BL!SSS Magazine | February 2016 | #102

JULIAN WILSON SIGNATURE BOARDSHORT

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randoms • 28 product • 32 alison moritsugu • 34 c.finley • 36 andrew doheney • 38 super taste • 42 todos santos challenge • 44 luke pelletier • 46 wade goodall • 48 masayoshi sukita • 52 tom carey photo feature • 58 bruno park photo feature • 66 scott listfield • 72 colorado • 76 what a time to be alive • 82 bear mountain powder days • 84 mark oblow • 86 motorhead • 88 reviews • 89 groms • 90

david bowie by masayoshi sukita

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F A M I L Y

# I N S P I R E D B Y R V C A

T H E B A L A N C E O F O P P O S I T E S

Cons Metric CLS Comfort. Lightweight. Stability.

Made by Jake Johnson

S16 Photos ...Chris Schoonover Models ...Jack Page Ezekielusa.com — 92

all we HAVE IS NOW

Editor-in-Chief nick kalionzes nick@blisssmag.com

Editor

joey marshall joey@blisssmag.com

Creative DirectoR mark paul deren : madsteez madsteez@madsteez.com

a ssistant editor delon isaacs delon@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

advertising ads@blisssmag.com

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, Bruce Beach, 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, Bruce Beach

BL!SSS Magazine

FEBRUARY 2016

413 31st Street 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.

Photo: Masayoshi Sukita If your favorite shop isn’t receiving BL!SSS Magazine please contact info@blisssmag.com

RVCA BOARDROOM: CHRISTIAN FLETCHER

As of a couple weeks ago RVCA is to excited to announce “The Boardroom” on www.rvca.com, which is a exclusive collection of handmade surfboards by the brand’s very own advocates and artists that can be purchased by the public. To kick off this concept, RVCA has elected Christian Fletcher and Madhouse Kustomz to be the first installment.

Head over to the website and check out these one-of-a-kind boards shaped and colored by Christian Fletcher. I don’t think we’ve ever experienced a surfboard so colorful and unique.

IGGY POP TO RELEASE A NEW ALBUM THIS YEAR

Holy hell batman, Iggy Pop, one of the last legit rock-n-rollers left, announced last month that he’s been working on releasing a new album entitled Post Pop Depression. The album is set to release some time mid March, and will be a collaborative album between Iggy and Josh Homme (Queens of the Stone Age/ Eagles of Death Metal) plus other members of the Artic Monkeys and Dead Weather. As of now Mr. Pop has released two songs, “Gardenia” and “Break Into Your Heart.” If you head over to iTunes you can listen to the tracks yourself and pre-order the new album!

Pop and Homme just announced a tour to back the album as well!

SAVE CHANNEL STREET

Help stick it to the man. As of a year ago, Channel Street Skatepark has been closed due to Cal Trans/POLA construction on the 110 FWY, right above our beloved little concrete bowl heaven. The construction was only supposed to last a year, and the return of the skatepark was promised back to skaters with their yearlong compliance. However, that is no longer is the deal. After being a skateboard landmark for over a decade now, Channel Street faces threats of being shut down, as the city has slapped the park with numerous new permits, liability insurance, and possibly rental costs for the property, which is just bullshit. Help save the park, and donate whatever you can by heading over to gofundme.com/channelstreet.

TAVIK’S DALEY CAMERA BAG

Finding the perfect camera bag is no easy task. Just ask our creative director Madsteez, who spends hundreds of dollars and equal hours scouring the Internet in search of the perfect bag. If you’re not looking to break the bank we’ve just come across the best option we’ve ever seen, the new Daley Camera Bag by Tavik. It includes all you’d expect from a top-of-the-line camera bag: removable padded lens trays, Velcro dividers, a plethora of waterproof pockets, tri-pod straps, padded shoulder traps… you get the drift. But what really sets this bag apart is its sleek look and its waterproof rain cover, an essential for all hardcore traveling photographers.

Get yours today at finer retailers and at tavik.com.

TRIBONG PLATINUM X

The heritage of Billabong is reincarnated with the re-launch of their iconic Tribong boardshort in Platinum X performance fit. This boardshort fits better, surfs lighter and dries faster. With fresh new color combinations and disruptive patterns, this classic style is what a boardshort should look like. The featured Fronds colorway is new World Tour member Jack Freestone’s signature short, and it can be found online at Billabong.com or at favorite your local shop.

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50 YEARS OF VANS AND THE LEGACY OF THE SK8-HI

The Super Bowl isn’t the only big thing to celebrate a 50th year anniversary this year, as Vans Footwear also hit the big 5-0 in 2016. In celebration of being the original action sports footwear/apparel brand, Vans would like to commemorate one of the most OG shoes in the game, the Sk8-Hi. Taking over the streets in 1978, the Sk8-Hi was originally designed by skaters for skateboarding. With its core deeply rooted in action sports, the Sk8-Hi has since been embraced by communities within music, fashion and art, and has grown to represent the creative cultures and personalities of the past, present and future. To demonstrate the versatility and history of the shoe, Vans elected ambassadors Steve Caballero, Syd The Kid, Lizzie Armanto, Jay Howell, Natalie Westling and Henry Rollins to share their stories.

VESTAL VILLAGE 2016

The New Year brings new life as Vestal announced a big move for Vestal Village 2016. Any of you that have partaken in the legendary Vestal Village these past six years knows what to expect, but if you still haven’t made it to this 72-hour affair of music, camping, desert-partying and all-around good time, believe us when we tell ya this is not an event to miss. With a new, closer, bigger, better-than-ever venue, this invite-only party is gonna be one for the record books. Going down the first weekend of Coachella (April 14-17), figure out a way to get the invite so you and your friends can enjoy the hosted VIP pool parties, secret musical performance, 100+ acre hiking trails, all-night bonfires and a whole lot more. Additional info can be found at vestalvillage.com.

OCTOPUS TRACTION

What’s got a better grip than eight tentacles full of suctions that can slither and squeeze it’s way into unbelievable pockets and caverns? That’s right, nothing. Which is exactly why your new board is begging for an Octopus traction pad. From mastermind Dion Agius and his motley crew of usual suspects, this new traction is a must-have that lets you fly higher, slide farther and pretty much will keep your foot where it belongs at all times while in the lineup. Don’t believe us? Well how about Nate Tyler or Chippa Wilson, both of which have signature grips.

BILLABONG SURF REPORT APP

The crew at Billabong just came out with a FREE Surf Report App for all of us to enjoy. The BBG Surf Report App is powered by Surfline and gives you access to their HD cams, forecasts and weather reports all over the world. The app also has unique features such as ‘Alert Me When It’s Pumping,’ that lets you select the conditions you want (wave height, swell, tide, wind or water temperature) and it’ll alert you when this is happening.

This app is easy to use, contains great imagery and, yes, we’ll say it again, is absolutely FREE to download. Visit the App Store today and make scoring a whole lot easier.

CREED MCTAGGART TRI SET 4.7

If you haven’t noticed, Creed spends a lot of time above the lip and lying down powerful gouges – kind of like a modern day Pancho Sullivan, but weirder and more Australian. For that kind of speed and control he wanted to go with a larger template with a proven outline, and that’s exactly what you’ll find with his all-new signature Captain Fin Co. fin. So whether you are taking it to the air or laying it on a rail, the Creed McTaggart fin has you covered. Check in at www.captainfin.com to find it, and while you’re there check out Captain’s all-new apparel goodies.

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left to right • Hurley, Phantom 303 - $450, hurley.com • Billabong, 4/3 Furnace Pro Zipperless Fullsuit - $309.95, billabong.com • Quiksilver, AG47 Performance 3/2 Chest Zip Fullsuit - $324.95, quiksilver.com • Body Glove, Voodoo 4/3 Slant Zip Fullsuit - $299.99, bodyglove.com • Captain Fin Co., The Walter - $280, captainfin.com • Vissla, 7 Seas 3/2 Fullsuit $199, vissla.com • Rip Curl, E Bomb Chest Zip 4/3 - $339.99, ripcurl.com • Xcel, Infiniti Comp Artist Collection Fullsuit 4/3 - $334.95, xcelwetsuits.com • Isurus, I-Elite 434 - $529.95, surfisurus.com • Patagonia, R2 Yulex/Nexkin Front Zip Fullsuit - $529, patagonia.com • O’Neill, Mutant 4/3 - $359.95, oneill.com • Matuse, Hoplite 4/3 Fullsuit - $525, matuse.com

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interview • liz rice mccray photo • courtesy of the artist and littlejohn contemporary (littlejohncontemporary.com)

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Your log series is unique and thought provoking; trees are both the subject and the canvas. Will you give some insight to this series?

I began to paint on logs in 1993 while at an artist residency in upstate New York. I had been painting small, detailed landscapes on wood panels and planned to do a series of these while there. On my morning walks through the wooded residency grounds I saw neatly stacked cords of firewood.

The cut ends of these logs created a smooth, flat surface, and I became more interested in painting on the logs than on the wood panels I had brought with me.

I choose to paint on logs because I am interested in the juxtaposition and tension created by having an idealized image of nature on a section or sample of real nature. By taking the landscape out of its familiar context, the framed canvas, and contrasting it with real wood and bark, I hope to show that we must establish a relationship with nature that comes not from idealized imagery but from a more direct and humble interaction with the earth.

Where do you get your canvas? We mean the trees, how do you pick them?

