Color Magazine Issue 6.6 Special Edition by Color Magazine

a skateboard culture special edition.

THE GREEN ISSUE: KENNY ANDERSON | WOLVES IN THE THRONE ROOM HEATHER & IVAN MORRISON | FOURSTAR: NORTH OF EVERYTHING

howard, b.a., koston, mariano, malto, bledsoe + the salton sea | the dutchess and the duke geoff mcfetridge | iain baxter&

$7.99 CND/USD

DELUXE BONUS EDITION 3 DISC SET

INCLUDES: 2 SD DVD DISCS, 1 BLU-RAY DISC plus 48 PAGE COLLECTOR’S BOOK FEATURES: ORIGINAL FULLY FLARED RELEASE, 60-MINUTE BEHIND THE SCENES DOCUMENATRY, ALTERNATIVE EDITS, UNRELEASED FOOTAGE, PHOTO GALLERY, VINCENT CHOCOLATE INTRO, KOSTON SPEECHLESS, TRAILERS, SLOW MOTION IN REGULAR MOTION and SO MUCH MORE WE CAN’T EVEN FIT IT ON THIS PAGE... LAKAI LIMITED FOOTWEAR: 955 Francisco Street, Torrance, CA 90502 / ad #117 / www.lakai.com / www.crailtap.com / www.supradistribution.com

LINDSEYROBERTSON HEELFLIP. BLABAC PHOTO.

LINDSEY WEARS THE CM1 S dcskateboarding.tv

gallery.continues 86

JAKE BLANCHARD contributing artist

MIKENDO

MATT IRVING

contributing photographer

Mikendo hails from the overly consuming area of Los Angeles. Fortunately for Mikendo, he had the blessing of living in Vancouver, BC for a short stint, where he discovered how to fight over Hockey teams he didn’t care about, drink pints of beer as if it was lemonade, plus make some really good goddamn friends. You can find Mikendo’s work in various magazines such as “Mustache Me Daily”, “Basket-weaving in Egypt” and in the pages of this issues Kenny Anderson interview. 122

contributing artist

Jake Blanchard is an illustrator based in London, England. He spends his time drawing, drinking tea and coffee, watching nature documentaries and missing the countryside where he grew up. All of his work is hand drawn before being digitally coloured or screen printed. He has worked on book covers, album artwork, skateboard decks, t-shirt designs, logos, gig posters and produced editorial images for a variety of magazines… like this one! 92 JAKEBLANCHARD.CO.UK

Matt Irving’s dad uses geothermal energy to heat and cool the log cabin home that Matt was raised in. From what I hear, installing the system was quite the ordeal. Matt hasn’t laid his own pipes yet so to speak, but I am sure he will get to it one day. Evidently, geothermal energy saves you serious money on home heating bills and everybody knows how expensive San Francisco is, even for a high hippie roller like Matt! Geeze! 91 —tim sedo JUICEDESIGN.COM

MIKENDO.COM

GEOFF McFETRIDGE contributing artist

RUSSELL MAURICE

LUKE RAMSEY

JOHN ANTOSKI

Geoff is one of our favourite artists that we just can’t get enough of. Perhaps it’s his fresh perspective on life with his Canadian roots that speak so evidently. Now based in LA, CA, he’s part of the Beautiful Losers Exhibition, and makes solo exhibitions worldwide. For two years, he was art director of the Beastie Boys magazine Grand Royal. Since then he started a design studio which has worked with Nike, Pepsi, Girl Skateboards and Patagonia. He made clips for Plaid, Simian, and The Whitest Boy Alive, and created film title sequences for The Virgin Suicides and Adaptation. He also runs Pottok and the Solitary Arts.

We were introduced to Maurice’s work through Tom Messenger (90). His work explores the recurring themes of energy, growth patterns, diversity and cycles in the natural world. Earlier works addressed the competing forces of nature vs technology, taking the form of hand painted large-scale stickers, posters and paintings of natural life forms which sometimes appeared on the streets of London. Maurice’s latest works continue his investigation of these ideas with reminders of our current state of detachment from Mother Nature, Maurice’s work ultimately reflects upon the interconnectedness of ecological, cosmic and spiritual systems. 94

John Antoski was born in 1981 in Calgary, AB, the son of Ukrainian/Scottish immigrants. He studied Fine Art at the Alberta College of Art and Design, graduating in 2007 and relocating to San Diego where he works as an illustrator/Designer/Artist/ Magician. His recent achievements include the world record for longest time standing on one foot (78 hours). He showed with Color in 2006 for the Said And Done show he co-curated with friend and co-worker Dustin Koop. Some of John’s favourite words are: frippery, gallivant, incognito, kerfuffle, moist, brouhaha, and rapscallion. 86

(see opposing page illustation) CHAMPIONDONTSTOP.COM

To Luke, being friendly to the environment is about “caring for all life forms, including ourselves.” He says “It’s like a big circle with links in the chain,” and if we break one link, the entire circle is broken. He appreciates the evolution of man’s intelligence, understanding that most of the time it’s man’s stupidity and love of money that destroys the very thing that gives us life. “The earth has been through a lot and it’s pretty arrogant of man to think we can totally destroy it, but what about the kids, plants and animals? It’s sad to think of my nephew growing up and not being able see a pod of orcas in the ocean.” Luke lives and works from Pender Island, BC. See Luke’s gallery piece on 93.

RUSSELLMAURICE.COM

LUKERAMSEY.BLOGSPOT.COM

JOHNANTOSKI.COM

contributing artist

.thegreenissue

The lightest, most breathable shoe for skateboarding ever made. esfootwear.com/breeze

esfootwear.com/breeze timebombtrading.com stickers@timebomb.bc.ca

Being the first skateboard magazine in Canada to make the progressive move in the ecological direction is a testament to Color’s continuous support for the environment, along with its dedication to skate culture. Color has always invested its successes back into the product despite financial sacrifice. Since its inception, the magazine has been printed using vegetablebased inks, and has reduced our carbon footprint in terms of transportation by having stations across the country. We also support our country’s economy, vouching to print in Canada as opposed to outsourcing. [ o ] NICHOLAS

t’s about growth without killing that of our environment. Going into its seventh year, Color has developed greatly. Growing wise beyond our years, it’s only natural that we print just as smart as we’d like to think we are. During this recession where magazines are scaling back their page counts, we present to you our thickest book to date, printed on 100% recycled paper. We start with an ecological, economical road trip beginning in the frozen wind tunnel city of Montreal 72. Geoff Clifford braves the colourful characters Greyhound Bus Line can offer for a three-day trip across the country to North Vancouver. With his forehead to the glass and camera in hand, Clifford uncovers the similarities and stark differences of the two cities while managing to capture a handful of gems as the snow back home continues to pile up. Reserved for this special issue, the Fourstar “North Of Everything” tour swept across the country ( 96 ) with Rick Howard, Mike Carroll, Eric Koston, Guy Mariano (need I say more?)… It may have been because of the eco trend to reduce CO2 emissions, or due to the rising gas prices – or other reasons altogether, but there was just one tour of this caliber to sweep through Canada this past summer. – why not let it be the biggest names in skateboarding? We also make contact with the black metal ecology of Wolves In The Throne Room at their sustainable farm in Washington. Artists Heather & Ivan Morison(108) showed recently in Toronto offering environmental-concerning work, aesthetically pleasing and investigative 136. We feature these artists and show other UK-based artists working with eco ideology in a gallery 86. Kenny Anderson is interviewed and talks about his earth-friendly veggie-oil conversion

business (122). Dustin Koop visits his old friend Leonard at the Salton Sea 62. We wrap up the year and the group show “a Rolling Perspective” in Toronto 172. Finally, taking the obvious route for the special environmental issue, we take it to the streets by train and street-car ( 142 ) on our way to design superiority on the outskirts of Vancouver, where Timebomb houses the personal art collection of Garret Louie 154. If there’s one thing I hope you might take away from this book other than the pretty pictures, it is this: creativity is spawned by way of scarcity with limitations. The threat of global climate change and the eco trend is a positive thing when you look at all the interesting things it pushes us to make and explore. Enjoy this special edition of Color, doing your part to help the environment by supporting the original skate culture magazine – the one creatively working to reduce our carbon footprint. We are proud to announce Color is officially the greenest skateboard magazine in North America.

Sandro Grison, creative director / editor-in-chief COLORMAGAZINE.CA

volume6issue6.

9 contributors, 14 intro, 16 contents, 28 inspiration bound 52 anthrax, 79 helter/shelter, 162 fotofeature, 176 sound cheque, 178 trailer, 184 over and out, 186 credits.

[ o ] WATT

72 BACK OF THE BUS To the Western Front with Geoff Clifford

96 SEYLYNN TO HAPPY LAND Connecting the dots with the Fourstar team

108 VASTNESS AND SORROW Wolves in the Throne Room lament the folly of civilization with words by Saelan Twerdy, art by Erik Brunetti.

112 FROM WHENCE THEY CAME Fashion creatively directed by Corey Adams.

30 36 16

contents.

CMYK

PRODUCT TOSS

Sequentials with Pat O’Rourke, Colin Lambert, Mike Fyfe and Kevin Wu

The tees, kicks and other goods to keep you green.

EXTRA/RANDOM

Stüssy Vancouver, Andre Princes photography.

SHOW

Nature and Captial Iain Baxter& at Corkin Gallery by Leah Turner.

Pollution is responsible for approximately 1,000 premature deaths and 5,500 hospitalizations each year in Toronto. Above, Jesse Tessier pushes through the air pollution to come up on this ledge crooked grind.

“WRITE TO WIN” CONTEST. Win the Element prize pack by captioning a Todd Francis illustration. 54

122 THE SUSTAINABLE STOKE Kenny Anderson interviewed by Mike Christie. photos by Mikendo

134 GOING DUTCH

A classy duo, The Dutchess and the Duke by Jenny Charlesworth. photographed by Jason Fisher

136 ARTIST FEATURE

Heather & Ivan Morrison building from below. By Leah Turner

142 IN TRANSIT

Trains, planks and no automobiles. By Rhianon Bader

154 PLANTED

Timebomb’s new digs flourishes with art and design. By Jon Yurechko

contents.

Due to heavy pollution caused by untreated industrial, chemical and sewage runoff, Lake Ontario has been found to contain over 360 identified and many more unidentified chemicals. During the 1960’s and 1970’s, much of the fish population began to die because of frequent and severe algal blooms. Cleanup efforts, including stricter environmental regulations and improved treatments plants have attempted to restore Lake Ontario with promising initial results. Here Hill Sulphur (no pun intended) backside nosegrinds his way toward Lake Ontario. wattphoto.

NATURES PATH.

CITY.

120 Luke ARTISAN. Painter

Acting natural for a healthier future.

The Salton Sea

GALLERY.

Earth and eye friendly pictures.

172

LAST NITE.

a Rolling Perspec- tive, Toronto and Shoot To Thrill III premieres.

180 NEXT/BEST. with Wade Fyfe

Why do you think it’s called a party?

Because deep down every human knows that the best thing about us hairless monkeys is our will to team up and do things together. Gathering a crowd might not always make things easier but it’s a water proof guarantee for more fun and a better show. A simple and stimulating truth, celebrated here by WeSC Activists Ray Barbee, Wieger Van Wageningen, Tony Manfre, Love Eneroth, Mark Baines, Ben Nordberg, Cooper Wilt and Ricky Sandström. – Go team, Go!

THE BALANCE OF OPPOSITES VOLUME 02 | CHAPTER 05 L E O R O M E R O G E T S PA I D F O R T H I S A scene like this is rarely played out in the real world. Seriously, how often do you see three grown men playing on a swing set? That’s right, not often. But sometimes on skate missions you’ve gotta do something to pass the time while waiting for your bro to get the trick. What a way to make a living...

R V C A . C O M / S K AT E

K E E G A N S A U D E R | K E V I N “ S P A N K Y ” L O N G | L E O R O M E R O | N E S T O R J U D K I N S | R AY M O N D M O L I N A R

AU ST I N ST E P H E N S | C A I R O F O ST E R | DAV I D R EY E S | E D T E M P L E TO N | JO S H H A R M O N Y

TIMEBOMBTRADING.COM | STICKERS@TIMEBOMB.BC.CA

RVCA.COM | RVCAANPQ.COM

â&#x20AC;&#x153;empower people to take action.â&#x20AC;?

Rob dyeR | Humanitarian | skateboarder Photos by Element Advocate Brian Gaberman elementskateboards.com power totheplanet.tv

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Skateboarding meanS everything to me.â&#x20AC;?

dave NolaN | skateboarder

SURVIVAL INTO THE 21ST CENTURY: PLANETARY HEALERS MANUAL THE BEWILDERMENTS OF BERNARD WILLIS aaron peck (pedlar press, 2008)

This is Vancouver author Aaron Peck’s first novel, though certainly not his first published writing – he’s been active as an art critic (and occasional literary critic) for years. It’s fitting, then, that The Bewilderments of Bernard Willis feels somewhat non-fictional. It’s an accumulation of fragments: thinly-disguised autobiography, poetical musings on local landmarks and real historical events, and quotations from literature and philosophy are all set into play against each other in a narrative that hops back and forth in time with a nimble facility while always maintaining a stylish sense – sometimes a little too self-awarely – of the contemporary. Peck casts his protagonist, Bernard Willis, as the ultimate flaneur, freely wandering through physical cities as well as archives of esoteric knowledge, and the book, as a result, is a whimsical, meandering affair, largely concerned with a particularly au courant feeling of being unable to make sense of an ever-growing, ever-more-accessible body of knowledge. Hence the “bewilderments” of the title. The premise of the book is Willis’ disappearance, and this slim gem of a novel seems equally in danger of evaporating before anyone finds it. If you like an intellectual detective story (Paul Auster fans, take note), don’t let this one slip away. —saelan twerdy

viktoras kulvinskas (21st century publications)

CHEMISES

In a time when the health of our planet and ourselves is under attack from all forms of stress and pollution, there has never been a more important time to carry this book. Well, it’s more than a book, as its title fittingly describes. Cartoonish cover aside, these 300+ pages are an encyclopaedia of holistic knowledge containing everything you need to know in keeping yourself and in turn the earth in the highest state of well-being. It explains the importance and vitality received from consuming raw live foods, teaches you how to become a sprouting expert, covers many various forms of detoxification and fasting, and truly shows the power of food as medicine. It also moves into topics that many might not be familiar with such as fruitarians, breatharianism, and what provisions to pack to help survive an apocalypse. All of these things in combination with meditation, yoga, and a drop of patchouli oil, will quickly put you on the path to blissful happiness, health, and healing.

