Back in 1996, I was tooling around in Sarajevo pretending to be a real journalist. I’d been to Bosnia a few times over the years, before, during and after the war and had gotten a bit obsessed with the area. It always struck me that in places like this, where the tectonic plates of history jar up against on another, you get to see a life lived intensely, where the bread-and-butter realities of things are given a whiff of edge. I might have been dancing around indulging myself in other people’s misery, but it didn’t feel like that at the time. Anyway, I was surfing only very sporadically at the time, having headed back to London after a few years travelling and surfing, and was certainly pretty far removed from ‘the surf industry’. Through a strange nexus of co-incidences, I ended up showing Takuji Masuda and Art Brewer around the darker environs of Bosnia with Jefferson Hack, the editor of Dazed & Confused, the magazine for which I was posing as a ‘features editor’. Things had cooled down and there had been an uneasy peace imposed by NATO bombers waiting on runways, but the place was in battle scarred pieces. It was a mad juxtaposition of time, place and sensibility. Takuji, media svengali, champion Japanese Longboarder and friend to seemingly every surf-oriented creative this side of George Greenough, was getting mad stares from the Blue Bereted troops, dragging his huge bag around on his skateboard and wearing old school vans and white ankle socks. The noble Art Brewer, man mountain and surfing lensmen of true renown, laboured under an intensely Californian style camera pack and an expression of bewilderment at the madness he was witnessing around him. Anyway, we spent a couple of weeks gathering stories, and the trip culminated in a pretty historic U2 gig in the heart of Sarajevo. Bono had laryngitis but they played anyway, and the stadium turned into a surreal Karaoke event, the protagonists of which were a few thousand camo clad international peace keepers and another few thousand Sarajevo teens who could barely remember a time when thre wasn’t the rhythmic thwump of shelling to get them to sleep, and that the only sound systems worth listening to were the air raid sirens. Anyway, Takuji, Art and I stayed in touch and we’ve worked together a couple of times since. The video here is the trailer for their forthcoming biopic on the legend that was Bunker Spreckels (you might have seen the book published by Taschen last year). See our humble offering for sections on Bunker Spreckels and a superb folio of Art Brewer’s work.

A hairy bloke from East London talks about surfing. A lot.

It was such a good night down at the Sandsifter, replete with much great music from Nick Radford’s highly skilled band of musicians, that it’s knocked us all here in The September Shack out of wack. That and a collective bout of projectile vomiting has kept our house in lock-down mode, and we’re only just surfacing from the nastiest of bugs. But: thanks to all of you who made it down to the far west of Cornwall last Thursday night, and thanks to the nice people at Transworld and the Sandsifter for providing a free flowing beertap. Perched right on the Godrevy end of Gwithian Towans, it’s a two minute stroll to check the surf in the morning, and the guvnor of the establishment digs happy campers. One of our esteemed guests was renowned snapper Al Mackinnon (he of the cojones of pure steel, winner of last year’s XXL big wave photography award for a behemothic beast at Dungeons in South Africa). Al has the coolest surf wagon in the carpark, and is the only British photographer ever to Snag a cover story in the esteemed organ that is Steve Pezman’s The Surfer’s Journal. Respect out to Al, who provided some suitable big wave loveliness for the book. Also representing well down at Godrevy was Alex Rowse, one half of the A-Side crew, who camped it up beautifully on his Pignar Breadbasket ( a strange, wide-hipped, narrow nosed, D-finned, creation inspired by the Dale Velzy Pigs of the late fifties). Whilst I flumoxed around in the soup almost too hungover to breathe, Al went through a breathtaking array of vogueish manouevres with admirable flow. Nick Radford, meanwhile was rocking his late sixties concrete cruiser ( an incredibly heavy but aesthetically pleasing lump of foam and heavy Volan fibreglass sculpted from the hands of legendary English board builders Bilbo. Apparently Nick restored the beauty after discovering it being used as the base of a rubbish shoot. Talk about gems in the junk. If you couldn’t make it but would like to pick up a signed copy of the book and press the flesh with the crew, we’ll be back at the Sandsifter on July 4 for the Happening, a ripe old bit of beautiful surf colonialism from California. Loads of good stuff going on. Stay tuned for more daily posts now we’ve recovered from the lurgy.

