Dave Edmunds and Rockpile - Trouble Boys

1999 Surfing: Malibu Longboard Contest '99

Stone Steps Surf Contest, circa 1969

The Summer of Alex Knost 2008 By Surfline

Part 1: The Wedge
I get a call on my cell from Alex Knost and his friend Tanner Prairie, who are in Alex's windowless, silver '70s Dodge van directly in front of me on Newport Boulevard.
I've been following them around the upper Balboa Peninsula trying to find parking, but because it's noon on a Saturday in July, an open space is about as rare as an "Obama '08" yard placard in this bastion of coastal conservatism.

The parking situation has prompted a change of plans. "We don't have any fins, but let's go bodysurf The Wedge," Tanner laughs. He turns around in the passenger's seat with a boyish smile on his face and waves to me. He is 18, shirtless, and sporting a blond mustache. He reminds me of the likeable-but-naive kid in the movies who goes off to war and never returns, prompting a touching eulogy scene in a graveyard featuring the hunky, anti-authoritarian leading man (presumably Paul Newman) who dodged the draft. Tanner is Alex's good friend, a prominent member of the Newport longboarding community, and a budding shaper with an exclusive clientele, the most prominent of which is sitting next to him.

If you're a surf media consumer, you know Alex. In recent years he's become the poster boy for the modern longboard movement. "He has such amazing board control," said Thomas Campbell, the painter turned surf cinematographer who can list amongst his many credits first exposing Alex's talent to the larger surf community in his 2004 film Sprout. "He's chosen to ride narrower-nosed longboards, and they force you to ride a wave exactly how it wants to be ridden. You can't noseride on a narrow-nose longboard when it's not time to noseride, because it just won't do it. You turn, trim, and boogie through sections when you need to, and then when it's time to noseride, you noseride. So it's refreshing to watch him, because he's surfing the wave how it should be surfed."

This explains Alex's highly unpredictable style, which comes across as a blend of the classic postures and maneuvers of '60s log-riding with the exaggerated recovery techniques of '70s experimental surfing and the attack-minded nature of modern shortboarding. But his surfing is only half the equation that's led to his recent notoriety.

Campbell makes an attempt at qualifying the other, less tangible half. "In relation to other surfers and entertainers, he...has...IT," Campbell says, slowing his speech to a crawl on the last three words for emphasis. "He has that unquantifiable thing. He has a crazy amount of confidence and focus, and he has star power. It's that simple. He's an amazing surfer, a great performer with his band, and a confident artist. Whether it's taking pictures, painting pictures, or designing clothes, he's just not afraid."

That "it" has made him a mainstay in the advertising campaign of RVCA Clothing, which has differentiated itself from other brands by teaming up with artists from the surf and skateboard communities on everything from print advertising to clothing design to gallery shows to an art magazine called ANP Quarterly. A sort of surf-ghetto Renaissance man, Alex's approach has fit well into RVCA's Artist Network Program, and with a major brand behind him, it's no wonder he's drawing attention.

At The Wedge, we park and change into our bodysurfing regalia. Alex looks like a beat poet. At 23, he is taller than average, and he sports a hipster haircut and a tan so true one suspects foul play. He smiles easily and contagiously, though his default facial expression seems to be that of someone listening with purpose to a conversation he's eavesdropping on: head slightly cocked, eyes narrowed, focus shifting. His wrists are ringed with distressed wristbands from parties and shows long over.

We head down to the beach, where the surf is powerful and head high. Unlike most experienced surfers--who tend to act contemplative at the sight of serious-ish waves--Alex and Tanner's approach is reminiscent of the pool-invasion scene from Caddyshack. They run screaming for the surf.

Though Alex has long since forsaken competitive surfing, he's the opposite of a beach bum. His band, The Japanese Motors, just finished recording their first full-length album for Vice Records, and with an October release date for the 12-song, self-titled CD, they have been playing any gig they're offered in preparation for upcoming tours. This means lots of late nights amongst the drunken.

Alex also wrote and starred in a 30-minute film called Beach Blanket Burnout: The Hangover of a Pop Culture, which was released in late July of this year on DVD. In the film, he plays the protagonist, surfer Buster Olson, who travels to Australia to escape a bad relationship...I think. Abroad, he reunites with a beautiful foreigner, drinks coffee, modifies his pants, surfs a bit, and has a nervous breakdown (in that order). Shot completely in black and white, subtitled (though it's in English), and with artsy framing and pans in the style of French Nouvelle Vague film master Jean-Luc Godard, stating that it's not a traditional surf movie is an understatement of biblical proportions. Alex's performance in the film is so personal, one can't help but guess that it's bound to draw criticism from an audience conditioned to expect exaggerated color, high action, and choreographed music--a fact not lost on Tyler Manson, who did the filming and editing.