It’s hard to imagine that the birth of party photo documentation would have stemmed from Mali’s capital Bamako in the early 1960s. But it was indeed Malick Sidibe, the predecessor to the likes of Cobra Snake and Kathy Is Your Friend, who documented the Mali scene every evening for over 15 years. Making his way to the clubs and discos to photograph their patrons, he would return home every night to develop his film. The images from each night would be placed in carefully documented reports that the partiers from the night before would browse through and purchase what they wanted. It is the likes of these folders that have been reproduced in this edition, down to the crinkled details of the faded folder paper. Layed out as you would see on the internet today, these images offer a very poignant look into the Mali club scene of the past. —gordon nicholas

summer issue 2008 (fotoincisione varesina) This small, independent publication focuses on contemporary photography on an international level. Beautifully printed, these small 16-page booklets bring together some incredible images by many young contemporary photographers. Two issues are printed yearly, with some past contributors being Alana Celii, Jackson Eaton, and Tim Barber. —gordon nicholas FLICKR.COM/PHOTOS/0_100

bookreviews.

STEIDLVILLE.COM / STEIDL.DE

—tj watt

SLAP MAGAZINE

PANGRAM #1

Starting out printed with soy-based inks on recycled materials, the oversized magazine with Lance Dawes at the helm was the new voice for grassroots skateboarding. Not as wacky nor as controversial as Big Brother, Slap offered a real view of what was going on in the epicenter that was San Francisco. Slap went through several changes along the way, helping to establish such visionary photographers as Brian Gaberman, who served as photo editor in the late 90s, and Joe Brook, who is still there today. It will continue on in a digital format, but I can’t help but feel a bit of nostalgia for the end of a chapter.

Pangram’s creator was once among the common-folk commuting to work every morning as art director for several publications in South Africa. Today he makes Pangram while waiting for the paint to dry on his canvases. It’s an online bi-monthly magazine done in the Issuu format. It contains general views of the restless public, their interests, ideas and social commentary from relevant subjects to promote forward thinking and general chaos. It’s out every second month so #2, The Seasons in the Abyss, is available by the time you’ve finished reading this.

final print issue #199 (high speed)

0 – 100

malick sidibe (steidl)

stefan naude (issuu.com)

—sandro grison

—dylan doubt SLAPMAGAZINE.COM

PANGRAM101.BLOGSPOT.COM

PAT Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ROURKE manual to gap to lipslide [ o ] comber.

.cmyk

cmyk.

.planted 161

BILL MARSHALL ollie [ o ] ceglia. 163

164 LEE YANKOU hardflip [ o ] stanfield.

165

166

ADAM HOPKINS 50-50 [ o ] doubt. 167

WILL DURIE kickflip [ o ] dufresne. 169

170

171

St端ssy store photos and Color x Momentum wheels.

172 events.

template/template. 173

174 template/template.

template/template. 175

176 template/template.

SUBSCRIBE ONLINE

baseplate prints by Roger Allen.

colormagazine.ca

JUST IMAGINE Element has teamed up with the Imaginary Foundation to create these very real decks. The story behind the Foundation is that it was started in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1973 by a man known only as The Director. He wanted to create a “think tank” and form a new way to research and explore using the imagination. I guess the think tank decided to bring their ideas to the world by starting a clothing line and by pairing up with another progressive, forward thinking company. elementskateboards.com

FONTSKI X COLOR These “Skate or DIY” tees produced for our Special Edition Doit-Yourself issue are a collaboration between Fontski and Color. Going back to the good ‘ol days they have a small front graphic and a nice big one on the back. They’re super soft and have that nicely worn-in feel. We only printed a limited number so if you want one get online and pick up one in white and one in black. colormagazine.ca

Tiny Vices aperture series… The Aperture Foundation has long been a friend of the photographic arts, so it comes as no surprise that they tracked down Tim Barber’s tiny vices network and launched a book series. The first five feature work by Kenneth Cappello (amazing vintage skate snapshots), Allan MacIntyre (surreal landscapes), Jason Nocito (tiny glimpses of simple ephemera), Jaimie Warren (stark self-portraits), and Robin Schwartz (our favourite… a bizarre collection of portraits of her daughter interacting with a diverse cast of exotic animals). The series is available through aperture (aperture.org), tiny vices and, of course, your local bookseller. TINYVICES.cOM

vol6issue6.

VOLCOM V.CO-LOGICAL Doing something to lesson their impact on our earth, Volcom has started up an organic, environmentally responsible line. All the products are made with sustainable alternatives like certified organic cotton, hemp, vegetable dyes, and organic stains. They’ve also teamed up with 1% For the Planet to donate 1% of their V.Co sales to various environmental causes. Get something nice for you and the planet at the same time. Thanks to Jake for modeling. I’m told he shreds. myspace.com/volcomvcological

PODIUM PEDALS Promoting a healthy and green lifestyle, Podium Distribution is encouraging their employees to ride their bikes to work by providing special incentives. If someone doesn’t have a bike and wants to head out for lunch or grab a coffee the company also provides a stable of bikes for everyone to use. Not only are they cutting back on CO2, I bet they’re looking pretty svelte too. podiumdist.com

FURY EVO 2

ARTISTS RESPOND [ o ] MASON

This is the latest in truck technology to be released by Fury. I took a look at some online user reviews and found out that the public approve. This seems to be the general concensus - “Awsome Fury Trucks Fury Evo 2 they have awsome pro riders and I put them through hell. I am looking to turn pro and they hold up awsome. I had a pair 4 3 and a half years and all that happen was a broken kingpin.” So, I guess they’re awesome? furytruckcompany.com

Juggernaut by Iñigo Manglano-Ovalle, 2008 installation view of film projection.

MADE FOR SKATE As part of a global art collective, eight contemporary artists from around the world were each sent to a different UNESCOdesignated World Heritage site to participate in twp mini-residencies for the Human/Nature: Artists Respond to a Changing Planet project. Sent into the field with a specialist to help facilitate the visits, the artists were given as authentic an experience as possible and as much information about the culture and the environment as they could gather in a short period of time. Once their mini-residencies were complete each participating artist was free to create anything they wanted in response to their experience. Some created video installations, others made sculptures by working with the indigenous peoples or created a tool to make life easier for the people living in the area. The traveling exhibit features all forms of media that the curators hope will instill a new concern and interest for the protection of environmental biodiversity and conservation worldwide. Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego until February 1, 2009; UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive April 1- September 27, 2009 National tour date – tbd artistsrespond.org

Nike is sponsoring the book, Made for Skate: The Illustrated History of Skateboard Footwear, celebrating the history of the skate shoe. It features over 1000 photos beginning with the Randy 720, the first skate specific shoe produced, and goes on to share stories and commentary from industry heavyweights, past and present. The idea and the majority of content that make up the book come from the Made for Skate exhibition that was first put together by two European guys with a passion for the history of the culture. They realized that there physically wasn’t enough room to be able to share all the stories behind each shoe in their exhibit, so they decided to compile a book and bring some major sponsors on board. nike.com/nikeskateboarding

ABOUT TIME This extremely limited edition watch from Quiksilver, The Ray, is a study in responsible eco-design. From the beginning of the design process through the life of the watch, the environmental impact of the product was considered. The watch is made of ebony wood from a sustainable forest, where for each tree taken another is planted, 100% recyclable stainless steel, aluminum, and mineral crystal, and has an automatic movement that needs no batteries. To cut down on the energy and the oil consumed during manufacturing each watch was assembled by hand and packaged in a recycled cardboard container. To ensure that the watch is properly recycled Quiksilver asks those lucky enough to have gotten The Ray on their wrist to return it so that it can be taken apart and put through the right recycling channels. This watch is well worth the wait and the effort. quiksilver.com .anthrax

WRITE TO WIN $500 IN PRODUCT FROM ELEMENT!

The top five entrants will also receive a year’s subscription.

If you were a tree, what kind would you be? A sarcastic sequoia, a witty willow, a bitchy birch? Embrace your inner tree and fill in the thought bubble for this Todd Francis illustrated graphic to win a massive Element prize pack.

Mail your entries to: “WRITE TO WIN” c/o Color Magazine 105-321 Railway St, Vancouver, BC, V6A 1A4, Canada. All entries become the property of Color Magazine and may be used in future online and print materials. Contest closes March 12, 2009

for a healthier future. words bydr. kris bentz nd

illustration byporous walker

s far back as I can remember skateboarding has always been on the fringes of society. Over the years it’s been a nonstop battle of running from cops, store owners, and security guards in an attempt to simply secure a spot where we could progress at a pastime that felt so right from someone on the inside, yet is often looked down on by the general public. For naturopathic doctors it’s been no different. Back in 1910 Abraham Flexnor, considered to be the father of medical education, wrote a report on US and Canadian medical schools for the Carnegie Foundation established by Andrew Carnegie, the richest man in the world at that time. This was the most definitive event in the history of medicine in North America. The Flexnor Report secured funding from Rockefeller and Carnegie for schools that only specialized in allopathic care (drugs and surgery). As historian Joseph Goulden puts it, “Flexnor had the ideas, Rockefeller and Carnegie had the money, and their marriage was spectacular.” This marked the birth of a monster known as the pharmaceutical industry and the emergence of allopathic medicine being viewed as the only “true” form of medicine. Within ten years of the Flexnor Report, alternative medical schools were virtually wiped from the map. THE SIX PRINCIPLES OF NATUROPATHIC MEDICINE: 1. Do No Harm – use medicines and methods that promote the body’s natural healing process and minimize or eliminate the risk of harmful side-effects. 2. The Healing Power of Nature – The body has an inherent ability to establish, maintain, and restore health. The physician’s role is to facilitate this process. 3. Identify and Treat the Cause – The cause of illness and obstacles to cure must be removed in order to treat the disease. Symptoms should not be suppressed by treatment. 4. Treat the Whole Person – The harmonious functioning of physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects are essential to recovery from and prevention of disease. Each person should be treated with a customized individual treatment plan. 5. Doctor as Teacher – The major role of the doctor is to educate, empower, and motivate patients to take control of their own health. It is ultimately the patient who accomplishes healing. 6. Prevention – Prevention is the best cure. Health risks should be assessed and intervention taken where necessary.

Fast forward nearly a hundred years and we can see that allopathic medicine has managed to secure the only slot for full government fun-ding through Canada’s MSP [Medical Services Plan]. Naturopathic doctors are still struggling for acceptance and incorporation into the MSP despite this 21st century alternative health explosion that has every other Canadian looking to treat themselves through self-prescribed health supplements. Needless to say, it has many of us asking “why?” Medical doctors and naturopathic doctors both study the same core curriculum in their first two years of school (anatomy, physiology, pathology,

etc). Medical doctors then go on to learn drug therapies and surgical procedures whereas naturopathic doctors learn non-drug therapies like botanical medicine, homeopathy, vitamin and supplement prescriptions and non-invasive procedures such as acupuncture, physical manipulation, massage therapy, and hydrotherapy. Naturopathic doctors use a combination of modern medicine and centuries-old healing methods to treat everyday illnesses from cancer to joint pain. They use these to treat the body as a whole, or holistically. The result is a form of medicine that blends right into the green movement and caters to the health of individuals through strengthening their organ systems, thereby increasing their general vitality and well-being. Naturopathy is a medical science designed to reconnect humankind to its natural environment. Just as nature has a rhythm with seasons, day/night, and weather, human beings have a rhythm also. The aim is to rebalance the internal rhythm of hormones, digestion, and sleep with the external rhythm.

The theory is that an individual cannot exist healthfully in a toxic environment. Treatment plans often involve patients having to detoxify their external environment in order to restore health, such as removing contaminated foods, drinking more water, or spending more time in nature to breathe clean air. Breath, water, sunlight, plants – these are all commonplace in a naturopathic prescription. When we become disconnected from our natural environment for too long our internal rhythm becomes disrupted and disease sets in. Kind of like when you put the skateboard away for the winter and then try to bust your first kickflip in the spring. Green medicine is as much a way of the past as it is the way of the future and even though it’s not a fad, it may be finally starting to get the attention it deserves. Hop off your skateboard or ten-speed for a moment and take a minute to pick the dandelions, they just may be what you need.

PRANAHEALING.CA

.naturespath

SPOTS. Niland/Slab City Niland, a.k.a. Slab City, is the spot to hit if you need to eat or get drunk, don’t forget to gas up your car, this is the last place to fill up for the next 40 minutes. Hot Shower Head east on Main St in Niland, which will turn into Beal Rd as you cross the railroad tracks. After about 2.5 miles you will cross a bridge. To your right you will see a sign that says, “If vehicle is here please stayaway.” Past that sign is the shower. This hot shower is actually a cistern, with a cement hole in the ground. Water from the nearby hot spring flows into the top of the cistern. The Slab City residents bathe here!

Hot Springs This spot is a bit hidden. Drive past the hot shower across the bridge until you see two large, round cement pillars. Walk towards the large bush, and voila! It can be a bit murky. Salvation Mountain East Beal Road, Niland. Head east on Main St, which turns into Beal Road as you cross the railroad tracks. After about 2.5 miles you will see Salvation Mountain on your right. The Range At the end of Beal Road The range is on your right, you can’t miss it. On Saturday nights this place is packed.

BINGE DRINK.

SKATE.

SLEEP.

