The Red Bulletin April 2014 - NZ

april 2014 $4.95

beyond the ordinary

three for nz

let’s PL ay 14-page gaming special

bowl-a-r ama Warriors mitch evans

into the deep the art of free diving

G u e s t EDITOR

NZD 4.95

a n e w a l b u m , t h at h at And the world at h i s f e e t

April 2014

phaRrell williams

REPUBLIK★42560

YOU READY?

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THE WORLD OF RED BULL

24

Deep thinker

The freediver who, on his journey to reach world-record depths, wants to expand his mind – and yours

Welcome

You hold in your hands a very special issue of The Red Bulletin. What’s that? Every issue is special? You’re right to think that, of course, but this one is guest-edited by none other than Pharrell Williams. He got lucky, now he’s happy and for this magazine he has curated a selection of his favourite people and things.

We are also delighted to bring you an in-depth long and fascinating interview with music’s most wanted man.

Meanwhile, towards the bottom of the ocean, we learn the art and secrets of freediving. Then, at the Infiniti Red Bull Racing HQ, a look at Sebastian Vettel’s new car: can he drive it to a fifth F1 title in a row? All that and much, much more. We hope you enjoy the issue.

04

“Our feelings can lead us to do really crazy things” Pharrell Williams, page 34

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april 2014

at a glance Bullevard 08 gaming special A 14-page tribute to the games we play: the best, the hardest, the ones we’ve loved and what’s coming next

58

Features 24 Plunging the depths

gaining the edge

Freediver Guillaume Néry

How do you up your game if you’re already world-class? Mountainbiking legends the Athertons reveal all

70

34 Pharrell Williams

Under the influence with the manof-the-moment master collaborator

48 Mitch Evans

87

The Kiwi driver gears up for GP2

50 Bowl-A-Rama

Skateboard high drama in Wellington

finlay mackay (Cover), ian derry, Mattias Fredriksson , Benedict Redgrove/Red Bull Content Pool, Luis Vidales/Red Bull Content Pool, david read, Alistair Guthrie

56 Young Tapz

The NZ MC unleashes his debut LP

58 To the next level

Gee and Rachel Atherton on earning that extra one per cent

68 The Warriors

Shaun Johnson prepares for NRL battle

secrets of success

An access-all-areas look at the making of the RB10, the 2014 Infiniti Red Bull Racing Formula One car

racing seat

Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s new man Daniel Ricciardo reveals that sometimes being an F1 driver can be a bum rap

68

shaun johnson

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Can Sebastian Vettel become the world champion five times in a row?

78 Walk on the wild side High-altitude slacklining takes tightrope walking to new heights

Action

50 Ahead of the start of the NRL season, the Warriors star talks about making tackles, scoring tries and screwing up

70 F1 2014 preview

concrete playground

When the world’s top bowl skaters came to New Zealand, the rivalry dominating the sport was ramped up to new heights

86 87 88 89 90 92 94 96 98

travel Rock climbing in Rio training Get fit for Formula One party Art and hip-hop in Abu Dhabi My city A street artist’s Miami enter now Wings For Life World Run music Bombay Bicycle Club’s top tunes new games Infamous: Second Son save the Date Unmissable events magic moment Real-life half-pipe

05

Contributors who’s on board this issue The Red Bulletin New Zealand, ISSN 2079-4274

The Red Bulletin is published by Red Bull Media House GmbH General Manager Wolfgang Winter Publisher Franz Renkin Editors-in-Chief Alexander Macheck, Robert Sperl Editor Paul Wilson Creative Director Erik Turek

david Read

Finlay MacKay After shooting Shaun White and the NBA’s Indiana Pacers, the Scot was tired when he arrived in LA to shoot Pharrell Williams for our cover. Not that anyone noticed: the GQ and The New York Times Magazine regular hustled the Grammy-winner through several set-ups in an empty downtown. “Pharrell was easygoing and simple to shoot,” says MacKay. “The biggest challenge for me was the LA sun. My pasty Glasgow skin burns very easily.”

He’s a trouper: see page 34.

The man behind Manual, New Zealand’s best skateboarding magazine, Read is the country’s leading skate photographer.

The 39-year-old has been behind the lens at every Bowl-A-Rama contest in Wellington (the annual event was first held in 2007) and says that this year’s final set a new standard for the competition.

“The intensity was mind-blowing.

Everyone was feeding off each other and you could really feel a wave of energy in the bowl.”

Feel it for yourself on page 50.

The author of a book about rugby and many articles about the wider world of sport, Peletan dove deep into the life and times of Guillaume Néry, one of the world’s best proponents of freediving. The two Frenchmen enjoyed a remarkable conversation about the limits of human endurance and the notion of BASE-jumping underwater.

“Competition in freediving is important, but is secondary to the aesthetic: it has to be beautiful,” says Peletan. Come on in, the water’s wonderful on page 24.

06

Photo Director Fritz Schuster Production Editor Marion Wildmann Managing Editor Daniel Kudernatsch Chief Sub-Editor Nancy James Deputy Chief Sub-Editor Joe Curran Assistant Editors Robert Tighe, Ulrich Corazza, Werner Jessner, Ruth Morgan, Florian Obkircher, Arek Pia˛tek, Andreas Rottenschlager Contributing Editor Stefan Wagner Bullevard Georg Eckelsberger, Raffael Fritz, Sophie Haslinger, Marianne Minar, Boro Petric, Holger Potye, Martina Powell, Mara Simperler, Clemens Stachel, Manon Steiner, Lukas Wagner Design Martina de Carvalho-Hutter, Silvia Druml, Kevin Goll, Carita Najewitz, Esther Straganz Photo Editors Susie Forman (Creative Photo Director), Rudi Übelhör (Deputy Photo Director), Marion Batty, Eva Kerschbaum Repro Managers Clemens Ragotzky (manager), Karsten Lehmann, Josef Mühlbacher Head of Production Michael Bergmeister Production Wolfgang Stecher (manager), Walter O Sádaba, Christian Graf-Simpson (app) Advertising Enquiries Brad Morgan, brad.morgan@nz.redbull.com Printed by PMP Print, 30 Birmingham Drive, Riccarton, 8024 Christchurch Finance Siegmar Hofstetter, Simone Mihalits

Mattias Fredriksson FrEdEric Pelatan

Art Directors Kasimir Reimann, Miles English

Living near the mountains in Sweden, it’s no wonder Fredriksson is noted for his mountain bike and ski photos. A senior staffer at Powder and Bike magazines, he keeps himself almost as fit as the athletes he shoots. “I ski more than 100 days a year and the same riding my bikes,” he says, “or else I would never be able to keep up.

In Fuerteventura, I was constantly running around the hills to shoot Gee and Rachel Atherton. It was a lot of fun.” Turn to page 58 now.

“ The intensity in Wellington was mind-blowing: a wave of energy” david read

Marketing & Country Management Stefan Ebner (manager), Elisabeth Salcher, Lukas Scharmbacher, Sara Varming Distribution Klaus Pleninger, Peter Schiffer subscription price: 45 NZD, 12 issues, www.getredbulletin.com, subs@nz.redbulletin.com Marketing Design Julia Schweikhardt, Peter Knethl Advertising Placement Sabrina Schneider O∞ce Management Kristina Krizmanic

The Red Bulletin is published in Austria, Brazil, France, Germany, Ireland, Kuwait, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, Switzerland, UK and USA Website www.redbulletin.com Head office Red Bull Media House GmbH, Oberst-Lepperdinger-Strasse 11-15, A-5071 Wals bei Salzburg, FN 297115i, Landesgericht Salzburg, ATU63611700 New Zealand office 27 Mackelvie Street, Grey Lynn, Auckland 1021 +64 (0) 9 551 6180 Austria office Heinrich-Collin-Strasse 1, A-1140 Vienna, +43 (1) 90221 28800 Write to us: letters@redbulletin.com

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Introducing the from Sony.

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l e t ’ s p l ay

a celebration of gaming

Don’t just see them, be them

Next-level acting

Now that Oscar-nominees go virtual, is the games/ movies divide sealing shut?

Is it just moonlighting or a journey into the future of acting? Juno and Inception star Ellen Page lent her talents to PS3 adventure Beyond: Two Souls, contributing body movements, facial expressions and emotions to the leading lady, Jodie, in the same way actors are motioncaptured for movies. (Footage of the game was shown at the Tribeca Film Festival last year.) Willem Dafoe co-stars; together, their characters try to solve the riddle of life after death. The in-game action is typically Hollywood, as is the scandal that comes with it: online pics of a hacked version of the game’s shower scene, without the TV-movie friendly steam.

A virtual Ellen Page in Beyond: Two Souls (main pic) after motioncapturing (inset) that mapped her body and facial expressions and made the data for her virtual doppelganger

08

ALL THE BEST

HAPPY BIRTHDAYS in GAMING Sentimentalists have good reason

to celebrate in 2014, with a bunch of anniversaries marking the debuts of influential and iconic software and hardware NES This grey box became a hit in Japan in 1984; America followed a year later and the Nintendo Entertainment System brought video games into the world.

SEGA MEGADRIVE It’s now 25 years since Sega wowed us with what was then a staggering 16-bit console and the world’s fastest blue hedgehog, Sonic.

Producer(13), The Kobal Collection

johannes lang

PLAYSTATION In 1994, the battle for supremacy between Nintendo and Sega became a three-way.

Sony released the first PlayStation and left both in its wake.

Undead reckoning: Milla’s five Resident Evil movies have grossed US$916m worldwide

THANK YOU, ZOMBIES...

SIM CITY You build and run a city, and then, if you like, monsters destroy it?

An idea that, 25 years ago, people said was crazy, but has proved one of the most durable.

FIFA The first one didn’t even have a year: 20 years ago, FIFA International Soccer launched one of the most successful games series ever.

...FOR MILLA JOVOVICH. Every

two years, the creatures from Resident Evil make a comeback.

It’s a welcome sight, because no one hunts zombies as beautifully as Milla. It is no shock to learn that the movies’ most successful female action hero has been borrowed from a video game.

What is surprising, as our picture shows, is that she’s offing the undead with what looks like a NES Zapper. Her sixth RE flick is in mooted for release next year.

GAME BOY It had a weak processor, a simple black-andwhite display and no backlight, and yet it was a global hit on launch in 1989. Nintendo’s greatest-ever product?

Tetris On June 6, 1984, in Moscow, Alexey Pajitnov finished a game the world is still playing: over 100m downloads, with the hundreds of millions on all formats.

niNtendo DS When it appeared in 2004, the DS brought to mind old Game & Watch handhelds. To date, about 154m have been sold, second only to PS2 sales (155m).

09

B U LLE VA R D

Go with the flow

WHAT SHOULD I PLAY NEXT?

So many games, so little time. Choose your next one here Are you the centre of your world? Do you like to play from a first-person perspective?

Do you like shooting people?

N

N

Y

N Are you a world-builder who would like to build and rule your own kingdom?

Portal 2, Stanley Parable

Do you like to hit your opponent with weapons that seem realistic?

N

Y Are you over 18 and capable of losing without insulting your opponent’s mother?

Team Fortress 2

Y Call of Duty

Are you a strategic thinker and team player who likes to measure up against others?

Y Battlefield, Counter Strike GO

N

Would you get annoyed if someone rampaged through your lovely kingdom?

Y

N

10

Y

FIFA 14, NHL 14, NBA 2k14

Y N

Awesome­n auts, Strife

Do you like sport, but actual running is a bit too much bother?

Would you like to give up the rest of your life and spend all night and all day playing games?

N

Starcraft 2, Supreme Commander

Rollercoaster Tycoon 3, Sim City 4

The Elder scrolls: Skyrim

N Do you like to explore enormous game-worlds in the hope of discovering new things?

Y N

HAVE YOU EVER TRIED LEAVING THE HOUSE?

Y DOTA 2, League of Legends

MISSING LINKS

How an art professor and young hacker dad made Lego compatible with everything

Interoperability: that’s what it’s called when things made by different manufacturers work with each other. Once an IT buzzword, it has now found its way into children’s toy boxes thanks to Golan Levin, a university professor from Pennsylvania. Levin and his colleague, the designer Shawn Sims, have invented the Free Universal Construction Kit (please don’t use the acronym), an arsenal of 3D-printer-made connection parts for 10 popular toy construction sets, including Lego. “When my son was four, he tried in vain to put together a car from K’Nex and Tinkertoy parts. That gave me the idea,” Levin explains. He and Sims then needed a name for the project, “and it took a whole pitcher of beer to come up with one.” They have made the plans for the connection parts freely available.

“There are print-on-demand services where you can order them,” says Levin, “but it’s more fun to play around with a 3D printer yourself and your child will enjoy it too.” Let’s raise another glass to the hackerspace. thingiverse.com/uck

Courtesy F.A.T. Lab and Sy-Lab

Y

Real-world gaming

‘You can make them yourself on a 3D printer’

B U L L E VA R D

Fred : 0

VS

f red | chess |

MAN VS MACHINE: WHO’S BEST? LET THE BOARD GAMES BEGIN! GMR : 1

IBM’s Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in 1997, the first time a computer beat a world chess champion. Now there are mobile phone apps that would thrash Deep Blue and the greatest grandmasters. Checkmate, humans!

Fred : 1

| draughts |

GMR : 2

In 2007, after 18 years of development and cracking draughts mathematically, a team of scientists at the University of Alberta unveiled Chinook, a program that will never lose, and almost always win, against a human player.

Fred : 1

GMR | go |

GMR is Fred’s best friend, but never helps Fred with his maths homework

GMR : 1

This Asian strategy game has more moves than there are atoms in the universe. A human go-master’s ability to assess territorial advantage at a glance lets him outfox the best computers. In your face, motherboard!

Fred : 2

| arimaa |

GMR : 2

Driven by Kasparov’s loss to Deep Blue, Omar Syed devised a game his young son could understand, but which a computer would find hard. After 10 years of human-CPU match-ups, soft flesh still beats software.

play Again?

12

tom mackinger

Fred is GMR’s best friend, and eats cake over the keyboard to annoy him

B U L L E VA R D

very revy

bike to the future

Ubisoft/RedLynx

When sci-fi- and sport collide, there’s always that guy who looks like a Daft Punk Power Ranger

14

Thrown to the air Trials Fusion is an offshoot of Trials, the world’s best motocross games series.

Gripping gameplay, futuristic feel, incredible visuals: out later this year

B U L L E VA R D

“ W h a t ’ s w r o n g with you, drama queen?” rihanna in B attleship

big screen

PIXEL PICTURES

WHEN GAMES BECOME MOVIES

Hollywood is fighting to keep its audience because they’re all at home playing games. Four of these five films really exist: one we’d like to shoot ourselves

Nicolas Cage He was abandoned by everyone. But underestimating a man like him could be your last mistake

H O W D I D IT ha p p e n ?

A R E YOU F O R R E A L ?

W H E N WA S T H AT ?

Game makers Hasbro had already successfully transferred Transformers to the big screen. And so Battleship was launched in 2012.

One of the most successful first-person shooters would surely work on the big screen. But watching it was like watching someone play Doom, badly, and not letting you have a go.

$42m budget in 1993 says: yes, very real indeed.

The first of two films appeared in the cinema in 1995 and was in keeping with the spirit of the game. Fans enjoyed the aliens-versus-humans thing and the fight scenes were OK. The 1997 sequel was terrible.

H O W D I D i t H A PPE N ?

T H A N K YOU , 1 9 9 0 s !

WA IT. IS N ’ T T H AT …

W H AT ’ s T H E P L OT ?

...Rihanna?

Ye s , i t i s .

S h e’s g ot a great voice.

Director Andrzej Bartkowiak found the crux of the game – killing beasts in hell – too unrealistic. So his idea for the 2005 film was to kill monsters on Mars instead.

what ’ s t h e p l o t

W H O ’ S t h e s tar ?

The human race is threatened with extermination by technologically superior aliens. No hope of survival.

How do you think it all turns out? what ’ s n e x t ?

Other Hasbro properties on the b i g s c r e e n : F u r b y, M y L i t t l e P o n y, Play-Doh.

16

The Rock

Nine different scriptwriters and an untried directing duo made one of the biggest cinema flops of the 1990s out of the 1980s’ favourite video game.

W H O P L AYE D B O W SE R ?

D e n n i s H o p p e r, i n his most absurd role as a wicked blond lizard man.

WA S T H E R E A SE Q UE L ? W H AT H A PPE N E D nEXT ?

I t ’s sa i d th e re we re plans for Doom 2.

But there were plans for Doom to be successful first.

Mario, aka Bob Hoskins, went on to appear in Nixon, Spice World and Garfield: A Tale of Two Kitties. But Tom Hanks was happy: he’d wanted the part of Mario.

is it out yet?

Cambodia, 1970. A lone US soldier is clearing a minefield. All he has to help him is a cryptic map full of numerical codes.

