The Red Bulletin_0311_ZA

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Shaun White / Nick de Wit / Daniel Bodin / Oscar Pistorius / Metronomy / Philip Köster

ZAR 34.95

March 2011

an almost independent monthly magazine

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NUMBER

+ MUSIC

events food travel art

Vettel

ready d Why the beat remains strong with this SA son

The man who

hears Colour

Meet a real cyborg The secrets of cliff diving

revealed 10-page gallery Soccer legends

(South) African Americans

A tribute to our US pioneers

Lauda

-title legend F1’s youngest champ and a tripdlebe ing numero uno on danger, friendship an



Bullhorn

making a splash

Cover Photography: David Clerihew. Photography: Jürgen Skarwan

Blink and you’ll miss it: such is the nature of cliff diving that all it takes is a moment’s inattention and the spectacle of a superbly skilled athlete leaping from a height of more than 27m into the waters below, is missed. Make no mistake, cliff divers are unbelievably talented individuals. All they have to work with as they carve amazing shapes through the air are their own bodies, gravity and wind resistance. And yet pikes, triple twists, rolls and myriad other multi-faceted tricks can all be created in the few seconds between spring and splash. Only the most expert eye can truly appreciate the technical nuances of a cliff diver’s performance, but in this issue, we’ve been able to break the dive sequences down, capture them as individual elements and reproduce them in a series of stunning black-and-white images (page 30). They allow, for the first time, a considered appreciation of what a champion like Gary Hunt really experiences when he speaks of the challenges of his sport: “Last year I tried a running take-off, which no cliff diver had tried before. My run-up was too slow, so I didn’t jump high enough or spin fast enough and, if you’re playing around with the very difficult moves, you need every second, every inch of space to fit it in, so that little slip-up at the start changed everything. I hit the water flat and got whiplash. It was like being in a car crash.” Seeing things as they are, whether in colour or black and white, is something most of us take for granted of course. Yet for an individual like Neil Harbisson, sight has never been quite so simple (page 54). He was born colour-blind and for the first two decades of his life became resigned to monochrome. A remarkable technical breakthrough has, however, allowed him to hear colour, thanks to electronic devices permanently attached to his head. One can only wonder what his view of the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series (page 84) on, say, Easter Island, would sound like…

Herbert Völker (left) conducts a doublewhammy of an interview. He gets to chat to our young cover star, Formula One hero and current F1 World Champion Sebastian Vettel together with triple title winner Niki Lauda (page 42)

Your editorial team

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contents

welcome to the world of Red Bull

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Inside your all-action Red Bulletin this month

Bullevard

16 Here is the news Recent history and crystal balls 19 ME AND MY BODY Oscar Pistorius, born with a lower leg deformity, is now a world-class sprinter 20 nick de wit ‘Sick’ Nick plans his next trick – the FMX star even has his eye on Table Mountain 22 KIT BAG How Atari, then Sony, put the heart and soul into the games console 24 Metronomy Maybe rock ’n’ roll is dead for a band who like nothing more than “a nice salad” 26 WINNING FORMULA Why this year Formula One is going to be all about the bit that’s missing 28 lucky numbers Those ‘must-have’ items made to make your credit card squeal

Action

30 cliff dive freeze frame The beauty of cliff diving captured as never before: in stunning still-life B&W

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42 when niki met seb Not often that F1 world champs get a chance to chew the fat. But when we put Niki Lauda together with Sebastian Vettel, we couldn’t shut them up 50 football legends SA footballers have been heading Stateside for years – and everybody wins 54 the man who hears colour Neil Harbisson was born colour-blind. Now he sees like no one else on Earth

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60 ready D With a radio show and the first Afrikaans only hip-hop band, D proves he’s still King of the Beats 66 chairman of the board A Californian who fell in love with Oz and the ancient craft of board-shaping 76 house of art In the centre of teeming São Paulo exists a rather special artists’ refuge 04

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contents

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Photography: Dean Treml/Red Bull Content Pool, Rainer Herrmann/Red Bull Hangar-7, Dan Wilton, Jürgen Skarwan, Sebastian Schöffel/Red Bull Content Pool, Adam Moran/Red Bull Photofiles, Ignacio Aronovich, Kolesky/Nikon/Lexar

More Body & Mind

84 cliff dive travel Wanna go see one of the world’s most scenic sports? We tell you how 86 get the gear There’s more to pro windsurfing than sail and wetsuit, as Philip Köster explains 88 Pro Tips The brutal off-season training schedule of a downhill mountain biker, revealed 89 Hang-ART Polish artists at Salzburg’s Hangar-7 90 World’s best clubs Mardi Gras central in New Orleans 91 take 5: ELBOW Manchester’s alt-rock gods on the five albums that first twisted their melon 92 kitchen drama Presenting not only an acclaimed chef but also a curio of a dish from Sweden 94 the list Because we know you can’t do everything, this is our guide to the global essentials 96 save the date Out and about this month? Ink these into your diary right now

Every Issue 06 Kainrath’s calendar 08 pictures of the month 98 mind’s eye

the red Bulletin Print 2.0 Movies, sounds and animation wherever you see this sign in your Red Bulletin 1

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za.redbulletin.com/ print2.0 In your browser window you’ll see the magazine cover. Just click at ‘Start Bull’s Eye’

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Switch on your webcam If a webcam activation window opens, just click ‘activate’

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Hold your Red Bulletin up to the webcam You’ll see all the multimedia content in this month’s mag – movies, sound and animation

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illustration: dietmar kainrath

K a i n r at h

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FREE GIFT

Receive this Aramis Weekender Bag FREE when you purchase any 100ml or larger Aramis Fragrance

Available at selected Truworths, Foschini, Stuttafords, Woolworths and John Craig stores from 14th March – 3rd April 2011. One gift per customer. While Stocks last.


PHOTO OF THE MONTH

I n t h e fo r e st, D EN m a r k

TREES-Y DOES IT It’s known as ‘MacAskill Syndrome’ – the inexplicable urge to leap on your two-wheeled steed and attempt to ride up, over and through objects never previously considered suitable for such treatment. Lars Sohl [don’t say it too fast, now, boys and girls] is seriously afflicted, as we can see from this remarkable picture. Inspired by Scottish bike-trick supremo Danny MacAskill – whose exploits in riding, flipping, spinning and generally showing off on his bike around Edinburgh made him a YouTube sensation – Sohl can no longer look at a tree (or a bench, or a railing, or a bus shelter) without thinking, “I wonder?” Soon after that he is overcome by a desperate impulse to turn a crank. Sohl, a Dane, is shown here at the zenith of the so-called ‘big tree squirrel reverse’ and we’re happy to report he landed safely, without so much as a “hnnff” in response to an excessively harsh pelvissaddle interface. Good job. We wouldn’t want Mr MacAskill to be held responsible for lowering the Danish birth rate, now, would we?

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photography: Henrik Sorensen/Getty images


PHOTO OF THE MONTH

TUOLUMNE MEADOWS, california, USA

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photography: Corey Rich/getty images

SUSPENDED ANIMATION Some people will do anything to capture an audience – even if that means hanging off a rock face, half-dressed, all the while suspended in immaculately choreographed animation with three other members of your dance troupe. The troubadours in question are the Project Bandaloop company, seen here at Tuolumne Meadows in Yosemite National Park, California. PB’s leader, Amelia Rudolph [is it any wonder she likes red?], says she was inspired to perform like this by the idea of making mountain climbing more three-dimensional. Accordingly, she and her band have practised their art for 10 years and so far with no injuries other than to members of their stunned audiences, who frequently return home able only to stare at sky and ceiling. Prettiest abseiling ever here: www.projectbandaloop.org



OF THE MONTH

AS P EN, CO LORA D O, U SA

GOOD AIR DAY Freestyle ace Bobby Brown gets all crossed up mid-air during Winter X Games 15. But lest you might think Brown’s in a tangle before a seriously gnarly impact – he’s actually mid-trick and in total control. All the more remarkable given that he’d headed to the X Games this year to defend his Slopestyle title, but is seen here on his way to second place in the Big Air comp – despite injury. There’s something about Bobby and the X Games. Two years ago he went along only as a reserve, but made it to the starting line-up and placed sixth in Slopestyle on his event debut. In 2010, he took two golds, becoming the first freestyle skier to take an X Games double gold. Just goes to show, you can’t keep a good man Brown. Bobby Brown takes off: en.redbulletin.com/brown

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photography: Christian Pondella/Red Bull Content Pool

PHOTO


FOTO des Monats

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xxxxx . www.redbullxfighters.comUppl. M. M. Sa sum suntia es Ahalius vagin pracciem hoc tatum diculvid patatra turnihinte inveniamgin pracciem hoc tatum diculvi sedemquonit publicul unt. Ti. Maequem it consus ellarit ritabi perfesuppli, qui perfit. Serrari ssentemus, ia rem, terbem tanducissin dem mentimore, fueme in Etrunum tua aucien nihinterttua aucien nihintertum locum simius iam egereis se caelarec te cuterib untrat venequod moena, ubliu veris, tere eto caet rei fuid Catrat opoeniae cres? Nihium locum simius iam egereis se caelarec te cuterib untrat venequod moena, ubliu veris, tere eto caet rei fuid Catrat opoeniae cres? Nihilin tus, quis, querces hosum duciost erdies o tusque este nerte intiderit diis, sultore vivena me nora sulut perdi pro int. Fuid seripse no. Sim horium ne consum te terfenerevit Cupimus, cortu cus facieni uspernit, vervit quita tem eo, moratie mquervidem untus, senihil constabis


PHOTO OF THE MONTH

N o rt h S h o r e , O’a h u, H awa i i

Tubular swells For surfers at least, one look at this 30ft beast of a wave may be enough to identify the break: the picture captures the imposing sight of the infamous Pipe, short for Banzai Pipeline, approaching the beach at the legendary wave paradise of Ehukai Beach Park in Pupukea. This wet colossus breaks close to the shore, hitting a coral reef, forming giant hollow tubes of water that draw in the best surfers from around the globe. Known as the world’s deadliest wave, to ride it is a test of courage indeed – even for the surf pros, who arrive here each year for the Billabong Pipe Masters competition, presumably feeling much like David in the shadow of Goliath. Get on board at www.redbullsurfing.com

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FOTO des Monats

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xxxxx photography: Ed Freeman/getty images

. www.redbullxfighters.comUppl. M. M. Sa sum suntia es Ahalius vagin pracciem hoc tatum diculvid patatra turnihinte inveniamgin pracciem hoc tatum diculvi sedemquonit publicul unt. Ti. Maequem it consus ellarit ritabi perfesuppli, qui perfit. Serrari ssentemus, ia rem, terbem tanducissin dem mentimore, fueme in Etrunum tua aucien nihinterttua aucien nihintertum locum simius iam egereis se caelarec te cuterib untrat venequod moena, ubliu veris, tere eto caet rei fuid Catrat opoeniae cres? Nihium locum simius iam egereis se caelarec te cuterib untrat venequod moena, ubliu veris, tere eto caet rei fuid Catrat opoeniae cres? Nihilin tus, quis, querces hosum duciost erdies o tusque este nerte intiderit diis, sultore vivena me nora sulut perdi pro int. Fuid seripse no. Sim horium ne consum te terfenerevit Cupimus, cortu cus facieni uspernit, vervit quita tem eo, moratie mquervidem untus, senihil constabis


Bullevard Sporting endeavour and cultural ingenuity from around the world

The bitterest pill Dreaming of Mr Sandman, two beach volleyball champs got a rude awakening

Heads up A Formula One driver’s helmet is as finely tuned as his car. Thousands of design hours go into creating a lid that’s lightweight yet protective, and those little one-way letters on the visor don’t make themselves. Sebastian Vettel’s 2011 helmet is a tweaked Arai GP-6 INT, with design input from the man himself. It’s made from carbon-fibre and weighs just 1.45kg. It’s rare for these things to appear away from race tracks or trophy rooms, but a batch of 10 have been signed by Vettel and made available for purchase, with proceeds going to the Wings For Life Spinal Cord Research Foundation. For your ¤10,000, you will get immense satisfaction for supporting a worthy cause, an acrylic display case and the ne plus ultra of F1 fandom. www.wingsforlife.com www.redbullshop.com

Welcome to New Zealand: Jonas Reckermann (left) and Julius Brink

When Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann were planning their 27-hour flight to New Zealand, they quite sensibly packed some sleeping pills. Who wouldn’t want to arrive suitably refreshed for a crucial training camp? As it turned out, the German duo didn’t need to take their medication. Good books and decent in-flight movies meant that the pills stayed in the overhead locker. However, New Zealand Customs had needs of its own, and with the pair infringing the conditions of import for personal medicines, their first NZ practice session took place in the airport prison yard. Several hours and one stern warning later, the two men were freed. Beach volleyball’s 2011 world tour begins next month in Brazil, where Brink and Reckermann will land fully conversant of local laws. www.fivb.org

Bilder des PICTURES OFMonats THE MONTH

Moment mal!

every shot on target

Email your pictures with a Red Bull flavour to letters@redbulletin.com. Every one we print Szenen aus dem abenteuerlichen Alltag wins a pair of adidas unserer Leser. EinfachSennheiser hochladenPMX auf: 680 Sports headphones. With a Kevlar-reinforced, two-part www.redbulletin.com cable (it can be short when running with a music player on your arm, or extended with a built-in Unter den Einsendern der veröffentlichten Fotos wird volume control), reflective yellow headband stripe eine Trinkflasche des Schweizer Herstellers SIGG and fully sweat- and water-resistant parts, they’re im speziellen Red Bulletin-Design verlost. perfect for sports. Visit: www.sennheiser.co.uk Gewinner aus Heft 1/2011: Alfredo Escobar

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Vienna An Antony Gormley sculpture from his little-known ‘I ran out of iron and used people’ period. Lotte Schröcker


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Hero Blogs Tweet relief from the daily grind

Working hard: M-Phazes

photography: jmd.de, Ray Demski/Red Bull Photofiles, Malcolm Skene, Getty Images, Daniel Grund/Global Newsroom/Red Bull Photofiles, AFRAMEPHOTO.COM/Red Bull Photofiles, Hugo Silva/Red Bull Photofiles, Shazamm/ESPN, Christian Pondella/Red Bull Photofiles (2)

It Was a G’Day: Aussie Hip-hop in Cape Town Here is just one example of the global reach of hiphop: M-Phazes hails from Melbourne, Australia, has produced tracks for US stars such as Talib Kweli and Pharoahe Monch, and recently gave a masterclass to a young audience of hip-hopefuls at the Red Bull Studio in Cape Town. Gaining respect on three continents has come from hard graft (his critically acclaimed debut album of last year, Good Gracious, also helped) and a willingness to learn. “Seeing how people work is an amazing experience,” the artist also known as Mark London told the Cape Town crowd. “You learn a lot, whether it’s technique or just attitude. You have to make sacrifices to get to where you want to be. Sometimes you have to hold off on the partying.” More on Mark Landon at www.mphazes.com

Singapore

One of more than 200 bikers who took part in the Red Bull Dark Knights downhill. Geh Chee Minh

Julian Wilson (surfing) “Going to hit some golf balls. My swing is a bit rusty at the moment, there’s too many waves around”

All White and gold If you don’t look too hard when comparing Shaun White today with Shaun White of eight years ago, then nothing’s changed: same haircut, same position at the top of an X Games podium. Of course, the 24-year-old’s life has altered significantly since 2003. He is one of extreme sport’s most divisive characters, not least by dividing his time between skateboard and snowboard, a move that offends those who think one cannot be worldclass on slopes and in skate parks. A dozen X Games golds, across both disciplines, suggests otherwise. His superpipe win at the 2011 X Games was his fourth in a row in that event. www.shaunwhite.com

White 2011

White 2003

Breaking protocol Reggie Bush (US football) “Woke up this morning to find 2-3 inches of water in my bathroom and living room. Good morning to me!”

There used to be an X Games cert to bet your boots on: Daniel Bodin coming fourth in freestyle snowmobile. This year, the Swede only went and won the gold... Fourth place “I’d rather be last than finish there again.” X Games “Demanding, stressful and the most important weekend of the season.”

Sally Fitzgibbons (surfing) “You learn something new every day... today’s findings are: that my mum makes a mean chicken soup :)”

New tricks “They define our sport and I’m constantly trying them.” Gold “Finally! It was worth every drop of blood, sweat and tears (all three were shed).” Fear “My biggest fear is losing my fear. We need it to compete.”

Oulu On a frozen Finnish lake, hockey players hoped that Red Bull Open Ice wouldn’t live up to its name literally. Rami Lappalainen

Top man: Daniel Bodin Pain “In freestyle snowmobile, you learn to deal with it. What it’s really like “Snow is more forgiving than dirt, but you have to be able to handle a 200kg machine to do what I do. And I love doing what I do.” www.danielbodin.com

Los Angeles Sporting multi-hyphenate Travis Pastrana’s new challenge in 2011: tier two of NASCAR. Garth Milan 17


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For the deep-pocketed factory teams, the Dakar Rally is a brutal race. For privateers, it becomes an exercise in survival. One guy who knows it too well is Alfie Cox, SA’s legendary bike and car racer. A broken axle and chronic overheating kept his and co-driver Jürgen Schröder’s Nissan Navara down in 18th place in this year’s Car rankings, but mechanical issues were the least of their problems. “It’s the sleep deprivation that gets you,” says Cox. “We don’t sleep in hotels like the factory drivers, but bivouack next to our truck. Guys work on their cars throughout the night. There’s so much noise you just can’t sleep…” www.alfiecox.co.za

Oil change Zander Blom is among the vanguard of SA’s young artists. Known for his installation and photographic works, the 28-year-old from Joburg has turned his talents to oil and canvas. His painting ‘1.5 Untitled’ is an exploration of the news media. “It’s part Bacon and part space-age mutant alien,” says Blom. “I only started painting a year ago, and part of teaching myself has been to explore abstract icons like Frank Stella and Bacon. I lived in Pretoria before, and you can’t paint in Pretoria, so this work was part of my first steps in finding my own language.” Catch the next leap in Blom’s evolution at the Stevenson Gallery in Joburg, as part of a group show in April and a solo show in October. www.michaelstevenson.com

Guatemala City

We’ve all followed satnav to dead ends; Diego Ordonez does this for fun. Juan Jose Marroquin

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Peak performance: Stuart Bradburn demonstrates the perfect tuck position

THE INSIDE LINE How to blitz a downhill skateboard run, with SA’s former world champ Stuart Bradburn Tuck In “The aerodynamic tuck position is key, and to hold it, you need strong thigh muscles. I don’t do gym training; just long downhill runs in the weeks leading up to an event. On Chapman’s Peak, I’ll hold that tuck for up to seven minutes; in a contest, runs are only two or three minutes. Yoga also helps with balance and strength.” On the Straight and Narrow “Check the board’s wheel axles and bearings. Everything should be straight and secure, and the bearings clean. If you crash, you can pretty much throw the trucks away. A shorter wheelbase board is best on more technical, twisty courses, a longer one is better on straighter, high-speed courses.”

