keels are so hot right now...

The third(?) rise of the keel fish is coming, mark my words!

They may have been the design that spearheaded the "ride everything" alternative shape revoloution in the early two thousands, turning plenty of thruster riding shortboarders onto designs with more volume and flow and coaxing longboarders onto something shorter, but the humble keel fish hasnt really been the board du jour in more recent times.

They flat out work though, in a wide range of surf, not just mushy junk waves ( the design was basically born in san diegan barrels) and ive long believed that with a log and a fish as a quiver you've got pretty much everything covered for everday waves.

Auralian Asher Pacey and his self shaped 5'4 along with Ryan Burch and Bryce Young in california have bumped the design back into the limelight. Burch's section (most of which is above) in Psychic Migrations from Volcom in particular shows the keel in bigger more powerful surf than it is often associated with. Burch rips.

Over here Gulfstream make an amazing keel fish. If you havent ridden one, its a design that deserves your attention, whether you're concerned with being "on trend" or not!

the way we were...

Sweet little clip from a sunny summers afternoon at my local from Pete Hill. Makes you realise that the logging standard here ain't bad for a surfing minnow like Devon. Even I managed to sneak a couple of waves in at the 0.50 - 1.12 mark!

I'd love to roll down to the beach in the sun right now but the recent storms have left it looking like a different place with cliff falls and the demolition of Jules's Beach hut Office. How the massive sand movement affects our high tide wave remains to be seen. We are all hoping the zippy left into the corner has survived!

tonic water

Cornish Tonic from Ruwac Productions on Vimeo.

Beautiful little clip of James and Rich filmed by Simon and Joel in Gwenvor, a beach thats always worth the rudge down the cliff even if your tired legs are cursing lugging a heavy glass job back up later on!

James just landed in California with his freshly stamped green card. It's gonna be great to see him continue to fly the flag in the epicentre of cool over the next couple of years.

inspirational

This is James, saunton local and a pretty inspirational surfer. He's just as surf stoked as any of the younger crew and probably logs more days in the water than many of them. I can only hope that i'm as active in 30 years time!

master and disciples

city of lights

 

There's something visceral about live music. There's a physicality that goes beyond what your ears can hear,  the beat pounding through your body, the energy in the room from the band and the shared experience.

This is city of lights, a young band from Leeds that i stumbled across on a night out in manchester. It wasn't really a night about seeing bands, we were just looking for entertainment in the downtime between two days of courses. We were blown away.

I've seen a lot of bands live, both local ones and big names and there is something special about some of them, an intangible x factor if you will. You can usually tell if they are going to be any good from the first few bars. There's a tightness to the sound and an energy between bandmates that crosses from the stage to the audience so readily that it doesnt matter if you've heard their songs before.

City of lights have it in spades and they are a band that you're going to notice cropping up on the radio soon - they already played the bbc introducing stage at reading and leeds festival. Their five track EP opens with the chiming guitar of "don't give up" sounding like funeral for a friend without the metal edge perhaps. From there it weaves it's magic through intelligent lyrics and melodic hooks and a sound all their own. They are really nice lads too and i hope they have a big future. Click the link,  buy an ep and support good new music that simon cowell has had nothing to do with!

after dinner speaking.......

I've known Joel for a long time, albeit as more of an acquaintance than a real friend. He's quiet and  humble but he's a talented surfer and backyard shaper. He's most definately a thinker, tinkering with his own ideas, sometimes outside the percieved norms.

The port glass is his take on a modified mini simmons kinda thing. I think you'll agree it works pretty good! The point break is a local gem, sadly it's not often as quiet as it is here anymore!

sock it to 'em boy

MITCH ABSHERE PUNKS & POETS from Stance on Vimeo.

I've always liked Mitch Abshere, both his style in and out of the water, and for his honesty.  I've never spoken to him although i know he's friends with people i know.

A long time ago i read a interview with him in the long defuct Longboard Magazine. Mitch was just on the up after a pretty deep dive through partying too hard to a DUI and a stint in jail. While i'm not religious at all, it's clear that discovering a faith really helped Mitch get his life back on track. While i'm sure Mitch has been a jerk to some one cant help but respect someone who has put his life back together like he has.

Since then seems like he's in a good place and his captain fin co stuff is always interesting. Cool shops too, kinda like the original revolver but in California.

It might be a little middle aged to get excited about socks (least it's not slippers) but Stnce make some comfy, hard wearing pairs in a massive selection of quirky styles. Worth treating your feet to!

