Kelp Issue 2 by KelpMagazine

Volume 1 / Number 2

kelp

build

AsymMetrical reshape

JOEL TUDOR

ime can be a strange thing.

It’s been said that time waits for no man. And while we could fill this entire intro with famous quotes on Father Time, we’ll save you from an endless rant about the effects of age or a drawn-out discussion on how we are simply dust in the wind. But we will say this: We’re all getting older, even our heroes. Joel Tudor is no exception. As the cover story for issue two, writer Jonty Nash explores the world of Tudor — one of surfing’s true innovators and free spirits — who recently turned 36 and is now viewing his world a bit differently than he did earlier in life. With photos from Dana

the “Sophomore Slump,” expectations get set based on the first work while the time to produce number two is condensed to a fraction of the original, sometimes with questionable results. Hopefully your expectations will be met with issue two. We had some great feedback and suggestions after issue one and worked to incorporate them into this edition.

Morris, the piece offers a glimpse into Tudor’s focus on raising a family, running a

And while we’re on the subject, we all know life moves pretty fast these days. Work,

business and having a clear view of the people and experiences who helped him get to

deadlines, meetings, flights and other obligations all take their toll and eat up chunks

where he is today.

of everyday life. At Kelp, we’re no different, running ragged most days and looking

At age 20, Dane Matsubara is a bit younger than Tudor, but time is undoubtedly on his mind as well. A third-generation hot rod builder, Dane is the grandson of dragracing legend Sush Matsubara and has spent his young life wrenching on engines and crafting rusted pieces of forgotten metal into sculpture on four wheels. Kelp’s Editor Joshua Frank sat down with Dane and discussed his latest creation and how the

back at the past year and wondering where the time went. But, may we suggest not to forget taking a bit of time for yourself? Surfing, skating, reading, spending time with family—whatever makes you happy. A little bit goes a long way in keeping yourself sane in a world that is decidedly not. Because after all, you’ll never be younger than you are at this moment in time.

memory of his grandfather is never far away. Also not to be missed is Cornwall Sessions by British photographer and artist Karl Mackie. His beautiful shots of Cornwall, England, illustrate his homeland’s waves and vistas with text by Mackie’s fellow countrywoman Kaya Leadsford. For music lovers, Joshua chips in his second piece this issue with a profile of Farmer Dave of the Los Angeles-based band Beachwood Sparks. Photos were taken by Long Beach, California-

Tom Brecke

based Ronnie Mendoza. And considering this is our second issue of Kelp, time was a significant factor for us also. Like many muscians, authors, artists, etc. that have a lifetime to create their first significant work, the clock ticks a lot faster for number two. Also known as

Bill Livingston

JOEL TUDOR

A surfer’s quest for perfect balance

by Jonty Nash

photos by Dana Morris

ome say time is elastic, like a rubber band that stretches and contracts based on surroundings and experiences, a concept not fully able to be explained simply as grains of sand falling through a narrow neck of glass. Others have had a more objective approach to its concept — Sir Isaac Newton’s realist belief in absolute time, for example, leads us to believe that time is as real as the objects it contains. No matter what definition you adhere to, one universal truth is that as we live our lives, year after year, we feel its effects.

Yet signs of a party do exist. Dishevelled friends appeared from different doorways, eyes rubbed back into life and yawns drawing in the power of the fresh day echo of a party, it comes to be, that occurred two evenings prior. The most notable addition to this new picture was a wild party beast I had previously missed. The animal in question, roaming about his house, personifying the raucous nature of Joel’s free spiritedness and penchant for a good time was Carl. Carl stalked the room, placing his paws down carefully as he looked with the same awe his guest’s returned in kind. Lifting his nose in the air he sucked in the new smells to ascertain how cautious or vicious he needed to be in order to survive. Yes this was a wild, free animal, like Joel himself, but Carl was also an eight-week-old miniature daschund. If Carl is a measure of where Joel’s life is now, then so was the surfboard that he had ready to try out that day. Best described as a 4’4” airline beater, it mirrored his open minded, quirky, progressive nature. Without even making contact with wax or feeling the cold, salty embrace of the ocean, the board was already peppered with dings — dings that suggestively matched in size and shape to that of Judah’s tiny feet, which were, at the time, stomping around the kitchen. Joel’s life is the perfect example for Newtonian Realists who define time as a dimension in which events occur in sequence. Everything that transpires in his life now is perfectly balanced on top of the events and relationships that happened to him before and it all began with his parents.

“

The day is like any other early summer morning in Southern California; June gloom has swallowed up the coast from Long Beach to San Diego and traffic along Interstate 5 stops and starts en route to the Del Mar Heights home of longboard legend Joel Tudor. Reflecting on the timeline of Joel’s life, from turning professional at 14, winning his first ASP event at 15, the people, places and things that he has experienced from such a young age, to earning his black belt in Jui Jitsu, and also fathering two sons. Yesterday was Joel’s birthday.

The only movie we owned was Endless Summer and it was a copy we stole from a video place.