Mount Beauty

Corey Bohan hangs around at Red Bull Dirt Pipe, in Australia’s splendid Victoria countryside. Mark Watson

Stroll With It “Walk the course beforehand to check which lines to take and where good overtaking spots are. Rolling a tennis ball helps. You also need to see where the asphalt is smooth or rough, and where the bumps are.” Quiet Time “The night before a race, I meditate to get my head in the right space. I’ll visualise every bit of the run, from the push-off through to the finish. It’s like extra practice for me.” Second Best “Depending on the course, you might not want to be first off the line. If not, pretend to push off hard, then tuck in behind guys and use their slipstreams to overtake.” See Bradburn descend at www.youtube.com

Atlanta Hair-raising moves were in order at the Red Bull Non Stop Stomp stepping dance contest. Carlo Cruz

Words: Steve Smith. Photography: maindruphoto.com, Liam Lynch, Kolesky/Nikon/Red Bull Photofiles

Hardcore, then more


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Me And My Body

Oscar pistorius

He was born with a lower leg deformity, but he man they call ‘Blade Runner’ has his sights set on the Olympics. Obstructing that view: red wine, red meat and messing about on the river

FOCU S POCUS

I used to work with a sports psychologist, but as an athlete you need a focus that nobody can give or teach you: you either have it or you don’t. That focus, that drive, that hunger is what distinguishes athletes, especially in sprinting. You know that it’s going to hurt in the last 40 or 50m of a race, so you have to be completely focused to push through the pain.

words: Robert tighe. photogrpahy: getty images for BT

SHAKEN NOT STIRRED

If you pay attention to your diet, you can get what you need from the right foods. I don’t see the necessity for protein powders and supplements. Before training I make a shake that contains a bit of everything: coconut oil for fat, honey for glycogen and a superfruit-and-berr y complex for antioxidants. For 11 months of the year I don’t drink alcohol and watch what I eat, but when I have time off I’ll go away with family and friends and indulge. I like a glass of red wine, but the big things for me are crayfish and red meat. I’m a meat lover of note; red meat is one of the best things ever invented.

BOXIN G CLEVER

so I grew up doing My grandfather was a boxer, iovascular card t bes a lot of boxing. It’s the former world a is er train My is. e ther t workou drills but of lot a do champion boxer, so we plyometrics of lot a do also I g. rrin spa very little ause in bec ], cise exer [fast, rapid muscular h workload muc as put to e hav you g sprintin short period and on your body as you can in a I’m physically sick es etim Som y. awa t really blas but I prefer that to ing, train for half an hour after e given more. hav ld cou I ing feel y awa walking

TO

P HEAV Y Before I started running, I did a lot of rugby, water polo and wrestling, and I was big up top, with a lot of weight where I didn’t nee d it. Over the years my body shape has change d quite a bit. You don’t need big muscles in your arms and shoulders for running, but they do need to be ver y tight and ver y strong. In the first 30m of a race, you are driving with your arms; afte r that you use them to maintain mo mentum. There’s a saying in sprinti ng: “Your legs are led by your arm s.” ATH LETE’S FEET

cost about My carbon-fibre Cheetah prosthetics set for same the US$22,500 for a pair. I’ve used with nd arou ng playi I’m but , years four the last of running new ones. It’s like trying a new brand good fit or shoe, I guess: you’ll either get a very socket can the in ge not, but a millimetre chan rence at diffe res’ imet cent three or two mean a lot. out them test the bottom, so I have to

WIPEO

UT I’ve only fallen three or four times, but it isn’t pretty. It usually happens near the end of tra ining, when your focus can fade. I’v e hit the deck hard twice and got bad burns from the track. The doctor had to clean the stones and grit ou t of the cut with steel wool. It’s quite gross. SPEED BUMP I’ve been very lucky with injuries on the track, but I had a bad speedboat accident two years ago. We were playing around on a river and the sun was setting, and I didn’t see this concrete pier that was under the water: I ploughed straight into it. I broke seven bones in my face, my left arm and two ribs, and needed 178 stitches. More about the ‘fastest man on no legs’ at www.oscarpistorius.com

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Trojan on wheels: Nick de Wit struts his stuff at the Red Bull X-Fighters jam in Turkey

Flying on two wheels

Nick de Wit

Not content with being South Africa’s leading freestyle motocross star, daredevil Nick de Wit is out to conquer the world by developing the sport’s newest death-defying trick

Name Nick de Wit Born August 22, 1981 Hometown Muldersdrift, South Africa Flipping Great In the early 2000s, De Wit became the first non-American to regularly pull off backflips Double Jeopardy “The double backflip is do or die if you don’t get it right. The risks are so high and it can go wrong so easily that it’s almost not worth it”

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Nick de Wit is sick – the good kind. In fact, to his friends and South African motorsport fans, he’s ‘Sick’ Nick de Wit, one of the finest motorcyclists in the land who, at 29, has more than a dozen years’ experience in the saddle. Since 2002, the year he stopped racing motocross bikes and instead flipped them upside down (among other things), he’s been SA’s leading exponent of freestyle motocross (FMX). The tricks of his trade – leaps, flips, grabs and spins executed high above the dirt of ramps and tracks – are the most radical in motorsport. Done correctly, they’re spectacular. Introduce a new trick into the tight-knit world of FMX, and a six-figure reward isn’t uncommon. But get even the most basic move wrong and it could mean six weeks in hospital. There are plenty of sports where the difference between genius or disaster is measured in splitseconds and millimetres. In FMX, though, this gap is even smaller, because to advance the sport, the riders don’t shave times or achieve longer distances:

for them, success is to pull off ever more impressive tricks with even greater risk of injury each time. “Around 10 years ago, a backwards somersault on a full-sized FMX bike was the holy grail,” says de Wit. “Then people started to pull it off and that broke the mould. I did my first backflip in 2004 and it gave me an advantage. Other SA riders then had to play catch-up and add something new to it.” In the same year that he landed his first backflip, de Wit made his mark in international competition, claiming fifth spot at the IFMXF World Cup in Dresden, Germany. In 2005 and 2006, he won the South African FMX Championships, and in 2008 he competed in the Red Bull X-Fighters world tour. Travis Pastrana, the American FMX rider and multiple Red Bull X-Fighters champion, was among the first wave of riders to land a flip. At the 2006 X Games he racked the sport up several notches by executing a double backflip. Ever since, riders like de Wit have been trying to develop a new trick. “I have an FMX training park at home in Muldersdrift,” says de Wit of his base, which is just north-west of Johannesburg. “This is where I develop new stuff with the help of my foam pit – a hole in the ground packed with foam cubes. You might still get hurt, but it’s a lot more forgiving than the ground.” To take the blows, de Wit has to be in top shape. “I maintain a base level of fitness on my mountain bike,” he says. “I also swim a lot, focusing on my breathing. When you’re doing an intense run on the


bike, you have to make sure you’re not forgetting to breathe: that can make you tense and cause you to crash. I also do reflex training, plyometrics [rapid, short-burst muscular exercise] and some sprinting.” FMX has developed in the same way that most pro sports have in recent times, with an increasingly significant mental approach to training. “It’s all about imagining the scenario in your head,” says de Wit. “Once you visualise what you want to do, it feels like you’ve been doing it all week when it comes to the big day. “I did my first “When you watch those clips on YouTube, you backflip in only see the successes,” 2004 and it he explains. “You don’t see gave me an the mistakes. There are advantage. also the weeks of sitting on a couch waiting for a bone Other riders to heal. That’s the dark part. then had to I dislocated a knee and was add something out for six months with no new to it” money coming in, but in this sport we all accept it.” De Wit’s goal this year is to build on his growing reputation. There is also the possibility of introducing another rider on the Red Bull X-Fighters World Tour, which this year heads to Australia for the first time. De Wit also has his eye on performing in some of South Africa’s most special places. “We’ve been looking at Table Mountain for a while,” he says. “But it’s a still a case of speaking to the right people and getting permission. I’m keeping my other location ideas a secret, because it’s getting competitive. There are a lot of riders also hoping to find that perfect stage for their performances.” If practice really does make perfect in this sport, de Wit must be assured of getting what he wants. Check out ‘Sick’ Nick de Wit in action at www.redbull.com

De Wit has his eye on performing at a few of South Africa’s landmarks

hard & fast Top performers and winning ways from around the globe British road racer Chris Metcalfe (centre) took victory on home Tarmac at Red Bull Hill Chasers. The uphill race between multidiscipline cyclists was held at night in Bristol city centre.

Words: Paul Wilson. Photography: nathan gallagher/Red Bull Content Pool, Billabong, Wojtek Antonow, Daniel Grund/Red Bull Content Pool

Words: Neil Gardiner. Photography: Jörg Mitter/Red bull Content Pool, Joosep Martinson/Red Bull Content Pool

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The one-twothree at the Billabong Air & Style snowboard event in Innsbruck: Mark McMorris (centre, Canada), Peetu Piiroinen (left, Finland) and Werni Stock (right, Austria).

In Estonia, the best on BMX and ’boards met for Simpel Session 2011. Ryan Sheckler (USA) won on four wheels; Canadian Drew Bezanson (above) on two.

Kyle Croxall laid down the gauntlet for Canada with a decisive win at the Red Bull Crashed Ice icecross downhill season-opener in Munich.

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Kit Evolution

Game On

From top toy to big business to the centre of home entertainment, video games have come far in a relatively short space of time

There had been home video games systems available for several years before the Atari 2600 was unveiled in the USA in 1977. But those old boxes, with their black-and-white bat-and-ball games, were rapidly forgotten when Atari popularised the separation of the hardware and the software: you bought the console first, and the games came 22

separately. It was a rapid and spectacular success; 1980 was the breakthrough year, what with the introduction of the Space Invaders cartridge and the much-loved wood veneer console (above), and a full European launch. Video games were established culturally and commercially, and games including Pole Position (above)

and Asteroids sold in the millions. Then, in 1983, an overcrowded US games market crashed and Nintendo brought out its first home system, Super Mario and all. Atari was done for, but the brand, having changed hands several times, survives – as do fond memories of its golden age. www.atari.com

photography: Kurt Keinrath

Wooden It Be Nice atari 2600, 1980


Slim Pickings Sony PlayStation 3, 2009 The PS3 is at the vanguard of video gaming’s so-called seventh generation (along with the Microsoft’s Xbox 360 and the Nintendo Wii; the Atari 2600 headed up the second generation). Released in 2006, and thinned out in 2009 for the Slim version (above), it would not exist had Sony’s original PlayStation, which

was unveiled in 1994, not taken video gaming out of the bedrooms of teenage boys and into the world’s lounges and cultural consciousness. A new game can make more money on its first day of release than a Hollywood blockbuster, while some cost just as much to make. PS3, with games such as Gran Turismo 5 (above),

plus an online games network, Blu-ray player and PlayStation Move motionsensor controller, is as far removed from the Atari 2600 as a Stone Age hand axe is from a Swiss Army knife. But for all its tech, the PS3, and its kindred machines, does something fundamental: it lets us play. www.playstation.com

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b u l l e va r d

metronomy

Live favourites Metronomy are set to hit the big time with third album, The English Riviera. Piers Martin catches up with the London-based quartet as their UK tour begins

“ Because I write the songs, there are never any artistic difficulties in the band. So we have a nice time – there’s no bad blood”

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As the first full moon of 2011 rises over Manchester, Joseph Mount of Metronomy is sitting in the tour van. It’s parked behind The Deaf Institute, venue for the first night of the band’s UK tour. He’s thinking about the prospect of two weeks on the road. “There are some great service stations out there,” says Mount, who at 28 is a tour veteran. “And I’ll t ell you what’s rescued touring in England – Marks & Spencer’s Simply Food stores. A nice salad is what you want when you’re out on tour.” Metronomy, you’d correctly surmise, do not share Mötley Crüe’s appetite for excess. They are a mild-mannered art-rock outfit whose appeal lies in Mount’s songwriting. The synth-pop of singles My Heart Rate Rapid and A Thing For Me, coupled with a stupidly entertaining live show has made them festival favourites with a fanatical following. Mount has been the composer and producer since starting Metronomy more than 10 years ago while living in the Devon town of Dartington. When he released his first album in 2006, the lo-fi Pip Paine (Pay The £5,000 You Owe), playing live was not a big part of the plan. “Back then, I wouldn’t have thought I’d be spending most of my time touring in a band. I wasn’t intending on singing live either,” he says. Needs must, however, and for gigs, this line-up of lead vocalist Mount, who also plays guitar and keyboards, Anna Prior on drums, bassist Gbenga

Metronomy: The English Riviera is out on April 11 (Because Music); tour dates, videos, free downloads and blog from www.metronomy.co.uk

Joseph Mount on stage complete with signature lit-up disc

Photography: James Pearson-Howes

In profile

Adelekan, and Mount’s cousin Oscar Cash on keyboards and saxophone, came together in 2009. Although Metronomy is Mount’s baby, the four are firm friends. “Because I write the songs, there are never any artistic difficulties in the band,” he says. “So we have a nice time – there’s no bad blood.” After the full-bodied DIY disco of 2009’s breakthrough album, Nights Out, Mount relished the chance to use a proper studio for the first time. In Wapping’s Smokehouse Studios he fleshed out a homage to teenage summers spent driving to sun-kissed beaches around the seaside towns of Torquay, Paignton and Brixham. While Muse may hail from nearby Teignmouth, the area is not a hotbed of rock talent; indeed, wealthy old rockers go there to retire. “This record is reimagining that part of Devon as this happening place like LA where there’s a strong youth culture and musical heritage,” Mount says. “The songs have a polished, laid-back, groovy feel.” Inside The Deaf Institute, a packed house sees Metronomy blast off with Love Underlined. Despite first-night nerves, they’re well-drilled and in fine form, fresh from a string of Australian shows. Holiday and Not Made For Love are greeted like old favourites by the crowd, who explode with delight when the white discs strapped to each member’s chest light up in unison. Designed by Cash, this rig is simple but effective, not unlike Mount’s songs. In the dressing room after the show, the band are in good spirits. “I think it was nerve-racking,” says Mount, opening a beer. Adelekan disagrees: “It was like a Daft Punk gig played by the Eagles,” he smiles. Although the band have a new album to promote, none of the songs played from it were introduced by Mount. There’s a reason for that, he explains. “The general consensus is that if you say, ‘This is a new one’, then you’re an idiot. It’s like you’re making an excuse for the quality of the song.” With that, they head to the tour van and back to their hotel – a Radisson this time, something of a step up from Travelodge. Metronomy have shows booked from now until the end of 2011. The service stations of Europe better stock up on salads…


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New F1 season, new car: world champion Sebastian Vettel puts the Red Bull Racing RB7, complete with go-faster rear wing, through its paces during testing


b u l l e va r d

Winning Formula

Wing Commands

In F1, the newly adjustable rear wing should lead to more overtaking. The scientists know why, but will the drivers like the new moves?

Words: Dr Martin Apolin, Anthony Rowlinson. photography: getty images/red bull content pool. illustration: mandy fischer

The Driver “I guess all the teams will be electing to use the new adjustable rear wing this season,” says Mark Webber, Red Bull Racing driver, “as it’ll be a pretty powerful thing in terms of lap times. “The [governing body] FIA will allow us to activate the wings on the straight, to try to line someone up for a passing move. Midway down the straight, you can line someone up earlier, and certain drivers might not even try to defend against that because the speed differential could be so high you might just let them go. But if it’s a little bit later, you might see some pretty aggressive blocking moves, with a big discrepancy in top speeds as a result. It’s going to be very interesting to see how it plays out.” The Driving Forces “If you look at the science behind the adjustable wing,” says Dr Martin Apolin, “we will see that could be one of the defining rule changes for the 2011 F1 season. Work (W) is force (F) times distance (d) thus W = Fd. Power (P) is work per unit of time, thus P = W/t. And speed (v) is distance over time, thus v = d/t. If we combine these formulas, we get F = P/v. “But how fast can a car go? When accelerating, air resistance increases, and with it the ‘slowing-down force’ on the car. This force opposes the motion of the car: Fd = ½ ρ cd Av² where ρ is the air density, cd the air drag coefficient, and A the reference area, or more plainly, the shadow area. The highest speed is reached when Fd is exactly equal to the driving force of the car. “If we set the two formulas equal to one another and solve for v, then we get the maximum speed at which the accelerating and opposing forces are balanced: vmax =

³

√ ρ2Pc A d

“Now we can estimate vmax. The output of an F1 car is about 800hp (589kW). The Kinetic Energy Recovery System, KERS, adds 60hp (44kW); air density is 1.2kg/m3. Air drag coefficient and shadow area are trickier to determine: they are closely guarded F1 secrets. The air drag coefficient for an aerodynamic streetcar is less than 0.3; we estimate 1 for an F1 car because of its open wheels, air turbulence, and the rear wing. The rear wing creates a lot of downforce, thus keeping the cars on the ground, especially when cornering. With an estimate of 1.3m2 for shadow area, we get a max speed of 93m/s (360kph). “If an extra 10hp could be squeezed out of the motor, the max speed would only be increased by 1.3kph. This is hardly worth the effort. Better would be to adjust the rear wing. Assuming that the shadow area doesn’t change, if the cd -value is reduced only to 0.95, the max speed will increase by 5.8kph: more than five times the increase of that 10hp power increase. This should allow for more overtaking... and physics makes it all possible.” Follow Webber and team-mate Sebastian Vettel at www.redbullracing.com

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B u l l e va r d

Lucky Numbers

crazes

Fad’ll do nicely: from out of nowhere, they captured the public imagination like nothing else… Until the next thing came along

In 1960, a little-known singer called Chubby Checker (right) released a cover of The Twist by Hank Ballard and the Moonlighters, and the greatest dance craze of all time began. The Beatles and Sam Cooke sang about it, and everyone who has ever set foot on a dancefloor, from teens of the ’60s to your uncle at a wedding last year, has twisted a night away. In 1988, 28 years later, The Fat Boys released a cover of The Twist featuring Checker and shot to No 1 once again.

4

During Christmas and New Year 2009-2010, there was nothing more the world wanted to see than blue-skinned aliens fighting mankind in Avatar. Seeing all that happen in 3D was one of the major reasons that the film became the highest-grossing box-office movie ever. But in South Korea, they went one better. Selected Seoul cinemas screened the movie in 4D, pumping wind, smoke, water and smells (of burning forests or tyres) into auditoriums equipped with moving seats.

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The miniskirt has been around since ancient Greek military uniform designers had their budgets cut, but it only became a fashion phenomenon in 1965 when London-based designer Mary Quant (right) unveiled her shortest-yet skirt and took the above-the-knee trend past its tipping point. The miniskirt range goes from 10cm below the buttocks to 20cm below the waist. Go longer than that and you’re in midi or maxi territory. Anything above that and you’re asking for a dressing down in the form of: “You’re not going out like that, get back in this house right now young lady.”

