HUCK magazine The Counterculture Issue (Digital Edition)

Page 1


That’s just one of 5000-plus messages you’ll be bombarded with today. Buy this. Don’t buy that. Eat this. Don’t eat that. Do this. Don’t do that. Live inside this little box and do as others do, or risk falling by the wayside and being branded uncool. Why? Because ‘THEY’ say so. But here’s the thing: who the hell are ‘THEY’? And what happens when we use our voice to challenge what they say? Bad governments are toppled. Cultural arcs are pioneered. And smug-as-hell elites are forced to justify the pillars propping up their forts. You see, amazing things happen when people think for themselves, and the stories housed inside this issue are testament to that: incredible tales of activists and pioneers, regular Joes-turned-renegades who stood up for their beliefs. Welcome to the counterculture issue. Feel free to challenge everything it says.


SERGIO VILLALBA











IN EUROPE BY FIFTYSEVEN NORTH AB EUDISTRIBUTED www.fiftysevennorth.com


THE ANTIHERO TRIBUTE

NOAM CHOMSKY

FEATURING…

26 Linguist, thinker, activist.

LIZARD KING

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT

20 Heir to the rebel’s throne.

28 Radiant child of outsider art.

WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS

JULIAN ASSANGE

22 Writer of the unspeakably rude.

30 Evil governments: beware.

KATHLEEN HANNA

TIMOTHY LEARY

24 Original riot grrrl.

32 Acid-dropping futurist.

HUCK #21

SKATOPIA

THE BIG STORIES

76 Eighty-eight acres of anarchy.

FROM WWII TO WWW

A SURF ELEGY

36 A Gonzo account of our countercultural past.

80 Where have all the rebels gone?

THE REBEL WITHIN

CRASS

38 Infiltrate the system! Then turn it on itself.

82 Getting cosy in the country with the pacifist punks.

TOM BURT AND FRIENDS

JAPAN SURF

40 The history of snowboarding is more political than you think.

86 On Hokkaido, surfing was a criminal act.

RADICAL BIKES

MONSTER RIDES

46 How pedal power has made our world a better place.

96 Freaky bikes, just because.

DIY SURFING 102 A revolution built on common sense.

RENEGADES ARE US

GINO IANNUCCI

58 Is there such a thing as a rebellious purchase?

108 Still not conforming to the skateboarding mould.

THE DEMOCRACY VILLAGE

HOWARD MARKS

60 Protest comes knocking on Parliament’s front door.

110 Everyone’s favourite drug-smuggler is back.

DON LETTS

JOSÉ SARAMAGO

64 Reggae and punk collided in his head.

112 Remembering the literary great.

COLD WATER BRIEF: #02

DESOLATION PEAK

68 Frozen stills from Scotland’s icy shores.

114 Where Kerouac turned the world on its head.

photography: Joe BROCK.

ONE MAN’S TRASH 50 Scavengers go dumpster diving for the greater good.

14 HUCK



photography: RYAN TATAR

Publisher Vince Medeiros Editor Andrea Kurland

Creative Directors Rob Longworth Paul Willoughby Design Assistant Angus MacPherson

Global Editor Jamie Brisick Skate Editor Jay Riggio Music Editor Phil Hebblethwaite Latin America Editor Giuliano Cedroni Snow Correspondent Zoe Oksanen European Correspondent Melanie Schönthier Online Editor Ed Andrews Staff Writer Shelley Jones Editorial Assistants Liz Seabrook Elizabeth Haycroft

16 HUCK

Words Chris Atton, Mike Belleme, Tamra Davis, Kevin Duffel, Tetsuhiko Endo, Michael Fordham, Mark Leary, John Long, Chris Nelson, Andrew Potter, Michael Regan, Cian Traynor, Alex Wade, Matt Walker, Olly Zanetti Images Mike Belleme, Mitch Blunt, Joe Brook, Tom Burt, Paul Calver, Tony Easley, Stevie Gee, Kasagi Hajime, Richie Hopson, International Snowboard Magazine Archives, Jack Laurenson, Mark Leary, Miss Lotion, Rocco Macaulay, Millie Marotta, Jonathan Mehring, Natsuki Otani Karolin Schnoor, Genevieve Simms Ryan Tatar, Matt Taylor, Enric Vives-Rubio, Joe Wilson

Translations Markus Grahlmann Advertising Director Steph Pomphrey

Published by The Church of London 8-9 Rivington Place London EC2A 3BA +44 (0) 207-729-3675

Advertising Manager Dean Faulkner

Distributed worldwide by COMAG

Assistant Publisher Anna Hopson

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Editorial Director Matt Bochenski

Worldwide distribution enquiries: carla.demichiel-smith@comag.co.uk

Website Director Alex Capes

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The articles appearing within this publication reflect the opinions of their respective authors and not necessarily those of the publishers or editorial team This publication is made with paper from sustainable sources. Huck is published six times a year. © TCOLondon 2010

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WITHOUT THEM OUR WORLD WOULD BE A DULL AND BORING PLACE, RULED BY PEOPLE HIGH ON POWER SIMPLY DOING AS THEY PLEASE. YOU SEE, HISTORY DOES NOT HAPPEN WHEN WE ALL THINK THE SAME WAY. IT HAPPENS WHEN WE DON’T. HERE’S A TRIBUTE TO SEVEN PEOPLE WHO DARED TO SEE THINGS DIFFERENTLY. 19


20 HUCK ILLUSTRATION BY Matt Taylor


LIZARD KING Satan-worshipping ripper from the Mormon state.

I’ve stumbled across enough couch-surfing skaters over the years to form

he’s not afraid to put in his two cents. “Cops make you feel like shit.

a decently sized scraggly-haired army but, for whatever reason, Lizard King

They have no sense of life. Fuck people like that – I just hate anyone

always stood out. We first met at the old Hellrose apartment in Fullerton,

trying to tell me what to do,” says Lizard. And he means it. I’ve personally

California; Neil Young’s Harvest was spinning on the record player, and this

witnessed him spit in a cop’s face and warmly welcome a vengeful baton

bedraggled-looking lurker – half-burnt joint in one hand, shrouded in smoke

to the head with a cheerful smile and no hint of remorse. He finds it funny

and surrounded by beer cans – was lazing on the floor. Don ‘Nuge’ Nguyen

– hilarious even.

introduced us: “That’s Lizard King. He’s from Salt Lake. Fool rips.”

But it’s this unruliness that makes his personality so magnetic.

“That ain’t Jim Morrison. What’s his real fucking name?” I immediately

TransWorld SKATEboarding recently awarded him the prestigious 2010

thought to myself, perplexed that not only one, but two Hellrose residents

Readers’ Choice Award. It’s a formal indication of loyalty from kids around

had adopted prominent rock star monikers.

the world – Lizard amassed more reader votes than any other pro. But he’s

This was about seven years ago, and while Lizard was sponsor-less, 700 miles from home, and living off PBR and foosball, Neil Young’s ‘Are You

not getting carried away with the hype: “It’s just tight that a bunch of fools voted for me. I think it’s nuts.”

Ready for the Country?’ perfectly soundtracked the scene. Here we are

And while Lizard’s rash antics and outspoken loyalty to Lucifer might

now and I couldn’t give two shits what his real name is. Lizard King’s not

make him the least reverent role model off the board (he’s got enough

only ready for the country – he’s ready for the world.

Satan tattoos to keep all but the most persistent of Salt Lake City’s Mormon

“If you just go all out, you’ll have fun,” says the twenty-five-year-old.

missionaries from knocking), he undoubtedly kills it on the board. Check

“You just gotta hesh it out. You just say yes – that’s what you do. There’s no

out his footage for instant reassurance. Frontside noseslide Hollywood

other option. I even have ‘Yes!’ tattooed on my arm.”

16? Kickflip firecracker Santa Monica Triple Set? If that doesn’t hush the

It was this ‘anything goes’ attitude that brought Lizard to Southern

skeptics, he even aired Bob Burnquist’s backyard mega ramp the morning

California in the first place. Nuge remembers his precipitous arrival well:

after drunkenly claiming he could do it to Pierre-Luc Gagnon, all whilst

“He was friends with [skater] DJ Chavez. Me and DJ picked him up from

hungover – just to keep his word. Can’t hate on that.

the airport. Then we went to Hellrose and he didn’t leave for like three

It’s easy for outsiders to view his hijinx as a desperate cry for attention,

years.” But that’s how Lizard rolls; never planning his future, he takes what

but in reality, Lizard’s just got too much life – like an Energizer bunny with

comes his way, even if it means crashing on a crusty cigarette-burnt couch

ADHD: “It’s like I’ve got a permanent battery in and it just recharges.

for three years.

As long as I keep moving, it keeps charging. When I stop, it gives me a jolt

While Lizard’s laissez-faire mentality typically works to his advantage

of energy and I just start going all over again.”

and makes him the recipient of far too many good times to count,

Perhaps pro skater Gareth Stehr describes Lizard best: “Lizard is as

it occasionally gets the better of him too. Most recently, he’s been facing

Lizard does.” That is, to know Lizard is to read his interviews and watch

consequences: “I went to jail in Arizona for doing dumb shit. I got in

his skating – no more, no less. No contrived publicity stunts, no bullshit.

a fight at some bar. Now I’ve gotta do sixteen hours of anger management

Everything you see is Lizard through and through.

classes. I haven’t gone yet. I keep skipping them.” This isn’t the first time

“He’s been the exact same since day one,” explains Nuge. “He’s always

Lizard’s run into John Law though; in fact, jail time’s become something

been a loose cannon.” And I can vouch for it myself; Lizard’s the same

of a pastime.

jovial, bright-eyed, piled-out kid I met seven years ago – only now he’s

Authority may frown upon Lizard’s disorderly conduct – “I’ve gone to jail like ten times,” he recalls – but unlike those who silently dissent,

a suitable heir to Jim Morrison’s throne. That, and he can actually afford the round of PBRs. All hail the new King. Kevin Duffel

21


ILLUSTRATION BY Genevieve SimmS

WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS He shot the bitch and wrote a book.

What does it take to qualify as an antihero? How about blowing out your

George Laughead recounts that, while visiting Burroughs just months

common-law wife’s brains with a .38 during a drug-fuelled re-enactment

before his death aged eighty-three, he suddenly stood up after drinking

of William Tell? Or, perhaps renouncing a Harvard education to sell heroin

and smoking heavily and shouted: “Shoot the bitch and write a book!

among the lowlifes of Times Square? Or, failing to report to the authorities

That’s what I did!”

when you learn that one friend has murdered another? For many folks

Controversy and Burroughs knew one another well. Most of the sex in

growing up in suburbia in the mind-deadening 1950s, William S. Burroughs

his work is rape and sodomy, and he long had to deal with the obscenity

– the man who led this life – was an anti-establishment hero because, as far

issue after Naked Lunch was published. Art can be beautiful but it can also

as he was concerned, there was no establishment.

be brutal and shocking. This, in the final analysis, is perhaps what Burroughs

Though Burroughs became an icon of the Beat Generation – and

worked for with his experimental writing: to break us out of the Aristotelian

though he counted Ginsberg and Kerouac among his closest friends – he

logic and past social constructs that evil hides behind. And that’s why he

resisted being associated with the movement. Burroughs was eons into the

advised us to “leave the old verbal garbage behind: God talk, priest talk,

future. Literature couldn’t catch up with cacophony in music until he gave

mother talk… [and] learn to exist with no religion, no country, no allies.”

us his “cut-up” and “fold-in” writing techniques, which saw him rearranging blocks of text to create a non-linear flow. He showed us it was all right to be audacious. When he put that bullet through Joan’s head, Burroughs did a horrible thing; but, as he wrote in the

This is not to encourage some writer to commit mayhem in order to be inspired. But, horrible things are part of the human condition, and art can both predict and record that human condition – even if it means the artist becomes an antihero. John Long

introduction to Queer, it also sparked his literary career: “The death of Joan brought me into contact with the invader, the Ugly Spirit, and manoeuvred me

John Long is the author of Drugs and the ‘Beats’: The Role of Drugs in the Lives and

into a lifelong struggle, in which I had no choice except to write my way out.”

Writings of Kerouac, Burroughs and Ginsberg, and the Johnny trilogy. www.johnlong.com

22 HUCK



ILLUSTRATION BY Karolin Schnoor

KATHLEEN HANNA Riot grrrl for life.

“Role model? I’d rather be a rollerblade model,” says punk rock polymath

Girl Style Now!’ mantra – that something of a subculture began to form.

Kathleen Hanna in a recent interview with political activist Laura Flanders.

Soon enough, the riot grrrl movement – with Bikini Kill at the fore – issued

“If I’m a role model, I want to be a three-dimensional role model, one that

a manifesto that matched the fervour of its cause: “Because doing/reading/

makes mistakes and learns from them.”

seeing/hearing cool things that validate and challenge us can help us gain

It’s an uncomfortable mantle for Hanna, the post of riot grrrl pioneer.

the strength and sense of community that we need in order to figure out

And one she has repeatedly shunned since it was placed on her shaved/

how bullshit like racism, able-bodyism, ageism, speciesism, classism, thinism,

dyed/bespectacled head as the frontwoman of seminal ’90s grrrl band Bikini

sexism, anti-semitism and heterosexism figures in our own lives.”

Kill. The punk rock-packaged third-wave of feminism was a collective effort, insists Hanna. But, thanks to her, the riot grrrl ethos still resonates today.

Bikini Kill’s words resonated with misfits everywhere: “Riot grrrl was both a life raft and the catalyst for my self-recovery,” says one Bikini Kill

“During high school I was pretty much obsessed with three things:

aficionado on bikinikillarchive.wordpress.com, a blog Hanna created for

going to punk and reggae shows, smoking weed and drinking alcohol,”

BK fans. “They were the first people I had ever seen stand up on stage

recalls Hanna on the website for her current band, Le Tigre. It was only after

and tell those fuckers [bigots] that they weren’t going to get away with

a move to Olympia, Washington, in the mid-’80s to study photography that

shit anymore,” says another.

Hanna felt mobilised. The trigger? A patriarchal act of censorship in which

And despite misrepresentation in the media and the amicable dissolution

an exhibition she co-curated about AIDS and sexism was confiscated.

of Bikini Kill in 1998, the spirit of riot grrrl lives on. As well as making undiluted,

Feeling repressed, Hanna and friends opened their own art space,

radical music herself, Hanna mentors at the all-girl Willie Mae Rock Camp in

Reko Muse, where they showed what they pleased.

New York and remains vehement that rebellion still has a place in our world.

When Hanna formed Bikini Kill in 1990 with Tobi Vail, editor of

“People in all walks of life resist,” she told Laura Flanders. “And it’s not just

subversive ’zine Jigsaw, she found another vent for her uncensored

carrying a picket sign, you know? You can do it in so many ways – although

frustrations. But it wasn’t until the girls collaborated with DC-based band

I think picket signs are important and I like to do that when I can too… Yeah,

Bratmobile on a ’zine called Riot Grrrl – a progression of Vail’s ‘Revolution

I’m still an activist. I’ll always be an activist, ’til I die.” Shelley Jones

24 HUCK


Eyes by

POC’s brand new line of performance optics. www.pocsports.com


Noam Chomsky Leading thinker, linguist, activist, eighty-one years of age.

Powerful figures detest him. The news media repeatedly smear him.

free market dogma or the notion that the West is by nature benevolent

Intellectual know-it-alls say he’s “off the scale”. All excellent reasons,

and it still works today). The way stories are framed – often from an official

I would argue, to pick up one of his books.

and subservient viewpoint – is key here. It throws the notion of neutrality

If there’s one thing you’ll learn after reading Chomsky it’s this:

in reporting out the window. Take this magazine: do commercial pressures

challenge things. Authority, especially, and keep a critical eye on the

– advertisers, the need to sell copies, the fear of retribution from an active

“doctrinal system” (schools, universities, newspapers, this magazine) and

PR industry – affect the integrity of its content? We hope not. Have a flick

on the way it moulds and shapes information. He’ll deconstruct language

through – you decide.

– the technical meaning versus the official one – and, with any luck, help you see things through a different set of lenses, a pair capable of turning

Challenging power

the whole world on its head.

Drawing on traditional anarchism, Chomsky suggests that all forms of

Some of the key ideas, as I see them:

power, unless justified, are illegitimate. And rightly so, at least if you apply common sense and basic democratic principles. Says Chomsky: “I think it

Linguistics

only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy

Chomsky says that language is innate to humans and we’re hard-wired to

and domination in every aspect of life. Unless a justification for them can

learn it: “There’s a reason why my granddaughter reflexively identifies some

be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the

part of her environment as language-related… whereas her kitten, exactly

scope of human freedom.” This includes the state, the private tyrannies that

with the same input, couldn’t even take the first step.” In fact, if viewed by

control much of the economy, and so on. The burden of proof is placed on

a Martian in space, human language would sound exactly the same, whether

them, and if they can’t meet that burden, they should be dismantled.

you’re speaking English, Chinese or Hindu. That’s because all languages have a common architecture, but also a small set of varying parameters, like

US foreign policy

a checklist of options: i.e. in English the verb precedes the object; Japanese is

It’s overwhelmingly influenced by concentrations of economic power and

a mirror image, the verb follows the object. A child has to set the parameter

a mindset of imperial expansion. As such, the US and its allies have proven

(pick the language) and then enter that data into a system of principles.

to be sponsors of violence and of violent regimes (often under fancy,

As a result, you get languages that superficially look very different, but that

polysyllabic guises such as “democracy promotion” and “humanitarian

on a fundamental level are almost the same. Radical.

intervention”). Taken at face value by the media, official terminology regularly collapses upon investigation. Examples abound: Pinochet, the

The Media

Contras, Suharto. More recently: the destruction of Iraq, killer drones in

First published in 1988, Chomsky and Edward S. Herman’s Manufacturing

Pakistan, the invasion of Afghanistan, etc.

Consent offers a searing critique of mass media in the West. The idea goes more or less like this: as profit-seeking entities deeply embedded in the

Activism

dominant intellectual culture, the media serve the interests of political and

Change does not happen by accident and without much struggle. There

economic elites. The result is a propaganda model based on five filters that

is no miracle. America, says Chomsky, was significantly “civilised” by

purge information of critical elements, leaving only the “the clean residue fit

the civil rights movement. Things are better. Racism, for example, is less

to print”. The five filters are: the size, concentrated ownership, owner wealth

than it was. The feminist movement led to huge victories and increased

and profit orientation of the mass media; advertising as the primary income

equality. And so on.

source; reliance on official sources; flak as a means of disciplining the media; and anti-communism as a national religion (replace this last point with the

26 HUCK

But, as he says, there’s much work left to be done. Any change, local or otherwise, is down to us – you, me, everyone. Vince Medeiros


27

ILLUSTRATION BY Mitch Blunt


ILLUSTRATION BY Tony Easley

JEAN-MICHEL BASQUIAT The high-art world rejected him, but his work still echoes with the voice of minority rights.

I first met Jean-Michel in 1983 when I was going to film school in LA and

the tide turned and the high-art world rejected him. It’s very difficult to

he was in town for a show in the Larry Gagosian Gallery. He loved cinema

battle those storms at a young age and it really affected Jean-Michel.

and I was obsessed with it so we bonded immediately.

The last time I saw him – right before he died, aged twenty-seven –

Jean-Michel used to joke, “You should make a movie about me.” So,

he felt his career was over, and was having a hard time figuring out who

soon our hanging-out time turned into ‘we’re making a movie’ time.

his friends were. After he died I put my footage of him in a drawer. I didn’t

I wanted to capture the Jean-Michel I knew, because as he grew more

want him to think, even dead, that I was out to profit from it. But now

famous, rumours and myths abounded: he was the graffiti artist street kid

I want to let his voice be heard and debunk the myths; or just show another

who woke up in a box in Times Square; or the idiot savant wild child who

side to the story.

was locked in a basement while his dealer threw him drugs. But the JeanMichel I knew was more fantastic and complicated than that.

Why does it matter? Well, Jean-Michel is an inspiration as well as a warning. He created so much work at such a fast pace and helped pave

He was ambitious, passionate and a real innovator in borrowing from

the way for street art culture and artists of African descent. He was a true

the past – mixing the art of Leonardo da Vinci or words of Darwin into

outsider, but when he walked into a room everyone would turn to look. He

his work. Raising black consciousness was important to him too, and

may have died thinking his success was transitory, but his paintings are

references to jazz musicians Charlie Parker and Miles Davis popped up in

enduring proof that his was a talent extraordinaire. Jean-Michel always

his paintings. No matter how famous he became though, out on the street

held his head up high and looked like he was heading somewhere. It was

he was often perceived as just another ‘black guy’, and he got really upset

a unique direction. Tamra Davis

when taxis refused to pick him up or cops pulled him over. But I don’t think that’s what crushed him the most. Though Jean-Michel had a lot of praise when he was on the rise, as soon as he got to the top

28 HUCK

Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child, a film by Tamra Davis, is available on DVD at the end of October 2010. www.jean-michelbasquiattheradiantchild.com


TO GET THERE

RIDER: AYMERIC TONIN — PROTEST.EU

13 PILES OF DIRTY LAUNDRY TO GET TO THE SLOPES


ILLUSTRATION BY Miss Lotion

JULIAN ASSANGE Teen hacker-turned-web activist and founder of Wikileaks.

Born in 1971, Australian Julian Assange is the face behind Wikileaks, arguably

helicopter operating in Iraq. In gruesome detail, it shows the helicopter’s

the world’s most important news source. An advocate for freedom of

gung-ho personnel firing on people they claim to have suspected of being

information, he aims with Wikileaks to nurture “scientific journalism”, where

insurgents. However, the group included a Reuters journalist and nearby

source material – provided by whistleblowers working on the inside – is

civilians, including children, whose only intention appears to have been to

presented in full for readers to judge for themselves, not shrouded behind

help the wounded and dying. Many, including the journalist, were killed.

the slanted opinions of journalists or their editors.

And according to Wikileaks, the journalist appears unarmed. The military

A hacker in his teens, Assange was stopped in his tracks aged twenty

didn’t want to release the film, but Assange thought the public had a right

when the police net closed in. It was the first major case for anti-hacking

to see it. “This video shows what modern warfare has become,” he told The

initiative Operation Weather, and the cops pushed for a hefty punishment.

New Yorker.