Mitch Abshere -What We Ride from Moose Huerta on Vimeo.

you dirty rascal...

So the North wind has been howling and surfing the internet has been the closest i've got to any kind of surfing this week. I did get a couple of cool things through the post. It's always an exciting moment when a new Surfers Journal drops through the letterbox and if youve never read it, i'd heartily reccomend subscribing. It's not cheap but it is well worth it in my humble opinion!

I also got hold of a copy of Thomas Campbells "slide your brains out" I'm most definately a sucker for a nice coffee table book and i'm a fan of all of Tmoe's output whether still, movie or paint based so loving this was a sure thing. There are some great photo's all with Thomas lo-fi pulled back style, some you will have seen and some new ones, all captioned by Thomas with his characteristic wit. A good stormy day timewaster!

 I'm still in a snowy mood though so i thought i'd post this......

Back when i started snowboarding it was a much simpler more rudimentary affair. The kit was still very basic and it inhabited a space right at the fringes of snowsports, some resorts still banned the killer craze and middle class skiers still happily referred to riders as "gays on trays"... to your face.

Freestyle tricks were developing rapidly but a backside 360 with a grab was still considered tech enough to put into a video part and kickers were still small. In short, watching an early film, like the original TB films, it still seemed achievable to us, not too much of a stretch from what we could build and do. We felt part of things.

Today things are very different. Snowboarding is firmly in the mainstream (dare i say it freestyle skiing seems a bit cooler to the local kids in euro resorts?!) riders train like athletes and have sponsorship deals to match. Watching one of the more recent snow videos, like the Art of Flight for example, is jaw dropping. The balls and technical standard of the riding is awesome BUT it now seems so removed from most peoples frames of reference it's easy to lose interest or somehow not feel like your involved in the same passtime.

It's incredibly refreshing then to watch something like the short piece above with it's general absence of huge lines, kickers and technicality. It's far closer to our own experience of snowboarding fun, blasting around a resort chasing face shots, tree runs and piste side hits, grinning and whooping like fools in white out conditions. Most of it is shot at Mount Baker in Washington which gets ridiculous amounts of snow and is one of the few mountains i'd love to ride but have yet to get the chance to.

The film is made by two ex-pro snowboarders, Byan Fox and Scotty Wittlake. Scotty (with the broken front tooth!) is perhaps the embodiment of what snowboarding (& skateboarding) used to be, donating much of his sponsor related income to charity and walking away from a lucrative pro career at the height of his powers to find his love for riding again. Away rom the ever encroaching tendrils of the mainstream, corporate big business, ski companies and energy drink money.

 He worked as a fisherman in Alaska and a bike messenger in Portland to fund his simple lifestyle and ride without the pressure of cameras. His views are forthright and pretty punk (check his rant on the olympics) and you might not agree with him but he is still a great snowboarder and someone i always enjoyed watching.

Find out more about scotty here

it's always summer somewhere

The Waxhead - In the Bay from Andrew Gough on Vimeo.

Well we have some sunshine but the sea doesn't look anywhere near as inviting as this today. Not enough to tempt me anyway, so here's a little clip to go with your tea and biscuits while the fire flickers.......

Matty C. testing a McTavish involvement model. Looks like it goes great but i have a sneaking suspicion Chonno could make a door look good!

palindrome hunches

Neil Halstead has a new album out on November 5th called "Palindrome Hunches". Haunting, beautiful, melancholic and cementing his reputation as one of our finest singer songwriters. Really worth seeing him live if you can, he is superb!

On a seperate note, how annoying to have to wait for four failed courier attempts to find my house/ deliver something only to find it's smashed into 300 pieces when i finally get to open the box! grrrrrrr!

lest we forget

Tudor is rightfully venerated for being hugely influential in the second rise of traditional style longboarding but in current times it's easy to forget the contribution made by Robert "wingnut" weaver.

Back when Tudor was still all about pink wetsuits and tri fin longboards and Knost still thought his dad was the coolest surfer in the world, wingnut was cruising blackies on a single fin, taking his style cues from edwards and company. He did a huge amount to popularise riding longboards, particularly in a traditional style and not least by riding a log in everything the endless summe 2 shoot threw at him

It could in fact be argued that wingnut was one of the direct catalysts to tudor seeking out single fins and black wetsuits as the 90's wore on. Sure his personality and ceaseless self promotion grated with many as did his latterly association with surftech but he should still be remembered by todays loggers for his influence, despite not having the same "cool quotient" of others.