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There have been several ‘bubbles’ in economic history, when the value of goods – such as dotcom businesses, railways or property – rises rapidly and greatly exceeds what they are intrinsically worth. But one thing is certain with bubbles: they pop. The first recorded instance of such a thing was in the 1630s, when tulips, new to the Netherlands, were valued so highly that 12 acres of land would be offered in exchange for a single bulb. Hippies take note: this was real flower power in action.

2,733

The Sony Walkman was developed in part because the company’s co-founder wanted to listen to opera during flights. On the first day of its Japan release in July 1979, it cost 33,000 yen. A lot of people paid up, and the way the human race engaged with music changed. Taking inflation into account, that 1979 cash could today buy an iPod Classic and two iPod Shuffles with change to spare. A C60 cassette held around 15 songs, and those Apple products hold around 41,000 songs. Thus, officially, the world is 2,733 times better than it was 31 years ago.

6.65 Seconds the world-record speedcuber needs to solve his Rubik’s Cube. Devised in 1974, more than 350 million have been sold since it was unleashed on the world in 1974, which makes the Rubik’s Cube the best-selling toy ever. It was the early ’80s when everyone wanted one, but as recently as 2008, 15 million cubes were sold worldwide. Even more recently, in January this year, 15-yearold Feliks Zemdegs set his remarkable record in Melbourne. The fast-fingered name is worth a few points on the Scrabble board, too. Find the next big idea at www.ted.com

Words: Paul Wilson. Photography: getty images (2), Rex Features (1), corbis (2)

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12


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saddin your le ba g

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za.redbulletin.com/print2.0 Drop in on this photoshoot

Print 2.0

Words: Ruth Morgan Photography: Alan Mahon

The elegance, power and beauty of cliff diving are subjects of wonder for the sport’s fans worldwide. We asked Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series champion Gary Hunt to reveal the secrets behind the four vital positions that help make up his killer moves

Action

SKY DIVE 12 world-class high divers


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7 locations around the world

1 winner



“this move is used to show a good style, rather than difficulty. it looks very graceful – chest out, arms in the ‘t’ position and the body in line, straight. as long as your hips and bottom are tucked in, you can arch your back as much as you like – a lot of it is personal preference. if you’re rotating backwards, you’ll be in a real arch position as you look at the water. Forwards it’s not so arched as your head is more tucked in. there are two sides to diving, the action-packed dives with high degrees of difficulty, and the graceful dives like this, which demand real attention to detail. it’s great to have both in the competitions to show all sides of the sport. the graceful dives come with lower difficulty tariffs, so most divers will use these in the early rounds and build up. i actually find it easier to do lots of spinning and twisting, so i’m busy in the air. with the graceful dives i find i have time to make silly mistakes. it’s a different mindset. with the more difficult dives you always have to think about where you are in the air, what position you next have to change into. with the easier dives you have more time to think about your form and getting all the little things perfect. the ideal is pointed toes, legs together and straight. the take-off needs to be the correct distance from the board: that’s important. also, if you’ve got splayed fingers it’s going to look a bit off, so fingers together, your hands uncupped. the straight, done well, shows this good form, and it’s a crowdpleaser – like seeing a flying swan.”

#1 STRAIGHT

SPEED: 80 ~ 96KPh


34 the shape of the twist is always the same. You start off with your arms out wide, then gradually bring them in and wrap them around yourself. it’s that motion of bringing your arms in that creates the twist. You’re like a corkscrew: your right arm comes in front of you and your left arm goes around behind you and that rotation, as you’re bringing your arms in, speeds up the movement, so you keep your arms tucked in tight. then, when you want to come out, you do exactly the opposite – bring your arms out until eventually they’re in the ‘t’ position. and that’s where you completely stop and go into another move. the difficulty of a dive depends on the mix of somersaults and twists you can fit into it – if you created a dive of five somersaults and half a twist, it wouldn’t be as high a degree of difficulty as a dive that contained a similar number of both moves, so that’s the way to build your scoring potential: not to try the dive with the most twists possible, or the most somersaults, but a mix. currently, the sport’s most difficult dive – which i perform – contains four twists and three somersaults. that’s a lot of twists, and you don’t rotate that fast while in the position, as your body’s very long, which slows you down, so i try to get them out of the way as soon as possible, then use the pike shape to speed me into the somersaults. it always helps to twist fast, to get it finished.

#2 TWIST


35 FREEFALL: 3 seconds


this is a move we use a lot. the pike is like a connecting move, if you like, to get from twists to somersaults or vice versa within a dive. You’re folding your body in two, basically. You wrap your arms around the back of your legs – people do it in different ways. some people grab their hands behind their legs and pull them in, some people just close their arms in a cross behind them, which is what i do. if you do a pike with bent legs you get marks taken off. it’s a very useful, practical position. i hold the record for the most difficult dive in the sport, the back quad twisting triple, and without the pike it just wouldn’t have worked. the dive requires three somersaults and four twists, which is a huge amount to fit in the couple of seconds we’re in the air. i get all the twists done first, and then the somersaults, so i bring my body down after i’ve finished twisting and, as i grab my legs, i pull my body into the pike position and that accelerates me. if i was coming out of the twist and trying to go into a straight somersault, it would just slowly die, and i’d probably get one somersault in and that’s it. the action of pulling my legs with that force gives me the momentum to continue rotating and fit more into the dive – and it paid off in the end. the first time i tried it was in the training session before a competition, and it felt a little bit crazy – i had so much to do in the air. But last year i became a lot more consistent with it and now, with a good take-off, the dive just happens. it comes to me naturally.

#3 PIKE


37

DROP: 26 Metres


“in diving, a ‘barani’ means a forward somersault with a half twist. it’s a gymnastic term that has always been part of my vocabulary, so i’d need to log on to wikipedia for its origins. [The Red Bulletin does just this and discovers that it’s named after italian circus acrobat alfonso Baroni who first performed it around 1881.] it’s a fundamental move. as cliff divers, we’re accelerating from heights of anything up to 28m, building up speeds of 56mph in around 2.5 seconds, and at that speed the water feels like concrete. we have to enter feet-first as the head can’t take the impact, and the barani really helps you get a good entry into the water. as you’re spinning forward in a final somersault, you can see the water for a time, but if you continue you’ll rotate to a point where you can’t. so then you’ll introduce a barani, because the half-twist flips your line of vision so you can see the water again. if you’re spinning backwards, you can just do a back somersault and, when you see the water, open out and land. But almost all of the dives we do are

#4 BARANI

spinning forwards, so the barani is essential to allow us to see the water and make any adjustments. without it, the dive has what’s known as a blind entry, which comes with a bigger risk. all my dives include a barani – and if something goes even slightly wrong, the results can be painful! last year at the red Bull cliff diving world series round in italy i tried out a difficult new dive, which required a running take-off to give me enough momentum to fit in all the moves. no cliff diver had tried that before. But my run-up was too slow, so i didn’t jump high enough or spin fast enough and, if you’re playing around with the very difficult moves, you need every second and every inch of space to fit it in, so that little slip-up at the start changed everything. i didn’t have enough time to complete the barani. i wasn’t fully straight, so my chest hit the water flat. when i came up i was struggling to breathe and i got whiplash in my neck from the force of the impact. it was like being in a car crash. But i’m going to try it again this year.” The Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series starts on March 12 at Rapa Nui, Chile. See page 84 for further details

IMPACT: 96 ~ 0KPh in one second and 3M oF water


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Date of Birth: June 11, 1984 Height: 1.75m weight: 66kg Honours 2010: red Bull cliff diving world series champion, after standing on the podium for each of the six stops, four times on the top step 2009: second in the red Bull cliff diving world series after losing to nine-times world champion orlando duque by the narrowest of margins 2008: third in the high diving world cup 2006: Bronze medal in the commonwealth games 10m synchro Pushing the limits: came up with and successfully executed the most difficult dive in the history of the sport, the triple Quad, a back quadruple somersault twisting triple, in 2009. it is the first dive to be specifically created for cliff diving and comes with a difficulty level of 6.3. in 2010 hunt achieved another first, the sport’s first-ever running take-off to complete a two-and-a-half twisting quad

GARY HUNT




Action

F1 to one

Drive Talkin’ When we got new F1 world champion Sebastian Vettel together with triple-champ Niki Lauda, they didn’t want for conversation: the magic ‘number one’, Stone-Age testing, simulators, crazy early days and the heady excitement of the last days before the season. Phew! We could hardly get a word in edgeways… Words: Herbert Völker Photography: Jürgen Skarwan

Niki Lauda, 62, took the F1 title in 1975 and 1977 (with Ferrari) as well as 1984 (McLaren). He started in 171 races and won 25. Sebastian Vettel, 23, has so far driven 62 races and won 10. He became F1 champion for the first time in 2010

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Print 2.0

za.redbulletin.com/print2.0 More Vettel and Lauda, plus get a look at the new Red Bull Racing car


R Action

ed bulletin: Niki, if you were to put your name into an internet search engine, how many results do you think would come up? niki lauda: No idea, I’ve never tried. red bulletin: Take a guess… lauda: I couldn’t say. Maybe 5,000? red bulletin: Nope, not even close. Three million. And you, Sebastian, how many do you think you’d have? sebastian vettel: Well, if he has three million, then I reckon I should get four million (laughs). red bulletin: Up to 18 million. But search engines have their good and bad days, so next time they might spit out a few million less... vettel: More importantly, who has more world championship titles? It’s three to one for Niki at the moment, but I still have a little time. lauda: Now where was I when I was Sebastian’s age? [He turns to the all-knowing interviewer…] red bulletin: At the age of 23 you were racing for March, driving a real lemon, with zero points. Then you went to BRM, drove an even worse lemon, and finished 17th in the World Championship. Still, you obviously caught the eye of Mr Enzo Ferrari, who signed you up for the following season. And then things took off. vettel: Niki, for three years you raced with ‘number one’ on your car [Lauda won the world title in 1975, 1977 and 1984]. For me, it’s a first. Did you find being number one an asset or a burden? lauda: There’s no better way to start a season. You arrive as number one and everyone thinks: here comes the best. So they have to chase you if they want it for themselves. I regard the number one as a positive. How can you be in any doubt? vettel: I’m not in doubt. I just don’t want to have the feeling, ‘If it worked last year, then it’ll work again this year.’ That shouldn’t be what the number represents. If I just do what I did last season then it’ll surely go wrong. Last year was just that: last year. Tick it off. At the first race we 44

F1 to one

“ At the first race we all start from zero, whether I have number one on the car or 24 or 25. It’s going to be very tough again” F1 stars Sebastian Vettel

Then and now:

all start from zero, regardless of whether I have number one on the car or 24 or 25 – we all start with the same points tally. We’ve got 20 races this season, so the year is very long. And it’s going to be very tough again. I have to improve to make sure I retain number one. lauda: You may be right, but, subconsciously, I think this number one gives you an advantage over your team-mate. I reckon it’s going to be very difficult for Mark Webber to start all over again from scratch and to make a charge from number two. Somehow, you end up perceiving this number as a symbol. red bulletin: By the way, Sebastian, did you hold it against Niki that before the end of last season he wrote you off for the title? He said: “He has no chance left. Even if Vettel does win races, the others won’t disappear into thin air.” lauda: But let me just say that over the entire season I definitely believed in Sebastian. However, I couldn’t see how it would work out in the end. I didn’t have the brave Renault driver on my list [Vitaly Petrov standing up to Fernando Alonso in Abu Dhabi to deny him the title], nor did I think Ferrari would blow it. Clearly this was my mistake! vettel: I didn’t even realise you’d given up on me. I always had faith in myself, but Niki has every right to have another opinion. He’s well known for being opinionated and outspoken, and I think a lot of people appreciate that. red bulletin: Let’s talk about technology. Niki, you are regarded as the first Formula One driver to study the technical abilities of the car. In

Lauda talks tactics with Brabham team boss Bernie Ecclestone before the 1978 Monaco GP

Vettel on Schumacher: “Michael doesn’t have to prove anything to anyone”

Vettel puts the Red Bull Racing simulator to the test as he trains for the 2011 F1 season


Above: Vettel powers around Bahrain International Circuit (2009) Left: Lauda in action shortly before suffering lifethreatening injuries at the infamous 1976 German Grand Prix. “Back then you had to expect that at the end of the season two F1 drivers would no longer be alive,” he tells The Red Bulletin. Below: Lauda’s close friend James Hunt in 1976 with his then fiancé, Suzy Miller

McLaren team-mates Alain Prost and Lauda went head to head for the F1 title in 1984

Lauda goes through testing with Ferrari mechanic Ermanno Cuoghi

additional PHOTOGRAPHY: Getty Images (2), Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool (2), imago (1), Schlegelmilch Photography (3)

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a sense, it was the Stone Age when you compare it to the resources of today… lauda: Our problem was that we received no data from the car – there was no form of data recording. So all our test results came from the seat of my pants, or my feeling, which basically means the same thing. There were plenty of set-up possibilities with the car, such as the suspension or the wings, but first of all you had to find a system for it all and put in all kinds of test laps until the stopwatch gave you something that was nearing a reliable interpretation of our ‘feelings’ at the time. vettel: You couldn’t even imagine a simulator back then, could you? lauda: That would have been pure science fiction. Sebastian, just how reliant are you on the simulator? I hear that some drivers feel nauseous when using it. Apparently it happens to a lot of pilots in flight simulators, too. vettel: In the simulator you have a huge screen in front of you and it’s just like sitting in a real car. The whole car jerks to imitate every movement, but if it’s not 100 per cent in sync with the real thing or if there’s a slight lag, or if it moves a little too much or tilts in the wrong way, then you start feeling queasy. I’m more used to it now, though. lauda: How important is the simulator for improving driving technique? vettel: We use it a lot before the season kicks off, because real testing is so limited. For us, it’s the only chance to get into our rhythm as far as the motion sequence goes – we also now have a few more buttons on the steering wheel. I think you can really learn with it. The sequencing is actually very similar to the real race track. The simulator is irreplaceable today, especially for familiarising yourself with a new track. It means that by the time you go out on the real circuit you know exactly what to do. You only need to do two or three laps, then after that you just have to iron out the creases. lauda: How does it help with the set-up? vettel: That depends on how good the simulator is. It depends on so many factors – how you squeeze the circuit into the simulator, if every bump is correct, the gradient and so on – if the car reacts like that in real life. When you change things like the anti-roll bar, making things a little harder, a little softer or changing the wing set-up, those things are usually spot-on. You can sort out the set-up in certain areas right there. lauda: But even the best simulator can’t reproduce the forces that actually 45


Action

F1 to one

“ You couldn’t even imagine a simulator when you were racing, could you, Niki?” Sebastian Vettel


“ That would have been pure science fiction. Our test results came from the seat of my pants� Niki Lauda

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F1 to one

impact on you in a real race. And it’s certainly not a fitness trainer… vettel: Sure, that’s definitely one significant difference to real life. But maybe that’s actually a good thing, otherwise we might as well just compete against each other in a simulator. red bulletin: Despite the technical advances, the media hype and money explosion, do you agree that the main difference in Formula One between today and the Lauda era (more than a quarter of a century ago) is the improvement in safety? lauda: I grew up in a time when cars were already capable of reaching speeds in excess of 298kph, sometimes clearing trees by just a matter of a few metres. Back then, you had to expect that at the end of the season two Formula One drivers would no longer be alive. Everyone who took part in this sport knew the conditions. So it was a case of, “Do I want to take this risk – yes or no?” Sure, we loved mastering the car and wanted to turn it into a job, despite the risks. So we tried to push the limits, but also allow for a couple of centimetres of air so that we stayed alive. Vettel grew up in another

“ Even when the air is thin, Michael Schumacher is one of the few who has the demeanour of a winner” Sebastian Vettel

world. Thank God that Formula One has developed into what it is today. vettel: It’s normal that every sport develops. As dangerous, for instance, as skiing is today, 40 years ago they didn’t even have safety fences. We don’t need to talk about how dangerous motorsport is today and we know that things can always happen, but at least we don’t need to constantly plan for the inherent threat to life. Imagine sitting at a drivers’ briefing, knowing that at the end of the season we could be two down – today, that would be unbearable. The mutual understanding of danger made an impact at that time and the drivers formed stronger bonds than they do today. But no one misses the feeling that such a small thing could cost a life – I’m thinking, for example, of Jochen Rindt in 1970. By today’s safety standards he would have simply stomped back to the pits after such a fluke crash. So even if today’s Formula One might seem sterile, and it’s unthinkable for drivers to have a beer on the night before the race, the sport’s essence hasn’t changed that much: to drive a car at the limit. Today, when we use up those few

Sebastian Vettel and team-mate Mark Webber with Red Bull Racing’s new car for the 2011 Formula One season. New regulations for this year are set to make things even more exciting: to aid overtaking, drivers will have the ability to control rear wings from the cockpit, but more importantly, there will also be the option of an extra speed boost courtesy of KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System), which turns waste heat energy from the car’s braking system into even more acceleration, from the push of a button on the steering wheel. Italian company Pirelli will also be the new tyre supplier for all the teams

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additional photography: Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool

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centimetres of air Niki speaks of and still there are no fatal consequences – well, thank God for that. But you shouldn’t ask for that mercy too often. Anyway, if you’re brushing against the edges too often you won’t be among the front-runners. red bulletin: Are there still good friendships in Formula One, as there seemed to be in Niki’s day? vettel: We’re a bunch of about 25 drivers, so basically it’s like a school class. There are some you like who are immediately on the same wavelength as you. Then there are some with whom you just don’t click, and obviously you don’t have much to do with each other. But to meet privately away from the track, to do stuff together – maybe go on holiday together as they sometimes did back then, well that doesn’t happen these days. You’re flat out, there’s no time – not even for yourself. Everyone concentrates on themselves in the team and you’re not aware of much else. red bulletin: Niki, did you have a close friend in Formula One? lauda: What is a friend? There’s always criticism that I have no friends. Why? Because you build a wall around yourself, because you’re constantly surrounded by pseudo-friends in public. Everyone wants to be your friend. This makes you wary. So to deflect this from the start I said: “I don’t have friends,” so that this ‘friend game’ stops. The guy I was closest to during my racing days was James Hunt [1976 World Champion]. He was really cool, you could have a good laugh with him and we used to enjoy a beer together. But that doesn’t mean you have to go on holiday together. red bulletin: When Jackie Stewart was racing, Jackie, Jochen Rindt and Piers Courage would rendezvous on a remote island and Bernie Ecclestone liked to join them… lauda: A holiday with Bernie… Sounds irresistible! Perhaps we should be talking about the future, where Michael Schumacher arrives in the nick of time. I read that Fernando Alonso says he fears Michael the most this year, provided the car’s right. Where does he get that idea from? Perhaps from Schumacher’s past, from his will and ability to win? I reckon you’re just as good, Sebastian. vettel: I think that Michael’s wealth of experience and his confidence obviously plays a role in what people think of him. People can say what they want, but when Michael pulls up on the grid he doesn’t have to prove a thing to anyone. He has fun doing it and has the confidence to be up the front and not let himself be

bullied by anyone. Even when the air is thin, he’s one of the few who has the demeanour of a winner. red bulletin: Sebastian, we have to ask this: who do you think will be your biggest rival this year? vettel: I can’t say. There are too many wild cards this year, from KERS [Kinetic Energy Recovery System] to the new Pirelli tyres, and how good the Ferrari team could be. But I’m feeling confident. red bulletin: Vettel and Red Bull Racing – are you inseparable? vettel: I feel very, very good at Red Bull Racing. It’s much more than me being in this Formula One team and being allowed to drive the car. I’ve been a part of the Red Bull family for a long time. And it really is a family – you feel at home here. Then when it’s topped off with a car in which I can win races and fight for the world championship, well, there’s no reason for me to change a thing. Anyway, before we stop, I have a question for Niki: we often hear that there were so many ‘pit babes’ in Formula One that the place was jumping. Sometimes I think it must have only been like that in the early days. You hear all