Ta g l i n e

Just.

One. More.

Mine.

W H O WA S D I R E C TI N G ?

Paul WS Anderson, who later gave us the Resident Evil screen adaptations. an o t h e r o n e ?

A fan-made web series has led to reboot talk.

Cast & Crew Director: Michael Bay Script: Charlie Kaufman The soldier: Nicolas Cage The captain: Tyrese Gibson The wife: Gemma Arterton The buddy: Peter Stormare Pl o t Tw i s t Our hero’s nerves fail him on the very last mine.

There’s a white flash, an explosion, and Nic Cage wakes with a start. His face has aged by 40 years. He’d fallen asleep at his desk.

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Corbis, picturedesk.com (2), The Kobal Collection(2), Süddeutsche Zeitung Photo

H O W D I D IT ha p p e n ?

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Y THAT PHOTOGRAPH REATHLESS LEAVES YOU B HO ARE THE PEOPLE W E WORLD CHANGING TH

© Paulo Calisto

HAT ADVENTURE T DARIES N U O BREAKS B

YO U R .

T N E M MO

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BULLEVARD

1995

r ayman

1993

need for speed

1994

doom

1991

mortal kombat

1992

Lemmings

1989

The secret of monkey island

1990

prince of persia

1987

zak m c kr acken and the alien mindbenders

1988

megaman

1985

the legend of zelda

1986

super mario bros

1983

tetris

1984

bomberman

1981

donkey kong

space invaders

PONG

1978

1982 ms pac-man

1980 pac-man

1972

Space Invader 8x8 pixels: a legend born

Link Poor guy. Star of a series named after Princess Zelda

The prince with no name Though in the 2010 movie, he’s Dastan Bomberman Insurgent version of Pac-Man Pong First gaming hero is a thin rectangle

Guybrush Threepwood The wit tiest games star of all -time

18

tom mackinger

Donkey Kong World went ape for a barrel of fun

Super Mario Here he is: ‘It’s-a me!’

BULLEVARD

2013 the last of us

2011

dishonored

2012

minecr aft

2009

red dead redemption

bioshock

2007

2010

league of legends

guild wars

2008

portal

2005

world of warcr aft

2003

2006 gears of war

2004

call of duty

2001

battlefield 1942

2002

halo: Combat Evolved

1999

the sims

2000

silent hill

1997

half-life

1998

dungeon keeper

tomb r aider

1996

Lara Croft Is it OK to have a crush on graphics?

Chell Absolutely not your usual in-game babe Master Chief Helmeted harbinger of alien doom

Steve Back to the star t: a real hero made of pixels

Gordon Freeman The strongest, silent-ist t ype, he never spoke

the line-up

video games legends

1up & up & up

The men, women and monkeys who made history

B U L L E VA R D

Block party

Real Life Tetris

Old into gold: Michael Johansson made The Move Overseas, the installation he presented at the last Beaufort04, the triennial art expo in the Belgian town of Zeebrugge, using second-hand household appliances and furniture he bought locally

20

Michael Johansson

Well stacked, Sir: Michael Johansson has got to be Sweden’s tidiest artist

B ULLE VARD

g e a r

o h

d e a r

A quick look at game-gadget history tells us there’s a fine line between a white elephant and a white-hot tech triumph

bingoal! bingoal!

Full house on matchday

TV FOOTBALL BINGO

Next time you’re watching the match, cross out these tried-and-tested phrases when you hear them. It won’t take long to get the lot…

There‘s a capacity crowd here tonight

Schoolboy defending

They‘ve only come here to park the bus

A good time to score

Every game is a cup final now

It was handbags, really

The manager must have read them the riot act at half-time

He had no right to score from there

I’m not exaggerating – it could be 10-0

It was easier to score

I’m going to make a prediction – it could go either way

He’s given 110 per cent

These two teams know each other inside out

The first goal is going to make all the difference

There are no easy games at this level

What on Earth was he thinking?

No love lost between these two

Surely the referee could see that

This is a dangerous free-kick

Stonewall penalty

And it‘s in the back of the net!

We‘ve seen those given

Time is slowly running out for them

Absolutely unbelievable

The referee is looking at his watch

handy? meh Power glove In 1988, what was meant to be the future of controllers turned out to be cack-handed.

Only two compatible games were made.

wonder

Virtual Boy Nintendo (see above) promised us a 3D virtual world back in 1995. What we got were red, flickering LEDs and headaches.

a reality?

OCULUS Rift This time it’s for real: a virtual reality gaming headset, financed by Kickstarter.

Might we see them, at last, in 2014?

“ YOU ’ RE CHEC K ING ME OUT , AREN ’ T YOU ? “

t h e s e

n o w

producer(5)

dietmar kainrath

d o w n l o a d

TOP ELEVEN Over 12 million wannabe mangers can’t be wrong: the best mobile football sim

angry birds go!

Your furious feathered friends in a kart-racing game with the expected, one-more-go pull

21

B U L L E VAR D

2013 Sony Playstation 4 processor: eight 64-bit processors, each with 1.6GHz ram: 8GB colours: over a billion most successful game so far: Killzone: Shadow Fall

Na, Super!

Tot!

× 16

2005 Xbox 360 processor: 64-bit TriCore processor, each with 3.2GHz ram: 512MB colours: 16.7 million most successful game: Kinect Adventures

the number games

× 16

power lifting

2000

Each generation of games machines brings huge leaps in tech: in 40 years we’ve gone from 64 bytes to 8bn

sony Playstation 2 processor: 64-bit with 294.9MHz ram: 32MB colours: 16.7m most successful game: GTA: San Andreas

×8 1996 Nintendo 64 processor: 64-bit with 93.75MHz ram: 4MB colours: 16.7m (32,000 on screen) most successful game: Super Mario 64

× 57

1988 Sega Mega Drive processor: 16-bit with 7.61MHz ram: 72KB colours: 512 (64 on screen) most successful game: Sonic The Hedgehog

× 36

1983 Nintendo Entertainment System processor: 8-bit with 1.66MHz ram: 2KB colours: 54 (25 on screen) most successful game: Super Mario Bros

× 32

Magnavox Odyssey processor: none (40 transistors) ram: none (but later 64 bytes) colours: 2 – black and white most successful game: Table Tennis

22

sascha bierl

1972

factor increase in RAM

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B U L L E VA R D

Super Mario Art

Game Over

What happens when Mario’s lives are all used up?

And what were Princess Peach’s last words to him?

TIPS FROM THE TOP

Jordan Loose The New Zealander, aka Elmo, is a master of the gaming arts

It was a-me,

mario!

CALL OF DUTY: GHOSTS “Ten years on from the first Call of Duty, Ghosts has the same high standards as previous instalments. New weapons, new maps and new game modes make this the best Call of Duty yet.”

Kordian Lewandowski, producer(6)

LEAGUE OF LEGENDS “It’s the world’s most played PC game and 32 million gamers watched the world champs last year. One reason it’s so popular is regular updates and patches, which means it’s always evolving.”

Polish artist Kordian Lewandowski carved Game Over (2008) from a 2m-tall block of Styrofoam. He was inspired by Michelangelo’s Pieta, a statue of Jesus in the arms of Mary

Grand Theft Auto V “It has an exceptionally well-developed single-player story mode and the option to complete the missions as three different characters is pretty unique. It’s a fun game to play.”

M obile G ames | | | rated for y ou | | | i n ‘ test c o n ditio n s ’ Paper train Get trains through an intersection safely.

Simple idea, but will have you punching the side of the basin in frustration.

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BADLAND A smallest-room favourite: each level of this side-scrolling platformer only takes two minutes, thus ideal for fleeting visits.

device 6 A surreal thriller that uses words and images to drive a hybrid of short story and video game. People will be banging on the door.

23

DEEP

thinker The freediver who, on his journey to reach world-record depths, wants to expand his mind – and yours Words: Frédéric Pelatan Photography: Ian Derry

24

“The most magical moment is when I escape gravity.

It is liberation. It is breaking loose�

“ Our sport is enormously demanding from a physical point of view, but I don’t feel that it’s dangerous” 26

Guillaume Néry, freediving philosopher: “My only fear is fear itself. Once it sets in, you lose your cool and serenity”

As a child, Guillaume NĂŠry dreamed of becoming an astronaut.

Now he defies gravity in the other direction

“Aesthetics are important in freediving. What you do has to look good�

29

G uillaume Néry is pushing and dragging a trolley stacked high with luggage down the corridors of Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport. His young daughter, Maï-Lou, hangs off his back like a little spider monkey. Alongside them is Julie Gau­t ier, girlfriend and mother, filmmaker and Néry’s confidante and freediving partner. The Néry clan is fleeing the French winter to spend the next four months in French Polynesia: only a 25-hour journey separates them from paradise.

Maï-Lou is now old enough for her parents to get a good night’s sleep and things have been going well recently from a sporting point of view, the one-time world-record holder, having improved one of his many French freediving records at 30

“ We have to fight hard for every metre. That’s the challenge, the fascination”

Search ‘nery base’ on YouTube to see Néry’s ‘BASE-jump’ dive into the world’s deepest underwater sinkhole in the Bahamas

A single breath is all Guillaume NĂŠry needs to dive to a depth of 125m

the World Championships in Kalamata, Greece.

But the 31-year-old Frenchman is broody and uncommunicative, as he has been for several weeks, since Nicholas Mevoli, a vi­deo producer and experienced freediver from New York, died while taking part in a competition organised by AIDA, freediving’s international governing body.

In May 2013, Mevoli became the first American freediver to pass the 100m mark in the Constant Weight category – diving down alongside a guide line, but not touching it, while wearing fins. Four months later, he won the silver medal in the same category at the World Championships. On November 17, 2013, in the Bahamas, during an attempt of a 72m Constant Weight Without Fins dive, Mevoli reached his depth and resurfaced as planned.

He then fell unconscious in the water during his resurfacing procedure and was taken to hospital

“ I am completely calm during a dive. Everything around me becomes one”

where he died, of what was later said to be pulmonary oedema: capillaries bursting under pressure and filling his lungs with blood.

“The whole community is in shock,” Néry says. “Our sport is enormously demanding, from a physical point of view, but I don’t feel it’s dangerous because we have to stick to all these safety procedures. Or should I say I never used to feel it was dangerous? Of course, now I wonder what to do. Does it make sense to carry on?”

Does this mean that one of the world’s best freedivers now fears the deep?

“My only fear is fear itself,” he says, matter-offactly. “Once it sets in, you lose the cool and serenity you need as you fight for every extra metre. In fact, we have to fight so hard for every extra metre that we can never afford to tense up. That’s the challenge, the art, the fascinating thing.”

A few years ago, in another part of the Bahamas, Néry himself got into severe difficulty.

“I dived down to a depth of 80m, doing the breaststroke. When I came back up, I couldn’t breathe, my whole body was tense and I was spitting blood. It was more than five minutes before my breathing returned to normal.”

Unlike Austrian freediver Herbert Nitsch, who suffered the consequences of a 2012 accident, or Loïc Leferme, who died in training in 2007, Néry has resisted the siren call of the ultimate category of freediving, No-Limits, in which aids can be used to dive down next to a guide line, usually a weighted ‘sled’ on the way down and inflatable buoyancy aids on the ascent. The temptation has been strong, but his girlfriend has managed to dissuade him. “She was pretty unequivocal about it. She said, ‘It’s OK if you want to do it, but you have to know you’ll be doing it without me.’” Néry readily agreed with that ultimatum.

“Competing is fascinating, but it’s only scratching the surface. Aesthetics are the really important thing when it comes to freediving. Aesthetics are affirmation; what you do always has to look good.

“When I was a kid, I dreamed of becoming an astronaut and was constantly looking up at the sky.

Then one day I saw a documentary about freediving legend Umberto Pelizzari. That was the first time I was confronted with a completely different world.”

Néry and a friend would challenge each other on the school bus: first one to breathe loses. Back in his room after school, Néry would rest his arms on his body and hold his breath for five minutes. He was 14 and hoping to discover far-off galaxies, but he would elude gravity by going down, not up.

Following the online success of the short film Free Fall, which he and Gautier shot together, Néry feels he is more able to convey to others his fascination for freediving. (Narcosis, the couple’s latest short, is being shown at European film festivals. Gautier operates the camera, following Néry into the depths.) “The most magical moment is when I escape gravity. It is liberation. It is breaking loose. I fly with my arms open. At those moments I am completely calm. Everything around me becomes one and I become part of that whole.” guillaumenery.fr

33

Designer, musician, artist & producer Pharrell Williams is one thing above all: a master collaborator

pharrell Whether in a Japanese sculpture or the smooth style of a BMX street rider, the Grammy Award-winning producer finds inspiration everywhere. Favourites from his current list are featured over the following pages as Williams guest-edits The Red Bulletin 34

the red bulletin

But first, he talks about channelling his curiosity, what the music industry took years to understand and what he hopes women will get from his new album

predicts

the future Interview: Andreas Tzortzis  Portraits: Finlay MacKay

magic

I find the in trying to just blend different worlds together and

mix it up

“If your voice is like velvet and people are used to hearing you in things that music’” would be conducive to a velvet voice, I would say, ‘Let’s try

gravel

36

t

he man in that hat is as cool as you like, his voice above a whisper but not much more, holding forth on the trouble with success, the absurdity of hit-making and why people don’t feel anymore. Forty years on this earth, 23 of them creating the type of music that has soundtracked house parties, breathless and fumbling late nights and slow cruises through the neighbourhood, Pharrell Williams is still, remarkably, nailing it. Two global hits in 2013, Get Lucky and Blurred Lines, netted him four Grammy Awards, including his second Producer Of The Year award; another party-starter, Happy, appeared on the Despicable Me 2 soundtrack and won an Oscar nomination, and an award for its innovative 24-hour music video.

But then there’s that hat and what it reveals about the taste-making gene Williams possesses.

Reminiscent of Malcolm McLaren and the World’s Famous Supreme Team’s 1982 video for Buffalo Gals, it’s a Vivienne Westwood piece that first appeared on the shelves of the shop she and McLaren owned in London. Now tweeted, mocked and memed the world over, it’s almost as if Williams planned it, which he’ll assure you he didn’t, because nothing he does follows a plan so much as appears to him at the right moment, ready and willing to bring him success. That includes his new album, Girl, his first solo project in eight years, which will probably fire our collective synapses far beyond 2014. the red bulletin: What are you looking for when an artist walks into your studio? pharrell williams: It is three things. It is, one, what they walk in saying they would like to do. It is also their energy they are naturally giving off. You know, whether it is a cab ride or it is an argument or something that they have on their mind. And then, third, it is the way that they actually sound and their vocal tone. I always try to make sure that there is some interesting juxtaposition. So if your voice is like velvet and people are used to hearing you in things that would be conducive to a velvet voice, I would say, “Let’s try gravel music,” if that makes any sense. So there is some interesting alchemy there.

And the magic is when you are able to marry those elements together. Like, “Man, I didn’t know peanut butter and chocolate could go together.”

Yeah, it is called a Reese’s Cup. But you would never know unless you tried it.

So that is where I find the magic, in trying to blend different worlds together and mix it up.

37

P H A R R E L L ’ S F AV O U R I T E S “Since I’m forever a student, I’m always looking for interesting people, places and things. Feeding my curiosity is key. I love searching for new things that can change my perspective on how I see the world. If your brain isn’t constantly learning, you’re doing yourself a disservice. I’m a big believer in pushing yourself to explore new worlds that challenge what you perceive to be true. Take a look at some of my favourite inspirations right now”

#1

Coarse False Friends 2010

“Who doesn’t love toys?

Whether you’re a child or a big kid like me, a great toy can instantly bring a smile to your face. This museum exhibit proves why designer toys are a new platform for fine art expression. It speaks to the kid in all of us.”

They look like toy figures. They are the same size and made of the same material. Yet unlike regular play things, designer toys are not to be played with. They’re to be collected. They are the bridge between pop culture and high culture, between comic fans and art collectors. These toys are produced by reputable designers and artists in small, expensive batches, making them highly collectible in a very short space of time. A small Mickey Mouse skull-andcrossbones figure by American artist KAWS can fetch prices similar to that for a second-hand car. The Design Exchange Museum in Toronto is now giving these plastic miniatures their first large

exhibition. This Is Not A Toy runs until May 19 and shows the origins of this culture dating back to the 1990s, from early ‘urban vinyl’ works by Hong Kong designer Michael Lau to detailed miniatures by renowned artists such as Takashi Murakami and Yoshitomo Nara.

Designer toy collector Pharrell Williams is co-curating the show.

“I remember exactly the first time I saw these figures. I felt like I was a child again in a shot,” says Williams. “The designer toy culture has introduced me to new artists. From Jeff Koons to KAWS. It was like pushing open a crazy portal into another world.” dx.org

florian obkircher

THIS IS NOT A TOY Design

If being on top is your main concern, then you probably should find another business.