Capt N Jim’s 2108 Salton Arena Thermal, CA Apparently legendary surfer David Eggers bartends this spot. He supposedly got messed up on drugs and later became diagnosed with schizophrenia, fun times.

Olympic Pool Drive down Beal Rd and turn right down Low Rd and a left on Tank Rd. This pool is smooth as butter, yet full of garbage. Bring a shovel, bucket and broom. Watch out for all the broken glass and Methheads.

Mecca Beach This is a large developed campground with beach access. Mecca Beach has flush toilets, showers and a limited number of partial hook-up sites. Good fishing is found off of Mecca Beach.

Desert Beach Pool Head north on HWY 111, turn left on Marina Dr. You will see a deserted hotel and across from it what looks to be a deserted clubhouse called “Aces and Spades.” The pool of your dreams, right on the water, is behind this building.

EATS.

The Ski Inn 9596 Ave A Bombay Beach CA Get boozy at this spot, all the locals are escaping the heat up in here. They don’t take credit cards and the only ATM in town is unavailable after 6pm

Bobby D’s Pizza 8110 Highway 111, Niland, CA Get the Chef’s Mistake, it’s a personal pizza topped with four kinds of meat – that is, if they are ever open.

words& photosby dustin koop

Are you down for a complete mind fuck of visual insanity? Come to the best-kept secret california has to offer. Oh yeah, bring a camera. In 2002 I had rented an amazing movie called The Salton Sea – you know, the one with Val Kilmer. This is how I learned of this postapocalyptic ecological disaster of a community and all its craziness. In the summer, all 110 miles of this abandoned American dream smells of rotting fish, which may have something to do with the seven million dead fish that end up on the beach every summer, sometimes stacked three feet high, as far as one can see. This is the spot to go to if you want to live off the grid as a recluse and fraternize with the most interesting and inspiring characters of ours and your grandparents’ generation.

The Salton Sea is not actually a sea, it was created by accident in 1905 when increased flooding on the Colorado River allowed water to crash through canal barriers and for the next 18 months the entire flow of the Colorado River rushed downhill into the Salton trough. By the time engineers were finally able to stop the breaching water in 1907, the Salton Sea had been born – 45 miles long, 20 miles wide. While it may be an interesting place to go camping, it also seems like a place you could get hacked up quite easily – just thought I’d put that out there.

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To take full advantage of Greyhound Canada’s $200 to Anywhere in North America offer, you must make arrangements well in advance. For Greg Brewer, catching a kickflip, however, requires a little less planning.

to the western front.

ontreal offers endless miles of amazing untouched street terrain to shralp in the spring, summer and fall, but the winters are undyingly intense to say the least. In March you can expect the streets to be lined with six-foot-high snow banks. So while friends and roommates braved the cold and numbed their brains in the nightlife of Montreal, Geoff Clifford vouched to venture on his own and visit some pals on the West Coast… by bus. It is the more environmentally-friendly way to travel long distances, but most might not consider taking a bus from Montreal to Vancouver, BC. Maybe the three days of discomfort is worth it if only to feel warm again for a little while. This is Geoff’s story. words and photosby geoff clifford

Caleb Davies, lipslide.

“I’m not going to sugarcoat it… The bus is not a comfortable way to travel.”

The invaluable secret: The back seat of the bus in front of the bathroom has about five inches more legroom than all the others and a large space behind the seat to stash baggage. If you take the bus, do whatever you can do to get this seat. Justin Allain, backside smith grind.

The trip to Vancouver from Montreal involves three days of nonstop driving each way and I’m not going to sugarcoat it… The bus is not a comfortable way to travel. Fortunately, I discovered an invaluable secret early on and moved to the back of the bus where there’s a bit more leg-room. A guy actually offered me $20 at one point for my seat. There are a lot of other things that you can do to make the trip a little more comfortable. Bringing a pillow and blanket seemed to be a pretty popular option with other passengers but I’ve got to hand it to the guy who decided to make a bed for himself on the floor of the bus. Depending on your disposition, the colourful personalities that frequent the bus can be either annoying as hell or grade A entertainment. A notable character from the trip was the

completely wasted gay dude who decided to borrow make-up from the girl beside him and proceeded to transform himself into a drag queen to the horror of the homophobic oil rig worker seated in front of him. Another standout was the intellectual from New Brunswick that kept forcing conversations with me. A self-proclaimed theologian, some of his more inspired offerings included “The New Testament came out in the early 1900s”, and “I had to get a translated version of the Koran because I don’t read Hebrew.” And my personal favourite, which was laid on another passenger who had just arrived in Canada from the Czech Republic: “I’ve done a lot of research and I’ve discovered that Czech girls love sex. They just don’t want one guy either… they want 10. I want to go to Prague so I can get laid.” Solid gold material. .westernfront

When you roll off the bus, the knees don’t quite do what they should. No knee problems here, Greg Brewer, nollie heelflip.

One day after I arrived in Vancouver, I awoke to find the city covered with a blanket of snow! This was one thing I did not expect to see and although it did eventually melt after a day or so, my days out skating seemed to be perpetually plagued with the threat of immanent rainfall. Apparently Vancouver isn’t immune from having shitty weather either… especially when I’m around. Another thing that really surprised me about the city was the amount of skatestoppers in place. I’d heard that Vancouver wasn’t what it used to be for skateboarding, but I was not expecting things to be as bad as they appeared to be downtown. Almost every single ledge, no matter how high or low, has some sort of anti-skate device employed. In North Van I actually saw a step that was no more than an inch and a half off the ground with knobs on it. Fortunately, there seems to be a dedicated group of individuals around in the city that are able to liberate a few choice spots here and there from those heinous little fuckers. There does seem to be a 76

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positive benefit to be had from all the skatestoppers though. In my experience, security guards were pretty relaxed and friendly in Vancouver, unlike the situation in Montreal. No harsh words, threats or acts of violence, but “I hate to do this guys, I’m going to have to ask if you could please leave... well maybe I can give you a few more minutes.” The talent in Vancouver is amazing despite the hurdles they must overcome. Overall, I had an amazing time, but the trip was definitely not without its interesting discoveries and hardships. I was still able to get out to some great spots and come away with shots and I’ll definitely be returning. I also have a sneaking suspicion that I’ll be taking advantage of that $200 deal with Greyhound Canada to hit up other skate destinations in the future.

After all those hours thinking about the possibilities, how could you settle for just one trick, or one bench when you can have it all? Adam Ruddell killer bench conbo! Nosegrind, shove-it, 5-0.

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wordsby dylan doubt

fourstar.

photosby ben colen

The tour started as all tours should, with a morning session at the Seylynn snake run, one of Canada’s oldest skateparks and host to the world skateboard championships back in ’86. It is hard to imagine a pro contest taking place here, but I suppose those were different times. Guy Mariano pays his respects on Howard’s home turf. Backside noseblunt.

—andrew brophy

he Girl family may have always been a bit of a dream team, but even so, there have always been those rad dudes that have had comfortable homes elsewhere. It seemed that when Rick Howard and Eric Koston started Fourstar it was to provide a place where good dudes could gather without the limitations imposed by which shoes they wore or what boards they rode. How else do you get such visionary skateboarders as Mark Gonzales and Max Schaaf in the mix? Unfortunately, neither would be able to make this tour, but that is not to say that the crew was lacking. Aside from Lucas Puig, the rest of the roster was included and seemed to be enjoying themselves very much indeed. Team captains, Howard and Koston

led the way. Mike Carroll and Guy Mariano following closely. Brian Anderson was there, lending a helping hand whenever he could. He would often disappear, and come back with arms full of waters, beer and/or sandwiches. Everyone’s favourite newcomer is Sean Malto. Wine connoisseur and man of massive pop, Australia’s Andrew Brophy, and the newest addition to the team came in the form of the Pacific Northwest’s own Tyler Bledsoe. Wade Fyfe found his way to a seat in the van, and Quinn Starr and Mike Vince were able to tag along in Vancouver and Winnipeg respectively. Tony Ferguson also came out of retirement to crush every demo on the tour. Let’s just say that it was clear that people were there to enjoy themselves.

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CEE-LO uses three dice with the breakdown as follows: Whenever it seemed like things were getting too quiet, the dice came out. There were two options… either “ceelo” or “threes.” Let me give you a quick break down for the few of you who aren’t initiated.

4-5-6 The highest possible roll.

“TRIPS” Rolling three of the same number is known as rolling “trips”. Higher trips beat lower trips, so 4-4-4 is better than 3-3-3.

“POINT” Rolling a pair, and another number, establishes the singleton as a “point.” A higher point beats a lower point, so 1-1-3 is better than 6-6-2.

1-2-3 The lowest possible roll. Any other roll is a meaningless combination and must be re-rolled until one of the above combinations occurs. In most cases there will be a single winner with the best roll. All this to the soundtrack of a lot of shouting, boasting and praying. (see video on our website)

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THREES or “Trips” uses five dice, the goal or the objective is to get the lowest possible score in any of the given rounds. The object of the game is to get the lowest total score after adding up the numbers of all the dice, but remembering to count the three’s as zero’s. Hence the name of the game.

THE PLAYER ROLLS ALL FIVE DICE, decides which ones to keep, he or she can keep as many as they wish, but they must keep at least one die on each roll. Once a die has been chosen it is out of play for the rest of that turn. TO WIN; the best score you can get is zero. This happens if you roll 3-3-3-3-3, but if a player rolls a 6-6-6-6-6 it is called “shooting the moon” this way that player wins and no one else gets a chance in the rest of that round. IN A TIE situation the two players throw another dollar into the middle of the circle and a roll-off begins. The player who wins that round will take all the money form the middle of the circle. Again, all this to the soundtrack of a lot of shouting, boasting and praying. (see video on our website)

From the first time you see Bledsoe skating at a demo, you quickly see how well he fits in with the rest of the team. At a relatively blownout Vancouver spot, he finds his niche with a slightly more interesting exit than most. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s the hot moves like this that solidified his permanent spot on the team. Malto backed him up with a well proper backside tailslide bigspin. Everyone hugged and then we moved on to another hotspot where Brian Anderson, despite his unfair size advantage, just started jumping on fakie hurricanes and making the most of the emasculated rail.

TYLER BLEDSOE lipslide bigspin

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You couldn’t ask for a better skate companion than Sean Malto. He never complains about shitty ground, is a treat to watch roll around and always adds a little good fire to any situation. He and Tyler are the kind of dudes that keep an old man excited about the future of skateboarding. Here he ends a session at a Vancouver spot that I would be hesitant to bring most pros to. Frontside blunt transfer revert with more than a little class on less than glassy conditions.

If it wasn’t the dice, it was the cards. “Speed” is played by splitting up the deck and trying to discard all your cards in the two discard piles before your opponent does. Though there was usually no money involved the pace of the game was enough to throw several challengers into a fierce panic. Meza appears to be undefeated.

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The trip from Vancouver to Winnipeg was a bit of a blur. Mostly due to the fact that I may not have been there, but that leg always seems like a whirlwind of bright skateparks, reservation casinos, massive “free bird” skies and an endless string of meals at, as Meza puts it, “the unavoidable chain restaurant,” Earls. In Winnipeg, the demo was not so much a demo, but some good dudes hanging out and rolling around during the big Winnipeg Am contest that was going on at the plaza. Malto and Bledsoe blended in well with the am sessions, while the grown-ass men either laid around avoiding the sun, or destroyed the bowl area.

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RICK HOWARD backside bluntslide

One of the few street spots that we made it to in Winnipeg was this bench to bench. Mike Vince took the opportunity to connect two nose manuals with a nollie. Shortly after, the fireworks came out and the parking lot turned into a war zone.

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A few notes on the gamblinG Meza won $80 at Tony Ferguson's the first night and retired for the rest of the trip. Howard may have won and/or lost the most depending on how you deciphered his cryptic response to how he did the night before. I think BA came up the most, pretty much off of one night. Mariano won some money off of Howard, but lost a friend in the processâ&#x20AC;Ś Mariano also pointed out that Bledsoe was the biggest winner, going home with a spot on the team. Howard is gambling whenever Malto is rolling the dice.

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It seemed like Andrew Brophy was constantly losing hats. He walked into a shop in Saskatoon and paid full retail for a Kitsch hat that only lasted him 48hrs or so. Geoff Dermer. If you’re listening, you may want to send a package down under! Curvacious bluntslide, North Vancouver.

One thing that you will quickly notice when dining with the Fourstar team is that there are no shortage of food and beverages ordered “for the table”. Pitchers, bottles of wine, appetizers, pizzas… it really got out of hand. You almost feel guilty ordering for yourself. Shit, this whole tour should have been based around it. Eric Koston knows how to share the wealth, and delivers a platter. Reverse frontside pointer grind, halfcab. Go ahead, grab a slice.

—sam smyth

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—aaron meza

What more appropriate a spot to wind up a tour than Winnipeg’s (not so) famous “Happy Land”. With little more than a suggestion of transition, and a bit of a slope, it may be one of the least impressive parks that one could stumble upon. And, when I say stumble it may be more appropriate to say trek to, because it required some fancy footwork through a swamp and a precarious leap over a ditch. Bledsoe was immediately comfortable, showing his Portland roots, and he, Malto and Brophy started blasting massive ollies off of an illusion hip. Everyone else was happy enough with relatively slow speed lines, beer in hand. The (ahem) deep end felt a punishing blow by the Mez’s brutal attack of the lip. When I asked him if it was the session of the trip, he replied “the year.” Happy Land is a place where, like spawning salmon, happiness flows upstream.

