a beyond the ordinary magazine
DEC 2013 / JAN 2014
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l exclusive orde
interview: “i’m just a normal girl”
summer
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THE WORLD OF RED BULL
54
Vonn direction
After the craziest year of Lindsey Vonn’s life, the greatest skier of her generation reveals what it takes to be and be again – the best
miles donovan (COVER)
getty images (5), Michael Muller, Graeme Murray
Welcome
If she stands on top of the podium at the Sochi Winter Olympics in February next year, then Lindsey Vonn will have pulled off one of skiing’s, and all sport’s, great comebacks. You wouldn’t bet against her: a potentially career-ending injury in February this year has only made her more determined than ever to do the thing she does best: win. Her candid, funny and eye-opening interview is just one of the highlights of this issue. We’ve also got the incredible tale of a daredevil filmmaking crew, who had to outrun an avalanche and a complete guide to all of the summer festivals in New Zealand. Plus: polar opposites of motorsport, with a classic car rally in Cuba and the most advanced racing trucks on Earth. We hope you enjoy the issue. the red bulletin
Jed Milton, page 46
“We’ve set five new world records, so we’re winning” 05
December / January
78
at a glance Bullevard 10 the year in review The Red Bulletin’s 2013 highlights
the works team
Features
A sporting cert is that Kamaz trucks will dominate the Dakar Rally. We went to their factory in deepest Russia to find out how they build to win
32 Havana Drive Time
David Coulthard in the Cuban capital
40 Living A Fantasy
Kiwi teenage singing sensation Lorde
32
BMX star Jed Mildon sets about making more action sports history
54 Lindsey Vonn
The American skier is back from injury. Now she wants more Olympic glory
66 The All Seeing Hand
16 coulthard’s cuba
David Coulthard and a loyal crew of mechanics took part in the most authentic classic car rally of them all
daft punk
They didn’t just get lucky, you know. How the kings of electronic music pulled off the comeback of 2013
91 40 the year of our lorde
How a teenage schoolgirl from Auckland became the world’s breakout pop star of the year 06
Train like a champ
Low-tech tricks for high performance: slopestyle snowboarder Mark McMorris reveals his everyday secrets of success
Wellington trio out to blow your mind with their otherworldy sound
68 Best Fest Practice
Expert advice for the NZ festival season
74 Reborn In The USA
The Gaslight Anthem step out from Springsteen’s shadow with a new sound
78 Torque Of The Town
Building Dakar Rally-winning trucks
Action 88 89 90 91 92 94 95 96 98
pro tools Make a bike film party Mumbai’s music scene travel Heliskiing in Kyrgyzstan training A snowboarder’s workout My City Melbourne’s best bits Playlist Aloe Blacc gaming Gran Turismo 6 save the Date Events for your diary time warp The good old days
the red bulletin
Denis Klero/Red Bull Content Pool, Balazs Gardi, David Black, Getty Images, Tim Zimmerman/Red Bull Content Pool
46 A Higher Calling
presents
THE INSIDE STORY
OF RED BULL STRATOS
W AT C H T H E D O C U M E N T A R Y E X C L U S I V E LY O N rdio.com/redbullstratos
1 YEAR
ANNIVERSARY
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
Heinz Tesarek
Michael Muller Though he mainly photographs Hollywood celebrities these days, the first picture that Muller had published, in 1976, when he was 16, was of a snowboarder. So working with Lindsey Vonn felt a little like returning to his roots. “I’ve taken a lot of pictures of athletes over the last 28 years, but the shoot with Lindsey was really great,” he says. “Her personality is like her skiing style – fast and fun. It was a pleasure to capture that.” Muller’s Vonn direction unfolds on page 54.
Graeme Murray Before taking pictures of Jed Mildon and his record-breaking jumps on a BMX, Murray got his hands dirty helping him with the digging of dirt jumps. “I just wanted to get the shot,” says Murray. “I was excited to see what he could do.” Murray has represented NZ in downhill mountain biking, but nothing could prepare him for Mildon’s feats. “It was nerve-racking waiting for him to drop in to this huge ramp. Jed never tells you what trick he is going to attempt; you just have to be ready to shoot.” The results are on page 46.
08
An awardwinning reportage photographer who has worked in war zones, Tesarek was delighted to shoot in the Kamaz factory, in the Russian republic of Tartasan, where the world’s best racing trucks are made. “I used to live in Moscow, so it was good to be back in the country,” he says. “U-turns on the highways and the smell of freedom.” Kamaz are perennial winners at the Dakar Rally, where Tesarek shot the course makers for a story in The Red Bulletin in 2012. His new work begins on page 78.
Editors-in-Chief Alexander Macheck, Robert Sperl Editor Paul Wilson Creative Director Erik Turek Art Directors Kasimir Reimann, Miles English 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 Contributors Lisa Blazek, 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 Chief Photo Editor Fritz Schuster Photo Editors Susie Forman (Creative Photo Director), Rudi Übelhör (Deputy Photo Director), 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
david coulthard In Cuba, for the Havana Classic Car Rally, the former Formula One driver was impressed by his 50-year-old Pontiac and the men who maintain it, in a country where auto parts are scarce, but the love of cars is strong. “My mechanics, who are all Formula One guys, were amazed by what they saw,” says DC. “It’s the flipside of F1, a different kind of innovation.” One thing baffled him, though. “Did the car have brakes? I’m not sure. Maybe bits of wood for brake pads.” There’s more on page 32.
“ Driving a car in Havana feels like you’re in a time warp” david coulthard
Printed by PMP Print, 30 Birmingham Drive, Riccarton, 8024 Christchurch Finance Siegmar Hofstetter, Simone Mihalits Marketing & Country Management Stefan Ebner (manager), Stefan Hötschl, Elisabeth Salcher, Lukas Scharmbacher, Sara Varming Distribution Klaus Pleninger, Peter Schiffer Marketing Design Julia Schweikhardt, Peter Knethl Advertising Placement Sabrina Schneider O∞ce Management Manuela Gesslbauer, Kristina Krizmanic, Anna Schober
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
the red bulletin
/redbulletin
© Jörg Mitter
LI K E WHAT YOU LI K E
YOUR MOMENT.
BEYOND THE ORDINARY
b e s t o f 2 013
Sport and Culture on the Quick
Sam Houser
Grand plan pays off There are no recent pictures of our Man of the Year so we had to use this drawing No one knows much about Sam Houser. Along with his brother, Dan, he is the founder of Rockstar Games, the creative geniuses driving Grand Theft Auto. The new one, GTA V, had tills ringing to tune of 10 figures three days after it launched in October. That’s a billion good reasons to carry on developing games in New York City and avoiding the spotlight.
Twelve Months of Heroes
Impressive performances by the dozen
10
january 28
Tiger Woods His win in San Diego began his climb back to world number one.
february 3 Gregor Schlierenzauer Leapt to 47th World Cup skijump win. A record by a mile.
march 13
april 21
Pope Francis Argentinian former chemist becomes leader of the Catholic Church.
Marc MĂĄrquez American Grand Prix victory aged 20: youngest MotoGP winner yet.
may 25 Bayern Munich Champions League win completes treble.
june 1
Tino Sehgal Best artist at Venice Biennale for making people move and beatbox.
the red bulletin
Top 3
THE GEAR OF THE YEAR
Hat-tip Heroes
Respect is paid Three people who’ve done great, yet still look up to others
Misfit shine Wearable activity-tracker What it’ll do for you Measure movement, sleep and time. Linked to an app on your smartphone; you sync it by putting it on the screen.
Jack Andraka & Elon Musk He invented an ingenious test for cancer last year, aged just 15, but thinks it’s no big deal. In his view, inventor Elon Musk is a real hero, someone, “who does everything he can to change the world”.
AllumSki.com, Los Angeles Times/Polaris/laif, Getty Images (6), fotofinder, picturedesk.com (2), Corbis (2), Reuters (3), Jörg Mitter/ sam spratt, sascha bierl Red Bull Content Pool
misfitwearables.com
Losers We Love
In 2013, this woman wasn’t beautiful enough Denise Garrido was the shortest-lived beauty queen of the year. On May 25, she was crowned Miss Universe Canada, but the title was taken away from her two days later: a typo somewhere. The real winner was Riza Santos and Garrido had actually only come fourth. But she took it on the chin and handed back her crown. Now she’s more popular in Canada than all the other misses put together. Pays to be humble.
july 22
august 15
Dragonfly Household drone What it’ll do for you Keep an eye on your house, spy on your other half. It weighs less than a coin and is smaller than a piece of gum.
Caroline Hjelt & Lena Dunham One half of the Swedish music duo Icona Pop, whose hit single I Love It was played on the TV series Girls. It was “the best moment of our career… we adore that show. [Girls creator] Lena Dunham is a young woman who does her thing in a world dominated by men.”
techject.com
sebastian vettel & michael schumacher
stickNfind Radar for stuff What it’ll do for you Find the things you lose, by turning your smartphone into a radar detector via detectable stickers for keys/cat/remote.
Vettel is still three F1 world titles shy of Schumacher’s record of seven, but even if he goes on to win 14 one day, fellow German speedster Schumi will always be “his great idol”.
sticknfind.com
september 25
october 15
Team Oracle USA Down 1-8, but won America’s Cup 9-8! True all-time sporting comeback. George ‘Nothing yet’ news channel nonsense aside, it’s Kate and Wills’s baby!
the red bulletin
Olinguito Welcome, brother: previously unknown mammal found in the Andes.
Felix Baumgartner Showed first-person vids of Red Bull Stratos leap. Minds again boggled.
november 24 Sebastian Vettel F1 season ends with Seb world champ for fourth straight year.
december 10
Peter Higgs Proved existence of the god particle and today gets a Nobel Prize.
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Would you fly through here at 160kph?
Flight of the Year
Narrow margin jeb corliss (2)
“It’s the craziest thing I’ve ever done,” says wingsuit flyer Jeb Corliss, of his Flying Dagger endeavour. The daredevil stunt in late September saw Corliss leap from a helicopter and pass through a crevice in Mount Jianglang in eastern China. At its narrowest point, the crevice is just 5m wide. Even the local birds get claustrophobic.
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Bullevard
121.6 million
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On February 28, 1983, this many Americans tuned in to watch the last episode of M*A*S*H. No episode of a English-language TV series has since come close to matching the record set by the Korean War satire.
TV of the Year
Better than Hollywood If television is the drug of the nation, then it’s now possible to get high on 100 per cent pure quality stuff. These are the shows that raised the bar
What’s it about?
What is it that’s so addictive?
Breaking Bad USA
Modern Family USA
House of Cards USA
Borgen Denmark
Broadchurch UK
Carrie Mathison, bipolar CIA operative in love with a fugitive terrorist, tries to prevent further attacks on US soil.
Walter White, a chemistry teacher with cancer, makes the best crystal meth ever. And declares war on his conscience.
Three families, all related to each other, no one is spared. The good old family sitcom as absurd mockumentary.
Politician Francis Underwood unleashes a campaign of revenge through the labyrinthine politics of Washington DC.
Birgitte Nyborg is a politician who seeks power for all the right reasons, then holds onto it for all the wrong ones.
Alec Hardy and Ellie Miller are irritable cops hunting a childkiller in an English seaside town.
Good is evil. Crazy is clever.
Nothing will ever be good again. Not
All the jokes and Sofia Vergara.
Hating Underwood. With a passion.
In the normal TV career vs family showdown, the latter always comes out on top. Not in
Suspense: 10/10 Intrigue: 10/10 Bathroom breaks: 0
Zoe Barnes, who sees herself as a great reporter, but she doesn’t see the strings pulling her.
Katrine Fonsmark Olly Stevens wants constantly reinventing the big journalistic herself, but career, but instead always cool. he finds a heart.
ever.
Denmark.
The real hero
Saul Berenson, Carrie’s boss, who, unlike his charge, never blows his top.
What you say to show you watch it
It’s amazing that, depending on your position, it is either pro- or anti-CIA.
What’s A psychiatrist for missing? Carrie. Or for us. If we were Berenson turns out to be a terrorist in charge of overlord. the ending
Coming Soon Your next boxset 14
White’s partner Jesse Pinkman loses everything and everyone, but Phil Dunphy the never our I’m-cool dad who is sympathy. cringe-worthy but not at all annoying.
Yo! Bitch!
I like the episodes where Phil and Luke do things together the most.
The most exciting thing is the way Claire’s character develops.
Kasper and Katrine just can’t trust each other. That’s the problem.
If you ask me, Olivia Colman deserves a BAFTA.
A happy ending.
The sitcom staple black kid from next door.
A single character that isn’t a douchebag.
(It’s in the pipeline, actually.)
A US remake.
Gag reel at the end of every episode.
Walter and Jesse flee to Europe and open a molecular
Phil and Claire get divorced and a new drama series can begin: Modern
Underwood becomes US President. After
cuisine restaurant in Paris.
Family Warfare.
Birgitte Nyborg becomes the EU Entertainment Commissioner his rivals die in terrible, and quality TV mysterious accidents.
Holding hands and chanting, the locals encircle a burning
wicker man
becomes EU law.
containing the detectives.
True Detective
Woody Harrelson and Matthew McConaughey go (very) dark as cops working a 17-year case. Top-class old/young make-up. Starts January 12 on HBO in US.
the red bulletin
interTOPICS, Sony Pictures Television, RTL NITRO, Melinda Sue Gordon/Sony Pictures Television/Netflix, Mike Kollöffel, itv, Home Box Office (3)
Homeland USA
There’s only one thing that’s better than a good tune, and that’s a good tune played louder. With the Sony GPX77 1800W mini system (with built-in Bluetooth) the party could last all night. Or at least until the neighbours complain.
Louder than loud. sony.co.nz/lovemusic
Most new smartphones have an NFC chip in them. This makes it easy to set up a Bluetooth connection to the mini system – just tap to connect. Scan the QR code for more information.
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Daft Punk
Number 1 How two Frenchmen pulled off the comeback of 2013 Because these kings of electronic music came up with Random Access Memories, a non-electronic album of funk guitar and handplayed drums. A way to confound people’s expectations with a disco revival as a poke in the eye to electronic dance music hipsters.
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2
Because they backed the right horse using Pharrell Williams as a vocalist. Get Lucky was the second most successful single of the year. The only song to have outdone it is Blurred Lines by Robin Thicke and – yes, you guessed it – Pharrell Williams.
3
Because Thomas and Guy-Manuel are in total charge of the image game. They haven’t shown their faces in photos since 1998. This consistent secretiveness has created a brand that in these NSAtimes of ours is worth around US$60 million.
4
Because they reversed the vinyl countdown. Vinyl sales on Amazon increased by more than 100 per cent in 2013, thanks to Random Access Memories. No big round black music item in the online sales giant’s history has sold more copies.
5
Because they brought old favourites back into the limelight. Giorgio Moroder took a back seat 20 years ago and Nile Rodgers was doing the rounds of retro parties with Chic’s old hits. Both have announced new material after surfing the Daft Punk wave.
matthias clamer
1
Let the music fill up every space, in any room or out on the deck. The Sony GTK37 will keep it pumping loud. Connect with NFC One-touch, Bluetooth or cable and let your music blast.
Here’s to the power of loud. sony.co.nz/lovemusic
Most new smartphones have an NFC chip in them. This makes it easy to set up a Bluetooth connection to the power dock – just tap to connect. Scan the QR code for more information.
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“OK, Glass” QUOTE OF THE YEAR. That’s how you speak to Google’s wearable computer. And does Google Glass say, “Look left to find what you’re looking for”? No, not yet, but maybe it will soon. OK, man?
Games of the Year
Firsts, The Last and everything What we played, played and played some more on tablet and console. Plus the Easter Eggs and extras you may have missed
Beat Sneak Bandit
By far the year’s best iPad game is this cross between Dance Dance Revolution and Donkey Kong. You have to clear screens of clocks in perfect synch with the game music. Achingly simple yet endlessly challenging, if you play it on the bus you’ll be swaying in your seat.
➜ Insider Tip The makers of this
colourful, fast and furious delight also made the polar opposite (but equally ace) Year Walk, a creepy, measured, offbeat iPad adventure.