“Thirty-six years old yesterday, year of the dragon,” Joel exuberantly announces. “Year of the dragon baby!”

“My dad started surfing in 1960 with his brother but I can’t say they taught me how to surf because my dad was a horrible coach, he would drag us to the shore break and that was it,” he says honestly. “It was like ‘see you later.’ But he was a really good surfer — that was the difference. Everyone says their dad is good, but my dad really was and that had a huge influence on me, when your dad can surf. I was able to spot talent from a really young age through gauging his level of how he rode waves. It wasn’t like you could watch surf movies. The only movie we owned was Endless Summer and it was a copy we stole from a video place.”

In his mid-30s, Joel is now a family man with two boys. In the place of beer bottles from a previous night’s celebration were stuffed animals and children’s toys strewn about. Instead of cigarette butts and the smell of stale booze were half-eaten children’s breakfasts, and the only clothes draped over the furniture belonged, not to exhibitionists, but to Judah, his two-year-old son, who ran across the house with unmatched energy in a state of undress.

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”

Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

“Herbie [Fletcher] said some pretty funny shit to me before. I remember one time I was blowing something off and Herbie was like, ‘you know what man, when you’re hot you’re hot and when you’re not … no one fucking cares! Get off you’re ass and do it.’ His stuff is always so upfront and honest. I think what Herbie told me was the most profound thing. What he was saying was don’t ever get too big for your britches — don’t ever think you’re too fucking cool. Because at some point you won’t be and nobody’s going to care, so seize your opportunity, know that your moments there and don’t be a bitch.” Joel’s other passion is Jiu Jitsu and his new studio, Surfight Jiu-Jitsu. Perfectly located less than a mile from the breaks of Cardiff, it too exhibits how everything in his life is intertwined as the logo of the studio depicts a 100-year-old image of two men wrestling, updated with Joel’s addition of board shorts to their beefy legs. Work had just finished on the studio and a visibly excited Joel immediately began to make the most of the space, pacing and side stepping across the floor as if he was warming up to battle an opponent. It was as if the padded mats had some invisible force over Joel that caused him to stretch, flip, roll and wrestle across the room until he found his finishing position propped up against the wall. As he lifted his chin and rested his head against the padded wall we slide back down the timeline of his life to when he first started fighting. Thirty years on from that time to today, be it the previous celebrations or just the effects of being a year older, the day had a sluggish start as the truck was loaded and set straight for Lowers. The weather followed suit in its apathetic effort to break down the marine layer, likewise the waves gave a lacklustre performance that morning — even the seagulls had a glazed look in their eyes. Yet on this slow day, Joel’s love for the ocean, and for surfing, is apparent. The attitude he exudes is something nurtured at a young age by impressionable people.

“I used to fight this plumber guy named Bobby and it was brutal,” Joel explains. “I always thought I’d go right through this guy but it was never like that. The thing I’ve learned from martial arts is don’t underestimate anybody. Never look at one person and think it’s going to be an easy fight.”

“When I met Donald [Takayama], I was just figuring out who girls were. Pretty rad,” Joel says with a sly grin. “And just to be around him ... He was such a fucking rad Hawaiian beach boy who would give away everything to everybody. And not because you rode for him. He was like, ‘You need a board, here have mine.’ And that’s pretty rare. He was pounding beers and shaping boards beach boy style.” Understandable how Joel developed his mellow disposition, which is evident as he waxed his new board, complete with toddler dings. In humorous disdain for the advancement of new technology that echoed both his advancement in years and his specific energy levels of the day, he picked up his phone and asked, “Siri, what time is high tide?” Looking up with a laugh he also claimed, “Siri’s going to tell me if Kelly’s going to win next year!” Having a sentient conversation with a plastic brick seems light years away from a skinny white kid in Hawaii. “Just being in Hawaii as a kid I really got the deal with tough love. It was at a time when being a white kid in Hawaii on a longboard was hard,” Joel says of his youth. “There were no team houses man. The acai trucks didn’t drop off, know what I mean? I was having to roll joints to get waves at pipe.” This unique rite of surf passage means that you don’t get any pretensions. Joel’s worth doesn’t seem to be in the things he has done, it’s in the man he is today, founded on those people who shaped him like the boards he rides today. “You take little bits of everyone you’re around and make your own shit out of it. I got the giving shit from Donald because he’s the biggest giver I’ve ever experienced. And tough love from Nat [Young]. The stuff I got from Nat was more surf specific and watching him and studying him. He was the best even though he was like 46. He was so fucking good, amazing good!” With the water at Lowers populated by kids preparing for Nationals the pecking order was little adhered to. Something that wasn’t too unfamiliar to a young Joel. “I was surfing Malibu when I was 12, and I dropped in on Skip Engblom, and he rode up behind me and scared me, and I freaked out. He shouted, ‘hey do you skateboard?’ I said ‘yeah I skateboard.’ And he said, ‘well I own SMA, when we go in give me your address and I’ll send you a box.’ And he started sponsoring me at 12 and gave me a whole life outside surfing that was pretty privileged,” says Joel. “If I hadn’t dropped in on him that would have never happened, so sometimes burning people is a good thing!” Nobody in the water that morning at Lowers is better placed to give these budding, sticker-clad groms advice on how to handle their future. But what is the one piece of advice, what valuable insight given to him would he pass along to those kids in the water?

Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

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“My contribution to my sons is that I’m here, I’m constantly around. That speaks volumes. I take Tosh surfing as much as he wants to go. I don’t force him. He goes a lot, like 30 times a year, which for a seven year old is a lot,” he says as matter of fact. “I laugh at the parents who are forcing their kids to go [surfing]. He [Tosh] tells me to stop coaching. He says ‘stop embarrassing me’— he gets it from his mom. Tosh is learning the piano, he really wants to play music ... I try and pass stuff on to my kids, but I’m a student of that. You never stop learning as a parent. My mom and dad laugh at me now.”

You have to give. You have to “stoke people out the same way people stoked me out. ”

Every experience Joel has been through, everything he was taught, every mistake he made, his present life situation, the relationships he invests in, the work he is continuing to do, where will they lead him? What will people be saying or writing about Joel Tudor in years to come?

With a flash transition we found ourselves back at his home, the scene now somewhat different than earlier in the day. Carl was fast asleep, as was Tosh, his seven-year-old son, as well as Judah. The day had been a microcosm of Joel’s life — from his surfing and Jiu Jitsu, to his family. And it’s now, having slid forwards and backwards through the day’s time, he had the clarity to tie all the threads of his father, brother, Donald, Nat, his kids and Carl together to impart his life philosophy.

“I couldn’t give two shits about a legacy, I just want to continue surfing,” he says with his usual economy of words. “Luckily I chose longboarding, thank God. I have no idea where I would be now if I had chosen a shortboard. I’m stoked. There were some hard times. I thought I had made the wrong choice but at this point, at 36 years old, I’m pretty stoked that I grabbed the boat. Fuck you airlines for all the oversized baggage fees.”

“You have to give. You have to stoke people out the same way people stoked me out. Someone did that for me at a time when I’m sure it wasn’t working out for him monetarily but he didn’t give a fuck because he thought what I was doing was cool.” And about his family specifically, his ethos was simple.

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Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

by Joshua Frank

fter nearly three years of collecting parts and spending long nights in the garage wrenching away, Dane Matsubara’s hard work finally paid off. The boom of his 1985 Chevy truck motor, which was dropped in a 1931 Ford Model A, echoes through a quaint Los Alamitos neighborhood, turning curious heads and causing passer-bys to smile and others to scorn as he barrels down the street in a cloud of smoldering rubber. Dane, at a mere 20 years old, is already a quintessential West Coast motor head. The pores of his hands are caked in day’s old grease — proof he hasn’t spent much time away from his newly operational Fuel Altered roadster. Classic photos of vintage hot rods and So Cal auto shops adorn his bedroom walls. Stacks of car magazines are piled on his floor, so too are boxes of old racing photos. Of course, a toolbox is also always within reach. After a mere 30 minutes of car talk, there is little question this stuff is not at all a hobby for Dane — it is his life’s passion. Truth is, it’s in his blood. Dane’s late grandfather is a legendary street racer around these parts. Sush Matsubara, who was sent off to an internment camp for Japanese Americans during World War II, was a decorated dragster that climbed the racing ranks in the mid-1950s through the 1960s. By the late ‘60s, as Funny Cars replaced front-engine loaded dragsters, Mastsubara and his partner Joe Mondello were not only innovative, they were also breaking speed records, claiming the first Fuel Altered wedge-head Chevy engine to top 200 mph. “I love to go to swap meets where there’s old bins of racing photos. When I find one of my grandpa’s cars I always grab it,” says Dane, who’s studying industrial design at Cal State Long Beach and spends his summer’s off toiling away in the shop. “The Fuel Altered roasters the old man drove inspired me to build one myself.” It’s this rich history that has fueled Dane’s love for building quirky automobiles, and it helped that a few willing friends lent a hand along the way. His dad also pitched in when he needed the help. “I did what I could given my limited school budget,” says Dane. “I picked up the Ford body in San Bernardino, found other parts all over the place. The suspension was the trickiest of all and the chassis welding was a real challenge. But now it’s ready for the road.” This unique and wholly original hot rod is as much a automobile as it is a work of art. The final product is a force to be reckoned with. If Dane’s grandpa were still alive today he would most certainly be proud. He may even want to take his grandson’s car out for a little test race.

Photo below Left to right: Chet Husted, Joe Mondello, Gary Matsubara (kid looking down), and Sush Matsubara

AsymMetrical reshape by Bill Livingston

aving awakened from the nightmare of registering the Kelp Build Triumph (see Issue 1), we’re on to new projects around the Kelp office. As luck would have it, we discovered an old beater board in the garage of our buddy Big Dan. It’s a 1980sera dumpster special, minus it’s clothing and fin. They don’t call Dan’s garage the” harbor of abandoned dream boards” for nothing.