Because our business works off emotion

In pairing and trying, there seems to be no fear of failure whatsoever.

Mmm hmm.

Do you fear failure at all? Because looking at your track record, you seem to be very consistent from success to success.

What?

The fear that maybe something isn’t working out.

Maybe this track isn’t going to hit. Maybe that clothing line isn’t going to work. Do you think about it in those terms?

Yeah, I don’t even understand that. My mind can’t even process that.

And has it always been like that?

Yeah. When you love something, what are you scared of?

I suppose you are scared of negative reaction.

Well, if you are thinking about fame and success, yeah.

Well, if you’re on top, I guess the fear would be losing that, right? Losing that touch.

Right. But if that is your main concern, being on top, then you probably should find another business.

Because our business works off emotion, and it is not really easy to quantify it outside of what it is. the red bulletin

It is like saying, “Well, are you afraid of how the ball is going to react to the ice hockey rink?”

No, because that is not what it is meant for. The puck is for that world and the ball is for another world. Emotions are just emotions. So when a song works, you should just be thankful, because that is not why you do it.

So any kind of success that I have ever had on a song is not my doing. So you don’t do it for that, because I can’t control that. I do it because I feel like it feels good and it may resonate with other people.

So it is not really good to mix the idea of what success is and the purity of why you do something.

Unless, define success. Big or huge? That means that after I have done what I did or anybody else that has made their contribution to something, success means the people voted, they requested, they shared it with a friend, they purchased it, they downloaded it. And they did it in large numbers.

That is what success means. I have nothing to do with that. I can’t control it. I can only control what I do.

When I was young, yeah, I looked at it differently, because I looked at a lot of people who quantified their happiness by how successful they were. And 39

RITES P H A R R E L L’ S FAV O U

BANKS

Singersongwriter

Delicate, all-encompassing choral singing begins. Then comes a gentle piano chord, some hissing beats and an elegantly smoky, instantly captivating voice. Banks takes no prisoners. As soon as you hear the first few bars of her London EP, you know that this 25-year-old artist from Los Angeles is here to stay, because her songs represent a long overdue link between warm, soulful R’n’B vocals and ice-cold electronic music. It is minimalistic, glittering and sexy,as if Lana Del Rey had spent a night in the recording studio with James Blake.

Even though Banks only released her debut single a year ago, she can already count names like Pharrell Williams and Katy Perry among her fans. Perry declared her love

on Twitter last year – not a bad career boost considering Perry has more than 50 million followers right now.

Jillian Banks – her full name – has been making music since the age of 15.

It began with a friend giving her a toy keyboard, which was supposed to help her get over her parents’ divorce, an aid to help her process her emotions.

And it did just that. It worked as a selfhelp tool for a long time, something she did just for her. “I could let everything

BANKS TAKES NO PRISONERS. HER MUSIC IS MINIMALISTIC, GLITTERING, SEXY

out in my songs. Insults, secrets, aggression… it was incredibly liberating,” she told Billboard magazine in June of last year. “And then I was hooked.”

She only shared her music with the rest of the world once she had completed her studies, uploading her song Before I Ever Met You to SoundCloud. Zane Lowe discovered it and played it on his BBC Radio 1 show. His advice was, “Listen up, Banks is gonna be the next big thing.”

A self-fulfilling prophecy. Within months, Banks had a record deal in the bag, lingerie company Victoria’s Secret had used her song Waiting Game in its new advertising campaign and in January of this year, the BBC shortlisted Banks for newcomer of the year in its Sound of 2014 contest. The contest has been a reliable yardstick for new talent and in recent years has foretold the breakthrough of artists including Frank Ocean, Adele and Florence And The Machine.

Banks has now somewhat withdrawn from public life in her adopted city of London to work on recording her debut album, which should appear some time this year.

Working with her in the studio are flavour-of-the-month electronic producers Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs, Lil Silva and Shlohmo, the latter working with her at the mixing desk on her latest single, Brain.

She only hears all the fuss about her indirectly. Social networking isn’t her thing. She is happy to leave that to her management team. None of which means that she doesn’t care about her fans. She even published her private phone number on Facebook, adding: “If you ever want to talk, call me!” So have there ever been times when she has regretted being so open?

“Not yet. Most people write really nice messages,” she told MTV. “What I like best are the text messages where people tell me my songs helped them when they were feeling lonely.”

For those of you thinking you might want to reach out, go right ahead.

Her American number is 001 323 362-2658. hernameisbanks.com

florian obkircher

#2

“There’s another girl, Banks, who’s crazy. So good.

She is something special”

nobody wants to work really hard and not get recognised for it.

You want to be appreciated for your work. But there is a fine line in appreciating your work and doing super well and you getting hooked on that.

If you get hooked on success, you are screwed.

How did you manage to avoid that?

Well, I have been doing it for a long time, and I realised the thing that always gives back to me is my curiosity for how I can find new chord progressions, new sounds. That is how I am rewarded, because I can’t control anything else.

So when something is “successful”, that is what you guys always see me saying thank you for all of the time, or I put my hands together, because I want you to know that I know where it comes from, and point up.

You know, we are vessels. We are straws. We are not the juice. And anyone that believes that, those are the people that end up, you know, losing their minds later on in life or being unhappy.

I don’t have to be the juice. I don’t have to be the glass. I don’t have to be the coldest part of the whole entire thing, which is the ice. You could be that. I am just happy to be a part of it.

Are you the facilitator?

I am a part of it. I am a participant. The minute that you claim you are a facilitator, well then you are the all-powering. And are you? If everybody that made a song gained that kind of power, then I mean, what would this world look like?

That is why everything is fair, right? We all play a part in it. It is like an ant farm or a beehive.

Everyone has their job. My job is to just listen and sort of try to channel it through, but it is coming from somewhere else, hence the term channel. So I am thankful when songs become what they do, because it is not my doing.

There are some producers out there who think it’s possible to manufacture hits; that a chord progression, a certain hook sung by someone, will guarantee success.

Sure.

You don’t subscribe to that?

Well, not unless you want to get in the rat race and compete with everybody else and hope that your song makes it to the top when it sounds just

juice

I don’t have to be the .

I don’t have to be the glass.

I don’t have to be the coldest part of the whole entire thing, which is the . You could be that. I am just happy to be a part of it

ice

the red bulletin

like everything else. Then yeah, but I like the different stuff anyway.

And you know what? I am not the only one.

There are so many people that love different things.

That is why I like the concept of a phone, you know – connectivity is a huge part of it, too. But where the device companies are really smart, they realise people wanted to customise things, because individuality is everything.

Your house smells like what you want it to smell like. It has been customised by you. Can you imagine only three furniture layouts for everyone’s home in the world? Yeah, it is funny; music is kind of like the only place where there are people that believe that delusion, that there is a formula.

I guess you can lump Hollywood into that as well.

Yeah, but there are festivals that celebrate indie filmmaking that don’t celebrate indie music and not with the type of visibility that they do in the film world. And film also has the advantage of playing with two senses, whereas music is just auditory. That is why the business of music has had such a slump, because they always thought it was in the song first.

But you know, as the paradigm is shifting, everybody is starting to realise that kids want a visual. That is why YouTube gets more audience than any radio station collectively.

But you’ve always thought visually, haven’t you?

Yeah, but most musicians are the same way. I am no different. Hence the term ‘the blues’.

You interviewed Spike Lee and talked about the importance of using Public Enemy’s Fight The Power as the main anthem in Do the Right Thing.

How can songs contribute to the feeling that you get from film?

Well, film gives you two different senses. It is curated.

With music, some of it is left to your imagination, what you want to picture in your mind. With a film there is a curated direction by the point of view of the director and the music that is under it. So those two are working in concert to sort of take you to a place that the director has intended.

So film sort of has the jump on it, but I think the music industry is catching up, because all of the indie artists are just like, “I don’t want to leave it up to your interpretation of what I am feeling when I make this song. I would like to show you.” So you are watching all of the indie kids make the best music, because they are thinking about music 3D, the way it has always been intended.

Is there an album or artist that you think is doing it particularly well?

Well, you know what? Even on a big popular level there are some artists that have figured it out. Look at Beyoncé. Her visuals were so strong that the only marketing she did was either tweeted or she put something on Instagram.

I am not exactly sure of the method that she chose, but she just dropped the whole thing. She just put out a bunch of videos and her songs and was like, “Here. It is my art.” No gimmicks, no campaign. And it has really honestly caused the record industry to sort of take notice – well, the 41

Everybody is starting to realise that kids want a visual. That is why YouTube gets more audience than any radio station collectively

smart ones – because there are still cocky ones that are like, “Oh, well that is Beyoncé.” But those are the old guys. The ageless ones are the ones who are just thinking forward and they realise that he who occupies the majority of your senses with something that is irrefutable wins.

Did you struggle with the structure of the record industry when you started?

I was a child. I had no idea what was going on. All I knew is what drove me then is what continues to drive me now, which is music that I am like, “Whoa, that feels amazing.” I just love the feeling of great chord structures and great melody and lyrics that just touch you, you know?

You’re releasing a new solo album, the first in quite some time. Why now?

I didn’t know it was time. I never know anything.

That is part of just being open. When things are too predetermined, I have never really had success with that. It is going to be this, this, this, this and this.

That is all ego. And that is all you sort of rely on, because your ego is basically your experiences and then you have your memories of your experiences.

And the way in which your mind, as a librarian, goes back to refer to this information is where your ego, where you can sort of measure or quantify what your ego is. “Well, I know such and such and such and such, so therefore…”

Have you ever heard that phrase, “God laughs at our plans”? And that is why. Because when you think you know, you can be blindsided by something that is completely left of centre and just change your whole thing.

I have learned – I am 40 now – so I have learned to not do that. I have learned to just be open and just experience things. And when something strikes me, go get acclimated with it instantly, because I may not hear it again. Because what are the odds?

There are about seven billion people on the planet.

And just because that is a lot of people doesn’t mean that the odds are in my favour.

So there is no such thing as knowing. You just have to be open. So I try so hard. You know, I really work at just sort of trying to be egoless so that I can be open and not miss important morsels of music and points of view, new ways of making music.

If I go in there so predetermined, then I am completely blocking everything that could have been the best thing that ever happened to me. So when 42

“I have learned to just be open and just experience the red bulletin

things. And when something strikes me, go get acclimated with it instantly, because I may not hear it again�

P H A R R E L L ’ S F AV O U R I T E S “If art doesn’t have purpose, what’s the point? This is something Cyrcle understand very well. They’re committed to creating poetic visuals that grab your attention. Cyrcle take street art to a new level of creativity that elevates the style to new heights.”

#3

the red bulletin: How did your

collaboration get off the ground?

we wanted to do with our work.

I didn‘t just want to do graffiti and he didn’t just want to do design.

You paint walls, make short films and build skull sculptures out of flowers. Is there a recurring theme in Cyrcle’s work? leavitt: Personally, I never wanted to be stuck in one style because that’s not my style of living. I’m a really manic bipolar person, because I’m changing all the time.

I love change. In order to grow we have to find new tools and then we have to learn how to use them. torres: The process for anything we create starts with an idea, a concept and a message. Then we figure out how to visually communicate that message. That’s where the work will continue to change, because it’s not inspired by a style, it’s inspired by an idea. That’s what frees us to do so much different stuff. What do we want

torres: When I met Davey, he opened

my world to the design and the elements of type and really clean sophisticated design. I was just running around in LA, trying to paint walls, do graffiti and stuff like that. We shared similar values and a conceptual dream of what

“it’s not inspired by a style, it’s inspired by an idea. that’s what frees Us”

the sculpture to communicate? What materials can help communicate that? leavitt: It’s an exciting moment in the studio every time we get a reason to buy a new tool. It started with the worst brand you can buy at the local hardware store. And then you get a DeWalt and everything changes as far as how precise you can get with your angles and cuts. Right now, we’re saving up for a laser machine.

That’s going to be our new tool that we’re excited to have. Just doing it all ourselves, we’re going on YouTube figuring out how to do it.

Your motto is ‘We Never Die.’ Pharrell’s band N.E.R.D. stands for ‘No One Ever Really Dies.’ Is that just a coincidence? torres: It is, totally. leavitt: But I mean, it’s not in a sense that if that’s his mantra, that’s the type of person he is. It’s similar to the type of people we are.

We can relate to his style. He could be just a hip-hop artist or he could be just a producer. But he does everything and he’s always open to changing as an artist. Just like us. cyrcle.com florian obkircher

David ‘Rabi’ Torres and Davey Leavitt have been working together since 2010 under the name of Cyrcle, bringing together two disparate elements of the art world – graffiti and graphic design – through massive motifs and fine details. The Los Angeles-based duo’s simple style has taken many forms over the past four years, such as the time they painted the front of a house in delicate woodcut style, or when they recounted American colonial history using outsized, detailed, pop-art prints, or when they cut up their own artwork and then put it back together in a jigsaw-like honeycomb.

When it comes to creating their art, the only rule for Torres and Leavitt is there are no rules.

CYRCLE, Theonepointeight

CYRCLE Artists

A hit song is not yourdoing. doing. The song is youre The hit is made by th t people. You can’t lose sight of tha

I had the awesome opportunity to work on the first Despicable Me, I had to listen. As much as I felt like, “Oh, you know, I can make songs and whatever.”

No man, they had a direction. They knew what they wanted. And in that process, I learned more about reaching more people or just opening songs up. OK cool, so you think the music is there. You think the lyrics are there. Cool. Is it as accessible as it could be? Was that line sung as good as it could be, so that it is clear and the diction is clear?

In other words, is the music legible to people’s interpretation? It might not be, because your ego told you that you killed it. But if you could remove your ego and only use your feeling, that is when the best stuff comes out.

Has that been a difficult lesson to learn?

It was a great lesson to work, because that is how Happy came. Because I swore out that I had it nine times in a row, nine different songs for that one little scene.

Nine?

Yeah. And it was only until I was completely out of ideas, no more ego, right? Because what I knew about Despicable Me the first time is that [Gru, the main character] is mean and duh, duh, duh, so therefore… and it was a mistake.

So it took nine times to sort of get it through my head that I needed to be open and realise, “OK, yeah. Gru was a mad guy in the first one. He is happy now.” So how do you write a song about somebody being happy and just having a relentless mood about it? And then the song came.

But you had the basics of it?

I didn’t have anything. That is what I am trying to tell you. The basics are where the ego comes in. Remember, you have to be open.

But surely you have to start with something.

Zero.

But that is crazy, because you’ve built a career of knowing it and of having it.

No, I built a career of loving music and sometimes becoming intoxicated by things working out and sort of thinking it was me. And it wasn’t me. A hit song is the red bulletin

not your doing. The song is your doing. The hit is made by the people. You can’t lose sight of that.

What purpose does the new album serve for you?

I was just given the opportunity and, you know, when asked what I wanted to make it about, I went with the feeling. So I did decide with my eyes closed.

But what does that mean?

Did you just ask your own follow-up question?

Yeah. That was a rhetorical question. What does that mean? That means not, “Oh, I am so good.

I can do it with my eyes closed.” When someone says that they are doing it with their eyes closed, what they are ultimately saying, what that really is supposed to mean, is that you didn’t think about it and that it was second nature because you were going off a feeling.

I went off of feeling. I didn’t look around peripherally to see what this person was doing and what that person was doing. I went inward so that I could go upward. So I made it with my eyes closed, which means the litmus test was when you close your eyes, does it work for you there? That means no outside influences. So I made all of the music just based on feeling, not thinking. Because every time I have ever thought too much in my whole entire life, I have f––ked it up.

So you think, “What does euphoria sound like?

What does sadness sound like? What does giddiness sound like?” I mean, you are ascribing sounds to emotion.

Yes, but that is what all musicians do. That is not singular to me. We just all do things our way. And your way is who you are. The way of doing things is what makes you who you are.

In other words, we all speak English, but somehow you use the words differently than I do and you use it in your way. Your way is your fingerprint of who you are as a person. A lot of us make music the same way. It is just your way is more specific to who you are as a person. Do you know what I am saying?

I do. I also think it is interesting how you have never been afraid to indulge interests, directions.

What do you have to lose? Failure? If you are concerned about failure, then you can’t make no good music.

Why is the new album called Girl?

Well, there is major purpose in there. But let me switch gears on you. Let me tell you my intentions aside from the content is the feeling so that we have a through line between how I make music. So at 45

RITES P H A R R E L L’ S FAV O U “Anyone can ride a bicycle, but how many people create art with it?

When Nigel Sylvester leaps into the air with his BMX bike, it’s beyond just entertainment. He approaches his craft like a mad scientist who pushes the limits of what’s humanly possible.”

BMX rider

Down Merrick Boulevard in Jamaica, in the Queens borough of New York, weaving in and out of traffic on his BMX bike, Nigel Sylvester wasn’t earning much street cred.