The logs I use for my paintings are from trees that come down in storms or from trees people have already cut down and are going to chip or use for firewood. I let the wood dry completely, usually five to 10 years. The large torso-sized log used for my recent sculpture “Talisman” came from my neighbor’s pear tree. My husband and I were awoken by the sound of chain saws and chippers. We managed to save the log before it was cut into firewood. I had this particular log for 13 years before figuring out what to do with it. So you see, I don’t pick the tree. I work with what is available and the final piece is informed by the log over time as it dries in my studio.

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You grew up in Hawai‘i and you’re now living in Beacon, New York. Will you tell us about your experience. Do you miss Hawai‘i?

I grew up in the islands in the late ‘60s and ‘70s when Hawai‘i still felt isolated and not as globally connected as it is today. As a child, I played in the streams and hiked to the waterfall near our house. Summers were spent on the island of Kaua‘i visiting my grandparents. They were born and raised on Kaua‘i and passed onto me an unspoken respect for the land and reverence for the ocean and weather.

Growing up in Hawai‘i has greatly influenced my work and the way I view nature.

I miss Hawai‘i but the trips back are bittersweet – much of the natural and cultural landscape has changed since my childhood. Although Hawai‘i is one of the world’s most isolated archipelagos, my story is one repeated everywhere as we witness the landscape we grew up with change over time.

When did you realize that you wanted to represent nature through art? Can you remember your first painting?

Prior to painting landscapes, I made abstract monoprints and collages. I started to paint in oils in graduate school and was drawn to the landscape in an attempt to capture some of the effects of light and luminosity found in nature.

I don’t remember my first painting but I do remember a particular watercolor I did in 5th grade of Hālona Blowhole on O‘ahu. Hālona Blowhole is a natural geological occurrence formed from a molten lava tube, which extends from the land to the ocean. When strong waves hit, water travels back along this tube and shoots upwards into the air like a geyser.

I visited Hālona Blowhole this past summer. It was thronged

with tourists clamoring over lava rocks to get the perfect photo with their selfie sticks. After all these years, a painting done in 5th grade still resonates with me and serves as a measure for how our relationship to the land has changed.

What is your favorite thing about living in New York?

This may sound strange coming from someone who grew up in Hawai‘i, but I have grown to love the change of seasons on the mainland. In fact, this is one of my favorite things about New York – it’s become a way of marking time and experiences. As a painter, I also love the subtle, changing quality of light throughout the year, especially in the Hudson River Valley. It is no wonder the Hudson River School of painting began in this area.

You just had a solo show at Littlejohn Contemporary in New York City; will you tell us about the exhibition?

My exhibition, titled inconsequence/in consequence, explores our relationship with the natural world and with a changing environment. The show included paintings on log slices, sculpture, works on paper and wallpapers, which highlight how seemingly small changes in this relationship can have potentially larger implications in the future.

What’s coming up next for you and where can people check out more of your work?

I am working on some multi-sectional log paintings. These paintings, made up of log slices with bark intact, hang on the wall to form a composite image. These will be shown with selected work from inconsequence/in consequence at Littlejohn Contemporary (www.littlejohncontemporary.com) in New Canaan, CT in March. More of my work can be seen on my website, www.alisonmoritsugu.com.

eidonsurf.com

Live | Travel | Surf

interview • liz rice mccray

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This month we had the pleasure of interviewing the charismatic and lovely C. Finely about her elaborate geometric paintings and her wallpapered dumpster project. Make sure to check out more of her work at cfinley.com. Thank you C. Finely for taking the time to answer our questions. We will surely stay in touch.

Will you please introduce yourself to our reader?

I am best known for elaborate paintings, skillful use of color and activism through street art. Previous projects include the 2014 Whitney Houston Biennial: I’m Every Woman (a project that featured 85 female artists) and the Wallpapered Dumpsters Project: I Want to Inspire You. Currently I am creating talismans that are hung strategically to wake up to, creating imagery that is specific to what makes your heart sing first thing in the morning. It is so important to keep images that inspire beauty, joy and rapture in your home close to your heart. There is never enough color!

You live and work both in Rome and New York

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City. How do you split your time?

Lately it has been September through January in New York and February through August in Rome.

But who really knows? It is important for me to stay flexible and to be spontaneous.

Please tell us about your Wallpapered Dumpster Project?

My mission statement is “I want to inspire.”

My work is meant to excite! My Wallpapered Dumpster Project is all about the practice of loving the environment and inspiring people to view dumpsters as works of art. If this is accomplished, consciousness has been raised. Environmental activism does not have to be ugly, utilitarian, or simply images of landfills. In fact, it needs to be relentlessly glorious so that people will be inspired to take action. I do consider myself an ecosexual.

The more exciting we make ecosex the better; everyone will come back wanting more.

What are some of your consistent influences?

The New York Public Library picture file, Chinese landscape painting, Matisse, Michelangelo, live

performances (dance, cabaret, La MaMa theater), Color-aid, Rome, Bernini, music, fashion, thrift stores, Venice, NYC, the cosmos.

What mediums do you mainly work with?

I am primarily a painter, and I like to paint with water-based mediums like acrylic and gouache.

I also use wallpaper, costume jewelry and found objects. I like to stay open to the ideas and use whatever material necessary to create in the moment. Is collaboration a medium? I collaborate with dancers, performers, filmmakers, and lots of other artists.

Do you have any upcoming projects you can share with us? Where can people check out more of your art?

I am very excited for two upcoming solo shows in September at the La MaMa Galleria in New York City. In November, I will have a show at the Greenlease Gallery in Kansas City. You can always find me at iamfinley.com, @iamfinley on Instagram and Finley Christine on Facebook. Please keep in touch and let me know if you want a painting to wake up to!

interview & photo • delon isaacs

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Andrew Doheny brushes dry, won’t bother with toothpaste, shaves everyday and bleaches his fucking hair. He’s a Weezer listener and his eyes are always open. This sums up Droid and his shaping abilities. He doesn’t care much about the corporate bulldozer and would rather support his friends and family. He finds simplicity in the most far out way. He can shape swallows, bat tails, moon tails, sharp rails, round nose concave, flat deck or whatever you want. His mind will always subdue to your deep subconscious, Andrew’s shaping is the epitome of lust.

– Ford Archbold How often do you fall in and out of shaping? Do you only shape when you run out of boards? And are you riding any other shaper’s boards at the moment?

In the summer, usually when it gets hot and the shaping bay gets super hot, I probably shape less. I feel way more creative when it’s quiet and gloomy. What the weather is doing really influences whether or not and how I shape. I’m pretty much always on the fence with running out of boards. When I get low I shape, but usually I’ll just shape when I have a new idea in my mind. Randomly I’ll have all these ideas in my brain about a board, then I kinda just go in the bay and figure it out. When I’m not riding my own boards, I always try to ride a couple Mayhems and a couple Pandas or even some other random shaper.

What’s your relationship with Wave Tools? Is this where you first picked up shaping?

I picked up shaping on my own. I used to buy blanks at Pure Glass and just shape them at my house with bare minimum tools, and it would end up taking a long ass time. Months later a friend from Home Grown drove up with a bunch of tools for me and that was the first time I learned how to use 36 38

a planer. Wave Tools is a Newport board company from the ‘60s started by Lance Collins. Ever since RS became a part of Wave Tools, that’s kind of when I started shaping there and that’s where I’ve been shaping since. There’s always an open window to shape and the guys there are classic – it’s like having a second home.

Did you use to cringe or was it flattering when you used to compete and competitors would chime in during your heat, boasting about how you were the only kid out there winning heats on your own handmade surfboards?

Um, I kind of liked that actually, thought it was cool. It was pretty risky for me to ride my uneven boards during some of those competitions, especially since they kind of had such an impact on how my “career” would go. It didn’t really matter whether the boards I were making at that time were good or bad. Making my boards during those times really pumped me up to be doing what I was doing.

Could you ever see yourself transitioning into just being a fulltime shaper and making ends meet that way? Or is it kind of a nice hobby you just enjoy doing?

As of now it’s just a creative hobby of mine, but I don’t know.

But yeah, maybe one day if things lined up and there were other people involved that could help me. Yeah, I could that see it happening. It’s a pretty time-consuming thing to do and I have other things that I would like to accomplish first.

Do you currently take orders and shape boards for random people? Or do you only make boards for yourself and the boys?

Um, pretty much just my friends and myself, or anyone else I know who’s persistently hitting me up to shape a board, haha.

I’ve shaped boards for Ford, you (Delon), Kyle Kennelly,

Dane Reynolds, Alex Smith, Ben Brough, Beau, Creed, Thom Pringle… um, Metal Jimmy… and shaping one for Knost right now.

Whose a random surfer you would think it would be funny/nice to shape a board for?

Taj, been thinking about shaping a board for Taj for sometime now and I have an idea. Would like to shape a couple more for like Dane and yeah, a bunch more guys.

What’s this bat tail phase you’re going through right now?

Oh yeah, bat tail phase, let’s see… I’ve shaped a million swallow tails and squashes; bat tails are one of the only tails I haven’t done, like, at all, so I had to just shape a couple of bats to get it out my system. They’ve been going good though, I like them. The bat tail I guess makes the board a little more flexible for wider boards. Chimed rails with that have been working really good with them too. I don’t know, still figuring it out.

Lastly, when’s Metal Neck 2 going to drop? How’s everything been going filming for Tromberg’s next Newport Shores masterpiece?

Spring 2016. Going to for sure have one huge, well hopefully huge, premier somewhere here in Newport. (“Andrew, am I still in the movie?” Metal Jimmy asks, cutting into the interview.) Well we were meant to start right after the first one, but I had to take time off for Psychic Migrations, and then I was just doing web clips, then pretty much started the first trip in Australia last February. First six months had shit luck with finding good waves, but the ball’s been rolling pretty good lately, as we’re approaching our set deadline. Pretty excited actually for the release.