But Assange’s objectives were never destructive; rather they were grounded

More recently, Assange made headlines again when Wikileaks published

in, as the judge put it, “intelligent inquisitiveness”. He was ordered only to

the Afghan War Diary – some 75,000 classified records covering five years

pay a small fee for damages.

of US military action in Afghanistan. As one of the biggest leaks in US history,

The Wikileaks idea had been with him for some time. He registered the

the cache of documents detail civilian deaths and military procedures

domain wikileaks.org in 1999, but did nothing with it. Wikileaks proper began

previously hidden from public scrutiny. “It is the role of good journalism to

in 2006. Since then, its worldwide impact has been massive, breaking stories

take on powerful abuses, and when powerful abuses are taken on, there is

on subjects from Kenyan government corruption to celebrity tax avoidance

always a back reaction,” said Assange in a video posted by The Guardian.

schemes. Supported by grants and donations, Wikileaks has no paid staff,

In an era where disposable tabloid journalism is replacing real news, the

just a core of key activists supported by an army of around 1,200 highly

Wikileaks team – with Assange at the helm – are leading the fight for the

skilled volunteers. Assange, meanwhile, lives the life of a nomad; with no

truth. Olly ZannetI

fixed abode, he goes wherever a cause takes him. Wikileaks’ most renowned achievement is perhaps the video exposé Collateral Murder, which shows footage from an American military

30 HUCK

For a presentation by Julian Assange see www.ted.com. www.wikileaks.org



32 HUCK ILLUSTRATION BY Natsuki Otani


TIMOTHY LEARY Acid-pushing futurist who saw slacker surfers as ‘throw-aheads’ of mankind.

All movements have a spokesman, whether they aspire to the role or

acid and surf culture collided and Leary witnessed the cataclysm. He

not. And if any individual is to be credited with popularising the ethos

told Surfer Magazine editor Steve Pezman, in the mid-’70s, that surfers

of ‘turn on, tune in and drop out’ – the slogan that came to characterise

– far from adhering to a hedonistic throwaway culture – were dragging

the whole hippie way of being – it’s Timothy Leary.

mankind in their evolutionary wake.

But Leary was a mad old head. And not just from the perspective of

Mankind, said Leary, had lived for the acquisition of wealth. He built

Martini-soaked 1950s academia – from which he emerged, swathed in

cities on cliffs and hoarded goods and chattels while the beautiful waves

a kaftan and beads, brandishing phials of liquid lysergic acid. Timothy

broke endlessly at the foot of those cliffs. It was mankind’s destiny,

Leary was a mad old head from the jaded perspective of contemporary

so went the argument, to wean itself away from this acquisitive way of

hipsterhood too.

being; to live, as the surfer did, solely for The Dance.

Leary had done the academic rounds like the efficient little cog

For Leary the act of waveriding was the ultimate expression of living

in the machine he was bred to be ­– from Washington State University

in the here and now; in the tube, the future is right ahead of you and the

to the citadel of Harvard via California’s UC Berkeley. In 1960, intrigued

past is exploding all around you. Nothing is created. Nothing is acquired.

by the work of anthropologists studying the socio-botanical practices

Your wake disappears. Your footprints in the sand are washed away by

of native Meso-Americans, Leary travelled to Mexico and dined heartily

the tide. Surfers, argued Leary, who lived moment-by-moment in pursuit

on psilocybin. On his return, he scandalised Western academia with his

of The Dance, were setting an example to the rest of society.

eloquent advocacy of psychedelia.

Surfers shouldn’t be complacent about this secret knowledge, he told

Mass consumption of psychedelics, argued Leary, would cut out

Pezman. They should evangelise about it: they should, in other words, drag

the educational middle-man and place the human consciousness in the

the rest of humanity to a place where they could perceive the beauty of

perfect place – able to perceive the ever-fluid, unquantifiable nature of

The Dance, and in so doing lead mankind to its highest possible peak.

the world and existence itself. A freer, richer, more rounded individual

It would be easy to write off this ‘high priest of LSD’ as a comical figure

would emerge. History validated Leary’s exposition of psychedelic

– a professor already in his forties at the start of the 1960s who discovered

transcendence. The world and his dirtbag little brother got high and the

what the kids were already hip to and sought to legitimise his venality by

story of ’60s counterculture was written in Leary’s acidic ink.

becoming the acid daddy – a hipper-than-thou psych guru whose lectures

Toward the end of the ’60s, having been expelled from every

came with an appealing twist and to which nubile, open-minded young

academic institution in the land, Leary hooked up with a group

guns would flock. But in reality, Leary was a pioneer of a way of thinking

of tripped-out, commune-dwelling surf types called the Brotherhood

that questioned the very basis of things. And that is at the heart of what

of Eternal Love. Whatever happened in those blurry California days,

being an anti-hero is all about. Michael Fordham

33


IT’S THE ONLY REASON THINGS EVER CHANGE. WHAT FOLLOWS IS A LIST OF PEOPLE WHO WEREN’T AFRAID TO STRAY FROM THE PACK. GO AHEAD AND LOOK THEM UP. Alan Moore Albert Camus Aldous Huxley Alfred Wainwright Alice Walker Amartya Sen Amy Goodman André Bazin Andrew Mwenda Andy Roy Andy Warhol Angela Davis Ann Wright Anne Frank Annie LEIboVitz Ansel Easton Adams Antwuan Dixon Ari Folman Arthur Russell Arundhati Roy B.B. King Barry McGee Bart Simpson! Ben Saunders Bill Hicks Billie Holiday Blek Le Rat Bob Dylan Boogie Bret Easton Ellis Bunker Spreckels C.R. Stecyk III Captain Paul Watson Carolyn Baylies Charles Darwin Charles Moore Charlie Brooker Charlie Chaplin Che Guevara Chinua Achebe Chris Abani Chris Morris Chuck D

Chuck Palahniuk Craig Kelly Dalai Lama Daniel Day Lewis Dave Eggers David Attenborough David Foreman David Harvey Dennis Hopper Dennis Lyxzén Diane Arbus Dimitrije Milovich Dorian ‘Doc’ Paskowitz Douglas Coupland Duane Peters Eddie Aikau Eduardo Galeano Egon Schiele Elissa Steamer Elizabeth Catlett Elvis Aaron Presley Emiliano Zapata Emma Goldman Erico Verissimo Ernest Hemingway Ernest Pignon Ernest Eve Ensler Fausto Coppi Francis Bacon Franz Kafka Fred Hampton Frida Kahlo Friedrich Engels Friedrich Nietzsche Fyodor Dostoyevsky Gabriel García Márquez Geoff McFetridge George Monbiot George Orwell Germaine Greer Glen E. Friedman Gloria Steinman Greg Noll

Gus Van Sant Hans Richter Harmony Korine Heather Ford Henry David Thoreau Holden Caulfield Howard Zinn Huckleberry Finn Hunter S Thompson Ian Mackaye Ingemar Backman Isabel Allende J.D. Salinger Jack Kerouac Jack London Jackson Pollock Jacques Derrida Jacques Lacan James Brown James Dean James Joyce James Lovelock James Martin Jane Goodall JaniS Joplin Jay Adams Jean-Paul Sartre Jeff Skoll Jenny Saville Jia Jia Jim Morrison Jimi Hendrix JM Coetzee Joan Jett Joe Rogan Johannes Brahms John Cardiel John Cassavetes John Cruddas Johnny BURnette John Muir John Pilger John Ross

John Steinbeck Jorge Amado Jorge Luis Borges Joseph Stiglitz Kalle Lasn Karen O Kathy Acker Keith Moon Ken Kesey Ken Robinson Kurt Cobain Laird Hamilton Larry Clark Lena Horne Leonardo Da Vinci Leslie Cagan Lisa Andersen Lou Reed M.C. Escher Malcolm X Manu Chao Margaret Kilgallen Marjane Satrapi Mark Foo Mark Gonzales Mark Twain Martin Luther King Matt Groening Matt Stone Michel Foucault Mick Jones Mike Basich Mikhail Bakunin Miki Dora Milan Kundera Miles Davis Mohandas K. Gandhi Morris Szeftel MorrisSey Mos Def Nan Goldin Naomi Klein Neil Cassady

Nelson Mandela Oliver Stone Oscar Niemeyer Pablo Neruda Patti Smith Paul of Tarsus Paul Robeson Paulo Freire Peter Tatchell Rachel Carson Robert ‘Bob’ Malecki Robert Evans Robert Fisk Rodney Mullen Ron English Sailor Jerry Serge Gainsbourg ShepArd Fairey Simone De Beauvoir Spike Jonze Stacy Peralta Steve Alba Steve Biko Steve Jobs Steve Olson Steve Rocco Steve Truglia Stewart Brand Susan Sontag Sylvia Plath Terje Haakonsen THOM YORKE Trey Parker Victoria Jealouse Vinicius de Moraes Virginia Woolf Werner Herzog William Blake Woody Guthrie Zack de la Rocha

AND MILLIONS MORE WHO HELPED SHAPE OUR WORLD… 34 HUCK


“time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent...� C A R L

S A N D B U R G

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( 1 8 7 8

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1 9 6 7 )


FROM COUNTERCULTU A HIGHLY SUBJECTIVE GONZO ACCOUNT OF HOW WE WENT FROM BEING POST-WAR YOUTH TO ONLINE TEENS. WORLD WAR II: THE TEENAGER HAS YET TO LIVE...

1955

SPUTNIK SOARS and sirens sound and the West retreats

THE PARIS PROTESTS OF 1968 manifest a swing

into paranoia. ELVIS PRESLEY and LITTLE RICHARD sing of the future of Now! JAZZ-heads and intellectual COMMIES see through the hollowness of the chrome-clad Dream and imagine obtuse angles off the beat. Black consciousness and CIVIL RIGHTS begin to counterpoint The Dream and those Commies become BEATNIKS. The McCarthy era gathers momentum and Hollywood rids the Reds from beneath the beds. The first American advisors enter Vietnam and MADISON AVENUE exports The Dream in opposition to Comintern. Project Camelot is destroyed. VIETNAM becomes a true war.

from Marx to Nietzsche among the youth, just as Vietnam blows up over Tet. Civil rights explode, eventually, in NORTHERN IRELAND, and the disenfranchised rally behind a leftist flag. THE ANGRY BRIGADE ape the SITUATIONISTS, and the COMMUNISTS sell out the revolution by going back to work. The summer holidays start and the students go back home. Revolution de-activated. Boom time trickles down and frees up the working classes, who go to uni for the very first time.

BIARRITZ is transformed by a Hollywood movie crew shooting The Sun Also Rises, who notice the killer waves and have their surfboards shipped out. Soon the kids of the BASQUE country get turned on to the surfing creed. Meanwhile a couple of Aussie lifeguards start surfing FISTRAL BEACH in Cornwall and the Brits ditch their plywood BELLYBOARDS and go mental for fibreglass too.

1957

MALIBU

is brewing and the soup is a bitch’s brew of Valley kooks. The real surfers soon up-sticks sickened at it all. LA EXPLODES. Surfing’s commercial identity is formed. Miki DORA drops his shorts then drops out and fucks off. There are battles on the long walls and STUBBIES are starting to be surfed right. NAT YOUNG opts for a surfboard called Sam that is SHORTER and gunnier than anything ever seen. He takes gold in ’66. As the 1970s arrive all the feckers are tripped-out and the darkest back end of Vietnam has everyone running scared and eating up the world. Morocco, Indo, Mexico are colonised by travellers kicking back. The PROFESSIONAL TOUR begins to bubble...

1970

THE BEATLES SPLIT

and things look bleak as the booming economy grinds to a stop. Against the GLOOM of power cuts and mass unemployment GLAM ROCK grows an afro and forgets the trouble and strife. Meanwhile the artier environs of pop culture move toward PROG POCK: this alienates most kids who get away from the blandness of it all and start BANDS in their GARAGES. No jobs but loads of attitude and an aesthetic of no future: you guessed it, PUNK arrives before McClaren and in the suburbs loads of FUCKED-OFF TEENAGERS who hate Fleetwood Mac shave their beards and adopt an angrier attitude. NEW ROMANTICS gather to watch DEPECHE MODE debut The Regency. Leigh Bowery makes fashion and make-up cool and the arty retreat into a gay-friendly underworld. Westwood and McClaren begat ROTTEN and VICIOUS.

Late 60s

FIBREGLASS STICKS are mass produced by Hobie ALTER and Dale VELZY, stoking a revolution inspired by HOT CURL SURFBOARDS decades earlier. All of a sudden there is a bohemian beach scene booming at MALIBU. A small cadre migrate to Oahu, and legends are born on the backs of BIG WAVES. A pint-sized myth called GIDGET is immortalised on film and the world goes mental for surfing. When the waves don’t show, kids pretend to surf on wooden planks strapped to roller skates and start pushin’ the board. Enter SIDEWALK SURFING and its interminable future reach.

VIETNAM GOES BAD

SKIING SUCKS.

The ski scene is latent counterculturally, until an old dude called SHERMAN POPPEN invents a toy in ’65 that lets sidewalk surfers glide on snow. His SNURFER is laughed at by uprights on two sticks, but in two decades' time they’ll want a piece of snurfer pie. Meanwhile, Yosemite climbers like CHOUNAIRD and co. are mountaindwelling BEATS. And before the 1970s kick in, KEROUAC descends from DESOLATION PEAK and goes to the bar to die watching the Galloping Gourmet. Back at sea level, as the decade closes down, the punk-ass urban SKATEBOARDERS of Santa Monica and VENICE BEACH lie nascent waiting for the reinvention of the wheel…

and NIXON assumes power. No one cares about the MOON landings; the OIL CRISIS sends the old certainties into touch. California is in the midst of a slow, tortuous COMEDOWN from a PSYCHEDELIC HIGH and where there was acid there is now COCAINE and HEROIN traded by HELLS ANGELS. Money is made off the Sexual Revolution and females start tapping into the politics of sex. FEMINISM hits its second wave and grows in the fertile soil of post-1960s machismo. Countercultural politics swing toward BLACK NATIONALISM and Feminist Separatism, all with a Maoist twist. Meanwhile out on the coast and in the Canyon the music moves to the middle of the road and coke-fuelled, self-satisfied GLAMOUR takes the place of turning on and tuning in.

POST-WAR AUSTERITY

1972

still holds its grip and makedo-and-mend is what passes for British youth culture. JOHN LENNON hears Elvis Presley and forms a band. All is an explosion of transatlantic mockery. Jazz-heads hear records bought in from the merchantmen of the MARSHALL PLAN. All the while, Britain gets involved in wars in the MIDDLE EAST they cannot win and the French resort to guerrilla tactics to fight the Algerians.

DOGTOWN

BOB DYLAN and co. go back to basics in reaction to the BRITISH 1962

Key: = USA = Europe = Skate, Surf and Snow related

INVASION. The Beats get drugged and hop on the ACID bus while the true politicos of the roll-neck revolution push through a landmark CIVIL RIGHTS ACT in 1964. Coltrane goes deeper into freedom and things fall apart. The centre cannot hold. REVEREND KING is assassinated. Mississippi burns. The Weathermen blow shit up. Meanwhile the SPACE RACE attempts to send Whitey to the moon. The TET OFFENSIVE switches the fortunes of war the Communist’s way and the ANTI-WAR MOVEMENT gains pace. Draft dodgers move to Canada. The biggest SWELL in the history of the world humps California’s coast in ’69 and BRIAN WILSON sustains the dream of the American picaresque.The Manson Family murders cast the counterculture in the darkest light. And the WHOLE EARTH CATALOG feeds commune life.

comes alive and SKATEBOARDING is democratised by a URETHANE WHEEL. Skateboarder magazine talks of a place called DOGTOWN and Craig Stecyk writes of the Z-boys’ drained-ditch style. ALVA airs wildly out of a drought-riddled POOL and board graphics and bowls emerge as the new centre of The Now. An URBAN AESTHETIC takes hold and a schism that barely breaks with surfing is begun and still holds...

Compiled by Michael Fordham (with the aid of Have Board, Will Travel: The Definitive History of Surf, Skate and Snow by Jamie Brisick, HarperCollins) 36 HUCK


RE TO CYBER CULTURE BEHOLD THE EBB AND FLOW OF OUR COUNTERCULTURAL PAST, FROM WORLD WAR II TO THE WORLD WIDE WEB. 1980

RABBIT and the BRONZED AUSSIES bust down the door to the upper echelons of surf supremacy. The HIPPIE-JOCK DUALITY of global surf culture breaks: there is a new Aussie creed and they go harder, even on sleek pintailed single fins. Soon, the WOUNDED GULL in Mark Richards does it with TWO FINS. Surfing is stripped of soul in ’78 when EDDIE AIKAU paddles off to save lives and ends up losing his own. Then Simon ANDERSON revolutionises everything in ’81 with his THRUSTER. Tom CURREN drags back some Californian dignity into the 1980s, but by now the world tour is rockin’ and surfing’s counterculture begins to fade away...

SKATEBOARDING GOES PUNK

. Steve OLSON and Duane PETERS are a yin and a yang of attack and flow. SNOWBOARDING meanwhile goes contest crazy. Competition soars. SIMS and BURTON niggle for top spot. The IPS becomes the ASP and Tom CARROLL and Tom CURREN boycott the South African leg of the ASP tour in opposition to Apartheid. Thrasher holds the first-ever Street Style comp in San Francisco. GUERRERO wins. HOSOI is style King. HAWK is trick dude. Then, as the BONES BRIGADE start searching for ANIMAL CHIN, kids are mobilised by the power of VCR. They Skate and Destroy: parks get shut down. And GONZ and NATAS take to the Tarmac to inspire a revolution on the street. Rodney MULLEN and Steve ROCCO launch World Industries and Christian Fletcher goes aerial when the surf is shitty in SoCal.

1979

THATCHER

assumes power, gives the coppers a pay rise and CUTS everything else. RIOTS commence. In the wake of the energy created by punk, youth culture fragments. Polarisation created by Thatcher’s vision of deregulated economies creates a RIVALRY between SKINS and hippies. 2 TONE kids bridge the divide with black and white garb and REGGAE-PUNK sounds. Britain becomes a violent place and GREED becomes encoded in things. The NATIONAL FRONT exploits the fragmentation and racist policies implemented by the Thatcher regime fuel the far right. Swathes of newly politicised are galvinised by the MINERS' STRIKE in 1984. Brother versus brother, father versus son, northerner versus southerner. Most urban-dwelling southerners are on board with Thatcher’s creed while the miners come cap in hand. City boys begin their BONUS CULTURE in the wake of the deregulation of the stock market. And tracksuit-wearing, money-laden yoofs glass each other on the terraces whilst waving their hands in the air to disco boogie. The seed that flowered into HOUSE MUSIC is born.

HIGH-BACK BINDINGS

1989

MDMA

hits US shores thanks to a small coterie of gay guys, Irish guys and Brits, working with a load of dodgy Italian-American types. Even the crackheads Uptown dig the thing called E, though they still call it X. And soon those god-lovely five packs become trippy little pills. Meanwhile, GRUNGE rises in Seattle then rapidly descends and all that sugar-coated pop makes COBAIN stick a bullet in his head.

change the snowboarding game. Punk-ass rich kids like Damien SANDERS and Shaun PALMER create a mould for future superstars: brash, rebellious, neon-tainted punks. Shaun Farmer's JIB GENERATION evokes rebellion again and CRAIG KELLY bows out of the limelight and opts for powder-coated plains. Neon-clad skiers cotton-on and everyone wants in. But TOM BURT, Zellers and Leary want out.

1983

FOOTBALL VIOLENCE

makes it uncool to be working class or a fan of the Beautiful Game. And according to Thatcher, SOCIETY ISN’T MEANT TO EXIST ANY MORE, but a little-known drug called X changes all that. Eheads and HOUSE MUSIC obsessives embrace in the glow of hallucinogens. Entrepreneurial to their bones because of the way they have been brought up, RAVERS make money as well as lots of mates and slowly but surely capital creeps in. Suburban wheelerdealers go into town and put on PARTIES around the RING ROADS. And when the ponytailed football louts aren’t cuddling on the dancefloor in dungarees and LUMINOUS long-sleeved tees they start to document things and reinvent themselves as conduits of culture. They’re label bosses, journalists, filmmakers, photographers and through the 'zines that started as ideas in their head, they’re mediating YOUTH CULTURE for the very first time.

A DIY ETHOS rears its head as the the economy plummets

DISCO emerges in punk's wake and liberation flowers in a rainbow

1974

coalition of coke-fuelled disco binges where sex and Larry Levan flower at STUDIO 54. Meanwhile, up in the BOOGIE DOWN BRONX, a black version of punk picks up where BAMBATAA left off. B-BOYS, deejays, and MCs start deconstructing disco for the straighter black crew who couldn’t get into clubs, and HIP HOP is born in an explosion of spray paint. NYC turns into CRACK HELL, polarising the people on the streets. NYC goes BROKE, things look bleak, and the REAGANOMICS reel in an era of reduction and control. AIDS arrives. A moral panic spreads. And the drugged disco dream dies, for now…

PUNK happens at CBGBS with THE

RAMONES, motored by amphetamines in reaction to bland old rock ’n’ roll. These cats never look to Europe but to their own three-chord garage rock history. BAD BRAINS bring the REGGAE fusion. And in Washington D.C. punk goes HARDCORE and MINOR THREAT go full circle by rejecting sex and drugs in the name of STRAIGHT EDGE. The ’80s arrive with REAGAN at the fore, and an invasion into Afghanistan by the Soviets in ’79 spurs a ten-year conflict and a new, more deadly ARMS CRISIS than ever before.

and the THATCHERITE DREAM BEGINS TO FADE. Pretty soon the free ’zines become business-headed and marketeers cotton-on to a new market called 'youth'. They place ads in THE FACE seliing HEROIN CHIC. Then the makers of these mags migrate to the ’burbs and give birth to GENERATION Z. And it’s these kids who grow up with a console in one hand and their eyes fixed on an LED screen. They soak up scenes they’ve never tasted or felt; they hear new sounds the moment they are made. They are the ECHO BOOM BABIES but soon they will be the instantmessaging, FACEBOOK-stalking, YOUTUBE-watching, HIPSTAMATICcloning, MYSPACE-idolising eyes and ears of the virtual world. But where will they take our story to next?

Mid 90s 1998

COUNTERCULTURE IS REBORN in the mould of a BAGGY-JEANED skater kid who no longer gives a fuck. Then KELLY SLATER takes centre stage. JOEL TUDOR makes longboarding cool again. And a kid from Norway called TERJE refuses to do as he’s told. LAIRD HAMILTON tows in and surfing goes seismic. Snowboarding continues to ride the pop reverberations that started when James Bond went snurfing in the ’80s. And TV becomes the home of big stunts. HAWK busts a 900. DANNY WAY drops out of a helicopter. Shit goes global and BUSINESS BOOMS. Nothing lies sacred anymore...

THE INTERNET

is hailed as a DEMOCRACTIC FORCE that will flatten organisations, decentralise control and GLOBALISE SOCIETY. And THE WELL turns the Web into a countercultural tool. Community goes online. Nothing cool stays underground for long. But on the upside elitism starts to fade and new scenes travel at the speed of light. And it’s all thanks to SPUTNIK. Because if it weren’t for the kerfuffle she left in her wake, the US wouldn’t have panicked and called in the MILITARY BODS who started fiddling with technology to get one up on the Sovs. Now at long last the PEOPLE PLUG IN and start turning the system back on itself. Counterculture enters the cyber age…

WORLD WIDE WEB: YOUTH CULTURE SPREADS AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT...

37


ILLUSTRATION BY JOE WILSON

THE REBEL WITHIN Text by CHRIS ATTON

is true resistance finally dead? Not really. Dissident forces, says Chris Atton, have the power to turn the system on itself.

