We’re always interesting in what Thomas Campbell is doing. In this instance, he’s adding flavor to Josh Hall’s Skip Frye inspired “Le Sliviar” glider model surfboards.
[Link: Josh Hall Surfboards]
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Art
The OGs of electronic music Kraftwerk will be hitting the North American road in 2025. To promote the tour our favorite pro skateboarder Tony Hawk created a video. Check it and get your tickets now. This band won’t live forever. . . or maybe they will. They are the robots.
[Link: Kraftwerk Tour]
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Yes, occasionally it takes an outside view to show us how really great some of our own people are. Take Scott Hulet for example. We all know he is an amazing editor, writer, and all around proper surf journalist. Duh? And sure, he has a book out that collects some of his best writing about South of the border. But seeing it reviewed in an online literary journal makes it so much more meaningful. Doesn’t it?
Take for instance Florida man Dan Reiter’s review of Hulet’s Flow Violento on the literary site The Millions. Reiter says:
Over the past 25 years, the brightest and most consistent star in its constellation has been Scott Hulet. Equal parts T.S. Eliot, Hunter S. Thompson, and Jon Krakauer, Hulet stirs in wit, jazz-improvisational style, and a gift for aphorism (“Shoals are generally discovered by their victims”; “There’s something comforting about seeing a pirate at rest”) that has become manna to the waterman faithful. As both contributor and editor of the Journal, he has done perhaps more than anyone on the planet to elevate the corpus of surf writing.
Boom. How’s that? Pretty good company. Make you want to read it now? How about if Reiter calls Hulet the “patron saint of surf lit”? How about now? If you do, click here and space villain Jeff Bezos will send one directly to your door. And even if you don’t, at least click the link to read the rest of the review because boy, oh boy, does Dan Reiter love him some Hulet writing.
Ah, after all that we should probably point out that Reiter writes for The Surfer’s Journal (and Surfer and ESM at least once) so maybe. . . so maybe someone will write a glowing review of his book On A Rising Swell when it comes out in April 2025. Who knows?
[Link: The Millions]
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We all know the art Stacy Peralta has created on his skateboard, on video, and film, but now he’s creating paintings about skateboarding. In this documentary, Against The Current, he explains it all.
Stacy shares his various inspirations from childhood to present day, and the challenges and lessons learned while working to develop this new visual language in his iterations of these tools of joy from the past. . . The work also explores his temporal and obsessive relationship to the skateboard collection that intrinsically holds the memories of those ephemeral halcyon days. As well as the decay and degradation that entropy and time have on our prized possessions, and even ourselves.
Spend a couple minutes to watch it. Then, roll up the coast to Cambria, California and check out his art show at Cruise Control Contemporary gallery.
[Link: Against The Current]
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Last week, three-time world and four-time world cup halfpipe champion (and singing heiress impregnator) Scotty James released a book with Penguin Australia titled Mooki vs The Big Scary. Here’s how they pitch it:
Adventure has a new name, and it is MOOKi! MOOKi vs The Big Scary combines thrilling adventure with valuable life lessons, all wrapped in the imaginative world of Scotty James. . . MOOKi embodies the spirit of dreaming big and overcoming hurdles, inspired by Scotty’s own life. . . You will laugh out loud at the results of MOOKi’s bravado. . . This book is a page-turner for young readers, each page filled with excitement. . . Vivid and eye-catching illustrations bring MOOKi’s world to life from beginning to end.
Do we believe this? Not really. But if you’d like to check Mooki out yerself click the link.
PS: Yes, a great way to get over writer’s block is to hire another writer to write your books for you. Genius.
[Link: Amazon.com]
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Lucas Beaufort spent his downtime during covid putting together a big book of skateboard shops called Heart. We should all check it out, according to a story in Brooklyn Magazine by Colin Kirkland.