Just when you thought the session was dying down, around the corner comes Brian Anderson, with a box of drinks under one arm, a bag of sandwiches in the other, and a case of beer balanced on his head. Certainly not one to drag a session down, the man knows how to take good care of the homies. Throwing out the odd beanplant doesn’t hurt either. Good times brother, good times…

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Wolves in the Throne Room Lament the Folly of Civilization wordsby saelan twerdy

illustrationby erik brunetti

ore than a decade after it emergence, the extremism of Norway’s orig-inal black metal scene continues to shock and fascinate. Partly, it’s a sideshow: corpsepaint, church-burning, murder, and some of the most inscrutably dank, murky, and blood-curdling noises ever laid to tape. From another perspective, though, black metal offers a kind of authenticty that few other artistic movements of the recent past have been able to summon. In radical opposition to the course of normative Western civilization (and especially the Christian tradition), the black metal scene birthed an ideology of pure evil-worship, turning not so much to Satanism as to the pagan traditions of Northern Europe. As exagerrated, childish, and racist as it often was, the original black metal scene still backed up their words with actions – often heinous ones.

As time has progressed, most European bands that carry the black metal torch have become “legitimate”, and in North America, the few artists that have taken up the genre tend to fall into the category of “experimental music, inspired more by the extremism of black metal than the ideas behind it. Perhaps the sole exception is Olympia, WA’s, Wolves in the Throne Room. Inspired in part by the mournful landscape of the Pacific Northwest – craggy mountain ranges and dark, fog-shrouded forests – they’ve taken black metal’s radical critique of society and moved it beyond an aesthetic of pure evil to an unexpected new ethical stance: radical ecology. Composed of Aaron Weaver (drums), Nathan Weaver (guitar), and Will Lindsey (guitar), Wolves in the Throne Room hold that industrialized civilization is a colossal mistake that wreaks violence on the earth while estranging humans from them-selves and their natural environment. Often incorporating female vocals and richly textured analog synthesizers with black metal’s trademark blast beats, razor-edged guitars, and haunted screams, Wolves in the Throne Room craft an epic sound that evokes the tragedy of progress with a sense of vast rage and sorrow. At the same time, triumphant passages of their songs call up the power and beauty of nature and hold out the promise of rebirth and spiritual renewal – perhaps by violence if necessary. Most remarkably, black metal ecology isn’t just a musical approach for Wolves in the Throne Room: it’s a way of life. Aaran and Nathan Weaver live a homestead-style life in the Washington wilderness where they operate a sustainable farm, and the way they discuss their music has the ring of initiates practicing a spiritual discipline. We spoke to Aaron Weaver and found him to be extremely talkative and articulate.

Color: What was your first exposure to black metal? AW: I think we’ve always been into all sorts of extreme music. I remember getting In the Nightside Eclipse by Emperor right when it came out [in 1994]. We’ve always had black metal records around. But I think I started to get into black metal seriously and to see it less as just kind of a weird, cartoonish thing that happened in Norway in the 90s and kind of more as a serious art form maybe seven or eight years ago. I started to see parallels between a certain kind of spirit that you find in black metal and the sorts of philosophies and things that I found in my life and started to make some connections and it just became more and more clear that it made sense – not to play black metal, necessarily – but to play music that’s aware of and inspired by black metal in a lot of ways. Were you in bands prior to being in Wolves in the Throne Room? Yeah, we were in punk and hardcore bands since we were probably 15 or 16 years old. Nathan and I both grew up in Olympia, which has a pretty well-known and storied underground punk rock scene. We never had much connection to say, Riot Girl, but I definitely appreciate that spirit, you know? K Records and Kill Rock Stars, all those labels. I appreciate everything that those labels advanced and stood for. Definitely as a kid, coming up in high school, going to those kinds of shows and being exposed to those kinds of ideas was super, super influential. We’ve always been more on the metal side of things, but we definitely absorbed that sort of underground punk ethic. Can you tell me a bit about your farm? What do you guys grow? Well, about six years ago we bought this land, it’s called Calliope. In the mid-70s it was a fullon hippie commune, and then during the 80s it 109

was an all-lesbian sort of commune – it’s been a bunch of stuff over the years, but we moved in and thoroughly black-metalized it. And right now it’s a working farm. My partner, that’s how she earns her living. She farms maybe three or four acres. It’s a ten-acre piece of land and she goes to the local farmer’s market and sells at the local food co-op and we’re able to eat pretty much exclusively food that she grows on the farm, which is a super awesome thing for me. We don’t actually live there right now. Me and my partner and my brother moved to a place that we bought which is kind of deeper out in the woods and that’s where we’re building our recording studio and practice space. She still runs the farm at Calliope, but we needed to be kind of farther, have a little more space, especially to do music and art. The idea of a spiritual aspect to your music comes up quite a lot when people write about you -Yeah, sure. I think that’s kind of the difference between what we’re doing now and the music we were making ten years ago, or even what I think punk music is. Punk music by definition is explicitly secular and it just evolved out of this really immediate sort of human experience

and the energies of the earth and this sort of thing. It’s definitely like a really loose sense of spirituality that drives Wolves in the Throne Room. But that’s me, I mean, Nathan’s always practiced magic and been really into the tarot ever since he was a pretty young teenager, so I think he’s had a larger sense of kind of definable spirituality than I have. So, to what extent are you guys antiindustrialization? What’s your idea of an ideal society? Well, I think there’s two things. Like, there’s me and I have a bank account and a cell phone and I make these compromises, and then there’s the music, which is a totally different thing and tries to present a more extreme and uncompromising sort of spirit. We get this all the time, people say, “If you’re so antiindustrial society and anti-civilization, then why do you play electric guitars? and to me that’s just a pointless line of questioning. The idea is we’re trying to create art. We’re trying to express spirit, and that spirit has absolutely nothing to do with what one actually does. That’s the point – there’s no political program that one can enact, or system that one can put into place – it has everything to do with

“I can’t see things just chugging along as they are, just all fat and sassy, for the foreseeable future.” —aaron weaver and confronting the world, looking at it through some sort of political lens. And we’re just not doing that at all, we’re coming at it from a metaphysical, sort of spiritual dimension. And what punk music and what we’re doing have in common is that it’s a critique in a lot of ways. Our music is pretty deeply misanthropic and it’s driven by a pretty fundamental sadness and frustration about things and there’s this sort of cathartic release. The difference is that we’re not saying that the problem can be solved, like, all you gotta do is establish anarchy or all you gotta do is have this Marxist state, or all you gotta do is, you know, change the economic system. I think what our music says is that we’re more interested in the idea of a spiritual transformation, which is not the kind of thing that you can really quantify, it’s just one of those things that’s encoded within the music, not one of those things you can just talk about. It’s not like we have some sort of specific spiritual practice. None of us are interested in some sort of reconstructed European heathenism. Like, a lot of people are into worshipping Odin or Thor and trying to recreate the European heathen rituals. That’s just never really felt that meaningful to me. I think we all just felt really super lost and are just now beginning to come into a kind of consciousness that is beginning to feel whole and not so alienated from the place we live 110 wolvesinthethroneroom.

just spirit and how we feel in the moment, it’s a really intuitive sort of thing. So, in a roundabout way, to answer your question, me personally, I definitely understand that one needs to make compromises and I’m not sure exactly where that line is. But the music, I think, is intended to be utterly uncompromising. The music that you’re working on now – what’s it like? We’ve been working on so much stuff! It’s crazy how we entered this vortex of, like, “a band . Usually, I have this really huge balance – I’ll do music for a while, then I’ll work on the farm for a while, then I’ll work on the house, then I’ll do this or that, but for whatever reason we’ve just gone headlong into the music over the last few months. We just finished recording a short record, kind of an EP, that’s also sort of an intense departure. We have this song with a woman, Jamie Myers, who sang on our first record and she sings the lead on some kind of full-on rock songs. It’s kind of an experiment. And we’re just now getting into the studio to start recording our as-yet-untitled new full-length. And it’s weird – you always think you know how the music’s going to sound recorded, but you really don’t know until you actually get it onto the tape.

How and when do you think it’s going to be released? Well, definitely Southern Lord will put it out. We just met with Greg Anderson, who runs Southern Lord, in Seattle, he was mixing the new Sunn0))) record up there and I think the plan is to deliver him the masters in early January and hopefully the record will be out in the spring. So, as far as the farm goes, are you guys in there for the long haul? Yeah, for sure. I don’t know what’s going to happen, man. Everybody’s got all these weird ideas about 2012 or what’s going to happen in the world with everything. I think everyone’s got the feeling that, in the world, especially in America, shit’s gonna change. And I have no idea what it’s going to be like. I can’t see things just chugging along as they are, just all fat and sassy, for the foreseeable future. And I’m definitely not the kind of guy who buys into paranoid, conspiracy-theory kind of stuff or sort of apocalyptic kind of stuff, but at the same time, looking at things rationally, one might as well be prepared for – not the worst necessarily, I think it might be really great if we had a change – but for, you know, apocalypse. So, whether we’re going to be on this particular piece of land or somewhere else, we’re 100 per cent committed to an off-thegrid, homesteading sort of lifestyle, forever. To what extent do you guys actually live off the grid? I don’t know where the one-room-cabin-withone-candle thing came from, that might have been in some press material that some guy wrote. That’s a really romantic image, but yeah, we totally have the internet and we’re hooked up to the grid, but at the same time, I’m ready for when those things aren’t going to be there. Like, we have the wood stove hooked up to the hot water heater, and I’ve got a diesel generator that can plug into the houses, and pretty much every room has a wood stove, and I’m going to replace the gas cook stove with a wood stove. I’m just thinking about setting up my home to not have to rely on the power grid – not just because I’m afraid that it’s one day not going to be there – just as an ethical and more harmonious way to live. To be sufficient for oneself and realize where that power is coming from: to feel the heat coming from your stove and look at the black smoke coming out of the chimney and look at the bare spot in the forest behind the house where the tree used to be and then think about it, you know? Think about how warm you really need to be. Wolves in the Throne Room’s most recent album, Two Hunters, is out now on Southern Lord records. Look for a new release next year.

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left to right

• Thursday; LRG jacket and toque with VOLCOM leggings, TUK creepers • Tuesday; ETNIES hoody, BILLABONG fringe vest, WESC jeans and INSIGHT leggings • Baby; BILLABONG scarf • Wednesday; EDUN LIVE t-shirt underneath a BILLABONG fringe top with a FENCHURCH striped long sleeve and a vintage jacket, RUBY REPUBLIC jeans • Glen; INDEPENDENT pants with a DVS crewneck, LRG toque, VANS shoes, MATIX hooded woven, LRG flannel, MATIX flannel (draped) • Stephan; LRG coat, WESC jeans, CONVERSE shoes

Creatively Directed by

Corey Adams Photography Dylan Doubt Costuming Mila Franovic Wizardry Calen Knauf Cast

Tuesday as Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday at Lizbell agency Glen as the Son Stephan as the Father Sid as the Giant

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• Glen; ALTAMONT hooded sweatshirt • Thursday; EDUN LIVE popover black top all other same as previous

• Wednesday; MATIX tencil cardigan • Stephan; VANS chambray long sleeve button up • Tuesday; FENCHURCH knit top all other same as previous

left to right

• Tuesday; MATIX cardigan, C1RCA terry hooded vest, INSIGHT jeans • Thursday; CREATURE balaclava, FENCHURCH tank over a C1RCA flower print t-shirt, ELEMENT jeans customized by stylist , TUK creepers • Wednesday; BILLABONG tank over a FENCHURCH top, C1RCA snake print shorts

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left to right

• Glen: INSIGHT long sleeve dress shirt, ELEMENT jean • Stephan; VOLCOM long sleeve flannel, ENJOI shorts, CONVERSE shoes • Giant; INSIGHT vest, CALVIN KLEIN shorts, SPITFIRE socks

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• Stephan; SIX PACK FRANCE polo • Glen; VOLCOM tank all other same as previous

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• Stephan; FENCHURCH sweater • Glen; EMERICA woven polo, ELEMENT jeans • Tuesday; FRESHJIVE men’s button up over 10DEEP white t-shirt, BILLABONG skirt, garter belt and stockings • Baby; wrapped in BILLABONG scarf • Thursday; ANTI HERO balaclava, VANS t-shirt, VOLCOM skirt, leather pants and TUK creeper • Wednesday; VOLCOM denim vest, WESC body suit

Timberland, 2008 india ink on paper, 45" x 69"

luke painter. wordsby nicholas brown

oronto-based artist Luke Painter’s meticulous ink drawings bring together an uncanny mix of historicity and fiction. For the past two years, Painter has built a

series of landscapes and portraits that blur temporal and cultural locations. Works such as The Harbour (Malting) (2008), part of a series in which monolithic log buildings stand flanked by deforested landscapes, perform this through historical accuracy and imagination. Based on the Canada Malting building, a functioning silo located in Toronto, the drawing anchors its references in the burgeoning modernist architecture associated with such early 20th century plants, as well as the fact that such silos were in fact once made out of wood. Gathering these historical reference points within his ongoing vision of forests clear-cut to build singular, massive structures, Painter reflects on his own connection to the malting plant’s history: “It has been unused since the 1980s and there has been a lot of debate about how the site should be changed. I grew up in this neighbourhood, which has been quickly developed into a condo landscape. It is now an interesting anomaly in the midst of development.” The artist’s intermingling of associated – yet apocryphal – histories is matched by his technical approach, applying India ink on paper using thousands of brushstrokes in a manner that evokes traditional print methods such as wood block engraving. Self-consciously evoking a nostalgic aesthetic, while intermingling time periods, fact and fiction, Painter’s laboured drawings display a strange and unique vision of a changing world.

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wordsby mike christie

portraitsby mikendo

ho better to grace the pages of our first ‘green issue’ than the illustrious Kenny Anderson. And here I use the word ‘grace’ quite purposefully, because he really is graceful, both in terms of his skateboarding and simply the way he’s living – dude has it figured out.

On a skateboard, his elegant style and uncanny control defy any attempts at description. Okay, how does a gazelle, trained in ballet, gliding across a frozen lake in the silvery light of a new moon sound? That’s not it but it’s somewhere close to it. And in person, he really is one of the nicer, more genuinely positive people you are going to find. Even when speaking it’s pretty obvious that he chooses his words as thoughtfully as he seems to choose his tricks. And recently, he’s translated his long-standing concern for the planet’s future into a booming and sustainable business. Oh, and he’s filming for the Chocolate video at the same time. Not bad for a dude who just had twins.