PewDiePie
World’s most watched The biggest show on YouTube is all a game, really Felix Kjellberg, alias PewDiePie, plays computer games and over 13 million people watch. His YouTube channel has been the world’s most popular since August 2013. The 24-year-old Swede makes Let’s Play videos where he plays and films himself. If you’re wondering why millions of people watch, consider yourself old. What you should actually be wondering is why PewDiePie is the most successful at it when there are thousands of other YouTubers doing the same thing. Maybe because he likes playing horror games best and gets scared with his viewers into the bargain. Or maybe it’s because of his hyperactive style: he speaks, screams, laughs, makes rhymes, sings and beatboxes at a dizzying speed. A hero for the ADHD generation perhaps, but he obviously enjoys what he does and his subscribers, the Bro Army, enjoy it too. www.youtube.com/user/PewDiePie
The Last Of Us
The can-a-game-feel-likea-movie indicator ticked two spaces closer to Yes with this engaging, original adventure. There are zombie-like humans and puzzles and fights and things to collect, but there is also a constant sense of being involved in something richer and deeper than that.
➜ Insider Tip Playing on the Hard
difficulty level, you can pause the game, switch to Easy, stock up on ammo, and then switch back to Hard. It’s not cheating, it’s enterprising.
Grand Theft Auto V
Sure, sure: and Citizen Kane is a good movie and The Beatles played some nice music. The surprise comes in realising, as the hours slide by, just how inventive, epic and unputdownable this game is compared with its predecessors. Three very different main characters equate to months of play.
➜ Insider Tip Look for the map in the
“I’M RICH. I’M MISERABLE. HELL, I’M PRETTY AVERAGE FOR THIS TOWN REALLY” Michael Townley (aka Michael De Santa) of Grand Theft Auto V introduces himself. He’s just a regular guy like you and me
cable car station on the top of Mount Chiliad, and an alien-conspiracy storyline will be yours for the solving (online forums a must).
18
the red bulletin
There’s music that needs 2400W to be heard as it was meant to be heard: louderer. The Sony SHAKE-5 will rock your senses with its powerful 3-way speaker system and pulsating speaker lights. And with Bluetooth built-in, music playback from smartphone, laptop or tablet is easy. Put the ‘er’ into your louder. sony.co.nz/lovemusic
Most new smartphones have an NFC chip in them. This makes it easy to set up a Bluetooth connection to the SHAKE-5 – just tap to connect. Scan the QR code for more information.
Bullevard best of
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Ian Hylands/Red Bull Content Pool
24 m
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Maverick of the Year
Look Mum! No hands!
This is Oakley Icon Sender in Zion National Park, Utah, where Red Bull Rampage separates the freeriding wheat from the chaff. James ‘Redneck’ Doerfling of Canada leapt off his bike just before it clattered into the abyss, giving his horrific fall a hint of elegance. US rider Cameron ‘Camshaft’ Zink spun a backflip into the canyon. And Kyle ‘Teddy’ Strait – this guy here– didn’t use his hands at all. It’s called a “perfect suicide no-hander” and it meant the American was crowned overall winner.
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THE ART OF THE CROWD
Must-reads of the Year
Get booksmart in under five minutes Nine books that you’ve got to read, but probably won’t. So we’ve read them for you. You’re welcome
22
What it’s about
What’s to learn
Kate Atkinson Life After Life
Ursula Todd first dies at birth. Then she drowns and after that is laid low by Spanish flu. But it’s not all bad news. She is reborn each time.
Just because you can’t remember something doesn’t
Joël Dicker The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair
An old professor kills a young girl. Or does he? Writer Marcus Goldman wants to know the truth and becomes a character in his own crime novel for his trouble.
Nothing is as dangerous as the word
Moshin Hamid How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia
A guy makes it out of the ghetto only to become a corrupt businessman. He then writes a (fictional) self-help book on the subject. Whether it helps or not is questionable, but it’s sure to make cash.
Money stinks, but it’s and intoxicating whiff.
Joe Hill NOS4A2
She got away from him once, but now the child-abducting vampire is demanding bloody revenge for the little girl.
Never, ever, under any circumstances – and we mean never – take a lift from a stranger, or, indeed, get in a car.
Jesus Carrascos Intemperie
A hunter pursues an unnamed boy in a barren no man’s land. He is finally given shelter by a shepherd, who is tied to the boy by a secret.
It’s about suffering and dying. It’s a no-hope, constant struggle. And in the end, you lose.
Robert Galbraith The Cuckoo’s Calling
A model ‘falls’ from a balcony; a clappedout war veteran looks for the murderer. Harry Potter author J K Rowling, writing under a pseudonym, creates a superbly depressed crime noir anti-hero.
Everyone – regardless of how rich and successful they are – deserves a second chance.
Clemens Meyer Im Stein
The Berlin Wall has just come down. Some people are looking for love, others for money. Pimp Arnie Kraushaar is on the lookout for both and takes us through the red-light scene in eastern Germany.
Sex industry professionals are a source of great knowledge, not least of which is the secret of crisp, clean bed linen.
Nathaniel Rich Odds Against Tomorrow
Mitchell Zukor calculates the likelihood of disasters for an insurance company. Suddenly Manhattan goes under. Now there’s a business opportunity…
Have no fear!
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Americanah
Ifemelu finishes her studies in Nigeria, moves to the US and has a career as a blogger. Everything is wonderful. Anything is possible. But she can’t forget her childhood sweetheart, Obinze.
Love. Love. Love.
Would you buy a masterpiece for just US$60? New Yorkers wouldn’t Street-art legend Banksy was selling original works for 60 bucks in Central Park and only three passers-by wanted to take them. One of them even haggled the price down, and is now a rich man. Art connoisseurs in the Big Apple are kicking themselves.
mean that you weren’t there when it happened.
“I”.
What should I do to change my life?
dietmar kainrath
It’s called life.
Kainrath
Can talk
getty images
Hiding, running away, closing your eyes and hoping it will never happen: none of the above will ever get you anywhere.
the red bulletin
Bullevard September 12, 2013 (18.8bn km) NASA announces the August 2012 date after much calculation. Voyager 1 has 10-12 years left before its generators stop and it goes silent.
The longest goodbye This year, mankind waved farewell to a spacecraft as it left the solar system
December 16, 2004 (14.2bn km) Enters the termination shock, the first boundary of our solar system.
February 17, 1998 (10.4bn km) Now the most remote man-made object, beating the record held by the Pioneer 10 space probe.
February 14, 1990 (6bn km) Sends back its last photo, a homeward glance in which the Earth, famously, is a tiny, pale-blue dot.
Earth
NASA/JPL-Caltech
Sun
2 013 August 25,2012 (18.2bn km) Voyager 1 crosses the heliopause, the second solar system boundary, into interstellar space where the sun’s magnetic field is no longer active.
Voyager 1
September 5, 1977 Voyager 1 space probe leaves Cape Canaveral, USA, aboard a Titan IIIE-Centaur rocket.
best of
Voyager 1
Ask NASA!
Whenever a question about Voyager 1 pops up, NASA patiently answers it. So we got quizzical.
If Voyager 1 stumbles across a new planet, who will it belong to? NASA? The US? Planets don’t normally belong to anyone. Let’s assume there are aliens and they found Voyager 1, would it then belong to them? Voyager 1 will always be a NASA mission. We don’t anticipate any change in ownership in future either. Jane Platt and Jia-Rui C Cook NASA, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
November 12, 1980 (1.4 billion km) Another 18,000 pics after a flyby of Saturn, then alters its course for the last time, to head out of the solar system.
March 5, 1979 (Distance from Earth: 788 million km) Closest point of Jupiter flyby yields 18,000 photos, which show atmospheric storms, active volcanoes on the moon Io and two new moons.
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Secret of the Year
She is painted identically – as geometric tests have shown – but looks considerably younger and, according to researchers, was done 10 years earlier. But was the so-called Isleworth Mona Lisa (left), unveiled in 2012 after 40 years in hiding in a Swiss bank vault, painted by Leonardo Da Vinci? Might she even be the original? Thus making the famous Gioconda (right) simply a later copy? Books by the American onetime owner, Henry F Pulitzer, and a new one by the German author Josef Nyáry claim to have the answer, but the art community remains divided on its authenticity. 24
The Mona Lisa Foundation (2)
Was it Leonardo?
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The Replacements
Exploding stars
mesut özil is the new zinédine zidane
Ijad Madisch is the new Mark Zuckerberg
Sky Ferreira is the new Rihanna
Gareth Bale is not the new Cristiano Ronaldo
He wasn’t good enough for Real Madrid and went to Arsenal – and only took the Gunners to the top of the Premier League straight away. Quiet genius.
He founded ResearchGate, the ‘Facebook for scientists’ with over three million members and hopes to revolutionise global thinking. Like!
She looks just as good as Rihanna and sings (Night Time, My Time) just as good, too. The only difference is that the future belongs to her.
He didn’t cost €100 million, ‘only’, say Real Madrid, €91m. That’s €3m less than teammate CR7, who remains the most expensive player of all time.
MOKA*
Can toons
*Museum of Kainrath’s Art
26
REUTERS, Getty Images (5), Research Gate, Laif
Dietmar Kainrath
Out with the old, in with the new
Miracle of the Year
Standing in the rain without getting wet
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Getty Images
Why did people queue for hours outside the Barbican in London and then the Museum of Modern Art in New York? To go in off the pavement and then walk in the rain. The artist collective rAndom International set up a 100m² field in a darkened room where it was constantly raining, and yet when you moved through it, you didn’t get wet. Wherever you went, the water dodged you. As if by magic (and clever, detailed 3D mapping of the room and your place in it).
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2 014 All Around the World
Take off
Where to be in 2014: planet Earth’s and elsewhere’s very best attractions
Spring
San Francisco, USA Eat your last chowder At Pier 39 in San Francisco, before the local seafood starts to swim in waters from the oncoming Fukushima swill.
3 June 25
Manaus, Brazil Hear vuvuzelas, not Verdi In the middle of the rainforest, at a just-opened football stadium. The building of venues here is something of a tradition: the Teatro Amazonas opened in Manaus in 1887.
August 15
Panama Take the world’s best short cut
9
Celebrate the centenary of the Panama Canal as you make your way from the Atlantic into the Pacific.
7
Where Are You Going?
Rio or Riga
The art of football, or just art. Decide what’s for you by choosing from these
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a. Richard Wagner b. Vágner Love
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a. Balotelli b. Baryshnikov
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a. Garancca b. Guzan
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a. Marcos Rojo b. Mark Rothko
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a. Misimovic b. Nimzowitsch
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a. Gidon Kremer b. Júlio César
Rio If you’ve picked three or more of the following names: 1b and 6b (Brazil), 2a (Italy), 3b (USA), 4a (Argentina), 5a (Bosnia-Herzegovina): all footballers from countries that have qualified for the 2014 World Cup. Riga If you’ve picked three or more of these names: 1a (composer), 2b (ballet dancer), 3a (singer), 4b (painter), 5b (chess grandmaster), 6a (composer): the capital of Latvia is also the 2014 European Capital of Culture.
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Aconcagua, Argentina Climb a 6,962m peak – blind That’s what Neelu Memon will be doing. The blind mountaineer from New Zealand hopes to climb the highest mountain on each continent: Aconcagua is the first of her seven-summit tour.
3:3? Was it a draw? Go to both!
the red bulletin
Wake Up! How to get over jetlag
September 18
Scotland Drink whisky and witness history
1. Never go to sleep straight after landing. 2. Always fly west. 3. Only book evening flights. 4. Don’t eat too much. Drink a lot (of water).
F e b r ua r y 7- 2 3
If you’re in the Bonnie land for the independence referendum. Ideally you’ll be drinking Ardbeg from the Isle of Islay. Alternatively, if peatiness isn’t really your thing, try the fruity Bladnoch, from the Lowlands instead.
Sochi, Russia A short hop from the ski slopes to the sea At the warmest Winter Olympics ever. Appropriately enough, Sochi’s coat-of-arms has a palm tree on it as well as waves and mountains.
M ay 4
Haryana,India, and 32 other countries Run around the world against a car
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At the Wings for Life World Run. Run as far as you can without getting caught by the Catcher Car.
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5
NovembeR 2
jun e 1
China Fly over millions of people’s heads
Trieste, Italy Cycle on water Or fly there... The Giro d’Italia will start on May 9 in Belfast and make its way via Ireland to Italy.
At the Red Bull Air Race World Championship final in one of the country’s megalopolises (exact venue tbc).
J un e 2 8
Sarajevo, Bosnia Let’s party, not fight Where World War I began 100 years earlier. Like at the Baghdad Café in the heart of the old town.
11 octo b e r 1 9
December 31
Mars Just look up And watch comet C/2013 A1 hurtling towards Mars at 56kps. The best place to do that is at the Southern African Large Telescope in Sutherland.
Gisborne, New Zealand Be the first to surf your way into the New Year April 29
Antarctica Watch the solar eclipse In a place that gets no sunlight for half the year, at precisely 06:04 Universal Time (06:04 GMT).
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At the world’s easternmost city. If you can’t wait till then, get yourself to Wainui and Makorori – two of the world’s best surfing locations – on January 12 for the start of New Zealand’s Surfing Championships.
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Bullevard best of
Watch Out
2 014
MOVing WITH THE TIMES There have been a lot of new features for wristwatches, but not all are still popular.
Mobile phone Text messages, emails, Facebook, you can get the lot via Bluetooth. But you still need a mobile phone.
Watch The smartwatch can do what any good watch can: tell the time, very precisely and in the language of your choice.
1977: HP calculator watch Now an expensive collector’s item. Back then it was a battery-guzzling flop.
Key As with a smartphone, apps make a smartwatch smarter. There’s even an app that can open your car door.
Music Manage your playlist while you’re on the go without worrying you’re going to drop and break something.
2000: Casio wrist camera A digital camera in a wristwatch? Sounds cool! Problem was, nobody wanted one.
Wristy Developments
Smartwatches
After years of technical stagnation, watches are back with a vengeance. Is this the beginning of the end for non-smartphones? In 2014 the do-it-all watch makes the leap from science fiction to reality, but what can the new smartwatches really do, other than be mistaken for an elderly person’s panic button? Basically, many things a mobile phone can, except that you don’t have to rummage around in your pockets for it. The competition to create the first market-leader is under way. Samsung and Apple are battling with a tiny rival: Pebble (above), the internet watch, into which 70,000 people invested $10m on the funding website Kickstarter.
2014: Ressence Type 3 On which traditional hands are replaced with little slits of light. All for €23,000.
How we’ll get around in future 30
Hyperloop As conceived by inventor Elon Musk, capsules are propelled through tubes by compressed air. Average speed: 965kph.
Jetpack Rocket rucksack made in New Zealand goes to market in 2014 and will fly for 30 minutes at speeds of up to 74kph.
Self-driving car Mercedes are calling it the Intelligent Drive, and nobody sits behind the wheel. Ready to go into production.
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sascha bierl
Good Ideas
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CUBA David Coulthard and a small crew of loyal mechanics took part in the most authentic classic car rally of them all – on an island where new cars are embargoed photography: Balazs Gardi
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“Here she is. This is the beautiful 1955 Pontiac Chieftain I drove on the Havana Classic Car rally in August this year. The kindest thing to say is that it looked better than it drove, which is only to be expected because it’s a 50-year-old car maintained with whatever parts can be found to keep it running. I mean, did it have any brakes? I’m not sure. Maybe a couple of bits of wood for brake pads. But it looks so good even stationary that it makes you feel special just sitting in it.”
“This is me with Tony Burrows of Infiniti Red Bull Racing. There’s a rack of old car parts along a wall in here that most garages would just bin, but in Cuba these are vital: anything that might be useful to keep a car running is held onto. The ingenuity is amazing. Some cars have plastic tubs for fuel tanks because the old ones have rusted away and they can’t source or make replacements.”
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“The Pontiac’s owners have this garage where they service some of the old beauties and run a taxi, too. The cab is their day-to-day source of income, so it’s pretty important that they keep it running whatever goes wrong. The engine isn’t original: it’s been dropped in from a modern little hatchback and made to hook up with the old running gear via some ingenious twists and turns under the bonnet. My mechanics, who are all Formula One guys, were amazed by what they saw: it’s like the flip side of F1 – a different kind of innovation.”
“In Havana you feel like you’re in a time warp. This used to be a thriving place and it still has incredible potential, but everything is different. You don’t own your house: if you want to move, you have to try to swap with someone on the other side of town.”