Not one to shy away from a challenge (and a potential cheap surf vehicle), we load up this beauty and take it to the one shaper we know that will have no problem letting us destroy his shaping bay with 30-year-old foam and remnants of fiberglass and wood: Randy Gibbs of Gibbs Surfboards (and conveniently, Kelp’s art director extraordinaire). When not experimenting with the acid-induced “short board” shapes of the late 60s and early 70s Thru sters, Randy’s the one we can always count on to figure out any board’s resuscitated identity. So, out of the Subaru comes the blank and its tail is promptly smacked into the doorframe of the shaping bay. The reincarnation begins.

Kelp Build #2: Asymmetrical Church Runner I always wanted to build an asymmetrical-designed board, especially for one of my favorite right handers (a wave that shall remain unnamed), so with half of this board’s tail missing, opportunity is staring me in the face. Now committed to the outline, the surgery commences by mowing off 30 years of crusty foam and glass imbedded from previous dings, plus a rotten stringer turned to saw dust by salt water. After a new laid-in rocker and a combination of four or five of Randy’s templates later, we have an outline. The absence of usable foam on portions of the rail leads us to dig through the cut-off bin for some new foam to glue into the template, and from the discolored foam outline of the once-present logo, we determine it’s a Hobie. We think it might be one the shapes of recently passed legend Terry Martin, so we vow to create something that will put this piece of foam back into the line up— hopefully in the mix where often we’d see Terry sitting on the beach watching his latest protégé or just enjoying a day surfside. Since the fin box is no longer needed (as we are using an asymmetrical fin set up), it comes out and with it, an inch of foam stuck to its sides. Back to the cut-off bin to splice in a new tail piece … Not ones for function over form, Randy and I (two people who should never be left alone with anything we can re-work endlessly, as evidenced by our Kelp design meetings, which are definitely not for the faint hearted) send the blank back to Big Dan’s wood shop so he can add new wood stringers that mimic the new asymmetrical outline, as if they had been there from the beginning. Sharing in our madness, Dan adds two tail stringers of varying lengths— not just any stringers, but old-growth Redwood from his private reserve, intricately cut on angles because “a blunt cut just ain’t cool dude.”

[continued page 17]

Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

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Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

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ornwall, the Southwest corner of England, is a peninsula that extends like a toe into the

moody North Atlantic. An ancient landscape, with its rocky cliffs and bays that were once the pirate and smugglers haunts of old, is now home to a burgeoning surf community. Cornwall has a long history of seafaring, and surf culture as we know it began to take root here in the 60s. The inclement climate means quiet coves and uncrowded peaks can be found from winter through to spring. The surf population swells as the water warms, and hurricane season is eagerly awaited. All eyes turn to the charts in the hope that storms will be fired, sling shot style from the Gulf of Mexico, skirt the East coast of the United States and then sit spinning in the mid-Atlantic. With limited employment and a rural economy dependant on tourism, prospects can be stark for those that make a home here. Carving out a way of life to support his young family is where artist and photographer Karl Mackie has taken matters into his own hands. Influenced by the renaissance in analogue photography, Karlâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work showcases his experiments with surf craft and classic British seaside imagery.

A product of his environment, Karlâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s story has been as shaped by the waves of the Atlantic as the Cornish coastline. It shows that self-sufficiency and creativity can be achieved through a love of the ocean without having to sacrifice your stoke.

by Kaya Leadsford

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Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

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SLAPPY SUNDAY NYC

Story and photos by SIMON J. HEATH

omewhere around 30, maybe a little earlier, maybe a little later … we grow up.

You might get down to surf two or three times a season— if you’re lucky. The battery on the bike runs flat … you don’t notice for months. The skateboard goes from sitting near the front door to hiding in the garage. These are not good signs. If you’re not careful you’ll find yourself paying $400 a month to go the gym and “burn off some flab.” Dangerous times indeed. A lot of good stuff might happen at this time, as well; kids, wife, a bit of extra money in the pocket. But if you’re not centered it can all become a stressful blur. You’ve got to stay centered.

