was too big. We just surfed. Back then 8-,10-, 12-foot surf seemed huge but we were on it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to go Shane Dorian out there, but we’ve got some waves here on Oahu that are super fun in the 25-40 ft. range and I’m pretty content with that. I did surf Jaws for the first time this year.

That place is WILD! So, if it’s pumping is it hard for you to decide whether or not to put down the camera and grab your 10’8”? Or do you try to do both?

The struggle is real, brother!

Hahaha. Usually when the outer reefs are working, all the waves on the North Shore are shutting down except for maybe second and third reef Pipe, so I’ll go surf. We only get a handful of big days like that a year and there isn’t a photo opportunity in the world I’d miss it for. It’s the fun, medium sized 8-12 foot barreling days when the suns out and it’s all warm and crispy that are hard for me to decide whether to shoot or surf. I’ve got a family to feed though, so shooting will come first, but if the lighting gets bad or the sellable guys aren’t around then I’ll surf. You gotta keep the priorities like a mullet – business in the front, Puerto Rican surfer cut in the back!

What equipment do you use when shooting?

I use an SPL Water Housing and Canon 1D X with a variety of different lenses. My sponsors Matuse Wetsuits and Da Fin Hawaii keep me warm and in the right spot.

Where are a few places that you enjoy traveling to?

I’ll go anywhere warm with waves, but so far surfing and photography have brought me to the Mentawais, Tahiti, Mexico, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Tortola, Jamaica, Dominica and up and down the East and West Coasts. Australia, Portugal and the Caribbean Side of Panama are next on my list. New Zealand and Scotland too! The water’s cold but I’m itching to get there someday.

Where is your favorite place in the world to shoot?

Tahiti for sure! The waves are amazing, the water is crystal clear and the people are the friendliest I have ever met, just so genuine and full of love. Teahupoo is such a special wave.

Chris Ward Cam Richards

John John Florence

Bryce Younge

Jamie O’ Brien

Mason Ho

Joel Tudor

Archy

Mick Manning

Eli Olson Balaram Stack

Dk Walsh

What is the most important thing you’ve learned through photography?

That I can never stop learning. I’ve only been shooting surfing for three years so I try to make sure I learn something every time I swim out to shoot. Also, lighting is everything! Proper use of lighting can make or break a photo.

Lastly, what are your hopes and dreams for the future?

I go back and forth with that one. The freedom of freelance work is nice, but I really want to land a job as a staff photog/ambassador with a good company, but I know that means a lot less surfing. I’ve been looking into other industry jobs as well. A marketing or team manager position would be pretty rad and I’ve got experience with both. We’ll see where the universe takes me but at the end of the day if my family and I are healthy, happy and having fun then I’m content.

“As a skateboarder growing up in Southern California in the ‘70s, I was fortunate to be there during the first skatepark era. I got to witness skateboarding progress on a daily basis. Sometime around ‘79 I picked up a camera and photography took ahold of me. I photographed my friends and fellow skateboarders; photography became my main interest. I studied it in college and then worked many years at various Hollywood studios learning all that I could. I’ve been a commercial photographer for over 25 years now. It all started with skateboarding and a camera. For the past decade, I again focused on my friends and fellow skateboarders. The “Then and Now” series I’m sharing here shows some images that have close to a 10-year span between them, except for the Steve Caballero and Christian Hosoi images – those were taken 30 years apart. These images are examples of commitment and longevity.

These skaters are lifers and so am I. Thank you BL!SSS Mag for letting me share some of my work.”

-Ray Zimmerman

Lance Mountain 76

Peter Hewitt

Josh Mattson

Josh Rodriguez

Christian Hosoi : Then

Christian Hosoi : Now

The idea behind this series of photographs came to me while editing some photos.

It started with the photograph of Steve Caballero. Looking at it, I knew I’d seen it before. I went into my archives and sure enough I had shot Stevie some 30 years earlier doing the same trick. It was a bonus that Powell had re-released the graphic and it matched the earlier photo. I decided to feature some skaters I’ve shot over the years. These photos are anywhere from 5-10 years apart. In the Steve Caballero and Christian Hosoi photos, I couldn’t revisit the original spots so the trick became the focus. With the newer images I wanted to make sure we revisited the spot and duplicated the trick.