“What you see here is one man’s love for his machine. All over Havana there’s beautiful architecture that’s not had any care since the revolution, but in among the decay, you have this beautiful shining car, in the best possible state of repair, because it means so much to the guy who owns it. The few people who can afford cars here really cherish them, because they’re irreplaceable.”
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“On the rally, Tony Burrows, who I’ve known since I raced in Formula 3, did map-reading duties. You can see that the roads are actually pretty quiet. This is quite a built-up area and there’s not a lot of traffic. Most people take the bus. On an island of 11 million people, there are only 250,000 cars, so the roads don’t really get busy.”
“This gentleman [above left] was a photojournalist who wanted to show us pictures of the grand prix held here in 1958 [left]. He had pictures of all the stars of the day – Stirling Moss, Carroll Shelby and so on. Juan Manuel Fangio, who was world champion, was kidnapped and released a day later. The circuit ran right along the Havana waterfront. It was beautiful and it must have been really something back in the day.” “I had time to walk through some of the tourist areas in Havana, where you get a real sense of what a thriving place it must have been. At the end of two days in Havana, me and the boys strolled down to the waterfront and enjoyed a cigar [above] looking over the Straits of Florida towards America, which is just 90 miles away. It’s quite a place.”
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The
YEAR OF OU How a teenage schoolgirl from New Zealand became the world’s breakout pop star of 2013 Words: Robert Tighe
LLORDE
Charles Howells
R Girl power: Aged 16, Lorde had number one records in New Zealand, the UK and USA
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And we’ll never be royals (royals) It don’t run in our blood That kind of luxe just ain’t for us We crave a different kind of buzz
- Royals by Lorde Ella Yelich-O’Connor is living a fantasy. At the start of February she was on Twitter, quoting Modest Mouse lyrics – “oh the dashboard melted but we still have the radio” – and complaining about the start of a new school term – “#grrr #school #grrr”. On October 3, a month and three days before she turned 17, the girl from Devonport, an affluent, waterfront suburb on Auckland’s North Shore, tweeted this: ‘get the fkouttahere. royals is NUMBER 1 on BILLBOARD in the USAAA.’ “The whole thing has been surreal,” says Scott Maclachlan, her manager at Universal Music. In 2009, Maclachlan was sent a clip of a 12-year-old girl singing at a school talent show. When she made it clear to him that she wanted to be a songwriter as well, and that she would be called Lorde, pronounced ‘lord’, because she liked royalty, he signed her to a development deal, introduced her to producers and songwriters and gave her time and space to find her sound. She didn’t click with any of them until she started working with producer Joel Little in his Auckland studio at the end of 2011. “We talked about music a lot,” says Little, a fresh-faced 30-year-old, who spent nine years as the frontman for New Zealand pop-punk band Goodnight Nurse before he moved behind the mixing desk. “I’d give Ella some homework, some songs to listen to. For example, she’d never listened to Prince or Snoop Dogg. She knew Snoop Dogg as the guy from that Katy Perry song, but she didn’t know he made some cool gangster rap back in 42
the 1990s. She thought he was just some lame dude. In turn she introduced me to stuff that she was into. We listened to The Weeknd and James Blake and we played each other cheesy pop songs.” Their early songwriting efforts were more miss than hit. In July 2012, Ella came into the studio during her school holidays with the lyrics to Royals. Little came up with a beat, together they found the right melody to match the words and the song that has dominated the airwaves and the internet in 2013 was born. “I liked it, but I didn’t know if anyone else would,” says Lorde. “I think Joel had more of an idea of the impact the song would have than I did.” “I didn’t think it would get played on radio, but I thought it was a great song,” says Little, “a good start to her career. But no one could have guessed that song would do what it did.”
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hen Royals replaced Miley Cyrus’ Wrecking Ball at the top of the US Billboard charts at the start of October, Lorde became the youngest solo artist in 26 years to reach Number One. Her age is one subject she’s fed up talking about. “I get this weird question asked in a variety of ways,” she says. “People are like, ‘So you’re only 16, how do you have subject matter to write about?’ I’m like, ‘What do you mean? A) I’ve never been older than I am and b) I’m 16 not a one-year-old.” Lorde is a typical teenager in many ways. She peppers her conversation with the word ‘like’, tweets selfies from
concerts (“the weirdest lil goth at the One Direction concert is meeeee”) and suffers from acne. “I’m a regular person,” she says. “I’m in high school, I get the bus everywhere, I’m a loser and my room is dirty, you know.” The teenage experience has been exploited by songwriters since forever, but part of Lorde’s success has been her ability to write about it honestly. “Ella is incredibly accurate in her portrayal of the way she lives and kids can identify with her because that is their life,” says Maclachlan. “She’s the antithesis to someone like Miley Cyrus who is very brash, very LA, very aspirational, but in a faux way. The greatness of Ella’s music is that it resonates with so many other people. I’m 44 and I remember when I first heard Going Underground and A Town Called Malice by The Jam. I felt like Paul Weller was writing about my life and that’s incredibly powerful. Somehow, with every single line in every single song, she says something that resonates.” The author of those lines has a simpler explanation for her appeal: “Maybe because I’m not singing about dropping the red bulletin
Charles Howells, Getty Images
Let me be your ruler You can call me Queen Bee And baby I’ll rule, (I’ll rule, I’ll rule, I’ll rule) Let me live that fantasy
World star: brought up in Auckland, Lorde is already a global star. She’s had gigs on three continents, including a UK debut show in September 2013 at Madame JoJo’s in London (left)
the red bulletin
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your booty in the club, more people get it and can relate to it.” Instead of writing bland platitudes about partying and finding/losing the love of your life, Lorde explores the emotions and real concerns of her peers, painting vivid pictures with her words. Lines like, ‘this dream isn’t feeling sweet/ we’re reeling through the midnight streets/ and I’ve never felt more alone/it feels so scary getting old’ from Ribs, and ‘I’ll let you in on something big/I am not a white teeth teen/I tried to join but never did’ from White Teeth Teens are condensed short stories. From A World Alone, the line ‘maybe the internet raised us/or maybe people are jerks?’ is social commentary.
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orde explains: “I’m not trying to preach to anyone, which is something teenagers get all the time and hate. I’m just commenting on what I see and writing about how it applies to teenagers’ lives. I think we are portrayed pretty weirdly in music and movies and TV shows. Adults forget what it is like to be my age. I’m living it so I have a more realistic viewpoint on it. “That line [about the internet] was something my friend said. We were at 44
a party after spending too much time on the internet. Sometimes after you’ve been on Tumblr for three hours and you try and talk to people it is impossible. And my friend was like, ‘Why can’t we talk to anyone at this party?’” Are your friends excited or annoyed when they see themselves in your songs? “I have a lot of friends, so everyone assumes it’s about someone else. I’d like to think I’m quite subtle.” How has success affected friendships? “Obviously it’s difficult, because I’m in New York and they’re in history class or whatever, but your friends are your friends for who you are. I’d like to think the people I’ve known since I was really young like me for me and not because of my music.” While Lorde’s lyrics are intelligent and thought provoking, her music is clever in its own right: a clean, modern, minimal sound that subtly references other musical genres. “I’m a magpie, I’m
a child of the internet,” she says, “and so I’ve picked the things I like from electronic music, hip-hop and pop music.” Most of the beats and sound effects were made on Pro Tools audio software by Little. Only one of the songs on Lorde’s debut album, Pure Heroine, features a guitar – a three-chord trick on A World Alone. Little also played some keyboards. “I can’t shred on the keyboards,” he says. “I just mess around and sometimes when I do that I stumble on something that sounds really cool. Fake it ’til you make it, I guess.” Then there’s Lorde’s powerful voice, of which Little took full advantage. “Her voice is so cool and interesting, and when you layer it up it’s like a really unique instrument in itself. We often use layered vocals, where there might usually be a guitar or a synth, it creates quite an intense atmosphere. The melodies are good, so that makes it accessible, and there are interesting things going on musically, but it’s not trying to grab you in the first five seconds. It’s a slow build. “I think people were ready for something that sounded a bit fresher. She makes music that doesn’t treat listeners like idiots. People were craving something that doesn’t sound exactly like the last song they heard on the radio. ” Little recalls very clearly the first time Lorde sang for him in the studio. “It was like, ‘Jackpot baby!’ The dream is to work with somebody as talented as her. When she’s singing, it’s like she’s talking about something mysterious, but something you can relate to at the same time. She’s got such a sweet voice, but she also sounds like she’d totally f––k you up if you said something that she didn’t agree with. Sweet, but scary at the same time.” What’s scary is how much bigger the Lorde experience could be. “Coachella and Lollapalooza have been confirmed. Glastonbury will happen,” says Maclachlan. “She could work every day in 2014 if she wanted to.” “Every trip we book and every show we do, I choose to do it,” says Lorde. “I still have normal Saturday nights and hang out with my school friends and go to house parties. That’s the good thing about NZ, there’s very little difference to my life. I’m conscious of the fact that I have to work and miss some stuff, but I don’t feel like I’m missing out on anything. Everything has been positive and fun.” That’s a very different buzz compared with the kind most teenagers experience. It sounds too good to be true. It sounds like a fantasy, except for Lorde, it’s not. lorde.co the red bulletin
Charles Howells, Getty Images
Rich pickings: self-confessed magpie Lorde is influenced by her friends, Tumblr and hip-hop
A Higher Calling Jed Mildon made action sports history with the first triple backflip on a BMX. But how do you top that? Building giant ramps and leading a gang of record-breakers over them is a good start Words: Robert Tighe Photography: Graeme Murray
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Leap of faith: Jed Mildon takes to the air on his specially built BMX course
“This is about having my own jumps to do the kind of tricks I want to do. The records are a bonus�
T
Ramp with a view: the purpose-built jump (above) is made from shipping containers. The foam pit (left) saves limbs testing tricks. Construction crew (below l-r): Jed Mildon (also far left), Paul Langlands and Jake Prebble
he view from Dan Franklin’s kitchen window, into his back yard, is dominated by three shipping containers. “It’s part of the landscape now,” he says, of the ramp, about 14m high, made from the containers. Franklin’s farm is the last property at the end of a cul-de-sac outside the forestry town of Tokoroa in New Zealand’s North Island. It’s a private, peaceful part of the world – or at least it was until Dan’s son discovered freestyle motocross. Nick Franklin is one of the top FMX riders in the country and, since he started riding as a teenager, 15 years ago, he’s claimed more and more of his father’s land to build an FMX playground, complete with dirt jumps and a foam pit. Jed Mildon and Nick Franklin have been friends since early 2011, when they first discussed the possibility of landing a triple backflip on a BMX. Mildon practised the triple in Franklin’s foam pit before landing it successfully a few months later on May 28, on a purposebuilt ramp in his hometown of Taupo, a 45-minute drive from Tokoroa. When, late last year, Mildon proposed building some of the biggest dirt jumps in the world to test the limits of what was 49
possible on a BMX, the Franklins’ farm was the obvious location. Dan and his wife, Sue, have long been resigned to the fact that their back garden is a haven for bicycle daredevils, but they seem to enjoy the hustle and bustle. “It’s usually very quiet here, unless Nick or Jed is around,” says Dan. In January 2013, three 40ft containers, salvaged from the MV Rena, a ship that ran aground off Tauranga in 2011, were delivered to the farm. Mildon hired a crane to stand one of the containers on its end and lean the other two against it to form an arrow-like shape. With the help of friends, the containers were welded together, two truckloads of concrete were poured into foundations to support the structure, and sheets of plywood were drilled along the length of the two sloping containers to create two ramps, known as ‘roll-ins’, each 14m long. In September, Mildon used an excavator to carve out a 60ft dirt-to-dirt jump leading into a 40ft jump, designed to boost him into the air and give him enough hang time to pull the first triple backflip on dirt. “The first jump is a speed jump and the bonus is we can get some world records on it while we’re sussing out the second jump,” says Mildon. “The second jump is the one we’ll fly on. That’s the jump we’ll do the triple on.” Finding time is Mildon’s biggest problem. He had a window in the first week of October before he had to get back to work as a professional BMX rider with Nitro Circus Live, a world-touring stunt show led by Travis Pastrana. Heavy spring rain had made the dirt soft and spongy instead of hard and fast, but consecutive days of sunshine early in the week had helped to improve conditions a little. On the Thursday morning, Mildon and his riding buddies Jake ‘Gypsy’ Prebble and
Paul Langlands arrived at Franklin’s farm, armed with shovels. “I think we have to dig most of this out and let the base dry,” says Mildon. “How far down do we need to dig?” asks Prebble. “Just as far as the sponge goes,” says Mildon. “It’s real soft here.” “This is the ideal time of the year to build jumps, because it’s soft enough to shape the dirt and you’ve got some sun to dry it out,” says Langlands, “but it’s not the ideal time to ride them.” “We need the surface to be rock hard,” Mildon explains. “We want to eliminate any friction or drag on the bike, so we can build up the speed we need to hit the second jump. If we had another week of sunshine we’d be fine, but it is what it is. The records are a bonus and I can come back in the New Year to get the tricks I don’t land this time. This is more about having my own jumps to do the kind of tricks I want to do. I don’t get enough time in the air on normal competition jumps.” Mildon, who was born in Taupo on November 5, 1986, has been obsessed with jumping bigger, higher and longer since he landed his first backflip as a 16-year-old, announcing his arrival on the BMX scene with a bang. “Jed jumps massive every time,” says Langlands. “When he was younger he’d turn up to the local skatepark and look for the biggest jump to do tricks on. He’d ride lines that no one else would dare to ride.” In 2007, Mildon met Dane Searls, an Australian rider with a shared passion for big, badass dirt jumps. Four years later, just a few months after Mildon stunned the BMX world with his triple in Taupo, Searls landed a backflip off a 60ft dirt jump. A few days later, the 23-year-old Australian died when a jump from a
Long way down: Mildon (also below left) prepares to 'drop in'. He can reach up to 70kph by the time he gets to the bottom of the ramp
balcony into a swimming pool went horribly wrong. Mildon’s latest project is partly inspired by Searls. “Dane showed it was possible to jump 60ft on a BMX and we’re just carrying on where he left off,” says Mildon. “I think he’d be proud that one of his mates is carrying on his legacy.” The clip of Mildon’s triple backflip in 2011 has over nine million views on YouTube. The stunt has been described as one of the greatest moments in BMX history and confirmed Mildon as one of the best freestyle BMX riders in the world. “No one really thought a triple was possible on a BMX,” says Langlands, leaning on his shovel, “but I guess they’re the kind of people who don’t achieve anything, the kind of people who spend their time playing PlayStation while we’re out here doing great stuff.” It’s mid-afternoon before Mildon decides that the jumps are dry enough to bring the bikes out for a test run. Prebble is Mildon’s wingman: he was there in Taupo when he landed the triple and was pruning grapes in Queenstown when
“Those who thought a triple backflip wasn't possible are the people who don’t achieve anything”
Flip side: Mildon likes big jumps and looks for lines others won't ride
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Mildon rang him and asked him to help out on this project. Prebble is an amateur who works to earn enough money so he can ride as much as possible. As well as helping Mildon build the jumps, he helps test them, a job that would challenge many professional riders. The pair play rock paper scissors to decide who goes first. Mildon wins and after a last-minute check of his bike and a couple of warm-up tricks landed in the foam pit, he’s poised for take-off at the top of the roll-in. “Dropping in!” he shouts, before he rolls his front wheel over the edge of what is an almostvertical ramp face, hoons down (he can reach 70kph), launches off the 2m-high take-off and lands on a straight ramp. “That was massive!” shouts Langlands, from his vantage point on top of a pile of dirt. One of the best freestyle BMXers in the country, Langlands is sitting this session out as he recovers from an injury. “It felt like my front end was going to implode,” says Mildon. For his next trick, Mildon sets a new world record for the longest dirt-to-dirt 360. A few minutes later, Mildon lands a Superman backflip, for another world record. “Fun times on the farm,” says Mildon, with a big grin on his face. Prebble bags a couple of records of his own, landing the longest dirt-to-dirt tabletop and turndown before Mildon nails another record, this time a massive front flip. “Yeaaaahhhhhh booooooy!” shouts Langlands. “Old Milly setting records!” Mildon heads back to the roll-in to try one of his signature moves, the Warrior flip, a double backflip with tail whip. He gets the rotation right, but gets bumped off his bike on landing and takes a heavy hit to the ribs before bouncing to a halt. “Maybe we should do some more work on this jump,” he says, after he’s had a chance to catch his breath. “I’m done for the day.” As he winds down, Mildon reflects on the day’s session. “I’m stoked that the jumps are working and, more importantly, that we can crash at these speeds. That’s what has put most people off jumping jumps this big, but it feels normal to me. It’s a weird feeling to be achieving all these records. I need to learn to be satisfied, but all I can think about is how much bigger we can go. I’m looking forward to trying some tricks on the second jump tomorrow.” The following morning, Mildon, Prebble and Langlands are back at the jumps, back on the shovels. Mildon is looking fresh and feeling fit, some achievement considering the pounding his body took the day before. “I’m lucky that I’m a well-conditioned 52
Not taking it lying down: the soft dirt caused Mildon to crash, but he copes with the impact. “I’m lucky I have good genes,” he says the red bulletin
“We’ve set five new world records, so we’re winning” human and I’ve got good genes. My dentist told me I have these massive roots in my teeth, so I guess I’m well-built. “I played a lot of rugby in school so I’m used to a lot of physical contact,” says the man whose nickname is the Jedi Warrior. “BMX is much more intense than rugby. Crashing on dirt or concrete is much harder on the body than getting tackled on the rugby field.” Mildon’s greatgrandfather Ben Gemmell played for the Maori All Blacks: “I guess what I do now the red bulletin
is the equivalent of being an All Black in a sport that I’m truly passionate about.” By lunchtime, the jumps are not nearly hard enough to ride and Mildon is second-guessing his decision earlier that morning. “Oi Langers! Do you know the only soft spots on the landing are where we dug it out? It’s so disheartening. If we came back in a week it would be perfect.”