UNLEASH YOUR STOKE Your 3,500-acre pow-fi lled playground – winter is on.

ATHLETE: SHAYNE POSPISIL

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photography • dominic petruzzi • @dominicpetruzzi model • mckenna • @mckennaberkley • ford la hair & makeup • mo • @mo55 • www.twointoten.com

photo & words • bruce beach I got a text on Friday, January 15th from photographer Jason Murray straight from Jaws that it was “GIANT” and Todos would be the biggest it has been in 10 years for the WSL Todos Challenge on Sunday. On Saturday afternoon Jason was out shooting Jaws again, and at 1:19 p.m. his text confirmed we were on: “I’ll see u at the crack in SD. AK Flt# 814. Arrives SD @504AM.” Murray loaded his gear and my wingman Max Beach and I were across the border with the familiar smell of burning trash and a hazy sunrise over the mountains behind Rosarito.

Despite blowing a trailer tire halfway there and my ski dying just outside the El Coral Marina in Ensenada, Max and I made it out to the lineup at Killers, courtesy of Captain William R. Anderson on his 22-foot Skipjack just in time to see the start of the third heat in Round 1. The flotilla was a rad mixture that included Jason Murray

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shooting the deepest on Greg Long’s Ski, the hard-working WSL Water Patrol, pangas, luxury yachts, sailboats, fishing vessels and of course Rob Brown’s customized 36-foot Twin Vee Catamaran with SK on the bow pulpit shooting with his RED Camera. The stiff morning sideshore wind and inconsistent, long period swell made the takeoffs difficult to manage, as huge boils and steps jacked up the face on the 20-foot sets. The wind died down around mid-day, the conditions improved and it was now officially Tecate time.

Greg and Rusty Long, who have probably logged more time out at Killers than anyone (with the exception of Snips), were on most of the best waves throughout the day. Fellow San Clementians Nate Fletcher and the alwayssmiling Dane Gudauskas both made the Semis.

Healey, Makua, Jaimie Mitchell and Jaime Sterling all had some great rides in the Semis,

but came up just short of the final. What amazed everyone was the big-wave prowess of Josh Kerr (the only CT surfer in the event) and how much fun both he and former CT surfer Damien Hobgood were having the entire day. In the end it was Kerzy coming out on top over Greg Long who caught the largest wave of the Final. Third was Carlos Burle, the oldest competitor in the event and a Todos Champion 15 years ago, Damo earned fourth, Nic Lamb finished in fifth and Rusty Long sixth.

The next morning we pulled into the dirt lot at San Miguel and parked next to Kerzy and Damo, who were still smiling and loading up to head to Salsipuedes on their ski that was awaiting them inside the cove. We congratulated them while we were getting our wetties on and walked up the point inspired by their passion for surfing and stoked to have seen first-hand the Todos Challenge.

josh kerr

interview • philip seastrom (mowgli surf) California transplant Luke Pelletier is kind of a jack-of-all-trades! Whether it’s music, illustration, fine art, fashion or restaurants there is nothing creative where he does not excel. Pelletier has boundless energy, passion for his art, and an ever-growing hunger for more. His artwork is playful with a graphic flare that catches the eye. One glimpse and you are instantly captured by his bold and colorful style. If you’re looking for an artist that is going places, he’s your guy! Let’s see what makes him tick.

I find where people grew up helps

something I think is cool, I let them know I appreciate it. I try to make sure everyone around me has fun. Anytime I get a job offer that I’m not able to do, I send them a list of my friends that can do it. It wasn’t an overnight thing by any means. I’ve been working as hard as I can for five or six years now. That’s it really – work hard, be kind, have fun.

Who’s life do you most idolize and why?

I don’t know if I idolize anyone’s life, but I definitely have people I look up to and people that I see as being able to accomplish similar goals that I have for myself. Craig Stecyk and Ed Templeton are definitely my favorite artists, but as far as people that are approaching making in a similar way as me, I’m looking at what Pharrel, Tyler, and Kanye are doing. I’m definitely in a different genre, but I like the way those guys combine art, music, fashion, business, furniture, etc. I’m not sure if I like all of their stuff, but I’m definitely interested in their approach, ambition and range.

I can see a lot of skate influences in your work. Can your speak on the graphic nature and skate-inspired influence?

I talked a little bit about the skate park in

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shape their lives. Tell me about the town your grew up in – what were its best and worst features?

I was born in Tampa, Florida. I lived there ‘til I was 7 but I can’t remember much about that place other than the heat and the anthills. I really grew up in Brevard, North Carolina. It was a strange small town. A bunch of the factories closed down right around the time I moved there so a lot of people were out of work. It’s a tourist town now so it has a seasonal economy. There wasn’t much to do but we had a skate park. I spent most of my time there or in the forest. I was in a lot

of bands as a kid. Those were the best features. It’s the south so there were a lot of racists. But people can be dickheads wherever you go.

my town earlier. It was my second home.

As a kid, I was there from when school let out until 9 p.m. everyday. That’s where all my friends hung out. The park would let us throw concerts there. I designed some shop t-shirts for them. It’s really all we cared about. Being an artistic kid, I was definitely drawn to the graphics on the wall. I didn’t really know how to do anything other than draw up flyers for concerts and make photocopies back then, but I was defiantly looking at them.

The graphic style found its way into my art for sure. I could go on forever about skating, but I’ll never say anything as eloquent as Craig Stecyk.

always have them in the back of my mind.

As soon as it becomes convenient to do one, that’s where I put most of my energy.

If anyone wants to open a bar or a hotel, hit me up.

Some people think ambition is a bad word. You are an ambitious artist, so what does ambition mean to you?

Ambitions are just the things I’d like to do that I haven’t done yet. I was warned a lot about being too ambitious when I was younger, but I think it was more about maintaining a value for people over material things. Most of the things I’d like to do are centered around people.

Whether it’s opening a business, throwing a party, designing… or whatever, people are at the center of it. As long as I’m not hurting anyone, I don’t see any problem with ambition. I have a really long list of projects I’m interested in doing. I just

When did you discover art? When did you discover you wanted to be an artist?

The first time I ever saw something that really spoke to me was Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater – it was its own world! You could skate everything, customize your board, and the soundtrack was killer. Ever since I was a kid I liked things that were fully immersive (putt-putt, themed restaurants,

What is your biggest fear when creating? Why? I’m terrified of getting jaded and not caring. I know a few artists that are just over it. It’s a job to them. Sometimes I’ll catch myself saying things like, “I have to make some paintings for some show.”

Really, I ‘get’ to make paintings. Being jaded is super contagious, that’s one of the reasons why I do so many different things. The variety keeps it fresh.

Your design uses a lot of intersecting patterns and color. Is it important to you to have your work make a visual statement?

I started picking up the patterns, repetition, and flat colors when I started to learn about printmaking. It was just a part of the print process at first, then I started painting that way. As far as aesthetics go, I like my art to win people over from across the room. Before they even really see what’s on it, I like people to think it looks cool. I think a lot of that comes from my interest in advertisements, but it also comes from the people I surround

flea markets, etc.) I guess I started drawing and stuff to make flyers for my band. Then I just got better at it. My painting is definitely the most visible part of my practice, but I make a lot of music, I curate shows, take photos, own a coffee shop in West Hollywood, do commercial projects, make furniture, design clothes, and whatever else I’m able to do. I’m still not sure if it’s all art, but it’s just easier to call it that.

To what do you attribute your success?

I work really hard. When someone does

myself with. I don’t hang out with a lot of people that are into fine art. So they’re not really interested in having any indepth conversations about it. I like making things that they can look at for 10 seconds and say, “That’s rad!” It’s more accessible that way.

Can you appreciate the work you created in the past?

Most of the time, yeah! I usually see something I made forever ago and think, “I had no idea what I was doing.” Really though, I’ve had a similar disposition for most my life. So even though my technical ability has grown, the tone of the stuff I make has been pretty consistent.

I’m going to steal this question from Nardwaur! Why should people care about your art?

Should is a weird word. I don’t think anyone owes me their undivided attention.

I’m the only one that should care about my art. If other people do, that’s great!

Really though, it isn’t necessary. An unsuccessful painting could be used as good firewood. A politically incorrect painting could be offensive or be used as a starting point for a discussion. I think it’s my job to make what I believe in. If I’m doing it right, it should encourage some sort of engagement. How people actually interact with it isn’t really any of my business.

interview • delon isaacs Hi Wade, we wanted to do a profile on our favorite curly haired surfer, so we chose you. How have things been, man? How’s the new home? How’s the family? How’s being a dad through the toddler years going? Is she at the age yet where you can push her into the shorey?

Things are good. Loving the new zone.

I live in a country town in the hills.

There are a lot of good waves a short drive away. It’s cool for my family to be surrounded by trees and good food.

Violet’s real chill so it’s fun hanging out with her. I haven’t really forced her onto a surfboard or whatever. If she wants to I’ll take her but she can’t swim by herself yet so I don’t want her to get worked in the shorey and get spooked. I just want her to get used to the ocean at her own pace.

So you’re living in Byron, Australia?

Seems like it’s turning into an interesting hub for the more “alternative surfer” lately, haha. What are the home breaks like? What other

local hooligans do you get hang/surf with everyday? Could you see yourself happier living anywhere else right now?

Actually I live in Bangalow. It’s 15 minutes up the hill from Byron. Byron’s pretty crowded with the backpacker scene. I like it where I am, way more mellow. The alternative surf scene is tight over here.