I’ve watched and documented these guys progress over the years. I knew early on that they were lifers. They were skating transition and vert back when no one noticed or cared. It was easy to tell that these guys carried the fire. They’re still burning today and I plan be around to shoot them again in another 10 years.

Tristan Rennie : Then

Tristan Rennie : Now

Ronnie Sandoval : Then

Robbie Russo : Then

Patrick Ryan : Then

Robbie Russo : Now

Patrick Ryan : Now

Ronnie Sandoval : Now

Steve Caballero : Then

Oscar Navarro : Then

Steve Caballero : Now

Oscar Navarro : Now

Al Brunelle

Turkey Stopnick

Daniel Vargas Jeff Grosso

Patrick Ryan

Eddie Moreno

Duane Peters

Pat Ngoho MRZ Self Portrait

Darren Navarrette

“Infected with the skate disease from a very young age, MRZ never put his board down nor his camera. A lifelong skate photographer, he kept us enlightened with the cornucopia of progression, surfacing from the underworld of ‘crete for more than a decade while most of the industry had moved on.”

– Pat Ngoho

Ray Barbee

Paul Rodriguez & Lance Moutain

Mike Rogers

Photography: Zachary Epstein :: @z_epstein Model: Summer Betti :: @summerbetti Stylist: Sophie Rothe :: www.shyva.co

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Top – Hurley hurley.com Overalls – Imperial Motion imperialmotion.com

Top – RVCA rvca.com Overalls – Imperial Motion imperialmotion.com

Top – RVCA rvca.com Shoes - Converse converse.com Jewelry Helm Street Jewelry

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Personally I don’t know Ben too well, as I haven’t had the pleasure of hanging with him enough in the mountains, but I’m definitely a fan of his work and his drive to get out there each and every day to make it happen. Recently, Ben’s epic photos have graced the pages of BL!SSS, and it’s always been hard to choose what to run each month he contributes because there are so many perfect images of unique riders from all over the world.

Because of that, we decided to give Ben his own photo profile this issue so we could run more of his submissions and showcase his talented photos. What I do know about Ben is that he is a humble photographer; he shoots with the top snowboard talent and captures the best moments in some of the best terrain. But what I may like most about him is that he will go out with a lot of the guys that fly under the radar, or the guys you may not have heard of because they are just out snowboarding for the fun of it, regardless of their status in the industry or the amount of sponsors they have. Each time Ben submits photos there are amazing images of guys I haven’t typically seen, or even heard of at the time. Not only do I respect the fact that he will go out with guys that may not get his photos the big bucks, but I also have a high amount of respect for all the work that he puts into just getting one of these shots in the backcountry. It’s no joke going deep into the woods to capture these moments, and that’s why we thought it the perfect time to showcase Ben Gavelda’s hard work in this month’s issue. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

Kael Martin – Mt Baker, Washington.

Kael Martin grew up in the town of Everson, just a ways down from Mt Baker. He and Lucas Debari began shredding the place as youngsters and it’s amazing to see how the place has molded them as riders. I’ve gotten to know Kael pretty well over the last few years and I’ve seen him take down some heavy stuff around Baker. He’s so mellow and unassuming, which is a complete contrast to his bold riding. This photo was shot last season during a heavy snow cycle at Baker. Kael somehow floated down this stack of trees and stomped it out.

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Micah Hoogeveen – Montana.

I met Micah randomly in Alaska a few years back. He was (and still is) an amping young rider who’s easily excited, likes to ramble and tends to really give ‘er on the jumps. He grew up in Grand Junction, Colorado riding the small mountain Powderhorn and has built a lifestyle around chasing backcountry snowboarding. He busts his ass working as a firefighter in the summers and usually lurks around Montana in the winters. He’s one of the most positive people I know and also one of the best to ride with.

Austin Hironaka – Summit at Snoqualmie, Washington.

During the TransWorld SNOWboarding’s Team Shoot Out years ago Austin and some of the Ride team shoveled up this insane BMX style rhythm line through the woods. The set of four jumps curved and gapped through a thick northwest forest. The misty light happened to line up just right, enough to catch him mid spin on the last jump.

Romain De Marchi Fortress Mountain, Alberta.