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Kenny Anderson interviewed.

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In the future, due to water shortages, every water slide will serve nicely as a snake run, but unfortunately all back smiths won't look this pretty, partially because everybody will be so goddamn thirsty.

[ o ] ACOSTA

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“There will be an abundant amount of clean alternative fuels and we won’t be dependent upon foreign oil.”

KENNY’S SEVEN STEPS TO HEAVEN Running your car on WVO (Waste Vegetable Oil)

Here are the essentials and everything I did and do. If you’re going to try this, make sure you do more research so you really learn about what you are doing.

Color: What is Mercedes Motoring exactly? KA: It’s a car business my friend and I have. We restore classic Mercedes Benz’s and, if the buyer wants, convert the cars to run on an alternative fuel (bio-diesel, SVO [Straight Vegetable Oil], or WVO [Waste Vegetable Oil]). It was started by my good friend JG, who I grew up with in Vegas. A few years back I bought one off of him, then read up about alternative fuels and got sucked into this new world. Everything I was learning was new to me, but it had been going on for years. The more I learned the more I wanted to experiment. We started coming up with ideas and thought we should do something positive together. So we started a website to have a home for everything. How do you guys find cars? That’s JG’s forte. He works really hard at it. He’s traveled around the country searching and he always manages to find the best ones out there.

1. You need a car with a diesel engine. I have two Mercedes. A 1979 300SD and a 1976 300D. 2. Get a conversion kit and filtering kit. I have and recommend Greasecar conversion and filtering kits. I did a lot of research and I found their dual tank kits to be one of the best and, by far, the friendliest people I’ve talked to. If you’re a bit handy, look into building one yourself. 3. Ask a restaurant if you can pick up their used oil. Asian places are the best. I went to about 10 places before one agreed. I talked to the manager and explained what I was doing. Make sure it’s non-hydrogenated oil. He said as long as I keep it clean, I’m good. Definitely be prepared to give a good explanation. You can eat some spring rolls then fuel your car with the oil they were cooked in.

What will you guys do when this era of diesel Mercedes are all gone, are there any other cars out there suitable for this kind of restoration? You can convert any diesel engine, but these are some of the best built cars, and essentially, we’re recycling them, which saves much of the energy that goes into building a new car. By the time the Mercedes’ are all gone, hopefully all of these concept cars will come to fruition. There will be an abundant amount of clean alternative fuels and we won’t be dependent upon foreign oil. I’ll be an old man telling my grandkids about this little business we had, and convincing them to go get me some used oil from a restaurant. I find myself getting frustrated with the prevailing idea that we are going to have to consume our way out of environmental problems, to buy all new environmentallyfriendly stuff, and that’s what I like so much about your company is that it’s taking something that already works well and making it work even better, do you think there is a market for doing the same thing but with other products?

Thrift stores and swap meets. The possibilities are endless. I just bought a 1940s dresser for my daughter at a swap meet and had the guy refinish it with a no VOC [Volatile Organic Compounds] paint and sealer. He talked about turning his whole refinishing business into that. There’s a lady who does modern bedding with fabrics from the 1940s to the 1970s. I thought that was really cool. I agree about not having to consume our way out of it. We don’t need half the things out there, “environmentally-friendly” or not. If we are going to buy something new, we should definitely have the option of it truly being “environmentally-friendly” and helpful. For instance, by buying an organic cotton tee, you’re supporting organic cotton farming. By doing that, you’re basically saving lives. There are some gnarly toxic chemicals used on cotton farms that kill plants, animals and people. It’s cool to see that more in skateboarding. We’ve been trying to disperse as many organic and recycled materials as we can throughout Elwood. It’s rad learning about everything as we experiment. Satori has this wheel out, it’s their “eco-wheel”. They’re made with vegetable oil instead of petroleum oil. Craig from Satori is pretty passionate about all of this. He’s awesome. It seems like all of this, new and used, keeps business evolving and it pushes more and more people to think. Which is kind of the point. I think awareness is more important than profit. Do you think biofuels can save our butts? Or are we going to have to also do something else? Right now I feel it’s kind of an anesthetic for our butts. It is something we can do right now, today. As far as it being mass-produced and saving our butts, I think it all depends on which biofuel we fund and how and where it’s made. For example, if we’re funding deforestation to grow it, or using tons of pesticides and importing it, then obviously not. I do think that eventually biofuel and electricity will be a huge part of the solution. In your travels, have you come across a place that had things more figured out in terms of urban planning and sustainability than they do, say, in somewhere like LA? .thesustainablestoke 125

4. Pick up the oil. Some places put their oil back in the containers they were brought in. My place filters their oil and puts it out back in a 55-gallon drum. I have five 5-gallon containers, a pitcher to scoop, a funnel with a fine mesh filter attached, a couple rags and a pair of gloves. 5. Bring it home to filter it. This is the most important part. You have to filter it properly or you can clog your engine. Many people pre-filter it and/or double filter it. I pour my oil through a mesh filter and into my 55-gallon drum. I usually let the oil settle for about a week. As the water and gunk settles, the clean oil rises to the top. As you pump and drive, the oil hits three more filters.

opposite: Kenny gets down with the second of the three R's by reusing an old tire for a back tail rewind.

The way New Orleans is rebuilding some of their communities from Katrina is the epitome of how it should be done. From the materials to the pricing. I’ve taken a bunch of “green” architecture tours in LA, SF and Portland. I think SF and Portland are above and beyond with their cities’ energy plans. It seems like the actual planning is similar everywhere. I was out in Tenerife where we drove by these windmill farms, and I learned that Spain is actually up there with the US with wind power. I also read about this totally selfsustained community they’re working on. In Japan every trash can has five slots to recycle different materials. I started to take photos of all the different ones. It will be interesting to see Dongtan, China, it’s supposed to be the most eco-friendly city in the world. The plans are insane. You just had fraternal twins! Is it way more work than one baby? Do they wake each other up? Can they communicate telepathically? Yes, I did... and yeah, it’s more work. My wife and

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I are outnumbered now. For every tear, diaper, feeding, there’s another. Our three-and-a-halfyear-old daughter is a lot of help. It would be a lot harder without her. They do wake each other up, but sometimes one will be crying and the other will be out cold. As soon as we fall asleep the other decides to wake up. It’s almost like they’re messing with us telepathically. Makes you realize how easy one baby is. I’ve talked to Rick McCrank about how his worldview changed drastically when he became a dad, like how he became more concerned with the future and the environment, did you find that, or was environmental stuff always a priority for you? Rick’s awesome. I was always interested in sustainability, but I agree though. When I had my daughter I definitely became more concerned. My mind raced back in time and remembered every negative aspect of the whole world. All of a sudden there is a life that I am responsible for. I was forced to really think about the future. I think every parent goes through that.

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[ o ] MEHRING

6. Pumping your oil. Oil is settled and you’re ready to pump. My kit has a pump, filter, heater and nozzle. I turn on my heater band and when it reaches around 150, I pump it through the hose, which is capped with a filter, then through the bag filter and into my second tank in my car. You have another filter that’s installed in your car as well. 7. Drive. I start my car with my original tank, which is filled with bio-diesel. When the WVO gets hot enough you switch the valves and then it’s pumped through your fuel lines. I have an electronic unit called the co-pilot. It reads the temperature of both tanks and automatically switches from tank to tank. You can set it to manually switch as well. When I come home for the day, I purge my engine for 30 seconds to run the bio-diesel back through the lines. Enjoy the smell of spring rolls, fries, gyoza or whatever was cooked in the oil. You might get some crazy looks, but you know what... everyone loves the smell of fries.

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[ o ] MEHRING

“I was forced to really think about the future.”

When the initial paranoia wore off, it became more about having fun and showing my daughter positive options for everything.

What movie would you wish the future to resemble? The Flintstones

Which of these movies do you think the future is going to most resemble: The Road Warrior, Robocop, Blade Runner, The Jetsons, Total Recall, 1984, or Star Trek? Probably Mad Max, but with electric cars. The boomerang scene. I wanted to be that kid so bad. Was that Beyond Thunderdome? I think the future will be a nice blend of all of these. We’re going to have vacations to mars, clones, the technology of The Jetsons, and interaction with other life-forms from different galaxies. Wait, that kinda sounds like the present.

Were you hopeful about the earth’s future before Obama got elected? Did you get more hopeful when he did? If so, by how much? There are a lot of environmentalists and organizations that have been on top of things for years. Everywhere you look it’s being talked about. It seems like it’s a top priority. So yeah, I was already hopeful. And I was definitely more hopeful when Obama was elected. It’s hard to say how much, but I can relate more to his plan. I’ll still be here doing what I’ve been doing when Bush was president, but with a little more hope for the future.

(opposite) Well-sustained backlip transfer to fakie. Soaring kickflip in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, where gas is as good as gold, and the only thing left for people to do is draw extremely disturbing pictures in every corner of the charred rubble of their cities.

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[ o ] REDA

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This trick should probably be called a 'Manual Transmission', but we'll leave that up to Kenny because he made it up.

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[ o ] COULTHARD

Back noseblunt, as viewed by a radioactive mutant goat hiding in the bushes while searching for some red shoelaces to nibble on.

In a Transworld Last Words a few years back, you said you were inspired by a book your mom wrote, and I’m just curious, what was it about? It was about her life. From running from firebombs in Japan to traveling the United States singing, to raising six kids in Vegas. I learned so much about her and myself from it. It’s hard to put that into words. I just hope one day I can tolerate writing a little more, I would love to do that for my children. Speaking of the future getting better, are you filming for the Chocolate video yet? Yes, I am. Is the program in full swing yet? And is it going to be skitbased a la Las Nueves Vidas de Paco and Chocolate Tour? I believe so. We did a few trips. I am taking some time off right now to be at home with the family. I can talk about some skits, but Ty [Evans] and Spike [Jonze] would kill me. Are you as stoked as I am on Vincent Alvarez?! Yep! He’s an old soul. You can see it in his skating. I never thought I’d meet anyone who smiles more than Devine [Calloway]. How can the average person reduce their negative impact on the planet? Ride a skateboard, smile and educate yourself.

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the dutchess and the duke are a classy duo.

wordsby jenny charlesworth

photosby jason fisher

he definition of “classic” reads: “having lasting significance or worth; enduring.” Within the realm of music, legendary acts like The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan and The Velvet Underground share this coveted title. While each iconic group captures something incredibly unique with its particular sound, they also all express something that’s ultimately timeless.

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"I think maybe people rely too much on depression and darkness and drugs and shit like that to make art, more people should make happy art."

Listening to She’s the Dutchess, He’s the Duke, the debut record from Seattle folk-rock duo The Dutchess and The Duke, one can sense that same inexplicable quality. It’s there woven into the sun-kissed, 60s-inspired melodies and intimate tales of heartache and family strife. When an album humbles you to quiet awe before inspiring you to joyfully sing along moments later, you can be certain that there is something special in those tumbling chords. Color spoke to the gentle spirit that is The Duke, otherwise known as Jesse Lortz, to hear firsthand what it’s like to make music that so closely echoes the brilliance of rock and roll pioneers from a generation past. Color: Let’s start at the beginning, how did The Dutchess and The Duke get together? JL: I wrote a couple songs, it was sort of a one-off thing but then Hardly Art wanted us to do an album so we said ‘yeah’ and wrote a bunch more songs and did the album. [The story] is kind of boring actually. Your songs deal with some heavy subject matter. From childhood abandonment in “Strangers” to the devastation caused by an ex-lover as told by “I am Just A Ghost”, the melancholic undertones put forth on the album are undeniable. Do you think dark feelings are essential for being creative or do such intense emotions make it more challenging to come up with new material? In this case it was really therapeutic. It was really helpful to have a lot of shitty memories, I guess [laughs]… I think maybe people rely too much on depression and darkness and drugs and shit like that to make art, more people should make happy art. In interviews you’ve alluded to the fact that you have a hard time putting your trust in other people. How difficult is it for you to play in a twosome considering you have to depend on another person so much? We have our ups and downs but it’s a relationship. Kimberly [Morrison] and I have been friends for a long time and played alongside each other in so many different bands – she’s like a sister. We don’t always agree but we trust each other. She’s The Dutchess, He’s the Duke is by no means the first record either of you have put out. Playing with other notable Seattle underground acts, like Fe Fi Fo Fums, Intelligence, The Flying Dutchmen and The Sultanas, you two have released your share of material

over the years. Is the experience of putting out an album drastically different when you have a label like the Sub Pop-owned Hardly Art backing you? I really like it because I don’t have to book shows and I don’t have to ship records, or deal with any of that shit. I get to just make music. It’s kind of nice to only have to do that, you know. People always bitch about the music industry, but it’s like they’re doing all the shit that none of us want to do so we can make money doing what we want to do. You were asked to join the Fleet Foxes on their sold-out US tour earlier this year, what was it like to performed to such large crowds and was it a good fit for you, given The Dutchess and The Duke play such intimate music? It’s funny because before the Fleet Foxes tour I think we’d only played, like, six shows, so our seventh show was at this huge amphitheater with 8000 people. It’s a little weird playing to that many people because you can’t really connect to them sometimes… We’re actually talking right now about what kind of cap we’re going to start doing for shows. Your debut has been met with glowing reviews, even scoring an impressive rating of 8.2 from hipster tastemaker Pitchfork, since its July 8 th release. What do you make of all the buzz? We’ve been in plenty of other shitty bands that never went anywhere [laughs]… All of a sudden this whole garagetype scene got kind of mined with Jay Reatard and all that shit. It’s cool because it’s getting us out to more people so more people can know that there is more shit going on than Gloria Estefan, or whatever the shit is that’s playing on the radio right now. What is the biggest lesson you’ve learned since “breaking out”? That I need to get a guitar that stays in tune. I’ve got this shitty Silvertone guitar and every song it goes out of tune. I actually took some of the money from our advance for making the record and bought this guitar. It was really cheap. I guess you get what you pay for [laughs]. She’s The Dutchess, He’s The Duke is out now on Hardly Art Records. And yes, they misspell “Duchess” on purpose.

