Spring by Wildland Magazine

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Wildland ÂŠ 2 014 Wildland. Al l r ig h t s re s e r ve d . All ma te r ia l i n t h i s m a g a z i n e m a y n ot b e reproduced, tra n s mitte d o r d is tr ib ute d in a ny fo rm w i t h o u t co n sen t .

“A LIFE IN SALT WATER IS A LIFE WORTH LIVING.”

FOUNDER & EDITOR Nathan Cleary FEATURES EDITOR Mathias Benninghoven DESIGN Nathan Cleary PUBLISHER wildzine.com ISSN 2055-7566

CONTRIBUTORS Alec Farmer Charlie Brophy Elle Kaye Jason Reposar Jay Adams Javier Campuzano Jean-Philippe Lebee Joe Harper Johnny Colbert Josh Love Mariano Wechsler Mathias Benninghoven Muff Customs Nathan Cleary Niall Walker Nina Hoogstraate Peter Illetschko Trakke Vicki Jones

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WI LD L A ND T H REE

Editor’s Note I felt that after the second issue that it was time to take stock and reflect upon its success. As part of this creative process I decided that the magazine needed some fine tuning. The magazine will now display a new logo, a smaller typeface and use a new paper stock for both cover and contents. I have worked very hard to develop and implement a design that’s elegant, eye-catching and easy to navigate. I really hope you like what you see. In this issue we explore ‘Lifestyle’. The “Collins English Dictionary” defines “lifestyle” as a set of attitudes, habits or possessions associated with a particular person or group. I believe lifestlye is much more. Some of the most telling stories from this issue are about the journeys that people have made or are still making whilst engaged in their passion for their lifestyle. Our contributors and artists have really outdone themselves again. I need to say a huge thank you to all of them for their enthusiasm, patience and of course their awesome stories and images! I would also like to say a huge thank you to Mathias Benninghoven and Steve Cleary for helping me get this issue finished. I really hope you enjoy this issue as much as I have creating it and I hope this will inspire you to follow your own journey into a happier lifestyle. Enjoy!

- Nathan Cleary, Founder & Editor of Wildland Magazine

WI LD L A ND T H REE

L I FE ST YL E

C O NT E NT S

FRONT COVER Jean-Philippe Lebee

06 MUF F Jo e H a r p e r N a th a n C l e ar y Jo s h Lo v e

INT ER V IEW: VIC KI J O NES Na t ha n C l ea r y Vi ck i J o nes

I N T ERV IE W: JAY A DA M S Ja s o n Re p o s ar N in a H oo g s t raate Ja y Adam s

P R ES ER V AT IO N Jo hnny Co l b er t E l l e Ka ye Ma t hi a s B enni ngho ven

T R AK K E N ia ll Wal ke r Ma th ia s B e n n i n g h o v e n Ale c F a r m e r

RE AR COVER Johnny Colber t

B2B JOG A CA P O E I R A Ja vie r C am p u z an o Ma r ia n o We c h s l e r P e te r I llet s c h ko

MOTH ER I N D I A Ch a r lie B ro p hy

SAL A AM A L A I KU M N in a H oo g s t raate

SURF EN E L T U N CO Ja vie r C am p u z an o

INSIDE COVER Joe Harper

HACKNEY WICK , LONDON PHOTOGR APHY BY JOE HARPER WORDS BY NATHAN CLE ARY & JOSH LOVE

Muff Customs is a workshop and cafe dedicated to bespoke motorcycles as well as great food and drinks in the heart of Hackney Wick, London. They produce roaring traffic-beating machines for London roads that will challenge you to an adventure in the dirt and still be a pleasure to ride to the shops. Besides everything two-wheeled and noisy, Muff draws its customers with their own signature coffee roast, a selection of handmade cakes and pastries and eventually a good after-work brew to drown those mechanically induced sorrows. I caught up with founder Josh Love, who gave me a further insight into the workings of his company.