Romain is a legend. He’s also a fiery, Swiss son-of-a-bitch. I spent some time with him and the Billabong crew led by another veritable legend, Andrew Hardingham, around his Alberta home turf. Billabong lined up access to an old abandoned resort called Fortress Mountain. A snowcat and heli op had just started to run around the existing area and let us run wild with the place. It was ghostly and awesome, lapping runs on snowmobiles under the vacant lifts and passing by the empty lodges and lift shacks.

Taylor Carlton – Mt Baker, Washington.

I met Taylor Carlton for the first time with the Airblaster crew at Mt. Baker. When the snow is stacked as it usually is, you can get into such insane terrain. This is a familiar line visible from the parking lot. It happened to form up nicely with the waterfall and stable snow this day. Taylor sent it on this one, pretty much landing out of frame. Just another people’s champ that Taylor.

Moss Holladay

Blair Habenicht – Cortina D’Ampezzo, Italy.

Blair and I met on a death-march of a splitboard trip in Colorado’s San Juan Mountains about seven years go. Since then we’ve shared some pretty cool trips and riding. Here in Cortina D’Ampezzo, in Italy’s Dolomite Mountains, Blair hiked across the valley from one of the lifts after the resort closed.

I waited and hid from the patrol and workers and pounded a bottle of wine as the sun began setting and Blair rallied this line.

Kyle Miller – Montana.

This photo encompasses what I crave about snowboarding – chasing snow out in the backcountry with friends and having a good ol’ time doing it. No stress, no mega production crap, just a bunch of shit talk with the boys and party runs for all. Todd Kirby, Micah Hoogeveen, Shane Stalling, Kael Martin, Kyle Martin and I were out exploring a new zone in Montana when Kyle sized up this switch method road gap.

Agenda Long Beach kicked off the tradeshow season and the new year in fine form, as the first action sports, sneaker, lifestyle and streetwear show of 2015.

It seems like it’s always 80 degrees and sunny out when we’re at the Agenda show and this year was no different. With the Long Beach Convention Center to do business in, and plenty of the city’s best restaurants and bars within walking distance, January 5th and 6th were the perfect days to start off the workweek by mixing in a lot of work with a bit of pleasure.

The show was packed each day from start to finish. A few highlights included an actual llama being in attendance (with a big bag of weed to keep it nourished throughout the day), the Hurley Printing Press drawing throngs of people, and the Burton booth that got everyone riled up with a game of ‘Stump’ at the end of each day – which proved to be pretty hilarious once people started to get a few drinks in. Of course, at the end of each day there were plenty of festivities that followed. Smith threw a party to celebrate their 50th anniversary and YG played a live show at the back patio of the convention center amongst plenty of other happenings.

There’s a good chance that every time you head to Agenda you’ll be pretty exhausted by day’s end. With all the walking, talking and handshaking it seems to wear you down even with all of the delicious food trucks out back waiting to fuel you up. On Tuesday evening though there was a special surprise for those lucky enough to hang around and attend Agenda Emerge. Emerge was a meeting of some of the brightest minds in our industry. The list of names who spoke included Shepard Fairey, Tinker Hatfield, Bob Hurley, Lyndon Cormack, C.R. Stecyk III, Mike Ness and Ryan Hurley. If you were there, then your ears were struck with gold. After that, it was a wrap for Agenda Long Beach as the crew and many exhibitors packed their bags and set their eyes on New York. Congrats to all of the new, old and in-between brands out there, keeping our amazing industry as strong as ever. We’ll see everyone again come summertime for 2015’s round two of Agenda Long Beach.

1. The Salty Crew 2. Agenda Long Beach overview 3. ourCaste took home the best in show award for Best Small Booth. 4. Chris Friel, Tal Cooperman and Eddie Wall 5. Hurley Printing Pressers Max Jolliffe, Addy Giddings, JP Olson and Lei Hookano 6. Jared, Shephard Fairey, C.R. Stecyk III and Bobby Tribal 7. Mark Willingham and Reid Watanabe 8. Roark line showing 9. Vestal’s Johnny Gehris and Derek Boucher 10. Cutlass’s Casey Sullivan, Dean Bradley and Martin Stern 11. Burton’s outdoor setup 12. Jason Arnold and Macey Mullen

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PHOTO:TIM AGUILAR

JEREMY LEABRES BACKSIDE BLUNTSLIDE @activerideshop | #activePro | @jeremy_leabres Bliss-Leabres.indd 1