Slappy Sunday started back in 2010 in San Diego. When Bert Custodio, his buddy Aly and few other SD locals like pro-skaters Kien Lieu and Sal Barbier, started hanging out on a Sunday afternoon doing that most democratic of all skate tricks, the Slappy — a trick where you skate up a curb and grind the top of it with your trucks. A few other buddies started coming along and pretty soon it was a happening scene. Most guys were in their 30s and 40s and had been through their share of skate-related busted ankles and knees and Slappy Sunday was a way for them to re-connect with skating and their friends in a way that wasn’t going to see them write-off the next six weeks of work with a broken leg sustained while trying to bomb a 20-stair handrail. In early 2012 Slappy Sunday hit NYC with Alex Corporan and John Grigley leading the charge at a quiet little curb in the West Village and pretty soon a ton of old skate legends were turning up and the sessions started to explode at Astor Place. Now, on any given Sunday in NYC you can catch names like Barker Barrett, Gino Iannucci and young rippers like Pat Hoblin hanging out, chatting, skating and chilling. The vibe is the same as a late afternoon surf — a few good buddies, hanging out at the back of the line-up, there’s enough waves for everyone to take their turn with the sun setting on another classic session. In fact, Slappies are the most “surf-like” of skate tricks. Just like a Floater, you aim the board for the right spot, stay light on your feet and if the gods are with you, you’re on top of it all before dropping back down. You don’t ollie up, it’s just a flick of the foot and before you know it your Indys are grinding along on pure New York steel — yep, in New York the curbs are steel, so the grind is a perfect metal-on-metal run. Slappies were invented, or so folklore tells us, by John Lucero. A pro skater from the 1980s with an original punk style and a front-side rock so gnarly and tweaked it had to be seen to be believed. Lucero now runs Black Label skateboards — Go YouTube “John Lucero of Black Label skating the parking lot” to check him out, still doing slappies. Fortunately for New York, Lucero’s good skating buddy from back in the early 80s is pro skater John Grigley, a Slappy Sunday NYC founder. So in the Slappy Sunday church of skating, there is an uninterrupted line of holy succession from the originators to the contemporary.

In the middle of Manhattan — Astor Place to be exact, a group of guys stay centered by battling the traffic, tourists and cops every Sunday, skating an old steel curb with their buddies. The average age is 40. Some times a few groms join in with the latest flip tricks, other times AJ and a couple of the Brooklyn guys ride over on their Harleys and skate the hell out of the curb with not an ollie to be seen. This is Slappy Sunday.

Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

If you’re in New York on a Sunday afternoon around 3 p.m., swing by Astor Place. Bring your board and hit up the curb with a few lazy slappies. The wives and kids (hello Edina and Nico) are always welcome and they usually cheer everyone on. It’s a great time to get centered, wash away the stress of the week and enjoy life for a few hours. See ya there and check out the Slappy Sunday video at www.kelpmag.com.

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So in the Slappy Sunday church of skating, there is an uninterrupted line of holy succession from the originator to the contemporary.

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Two Bits

[from The Poetâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Secret]

Once lustered bits, of tidal bliss, caressed from crag, a tender kiss, pearl divers then, adrift, aquatic, amid forests, kelp, and sways hypnotic. Emerged, two bits, to each revealed, Convergent, chambers, anew, unsealed, yet time tumbled on, and bits still churn, in doubt, forlorn, and seas will turn. The tempest, undaunted, alas spun free, And drowned, drowned tides, alas, drowned me. Two bits, in memory, now lost to time, Once pearls, recalled, forever shine. â&#x20AC;&#x201C;Kenneth Zak

Beachwood Sparks’ Farmer Dave Goes for Stoke

by Joshua Frank

photo by Jim Goodrich

n a balmy evening in early May, a medley of folks congregated outside the intimate Mollusk Surf Shop on historic Pacific Avenue in Venice. It was not an uncommon sight for this eccentric slice of wave riding aficionados — Mollusk is the uncontested hub of the art-surf scene in Los Angeles.

Surrounded by handcrafted surfboards, retro wetsuits and buckets of ice-cold beer, Farmer Dave Scher eagerly unwrapped miles of cords, tested amps and graciously embraced friends who were lucky enough to participate in the night’s festivities. Nobody knew exactly who would perform, except for the evening’s maestro Farmer Dave, but all were there in eager anticipation: Dave Rawlings, Jenny Lewis, Blake Mills, Jonathan Rice and Cass McCombs all plugged in, among lesser known, but equally talented musicians like Joel Morales and Danielle Haim. It was a miniature Venice music fest shrunk into three short hours. Ask any of the artists who performed that night and they will assure you that if it weren’t for the spirit of Farmer Dave, who played at least four sets in a row with a different ensemble (I lost count after five beers and a belly full of food-truck tacos), they wouldn’t be jamming in a boutique surf shop on a random Thursday. Most of these talents sell out larger venues across the country on a regular basis, but this is L.A. after all, so anything is possible. Farmer Dave’s aloha shirt and grin are infectious, so too is his enigma — no doubt enhanced by his habitual surf sessions and his buddy Alan, a handsome cricket-eating Australian Bearded Dragon. A founding member of psychedelic folk band Beachwood Sparks, which released two renowned LPs and one EP in the early 2000s, Farmer Dave has also played as a touring keyboardist for NYC’s Interpol, peddle steel for Jenny Lewis and even sat in as a session musician for Elvis Costello. Now, Beachwood Sparks is back at it after a nearly 10-year hiatus with the new album Tarnished Gold. The album, produced by Thom Monahan, is made up of the classic Beachwood Sparks lineup: Chris Gunst on guitar and vocals, Brent Rademaker on bass and vocals, Aaron Sperske on drums and Farmer Dave on multiple instruments and vocals. Beachwood also had a little help from their friends, including Brent Knight and Darren Rademaker (The Tyde), Neal Casal (Ryan Adams and the Cardinals), Dan Horne on pedal steel, Blake Mills on guitar with Jen Cohen and Jimi Hey on drums. Folk pop artist Abigail Chapin also added vocals and L.A. musician Ariel Pink provided a bit of poetry. “We never broke up, but [the new album] just sort of reared its head, like a plant busting out of the ground after a long dormancy,” he explains as he strums his well-worn pedal steel in the living room of his hidden Venice bungalow. “While I was on the road with Interpol the other fellows played Sub Pop’s 20th anniversary. I think that gave them pause to think about completing another album. Later Jenny Lewis asked us to play some shows while I was touring with her and it was really cool. There is just a lot of great history with us all, something special in these jams.”