There’s a clubhouse, there’s lots of good waves. It’s a good stretch of coast so I guess that’s why everyone is here. Creed, Ellis and Beau live around the corner. And Ozzie just moved to town. I think Dion has a place but he’s in LA at the moment.

So many good surfers around here to hang with. I love it here. I can’t think of anywhere I’d rather be at this point.

Did you do the 87 weeks of aloha this year? Seems like a lot of different people either love or fucking hate the North Shore during the winter season.

How was it for you this year? What crew were you hanging with?

I went for two weeks at the end of the

photo • nolan hall

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photo • russo

Pipe contest. It was pretty fun but my knee was rooted so I was mainly just hanging around. Yeah, every year is different over there. Sometimes it’s a good time sometimes it’s a bit rough.

I hung with Nolan but he got real sick and the Gudangs were there for a bit.

If you had to wrestle one Gudauskas brother, which one would you choose to fight? Which one wouldn’t you pick?

Shit question, haha I don’t like wrestling. Plus you couldn’t fight a Gudang, that’s like punching Oprah… Or Gandhi.

Did you make any New Year’s resolutions for 2016? Do you have any upcoming trips or projects planned that you can talk about?

No resolutions. Just trying to heal up my sore knee and get some good stuff happening for the VANS film. I’m into seeing new things at the moment, so I want to go to some new places. I’d like to time NZ with some good waves and India.

I’m keen to check out Puerto Rico. photo • tom carey I’m just chasing that dragon where there’s not many other humans and a rideable wave.

photo • tom carey

photo • tom carey

photo • tom carey

photo • russo

Anyone doing shit in surfing right now that you fully back or are currently really inspired by? What kind of current shit turns you off from surfing?

Yeah, I really like Noa and Creed’s stuff. Their tweaks and cool lines are fun to watch. John John is amazing. Dane and Ozzie forever.

Droid freaks me out. He’s crazy.

Nothing really bothers me enough to worry about but I guess GoPros and drones annoy me.

When was the last contest you participated in? Do you still have your Australian Pro Junior title? You ever reminisce over surf contest and kind of miss it, or is it

something that you look back on and it kind of just tickles you?

I used to do the Teahupo’o trials but I stopped a few years ago. That was a real fun contest.

My mum still has my trophy from my title.

She backs it. Sometimes I wish I was on the World Tour but then I watch it and realize how flogged I would get. I’m pretty happy doing what I’m doing.

Did Lemmy from Motorhead’s death bum you out? Have you been getting into any new kinds of music?

Of course, that was a bummer. Bowie passing hit me harder. He was special. I’ve been listening to a lot of Nick Cave lately.

photo • nolan hall

photo • tom carey

words • liz rice mccray

For most of us David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” will never sound the same and our world will never be the same. We lost David Bowie, an unworldly human, a favorite to most, a legend to all... one of the most influential artists of all time.

The news of David Bowie’s passing spread like a wildfire. The outpouring of love and sorrow spread, contiguously, from one person to another as the news was heard. It’s a moment that many will remember.

It reached me via Instagram; it was a morning that 52

I was slow to get out bed. At 7 a.m. I clicked to my feed and there it was… @shopredone had posted, “RIP to a true artist #davidbowie.” My eyes filled with tears. I kept scrolling. It couldn’t be, but it was. Over and over: RIP BOWIE, hashtags of #ripbowie, a photo by #MasayoshiSukita #rip. Beautiful photographs filled my Instagram, as they probably did yours. And many of those photographs were those of Masayoshi Sukita.

As the story goes, in 1972 [in London] Masayoshi Sukita attended a David Bowie concert. Sukita had

noticed a promotional poster for the Bowie show and felt compelled to attend it, with his portfolio in hand.

It is said that Sukita met Bowie before ever hearing his music. This was the start of over four decades of collaboration between Masayoshi Sukita and David Bowie. In 1977 Sukita took the iconic cover shot for Bowie’s Heroes album. This is perhaps one of the most famous photos of Bowie ever. Sukita has spent 40+ years photographing David Bowie. It was a friendship and collaboration between musician, actor and producer, David Bowie and photographer Masayoshi Sukita.

Surprisingly, until November 2015, Sukita had never exhibited his work in the United States. The Morrison Hotel Gallery (www. morrisonhotelgallery.com) was proud to host the first-ever American exhibition of his treasured photographs of Bowie’s remarkable career from 1972 to the present day. Of his work, David Bowie said of Sukita, “This is a committed artist, a brilliant artist. I would call him a master,” right before the opening of The David Bowie: Photography by Masayoshi Sukita at Morrison Hotel gallery.

“Sukita’s vision codifying photographs were integral to the exhibit, and have come to be essential in understanding Bowie’s artistic narrative,” said Peter Blachley, co-owner of Morrison Hotel Gallery. “Sukita’s work has been a constant as Bowie shape-shifted from the glam space alien of his Ziggy Stardust phase, to the stark monochromatic perspective of his Berlin phase, to the earthy sophistication of his more recent guises. MHG has long admired Sukita’s work and is honored to be able to share his expansive catalog from Bowie’s

creative and fertile mid 1970s period, for the photographer’s stateside premiere.”

Masayoshi Sukita was born in 1938 in a small town known for its coal mining in the northern region of Kyushu, Japan. Sukita’s father was killed in World War II, and although Sukita was very young when he lost his father he has clear memories of taking photos with his dad. This was the start to his lifelong passion for photography. Sukita graduated from the Japan Institute of Photography and Film, and

received APA awards in 1963 and 1968. Then Sukita went on to assist/study under established photographer Shisui Tanahashir, and he entered into an advertising agency in Osaka. In 1965 he moved to Tokyo to pursue fashion photography/ TV commercials, at this time becoming a freelance photographer. From 1970-1971 Sukita traveled to New York frequently and was attracted to its subculture, the mix of film, art, music and

fashion. Sukita photographed T-Rex’s Marc Bolan in London. In New York, Sukita took photos of Jimi Hendrix shortly before his death. Today, Masayoshi Sukita continues to work in advertising in the film/ television industry and continues his passion in photographing musicians.

Many thanks to all the people that helped put together this memoriam photo-journal of Masayoshi

Sukita photographs. Special thanks to Jen DiSisto of Art Duet, The Press House and Morrison Hotel Gallery. All photos © Masayoshi Sukita/courtesy of Morrison Hotel Gallery. For more information on Morrison Hotel Gallery and to see and/or purchase Masayoshi Sukita’s photographs of David Bowie, please visit www.morrisonhotelgallery.com. You can also visit their West Hollywood location inside the Sunset Marquis Hotel.

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So Tom, you’ve been in this game for quite some time. What are some changes you’ve seen with the photography game in the last decade or so?

Without a doubt the biggest thing is how amazing surf photography has become.

Digital has allowed guys to push the boundaries for a fraction of the cost. The learning curve is totally gone and it has allowed surfers and photographers to go out there with a game plan and execute it in a day or two. Things that used to take us months to work out now take a day to pull off. Those film days were fun and I’ll never forget that feeling of opening up a box of slides and seeing if you got any gold. Kids these days will never get that feeling – it’s indescribable. We’d literally be screaming at the photo lab if you got something back that was just jumped off the light table. When we first started working with the strobes, that gratification we’d feel after all of our hard work was euphoric. Sounds cheesy, but honestly I don’t think I’ll ever get to experience that again.

You’ve pretty much scoured the world in search of perfect waves and perfect setups. Where is your all-time favorite location and why?

I hate this question. It’s so hard to pick just one. Usually what makes a spot great are the people you travel with and the experiences and crazy times you have along the way. That’s what I remember the most. But if I had to pick one location that I love to shoot, it would have to be the Surfing Village in Sumatra. It’s a rootsy, basic surf camp built with love in front of a perfect right point break. The owners are two Rastafarian Brazilians with the biggest hearts and a love for heavy metal – my kind of guys.

jamie o’brien

After all the miles you’ve logged are there any places on the hit list that you have yet to visit? Anywhere you’re dying to go to?

In the search for waves, I’m not sure if there’s anywhere that I’m itching to see.

But personally I’d like to go to Russia and drink some vodka and take in some

history. I’d also like to play golf for 24 hours straight above the artic circle where it doesn’t get dark. It’s a personal goal for me. And as weird as this sounds I like staying at home after traveling all year long. Kind of like a staycation.

You’ve made a career on building relationships and shooting surfers whom you have created strong bonds with. How important is knowing the people you take photos of rather than just being some guy posted up somewhere taking photos of talented strangers surfing?

To me it’s everything. Those relationships are really important. They’re the building blocks to your career. I’ve seen guys that are complete hacks but they know the right people and they’re killing it. It just goes to show you it’s all about whom you know sometimes. The relationships I’ve made over the years have also led to some crazy times and I’ve made some lifelong friends. So to say they’re important is an understatement. I do think it’s funny how some guys come onto the scene and just slurp dudes. They kiss ass so hard and they don’t even surf.

That I don’t get. Those guys are just such frauds. It’s kind of sad.

Who is your bread and butter? That is to say, who has put the most paper in your pocket and what is your relationship with that individual?

Honestly those days are over. Unless you’re shooting John John it really doesn’t work like that anymore. Your best bet is to get a few companies behind you and maybe a magazine to help out. I think there are only a few guys making good money these days. It’s such a bummer.

With the digital era along came a flooded industry. And that doesn’t bother me really. What bothers me is the lack of respect these kids have for the older guys. They’ve literally never had a photo published, never sold a photo to anyone but somehow they’re in the lineup at Pipe or OTW, rubbing shoulders with guys like Pat Stacy or Daniel Russo. It’s sad. There’s zero respect. A lot of us have specific jobs to do… and others are working on their Instagram feed.

john florence ricardo christie

Photography is no doubt becoming more disposable.