38 HUCK


campaign claimed that ‘The Revolutionaries are on

seem doubly marginalised, their rebellion comfortably

CBS’. As ludicrous as that may seem to us now, is it so

incorporated and then sold back to their fans.

very different from Rage Against the Machine enjoying

Christine Harold offers a rather controversial

global distribution of their revolutionary sloganeering

solution. Instead of considering two sets of cultural

through Sony? (For added historical piquancy, CBS

strategies in opposition, she suggests that working with,

Records was acquired by Sony in 1987).

rather than against, the logic of commercialism offers

In their co-optation and mimicking of the rhetoric

a “provocation to commercialism by taking market

of radical youth movements and subcultures, corporate

values more seriously than many free marketeers

marketeers present a vivid exercise in how power

themselves”. Rather than reject the logic of

relations work. The rhetorical strategies of corporate

commercialism, it should be intensified. In practice,

communication are able to neutralise opposition,

Harold is thinking of projects such as the Creative

not through counter-argument or repression but by

Commons and the open source movements in

turning radical rhetoric against itself, by normalising it

computing and in music. These intensify the logic

arlier this year I was in

in the marketplace. Thus contained, it becomes much

of commercialism by pushing notions of property,

London’s Finsbury Park

easier to turn rebellion into money. Some of the most

ownership and creativity to their limits. They offer

for

Factor,

radical political discourse has been incorporated.

models of cultural production based not on individual

a ‘victory party’ for Rage

In her book OurSpace: Resisting the Corporate

ownership and private control, but on collective

Against

Control of Culture, Christine Harold argues that even “Situationist strategies of collage and pastiche, original though they may have been in their original time and place, are now quite at home in the vernacular of advertising”. When the institutions of advertising are already subverting notions of radical truth and authenticity, and employing pastiche and irony in their campaigns, what value do protest cultures based on similar tactics of culture jamming have? When dominant culture and counterculture share the same rhetorical tools, where does resistance lie? Under these conditions, to hope for political power through the appropriation and subversion of the language of advertising will be in vain. To attempt to sabotage the mechanisms of marketing by throwing a rhetorical spanner in the works will be pointless. The marketeers are already doing it themselves, and with a nod and a wink. To point this out is at best to state the obvious; at worst it is to sit outside the mechanism, looking on powerlessly. The cultural theorist Raymond Williams recognised the impotence of what he termed an ‘alternative culture’ that would forever be condemned to attempt to coexist with the dominant culture, but never be able to challenge it. For Williams, to be alternative would never be enough. Social movements had to be oppositional: they had to change – if not replace – the dominant culture. Williams was writing at a time where advertising and marketing were only just learning to wield their power through using communication tools and strategies borrowed from the counterculture and from subcultures. In our contemporary society, where corporate culture is quite at home dealing in subversive rhetoric, oppositional practices that lie outside corporate culture no longer seem to offer a powerful enough response. Markets appear to be perpetually in dominance. The public appears marginalised as a cultural force, only able to offer piecemeal and ultimately ineffectual resistance to those markets. A group like Rage Against the Machine

ownership and social authorship.

the

trouncing Cowell’s

Rage the

Machine’s of

Simon

protégé

Joe

McElderry in the Christmas download charts, following a

Facebook

campaign

spearheaded by fans. This was an occasion that demonstrated acutely the tensions and contradictions between counterculture and commerce. Here was a group with a major-label contract (Sony), hosting a free concert for its fans, with logistics supplied by a major concert promoter (Festival Republic). Palestine solidarity stalls competed for attention with T-shirt vendors. When 40,000 people chanted ‘Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me’, was it mass protest or mass sing-along? Did it have any more significance than a Muse audience chorusing ‘You and I must fight for our rights, you and I must fight to survive’? Or was this simply the latest instalment of the eternal struggle between the ‘authentic’ (the sincere voice of the street) and the ‘manufactured’ (the cynical voice of big business)? This struggle often results in the incorporation of oppositional rhetoric into the discourse of the market. The signing of Rage Against the Machine is not the first time Sony has turned rebellion into money, as The Clash song goes. In 2005, the company hired graffiti artists to spray-paint buildings to advertise the PlayStation Portable. Street art, break dancing, skateboarding – all have been used to sell youth culture back to itself (a quick visit to skateandannoy.com will reveal dozens of ads that use skateboards as a symbol of the hip and the happening). Many countercultural strategies of opposition, such as the détournement of popular-cultural images employed by the Situationists of the 1960s and the ‘subvertising’ of the Canadian

Adbusters magazine, have been incorporated into the logic of commercialisation. Incorporation is hardly news, of course. In the late ’60s, Columbia Records provided an enduring example of co-optation by the music industry when an advertising

Harold’s argument is compelling, if only because it critiques the techniques of rhetorical appropriation and sabotage that have for too long been accepted by activists as inherently productive. But does it have anything to say about our Rage Against the Machine problem? I think it does, but not in an obvious way. After all, Rage Against the Machine are not about to present their music copyright-free or give their T-shirts away. But arguably they are taking market values more seriously than many marketeers. First, they are playing the competitive game of chart placings to make both a cultural point (Simon Cowell does not have a monopoly on ‘popular’ music) and a political point (the content of their songs). Second, there is an economic dimension: all profits from sales of the download went to Shelter, the chosen charity of the two fans who started the campaign independently and not as a marketing ploy. Furthermore, the group used its significant economic and cultural power to host a free concert in a major international city. It is, of course, inevitable that this will do little to harm the group’s profile – it might even be thought of as a cynical marketing exercise. On the other hand, we might consider a strategy such as this as the reverse of The Clash’s dictum, where the group is turning money into rebellion. Rage Against the Machine seem to recognise that their discursive strategies cannot stay the same, that it is possible to make use of the mass communication tools provided by a major label. Strategies such as these recognise and rely on the contradictions in commercial discourses, forms and control. Rather than rejecting commercial and corporate discourses, it shows how it is possible to make critical – and productive – use of them Chris Atton is professor of media and culture at Edinburgh Napier University. His books include Alternative Media,

An Alternative Internet and (with James Hamilton) Alternative Journalism.

39


40 HUCK


SNOWBOARDING’S LIFE STORY HAS YET TO UNFOLD IN FULL, BUT IT’S A TALE ROOTED IN A BATTLE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS. IN A UNIQUE EXCHANGE BETWEEN TWO OLD FRIENDS, BIG-MOUNTAIN LEGEND TOM BURT CONNECTS WITH FELLOW PIONEER TOM HSIEH, FOUNDER OF THE WORLD’S FIRST SNOWBOARD MAGAZINE, TO BACK-TRACK THROUGH SNOWBOARDING’S RADICAL PAST. INTERVIEW ANDREA KURLAND

41


n 1982, eighteen-year-old Tom caught a glimpse of his future. It came in the shape of a yellow plastic plank. This guy called Bob* who he’d known since, like, sixth grade handed it to him, saying it was a Sims Lonnie Toft. It was big – real big – with no wheels, no trucks, just a skate deck mounted on a big old plastic board and a bungee cord you could strap over your feet. Bob called it a snowboard. Tom had seen one before – a Winterstick back in seventh grade – but this one, said Bob, was for him to keep. Tom was

42 HUCK

familiar with snow, all right. He had been messing

compadres tried to legitimise snowboarding as a bona

around on skis since the age of four, because, well,

fide sport, complete with rule-book and trophies,

that’s just what you did when you were a Lake Tahoe

Burt saw a light outside of the contest scene: powder

kid. And, naturally, he knew all about boards. Every

riding – something he did ‘just because’. Now all he

summer he’d dust off his skateboard, pack away

needed was a way to share it with the world. Enter

his skis and hit up the rickety ramp in his parents’

Tom Hsieh. In 1989, ISM named Tom Burt ‘Rider

backyard – with Bob and whoever else – because,

of the Year’ – a radical move in a primitive pro scene

well, that’s just what you did when you were a Lake

where sponsorship still hung on competition results.

Tahoe kid. But those two things together (snow and a

And Burt found other ways to send his message

board? A board for snow?) simply blew his mind. On the streets of San Francisco, meanwhile, another skateboarder called Tom got wind of this newfangled toy. He’d travel to Lake Tahoe to ski now and then, and if his buddies over there were now skating on snow then, hell yeah, he wanted in. Over the following years, Tom and Tom would see and do things that became the stuff of lore; the people they met, the battles they fought, the stories they wrote, the travels they took, the lines they rode, the tricks they tried, the falls they fell, the industry they watched metastasise and grow – the good, the bad, the pure unadulterated fun – formed the foundation stones for a new way of life. The history of snowboarding was being written before their eyes. Lake Tahoe Tom became an unwitting pioneer as revered professional snowboarder Tom Burt. San Francisco Tom, having cottoned-on early to the fact that something was kicking off, did what every excitable documentarian would have done: he launched a magazine. Exactly one year after the idea first hit him at the second World Snowboard Championships in March 1984, nineteen-year-old self-publisher Tom Hsieh presented his buddies with issue no.1 of Absolutely Radical – later christened International Snowboard Magazine (ISM). Through the radical pages of the world’s first snowboarding mag, he started bottling a movement as it was being born. Tom Burt was also all about firsts. Throughout the 1980s, he led the way into the backcountry, pushed, one might say, by iron-fisted ski areas that felt snowboarding should be banned. While his neon-clad

around the globe, most notably through seminal parts in Standard Films’ TB movies. So as Tom Burt made history out in the back of beyond, the snowboarding diaspora were along for ride, mobilised by what they witnessed on video and in print. Without Tom Burt, big-mountain riding would never have reached such heights; but without guys like Tom Hsieh, the world would never have known what was going on. The history-maker and the history note-taker, both inadvertently birthing a microcosmic scene that would go from being hatedon by the masses to becoming mass-produced. That journey, however, would become far more political than either Tom ever thought… What were those first days of snowboarding in the early 1980s really like? Burt: Here in Tahoe, if you saw someone with a snowboard strapped to their car, you pretty much stopped and said, ‘Hey’. [Laughs] It was that small that you were so stoked to see someone else with a snowboard! But we were also limited by where we could go. Very few resorts allowed snowboarding so it pushed all the snowboarders into the backcountry, to the same place – this small group of people that would soon become the future professionals of the sport. They were so good, I mean, it was more fun watching your friends ride than riding yourself. That’s the spirit that was happening like, ‘I’m so stoked for your run!’ It was about watching your friends push boundaries together, just stepping it up every


“It had all the hallmarks of any political struggle; a sub-group was trying to gain all the rights the mainstream enjoyed.” – Tom Hsieh

time you went out. Maybe someone came out with

activists because we cared so much about snowboarding

Burt: It changed perceptions, it changed the persona

a different piece of equipment – like, the high-back

and about being treated fairly – which we weren’t. At

of skiing, it changed how skis are shaped – it changed

binding – and that changed everything. It was just this

least in America we weren’t. It had all the hallmarks of

everything, after it finally started to be accepted that

constant excitement... Every time you showed up at

any political struggle; a sub-group was trying to gain

snowboarding was going to stay.

the mountain, something new was going to happen.

all the rights the mainstream enjoyed… We didn’t get

Something outrageous.

into the sport to be political activists, but we knew we

Hsieh: Coming from San Francisco, it was so

were fighting for the future of snowboarding when we

interesting to watch the raw culture that was

went against this ski industry machine that was very

Burt: It was a collective effort. I worked with

developing… We were like an oddity. People asked

unfriendly to us – extremely unfriendly.

Avalanche Snowboards back in those days, and

ridiculous questions like, ‘Are you strapped onto that

Burt: [Laughs] I’ll give you an example. When we

we aggressively campaigned ski resorts to allow

thing or are you just standing on it?’ But you could

went out to Steamboat, Colorado, one year, to meet

snowboarding. I went to ski resorts all over the

walk up to another snowboarder and just relate, right

with the ski area, they wouldn’t even allow us in.

country, to meet the owners and show them that

off the bat. It was like a brethren, you know? […] Then

The next year we went back and they started to give

in snowboarding you could actually make turns

people came together for the first contests, and all of a

snowboarders access. Anyway, you have to take a bus

and control yourself... They just couldn’t believe it

sudden you had new influences coming in.

from the car park to the resort. So we got on the bus

when they watched snowboarders rip perfect carves

Burt: Guys were showing up from Australia,

and the bus driver was like, ‘Oh you’re a snowboarder,

better than skiers. Our technology was ahead of

Europe and Japan and suddenly we realised, ‘This

you have to sit in the back of the bus.’ [Laughs]

theirs, because skis weren’t designed for fun, they

is not just a Tahoe thing – this is a worldwide thing.’

Seriously! It was like we were back in 1960s America,

were designed for the racer. And a racer could make

It started dawning on everyone very clearly that,

when black people were forced to sit at the back of the

perfect turns on them, but a normal person couldn’t...

‘Oh my goodness, this is going to be worldwide

bus! It was so political. Crazy.

Snowboarding was made for fun, it was made to be

– wherever it snows.’

How was that battle actually fought?

easy, and it was completely mind-blowing to these So you were literally fighting a civil rights battle?

Did you feel like you were making a statement or

people that there was a tool out there that actually could be better. So we changed a lot of attitudes just

Hsieh: It was, for our generation… It was our first real

by meeting people… And I did that for years.

experience of being shut out from something we wanted

Hsieh: We were spreading our word around the

Burt: It’s not necessarily that you were rebelling;

to do. Of course, it was about snowboarding, it wasn’t

country, around the world, one ski operator at a time.

it was just that you were so stoked on what it was.

about true civil rights, but it was about accessibility,

I think there were about five hundred ski operators

The rebellion came because of resistance from the

about the right to pursue our version of happiness…

in the entire country at the time, and when we started

ski world, which was like, ‘You guys are idiots, what

[The ski areas] were in cahoots with the insurance

publishing a list in our magazine [of those that

are you doing out here on the snow? This is not

companies – two or three major worldwide carriers

allowed snowboarding], there were only thirteen.

a sport.’ And so in a sense, you were rebelling against

– and it was made known to these ski resorts that,

Burt: Now there’s only like two that don’t! [Laughs]

the current machine. The first time I ever went to

‘We will not insure you if you allow snowboarders on

It was a clubby little scene. The resort owners all

a ski show, there were five snowboard companies

board.’ So at the very highest multinational insurance

knew each other… They were all pioneers themselves

there and all the ski companies just laughed at us like,

level, they were against us. It was a fight of the little guy

in the late forties. They started all these ski resorts

‘What are you talking about? Snowboarding? We don’t

against the establishment. I think that we all knew that

when they came back from WW2, and so they were

want anything to do with you.’ Because we stuck out,

we were going to win – we really didn’t say it out loud

like us, only forty years older. They built up this ski

we had to make our own way – our own culture.

because the numbers were so overwhelmingly against

industry by themselves and did a phenomenal job,

Hsieh: I feel that, literally, it was a political struggle

us, but just like any political activist, we believed in our

but they forgot how exciting it was to have something

for the right to use the mountain in the way we wanted

cause so much that we were completely unstoppable…

new and to be stoked to be in the mountains. In

to. None of us at the time knew that we were going to

The ski industry would’ve died a very early death if it

their mind, skiing was the only way to do it and the

become political activists but we all became political

were not for the snowboarders.

snowboard wasn’t right.

rebelling against something at the time?

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LEFT TO RIGHT Terry Kidwell and Tom Burt in 1985. TB / Tom Burt’s first day snowboarding in 1982. TB / Tom Hsieh waiting to board the train to the Eiger mountain in Switzerland. ISM ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF TOM BURT (TB) AND INTERNATIONAL SNOWBOARD MAGAZINE (ISM) ARCHIVES

“I thInk the culture was wInnIng out because we dIdn’t try and protect It, but Instead showed people how to haVe fun wIthout haVIng to conform.” – tom burt Hsieh: The other issue is that they didn’t like the type

At what point did things start to gain momentum;

Hsieh: I don’t think the story’s been told yet, because

of people who were coming up and snowboarding…

when did you notice snowboarding was being

we haven’t had enough time to actually have history

A lot of the guys from San Francisco were just

accepted?

in snowboarding… We’re reaching that thirty-year milestone of when the first World Championship

skateboard rats, surf rats. They went to Tahoe for the first time and showed up in jeans. They didn’t have a lot

Hsieh: When the James Bond film [A View to a Kill]

happened – and going forward, the story of how this

of equipment; they didn’t understand what it meant to

came out in 1985 featuring Tom Sims and Steve Link

culture developed will become very important… The

get sunglasses for sun protection… And the ski resort

as stunt doubles. James Bond blew up his ski and put a

story is unique and it is political; of course, we never

operators took one look at these people and were like,

snowboard on… That little scene was the biggest major

knew it at the time because we weren’t coming into

‘I don’t want you guys anywhere near my ski resort or

media usage of snowboarding. It was exciting, seeing

it with a political agenda. But when I look back on

my patrons.’ There was a real culture clash.

people we knew in a big movie… It took snowboarding

it now, it was a political struggle… You may be the

Burt: Also, the ski industry tried to push people into

to the masses in a really unique way.

first to tell the story from this point of view. And will kids appreciate that? No, kids don’t appreciate

their norm and that’s when more rebellion came from the snowboarders, who were like, ‘No! We’re not going

Was there an element of protectionism from people

anything, you know? Kids are kids. I didn’t appreciate

to fit your mould, we’re going to be ourselves.’

wanting to keep snowboarding quite niche?

the people who opened up things for me when I was

Hsieh: I remember having conversations with

eighteen. But when kids learn about it down the road,

snowboard manufacturers who really believed we

Burt: I think the culture was winning out because

if they love snowboarding they’ll think, ‘Wow, that

needed to conform to the ski industry. They wanted to

we didn’t try and protect it, but instead showed

was unique. They went through a very interesting

develop clothing that looked similar to the ski industry,

people how to have fun without having to conform.

struggle to create this sport that we all love.’ And it

and to make sure that articles published in my magazine

It’s insane to me that, when we started, you would

makes snowboarding that much more special because

showed people completely in control and on the ground.

get kicked off the mountain for building a jump. And

it wasn’t a given – it wasn’t like [there was] a big red

As a publisher, I was like, ‘You know what? That’s not

now they build you jumps! [Laughs] We had to do

carpet rolled out for us. It wasn’t easy to start this

snowboarding. We should show the world what we do

everything in the backcountry when we started.

industry and grow it into what it is today.

and who we are and I don’t care if they like us or not.’

Hsieh: And this was a universal condition... Every

And that’s what our magazine did; we showed the real

snowboarder could relate to each other not only

And when you look at that industry today, are you

culture of snowboarding and all its rawness and rough

because they loved snowboarding, but because they

happy with what you see?

edge, and that’s why we had such a great following,

were being oppressed around the world by the ski

because we were real. We were basically the people’s

industry. It was amazing.

Burt: Right now there’s a bigger market for smaller

publication. A lot of our stuff came in unsolicited in the

Burt: [Laughs] Kids who start today, they go out

companies that have integrity, which is good. Some

mail. Photos, stories – we’d just publish it and boom!

and jump in parks – they think it’s all part of how it’s

integrity will always get lost, that’s how business

Suddenly people learned about Tom Burt because they

always been.

goes. When the first true businessman came to

read about him in ISM and they lived in Japan. So when

snowboarding it was mind-boggling to me that

they would come over to America and see him in a

Do you think those kids appreciate the battles

someone could see snowboarding as a commodity and

contest, they’d be like, ‘Oh my God, you’re Tom Burt!’

their forefathers fought?

not care one iota about the sport. Business helps and it

The magazine was the Facebook of snowboarding back then... That was how we organised ourselves.

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hurts – it brings money, but it hurts the soul. Burt: I don’t think they do.

Hsieh: One thing I’m concerned with is the cost of


snowboarding, which is extremely high. Accessibility

rode was live. Then the magazine started, and you

Hsieh: One thing I think needs to happen is that

for people who would not normally be on the

could know someone though a magazine; then in the

the riders, if they want to control their future and

mountain due to their economic background is going

1990s video started, and you could know someone

not be controlled by big corporations, will need to

to shape snowboarding. That’s why skiing started to

through a video. Then TV coverage came with the X

organise themselves as an association – a union of

die in the 1980s – they catered for too small a market.

Games and the Olympics and it became a worldwide

riders – to get a bigger share of these fat contracts…

Snowboarding helped grow the numbers rapidly, but

thing. So you’re talking about a change in accessibility.

Right now the so-called competitors are just cattle

it could fall into the same trap. If it caters for a finite

My heroes were people I could watch ride. Now,

– they either make it or they don’t… But if they

group of people, things will get stale and it’ll lose that

people’s heroes are someone they can watch on

were to organise themselves, get representation and

creativity. We had nothing but creativity to offer the

television. It’s changed the marketing dollar, and today

go and negotiate with the powers that run these

world; when you lose those people who can’t afford

you can have a corporate brand that has nothing to do

commercial enterprises – TV events with large

it, you lose a lot of what drives snowboarding. But

with snowboarding, like Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Target

corporate backers – they could probably do better

generally I think it’s progressed exceptionally well. We

– all they’re doing is putting money into it to sell to

for themselves and protect the little guy trying to

all knew it was going to be big… We just wanted to make

that mass market. So these people become huge icons

make a living. Riders need to control the sport as

sure that it entered the mainstream with its integrity

amongst the population that gets to see them. We had

we did in the beginning. That is something we’re

intact – meaning that we didn’t have to conform to

icons, but we had to see them ride live.

probably gonna see some day. Maybe.

We bring the spirit – it’s punk rock, it’s aggressive,

What impact has that celebrity culture had on

If you had to pinpoint the heyday of snowboarding

it’s adrenaline. That’s exactly what snowboarding

people’s reasons for turning pro? Do you think

– when it encapsulated the spirit it should – when

is… Had we gone down the other direction and

kids approach a professional career today with

would that be?

created a milquetoast image of snowboarding – that

different expectations?

fit in. We showed the world what we are, who we are.

Burt: For me, it’s the early 1980s. [Laughs] It didn’t

it is safe and sane, that we wear conservative-coloured clothing and we don’t fly through the air – then I think

Burt: As far as my pro career, I was stoked to get a free

matter what board you were on, you were just stoked

snowboarding would not be what it is today. Because

board!Today, if you’re working towards professionalism,

to ride with anyone with a snowboard tied to a car.

there is so much about snowboarding that is part of a

you’re expecting free gear, money, everything paid for

Hsieh: We can still go for a powder ride now and

culture, rather than just a sport. We kept the integrity

all the way down the line. When people are making

have that same feeling of camaraderie we had thirty

of this culture intact, but we had to fight to do that.

million-plus dollars a year, it does attract people

years ago – only now we have mortgages and kids

wanting to make money, whereas in my day the best pro

in tow

The ‘poster child’ marketing model, in which

rider made basically nothing. There are kids out there

brands iconise team riders in order to push gear,

training, trying to tap into that professional status as

*ENDNOTE: As for Bob, well, you’ll find him in the

has turned pro riders into celebrities. Were

a business. When we started there was no business.

history books under Bob Klein – the guy who proved life

professional snowboarders revered in the same

I’ve semi made a living out of it, but I snowboard

as a professional snowboarder can evolve into a career.

way back in your day?

because I love to snowboard.