“People called me a white boy and made fun of me,” he says. “They didn’t understand the culture.” With the typical path to BMX stardom unavailable to him, Sylvester seized on the power of YouTube. He made videos showcasing his freakish ability on a BMX bike as he carved up New York. Sponsors followed, including bike-makers Brooklyn Machine Works, who, last year, reached out to Sylvester via one of their investors: Pharrell Williams. the red bulletin: What does

Pharrell’s involvement mean to your scene? nigel sylvester: It started with skateboarding. Seeing someone like him embrace that, it automatically made it cool and acceptable. Kids in the hood start to ride skateboards and you’d never, ever seen that before.

He’s just that influential in culture.

Why? He’s a producer and music drives culture so much. I hope the same happens for BMX culture. I’ve been a fan of Pharrell’s for a minute, and he’s been embracing BMX culture for

a long time now. He rode bikes in the Provider video [N.E.R.D, 2001] and I remember seeing that when I was young and that’s another reason I stuck with BMX, because I saw someone like him doing it as well. On that level, that made it more cool for me. I saw someone who looked like me, doing it.

Why was that important?

Actual BMX culture wasn’t popular at all. People called me a white boy and made fun of me because they didn’t understand the culture. So I definitely had like those naysayers and haters, but I stuck with it and was able to make a career out of it.

“I was using the neighbourhood to express myself.

It’s like NYC was the canvas”

What kept you in it?

I liked the freedom, dude. It was the best way to express myself. As a child, I was into art and music and played basketball and football, but there was something about the bike that I was really into. It was a feeling I had at that early age and I practised at it and I was good at it. I saw results. And I saw dudes like [BMX pro] Dave Mirra, who took it to such a height, and I was like, “If he can do it, then it’s possible.”

But coming from where I came from, I had to put my own perspective on it, my own life story, and my neighbourhood and background into it, and it came out differently.

I took a whole different route.

What was that?

The traditional way is you work hard to get sponsored and you ride contests and the more you win the bigger star you are. For me growing up, I didn’t have access to contests and I didn’t have access to the skateparks that these contests were based on. So I had to figure out another way to get myself out there. Luckily enough, street riding was becoming very popular, where you

rode rails and used what was provided to you. I was using my neighbourhood to ride and express myself. It was like NYC was the canvas and I painted my picture on whatever it offered me. I was able to mix riding with the lifestyle I was living – into music, into art, into fashion – and I put that into my riding. Whenever I put a video out I made sure to include that, and I was able to attract a different type of people and get eyes on what I was doing.

And big companies saw that and they were like, “Wow, this kid is different.”

I didn’t ride in the X Games. I used the internet and word of mouth.

What do you hope your collaboration leads to?

I want to give kids an opportunity to aspire to be part of that brand and just do good by the industry. I’m hoping that teaming up with someone like Pharrell, we can get it out to the masses and show the world what this BMX culture is about. People have this one image of it. There’s one type of person you think that rides BMX bicycles, but it’s not true. nigelsylvester.com

Andreas Tzortzis

#4

nigel sylvester

Our feelings can lead us to do really crazy things

or really amazing things

the genesis I knew that the criteria was festive, celebratory, and I wanted everything to feel urgent.

So I worked really hard.

Urgent is an interesting word to use.

Urgent just means like, “Man, what is that?”

Stop and listen.

Shooting, always shooting for unique and undeniable. Always shooting for that and using the feeling as a compass. We are so dismissive of our feelings. Yet most of the time when you hear about them in songs, unless it is a real good singersongwriter, it is always generic. But your feeling is connects to your spirit that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. We have feelings. Our feelings can lead us to do really crazy things or really amazing things.

You can tell when someone is standing behind you, even if they’re not making a sound. You can feel it. You can walk into a room and you can tell when someone doesn’t like you. You can walk in a room and you can tell when there is something going on between two people.

It is a feeling. But we are always so dismissive of it. So with this album I intended to capitalise the red bulletin

on that and just try to make something that would be real stimulative.

To resonate with women?

Oh yeah, totally. Totally. Women have been so good to me and my career.

What do you need to understand about women to write songs for them?

Well, I think most of the time we hear songs that are written at women versus for. You know, it is like most products. It is not really for them, it is just marketed at their insecurities. It doesn’t really fit her hand like that though, does it? It is not really the smell she truly prefers, it is just what your old, antiquated corporate statistics tell you.

But where are you doing these consensuses and with what types of women? My thing is, let’s start doing things with them truly in mind, truly in mind.

That is not writing something at her. That is writing something intended for her.

And the only way to do that, the only way to really sort of figure out if that works or not is based on feeling. That is what she is going to tell you, what she really feels.

Are you trying to demystify that otherness in women? Is it kind of about trying to understand it or cater to it?

I just want to make music that ladies, the girls, listen to and they feel an escapism. That is my intention.

Sometimes I think that success comes from being very calculated and being very smart and not getting too involved.

Yes, like Steve Jobs. He so geniusly brought that product to the world; it is called a computer. But we are human, and that is what a computer will never be able to do is feel. That is what still makes us the superior species on this planet.

So you are a curator of feeling?

At this moment.

Has it been different earlier in your career?

Yeah, because, like I said, when I realised that thinking is not my path and feeling is for me, I started to realise that people are so dismissive about other people’s feelings.

I have always felt music since I was a little child.

But I realised that it was the key probably in the last 10 years. Because before that I just wasn’t thinking.

It was like private flights, Ferraris, jewellery, all of those things that mean nothing. Ferraris get old.

They depreciate in value the first time you drive them.

The same as a Honda Accord.

You have got to trade it in in two years, because in four you have lost a lot of money. And I appreciate the car, I do. I still do. But that is not what it is about.

You can’t take that when you go. You take your feelings with you and your experiences that gave you those feelings.

And also what you gave others.

That is the wealth, man. An experience. The coolest thing that you talk about is your trip somewhere where you went and you had a good time. The first thing that you talk about it in terms of your description, “Man, it was awesome.”

For more on Pharrell and his passion for BMX culture, check out The Red Bulletin Presents on YouTube

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mitch evans

Into higher gear After a rollercoaster rookie season, the New Zealand driver is keen to accelerate to the next level in this year’s GP2 Series

Mitch Evans wants to become the first New Zealander since 1984 to race in Formula One, and all he has to do is one thing. “Win the lottery,” says Will Buxton, an F1 pit lane TV reporter and former director of communications for the GP2 Series, the de-facto second division of F1. “That’s the reality. Mitch needs to win the GP2 Series title first, but even if he does, it’s difficult to get into F1 without megabucks.”

Evans is back at his UK base this month, ahead of the start of the 2014 GP2 Series on April 4. A seat in a GP2 car can cost up to NZ$3.3 million per season, and while Evans won’t reveal what he’s paying for the privilege, he couldn’t afford it without support from sponsors, including Sir Colin Giltrap.

The pay-to-play model is also evident in F1. Pastor Maldonado of Venezuela joined the Williams team in 2011 after winning the GP2 championship, a move facilitated by an estimated NZ$90m in sponsorship from the Venezuelan government. Evans is hoping to progress by being self-reliant.

“A day doesn’t go by without me thinking about F1,” he says. “I don’t have a Plan B, but I’m hoping I won’t need one.

I know drivers are bringing big budgets with them to F1, but I’m convinced you can still get there on pure talent.”

The 19-year-old’s talent has been obvious since 2010, when, racing for Giles Motorsport, he won New Zealand’s Toyota Racing Series at the age of 15.

The following year he defended his title, and made his debut in Europe in GP3, GP2’s feeder series, racing for the MW Arden team. Buxton has commentated on every lap Evans has raced since then.

“In GP3, you get drivers who are still 48

young and green,” says Buxton. “Mitch’s maturity was instantly impressive. He came with a very professional approach.

He wasn’t in the hospitality suite talking to his girlfriend, he was in the garage talking to his engineer and his hard work paid off with a win in his first season.”

Evans won the GP3 championship with MW Arden in 2012 and made an immediate impact when he moved to GP2 in 2013, racing for Arden International, finishing third on the opening weekend in Malaysia. Back-to-back podiums in Monaco (each GP2 event has a race on Saturday and another Sunday) and a second place at Spa followed, but

“A day doesn’t go by without me thinking about F1. I don’t have a plan B: I’m hoping I don’t need one” an unreliable car and teammate meant Evans struggled for consistency.

“Johnny Cecotto Jr [Evans’ teammate] had difficulties racing last year,” says Buxton. “There were times when he posed a danger to himself and others.”

Says Evans: “Johnny expected the car to be 100 per cent every time and when it wasn’t he maybe could have done more to help the mechanics figure out what was wrong. The team was struggling and I tried my best to help fix things.”

(Cecotto is not driving for Arden International in the 2014 GP2 Series.)

Last year, Evans also tangled with Sergio Canamasas, a Spaniard driving

for Caterham Racing. The pair collided in the penultimate race of the season, costing the Kiwi a shot at winning the Rookie Cup. “Some of the things Sergio did last year were disgraceful,” says Evans. “It was like putting a schoolboy rugby player into the All Blacks and him picking fights with everyone.”

Several former GP2 champions including Maldonado, Nico Rosberg and Lewis Hamilton have gone on to successful careers in F1, but Buxton says moving to the sport’s highest level is difficult.

“Some kids are there because Daddy is living his dream through them; they don’t want to be there and it shows. Some kids think they’re God’s gift to motorsport and have so much natural talent they don’t need to put the work in. Others have the ability, but also know they have to work hard. Mitch is one of those.”

Despite finishing a disappointing 14th in last year’s championship, Evans did enough to convince Russian Time, one of GP2’s top teams, to sign him for 2014 and he’s confident the team can help him get his career back on track.

“I’d like to think I’m still improving, but we’ll find out this year,” says Evans.

“If I can turn things around and prove the bad results last year weren’t my fault, then it will have been a great learning curve.

If I have another inconsistent year, people will start pointing the finger at me.”

Buxton is convinced that Evans can challenge for the GP2 championship in his second season and predicts a big future for him in the sport, wherever he ends up. “Mitch has got raw speed and a real racer’s instinct. He might race in IndyCar or sportscars, but I’d love to see him get his opportunity in F1.” mitchevans.com the red bulletin

Nic Staveley

Words: Robert Tighe

One direction: Mitch Evans is aiming for motor racing’s top flight – F1

Mike Bancroft at the Bowl-A-Rama, Wellington, February 2014

pl ay

i n t h e b o w l , s k at e r s a r e at t h e i r f l u i d , d i z z y i n g b e s t a n d c o n n e c t d i r e c t ly t o t h e r o o t s o f t h e i r s p o r t. w h e n t h e w o r l d ’ s e l i t e c a m e t o n e w z e a l a n d , t h e r i va l r y t h at d o m i n at e s b o w l s k at i n g wa s r a m p e d u p t o n e w h e i g h t s w o r d s : r o b e r t t i g h e p h o t o g r a p h y: d av i d r e a d

Concrete

ground

51

A

fter his previous skateboard competition, in Rio de Janeiro in January this year, Pedro Barros couldn’t get away quietly.

“We left the contest in a van,” says Sky Siljig, a professional skater from Seattle, who was also competing in Brazil. “He and I were chased by a mob of fans. They were banging on the bonnet and trying to open the doors. It was insane.” The contest was the Cup Noodles Bowl Jam (“I call it the Bowl-A-Ramen,” says Siljig) and the reason it was shown live on Brazilian TV, and that two million people tuned in, was Barros.

After the mob/van incident, the two young men took four days and five flights to get to New Zealand, for the Bowl-ARama competition in Wellington. Aged 14, Barros won the 2010 Bowl-A-Rama, which earned him a wildcard entry to the Bowl-A-Rama in Australia, where he upset seasoned veterans like Bucky Lasek, Omar Hassan and Rune Glifberg, guys in their mid-30s who ruled bowl skating – skateboarding in rounded concrete skateparks know as bowlparks – for much of the 2000s. Barros’ win marked a changing of the guard. He paved the way for a new generation of young guns who mixed old-school tricks with moves from vert skating and street skating. Barros himself has since won four gold medals at the X Games and was unbeaten in 2012.

“He’s untouchable in the bowl,” says Sergie Ventura, the 42-year-old skate legend from California and MC at Bowl52

b o w l- a rama 2014 The sixth edition of the New Zealand leg of the southern hemisphere’s biggest skating series saw local heroes like Mike Bancroft (top left) take on American stars like Sergie Ventura (top right) and Pat Ngoho (left) in Wellington

A-Rama, Wellington. “If he’s at a contest, then everyone else is shooting for second.”

Alex Sorgente is fed up finishing runnerup to Barros. The 16-year-old American is too polite to say so, but it’s happened too often in the last 18 months. His father, Luca, a keen motocross rider and former professional jetskier, is over it as well. “In motocross, the chequered flag is all that matters,” says Luca, with a strong Italian accent that hasn’t faded despite living in the US for 20 years. Sorgente Jr started riding a motorbike at the age of two, but gave it away to focus on skateboarding.

“It was impossible for him to do both,” says Luca. “Motocross is expensive and for us it was like turning up to a gunfight

with a knife. We’d arrive at a competition with one bike and next to us there would be a rich kid with five or six bikes, a mechanic and a huge motorhome.”

Sorgente grew up in Florida, skating at a YMCA. For the last two years his parents have made a five-hour round trip several times a week so their son can practise on a world-class bowl. It’s a world away from Barros’s compound in Florianopolis in the south of Brazil, where the support team includes a personal trainer, a Pilates instructor and a chiropractor.

Five of Barros’s Brazilian buddies have travelled with him to Wellington, along his father, Andre, and a two cameramen filming for Barros’s TV show on ESPN the red bulletin

Tricks of the trade: Alex Sorgente performs a saran-wrap air at the Bowl-A-Rama

“When I’m in contest I feel l i k e I wa n t to h i t so m e b o dy ” Pedro Barros

pools – the shape of which inspired the building of bowlparks – reminded skaters how much fun bowl skating was. “Watching a halfpipe contest is like watching a tennis match: boom, boom, boom, from side to side,” says Sergie Ventura. “Street skating is boring. Vert skating is jockish.

Bowl skating is much more laid-back.”

J Air time: Pedro Barros pulls off his impressive backside 540 aerial

Brazil. Barros and pals are known as the RTMF (Rio Tavares Motherf––ers) and these boys roll deep, skating en masse from their apartment in Wellington city centre to the Waitangi Skate Park, where the Bowl-A-Rama contest is being held.

At 5pm on Friday afternoon, the RTMF are at the bowl for a final practice before the event the following day. Andre plugs his iPod into the sound system and fills the bowl with the hardcore punk of Brazilian band Raimundos. This is the soundtrack to skate sessions in Rio Tavares, a suburb of Florianopolis, where Andre, a young-at-heart 42-year-old, has created an idyllic life that revolves around skateboarding, surfing, music and parties.

Ten years ago, Andre’s father died and,

“ P e d r o i s t h e most exciting k i d t o wat c h i n s k at i n g ” 54

with the inheritance, he bought some land, built a halfpipe and a bowl and laid the foundations for his then nine-year-old son to become world’s best bowl skater.

Even in practice, Barros carves the concrete with an energy and aggression that other skaters struggle to match. “When I’m in a contest, I feel like I want to hit somebody,” he says. “Contests are a game and some people are better than others at them. I know I can bring it in a contest.”

“Pedro is the most exciting kid to watch in skateboarding right now,” says Chad Ford, a 42-year-old skatepark designer from Australia. “His airs are two feet higher, his grinds are five feet longer and he skates faster than everyone else.”

Ford organised the first Bowl-A-Rama in Bondi Beach in 2005, which, along with the similar Pro-Tec Pool Party contest, gave the sport a shot in the arm. Four years earlier, the first roots of resurgence grew with the release of the documentary Dogtown And Z-Boys. The film tells the story of a young crew of misfits from California who burst onto the skate scene in the mid-1970s. The Super 8 footage of them carving lines in drained swimming

ust before the first of five heats to decide the eight finalists in Wellington, Alex Sorgente sings along to Self Esteem by The Offspring.

Barros and the RTMF clown around to Intergalactic by Beastie Boys. Sorgente is wearing grey cut-off chinos, a grey T-shirt and has a dental brace; Barros a pair of camouflage pants, a black Queens Of The Stone Age T-shirt and a moustache. Both make the final.

With five Brazilian skaters in the final, Barros and his entourage are amped. They stand on the deck and bang their boards loudly whenever a good trick is landed.

Sorgente stands on the other side of the bowl looking remarkably composed for someone so young. His first two runs are flawless, putting the pressure on Barros.