There’s a constant overload of digital content being shoved in ones face all of the time. As a photographer who has had his work published in actual print publications for 10+ years, does the course of how things are going bother you?

Yeah, it bothers me for so many reasons. You can stick your head in the shorebreak and just push a button with no experience and all of the sudden get 40k followers. Do you know how hard it is to actually shoot surfing and get a shot ran and get paid? Photographers need to tighten ship and not let a single photo out for free. I’m even starting to wonder if giving the surfers photos is biting us in the ass. I’m constantly policing my gear and companies are actually mad that we don’t give photos out for free. The nerve of some of these guys is unbelievable. This whole generation of copycats and softies

makes my blood boil. It’s the most unoriginal bullshit I’ve ever seen; everyone dressing the same, posting the same shit. The list goes on. Don’t even get me started. There was a time when the best photo won. I miss those days.

What is your dream trip, who all is involved, where would you go and what would happen?

I would really love to do a skate, snow and surf trip to Japan. It would be such nonstop fun to always be shooting something in Japan and act like Godzilla for a few weeks with your buds. I went to Japan before with Mike Morrissey and the Volcom crew and we had such a blast drinking Sapporos, shooting airsoft guns, trying weird food and partying with our Japanese brethren. I would love to go back and do it proper.

What’s the craziest thing that has ever happened to you in the line of duty?

derek peters

yago dora

oliver kurtz

I’ve swam in some scary areas, flown on some sketchy planes in Indo and even been through some gnarly earthquakes. But the scariest thing that has ever happened to me had to have been when I was held up at gunpoint by a Mexican cartel in the state of Guerrero. Shit got real… quickly. I’ve never felt complete helplessness before that. It’s not a good feeling thinking you’re going to die. Without going too deep into it here’s the quick version… A few of us were in Mainland Mexico looking for some waves. We were just getting out of town for a few days. We stayed at a friend’s house on the water in front of our own personal skatepark of a wave - perfect wedges littered the empty lineup. We were shooting photos while drinking margaritas in our infinity pool. Life was good. We went to sleep that night with a belly full of taco meat and a six-pack of Modelos. At around 2 a.m. I got woken up by a guy in a ski mask tapping my head with his pistol. I was so confused. He asked for my wallet and phone and told me he was the “policia.”

Something wasn’t equating though. My roommate didn’t want to give up his phone. I told him life was cheap and to do it. By then the rest of our crew walked into the room totally in a daze trying to figure out what was happening. On their backs were a couple AK-47s, fully loaded, accompanied by grenade wielding cartel members. We were shoved into the corner while being yelled at in Spanish. Shit was getting real. I told everyone not to fucking move or say anything. Then we were led down the outside stairs to a back room. None

balaram stack noah schweizer

of us wanted to go first, thinking we were going to shot in the back. It was so heavy. I was shitting myself. We all staggered into this backroom to find my friends brother and his girlfriend with their heads in their hands. The look on their face did not look good. I thought they knew something that we didn’t. We all got on the bed where we sat quietly for the next two hours with a cracked-out Narco pointing and cocking his AK-47 at us. I’ve never been so scared in my life. After a while things calmed down and one of the Narcos spoke to us and calmed us down. Long story

short, we only lost some cash, our groceries and probably a year or two off our lives.

What are your plans for the future? Do you see yourself as a surf photographer 20 years from now?

I think I will always be a surf photographer to be honest. I can’t imagine ever hanging it up.

I almost did at one point when I was younger and I’m glad I didn’t. I’ve had so much fun over the years, and really you can’t put a price tag on that. I do hope in 10 years I’m retired, however; surfing, golfing and fishing somewhere warm. addison giddings

mitch coleborn

gavin beschen

And lastly, are there any projects that you are currently working on that we should keep an eye out for?

I do want to want to start using my Profoto studio strobe some more in the surf. I’ve gotten some incredible images so far and I feel like I’m really only scraping the surface.

It’s nothing that hasn’t been done before but it’s really fun, and the even light you get is so beautiful. The problem these days with trying to do something new is you need a magazine behind you to show off your work. There aren’t too many pages these days though which makes it tough. And I don’t think people care either. Everyone just goes through the motions. No one is trying to really push photography anymore… or I should say no one wants to support that push.

words • julie hartwell Bruno’s love for skateboarding is unlike anything I have ever seen. I knew it was his hobby when we first met, but I have come to see it’s truly his passion. Skateboarding runs in his veins. Even after a knee surgery and another on the way, he still manages to be around it. His demeanor while he is on his skateboard is priceless! He looks like a kid in a candy store, blissfully going from one place to the next.

Coming from a Korean family, Bruno’s parents moved to São Paulo, Brazil, and that is where he was born in 1984. His family relocated to the South Bay area of Southern California when Bruno was seven to live the American dream. This dream was to have a better life and education for their family. Then somewhere along this path they got him a skateboard. I’m guessing that’s when it changed his life forever… kind of like love at first sight.

Having an artistic family background, Bruno’s mother schooled him in the arts at a young age. She got him his first camera (Nikon F3) when he was about 15 years old. This was around the same time he started really getting into skateboarding. I believe he hasn’t stopped since. Bruno took his love for skateboarding and photography with him when he moved back to São Paulo, Brazil, in 2011. He quickly learned that street skating in Brazil is not easy. Rough ground, shitty spots, haters, police, and thieves, make it a daily struggle to capture images. His level of respect for those who skate, shoot photos, and film in Brazil are at its highest. In the end, there is only a handful of things that Bruno really cares about: his family, friends, skateboarding, food and his girlfriend, of course!

Capturing moments with his skate-rat friends is just a blessing on top of it all.

vitor sagaz • push 66

pedro volpi • f.s tail block

biano bianchin • f.s board

johnny jones • switch heel over rail

fransico trejo • ollie

pedro volpi • b.s smith

tarcio moiera • heel flip

finha • b.s krook

filipe ortiz • b.s board slide

nick “pickle” leal • f.s tail slide fakie guilherme trakinas • variel heel

bruno park • portrait

paulo piquet • b.s smith

felipe ortiz • switch ollie samuel jimmy • 5050

interview • liz rice mccray

This month Scott Listfield was meant for the cover of BL!SSS Magazine. Due to the heartbreaking news of David Bowie’s passing, Scott Listfield’s cover art was bumped. Although it is a disappointment to not have Listfield’s earthbound astronaut grace our cover, we are pleased to be featuring him as our artist interview this month. Thank you, Scott! It was a pleasure interviewing you, and be sure to check out more of Scott Listfield’s art at www.astronautdinosaur.com.

Why astronauts… and sometimes dinosaurs?

The short answer is that those were the things I liked most when I was five years old… and apparently I haven’t matured much since then.

The slightly longer answer is, in my last years of school I spent some time living abroad, being a foreigner, exploring places that weren’t my own. I assumed that returning to America would feel more like home. Only, weirdly, it didn’t. Everything still felt a bit alien to me. I remember trying to shop for cookies and being overwhelmed by the number of choices. How many different kinds of Oreos did I need? I was living in a tiny apartment, cooking single-serve pizzas on a hot plate, taking the bus to work, killing time in Laundromats… basically trying but failing to be an adult. I had presumed by this point in my life I’d be living on the moon with my robot best friend, riding in flying cars, and shooting lasers at things. But instead of the future I thought I’d get, I was living in a present that was alternately fairly mundane, and kind of weird in its own way.

Right around this time I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey for the first time, and it seemed weird to me that this is what we all thought 2001 would look like. I had been thinking for a while about making a series of paintings about how the world I was living in felt strange and surreal to me. I thought of them as short stories, and I felt strongly that there should be a protagonist who would appear in each one. Right then, watching 2001, I realized that the protagonist I wanted in my paintings should be

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the astronaut, pulled from the fictional 2001 and plunked down in the real 21st Century to explore the weird and sometimes stupid future we’ve created for ourselves.

As for dinosaurs, well, I just like them. So I wanted to have some wandering around. But they’re really hard to paint, so they only make occasional guest appearances these days.

Does the astronaut that recurs in your painting ever leave earth? Please give us some insight to the landscapes that your astronaut explores.

Like most people my age, when I was a kid I wanted to be an astronaut. As I grew up I realized that would require being really good at things like “math” and “not throwing up,” so I had to abandon that idea. Going into space was pretty much off the table, but what I also realized as I got a bit older is that the planet we live on is a pretty strange and interesting place in its own right. And so I made a decision early on that I wanted the astronaut to be exploring our world, in all its glory and ridiculousness.

NASA referred to you as a “space artist.” I think it’s pretty cool that you caught the eye of someone at NASA. Would you consider yourself a “space artist?”

I hate to argue with NASA, so let’s say yes. They can pretty much call me whatever they want; I’m just excited they have any idea who I am at all. But I’m not sure I’d describe myself as a “space artist,” since none of my paintings take place in space.

But I am an “astronaut artist,” which I guess is pretty close.

I like it, “astronaut artist” from Dartmouth. You studied painting at Dartmouth. Will you tell us about your experience there?

It might not have been my brightest move of all time. I mean, Dartmouth is a great school. It’s also a pretty expensive school and my parents

have been very forgiving about my choice to study something there which doesn’t generally lead to a life spent buried in endless piles of money.