Through Sessions, Santa Cruz, Palmer Snowboards and his

Burt: When I started there were no mags, no videos

Do you think the cogs driving the industry always

of people discover the joy of a big flat plank. Just like he

– so the only way you could appreciate how someone

have the riders’ best interests at heart?

did for Tom.

own athlete agency BK Sports, Bob has helped millions

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BICYCLES AREN’T JUST RAD – THEY’RE RADICAL TOOLS OF SOCIAL CHANGE. TEXT OLLY ZANETTI ILLUSTRATION STEVIE GEE

etting out to campaign against indecent exposure by parading in the nude might seem a little hypocritical. But it depends on your definition of ‘indecent exposure’. This year, prudish residents across seventy cities averted their eyes as the World Naked Bike Ride went by. Campaigning against everything from oil dependency to unrealistic body image norms, the ride’s organisers are clear about their definition of the term: “It’s time to put a stop to the indecent exposure of people and the planet to cars and the pollution they create,” they say on their website. In its relatively short history, the bicycle has become a machine for politics, as both a campaigning tool and a way to live out one’s political beliefs. Which isn’t bad given that, less than two hundred years ago, the idea of balancing on two wheels was considered physically impossible. Luckily, German inventor Baron Karl von Drais proved otherwise. And it all started with a giant cloud of ash. In 1815, the spectacular eruption of the Mount Tambora volcano in Indonesia spewed a cloud of ash so dense and thick that it caused crops to fail below the world’s darkened skies. By 1816, there was barely enough food for people, let alone for horses used as transport. This predicament, suggests Robert Penn in his book It’s All About the Bike, was the mother of invention. By 1817, Drais was trialling his mechanical horse – aka the running machine or Draisine – which boasted a frame much like a modern bike, but without any pedals. Instead, the Draisine’s riders kept moving by kicking it along with their legs. The next year, harvests returned to normal and the machine was all but forgotten. But development didn’t stop. First came the infamous Penny Farthing design, and the bike as we know it – with a chain, pedals, and two similarly sized wheels – came of age in the late 1800s. Suddenly, people could travel further, more quickly and using less energy, than ever before. It was an instant hit. “Let me tell you what I think of bicycling,” American suffragette Susan B Anthony told the New York Sunday World in 1896. “I think it has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world.” At a time when Victorian values encouraged women to stay at home, the bike became a catalyst of change. Even those lucky enough to be married to enlightened men couldn’t get very far as social pressures forbade women from driving a horse and trap. But the bike was different. It was a key to independence; the saddle could only hold one person, and its very mobility forced riders to enter public space alone. The bike was new and the rules yet to be written, and women – from the middle classes at least – took to it in droves.

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Soon enough, this new-fangled machine was closing the gender gap in unexpected ways. In September 1893, a bold sixteen-year-old called Tessie Reynolds went on a bike ride that would, literally, help redress women’s rights. Not only did she cycle an unladylike 120 miles from Brighton to London and back again in a day, she did so wearing pantaloons and a shirt – a radical departure from the billowing dresses and unnaturally tight corsets of the time. Naked cyclists may provoke tutting in city centres today, but Tessie Reynolds’ feat caused outrage. The ride received widespread public

bicycle. Rather than encouraging people to buy bikes,

Many, however, prefer to take their pro-cycling

attention, and was a coup for the so-called Rational

however, they thought bikes should be freely available,

message straight to the street. The Critical Mass

Dress Movement who had long argued women should

unlocked around the city for people to use whenever

movement, which began as the Commute Clot in

be free to wear practical clothes. Women today,

they needed.

September 1992 in San Francisco, has spread to cities

On July 28, 1965, the public and media assembled

across the globe. Echoing the sentiment of groups

for the presentation of the city’s first free bikes. The

like Provo, cyclists take to their bikes to challenge

As the 1900s began, the bike created the culture

bikes were to be white, and at 3pm in the middle of a

the car’s domination of the roads. According to

of everyday mobility that has remained. Cyclists, like

square in central Amsterdam, Provo activists began

critics, the ride’s aim is to block the roads, but that

those who led the Good Roads Movement in the States,

painting. In the weeks that followed, more bikes were

couldn’t be further from the truth. Critical Mass

became campaigners and demanded governments

dropped off around the city. The response from the

riders clump together so the riders collectively take

construct roads better suited to cycling. But this was

authorities was bizarre. First the Provo were accused

over the streets; bikes aren’t blocking the traffic,

also the time of Henry Ford – godfather of the mass-

of obstructing traffic. Then many white bikes were

they are the traffic, and they’re making a statement

produced automobile. Bike sales began to slump, only

impounded by police who argued that, left unlocked,

on their equal right of way. But as documents in

picking up briefly during the 1970s oil crisis. Having

they could get stolen. When the bikes were eventually

the archives of South London’s radical social centre

shaken things up, the bike was superseded by the car.

returned, they were secured by combination locks with

56a show, the police don’t always get it – preferring,

But that didn’t signal the end of its political story.

the codes painted on the bike’s frame. Though white

especially in the early years, to wade in and arrest

“The history of the bicycle can tell us a lot about

bikes dropped off the agenda when Provo disbanded in

participants. During Critical Mass, where speeding

the history of our world,” says Dr Dave Horton,

1967, the idea forms the basis of bike rental programmes,

cars would normally push bikes into the gutter, roles

a research associate at Lancaster University’s

like the Parisian Vélib’ and London’s new Cycle Hire

are reversed and bikes regulate the cars’ movements.

Environment Centre who’s working on a project to

scheme, that are springing up across the world.

With some bikes towing sound systems and riders

it could be argued, owe their freedom to wear what they please at least in part to the bike.

the

in fancy dress, roaring traffic is replaced with a

mode of travel today. Horton has also penned several

demonstrators at last December’s climate change

carnivalesque vibe – a vision of what cities could be

articles on the bike’s social history. “Something that

talks in Copenhagen too. Under the banner of the

like if streets weren’t cluttered with vehicles.

was about the expansion of geographical, social

Bike Bloc, one group used bikes as a theatrical tool for

Over its short history, the bike has become

and political horizons for the first half of its history,

protest and direct action. The Bike Bloc started life

symbolic of a better urbanism. It’s become a force

became, in the second half, the inverse of that, as

with a series of workshops run by the Laboratory of

of positive change. But to bring about more change,

things got too distant and too remote. That’s where

Insurrectionary Imagination at the Bristol art venue,

we need more two-wheeled activists reclaiming their

anarchism and environmentalism take up the bike as

the Arnolfini. Cadi, one of the activists, reflects on why

rights to our roads. As sci-fi writer HG Wells once

a mode of mobility that could start to bring the world

she joined in: “I didn’t really feel that me just standing

said, “Every time I see an adult on a bicycle, I no longer

back down to a more local, convivial, face-to-face

there in a protest was going to achieve anything.

despair for the future of the human race.”

level.” The bike, having started life as a tool that helped

The Bike Bloc was exciting. It was constructive, not

forge modernity, switched faces and became a symbol

destructive, and it drew on all the things that are really

of opposition to modernity’s excesses instead.

good about cycling: being with your mates, being in a

understand how people use walking and cycling as a

Drawing on that symbolism were Amsterdam-

Bike-riding

activists

were

amongst

team, and that affinity you have with other cyclists.”

based anarchist collective Provo, who reached

Day to day, the bike’s political struggle continues.

public attention in July 1965 with the launch of their

Dangerous driving and bad infrastructure puts off

’zine of the same name. Their message was one of

many would-be cyclists, as documentary photographerturned-filmmaker Richard Grassick shows in Beauty

anti-consumerism in which the car came under fire because of the way it dominated the streets. “The asphalt terror of the motorised bourgeoisie has lasted long enough,” they proclaimed in an early poster. “Human sacrifices are made daily to this latest idol of the idiots: car power.” The Provo’s answer was the

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and the Bike. The film is set in Darlington, one of six demonstration towns in the UK where authorities are said to be improving conditions for cyclists. Grassick’s film has become a campaigning tool for groups the world over seeking the same thing.


Š 2010 adidas AG. adidas, the Trefoil, and the 3-Stripes mark are registered trademarks of the adidas Group. Silhouette Int. Schmied AG, adidas Global Licensee.


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Junkyards are a treasure trove for these communityminded scavengers. Text and photography Mike Belleme

For most people, the first things that spring to mind when they think of searching through dumpsters or wading through junkyards are homelessness, desperation and disgust. But for those who engage in a scavenger subculture, wordplay

takes

a

very

different

form:

opportunity, art, resourcefulness, community and waste reduction are just some of the positive images that may pop up. For a range of reasons, these people thrive on the idea that they can live off the waste of others.

One Man’s Trash is an ongoing exploration into the many facets of this lifestyle. The people that I’m documenting for this project vary greatly in what they are looking for and what they choose to do with the things they find, but one thing they have in common is their motivating force: they are not scavenging out of desperation or necessity; instead, they are drawn to this lifestyle with a sense of purpose. Through the lens, I am working towards lifting the negative stigma that has been assigned to people who live this way and attempting to shed some light on the positive impact these treasure hunters can have on the world around them.

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Sean ‘Jinx’ Pace Artist.

Sometimes I think that Jinx has biodiesel for blood, bones of rebar and a heart made out of used car parts. If there is one man who personifies the ideals of this project, it’s him. Jinx reeks of creativity and explodes with energy. His brain is equal parts mad scientist and third-grade class clown. Although his primary motive for scavenging is to find things he can incorporate into his art, using second-hand objects permeates all aspects of Jinx’s life. “I built the first phase of a million-gallon-a-year used-grease biodiesel [power] plant out of found materials,” says Jinx. “The interior of my school bus where [my girlfriend] Melissa and I live is built completely out of second-hand materials that were salvaged from an old farmhouse.” Jinx’s art perfectly reflects his exuberant personality; each piece is full of life. Take, for example, an installation he created from a chopped-up motorcycle with a huge, long cage full of rubber chickens protruding above the rear tyre. A lever releases a chicken onto the spinning wheel, sending it flying about thirty metres. This piece, like all of Jinx’s work is comprised entirely of parts collected from his many scavenging adventures: “First I peruse through the scrapyards for steel, bronze and aluminium, but that still can be expensive. I look through the Internet because it really saves on gas and there are so many people out there with crazy amounts of crap. Most of the time people call me up and give me stuff – that’s my favourite.” Jinx and most of the other people who live similar lifestyles are opposed to the shameful wastefulness that surrounds them. Only, they’ve found a way to make the best of a bad situation. As Jinx explains, “I can see something in remnants of our failing world. I am a surgeon operating on the problem of over-consumption and non-creativity.”

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William Addy

Dumpster diver / eBay hustler. Will has been one of my best friends for almost half of my life. Recently, we bonded on a new level. There’s just nothing like huddling inside a dumpster to build a friendship. His involvement with the underground hardcore music scene introduced him to the scavenger lifestyle. Up until last year, Will was living in Columbia, South Carolina, where he was part of a community that not only supported themselves through scavenging, but helped others using an intricate knowledge of the city’s dumpsters. “We have had dumpster potlucks and I started a communal food bank based out of my home,” explains Will. “From dumpstering, we fed approximately twenty-five people, one meal daily. We also supported a local ‘Food Not Bombs’ chapter [who supply free food for the homeless] with our dumpstered goods.” Although Will and I have always been close, this part of his life was always kind of a mystery to me. When I convinced Will to move to Asheville, North Carolina, where I live, I started coming along with him as he found his way around the dumpsters of a new city. I quickly discovered the thrill of a good dumpster score and learned as much as I could from my scavenger friend. I was hooked. After a weekend trip back home to Columbia, Will returned with a huge flat-screen plasma TV. Although it wasn’t working, he knew he could get good money just for the parts. He noticed the manufacturer date and after some online research found that it was still under warranty. He called the manufacturer and made up a story – involving a girlfriend who bought the TV, a horrible break-up and a lost receipt. Within a few days, they sent out a team of repairmen to Will’s house and fixed the TV free of charge. Will often finds electronics that are in perfect working order. As he explains, “Everything in America seems to be utterly disposable and people most often just buy something new to replace something that is perfectly fine.”

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Idiotarod

Community recycling event. The Idiotarod is a strange thing to try and explain. Grown men and women dressed in superhero and zombie costumes, or different kinds of drag, race through the streets with shopping carts, stopping along the way to plant trees and flowers, pry old nails from lumber and help with all manner of other community projects. The Idiotarod – a parody of the Alaskan sled race, the Iditarod – started in San Francisco in 1994 and finally made its way to Asheville in 2009. Jinx was organising one of the community projects for the race and told me that he thought it would be a great way to incorporate community into my documentary. He had already been working hard with some friends in Asheville’s river arts district to tear down an old abandoned building, rescue the old lumber and metal and put it to better use. The challenge for each team of ‘idiots’ was to pry nails from ten pieces of lumber, and stack them onto a trailer, all the while being taunted and ridiculed by Jinx and his friends. “Altogether 293 pieces of usable lumber were produced,” claims Richard Hanley, organiser of the Idiotarod. I rode with Jinx as he hauled the lumber to a nearby site where an artist co-op is due to be constructed at an abandoned school. Jinx hopes to build himself a studio/living space there with the help of the wood collected. Metal was salvaged from the remains of the building and was sold to a local metal yard. Plans are also under way for a greenway – a traffic-free route – which will pass through where the building once stood. It’s amazing to stand back and watch as the initiative of just a few people turns an old dilapidated waste of space into a community for artists, a nice chunk of money, a location for a future greenway, and a ton of fun

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ILLUSTRATION BY JOE WILSON

Renegades Are Us Text by Andrew Potter

Is the guy who buys a surfboard more rebellious than the guy who buys a suit? According to Andrew Potter, the answer is no.

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we’re subject to a nonstop barrage of paparazzi shots

concert comes to be seen as politically engaged as

of over-inked starlets, or why every business magazine

a feminist helping write equal rights legislation.

feels obliged to periodically run a profile of some middle-aged surfing CEOs.

What is crucial to understand about all forms of consumption, including lifestyle and leisure pursuits,

Over and over again, in virtually every aspect

is that they are driven not by a demand for conformity,

of our culture, the story seems to be the same:

but by a desire for distinction. People consume in

a genuinely alternative or rebellious look, sound, scene

order to set themselves apart from others, sometimes

or activity comes along and poses a genuine threat to

to show that they are richer, but more often to

the prevailing socio-economic order. But every time,

demonstrate that they are cooler (skate shoes), better

our consumer capitalist system seizes these symbols

connected (the latest nightclub), better informed

of rebellious youth, mass-produces them, and sells

(single-malt Scotch), or even morally superior (organic

them back in the form of ‘rebel chic’. In so doing, it

foods) to other people.

evacuates these symbols of their original subversive content, and drains them of their rebellious power.

The problem is that all of these comparative preferences

generate

competitive

consumption.

This is the theory of co-optation, and it explains

‘Keeping up with the Joneses’, in today’s world, does

why, despite almost half a century of post-’60s

not mean buying a home in the suburbs. It means

countercultural rebellion, the system is still in place,

buying a loft downtown, eating at the right restaurants,

stronger than ever. It isn’t that rebellion is politically

listening to obscure bands, having a pile of expensive

useless; what it proves is merely that the system is

rock-climbing gear, and vacationing in Bhutan.

extremely good at ‘co-opting’ rebellion. It also explains

It doesn’t matter how much people spend on these

why everyone seems to think they’re a rebel, since

things, what matters is the competitive structure of

what the masses are consuming is just a bleached and

the consumption. Once too many people get on the

commodified version of some original form of dissent.

bandwagon, it forces the early adopters to get off,

The true rebels, meanwhile, have moved on to ever

in order to preserve their distinction. This is what

more radical pastures.

generates the cycles of obsolescence and waste that we

It’s a good theory, with only one problem: there is no such thing as co-optation, in my view.

condemn as ‘consumerism’, but it is also what drives the increasingly rapid turnover in hip cultural moments.

f you’re like most people, you probably think that

One of the problems with countercultural thinking

And so what countercultural rebels call co-optation

your favourite alternative band was more radical

is that it collapses the crucial distinction between

is in fact just a form of status competition, instigated

before it got popular. You probably took a trip once

political dissent and social deviance. Dissent is the

and exacerbated by the rebels themselves. The

to a seriously exotic place, but it’s been ruined now

principled opposition to the specific content of a

consequence is that rebellion of this sort has become

that all the tourists have discovered it. And maybe

prevailing law, rule or policy, and it often takes the form

one of the major forces driving consumer capitalism

you’ve got a hardcore tattoo – one that you got a long

of mass protest or civil disobedience. When people

in the past forty years. For example, the rebel style

time ago, before every hipster and Hollywood starlet

disobey, they do so despite the consequences that

associated with skateboarding is a massive player in

looked like they’d just emerged from a long stretch

these actions may incur, because they are committed

the sporting goods industry, and its wintry offshoot,

in the Big House.

to changing the way the system operates.

snowboarding, has injected billions of dollars into a ski

But then, you’re not like most other people, are

Deviance, on the other hand, occurs when people

you? That’s why you surf, or skate, or snowboard –

disobey the rules for self-interested reasons. This

business that was largely moribund in the late ’80s. Capitalism doesn’t need to co-opt rebellion,

precisely because you’re not a boring, mainstream

might be because they are criminals, want to be

because there is nothing there to be co-opted.

person with boring, mainstream hobbies. You’re not

cool, or just want to freeride off the rule-following of

Capitalism doesn’t require conformity, it only

a corporate drone or prancing yuppie like the rest of

others. But in any case, the problem is that starting in

requires a market, and it is fundamentally indifferent

mass society. You’re a member of a counterculture,

the ’60s, the counterculture started to treat any form

to whether that market demands grey flannel suits

one that rejects the norms of mainstream society in

of resistance or rule-breaking or non-conformity as

or surfboards

the name of individualism and non-conformity.

political. Thus doing things like refusing to wear a

But this leads us to a bit of a paradox. After all,

suit, growing your hair long, getting a few piercings,

Andrew

nobody ever admits to being a corporate drone, and

listening to loud music, or doing some recreational

of The Authenticity Hoax: How We Get Lost Finding

if you ask for a show of hands, you’re not going to get

drugs are considered politically radical gestures – as

Ourselves, and co-author of The Rebel Sell: How

a lot of people owning up to being a prancing yuppie.

a refusal to bow to the tyranny of mainstream society.

Counterculture Became Consumer Culture. He blogs at

Everyone’s a rebel these days, which is exactly why

Meanwhile, the kid crowd-surfing at a Green Day

www.authenticityhoax.squarespace.com.

Potter

is

the

author,

most

recently,

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60 HUCK


Village Rights When a collection of tents popped up on Parliament Square, they sent a message to the powers that be: try and hush the voice of protest, and protest will come knocking at your front door. Text Olly Zanetti Photography Jack Laurenson

ourt 76, the Royal Courts of Justice,

among activists living in nearby squats who wanted to draw attention to the inequity in land ownership, and find

central London. The fifteen or so

a space to live sustainably. Supporters were recruited via radical websites, and plans were devised to swoop on the

activists – some barefooted, others

site en masse. In June 2009, the swoopers met at Waterloo station. Breaking off into cells, with each navigating

dreadlocked or wearing T-shirts

separately through London’s public transit network to avoid detection from the authorities, they headed for the

covered in slogans calling for troops

Kew Village site, arriving, with almost military precision, within minutes of one another. An easy scramble through

out of Iraq – seem slightly out of place amongst the

a loosely secured gate was all it took to access the overgrown wasteland.

frappés and Blackberries of well-spoken lawyers

After dumping their stuff and exploring the space, the ecovillagers gathered in a circle. They were a mixed

shuffling papers in the courtroom’s air-conditioned

bunch, some full-time activists, others sympathetic to ecovillage ideals but not ready to give up home comforts just

cool. Fifteen minutes later than the advertised 2pm

yet. Introductions commenced. “I’m fed up of living in square boxes,” explained Myrtle Merriweather, aka Carolyn,

start, the judge calls for order. The case brought about

one of the organisers of the swoop. “I want to return to nature. I want to show what’s possible, even in urban areas.”

by Conservative Mayor of London Boris Johnson is

Others agreed, sick of the rat race and of plodding along in dead-end jobs. People spoke of other ecovillages across

about to come to a close. On May Day, eight weeks

the UK, of sustainable living, freeganism and hair conditioner made from nettles. A sign was stuck to the gate,

prior, members of the Democracy Village erected

announcing to the authorities that the site had been occupied, and it was official: the ecovillage was open.

their tents on Parliament Square – the historic patch

What began as a hotchpotch of tents rapidly evolved: within a week of their arrival, a bender – a structure made

of grass directly opposite the Houses of Parliament

of hazel poles covered with tarp – had become the central meeting space; an old brick shed was transformed into

– in an effort to bring their political beliefs to the

a kitchen; and stones and rubble were cleared from the ground to make way for raised beds in which vegetables

government’s front door. Now Boris wants them gone.

could be planted. Next to the kitchen, a brick and clay structure took shape. Forget tough outdoor living: “That’s

A court usher distributes the judgement, a document

going to be a pizza oven,” explained site chef Sam. One year later in Parliament Square, Simon, another key face

of some forty pages, to each defendant and the judge

behind the ecovillage’s inception, recalls those early days at Kew: “On the first day, there were seventy of us. By

talks through his decision. The villagers have lost, and

the second, maybe fifteen. By the end of the week, only eight. But it gradually picked up, and four or five months

by 4pm on Friday July 2, 2010, they are to pack up their

in, there were about thirty of us. It became a living, breathing community. It was a great thing to be part of.”

tents and leave. If they don’t leave voluntarily, they will be forced off the land by bailiffs and the police.