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ildon doesn’t have a week and rain is forecast for the next few days. With a couple of hours of daylight left, he climbs the 39 steps to the top of the rollin. After a couple of minutes, he still hasn’t dropped in. “I’m waiting for a butterfly to get off my roll-in,” he shouts down at Langlands. He stamps his two feet to try and scare it away. “Move!
Get off my roll-in. Move, you idiot! OK, it’s gone. I’m ready… dropping in!” “He has a lot of speed, but not enough to make that second jump work,” says Langlands, after Mildon lands a perfect backflip over the first jump. “Maybe when it’s rock hard in January or February, it’ll work.” Mildon isn’t giving up that easily and he tries four times to get enough speed to make the second jump work. Four times he falls just short of the landing. “What do we do?” he asks Langlands. “If it was dry you’d have heaps of speed for the second jump,” Langlands says. “You need more speed. For how soft the dirt is right now the first jump isn’t big enough.” “I guess I’ll just have to do some more tricks on the first jump then,” says Mildon. The light is fading as Mildon attempts the world’s longest double backflip on dirt. His front wheel comes up just short, pitching him over the handlebars and onto his shoulder with a sickening impact. He skids along the dirt and comes to a stop at the bottom of the landing. He’s winded, dazed and disappointed with himself. “Damn, I almost landed it,” he says. “You were so close,” says Langlands. “Is that you done for the day?” “I might send it again,” says Mildon. “You’re joking!” “Well, I can’t be any sorer than I am and I want that double so bad.” “Why don’t you just finish with a few mellow tricks?” “These are my mellow tricks!” “Then maybe just be content with what you’ve done this time around and respect the jump.” Mildon listens to Langlands’ advice and puts his bike away. He comes back with a measuring tape. “You know, I haven’t even measured this gap yet,” he says. Mildon’s other nickname is Horizontal Man because he’s so laid-back. “Let’s see. It’s 58ft, but it was supposed to be 60ft.” “That’s Dane [Searls] laughing at you,” says Langlands, after a nervous silence. “That’s his cheeky little joke.” “That’s a brilliant end to this project,” laughs Mildon. “We thought we’d made a jump as big as Dane’s, but it turns out we’re 2ft short. Still, we’ve set five new world records, I’ve got three and Gypsy has two, so we’re winning.” Mildon vows to return to Franklin’s farm early next year to finish what he started and land the first triple backflip on dirt. He also hopes to host an event in Tokoroa, as a way of encourage other BMX riders to think big. As for his own ambitions, the Jedi Warrior says he’s getting started. The force is strong in this one. jedbmx.com
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this is the next level
Afte r th e c razi est yea r of h e r l ife – ca ree r-th reate n i n g i n j u ry, d ivo rce, catc h i n g th e eye of Ti g e r Woo d s – ca n th e g reatest s ki e r of h e r g e n e rati o n b o u n ce b a c k to wi n g o l d at th e Wi nte r O lym p i cs? Li n d sey Vo n n revea l s wh at it ta kes to b e – a n d b e a g a i n – th e b est th e re i s Wo rd s: Stefa n Wa g n e r Ph oto g ra p hy: M i c h a e l M u l l e r Pro d u c e r: J o s ef S i e g l e
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he day of the first race at the Alpine World Ski Championships in Austria was a grey Tuesday; above-zero temperatures, rain, mist. It had snowed in the previous days and the Schladming piste was soft and sticky on February 5, 2013, particularly away from the narrow corridor of the racing line. The start of the women’s Super-G, set for 11am, was repeatedly delayed due to the weather. “Starting in 15 minutes”, “starting in 15 minutes” came the radio announcements, up the mountain to the competitors who were drinking tea in the alpine station. Just when everyone thought the race was off, the start came at 2.30pm, the latest allowable time according to the regulations. It was after 3pm and dusk was already settling in when number 19, favourite for World Cup gold, stepped up. Fourhundredths of a second lead at the first intermediate time, 12 behind at the second. But her race was over after 44 seconds. Search YouTube for “Vonn crash”, and turn down the volume if you’re easily disturbed. The lateral and cruciate ligaments of Lindsey Vonn’s visibly dislocated right knee were torn, her tibial plateau, the part of the shinbone that meets the knee, fractured. That evening, a rumour went round Schladming that the injury was so bad that the USA’s Olympic and world champion and multiple World Cup winner would never be able to ski again. Five days later, Vonn underwent an operation in the US, with the optimistic prognosis that she would be able to continue her career. A few days later she posted a photo of her leg on Facebook: reddish-brown swollen flesh full of bruises, stitches and plaster. A hashtag predicted “#longskirtsthissummer”. The comeback countdown had started ticking, and the target was already well in focus: Wednesday, February 12, 2014, Sochi, women’s downhill race at the Olympics. The Red Bulletin accompanied Vonn during her months of rehab and conducted several conversations with her, her circle and her handlers. The following interview took place in Miami, which is also where Michael Muller’s photos were taken. 56
the red bulletin: Lindsey Vonn, how often do you think about the crash in Schladming which almost ended your career? lindsey vonn: Not at all anymore. But you’ve watched it? Yes, a few times on YouTube. I wanted to know if it looked the way it felt. Did it? It looked exactly the way it felt. My right ski came to a stop in the soft snow, my lower leg twisted to the right, my body fell over my knee, which dislocated. How did you feel when you watched it? I was pissed. Everyone knows that there simply shouldn’t have been a race on that day. We were on stand-by up there for five hours, and that’s hardly a good starting point for a race with speeds of up to 80 miles per hour. But how did you actually feel when you saw your knee getting smashed? When you saw yourself lying in the snow, screaming and whimpering in pain. Oh, I see. I didn’t care. I’d crashed plenty of times before. I’d had worse falls. Sestriere [in Italy], for example, Olympics training 2006, that was a good one. I still don’t understand how I didn’t break both my knees then. You came away with a light back injury, and 43 hours later you were able to compete in an Olympic race. The back injury is my souvenir from Sestriere. Since then I have backache when I have to stand for long periods of time. I’m looking forward to how my back will feel when I’m old. Your Red Bull athletic supervisor, Robert Trenkwalder, says that there are also positive aspects to the kind of injury you had in Schladming. He says that you can grow and learn from it. Before then I could always push my way through injury, but I couldn’t this time. For the first time I had an injury which was greater than my will. In the first three weeks that was extremely hard to accept. I couldn’t do anything, I couldn’t go get a coffee, I could only sit. There was no pushing. Only waiting.
the red bulletin
“RECORDS ARE THE ONLY THING YOU LEAVE BEHIND”
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“DURING THAT TIME I actually COMMUNICATED WITH MY KNEE” Did you become a more patient person during this time? I tried. What I learnt from that period was to listen to my body. What do you mean by that? I actually listened to my knee. You could say that during this time I communicated with my knee. As in, “Good morning knee”? Almost. You pay extremely close attention to feedback, any twinge, any sign that an exercise was going too far. Have you talked to your knee today? No. Since summer there’s been radio silence. Since I played tennis for the first time without problems, my knee has become a completely normal part of my body once again. Tennis puts far more stress on your knees than skiing. Your left turns, where the right leg takes more of the weight, were stronger than your right turns before the crash. True or false? True. But that didn’t have anything to do with the knee, rather the mobility of my hips. In any case, it’s hard to do nothing but left turns in training [laughs]. In purely medical terms, are both knees now equally strong? There’s a one per cent difference. Maybe your right knee will make up the extra one per cent. [Laughs.] No, no, after the rehab and the muscle training my right knee is even stronger than my left. You spent spring and summer in rehab instead of training. What does that mean for the 2013/14 season? The first downhills are in late November, early December. By that time I want to be up to winning races again, but my goal is the Olympic Games, they’re in February and that’s more than enough time. You’ve already won gold at the Olympics, at world championships and the World Cup, but winning in Sochi
would be the greatest success of your career. Would you agree? Yes, definitely. To win gold after this injury, personally that would be my greatest success. The accident was the lowest point in my career. Gold in Sochi would be the highest. There’s another issue: the Austrian skier Annemarie Moser-Pröll won 62 World Cup races. You’ve won 59, so if you stay fit you’ll soon have the record for the most women’s World Cup victories in history. I hope this doesn’t sound arrogant, but I think I will, yes. Ingemar Stenmark of Sweden has the all-time record with 86 wins. I’ve already been thinking about that. My current plan is to keep going until the 2015 World Cup. Then I’ll see how far away I am from that number and then I’ll decide what to do, whether I’ll keep going in every discipline or maybe just downhill and Super-G and concentrate on that record. Are records really that important? Absolutely. Records are the only thing which remains of an athlete. The only thing that people will remember. That sounds a bit sad. Because it is sad. But if I want to ensure that people don’t forget me, I can only stop once I’ve set the bar as high as possible for anyone coming after me. That means that as long as I can keep winning, I’ll keep skiing. Essentially it’s about what I leave behind and that means statistics, records. Recently in The Red Bulletin, Andre Agassi said exactly the opposite: as long as he was only playing to win, he was unhappy. He only became happy once he was able to use his tennis wins for other causes, in his case for a school. Don’t forget, Agassi was forced into the sport as a child. He didn’t enjoy playing tennis. Your father was also very dominant in your career. But it wasn’t like it was with Andre. I’ve read his book. I never had it that bad. I always enjoyed skiing. I was not pushed, I was guided. When you were 11 years old, your family moved a thousand miles from Minnesota to Colorado so little Lindsey would have better training facilities.
“WINNING GOLD AFTER THE INJURY WOULD BE MY GREATEST VICTORY”
picturedesk.com, courtesy of Lindsey Vonn, REUTERS (2)
Everything was invested in this career. Wasn’t that enormous pressure? That was the only pressure I felt. Ultimately this pressure came from myself, as well. No one pushed me. But how does it make an 11-year-old girl feel when she knows that the future of her family depends on her success in skiing? It was a lot of pressure, but you can’t compare it to Andre’s situation. I love skiing. I always loved it, I still love it. Skiing isn’t everything, of course, winning isn’t everything, I know that, I’ve gone through enough – the divorce, the depression, now the injury. I’ve learnt my lesson, I know that the most important thing is to be happy, to lead a happy life. But I get a lot of happiness from skiing. How jealous were your two brothers and two sisters of the ski princess Lindsey, who was always the centre of attention? My sisters never, my brothers a little, but not to the extent you might imagine. I mean: they had to leave all their friends behind because of my skiing, so they would have had every right to be pissed. But they supported me, they understood that it wasn’t my decision to move, that I couldn’t do anything about it. They also saw the pressure I was under. I wasn’t the princess who was waited on hand and foot. I was more of a workhorse. Your relationship with your siblings, particularly your sisters, is very close now. Is that partly because you want to somehow make up for how things were when you were young? They never give me the feeling that I owe them anything, but I make an effort to help them do things with their lives. My brother, for example, lives with me in Colorado rent-free because I want him to put the money toward his education. Laura gets to travel with me, she blogs, she meets journalists, and that all helps with her first steps towards journalism. I try and help them find the right door and lead them up to it. Opening the door and walking through – I have to leave that up to them. In a recent TV documentary, you said that in 2012, when you spoke publicly about your depression and your divorce, that you felt like an adult for the first time – at 28. Yes, for the first time I was at a point where I was the one determining what happened in my life. In another interview, you said that your motto was ‘everything happens for a reason’. Is that just a throwaway answer? the red bulletin
VONN DIRECTION
World Cup win No 50, Garmisch, Germany 2012
The Whistler Cup, 1997, 12 years old
Winning gold in the downhill race at the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics
Lindsey Kildow was born on October 18, 1984 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, USA, where she grew up with two brothers and two sisters. Her father, Alan, taught her to ski and when Lindsey was 11 years old, after she was recognised as an exceptional talent, he moved the family to the ski town of Vail, Colorado. In 1999, aged 15, Lindsey came second in the US downhill championships and competed in her first International Ski Federation race. She made her World Cup race debut aged 16 in 2000, and in 2001 gained her first World Cup points in the
Super-G at Val d’Isère, France. The following year, she competed in her first Olympic Games, in Salt Lake City, Utah. In January 2004, on the difficult downhill course at Cortina, she reached the World Cup podium for the first time; in December that year she scored her first World Cup victory in the downhill at Lake Louise, Canada. To date, there have been a further 58 victories in all five World Cup skiing disciplines (downhill, slalom, giant slalom, Super G and combined) and four overall season titles. In 2006, Lindsey went into the Winter Olympic
Games in Turin, Italy, as a favourite. However, after a heavy fall during training, she had to settle for eighth place in the downhill and seventh in the Super G. Four years later, in Vancouver, Canada, she won Olympic gold in the downhill and took bronze in the Super G. Her best year at the world championships was 2009, when she won the downhill and Super G in Val d’Isère. In September 2007, Lindsey married Thomas Vonn, a former member of the US ski team. The pair separated in late 2011, and divorced in January 2013, one month after she admitted in an interview with a US magazine that she had suffered from depression for many years. One month prior to that, in November 2012, the International Ski Federation turned down her request to compete in a men’s downhill event in Lake Louise, Canada.