The Brazilian wipes out on his first two runs, but on his third he rips through the shallow end of the bowl with a purpose that suggests he’s planning something big. Sure enough, he lands a huge backside 540 aerial. The crowd roars in approval, the five judges fill in their scorecards and Sorgente looks destined for second again.

The young American gets one last run and nails a 540 rock ’n’ roll. As he climbs out of the bowl, Sorgente bumps fists with Barros, who pulls him in for a hug.

There’s a lot of love in this bowl.

Sergie Ventura takes the mic to announce the results. One of the RTMF crew, 17-year-old Murillo Peres, takes third place and Luca Sorgente winces when Ventura confirms another second place for his son and another win for Barros. “He’s getting closer,” says Luca.

“He’s not there yet, but someday soon.”

That day comes a week later, when Sorgente gets the better of Barros for the first time at the Australian Bowl-Riding Championships, “a battle to the last drop of blood,” according to Luca, who like Andre Barros, is a very proud father.

“Skaters know how hard it is to beat Pedro, so it’s special for them if they win,” says Andre. “It’s healthy for skateboarding for Pedro to lose sometimes.” Healthier still for the sport to have an epic rivalry that looks like it’s just getting started. facebook.com/officialbowlarama the red bulletin

young tapz

International beats The debut album from a young Wellington MC is influenced by local talent and a life far away Words: Sam Wicks Photography: Tobias Kraus

In the control room of Red Bull Studio Auckland, Young Tapz flashes a milewide smile as he explains his evolving relationship with rap music and the podium it has given him to address his peers.

“I can speak English, but I wouldn’t say I’m completely fluent,” he says. “I’m fluent in music; I’m fluent in hip-hop.

And hip-hop is the best way I know to express how I feel.”

Poring over the recordings for his debut album, Forest, the 18-year-old from Wellington is in full-blown multitasking mode, triple-checking that everything is in its right place while holding court with The Red Bulletin.

The 18-year-old MC, a student at St Patrick’s College, Silverstream, is using his school holiday break to lay down the 10 tracks that form Forest.

Four long days into a seven-day studio lock-in with engineer Ben Lawson, Tapz, aka Tapiwa Mutingwende, shows no signs of slowing down as he switches his attention between the multi-track sessions and tales of his transition between Africa and New Zealand.

“In Zimbabwe, where I’m from, everything was different – the family unit, the traditions,” he says. “It felt like everyone was family. Even your neighbours were family. We didn’t have those big gates that block us off from each other. Here we have gates; we have programmes like Neighbours At War on TV. Making that transition from an open to a closed society really tested me and motivated me to build a new community I could tap into.”

56

Tapz, along with other members of his family, followed his father to Wellington three years after he settled there, where he put in overtime to fund his family’s passage to New Zealand. Aged nine, Tapz began the process of getting his head around a new language and a new culture, with a crew of new friends and a revolving-door music policy – from punk to rock to rap – smoothing the transition. BMXing, skateboarding, dancing and painting competed with music for his attention

“I can speak English, but I’m fluent in hip-hop” in his early teens, before beats and rhymes became his chosen creative outlet, thanks to a school project.

“In Year 10 we had to produce a backing track for a video, and that’s when I was motivated to record a song,” Tapz says. “I just sat at the back of the class making noises, recording random stuff, and for a first-time effort it came out pretty good. I had good grades in English and I wrote a lot of poetry, so I thought, maybe I should write a song? It was about adapting my poetry to a hip-hop form.”

Just three years after this rap revelation, Tapz received an invitation

from Red Bull to take up residence in the studio, and an initial plan to record two new songs was expanded to a full album when Tapz’s impressive work rate became apparent.

A lyricist who prides himself on thinking on his toes, Tapz came into the studio with no written rhymes, opting to pen new lyrics on the fly.

Beats and other input came from several collaborators, including the indie rock band The Wyld, producer C-Sick, rapper Fortafy and vocalist Nicole Davey.

The diverse roll call of talent on the album reflects Young Tapz’s wider efforts to build a community around him, in place of the one he left behind in Zimbabwe, whether it’s through sharing vocal booths with local musicians or initiating file-swapping collaborations with artists in New York City, Chicago and Brisbane.

Listening back to the piano-driven number Eminence, one of two tracks that are co-productions with The Wyld on Forest, Tapz nods his head enthusiastically. Even at this early stage in his career, Tapz is as keen to show off his extended family of musicians as he is to blow his own trumpet.

“The main idea is to get local talent involved, so that people can see how much there is here,” Tapz says. “I’ve seen that there are a lot of gifted people among us, but they don’t have access to a studio like I do. The least that I can do is use what I’ve been offered to make some noise for all of my people.” facebook.com/TheRealYoungTapz the red bulletin

The line-up Young Tapz – MC/producer Discography Forest (album, 2013) Mother tongue When Tapz first arrived in New Zealand, he only had a few English words under his belt, and he credits hip-hop for his initial English tuition.

Yanks for that Now a full-blooded rap fan, Young Tapz was originally turned on to music through pop-punk band Green Day and their 2004 album American Idiot.

Course work The Athertons are pushing boundaries in training in their quest for the perfect downhill mountain bike run

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? d-class l r o w lready d for the a e r ’ u me if yo thertons hea xcellence – a g r u o up y the A quest for e u y o t y s a o n How d n-biking dy ds in their biker i n r a a e t l t n s t u i e o b M S p a n i s h y o u c a n b e aat t i a s F r e d r i k s s o n d n a b la a l h onw P h o t o g r a p h y : M e v e r d an Morga Words

: Ruth

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f a m i ly t i e s “My brothers started riding and I didn’t want to be left at home alone,” says Rachel (right, with brother Gee).

“They still help me today, I wouldn’t be in this position without them”

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62

A Keeping it fresh

My routine has changed a lot over the years,” says Gee Atherton. “Every year is an improvement.

I like to try new things and not get into a rut”

Thursday morning in January, and Rachel Atherton is inside a lab at the University of Birmingham, a small room lit by fluorescent strip lights and complete with a model skeleton and a whiteboard covered in half-erased equations. It’s an incongruous setting for one of the best downhill mountain bike riders in the world, yet she’s here, legs pumping hard on the pedals of a static bike, breaths coming in loud, rhythmic bursts. Her blonde hair is tied back, her cheeks are flushed, the long-sleeved top she arrived in now removed despite the cold.

Rachel’s fitness trainer and two physiologists are quietly observing as the 26-year-old’s efforts are translated into dramatic scribbles on a monitor to her left, a red line showing her increasing heart rate, a blue line her cadence and a green line the power she’s generating.

Every three minutes, the resistance increases, shown on the monitor as another step up on a graphic staircase.

One of the physiologists leans in at regular intervals to take a blood sample from Rachel’s right index finger, from which the amount of lactic acid she’s producing is measured, and notes down the reading on a chart. This is what mountain bike training looks like in 2014.

Rachel and her downhill mountain biking brother Gee are at the forefront of their sport, and are pushing the boundaries of training in search of the perfect run. They’re breaking down every

aspect of their physical ability on a bike into graphs, charts and stats with constant testing, using power meters and heart monitors both on their bikes and in the lab. They, along with their enduroriding eldest brother Dan, (he is 33; Gee, the 2010 downhill champion, is 29) have travelled here from their home in North Wales several times in the last 18 months, since they started working with a new fitness coach. Alan Milway is a 33-year-old sports scientist, former British motocross team coach and exdownhill rider, and a firm believer in figures over feelings.

Like some Midlands version of Mouse from The Matrix, he’s able to look at a sheet of numbers and see an athlete: where they’re strong, where they’re lacking. “I probably look at an athlete in a different way to most people,” he says. “But for me, numbers are the starting point. A lot of the coaches I see don’t do evidence-based stuff. A lot of them believe if you thrash an athlete so hard they crawl out of the gym then you’re doing a good job. But I take a more academic approach.”

Milway is one of the first trainers to devise an evidence-based, bespoke training programme for professional riders in enduro, mountain biking’s longdistance event on trails with climbs and drops, which can last several hours, and downhill, an extreme discipline in which riders tackle steep courses littered with obstacles ranging from tree roots to rocks at speeds of up to 80kph. “Downhill is rider-led,” Milway says, “they go on the

feeling of it, but often what they feel isn’t completely right. The power data we record at races means I know how long Gee or Rach is pedalling for in one go, how hard they’re pedalling, what their leg speed is, and if you’re going downhill, there is an optimum leg speed, you can plot it on a graph. Once you know what they’re doing on the bike, you can adjust the gears based on the evidence. Not a lot of people have looked at that.”

Having read about Milway’s successes with, among others, former world downhill champion Danny Hart, Gee approached him about working with the team at the end of 2012. Milway was quick to accept. “When I first saw the Athertons’ testing notes I said to their manager, ‘Just give me a winter!’” he says.

“I was so excited as, even though their results were good, they weren’t anywhere near their peak, so I knew we could really go places.” It seems he was right. Last year, despite carrying minor injuries, Gee led the World Cup series right up until the last event, when he was beaten into second place, and Rachel had her bestever season, winning the national championship, the World Championship and the World Cup series. She won the first race of the latter by 10 seconds, a huge margin in a sport that can come down to 10ths of seconds.

Today, in the lab, is a chance to see how Rachel is performing ahead of the start of the 2014 World Cup in April, using test data recorded three weeks after she won the world championship in 2013 as a sort of gold standard against which to measure. She’s just completed her third and last test of the day, 10 brutal, maximum-power sprints. She leans over on the bike, exhausted, but the news is good. She has averaged the equivalent of 218 revolutions per minute, only two off her post-world-champs level of 220.

“Oh, lovely,” says Milway.

Three days later, Milway, the three Atherton siblings and Atherton Racing teammates Marc Beaumont, a DH and enduro racer, and 16-year-old enduro wunderkind Martin Maes, arrive at the Canary Island of Fuerteventura. Despite the winter sunshine, this is no holiday.

The Playitas resort is akin to a sports reformatory. Almost every resident is a professional athlete, here for punishing runs in the black volcanic hills, and sessions in the Olympic-sized pool and the huge gym complex. Rather than arguments about towels on sun loungers, today there’s a situation brewing over the Swedish Olympic judo team having commandeered all the free weights.

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T

he Athertons are here for two-weeks of pre-season strength and endurance work, their first training camp of 2014. When they were starting out, these sorts of intense training camps were unheard of.

Just 15 years ago the Jack Daniels-drinking, punk rock-singing US downhill mountain biker Shaun Palmer stood on a UCI World Cup podium wearing a gold sequined suit and crown, before heading to his tour bus to celebrate with a bottle or two of Crown Royal whisky. Training was a dirty word.

“Back then it wasn’t enough to be someone who raced downhill,” says Gee. “Everyone was trying to be a rock star, not training, partying the night before the race. The training side of it was relatively unknown.

If people were training it was super-basic, and they were keeping it very quiet because it wasn’t cool. Of course it wasn’t cheating, but it was looked at in that way.”

But, even as Palmer won athlete of the year awards and graced the front covers

of magazines in the 2000s, a new cleanliving generation that included the Athertons was coming to dethrone him.

Gee and Dan’s initial attempts at training weren’t up to much. “As juniors, training meant watching Rocky movies to get fired up, then painting motivational words on the garage walls,” laughs Dan. But their senior careers have revolved around gym work, road bike rides, and rehab sessions with specialists, as over the last decade the entire professional downhill community embraced the training revolution. “Me and my brothers have used a professional trainer since I was 16,” says Rachel. “It’s become more and more about the training, rather than being gnarly and shredding.

Tenths of seconds can separate first and third place, so you’re always looking for new ways to make those gains.”

Ironically, the Athertons’ new scientific approach has taken training off the list of conversational topics, but for the opposite reason of being uncool: now it’s too valuable to discuss. “There is secrecy involved,” says Gee. “There are elements the red bulletin

No beach h o l i d ay The Playitas resort in Fuerteventura is home from home for athletes looking to improve their performance; the Athertons are regulars

come e b s ’ t “I ore m d n a more the about g n traini than r at h e r a r ly n being g edding� r and sh

we won’t talk about: it’s a competition at the end of the day. As soon as one person sees something, it’s out there. At the World Champs, the French team are known for it – they’re there in the starting hut studying what’s on your bike, what you’re wearing. But then everyone knows we’re using the SRM power cranks [the static bike used in the lab] and that’s fine.

Unless you have someone like Alan who gets that data and knows what to do with it, then it’s not going to work for you. ” Like any coach, Milway is acutely aware that his value lies in being able to keep his athletes ahead of the pack.

“I’m constantly assessing what we’re happy to talk about and what we’re not,” he says. “Some of the things we’re doing, no one else has even considered, much of what we consider normal, other athletes won’t even be thinking about. And we’re quite happy to keep it that way. I want to make myself as valuable to my athletes as possible, and the only way I’m going to do that is by doing things other people aren’t.”

The first afternoon sessions in Fuerteventura will be biking, but this morning, it’s a gym session for the whole team. The gym has become a second home to the Athertons after Milway put them on a strength-gain programme. “I knew that’s where they’d see the results,” he says. “I’ve had them doing heavy lifting.

Their gains went right up on the graphs after just a few months.”

Rachel seems to have gained as much psychologically from Milway’s approach as she has in muscle. “Strength is the main difference I’ve noticed with Alan,” she says. “That’s been a massive gain for me. With the testing it became clear that my pedalling was a weak point; now I’m the strongest pedaller out there. Without testing, you can sort of kid yourself that you’re where you need to be, but when you test you can’t hide, the stats don’t lie.

Mentally, going out there knowing you’re where you need to be physically is huge.

It made a big difference to my last season.”

“It’s simple really: if athletes are fitter and stronger, it means they can race faster and go for longer,” says Gee. “In the past two years, I’ve had more crashes than I’ve had in my life, the biggest crashes of my career, and I’ve got up and walked away from them. I’m pretty sure that’s down to having someone like Alan with us. We need to be more scientific about things, there’s no point having an awesome bike if you can’t race it to its maximum level.

Man and machine have to match each other, and now we know how to get there.”

Measure your bike progress against the Athertons: redbull.co.uk/personalbest

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Be A better Rider tomorrow Changes you can make n o w, f r o m i n s i d e t h e At h e r t o n R a c i n g T e a m

10 top tips 1

Ride different disciplines

“The road bike links well to the downhill bike as the intensity you reach on the mountain bike can be replicated on the road bike, you can make the rides quite brutal and short. They’re better for training as the risk of crashing on a downhill track is massive, so I would never ask an athlete to do 12 flat-out downhill runs in a row. On a road bike, you can achieve the same intensity more safely.”

Alan Milway, Team Fitness Coach

2

Stretching it out

“I’ve started doing a lot of yoga and stretching for my back and hips, as my back started getting really tight, and once I started stretching properly after the rides that stopped. It’s made a huge difference to me. I stretch for half an hour before a session, then most evenings for an hour to 90 minutes. We stretch in the gym, too. Even if it’s just a few basic moves, to open up your hip flexors and shoulders, don’t underestimate how much it will help your riding and recovery.

Especially if you’re on a road bike, because of the posture you ride in.” Rachel Atherton

3

Get into a corner

4

Put on weights

5

Saddle down

6

The eyes have it

“If you’re going into a corner, a lot of riders have their feet level on the pedals, but if you drop your outside foot to the bottom, and bring the inside foot up, that brings your weight more into the corner, so you’re more solid, and you can lean in and rail it more easily. If your feet are level, your weight is still quite high, which will cause you to slow down a bit and lose stability.” Rachel Atherton

“If you choose one move in the gym to help your cycling, make it a deadlift.

It’s pretty simple to learn, but then you can really add the weight on as you progress. It makes a huge difference to your power. It works your legs, bum, back, core and shoulders, so it’s a whole body move. If you’ve only got half an hour for your workout, this is the most efficient way to spend it.” Rachel Atherton

“If you’re riding cross-country, you’ll have your seat high to climb, but many riders don’t necessarily think about then lowering their seat for a descent. If the seat’s too high, it will make you lean back too far, or push you over the front so your weight’s unbalanced. If it’s lowered, the bike can move around more easily on the descent, and you can corner better as your weight’s more central.

A lot of people now have these dropper seat posts which are easy to adjust, so it’s easy.”

Rachel Atherton

“Where you’re looking makes a big difference to where you end up. Your body will follow your line of sight, so a turn almost happens from your head downwards.