Just to be clear, Dartmouth is a liberal arts college, not an art school. So I was taught to think more than I was taught to paint. Which, as it turns out, was fine because I’m better at thinking than painting anyways. My teachers at Dartmouth were mostly second or third generation abstract expressionists. They grew up in a time where figurative or narrative painting was just not a thing people did anymore. And truthfully, when I came out of school, there still weren’t a lot of people doing it. My professors were all kind, encouraging people and nobody ever said, “You can’t do that.”

And yet when I got out of school and was trying to create art on my own, the idea of making goofy paintings of an astronaut seemed like exactly the type of thing I shouldn’t be doing, which of course made it extra appealing. After school painting on my own for the first time, I heard little voices in my head telling me that art should be serious. It should intelligent. It should definitely not have Chewbacca in it. I ignored those voices.

And so I reacted against my schooling, as I think a lot of young artists should do. But in the end, I think my education got me to that point because, as I said, it taught me to think for myself. I accepted some things my teachers taught me and rejected others. So I guess it worked out all right for me.

Although, to be honest, New Hampshire in the ‘90s was a very cold and kind of dull place. I really should have taken a better look at schools in Southern California.

Would you consider yourself an explorer?

Sure, although I probably think about exploring a lot more than I actually explore. I mean, I’ve been some places, sure. But for me, it’s not about climbing Mount Everest (where I’d certainly freeze to death) or scuba diving with whale sharks

(definitely drown and/or get eaten by eels), it’s about wandering around and looking at things, trying to remember what it might be like to see those things for the first time – in my neighborhood or halfway around the world. Sometimes I like just getting hopelessly lost somewhere. Just as long as I’m not too far from a bathroom, of course.

So when investigating your astronaut it doesn’t seem to depict any astronaut from living history: Neil Armstrong, John Glenn, Bruce McCandless, etcetera. Might there be an element of self-portraiture in your work?

Before I started working on this astronaut series, I spent most of my college years making selfportraits. You could argue, of course, that I never really stopped. But the difference is that those self-portraits in school were all about me – what I looked like at the time, what I was thinking and what my emotional state happened to be. They were all extremely inward looking. After traveling the world for a bit I realized I didn’t want to make paintings about myself anymore; I wanted to make something that looked out on the world. There’s still a person in each painting, the astronaut, but it wasn’t really about who was in the suit – it was more about what they were looking at, experiencing, and feeling, and hopefully sharing that in a way that people understood. And so, after just a few paintings in this series I started painting the astronaut’s facemask dark so that you couldn’t see who was in there. Is it me? It might be. But my hope is that other people looking at my work feel comfortable putting themselves into the astronaut suit too, and observing the world in a slightly different way.

You’ve got us curious, can you tell us a little bit about your childhood?

Oh, normal stuff. I met He-Man once. Well, I waved at him from across the street. He was at my neighbor’s birthday party. I’m maybe 70% sure it was the real He-Man.

I grew up in the suburbs of Boston and watched a lot of television. It was pretty calm, if boring, and in hindsight I realize how lucky I was for that. The biggest challenges of my youth were trying to beat Super Mario Bros. I assumed I’d eventually grow up and be either a Jedi or an Autobot. Things didn’t quite work out that way, but I’ll always have that time I met He-Man. It’s funny, I didn’t realize until I had been making these paintings for a while that they were all about my childhood. I realize that’s a pretty Freudian thing to say, and you could probably say the same for most artists, but the first thing I wanted to be when I grew up was an astronaut. And for me, the lasting image of my youth is watching cartoons, and movies, and reading comic books, about the future. And being excited about what that meant.

I grew up into a future that wasn’t what I was expecting, but on the plus side, I got to make up my own future in my work.

In our lifetime, technology has exploded to the point that it’s overwhelming: the Internet, social media, tween sexting… What are your thoughts on the effects of technology, the positives and the negatives?

I think, like most people, I’ve got some mixed feelings about the role technology plays in our lives. It’s amazing that I carry around in my pocket a small device that will give me the answer to any question I could ever think of. But it’s incredible how quickly we’ve grown accustomed, and often bored, by that kind of power. I mean, it wasn’t

that long ago that I had to drive places with just a big book of maps in my back seat. But I can barely remember what that was like now. I can’t even wrap my head around the idea of not having a GPS on me at all times. How would we go anywhere?

At some point does it become too much? Is it better to experience things, or to real-time stream them to our followers? Do I need a Big Mac delivered to me instantly by a drone? Do I still have the capacity to wait for things? Should my phone know me better than my friends? I don’t have the answer to any of those questions. And I love technology as much as the next person, but it does worry me a little that we seem to be doing things because we can, instead of, at least occasionally, asking if we should.

What would you like the viewer to take away from your work?

I’ve always wanted my paintings to work on a couple of levels. I mean, if somebody comes up to me and says, “Dude, you painted Chewbacca!”

I’m fine with that. I want them to be appealing on a pretty simple level. From the start, it was important to me to make work that wasn’t too elitist, that didn’t require a degree in art theory to understand. That said, if people want to spend a little more time thinking about the world I’m painting, and their own place in it, that would be fine to me too. There’s something happening in my paintings beyond a collection of appealing pop culture references. And it makes me happy when

I talk to people about my work that it seems most of them get that.

Where are you currently living and why?

I live in Somerville, MA, just outside of Boston.

And I ask myself “Why?” every single winter. I think, mostly, I live here because it’s home. I’ve been here a long time and I (mostly) like it. My wife and my dog and my house are all here, and they are the most important things to me. For those of you unfamiliar with Boston, the art scene here is oddly both underrated and kind of terrible.

It’s underrated because there are a surprising number of people making really great art. And it’s kind of terrible because there aren’t a whole lot of places for all those people to show or sell their work. That is why I work with galleries pretty much everywhere but Boston, and it is why most people who meet me assume I live somewhere else. But every spring when the snow finally melts and the birds come back, the air gets warmer and there are street fights about the Red Sox, I remember why I like living here.

What are you really into right now, art-related or otherwise?

Kylo Ren and his hair, mostly. Oh, and there’s so much great stuff happening in the art world right now. At any point in time over the previous 150 years or so, there would have been a fairly limited number of paths to success in the art world. If you came of age in the 1970s, you could be a minimalist or do performance art. Those were your options. Choose one. But now? There’s been

a tremendous resurgence in figurative work in illustration, in craft and handmade work. Doing things that take real effort and skill. For the first time that I can think of, you can do pretty much whatever you want. And if it’s good people will find it and like it. The Internet provides you an audience infinitely larger, and more diverse, than what you could have accomplished in the past.

There are too many artists I’m excited by right now to list them out by name, but it’s a thrilling time to be making art, and to be looking at art.

Not to be depressing, but when it is all said and done how would you like to be remembered?

If I’m remembered at all I think I’ve done all right.

Where can people check out more of your artwork?

My website is astronautdinosaur.com. You can find me there and, like, all over the Internet. I’m also pretty active and easy to follow on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and all the other usual social media outlets. And I regularly show my work in galleries in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, London, Miami, and elsewhere. If you can find me in person, come say hi.

Thank you so much, Scott. I really enjoyed interviewing you. You are absolutely lovely and I hope to come say hi in person one day.

photos • bob plumb

keegan valaika Years ago I met Cale Zima, Keegan Valaika and Brock Nielson shooting for Bozwreck 2. I think at the time they were all seventeen. We used to do everything together – laugh, cry and snowboard. They were like my adopted little brothers. I got them into trouble and laughed at them because of it. I helped them make bad decisions and laughed even more. It had been a long time since I had the opportunity to reunite the crew and go on a trip. It got even better when my brother Lizard King decided he wanted to come. The last time we (my brother and I) went on a trip was to the Phoenix Am probably seven years ago. Shit, time flies. Brandon Cocard, a longtime friend through shooting photos the past couple seasons, came as well along with Austin Sweetin whom I just met. Safe to say it was an all-time crew!

We spent the mornings listening to Brock trying to learn how to play the guitar. It was inspiring for the first two hundred attempts but after that I started to lose my shit. Cocard and Austin are pretty good at guitar so they were fun to listen to. My brother was really loud, annoying and yet non-stop entertaining as always. He was always stoked and got everyone else excited to snowboard the few days we were there. Keegan was pretty misty. He would show up and then disappear out of the blue, only to show up again later. Cale basically laughed the entire trip. He made me feel like my jokes were really funny, even though he has heard them a thousand times. People snowboarded. We got tricks. We got photos. We had a good time. It’s insane to think how long I have been friends with these guys. Anytime you get to go on a trip like this you have to take up the opportunity. Thanks for a good time and always reminding me how rad snowboarding is!

With Love, Bob Plumb

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brandon concard

austin sweetin

cale zima

lizard king

words • slow culture & sunday gallery

Slow Culture and Sunday Los Angeles presented “What A Time To Be Alive,” a collaborative show that opened January 15th, 7-10 p.m. at Slow Culture on 5906 N. Figueroa Street. With the recent, everincreasing development and reach of social media, fame and awareness are more accessible than ever.

Sensations are born on the Internet; some become pop stars, some just moments, and others may create entire movements.

The ability to access more information has made a strong impact on the collective practice in the art scene. It is important for individuals, artists, organizations and brands to come together and use whatever established platforms we can access to comment on society and what we can do as a community to comprehensively seek and incite change. “What A Time To Be Alive” is a critique and celebration of the modern world, solidarity and political platforms through social media, the emergence and importance of contemporary pop culture, the distrust of institutions, and the instigation of meaningful conversation between all people. A portion of the proceeds from this show will go to benefit organizations Inner-City Arts and Critical Resistance.

events

With so many artists and brands involved in this show it was a long and challenging road to get to Friday night’s opening. It was a massive undertaking but we all felt it well worth the cause. With everyone involved we knew there would be a big turnout, but nothing could have prepared us for the response this past weekend. We can’t say thank you enough to everyone who came and waited it out, and we couldn’t have asked for a better send off as we make our way down to Chinatown next month. We are now back to normal gallery hours, Wednesday - Saturday, 12-6 p.m. and Sunday 12-4 p.m., and the show will be up until January 31st. Thank you to Sunday for working so hard to put this all together. And another HUGE thank you to all the brands involved for their support: Huf, Obey, Vans, Unif, Pabst, Altamont, The Hundreds and The Quiet Life.