The ecovillage received a fair bit of attention, much of it positive, from the world’s media and locals alike. But, on reflection, Simon doesn’t seem sure people really understood their aim. “I think we were regarded as ecowarriors, arguing that everyone should be more ecological, but actually that wasn’t my primary issue. I wanted

t’s hard living on a roundabout,” explained Village

to address our right to use the land. There’s vacant, derelict and disused land everywhere. It’s not available for

resident Lou a few days earlier. “This wasn’t in

low-impact communities like ours and it should be.”

any way my plan. Being a northern girl, I’d always

The villagers drew inspiration for their movement from history, in particular from a 1649 English revolutionary

said I’d never live in London. And here I am,

movement called the Diggers. Led by Gerrard Winstanley, the Diggers opposed the enclosure of land by the rich.

right in the centre.” With traffic four lanes thick

On St. George’s Hill in Surrey – an area that was common land back then, but has since become the privately gated

surrounding Parliament Square on all sides, it’s hardly

home of millionaires – they planted vegetables and vowed to work the land for the good of all. At Kew Bridge,

a tranquil spot. It was chosen for what it signified,

the memory of the Diggers was alive and well in both spirit and, by chance, in a corporate ident. “It’s like it’s come

symbolic of the disaffection many feel towards our

full circle,” explained villager Olivia. “It’s three hundred and sixty years since the Diggers, and here we are on

political system. But revving engines and exhaust

a piece of land owned by a development company called St. George.”

fumes haven’t always meant home for the Democracy

The Kew Bridge villagers weren’t the first to have been touched by Winstanley’s actions. Most famously the

Village crew. In fact, for eleven months previously, they

campaign group The Land is Ours, fronted by political commentator George Monbiot, set up camp for five months

occupied a more secluded plot of land in the suburbs of

in Wandsworth, London, in the mid-1990s. The group were opposed to the greed of large corporations sitting on

West London, just across the river from Kew Gardens.

plots of vacant land while individuals were homeless or vulnerably housed. On land owned by the brewer Guinness,

Having lain empty for nearly twenty years, the

they constructed the Pure Genius ecovillage. With several hundred people on site, many having constructed homes

land at Kew Bridge was ripe for grassroots action. The

from materials that would otherwise have been dumped, a strong community developed with the broad support of

idea to take over the space stemmed from a discussion

the area’s residents. It was not to last though, and when the end came it was messy. Refusing to negotiate, Guinness

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had the activists evicted and razed the site to the ground. As Monbiot wrote after the event, “Guinness’ scorched earth policy looks like spite. It has no use for the site at present, but it’ll be damned if anyone else can enjoy it.” As the villagers attest, life was good at Kew Bridge. But it did have its obstacles – least not, the coldest British winter in thirty-one years. And the threat of eviction hung permanently over the site too, thanks to the grand

s zero hour arrives on the day of eviction, the atmosphere is tense. A

helicopter

hovers

overhead,

supporters gather, and a rally begins in

plans of landowners St. George. They’d owned the site since 2003, leaving it empty as property prices shot up.

the Square. As the megaphone is being

A block of one hundred and sixty flats with underground parking was on their agenda. Many local people were

passed to those wanting to speak, a last-minute phone

opposed to the development and the disruption it would bring to their community. But in the end, big money

call comes through. With moments to spare, their

won out and planning permission was granted.

lawyer has lodged an appeal against the judgement, and

“We always knew the time would come when we’d have to leave,” Gareth observed. But that didn’t make it any easier when the day came. “It was pretty heartbreaking,” Lou said, “I think the bailiffs were pretty harsh.” Just

having thrown a stick at the legal wheels, the eviction is, for the following weeks at least, thwarted.

like the Pure Genius site, bulldozers were brought in, levelling in minutes nearly a year’s worth of the villager’s

But where does this leave the ecovillagers and

hard work. “They put concrete down and a building in the middle,” Lou continued. “Now the plot is patrolled

their movement? The focus at Kew Bridge was tight;

with guards and dogs. It’s hardcore and that’s the reality.”

it was about having access to land for sustainable living.

For many of the villagers, the relocation to Parliament Square was the obvious next step. “What brought us

At Parliament Square, it’s not so clear. Gareth now

here was the realisation that it was a good idea,” says Simon. “As Martin Luther King said, ‘The time is always

describes their camp as being about “lots of things”.

right to do what is right.’” Their move on May 1, 2010, preceded their eviction from Kew Bridge by a couple of

At a sit-down protest on the day of eviction, the message

weeks, but with demolition by that time inevitable, the new site offered a cathartic shift in focus.

is confused: there is opposition to capitalism and war;

A good idea it may have seemed, but the move to the Square brought the ecovillagers directly into the

to bad government and environmental destruction.

authorities’ firing line. Laws passed in 2005 forbid any protest from taking place within a mile of Parliament

They’re a laudable set of campaigning aims, but there’s

without police permission. Rightly, many see this as a challenge to civil liberties and the right to free speech,

a sense that the movement’s been diluted. With so

and the residents of Democracy Village are no exception. Though they found a legal loophole by calling their

much opposition to so many varied things, they seem

camp a discussion space rather than a protest, the authorities still wanted them out. Planting a small garden

unable to comment clearly on any one thing.

and having tents on the site is regarded as criminal damage by the courts. And, in spite of visits from Londoners

Come mid-July, the appeal is lost and eviction

and tourists alike, they were even accused of preventing public access to the space. “It’s ridiculous,” Gareth

looms again. Then finally, in the early hours of July

points out. “There’s no pedestrian crossing, so anyone coming over here is risking their life crossing the road,

20, bailiffs arrive and the villagers are ousted once

especially people in wheelchairs or with young children. They say we’re preventing the public, but they’re not

and for all. Talk begins of Operation Ghost, a series of

allowing the public on either, and never have done.”

meetings and discussions to be run in the Square after

And life soon became difficult in other ways too, with the site attracting homeless people with drug and

they’ve officially left, and of finding a new site to set up

alcohol problems, and passersby eager to hurl abuse. As Lou puts it, “It’s easy in an ecovillage that’s protected

another ecovillage like Kew Bridge. There’s talk too of

from the world, on a site with people who share your ideals, but here it’s a different story.” The Square has its

taking a well-earned breather first. Though objectives

own internal politics too. Relations with Brian Haw, the infamous anti-war protester who’s been camped on

may have become somewhat confused, a lot has gone

Parliament Square since 2001, and the Village are strained, with Haw and his sidekick Barbara Tucker both eager

well. In little over a year, the ecovillagers have taken

to point out that there is no affiliation between their demonstration and the Democracy Village. Nowhere is this

on big business and government, they’ve questioned

tension more keenly felt than in the courtroom, where Tucker in a fit of rage brands the Kew Bridge crew the

established authority, and in so doing shown the world

“Hypocrisy Village” before the judge requests that she be silent or leave.

its faults. And that alone deserves respect

62 HUCK


nixonnow.com/santigold


64 HUCK


WHEN DON LETTS INTRODUCED REGGAE TO PUNK, HE PROVED GREAT THINGS CAN HAPPEN WHEN LIKE MINDS COLLIDE. INTERVIEW CIAN TRAYNOR PHOTOGRAPHY ROCCO MACAULAY

Don Letts walks ahead of "hundreds of brothers" at the Notting Hill riots, 1976. The Clash used the image for their album Black Market Clash in 1980.

65


You say anyone could have done what you did,

If counterculture is an ongoing dynamic, where

but do you think another person could have

are we now? In a sad place. In the West, it feels like

made the same connections and sparked the

punk never happened. A lot of young people are

same collaborations? I think a lot of people did

very conservative and like to be led. The other day

[the same thing]. Punk made me realise I didn’t

I gave a lecture and these kids said I sounded like

want to be just a fan. One of the reasons it’s had this

an angry old man. I thought, ‘That’s ’cause you ain’t

lasting impact is that it wasn’t just a soundtrack. We

angry enough!’ All the things that pissed me off in

were likeminded outcasts who reinvented ourselves

the ’70s are still around. There seemed to be cultural

as writers, photographers, fashion designers, artists

upheaval, even up to the ’80s, but as soon as people

and filmmakers. Until that time I’d never thought

could get things cheap they all thought they could

about how one thing inspired another. Very little

do it. You can’t. There is a basic requirement for

comes out of a total void.

creativity. You’ve got to have a good idea. I’ve come to the conclusion that art was better when shit was

Were punk and reggae ever at odds? Or was

more expensive. When someone like Joe Strummer

there common ground from the start? It’s easy

wanted a guitar, they had to work hard and save

on Letts has a gift for being in the right place at the

to see what punk got out of the fusion: basslines,

up. That process of pain and struggle weeded out

right time. When reggae, punk, hip hop and post-punk

the anti-establishment stance, musical reportage.

people who weren’t serious. Nowadays you can buy

all began to take shape, ‘The Don’ was at the epicentre,

What reggae got in return was exposure. That was

a laptop, get on GarageBand and become a musician

connecting the dots. It started with the sound of two

all it needed. But there were uneasy and suspicious

instantly... then change your mind and do something

cultures colliding: Letts became the house DJ for

bedfellows on reggae’s side. I fell out with Bob

else. When I filmed on Super8, each tape lasted

London’s first punk club, the Roxy, after his reggae

Marley over punk. I had on some bondage trousers

three minutes and, after processing, cost about £20.

soundsystem drew the likes of The Clash, the Sex

and he said to me, ‘Don Letts, whatcha dealin’

Best training I ever had!

Pistols, Chrissie Hynde, Patti Smith, Debbie Harry

wit? You look like one of dem nasty punk rockers.’

and Bob Marley into London’s anti-establishment

I said, ‘Hold on a minute, these are my mates!’ He’d

boutique, Acme Attractions. Through documenting

obviously been reading the tabloids, which portrayed

punk’s rise, Letts became the filmmaker dubbed a

punks negatively. I didn’t tell him to fuck off but as

But you were given a camera... Yeah, but she [Caroline Baker, then editor of Vogue magazine] knew I wanted a camera. I had a healthy film

“visual terrorist” by Fellini, while Big Audio Dynamite

a baby dread I held my ground. Later he was moved

appetite and appreciated how you could entertain,

(B.A.D.), the multicultural multimedia group he

to write that song, ‘Punky Reggae Party’, which put

inform and inspire at the same time. I realised

formed with The Clash’s Mick Jones in 1983, is still

reggae on the map. So I figure I got the last laugh.

I could express myself visually as a young, black British man with several chips on his shoulder.

emulated by the likes of Gorillaz and Massive Attack. Today, Letts is hunched forward in the armchair

You proclaimed punk as ‘year zero’ and got rid of

of a members’ club on Portobello Road, a beatbox

your record collection and Beatles memorabilia.

emblem dangling on a pendant around his neck, his

Was that rash in retrospect? It was bloody stupid!

There’s a point in your book where you describe

Rasta hat wobbling as he tears through all the stories

But it was part of the counterculture process. We

how, while watching U2 perform their Zoo TV

that have warranted a new documentary about his life

were rebelling against what the hippie movement

Tour one night, you and Mick Jones exchanged a

and influence.

had become, which was totally removed from

knowing glance in response to their use of sampling

the feeling on the street. Yet it lasted longer and

and video collages – which was an obvious take on

arguably had more of an effect than punk, which

what you had done years earlier with Big Audio

got stupid within two or three years. The Pistols

Dynamite. Seeing others collect the glory must

went on the [Today] show with Bill Grundy and the

be either extremely frustrating or flattering? It’s

next day everyone thought they knew what punk

satisfying. The elements of the band were Jamaican

was about. A lot of people quickly disassociated

bass, hip hop beats, Mick’s guitar, sampling and a bit

with it and went on to better things. You were never

of rapping – the basic ingredients of what you hear

supposed to get stuck on the first rung of the ladder.

today. Throughout the history of creativity, you realise

You were supposed to keep climbing.

the real pioneers – and I don’t mean B.A.D. – rarely

It wasn’t whimsical.

get their dues. It’s those who reinterpret. Sometimes What you describe as ‘second-hand, tabloid punks’

it takes years for something to permeate. There

– that image seems to have endured more than the

are countless examples where people were never

ideals. How do you feel about that? I feel sorry for

recognised for pushing the envelope during their

those punks. There are always people who get the

lifetime. It’s something you have to embrace when you

wrong end of the stick. I get people all the time saying,

look at the big picture of creativity. Otherwise you’re

‘I play the guitar really fast and I’m angry.’ It was never

going to be miserable

about that. It’s about an attitude and a spirit that pre-

66 HUCK

dates music. In fact, music is one of the most difficult

Superstonic Sound: The Rebel Dread Documentary

places to express it. If you’re only interested in being

by Raphael Erichsen and Edward Dallal will premiere

successful, how radical can you be? The minute you

at the ICA London in October 2010. Check out

want what The Man is offering, you’re fucked.

www.superstonicsound.com for more information.



68 HUCK


Photography & text Mark Leary

On a frosty day in April this year, survival of the fittest became a sub-zero game. Surfers born in sunnier climes braved the icy waters of Thurso East – the point at which Scotland gives way to the north – for the second leg of the O’Neill Cold Water Classic. But amongst the contenders in this gladiatorial clash was a challenger of a different kind. Armed with nothing but a 5x4 wooden field camera, Mark Leary picked up the icy gauntlet laid down by our year-long creative brief, in which we invite a different photographer to capture each stop of the tour. This is his Cold Water Classic experience, frigid warts and all.

69


the man-made landscape Any local community knows when a surf contest is about to kick off. It’s like a travelling circus has rolled into town, with trailer after trailer taking over public space. Thankfully, the Cold Water Classic is different. Impact is kept as low as possible with just a caravan for the judges, a live broadcast truck and a few small vans. Oh, and some port-a-loos, of course.

70 HUCK


the locals Most events have huge stages, massive crowds and restricted areas, which can feel very impersonal and unwelcoming. Things are far more intimate here. Pros walk around town, chatting to fans and visiting the local Chinese for dinner. Seeing Butch and Cheddar (the local security guards) out nightclubbing with Sunny Garcia was a sight to behold.

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the competitor After braving the icy waters of Thurso in his heats, the last thing Sam Lamiroy wants to do is sit under a small marquee-style tent commentating on the day’s competition. But as the ambassador for this bout of the Cold Water Classic, that’s exactly what he must do. His knowledge and panache makes watching it from afar that much more interesting.

72 HUCK


the cold The land and water temperature makes a huge difference to your surfing. Going from boardshorts to a fairly flexible 3/2 wetsuit is no biggie, but going to a 6/5/4 thick wetsuit with boots, gloves and a hood can really impact on how you surf. Sub-zero conditions also dictate how long you can stay in the water. When you come out, getting your core temperature back is essential. A hot tub on the beach goes some way in helping with that.

73


the landscape There’s something about Scotland that makes it stand out from every other surf spot in the world. A stunning barren landscape set against snow-covered mountains, classic Scottish architecture, friendly locals and the fact you can stand on a granite slab as pros slot into barrels just ten feet away makes for a pretty unique experience.

74 HUCK


the winner Royden Bryson is shaking and shivering after being in the water for over an hour for the semifinal and final. He stands freezing for the award ceremony and press shots, still in his suit, before the crowds disappear. With no signatures to sign, the victor and his sponsor retreat to their hire car, ready for the next event. Surfing is not always the rock ’n’ roll lifestyle it seems www.oneill.com/cwc

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76 HUCK


anarchy, skate and utopia! Some say skateboarding has reached the end of history; that There’s no point in challenging the corporate machine. Well, guess what doomsayers, there is another way. here at Skatopia, anarchy rules supreme. Text Kevin Duffel Photography Joe Brook

ear and loathing in Skatopia – a bad acid

the car ride and corresponding stomach knots all the

first annual American Skate Fest, which included

trip,” is Adam Alfaro’s take on Skatopia,

worse. “[Skatopia’s] in the middle of nowhere. The

musical performances by Gwar, Agent Orange and

an utterly fucked-up eighty-eight-acre

closest store is a gas station that’s an hour away or some

Meat Puppets among plenty of others. The concerts

skateboard wonderland in the middle of

shit. And if something sketchy happened, no one would

and skate jams draw lurkers from all walks of life for

Appalachian Ohio where cars seemingly

ever know,” explains Foundation am Abdias Rivera.

a taste of freedom and the chance to donate money

burn and explode more frequently

The beads of sweat thicken after hearing rumours of

to Skatopia (all proceeds from sponsored events go

than fireworks shoot up at Disneyland. And Alf’s had

inevitable injuries; of broken femurs and ruptured

directly to buying more concrete and paying bills).

his fair share of bad trips. Led by Brewce Martin and

spleens. If the closest gas station’s an hour away, there’s

the Citizens Instigating Anarchy (CIA), Skatopia is,

no telling where the hospital is.

“Shit gets real chaotic out there during those parties… It’s on another level,” says Chet. But

as skateboarder Chet Childress describes it, “a total Jim

The land within Skatopia’s gates provides

perhaps the craziest times at Skatopia involve the

Jones experiment” where Brewce serves as cult leader

an immediate look inside Brewce Martin’s mind;

rash combination of cars, guns and explosions. “It was

to a flock of ragtag and disenchanted drifters seeking

it’s a demented mess that meets halfway between an

the first time I shot a car with a shotgun. I bought

refuge from a system they just can’t accept – or, more

anarchistic Mad Maxian Thunderdome and a utopian

a truck off of [Brewce Martin] for three-hundred bucks

accurately, won’t accept them.

skateboard society. With everything out in the open,

and then blew it up,” recalls Nuge, whose experience

Most retreat back to the reassuring predictability

the first step on site confirms everything you’ve ever

with burning cars was fortunately tamer than Chet

of the city after mere days, but an intrepid few set up

heard about the place. Don ‘Nuge’ Nguyen recalls: “My

Childress’: “I got in a dumb car [Brewce] wrecked in

camp in makeshift tree houses, permanently lending

mind fell out when I got there. [It was] way gnarlier

the middle of a field that then caught on fire. I almost

themselves to the cause. As the numbers grow, things

than I expected.” To top it off, Brewce maniacally

got scalped by the roof,” says Chet.

occasionally get so damn sketchy that it makes you

notified Nuge and his gang of apprehensive travellers

Luckily, Brewce has learned how to keep the local

wonder if the commune’s going to have a similar

that he was locking the gates on their arrival; they’d

authorities off his back so that his denomination of

outcome as Jonestown as well. But that doesn’t stop the

have to stay at least until morning.

misfits can revel in all the destruction and chaos they

crowd; if anything, it attracts more.

But what’s so sketchy about the area outside

desire without compromise. “The cops bothered us for

While navigating the bumpy and dirt-covered

Rutland, Ohio? Massive wooden ramps and concrete

a minute but then I went to the county commissioners

Appalachian back roads up to the woodsy eighty-

bowls litter the acreage, indoors and out. Alcohol flows

and asked if they’d ever heard of profiling. I said,

eight acres of anarchy, the general feeling of anxiety

freer than water and when it runs out, “people come

‘If your cops keep messing with people coming from my

instantly sets in for all who make the pilgrimage. As

around and collect all your beer and put it in a huge pile

place, you’re going to find out that profiling is no joke.’

Thrasher staff photographer Joe Brook says, Skatopia is “renegade DIY. It’s heaven for the brave; hell for the weak-minded.” So while sitting in that white elongated eight-seat passenger van, twiddling your thumbs and trying to keep the nervous butterflies at bay, you never know which side you’re going to fall into. Pray it’s not the latter; some lose their minds out there. The distance from any real civilisation makes

[for everyone]. Dustin Dollin was telling me about it,”

It then said in the paper, ‘Skaters allege police profiling,’

explains Lizard King, one skateboarder who’s never

and it stopped instantly.”

visited Skatopia, but anxiously awaits the day that he

In addition, says Brewce, “[The city] realised what

does (and Lord knows he’d thrive). In fact, shitty beer

a huge economic benefactor Skatopia is. Thousands

provides upwards of ninety-five per cent of daily caloric

upon thousands of people come here every year and

intake for most Skatopians.

[the city] makes a lot of money from them – from

Things get especially turbulent when Skatopia hosts events like its Bowl Bash, or most recently, its

alcohol, and whatever else people buy to survive.” As long as Skatopia remains a viable source of income for

77


the notoriously poor surrounding community, it should remain as free spirited as it is today. For most of its visitors, the experience at Skatopia is incomparable – the only thing gnarlier might be the resulting hangover. “You can let all the evil out there since you’re in the middle of nowhere. It’s a great place; a historic landmark,” says Foundation and Circa am David Reyes. And above all, that’s what Skatopia has stood as since its inception in 1995: a monumental homage to the skateboard deities; a place to fully capture the raucous and uncontainable spirit of skateboarding. The plot of land even houses a skateboard museum with over 2,000 boards spanning every era. Despite the ostensible claim of anarchy, there are the obvious golden rules like in any society. “[People think] that this is a place without any rules,” Brewce Martin explains in a dignified and paternal tone. “But that’s not the real truth. The real truth is that there are all kinds of rules and the number one rule is you want to respect other people and respect their stuff. The rules are really simple. They’re rules that you would teach a small child – rules for a community. We’re really trying to make this place amazing and blow people’s minds, so we all [need to] work together.” While Brewce invites all likeminded individuals to stay as long as they please, self-sufficiency is highly preferred. “It’s a good idea if you can feed yourself,” Brewce explains. “If there’s work to be done, it really helps if you lend a hand or help out. I don’t like people who want to come here who have no money and no way of making money and don’t wanna help out and don’t skate.” That’s not to say having money’s a requirement to stay at Skatopia though. “If you can’t feed yourself, but you’re a great worker, we’ll feed you. We’ll figure it out,” says a generous Brewce. Some may say that Brewce faces a perpetual contradiction; with his anarchic dreams on one side, and the unavoidable need for cash on the other. But at the end of the day, despite his unconventional and beyond rowdy lifestyle, Brewce Martin’s just a normal family guy with two kids, a college degree, and a largerthan-life vision. “I’ve been living the Skatopia lifestyle since the ’70s. I’ve always had ramps in my yard. I’ve always had parties in my yard,” says Brewce, who doesn’t see himself slowing down any time soon. “My destiny is pretty much wrapped up here. My goal is to make a skateboard monument so massive and permanent that it’s gonna be here for a long time. I’m gonna just stay here and keep building ’til the day I can’t move.” And like any average head of the household, Brewce takes on the inescapable burden of responsibility imposed by a system that operates beyond Skatopia’s borders: “The sketchiest thing is just paying my bills and making it another month.” Really, Skatopia’s just an improvised version of The American Dream, only with the backyard pool emptied out and no picket fence

78 HUCK



ILLUSTRATION BY JOE WILSON

TURNED ON, TUNED IN, PLAYED OUT Text by matt walker

Why surfing’s counterculture appeal is deader than Neal Cassady.

80 HUCK


Don’t get me wrong: surfing as an activity – as

‘The Man’. And that means we’re simply not cool

a business, an enterprise, and most certainly an

anymore. At least not to the next generation of

industry – is not dying. It’s thriving. Big time. With

rebels. Furthermore, what’s cool to them, isn’t cool

a bright multi-national corporate future ahead.

to us.

But surfing as an indie movement? As a subversive,

That’s always the best way to spot an authentic

standalone think tank that three-piece-suit-types

outsider movement. Look around and see what

simply can’t grasp? That died with the X Games, and

a given society finds most incomprehensible.

the Internet and daily updates on cable TV. Faded

Completely shocking. Blasphemous. The way Elvis’

and worn, like an ’80s breakdancer’s cardboard stage.

pelvis provoked vinyl bonfires and NWA sparked

So done, it’s got forks sticking out of every single

advisory labels for explicit lyrics. So let’s take a gander

subset like stick pins on an aging punker’s earlobe.

at just which boardsports activity seems particularly

That’s not to say surfing doesn’t attract

askew to the powers that be.

countercultural types. Check any session – any

Bodyboarders? Nah. They may not be cool, but

parking lot – and you can find gender benders and

they’ve been around too long to shake things up.

born-agains, baggy pants b-boys and would-be

And skaters and snowboarders have too much mass

vampires in skin-tight black pants. Fifty years after

appeal. Today’s real rad revolutionaries are those

The Beach Boys struck a pose, everybody’s finally

weirdos who do what no self-respecting waverider

gone surfing – literally. And that’s the problem:

would ever consider: stand on the beach and run at

because while more and more folks keep turning on,

knee-high shorebreak.

and tuning in, nobody really ever ‘drops out’.