Going into a turn, keep your eyes on your exit point, and you’ll find your whole body follows you round and adjusts to exiting the turn rather than being in the turn.” Gee Atherton Clever cornering: dropping your outside foot makes you more solid on the bends

the red bulletin

7

Set your sag

8

Practice partner

9

Don’t make it easy on yourself

“A lot of riders get stuck in a rut with how they run their bike, from tyre pressure to suspension. You can make a lot of difference to your ride by adjusting your suspension according to conditions. The sag is the optimum depth at which the suspension sits when you’re on the bike, and should be around a third of the way through its stroke. So if a 100kg dude sat on my bike, it would be well beyond halfway through its stroke, and you see people riding like that all the time, wondering why they can’t ride their bikes.” Marc Beaumont

“Train and ride with someone who’s as fit, fast and strong as you are. If you can push one another, that’s going to speed up your progress massively. Me and Marc ride together a lot. It also means you can compare notes on lines, too. It keeps it fun, and it’s always motivational to have someone to bounce ideas around with.” Gee Atherton

“When it comes to tracks, don’t stick to what you know. The best progression in your riding will come when you force yourself to leave your comfort zone. Build new sections on a track, so it’s tailored it to your standard but still poses a challenge, or take the time to travel out to somewhere that offers you a new biking experience.” Gee Atherton

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Clean brake

“If you’re on a fast track, you need to be aggressive with your braking, rather than dragging them the whole way. When you’re at full speed on a straight, you’re completely off the brakes, then snap the brakes on as hard as you can, as late as you can when you need them. It’s something we work on, and something you see a lot of riders doing. It’s a big temptation to drag the brakes all the way down, but it’s a bad habit to get into. If you’re specific in your braking points it’s a better way to get down the track, and you’ll notice the difference.” Gee Atherton

w e i g h t y i ss u e Increased strength has been a huge gain for Rachel, who can now deadlift 50kg

Alan Milway (centre) assesses Gee and Rachel’s training data

Hard yards: road training can benefit downhill the red bulletin

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Shaun johnson

Step it up

Ahead of the start of the 2014 NRL season, the Warriors star talks about making tackles, scoring tries and screwing up big

At the start of 2008, a 17-year-old kid from the seaside suburb of Whangaparaoa in Auckland, posted a video clip of himself on YouTube. Simply titled ‘Shaun Johnson CV Video’, it was a compilation of his touch rugby highlights showcasing his sensational sidestep and his blinding turn of pace. Originally intended to show his skills to Australian league clubs, within a couple of days Johnson got a phone call from the Vodafone Warriors asking him to train with their development squad.

Six years later, he’s one of the stars of the NRL and recently signed a new three-year contract with the Warriors. the red bulletin: How important was that YouTube clip to your career?

SHAUN JOHNSON: What that video has done for me is crazy. My plan was to go to Australia to play footy and see what happened. I had missed out on Auckland representative sides and I felt like I wasn’t going to crack rugby league in New Zealand. I wanted to make a fresh start somewhere and I could easily have gone down another path if I hadn’t posted that video.

How have you changed as a player since then?

I still have my speed and my sidestep, but where I’ve improved is my smarts.

When I started in first grade, I was telling experienced players what to do on the pitch. That was daunting.

Players would pull me aside and say, “Stop talking sh–t: you gotta do it, not talk about it.” Now I don’t say things I’m not willing to do myself.

You’re still only 23. How mature are you as a player?

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I understand the game and my role in the team a lot better. Last year I was a player who reacted to things. I was go, go, go.

Now I scan the field and I’ve got the poise to sit back and pick my moments. That’s how all the best halfbacks play, guys like Jonathan Thurston and Cooper Cronk.

They don’t come at you every set, but when they do come at you it’s with something good.

The Warriors lost eight of their 10 opening games last season. What was the lowest point?

Being substituted in the 62-6 loss against

“My motto, and this applies to everything I do whether it’s goal-kicking, golf or tennis, is ‘if you’re going to screw up, screw up big’” the Panthers was the lowest of lows.

It was embarrassing. I knew I wasn’t playing my best, but to get pulled from the field… there were some tears shed.

I was very emotional and I could easily have posted an angry tweet or rung my agent and said, “Get me out of here,” but the Warriors are the club I grew up watching. They were the only team I ever wanted to play for. It was never the Auckland Blues or the Broncos or the All Blacks. It was always the Warriors.

You took over goal-kicking duties last year. What’s your mantra?

I tell myself, “Strike through the ball.” It reminds me not to tap it, but to hit it like I mean it. My motto, and this applies to everything I do whether it’s goal-kicking, golf or tennis, is ‘if you’re going to screw up, screw up big’.

Your tackle on Michael Jennings was one of the highlights of last season’s NRL. What do you remember of it?

It’s probably the highlight of my career.

Nobody expected me to try and chase him down. He’s one of the fastest players in the league and he had a big head start on me. I remember thinking to myself, “This is a long shot.” Then I started gaining and gaining and I got close enough to jump on his back. I would have looked like an idiot if I’d missed, but thankfully I held onto him and we went on to win the game.

How special was your last minute try against England in the World Cup semi-final last November?

To come up with a play like that at Wembley in front of 67,000 people was incredible. The boys went crazy, but then Simon [Mannering, New Zealand captain] told me I had to make the kick to win us the game. I remember watching the replay on the big screen while I was trying to compose myself and thinking, “That wasn’t bad, was it?”

What are your targets with the Warriors this season?

Anything short of making the finals would be disappointing. I played in a Grand Final in my first season and since then as a team we’ve failed to live up to expectations. I want to win the competition. warriors.co.nz the red bulletin

Alistair Guthrie

Words: Robert Tighe

Sledge hammer Johnson ranks former Warriors teammate and good friend James Maloney as one of the worst sledgers in the game. “He’s got the filthiest mouth and the most annoying voice.

He’s up there for sure.”

Warrior princess It was Maloney who christened Johnson ‘Princess’ after Johnson wore a tutu and a tiara to the Warriors end-of-season celebrations in 2012.

RB8 ·20 12

RB7 · 20 11 What’s the point of F1 now that making a racing car is more complicated than ever? And if you’re the fourtime champions, how do you carry the momentum of the last few years into unknown territory? An accessall-areas look at the making of the RB10, the 2014 Infiniti Red Bull Racing car Words: Werner Jessner

the secrets of

success

Champion versions

Master designer Adrian Newey is the brains behind Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s successful racing cars.

Here, for the first time, he looks back at his victorious creations and explains why 2014 is another matter entirely

RB6 ·2010

Thomas Butler

RB9 ·2013

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M ilton Keynes, early 2012. A small task force of engineers from Infiniti Red Bull Racing and Renault Sport meets behind closed doors to discuss the packaging of the racing car known as the RB10, for the 2014 F1 season (how large will each component be, where does each one go, etc). At this moment in time, the RB8, which the then double world champion Sebastian Vettel was due to drive in his fourth season with the team, was topsecret, kept far from public scrutiny.

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The task force only knew the approximate parameters of the 2014 regulations, which were said to include a V6 turbo engine with two kinds of energy recovery, thermal and kinetic. That is a hefty propulsion unit, but it will be necessary if the car these men are planning is to be competitive.

About a year later, just before the start of the 2013 season, as Sebastian Vettel returned from a brief winter break as three-time world champion – the task force came together to carefully scrutinise

RB10 ·2014

the by-now official rules for 2014.

When Vettel took the lead in the world championship, in the RB9, the RB10 task force added several new recruits.

Before the season break in August, a fundamental decision was made: in the face of a super-strong Fernando Alonso, and Mercedes’ Lewis Hamilton, who wasn’t to be underestimated, they resolved to power ahead with the evolution of the RB9 right to the end, instead of putting more resources into the development the red bulletin

the cars The Foundation RB5 (2009) Constructors’ championship: 2nd (world champion: Brawn GP) Drivers’ championship: 2nd (Vettel) and 4th (Webber). World champion: Jenson Button, Brawn GP

Benedict Redgrove/Red Bull Content Pool(2), Getty Images/Red Bull Content Pool(2)

“Completely new aerodynamics regulations came into force in 2009 and we used 2008 to analyse the requirements and form a solid base.

The main aerodynamic change was the front wing, which became much wider. All of a sudden, we had to take the air out by the front wheels.

That led to us reconstructing the front spoiler around the end plates.

of the RB10. “Looking back,” says Adrian Newey, Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s chief technical officer, “it would have been smarter to concentrate full power on the new car earlier on. In August, no one could have guessed that would we be so far ahead with the RB9 by the end of the season.”

The 2014 rules called for a radical new approach: the mid-section of the car – chassis, engine, cooling unit, sidepods, gears and energy recovery systems – is designed for optimal motor performance and shouldn’t get in the way of aerodynamics. Front and stern, on the other hand, are unequivocally guided by aerodynamics. It was the front section that would prove problematic.

“In 2014, the front wing has to end exactly at the middle of the tyre,” says Newey, 55. “From an aerodynamicist’s point of view, this is the least favourable position possible. The second problem area is the nose: this is where, presumably for safety reasons, two levels are defined for the cockpit and the tip of the nose, the red bulletin

Downforce king RB6 (2010) Constructors’ championship: world champion Drivers’ championship: world champion (Vettel) and 3rd (Webber) “The car was completely rebuilt around its double diffuser. We made the gearbox longer again to make the most of every millimetre of the diffuser’s length. It almost started under the engine! We also lowered the exhaust as far as possible and blew some of the fumes into a vertical gap in the diffuser to create downforce. The rest of the exhaust fumes were sent around the rear wheels to calm the air there, which gets very turbulent.

“It was a very quick car, even though it didn’t originally have the F-duct

The first nose we had was normal, but from Silverstone on we had this wider, higher ‘duck bill’ that made the whole front wing work better.

“The second highlight on this car was the longer gearbox. That killed two birds with one stone for us.

The engine meant there was better weight distribution towards the front of the car and we were able to use pull-rod suspension, which is technically more elegant but takes up a little more space. The third thing was a rising, tiered rear diffuser. Sadly, the competition had found a loophole in the regulations, and were using the notorious double diffuser. It was a political decision to declare it legal and so we had to play catch up and build one onto our car, which wasn’t really designed for it.

Even though the RB5 never won a world championship title, it was the predecessor for all the subsequent, victorious cars. Those first wins that year, and the second place in the constructors’ championship, gave the team the self-confidence you need when you’re fighting to win the world championship.”

that McLaren had invented, which channels the air towards the rear wing. The system has its origins in the Cold War. The Americans invented it so that their fighter jets would still work if the enemy interfered with their electronics.

But as we fought for the world championship title, we needed to think of every 10th and installed the system afterwards. But as we weren’t allowed to make changes to the chassis, we used the holes for the cable harness to make air flow through the cockpit. Luckily they were big enough! But we only won when we finally managed to get the airflow away from the main blade of the rear wing.”

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the cars

“That season, the double diffuser was forbidden.

The RB6 was probably the car with the most downforce in the history of F1, more even than the legendary spoiler cars of the 1980s. We measured up to 5.5G of lateral acceleration. It could go flat out through Copse at Silverstone, and on the sharp bend on the back straight at Barcelona. There had never been anything like it. But now we had to go on the hunt for downforce again. We did it via the exhaust and placed it further out, right by the rear wheels.

Now it blew into the gap between the rear wheels and the bottom of the car and sucked the car down.

Of course that only works as long as fumes are coming out of the exhaust. Now we needed to come up with engine mapping which also produced gas when the driver didn’t have his foot on the pedal.

“The results were almost as good as for the RB6 with the double diffuser! To start with, the exhausts kept breaking because of the unusual shape, but we got a grip on the problem in the end with extra material and changing the way we treated it. My cars have a general tendency to gain weight after their first outing.”

a virtual bottle RB8 (2012) Constructors’ championship: world champion Drivers’ championship: world champion (Vettel) and 6th (Webber) “That season, the regulations placed severe restrictions on the position of the exhaust and airflow when the driver didn’t have his foot on the gas. We perfected this technology over two years. Banning it really hurt us. We didn’t even know how to construct a car without making use of the exhaust fumes any more! Then McLaren came up with this Coanda exhaust, whereby you could blow the fumes away through a gap and hope that they would be directed towards the place where they’d have an effect. I didn’t like it and I directed the flow downwards at the tyres. If you do it wrong, you end up with a really bad car because the rear loses its bottleneck shape, which is so important aerodynamically. But there was a tiny loophole in the regulations. Various limitations on the bodywork only applied up to 100mm above the car’s zero line. So we put an air duct in exactly that area and that had the bottleneck effect. This meant the car was stable and agile again.”

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Ultimate perfection RB9 (2013) Constructors’ championship: world champion Drivers’ championship: world champion (Vettel) and 3rd (Webber) “Even if almost none of the RB8’s components matched any of the RB9 1:1, this was more an RB8B than an actual RB9. The greatest challenge that year was the tyres, which wore out really quickly. In the preceding years, we’d made cars that made up most of their lap-time on fast corners, in other words in precisely the place where the tyres come under the greatest strain.

So we had to minimise that strain, both technically and as regards the drivers’ individual driving style. It took us a while to understand how to keep the tyres within the ideal temperature range. There was no masterstroke. It was just a question of taking one step at a time and building on a base that we’d come to understand very well ever since the RB5. Even though Sebastian Vettel did better in the car overall than Mark Webber, the RB9 wasn’t tailor-made for him. Mark’s strength was the feel he had for his cars’ aerodynamics, whereas Seb’s was for the tyres. For us as a team, this was the perfect combination of two talents. If we’d had less sensitive tyres than the 2013 Pirellis, there would have been much less of a difference between the two drivers.

“The amendments to the regulations in 2014 are almost as dramatic as the ones we had in 2009; the RB10 is the son and heir of a new generation of racing cars, just as the RB5 was five years ago.”

without taking into account any link between them. That’s how aesthetically dubious solutions came about.”

A low nose is supposed to prevent cars launching into the air in case of accidents, as happened to Mark Webber in Valencia in 2010. But having made changes dictated by the new regulations, the exact opposite could occur: in the event of a crash, the rear car could slide under the car in front (‘submarining’).

Yet, in 2014, the low nose is a reality, and it has attracted significant criticism at presentations made by several Formula One teams. The nose regulations can only change for safety reasons, which would require one or more submarining accidents, or if all teams come to an agreement, which is unlikely. But this is not the major problem the new rules have presented. There’s the new transmission.

Before this year, every team in F1 knew exactly how to work with the naturally aspirated V8 engine they’d been using. They’re a long way from that with the 2014 engine, which poses several challenges, not least of which are newly added electronic components that need to be kept especially cool. While oil and water can easily cope with high temperatures of 100°C, electronics won’t tolerate more than 60°C. In the oven of Bahrain, for instance, where temperatures can reach 50°C, this poses serious problems for engineers. Their solution is large coolers, but from an aerodynamic point of view this is a disaster.

An additional difficulty comes with the new position for the battery, under the fuel tank (previously it could also be placed under the gears). Now technicians not only have to struggle with a lower centre of gravity, but also with unfavourable battery conditions. For the first races, especially, there are major concerns around safety and durability of the battery.

The spectre of the brand-new Boeing Dreamliner looms large – despite the power of one of the largest technical firms in the world, battery problems have prevented it taking off for months now.

One of the few major decisions that the technicians are able to toy with is the red bulletin

David Clerihew/Red Bull Content Pool(3), Thomas Butler

the eternal puffer RB7 (2011) Constructors’ championship: world champion Drivers’ championship: world champion (Vettel) and 3rd (Webber)

“the RB10 is the son and heir of a new generation of racing cars, just as the RB5 was five years ago”

How the new drive unit works It sounds complicated – and it is. The combustion engine, control system, turbo unit, injection system, the thermal and kinetic energy recovery systems (MGU-H and MGU-K, together referred to as ERS) and the storage battery all have to communicate to get the most out of the fuel in the tank. This situation is governed by two constraints: the 100kg of fuel allowed per race, and the fuel’s maximum permissible flow rate of 100kg per hour. Plus, the engine has an upper limit of 15,000rpm.

So when the driver hits the pedal, the system has to recognise how much power to call on, compared with what the driver wants. If the 1600cc V6 combustion engine does that all by itself – fine. In any case, it has to operate within the allowable fuel flow rate, for one, and also have enough air for combustion. So, the first step toward greater performance is to supplement the turbo with stored electrical energy and to force more air into the combustion chambers. If that doesn’t do the trick, propulsion via the MGU-K comes into play. (This has evolved from a similar previous system, KERS.) It can deliver 120kW (163hp) for 33.3 seconds, so that, in total, a complete drive unit (turbo engine, ERS) can produce about 800hp, which is more or less the same as V8 naturally aspirated engines. For maximum energy recovery, without negatively affecting road handling, the rear brakes are operated electronically, rather than hydraulically (brake-by-wire).

In total, the V6 turbo engine and energy recovery systems will produce as much power as the old, naturally aspirated V8

The minimum weight of the drive unit is 145kg, with the batteries weighing 20-25kg

How the systems interact when overtaking: all the available energy is flowing into the drive

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the control unit of the energy recovery system. Should it be positioned above the battery and so push the tank further upwards, or is it better off in the sidepods, and could this bring with it various other disadvantages? Are there advantages to McLaren’s version of the rear axle – currently formed as a wing – or the Mercedes nose, so that the aerodynamic concept has to be completely revised?