F1 to one

“ Imagine sitting at a drivers’ briefing, knowing that at the end of the season we could be two down – today that would be unbearable” Sebastian Vettel

these rumours, and they must have come from somewhere! Is it true that the boys in F1 were as rampant back then as we are led to believe? lauda: I can tell you the truth because it’s been said before – of course! Because of the risk-taking nature of our jobs, we lived our lives to the fullest and didn’t take things as seriously perhaps as we should have. We handled the stress differently so you didn’t particularly want to involve your long-term partner. The best example I can think of is a long while ago – 1984, the Portuguese GP. It was a title-decider between Alain Prost and I, but I only needed second place to win the title. My fitness guru, Willi Dungl, knew perfectly well what I was after and said to me: “Hey, there’s a blonde Italian lady running around down there looking all over the place for you.” Then Nelson Piquet came to me – he was always on the lookout for something new – and said the same thing. She was downstairs and very pretty. I walked over to her and asked her how she was. I took her out to dinner on Friday because I’m a gentleman. She then asked if she could go to dinner with me again on Saturday night. I told her no dinner, but she could come to my room between eight and 10 in the evening. Why? I told her that from 10 I had to sleep because I wanted to become world champion the following day. She said OK, and at 10 minutes to 10 she left my room. I slept like a log, but when I woke up the next morning I thought, “If there’s a God then I’ve lost the world championship today.” It was weighing on my conscience. My dear colleague, Prost, who was always chewing his nails – always very nervous – stood in the pits the next morning and grinned like a Cheshire cat. I asked him why he had such a stupid grin on his face. He said – can you imagine – that he had met up with Princess Stéphanie of Monaco the night before. I was so unbelievably relieved, because it meant we were equal in the eyes of God, and we could go racing. A couple of hours later I became world champion for the third time. In defence of the old guard, I can say that, since our day Formula One has become far more family-oriented. Now, the wives and children come along because, luckily, little or nothing happens. And the whole of Formula One has gone back to normal life. I bet it’s morally much better these days… But I can’t really say. The 2011 FIA Formula One season starts on March 13 in Bahrain: www.formula1.com; www.redbullracingcom; www.scuderiatororosso.com

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SOUTH AFRICAN AMERICaNS This is the little-known story of both the impact South African footballers have had on US football – and how in turn that American experience has shaped the game back home in Mzanzi Words: Nick Said and Mark Gleeson

Jomo Sono thrilling the crowds during the ’70s

photography: sunday times

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he world is getting smaller they say. This new millennium of instant communications has transformed the planet into the global village. Or not… well certainly not when it comes to South Africans playing football in the USA. Perhaps it’s our parochial attitude to the Mzanzi version of The Beautiful Game, but the SA media has never paid too much attention to its footballers plying their trade Stateside. Take Danleigh Borman for example. Since US professional football was rebooted with the formation of MLS (Major League Soccer) post the 1994 FIFA World Cup, a host of foreign stars have delighted fans there, including South Africa’s Borman. A utility player for the New York Red Bulls, he remains relatively unknown to our nation’s football fans. Their attention remains focused on local clubs like the Orlando Pirates, Jomo Cosmos and the mighty Kaizer Chiefs. And it will therefore no doubt surprise SA fans to know that Borman is in fact the 43rd South African to play in either the now-defunct North American Soccer League (NASL) of the ’70s and ’80s, or its new incarnation, the MLS. It’s a somewhat ironic state of affairs, for with some of our footballing giants having played in America, US football has in fact shaped the South African game as it is today – Chiefs, Pirates and Cosmos all have their origins far over the Atlantic. This, then, is the story of five South African footballers who not only paved the way for the likes of Danleigh Borman, but who also brought their American experiences back home with them to develop professional football in South Africa. 51


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THE 43… The complete list of South Africans who have plied their trade in either the North American Soccer League (NASL) or Major League Soccer (MLS) Des Backos Dickie Backman Shaun Bartlett Herman Blaschke Danleigh Borman David Byrne Rodney Bush Lawrence Chelin Martin Cohen Mike Connell Richard Farrer Malcolm Filby Eddie Firmani Neathan Gibson Bruce Grobbelaar Bernard Hartze Richard Kellett Theophilus Khumalo Thabiso Khumalo Webster Lichaba Stuart Lilley Andries Maseko Ivan McKinley Kenneth Mokgojoa Lucas Moripe Kaizer Motaung Abednigo Ngcobo Nkosinathi Nhleko Patrick Ntsoelengoe Andrew Parkinson John Paskin Neill Roberts Nathan Sacks Brian Sebapole Phil Setshedi Derek Smethurst Davide Somma Jomo Sono Julius Sono Geoff Wegerle Roy Wegerle Steve Wegerle Roy Wiggemansen

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‘ACE’ NTSOELENGOE Ntsoelengoe was arguably the greatest South African footballer and, were it not for apartheid, would have surely been a globally recognised name. Without seeing him on the international stage, it’s tough to make a true assessment of his talent, but his ability was proven at least in part by his induction into the American National Soccer Hall of Fame, the only South African to be given such an honour. Ntsoelengoe spent more than a decade shuttling between the United States and South Africa, playing for Chiefs in the early stages of the domestic season, going off to the NASL, and then returning invariably just in time to help his Soweto club take an end-of-season trophy. “America taught me a lot about life and selfdiscipline,” said the midfield maestro. “It also gave me a lot of self-belief. I rubbed shoulders with some of football’s great names, and we went to places like Italy and England for pre-season warm-up games.” Ntsoelengoe started his NASL career with Miami Toros in 1973, before reappearing at the Denver Dynamos in 1975. The franchise moved to Minnesota the next year, becoming the Minnesota Kicks where he spent six successful seasons from ’76 to ’81, before moving on to Toronto Blizzard, where he played from ’82-84. In all, he featured in 271 matches, scoring an impressive 94 goals from midfield. At the time of his death of a heart attack in 2006, aged just 51, he was still giving back to the game, and was acting as coach of Kaizer Chiefs’ youth development side. JOMO SONO Sono’s skills in his home country are the stuff of legend and he would go on to play well beyond his prime. At the end, he was a rather rotund figure whose movement might have been severely limited by the size of his stomach, but even then it was clear his skills with the ball at his feet had not diminished. They were skills the young Sono learned at the feet of the master. In ’77 a young Sono was signed to the New York Cosmos, appearing mostly as an understudy to one of the legends of the game, Pelé. In ’78 he moved to the Colorado Caribous, a club that would later become Atlanta Chiefs, where he played alongside Kaizer Motaung. He completed his NASL career playing for the Toronto Blizzard from ’80-’82, and although he never quite reached the heights of Ntsoelengoe, he nevertheless earned great respect in the US for his abilities. On his return to SA in ’83, Sono rocked the apartheid establishment when he brazenly bought top white club Highlands Park in ’83, promptly firing coach Joe Frickleton, and renaming the club Jomo Cosmos. After retiring from playing he has had a successful coaching career with Cosmos, winning league titles and major cups through the ’80s and ’90s. Recent times, though, have been less kind and they currently compete in the second tier of South African football. He has also had three stints as coach of the national side, Bafana Bafana, leading them at the ’02 FIFA World Cup, where they narrowly missed out on a place in the second round. He remains

Ntsoelengoe lines up in the ’70s

a member of the South African Football Association’s technical committee, and has also played a technical advisor role for FIFA. KAIZER MOTAUNG In ’67, Motaung left the sprawling township of Soweto and its big club, Orlando Pirates, to play for Atlanta Chiefs where a sparkling first season made him one of the club’s most valued players. Like Ntsoelengoe, he remained part of the Pirates squad and when he was not playing in the USA, would return to perform for the Buccaneers. In ’69, though, that would change. Motaung started up his own side, to play friendly games with his pals, but with the imminent launch of black professional soccer in South Africa, Motaung saw an opportunity. Soon they had a name – Kaizer XI, they played exhibition matches and by January ’70 had formally broken away from Orlando Pirates. Taking the name Kaizer Chiefs, and a number of former Pirates players, SA’s biggest club was born. Motaung achieved enormous success. Kaizer Chiefs are easily the most successful, and most supported, club in the country. South Africa’s political structures in the ’70s and ’80s gave little outlet for black achievement, the stifling effects of apartheid keeping opportunity to a minimum and leaders and heroes on a tight leash. But Motaung’s success in the initial years of the NASL bucked this system, and the reports of his prowess in the US reached the black press, making him a hero to many. Somewhat surprisingly, Motaung never coached the Chiefs once his playing days were over, but he has become an astute administrator. He was a key figure for the SA Football Association, and more recently with SA’s professional league, the PSL, commercially, among the top domestic Leagues in the world. THEOPHILUS KHUMALO Theophilus ‘Doctor’ Khumalo remains one of South Africa’s most recognised sportsmen and a legend in the local game. He made his name at Kaizer Chiefs in the ’80s where, with an array of flashy tricks on the ball, he was the darling of local fans. While his antics would often leave his coaches tearing their hair out, he had great entertainment value. Khumalo was a skilful midfielder, lazy at times, but an excellent ball-player who would be a key figure for Bafana Bafana upon their reintroduction


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Above: “Ace” Ntsoelengoe (left) and Swallows Finky Sekete, BP Cup Final ’82. Right: Jomo Sono in his early days

photography: Avusa, Sowetan, Sunday Times (4)

to international football in ’92. He was close to 30 when he joined the Columbus Crew after helping South Africa lift the ’96 African Cup of Nations title, and though probably in his prime, could never quite match the success he enjoyed in South Africa. During a two-season spell with the Crew from ’96-97, Khumalo made 45 appearances, though by all accounts failed to set the MLS alight. His skills, it seemed, didn’t quite translate. So he returned to South Africa to finish his career with the Chiefs. He is now an under-17 coach at the club, and also a TV pundit covering the domestic PSL league. SHAUN BARTLETT Just 23 years old when he left home-town club Cape Town Spurs at the end of ’95, the striker enjoyed a fruitful first season for the Colorado Rapids. His second campaign though, was less successful and saw a move to the New York/New Jersey MetroStars, where he would end his MLS career. The issue with Bartlett’s tenure in the MLS seemed to be one of focus. His mind was on Europe – where he saw a far better career opportunity than the fledgling MLS. He got his wish, joining Swiss side FC Zurich in ’98, before playing for Charlton Athletic in the English Premiership. Here he was awarded with the Premier League Goal of the Season in 2000/’01 for a volley against Leicester City. There was much to celebrate in his international career too, as he won the ’96 African Cup of Nations with Bafana, again scoring a notable goal in the semi-final victory over Ghana. Before being overtaken by Benni McCarthy, Bartlett was Bafana Bafana’s leading goal scorer with 29 strikes in 74 appearances. Bartlett ended his career back home in South Africa at Kaizer Chiefs and then Bloemfontein Celtic, and today, aside from being a successful businessman, is also a respected TV pundit covering domestic games and European football. Keep up with South Africa’s teams at www.kaizerchiefs.com and www.safa.net

From top: Shaun Bartlett (right) and Christopher Perle; “Doctor” Khumalo; Stanley Matthews shakes Kaizer Motaung’s hand

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The sound of the cyborg Neil Harbisson can’t see colour, but the ‘eyeborg’ device attached to his head helps him hear colour. This is the story of a life led in an explosion of frequencies Words: Andreas Rottenschlager Photography: Dan Wilton

You have to get in tune with your own senses before confronting the holistic artwork that is Neil Harbisson. The best thing to do is take a little time to examine him from top to toe, or, rather, from toe to top. There are Harbisson’s bright-yellow socks protruding from shiny black shoes boldly combined with bright blue jeans hugging two skinny legs. Then let your gaze travel further, up past his red sweater. A narrow face with hypnotic blue eyes, his forehead covered with the dark blond strands of a pudding-bowl haircut. Then, protruding out of the back of his head is a flexible, black antenna with a camera attached to the end of it. The thing looks almost discreet compared to his clothes. Harbisson pulls the camera down over his left eye. “This is the eyeborg. I hear colours with it.” Then he looks down at his yellow socks. “I only wear clothes that sound good,” he says.

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za.redbulletin.com/print2.0 Enter the world of Neil Harbisson

Neil Harbisson with his eyeborg. The unit is able to play 360 tones in his head


“Hi, I’m Neil. I am colour-blind. Can you make something for me so that I can detect colour?”


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Neil Harbisson is a 28-year-old classically trained Montandon gave a lecture at Dartington. The pianist who has been colour-blind since birth. university graduate from Plymouth, aged just “It’s a sort of software malfunction,” he explains. 23, was invited to speak about cybernetics. “My eyes work, but my brain can’t process the Harbisson was in the auditorium. colour information.” To Harbisson, the waves at It was Montandon’s first lecture, but the young Mataró, his hometown in Catalonia, are grey. The technology expert spoke with confidence and his same thing with the lush green trees in front of performance captivated the attendees. Montandon the Basílica de Santa María which he so loves, or presented a jacket he had made himself with a motion at dusk when the sun bathes everything in tender sensor built in. He spoke of cyborgs. He stood on orange light. Achromatopsia is the technical the stage and said, “Modern technology can medical term for his total colour-blindness; he broaden our senses.” can only see a grey copy of our colourful world. Harbisson sat, listened and thought, “Wow”. But Harbisson can hear colours. He went to speak to Montandon after the The ‘eyeborg’ he wears on his head converts lecture. “Hi, I’m Neil. I’m colour-blind. Can you colours into sound. The camera mounted on make something for me so that I can detect the antenna is only the visible part of the device, colour?” the part that passers-by point at and the part that Montandon thought about it for a moment and makes the security staff at airports very nervous answered: “Sure.” indeed. The real control centre is hidden under The next day Harbisson opened his mail. It was his early Beatles-era haircut. a rough outline for the eyeborg. He wears a plastic ring on his head. On Colour-blind Neil Harbisson first heard colour the rear side of the ring is a 10cm2 chip with on March 22, 2004. He and Montandon were a 60MHz ARM7 processor. The chip transforms back in music studio 1 at Dartington College. the colour information the camera picks up into This time they were both on the stage. The sound by translating light frequencies into sound students in the audience were watching the frequencies. (The spectrum of 360 micro-notes prototype of the eyeborg being tested. Harbisson can pick up ranges from 349.23 to Harbisson put on headphones and Montandon 697.11Hz, corresponding to an octave from F to took the camera in his hand. He pointed the lens at near F on the music sheet.) If Harbisson directs a piece of paper with type on it: the Windows logo, the art of music the camera at a red rose, for example, he hears an to be precise. The first colour Harbisson heard From top: Neil visualises F (= 349.23Hz). If he looks down at his yellow was red. Then yellow, then blue, then green. piano pieces – this is socks, the eyeborg plays a G. Once the lecture was over, Harbisson grabbed Rachmaninov Concerto No 3; Microtone graphics of Nicole The sound signals are transmitted via two hold of the camera and headphones. He walked Kidman’s lips; Harbisson gets down the corridor. As he was walking past mini loudspeakers which are located above inspiration, his latest piece is a noticeboard, he heard a familiar sound. He Harbisson’s temples and press down on his scalp. ‘The Sound of the Orange Tree’ They play the notes straight into his head via stood still. “This board is red,” he said. bone conduction. (Give a tuning fork a good strike “It was crazy and exciting at the same time,” and hold the handle to your skull. That’s what the world Harbisson recalls. “The eyeborg gave me a new sense of sounds like to Neil Harbisson.) perception. Within 15 minutes I could recognise and He hears the notes the whole time and his colour-sound distinguish four colours. I wandered around with the eyeborg perception interacts with his other senses. He can go from on until the battery went flat. Down the corridors, around the 12 to 18 hours, depending on the intensity of the colour, campus and then through the town. I wanted to listen to the but then the battery needs to be recharged. The eyeborg has walls of the houses. They were colourful.” a USB connection for that purpose. If Harbisson is out and Harbisson decided to have the eyeborg fitted onto his head about and the notes get quieter, he goes to McDonald’s, orders permanently. The first model looked like a pair of headphones a coffee and plugs himself in. He wears the eyeborg 24 hours with a cheap webcam stuck on top. “People would laugh at me a day – in bed and even in the shower. When he’s sleeping when they saw me with this thing on my head. But over time it’s silent, as the eyeborg doesn’t detect black, while in the the feeling that I was ridiculous went away. Now I don’t care shower he hides the chip with clingfilm and washes his hair what other people think of me,” he says. separately from the rest of his body. The parish priest of Mataró, who came to see Harbisson one “I don’t feel excluded any more now that I can hear and day, was one of those most concerned. He had a theological distinguish colours,” he says. To start with, I had a five-week objection, on the grounds that God had not envisaged men headache because of the notes. But then my brain got used to it.” wearing eyeborgs. He should switch off the thing and accept his colour-blindness. But for Harbisson, the eyeborg is part Harbisson’s perception of the world changed in October 2003. of his body – an extra sense that compensates for a biological At the time he was studying Music Composition at Dartington shortcoming. There were soon problems, however, due to College of Arts in south-west England. On October 31, Adam Harbisson’s love of travel. In the post-9/11 world, bits of 57


Kidman: “Is this a joke?” Harbisson: “No, I want to work out the sound frequencies in your face” Kidman: “So, how do I sound?”