They’re skimboarders. They have no glossy

Those same souls who so bravely buck the system

mags. No major tours. No big clothing companies

on land, quickly revert to the dominant paradigm the

or superstars. No promise of six-figure salaries. And

moment they paddle out, pandering to some subset

no self-respecting parent likes ’em. What do they

of longboard, shortboard, soul fish guy or contest

have? The respect of their peers and a full-on fuck-

freak – whatever seems coolest to their particular

it attitude. An attitude, that says, ‘You all go surf

clique. All of it feeding the same giant organism

by yourselves, we’re just fine doing this.’

that lumbers forward like so many huge companies,

That’s the attitude of a counterculture. That’s

governments or anything too fat, content and

how jazz clubs beat segregation. It’s why beatniks

unwieldy to ever really change direction. As a result,

played bongos in the face of the A-bomb. Just like

each new trend is not so much a reaction to the norm

surfers once seized the day – day after day – rejecting

but an extension of it.

greater constraints and mortal fears for nothing

Every anti-brand is still a brand. No professional

more than a cool buzz and some tasty waves. Or as

‘freesurfer’ ever surfs for free. And you know the

Tim Leary once called us, “the ‘throw-aheads’ of

surfboard industry is fucked when the only growing

mankind… leading the way to where man ultimately

market is Stand Up Paddleboarding: the equivalent of

wants to be.” Back before we started caring too

obody but a hippie loves hippies anymore. Jazz is for

combining longboarding’s image of grumpy old dudes

much. Worried about what we ride. What we wear.

old people. Even the beatniks – those tea-smoking,

with a much bulkier board – then handing it a cane.

And what we look like as we do it.

wife-swapping bi-curious brainiacs who bridged the

Which is pretty much what’s happened to surfing in

Guess, sooner or later, everyone has to grow up.

two eras – today survive solely in boring college lit

general: it looks old. And it acts old, too. With a zillion

Cut the dreads. Drop the bong and the picket sign.

classes, high on half-century-old hijinks that can barely

Cadillac, Citibank and Viagra ads to prove it.

Sooner or later we all decide, ‘Hey, that convertible

blow the mind of even the most sheltered Christian

Once the domain of truant teens, drug dealers

really does look pretty sweet.’ And once you’re off

co-ed. So runs the fireworks-fuelled outburst of

and all other misfits unwilling to slave their lives

the bus and in the Beemer, you can never turn the

any ‘youth movement’ or ‘counterculture’ – and so

away, you no longer have to bail society to stay

car around. But don’t worry, jazz is cool again – sort

goes surfing. As we speak, that Roman candle’s last

wet. Thanks to solid jobs in booming beach towns,

of. At least to the select few who recognise how

eye-popping tendrils are falling in a dozen disparate

anyone can be fifty and fit and funboarding before

hard it is to master. Maybe a half-century from now

directions, every one landing firmly back in the status

nine and after five. All that good clean living has

some folks will say the same thing about surfing.

quo of white, middle-class capitalists, destined to

finally caught up with us. In fact, a recent US study

Until then, the best any of us can do is truly not give

fade into the background of a much wider night sky

showed the average surfer hovers closer to forty

a shit. Which is as close to counterculture as

that is Dominant Western Society.

than fourteen. We’re not ‘dudes’ anymore; we’re

anything will ever get

81


HUCK takes a stroll into the bucolic English countryside to visit the commune-style home of anarcho-punk band Crass, pioneers of direct action sound. Text Shelley Jones Photography Paul Calver

own a rocky lane in the Essex countryside, sunk between rolling hills and a farm spotted with velvety cows, there is a place that doesn’t exist according to Google Maps. At the entrance to this hidden oasis a farmhouse stands, surrounded by tree houses, lily pad ponds and weeping willows, with its doors wide open. But this is not your average pastoral retreat. It is, in fact, a hothouse of anti-systemic dissent. Complete with a few nice wind chimes. Truth is the Dial House, as this little utopia is known, has been harbouring outcasts since 1968. Not only was it the birthplace of British anarcho-punk band Crass, but it has also run an ‘open door’ policy since its inception over forty years ago. To this day, anyone can turn up unannounced and stay for an indefinite period, if space allows. All the current inhabitants ask is that visitors contribute in any way they can; through gardening, cooking, art, writing, discussion or something else. There are no rules. And all this is due largely to the vision of a man, now sixty-seven years old, who calls himself Penny Rimbaud. “I didn’t really know what the fuck I was doing,” laughs Penny about the early days of the Dial House. The former coalman and art teacher found the sixteenth century house while motorcycling around Essex in the mid-’60s and started to rent it, at minimal cost, with two other artists. But Penny grew frustrated with the ‘your cupboard, my cupboard’ segregated system and decided to try something different. “All I knew was I didn’t really want to live like I had lived,” he says. “The commune movement existed in America at that time, but there really wasn’t any sort of model to go by here. So I just stopped [participating in society] and for quite a while I lived here on my own, wondering what the fuck was going to happen next. Then, through word of mouth, people just started turning up.” For many years the house was almost self-sufficient. Its inhabitants grew their own vegetables as well as trading produce with the neighbouring farm and nomads passing through. “I thought, ‘This is enough. We don’t ever need to go beyond here,’” remembers Penny. “We can live our lives, we can tell our stories and people can come and go – what more do we need?” Penny may have wanted to let go of society, but society wasn’t ready to let go of him. After one of his closest friends – organiser of the Stonehenge Festival, Wally Hope – died in suspicious circumstances, Penny’s contentment turned to rage. Wally was arrested for possession of LSD on his way to the second Stonehenge Festival in 1975 and incarcerated in a psychiatric hospital. When he was found dead weeks later, having suffered with chronic dyskinesia, Penny said heavy-handed state intervention was to blame. Wally’s death, combined with the police brutality festival-goers claim to have witnessed at the peaceful Windsor Free Festival in 1974, mobilised Penny into action. He explains: “I suppose I realised after Wally’s death that this idea that we can be free is an illusion – quite clearly we can’t. And that’s when I became political. My politics weren’t to persuade anyone to think a certain way. I really just wanted to [make people question things]. We were sort of issuing bloody warnings… and a lot of them were off-the-wall… but people could see the truth in them. I think there was also an understanding that we lived that truth. It wasn’t like we were saying ‘smash the system’ and then coming back to a [palace]. This place is beautiful but it’s built on sweat and blood.”

82 HUCK


Gee Vaucher and Penny Rimbaud in the garden of the Dial House, summer 2010.



“Our interest is to break barriers and to redefine; to say to people, ‘Anyone can do whatever it is they want to, but you need to actually get out and do it.’” So when a local kid, later known as Steve Ignorant, who was “pissed off with everything” stumbled into the

Over the years, Penny and Gee have remained

Dial House one day in 1977 after hearing there was a drum kit inside, nature took its interminable course. “Steve

fiercely committed to that fight for autonomy – even

had seen The Clash down in Bristol and he’d come back to Dagenham to start a band,” remembers Penny. “The

when lucrative commercial offers came knocking

mix of Steve’s street anger and my political anger created an enormous tension, which was very effective.”

at their door, from brands and middlemen keen to

Soon enough other members of the household took interest in the riotous, discordant punk sounds being

piggyback on their maverick identity. “Gee more

created and wanted to get involved, including Joy De Vivre, Pete Wright, N. A. Palmer, Eve Libertine and Gee

than myself has been offered endless opportunities

Vaucher, who still lives there today. “Gee had been living in New York art directing an avant-garde newspaper

to get into the commercial domain but that’s really

called International Anthem at the time,” remembers Penny. “But we were trying to find a way in beneath

not our interest,” says Penny. “Our interest is to

the boards, you know.” Gee came on board and brought her subversive art skills too. As well as contributing

break barriers and to redefine; to say to people,

musically to Crass, she produced the majority of their iconic artwork, often combining photorealism with

‘Anyone can do whatever it is they want to, but

collage and abstract techniques to create radical images – usually drawing on family and war – that became

you need to actually get out and do it’… Find a way

hugely influential, notably to Banksy who she collaborates with today.

of unconditional living.”

So, Crass – with their epochal ‘There Is No Authority But Yourself’ tagline – was formed. And the ever-

At home at the Dial House, those barriers

changing line-up of likeminded anarcho-pacifists took to stages across the UK, exclusively playing benefit shows

continue to be broken down to this day. The former

and getting behind causes, like the anti-war and anti-globalisation Stop the City riots in mid-’80s London.

Crass members were forced to buy the Dial House

Just as bands like Minor Threat and Black Flag rose up stateside against Reagan’s frugal conservatism, so

at auction in 2001 to save it from developers, but the

too was Thatcher the yin to Crass’ anti-capitalist yang. “Thatcher was actually a godsend to us,” says Penny,

decision meant they were able to stay true to their

characteristically provocative. “Someone less articulate, someone more reasonable in their presentation

‘open door’ ethos – which in the past has welcomed

would have been less of an interesting opponent. When the Falklands War kicked off, the silence of opposition

everyone from Björk to peripheral members of the

was tangible. We immediately went into a critical attack and immediately got into big problems with the

Red Army Faction. More recently, they have used

authorities, which wasn’t something new.”

the space to hold permaculture workshops, tai chi

The band’s political momentum reached new heights when Crass guitarist Pete Wright edited a fake

lessons and inspirational talks, among other things.

telephone conversation between Thatcher and Reagan for a prank. The bogus tapes – which featured Thatcher

So is the spirit of rebellion alive and well?

apparently admitting responsibility for the controversial sinking of the Argentine ship ARA General Belgrano,

“Of course. It’s more powerful than ever,” insists

and implying the HMS Sheffield was sacrificed in order to escalate the conflict – became front-page news. The

Penny. “There will always be those that say, ‘No,

US State Department believed the ‘Thatchergate Tapes’ to be Soviet KGB propaganda and although the tape

I’m not going to stand for this shit’… I’ve always

was eventually credited back to Crass, it had done significant damage to the reputations of those in power.

loved skateboarders for that. They’ve turned the

But it had damaged Crass in the process too. Obscenity trials and conflicts in ideology took their toll and in

urban landscape into a playground; it’s become their

1984 Crass disbanded once and for all. “Crass failed because it didn’t create global revolution,” sighs Penny at

mountain, or beach. And that undermines authority

his desk in the Dial House, surrounded by books and records – from Richard Dawkins and Nietzsche to Miles

in a way that no amount of political rhetoric will,

Davis and Brahms. “But we stood for do-it-yourself. And, actually, that’s happening more and more now.”

or can, undermine it… Everyone can do that sort

The global revolution may have failed in Penny’s eyes, but the spirit of independence that Crass embodied inspired a new generation of anarcho-punks. Bands like The Fall, The Pop Group, Chumbawamba and more

of slipping the system. That’s where it starts. And it should be a game.”

recently California's No Age and anti-folker Jeffrey Lewis – who released a Crass covers album in 2007 – all

And for Penny and Gee, the stubbornly resolute

took influence. Likewise, founder of Vice magazine Gavin McInnes was moved to call Gee “the most talented

ex-members of Crass who still live true to their

artist living today” on his Street Carnage blog and, bizarrely, celebs like Angelina Jolie, Alice Dellal and

hippie ideals in the remote Essex countryside, ‘the

David Beckham have all been spotted wearing Crass tees. An ironic twist for a band that always rejected the

system’ must seem like a distant memory. Their global

“peacockery of fashion punks”.

revolution may have failed, but the local one is going

Even Penny is shocked by Crass’ reach: “When Steve and I started the band we didn’t have any idea that it

pretty damn strong. “Crass was this ideology of love

would ever expand beyond us just pissing around in the music room. But as it expanded, we all saw the political

and peace, but mixed with, ‘We’re going to fucking

possibilities… Punk had initially been nothing more than an expansion of rock ’n’ roll. It was a bit naughtier and

fight for it!’” reaffirms Penny. “I think it was Che

a bit more antisocial but very much within the context of the music business… But we were raucously independent,

Guevara who said, ‘The true revolutionary is guided

you know. We wouldn’t do press interviews and we wouldn’t engage in any way with major labels. That’s why

by feelings of love’ and I think that’s right. It would

we set up [Crass Records], which enabled us to sell records at a third of the commercial price… If it wasn’t costing

be nice if one day we could do away with that word

us anything, why should it cost anyone else anything? We wanted to share that [autonomy] around.”

‘rebellion’ and then we can just talk about love.”

85


Pioneering surfers Noboru Tagawa and Kasagi Hajime are busted by the law sometime in the late ’70s. KH

86 HUCK


Quiet REvOLuTiOn oN tHe NortHErn Isle

Surfing in Japan has never been for the meek. Those who came to it early faced a battle every day and were hauled out of the water by over-zealous police. But on the northern island of Hokkaido, one group of pioneers found a way through the wall. They mobilised. And finding strength in numbers, they paddled in as one. Text Chris Nelson PHOTOGRAPHY Kasagi Hajime & Richie Hopson

87


Noboru, today, holding his Local Motion board from ’77. RH / Noboru and Kasagi in 1979. KH / A disapproving look is thrown at the Sapporo crew. KH / Pioneering surfer Kazuhiro Miyatake, Itanki Beach, 2009. RH

as the next set peaks and peels along the sandbar. The officer shakes his head and continues scribbling on his flip pad. ‘How many times are we going to have to drag these two out of the water?’ he wonders. “Ok, sign this,” he says, handing over the ballpoint to the shivering surfer. Noboru scribbles his name and passes the now damp paperwork back. The officer snaps his pad closed and turns on his heel, kicking sand off his immaculate leather shoes as he heads back towards his car. “I’m coming back again tomorrow,” shouts one of the neoprene-clad figures as the officer climbs into the driver’s seat of the Nissan Cedric patrol car and starts the engine. It’s 1978 and a quiet revolution has begun on Japan's northern isle. “Every time I went into the water back then, the he police officer pushes his glasses up the bridge of his

police would come and kick me back onto the beach,”

nose with his forefinger and surveys the two figures

says Noboru, taking a sip of his black coffee. “They

standing in front of him. Noboru Tagawa jumps up

would write me a ticket for responsibility, because

and down on the spot to keep warm as the chill begins

there was no one else there. It’s like a statement to say

to seep through his damp wetsuit; Kasagi Hajime

I won’t do it again. But after writing it I would always

glances repeatedly over the cop’s dark epaulette

tell them, ‘I will be coming back tomorrow!’” This

88 HUCK


“Our main concern was to be able to surf and how we could stop the police molesting us. But how could we do that? How could we stop the police from hauling us from the water when we went surfing?” game of cat and mouse would go on for the next three

The provincial capital Sapporo is a bustling metropolis

and by the late ’70s Japan was in the grip of a full-blown

or four years. In Hawaii, Shaun Tomson was redefining

of nearly two million; the country’s fifth largest urban

surf boom, fuelled by world tour contests bringing star-

the art of barrel riding at Off The Wall and Rabbit was

conurbation. It provides a dazzling sensory collage that

packed line-ups to its shores. On Hokkaido the beaches

attempting to bust down the door at Sunset and Pipe.

satisfies every preconception of urban Japan. Traffic,

remained unoccupied – a blank canvas.

On Hokkaido, Noboru was just trying to avoid being

shopping, crowds, street dancing and the intense work

busted by the law for the simple act of surfing.

ethic of a 24/7 society are set against a background

ight is fading fast outside. Sitting under the

noise of pachinko halls and rafts of neon billboards that

bright neon strip lights of his large open-plan

apan was born from the waves as molten

sing out competing advertising slogans. Yet within

office in downtown Sapporo, Kasagi Hajime

rock violently extruded from the Pacific

thirty minutes of its centre you can be transported to

cradles a cup of black coffee while his old

Ring

wide valleys where shrines wait in shady woodlands

of

Fire,

creating

an

offshore

archipelago that, in part, buffers the huge

and herons stalk shimmering paddy fields.

friend Noboru Tagawa flicks through images imprinted on thirty-year-old textured Fuji matt paper.

Asian land mass from the great ocean. There

Japanese society has a structure based on

Noboru was the very first surfer on Hokkaido, ground

are 6,852 islands within Japan, Hokkaido being the

traditions that reach back through the millennia; it’s

zero for wavesliding on this northern isle. He explains

northernmost and largest prefecture. It is the second

an establishment built on the ethics of hard work and

what inspired him to start surfing: “When I was sixteen

biggest island with a population of over five and

adherence to a strict moral code. For some traditionalists,

years old I went to the United States to study and made

a half million spread out over an area just smaller than

the concept of leisure time is still something of an

friends there who lived in Tokyo… At that time it was

Ireland. The majority of Hokkaido sits at latitudes to

anathema. Naminori, or waveriding, is thought to have

the second boom of surfing in Japan.” In the mid-’70s,

the north of the Russian city of Vladivostok, enduring

arrived during the cultural shockwaves that followed the

Hawaii was still the focus of the surfing world; images

winters that can test the hardiest constitution as

Second World War, brought in by American servicemen

of Gerry Lopez, Mark Richards and Reno Abellira were

deathly winds slice in from the Siberian plains with

stationed outside Tokyo. By the early ’60s a handful

spreading inspiration around the globe, and across the

the clinical sharpness of a samurai’s cold katana blade.

of locals were surfing the beaches of Shonan and Chiba,

Pacific, Japan was no exception. Noboru caught the

89


Writer Chris Nelson checking points on the Japanese coast with snowboarder and soul surfer Taro Tamai. RH / Niseko carpenter Toru Kuwahara unloads his favourite board, a wedding present from Taro Tamai. RH

90 HUCK


“The irony isn’t lost on HokkaidO’s pioneers that in order to protect their counterculture they had to make it appear populist, garland it with a fig leaf of respectability.” surfing bug in the US, and the burgeoning surf scene in

or people who’d come to the beach and asked to join.

the Japanese capital provided access to the waveriding

And numbers rose. Then we started the competition –

lifestyle. “I’d been to Tokyo to buy a surfboard and

which is still going to this day. It’s called The Penguin

brought it back to Hokkaido, but I didn’t know where

Cup, because of the cold. The way we were doing it

I could go to surf. There was no one else here to ask.”

was to tie little contests up with local festivals around

Apart from the lack of fellow waveriders, Noboru faced

Hokkaido. We would do a competition tour, so we

another, more immediate obstacle in his newfound life

were spreading around gaining a reputation and a

as a surfer. “I didn’t have a driving licence. A friend of

social status so that the police wouldn’t bother us. We

mine was working at a wholesale jean shop, so whenever

said, ‘We don’t need the cops involved with surfing!’”

he was going on business I would jump in his car and go

In the context of waveriding’s massive global

with him. Then in 1978 maybe, two or three guys who

popularity, the proliferation of the surfing lifestyle

were skiers went to university on the mainland around

within mainstream media and the problems

Tokyo and Osaka, but they dropped out and came back

of overcrowded line-ups faced today, the concept of

here – with surfboards. They had driving licences so we

actively recruiting surfers may seem like a strange

started to find new surf spots.”

priority. Two decades prior to this, the waves of

In 1979, the small band of surfers from Sapporo

Malibu were so choked that Miki Dora and his

ventured onto the sands of Itanki Beach in the

cohorts were hauling people out of their way just to

industrial town of Muroran. Today Itanki has a

get down the line. The irony isn’t lost on Hokkaido’s

reputation as an intense, localised spot, but back

pioneers that in order to protect their counterculture

then the urban surfers found a warm welcome from

they had to make it appear populist, garland it with

kindred spirits. “In the Itanki area we met other

a fig leaf of respectability.

guys who had come back from the mainland – they

“We went after the gangs. They were signed up

were the same age.” Itanki Beach soon became the

to surf for different branches,” explains Kasagi. Japan

surfing and social hub of the Hokkaido scene. At the

in the late ’70s saw a boom in biker culture, guys who

same time, Noboru was teaching his friend Kasagi to

were already on the social fringes. The surfers saw an

surf. Kasagi ran a local coffee shop and the two friends

easy vein of bored potential to tap into. Every time

made regular forays to the Pacific whenever the waves

Noboru and his crew would come across a motorbike

were up and work allowed. There was only one real

gang they would corner the boss and sell the stoke of

problem. “The cops would find us on the beach and

surfing to them with an evangelical zeal that would

they would say, ‘You can’t do that,’” says Noboru.

shame a New York ad agency. “It was a bit scary, having

“Our main concern was to be able to surf and how

to talk to these gang bosses,” says Noboru. “Not all the

we could stop the police molesting us. But how could we

bikers could swim, but one of them tried surfing and

do that? How could we stop the police from hauling

said to all the others, ‘Surfing’s cool!’ so then others

us from the water when we went surfing?”

tried it, you know. Until that time there was nothing

The answer came to Noboru in a flash of

to do around the coastal towns like Muroran or

inspiration – rather than rejecting mainstream

Tomakomai, and people didn’t like bikers. But bikers

society, dropping out and fighting the strict system

started surfing, and surfing is better really, so you could

and rigid social mores, they mobilised. “I told Kasagi

say we were a good movement.”

he should start an Association of Hokkaido Surfing!”

A light pings on and the soft orange-pink glow

Like environmental pressure groups in the West, the

of a naked bulb reflecting off pine walls spills into the

surfers of Hokkaido became campaigners, promoting

empty hallway. In the corner of the lock-up, a tipi of

the lifestyle. So the Hokkaido Surfing Federation was

old skis lean together next to an assortment of wooden

formed. Kasagi leans back in his chair and smiles.

tennis rackets and a pair of ski boots. To the right of

“Within one year there were twenty-seven of us,”

the wooden storage room, two huge shelves are piled

he says. “These were friends, and friends of friends,

high with surfboards, the white foam now sun-faded

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Halcyon days when the entire Sapporo surf crew could fit into one Mazda, single fins stacked on the roof. KH / Muroran local Minoru Osanai, post surf, Itanki Beach, 2009. RH

like pages in a book that have seen many seasons pass yet still have many stories to tell. “Ah, now this was the first

would come together after surfing, drinking beer on

board I brought to the island,” says Noboru, reaching upwards. His voice echoes from within the confines of the

the beach here at Itanki. But now it’s very strict: if you

open room, but soon the nose of a board emerges, followed by a face illuminated by a broad smile. “This is a Local

drink you can’t drive. But back then it was not so strict.

Motion board I brought back to Hokkaido. They were very popular back then, Local Motion boards from Hawaii.