Farmer Dave has just returned from a surf trip down to Baja’s K-38 with a group of fellow beer and surf enthusiasts. “It was a wild time and the waves were really, really fun,” he says with a grin before taking a long sip of beer. “It was my first time down that way for surf and I will definitely go back, the food was just unreal!” Over the past decade Farmer Dave has become accustomed to being on the road. In fact, now is the first time in a long while that he’s been able to enjoy the slower pace of beach life. His move to Venice from the eastside of L.A., he admits, was probably the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

“The influence of Chad Marshall (of Brothers Marshall) and the Mollusk Shop has been a complete life changer for me, I haven’t been this happy since I was a teenager surfing.” But Chad isn’t Farmer Dave’s only surfing inspiration. “CJ Nelson used my song ‘The Sun Surrounds Me’ by Beachwood Sparks for his segment in Steve Cleveland’s film Another State of Mind,” he tells me of the legendary So Cal surfer. “I went down and visited him in Oceanside a few times, and he gave me one of his City Fog surfboards … that really got me back in the game.” Growing up in Long Beach, where he still has family and close friends, Farmer Dave learned to play multiple instruments “during the Sublime era of LBC” and caught waves just south in Seal Beach’s “stingray bay.” While he managed to escape the stingray wrath as a fleet-footed teen, he was not so lucky last March in Venice when he was unwittingly stung. “It was super painful, I really had no idea,” he laments while munching on his own brand of roasted habanero almonds, Farmer Dave’s Hot Nuts, which are sold around L.A., including a medicinal variety for the cannabis inclined. “The sting was like a needle shot right through my foot.” An older woman nearby saw Farmer Dave on his back, rolling around in anguish. Thinking he was in some sort of induced meditative state, she offered him a joint to relax before the lifeguards quickly shoed her off. Farmer Dave doesn’t just paddle his surfboard out in Venice, he also ventures up the coast to Malibu with the Marshall brothers and others — guys he met through his time at Mollusk. “I’ve been going up to Malibu a bit, getting into long boarding more, and these guys coach me. It’s just great fun.” Compared to the beach breaks of Venice and Orange County, however, Malibu’s three points are an entirely different world. “To me, Malibu is the Rome of surfing, it’s the style capital. I kind of don’t want to show up at Malibu until I have something to say,” Farmer Dave explains. “It’s almost like a Jazz musician with his horn, you just have to know what you’re doin’. Those guys (Brothers Marshall) really surf their butts off, they just kick ass. They’ve helped me find my stoke again.” While Malibu may be on his mind, Venice is where he will continue to hang his wetsuit for the indefinite future. One Thursday per month Farmer Dave curates Club Pacific, a music party that takes place in the recently rehabbed Del Monte Speakeasy, just down the street from Mollusk. Well-known and up-and-coming LA bands gladly lend their time to the festivities. Club Pacific, “the most fun you can have in public,” celebrated its one-year anniversary earlier this year. Farmer Dave’s love for the ocean has undoubtedly influenced the new sounds on Beachwood Sparks’ dreamy Tarnished Gold, which dropped in June, and is still on heavy rotation at offbeat stations around the country. The summer saw a short West Coast tour for the group, including a desert gig with Chris Robinson’s (Black Crows) new band at Pappy and Harriets in Pioneer Town near Joshua Tree. They also headlined the annual Buskerfest in downtown Long Beach. “Let’s tear down that breakwater!” Farmer Dave told the Long Beach crowd as they erupted in cheer. He was referring to the rock wall off the coast that currently block most swells from reaching land. “One day we’ll all be able to surf Long Beach!” Until then, we have Farmer Dave and the rest of Beachwood Sparks to send us into a warm reverie, where we can all visualize the perfect waves of our future. Photo: Clockwise from top, Farmer Dave Scher, Chris Gunst, Aaron Sperske, Brent Rademaker.

Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

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With the stringers in place and template cut, it’s time to decide on the bottom and bend over some rails. I opt to put “belly” in the bottom and pinch the rails 50/50. Having followed Kirk Putnam, Claus Jones and Steve Buckley in high school, you rode Liddles or you rode Liddles. I’m not complaining, as Malibu was the break of choice back then and life was good, but I find it funny now how “hulls” have made a comeback despite being ridden in waves they were never designed for.