MYSPACE.COM/THEDUTCHESSANDTHEDUKE

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wordsby leah turner

imagescourtesy clint roenisch gallery

rtists have long been advents of political and social change. With the threat of global climate change reaching an all-time high, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s no surprise that much recent art has been concerned with increasing public awareness of pressing environmental issues. Prominent UK-based artist duo Heather and Ivan Morison, who have just opened The Bad Years (How to Survive), a show of new and recent work at Torontoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Clint Roenisch Gallery, explore environmental and ecological concerns with an expansive, personal, and highly original approach to artistic practice.

The Bad Years (How to Survive), 2008 [shot of mud tower and ring in forest] inkjet print on silver paper, 60 x 60 cm, edition of 25, framed .artistfeature 137

Still from “Dark Star”, 2007 [shot of trailer and “meteorite”] four-minute high-definition video, looped, edition of five

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Though often pigeon-holed as ecologicallyconscientious artists, the Morisons don’t consider themselves activists, but are instead interested in, as Heather puts it, “an undercurrent or underbelly of worry that is happening in the world.” Growing up in England as she did during Thatcherism, the public worried about such things as “jobs, the Russians, and nuclear bombs.” Nevertheless, the Morisons’ various, prolific, and often highly ephemeral, body of work attests to a diligent engagement with their surrounding environment. Much of their practice is performative, and could be said to dissolve any remaining boundaries between art and life. Much of their work

has involved the adoption of hobbies – passionatelydriven pastimes which have included gardening, kite flying and rockhounding (the recreational collecting of rocks and minerals from their natural environment). Their work is characterized by the desire to survey, document and collect the everyday, the ordinary and the peculiar – an investigation of life’s simple pleasures and oddities. The Morisons’ practice seeks, as curator Hannah Firth explains, “to rebuild and re-present the familiar, investing their observations and discoveries with vigorous fascination.” The resulting narrative surrounding the artists and their works is a blend of fact and fiction, a continuing self-mythologizing.

In 2001, the Morisons began a leisure garden in Edgbaston, Birmingham. Both conceptual and performative, the work is comprised of the act of learning how to garden, gardening and the garden itself, along with its hundreds of visitors. It has also been documented through drawings, photographs, films, and a series of mailed cards. An excerpt of one such card from 2001 reads “Yesterday he spotted the tell tale holes of the wretched flea beetle on his delicate Moby Dick cauliflower seedlings and caught the wood pigeons feasting on his gooseberries again. Ivan admits things may have got out of control.” Mailed to a select list of gallerists and art-world collaborators, these charming texts track both the growth of the garden, and the (real and fictionalized) setbacks of Ivan taking on the role of enthusiastic amateur horticulturalist. Though perhaps Ivan’s flea beetle infestation might suggest otherwise, the garden is a semi-controlled, cultivated environment. Although the act of gardening represents a desire to commune with nature, the urban/ suburban garden is an apt metaphor for our disenchantment from nature. In 2005, the Morisons expanded the focus of their Victorian English garden project by acquiring a site of ancient woodland in North Wales. A rugged area, forested with mature plantation

conifers, this has become the site of what the Morisons describe as the “centre of our art practice.” They have since focused on developing this area into an arboretum, in other words, a collection of tree species gathered from around the world. Unlike the limitations imposed by a garden that requires constant tending, here trees are left to their own devices. Yet the idea of the arboretum is far from being a natural occurrence – rather, it is a contrived selection of natural species, a constructed landscape. A lifelong commitment with little concern to immediate gratification, the task of building the arboretum has since been directing their movements, as they go from place to place gathering species. As new trees are introduced, the old plantation trees are cleared and cut into timber, which then becomes raw material for new artworks. The arboretum will become a record of the artists’ lives, in addition to, as Heather describes it, “an outdoor space that will live on and take on a life of its own.” Dark Star (2007), currently exhibiting at Toronto’s Clint Roenisch Gallery, but originally created for the 52nd Venice Biennale (for which the Morisons represented Wales), is a medium format slide-animation and sound installation that documents the Morisons’ travels through America in search of original

Wise, Beautiful and Loving, 2008 [shot of silver kite] mylar and carbon fiber, unique, 230 x 200 x 335 cm

nomadic peoples that traveled in timber built house-trucks. Depicting these strangely deserted campsites of caravans within the vast, barren landscape of Quartzsite, Arizona, the slides are enlivened with the inclusion of animated, alien crystalline forms that hover above the horizon. Resembling meteorites, the forms are eerily beautiful, but also threatening and ominous – appropriate subject matter for an area that reports several hundred sightings of UFOs per year. Quartzsite, once the centre of a booming mining industry, now houses a population of less than 5,000. The population spikes yearly by over a million during mineral and gem shows and swap meets, earning the town its reputation as a rockhound’s paradise. It is here that the Morisons’ collected mineral samples which provided the templates for the meteorite forms in Dark Star, as well as for their much acclaimed kite sculptures. A real-life counterpart to the animated floating minerals in the film, the kites share a similar, extraterrestrial crystalline form.

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“Characterized by the desire to survey, document and collect the everyday, the ordinary and the peculiar; an investigation of life’s simple pleasures and oddities.”

(opposite and this page) The Bad Years (How to Survive) installation views, Clint Roenisch Gallery, Toronto.

A simple appreciation for the wonders of the natural world is evident when Ivan Morison describes their investigation into minerals as an experience of “digging into the ground to find something beautiful and geometrically perfect.” After locating mineral samples that held a seemingly unnatural geometry and machined perfection, the Morisons collaborated with a kite designer to create lightweight, flight-ready sculptures. Essentially the opposite of the rock from which it was inspired, Wise, Beautiful and Loving (2008) is fabricated from carbon fiber and Mylar, the precise material that NASA developed in the 1960s for their original satellite experiments. The shiny, silver kite is remarkable – extremely delicate, yet capable of flight. Suspended, or perhaps captured, in Clint Roenisch’s small front gallery, it seems to vibrate with a static energy. A larger version of this kite was originally exhibited at Grundy Art Gallery in the UK, paired with The Opposite of All Those Things, a more sinister, heavy-looking kite made from dense black fabric. Contrast between earth and air, and the natural and man-made, figures prominently in The Bad Years (How to Survive). For this exhibition the Morisons created The Bad Years, a temporary, site-specific sculptural installation created from clay that the artists excavated from a hole dug in the gallery floor. Once rendered with lime, pulverized

oyster shells from a neighborhood restaurant, straw and felled sumac trees from the gallery garden, the artists built a tower that reaches around 9 feet high. Based on the architecture of ancient pigeon roosts found prevalently throughout the Nile Delta region, once used to collect valuable dung, the Morisons’ tower mimics this ancient model of self-sustaining food production. Overseeing of all this is a guardian, who is meant to tend the wood-burning stove in the gallery’s back room, to invite visitors to linger longer in the space. Copies of The Toronto Star newspaper are available to visitors, inside which an ad taken out in the classified reads: “Let’s pretend we’re from the future.” Opposite the stove the excavated hole is visible, which extends to the gallery’s basement, where Dark Star is being screened. Though perhaps not immediately evident, the Morisons’ work resonates with a dialectic between sediment and floatation, the buried and the exhumed. Geometrically perfect specimens uncovered from the ground are transfigured, via the artists’ intervention, into delicate structures designed for flight. Material dug from beneath the gallery floor is excavated and reformed into a tower pointing skyward. This is in itself an ecological gesture: to build on the surface from what is uncovered below.

clintroenisch.com

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trains, planks and no automobiles. wordsby rhianon bader

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[ o ] DUFRESNE

here’s gotta be some type of mathematical equation involving a high probability of good skate spots within a five block radius of a train station. I don’t mean trains that go between cities, but those that flow within, whether they be called the subway, metro, C-train, Skytrain, tram or whatever else. Maybe this equation is not really so much about there just being a station nearby, but that these stations are in areas where a lot of people need to come and go from. This means there’s probably a lot of buildings and plazas to hold these people nearby, and therefore a lot of shred-worthy stairs, rails, banks, sculptures and ledges too.

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Okay, so maybe it’s not math but common sense. Either way, traveling around by train is often a sure-bet for stumbling upon skateable objects of all kinds, not to mention the bonus of it polluting a lot less than if every skateboarder rolled around in their grampa’s hand-me-down Volvo. Look at any major city, almost anywhere in the world. In places like Toronto, Montreal, London, New York, Vancouver, Tokyo or Melbourne there’s always a multitude of some of the strangest, yet super fun, spots to be found by train travel. One of the best examples is of course Barcelona, where it’s impossible to imagine getting around any way other than the metro and a skateboard. Almost every spot we’ve seen from that place is a short, probably marble-coated, glide from some metro station or another.

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While Europe may be the obvious one, even here in North America – where our vast amounts of land are plagued by urban sprawl and everyone zipping around in their own car – you’re often better off just getting a transit pass if you live in the city. Not only is it a wise practical move to save money, but it’s also an ethical decision to reverse the environmental degradation caused by so many people driving cars. Driving is one of the biggest contributions to carbon dioxide emissions, and also means more noise pollution and land development for parking. And just because you don’t want the world to explode in your lifetime it doesn’t make you a hippy. Besides, there are benefits when it comes to using public transit for skate missions that you don’t get with a car or just a skateboard.

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Sure, cars are a must when it comes to searching for new shit to film and shoot photos of (especially in the suburbs), but the train is good for spot-scouting too. Even the stations themselves usually have something to offer. Taking the train to some new zone and skating around in exploration lets you cover more ground than you could on a skateboard alone, but the spontaneity of cruising between stations means you’re more likely to stumble upon something interesting than you’d see from a car window.

.intransit 149

150 trainsplanksand.

Besides the obvious office buildings surrounding downtown stations, there are loads of weirdo skate spots if you go out to the more industrial and warehousey parts of any city. You’re stoked if the train runs mostly on or above ground like Calgary’s C-train, Vancouver’s Skytrain and the trams in San Francisco. Getting to quickly look over a zone through the window is a bonus, but most big cities have underground metros (like Montreal, Toronto and New York) and either way you’re gonna want to get off and push around. A random little voyage on your board through these areas might offer up full pipes, barriers, loading ramps and basically stuff that you can make into something worthy of a session, if nothing else.

So next time you’re on the train get off at a station you’ve never been to before. Maybe you’ll get lucky and find your new favourite pole-jam. And even if you don’t, at least your carbon footprint is minimal and you can try-try-again without feeling guilty.

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B se ro o To r vi kly Z fi ce n, y o ve n d t h l i ke in u j reff this at r Va B do us is s u n nc f r o r o o w n t g o d o k a te s a s o u t h n t k l y to t t a i n g a b p ve r f r e y o f n, w n t a a l e a r t , h w o m h i r yo a n d M a ke f a k s c u o f a s f o r s e d u. p t ks k a a W t h e n h a h e i e k l ptu u b e r r y S . k t i n s at s t t S o i c r e l i c ec ch p an u k fl t t m an g e o h r lle it… u t b o s Fr a r i t o u t w to h S i p o a t a n s yp tr y s t i n nc h o a s y c t, t h i l l b R e d t. F n , D a i t . o a a n n k a te te r e i s c n i e e t h f o o. t h p u r o rr 24 fro y t bo st o’s a t to s g h i g h o k y La tha nts hat ar ing pr ,w ti , e t d o o ve p o n to t i n n d i d N a c i b r r p rd ( s th o d M e o es nd tie s a b e a e o is s p k a t e n i s t i s s l l i e t o r t r a to l y o lly pl n e e r e i c i on on Ju ns c r e s i ot r w t. o n s, l u i t. u i o d P c S ar tho rk-o or t Thi t. B an kin Th se a f th s e e i r b s s u u r go g h t ) e ro is AR e is b o ne th a n s k a ls T s fou p o r i c u nd n o e b d o a te o p t a t n d p p k w. an the pa re ion at ing ca ks r r rk tty in the m at a n , P c l o S F ar 16 do op se ’s t ill op ha m li ’s b ho n d t t l e a r to M i s.

quiksilver.com/skate

ALEX OLSON

wordsby jon yurechko

photosby dylan doubt

Timebomb’s new digs flourish with art and design.

ust outside the city of Vancouver, BC, in an area so new it’s unmapped, businesses flourish in ecological harmony. Standing tall among the other concrete and stucco clad office and warehouse spaces is that of Timebomb Trading Inc. Garret Louie, Nick Louie, Kinny Cheung and Kinson Cheung founded Timebomb in 1992 with the mission “to source and seek out the best street/skate/snow and urban wear brands in the world and import them into Canada”. With a credible history under their belt and a firm handle on their primary objective, new offices were opened for business this past August 2008 with a taste for style and resourcefulness surpassing all that is typical of a skate wear distributor.

Dave’s Had Enough by The Dark, 2008 oil pastel on paper, pasted, 12ft x 4ft

154 design.

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(left to right) Dave Birnie, Judah Oakes, Jennilee Marigomen, and Garret Louie

Tick by Danny Vermette, 2008 pressboard, 11 000 pasted photocopies, paint and resin, 26 x 33’ I’m Not Sole Tenant by Graeme Burgland, 2008, acrylic on silkscreen, 30 x 20”

Timebomb Trading co-owner Garret Louie, donator to the visual landscape of the building by means of his personal art collection, is definitely a ‘jack of all trades’, who could just as easily be called a ‘master of many’. Starting with an eye-opening trip to L.A. in 1991, he was exposed to the party scene enriched by (then) new label: Freshjive. Moved by its unique look and approach to street wear, Garret set his sights on bringing this brand to Canada and promoting it the same way he’d been exposed to it. “Stressed out of my brain” as he puts it, Garret threw a party that would launch his newly acquired brand and distribution company in Canada. Newspaper headlines reporting 2000 people in attendance solidified the success of his first vision and launched his career, which today includes promoter, distributor, retailer, DJ, and designer – with his most recent interior project being the Timebomb offices with Sarah Davies-Long. The new offices came to be through a team effort, with Garret and interior designer Davies-Long, of Orangutang Design, heading the project. Garret came into the task with a vision of the big picture, understanding the necessities and what he was hoping to accomplish with the building. Davies-Long worked on the details, and opened up the look of the space intuitively (dare I say organically?), bringing together the wood grains, colours, and furniture. To explain her personal style when it comes to decorating, Davies-Long states plainly “It’s just me. As I draw, I figure out if it’s going to work or not. It’s just evolution.” 156 planted.