Tell us about yourself. Where are you from, what do you do for fun, and what’s your role at Muff? I’m Josh. Beside the occasional field bike I didn’t have much of a bike fetish until I came to London about ten years ago. I’ve been building bikes that whole time, starting with scrappy scramblers that were barely road legal to the finely polished bikes we do now. I’d love to say I still build scrappy stuff for fun but my times pretty finely divided between the workshop and cafe. How did the brand start? As with all good things it started in the pub as a joke but kind of stuck when we got a bit more serious about starting up. The party line is that muff is short for muffler but it’s also been said to be the name of my first dog in situations where a sob story is needed to convince people. What sets your cafe apart from others? We just had the cafe listed in the London coffee guide and they said it best; like our bikes, uniqueness isn’t something we’ve had to work for (massive paraphrasing). There’s set to be an explosion of custom motorbike places in London over the next couple years. We wanted to hit the ground running and get there first and now be the bar of quality others have to beat. Did you always envision Muff going into the cafe business, or has this just developed itself along the way? We think of them as one and the same: the cafe, bikes and workshop. Muff came about to be both a cafe and workshop. Bike garages aren’t always inviting places to just hang out in, unless your about to drop a couple hundred no ones interested. The cafe gives you a place to spend a couple quid in the afternoon, surrounded by the bikes, people and carefully selected stuff, and our coffee’s damn good.

Tell us about your own signature coffee, what was the idea behind that? You’d be surprised how many people want to bring muff home with them. How do you feel about competition in your area? Is there any? There’s competition from one local café in particular on the coffee side and at least four local bike garages. It all depends on how you view competition. We’ve worked pretty closely with our neighboring café to roast our own blend on their machine and foster a go-to-area for weekend brunch between us. Kingdom of Kicks have just opened a retail space across the road from us selling items that only continue to complement our own range and again we’re both in the mindset that working together brings more business. Competition’s a funny one as independent cafes are two a penny in London now, but we’re in the right spot surrounded by the right people.

The motorcycles you have produced are mostly classics, is there a big demand? There’s a demand for both what we produce and the bikes we use. Two or three years ago you could pick up an old XL for £300 and you’d be closer to £1,300 now for the same non-runner. There’s a demand for bikes made from actual metal which you can work on with three spanners and not need a laptop to diagnose. Can you tell us the creative process of customising a motorcycle from the design to the actual build? That’s a tricky one as it’s different each time. We have yet to get into a routine where we spend hours laying out a build on the computer. We typically start our client builds off with a long beer session and a flick through what kind of styles are possible and what they actually want to do with the bike when it’s built. We find a donor bike sometimes and sometimes they have one already. We layout what we’re going to do, strip the bike down and catalogue what needs replacing/ rebuilding. Out comes the grinder in most cases and we de-tab and remove anything unneeded. This is all the creative process as we spend hours deliberating about angles, curves and positions. Anything’s possible as long as its ride-able.

Have you noticed an increase in the number of people wanting customs? As I said people want things they can play with, bend and bolt to. Custom is a bit of an all encompassing word because you’ve got old boys rebuilding their childhood dreams in every detail through to modern day sports bikes being modified. I think there’s been a very noticeable increase in people building certain styles of bikes. Whether it’s custom or not has become a fixation I’m not entertaining. What can we expect from the future of Muff? Where is the brand looking to go in the next five years? You can definitely expect some weirder creations rolling out of our doors for the next five years… where this will be/ what this will be is still undecided.

I NT E R V I E W: JAY A DA MS SAN CLEME NTE , CALIFORNIA PORTR AIT OF JAY BY JASON REPOSAR WORDS BY NINA HOOGSTR A ATE & JAY ADAMS

Ex-convict, former drug addict and one of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s most renowned skateboarders: Jay Adams gives us an insight into his surf and skate routine in Venice as part of the legendary Zephyr skate team, his views of gay marriage, women in skateboarding and surfing, and his gratitude towards the Man Upstairs.