Editorial note: The previous was the sole opinion of this writer and not that of Kelp the publication (but it’s still funny watching people ride them at beach breaks).

Volume One / Number 2

With everyone in agreement, and the board being built a right point runner, belly and pinched rails it is. It didn’t even come to blows.

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But there was one final debate forever floating in the bay throughout this whole build: to glass it ourselves or have someone who actually has the skills to really glass it. Knowing there’s even an outside chance it could be a Terry Martin shape, our decision is again unanimous: we’ll hand it over to Jack Sabala, of Night Train Surfboards, to lay on the new clothing and set the fins.

Publisher

Hopefully, he’ll finish this Kelp Build before we go to press so I can tell you how it turned out, but only time will tell. Reincarnation can’t be rushed.

CO-Publisher/Creative director

To be continued…

Tom Brecke / tom@kelpmag.com

Bill Livingston / bill@kelpmag.com

ART Director/Graphic Design

Randy Gibbs / randy@kelpmag.com

EDITOR

Joshua Frank / joshua@kelpmag.com

ADVERTISING

Tom Brecke / tom@kelpmag.com

Contributing ARTISTS

Dana Morris • Jerry Collamer • Karl Mackie Meredith Amburso • Simon J. Heath

Contributing Writers

Joshua Frank • Kaya Leadsford • Simon J. Heath Ronnie Mendoza • Elizabeth Jean • Kenneth Zak Jonty Nash • Scott Fabbro

Special Thanks

Marc Chiat • Roberto Maiocchi • Jimmie Hines Cliff White-Kjoss • Pat Fraley • Richard Allred Thom McElroy • Derrick Widmark • Jack Sabala Waterman’s Guild

Disclaimer: Although all the best efforts are made to avoid the same, we reserve the right to publish unintentional mistakes and/or factual errors which may occur on a monthly basis. No responsibility is assumed by the publishers for unsolicited materials/articles/ letters/advertising and all submissions will be treated as unconditionally assigned for publication and copyright and/or appropriate licensing purposes subject to Kelp’s right to edit and comment editorially. The views and opinions expressed in this periodical reflect the opinions of their respective authors and are not necessarily those of the publisher or the editoial team. Kelp reserves the right to accept or reject any advertising matter which may reflect negatively on the integrity of this periodical. Kelp is a registered trademark. No part of this periodical may be reproduced in any form [print or electronic] without prior written consent from the publisher.

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Surf. Aesthetic. Defined.

SEEING DICK DALE

o to Dick Dale’s website and you’ll see flaming Fenders alongside bandanna’d skulls with blinking eyes, and detailed write ups of his relationship with Leo Fender, of Fender guitars, as well as how he converted an MCI8 Greyhound Bus into an MCI9 model with “deep kelly forest green” carpeting. Photos of 50-something Dick with Sam, his pet Bengal Sumatran tiger, and a “special note” on the home page telling all private pilots how to Google the Dick Dale Skyranch Airport, clue you in to the fact that this “King of the Surf Guitar” is no ordinary guy. Dick Dale is a “legend.” Or so they say. So when he walked on stage at the dive-y North Star Bar in Philadelphia, it stalled me to see a grey-ponytailed 70-something man make his way cautiously up the three stairs to the platform stage just big enough to hold him, his bassist, and a moderately sized drum set to be played by the one he proudly announced after a drum solo midway through the second or third song as “Jimmy Dale, everybody!” They didn’t look all that much alike, but it was his son. My friends were in town from L.A.—musicians and artists — and I thought it might be fun to take them to see such a storied act as Dick Dale, an idea not lost on these big, big fans of California surf and sound. Excited, we waited, packed in among a couple hundred others for the show to start, the beer as warm as the bar was hot. When he came on stage, you could see he was a serious dude, only smiling sometimes, with an aged stature that you could tell had once been menacing. We watched as he shredded in his famously left-handed style on a right-handed guitar, strung upside down and backwards, with a tripledouble twist, all the while conjuring up sounds that took everyone back to the days of 60s beach parties and old surfing movies. Having grown up about 180 miles due west of Chicago and a million miles away from the California surf scene of any era, by the third song, even I felt like throwing on a bikini and catching a wave. Dick was an interesting cat to watch on stage, oddly dramatic in his monotone nature, and it didn’t take long for my mind to wander and wonder exactly what he must be thinking after all these years of touring … of music … of life. The things this guy must have seen, I thought to myself. The things he must have done. I couldn’t help but imagine all the beach parties he has headlined, the seaside fire pits by which he played— all the groupies who got laid.