Witness the flow of what a sub six foot, quad finned fish can do when ridden by someone who can bridge the gaps between lateral flow and vertical dynamics.
Tyler Warren on a sub six foot Manuel Caro-shaped four-finned fish. Poetry.

…but David rode the nose so elegently and apparently effortlessly, he must have been craving the edge that acid would give.

And just a couple years earlier, upstanding young chaps like David Nuuhiwa were taking off fin first for kicks.

The blogosphere is growing like quatermass, but the medium of ink and paper resounds heavily with moment. There’s something about seeing, feeling and smelling a piece of collaborative editorial craft that makes all the anticipation worthwhile. Even so, more often than not, when something I’ve been working on comes back from press after months of planning, months of writing and months of anticipation, I’m enveloped by a sense of anti-climax. I can honestly say though, that the Book of Surfing is looking, feeling and smelling even better than I expected it to. Dig the uncoated stock and the vege inks. Groove on the typographic flourishes and the superb pictures. This is must-have for fetishists of print, type and image everywhere, even if your interest in the subject matter is only passing. As your author and fellow lover of printed matter, I advise you to purchase a copy quick-smart.

But, I would say that, wouldn’t I? Don’t take my word for it. Props go out to Ross & Alex @ A-side Studio who designed the book, and for the good people at Transworld for producing the goods exactly to spec. Looking forward to wetting the baby’s head Thursday.

In today’s crowded surfing world, it may be getting more and more difficult to experience the ideal – high-quality, uncrowded waves against an unspoilt backdrop. We all want an unsullied, intimate relationship with the sea’s fathomless force – that is what is ultimately at the root of surfing. But fear not. It’s possible to achieve despite surfing’s explosion: you just have to be more creative and energetic than the previous surfing generations. Another way to saturate yourself in the idyll of times and places past is to delve into the universe Albe Falzon created in his film from 1972, Morning of the Earth. Nearly forty years on, the lovingly saturated frames of Albe’s film remain part of the foundation myth of soul surfing. The movie was shot between the North Coast of New South Wales, Bali and Hawaii, and featured the likes of Michael Peterson, Nat Young, Terry Fitzgerald and Steven Clooney living an intensely beautiful dream of country living and empty waves. The film proves its possible to feel nostalgia for a time you never experienced. In this sequence, the great Nat Young demonstrates his signature blend of aggression and flow. Notice the way he uses the full length of the fat single finned shortboard that was typical of the era to explore every available part of the wave. Check the book for superb pictures of Nat from John Witzig, as well as incredible shots from Albe’s archive of gold from the Morning of the Earth period. More on Albe to follow.

Andrew Kidman is possessed of one of the most influential surfing aesthetics of the last couple of decades. Through his writing, his music and his films he has represented beautifully the elemental complexities of a surfer’s life. His 1996 release Litmus with a subtle hand changed the way surfers looked at riding waves. Around that time the surf media largely reflected a thrash-and-burn subcult of arrogant youth which was more or less dreamed up by clothing companies – and was far from representative of the mighty morphin’ surf diaspora. By focusing on a broader range of riders than punk-ass punters – and those surfers riding a broad range of boards – he helped spark an open-minded revolution that continues to this day. Last year Andrew released Ether, a culmination of twenty years of righteous work in print and on DVD – the perfect way in to the Kidman way of seeing. This clip, meanwhile, is the opening sequence of Glass Love from 2004 - certainly one of the most sensitive portrayals of the way of the surfer to ever grace a digital versatile disc. See the blogroll for a link to Andrew’s site, and the book for a detailed profile of the man and his work.

It’s Sunday morning here and I can’t go for a surf because the babies are demanding attention. No better way to stay stoked than to watch (and listen) to this again. It’s a clip from Longer Jbrother’s film from a couple of years ago. It is in my humble opinion one of the most beautiful longboard sequences on film. The film maker performed a subtle stroke of genius by choosing Errol Garner’s Misty as the soundtrack to JT’s offbeat flow. Joel, meanwhile is an alchemist. As demonstrated here he can turn any wave he rides, even little sectiony peelers like this, into pure gold. That’s the beauty of classical style as exemplified by Mr Tudor. Under his feet functional flow can assume the status of high culture. Dig. Eight to the bar. Check the book for a profile of Joel Tudor, perhaps the greatest of surfing’s classicists.