Can you describe the skateboarding/ surf scene in the 70s in three words? MY WHOLE LIFE What did a typical day look like as part of the Zephyr team? Well, I liked to surf before school then have a skate either on Bicknell Hill or catch the bus up to Paul Revere, and sometimes we’d all skate Pearl St. in Santa Monica after dark. What is your daily routine like now? Do you still surf and skate? We go to bed early and get up at 4am. My wife and I read the bible together for an hour or two, then we go to the gym and work out for about 2 hours or a lil bit more usually. We do an hour of weights then another doing cardio or a spin class together. Then I give the surf a check on the way home and decide if it’s a surf or skate day... sometimes it’s both or other times I’ll surf two sessions, if it’s really good. Where did the name ‘Lords of Dogtown’ come from? Did you guys call yourselves that or was it a nickname that was given to you? Don’t know how they came up with that name, but now I’m more of a Dog in Lordstown. Yes it was a Hollywood movie, some of it was correct and some a bit made up. Apart from Peggy Oki, were there a lot of women who knew how to surf and skateboard or was it mainly maledominated? There has always been women who have surfed and skated but it’s been pretty much male-dominated in the past. The Blue Crush movie seemed to get lots of girls really into surfing and now the girls are really stepping it up in skating too. Women are so good these days it’s really amazing how the talent level has progressed. The lil tomboy skater girl days are over. Nowadays the girls are ripping just as hard as the boys and they haven’t lost any of their feminine beauty. Are you still in touch with any of the other people from that scene? We all had dinner together last week in Santa Monica. Seeing Alva, Peralta, Muir and a few other guys

together again was nice. Was the film ‘Lords of Dogtown’ in 2008 a close and accurate representation of reality? As a Hollywood film, was it slightly romanticized or glorified in some way? It got our personalities correct but don’t believe everything Hollywood does when it makes a movie. It was a great kid-movie but they made a PG13 movie outta an R rated story. Do you still feel the same about skateboarding and surfing as you always have? Of course I do, it’s actually more fun to me these days because there’s nothing to prove. It gives me a chance to let people see the changes God has made in my life. How does modern day Venice Beach (and California) compare to when you were younger? Well its not anything like how it was in the 60’s and 70’s, even the 80’s were pretty cool in Venice. I moved away to Hawaii in 1989 so I haven’t lived there in a while. Nowadays I’d prefer to just visit for the day. It’s too much of a circus everyday there now. We use to have great surf there and we had it to ourselves. Nowadays there’s just too many people. What do you make of contemporary skateboarding and surf culture? Are things repetitive or is creativity and progression still thriving? Guess that depends on who you’re looking at. I will say that nowadays too many people do it for all the wrong reasons. Being a famous pro isn’t what it’s all about and video clips seem to be the only reason why some people do it. Are there any surf/skate spots you would love to visit and haven’t yet? Yes, there are plenty of places I would love to go...all over the world. Were any specific popular drugs used within the surf/skateboard scene? What was the attitude to drugs at the time? We grew up in the 60’s and 70’s, everyone did drugs and if you didn’t then you were the

We didn’t know the dangers of drug addiction like kids do now. You never get good at doing drugs: you either go to prison, have to get help in rehab or even worse - YOU DIE. It’s just a dead end from the start and every drug addict I know started off by smoking weed and drinking alcohol. DON’T KID YOURSELF; IT’S ALL-BAD! Was there a specific moment where you can remember realising your drug use was becoming more than just a social activity? My whole life revolved around surfing and skating. After I stuck a needle in my arm everything changed and got worse. I went to prison twice and lost over 15-20 years of my life because of my drug addiction. Do yourself a favour and learn from our mistakes. I read in a few interviews that you ‘instigated a gay bashing’ in LA, was this actually what happened? How do you view gay relationships and marriage? The trouble we got into that night had nothing to do with the fact the people we got into a fight with were gay. It was during the Punk Rock days in Hollywood and it was a violent time. We were young, dumb and full of alcohol. We weren’t bashing gays, we were just out to bash anyone who we came in contact with. I’m not proud of that but that’s just how it was for us then. As far as how I view gay relationships and gay marriage, I am 100% against them however I do respect gay people, I just tell them what the Bible says. God loves everyone but he doesn’t love the sin we commit in our lives. I tell the people who are having premarital sex the same thing. Yes I was guilty of sexing up women before I was married and I am far from perfect. I have my own sins that I have to try not to do anymore. I’m not ashamed of the Gospels of Christ and never water it down to make people feel ok for the sins they are a slave to. By the power of the Holy Spirit we are all able to change our lives around and live more like Christ. I know this isn’t what the world