Credits Sports Bra: Under Armour; Skirt: Rag & Bone; Watch: Rolex; Corset Top & Bikini Bottom: American Apparel; Gloves & Legwarmers: Stylist's Own; Stilettos: Bebe; Necklace: Topshop; Mesh Bodysuit & Bra: American Apparel; Shorts: Rag & Bone; Gloves & Towel: Stylist's Own. Stylist: Shay Bacher; Hair: Miriam Azoula
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“YES, TIGER WOODS MAKES ME A BETTER ATHLETE” I’m certain that nothing happens without a reason. So many things have happened in my life which were only unsettling until they somehow came together, and suddenly looking back everything made sense. Why do you ask? To know how you make sense of your injury, which came just at the moment when you were feeling better than ever before. I’m convinced that the accident was no accident. It happened to make me strong, as a person, and it came at the moment when I was strong enough for that test. This late maturing had a lot to do with the fact that you always had dominating men around you: first your father, then your husband. Yes. The man currently at your side is a sports icon, the highest-earning athlete in the world, winner of 14 golf majors. Ha ha ha, nice try. Of course Tiger is a strong character, but he isn’t dominating. He plays a completely different role. I decide what happens in my life. Even Tiger isn’t going to change that. Does Tiger Woods make Lindsey Vonn a better skier? A better athlete, I would say, yes. One example: I wouldn’t say that I’m unprofessional, but the consistency that Tiger shows in his professionalism, wow. No one has any idea how hard Tiger works. Really, no one, and in a sport in which many guys warm up by smoking a cigar, where you might assume that you don’t really need to stay fit. Tiger says he wants to be fitter than all the others, that’s his way. So he pushes himself a lot further than he perhaps needs to and to see that pushes me in turn. The other unbelievable thing about Tiger is his mental toughness. I used to think that golf was about whacking the ball and seeing how far it flew. Since I’ve been 62
watching Tiger at tournaments, I know that golf is a freaking marathon, four days, and every damn stroke counts, in the same way that you can lose a whole chess game with a single bad move. The pressure is insane because it lasts so long. The closer I watched Tiger, the more I became fascinated by his ability to resist that pressure, how he maintains his composure and control for so long. There were moments in golf tournaments where I said to myself, ‘OK, Lindsey, this is the next level of self-confidence, concentration, control. When you make it to this level, it will make you a better skier.’ For example? At the Masters in Augusta. There was this stroke where he hit the flag. That stroke cost him the tournament, but he stayed calm, he kept on fighting, even when they wanted to disqualify him. That’s not the kind of news you want to wake up to: good morning, they want to disqualify you. The whole thing affected me more than him. Or rather, I was affected by it and he stayed completely calm. I have never, ever heard him complain or anything like that. So should we expect to see a stoic Lindsey Vonn this winter? You can’t make a one-to-one comparison. In skiing you have to be aggressive. You have to explode in that minute-and-ahalf. In golf that would be completely crazy, golf is a marathon, not a sprint. This experience with Tiger will really help me at the big events. At the World Cup or the Olympics, it’s not just about the oneand-a-half minutes of racing: you’re there for two weeks and permanently in racing mode, everything’s significant, everyone’s looking at you. That’s what’s so difficult, staying calm, and that’s what really counts there. As far as stress is concerned, the Olympics are more like a golf tournament than a World Cup race.
How important is popularity to you? It’s important for me to have an influence over young people who race, they are the future of our sport. I think that skiing should get more attention, and of course I can only help with that if I’m popular. But if you’re asking about being recognised on the street, then, no, I don’t care about that. It seems that hasn’t always been the case. No, it wasn’t always the case. That’s really changed over the last year. I always used popularity a bit like a crutch to get over my own insecurity. The worse I felt, the more important it was to have the recognition of others. In the worst phases of my depression and the period before my divorce, I was almost addicted to people liking me, but the more I feel confident in myself, the less it matters to me what other people think about me. What form does this need for recognition actually take? It’s insanely stressful. I used to read every comment on my Facebook account and if some random person didn’t like my update, I took it personally. You read every comment? There were often several thousand for a single update. All of them. And now? Not anymore. Thankfully that’s over. That’s down to a few different reasons. Above all, because now I want to be how I want to be, not how some random person on Facebook might like to see me. I’ve also come to realise that it does me more emotional harm than good if I rely that much on those comments. Many things have changed since I’ve been with Tiger. I’m playing in a different league now. I’m a celebrity to a certain extent. That means that I attract… odd people. It’s unbelievable the amount the red bulletin
Credit:
“THERE WERE TIMES WHEN I WAS ADDICTED TO ATTENTION” of people out there who use you as an outlet for their pent-up aggression. But this life of sport and glamour, with red carpets at night and the chairlift at six o’clock in the morning… I am definitely not a morning person [laughs]. …you had this life before you met Tiger Woods. How do you switch between the two worlds? One thing is completely clear to me: my real world, my real life, my home, is skiing. Hard work, sweat, getting up at five o’clock in the morning. Red carpets are just a game. Like when you’re a little girl and you dress up and stand in front of the mirror and feel like a princess. Things can get weird when these worlds collide. During the CFDA Awards in New York, a fashion industry event, you had to take a random drug test. That doesn’t sound like much fun. Yes, that was pretty embarrassing. The CFDA Awards are a high-end event, the whole room was filled with the most important people in the fashion world, and suddenly there are two women waiting outside, doping control officers in sneakers, shorts and T-shirts. I had to bring both of them into the event: where else was I supposed to go with them in downtown New York City? I asked security to close off a toilet for us so I could pee into the cup undisturbed. The situation was so unpleasant because of course no one had any idea what was going on. That it was a routine drug test, not some kind of drug raid. With Tiger Woods at your side you’ve appeared in magazines that aren’t usually interested in skiers. What’s it like being a target for gossip magazines? It’s fun, honestly, because it’s so absurd, the red bulletin
much more so than I had imagined. For instance, one magazine wrote that I was moving to Pakistan because I didn’t want to have kids with Tiger. How do they come up with this stuff? Tiger and I had a lot of fun with that at breakfast: ‘Bye, honey, sorry, I’m leaving you. Pakistan awaits!’ And he’s like, ‘Good luck, say hi to the Pakistani ski team for me!’ But you play along with the media game, even in less comfortable situations, like David Letterman’s chat show on US TV. Oh, that really got to me. That was frustrating. Letterman was joking about the various disciplines in skiing, but you were quick-witted and funny. On the outside. He had no right to be so disrespectful and make fun of my sport! So why put a brave face on it? Because that’s the rules of the game. Letterman is comedy. It’s about the laughs. There was no point trying to tell him off or anything. When you play along, that means that you accept the rules and one of the rules is that David Letterman’s Late Show is not the place for serious discussion of the rules of competitive skiing. On Jay Leno’s chat show, he asked whether your husband was also your coach in bed. You even managed to laugh that off. You have to be prepared for questions like that. They want you to react emotionally, to go off-script. That’s their job, to shake you up. So why go on those shows when you know you can’t win? Because the media is part of my job. I’m not just a competitive skier, I’m also a brand. That’s just how it is in modern sports – it doesn’t matter whether I think that’s a great thing or not – and for my brand to succeed I have to play
along sometimes. Yes, I know there will sometimes be awkward questions, but yes, I also know that it’s better for the bottom line if I go along with it, because my profile increases and with it the value of my brand. And, not least, because it’s good for my sport. If Lindsey Vonn cancels, Letterman will have a table tennis player or a marathon runner on, and they will be promoting their sport. Before the start of a race, competitive skiers go through the course in their minds, and you wave the palms of your hands in front of your body. It looks funny. Are your hands the surface of the piste? I’ve never thought about it. [Closes her eyes and raises her hands in front of her chest.] No, it’s the skis. Do you do this virtual run of the course in real time? Right before the start you don’t, it’s just a refresher. In summer, when we visualise the courses, or in the racing simulator on the balance devices, the times are real. Sometimes I even do it with a timer. So you have every downhill course of the winter in your head, every bend, every jump, and you can call them up at any time? Of course. That means, that here, now, on the 15th floor of a Miami hotel, you could run the course at Cortina, or Beaver Creek, or Sochi, all in real time? Yes, of course. When you imagine it, are you always doing your best time? You don’t do it to a time, but the line is usually perfect. Sometimes when I’m in bed at night, still visualising courses, I fall just before I fall asleep, simply because I’m too tired. Then I usually get a fright and suddenly I’m wide awake. Then I have to go right back to the start again. www.lindseyvonn.com
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The all seeing hand
Cult Of Personality With an otherworldly sound and mesmeric live shows, this Wellington trio just might blow your mind – if you dare to let them Words: Sam Wicks Photography: Nic Stavely
On a makeshift stage in the grounds of an abandoned agricultural school in Bulls, a small town two hours’ drive from Wellington, a group of face-painted musicians assemble. They are equipped with a microphone, a drum kit, two turntables and a crate of dusty vinyl repurposed from forgotten record collections. The three men lock into a groove built on a challenging fusion of gut-rattling throat singing, tub-thumping tribal drums and cacophonous turntable clicks and drones. Behind them, 20 robed figures fitted with headdresses that look like they’re fashioned from huge bones form a semi-circle and choose an audience member to stare at, an unswerving gaze that will be fixed for the duration of the show. At the conclusion of the performance, staged at the 2011 Campus A Low Hum festival, the robed acolytes lead a group of about 80 punters into a forest next to the old school, where more of the band’s disciples lie in wait, ready to grab the legs of the unsuspecting victims of this bizarre happening. The idea, generally, is to scare the bejesus out of these people. These are not the shamanistic rituals of a bugged-out, music-making cult, but a set from The All Seeing Hand, a Wellington trio that assembles the formidable musical talents of throat singer Jonny Marks, turntable and electronics wizard David ‘Alphabethead’ Morrison, and drummer Benjamin Michael Knight. Together they have an unhinged theatricality to rival shock rockers Alice Cooper and Kiss. “A few of the people I’ve talked to since that night were seriously disturbed by the show,” says Knight, drolly. Visit The All Seeing Hand in their base, a nondescript house in the quiet Wellington suburb of Hataitai, and you’d think that nothing strange was afoot 66
behind closed doors. Assembled for an audience with The Red Bulletin, the band is cheerfully pouring cups of tea and working their way through a packet of ginger nuts. Tacked to a wall, however, is The All Seeing Hand’s mission statement: Come, hear The All Seeing Hand’s message. Come, experience, and know. The All Seeing Hand recognises progress. The All Seeing Hand facilitates progress. The All Seeing Hand is progress. Extraction is progress. Conversion is progress. The All Seeing Hand converts. You are already part of The All Seeing Hand.
“One woman said we sound like we’re shooting laser beams into her brain” It reads like the cornerstone of a sinister religious sect, but Marks, Morrison and Knight are quick to dismiss any suggestion that The All Seeing Hand are trolling for new adherents, despite the way they present their music live. “We just want to create an experience at our shows,” Morrison insists. “It does seem like a ritual, because even here at our practice space we light candles to set the scene. We want to take people on an adventure and transport them for 45 minutes, and sometimes that can be unsettling for the audience and for us.” “The ritualism of our live show emerged over time, as we realised the music was getting more and more ritualistic,” says Knight. “We’re trying to make music that completely consumes people and takes
them away. To do that effectively, we have to do that to ourselves so that we’re swallowed up by what we’re doing.” “All of the devices we use – the face paint, the costumes, the lights, and the adrenalin and nerves – takes it up to another level of intensity,” adds Marks. “We’re wrapped up in this, too.” With a shared background in the capital city’s dynamic improvised music community, all three musicians bring wildly different skills to The All Seeing Hand. Marks is a traditionally trained throat singer who learned his craft by travelling to inner Mongolia to seek out a teacher, who he found after run-ins with “a few charlatans and alcoholics”. Knight was schooled in DIY punk and hardcore, holding down the beat for Wellington bands Teen Hygiene and Rogernomix. Morrison received his education via two turntables and crates of records, manipulating sounds with a mixer, a sampler and lightning-fast fingers. Marks is front and centre of The All Seeing Hand’s live shows, a magnetic presence as he conjures up strange wordless sounds from the depths of his diaphragm, but all three men see themselves as an instrumental trio as opposed to a traditional band led by a frontman. While they maintain that no creed underpins the music they make or its future-primitive presentation, the broad sonic church built by their alliance of sound is one clearly engineered to transport the group – and hopefully their audience – to new plateaus. “What did that woman say at that soundcheck?” says Marks. “That we sound like Star Trek on swamp drugs, shooting laser beams into her brain. That’s as good as any description I’ve heard of the noise we make.” the-all-seeing-hand.bandcamp.com the red bulletin
The line-up Jonny Marks – throat singing David “Alphabethead” Morrison – turntables/ electronics Benjamin Michael Knight – drums Discography Mechatronics (album, 2013) The All Seeing Hand (album, 2011) Wet Work David “Alphabethead” Morrison cut his turntable teeth in the New Zealand DJ battle scene. His signature routine was retooling TLC’s 1995 classic Waterfalls with the aid of a single turntable tone. Art Attack The terrifyingly detailed artwork for the band’s new album, Mechatronics, comes from the twisted mind of Wellington artist Hannah Salmon, aka Daily Secretion. The vinyl release looks especially warped.
The Summer Set What is it about the New Zealand festival scene that makes it so great for fans and performers? Plus: best fest practice, as prescribed by experts and veterans Words: Sam Wicks Illustrations: Miles Donovan
“B
getty images (3), picturedesk.com, universal
ack in January,” says Tapiwa Mutingwende, “I said to myself, ‘By the end of the year I’m going to perform at Rhythm and Vines.’ I even told a bunch of my mates I’ll be there. Now it’s actually happening.” Just after turning 18, Mutingwende, the Zimbabwe-born, Wellington-raised MC known as Young Tapz, will be in Gisbourne for the last three days of 2013, on the same bill as Wiz Khalifa, Empire Of The Sun and Shapeshifter at Rhythm and Vines.
For his debut music festival performance, Tapz will grace the Red Bull Music Academy Festival Stage, sharing space with Kode9, DJ Zinc, Rustie, Weird Together and She’s So Rad. With only a narrow window in which to make an impression among this talent-heavy lineup, he’s readied a plan of attack. “I’ve got some ideas to make people remember me over the others,” he says. “I’m going to print a whole lot of fake Tapz money and chuck it during my set. When someone goes home and sees a Young Tapz dollar in their pocket, they’ll be able to redeem it for a free download. This is my chance to make my voice heard.” As a music-mad but isolated country, New Zealand relies on its summer festivals to attract the biggest names and brightest new talents. For event organisers, staging a multi-band, multi-stage festival has its risks along with potentially huge rewards. Festival director Mark Kneebone got his introduction to summer festivals as a 15-year-old when Big Day Out first came to Auckland, serving up Soundgarden, The Smashing Pumpkins and The Breeders. Fourteen years later, in 2008, Kneebone had graduated from festival punter to behind-the-scenes player when he handled PR and marketing at Rhythm and Vines. Now he’s something of a festival mainstay, pulling double-duties – and a double-dose of stress – at the Laneway and La De Da festivals. “I’m balding for a reason,” he says, reflecting on his heavy workload. “I’m 69
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north island
featuring arcade fire, Wiz khalifa, blur, lorde, ladi6 and Mortal Orchestra Rhythm And Vines Set among the vineyards of the Waiohika Estate, Gisborne’s Rhythm and Vines is the biggest New Year's Eve knees-up in the country. Gisborne December 27-January 1 headline acts Wiz Khalifa, Empire Of The Sun, Rudimental (DJ set), Shapeshifter, Flux Pavilion, Camo & Crooked, Danny Byrd rhythmandvines.co.nz where when
Northern Bass
getty images (4), dan wilton/red bull content pool (2)
in a lucky situation because both our festivals have been growing, but a 10 per cent drop in sales with a 3,000-person show is way less scary than a 10 per cent drop on a 15,000-person show.” Kneebone brought the small, perfectly formed St Jerome’s Laneway Festival to Auckland in 2010. A boutique event with a line-up of leftfield artists from rock, pop and hip-hop, Laneway was embraced when it took over the city’s Britomart quarter, a site from which it’s since moved to Aotea Square and now Silo Park. Before he tackles Laneway on January 27, with appearances from Lorde, James Blake and Danny Brown, Kneebone has to get through New Year’s Eve – as the promoter for La De Da, a New Year’s knees-up that this year sees ASAP Rocky, Flume and locals like Ladi6 and Kora taking over a farm in Martinborough. It’s a very different experience to Laneway. Another promoter well aware of the challenge in organising festivals is Hamish Pinkham, who co-founded Rhythm and Vines in 2003. Since its beginnings as a Kiwi music-centric, onestage event in the vineyards of Waiohika Estate, R&V is now crowded with local and international heavyweights. “I taught myself on the job,” says Pinkham. “At the time, New Year’s was known for riots, long lines and the same old pub bands playing up and down the country. We wanted to combine a party with a road trip and a summer holiday in a classic Kiwi location. I guess those early philosophies haven’t changed.” As the brains behind Northern Bass, a festival with a focus on bass music of all stripes at Mangawhai, an hour’s drive from Auckland, Gareth Popham is a relative newcomer to the stresses and strains of festival season. He did, however, have the ideal apprenticeship, running nightclubs Fu Bar and Zen, which ruled Auckland club culture for 12 years. “We’re only in our third year,” says Popham, “and already artists are contacting us wanting to play, which is amazing.” That pulling power has seen Northern Bass secure the latest Red Bull Prodigy Project mentor, Oddisee, plus the likes of Talib Kweli and Dead Prez, among others. “I reckon we’re now on the map as one of this country’s great festivals,” he says, “and overseas we’re starting to get known as the bass festival Down Under.” Northern Bass is just one of the sweet spots of New Zealand’s festival calendar, which is bursting with quality. As music’s big names head for our shores, all music fans need to worry about is which multistage extravaganza to prioritise and what to pack when they’re loading the Kombi.
