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
UK distribution enquiries: andy.hounslow@comag.co.uk
Editorial Director Matt Bochenski
Worldwide distribution enquiries: carla.demichiel-smith@comag.co.uk
Website Director Alex Capes
Printed by Buxton Press
Managing Director Danny Miller
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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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Nic Von Rupp Charly Martin Naum Ildefonse
The Other One Board Short
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03
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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
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.”
53
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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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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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
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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.”
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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.”
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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.”
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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.
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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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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.
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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
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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
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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
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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.