Oh and he still has one of the best drop knee cutbacks in the business!

the sun always shines on tv

Seems like i'm not allowed to embed the video i had lined up for this post. It's called anecdote by louis english and it's pretty cool, hopefully its still here. If not you'll have to make do with a suitably apocalyptic phone pic of Saunton, moments before another summer downpour!


showing my age somewhat with the title of this post eh?

Old but new footage of messrs Knost and Mell from the land where the sun never sleeps....

all hart

I don't know much about mountain biking, but i do know barely controlled lunacy when i see it and this is worth watching if only for the commentary!

Massive bike handling skill and big balls!

if only......

Stolen from Alex Swanson and the excellent ten piggies over blog. I could do with a few more sunny offshore waves and some warm water. Is it me or is the sea still cold this year?

smooth 'n' casual

2 Sessions x Scotty Stopnik from Jack Belli on Vimeo.

In a nutshell, this is why i love surfing in California. Sun, sunsets and glassy peelers, artfully recorded by Jack Belli who is a super talented photographer and runs a rad little blog here

swell times

Stolen from the guardian website (which i never frequent you understand!) a nice little piece that gives a flavour of surfing around here with little cheese and genuine respect for the subject. Worth wasting five minutes on.

life's a gas

What with the changeble weather and dodgy swell conditions i haven't managed to get wet over the last couple of weeks but i have finally got around to learning one of my favorite guitar intrumentals, "classical gas" written by mason williams.

It's a song thats been recorded by lots of different people over the years, Williams himself recorded several different versions. My memories are from childhood and my Grandfather giving my Dad a cassette copy of the shadow's version which we played to death in the car on the way to school. Listening back it sounds quite dated now and the version above is much truer to the original acoustic guitar version.

My dad is a pretty useful folk guitarist and i can remember him playing this when i first took my first tentative guitar steps under his tutelage. Hanging out with my parents a couple of weeks ago i spotted the music and brought a copy home. It's kept me occupied in the slow times at work this week and while i'm not posting myself playing it on youtube anytime soon, it's coming together!

So if you've got a minute or two, play the clip, marvel at this guy's technique and forget the rain outside

intersection....

Plenty of you will have come across the names Tommy Guerrero and Ray Barbee on the music credits of Thomas Campbells surf movies, fewer of you will have recognised their names as two of the most influential street skaters ever. I was listening to one of Tommy's albums the other day and it struck me that they are the point where most of my interests collide, surfing, guitar, skating, music...

The Video part above is from "Future Primitive" and it was the first section of  american skateboarding i ever saw, it opened my eyes to what skateboarding was about, not long after getting my first board, sometime in 1988 i think. (although the film is from much earlier) It's actually held to be one of the first catalysts that kick started street skating as a "thing" distinct from ramp skating which was the dominant force within skateboarding at the time and it was massively influential, not only to skaters. If you think about it, the way good snowboarders (like nico mueller for example) ride the mountain, using natural hits as they flow top to bottom, it connects in a straight line back to Tommy ruling the hills of San Francisco. TG was my first favorite skater.

Fast forward a year or two and Powell Peralta released their "public domain" video. In this age of readily available web content it's difficult to explain just how exciting waiting to see the new powell video was, they were almost the only company making films then and virtually the only chance to moving pictures of skateboarding! Not far into the film was the black and white "rubber boys " section set to a classic skate punk track and featuring a young ray barbee. watch it here. One of the coolest things about this section was the flatland tricks (no comply's etc) that didn't need classic american urban architecture for us to emulate. I actually snapped the tape in the badly copied video of this film i had from rewinding and watching it too many times. Barbee is also significant in being one of the first african american skaters to become widely known.

So neither TG or Ray Barbee surf but they do know Thomas Cambell, part of the "beautiful losers" art scene and who originally worked as a skate photographer before becoming widely known for his art and surf film making. Through releases on his galaxia label and his use of their music in his movies,  both have begun to become known for their music as much as their contribution to skating.

Of the two, it's probably Barbee's clean bright jazz influenced noodling that i come back to more often. His tone and melody just say sunlight and mellow sunny happy days to my ears, whatever greyness my eyes can see outside the window. There's a pretty good introduction to him here or watch the clip below for a good introduction to one man, a tele, a bassman and a looper pedal!

waxhead approved

 Friend of the waxhead and living australian rock a billy legend
Pat Capocci letting those fingers fly