At the start of the season, especially, aerodynamics will probably recede into the background a little. Of prime importance is full understanding of engine management, and to orient race strategy around the available fuel volume. Start strong and drop off later, or go slowly into the race with a push to the finish? Will there be a safety car to help save fuel? As soon as the teams have got their heads around these problems, aerodynamics will once again assume the major role of previous seasons.

An F1 drive unit – the engine and the two energy recovery systems – now has to last around 5,000km in 2014, which is double the previous distance. Add to this the fact that the demand for coolers exceeds calculations – it’s impossible to achieve optimum temperatures under the new rules – and that most cars currently have a minimum weight of 695kg including driver. “With Seb and Daniel [Ricciardo] we will reach the limit by the skin of our teeth,” says Newey. “Mark Webber would really be at a disadvantage this season.”

It’s not just fans who are eagerly anticipating the first race of 2014, in Melbourne on March 16. Behind the scenes, too, the teams, the engineers, the suppliers and the drivers all have questions which will only be answered definitively out on the circuit. Rob White, head of the F1 motoring division at Renault Sport, which supplies engines to Scuderia Toro Rosso, Lotus and Caterham, as well as Infiniti Red Bull Racing, sums up his position. “The absolute goal is that every Renault car in Melbourne and the following races reaches the finish line without problems.

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that we will be going into the first race conservatively – we really don’t have a ‘conservative’ switch in the cars. At most, I can see the teams being a little more conservative with their tactics in the first race in order to reach the finish.”

One of the rules that hasn’t changed since last year: only those who reach the chequered flag get points. infiniti-redbullracing.com the red bulletin

Renault Sport F1

power package

RUNNING CAN'T FOR THOSE WHO CAN SIGN UP NOW! ONE DAY AT THE VERY SAME TIME ALL OVER THE WORLD

4TH MAY 2014 9:00 PM AUCKLAND NEW ZEALAND

WINGSFORLIFEWORLDRUN.COM

Credit

Hayden Nickell executes a trick on a highline above Las Vegas

High-altitude slacklining takes tightrope walking to new heights – a nerve-racking test of balance on a swaying rope hundreds of metres in the air

Credit

Words: Ann Donahue Photography: Dan Krauss

Walk on the Wild Side

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T 80

wo-and-a-half centimetres is the length of a blade of grass, a baby carrot, a bottle top. It is the proverbial next to nothing.

But for slackliners, this tiniest of measurements is the base of their sport.

First, a definition: slacklining is not the same as tightrope walking. No offence to Nik Wallenda and his recent mammoth Niagara Falls and Grand Canyon tightrope walks, but slacklining is a different discipline. A tightrope, as the name implies, is a thin wire stretched taut. There is no give to the line, and the performer’s balance and centre of gravity are augmented by carrying a long pole.

Slacklining takes place on 2.5cm-wide stretchy webbing anchored across a gap.

Because it is pliable, a slackline is at the mercy of the elements – especially the wind. While a tightrope just sits tight, a slackline oscillates, and walkers can end up clinging to a line that’s behaving like a skipping rope whipped around by a sugar-fuelled schoolkid.

“Instead of controlling the line and walking it, you’re along for the ride,” says Hayden Nickell, a 22-year-old professional

Andy Lewis sets his own highline before making a world-record crossing at the Mandalay Bay

Credit

In October 2013, several highliners walked between buildings at the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas

Credit

WHILE A TIGHTROPE JUST LIES still, A SLACKLINE wobbles AND TAKES WALKERS FOR A RIDE

slackliner from Nederland, Colorado. “You have to walk in these weird intervals. As the line goes up, you have moments where you can take eight steps. At the opposite, you’re out of control and you’re at the mercy of the line and the wind.”

Once relegated to parks and beaches as a hobby of the hippier-than-thou, slacklining is now branching out into several professional disciplines: tricklining, where performers combine gymnastics and choreography at competitions; urbanlining, which eschews the chasms of nature for the canyons between buildings; and yogalining, which incorporates asanas for those balancing and meditating on the line.

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The most spectacular incarnation is highlining, where a slackline is rigged hundreds of metres in the air, in aweinspiring locations across America both natural and manmade, such as Yosemite National Park, Hell Roaring Canyon in Utah and the Las Vegas Strip where, in October 2013, the urban highlining world record was set, bringing attention to the daredevil sport. Protected from falling only by a leash around their waist or ankle, slackliners have to constantly respond to the dynamic changes in balance underfoot.

“It’s like surfing,” says Nickell. “You wait for the good set to come in. You wait for the wind to die out and then you have

a 15-to-20-minute window to go out there and do your thing. Then another set of wind will come in and you back off.”

The wind gives the highline an ominous sound, an eerie plucked bass note as the webbing reverberates in between its anchors. When a walker looks ahead on a slackline, the brain can only register a certain amount of height through its 45 degrees of peripheral vision – any slackline 100m high and above feels the same, Nickell says. Going up higher doesn’t make much difference, but there are still times as you go up when the chattering monkeys in your brain start up.

“In your mind, you’re thinking ‘instant death’ as opposed to only being merely the red bulletin

Credit

The safety rope used by highliners is attached to the ankle or waist

“ T here’s no respect for Skill Anymore.

People are afraid to take risks nowadays”

Credit

Getting back into position after a fall is incredibly difficult. After a tumble and a catch by the safety rope, a highliner has to pull himself back up onto the bouncing line

mangled at the bottom,” says Nickell.

“The highline is a direct reflection of how you’re feeling on the inside. If you’re nervous, if you’re thinking about anything, all of a sudden the line is all messed up and you’re like ‘Ohhhh no.’”

For the sport’s participants, it’s this blend of acute concentration and lifeor-death risk that makes the pursuit of slacklining a near-spiritual endeavour.

Andy Lewis has a CV that should be the envy of any niche sport athlete.

The 26-year-old holds multiple slackline world records: at the end of last year, he set the urban highlining world record by walking a 110m-long line 147m up at the Mandalay Bay hotel in Las Vegas. He’s been the star of numerous slackline videos in gorgeous locations – he lives in the extreme sports haven of Moab, Utah – and performed alongside Madonna during the 2012 Super Bowl half-time show.

But he could care less about all that.

“Why can’t I call slacklining a religion?” he asks. “The lifestyle behind slacklining has all the metaphors: one step at a time. Keep in balance. Control your fate. It directly translates to life.”

Lewis has the word ‘Slacklife’ tattooed on his arm and earned the nickname Sketchy Andy from his more adrenalinfuelled endeavours, including BASEjumping off slacklines and free solo highlining, where he doesn’t wear a protective leash as he walks across lines suspended hundreds of metres in the air. Lewis believes that pushing the limits is the essence of slacklining, and as the sport continues to grow, he will conquer longer and higher and more dazzling lines to feed his soul – even if it terrifies the public.

“People don’t want to watch you do things like that,” says Lewis. “But it’s horrible that today in life, there’s no respect for skill anymore. People are too afraid to take risks nowadays. All these pussies all over the place, they won’t even let their kids scrape their knees. Risk isn’t bad – you can be the safest mother----er on the planet and die when you crash your car.” slacklink.org

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WINGS FoR EVERY TASTE.

CRANBERRY, LIME, BLUEBERRY. AND THE EFFECT oF RED BULL.

Tunes on tour: the guitar of the future will rock your backpack MUSIC, page 92

Where to go and what to do

ac t i o n !

T r a v e l / G e a r / T r a i n i n g / N i g h t l i f e / M U S I C / p a r t i e s / c i t i e s / c l u b s / E v e n ts High times: Rio is a perfect destination for climbers

Gripping stuff Marcelo Maragni

Fancy a change from climbing in remote mountain ranges? the rocks above Rio’s favelas provide plenty of adventure TRAVEL, page 86

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Action!

travel

and anoth er thing what to do off the rocks

DROP IN The best waves in Rio break at Prainha, about 30km from the city. As well as excellent surfing, the area is a picturesque natural park worth exploring for a few hours. prainhario.com.br

Rio rocks

Since 2008, the authorities in Rio have been working to reduce the social gap between the city’s haves and have-nots: the residents of the middle-class asfalto dwellings and the favelas that surround them. The police have clamped down on organised crime and as a result, some of the cliffs that provide a backbone for favela towns such as Rocinha can now be climbed in relative safety. Rio has become one of the biggest urban rock climbing centres in the world, with easyaccess pathways making it an attractive location for beginners and experts alike. In the south of the city, there are plenty of places that allow for a ‘quickie’, a short finger climb, and a stunning view of the 2016 Olympic Games site. “Climbing here is a totally different experience,” says American climber Colette MacInerney. “I’ve fallen in love with Brazil and Rio.” “The city is perfect for all sorts of climbing,” says Lucas Marques, a local climber, who introduced MacInerney to the Dois Irmãos hill. “Climbers from all over the world come here due to the beauty and the ease with which you can access the hills. In Rio, you can go to work and climb all in the same day.”

During a recent climbing trip, Marques and MacInerney managed to negotiate the rocky Rio Climbing cliff route known as ‘Patrick White’ School organises twice in four hours. The session was climbs in and a memorable one for MacInerney: around the city “Having the city, the ocean and the (from US$52): hills so close is refreshing and unlike companhiada escalada.com.br every other place I’ve climbed.”

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Rock climbing with the shacks of the Favela da Rocinha as a backdrop

ROCK UP

Advice from the inside When the time is right

Take a seat at the guardrail that separates Bar Urca’s boardwalk from the waves at the Guanabara Bay shore. The ice-cold beer and the bar’s famous empanada, a baked stuffed pastry, are a must. barurca.com.br

“Climbing is best in Rio de Janeiro between May and September,” says Rubens Ferreira, a climbing instructor from Companhia da Escalada. “Usually it’s very hot in Rio, but in middle of June, when it’s wintertime here, you will find pleasant temperatures and lighter rains.”

Local attraction

The sport of climbing is attracting more residents from the slums the hills overlook. “It’s a very physical and psychologically challenging sport,” says Andrew Lenz, who founded a climbing school at the Favela da Rocinha. “It’s enjoyable and useful – it makes those who do it better prepared for other areas of their lives.” escaladaurbana.com

TAKE OFF For those not satisfied getting to grips with the rocks, a hanggliding flight is another way to see Rio from above. rioasadelta.com.br

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Marcelo Maragni(2), Corbis

U RBAN CLIMBING Forays into favelas are traditionally the preserve of the brave, but today the granite outcrops of Rio de Janeiro’s slums are a climber’s paradise

Action!

workout

Ricciardo, 24, joins Sebastian Vettel at the Infiniti Red Bull Racing F1 team this year, following Mark Webber's retirement

Racing seat

David Robinson/Red Bull Content Pool, nico bustos, Shutterstock

Tony Thomas

hery irawan

FORMULA one It’s not all glamour being an F1 driver. Infiniti Red Bull Racing’s new man Daniel Ricciardo reveals that sometimes it’s a bum rap “With racing, you need total fitness,” says Daniel Ricciardo. “That means strength, but endurance and fast reaction training, too. F1 is incredibly fast, and has long races with cars that require you not to be bulky. So I would never bench-press 120kg – I’d do lower weights, at faster, high reps.

One area of specific focus for a racing driver is your neck, because of the high G-loads we have to endure through the corners, with a helmet on. Then there’s the laid-back seating position, which feels like a continual sit-up. For that reason we work a lot on core strength and the glutes.

When you get out of the car you really feel it in your arse! We need a lot of leg power for braking. Again, it’s not a question of being able to push a single load, but being able to push 100kg maybe 500 times. F1 is physically harder than other categories of racing; mainly because of the endurance, but also because of the loads.”

Off the wall

Pressing matters: the Aussie racer is in peak condition

D O T R Y T H I S AT H O M E “The glute med raise is very driver-specific,” explains Ricciardo’s trainer Stuart Smith, of the move that works the gluteus medius muscles found on the hips,“because a lot of forces act through the pelvis.”

1

2

Start by assuming a side plank position: the body grounded through one arm, located firmly on the floor through forearm, elbow and shoulder.

The body is raised, leaving only the lower foot and the forearm in contact with the floor. The raise is achieved through the core, to make a triangle.

3

4

tennis Tips help breed this ace racer

All balls

“I work a lot with my trainer on reaction training," says Ricciardo. “For example, I’ll stand close to a wall, facing it and he’ll throw tennis balls from behind me. I have to react and catch them as they bounce off. That’s tough, and great for eye-hand co-ordination.”

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The upper leg rises when you go up as the body elevates through the core and pelvis.

This is an amazing exercise for hip stability.

Both legs go down, in a ‘scissor’ motion that activates your glute meds and protects drivers against the forces exerted when they’re cornering.

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Action!

Nightlife

Die Tanzfläche im Sound fasst 650 Raver.

abu dhabi: to do three-course desert feast

A BU DHABI A SPACESHIP OF A CLUB HAS LANDED IN THE DESERT CITY, WITH GIANT ART, HIP-HOP stars AND A LOVE OF DELUXE On its opening weekend, the O1ne nightclub secured a place in the Guinness Book of Records. Eighteen aerosol-wielding artists turned the circular façade of the building, 17m high, into the world’s largest private graffiti wall (it took two weeks and 5,500 spray cans to complete the job). On the other side of the wall, VJs take care of the club’s interior decoration, projecting onto an area of 350m2: that’s about oneand-a-third tennis courts. There is nothing understated here. A lit catwalk runs through the middle of the club, on which the likes of hip-hop stars Ludacris and Lil’ Kim have strutted. The feeling out on the dancefloor is of a catwalk show in orbit, on a space station manned by models and fuelled by champagne. Entry is not impossible.

“Either you reserve a VIP table, or you try your luck at the door,” says owner Chafic el Khazen, who also runs O1ne’s sister club in Beirut. “Dressed to the nines, and in a ratio of two women to one man.”

O1NE Yas Island Leisure Drive, Gate 8, Yas Island, Abu Dhabi, UAE o1neyasisland.com

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At Abu Dhabi’s O1ne nightclub, VJs project onto the huge walls

BIGGEST NIGHTS OUT OTHER RECORDBREAKING CLUBS

Privilege, Ibiza Seven floors, rooms with ceilings 25m high, a huge indoor pool and 10,000 people dancing the night away. Clubbers get a map of the building when they enter, to find their way around the biggest club in the world.

Moulin Rouge, Paris The longest-running club opened in 1889, the same year as the Eiffel Tower. It’s still as innovative as ever: cutting-edge techno DJs of the moment play next door in its spin-off club, La Machine.

Club 23, Melbourne At AU$12,500, the Winston, the world’s most expensive cocktail, is named for its most expensive ingredient: 1858 vintage Croizet Cognac, a bottle of which Winston Churchill shared with General Eisenhower on the day before D-Day.

SEE ROBOT ­JOCKEYS After child jockeys were banned from taking part in the weekly camel races at the Al Wathba racetrack, in 2002, radiocontrolled robots have been in the saddle instead.

SKYDIVE INSIDE The vertical wind tunnel at the Abu Dhabi Country Club blasts air upwards using an 875 horsepower fan. It feels like you’re in freefall, but only a metre off the ground.

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sky-management.net(2), Getty Images, skyventure.com

A thousand and one nights out

GET PAID IN GOLD The Emirates Palace Hotel has a cashpoint-style machine that doles out gold. You can withdraw 1g, 5g or 10g at going rates. The machine itself is coated in gold, too.

Action!

City Guide

Hollywood North Beach Park

3

H o l ly w o o d

pembroke pines Flo rid

ad

te es

Extension of Florida’s Turnpike

om

Collins Ave

H

Florida’s key

Palmetto Expy

S

David ‘LEBO’ Le Batard’s art is a winningly eclectic mix of colours, pop-culture references and sleepyeyed animals, a joyful combination that mirrors his multifaceted hometown, Miami. It’s the pulse of that city – and it’s blend of cultures, cuisines and natural wonders – that influence his art. When not working in his showroom or gallery in the city’s Wynwood Arts District, LEBO immerses himself in Miami’s pedestrian culture, or uses the public bike system to pedal around town, checking out the numerous stunning murals around the city.

“The most interesting places to me are those where everybody is congregating together,” he says.

Hialeah

Ok ee

ch

ob

ee

Rd

Palmetto Expy

Airport Expy Miami International Airport Dolphin Expy

Ex py

Complete the Tamiami Trail Triathlon in the Everglades

miami b e ac h

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S

Hw

Key Biscayne

ula

albert exergian

G o W i ld

Julia Tuttle Causeway

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xie

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2 Panther Coffee 2390 NW 2nd Ave “The Wynwood Arts District is a concentration of eccentric and creative thinkers all living in the same area. This is the coffeehouse right in the middle of it, and it’s very laid-back.”