Self Portraits by So Me, 2007 giclée prints on cotton watercolour archival paper, 25 editions, 17” x 11”

Picknick Layup by Virus, 2008 plastic model train replicas, latex and press board, 13.5” x 66”

Timebomb Dolls by Randy Laybourne, 2008 acrylic paint on wood

.timebomb 157

Untitled by Judah Oakes, 2008 photo installation

The offices themselves are a seamless blend of many elements. Nearly a dozen different grains of wood, potted plants, display cases, installations and art pieces by a great number of artists and designers contributing to the theme of the space – beautiful communion. That is, there are many different pieces that make the whole, but they all match to create a visually pleasing atmosphere. In each office a different black and white photo from a series by Timebomb’s very own Team Manager, Judah Oakes, is displayed on the walls. Each office has something different by Oakes or co-worker Jennilee Marigomen, but the sameness of the series shot around the Lower Mainland outdoors allows them to blend seamlessly, accenting the space and complimenting the hung artworks that lace the halls and corridors of the office space. The colour palette is a simple mixture of black and white, along with raw wood. This environment of soft neutrals highlights the bold graphic art, creating an undemanding canvas for the art to truly shine. Taking in the retreating walls, there’s an appreciation for the almost monochromatic compliments of the area. Splashes of colour come in the forms of sharp modern chairs in primaries, and a television-esq test pattern on a large wall in the warehouse as well as the upstairs office level. Just across from the test pattern wall is a spectacular installation by local artist and former employee Danny Vermette. 158 timebomb.

SARAH D.L. aka Orangutang, enjoys the action and entertainment of the city, but prefers the forest. She enjoys building green and creating something different and plans to continue creating spaces inside and out with the intent of harmonizing homosapiens and the natural environment. In this project she explores the old vs. the new, the basic vs. the “booya” and the concrete jungle.

Raiden and Nevin by Andrew Pommier, 2008 Acrylic and graphite on wood, two pieces 30” x 18”

Sharing the generous space of the expansion is an acquired train-car-inspired painting by Oaph (Vancouver), Take 5 (Vancouver), and Duece7 (Minneapolis) produced as a memorial to the late artist and skateboarder Lee Matasi (AVERS) – the piece was originally shown at Antisocial Gallery in Vancouver with the launch of éS foorwear’s AVERS Rick McCrank shoe. In addition to the beauty of the offices, there are several green initiatives in place allowing the company to run harmoniously with nature. There is a cavalcade of recycled wood, including the reception desk, which came from Davies-Long’s island home. The walls – which come in an array of patterns from v-shaped chevron to puzzle pieces – playfully break up the blankness of an otherwise plain wall, and are

composed of recycled and FSC (Forest Stewardship Certified) wood. The lighting alone is at the forefront of environmental do-goodery. There are extra skylights, windows, and vast glass doors to the offices to bring in more natural light. The rest of the lighting is controlled by multiple switches, utilizing fluorescent light bulbs with motion sensors. The ambiance is then enhanced by low VOC (Volatile Organic Compound) white paint on the walls and ceilings. Timebomb has in-house water filtration, low flow urinals, and two-button flush toilets. The appliances are Energy Star, the office and warehouse have recycling, and finally, the cherry on the sustainable cake, there are loads of potted plants everywhere, taking in the carbon dioxide of the office’s occupants, and transforming it by way of botanical mechanics into oxygen.

“I personally love and respect art so much that I wanted it to be all around us for inspiration.” —garret louie

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Arizona Maravilla by Wynn Miller, c.1976 photographs of a Latino gang

Untitled by Oaph, Take 5, and Deuce7, 2008 spray paint and mixed media on wood, 12 x 34â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

160 planted.

Ben Tour, installation Unititled watercolour on drywall, 2008

There is a palpable feeling of community in the offices at Timebomb. “To get all this done is a complete team effort. I just wanted to involve people and get them [to be] a part of it,” Garret says in relation to the group effort of the building. As mentioned above, many of the artists exhibited on the walls have some affiliation to the brands Timebomb works with, or even at one time have worked as for Timebomb itself in some way. Keeping familial ties with the arts/creative community is not a value most businesses posses. The pieces of art and the architecture that compose the office itself are a part of a community effort. The employees are linked from room to room with slidable porthole windows, DaviesLong believes this simple change from the old office is an important one, saying “In the old space people just worked in their own room. With the portholes it really brings everyone together.” It is as though Garret is a

careful architect of a growing and vibrant creative army. Unafraid to turn down an account if he feels it doesn’t keep with their mission, or to use simpler materials over something more gaudy, everything in the Timebomb world is chosen for function, and the panache comes naturally. Utilizing all elements of new, old, recycled and local, Timebomb have pained to include a bevy of green initiatives, helping the earth while also, eventually, helping the company save some money too. It’s this kind of smarts, coupled with a keen eye and support for arts and culture, that defines what Timebomb Trading does on a day-to-day basis. Their attention to the environment and continued backing for the arts echoes through the vivacious warehouse space they’ve provided out of respect for the brands they sell and the culture they serve. TIMEBOMB.BC.CA

(above) Matt Gordon, Louie Commission 2005 Acrylic on wood, 28” x 22”

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BILL MARSHALL ollie [ o ] ceglia. 163

164 LEE YANKOU hardflip [ o ] stanfield.

BRETT GIFFORD feeble grind [ o ] nicholas.

165

JOSH BOS wallride nollie out [ o ] worona.

166

ADAM HOPKINS 50-50 [ o ] doubt. 167

WILL DURIE kickflip [ o ] dufresne. 169

170

JAY BROWN nosegrind [ o ] doubt. 171

a Rolling Perspective, toronto. photosby stephanie hoff and jay revelle

riday, December 5th marked the end of our own Terry Fox Run of sorts. An “art croll” as coined by its creator (Color editor, Sandro Grison). A Rolling Perspective wrapped its yellow stripe around the city of Toronto in a single night for the opening reception beyond epic proportions. This was number five of five Canadian exhibits of the over 100 works of self portraiture created by the skateboard industries’ top photographers, skaters and artists. It all started at the flagship Stüssy store, got hopping around the corner at Adrift, and closed with Coors and some sessions on the ramp for the after party at the Baitshop.

Stüssy store photos and Color x Momentum wheels.

172 events.

jeff comber, annie lam, melissa wolla, jesse landen.

(top left to right) Stüssy store. Greg Rodriguez, Stephanie Hoff, George. the scene at Adrift. Nathan Olokun and Jay Revelle. The Baitshop ramp. (row two) Avi Friedman, Matt Wilson. Ami Matthias and Merv Maranan. Wildhorse Canyon vino. Nigel Dutru and Wes Loates. Stephanie Cheng with Adam Jackson. Drinking buddies. Loates and Paul Otvos. Frasier Avey (Stüssy) and Sandro. (row three) the good, the badass, and the cute. Jimmy Declaire. Posing not Poseurs. Pivot not smith grind. Art farks, Adrift. (row four) Vedran Sisic, John Oghene. Scott Wade and Danielle Brown. Brandon DeMarco and Jose Lopez. YourBoyBrian (deejay). Sean Mo’s mashed fronts. Bud puring Coors. Three amigos. Drew Williams and Sam.

shoot to thrill III, premieres.

photosby ben stoddard, claudio bianchi, dan neufeld and terry worona

ed Bull Shoot To Thrill’s film division premiered simultanously in Vancouver and Winnipeg on November 20 th, 2008. The next day came soon enough (maybe too soon) and it was Toronto and Quebec City’s time to showcase the ten 16mm films. Then, so hung-over, it was on to Montreal, Ottawa, Halifax and Calgary to cover the country in STT goodness. To our surprise, and each city’s displeasure, Benny, Dave and Benjamin of the winning Surrey film team came along for the ride. If you ever see Sandro, get him to tell you story about Stoddard in Montreal’s Kingdom “gentlemen’s” club. dave, benny, machnau, magnus, ryan decenzo.

VANCOUVER Vogue theatre, ottawa’s Richard Sarrazin and Luke Ranger. Tina and Judith (lily and jae). Paul Machnau and Corey Sheppard. Mikendo and Color’s Jennifer Macleod. (next row) Seb Templer and Alex Chalmers. Jaimeson Keegan (Red Bull) and Mikey Scott. Zachary Zimmermann, Jessica Barudin and Torey Goodall. Justin Allain, Adam Rudell, Todd Myers, Brandon Smith. Josh Lyon and Jordan Mayfield. Kasey Andrews, Bad Kids, Benjamin Marvin, Dave Ehrenreich. 174 lastnite. events.

WINNIPEG Mark Burndt (SK8 Skates), on the blog pro-

gram. Colin Lambert and wife, Dana Knoll probably finding their fridge magnets on 139 of 6.5. McD and Carly. We weren’t lying when we said the Peg has females. Rod Ferens and Ryan McGuigan know that. Shauna Snider (more evidence). Felicia Torchia (Red Bull) and Dane Homenick.

OTTAWA Gio Namini and a babe. Niles Magadzia and Gun-

talk. Ryan Hamilton and Ian Docherty, Richard Sarrazin, Mike Fyfe with his boo. Seb Labbé and his two. Dylan’s favourite Mitch Barrette. O-dawg Woytowich holds it down. (next row) Szeto and Corey Kennedy, Aaron Cayer. Captain Tom, Police Informer, Aaron Cayer... Nugget and friends. Jessica and Motorhead. Mimi Gallipeau and friend. Eric Dionne (Tor Of The World). Rachelle Cayer. REDBULLSHOOTTOTHRILL.COM

Megapuss

Blackout Beach

surfing (rough trade)

Whoever told Devendra Banhart to keep that tape machine rolling at all times might actually be deserving of some thanks at the moment. Megapuss, Banhart’s side project with Greg Rogove from Priestbird, finds both jammy swingers wallowing in nonsense and occasionally dredging nuggets of genius out of the murk. True, we might all have been better off without a skritchy guitar solo re-working of the saxophone line from Wham’s “Careless Whispers” in the middle of “Adam and Steve”, an otherwise charming little homoerotic re-visioning of the dawn of mankind. Or something. It’s probably best not to delve too deeply into anything being, erm, explored here. Chill on the surface (we suggest an inner tube) or be prepared to spend the rest of your evening picking sticky black hairs out from between your teeth. That’s just how these dirty hippies roll. —julie colero

Bend Sinister

stories of brothers, tales of lovers (distort)

Circlesquare

skin of evil (soft abuse)

Frog Eyes frontman Carey Mercer has always been principally known as kind of a lunatic. His feverish delivery often earns him comparisons to Pere Ubu’s David Thomas – beyond that, few rock vocalists sound anything like him: you have to turn to carnival barkers and speechifying dictators for parallels. When he’s playing with his band, they add chaos to chaos, piling layers of racket on top of Mercer’s prophetic orations. Blackout Beach is his solo project, though, and it’s a bit of a different animal: accompanied only by his guitar and the chilled, martial crackle of canned drums, his infernal interior flames emit a cold heat. The elements of his songs have never been so clear or so spare; his guitar playing is icy and devastating, carefully picked and processed in a manner reminiscent of the the Durutti Column; his singing has never been so controlled or so intense. Haunted and obsessive, Skin of Evil tells the cryptic story of one woman and her doomed lovers with an anti-rock sense of theatrics only matched by Scott Walker (obviously a major influence). This is scary good. —saelan twerdy

songs about dancing and drugs (boompa)

The brainchild of Vancouver’s Jeremy Shaw (now based in Berlin), Circlesquare first garnered attention for singles released on Trevor Jackson’s Output label (home to Playgroup, Four Tet, and Black Strobe) as early as 1999. In the dawn of the 00s, few electronic labels were as cool or exclusive as Output, and they had virtually no signings from west of NYC, let alone Western Canada. That fact alone might explain why Circlesquare’s excellent 2003 debut, PreEarthquake Anthems, was mostly slept-on. Songs About Dancing and Drugs sounds even better, then, for having been so unforeseen. Refashioning Circlesquare as a real live band with a drummer and guitarist, Shaw’s new album comes off like LCD Soundsystem under heavy narcotics: the songs are dark and slow, often featuring acoustic guitar alongside sour, minor-key synths and deep, minimal percussion. Lyrically, Shaw exhibits a Lost in Translation-esque dislocation, soft-focus and slow-motion, singing almost exclusively from an up-all-night, watch-the-sunrise perspective in his distinctive wounded croon. As comedown records go, this is an instant classic. —saelan twerdy

Wavves

s/t (woodsist)

Love Is All

Vancouver’s Bend Sinister have come a long, long way since originally forming out of their high school jazz band seven years ago. From their roots as a Slint and Don Caballero-inspired instrumental band, they suddenly blossomed into epic, stadium-ready progressive rock (albeit without the stadium) when frontman Dan Moxon discovered that he could sing like a motherfucker. That second incarnation garnered comparisons to the Mars Volta and Queen. Now, with yet another lineup, they’re delving even further into classic rock territory, bursting out of the gate with lyrical references to The Beatles and Led Zeppelin in the first song, and the scale of their ambition is actually matched by their chops: this record sounds enormous, bombastically theatrical and unstoppably catchy. Moxon’s piano-driven compositions have the familiarity (if also the sentimentality) of Elton John and the band’s technical perfection could give Rush a run for their money. If that all sounds slightly uncool, it’s probably because these guys have never really been indie-rockers: they crave the spotlight and they deserve it. Hopefully, with this album under their belts, they’ll get it.