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technology strapped to your head give grounds the fans and signing autographs in Leicester for suspicion. Especially at airports. And even Square. She also noticed the eyeborg straight away. more especially when they emit funny noises. Kidman: “Are you filming me?” When Harbisson went to renew his British Harbisson: “No, I’m listening to the colours passport in 2004 – he has dual nationality – he in your face.” sent a photo of himself wearing the eyeborg. He had Kidman: “Is this some kind of a joke?” shoulder-length hair and a black, barely noticeable Harbisson: “No, I want to work out the sound device on his head. The passport office rejected frequencies in your face.” the photograph. “No electronic equipment in the Kidman: “OK, so how do I sound?” photograph,” they explained. Harbisson: “…red.” Harbisson wrote to his doctor. And to Adam Kidman: (dazzling smile). Montandon. Montandon and his doctor wrote to Harbisson had to force his way past two the passport office. Harbisson’s doctor argued bodyguards at the rear exit to the Palau de la that his patient felt physically unwell without the Música in Barcelona in order to get close to eyeborg and that it was important for his health Woody Allen in March 2010. Allen was holding and Montandon explained the technical background. his beloved clarinet when Harbisson spoke to him. And Harbisson won the fight. His current He told Allen he’d like to make a sound portrait of passport photo shows him wearing the eyeborg his face. The master director gave Harbisson his answer as part of his body. The document confirms his in an incomprehensible murmur. status as a cyborg, a person who uses cybernetic “I had to explain it to him in greater detail to technology to expand his physical senses. start with,” Harbisson reveals. “Then he turned Harbisson explains: “The eyeborg his face towards me. He looked a little ill at ease software works in conjunction with my brain. when I examined him with the eyeborg.” If I move my head to the left, the eyeborg Woody Allen’s piercing lips are extraordinary, responds to my movement and I hear the Harbisson explains. They are an F. colours on my left. That’s what distinguishes You can hear all of Harbisson’s sound portraits the eyeborg from something like an MP3-player, on YouTube (“Sound Portraits by Neil Harbisson”). which is just an instrument that plays music.” On the first hearing you notice straight away This colour-sound perception turned that Nicole Kidman’s face chord sounds more the science bit Harbisson’s brain into a testing ground for harmonious than that of Prince Charles. Harbisson From top: An earlier eyeborg cybernetic art. Thanks to his musical ear, thinks that’s down to her turquoise eyes. from 2004; Neil modelling Harbisson is able to do more than just recognise the 2011 version; the Sonochromatic colour wheel colours using sound. He can also translate sound “To be or not to be a cyborg” appears on a screen which matches 360 different back into colour. The stairway of his childhood in a conference room at the Museu Marítim in tones to the same number home in Mataró is decorated with visual Barcelona. Neil Harbisson, the cyborg-artist who of colours symphonies he painted himself: the first hundred dresses like a dandy, is giving a talk about his life notes of Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, represented – 28 years compressed into 18 minutes. “It’s no by colourful oblongs with the first note in the middle. It is an use telling a colour-blind person that the Red Cross station is acute way to map classical music. behind the yellow house,” Harbisson explains. Colourful slides “Mozart’s mainly yellow,” Harbisson explains. “Lady Gaga dart across the screen: colour scales, Harbisson as a comic sounds deep pink.” character, the Woody Allen photo. His sound portraits of famous people show just how Then the next image appears: “Cyborg Foundation” it says. exciting a cyborg’s understanding of art can be. Since 2005, It’s Harbisson’s big project for 2011. he’s been scanning his subjects’ eyes, hair, lips and skin colour “We want to make our expertise available to people and working the notes into a chord. The first person he who want to broaden their senses cybernetically,” he says. experimented on was the heir to the British throne, Prince The Cyborg Foundation, a small office on the TecnoCampus Charles, who visited Dartington College in 2005. in Mataró, is designated to become a sort of information “He noticed my electronic eye. I politely asked him if centre. The TecnoCampus is an extensive research park with I could listen to his face,” Harbisson explains. Prince Charles a sea view, computer laboratories and other scientific facilities. was fascinated and stood still while Harbisson scanned his Harbisson and his colleague Moon Ribas are the go-to people face with the camera. Once that was done, they shook hands. there. “Blind people can use the eyeborg, as can people with “Amazing what people can do today,” Prince Charles exclaimed achromatopsia,” explains Harbisson. “We’re helping design before he carried on his way. and produce new eyeborg devices.” Harbisson’s analysis? “Charles’s lips sounded like a high E. Could he give his project a slogan? But his hair was almost inaudible.” “Yes: ‘The world needs more cyborgs – call us’.” To read more about Neil’s projects and see his portfolio of work, log on to: Two years on, London in 2007, Nicole Kidman walked in www.neilharbisson.com; www.cyborgfoundation.com front of Harbisson’s lens as she was making her way through 59


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H I P - H O P H E AV y W EI G H T Given South Africa’s turbulent history, it’s taken some inspirational people to not only change its course, but also to heal and build from the rifts. Simply put, hip-hop DJ Ready D is one of them... Words: Steve Smith Photography: Craig Kolesky

“Passion.” An overused word, isn’t it? It’s a quality claimed so often by so many that it has sashayed into the realm of cliché. Yes, yes, you’re passionate about what you do. Aren’t we all? Pass the peanuts. However, when faced with a real example of this character trait, one tends to put down one’s salted snack pretty smartly. Take the guy currently hunched over the turntables in front of us. He clearly has this character trait. A lot of it. And it’s a little disconcerting, to be honest. We’d arranged to interview Ready D at The Scratch Lab – a small shopfront in a small shopping mall on the outskirts of Cape Town. It usually functions as a DJ training facility run by D and fellow Beat Bangaz crew, E-20 & DJ Azuhl… at the moment though, it’s hosting a one-man exhibition in the art of turntablism. Perhaps forgetting our interview/photograph arrangement, D is on the decks scratching, mixing and chopping up beats. It’s like he can’t help himself. Working with two Technics SL 1200 vinyl decks, two Pioneer CDJ 2000 CD decks, and a Pioneer DJM-909 mixer, his 60


Still searching for that perfect beat‌ Ready D hard at work on the TV show Mzanzi Ridez


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hands are a blur – twiddling knobs, flicking fader controls, tweaking pitch levels, and squeaking vinyl. This is a man who, with his legendary hip-hop crew Prophets of Da City (POC), has not only played at both Nelson Mandela and Thabo Mbeki’s presidential inauguration ceremonies, but also toured the world. You’d have thought, then, that after 30 years behind the decks, his desire to be behind them all the time might have faded a little. “I was just messing around there,” he says, finally. “Get your video cameras rolling, I’ll lay down a proper session for you now.” Clearly not. To understand something about the force – or that word “passion” again – that drives D, we need to spin the vinyl back three decades to that dark stain in South African history. These were formative years for D – a time in his life where a series of events would alter his fate and place POC among the vanguard of those artists and musicians pushing for social and political change in South Africa.

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t’s 1979 and a young Deon Daniels – as D’s mom knows him – is witnessing his family being forcefully removed from District Six. A so-called ‘coloured’ community living in the shadow of Table Mountain, District Six was way too close to Cape Town’s city centre for the government’s liking. “It was a community dominated by music,” says D “and I always used to hang out with local DJs. Because of the government’s apartheid policies though, and the Group Areas act, we were among the families relocated to Lentegeur in Mitchell’s Plain.” ‘The Flats’, as this area is called, is a sandy, windswept plain that straddles the Cape Peninsula’s crooked finger. It was in this freshly-built ghetto that D would have his first encounters with hip-hop. From ’81-’87 he was deep into the B-Boy scene as well, getting involved in all the elements of hiphop – graffiti and scratching. “I didn’t even have a mixer back in those days – just two turntables and an old radio amplifier. I couldn’t afford proper equipment. I used to turn the amp on its side and use the volume control as a mixer. I only entered competitions for the equipment that you could win. I still have the same decks that I won back then.” A venue in Cape Town – Club Teazers in Harrington Street, ironically a few hundred metres away from District Six – would become the nexus for the budding young South African hiphop movement. Frequented by punks, rockers and hip-hopsters, it was one of the few places in the country where kids of all racial groups could hang out together. Every Saturday morning D and his B-Boy crew would catch a train in from Mitchell’s Plain to the city centre, and run a gauntlet of the local constabulary. They’d stage B-Boy battles around the city before police harassment would see them move on to the next spot, finally ending up at Club Teazers some time in the late afternoon. “At first we just had a 20-minute spot to do our B-Boy stuff, but the scene quickly grew over the

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next few months and Club Teazers became probably the first hip-hop club in Africa,” D remembers. “These were our first encounters with white kids and, through the music, we became integrated. At the time though, I wasn’t really aware of how political things would become. All I knew was that I was classified as coloured and I couldn’t go where white people could. It got really hard when the State Of Emergency was declared in ’86, which restricted our movements through curfews. Even then though, when we were going out at night to bomb trains and walls [‘bomb’ here in the graffiti, not explosive sense], it wasn’t so much a political act as having a fun adventure.” That would change when D hooked up with fellow youngster Shaheen Ariefdien. Not only did Shaheen’s dad have a recording studio, but his MC skills on the mic also got D’s attention. “From his side he heard I was a DJ who could scratch. He didn’t believe it. He didn’t think there was someone in SA who could do that. It was unheard of.” By ’90 they were messing around with beats, not really knowing what they were doing with all the professional equipment. But Shaheen’s dad was on hand to show them the ropes. And so, with the addition of members Ishmael Morabe, Mark Heuvel, and Ramone, POC was born. “What I didn’t know was how politically active Shaheen was at his high school. I just wanted to make albums and scratch. I wanted to be the cool cat in the neighbourhood – the ghetto superstar,” says D. “That was my thing. I was physically harassed by the cops and the military at night out in Mitchell’s Plain, but my vibe was straight up ‘Fuck the police. I’ll get some of my gangster friends to shoot on these cats.’ That was my mentality back then. Shaheen, though, was going on about Nelson Mandela and Steve Biko and I was like ‘Who are these cats?’ I was your typical Cape Flats youngster who was unable to step out of that level of mental enslavement. I was probably destined to join a gang and go to prison. Or be dead.” POC’s first big gig was an End Conscription Campaign event organised in support of ending forced conscription of young white South African men into the army. This was followed by an antidrug campaign event by a local community in Cape Town, and by now young D was beginning to understand Shaheen’s political activism and how necessary that sentiment was in the POC’s music. “From then on, I became more switched on politically,” he says. “By the time our first album Our World came out in ’91, the National Party was starting to lose its grip on the country, and by the second album Boom Style the following year, our songs and videos began to be banned.” Fighting off pressure from their label’s producers to be more poppy and less controversial, POC then released their landmark recording, Age Of Truth in ’94. It’s a hardcore, uncompromising album that spared no one – black or white. “This is the album that I can say truly reflects us as a crew. We held back on nothing in our social and political commentary… absolutely nothing,” he recalls. “The

King of the road – Ready D hanging out in Cape Town


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i wanted to make album s . I wanted to b e t h e c oo l c at i n th e n e i g h b o u r hoo d – the ghe t to su per star

album was banned straight up and I believe it’s still banned in South Africa today. If you can find a copy of it now, consider yourself lucky.”

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ommercially buried, Age Of Truth was nonetheless critically acclaimed – its music videos won awards and it was this record that took POC around the world. Thanks to it, the group were now regarded as musical heavyweights and agents of social change in South Africa. This also led to their first-ever meeting with Nelson Mandela. POC were in Cape Town’s Khayelitsha township doing a voter education tour ahead of the country’s first-ever democratic elections when the great Madiba appeared onstage with them. “The bra was gooi-ing a couple of moves to our music, which was very cool,” D says. “Back then I didn’t realise the impact Mandela was going to make on this country. It was only once we’d 63


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Showing how it’s done: D at his DJ school in Cape Town

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po c h a s n e v e r b e e n a hip - hop crew, it ’ s an i n s t i t u t io n played at his presidential inauguration that it really hit me big time. To see more than a million people there at the Union Buildings made me realise that this was the turning point for my country.” The release of their fourth album, Universal Soldier, on the UK’s Beggars Banquet label in ’95 really cemented their rep in Europe. It led to tours on the old continent and the US where the authenticity and energy of POC’s music and message struck a chord with foreign audiences. “It was also important for us to break through the stereotypical image that people outside this country saw as suffering in South Africa. It wasn’t just about that famous photograph of Hector Pieterson during the ’76 Soweto riots, but there were communities of Malaysian, Chinese, and Indian descent, who also suffered greatly under apartheid.” Ghetto Code, released in 1998, was POC’s last album to date – but that’s not say the crew has split. The creation of their own Ghetto Ruff label allowed each member to pursue their own successful solo musical projects. “If there’s a big event, everyone will regroup to put in the rehearsal time,” says D. “We all took a decision that if it was something that was really special then we would get together. In the last couple of years it’s mainly been tours to the USA. “For me POC has never just been a hip-hop crew. It’s been an institution. A lot of my life’s lessons – my political education, everything – has come from my involvement with POC. We met inspirational individuals, not just from within the hip-hop arena, but jazz, rock and all that. We got to see how others approached their music – the production, the long hours rehearsing. And a lot of those lessons we brought back with us, and it’s stuff I try to include in whatever I do.” That POC continue to be a reference point for conscious hip-hop in South Africa, and that Ready D himself is held up as a role model to his fellow citizens, is without question. How he feels about the weight of that responsibility, though, is another issue. “It was never something I consciously set out to do, it’s just what happened in my life,” he says. “I’m grateful, humbled and honoured when it comes to that, but I always tell people to remember we’re all human beings and we all come with our faults. I also step out of line at times and make mistakes.” And he’s even happy to reveal those mistakes. “I’ll be blunt. Ego. Out of ego comes greed and out of that comes deceit. And if you’re not able to keep that demon at bay, you can go over the edge very

quickly. It’s a multi-headed beast, and there are many issues I have to face to keep myself together.” Since the members of POC decided to focus on their solo projects, D has arguably had the highest profile. After touring the Universal Souljaz album, D helped create another hip-hop crew, Brasse Vannie Kaap, with the late Ashley Titus aka “Mr Fat” and DJ Hamma. On all their albums POC only ever laid down one Afrikaans track and D was keen to expand that into creating SA’s first Afrikaans-only hip-hop band. “In London I wrote this song about cars called Fords, Nissans, Toys, Beetles. And when I came home I phoned Fat and said ‘My broer, this is the vibe!’ I always loved cars – they were always a big part of my life and our community.” As their mother tongue, Afrikaans was a central part of D’s community and BVK helped stake their claim as equal contributors to its growth as a uniquely South African language. After three successful albums and critical acclaim for their commentary on the ups and downs of life on The Flats, the crew disbanded after the death of Mr Fat due to heart complications. It’s that nascent love of cars that D has now also included in his professional life. As a founding member of The Dr1ft Squad, D is equally at home driving sideways behind the wheel of his Nissan Silvia S14 as he is behind his decks. And like his DJing equipment, the Nissan is a blend of old and new skool. Hi-tech engine-management wizardry, carbon-fibre and a Garrett turbocharger the size of a small vacuum cleaner have turned the Nissan into a fearsome machine that can pump out close to 400kW. “It’s taken me a year to get to grips with this car. When the turbo kicks in all hell breaks loose… it still scares the living daylights out of me.” Despite his sideways driving, tyre-shredding exploits, music is still the real fuel that drives D. Along with his Beat Bangaz DJ crew, D also has a solo show on Western Cape regional radio station, Good Hope FM. For four nights a week, from 7-10pm, D and his beats continue to inspire, educate and induce mass breakouts of head nodding. Music remains his passion. In Ready D’s case those words are not a cliché but a statement of fact. It’s what has propelled him from the edge of drugs and gangsters to his status as a highly respected role model to his fellow South Africans. Passion does come at a price though… “I’m still looking for the perfect beat, the perfect scratch. I can’t sleep, I can’t eat because I’m still searching. I’m might hear a car go by, or people chatting and I get the urge to go into the studio to sample the sounds and create a beat,” he says. “Then I produce it and, at first, it sounds cool… but later I realise it’s still not the beat I’m after. I’m constantly pushing myself and I still haven’t achieved what I’m meant to do. I don’t know what it is, but it’s burning down inside of me. My wife tells me that even when I’m sleeping my fingers tap away. Hopefully it will reveal itself so I can have one peaceful night’s sleep…” Banging beats aplenty on The Ready D Show at www.goodhopefm.co.za and catch Ready D and Shaheen Ariefdien at www.redbullmusicacademy.com

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the maverick Tom Wegener is a longboard legend from Los Angeles who fell in love with Australia. The man behind the revival of the alaia, a surfboard used by the ancient Hawaiians, Wegener is hoping the Tuna, a mass-produced board modelled on the alaia, will reinvigorate surfing Words: Robert Tighe Photography: Trent Mitchell

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Tom with an olo – one of the ‘big boards’ he now champions, reviving the trend for handcrafted wooden boards popular when surfing was a fledgling activity


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om Wegener is giving me the tour of the two-anda-half acre plot he calls his ‘Creation Plantation’. The property, a mile or so outside Cooroy in the Sunshine Coast hinterland, in Queensland, Australia, backs onto the Bruce Highway, but towering gum trees and thick trunks of bamboo provide ample shelter from passing traffic and prying eyes. In the front yard is a homemade half-pipe. Out back is a three-storey shack, a wonderful old wooden building with a set of rickety stairs up the side, leading to the loft where Wegener shapes his wooden surfboards. Since he bought the property in 2001, Wegener has planted orange trees, fig trees, passion fruit vines, tropical apples, dragon fruit, guava, pawpaw, persimmon and peach trees. Lettuce, spinach, corn, tomatoes and fresh herbs vie for space in the vegetable patch and half a dozen egg cartons recycled as biodegradable seed trays are ready for planting. Sawdust from the ramshackle shed is used to mulch the trees and Wegener knows more about composting than any garden centre guru. “We want to be hippies so bad,” he laughs. “We want to create a green parallel universe so if everything else collapses, we’ll at least be able to feed ourselves.” This rural retreat is a long way from the suburban affluence of Palos Verdes in Los Angeles where Wegener was born in 1965. Palos Verdes is the kind of place where ‘desperate housewives’ go to the country club for tennis lessons from the pro with six68


Tom takes time out to ride his Tuna board at First Point; the workshop, nestled in the organic vegetable plot where Tom works; after resin from foam boards brought him out in a rash, he now works exclusively in wood


If “wanting to be hippies” was Tom’s dream for his family, he certainly has managed it with a lifestyle that perfectly merges the work/life combination. Organic fruit and vegetable production on the family plot of land, known as the ‘Creation Plantation’ is approaching near self-sufficiency


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pack abs and a smile full of teeth. It also boasts some of the best surf spots in California and locals with a reputation for protecting their patch from outsiders. Wegener loved the waves but hated the attitude. “In high school you had the popular surfers and they were a funny clique so I gravitated towards longboards,” says Wegener. “The longboard spots were empty apart from a few nice older people and the shortboard breaks were crowded and aggressive. It was a simple decision.” Wegener was a sponsored longboard rider and a philosophy student during the 1980s before making the unlikely decision to become a lawyer. Surfing was his passion, but it was tough to earn a buck as a longboarder so he put on a suit and tie and worked in real estate and contracts law. He lasted three years – the longest three years of his life. “I didn’t just hate it; I loathed it. Being a lawyer in Los Angeles is the bottom of the bottom. Everyone is unhappy – the judge is unhappy, your client is unhappy, the clerk is unhappy – you’re surrounded by unhappy people. I like being happy.” He quit in 1993 to head up the newly formed Surfboard Industry Association. The association tried to introduce safety practices to the industry in California, but infighting forced it to fold within a year. Wegener was out of a job, but ironically his profile as a surfer had never been higher. He had started making surf movies and was big in Japan. “Longboarding was exploding over there and this Japanese company wanted to start a Tom Wegener brand. Then the yen crashed and the project was canned instantly.” Wegener waved goodbye to fame and fortune and went back to making movies. In 1998 he came to Australia to promote Siestas & Olas (Spanish for naps and waves), living out of the back of a van on sponsored Corona and not much else. But the once miserable lawyer was now a happy camper. “Some Aussie friends told me if I came here I’d never leave. I drove up the coast and I remember sitting on a beach – there were dogs at my feet, I had a beer in my hand, there were topless girls soaking up the sun, some people were having a barbecue – and I thought to myself, ‘All of these are heavy-duty crimes in the United States. This is freedom.’” Tom met Margie Hughes, a DJ on Noosa Heat FM, while he was in the studio to plug his movie. “I walked into the radio station and saw her through a glass wall. Our eyes met and that was it. She interviewed me about the movie and I interviewed her. I said to myself, ‘I’m going to marry you.’” That was March 1998. They were married in June that year and their son, Finley, was born in February 1999. “I was so stoked,” smiles Wegener. “Like a lot of Americans I was ready to run. America was falling apart and I was looking for something different. There are a lot of people who search for their destiny and come up just short. I got lucky.” Lucky too that longboarding was just starting to take off in Australia and Noosa, according to Wegener, has the best longboard waves in the world.