1/7/15 12:06 PM

Words: Lauren Burke Did I make money, was I proud, did I play my songs too loud? Did I leave my life to chance or did I make you fucking dance? [“Global Concepts,” Robert Delong] And f*%*king dance they did. Robert Delong returned to Mammoth and dropped some serious beats as the ball dropped on the almost 1,000 partygoers at Canyon Lodge this past New Year’s Eve. Throngs of San Diego, Orange County and Los Angeles shredders flock to Mammoth for the holidays each year, making the annual Canyon Lodge New Year’s Eve celebration one for the books – 2014 was no different. Franki Chan kicked off the night with his imaginative and

upbeat style, leading into Robert Delong’s headlining set of utterawesomeness on the Main Stage. Beautiful girls roamed the building with neon face paint and there was champagne galore being poured for those lucky enough to have scored a VIP ticket. Despite truly frigid temperatures, New Year’s Eve is the rare occasion in Mammoth where ladies emerge decked in their finest cocktail attire looking to warm up on the dance floor with eager crews of “snow-bros.”

As the night neared an end Pink and Carey Hart emerged with their posse – all dressed in full ‘80s hip-hop attire to countdown to 2015. It was a highlight of the night for sure. Cheers to the Mammoth staff who makes these events possible, and here’s to a happy and successful New Year filled with endless pow.

Photos: Peter Morning & Kevin Westenbarger 1. Professional crowd hyper 2. Happy New Year from a lot of very beautiful, talented people including gurfers Quincy Davis & Kelia Moniz 3. Making good use of the dance floor 4. An abundance of accessories were to be found 5. Make-out central 6. “We woke up like this” 7. The typical Mammoth ratio, featuring Jaeger Bailey & Greg Bretz 8. #girlsinhats 9. Wait, was this Burning Man or New Years’ Eve? Mark Clausen, Tessa Clausen & Tommy Smith don’t seem to care 10. Ringing in the New Year with new friends 11. Dude on the left definitely thought he was at Burning Man 12. Free mustache ride?

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JOIN THE 2 MILE-HIGH CLUB

GET UNZIPPED AT 11,053 FT FOR SPRING BREAK AT MAMMOTH MOUNTAIN. SKIP THE SECURITY LINE AND HEAD FOR THE LIFT LINES. FLY IN THE PARK INSTEAD.

FACILITIES UNDER PERMIT FROM INYO NATIONAL FOREST.

Words: Ashton Maxfield NorCal’s Bolinas Museum was packed with more than 500 people for the opening exhibits of Element Advocates Thomas Campbell and Brian Gaberman on the afternoon of January 24th. Many from Marin County and the art and skate community across the bridge in San Francisco attended the event to be the first to see the new exhibit and hear directly from Thomas and Brian. The good times rolled into the afterparty where skateboarding legend Tommy Guerrero laid down some jazzy grooves, Sandy’s of Marin and Fantasy Bracelet played, while party goers enjoyed the free-flowing Lagunitas Beers.

If you weren’t there it’s not too late to see Brian Gaberman’s A Life in Transition exhibit or Thomas Campbell’s Strewnfield. Both of these exhibits will be up at the Bolinas Museum until April 5. Campbell’s

exhibit features a range of his creative output, including a large-scale wall panel, intricate paper quilts, ceramics and new bronze sculptures.

He also re-created his sewing room, complete with the incredible mountains of paper used as source materials in his unique sewn paper compositions.

Gaberman’s exhibition features a diverse body of photographs shot across the globe during his years working for Element. Anyone that’s been actively following skateboarding in the years since Gaberman’s work first appeared in Transworld SKATEboarding in 2002 has certainly seen his work. The inspiring and impactful art inside the Bolinas Museum is worth a trip to the Bay Area, and while you are there you might want to head over to SF to bomb a hill and skate a few of the city’s incredible spots.

Photo: Ramon Hess 1. Man of the night – Sir Thomas Campbell 2. The crowd factor was just right 3. Yeah, that’s art 4. Element advocate Brian Gaberman had some amazing skate photography adorning the walls as well 5. Tommy Guerrero knows how to pack the house 6. The man – Tommy Guerrero 7. Fantasy Bracelet bringing the crowd to the floor

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Interview: Max Ritter Photo: Cara Robbins Lay low for a while, there are werewolf ghosts lurking the 67 moons of Jupiter. Interview with Jack Name.