wants to hear but I am going to follow Christ and do my best to obey his word. How isolating was your initial experience of prison? How did you deal with it? Prison was exactly what I needed to happen to me. Sometimes you have to have something taken away for you to realize how much you really want it. Prison saved me from myself. What’s the main change you noticed in life when you came out of jail? I can make the right decisions in my life this time and not repeat the same mistakes I made before. When did you discover your faith in religion? I accepted Christ in the early 80’s. I’ve been either on drugs or going to church since I was a younger guy. I always had one foot in Christ and the other in the world and that’s a very dangerous place to be in your life. How would you describe your relationship with God? How does it affect your day-to-day decisions? My relationship with God affects everything I do in my life. I’d rather please God than please myself. I’ve learned that I can’t do anything on my own. I need the power of the Holy Spirit to overcome the things that take me away from Christ. People say the Bible brainwashes you and I thank God that it does. My brain was filthy. All I thought about were sinful things that left me always wanting more. Having a relationship with Christ is the best thing I’ve ever felt and gives me more freedom than I’ve ever had before. What’s your view on afterlife? My afterlife started when I gave my life to Christ. I’m already living my life of Eternity. You have to kill yourself for Christ. Nothing compares to being sure of what’s going to happen after we’re done with this life God has given us.

T R A KKE GL ASGOW, SCOTL AND PHOTOGR APHY BY NIALL WALKER WORDS BY MATHIAS BENNINGHOVEN & ALEC FARMER

There’s various ways to embrace a certain lifestyle, to perceive the world and its surroundings in an utterly different light: Some people are simply living it, while others are further nourishing it with their creative output. Glaswegian outdoor lifestyle brand Trakke seems to be in the thick of it – producing for and together with a community of adventurers. Time for a wee chat with founder Alec Farmer about his humble beginnings, cyclist culture and the perfect bag.

Hello Alec, how did it all start out with Trakke? I studied graphic design at the school of arts and I had a friend, who studied product design. On the weekends we just got out into the city and found lots of recycled, unused materials on the streets. We used to find abandoned sofas and take the leather off it or old suitcases and take the zips off. We made our first bags in our living room with a little crappy domestic sewing machine that caught fire at some point and we simply developed as we went along with it. Every time we made something new, we made it from scratch, with no pattern. So every one we made, was slightly different. Eventually we had a stall at Barras Markets here in Glasgow and started taking our bags there and selling them for really cheap. Slowly but surely we got a small following of friends and cyclists, who kind of liked what we were doing. How would you describe the Glaswegian cyclist scene and how did they approach you and how did they embrace your venture? I think we started with cycling because it was really easy for us to test what we made. You know, if we started making backpacks for climbing we would’ve get out the city a bit more and that wasn’t always so easy. We had a lot of friends, who are cyclists and became part of the scene in some sense, before we really started making things for the scene. We’ve got to know a few couriers in the city, who would test our products first, ask us to fix stuff for them and by doing that we got a lot of insights into how people might use the product. From there, people were just really nice to us.