Now in its third year of staging beats’n’pieces artists in pristine countryside and sub-tropical beach surroundings for two days over NYE. where Mangawhai when December 30-January 1 headline acts Talib Kweli, Calyx & Teebee, Ladi6, Dub FX, Onra, MC Armanni Reign, The Upbeats northernbass.co.nz
High Life New Zealand promoters High Life Entertainment take over the idyllic Stonyridge Vineyard on Waiheke Island with an eclectic line-up of dance acts. where Waiheke Island when December 30-January 1 headline acts Eddie Thoneick, Crazibiza, Jonathan Ulysses highlifenye.co.nz
La De Da The only NYE festival in the Lower North Island, which this year brings its biggest ever line-up to Daisybank Farm in the pinot noir district. where Martinborough when December 30-January 1 headline acts A$AP Rocky, Kora, Ladi6, Katchafire, Jack Beats ladeda.co.nz
Big Day Out NZ’s longest-running alternative festival is back after a two-year hiatus, relocating from Mt Smart Stadium to Western Springs. where Auckland when January
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headline acts Arcade
Fire, Snoop Dogg aka Snoop Lion, Pearl Jam, Blur, Tame Impala, Major Lazer, The Lumineers bigdayout.com
Parachute New Zealand's largest faith-based music festival takes place over Auckland Anniversary Day weekend at Mystery Creek Events Centre. where Hamilton when January 24-27 headline acts The Devil Wears Prada, Dave Dobbyn, Gugnor, Ruby Frost, Titanium, Paper Route parachutefestival.com
St Jerome's Laneway Festival Laneway has pulled off the biggest coup of New Zealand's festival season, snagging a headlining spot from Kiwi hit sensation Lorde. where Auckland when January
27 Lorde, James Blake, CHVRCHES, Jagwar Ma, Haim, Frightened Rabbit, Unknown Mortal Orchestra auckland.lanewayfestival.com.au
headline acts
Camp A Low Hum This boutique festival is a relaxed affair with few rules, no sponsors, no VIP areas, no age restrictions and no line-up announcements until the opening day. where Wainuiomata when February 7-9 headline acts TBA alowhum.com
Splore The big draw at Splore is its beachfront location 72km south-east of Auckland, where revellers can enjoy bands, cabaret acts and more from the water. where Tapapakanga Regional Park when February 14-16 headline acts Ebony Bones, Alice Russell, Adam Freeland, Blak Twang, The Ragga Twins www.splore.net
Homegrown A Kiwi festival in the truest sense, because it brings an all-NZ line-up of 62 acts to eight stages at the Wellington waterfront. where Wellington when
February 15
headline acts Six60, Head
Like A Hole, Beastwars, The Black Seeds, Savage, P Money, @Peace, Gin Wigmore, Sons Of Zion, Nesian Mystik, Deceptikonz homegrown.net.nz
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south island Kiwi acts like fat freddy's drop, Tahuna Breaks and the black seeds take centre stage Rhythm & Alps Rhythm and Vines' sister festival takes place in the beautiful Cardrona Valley, with the Mt Aspiring National Park as its backdrop. where Wanaka when December 30-January 1 headline acts Shapeshifter, Rudimental, Recloose, David Dallas, @Peace, P-Money, Tahuna Breaks, Concord Dawn, Bulletproof rhythmandalps.co.nz
Kaikoura Summer Sounds
getty images (4)
The iconic stretch of the Kaikoura coastline is treated to an intimate festival showcasing some of Aotearoa's finest artists. where Kaikoura when January 11-12 headline acts The Black Seeds, A Hori Buzz, Tiki Taane (acoustic set), Cornerstone Roots, The Nudge kaikourasummersounds.co.nz
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Rippon Open Air Festival You'll only find New Zealand acts at this festival, which puts profits back into the local community to support music, youth and environmental projects. where Wanaka
February 1 Fat Freddy‘s Drop, The Phoenix Foundation, Ladi6, Die!Die!Die!, Home Brew, Electric Wire Hustle, Kody Nielson ripponfestival.co.nz
when
headline acts
INSIDERS’ SURVIVAL GUIDE With more than 30 years of festival experience between them, musos Ladi6, Shapeshifter’s Sam Trevethick and Cairo Knife Fight’s Nick Gaffaney can tell war stories of the summer circuit trenches, but are wise to the ways of coming out on the other side unscathed. Here they offer The Red Bulletin their veteran’s guide to surviving the New Zealand festival season.
Sam Trevethick, Shapeshifter instrumentalist “As a performer, I’m pretty lucky at festivals. I get quiet places to relax, unlimited refreshments and a great view side-of-stage. I do get among it on the punters’ side, though – that’s where the sound and the vibe are best. “When you’re out there, keep hydrated. I carry earplugs at all times. If I get stranded in front of a massive speaker stack with the DJ redlining the mixer, I still have my safe place. I’ll stay on the waters and the Red Bull before Shapeshifter go on stage. Festivals really sap your energy, so alcohol can hit you hard. “Take something warm to wear like a rainproof shell jacket. If it rains, you’re sweet. If you’re having a life-changing dancefloor experience and you don’t want to get changed in your tent, you’re sweet. And if you get separated from your mates on an astral journey after dark, you won’t suffer hypothermia.”
Nick Gaffaney, Cairo Knife Fight vocalist/percussionist
“fresh underwear and socks are priceless”
“I’ve played pretty much every summer festival. The biggest thing I’d recommend is to know where all your supplies are and have two of everything, especially the important stuff. “It can get pretty funky in your digs. The trick is to not drink too much the night before so you can get up and air or even wash your clothes. Fresh underwear and socks are priceless. “When I fly to festivals, I usually have to carry all my personal belongings with me, because there’s no more room to check anything in after the gear’s on board. I’ve left a lot of stuff at airports that I haven’t been able to take. So only take things that are absolutely essential. “I never seem to remember my toothbrush – don’t leave home without it. And trust me: always check under a hotel bed so you don’t leave stuff behind.”
Ladi6 “Kiwi summers are UV-rich, so a hat is imperative, even if your skin tone is a lighter shade of brown. I’ve learnt this the hard way – sunburn is not sexy. Keep alcohol to the afternoon or plan ahead for an afternoon nap. Check your festival line-up for a break where you can take a break – maybe even swim or nap – before party time. “Try not to overdo it with the food. If you do, dance your ass off later in the night, and that might balance you out. I always regret not taking a spare pair of runners. Jandals don’t cut the mustard if it rains, it’s freezing or the dancefloor is filled with left-footed feet stompers. “Above all, be safe and always have fun. Making great summer memories should always be the main objective for festival season.”
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Reborn in the
usa
How does it feel to be trapped by your own success? Brian Fallon of New Jersey band The Gaslight Anthem on escaping the Bruce Springsteen comparisons and forging a new sound Words: Jon Coen Photography: Matthew Salacuse
The Gaslight Anthem broke up on March 30, 2013, after a UK gig at Troxy, in London. “No one knows this story. We were stuck. I had nothing left to say. We were like, ‘Why are we doing this?’ We almost shut it down,” says frontman Brian Fallon. They didn’t actually break up. No one said the words out loud, but it was discussed tangentially. There was no irate screaming match, no beer cans thrown at the wall, no tossed microphones or storming off stages. Just a civil discourse to possibly end it. Fallon comes clean on this at Artichoke Pizza in the Chelsea district of New York. The city is stifled by a late-summer heatwave and the evening temperature is about 30°C, with a jungle-like humidity that New Yorkers accept like the icy north-west winds howling between the buildings in February. “It’s been hot everywhere. Europe was hot. Not as hot as this, though. We just got back, two weeks ago today. It’s brutal,” says Fallon, digging into a margarita pizza with fresh basil. The air-conditioning unit keeps the room bearable, but not very cool. Despite having played large venues worldwide, Fallon is better suited to smaller joints. He’s in a talkative mood, and mentions a few pizzerias in his home state of New Jersey before his mind wanders, eventually talking about how he downloads movies through iTunes because they’re cheaper than his cable TV provider. Fallon grew up near the beach. Locals don’t really call it the Jersey Shore. After he, guitarist Alex 74
Rosamilia, drummer Benny Horowitz and bassist Alex Levine had kicked around in local punk outfits, they formed The Gaslight Anthem in New Brunswick, a college town with a history of fostering underground bands (literally, in basement venues) in the shadows of Philadelphia and New York. The quartet released their debut album, Sink Or Swim, in 2007 and toured to audiences of around 150 people. Fallon was already in his mid-20s. “You gotta remember, Jimi Hendrix and Curt Cobain were dead by 27. Everything they did… dead,” he says, “We weren’t 17. It was like, ‘How long is it before this is just not a viable path?’ We had to play one show to get to the next, or we couldn’t even get home. So we didn’t have the luxury to fight. Your parents are supportive, but they’re saying, ‘Maybe you want to think of a back-up plan?’ We had to get our act in gear.” In the summer of 2008 they released The ’59 Sound, a brilliant album of punk-tempo Americana and went on to sell out two shows at legendary New Jersey concert venue Stone Pony. You’d be right for thinking all this sounds a bit like a Bruce Springsteen song. Springsteen basically wrote the biography of The Gaslight Anthem before they were born: four kids from blue-collar families dreaming of making a rock ’n’ roll living. The Boss is to this area what John F Kennedy was to Boston. The folksy commonality of the Boss, The Replacements’ Paul Westerberg and Joe Strummer of The Clash had a massive
influence on The ’59 Sound. As The Gaslight Anthem toured, every review made reference to New Jersey and Springsteen. In 2009, the Boss cemented the relationship at Glastonbury Festival by joining the band on stage to play the album’s title track with them. The band was honoured and the appearance bolstered their profile. But at the same time, they weren’t one of those bar bands with just enough tie to the Boss to keep the party going. You can’t listen to a Gaslight track or talk to Fallon for five minutes without him dropping one influence or another. It was Sam Cooke while writing The ’59 Sound; he loves The Rolling Stones and says no one else could do what punk-rock guitarist Mike Ness does. While getting tattooed by Bouncing Souls’ bassist Bryan Kienlen, he expressed his love for Greg Dulli of the Afghan Wigs. On more than one occasion, he’s listed Pearl Jam as his favourite band. On this hot night, he makes several Bob Dylan references. Then there’s Lawerence Arms, Steve Earle, Lucero… Fallon has been struggling with the Springsteen shadow for some time. The band’s third studio album, American Slang, was well received after its release in 2010, as was its Nashville-recorded follow-up, Handwritten. Although both albums hit the charts in multiple countries, they wondered how much success was down to the Bruce juice. “I don’t want to be Springsteen,” says Fallon. “That was for The ’59 Sound and that was all. People latched
Left: The Gaslight Anthem draw huge crowds worldwide – they’ve sold out shows everywhere from London and Paris to Auckland and Adelaide. Right: Brian Fallon photographed for The Red Bulletin at The Music Zoo guitar store in New York
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onto it. I’ll be damned if I’m going to get somewhere on someone else’s coattails. No way. I’m a songwriter. That’s what I do. I’m so into my craft – the poetry of it, the TS Eliot books, the blues records. I’ve digested Springsteen and The Clash for 20 years. There is no blood to be sucked out of those veins anymore. Sure, when I hear those songs, I still get charged, but there’s nothing left for me to draw from that well.”
T
he band thrust Fallon’s infectious magnetism toward the spotlight from the beginning. You might call it a star quality, though that’s not a term his circle of friends would utter. Although he has never released a full solo album, Fallon and his Gibson acoustic guitar have their own following. He has an ability to entertain far beyond Gaslight records or the biggest festival gig. His on-stage banter is famously witty, his willingness and ability to joke well-documented. In 2011, Fallon and Ian Perkins, originally the Gaslight Anthem’s guitar tech, formed a side-project called The Horrible Crowes. They released an album called Elsie, a darker offering than anything Gaslight. The career arcs of the two bands are distinctly different. “We played our second Gaslight Anthem show at Only Game In Town, in Somerville. That’s like a video game store where you would go to buy Dungeons & Dragons. If anyone says they were there, they weren’t. It was like 20 people jammed in a room about the size of this booth,” says Fallon, gesturing to the pizzeria table. In contrast, the first Horrible Crowes show was at the Bowery Ballroom on New York’s Lower East Side. The second was at the famed Troubador in Hollywood. “We were very fortunate. And to sell them both out – that was crazy,” he says. Fallon has received numerous offers to branch out on his own and in January last year he announced plans for a solo record. It’s clear he would have a fulfilling career with or without The Gaslight Anthem, so what happened backstage at that show in London? “It wasn’t like this thing was years in the making and we were struggling… As soon as this reared its head, we dealt with it,” he says. “It’s totally better to burn out than to fade away. And I would rather cut its throat right then and there and watch it die. I’d rather everyone go, ‘What happened to that band?’ than watch us become the red bulletin
picturedesk.com
“ I don’t want to be anyone else. I want my own piece of the pie”
old men and hated by everyone. Because I love the band and what we’ve done.” While Fallon would always keep a place in his heart for his influences, it was time to sever the ties. But how do you separate gracefully when those artists are the patron saints of the common man? “I’ve been trying to get out of this for a really long time,” says Fallon. “I don’t want to be anyone else. I want my own piece of the pie. I don’t want Bruce’s piece. I don’t want Joe Strummer’s piece or Paul Westerberg’s piece.” His emotions start to run high. “I don’t want their piece because they already ate it. And if I have to, I will react against that, even if it means shooting myself in the foot, career-wise. Because I did not get into this to do it your way. I’ll say, ‘It’s my ball. I’m going home,’ rather than do it your way.”
H
e almost did just that on July 28. At the end of three consecutive shows at Pier 26 in New York, Fallon was having fun with the crowd during the encore when the audience began chants of “Bruce”. Fallon didn’t want to play the game anymore. He turned around, belted out The Who’s Baba O’Riley and was done. The following day, he poured his heart into a blog post about the bandana-lined pigeonhole in which he feels he’s been put. The band quickly met to discuss their options. As each member suggested how he could bring a new element, suddenly there was new inspiration. Horowitz talked John Bonham grooves. Rosamilia expressed a desire to play piano. Perkins mentioned slide guitar. “It’s perfect,” says Fallon. “I don’t want to strum chords. I want to play riffs. I study the blues. I want to do different things. People may not like it, but I’m not playing for them. I’m playing for me. There’s a certain sense of selfishness to get to the selflessness.” Fallon suggested they use the solo songs he’d been working on for the next Gaslight album. The decision was unanimous. The Gaslight Anthem would continue. “I started to compile a list of guys that stepped away from their bands. Ryan Adams is one. Whiskeytown was a good band, but they didn’t write no Heartbreaker. There were a lot of fights there. I don’t know if he could have done his best work with Whiskeytown, but I know that I can do what I need to do with these guys.” gaslightanthem.com the red bulletin
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The blue racing trucks made by the Kamaz Master team are the best in the world and dominate t h e D a k a r R a l l y. A t t h e r e m a r k a b l e Russian plant where they’re made – and indirectly power a city – winning drivers must get their hands dirty in the workshops Words: Werner Jessner Photography: Heinz Tesarek
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Denis Klero/Red Bull Content Pool
K Chelny Moscow
RUSS I A
Chelny is the factory’s city, Kamaz is the reason for its existence
he map of Naberenezhnye Chelny – more easily referred to, as the locals do, as Chelny – reveals more about the city than those locals might care to. In the late-1960s, the political bigwigs of the republic of Tatarstan convinced the national authorities to build a truck plant in this backwater on the River Kama, about 1,000km east of Moscow – the largest such plant in the Soviet Union. They also needed a city for about half a million people, which was built, simultaneously, on the site of the existing, much smaller Chelny. At the time, the town planners must have had nothing but grid paper to hand, which explains the strictly geometric form of the city, with the brick buildings of the old town centre backed into a corner, and an urban characteristic unique in Russia: in Chelny they don’t ask you what street you live on, rather which block. In the 1990s, known in the former Soviet Union as the Wild ’90s, when the collapse of the old order brought the 80
daring, the lost and the criminally minded to the surface, when people went to bed poor and woke up rich (and vice versa), when there was such enmity among children in Chelny that parents had to pay protection money, the reason the city existed in the first place became even more of a sheet anchor for its inhabitants. Even now, two generations after the Kamaz truck plant was established, its size is breathtaking. Every day the schlagbaum – the German word for ‘barrier’, borrowed by the Russians – opens to admit 50,000 workers. The Kamaz sign below the assembly plant from where the finished trucks roll out is about the same size as a swimming pool, although it seems smaller when set against the building’s vast facade. Kamaz, the plant, is its own district; the workers’ quarters are the rest of the city. The answer to the question of how Chelny was populated so quickly lies in the Communists’ centralised economy. In the Soviet Union, you applied for an
The Kamaz sign below the assembly plant from where the finished trucks roll out is about the size of a swimming pool. Kamaz, the plant, is its own district; the workers’ quarters are the rest of the city
Kamaz Master races eight or nine trucks at a time. The average life of a racing Kamaz: three Dakar starts
The unloved middle seat: who’s up for an 8,000km ride through South America?