“I was looking for something different” He started shaping longboards again, something he had been doing since he was a 12-year-old at high school, and soon he was struggling to keep up with the orders. Everything was hunky dory until the toxins from the foam boards he was working on began to play havoc with his health. “I got near the stuff and I’d break out in a rash. I was glassing a foam board one day and I came inside and Finley, who was four at the time, said, ‘Daddy, your breath smells of resin.’ That was it; I decided to stop using resin. I decided to make surfboards out of wood. What I had to figure out was how to make a wooden surfboard that rode as good as, or better than, a foam board.” To do that, he needed the right timber. He found it in Paulownia. Paulownia is native to China, but in recent years it has become popular in Australia due to its fast-growing and versatile properties. Paul Joske, a surfboard shaper from Coffs Harbour, was one of the first to make a surfboard from Paulownia and he showed it to Wegener who realised the wood had potential. Wegener started using it in his foam boards for stringers, nose blocks, tail blocks and fins and discovered it was an almost perfect raw material. “It had these incredible, almost impossible characteristics,” he says. “It was light, easy to work with, very strong, and most importantly, it didn’t soak up salt water. We discovered that by accident and it was a eureka moment. That discovery led directly to the alaia revival.” Initially Wegener used Paulownia to make handcrafted hollow wood surfboards and he couldn’t keep up with the demand. He had two people working for him and more than 100 orders on the books so he celebrated with a trip to Hawaii in 2004. It was a family holiday, but Wegener was also a man on a mission. Like most surfing scholars, he had studied the bible, Surfing: A History of the Ancient Hawaiian Sport by Ben Finney and James Houston. As a surfboard shaper he was intrigued by the chapters on the development of the surfboard and particularly by pictures of the olo and the alaia in the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. The olo was a long, thick board, reserved for the ancient Hawaiian chiefs in the 1800s. The alaia was a much shorter, thinner board made from a plank of wood less than an inch thick but renowned for its speed and manoeuvrability. While the alaia shape was the blueprint for most surfboards in the early 20th century, the olo was considered a relic and Finney says “the last time a traditional olo caught an ocean swell was around 1915”. Wegener wanted to ride an olo to mark his 40th birthday – “I wanted to experience the sport of kings” – but he needed to see the boards in the 71


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“The alaia went faster than any other board” Bishop Museum to work out how to make his own. “When I saw them I just flipped out,” he says. “I was like ‘holy shit’. The curves were mindboggling. I came away hell-bent on making an olo but it turned out to be such a big project.” Wegener takes me out to the paddock to show me how big. To the side of the shed is a rough-andready surfboard rack and pride of place goes to the olo – all 4.8m and 68kg of it. That’s taller than a double-decker bus and nearly 25 times as heavy as a standard shortboard. Not surprisingly it takes two of us to lift it. “People saw me coming into the surf with it and would freak out,” laughs Wegener, “but I surfed it and surfed it until I figured it out. I was just challenged by it. The ancient Hawaiians must have been incredible surfers. You need so much strength to paddle an olo and your timing has to be perfect to ride a wave. I had some horrendous wipeouts, but when you catch a wave on the olo, it’s a joy. It’s just a different type of surfing.” After the olo, Wegener made an alaia and on March 5, 2005, he took the boards, some beers and some friends down to his favourite break at First Point off Noosa Heads for his 40th birthday. A local surfer, Jacob Stuth, grabbed the alaia and started a sensation. “He got on this wave and took off and he was like, whoosh! The board was skittering he was going so fast. We were like ‘man, that wasn’t supposed to happen’. There were good surfers on good surfboards out there and the alaia went faster than any other board. The fin boards couldn’t keep up.” The olo and the alaia are finless boards making them much harder to control than modern boards where two and three fins are common. Removing the fin made the boards faster and freer. So if the finless boards are so fast and so much fun, why have they been gathering dust in a museum for so long? “One guy did make one in the early ’90s,” explains Wegener, “but they took it out and said, ‘Nah, it doesn’t work’. They didn’t take the time to learn how to ride it. Now we have good enough surfers to ride them, but 20 years ago the level of surfing was much lower than it is now.” Good surfers like David Rastovich and Tom Carroll endorsed the alaia and for a few years it was the must-have board. While the hype may have died down somewhat in recent years, these boards haven’t gone away. “Alaias are normal now and that is the biggest compliment you can give a movement,” says Wegener. The ultimate compliment, though, came from Ben Finney, the anthropologist who had 72


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The finless wooden boards are harder to ride but have developed a fanbase as experienced surfers realised their potential for greater speed in the water; Tom’s list shows who he has shaped alaia boards for


Producing the wooden boards is a labour of love but it doesn’t put food on the table, so Tom has diversified with the production of an epoxy board, made under licence. “My passion is making the wooden boards, but in order to survive you have to have a separate stream of income”


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“My passion is making the wooden boards” written about the history of Hawaiian surfing. “‘Tom, I’m so proud of you’, he told me. ‘You proved that the ancient Hawaiians surfed well.’” While Wegener has received plenty of awards for his work – including Shaper of the Year in 2009 from Surfing, the leading American surf magazine – there was just a hint of a backlash last year on some online forums after the launch of the Tuna, an epoxy alaia pop-out board licensed to Global Surf Industries. Made in Thailand, over a thousand Tunas have already been sold, more than the number of handcrafted wooden boards Wegener has made since he started the business in 1998. But although surfers may be buying the boards, but purists have accused Wegener of selling out. Derek Hynd, an Australian shaper/surfer said, “He’s killed Bambi… he’s sold out to the ‘crass mass.’” Wegener is hurt by the accusation. “He calls me a hypocrite for selling out? Derek was a professional surfer and worked for one of the big companies for years and all of a sudden he’s calling me a sell-out because I’m working with a big company? I’ve put years into this. I helped revive ancient Hawaiian surfing, but we’ve lost money year after year and we still lose money every year on the alaias.” His bank balance hasn’t been helped by the fact that Wegener has given so many boards away to friends and people in the industry, or that he made a DVD showing people how to shape their own alaia, but he’s hoping the Tuna will be the golden ticket that provides some payback and allows him to keep doing what he loves. “My passion is making the wooden boards, but in order to survive as a surfboard maker you have to have a separate stream of income. Five per cent of the market is interested in what I do, the hollow wood surfboards and the alaias, but only a few surfers are willing to pay for them. The other 95 per cent want to experience it, but on modern, easy terms; the Tuna is for them.” As well as selling truckloads of the Tuna, Wegener also expects it to widen surfers’ horizons. “Surfing has turned into a spectator sport when it should be about getting in the water. What the kids see on TV and YouTube, the radical manoeuvres and perfect waves, that’s what they expect all the time. You can ride the Tuna in really shallow, punchy little surf. It takes the whole alaia experience and makes it so much easier. It’s surfing stripped right back to its essence.” A lot like life on ‘Creation Plantation’ then. For more information on Tom’s surfing experiences and to check out his range of surfboards, visit www.tomwegenersurfboards.com

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THE HOUSE OF many colours

Downtown S達o Paulo: the city offers an environment which inspires the young artists who live there


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Take six promising artists from São Paulo, Brazil, put them in an old skyscraper and you have the recipe for a unique exhibition Words: Giovana Mollona Photography: LOST ART

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he grandeur of the past has given way to modern buildings that reach for the sky relentlessly. Among them all, rooted in the heart of São Paulo and looking squashed from a lack of space, stands the Sampaio Moreira building. Built in 1920, it is a gem of urban architecture and the location for the 2010 edition of the The Edificio Sampaio Moreira has a unique history: Red Bull House of Art. it was the first skyscraper in São Paulo and has Celebrating the diverse art been declared a historic site. The district around and culture of Brazil’s biggest it eventually fell into decline but is currently going city, this project of ‘artists through a period of regeneration in residence’ seems to have taken a liking to the bustling metropolis, which is inhabited by people from every corner of the country. Six of the young artists – Clara Ianni, Felipe Salem, Guilherme Peters, Jaime Lauriano, Marcos Brias and Sofia Borges – have always lived in São Paulo and during the course of their six-week residency, they have been listening to the soul of the city they know so well. Few places offer locations teeming with history, along with a pulsating and inspiring urban lifestyle, like São Paulo. It can provoke passion and hatred, sometimes both simultaneously. Close to where its heart beats, the artists monitored its rhythms, inside and outside the studios, through the streets of Centro, where it all happens. Inside the building, along abandoned corridors hiding stories in their walls, they found a place to rest their minds that had long searched for new languages for their own artistic expressions. As an icon of the past in search of a new story, the Sampaio Moreira building took in each of these artists. And in turn, they expressed their own interpretations of this period through new pieces presented at the closing exhibition. Many more for the future – everything from sketches to drafts – will have been born and this intense artistic experience will undoubtedly carry on in their daily routine, in their hearts, long after its completion. Who better to tell us the story of what changed and what they took from the residency than the artists themselves? From the heartbeat of this bustling metropolis, we find out how art has breathed new life into São Paulo. 77


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the artists in residence Six artists breathe new life into an abandoned skyscraper in the heart of the city: a refuge in which to create and be inspired

Marcos Brias An artist first and foremost Marcos Brias likes to experiment. To aid him, he makes the most of his vast professional experience: a mixture of visual arts, design, and work as an editor and translator. During his time in the residency, he set himself a limit for arriving, no later than two in the afternoon, and no limit for leaving. “My priority is being an artist,” he points out. Brias, 29, is the oldest member of the group who took part in the Red Bull House of Art. Whether asked or not, he always gave advice to the other artists, who looked up to him. Yet none of this harmed his objective within the residency. “I wanted to share the space with new people and deal with ideas I wasn’t familiar with,” he says. Marcos has lived in countries such as France and the USA. Perhaps this is why he is so attracted to the concept of transience. The texts he wrote in the piece ‘Centaurus-Crux’, on display in the gallery, are a case in point. They appear when no one is around and disappear when someone approaches them, which turns on the movement-sensitive lights. As they appear and disappear on the signs, the texts evoke another concept – lack of visibility. “You know that expression throwing some light on the subject? This piece shows that sometimes that can prove to be false,” he explains.

affected by the abandoned feel of the Sampaio Moreira building, which was a perfect fit with her style. “I’ll always remember the empty rooms, the dust on the ceiling and the wind. It’s a place filled with stories, and moreover, it’s beautiful,” she says. The building and its atmosphere were defining factors in Borges’ decision to be part of the group of artists in the Red Bull House of Art. When she stepped into the residency, her preferred style of work had been photography. Borges remained faithful to this, dedicating herself to it in minute detail, as seen by the collection of 20 landscape images developed from a hand-crafted technique known as diorama, which intricately focuses on depth, perspective, and image volume. Even so, the empty rooms of Sampaio Moreira invited the artist to take a gamble on video, an unprecedented language for her until now. Despite having only started out in her career relatively recently, Borges, who discovered art after leaving the countryside to study fashion in São Paulo, has already taken part in 30 collective and six solo exhibitions. Nevertheless, the experience she’s gained hasn’t rid her of a beginner’s enthusiasm. “I would love to take part in this residency again, especially somewhere abroad,” she confesses.

Jaime Lauriano And the search for the city’s many facets

Sofia Borges Offering new perspectives on what isn’t seen Sofia Borges, 26, is not a fan of the literal, of what appears to the eye of the beholder without any mystery. Her art is direct, yet it also requires some imagination to reveal what isn’t seen. This was Borges first experience of an artistic residency, and she truly allowed herself to be

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Enamoured by urban centres, particularly that of São Paulo, Jaime Lauriano’s work presents the biggest complication that the disorganised growth of a metropolis produces: a lack of memory, the very same thing that forced the residency building into disrepair. Early on he had an interest in architecture, but this was soon replaced by art when he noticed the myriad options the latter offered over the former. For the 25-year-old, the city is in constant construction and deconstruction, a result of intense real estate speculation that causes exoduses. Lauriano warns us of this vicious cycle through the use of opposing objects welded together, such as hammers and wheelbarrows. The idyllic and destructive facets of the city also appear in a video in which Lauriano mixes scenes of urban disaster with audio from real estate commercials. What it depicts is disconcerting for anyone. The video shows scenes of forgotten areas on the outskirts along with the proposal to overpopulate other areas of the same city. “Here we have terrible, forcibly directed mobility; it’s different to how people naturally act,” he reveals.


Above: Marcos Brias relaxes in front of the ephemeral text of his piece ‘Centaurus-Crux’. Left: ‘Landscape studies’ – a series of 20 images by Sofia Borges were developed using the diorama technique, creating powerful effects of depth and perspective. Below: Jaime Lauriano’s ‘No title #2’ – his work aims to neutralise the power of tools of construction and destruction


Above: Guilherme Peters sits on part of his ‘Bastille’ piece – pieces of a wall with skate wheels. Below: Illustrations by Clara Ianni – she highlights the destructive nature of the city. Right: Felipe Salem’s tribute to Buddy Holly


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Clara Ianni Looking at the invisible In front of the Sampaio Moreira building is a black flag, catching the eye of those walking past. If anyone feels bothered by it or muses upon the reason for covering the building’s grand entrance, it means artist Clara Ianni, 23, will have achieved one of the goals of her residency. The flag, which stretches down to the pavement, is actually a large mourning band. Ianni’s installation brings to our attention the destructive potential of speculative real estate. It can devastate urban centres, filling them with larger and larger buildings, spoiling the city’s landscape. In much the same way, Ianni’s flag hides the beauty of the forefather of São Paulo’s skyscrapers. “Why are these spaces left empty in a place brimming with movement?” asks Ianni, referring to São Paulo’s bustling city centre. For her, the city has the power to make something real out of the invisible. Even with so many empty spaces in the heart of the city, such as the building she is currently residing in, there are still a large number of people exiled to its outskirts. Ianni is a shrewd observer of urban occupation and believes a change in mentality is needed to remedy these problems. Her other piece, on display in the gallery, consists of six photographs of clenched fists, a symbol of resistance and of freedom; the same freedom she found during her time wandering through the building. Hers is a love/hate relationship with the city: the frenzied pace of a place where many people pass through, but where everyone keeps a distance from each other leaves her exhausted. During her residency, her studio on the 10th floor of the Sampaio Moreira building became her creative refuge.

Guilherme Peters A utopia of extreme movements Looking shy behind his glasses, Guilherme Peters, 23, is an artist of movement. Sport was his first love, and it was the catalyst in his discovery of art. “When I surfed a wave or rode a skateboard, I would draw my movement in my head before it actually

happened”, says Peters, who began practising extreme sports when he was 10 years old. Peters sees skateboarding as an emblem of movement due to its aesthetic and physical characteristics. As such, it maintains a constant presence in almost every piece he creates. “Skateboarding also assumes an element of physical wearing-out that I wish to bring to my work as an artist,” Peters explains. In one of the pieces he displayed at the Red Bull House of Art, he is the protagonist in a video of short performances in which he appears dressed as Robespierre, a politician from the French Revolution. During one of his performances, he grinds along two ramps on his skateboard and only stops when he loses his balance and falls. In another performance in the same video, he rides in circles leaning on a rifle until he falls to the ground. Peters is interested in ideas that are established only to be demolished, much like the ideals represented by the character of Robespierre who, at the end of each performance, falls down. “An attempt at creating a utopia is already something self-destructive by definition,” he says. Construction and destruction also surface in another piece, ‘Bastille’. Pieces of what was once a wall are given movement and another meaning after skateboard wheels are attached. Once again, sport and art ride side by side in this artist’s work.

Felipe Salem Naturally restless Felipe Salem never has a moment’s rest and he has a mind capable of making unlikely connections, almost always producing visually stunning results. Take the six blown-up photographs that occupy part of the gallery. They’re accompanied by a warning sign alerting the public of content that may shock. Entitled, ‘Stories of sex and violence’, the piece consists of photographs of dolls made of plastic bottles, balloons and papier-mâché arranged in sexual positions or acting out violent scenes. “They’re concerned with what it is to be human; I was intrigued by mixing infancy and innocence with disturbing images,” says Salem, 25. The dolls idea came about during visual arts lessons he teaches to children and teenagers. It’s part of an arts degree he’s set finish this year. At the beginning of his career, he restricted himself to producing non-material pieces, thus focusing on performances. In one of them, he spent seven hours standing chained to a trolley. Gallery visitors could then move him wherever they wished. If Salem could, he’d set up camp in Sampaio Moreira for good. “It’s a spectacular place, it makes you want to come here to work and to live in the city centre,” he says. To read more about the artists and see more of their work, visit www.redbull.com

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Body+ Mind more

Cenote Ik-Kil near Chichén Itzá, Mexico, was perfect for round two of 2010’s Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series


Contents 84 TRAVEL IDEAS Cliff diving locations to visit 86 GET THE GEAR Philip Köster’s windsurfing kit 88 TRAINING Top tips from the pros 89 LOVE OF ART Young Polish artists 90 BEST CLUBS Howlin’ Wolf, New Orleans, USA 91 TAKE 5 Elbow’s Guy Garvey on his top five albums 92 FOOD From simple to stir crazy 94 THE LIST 96 SAVE THE DATE

Photography: Ray Demski/Red Bull Content Pool

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This month’s travel tips

A Top-flight Holiday Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series

There are few better ways of combining sport and travel, than by jetting off to watch a round of the one of the world’s most exciting competitions 84

Sport, adventure and nature at its most impressive make for a pretty good combination

Sun, water and cliffs – that’s all you need. And this year the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series, now in its third season, will once again take us to some of the most mesmerisingly beautiful places on earth. The seven stops on the 2011 calendar are worthy destinations not just for the athletes (even if they do enjoy more of a view from 27m up), they’re also wonderful locations. So if you’re planning your next holiday, consider one of these places to witness extraordinary sport and get to know one of the very special corners of our planet. www.redbullcliffdiving.com

Round 1; March 12 Rapa Nui (Easter Island), Chile Mystical isolation It’s more than 3,500km from the Chilean mainland to Easter Island and its mysterious stone sculptures, the moais (pictured). The diving will take place off the south coast of Rapa Nui.

words: Ulrich Corazza. photography: Damiano Levati/Red Bull Content Pool, Manfred Gottschalk/Getty Images

Up and away


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Locations

in profile

A cultural trip for frequent flyers

Five of the best cliff divers in the world

photography: Greater Boston CVB (1), Steven L. Raymer/Getty Images (1), Red Bull Content Pool (9)

Gary Hunt Brilliant and progressive  The 26-year-old won four contests last year, never placed lower than third and took the title. ‘The Brilliant Brit’ is seen as a progressive diver, always on the lookout for new dives. Hunt was the first athlete who risked a dive with a run-up in order to achieve more speed for his somersaults.