AVENGE AGAINST THE LESSER MADE BOARD WITH A LABOR OF PARTICULAR CRAFTSMANSHIP; FOAMY FOREPLAY FOLLOWED BY ROCK-HARD LAMINATION. WITH UNIQUE AND CLASSY COLOR WORK LEANING TOWARD THE HEAVY SIDE, TIMELESS FOILS AND OUTLINES, NIGHT TRAIN SURFBOARDS ESCORT GREAT TIMES OUT IN THE WATER AND IS A STEP ABOVE THE COMPETITION OF THIRTY DOLLAR SHERRIES.

NIGHTTRAINSURFBOARDS.COM

by Elizabeth Jean

You could tell when he played that somewhere behind his deep set, stoic eyes was a mind on fire with memories of all these things, long gone but not quite out of reach, just close enough to serve as friendly fire for this man they called legend. At times, it felt like he was just playing his hits for a buck, following some agent’s marketing advice and taking advantage of the wannabe hipsters in the front three rows; but in other moments, you could see him come alive in a song, his body grooving, eyes tossed back, mind harkening back to God knows when, or where, but I imagine he had a lot of options. And when he’d stand aside and watch his son during his drum solos, it was hard to tell if he felt pride or jealousy seeing his youth reflected like that. The smile is the same. Near the end, right before playing his much-awaited crowd favorite “Miserlou” of Pulp Fiction fame, he pitched “a song that’s going to be on my new album,” prefaced with a comment about how he had been in some kind of air command unit himself, and that this was dedicated “to all the soldiers who are out there tonight so that we can be together in here.” The song was “Amazing Grace,” played as only Dick Dale could play it, and like him, as haunting as it was strong. Somewhere between “how sweet the sound” and the part that “saved a wretch like me,” I began to realize that what was legendary about Dick Dale wasn’t all the flaming guitars or the cool photos of him standing on some rocky cliff, guitar in hand, with wind blowing through his California hair. It wasn’t the exotic pets or the Johnny Cash embroidered black outfit he was wearing, or even the way he could make a guitar speak a different language than anyone else. What was truly legendary about Dick Dale was everything we don’t know about Dick Dale. What’s not on his website. All the stuff in his head, the secret things he’s done, the people he’s known, and the years of life he’s had that all flow round and round in his mind before flooding out through his fingers every night as he plays his guitar like a lifeline. That’s what makes the music. And that’s what makes the man. Legendary.

TOOLS OUT OF TIME by Scott Fabbro

he old man finds the tools at the Sunday swap-meet, lying in the July sun, spilled about from a rusty metal box.

The British Standard and Whitworth spanners seem oddly familiar to him. He picks one up, oblivious to the hot metal, and twists it in his hand. The seller tells the man $22 for everything. It’s more than he can afford on his stipend. He walks away, and loses himself among the brick-a-brack and baubles and serapes and baby clothes. He wanders the aisles, going nowhere, yet feeling he is heading somewhere. Arthritis cramps his hand and he tells his fingers to move despite the pain. His hands are still callused after all the years of wrangling motorcycle handlebars, ropes, cables, and wrenches. And now, a cane. A reminder of all the stunts gone bad. The moments of success captured on film – immortalized on the silver screen. The moments of failure carried within him — titanium pins, screws, and plates. The old man creaks along. Just lean forward and keep moving, he tells himself. If he’d known then what he knows now, he’d have treated his body better. Taken less chances. But then again, no. There is no glory in crashing with the brakes on. He is glad he took those chances, and he is content with the glory it brought. He drifts back to long days on the set, take after take, getting the gag just right. Then long damp nights wrenching on Triumphs, BSA’s, Nortons; broken and thrashed as he was. But the next morning, they were all up, and ready to do it all over again. An old bi-plane rumbles overhead, silhouetted in the haze, like a specter. It reminds him of days at an old airport, drinking beers and bench-racing with friends.

The meet spins and thrums around him. A small boy on a tricycle pedals by furiously, almost hitting the old man. The boy’s mother apologizes in Spanish; she says the squeaky antique is new to him. The man just laughs and says it’s okay. He feels alive. And he knows he must find the tools again. He searches the aisles. He fears they are gone, lost forever. The afternoon lingers and the metal in his body complains. He pushes on regardless. The boy rides by again and gives the man a broad smile. He motions for him to follow and waits patiently as he lurches behind. After a few rows the boy stops and points down. Spanners glint in the sun. He looks into the man’s eyes knowingly and slowly pedals away. The man stares at the shiny pile for a long time. He has used these wrenches before. He’s now certain of that. He spots a name scratched into the green paint of the ammunition can turned toolbox. But he doesn’t have his glasses and cannot make it out. The seller accepts his offer of $17, which will leave the man with $3 for macaroni and cheese later. The man puts the spanners carefully into the toolbox and takes it to his threadbare NoHo apartment. He places some of the wrenches in a second-hand china cabinet, full of trinkets and old motorcycle parts — his swap-meet treasures. He finds his glasses and reads the name scratched into the toolbox: S. McQueen. The lid falls closed. A wry smile crosses his face. The man pours a shot of whiskey and raises a silent toast to his long-gone friend.

Something is calling across the waves of time.

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