Photos • Morgan Rindengan | @morgnar • clockwise from top left • Jay Howell • Coco Howards • Dave Kinsey • Lee Spielman, Alexander Spit & Steve Lee • Kristofferson San Pablo • Xavier Burt & Gaslamp Killer • Lucas Vercetti, Atiba Jefferson, Cha$e & Mikal Howard • Trever Wheatley • Donald Trump cake by @officialseanpenn • Don “The Nuge” Nguyen • Eric Wareheim • Various artists • Chasity Londyn • Jerry Hsu & Andy Mueller

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The wait is over. No more hype. No more, “wait ‘til next year.” El Nino has delivered, and now is the time for snow-deprived skiers and snowboarders to make their way to Big Bear Mountain Resorts, where all lifts and all runs are open for business. And with the best winter conditions Southern California has seen in half a decade, business is good. How good? Thirty-plus inches of au natural powder since the start of the season, groomed to perfection, and ready to ride. That good.

events

This is shaping up to be one of the best seasons in BBMR’s history, the kind you brag about to anyone who says SoCal is the place to surf and skate but you have to go somewhere else for “real” snow. The snow is here. It’s real. And it’s spectacular.

Plus, one lift ticket gets you on at Bear Mountain and Snow Summit, which means double the lifts, double the runs, and double the powder. Want more? Pick up a Cali4nia Pass and you’ll be able to ski or snowboard all season long at Bear Mountain and Snow Summit, as well as Mammoth and June Mountain. That’s unlimited access to nearly 6,000 acres of the best snow in California across all four mountains. When you add it up, it’s almost unfair how many lines you’ll be able to carve and how much fun you’ll have.

And the best part? The season is just getting started and it’s only expected to get better, with more storm fronts and more snow on the way. But unlike traffic on the 405, it won’t be here forever – so don’t wait to experience the best skiing and snowboarding Southern California has to offer, because no one wants to wait ‘til next year. For more information on lift tickets, slope conditions, and special events, go to BigBearMountainResorts.com or call 844GO2-BEAR.

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CANTEEN RI OT OA SL EI AV NE L LT E AC TH HR EO RN O

words • yong-ki chang | photos • taylor dunfee

Mark Oblow was proud to have his first solo opening at Factory 413 on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles on Thursday, January 14, 2016. The opening was sponsored by Stance, The Impossible Project, What Youth, Thunderking Brewing Co., House Beer and Penta Water.

An acute eye for photography, fashion and design naturally catapulted Oblow towards using all of his creative tools to develop his own artwork. The making of art has been a constant and evolving thread throughout his life, and having his first solo opening encapsulated years of aggregated creativity.

Oblow draws inspiration from his connections and relationships with people, whereby turning his captured images into multi-layered, multimedia pieces which include, but aren’t limited to, photography, stenciling, block printing, doodling, a bit of poetry, and much like his show entitled “STUCK TO ME” eludes, all under layers and layers of resin – resin being a nod to his first childhood love, surfing.

events

Entering Factory 413, each of the two main walls hung his resin pieces, and under the loft of the second floor featured hundreds of block prints that Oblow hand-cut and printed. Each original print was made on his late grandmother’s (obaasan) Japanese books. In lieu of a numbered opening print edition, Oblow opted to give every person the opportunity to pick-out, pull-off and purchase a one-of-a-kind block print. After each sold they were quickly replaced by a new print to fill the open space. It created a unique opportunity for the attendees to interact with the installation. The show featured 94 mixed media resin pieces including a completely suspended Nikon FE2 and Canon AE-1 camera, beautifully cracking through the resin block. Amongst the collection included 48 40-year-old deadstock skateboards incorporating his polaroid photographs, block prints, meticulously cut stencils (all from his own photo subjects), laser engraver and paint, all covered with resin to create a timelessness with each finished piece.

The atmosphere, with the thousands in attendance, was full of positive energy and respect for their friend, brother, son and mentor. The backyard area featured Ryan Allan and Kristina Patterson shooting portraits for the show along with Arto Saari and Taylor Dunfee shooting the party. The private after-party at No Name Bar (directly across from Supreme on Fairfax) was attended by family and friends and proudly DJ’d by the Blackouts, A.k.A. Atiba and Ako Jefferson, with great reception until 1 a.m. Check out more of Oblow’s work at www.equaldist.com, www.markoblow.com, www.moblow.com and @markoblow.

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WE JUST PRINT THE SH&T! / ERIK@AMPERLITHO.COM / 760.213.4008 / 910 17TH ST. COSTA MESA, CA 92627

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1/27/16 9:00 AM

interview • max ritter | photo • cameron webb

music

How did your relationship with Lemmy and Motorhead begin?

So, I met him 12 years ago. I met him through his management. I was doing a record for his manager and I kept saying, “When is Motorhead doing a new record? I want to do their record.” And he kept telling me, “No, you’re too nice of a person I would never put you through that.” (Laughs) Then one day he called me out of the blue and he says he has a meeting set up for me and I’m going to have dinner with Motorhead. He said, “If they like you, then you got the record; if they don’t like you you’re out.” So I met them poolside at Sunset Marquee and we had steak and beers. Basically we talked just nonsense. It was kind of funny because I came to them and said, “I want to make a heavy record with you that is not as rock ‘n’ roll.” First thing Lemmy says to me is, “Cameron, we’re not a heavy metal band were a rock ‘n’ roll band.” Right then I was like, uh oh I screwed up. After the dinner their manager was like, “Well, you did pretty good except for that one rock ‘n’ roll comment you totally blew. We’ll see what they think later.”

So the next day they called me up and said, “All right you’re hired.

When do you want to start?”

So you proceeded to become close friends with Lemmy over the years of making records with him. Would you say the persona that surrounded Lemmy as this eternal madman rock ‘n’ roller was misconceived in a way?

Lemmy in general has this persona of being this rock god or whatever… I mean he’s done a lot. He basically established this groundwork for heavy metal and for rock ‘n’ roll to keep going in a new direction. But then there is this side that I see of him that is totally different than what people perceive. I sat in a room with him for 12 hours a day, six days a week, for about three or four months.

We would sit and he would write lyrics and melodies. This is the kind of magic I experienced of what Lemmy really is besides all this other bullshit stuff. He is basically a poet. He is a very creative writer.

He writes poetry everyday and turns it into songs and some people can’t handle it because maybe they don’t like his voice or the music is too loud, but if you dig into all the vocals he does you realize he is very creative and he does things in a unique way. A lot of people do things in a cheesy way when they start a song and he would never do that. He will think of something so out of the box that at times you don’t know what he is talking about, but if you actually dig into it you see that there is more to it and he has so much more depth than the average song writer. Part of it too is he was a really hard worker. You look at him from the outside and you think because he drinks and smokes or whatever that he is lazy. The thing about Lemmy was he was never lazy. He was such a hard worker and he was really tough on you if you didn’t have your act together. You had to be on 10 all the time and ready for any moment, and that side of him always drove you to work harder. When he would do records he was there 100 percent of the time until the last mix was laid down. We would be on the tour bus and the record would be releasing and he would still want to change something. You would just see his work ethic was really strong. People just didn’t see that. Motorhead toured eight months out of the year for the last damn 40 years. They were always on a record cycle. People perceive Lemmy in a way because of the stigma of the drinking and drugs. People think of drugs and drinking like a bender in Las Vegas. Yeah, maybe his lifestyle was a little out of control and the band was out of control, but he lived his own way and did things his own way which was the way he wanted to do them. He was always telling stories and making jokes. It was always fun to be around him.

He just always accepted you for who you were.

Why do you think you fit in and gelled as the band’s producer for so long?

I always perceived it as this: Motorhead, as a band, was an out-of-

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control train all the time. So if you put in a producer who is also a train-wreck you are going to crash. (Laughs) You put someone like me in the picture and I have to grab the steering wheel with these people who are going 100 miles an hour and I have to find those moments when I can capture that magic. I might not get five days in a row of quality work sometimes. I might only get one day in those five days.

But that one-day will be so special it will be equivalent to someone’s two months. When the magic was there it was really good. When the magic wasn’t there we told a lot of stories and sat around in a sense.

(Laughs) Some days we would go in we might only get one bass take on a song and then he might sit there and write. I might suggest what if you did this or that. He would never want my words but he would accept my criticism. A lot of times he would just re-write things. If I didn’t like something and thought he could do better he often thought that too but he would always test me to see if he agreed with me in a sense.

Speaking of funny Lemmy stories, I think we talked once about how you were doing a take with Lemmy and you offered him some water because he was hoarse or coughing or something.

He replied by saying that he doesn’t drink water because it is a government conspiracy.

(Laughs) In general Lemmy is that sarcastic guy at the bar; you never know if he is telling the truth or he is stretching the truth so far to make a story out of the situation. If you say, “Hey, Lemmy here is some water.” He will say, “I don’t drink water, I only drink ice cubes.