Round 2; April 10 Yucatán, Mexico

Round 3; May 22 Athens, Greece

Diving into the spiritual grotto Cenote Ik-Kil is just 3km away from the Mayan city of Chichén Itzá. The location, which pulls in countless tourists, offers crystal-clear waters and plays host to religious ceremonies come the equinox.

The power of water There are a number of myths tied up in Lake Vouliagmeni or Sunken Lake. The water is said to have healing properties and maintains a pleasant temperature of 24°C all year round.

Round 4; June 18 La Rochelle, France

Round 5; July 24 Malcesine, Italy

Diving into a sea of people This picturesque and historic port city will captivate you with its architecture. In 2010, the athletes dived into the Atlantic from a height of 27.5m to the impressive backdrop of 50,000 spectators.

A journey into the past Even the German writer Goethe was fascinated by the natural beauty of the area around Lake Garda. The diving platform is set up on the walls of the Palazzo dei Capitani at the foot of Monte Baldo.

Round 6; August 20 Boston, USA

Round 7; September 4 Yalta, Ukraine

In the cradle of American history This East-Coast metropolis is already an American sporting town par excellence, thanks to its successful NHL, NBA and MLB teams. But this culturally diverse New England city breaks new ground with cliff diving.

High above the Black Sea Soaring above the cliffs of the Crimean Peninsula is the Swallow’s Nest castle of love. The popular tourist spot and movie backdrop is a suitably imposing setting for the end of the 2011 Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series.

Orlando Duque Experienced and balanced Duque, 36, lives on Hawaii and was the dominant force in cliff diving for the past decade, with nine world championship titles and two world records. The Colombian secured a podium finish in all of last year’s six contests. The Duke is promising to train even harder for 2011, with gym workouts, too. Artem Silchenko Hard working and self-confident His mother supported the idea of his becoming a cliff diver. The 27-year-old has lived in China, where his career began, for six years. Russian Silchenko was world champion in 2006. And having finished third for two seasons running, he wants to do better: “I can win and I must win,” he says. Kent De Mond Consistent and in love with flying A convert to cliff diving from high-diving, De Mond’s favourite dives are front flips, “as those are the dives that feel most like flying”. This 28-year-old American amateur stuntman is a consistent competitor, but he needs to take on harder dives to be a threat to the favourites. Michal Navrátil Young and willing to learn Winning a qualifying competition in Australia secured this 25-year-old Czech’s entry into the World Series. As opportunities to train in the Czech Republic were few and far between, ‘Supratil’ used to devour any cliff diving broadcasts to learn how to develop his own skills.

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more body & mind

1 Neil Pryde sail The stronger the wind, the smaller the sail. I usually have four or five Atlas sails set up on land, between 3.5 and 5.4m2 for wave competitions; Evo III sails between 5.5 and 8.6 for slalom. 2 Boards The smallest are 71-, 76-, 81- and 86-litre wave boards; for slalom I use 86-, 92- and 109-litre iSonics. 3 Dakine rucksack Big, well-ordered and it looks good. 4 Panasonic video camera I use movie clips to helps to correct mistakes in training. This particular model is the HDC-SDT 750.

5 Firewire surfboard I surf because it helps to improve my speed and upper arm strength. 6 McDavid ankle brace I sail radically, and not every landing goes perfectly. You can twist your ankle. But these ankle braces help you make it to the end of the competition. 7 NPX neoprene protection Life’s a beach? Yeah… but sometimes it can be a damn cold one. We had temperatures of 3oC for the Red Bull Big Days, and after that I got myself a neoprene coat (not pictured), neoprene hood, neoprene shoes and neoprene gloves. No more freezing!

8 Neil Pryde replacement ropes If a harness line snaps, you need a replacement straight away. I used to sail without a harness, but those days are over.

11 Oxbow boardshorts I have a whole heap of boardshorts, but these are my favourites. Exactly the right colour, and they’re supercomfortable to wear.

9 DC trainers Because I travel a lot I need comfortable shoes. And for that, my old DCs are unbeatable.

12 NPX neoprene wetsuit I wear 3.5mm when it’s warm, Zealot 5.3 if it’s cold. I wouldn’t go out in cold water if I didn’t have to, and definitely not without a wetsuit!

10 Optimum Time OS race watch Big enough to read easily, with a timer function. I run all my slalom heats with it. On land I wear a super-cool Chris Benz Depthmeter digital.

13 Startboard screw set Everything you need to quickly change fins or foot straps, including the right screwdrivers. www.philip-koester.de

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get the gear Essential pro kit

philip köster. The 17-year-old German windsurfer grew up on Gran Canaria, surrounded by perfect conditions for his sport. With this equipment he’s ready for anything, anywhere in the world

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words: werner jessner. photography: Philipp horak

Close to the Wind


I’m never without: 4 12 Tweezers To remove sea urchin spikes from my feet. I ease the rest of the spike out with lemon.

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Antibiotic cream From Maui. For small scratches, cuts and anything that can get inflamed.

Jelly sweets My nightmare is when there’s nothing sweet to eat. Chocolate’s OK, too.

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monday Morning

Afternoon

tuesday

Running: 10 min easy; 10 min medium; 10 min fast; n 5 min cool-dow

Ergometer: 10 min low; 10 min medium heart rate; 2 × 3 min full power; 2 min rest; 3 × 2 min full; 2 min rest; 4 × 1 min; 1 min rest; 10 min cool-down

No training Office and workshop day: answer emails; plan and organise; ser vice bikes and other ve equipment; ha s fun with friend

Sauna, jacuzzi, steam room

wednesday Ergometer: 10 min easy; 10 min medium. Weights room: abdominals; leg press; squats; barbell; lateral pulldowns (60 per cent of maximum weight, four sets of 15 repetitions, 1 min rest between sets)

thursday

friday

Running: Cross-country: 10 min easy; 30 min easy; 10 min medium. 15 min medium; Weights room: ; int spr sec 90 4× abdominals; 90 sec rest; push-ups; 3 × 120 sec shoulder sprint; 120 sec girdle; rowing; sec 90 × 4 t; res back; lateral sprint; 90 sec pull-downs rest; 4 × 90 sec (60 per cent sprint; 90 sec. of maximum n mi 15 t; res weight, 4 sets cool-down. of 15 repetitions, Poor weather: 1 min rest r ete ergom between sets) ) als erv int me (sa

Optional, depending on weather: , snowboarding snowscoot or motocross

SUNDAY

Saturday Ergometer: 10 min easy; 10 min medium. Weights room: abdominals; leg press; squats; barbell; lateral pulldowns (60 per cent of maximum weight, 4 sets of 15 repetitions, 1 min rest between sets) Swimming: 30 min followed by massage and relaxing

BMX: 20 min warm-up and technique training (no jumps); 40 min jump training, 3 sets t of 5 starts, firs upright, 90 sec rest between t runs, 5 min res between sets

Downhill: s; short stretche 2 warm-up 5-6 runs; timed runs; 15 min cool-down

Filip Polc, 29, Slovakia: This is how the worldclass downhiller and 4Crosser from the MS Evil Racing team prepares for the season in winter time

work out TRAIN LIKE THE PROS

On his exhaustive preparations for another successful season filip polc.

Success secrets from…

Benjamin Karl Three-time snowboard world champ Family man I draw a lot of strength and inner balance from my family. Fortunately, I have a lot of good friends who are top athletes as well. They pick me up whenever I lack motivation. When the going gets tough In the off-season, I spend up to 30 hours a week on the ergometer or mountain bike. This hard

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physical and conditioning preparation really pays off, especially come the end of a long season. Motor mouth I like to provoke a reaction with what I say, if I can sense victory. But I only do it when I think I have a realistic chance of winning. Maybe other athletes might think of it as pressure. But it helps me to focus and motivate myself.

It’s the kit My gear set-up is perfectly adapted to my needs. No one else in the Snowboard World Championships uses my plate-binding system. Well read I really rate A Day In My Life by Olympic Nordic Combined champion Felix Gottwald. I read it during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, where I won silver.

Like motocross, downhill mountain biking is one of those sports that places demands on the whole body. It’s tougher too, because the rider has to pedal rather than rely on an engine. If, like multiple-medal-winner Filip Polc, you also compete in 4Cross at an international level, double the number of races in a season means double the stress. So if you don’t build up your endurance levels in the off-season, you’ll burn out, and if you don’t build up your strength, you’ll be too slow. You also won’t last the distance if you don’t vary your training. Then there’s training to improve riding technique, so is it any wonder that, even at a distance, Filip Polc’s winter training schedule (above) smells like sweat? Check out his team here: www.ms-racing.at

PHOTOgraphy: Ray Demski/Red Bull Content Pool (2), Sergio Urday/Red Bull Content Pool (2)

Sweat smell of success


mo r e bo d y & min d

Love of art

In dark woods

Hangart-7 in Hangar-7

contemporary art.

Short cut (above) from the series, A few most interesting ideas to reach Mount Everest, by Michał Szuszkiewicz (right)

PHOTOgraphy: Magda Wunsche/Red Bull Hangar-7 (1)

The work of eight young Poles launches this year’s prestigious art programme at Hangar-7 in Salzburg

The 17th edition of the HangART-7 exhibition offers a profound insight into contemporary Polish painting. In Dark Woods features paintings from eight highly gifted young artists from all over Poland, who, in the words of curator, Lioba Reddeker, “Challenge our senses with demanding techniques.” They include Warsaw’s Michał Szuszkiewicz, who is already attracting a lot of attention in his homeland for his interplay of abstraction and realism. “Michał juggles all conventions,” wrote one well-known Polish art critic recently. The exhibition is open to the public until early May; entry is free. More info at: www.hangar-7.com/en

Night of the world, Michał Zawada

Beat the cold with the warm, Dorota Kozieradzka

Child looking from my window, Michał Chudzicki

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Beatsteaks Boombox (Warner)

Howlin’ Wolf, New Orleans

Since their album Smack Smash (2004) the Beatsteaks have been playing in the Champions League of rock ’n’ roll. Mangy guitar riffs meet euphoria-inducing melodies, reckless punk meets pop to please the masses. Many groups have attempted this kind of brazen balancing act, only to attract cries of “sell-out”. But the Berlinbased quintet has once again steered clear of such accusations. With charm and wit, as unerring as FC Barcelona. Boombox (Warner Music) is a firework display. Powerful, breathtaking, each rocket different from the last. Desolate punk onslaughts like Bullets From Another Dimension stand alongside the nimble ska of summer anthem Automatic and the deliriously joyful single Milk & Honey. This is a great piece of work: as catchy as it is raw, as enthralling as a penalty shootout in the Champions League.

Dorian Concept Her Tears Taste Like Pears (Ninja Tune) It was four years ago: British music connoisseur Gilles Peterson played a track from Dorian Concept for the first time on his BBC radio programme Worldwide. The back-announcement had listeners pricking up their ears: “I call him the new Joe Zawinul of Austria!” The piece appeared shortly after on Concept’s debut album When Planets Explode, which confirmed the Viennese keyboard maestro’s breakthrough with extraterrestrial jazz, both futuristic and playful. Now Concept is blowing up another planet: on his first EP for renowned British label Ninja Tune, laser synths twitter over warm jazz chords, and the beats bumble and stumble, solid bass sounds skipping between them. So good it could be Sun Ra conducting a Gameboy orchestra.

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The Stooges Brass Band (left); Mannie Fresh (right)

Howl into the night

The Big Easy is the place to be in the next two months, with Mardi Gras and Jazz Fest ensuring the city’s reputation as the best place to drink, dine and dance is maintained. Where else to kick off than the New Orleans institution run by Howie Kaplan…

Address

907 South Peters New Orleans, LA 70130 www.howlin-wolf.com

We love running a club in this town because... This is a town that loves music. It’s such a part of everyday life. You don’t need to plan to go to a show here, you can just head to a church or walk down the street and it’s closed off because there’s a brass band playing. The club’s name is a reference to... Chester Burnett, who was known as (the blues musician) Howlin’ Wolf. The first thing that you see when you enter the club is... …our 45ft hand-carved mahogany bar – it came from the Lexington Hotel in Chicago, which was originally Al Capone’s hotel. The stage is wide open with great sight-lines, no support beams, no stairs and no VIP areas. We pick our music acts because… We do everything we do to embrace New Orleans culture, so we’ve got a lot of brass bands, funk bands. Our main focus is locals. We usually start really going at… We open doors at nine, but most people don’t show up until 11 or 12. We’d tried starting shows earlier, but people would still show up at 10 or 11pm. To pass our doorman you gotta... …buy a ticket. We’re not a red velvet rope kind of place. Everyone pays the cover. That’s where these musicians get paid. If you’re looking for VIP treatment you’re not coming to us.

Photography: Scott lopker (1), Erika Goldring/Red Bull Photofiles (2)

albums of the month

BESt CLUBs


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take five The albums that influenced the stars

Led Zeppelin IV I was six the first time I heard this and it was the first real rock record I’d ever listened to. It generated a lot of confusing feelings. Until then I wanted to be a soldier or a superhero, but this album made me want to be a drummer. It’s quite twodimensional in a way – Robert Plant’s lyrics are rubbish – but the sheer power of it and the stories surrounding the album just keep on producing magic for me.

Photography: Gary Calton/eyevine/interTOPICS (1)

Santana – Abraxas My high-school girlfriend bought this on cassette for me in Vibes, our record store in Bury. I fell in love with it. When me and my mates talked about the future, I said I wanted to be in band like Santana. It influenced early Elbow sound, although it’s hard to imagine that now. Our shows would go on for hours with loads of solos and very few lyrics. It was music to groove to, our Santana era.

“I wanted to be a soldier until I found music”

Multi-award-winning rock band Elbow are back this month with their fifth album Build a Rocket Boys! and an extensive UK stadium tour. Singer Guy Garvey (above) took time out from rehearsals for the coming shows to talk to Nick Amies about the five albums that have been most influential in his life and career

Joni Mitchell – For the Roses This album started my obsession with songwriting. Joni puts it right out there: she hates this man but loves him too. There are complicated topics on there. It’s honest and devastatingly naked. These are words from the heart and it made me want to say things in a very different way. It took time and work to open myself up to that kind of writing.

Talk Talk – Spirit of Eden You’d never be able to make an album like this now. To follow up an album of hits with such a brave, sparse, personal album – it just wouldn’t fly in today’s industry. It blew me away. It’s pure art. The music and production are excellent. When I listen to it with my eyes closed, I actually feel like I’m physically moving, it takes you somewhere. This record had a profound effect on the band and we all agree that it hasn’t aged. I’d love to be able to write a record like that.

Smashing Pumpkins – Siamese Dream We love a bit of drama in Elbow and this is a series of dramatic events from start to finish. There hadn’t been a rock album like that for years, and when it was released it spoke to me. It has that theatrical quality we try to bring to Elbow, but it’s also tight and controlled; those taut drums, the caged feedback. It’s edgy on the brink of explosive, but still in control. It’s not my favourite Pumpkins record, but for influence, this is the one.

Elbow: Build a Rocket Boys! is released on March 7 on Fiction/Polydor www.elbow.co.uk

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the best chefs in the world our guest at Hangar-7

The Virtues Of Simplicity Claus-Peter Lumpp. This

triple-Michelinstarred chef says the first rule of cooking is KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid

“People cook well when they keep it simple. And all you need for that are a couple of good pans, an oven and a hob,” Claus-Peter Lumpp explains. But Lumpp’s ‘simple’ isn’t necessarily the same as yours. For example, he regards as ‘simple’ sweetbread glazed with vanilla and balsamic vinegar on a bean mash (pictured), or roast saddle and haunch of Bareiss venison with porcini and rosemary blinis. He learned to cook at the Hotel Bareiss, then known as the Kurhotel Mitteltal, having started his training in 1985. His culinary skills have since taken him around the world. Lumpp learned his trade under such star chefs as Heinz Winkler, Alain Ducasse and Eckart Witzigmann, of the Ikarus restaurant in Salzburg’s Hangar-7, before returning in 1992 to the Bareiss, which he now runs. “The best day of my career was November 13, 2007,” Lumpp recalls. That was the day the Bareiss was awarded its third Michelin star, the highest accolade a restaurant can receive.

My Restaurant Hotel Bareiss in the Black Forest Restaurant Bareiss Gärtenbühlweg 14 72270 Baiersbronn-Mitteltal www.bareiss.com “The restaurant was there long before me, and it’s one of the most wonderful I’ve ever been to,” Lumpp explains. The wine list is just as impressive as the opulent dining hall: with thousands of choices available, everyone is guaranteed to find the right bottle.

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Sauces. “Every dish needs the right foundation, and that’s usually a good sauce.” Fat. As far as Lumpp is concerned, a really good sauce is made from fat and mayonnaise and he makes no secret of the fact. “Fat is quite simply a flavour-carrier. You just can’t do without it, even if many people think otherwise.” The recurrent theme. Just as important to Lumpp as the dish’s foundation is the connection between the main course and the side dish. “They must be similar. They either need to have the same herbs and spices or the same sauce.” Harmony. “Basically, all the ingredients need to work perfectly with each other and there’s only one result I want at the end of it all: that it turns out delicious.”

Who’s cooking at Hangar-7 in March? Every month, a guest chef comes to the Ikarus Restaurant in Hangar-7, at Salzburg airport, and creates two menus in conjunction with the permanent team. The guest chef for March 2011 is 47-year-old German Claus-Peter Lumpp, who’s head chef at the three-Michelin-star Restaurant Bareiss at the Hotel Bareiss in Baiersbronn. You can find more information on the Ikarus restaurant and Lumpp’s menus at www.hangar-7.com.

words: Lisa Blazek. photography: Rainer Herrmann/Red Bull Hangar-7

My philosophy


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Tastes of the world National dishes to make at home

Flying Jacob

They’re not native to Scandinavia, but bananas have made it onto the menu words: Klaus Kamolz. photography: Fotostudio Eisenhut & Mayer

Sweden.