It was not good,” he says thoughtfully, “but not so

In 1977 there were no surfboards to be bought here. Then in ’78 a shop called Minami Sport started selling them,

strict. So after surfing we got together, we barbequed

so two or three surfboards came in, but only two or three.” Noboru disappears back into the lock-up and sounds

and we drank beer.”

of exertion again fill the air before the swallowtail of a twin fin appears through the doorway. “A friend of mine was

Muroran is a port town located on the southern

also bringing boards in, one by one,” he explains. “And wax too. It was hard to get a good one. There was Sex Wax

Pacific seaboard of Hokkaido. It is home to cement

in Tokyo, but the water temperature was different. It was warm water wax so it was too stiff, too hard.”

works, steel mills and ship building. Itanki sits on the

As surfing grew into a worldwide movement, a community, a clan, a way of life, so many of Hokkaido’s new

outer fringe, a sandy haven hemmed in by factory walls

surfers followed. Noboru explains: “There was a social trend, the surfing thing was trendy around the same time

and boulder groynes. Open to any passing Pacific swell

that we started. Since 1977 in Japan, surfing was booming. In 1978 Gerry Lopez visited Niijima [an island close to

or classic typhoon day, the beach is a popular contest

Tokyo] and I saw him surf there. Until then, Japanese fashion and culture was mainly like Ivy League fashion, but

venue and the island’s best known spot. Kazuhiro

after the Vietnam War the hippie generation started, like the movie Easy Rider. Those from the hippie generation

sits with his back to the sea, hair still soaked with the

were coming into Japan with the travelling surfers from around ’72. By 1978 it had developed into a fashion, a culture

memory of afternoon waves. He has a powerful frame

and a lifestyle here. We would get together and watch surf movies… Gerry Lopez… Standing Room Only!”

and a presence that gives off the aura of a pack leader.

Hokkaido was very much split between town and country. The urban areas like Muroran and the provincial

It is no surprise to find he is a high school teacher and

capital Sapporo were where the majority of surfers lived and worked, but most were office- or labour-bound six

national snowboard coach. His brother Hisashi has a

days a week. Some of the keenest managed shift work, but while Californians, Europeans and Australians were

slighter build but a quick smile. Kazuhiro was the first

living the dream, here in Japan and on Hokkaido in particular, society wasn’t ready for those who wanted to drop

to take up waveriding while away on the mainland.

out, merely to ‘drop-in’. “It’s hard to be a surf bum here, mainly because it is cold,” jokes Noboru. “You need a

“I started surfing when I was nineteen years old,” he

place to keep warm – if you notice there are no homeless in a cold place! It’s easier in California where it is warm.

explains with a nod. “I was in university in Tokyo for

Surfing in a cold place, the mind is quite different, you know? The cold water affects the body – the joints, the

three years and when I returned there were probably

neck. Then there’s the heavy wetsuits.”

less than ten surfers in Hokkaido, but there were

It wasn’t just the meteorological climate that impacted the growth of the surfing lifestyle, but the economic

only a few local surfers here, less than two or three.

climate too. In Bali, if you had a board, you could get by on just a few bucks a day; on Hokkaido you needed cold

The rest were from Sapporo, the city. They were not

hard cash for wetsuits, boots and transport, as well as food to fuel you and accommodation to keep the cold

surrounded by the surf, so they would often call us and

at bay. “The economy on Hokkaido was not strong, because there are no big factories like on the mainland,

say, ‘How are the waves today?’”

for example no car factories,” explains Noboru. “So in the coastal areas you could be fishing or drying seaweed

The small local crew took to their oceanic

while inland many people are farmers or involved in agriculture. If they were farmers or fisherman, they didn’t

playground with a zeal that the winter freeze could

have a lot of money so the quality of their lives was much different. It wasn’t just the lack of equipment but

not diminish, even when the snowline reached the

also the lack of money. So it goes much further than buying equipment, it’s more the way they look at things.”

surging white water. “Now wetsuits are pretty good,”

However the early seeds of surfing had been sown, and despite the harsh conditions, this hardy perennial began

says Hisashi, “but at that time we didn’t have such good

to germinate, like an embryonic plant fighting through the snow to reach the sunlight.

ones, they were 7mm thick. In winter the temperature went way below zero, so often when it was snowing,

he sun has dropped below the hills, long shadows stretch from the dark factory buildings, over the

our hair was frozen.” In temperatures this low, getting

tarmac, across the dunes and down the beach. It’s 1981; the grey days of Reagan in the White House,

changed out of thick, inflexible wet neoprene at the

Thatcher in Downing Street and a Cold War that has turned distinctly frigid, but here on Itanki Beach

beach would mean entering a whole new world of

a small band of surfers are savouring a fresh autumn swell, the coconut aroma of surf wax and the feel

pain, so the crew found an altogether more appealing

of salt-crusted hair. A jumble of cars have been cast off in haphazard formations at the southern end

alternative, one that blended ancient codes with

of the beach road, while three dark silhouettes float serenely on the glassy ocean, steadily fading into the burnt

modern conducts. “After the surf we went to the onsen,

pink canvas. Voices rise and fall against the background of spilling white water; a bonfire sends a spray of sparks

the hot spring baths,” says Hisashi. “Without taking

into the blue-black of the advancing night. A collection of figures laugh, hoot and jostle as they relive the day’s

off the wetsuit, we went straight in there. Without

adventure, re-riding waves as they stand around the dancing flames. Candy-coloured boards lie scattered on the

hoods, in those temperatures, it was really cold,”

ground, one is pushed nose first into the sand, with Aussie surfer Mark Richards’ ‘MR’ superman logo inverted

he says in typical Japanese underplay.

on a white foam tombstone. Damp wetsuits have collapsed in exhaustion by their towels, black neoprene dusted

By the fading light of the ’70s, two distinct yet small

with the fine velvet of wet sand. Beer caps are popped, the gold star of the Sapporo Brewery glimmers on the dark

tribes of waveriders were emerging on the Hokkaido

bottles. The city surfers will soon be making the drive back, but the Muroran locals will linger a little longer, swap

scene: the Sapporo crew, based in the bustling city

stories, stoke the fire and fire the stoke for tomorrow’s coming swell. “It was like the film Big Wednesday,” says

a couple of hours drive from the Pacific, and the Itanki

surfer Kazuhiro Miyatake with a broad smile. “There were about twelve or thirteen of us who were friends. We

Beach crew. But there was camaraderie between the

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93


“Where once they actively recruited, today the waveriders have closed ranks; their coastline has become a closely guarded secret, a resource to be cherished.”

two; they would band together to share the waves and

grassy summit of the nearest. The winter blanket has

gradually numbers rose. “Sometimes we’d say to our

only just peeled back to reveal the bedding of sasa

friends, ‘Surfing is really good, why don’t you try,’”

bamboo. A sushi bar sits a left turn back from the

says Kazuhiro. “So we brought them to the beach

harbour in the tiny village, compressed between cliffs

and we taught them how to surf.”

and sea. Its interior is compact and immaculately clean, the glass counter displays small plates of glistening fish

he sun is smiling on a clean two- to three-

steaks and fidgeting shellfish. Taro Tamai is perched

foot swell at Itanki. A light offshore fans

on a stool. One of Japan’s snowboarding greats,

the approaching sets and a handful of

a true backcountryman and pioneering soul surfer,

surfers jostle for the peeling rights as they

he nods a thank-you as the chef leans over and places

roll through. To the north sits a sea wall,

a nigirizushi roll on his plate. The distinctively marbled

resplendent in its ‘Locals Only’ graffiti. To ensure

scarlet flesh of the bluefin tuna’s fatty steak is highly

nothing is lost in translation, it has been scribed in

prized, highly priced and highly endangered. “This

English, four feet high. Wetsuits are draped over wing

particular fish tastes subtly different to tuna caught

mirrors, couples recline on the grass watching the surfers

later in the year,” he explains. “It was caught locally

and small groups chat while propped up on sun-warmed

while chasing mackerel into shallow waters. It has

car bonnets. This Sunday scene has been played out

a distinctive taste, and a specific story. A good sushi

here for the last three decades, only the extras change.

chef can tell you the story of all the fish here. Like

Hiraoka Tadanori rests his blue and white longboard on

surfing, every wave that breaks has a story, and they

the wall and sits with a post-surf air of satisfaction. Back

are all different, every season, every time of the year.”

in 1980, Hiraoka was an early defector to the beach

At times it feels counterculture has turned into

scene from the two-wheel lifestyle. “I used to have a

a marketeer’s dream vehicle, and become a mainline

motorcycle,” he explains, absently stroking the nose

into the consumer vein. While there is a mainstream

of his board, “and then I did something that meant

groundswell in Japan that has assimilated the surfing

I lost my licence,” he says, voice trailing off. “So I had

lifestyle, on Hokkaido the wheel has turned full

nothing else to do. At that time my younger brother was

circle. Where once they actively recruited, today

surfing, so he taught me. When I first tried I thought

the waveriders have closed ranks; their coastline

this was something pretty great.”

has become a closely guarded secret, a resource to

Like many at the time, Hiraoka was restrained in

be cherished. The incumbent pioneers are blessed

his surfing exploits by the confines of the nine-to-five.

with a unique opportunity to enjoy the purity of

“There were a few who were students who could come

the experience the way it was during surfing’s

every day, but I was working. Sometimes I could manage

genesis – away from the hassle, the crowds, the

one or two hours, maybe at lunchtime. I would jump

commercialism. The privilege of this position

into my wetsuit, rush in for a surf and then rush back

isn’t lost on Hokkaido’s tight-knit community of

to work. If you lost your job then it was difficult to find

searchers. “Today in the world it’s really hard to find

a new one, so people didn’t want to quit. You know how

a break that hasn’t really been tapped by anybody

people say that Japanese work long hours? Well it’s true.

else,” says Taro. “It is a luxurious thing to be able

At that time it was true, it’s still true today. Most surfers

to explore this island and find more new spots than

had jobs so they worked Monday through to Saturday.

you can actually surf. All over the world you can go

Not like in other places around the world where surfers

deep into the jungles and there are people already

would be chefs or carpenters, so they could have time to

surfing there, crowds – so to be able to have this

go to the beach. There were a few surfers who worked

experience… this is what it means to surf. To find

for a company making fish products, so they had to go

new spots where there’s nobody there and just surf

to work very early, then leave early, say after three or

all day. In snowboarding you still can; there are major

four, then they could surf. Other than that we only had

mountains that are still untouched, there are many

Sundays off. Today, things are a bit better, we have two

places like that left, but it’s very rare these days to surf

days off a week, but thirty years ago we only had one.”

and have that experience. If you head out alone and

So Sunday became surf day. “Any condition was good,

find a new point, there’s no information about it, you

because we could only surf one day a week! If there were

don’t know whether it’s safe or dangerous, whether

waves – even if there was snow – I surfed.”

you can actually surf it or not. There’s no one there to save you. It’s you and the wave. The whole thing

he Japan Sea has the translucent green-

– that’s what the experience of exploring is. To me,

blue of sand-weathered glass. The dark,

that’s what it means to be a surfer.”

jagged cliffs that surround the bay have a fractured abrasiveness that comes when volcanic rock is ripped apart. Two basalt columns stand offshore, a small shrine crowns the

94 HUCK

Chris Nelson is the author of Cold Water Souls:

In Search of Surfing’s Cold Water Pioneers, published Autumn 2010. www.coldwatersouls.com



Forget the hipster laws of branded bike chic. These monstrosities of metal are subverting all the rules. photography Paul Calver

96 HUCK


Tim Davies

Age 32. Occupation Sculptor. Location Hackney, London. Tim Davies runs training courses for disaffected youths and started making tall bikes “as a tool to facilitate creativity”. Over the course of ten years, he’s made about fifteen bikes and runs workshops teaching others to do the same. Why? Because, he says, they are an end in themselves: “I like building them and teaching other people to build them because of the confidence it gives you in approaching problems and finding the solutions yourself, instead of going down the shop and spending money. Most of the bikes I build are just for fun… When I ride them around people come out of their shops to look, car mechanics are interested and kids stare and wonder what the hell is going on.”

97


Peter Georgallou

Age 23. Occupation Artist. Location Molesey, Surrey. Peter Georgallou is a man of many occupations. As well as being “that guy who holds things up” at auctions, he splits his time between photography, art directing an opera company and working in three different bike shops. And his ride totally reflects his eclectic personality. “I like commuting on Roger [the bike] because it’s silly,” he says. “If I ever wake up in the morning and feel a bit serious I just think, ‘You know what, today I’m going to wax my moustache and ride to work on a tall bike.’” And he’s not going to get serious any time soon. “I think of [Roger] as a pedal-powered euthanasia machine,” he says cryptically. “If you cycle 180 miles at a rate of 20mph, a bolt of lightning goes straight into your head.” Okay then…

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Billy Prendergast

Age 25. Occupation Brixton Cycles worker-owner. Location Brixton, London. After a chance encounter at a bicycle wheelie race, BMX pro Billy Prendergast changed the way he looked at scrap metal. “I saw a guy on a tall bike,” he remembers, “and I thought it was such a great idea. I had a go and I loved it.” Suddenly every discarded bike part in Brixton Cycles, where he is part of the worker co-operative, had potential and when some old frames turned up weeks later, he decided to get crafty. “A friend had a welder and I just thought, ‘Fuck it, I’ll give it a go,’” says Billy, “and it came out pretty good. I love having a laugh on bikes… I’ve met most of my mates through bikes… Why do I like them so much? It’s obvious isn’t it? I just love to ride.”

99


Alan Ross

Age 48. Occupation Metal sculptor. Location Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire. Craftsman Alan Ross likes to keep things homemade. In fact, it was while drinking some of his self-brewed cider with friends in Herefordshire one night that he came up with his latest DIY masterpiece. He explains: “My friends and I had been at the cider one evening and I’d just learnt to weld. My wife was away for the weekend and I saw a chopper bike on the Internet and thought, ‘I can make that’. I’ve always been a cyclist but I’d never cut a bike up before.” Undeterred, the enthusiastic fella got straight to it and found a way to unite his love of cycling and creativity. But why the two-wheeled obsession? “Bikes are transport, freedom, company and somewhere to think when I need to think about things,” he says fondly. And the sculptor is now totally hooked on building monster rides. “I do have a plan to make a tandem eventually. Not just any old thing, it will be a quality machine.”

100 HUCK


R E L E A S I N G

“A slacker’s odyssey”

Time Out

“Moving and Hilarious”

The Times

MUSIC BY

AND

Cert TBC

Written & Directed by

MGMT YEASAYER SANTIGOLD THE CONGOS

Ben Chase and Sam Fleischner

SEAN BONES NORAH JONES CARL BRADSHAW WITH KEVIN BEWERSDORF AND THE CONGOS

Starring

IN CINEMAS 27 AUGUST

www.networkreleasing.com

and IN the Mumblecore Season AT (www.Picturehouses.co.uk/ritzy)


Cyrus Sutton and his ramshackle quiver of surfboards in Encinitas.

102 HUCK


The Revolution Will Be Televised DIY surfing wants you to buck the system! And stop buying all the things you can make for free. But in the cold, hard, green light of day, can you teach a revolution that should be self-taught? Text Tetsuhiko Endo Photography Ryan Tatar

surfing, the spectator sport: in which a strange video gets me thinking.

He has the eye, the understanding, and the charisma to

a genuine countercultural hero, or just another half-

do more with surfing than anyone at the moment.”

baked surfer kid with a Flip camera and a never-ending

Why? Because DIY, according to Wegener, was

supply of quasi-legal, medical-grade marijuana.

about bringing surfing back to the people. “The problem

It takes about six hours to get from New York to

On January 25, 2010, I was conducting my daily trawl

with surfing is that somewhere along the line, it became

San Diego in a plane. When I touch down late Friday

of the Internet when I found myself at the Vimeo page

a spectator sport,” he says. “Today, counterculture in

night, I find the nearest bus and head out to La Mesa

8941685 – Sea Movies: Stranger than Friction. The

surfing is about fighting ‘The Quiksilver Machine’ and

where I’m staying with my friend Santa Ana, a man

clip, which had been uploaded the day before, was in

the stereotype of an ASP-ruled style of surfing.”

who never met a party he didn’t like.

black and white and featured a lanky kid named Ryan

Wegener isn’t claiming to be anti-industry. Surfers

No one had warned me that downtown San

Burch surfing head-high lefts on what appeared to

and the industry have evolved into what a biologist

Diego is a convention centre for America’s homeless.

be a four-foot block of refrigerator foam. He folded

would call an obligate endosymbiotic state; a mutually

At midday, it looks like a street party for derelicts.

his nearly six-foot frame into a streamlined crouch as

beneficial relationship in which one type of organism

At midnight, it’s downright ghoulish.

he swooped down glassy faces with unconscionable

lives inside another and both depend on the other

speed. One subtle tweak of his primitive, finless craft

to stay alive. As far as survival tactics go, this one

and he streaked across the entire length of the frame

is a peach. Surfers have access to anything related

“They drive big Cadillacs and act like the president,

before grabbing rail to cut back, kick the tail out,

to riding waves, and the industry makes a pretty penny.

but I know they really tryin’ to pin some shit on me.” Her

or spin a 360. It was high-performance surfing, but not

But what’s the price?

weave sits askance despite compulsive adjustments.

as we know it: neither progression nor regression, but

“Brilliant marketing has convinced kids that if they

some sort of renegade lateral evolution; a duck-billed

ride the same thing as everyone else they are a rebel,”

platypus with a Kalashnikov.

says Wegener. “No one is sponsored to be a rebel.”

It took a few more clicks to get to korduroy.tv,

down to socal: in which i search for a hero amongst the homeless and deranged.

the site that had posted the clip. There, I found myself in a virtual grandfather’s attic of DIY videos, surfing related and not. Check the page now and you can find an orbital sanding tutorial, GoPro camera videos from inside tubes in Chile, ding repair clips, James Brown

demonstrating the hottest dance moves of the 1970s,

As a rule, I don’t trust anyone from Southern California.

cardboard surfboards, and Cordell Miller ripping apart

The region’s main contributions to the global cultural

Trestles, to name a few. It turned out the man behind all

canon – in my very personal opinion, of course – have

of this was a guy called Cyrus Sutton.

been race riots, Richard Nixon, The OC, and porn. But

“They comin’ fo’ me!” insists the woman beside me on the bus.

I get off in front of an all-nude strip club called ‘Tens’. Santa Ana lives just next door. “They are more like three-point-fives to fours, with the occasional five on weekends,” remarks Santa Ana of his classy neighbours, handing me a beer as I step out of the neon pink glare and into his house. “Hope you are ready to party, we’ve got to meet some of my buddies at a bar in half an hour.”

sacred craft - where old surfers go to pasture: in which i meet cyrus sutton, and one man brave enough to say it like it is.

“He’s a saviour,” exclaims Tom Wegener over a

I wanted to trust Cyrus Sutton; to believe in DIY. So with

crackly Skype connection from his hippie’s wet dream

gas prices creeping above the $3 per gallon mark, LA on

home near Noosa, Australia. Wegener is the shaper

the verge of bankruptcy, and one in sixAmericans suffering

Six hours later I’m hungover on the Pacific Surfliner

behind the current alaia surfing craze and Surfer

from herpes (see Business Week if you don’t believe

to Ventura where Cyrus Sutton is hosting a booth at

Magazine’s 2009 Shaper of the Year. “Cyrus is probably the most important person in the surfing industry.

me), I decided to pay a visit to the glittering cesspool of

Sacred Craft, a surfboard expo. The train cuts straight

American decadence and try to figure out if Sutton was

through the sun-kissed heart of America’s surfing

103


wonderland; Trestles, Cardiff, Oceanside and Swami’s all pass beneath the window while the bums writhe in their seats and howl at the injustices of the world. Sacred Craft is a gathering of surfboard shaper clans and provides an interesting cross-section of the culture’s participants: ninety-five per cent male, all dressed in the same five clothing brands – it’s hard to tell anyone apart, though they all seem to know each other. If you didn’t know better you might think surfing was a quaint cottage industry, as long as you ignored the fact that it rakes in an estimated thirty billion dollars a year in global sales (see: ‘The Ten Percenters’ by Brad Melekian, The Surfer’s Journal, vol. 19, no. 2). Like most tight-knit groups of people who control a lot of money, everything is groovy until you start asking too many questions. I spend the next few hours trying to bait people into saying something, anything, that doesn’t convey profound admiration for surfing culture, the surfing industry, and life in general. The closest I get is a phrase that I would hear often during my trip: “It is what it is...” The Korduroy TV booth looks like it’s been designed by a derelict with a degree in Fine Art. The chairs are made of cardboard, the posters are scrap paper, and the movies showing people making boards in their garages and backyards are projected onto a bed sheet.

ryan burch walks like gumby: in which ryan and i consume 10,000 calories worth of candy bars, frappuccinos™ and iced tea. Before meeting Ryan Burch in Encinitas, three separate people told me to bring him a candy bar, “because he loves them”. As it turns out, he brings his own and washes it down with a Venti Vanilla Frappuccino, avec whipped cream and caramel. I would opt for an Arnold Palmer. Burch is six feet of sinewy gangle who evokes Gumby – that bendy clay humanoid loved by

Cyrus runs back and forth, politician style, shaking hands, kissing babies, enquiring as to the health

American kids – in just about every way. Until he steps

of someone’s grandmother. He’s a tiny, yet perfectly proportioned man with a raptor’s stare that makes you

onto a surfboard. In the water he’s a Renaissance Man,

want to believe anything he tells you.

regularly riding anything from a 6’0’’ to an 11’2’’ single

Almost. The whole starving surf artist motif twinges my stomach. The cardboard chairs retail on the

fin, to a 4’6’’ hunk of foam, and riding all of them

Internet for $300 a piece and it’s obvious that Cyrus and co. are far too ensconced in the surfing Stepford

better than you. If Sutton is the brain of DIY, Burch

family to be mounting a revolt against it.

and his preternatural waveriding is the face. The way

“This is business as usual,” says a man sitting next to me. “Not to take anything away from it, but Cyrus is in business, just like Kelly Slater is in business. Surfing may look like the antithesis of the day job, but it’s still a job. Thirty years ago, Gerry Lopez didn’t have a job.”

he talks about surfing is entirely sensory-based; how an Air Force test pilot might talk about planes. “I’m interested in using the wave right, using

It is what it is.

it to its fullest extent,” he says, taking a large slurp of

Lopez is here too. Though it isn’t clear if it’s because he wants to be, or because like some of surfing’s

Frappuccino. “The DIY movement is very expressive.

legends, he has to sign autographs for $25 a pop to make ends meet. He says he’s heard of Cyrus Sutton and

It’s your own style and what better way to express

believes that people getting back to making their own things is a positive step for modern surfers.

it than on your own board? I know exactly what I feel,

“Cyrus and his friends have figured out the secret of board making…” he says. I lean in closer, greedily expectant. Lopez falls silent and a wry smile slowly spreads across his face. “It’s not that difficult.”

san-o with the nine lights boys: in which we talk goldfinch mutations, finless shapes and engineered commodities.