“You need a big heart to run a skate shop,” says Lucas Beaufort, a French visual artist, filmmaker and life-long skateboarder who turned his quarantine confinement into a years-long quest to document and celebrate the world’s most iconic skateboarding hubs. . . Across 428 pages, readers will find personal interviews and classic skate-mag photos, which help make the case that amidst an onslaught of digital retail and social media, skate shops remain an essential analog to harnessing the soul of skate communities worldwide.
For more on the book and an interview with Beaufort, click the link.
[Link: Brooklyn Magazine]
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We’ve said it before, but when it comes to doing contracts with artists, and designing products with them, it seems many brands find it’s easier to get deals done when the artist is dead. Roark seems to agree as they’ve launched a new collection of clothing featuring the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat, who sadly died at 27 (he’s in the club) from a heroin overdose on August 12, 1988.
“It’s beyond special to present this collection inspired by the art of Jean-Michel Basquiat and share it with Roark fans,” said Roark Founder Ryan Hitzel, “We explore the merger of rhythm and flow with his iconic symbolism, raw creativity and challenging of the status quo. We find the best version of ourselves in that state of mind, whether we’re surfing, running or adventuring through the world.”
Obviously the collection looks great. As it did when Billabong did the same thing in 2018. For a complete overview, please visit Roark’s website . . . which we’re assuming is on the Internet somewhere.
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The Berrics is reportedly moving. And in the process of returning their warehouse to its original warehouse condition they’ve chopped the park up into little pieces. Feel how you will about that. The oddest part is that (in association with ABD Collectables) they have encased signed pieces of Berrics concrete in plastic blocks and are selling them for $99. But there’s more!
Every pre-order will have the chance to get a free flight and hotel to BATB 14 Finals Night.
No joke. Want a Berrics paperweight? (Can’t imagine why you would). But if you do, please click the link and shop away. You never know who might have signed the piece you get. And maybe, just maybe these will be even bigger than NFTs one day!
[Link: ABD Collectables]
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Congrats and happy birthday to those stalwart Aussies hipsters who keep the action culture print dream alive with their parties, promotions, and pop-cultural sensibilities printed on actual paper and distributed the old fashioned way–by truck.
Twenty years is a long time to be at the wheel swerving this way that that to avoid the potholes most other print publications have fallen into on their profit driven roads to ruin. To celebrate the staff in Sydney threw a monster party and apparently it was rather large.
It was huge. We’re still hungover. Was it a dream? Thank you to all of our friends, staff, contributors, and fine people who work so closely with us now and throughout the last twenty to make Monster Children what it is that came out to celebrate. After all this time, it is you who keeps us in the game.
If you’re in NYC stop by Saturdays NYC on Crosby Street tonight (Wednesday, November 29, 2023) for the stateside version of the birthday party. Free everything will be provided apparently. For photo proof of all the Sydney festivities, please click the link.
[Link: Monster Children]
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A new exhibition titled Skateboard at the London Design Museum investigates the roll skateboarding has played in the world of youth culture, fashion design, and sports in general. Currated by Jonathan Olivares, the show is sponsored by Converse and will feature a book by Phaidon (Paul ‘The Professor’ Schmitt wrote the intro).
Skateboard examines the fundamentality of its namesake device. The show is an object study at its core; it tracks the backstory of the board across generations’ worth of iterations (one 2000’s deck features baroque squiggles called “money shapes” on its edge, for instance). Yet it also provides a crisp, clear flow of the world-building that has occurred around the apparatus. . . Over 100 chronologically advancing decks, their widely varied graphics, images sourced from over 40 photographers in multiple decades, and spin-off ephemera (such as zines and decals) illustrate this rise of skateboarding not only as an athletic discipline but also as an aspirational lifestyle. A 1960s-era Life cover, for example, shows a woman in neat white trousers riding against a big blue sky–while doing a handstand on her board, no less.
For more info on the show which opens October 20, 2023 (and how to visit if you’re in London town) please click the link.
[Link: Vogue]
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