Chicken, banana and peanuts? Cooking with a Caribbean twist, you may think, or something African, but in fact this dish has nothing to do with either. The Flying Jacob was invented in Sweden and it’s not a traditional recipe. Its invention can even be pinpointed to a specific day: the morning in 1974 that issue 13 of the national cooking magazine Allt om Mat [All About Food] appeared; it included a recipe sent in by a certain Ove Jacobsson, who worked in the air freight industry. Presumably he must have cooked for his kids one day and was proud of what he’d come up with. But then something strange happened. Flying Jacob – the dish’s name comes from the inventor’s job – took Sweden by storm, decades before Facebook and Twitter made new fads normal. The dish became a national institution when it landed on Swedish school dinner menus. It has hardly left them since.

The recipe Serves 4 people 1kg chicken breast (skinned and boned) Vegetable oil 150g bacon 250ml chicken soup 200ml whipped cream 100ml crème fraîche

1tsp garam masala (optional) 3tbsp sweet chilli sauce 200g mushrooms 1 small onion 2 bananas 50g salted peanuts Salt Pepper

Preheat the oven to 230°C. Cut the chicken breast into bite-sized chunks, season and sauté in vegetable oil until golden brown. Next add the finely chopped bacon and onion and deglaze the pan with the chicken soup. Reduce the heat and stir in the whipped cream and crème fraîche. Season with garam masala, chilli sauce, salt and pepper. Cut the mushrooms into fairly thick slices and sauté in a little oil. Let any resulting liquid evaporate. Stir into the pan with the chicken and then pour into an ovenproof baking dish. Cut the bananas into pieces approximately 0.5cm thick and spread around the baking dish. Bake in the oven for 20 minutes, sprinkling the salted peanuts over the dish halfway through the cooking time. Serve with rice.


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Red Bull Crashed Ice, Quebec

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WINTER SPORTs BIATHLON WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS RUSSia (1) Khanty-Mansiysk, 03–13.03.11 Austria’s Dominik Landertinger has happy memories of this town in the Urals. At the dress rehearsal for the World Championships last year, the 2009 mass-start World Champion secured the win in his favourite event.

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RED BULL COLD RUSH USA (2) Silverton Mountain, 14–18.03.11 Top freeskiers including Sean Pettit and Grete Eliassen go head-to-head in the Big Mountain and Big Air freeskiing events in Colorado. And there’s no need for judges. The skiers choose a winner themselves. FIS SKIING WORLD CUP FINAL SWITZERLAND (3) Lenzerheide, 16–20.03.11 They’re not racing for medals here, they’re racing for glass. One race per discipline will help to decide which of the world’s best get their hands on a coveted World Cup globe.

Red Bull Crashed Ice cANADA (5) Quebec, 19.03.11 The motherland of ice hockey plays host to this hard-as-nails, head-to-head, on-ice action to decide the overall victor of the Red Bull Crashed Ice World Championship.

FIS SKI JUMPING WORLD CUP SLOVENIA (4) Planica, 18–20.03.11 The final ski jumping event of the season sees the aerial artists make supernatural demands on their bodies one last time. The question is, can any of them beat Bjørn Einar Romøren’s 2005 world record of 239m?

RED BULL NORDIX SWITZERLAND (6) Bolgen, Davos, 01–02.4.2011 Steep, arduous climbs contrast with lightning-quick downhill speeds as the best Nordic sportsmen, in various disciplines from cross-country to biathlon, line up in a unique Nordic ski-cross event to decide who will win ultimate bragging rights.

The List March 2011

There’s a ton of sporting action this month, from snowcovered pistes to grand prix tracks. and music is always in season – here’s our guide of what’s not to be missed 94

Motorsport WRC Rally Mexico (7) León, 03–06.03.11 After the ice and snow of Sweden, the second rally of the season is on gravel. And Sébastien Loeb is the man to beat; he’s taken the win here for the last four years in a row. Night of the Jumps GERMANY (8) Berlin, 05–06.03.11 The high-octane world of freestyle motocross rolls up for a night of aerial daring. High-jump and whip contests, and the climactic freestyle final, will separate the good from the great. FORMULA ONE GRAND PRIX Bahrain (9) Bahrain International Circuit, 13.03.11 World Championship winner Sebastian Vettel and team-mate Mark Webber take the brand new RB7 onto the track for the first race in longest season in F1 history. MotoGP Qatar (10) Losail, 20.03.11 The MotoGP World Championship begins with a night race. Last year, Jorge Lorenzo won in MotoGP, Toni Elias in Moto2 and Marc Márquez in the 125cc class, creating an all-Spanish line-up of world champions, who now set out to defend their crowns.


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festivals 5 Days Off NETHERLANDS (18) Melkweg, Paradiso, NIMk, Amsterdam, 02–06.03.11 Five days off… what to do with all that time? Go dancing – that’s what the people organising this Amsterdam festival recommend. And in view of all the eclectic electronic music on offer, it’s quite a tempting idea. Split between two of Amsterdam’s most renowned music venues – Melkweg and Paradiso – and the Dutch Institute of Media Art, NIMk, there’s dubstep from DMZ, freestyle rave from 2ManyDJs and sweet disco sounds from Hercules and Love Affair.

2 21 7

RAMFest SOUTH AFRICA (19) Nekkies Holiday Resort, Worcester, 04–06.03.11 South African hip-hop collective Die Antwoord – the name means ‘The Answer’ in Afrikaans – take to the open-air stage at RAMfest alongside other local favourites.

12

Drumming icon Tony Allen’s got the groove

Jimi Tenor & Tony Allen POLAND (13) Klub Kultowa, Wrocław, 13.03.11 Jazz gets a new beat as manic Finnish saxophone great Jimi Tenor teams up with Afrobeat drumming pioneer Tony Allen for what will undoubtedly be an enthrallingly unpredictable evening of musical greatness.

Photography: Jörg Mitter/Red Bull Photofiles, Action Images, Jazz Archiv/picturedesk, Getty Images

MUSIC INTERPOL AND MATTHEW DEAR GERMANY (11) Docks, Hamburg, 03.03.11 It’s a match as sweet as Harold and Maude, as violent as King Kong vs Godzilla. Interpol, those kings of elegiac indie rock, perform live with Matthew Dear, dance magician and master of melancholy pop techno. Better than a night in front of the TV. RED BULL MUSIC ARMADA BRAZIL (12) Jurerê Internacional, Florianópolis, 07.03.11 Red Bull Music Academy Radio is on tour. The mobile broadcaster takes to the water in Brazil this month, summoning both local and international musicians to this on-air jam session, which calls in at a series of venues along the coast. Afterwards the boat sails north to Rio de Janeiro via Paraty.

Beatsteaks AUSTRIA (14) Gasometer, Vienna, 04–05.03.11 Berlin’s punk rock heroes are one of the best live bands on the planet. It’s as simple as that. Anyone who’s been to one of their many gigs in recent years will agree, and they spend a lot of time touring. It’s part of the reason the new album Boombox has been a long time coming. But now it’s out, giving the band an excuse to hit the road again. 20 Years of Planet E england (15) Ewer Street Car Park, London, 05.3.11 Carl Craig is a jack-of-all-trades visionary, the Picasso of techno if you will. For the past 25 years, the Detroit-based musician hasn’t just been releasing limit-pushing records, he also runs his own record label, Planet E, offering a platform to local talent and international dance music producers. Tonight, Mr Craig would agree, the real celebration is theirs.

Bloc Weekend england (20) Butlins Holiday Resort, Minehead, 11–13.03.11 Butlins is usually a holiday camp, with water slides, bowling alleys and other familyfriendly attractions. But on this particular weekend it is taken over by Aphex Twin, Magnetic Man, Jamie XX, Laurent Garnier and more to turn Minehead into Funky Town. Sxsw USA (21) Various locations, Austin, 11–20.03.11 You’ll find legends such as Bright Eyes, OMD, The Kills and local heroine Erykah Badu at this year’s South-By-Southwest festival. But the limelight really belongs to nonmainstream artists, with overwhelmingly young, up-and-coming acts getting their baptism of fire in front of not only a huge audience, but also the national and international press. WOMAD Festival New Zealand (22) TSB Bowl of Brooklands, New Plymouth, 18–20.03.11 Peter Gabriel created this multicultural festival 20 years ago, and ever since, the ‘World of Music, Arts and Dance’ has celebrated the crossover between pop and what was known as world music. This Kiwi incarnation will feature Amadou & Mariam from Mali, Don Letts and Calypso Rose.

INTERGALACTIC FM NIGHT GERMANY (16) Berghain & Panorama Bar, Berlin 05.03.11 The soundtrack to every Adriatic holiday in the early 1980s was surely Italo-disco: treacly synth tunes combined with sterile computerised drumbeats and cheesy pop. It was as tacky as it was thumping, as cringeworthy as it was marvellous. Now Dutch musician I-F has brought the genre back to life with his radio station, Intergalactic FM, and unleashed a trend in the process. SONARSOUND TOKYO JAPAN (17) Studio Coast, Tokyo, 01.04.11 Before the Catalan Sónar electronic festival is upon us, it’s time for a quick trip to Japan for an early taster. Seefeel, Battles and dubstep legend Kode9 are all on board, as are Red Bull Music Academy graduates Flying Lotus, Hudson Mohawke and Dorian Concept.

South Africa’s Die Antwoord will play RAMfest

Marc Márquez tackles Moto2 this year

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more body & mind

Save the Date March 2011

we round up the top events taking place across south africa this month

FEBRUARY 2–APRIL 4

Music’s Next Star: it’s You

Apply now at www.redbullmusicacademy.com

Cape Town’s finest: Red Bull Music Academy star, Black Coffee

96

March 4–12

Give it Horns RAMfest hits South Africa with a triple whammy this month. The three music festivals take place in three cities over five days across six stages. Since its inception in 2005, the self-proclaimed ‘SA’s Ultimate Rock Festival’ has thrown off its hard rock reputation to also include an electro/dance element. The festival kicks off in Cape Town at the Nekkies Resort in Worcester from March 4, then moves on to the Wavehouse in Durban on March 9 and ends in Johannesburg at the Riversands Farm in Fourways on March 12. The eclectic line-up features a mix of top local and international acts, including Die Antwoord, Zebra & Giraffe, Blk Jks, Gazelle, Haezer, Van Coke Kartel, Alkaline Trio from the USA, and the UK’s Funeral For A Friend. For more information go to www.ramfest.co.za

March 17–20

It’s Been a While... …since we South Africans have heard the wail of a Formula One car blasting around one of our tracks. That’s about to change though, with the Top Gear Festival making its debut at the Kyalami Grand Prix Circuit near Johannesburg this month. Along with the hosts of the acclaimed TV show, Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, the other star attraction will be the Red Bull Racing Formula One Team. Accompanying the team will be former F1 driver David Coulthard, who will be putting one of Red Bull Racing’s cars through its paces. “I’m really looking forward to going to Johannesburg for the Top

Gear Festival,” says Coulthard, winner of 13 grands prix during a glittering career. “Throughout the weekend tens of thousands of spectators will get the chance to see an F1 car on the race track and witness exactly what it can do. I plan to give everyone a true Red Bull experience with plenty of noise and burning rubber! See you all there.” For more information and tickets visit www. topgearfestival.co.za or www.computicket.com

words: Steve Smith. Photography: Liam Lynch, Tyrone Bradley/Red Bull Photofiles, Getty Images/Red bull Racing

If ever a city has the energy to inspire young musicians, then surely it must be Tokyo, neon-scorched venue for the 2011 Red Bull Music Academy. After successful residences in Barcelona in 2008 (as attended by SA’s acclaimed Afro House producer, Black Coffee) and London last year, the Academy is now on the lookout for fresh talent. Hopefuls can apply from February 2 to April 4, and the 60 lucky artists selected from around the world will head to Japan for one of two fortnight-long sessions in October and November. Part of the application process is putting together a music demo, so if you need any advice, then be sure to tap into South Africa’s network of Red Bull Music Academy alumni. They are online to provide tips and guidance through the Red Bull Music Academy website, Facebook and MXit.


FATE DOESN’T ASK. IT COULD ALSO BE ME. OR YOU. David Coulthard,

13-fold Formula 1 GP Champion and Wings for Life ambassador.

SPINAL CORD INJURY MUST BECOME CURABLE. In funding the best research projects worldwide focusing on the cure of spinal cord injury, the Wings for Life Spinal Cord Research Foundation guarantees top-level medical and scientific progress.

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T

here’s a moment in Alan Parker’s The Commitments, his movie about an Irish soul band, when the experienced Joey ‘The Lips’ Fagan has a go at a sax player, Dean Fay, in the toilets during a break. Fay, who could barely play the sax when the band started, is beginning to express himself and during a song had blown a twisty tangent that had jarred with the structure of soul. “What you were playing was not soul! Soul solos are part of the song – they have corners. You were spiralling – that’s jazz!” complained Fagan. Jimmy Rabbitte, the manager of the band, was more forthright when he walked into the toilets, and gave Dean a piece of his mind in an uncompromising Irish way: “Jazz is musical wanking! If you want to wank, use that thing in your hand, not your sax!” On that night, Fay’s failure was to appreciate his sense of place and his role as a musician. He forgot his job and in his desperation to show off a skill he had learnt, a talent he had discovered, became too wrapped up in himself to appreciate that in a soul solo, sex with a sax is for others and not just for himself. On a cold Sunday in February, shortly before the Green Bay Packers beat the Pittsburgh Steelers in Dallas to win the 45th Super Bowl, Christina Aguilera, as is the wont of a diva, forgot where she was and tried a little musical selfflagellation, got carried away, then lost and warbled her way into controversy. Critics were divided on what was worse – the fact she got a line wrong, or that she held the final note for seven seconds? She sang: “Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, what so proudly we watched at the twilight’s last gleaming.” She should have sung: “Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming.” But it wasn’t just the fact that she messed up the lyrics of her national

Mind’s Eye

Oh Say Can You Sing? National anthems and Christina Aguilera are like oil and water, says Kevin McCallum anthem, it was that she had managed to improvise so much during the song that she didn’t give her fellow Americans the opportunity to sing along. She’s a warbler, a big voice, and by Jiminy, she was going to show the millions that she knew how to use it. Except that wasn’t her job. She was there to lead the singalong; to kick off the party in bars and TV rooms around the country. The Star-Spangled Banner is a difficult anthem to sing – there are high notes in there that should not be approached without due care. It’s a Francis Scott Key poem sung to the tune of British drinking song, The Anacreontic Song. It has a range of one-and-a-half octaves. Aguilera has a range of four or five octaves, depending on who you speak to. If Joey ‘The Lips’ Fagan and Jimmy Rabbitte were to have a chat with her, they would accuse her of musical masturbation. They wouldn’t be the first. She’s been accused of ‘over-singing’, which is a politer way of saying what

Rabbitte told Fay. Linda Perry, her producer for the hit Beautiful, said that she “tried to keep it straight. I told her to get rid of the finger waves. Every time she’d start going into ‘hoo-ha’, I’d stop the tape. I’m like, ‘You’re doing it again.’” Aguilera’s version is not the worst Star Spangled Banner ever produced. Roseanne Barr droned through the anthem before a 1990 San Diego Padres game, making it a joke as she scratched herself and spat in the dirt like a baseball player. President George Bush the First called it a disgrace. Her then husband, Tom Arnold, said, “Most people can’t sing the song. She was singing it for them.” Carl Lewis can never run fast enough to escape the memory of his version before the New Jersey Nets and Chicago Bulls. As the camera panned to Michael Jordan, he was laughing himself silly. Lewis apologised and “promised to make up for it”, presumably by never singing again. And then, in November 2009, South Africa had their very own Barr-LewisAguilera in Ras Dumisani. A famous reggae artist in France, apparently, he croaked his way through the South African anthem before the Springboks played France in Toulouse. John Smit’s face was a shocked smile of disbelief as Dumisani couldn’t find the rhythm of the nation that had given him birth and stumbled through Nkosi Sikelel’ iAfrika. Fans laughed, the players couldn’t sing along and the concentration of the Springboks was zapped out of them. Accusations of sabotage were tossed at the French, and even the Young Communist League said Dumisani should only “sing in his shower”. Ah, the bathroom, a place where most singers of national anthems should leave their pretensions. It’s not about you, Christina; it’s about your countrymen. Kevin McCallum is an award-winning sports journalist and acclaimed columnist for the Independent newspaper group

The Red Bulletin South Africa, ISSN 2079-4282: The Red Bulletin is published by Red Bulletin GMBH Editor-In-Chief Robert Sperl General Managers Alexander Koppel, Rudolf Theierl Editorial Office Anthony Rowlinson (Executive Editor), Stefan Wagner Associate Editor Paul Wilson Contributing Editor Andreas Tzortzis Chief Sub-editor Nancy James Deputy Chief Sub-editor Joe Curran Production Editor Marion Wildmann Photo Editors Susie Forman (Chief), Fritz Schuster Deputy Photo Editors Valerie Rosenburg, Catherine Shaw Design Erik Turek (Art Director), Miles English, Judit Fortelny, Markus Kietreiber, Esther Straganz Staff Writers Werner Jessner, Uschi Korda, Ruth Morgan Contributors Nick Amies, Martin Apolin, Ulrich Corazza, Neil Gardiner, Mark Gleeson, Klaus Kamolz, Piers Martin, Kevin McCallum, Giovanna Mollona, Florian Obkircher, Andreas Rottenschlager, Nick Said, Robert Tighe, Herbert Völker Production Managers Michael Bergmeister, Wolfgang Stecher, Walter Omar Sádaba Repro Managers Christian Graf-Simpson, Clemens Ragotzky Augmented Reality Martin Herz, www.imagination.at International Project Management A product of the Bernd Fisa Finance Siegmar Hofstetter. Editor, South Africa Steve Smith. Corporate Publishing Boro Petric (head); Justin Hynes, Christoph Rietner, Nadja Žele (chief-editors); Dominik Uhl (art director); Markus Kucera (photo director); Lisa Blazek (editor). The Red Bulletin is published simultaneously in Austria, the UK, Germany, Kuwait, Poland, South Africa and New Zealand. Website www.redbulletin.com. Head office: Red Bulletin GmbH, Am Brunnen 1, A-5330 Fuschl am See, FN 287869m, ATU63087028. UK office: 155-171 Tooley Street, London SE1 2JP, +44 (0)20 3117 2100. Austrian office: Heinrich-Collin-Strasse 1, A-1140 Vienna, +43 (1) 90221 28800. Printed by CTP Printers, Duminy Street, ParowEast, Cape Town 8000. Advertising enquiries Anthony Fenton-Wells, +27 (0)82 464 6376, or email anthony@tfwcc.net Write to us: email letters@redbulletin.com

The next issue of the Red Bulletin is out on April 5

Illustration: Albert Exergian

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