So you didn’t feel like an intruder but rather someone who’s feeding the fastpaced lifestyle of messengers? That’s the thing. I feel like we have always - and hopefully still do – taken the view that we don’t know everything and that our customers lead the product. We understood us just as someone who tries to collate the people’s needs into a bag. And cause we always worked from a standpoint from were we weren’t saying ‘Check this out, we make the best thing ever’, but rather a ‘What do you think of this?’ and ‘How could we make it better?’ That’s how we always were and people always responded well to that, cause they felt involved in the whole process. You started off with a keen eye on bicycle renegades & their everyday demands. Do your products attract other groups of people with similar lifestyles, who embrace the outdoors? Oh yes, definitely. I think by sticking with just biking, it would all become a bit narrow. So over the last couple of years, we’ve been trying to expand slowly but surely into being more of an outdoor lifestyle brand. We make products that really cater for cycling, but we’ve developed our line of backpacks and they’re getting used all over the world now and are probably our most popular product. People seem to embrace that we love the outdoors and the idea of adventure. Of course, that can happen in any different ways. It doesn’t need to be on a bicycle.

As a brand that takes pride in its heritage, advertising as ‘Made in Glasgow’, there seems to be a certain ethic philosophy behind Trakke. That began really when we started out. I’m not from this industry and I felt, the best way for me to keep control over the end product, was if I’d see the product being made. Then, I realized that the UK was once a real powerhouse for producing high quality things, before losing all of that. It’s something really worth keeping and I started focusing in making Trakke products in the UK. It’s part of our ethos I feel very passionate about. Honestly, it’s a really difficult thing to do: I would never claim that every material that we use in our bags is made in the UK, but certainly a lot of the main materials are. Wax cotton is custom made in Dundee, Steel buckles are made in Wales, and our webbing is made in Derbyshire. The great thing about the fact that a lot of industry has died out here is that those who are left really know their craft. They’ve been around for the last 150 years, invented a product and pioneered the development of it. On the downside, there’s just some products that are incredibly hard to find in the UK, but that’s fine and we have to source them elsewhere. It’s mostly about trying to keep it in the UK as much as possible. In terms of materials and style, where do your aesthetic inspirations come from? The materials were kind of influenced by lots of different elements. First off, we used to make our products using recycled materials, but we stopped doing that cause it was quit hard to guarantee the quality of a material that you’d found and had a life beforehand. We started with the waxed cotton product, as it ages incredibly well. Over 20 years, it looks better and better and better, which stops you from throwing it away. And let’s face it, we live in Glasgow and it rains all the time.

So our materials are chosen for durability, longevity and obviously their functionality as well. Apart from that, I’ve always been a fan of vintage mountaineering equipment from the late 60s and 70s. I’d like to say that we make a product that has a traditional element to it with a firmly modern twist. As a small company you seem to have carefully scouted a team of people with different skills and abilities to live the dream. The type of work we do, machining, has kind of died out in a big wave in the UK, so it’s quite tough to find people with a lot of skill to do it. We’ve been really lucky finding people, who have a really good attention to detail and that’s what I’m essentially all about. I would rather have a product that takes longer to make and is well finished than the other way around.

What are your expectations for the rest of 2014? Well, where to begin? Seriously, we’re in the thick of it at the moment. Certainly over the past months we noticed that we’ve been gathering a bit of momentum and more people have started finding out about us. We’ve got a lot of exciting new stuff coming up later in the year, so we’re launching a few new tweeds, new colours and new patterns. We’re changing our branding, a bit more upto-date, a wee more clean. Apart from that, we’ve got an amazing collaboration coming up with a Glasgow-based print company to produce printed waxed cotton pieces. I just want to make the best product that I can make right now.