Jack is probably really not your name, so is it all right if I call you Jack?

Oh, Jack is my name. Everybody called me Jack since I was a baby. There is some misinformation out there about that. Yeah, Jack is good.

How does the new record Weird Moons translate from last year’s LP Light Show; are they tied into each other?

It’s basically a continuation of Light Show conceptually. There is a fictional element to the stuff I do lately. I kind of have the idea that it’s a trilogy in progress and this would be part two.

I like how the album art between the two records is consistent too – looks good.

Oh yeah! That’s Jessie, she’s amazing. Jessie Stead. She is kind of my go-to person for all things visual.

I feel like with album art sometimes the artists don’t get as much credit as they probably should.

Yeah, that might be true. I consider myself lucky to have somebody that has her own thing going on and I actually like what she does. I mean, her stuff is totally different than the designs she does for the albums; it’s from the same world but… It’s cool, I am a lucky guy.

Going back to the subject matter of your songs and the sci-fi-ness, where does that come from? How come you’re not writing the typical relationship stuff lyrics?

I don’t really like normal movies or TV. That kind of stuff just isn’t really for me. The music, or movies, or books I do like all kind of evoke some kind of imagination response in me. For example, say there are three Star Wars movies but there are however many of those books, so you know there is this huge story behind it and there is all this weird shit that could go on.

Even if there is something I don’t like about the movie, the idea that there is this extra shit or extra material that you can kind of fill in the blanks with your imagination is good. There is this whole world or universe out there to think about. I like that stuff and it’s more interesting

to me, you know what I mean?

Yeah, you can kind of go as deep as you want with it.

Yeah, and I think it does include relationships and that shit. To me, those kinds of things exist within this bigger thing, like maybe it’s a sci-fi concept but there is room for relationship in there. There are still characters and they are still supposed to be people, so you still have the opportunity to write about those normal things but you don’t have to do it in a way that’s so… I guess for me it’s doing it so it’s just not all about me, you know? I like presenting things in a different way. I guess it’s also just sort of the way my brain works.

I keep going back to the song “Waiting on another Moon.” It’s probably my favorite on the album. What’s that one about?

My idea with Light Show was you had these two gangs and one of them gets out of control and gets sort of like a totalitarian regime or whatever. The bad guys end up winning and the good guys get killed. So, in this part two (Weird Moons), they are in heaven and their religion is they go to Jupiter and they are all werewolves. Jupiter has 67 moons.

So, if you think of that in context of what happens to a werewolf on Earth, when a full moon happens… on Jupiter there are 67 moons so they are just constantly turning into different shapes and just have this crazy chaotic existence. So, I don’t really know if it’s heaven or would just be a crazy stressful and confusing place (laughs), or maybe it’s just a mixture of both. On “Waiting For Another Moon” one of these werewolves has been dealing with all this chaos and one of the Galilean moons of Jupiter is this moon called Io, and I believe Io is the closest one to Jupiter. There is some kind of crazy relationship with electricity going back and forth between Io and Jupiter… I mean, you can nerd out on this as much as you want.

Wait, how do you know so much about Jupiter?

I knew the story had to be about werewolves on a planet with a lot of moons and I was researching space. I had already decided it was going to be about that but when I realized Jupiter has tons of moons it was kind of like, “Whoa.” Then I just started researching more and more about that and the myths behind the Galilean moons, which were discovered by Galileo obviously… He named those five after Zeus’s lovers. Jupiter is like another name for Zeus basically.

So the album is based on a fictional story you created but a lot of it is based on actual facts?

A lot of it is based on science or other mythology. The religion that these people are coming from and their whole world is kind of a parallel universe to ours, so it’s convenient for me. I can kind of just go nuts on whatever I want. And why should I not? Anyway, Io is one of the moons and that’s their favorite one. Every moon turns them into something different or maybe different moons have them pulling in between two different shapes and it can get really stressful; however, Io comes and they just evaporate into steam or nothing. Maybe it sends a shockwave across the planet and they are just turned to particles and temporarily they disintegrate. For them it’s awesome because there is just no form at all. They are just kind of in this state that would kind of be the closet thing to a real-deal heaven. They just evaporate. So the werewolf in the song you’re talking about is waiting for Io to come and blow him away. So it’s kind of a romantic song in a way.

Dude! Gnarly. You are not fucking around with the whole science fiction world you have created. I love it. That’s insane.