“I used to raise snakes,” says Tom Beck, as we drive south past the hordes at Trestles in favour of the uncrowded and softer peaks of San Onofre, “but Jeff was always into breeding goldfinches.” Jeff Beck, Tom’s brother, is the man behind Nine Lights Surfboards, and has taken the DIY ethos to strange and delightful places. Some of his creations adorned the Korduroy booth at Sacred Craft. “Yeah, the only problem was that they started inbreeding, and before long I had a bunch of mutant chicks with deformities hopping around like a kiddie soccer game,” Jeff laughs.

and what I like and don’t like… so right now I’m just trying to make and ride boards that I can have the most fun on.” Which is where the Lord Board comes in: 4’6’’ of white, closed-cell surfboard foam obtained from some friends at INT Softboards, designed using ideas from Naval Architecture of Planing Hulls written in 1946 by the engineer Lindsay Lord, chopped up in about fifteen minutes, and taken straight out to the surf. People made fun at first, but no one was laughing when Gumby paddled out at a secret spot in La Joya when it was way overhead and lit the place up. Stay tuned for that footage. Back at his car, he shows me the foam hunk, once

At San-O we go to town on Jeff ’s epoxy and wood curiosities, slipping and sliding across the faces of waves

broken and glued back together. In order to give the

that wouldn’t have warranted a second glance had we been carrying thrusters. Our only companions are the

deck more tackiness, he’s scorched it using a lighter

occasional pods of dolphins. In between sets, we talk about the convoluted dynamics of an industry whose

and a can of hair spray.

heart is board making, but whose bottom line is clothing sales.

“Is DIY anti-commercial?” I ask.

“Clothes drive the surf industry, not boards, because the profit margin for shops is so much worse,” says

Gumby pauses for a second. “Yeah… Hell yeah,

Jeff. “This is one of the biggest ironies of the surf industry. The one thing that makes surfing what it is, is also

it’s anti-commercial! I mean, we’re not ‘bustin’ down

the most marginalised.”

the door’ – I’m not fighting for equality in the line-

So how does a counterculture develop from a community that’s chosen to marginalise the very thing that makes it what it is?

up or proclaiming that I’m a ‘finlesser’, so we’re not really revolutionaries in that sense… but the industry

Jeff shrugs, “Rebelliousness is an engineered commodity. You just have to buy the right uniform to be

is all about endorsements so it makes what we are

a surfer, punk, skater, goth, or whatever. When a counterculture is considered a ‘movement’, it’s already well

doing unique. You don’t see people in the NBA

on its way to being turned into dollar signs.”

making their own shoes, do you?”

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105


top of the hill: in which cyrus invites me to tea.

Burch walks me up the hill to Cyrus’ place, the oldest house in Encinitas. It’s a converted hotel owned by California chronicler Garth Murphy, who has filled the place with artefacts from around the world, assorted paraphernalia, art, sculptures, antiques, bones, Americana and straight-up kitsch. In the space that’s left, he rents rooms to various creatives. Cyrus has a room in the house, but he has made the yard his domain – reading and editing videos (how he pays his bills) in the tea house and wood working and shaping in a tree and bamboo-shaded corridor against one side of the compound. We sit on the tatami floor of the tea house, under a picture of Gerry Lopez giving the same smile that I’d seen when I asked him about the secret of board making. We are surrounded by stacks of books with titles like The Original Boy’s Handy Book, Eccentric America, The World is Flat, Meditations

of John Muir, and Spanish for Dummies. At the bottom of the hill, the Pacific Surfliner rolls by. “As a kid who was born in the ’80s, I’m part of a generation that came of age feeling like we had endless resources, time and money – everything was abundant,” he says, looking straight through me with his hawk eyes. “Since then, the carpet has been pulled out from under us… we all thought we were going to go to college and get jobs and live like our parents, but it’s not happening. I wish it were still like it was for our parents, but we have to get used to it.” And that’s where Korduroy TV comes in. “Korduroy TV is a bunch of middle-class, spoiled ’80s kids who are trying to figure out how to toughen up and make things instead of buying things,” he says. “For my whole life, I’ve been told that if you want to be this, you have to buy this; you have to buy things to measure up, and that’s a shitty way to feel.” Half jokingly, Sutton refers to himself and his friends as “emo lumberjacks”, but his easy demeanour can’t conceal the seriousness in his eyes. “I think people are being sold values that are against their best interests. We are fucking brainwashed by Frankenstein capitalism, which is basically a feudal system where the kings and castles are Walmarts and big chains. They don’t want us to be free and happy and healthy; they want us to buy their medicines and make-ups and foods and clothes.” The irony of starting a televised revolution isn’t lost on Sutton. When I suggest that he’s at the head of a counterculture, he snorts, “Counterculture is just a group of people doing free market research for companies so they can take those ideas and market them a year later. Companies are so strong they literally own us, and you can’t rebel against that. Part of Korduroy is my realisation that all subcultures eventually become marketing campaigns.” Then his face softens, just slightly. “My art is a personal exploration executed in a way that people can understand… What we still have is the ability to make things. So my only hope is to create something that has a viral message and speaks to people and speaks against the machine.” Those words stick with me on the crazy train back to San Diego. Like Atticus Finch said in Harper Lee’s classic To Kill a Mockingbird, courage is “knowing you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

epilogue – the cosmic children festival, liencres, spain: in which i see if cyrus’ revolution has already begun to eat its (cosmic) children.

A few months later I’m in Liencres, Spain, at the Cosmic Children Festival, talking to a kid who shapes his own boards, but doesn’t always know their dimensions. The festival celebrates Spain’s nascent surfing history and culture which, after a late start due to the mid-twentieth-century dictatorship of Francisco Franco, has exploded over the last two decades. Today, the standard high-performance shortboard still dominates the scene, but the demand for different shapes is growing due to the influence of foreign surfing media. This is where DIY comes back into the mix, not as a lifestyle choice, but as a necessity. “I used to see all these boards that I wanted to ride in magazines and movies, but I couldn’t get them in the stores, so I just started making my own,” says the kid, a blond Basque named Asier Agirre Mikelez. He is eighteen years old and has been shaping since he was sixteen. His favourite movie is Thomas Campbell’s

Sprout. His favourite board is a 5’6’’ self-shaped fish. He doesn’t know the other dimensions because he didn’t bother to measure them. The name Cyrus Sutton “sounds familiar” to him, but that is the extent of it. I ask him how he learned to shape, and he shrugs: “I just taught myself and drew inspiration from what I saw on the Internet and in the water. Someone helped me put the fins on my first board, but since then, I’ve just been experimenting.” Who do you ask when you don’t know how to do something? He looks at me for a long time as if he doesn’t understand the question. Slowly, that familiar Lopez smile spreads across his face

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“We are fucking brainwashed by Frankenstein capitalism, which is basically a feudal system where the kings and castles are Walmarts and big chains.”


“Gentle, touching and gorgeously lensed, Rio Breaks meshes a heart-felt hymn to surf-love with a harsh tale of slum survival. It’s a beautifully bittersweet vision of growing pains on the rough side of Rio, intimately unpeeling favela life’s poverty, violence and angst while still shining with the fragile hopes and joys of childhood” Jonathan Crocker Little White Lies

www.factorytwentyfive.com | www.riobreaks.com


Pro skateboarder Gino Iannucci explodes the age-old myth that to gain respect from the core community you must turn your back on the world. Interview Michael Regan Photography Jonathan Mehring

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Gino Iannucci is standing in the skate shop he owns

You once said that you ‘miss the days when

in Westbury, NY, watching not a skate video, but

skating was hated on’. What exactly do you miss?

the World Cup. Hanging on the wall is his newest

Well, it’s kind of watered down now. Back in the day,

pro model deck covered in a tennis court graphic.

you felt like you were doing something better than

Throughout his career – which spans nearly two

everyone else. Nobody knew how dope it was to be

decades and includes top sponsors like Black Label,

a skater… You would meet dudes in Queens and take

101 and currently Chocolate Skateboards – Gino has

a subway to the Bronx, or you’d end up in another

been a lover of mainstream sports. The antithesis

state – you felt like it was your own world. But I can’t

of what skateboarders should be into, right? Not

hate on how skating is now. When I said that, skating

necessarily. Despite having kept a low profile –

was just becoming mainstream… Nothing can be

putting out minimal video footage and receiving

underground forever… There are skateboarders that

even less magazine coverage – Gino has landed

are rich now, which is cool. But then again, it was

himself on nearly every pro skateboarder’s ‘Favourite

simpler back in the day. You did what you did because

Pro’ list. His sneaker sponsor isn’t the ‘corest’ brand

you loved it, not for any other reason.

either, but rather the biggest sneaker company in the world, aka Nike. So how has someone who

Did you feel like you had to justify signing with

hasn’t conformed to skateboarding’s pre-conceived

Nike because it isn’t an original skate brand? No,

norms garnered such respect? The answer lies in the

not at all. When I first got the offer, I was psyched

question: skating isn’t about conforming, it’s about

– who doesn’t like Nike? I grew up wearing Nikes,

being real. Skateboarding isn’t Gino’s lifestyle; rather,

so I didn’t even hesitate. I heard a lot of bullshit

it’s his life.

and people giving me flak about Nike getting into skating... To be honest, I found it kind of [dumb],

When you first started skating, you were also

like, ‘Get over it, dude’. To me, the guys that hate

really into ice hockey. When did skating start

on it are not acting as real skateboarders – they’re

to take precedence? My home rink was at Nassau

trying to be too anti this and, like, ‘I’m so skate’.

Community College in Union Dale, NY, and a lot

Shut the fuck up – get out of here.

of my friends from my neighbourhood would skate Nassau College. So I would see them on my way

For the majority of your career, you seemed to have

to practice, on their boards skating to the college,

stayed out of the spotlight. Was that a conscious

and I remember always wishing I could go skating

decision? During the Black Label days, when I just

with them… I wasn’t good friends with any of the

moved out to California and was just getting to

guys on the team but I loved to play hockey so it

know people, I didn’t know photographers, so if they

didn’t matter. When you’re on the ice, everything’s

happened to be around and something went down,

cool. But when you were off the ice, nobody hung

then cool. Then, during the 101 days, I remember

out. Skateboarding was different. Guys from my

consciously not being into taking photos. I was just

area and from other towns would get together and

trying to stack footage and come out with a video part…

cruise around to different spots. It was awesome –

It wasn’t like nowadays, where you have to be out there

one day you’re in this town, the next day you’re in

with the Internet keeping your sponsors happy. Back

a different town.

then it was more accepted to be on the low.

Did the fact that it was outside the mainstream

What do you attribute your success to, in spite

appeal to you at all? No, that’s not something that

of maintaining a low profile? I’d like to say, without

stood out. A lot of people that I hung out with were

sounding like a big-headed dick, that I have a good

skating, and that’s just what I wanted to surround

idea of what looks good… When you’re at a spot, you’re

myself with. It was just fun. It wasn’t that it was anti-

thinking, ‘Is this trick going to look wack, or is it going

sports, or anti this or that… But back in the day, it

to look dope?’… Maybe I’m fortunate enough to have

was hated on… Skaters were considered to be bad

put out stuff that people consider as [showing] good

people who did bad things.

taste in trick selection? I don’t know. Luck?

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drug smuggler-turnedauthor Howard Marks shares the lessons he learned from a life on the run. INTERVIEW SHELLEY JONES

Were you ever scared when you were running

probably as good as Club Med… It makes you yearn

from authority? Yeah, but you quickly get used to

for freedom but it also gets rid of the fear of prison.

whatever shit you’re in. The scariest moments on the run were those that made me think I was about to

What are your feelings about legalisation? I only

get caught... I remember one incident when I had

campaign for cannabis because I’ve acquired a certain

a false passport in the name of Peter Hughes. I was

expertise for it. But I think it applies to certainly every

travelling to Belgium, I think, and when I showed my

recreational drug I’ve taken, that it would be safer for

passport he took one look and said, ‘Ah… Howard!’

society if controlled rather than left to a bunch of

and I thought, ‘This is it!’ But he was just referencing

gangsters to hawk outside the schoolyard.

They say the most important lessons you learn at

Howard Hughes who happened to be in the news…

university are the ones between the lines. And so

Odd things like that would happen occasionally.

How much did coming from Wales shape your identity? It was fundamental. It made me used to

it was for a boy from the Welsh valleys, Dennis Howard Marks, who went to Oxford to study

Did you feel invincible? Yes. I went through stupid

complaining about authority and being rebellious…

nuclear physics and left to become one of the most

phases thinking I had a guardian angel that would never

Every male member of my family was a miner, apart

prolific dope smugglers of all time. Marks eluded the

let me get caught… There are thousands of smugglers

from my father, so I identified with that attitude.

authorities at every corner, playing the likes of MI6

the authorities don’t catch up with. But perhaps my

and the CIA against the IRA and the Mafia until

extroverted personality would have always prevented

What do you think of the state of counterculture

he eventually got busted in 1988. He was released

me being an anonymous dope smuggler forever.

today? I don’t see as much evidence of it now.

on parole in 1995 and has been campaigning for the

There were many things in the ’60s that hadn’t been You were dealing with some pretty ruthless

properly addressed. There was a lot of homophobia

But what exactly makes a kid on the right side

people back then. How did you keep your cool?

and racism around; there was the drug thing and

of the law decide to cut loose and wedge a big fat

It wasn’t a world full of scary people like in the

Vietnam. There seemed to be so many social

doobie in the side of the system?

films. I suppose the Irish [IRA] guy was scary, not

injustices that, if you could think, you’d have to

particularly ruthless though. It was mostly a world

rebel. And a lot of those issues haven’t been solved,

Up to a certain point you led a pretty conventional

full of hippies who couldn’t believe their luck at being

but they have been addressed. So I think there’s less

life. What changed all that? I suppose it was when

able to make so much money… We all feel fear. But

obvious need for rebellion and therefore there’s less

I smoked my first joint. I began sort of questioning

I quickly learned the knack of not acting on it.

of it… But rebels are sort of ageless in their affiliation

legalisation of cannabis ever since.

laws and questioning authority. I just became more

with each other. A lot of what I think is the same

committed to being a rebel. It wasn’t a money thing

What was prison like? It changed me forever and

then, by any means. It became a money thing, I won’t

I think I emerged a better person... I mean it varies

deny that, but to begin with it was just a rage against

so much, especially in America. The worst prisons

Mr. Nice, the film adaptation of howard marks' autobiography,

authority like, ‘How dare they stop me doing this.’

there are worse than the third world and the best are

will be in cinemas in the UK and Ireland October 8, 2010.

110 HUCK

as what the kids think


First st in in SURFING S SU URFING NEWS NEWS First

www.surfersvillage.com Rider: Tim Boal / Photo: Agustin Munoz/Red Bull Photofiles / Design: ID

Tim

Bo al


112 HUCK


tHe year Of tHe DeatH Of jOse sarAmagO When you come this close to meeting your literary hero, they are immortalised as more than mere myth. Text Alex Wade Photography Enric Vives-Rubio

nside César Manrique’s house, during some

her car, Heidi concluded her call, smiled and told me

house, the search was on. As I walked along the hot,

downtime in the middle of a Lanzarote surf trip,

the news. “He lives about twenty minutes’ drive away,”

dusty road, I sent a text to a writer friend whose work

my thoughts meandered from the exquisite

she said, “We can go there now if you like.”

I value very much. “Disaster! Have lost wallet,” I

paintings before me. The compelling claims of

Soon enough, we pulled up outside Saramago’s

wrote, to which she replied, simply enough: “Oh no!”

world-famous artists – Manrique, Joan Miró,

house, only for disaster to strike. I’d lost my wallet.

And at that moment as I looked at my phone to read

even Picasso – couldn’t hold my attention.

A frantic search left me in no doubt that I’d left it on

her text, there, on the roadside, was my wallet.

The reason? Words. Specifically, those of José

the roof of the car outside Manrique’s house as Heidi

Subsequently, I was given permission by Saramago

Saramago, which had entered my mind like a benign

had made her calls. But something told me not to go

to interview him exclusively for The Times. He

ghost. Ever since I read Saramago’s melancholic and

back and look for it. A voice, perhaps that of a benign

regretted having been too unwell to meet me and

haunting The Year of the Death of Ricardo Reis,

ghost, reasoned that it wasn’t everyday that you get

looked forward to welcoming me to his house – would

seventeen years ago on honeymoon in Portugal, I’d

the chance to visit the house of your literary hero. And

it be possible for me to return in July? Of course, I said,

devoured everything by the writer who won the Nobel

though, to my dismay, I’d learned through Heidi that

and booked a ticket. But before I was able to return to

Prize for Literature in 1998 and is arguably the greatest

he was unwell, and probably too ill to meet me, you

Lanzarote, Saramago died. He was eighty-seven and

novelist of the past quarter century. Why? Because

never know. Maybe, just maybe, I’d see or even meet

having come through severe pneumonia the preceding

Saramago blended a challenging narrative style with

Saramago. Que sera, sera. What were cash and credit

year, passed away owing to multiple organ failure.

cutting-edge ideas, allusiveness with humility, poetry

cards, against this opportunity?

I’ve kept in touch with Heidi, who, until I asked

with prose. In Blindness, for example – his 1995 novel

Heidi made the introductions, and I found myself

her to help secure a visit to his library, had never heard

in which residents of an unnamed city fall victim to

being guided around Saramago’s library by one of his

of Saramago. Heidi is a busy woman – she runs an

an epidemic that robs them of their sight – Saramago

assistants, English-speaking Javier Munoz. We talked

eco holiday company in Lanzarote called Stay Eco

forces us to face the inequity that surrounds us and

about our favourite Saramago novels. If memory serves,

Chic – and she rarely has a moment to herself. But

begs us to question: “Is a world in which the richest

Javier’s was Baltasar and Blimunda, which sees an

Saramago touched her, too. Here are some lines she

three hundred people own as much as the poorest

eighteenth-century couple seek to evade the Inquisition

sent me the day after José Saramago – a man who was

forty per cent combined a great achievement?” His

in a flying machine devised by a priest. Mine is The Year

devoted to dogs, as often shown in his fiction – died:

best writing is as haunting and profound as anything

of the Death of Ricardo Reis, in which Reis returns from Brazil to his native Lisbon and engages in a series of conversations with the spirit of Fernando Pessoa, a Portuguese modernist poet who used the name Ricardo Reis as one of his various heteronyms. “This is his favourite,” said Javier, pointing to an English translation of All the Names, a mesmerising tale of bizarre bureaucracy and opaque identity. “Saramago likes this because he wrote it in homage to Kafka.” I wondered whether Beckett, too, must have influenced Saramago, given the depth of absurdist humour in much of his work but especially All the Names, but Javier distracted me. “Every day, except now when he is ill, Saramago writes in this chair,” he said. I ran my hand along the back of the chair, and imagined Saramago sitting there, writing, each morning. Soon it was time to go. Back at César Manrique’s

“You were so close Alex – I can’t believe it. The whole area surrounding his library and house is full of press, they are camping there, police directing the traffic, people in mourning outside. It gave me goosebumps to see it yesterday. I have a funny little story from the man who owns the house next door, remember I told you I’m taking it on to help get some bookings for him? He said he had this tiny little dog and his wife hated the thing, treated it like it was a scary rat. So, anyway one day it goes missing. He said, ‘Well I thought it’s been run over or the wife has buried it.’ A month later, he sees José Saramago playing with it in the garden – turns out he had adopted the dog and the dog obviously preferred him. The guy said he would see José out walking the dog and he said, ‘I never had the heart to say, er, actually he’s mine.’ His wife was quite happy too.”

by Kafka, Canetti, Joyce. You name them: he holds his own, and then some. And I’d just remembered that Saramago, my literary hero, lived in Lanzarote. As soon as this memory crystallised, I thought: would it be possible to meet Saramago? Would he welcome all too obvious an aficionado, on so hastily concocted a pilgrimage? Was I even right – did he live in Lanzarote? Or had he returned to his beloved Lisbon? Outside Manrique’s house, my host, Heidi, made some calls. As she rang friends, first establishing that Saramago did still reside on the island and then ascertaining his address, my heart raced. I don’t speak Spanish, but it seemed to me that Heidi, an English émigré and fluent in the language, had secured an invite to visit Saramago’s library and house, in the nearby town of Tias. I was right. As I leaned against

113


DEsTrOy & REnEw A brief meditation on the importance of place (as exemplified by Kerouac’s self-imposed exile to Desolation Peak). Text Michael Fordham ILLUSTRATION Millie Marotta

estruction

and

renewal

is

encoded in the way of the North Cascades.

Devastating

training from the park’s service, Kerouac arrived at the end of July to learn the lessons of loneliness.

Desolation Peak was the birthplace of a new way of seeing the world. Sure, there were surfers living on

fires

Kerouac had already ventured deep into the way of

the North Shore who were living a countercultural

sweep across the Washington

spontaneous poetics. Like Melville, he had wandered

dream – and bohemians on the Lower East Side were

State mountain range every few

the watery portion of the world. He had dug the

living it too raw and too close to see it. Between these

years, blackening the earth and

boppish explorations of New York City’s 51st street;

two poles there were tight-knit pockets of cultural

exposing the ground to a new generation of growth.

he had wandered the railroads and highways of America

change – kids, on the whole, who were determined to

In the late summer of 1926, a particularly destructive

with a cadre of skid row punks, the amphetamine

change themselves and the world around them. But

blaze laid waste to an area of steep alpine meadows

heads and hopeless drifters he re-imagined as sacred

the point is this: no one had expressed it before. It

and woods that overlook Ross Lake. The blackened

bodhisattvas. Along the way, he and his coterie of freaky

took the 360-degree perspective of the Desolation

vista quickly earned the name Desolation Peak. In

friends had begun to excavate the roots of American

Peak lookout to gain perspective on a world about to

response to the carnage, the park’s authority built a fire

literature and were pouring in their place the pilings of

change forever.

lookout hut at one of the highest spots in the range.

the counterculture. But with his retreat to Desolation

Jack came down from the mountain at the end

It survives to this day – a small but beautiful hand-

Peak, this city-sired vision of beat transcendence

of summer and began to put the finishing touches to

wrought structure made of adobe and pinewood, with

became hitched forever to the mountain.

On the Road. The following year Viking Press finally published the meandering, near mythic manuscript – and the world tipped into a new era of countercultural production. Desolation Peak is little more than a tourist destination these days – its windows shuttered as they always have been for most of the year. But the pilgrims who make the steep hike to the lookout do so for more than the lovely views. It is a place of beginnings; it is a place where old precepts can be challenged and new perspectives formed; a place that gave essence to a myth that the world could believe in. Where is the Desolation Peak for this generation?

a clapboard terrace and broad windows that gaze down in the direction of each cardinal point. In the summer of 1956, Jack Kerouac worked for sixty-two days as a fire lookout up at the Desolation Peak cabin. He was thirty-four years old. He had been inspired to spend time up in those tinderbox hills whilst hanging out in San Francisco with poetmountaineer and Zen Buddhist Gary Snyder – who had himself ventured there on a mission to get closer to the Dharma and the essence of self. Armed only with a knapsack full of earnestness, a rather sentimental apprehension of Zen Buddhism and some rudimentary

114 HUCK

The notes Kerouac made at Desolation Peak formed the basis of two of his most beautiful pieces of work.

Desolation Angels and The Dharma Bums are shot through with descriptions of the bliss engendered by the great outdoors – but this Benzedrine-and-booze-tainted vision of the mountains is encoded in the sort of hipster argot that moves nature writing far, far away from the earnest. The sentimentality he’s been criticised for is there, for sure – but there’s also a metaphoric potency to the work he constructed here. It was, after all, from this lofted perspective that Kerouac was able to express the tragic beauty of America’s fall for the very first time.




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