Wavves is Nathan Williams, a skate-rat from Los Angeles, out of the same scene that birthed No Age, Mika Miko, and Abe Vigoda. His blown-out beach-punk jams are short, noisy, and interspersed with instrumental interludes of loopy processed guitar fuzz and the bleeping of tinny synths. Like No Age, Williams seems pretty indebted to late-80s punk and early-90s indie, but Wavves is so raw it makes No Age’s squall sound polished by comparison. This disc is all manic teenage glee with no time for things like “production”, and that’s a compliment: like the smattering of 7-inches and cassettes that preceded it (which all sold out pretty much instantly), it’s a total blast and it’s no wonder that people are getting super stoked about it. Williams also runs a label called Ghost Ramp and has a blog where he posts obscure old-school hip-hop videos. In other words, he sounds fun and cool, and so does his music.

It’s initially a hard task to listen to A Hundred Things Keep Me Up At Night as anything other than a really rad party album. Love is All is a Swedish quirk-quintet that continues, on its sophomore release, to rely heavily on saxophone squawk and frenzied rhythms. The group conjures up gritty indie-punk at its best, and their goal, to run you through the wringer and force you to sweat out your weirdness on the dance floor, is as good as guaranteed. As danceable as Love is All is, though, there’s a decidedly dark streak running through Josephine Olausson’s lyrics. The band’s debut album, Nine Times that Same Song, showcased Olausson’s stalker side; now she invites us deeper into her neuroses, laying bare her bitter, lonely heart. Thankfully, her knack for crafting catchy shout-refrains gives her relationship issues mass appeal.

—saelan twerdy

—julie colero

176 soundcheque.

a hundred things keep me up at night (what’s your rupture?)

DJ/Rupture

Kanye West

uproot (the agriculture)

DJ/Rupture (aka Jace Clayton) is an interesting guy. He hosts WFMU’s fantastic “Mudd Up” program, he writes about music for art magazines and scholarly journals, and he’s a world-class beat selector with a relentless ear for the most vital and up-to-date sounds in the world – which he travels extensively. His earlier albums tended to the Kid606 school of frantic breakcore and dancehall mashups laced with slashes of harsh noise but, like DJ Spooky, his afro-centric approach (his website is negrophonic.com) aims at mapping ghettoto-ghetto culture the world over, digging into the deep cultural fissures that music scenes grow out of. Uproot finds him, like a lot of people these days with a heavy investment in electronic music, totally obsessed with dubstep. If you’re looking for a deeply blunted headphone session, you could hardly do better than this. Juxtaposing highbrow string-quartet music with smoked-out bangers by the likes of Scuba, Team Shadetek, and Ghislain Poirier, Rupture delivers a mix every bit as potent and eclectic as you’d expect. —omar the sheriff

The Foreign Exchange

leave it all behind (hard boiled)

Leave it All Behind is the rare R&B album that can flirt with the excesses of romance without an allergy to irony. “Daykeeper” opens with an elegantly spare backbeat and fills the empty spaces with little more than pure tones—an earnest, melancholy composition that unfolds throughout the album to reveal clever pairings of joy and hurt. “Sweeter Than You” is punctuated perfectly by a tart electric guitar and “If She Breaks Your Heart” transforms two-thirds through from a subdued ballad to a stylish house beat – an almost danceable coda. So lyrically charming and musically just-so, this nearly flawless album will be wasted on parties larger than two. Newly alone? Find relief in the rich world between the headphones. Or play it for the new girl back at your place: you’ll seem such a sensitive, wellmannered chap, third base won’t be out of the question. —chris dingwall

Little Joy

808’s and heartbreak (roc-a-fella)

Kanye’s fascination with pairings of contemporary art and commercial design is either a sign of innocent wonderment or perverse obsession. If 808’s and Heartbreak doesn’t do much to clarify, it’s a problem, as his auto-tuned persona croons on “Amazing,” “that’ll never, never be solved.” Stripping his lyrics down to bare, oversized self-expression and overloading his sound with stunning, spare arrangements of percussion, synth, strings, and piano, Kanye crafts a shiny sonic world, but all the white space mostly comes off as empty rather than expansive. On damn near every track the compositions build from brooding, open bottoms to resounding crescendos and anthems, but excepting welcome appearances from Young Jeezy and Lil Wayne, the pleasures Kanye offers lack the danger and abrasion that ought to make the future enticing. He might have meant to create hip-hop’s Air Jordan tribal mask but he ended up with its diamond-studded skull. —chris dingwall

s/t (rough trade)

As yet another sort-of-celebrity spin-off featuring Fabrizio Moretti (drummer of The Strokes), Rodrigo Amarante (of Devendra Banhart’s backing band), and Binky Shapiro (Moretti’s girlfriend), Little Joy is bound to be pretty much inseperable from Megapuss, Banhart’s own side project, which Moretti and Amarante both play on. For my money, though, Little Joy is the better deal. It’s an album of simple, breezy pop charms, with eclectic touches of reggae, tropicalia, and most importantly, none of the hokey goof-offery that makes Megapuss so irritating (even if that zaniness also earns that band their occasional inspired moments). Moretti’s obviously studied his buddy/bandmate Julian Casablancas at length, because his vocal stylings are eerily similar but, that said, he’s got great pipes and surprising polish for a drummer who’s never stepped into the spotlight, which goes for the album as a whole: it’s exceptionally well-made, sounds great, and will make you feel like you’re lounging with the kind of drink that has an umbrella in it. Finer pop-rock fluff than this you will not find this season. —julien lefoulard

Fennesz

Onra

black sea (touch)

Given the influential (read: oft-copied) quality of Christian Fennesz’s earlier landmark works (Vienna, Endless Summer), one would assume that if there’s a four-year wait in between albums, it had better be an inviting and challenging listen. Using his patented laptop’n’guitar mulch to different ends, he creates a densely-crafted stream of sound that, like smoke or mist, moves in such a way that it cannot be captured long enough to conduct close observation. Similar to the live experience, it’s concentrated listening, with six pieces bleeding into each other; small particles are in constant motion, creating a whole that changes and shifts, creating a work that is at times lilting, harrowing, soothingly melodic and daunting. At the right volume, you might lose all time for an hour, but – and this is the trick – Black Sea is carried by a subtle, yet insistent tension which refuses to let the listener completely drift off into ambient la-laland. —chris olson

chinoiseries (label rouge)

Now that damn near every soul, R&B and jazz record has been mined for its precious samples, the forward-thinking producers in hip-hop have had to look elsewhere for their beat sources. Onra, a French-born DJ of Vietnamese descent, scooped up as many records as he could carry on a trip back to his motherland. The self-proclaimed vinyl junkie then took the few dozen records, dust and all, and made beats out of material he was completely unfamiliar with. The result is Chinoiseries, a collection of 32 short (only two tracks break two minutes) instrumental hip-hop vignettes: strings, woodwinds, and indecipherable Vietnamese instruments hop along a bed of crackle and are backed by classic boom-bap drum breaks. Madlib’s Beat Konducta In India album and J Dilla’s Donuts seem to have provided a healthy dose of inspiration, but Onra’s deft touch and unique flavor make him more than a mere copycat. —mark e. rich .soundcheque 177

INDEPENDENT 30TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR

FILM FATTIES

Not gonna lie, it took me four tries to get through this one. I knew I had to review it otherwise I probably would have never touched it. Going into the viewing I was biased. You see, I have never skated Indy’s. Okay, I did once, hated them and after an hour threw my board and bent the axle, swearing never to ride them again. If you like smith grinds—frontside and backside in pools, this is definitely the video for you. Funny thing happened during my fourth attempt at watching this video, I noticed every two seconds a reasonably loud “YEAH”, “HOLY SHIT”, and “THAT WAS SICK” were coming out of my mouth. Upon further reflection I realized that this video is skookum... 30 years in the making might have something to do with that. The video’s free too so that right there is reason enough for you to get yourself a copy. Get yours with Strange Notes’ “Son Get Down From There” in shops now. —craig rosvold

Every now and then someone comes out with a rookie skate video that has most filmmakers’ fisheyes shaking off of their cameras. With Film Fatties, Hunter Wood and friends have produced just such a product. While the skating may not be up there with the larger productions and the title may be less than groundbreaking (probably a really funny inside joke, but c’mon…), this is a group of dudes that have a lot of heart. Using “Over the Edge” (one of the greatest teen movies ever made… go find yourself a copy!) as the backbone, Film Fatties is one of the cleverest attempts we’ve seen in a while. Way to go dudes, way to go.

independent truck co (nhs)

hunter woods (the lost shots)

—dylan doubt

INDEPENDENTTRUCKS.COM

beautiful losers

HALL’N ass 2 hall and oates

aaron rose (sidetrack) Inspiration is a great thing, whatever you do theres a jump off, you see something or meet someone and it shapes how you feel about the world around you. Beautiful Losers and the artists involved have inspired countless kids to make something from nothing and created a cultural movement and voice of a Generation. For anybody that’s been living under a rock for the last decade or simply missed out on the initial impact of artist like Barry McGee, Harmony Korine, Margaret Killgallen, and Thomas Campbell (to name a few) this is your chance to get familiar. Beautiful Losers tells the story of an American art revolution that happened right under the noses of the established art world and transformed popculture. Live from NYC Aaron Rose’s Alleged Gallery was the platform for a group of artists inspired by Skateboarding, Surfing ,Graffiti and Punk- an outsider movement was born and as time has passed these artist’s have all grown into some of the most influential and recognizable icons of our time. The Beautiful Losers Exhibition, books and this film are history and record a moment that will stand and continue to inspire this generation to the next. —ben tour

178 videoreviews.

SIDETRACKFILMS.COM

ian schulman, tom carter (all class)

MYSTERY ONLINE PROMO

mystery skateboards (black box) As an older skater, sometimes it feels like I've "seen it all," and nowadays, newer videos don't phase me as much – if it's not Natas spinning on a fire hydrant or Mariano in Mouse, I soon forget about it. Well, that's not the case with this new Mystery promo video. As I watched the Mystery team skate, I felt like I wanted to eject myself from my seat and on to my skateboard immediately. Ryan Bobier and Gilbert Crocket especially held my attention, and it's evident that these guys are pushing the levels of skating even in a time when it's sometimes hard to find that next avenue of progression – they just skate harder, gnarlier, faster, and farther. You’ll see. The video even seemed to help me understand tricks, the way they did stuff just made me feel like I could understand it easier, which made me want to skate even more. If you need a new motivator to ‘get up and go skate immediately,’ you've found your video. —jay revelle MYSTERYSKATEBOARDS.COM

You can see it everywhere you look. Neon is fashionable, gas station sunglasses are all the rage and the music influences can be heard in almost every new song that comes out. But, for many, the 80s never ended, neither did the good times that accompanied those memories. This group of Seattle skaters give a nod to these memories in this dedicated skate video available online. When I initially heard about this video from a friend I thought the concept was too good to be true. So I did what any 21st century skater does, looked for it on Youtube. As the opening montage began and “Private Eyes” started to play I knew that I was not going to be disappointed. The mid-eighties MTV style graphic treatments are captivating and the use of page peels took me back to simpler times. While a lot of the skater’s names I did not recognize, they definitely did not lack in the talent department. While every skater delivered, Owen Jones, Two Hawks Young, Matthew Gottwig and Ryan Strangland were some of my personal highlights. —matthew meadows

CRACKFORTHEWACK.COM

photoby alana patterson

WADE FYFE Autumn. Nosegrind hardflip out. Yoga. Mike Fyfe. Andrew Brophy.

180 next/best.

[ o ] COLEN

Brophy.

Glasses, I’m going blind. Wu-Tang.

Fourstar, North of Everything, or Antisocial trip to Australia. Watch my part in Strange Brew. My last trick in Port Moody Blues, fifty on a rail. Geekin out on the Internet.

[ o ] NICHOLAS

I’m going to Dublin, Ireland, in May with my brother.

Spencer Hamilton or Paul Trep. Eric Koston. Passport. Radiohead. Spencer and Paul, getting “strange”.

INSIGHT / DOPAMINE Skater, Sam Partaix Rice Ramp, Installation Bali 2008 photography John Bradford copyright ÂŠ insight51.com

timebombtrading.com stickers@timebomb.bc.ca

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ALEX OLSON backside tailslide rewind [ o ] doubt. 185

SANDRO GRISON editor / publisher

DYLAN DOUBT photo editor

JENNIFER MACLEOD

circulation / managing editor

DAVID KO

graphic design

NICHOLAS BROWN arts editor

SAELAN TWERDY music editor

RHIANON BADER copy editor

STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER gordon nicholas

STAFF WRITERS mike christie jay revelle

PRE PRESS joel dufresne

BEN TOUR illustration

INTERN

jon yurechko

MILA FRANOVIC fashion

ADVERTISING

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CHRIS BARIL

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CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

alana patterson, alberto polo, alex connor andre pinces, andrew koronovich, anthony acosta ben colen, ben stoddart, brian caissie, brian kelley claudio bianchi, dan neufeld, dustin koop, geoff clifford, giovanni reda, jason fisher, jeff comber jon coulthard, jonathan mehring, judah oakes, kyle camarillo, mikendo stanfield, nick ceglia, owen woytowich, rich odam, stephanie hoff, terry worona, tj watt

chris dingwall, chris olson, dustin koop, geoff clifford, jenny charlesworth, jon yurechko, julie colero, julien lefoulard, leah turner, mark e. rich matthew meadows, omar the sheriff, tim sedo

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS calen knauf, corey adams, dan siney, dusitn koop erik brunetti, geoff mcfetridge, jake blanchard john antoski, luke ramsey, matt irving, porous walker, roger allen, russell maurice tom messenger

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186 credits.

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