apartment, which was linked to a workplace, and waited. And waited. And waited. Or you went to Chelny (which, for a short time in the 1980s, was renamed Brezhnev, in honour of the General Secretary of the Communist Party). There you could get an apartment straight away, everything was new, the Kamaz plant was the destination for the city’s six tramlines, and there was a river which served as a recreation area. The Soviet authorities also concentrated their petrochemical activities in Nizhhnekamsk, just 40km upstream. Today, in a Chelny criss-crossed by 20 tramlines, there is still no real centre (not even the Kamaz plant), no monument to act as the prime civic focus. Only longtime residents can tell the difference between apartment blocks of the 1970s and the 1990s, and visitors must look hard for a fixed point of reference. 82
There is one a few streets from the main Kamaz plant. In a functional building dating from 2007, is Kamaz Master, the sporting division of Kamaz. For the last quarter of a century, its racing trucks have been entered in every Dakar Rally, and have won 11 times. The elite of the firm work at Kamaz Master, 110 people in all. Today is a Russian national holiday, but it’s business as usual there, with one difference: in the canteen, where the staff line up quietly and everyone sits together regardless of rank or age, the food is free. A large glass bridge, from which there’s a great view of the assembly hall, is also where the trophies are displayed. There are more than a hundred in total; the more important the victory, the more prominent the position. The trophies for overall victory in the Dakar are placed on a Russian flag in the centre. the red bulletin
Marcelo Maragni/Red Bull Content Pool
The engines manage 1,000hp, require 150 litres of diesel an hour and have as much torque as a showroom of Volkswagen Golfs
With 63 stage wins, Vladimir Chagin (right) is the most successful Dakar participant i n h i s t o r y. A p p o i n t e d team head in 2012, he is modest about his success. “I’ve been involved with the Dakar for 25 years, and so you can’t help but know your way around after that”
“That was me,” says Vladimir Chagin, “that one, this giant one here, and the two below, I think. Oh, and that one over there is for one of mine as well.” Chagin – jeans, white trainers, shortsleeved checked shirt, red-gold sports watch – is a legend here, one of the bestknown and most successful sporting figures in Tatarstan. His seven overall victories and 63 stage wins make him the undisputed Tsar of the Dakar. No one has won more than Chagin in the history of the race, and that made him a logical choice to head the Kamaz Master team once his driving career was over. At 18, he was an aspiring go-kart driver, and with a broom in his hand he started right at the bottom of the then-new Kamaz sporting division. Word had reached him that the division head, Semen Yakubov, was trying to convince the Kamaz management to take part in the Dakar the red bulletin
Rally, “to demonstrate the superiority of Soviet trucks to the whole world”, as the approved phrasing of the time would have it. Chagin wanted to be part of it. n December 1989, the adventurers hit the road for the first time. “For the customs officers at the French-Spanish border, we were the first Soviet citizens they had ever seen with their own eyes,” remembers Chagin, who was allowed to go along as a mechanic. In 1991, Kamaz entered the Dakar Rally for the first time. All five of their trucks made it to the finish line, and with a second and third placing they trumped all expectations. Shortly thereafter the Soviet Union collapsed, and the formerly state-run Kamaz became an incorporated company. It was 1996 when they chalked up their first overall victory, the year that Vladimir Chagin made his debut in the cab. His first overall victory came in 2000, on the Paris-Dakar-Cairo route. “There were terrorists in Niger and the rally had to be suspended,” says Chagin. “We then flew the entire retinue to Libya in Antonov freight planes: 15 trucks down below, cars 83
Dakar 2013 winner Eduard Nikolaev (back to camera) installs an engine with two colleagues. For 49 weeks of the y e a r, t h e d r i v e r s a r e indistinguishable from normal mechanics
Races in Russia serve as prep work for the Dakar. “We will take part as long as the plant wants us to,” says team head Chagin.
Denis Klero/Red Bull Content Pool
“There have been cases where a driver has tried to kick his co-pilot out during t h e r a c e ,” s a y s S l a v a . “ B u t not with us: we forget about what happened on the road”
above, motorcycles in between, and the drivers upstairs. It’s a miracle they could even get them off the ground.” Without this assistance from Kamaz, the rally would never have been completed. Just like Vladimir Chagin used to do, the drivers of today, like Eduard Nikolaev, have to work on their cabs. “We’re mechanics first, racing drivers second, and we’re paid like mechanics,” says Nikolaev. There are win bonuses. The stars of the Dakar assemble their trucks, repair them, enhance them and go home with blackened fingernails. Workers who distinguish themselves with a particular talent get the chance to prove themselves in a local race as the third man in the cab, the mechanic. Nikolaev had to work his way up from the seat next the red bulletin
to Chagin and Ilgizar Mardeev before he could take the wheel for the first time. What does a mechanic have to work on during the race? “You monitor the instruments, you have to know all the target values and data and you’re responsible for things like the correct air pressure in the tyres: soft in the sand, hard on gravel and asphalt,” says Nikolaev. “A good mechanic really relieves the burden on the driver.” The selection process for the Dakar is hard, and aspiring race entrants have many opportunities to make mistakes, by throwing up in the cockpit, for instance. Nikolaev is unshakeable on this point: “If you’re going to be sick, you should stay at home. Only tough guys drive the Dakar.” Slava Misyukaev, a hardened veteran of five Dakar starts, says, “if the mountain roads are bad, it’s a good idea to skip dinner the night before.” When camping overnight during the rally, the Russian stomach trusts in home-style food, like dried fish. Tensions arise when three men spend two weeks under extreme conditions in a space about 4m square. “There have been cases where a driver has tried to kick his co-pilot out during the race,” says Slava, “but not with us. We have a rule: once we’re camping for the night we forget about what happened on the road.” There are few things that demand more of a person, mentally and physically, than the Dakar Rally. Vladimir Chagin remembers Morocco in 2007: “I wanted to overtake a car in the dust and at 130kph, I failed to see a boulder. We rolled over four times, the cab was torn away from the chassis, I couldn’t move and we had to be freed. Fortunately, apart from bruises, a hand injury and a fairly minor neck injury, we were OK. After that, the mechanic and I won the Dakar two more times, the navigator three times.” The trucks are made of similarly stern stuff as the men in the cockpit. There were attempts to use mass-produced parts and materials, but they are a thing of the
past. A Kamaz Master truck comprises the best bespoke truck parts in the world. “From the main Kamaz plant we get the cabins, which we modify,” says Ilgizar Mardeev, once a successful Dakar driver and now the team’s production manager. “The chassis is produced in collaboration with German specialists Reiger. The gear mechanism comes from ZF, also in Germany. The axles come from Sisu in Finland. Currently we’re testing an engine from the Swiss-based Liebherr.” The competition is doing exactly the same thing, according to Mardeev: “Hino is a Japanese company, but their racing trucks come from France. Iveco is Italian, but their racing trucks are Dutch.” Way down in the cellar at Kamaz Master is the engine test station. Incoming regulations will limit the engines cubic capacity to 16.5 litres, and they will also have to be low-polluting. You won’t see any more 18.5-litre trucks wreathed in black clouds. It is a hard nut for the technicians to crack, particularly as they’re keen for as much of the 1,000hp to survive the downsizing as possible. Even more impressive is the torque, which is crucial for forward momentum in sand: at 4,500Nm, a Kamaz Master has 18 times more torque than a 110hp VW Golf TDI. The tank holds 1000 litres of fuel, and consumes up to 150 litres an hour. o cope with this kind of power, everything has to be enhanced, from the cooling system to the cylinder heads, from the big-end bearing to the valves. This is what they do at Kamaz all day. “If you lock me in the workshop on my own, I can put together a racing truck within a week,” says Andrey Kargino, who came third at the Dakar Rally 2013, behind Nikolaev in first place and Ayrat Mardeev, also for Kamaz, in second. The historic 1-2-3 finish overwhelmed the normally reserved Tatars. Eduard Nikolaev cried at the finish line, and fans who had travelled a long way to see this weren’t going to let them celebrate alone. Later there was an official reception in Moscow, and when the drivers came home in triumph to Nizhnekamsk Airport, the arrivals hall was full to overflowing. The next morning they all turned up to work at the plant, right on time. kamazmaster.ru/en
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Goodbye world: block it all out with noisecancelling headphones MUSIC page 95
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 Go truly off piste on some of the world’s best backcountry snow
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Powder room
Russian helicopters, acres of untouched snow and not another tourist in sight. Welcome to Kyrgyzstan travel page 90
the red bulletin
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Action!
yo u w i ll s u rvive
Pro tools
tech to keep you at the peak of your powers
Picture perfect Quick movements in full HD are no problem at 50 or 60 frames per second.
Compact Measures just 524.4 x 47 x 82mm, weighs 90g including the battery and is also waterproof.
Perspective The Carl Zeiss Vario Tessar lens with a 15.3mm fixed focal length makes for a viewing angle of 170º (120º with the image stabiliser).
Power MOnkey explorer Waterproof USB solar-powered charger for smartphones, MP3 players and digital cameras.
Firm hold As well as the universal helmet mount, it can also be attached to chest straps and handlebars.
powertraveller.com
Heater Meals Used for years by the US armed forces, this range of meals uses foodgrade iron and magnesium powder to self-heat to 37ºC.
Markus Pekoll records all his training runs
MOUNTAIN-BIKING To truly excel in the saddle, champions choose an extra perspective on things
“My Sony Action HDR-AS30V camera helps a lot with my training,” says current European downhill mountainbiking champion Markus Pekoll. “I film every training session. When I’m done, I get the footage up on my mobile phone and analyse different lines and work out time differences.” The 26-year-old from Austria particularly likes the SteadyShot function. “The picture doesn’t move and I can focus on the line. The only way you can tell how rough the terrain is, is from the way the visor on my helmet is shaking.” The UCI, cycling’s world governing body, forbids cameras during races. Great videos are going unrecorded, because, says Pekoll, “there’s nothing like the intensity of a race, the speed and the mass of spectators by the track”. sony.net
Yeti Cooler Tundra 65 Virtually indestructible and grizzly-bear-proof dry-ice cool-box will stay cold for up to seven days. yeticoolers.com
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the red bulletin
kurt keinrath
Head for sights
heatermeals.com
Action!
NOT J UST C U R R I ES
party
The Indian food you’ve never eaten
Mumbai’s best club for live music can hold 800 revellers
The policy of no-policy
laif (3), Philipp Horak, picturedesk.com (3)
Florian Obkircher
Mumbai Anything goes at the all-music venue in India’s largest city – except for noisy drinks What do you do when your favourite bands never come to town? You invite them yourself. That’s what five artists in Mumbai did six years ago when they set up their own club in an abandoned factory building. Their aim was to promote the local band scene and attract their favourite music-makers to Mumbai. Now Bluefrog is home to a restaurant with a futuristic crater-like seating area, a recording studio, an artist agency and a club with six gigs and concerts a week. A club that can successfully host jazz guitarist John McLaughlin and legendary DJ Sasha has only thing in mind: celebrating great music regardless of genre. The Bluefrog crew are serious about this. It’s a policy not to serve cocktails during a performance. The shaker would be too loud and ruin the live experience. blueFROg Mathuradas Mill Compound, Senapati Bapat Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai 400013, India www.bluefrog.co.in
the red bulletin
Bhang Lassi Bhang is made of dried cannabis leaves and is legal in India. Once mixed with yoghurt you get a green elixir that Sufis have used to achieve spiritual ecstasy.
Thirst rule of nightclub: no cocktail shakers during gigs
hau nted h o uses THESE THREE MUMBAI HOUSES ARE HOME TO GHOSTS. GUARANTEED
SNDT GIRLS COLLEGE Neighbours have heard the ghost of a teacher thrashing his pupils in the backyard of the college at 1.30am. First a maths lesson begins, then comes the wailing of children. RAJ KIRAN HOTEL A blue glow at the end of the bed, sheets fluttering: it has been officially confirmed by paranormal experts that something spooks this hotel outside Mumbai when night falls. Mukesh Mills This abandoned factory is a common film location, but some directors refuse to shoot there. In 2009, an actress possessed by a ghost asked the crew to leave in a deep voice that was not her own.
Chhaang This rice beer is drunk warm. Its name means ‘Nectar of the Gods’. Legend has it the Yeti has raided Himalayan villages to get his hands on it.
Chaprah Chilli peppers, salt, ginger, red ants and their eggs. In the province of Chhattisgarh this protein-rich chutney is a basic condiment. Taste varies from sweetish to very spicy.
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Action!
Travel
And anoth er thing Aprés heliski
Hot water Switch to a jet-ski on the world’s second largest mountain lake, Issyk-Kul. The former Russian torpedo test site never freezes over thanks to its thermal springs. issykkul.kg/en
Boards & blades
Snow body else around: heliski on Virgin powder
Heliskiing Snow lovers ready to push the boundaries should take a chopper ride to the powder of Kyrgyzstan’s unexplored mountains
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Head to capital Bishkek’s largest venue, The Sports Palace, for a game of basketball and a dip in the Olympic-sized pool, or just a welldeserved sauna. ianbek.kg/?p=7393
Advice From The Inside Quick fix “It’s absolutely key to have a fixer,” says Nick Armstrong. “Sergei Dubovik from Fantastic Asia sorted everything out for us, which made our lives so much easier. We wouldn’t have known where to start if we were doing it ourselves.”
Smooth operators
“Since you’re transferring money to a stranger in a country you’ve never visited, make sure you use a reputable company,” says Armstrong, who travelled with Fantastic Asia. Or try Austrian-based company Fit and Fun, which offers similar heliskiing packages. www.fitundfun-outdoor.com
Super noodles Try the hearty Afghani-Dungan noodle dish Laghman, which has been officially adopted by Kyrgyzstan, at one of Bishkek’s many traditional restaurants. thespektator.co.uk
the red bulletin
getty images, fitundfun-outdoor.com, shutterstock (2)
Kyrgyzstan is referred to as the Switzerland of Central Asia thanks to the mountains that cover 95 per cent of the country. Unlike its snowsportsavvy European equivalent, Kyrgyzstan’s ski resorts are still small, two-lift affairs. That’s where a fleet of Mi-8 helicopters comes in. These Russian-built beasts open up the miles of unskied snow to the adventureloving riders they drop into uncharted territory. “I’d heard that there were these great mountains there that no one had ever been on, so me and some friends went to check it out,” says Nick Armstrong, from Sydney, Australia. “It was amazing. I’ve been skiing in Japan for five years and this was totally new. Everyone was so welcoming and amazed to see foreigners, especially snowboarders. It was a real adventure. We stayed in a base camp resort in the south, in Suusamyr at about 3,000m, and went up to about 4,500m. The whole area around there is pretty much unexplored and covered in soft powder. Because it’s all unpatrolled Prices start terrain we had to be careful, but at US$499 the guides really know their stuff. for a single day They had the latest safety gear for of heliskiing us. The riding was wild, we did in Suusamyr three first descents. Here it’s so or Karakol with easy to just go out and find a new Fantastic Asia. heli-ski.kg peak no one’s ever ridden before.”