No. (Laughs) I mean I spend a lot of time alone.

So that explains the video for “Running with Ganymede” (Ganymede is an actual moon of Jupiter).

Totally. Yeah, my brother made that one; he’s been up to date on all this weird stuff the whole time, so it’s really cool.

Have you ever thought of trying to make like a book companion or comic book or something like that? Seems like you can take all this to a different medium than music.

Things like that cross my mind. All these crazy things I am thinking… I don’t know if anybody is ever going to get any of that just from listening to the music and that’s fine with me.

Say you just listen to the music and don’t even think about it, that’s fine with me. I kind of want people to put whatever they are going to put into it. To me, that is kind of an important thing about just completing any music or art; it’s the fact that somebody on the other side is going to take it and put it into their own brain and it’s going to be their own thing and not yours anymore. That’s kind of the point. It’s an interesting idea.

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I haven’t seen you play live yet; how does this stuff translate live? How do you play it?

It all kind of depends on the situation but for this next tour there will be three of us. There is a guitar and then just a lot of electronics.

I just try to make it as loud as possible. It’s kind of funny because a lot of venues are still set up for the bar band situation, you know?

We kind of need like a crazy hip-hop system though (laughs).

You don’t play with live drums? Is it like a backing track, or what?

No it’s a live drummer but he’s playing electronic drums. Sometimes I’ll take a synth and make a kick drum sound with that or something. So it could sound like that or samples. I want to have just crazy sounds, like with the drums you should feel your stomach move.

So, things could end up sounding pretty drastically different every night as far as the arrangements and how the songs are played?

Yeah, totally. There was a time a while ago I would have a totally different band every time I had a show. Where it would be like, “Ok, today we have five horn players” (laughs). I think we got up to 14 people at one point. It was ridiculous. Then another time it would be all guitars or something like that. Nowadays, I think I am kind of into having a couple people that are consistent, coupled with a small amount of stuff and having things be as loud as possible. I mean, usually it’s kind of more a monolithic thing. When we doing Light Show there was just two of us and a crazy drum machine. It didn’t sound like the album at all; it was just these gnarly, mean-sounding synth versions of the album, which kind of led to the sound of this new album.

Will you keep working on Jack Name in the coming months?

Yeah, hopefully tour a little more. I was on the road for a long time and I got to spend a few months at home and that was really nice.

I kind of want to spend a good chunk of the year making whatever the next record is going to be, just staying at home and being nerdy I guess.

Jack Name’s Weird Moons is out now on Castle Face records, and he will be touring this month with Ariel Pink.

Thanks, Jack!

R O O S E V E L T - G O L D W H I T E 3 - H A N D J A P A N E S E M O V E M E N T @ V E S T A L W A T C H | V E S T A L W A T C H . C O M

Review: Max Ritter

Run The Jewels Run The Jewels 2 Mass Appeal Killer Mike and EL-P raised $65k on Kickstarter to have every good producer on the planet remake this album entirely with cat sounds. It’s going to be called Meow The Jewels…

Meeoooww!

Joey Bada$$ B4.DA.$$ Cinematic Music Group Sisqo’s “Thong Song” was an early influence on Joey Bada$$, so we both have that in common. I saw it on Nardwaur The Human Serviette. Doot doot da loot do ahhhh… whatever.

Spirit Club Eye Dozer b/w Sling Ghost Ramp I’m liking the first listen to Nathan William’s (Wavves) latest collaboration with Jeans Wilder and his brother Sweet Valley Joel. The LP is coming in the spring on their own label Ghost Ramp. They are all also in a boogie board gang so watch out.

Michael Rault Nothing Means Nothing b/w Still Not Sad Burger Records Michael Rault, you’re looking Neil Young-esque on that cover, my dude.

These songs are righteous though; Neil would probably dig them on his Pono Player. The LP is coming in the spring on Burger Records.

Kid Congo Powers & The Pink Monkey Birds The Echo, Los Angeles, CA Friday, January 16th, 2015 Review & Photo: Max Ritter

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I’ll never see The Cramps but I did get to see Kid Congo Powers play “Garbage Man” with The Pink Monkey Birds. They also played a nice tribute to the late Kim Fowley, RIP. Kid Congo has played stints in The Cramps, The Gun Club and Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds. Still ripping!

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