S A L A A M A L A I KU M TAGHA ZOUT, MOROCCO PHOTOGR APHY BY NINA HOOGSTR A ATE WORDS BY NINA HOOGSTR A ATE

Morocco is a very distinctive place - diverse and welcoming, but also very archaic. Whilst flying over the vast, barren landscapes and descending into Agadir, I thought a week would be enough to explore the notorious world-class surf as well as my mind, both spiritually and mentally. After experiencing what the daily routine would consist of at Villa Mandala, based in Aourir, I knew 7 days wouldn’t be enough of this lifestyle bursting with yoga, sun, salty water and incredible Moroccan cuisine. Every day began with 2 hours of invigorating yoga, taught in the shala on the roof, gazing out to the sea and feeling the warmth of the rising sun embracing you as you practiced. This was followed by a royally amazing breakfast, of which you’d have to eat not only because it was so tasty, also because of the long, exuberant day ahead.

After partially digesting cereal, fresh fruit and countless amounts of French toast, we’d all pile into the van – readily crammed with packed lunches, wetsuits, water and a giant stack of unstable surfboards, which would shift as we swerved across the coastal roads. With the speakers blaring out anything from Ben Howard to Hendrix, we’d drive anywhere between half an hour and 2 hours, searching for the best spot to park up, suit up and catch a few waves. The culture of surfing is well established in Morocco’s roots, with many waveenthusiasts travelling all over the world to chase North African breaks. Throughout my visit the size of the waves were fairly average – which played to my advantage – later in the year is when they are biggest. While there are a lot of organizations that dedicate themselves to teaching tourists how to surf, fortunately the locals still prevail over tourists.

Taghazout, a coastal town near Agadir is the epiphany of a surfers’ town: surf shops and bars piling with surfboards and dudes sitting barefoot in shorts, smoking and making the “hang loose” gesture to almost every passerby. These guys live to breathe in salty air and catch waves; a lot of them make money through surf instruction, which means they wake up well before sunrise, surf, teach, eat, surf and sleep – and repeat.

the beach, and several minutes later being approached with “hey lady, where you from?” This is a really intriguing fragment of Moroccan - and Muslim - society and also something that I think stops many women from travelling there on their own. In all fairness, while some men can be assertively provocative and objectifying, a lot of it can be classed as harmless flirting and it is important to take it all with a pinch of salt and a smile.

It was an awesome atmosphere to be a part of, largely because everyone’s mantra to life is to have a good time. But while this part of Morocco’s culture is extremely relaxed and nonchalant, the predominant religion of the country remains Islam. This is one of the main things I found so interesting throughout my stay; it is quite plain to see men still have authority over women. And while I have no personal vendetta against any form of religion, I did feel slightly uncomfortable being pried on when taking off my wetsuit on

Although most of the days were spent embracing the strong current and making full use of our arm muscles, it was nice to have the opportunity to visit a traditional souk to barter for some jewellery, as well as experience the beauty of Paradise Valley.

Located in between vast mountains among swathes of palm trees, you would have no idea it even existed unless someone told you. After a 2-hour drive filled with a Marley based playlist and hilly, patchy barren panoramas, we embarked upon a 30-minute walk through lakes, past stunningly shaped boulders and rocks, obscure restaurants and shacks with broken ‘Hotel’ signs, only to arrive in what could only be described as the perfect secluded paradise. Hot, bothered and amazed, I observed how many people were aware of this astonishing Elysium. A range of teenage boys were cheering each other on to jump off sketchy parts of cliffs into the river, whilst families had set up camp, sitting below layers of cloth protecting them from the glaring sun, tagine bubbling away. Apart from us, there was another group of clumsy tourists who were determined to climb through a slippery, moss-covered stream only to have their place in the shade: and failing on several occasions. This did not only cause giggling from us - a group of older women sitting comfortably in fold out chairs, with a well-structured sun-blocking creation of branches and fabric, were sniggering away too. Throughout my stay, I learnt a lot about Moroccan culture, met a great bunch of interesting people, caught some decent waves and ate some fantastic food. I’ve also established that a life in salt water is a life worth living.

“YOU’D BE SURPRISED HOW MANY PEOPLE WANT TO BRING MUFF HOME WITH THEM.”

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