The government is brainwashing us with water but ice cubes are frozen so whatever they are using to brainwash us doesn’t work anymore.” So you hear that story and you think, does he really mean what he is saying or is he totally fucking with me to make fun of me in a sense? He was always like that and that was the playful side of him. He enjoyed when you reacted. The funny thing about Lemmy was he just had a lot of history with a lot of people and he loved to tell those stories. Another one was when he was younger he just used to squat in England. They would go to these mansions and just stay there because no one was living there. At one point he was staying at a place upstairs and Sid Vicious was downstairs on the couch. You think about that and you’re like, wait a minute Lemmy lived with Sid Vicious? What the hell are you talking about? In reality they didn’t really live together but they just ended up being in the same places and knew each other. It’s just that those iconic people were just in similar places in a way, and you take those situations and 40 years later Lemmy is still an icon and Sid Vicious is still and icon, in his own right. There are almost more stories about Phil that I can’t tell (Laughs).

When I watched the documentary that was done on Lemmy one thing really struck me: He had never married and he basically said something in line with it was because he believed it was just not possible to have a lasting relationship with someone in his line of work because you are in love with music and it takes all you have. He may have lived his own life a bit recklessly by some standards, but he never wanted to hurt anyone around him because of his own lifestyle. He was a very honorable dude.

That is the thing about Lemmy – he called it how it was. You would look him in the eye and he would call out your lying. He was very direct. He might rub people wrong sometimes, but in general the people around you really respect that. That side of him brings a lot of loyalty. I did six records for him along with some live DVDs and side projects. He would always call me his producer to other people he respected. It was just exciting for me because that’s saying I am part of what he does and he trusts me to help him make that next record. That was always really cool. He would always ask me after

the record, “Are you ready for another one?” He said, “Ok, I’ll see you in two years.” Eighteen months later we would be in the studio again.

That loyalty was always there with him. I was always worried one day I wouldn’t get that phone call. But it didn’t happen because he knew I could give him what he needed to accomplish, what he needed to do and that was pretty special to me to provide that for him.

You were probably with him a lot right up until he died, right?

Was it hard to see him digress?

The first couple records working together was much more frantic and aggressive on me in every way. Everything in his life was catching up to him in the last three years. He would sit next to me and work as long as he could possibly do it. You didn’t know he was going to die though. I thought he was going to die 12 years ago when I first met him. (Laughs) He lasted all those records. I thought we would always keep going. The funny thing is he didn’t do these records because he needed money. He did them because it was what he liked to do.

Writing a record was his thing. It was his hobby and he made it his job.

That is why he cared so much about it I guess.

What would you say Lemmy taught you?

I touched on it earlier but he taught me hard work pays off. He taught me if you work really hard and keep getting better and better then everything you do is going to get better, even if you are not naturally talented at it. His will to want to sit there for every last mix and every little guitar part. He would take the mixes home and dissect them. He just showed he loved music and wanted to make the best product he could right until the end. It wasn’t about that lifestyle that surrounded it. Yeah, he had that lifestyle and did these things, but when it was time to go on stage he had his act together every time. He was a professional and he taught me a lot of things. As an engineer or producer, when you set up a microphone for a singer to come in a sing there is a process and it takes a minute to set up the mic and get levels and check lines and dial in the compressors and get everything right. Well, an inexperienced producer is going to walk in the door and set up a mic when the artist arrives and when the artist hops on the mic he is going to make that artist test that mic. Well here is the thing – you don’t test the mic with Lemmy. You show up four hours ahead you check the lines and compressors and you have someone else sing in it. You make sure the levels are perfect because the first line he sings might be the best take and you will never get that moment back.

So you better capture that moment. It was true there were days when the first take was the one. It’s on the record. Even if we did it 10 more times it wasn’t as good. It was those types of things that he made me be more professional in what I do. I really appreciated that. I didn’t appreciate the first time he told me and yelled at me. (Laughs) I loved the guy. He was a friend and I spent a lot of time with him. He liked me because I liked to listen and he liked to talk.

It’s just incredible that he made records and toured until the day he died…

He did. On his last tour in the UK the guitar player got ill and they had to cancel two shows. Someone said, “Why don’t we book it for next year?” Lemmy said, “Nope, we owe it to the fans. Let’s do it right away.” So at the end of that tour they ended up adding on two dates to make them up. And that was just because Lemmy didn’t think it was fair for the fans to sit and wait that long. That was two weeks before he died. I saw some footage and I expected it to be rough. You wouldn’t have known he was going to die in two weeks. He sang and played great. He literally went to the very end.

Thank you Cameron for the insight on such a special human.

photo & review • max ritter

A Venue Planet Earth 2013?

I think I took this photo at a Trash Talk show a couple years ago.

I remember this kid had two broken arms and still held it down in a vicious pit. I was like, “Dang, that’s pretty punk.” What’s your excuse, right? In other news, in January we lost some alltime great iconic songwriters and musicians. Lemm… and then Bowie… and then Glen Frey. Just some food for thought, I read an interesting comment about Glen Frey on Hozac Records Instagram I wanted to share for those Eagles haters out there. “Punk-type peoples would love to have you believe that the Eagles were the best AOR punching bag you could find in the ‘70s, but sadly they just haven’t done their homework. James Recca from The Stooges just confirmed that Glen Frey was band mates with Iggy in The Iguanas, he also sang backup vox on Bob Seger Systems undeniably punk Ramblin Gamblin Man in 1969, not to mention Norton Records Friday at The Hideout, comp has 66 era Frey band The Mushrooms on it as well. Unfortunately that makes Glen more punk than the world’s tallest Mohawk, the French knew in 1978.”

(The post was a photo of the cover of an old French magazine called Feeling, which headlined Bijou/John Cale/Clash/Eagles/ Heartbreakers.) So anyway, to me and the French the genres are just arrangements, right? Great songs are great songs. Respect if you can write a good one, whatever your tastes may be. Listen to rock ‘n’ roll forever. RIP legends: Lemmy, Bowie, and Glen dogs.

reviews • max ritter

Night Beats No Cops Heavenly Ear-catchy, slick, psych rock single by the Night Beats off their upcoming third LP entitled Who Sold My Generation. Love their take on the blues and they are great live. Especially enjoyed the really weirdgood abduction video directed by Riley Blakeway.

Cops man! Run!

Jesse Redwing Comin’ On Self-Released Nice turtleneck stage left. Turtlenecks are highly underrated sweaters, right? Little story: my uncle Dave, who was straight out of the film Dazed and Confused, once said he hitchhiked across America barefoot to go to Woodstock. He thought turtlenecks were, “Progressive, man.” I never saw him wear one though. Miss that dude.

Anyway, this song rips. It’s got kind of a familiar rock ‘n’ roll to it and some really good energy. Dave also said he threw a no hitter in little league, barefoot.

reviews • delon isaacs Tomorrows Tulips Indy Rock Royalty Comb Burger Records Our very own darlings of the OC have just released an all-new, stonerrock album reminding us that it’s okay to have feelings with their new EP, Indy Rock Royalty Comb. Just last week I traded Ford (band member) a 12-pack of beer for their new record, I took it home and listened to and was impressed right away with how well their sound has developed.

Tomorrows Tulips have been a band for quite some time now and that wisdom, along with all the amazing influences and talent they get to work with, resonates very strong in this new album. Be sure to check their tour dates for the upcoming months.

David Bowie Blackstar Columbia/RCA Bowie is gone. I’ve finally stopped crying my eyes out and have started coming to terms with it, but one thing I haven’t been able to shake is the unsettling way he packaged his final gift for us, Blackstar, his last album. The album is great and contains so much mystery and foreshadowing… like Lazarus – the final track of this album, which was also the name of the saint resurrected by Jesus in Gospel of John. Has Bowie already prepared us for his resurrection? Who knows, but as certain reports to Newsweek goes, Bowie did prepare a number of albums and songs to be released in the years after his death, with the first apparently set for 2017.

Funkadelic Free Your Mind 4 Men With Beards Reissue on clear vinyl of second LP from George Clinton’s Funkadelic. The first track on this record is 10 minutes long and it’s one of the most tripped out, awesome things I’ve ever heard. The guitar and keys are mind melting and the tones so good. Only thing is I think these nutsos maybe went a little over board with the left to right stereo panning effect, but who am I to judge? Listen to it on headphones and you will see what I mean. Think some drugs were involved. Nah.

DIIV Is The Is Are Captured Tracks It’s about freakin’ time, man, but I guess it was pretty worth the wait. Is The Is Are is the sophomore album from DIIV, following up their first 2012 album Oshin, which, in my cute teenage 19-year-old mind at the time, was one of best albums I’d ever bought. Is The Is Are is a well-crafted follow-up album, it’s enjoyable, emotional, catchy and took a whole lot of perseverance to create.

Blood Days Last Day On Earth Core Tex / Irish Voodoo Records For the hardcore heads out there! I’m listening and I feel like I am in a wall of death at Chain Reaction.

Pretty fun. It’s been a while though. Joe Foster, you’re the man.

Lily Meola They Say Lily is a good girl. I’ve only had one conversation with her but it was nice. We talked about puppies, rap music, and how squaded up she is with Willie Nelson. Her debut album, They Say, is really lovely. She has an amazing set of pipes and never over does it. If you happen to be by a computer while reading this check out her website www.lilymeola.com and order preorder her album. I think they come signed and personally kissed, but I could be lying.

f.s boneless l photo • chad hargrove

groms

Age: 10

Hometown: San Diego, CA

Sponsors: Sun Diego Board Shops, NHS-Creature, Vans, 187 Killer Pads & Skeleton Key S1 Helmets Favorite Skaters: Darren Navarrette, Peter Hewett & Chris Russell

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