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5 Montgomery Botanical Center

places LEBO Loves

1 South Pointe Park 1 Washington Ave “You get a bit of everything here, from skaters to older tourists. Where South Beach can be a little exclusionary, this is a place that embraces all the different elements that make up Miami.”

Bay Harbor Islands

Virginia Key

lebostudios.com

TOp Five

Oleta River State Park

I-95 Express (Tollroad)

Opa-Iocka Executive Airport

miami Forget your 1980s visions of pastels, cigarette boats and stubble. What gives the city a charge these days, says street artist LEBO, is its vibrant diversity

Jason Koerner, Corbis(3), Getty Images, shutterstock

a’s Turnpike

David ‘LEBO’ Le Batard: art in the heart of Miami

3 Le Tub 1100 North Ocean Drive “The restaurant Le Tub is a Florida classic – it serves a lot of comfort food, and they don’t even accept credit cards. There are toilets and bathtubs everywhere, sunk into the ground.”

4 Los Ranchos Steakhouse 401 Biscayne Blvd “I grew up in Little Havana; it used to be all Cuban, but now it’s Latino from all over.

Los Ranchos is like being in Spain, so that takes the Latin influence back even further.”

5 Bill Baggs Park 1200 Crandon Blvd “This park is located at the end of Key Biscayne and it’s really good for paddleboarding.

The water around Florida, overall, is really good for paddleboarding because we don’t have any waves.”

Bike

Hike

Kayak

Start the 24km loop at the Shark Valley Visitor Center – go at sunrise to see the most wildlife.

A 5km loop starts at the Oasis Visitor Center. Think it’s no problem? Think again. It’s in a swamp.

Finish with a 5.5km paddle from the Gulf Coast Visitor Center. Don’t forget the mosquito repellent.

nps.gov/ever/planyourvisit/tamiami-trail-triathlon.htm

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Action!

world run

e n t er

n ow

t a n d ge g n i n t ra i

The gear you need

Global gathering W ings For Life World Run A starter’s gun on six continents: The first worldwide running race in sporting history gets under way on may 4. Anyone who wants to race against the rest of the world can take part. Here are the details 1. THE WAY IT WORKS

4. THE RESULT

In 33 countries, 35 races will all begin at 10am UTC (Co-ordinated Universal Time; 10am GMT) on May 4, 2014. ‘Catcher Cars’ will start reeling in the participants 30 minutes later. The last person in the world to be caught wins.

The last man and last woman running will be crowned global champions and win a special roundthe-world trip. Each country will also record its national winners. All runners will be able to check online to see how they did. “Who in the world ran further than I did?”

2. THE CHASERS The ‘Catcher Cars’ will gradually increase their speed at predetermined intervals. Once a runner is caught, or passed by a car, he or she must drop out of the race and the distance run at that point is automatically recorded.

5. THE PARTICIPANTS

3. THE COURSES

6. THE MISSION

They fall into five categories around the world: coastal runs, river runs, city runs, nature runs and runs with a view. The event’s homepage (wingsforlife worldrun.com) gives you the latest weather reports, detailed course information, training plans and a distance-time calculator.

The Wings for Life World Run motto is: Running For Those Who Can’t.

All of the money earned will go to the Wings For Life Foundation, which supports worldwide scientific research programmes looking for a cure for spinal cord injury.

You can find more information at wingsforlife.com.

Beginners, hobby runners, top athletes and stars, such as former Formula One ace David Coulthard. The aim is to cover as much of the course as you can to help cure paraplegia.

Compete against the rest of the world in the Wings For Life World Run. You can register online until April 20 at wingsforlifeworldrun.com

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how to buy kit Ultrarunner Christian Schiester on essential purchase practice

1

RUNNING SHOES

“Buy your shoes in a specialist shop, where you should take advice, get your running style analysed and do footprint tests. Anyone who does a lot of road-running should definitely go for a well-padded shoe.”

2

CLOTHING

3

TECH

“An old piece of runners’ wisdom: if you’re a bit too cold just as you leave the house, you’re dressed perfectly. Fabrics should be breathable and reflective. Keep an eye on irritable areas during long training sessions.”

“Movement is the main thing, not technology. Having said that, analysing data such as your pulse range or the distances run on your computer is a great motivational aid, especially for new runners.”

+

never be without compression socks

“I got over my initial doubts about them. Compressing your calf muscles definitely improves your performance and means you can recover up to 20 per cent more quickly.”

“Movement is the main thing” Wings for Life World Run ambassador Christian Schiester

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step on THREE HANDY RUNNING PARTNERS

LOOK AT ME! Reflectors on the shoulders, back and sleeves will make a shining example of you.

PROTECTIVE MEDIUM A three-layer membrane keeps moisture away from the body.

The outer manmade-fibre layer is both wind- and waterproof.

Jürgen Skarwan/Red Bull Content Pool, Philip Platzer, kurt keinrath

POWER STATION A small battery, charged via USB, provides power to the LEDs. The power supply is in the jacket pocket.

Night Owl Tao Illuminator Jacket WANT TO RUN IN THE EVENING WITHOUT WEARING A LAMP ON YOUR HEAD? NOW YOU CAN. THIS JACKET LIGHTS UP YOUR PATH For runners, seeing and being seen is not so much about massaging egos as staying alive. Bright colours are usually the first choice for visibility, but this awardwinning jacket comes in black, with two built-in LED lamps to cast light on even the darkest circuit. tao.info

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WIDE RANGE The 60º scattering angle of the two LED lamps illuminates the path ahead.

CAMELBAK DART Everything to hand for those long training sessions, including 1.5 litres of liquid in the built-in container system. camelbak.com

X-BIONIC EFFEKTOR Some partial compression from clothing helps blood flow, can prevent lactic acid build-up and keeps you nice and warm. x-bionic.com

GARMIN TACTIX This water- and shockproof heart rate monitor watch records running data and has a compass, GPS positioning system and night display.

Garmin.com

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Action!

MUSIC

make tracks Bombay Bicycle Club aren’t Indian – they come from London – and when Jack Steadman, Suren de Saram and Jamie MacColl joined forces in 2005, it was not to go cycling. The band they formed, with Steadman on vocals, MacColl on guitar, de Saram on drums and, eventually, Ed Nash on bass, were indie darlings whose stock rose dramatically with their second album, Flaws. A subtle, folky revelation on release in 2010, it won them many new fans and the Best New Band at that year’s NME Awards. On their latest, fourth album, the chart-topping So Long, See You Tomorrow, they blend playful electronic music with euphoric pop melodies. MacColl, 25, reveals the music that turns on BBC.

Playlist Jamie MacColl of Bombay Bicycle Club on his granddad’s finest phone call and the dance tunes that lead to tears

bombaybicycleclubmusic.com

1 MacColl & Seeger 2 Arthur Russell The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

Love is Overtaking Me

“I’m perhaps a bit biased because my grandfather, Ewan MacColl, wrote this song. Legend says he wrote it then sang it down the phone to my grandmother [singer Peggy Seeger, half-sister of the late Pete Seeger]. Hopefully that’s true, because it’s a lovely image. The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face is simply the finest love song ever written.”

“This is a song that Jack discovered when he was writing our second album, Flaws, and it became one of our favourites.

It’s hard to explain what it sounds like – Arthur Russell delved into many kinds of music – but disco-folk seems quite apt. Perhaps the best description I can give is that I’d like to have it played at both my wedding and my funeral.”

4 Fryars

5 LCD Soundsystem

On Your Own

“Who knows if it will stand the test of the time? At the very least, this is my favourite song of the last few years.

Either way, I think Fryars will prove to be one of the great songwriters of our generation.

He has that rare ability to articulate a sadness that we’ve all felt – ‘on your own, feeling like you don’t belong’ – in a way that doesn’t feel false or overly emotive.”

92

All My Friends

“Someone once said to me the best music should make you want to dance or to cry. LCD Soundsystem make you want to do both at the same time. At their gigs, I’ve seen grown men weep as they pull dance moves normally reserved for when they want to embarrass their children. It will always remind me of the people I love and our time together.”

Elvis Presley Graceland, Memphis, USA The tour includes the Jungle Room, a wonderfully kitsch rainforest-themed studio where the King recorded his last two albums.

It gets 600,000 annual visitors.

3 Glenn Campbell Wichita Lineman

“The most striking thing about this song is its simplicity. It only really has one verse, but the chorus is such a thing of beauty you’d be happy to have it nine or 10 times. ‘And I need you more than want you/And I want you for all time’ is perhaps the best couplet in any modern song; a sentiment that everyone has experienced at least once in their life.”

Jimi Hendrix 23 Brook Street, London Hendrix described the top-floor flat here as his only real home. In 2015 it’ll be a museum; next door, No 25, is where Handel lived, from 1723-59 (now a museum).

R i ff tr ad e half-guitar, all good

Beethoven

JamStik has real strings and frets, and you play it like a real guitar, but at just 38cm it’ll fit in your rucksack.

Sensors detect finger positions and transmit them to an iPad. Beginners can be tutored; musos can use it with other apps to generate non-guitar sounds. www.jamstik.com

Pasqualatihaus, Vienna Ludwig VB lived in this house from 1804-14, writing Symphony No 5 and No 6 and his iconic piano piece Für Elise here.

Exhibits today include one of his pianos.

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florian obkircher

Music to make grown men weep

great music pilgrimages: HOME IS WHERE THE LEGEND IS

bbc, corbis(2), shutterstock

Currying favour: Jamie MacColl of Bombay Bicycle Club

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© Jörg Mitter

LI K E WHAT YOU LI K E

YOUR MOMENT. BEYOND THE ORDINARY

Action!

games

Be Smarter Now Brain-boosting iOS puzzle games

Blek

i nfamous: second son Into gaming’s future in fine style with this sci-fi action epic An open-world adventure featuring super-powered young people that could not be more Assassin’s-Creedmeets-Chronicle if it tried, Infamous: Second Son is nevertheless the PlayStation 4-exclusive game which that console’s owners have been waiting for. With a futuristic parkour/graffiti vibe, tons of action and amazing graphics, it’s packed with good things. Like the dialogue that cracks just wise enough and the many neat touches, such as when main man Delsin unleashes one his special moves, he sweeps into the air and at the apex of his leap, turns and grins at the camera like Superman in outer space on his way back to Earth. There’s also clever use of the DualShock 4 pad: when Delsin has his fingerprint scanned, the player has to swipe a digit on the pad’s screen.

But what Second Son really does well, perhaps better than any game yet, is give the PS4’s muscles a solid workout, allowing it to show what it can really do in terms of delivering a new and visually spectacular game experience. There’s also something resolutely old-fashioned: no online multiplayer.

So you’ll have to get a bunch of friends round a TV and watch the best player play. Remember how much fun that was? Out on March 21.

o u t n ow

Man-machine mayhem

Call Of Duty meets Halo in Titanfall

The beta testing phase of this first-person sci-fi shooter was in February, but the eagerly awaited game proper is out in March on Xbox One. Made by half the original development team of Call Of Duty, this is a full-on shooter in which you fight against or behind the controls of giant mecha robots. Splendid stuff.

titanfall.com

Duet Divert a pair of moving orbs around increasingly complex obstacle courses. A game for the ears, too: the soundtrack is awesome. duetgame.com

Threes

Brand new old style

Is that a PS4 pretending to be a NES?

A set of decals for PlayStation 4 that takes Sony’s new box back three decades to a time when games machines were big and grey and proud of it. If your games zone screams 1980s – and we’re OK with that – then this Nintendo Entertainment System skin is perfect. Also available for Xbox One.

All you have to do is squash together numbered tiles to forge biggernumbered tiles.

Compelling to the point of ridiculous addictiveness. threesgame.com

houseofgrafix.net

paul wilson

What PS4 was made for

Sparkling graphics in Infamous: Second Son

Make a black line weave through a maze-like set-up to collect the coloured balls.

Deceptively challenging, elegant and just a little bit trippy. blekgame.com

suckerpunch.com

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P RO M OT I O N

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2 SLEEVELESS HOOD Billabong - Westside $99.99

3 WATCH Casio - G-Shock GDX6900CM-8D $319.00

4 SHIRT Element - Wildwood Shirt $89.99

5 SUNNIES Liive - Truth Polar Black Wood $74.99

6 SHOES Kustom - Kramer Select Black Micro $109.99

available at selected astores nationwide WWW.amAzonsurf.co.nz

Action!

save the date The men in black will be out to ruck their way to victory

March 15

The Vodafone Warriors will be hoping to end their Eden Park hoodoo when they host the Dragons in their first home game of the 2014 NRL season. The Warriors have never won at Eden Park, but they’ll fancy their chances against a Dragons side that struggled last year. The Warriors lost six of their opening seven games in 2013 and will be keen to record a win. warriors.co.nz

April 5

Slide rules

March 28-29

Night vision The NZO Moonride is raced over a 9km circuit on the mountain bike trails in Rotorua’s famed Whakarewarewa Forest. Riders complete as many laps as possible in 24, 12 or six hours. eventpromotions.co.nz

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The best speedway riders in the world and their magnificent sliding machines are coming to Western Springs in Auckland for the opening round of the FIM Speedway World Championships.

Former Australian world champion Chris Holder is back after he broke his pelvis, hip, heel and shoulder in a horrific crash last year. springsspeedway.com

April 12

Saltwater dreams The King of the Bays is the last of six events in the 2013/14 State Ocean Swim Series staged around the coast of the country. Held off Auckland’s East Coast Bays, with Rangitoto Island serving as a dramatic backdrop, the event options include a 2.8km, 1,000m or 300m swim and an OceanKids session for 6-10 year-olds. oceanswim.co.nz

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getty images (2), Rob Scott, JAREK PABIJAN, Simon Watts, Christelle de Castro/Red Bull Content Pool, Kristian Frires, Luke Shirlaw Ironlak

Dragon warriors

March 23

APRIL 5-6

Soul saviour

Walk of life

Louis Baker has been compared to Jeff Buckley, John Mayer and Curtis Mayfield, and his selftitled debut EP confirms the Wellington singer-songwriter as a major talent. Baker represented New Zealand at last year’s Red Bull Music Academy in New York and he’s bringing his sweet soul sounds to Leigh Sawmill as part of his nationwide tour. louisbaker.co.nz

The phrase, “Ah, it’ll be a walk in the park” is totally apt and absolutely not in any way at all apt for the Oxfam Trailwalker. The annual charity event has raised almost NZ$5 million since starting out in 2006, and challenges teams of four to tramp for 100km around Lake Taupo in 36 hours. oxfamtrailwalker.org.nz

don’t miss more dates for the diary

19 march

rock gods Nine Inch Nails and Queens Of The Stone Age ended the Grammy Awards with an epic jam session and their double-headline gig at Vector Arena promises to be equally loud and legendary. ticketmaster. co.nz

April 12

Welcome Victory The Wellington Phoenix went 10 games without a win at the start of the A-League season before they found form. The 5-0 thumping of the Melbourne Victory in January was one of the best results in the club’s history. More of the same will do nicely when the sides meet again at Westpac Stadium in the final game of the season. wellingtonphoenix.com.au

26 march

Until March 23

Rise up One of the largest private collections of artwork by controversial British artist Banksy is the main attraction of the Oi You! Rise street art festival in Christchurch. New Zealand artists are also well represented, while the Oi You! smartphone and tablet app offers visitors a walking tour of the city incorporating 30 artworks and installations created especially for the festival. streetart.co.nz/rise

five alive Six years after calling it quits, hip-hop legends Jurassic 5 are back in the game and are bringing their good-time grooves to The Powerstation as part of their reunion tour. jurassic5.com

10 april

queen b April 12-20

Biker’s bonanza Queenstown has long had a reputation as one of the best winter holiday spots in Australasia, but in recent years it’s also become a must-do destination for two-wheeled adventurers. The Queenstown Bike Festival celebrates the rich and varied options available to cyclists in the Southern Alps. Hardcore professionals, enthusiastic amateurs and freewheeling families are all catered for with events like the Coronet Enduro, Tour de Wakatipu, Kid’s Mini-Cross and Dirtmasters Downhill.

Low Down Loretta Brown and Fat Belly Bella are just two of Erykah Badu’s aliases. She’s also known as The Queen Of Soul, and her Civic Theatre show will go some way to showcasing exactly why. baduworld.com

queenstownbikefestival.com

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97

Magic Moment

Aigle, Switzerland, August 28, 2013 Patrick Wider discovered his new favourite obstacle at a construction site in the Swiss south-west. “We only had 30 minutes left before the sun went,” says photographer Octave Zangs. “Patrick was sure we could get a cool shot.”

“ When I got on my skateboard at the top, 10 tons of steel were shaking beneath me” Octave Zangs

Patrick Wider, skateboarder

The next issue of the Red Bulletin is out on april 8 98

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FEBRUARY – 2014 ISSUE 85

CLAY V LISTON

+

RONALDO V MESSI

50 YEARS ON

GREG YELAVICH

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