Steam clean
Action!
workout
Keeping it simple snowboarding superstar of the slopes perfects his record-breaking tricks with a trampoline and a medicine ball
Tim Zimmerman/Red Bull Content Pool, Sebastian Marko/Red Bull Content Pool, shutterstock
Heri Irawan
Mark McMorris, trick pioneer and X Games winner
“There’s a champion inside everyone,” says snowboard pro Mark McMorris, “you just have to discover how to find it.” The 19-year-old Canadian has uncovered his inner achiever. He landed the first-ever backside triple cork 1440 – a triple flip with triple twist – in 2011, and used it to win gold in big air at the 2012 Winter X Games, where he also won slopestyle gold. He took silver in slopestyle at the Winter X Games in 2013. In August, in Encinitas, California, he began preparing for the new season, which begins in December and ends in May 2014. As well as four weights sessions a week, the training schedule also involves daily surfing. The reason, says McMorris, is that “any board sport is good for a snowboarder”. markmcmorris.com
tramp champ being the best is child's play
Three-mendous: McMorris’s backside triple cork 1440 made history
SNOWBOARD BLITZ WORKOUT “Elasticity, balance, co-ordination and core stability are essential for jumps,” says McMorris, “and the best thing is, you can train all of those with just two exercises and a medicine ball.”
1
Hold the medicine ball with both hands in front of your chest, legs shoulder-width apart.
Crouch down low, then push up in one swift movement, jump and throw the ball upwards.
Land with your legs slightly bent and catch the ball with outstretched arms. Do 10-15 reps.
2
NO SNow? no problem
“As a kid I rarely had the opportunity to train on the slopes,” says McMorris. “A trampoline is a cheap alternative for improving your feel for jumps. I still use mine to this day.”
Lunges help train your thighs and gluteal muscles.
the red bulletin
Important: keep your upper body vertical during this exercise.
Lunge for 30 secs tensing, pause upright for 10 secs, switch legs.
Do 5-10 reps on each leg. (This is a great warm-up exercise for any sport.)
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Action!
City Guide
Be ll St re et
Melbourne Por t Ph i l l i p B ay
brunswick east
B ru n sw ic
S u n sh in
k Ro a d
Royal Park Golf Club
Footscray Park
a n Fre e w E a s te r
5
e Ro a d
1 Y
Fr an ci s S tr ee t
R i v er ra ar
Pr
Bla cks haw s Ro ad
Ko ro r
inc
g hway es Hi
H obsons Bay
o it C r eek
ivanhoe
y
Turning your Melbourne jaunt up to 11
Kew Golf Club
B ar ke rs R oa d
south melbourne
B ur ke R oa d
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
2
Extr a Kick
To o ra k R oad
Albert Park
H ig h S tr eet
Ro a d
3 st . kilda
4 malvern east
fly a fighter jet Soar over Melbourne at 910kph as copilot in a fighter jet. Combat manoeuvres, loop-the-loops and nosedives included. adrenalin.com.au
Bourne supremacyMelbourne Best-kept secrets of Aussie’s ‘culture city’ rules revealed by Amy Findlay of hometown rockers Stonefield Darraweit Guim may sound like the name of an alien commander in Star Trek, but in actual fact it is a small town 50km from Melbourne and the place where the Findlay Sisters – alias Stonefield – launched their music career. “We listened to Hendrix, Zappa and Led Zeppelin as kids, then at some point we began to play music ourselves in the shed at the back of our parents’ house,” says 23-year-old Findlay, the eldest of the four sisters. In 2010, the rock band caught the attention of a Glastonbury manager in Perth and a year later they were wowing crowds of 150,000 at England’s legendary festival. Their long-awaited debut album, Wunderkind, is out now. “In our free time we most like to hang out in Melbourne,” says Amy. “There’s a lot going on in terms of music. There are plenty of concerts to choose from and Melbourne offers a lot more besides, as you’ll see on the right.” myspace.com/stonefieldtheband
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f0und by findlay
3 Twilight MARKET
O’Donnell Gardens, St Kilda “This market comes to life on Thursday nights with fire-eaters, musicians, artists and food stalls on every corner. It’s my favourite outdoor nighttime haunt.”
stare down sharks
1 CHERRY BAR ACDC Lane
“Noel Gallagher wanted to buy this bar on ACDC Lane [named after the Aussie rockers in 2004]. It’s the city’s top rock music nightspot. Many bands throw their concert after-parties here. Thursday is soul night and weekends they play rock.”
2 FOSSIL VINTAGE
57 Sparks Avenue, Fairfield
“A crazy antiques shop which sells industrial equipment. So if you need ancient French hospital beds or Czechoslovak factory lights, you’ve come to the right place. I like their ’70s and ’80s clothes.”
4 LAS CHICAS
203 Carlisle St, Balaclava
“Las Chicas serves the best breakfast. It’s always full, but you won’t wait too long for a table. The menu includes banana bread, buttermilk doughnuts and salmon burritos.”
5 THE TOTE HOTEL
71 Johnson St, Collingwood
“A hotel, pub, concert venue and meeting point for young bands. There’s also a rumour swirling about the hotel that it’s the place the ghost of gangster Squizzy Taylor strikes terror into people’s hearts.”
Come face to face with the marine predators at Melbourne’s aquarium. You may not get in the water. melbourneaquarium. com.au
launch off buildings Rap jumping, or Australian rappel, is a forward abseil that has you running down a sevenstorey building. redballoon.com.au
the red bulletin
Justin Vague (4), Kane Hibberd/Red Bull Content Pool, shutterstock
Amy Findlay, lead singer and drummer of Australian rock band Stonefield
Top five
P RO M OT I O N
1 SHIRT Element - Fillmore $89.99
2 TRAVEL BAG Billabong - Oceanic Carry On $189.99
3 WATCH Neff - Daily Rasta $69.99
4 SHOES Converse - Chuck Taylor All Star Hi Natural $99.99
5 SUNNIES Von Zipper - Lo Max Mindglo Black Blue $179.99
6 CAP Hurley - Majour Leagues $50.99
available at selected astores nationwide WWW.amAzonsurf.co.nz
Action!
They’re Back
games
New games for old faves in Feb
The ride choice: the Nissan GTR is one of around 2,000 supercars in Gran Turismo 6
Donkey Kong The aptly named Retro studios are behind Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze Wii U revival of the classic SNES platformer. It’s 2D in HD. nintendo.com
Thief A reboot of the first-ever firstperson stealth game. Brilliant on PC in the late 90s, it’s coming to Xbox One and PS4.
G ran Turismo 16 years after its debut, the realistic racer is back for a sixth lap Gran Turismo, the biggest realistic racing series in gaming, returns this month, with even more stunning new vehicles, incredibly authentic tracks and, most importantly, improved handling. Gran Turismo 6’s suspension and tyre tweaks mean speeding around Silverstone’s Stowe Corner in one of up to 2,000 cars on offer will make you feel the power of a hefty supercar. Especially if you’re racing with a force feedback wheel and pedals. A dozen of these vehicles are from current Formula One Constructors’ Champions Infiniti Red Bull Racing, including a new version of the Red Bull X2010, a concept car designed for GT 5 by Adrian Newey in collaboration with Polyphony’s pro racing president Kazunori Yamauchi. Some of these Red Bull cars will also be available to download after the release of Gran Turismo 6, a feature which Sony hopes will keep players racing and improving their lap times well into 2014. It’s only available on PS3, reason enough to keep the old girl powered up in the face of Xbox One and PS4. gran-turismo.com
Gran Turismo 6 (left) is out now
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thiefgame.com
out soon
We have Rift off
Virtual gaming in the home at last Android compatibility has been announced for Oculus Rift, the virtual reality gaming headset (left) that’s literally been turning developer’s heads since 2012. It will finally become a reality for consumers in 2014.
oculusvr.com
final fantasy There’s nothing final about it: 14 main series games, 40 FF editions and the forthcoming Lightning Returns is the third FF XIII title! lightningreturns.com
Forecast: brain
The thinking man’s thinking game It’s a meeting of gaming’s finest minds as two adventure-puzzle series join forces for Professor Layton v Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney on Nintendo 3DS (left). The prof solves the riddles while the lawyer defends a suspected witch in court. Out early 2014.
level5ia.com
Castlevania The adventure franchise is 27 years old, but Lords Of Shadow 2 in PS3 and Xbox 360 adventure lets you play as Dracula for the first time. konamicastlevania.com
the red bulletin
Tom East
Sweet sixteen
Action!
music
year in the mix Egbert Nathaniel Dawkins III, alias Aloe Blacc
Play It Forward Playlist Aloe Blacc is in the business of infectious good vibes. Can we all just be happy for a moment?
1 Stevie Wonder
Brian Dowling/Retna Ltd., Christelle de Castro/Red Bull Content Pool, florian obkircher Robert Snow/Red Bull Content Pool, valerie cherchi
You Are the Sunshine of My Life
the best dj sets of 2013
It’s been a good year for Aloe Blacc. His hit Wake Me Up sold three million copies and topped the charts in 22 countries. After this excursion to the world of dance pop, a new album, Lift Your Spirit, sees the Californian musician returning what’s closer to his heart: soul music as practised by the likes of Al Green and Marvin Gaye. The 34-year-old sees himself as a mediator: just like he discovered his soul heroes by listening to hiphop when he was young, he hopes that kids today will discover the classics through his music. Here Blacc reveals five finds of his own. aloeblacc.com
Headless Heroes Of The Apocalypse
“I’ve known McDaniels since I was young, but I didn’t know it. That’s because hiphoppers like A Tribe Called Quest sampled his music; I discovered this record two years ago. A friend gave it to me while I was searching for inspiration. I fell in love with this psychedelic soul-jazz, which I took as a starting point for my new album.”
4 Cat Stevens
5 DJ Rogers
“I discovered this song on TV when I was a kid. Cat Stevens was looking very seriously into the camera. His singing, and the lyrics above all, instantly had an effect on me. To this day I can’t think of a more beautiful song about parent-child relationships. I wrote my own song, Mama Hold My Hand, as homage to this masterpiece.”
“I heard this song coming from my housemate’s bedroom and was so excited that I transferred it from vinyl to MP3. Hardly anyone knows Rogers, unfortunately. In this soul gem he sings about social problems, and at the end he realises that despite all that, it’s good to be alive: a phrase which is now my motto for life.”
Big Yellow Taxi
“My biggest heroine. The way Joni Mitchell can bring together a pop sensibility and a political consciousness in her songs is fantastic. In this song alone, she takes on issues of consumer culture and urbanisation – issues I dealt with on my last album [Good Things] – because really good pop music also has a social conscience.”
Jamie XX JunE, Berlin Indie-pop gods The xx staged their own summer festival in June; its high point was the band leader behind decks. Style: house, post-dubstep
It’s Good to Be Alive
Cooly G
g o ld en s i len c e come on, feel no noise
Bose QuietComfort 20 The perfect in-ear headphones for travelling. An inbuilt mini-microphone captures external noise – traffic, construction, the urban hum – and uses noise-cancellation to remove it. The world around disappears and only the music remains. bose.com
the red bulletin
May, New York The 73-year-old electronic music pioneer (I Feel Love) and Daft Punk collaborator made his DJ debut. Style: disco, electro
2 Eugene McDaniels 3 Joni Mitchell
“When I was a kid, his music was always playing at home. It’s virtuosic and catchy at the same time. Stevie Wonder also taught me that it’s OK to write good-mood songs. This hit, especially, just overflows with positivity. I get my artistic credo from him: make one person happy with your songs, and they will pass that happiness on.”
Father And Son
Giorgio Moroder
September, Lausanne She mixes up all kinds of funky musical genres, but the common denominator is heavy bass. Style: deep house, grime
Hear these now: rbmaradio.com
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Action!
save the date
don’t miss more dates for the diary
31
december sandy new year Downtown Auckland will be transformed on New Year’s Eve with 12 soundstages and 4 tonnes of sand trucked in to create the Britomart Beach Party. iticket.co.nz
10 january
December 28-January 11
Net gain Tennis takes over Auckland for two weeks at the start of every year and the 2014 ASB Classic and Heineken Open have attracted some of the biggest names in the game. The ASB Classic features former world number ones Venus Williams and Ana Ivanovic, while four-time Heineken Open champion David Ferrer will defend his 2013 title. Other tournament headliners include Gael Monfils and Kevin Anderson. festivaloftennis.co.nz
january
Street appeal
Fashion icons
home brewed
Christchurch’s SCIRT World Buskers Festival celebrates it’s 21st anniversary this year. Highlights include local hero The Boy With Tape on his Face and American magician Paul Nathan, with his brilliantly titled I Hate Children Children’s Show. worldbuskersfestival.com
Auckland Museum is much more than just a rest home for relics from New Zealand’s past. It’s also earned a reputation for hosting some of the most interesting overseas exhibitions. The latest, Selling Dreams: One Hundred Years of Fashion Photography features images from Helmut Newton, Richard Avedon and David Bailey. aucklandmuseum.com
The Young, Gifted & Broke crew are the curators of the latest Red Bull Sound Select, handpicking their favourite up-andcoming artists for gigs in Auckland and Wellington (January 18). redbullsound select.com/nz
January 16-26
January 18
Country cycle Clevedon hosts the SRAM Tour de Ranges, two cycle races of 30km and 110km with some of the Auckland region’s most scenic views. tourderanges.co.nz
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17
December 6-February 28
the red bulletin
Chris Symes/photosport.co.nz, Meredith Clare, victoria and albert museum, jlphoto.co.nz.
Waikaraka Park Speedway is a noisy, dusty, roughand-ready kind of place, but it’s paradise for motor racing fans. This weekend it’s the NZ Super Saloon Championships. waikarakafamily speedway.co.nz
robert tighe
Petrol heaven
Gael Monfils: 2013 Heineken Open semi-finalist
January 22
Spot light Wellington soul singer Estère (below) is tipped for big things in 2014. Recently she collaborated with US hip-hop producer Oddisee in the Red Bull Studio and she’s fast gaining a reputation for her live shows. See her at the Festival of Lights in New
January 9-12
River wild Starting in Albert Town in Otago and finishing 261km down the Clutha River at Molyneux Bay, where the river meets the Pacific Ocean, Wild Descent is only in its second year, but it’s already an iconic event. Described as ‘part expedition, part adventure, part race’, over four days teams of two will kayak in white water, through steep gorges and battle physical and mental exhaustion to make it to the finish line. wilddescent.com
December 15
Party people It’s the peak time of the year for parties, but one that you definitely don’t want to miss is The Do-Over presented by the Red Bull Music Academy. Described by DJ Jazzy Jeff as “the best party on the planet”, entry to this daytime boogie (2-10pm) is free, but you must RSVP via the website to get your name on the guest list. redbull.co.nz
NEW WORKS BY ASKEW BEASTMAN BMD
ENO GHØSTIE AKA SEAN DUFFELL IKARUS & YIKES LISTER ROA
Oi YOU! COLLECTION BANKSY DAVID CHOE FAILE ANTONY MICALLEF MILTON SPRINGSTEEN SWOON PLUS MORE PHOTOGRAPHY BY NICOLE REED
RONE IAN ‘KID ZOOM’ STRANGE VANS THE OMEGA WONGI
AT CANTERBURY MUSEUM OPENS 20 DECEMBER 2013 www.facebook.com/OiYouStreetArt
time warp
Drying machine
getty images
Ninety years ago and a world away: a Frenchman who only survives in the record books as ‘Mars,’ airs his wet clothes at 100mph on the top wing of a biplane. The plane, dangling a rope ladder, had swooped down over a pond; Mars clambered up and stripped. But why?
The next issue of the red bulletin is out on january 14 98
the red bulletin
FATE DOESN’T ASK. IT COuLD ALSO bE mE. Or yOu. David Coulthard.
13-time Formula 1 Grand Prix Winner and Wings For Life Ambassador.
SPINAL COrD INJury muST bECOmE CurAbLE. In funding the best research projects worldwide focusing on the cure of spinal cord injury, the Wings for Life Spinal Cord research Foundation ensures top-level medical and scientific progress. We assure that hundred percent of all donations are invested in spinal cord research.
your contribution makes a difference. Donate online at www.wingsforlife.com
Free advertisement.
november – 2013 Issue 82
bloodlines Why the MaorI all Blacks Matter
own goal
CraCker JaCks: The new breed of bowler
nz Football’s desperate quest
the hIts of suMMer hrv cup returns
all blaCks: by The numbers
www.skysport.co.nz
JImmy maC: JoCkey n o v – 2 013
Issue 82 new Zealand incl. gst
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