"He does whatever feels [is] natural, whatever's fun," said Manson in a 2007 episode of his popular VBS.TV show, "Hi Shredability." "He doesn't give a shit. When people don't understand it, they immediately want to criticize him, and because it's different, he definitely gets a lot of grief for it."

But getting grief isn't a new sensation for Alex, who has, wittingly or not, positioned himself as the primary target for haters of longboarding, tight jeans, homemade haircuts, fashion-forward people, Mollusk Surf Shop, surfers who start bands, artists, stuff that's new and unfamiliar, or any combination thereof. This is the downside of putting yourself out there in a world of square-shoulderedness.

On the beach, an overweight man in his early 50s with a flattop haircut is watching Alex and Tanner take turns using each other as a human bodyboard. He turns to a similarly seal-like youth 30 or so years his junior and flatly says, "Look at those faggots."

Part 2: 34th Street

Three days after our Wedge session I get a call from Alex, who invites me to go surfing at 34th Street in Newport Beach. I arrive late, and with the south swell still pumping and drawing a big summertime crowd, I'm stressing I might not find him. But all worry instantly evaporates seconds after I arrive on the beach, where Alex's presence in the lineup is undeniable.

Thomas was right: There's an unpredictable, freeform quality to Alex's surfing, but when you see it live, there's no question he knows what he's trying to achieve. If Joel Tudor's noseriding is comparable to the sound that comes out of a 500-year-old Stradivarius in the hands of a master, Alex's full-body attack is the swan song of a 1984 Fender Stratocaster about to be beaten against a Marshall stack. In a good way. In the way that makes girls lust and makes guys buy Stratocasters and start bands. Constantly on the brink of losing control, he never does.

After surfing, we go for lunch at Alta Coffee in Newport's Lido Village, where hip shops and live-work lofts have replaced the boat-repair and sail-making industries that thrived there for decades. All the attractive 20-something waitresses call Alex by his first name and touch him lightly on the shoulder when they take his order or quickly visit.

He was born in the spring of 1985 and raised in the same Costa Mesa neighborhood as his dad, Jim, a lifelong local at Blackies, the beachbreak north of the Newport Pier known for year-round longboardable surf. Jim introduced his son to surfing around age 10, steering him heavily to the form of a generation past.

"Most kids my age were watching Taylor Steele's movies," Alex laughs, "but I was watching the 1960s stuff my dad was into--Barefoot Adventure, Five Summer Stories, Water-Logged--all the old Bud and Bruce Brown movies of the '60s, and the MacGillivray Freeman films... That was the shit I was watching. That or 'Happy Days.'"

Alex was a natural, though he never felt simpatico with his peer group. "Surfers were the jocks of my generation," he laments. "In high school I hung out with them a little bit, but I didn't really like their agenda, which was basically to elevate themselves by being rude to girls, being rude to Mexican kids, being rude to homosexual kids, being rude to dirtbags--the kind of stuff that's usually done by the football team."

Unable to connect with other surfers his age, he looked to the older crew of Blackies locals for guidance. "Because I was hanging out with some radical guys who were older than me, I grew up pretty fast," Alex remembers. "Some of them were skaters and musicians. They weren't really too interested in nine-to-five jobs or going to college, so at a young age I saw some things that most kids my age probably didn't see--girls, drugs, partying. But I learned a shitload through it all by listening to the conversations those types of people had, and seeing what their outlook was on the general public. I looked up to them because they were older, and they would tell me all these things that would make so much sense. They would say, 'Don't worry about high school. That shit doesn't mean shit.'"

"In relation to other surfers and entertainers, he...has...IT,"

- Thomas Campbell

Alex took advantage of opportunities to expand his horizons, traveling widely before he even had a driver's license. Surfing Noosa in tropical Queensland, Australia, at 16, he met Thomas Campbell, a longboarding aficionado, who invited him to Ceylon in the Indian Ocean. The resulting 16 mm footage made its way into Campbell's tectonic Sprout, which instantly elevated Alex into the upper echelon of what at the time was being referred to as the "retro" movement, placing him in the company of icons such as Rob Machado, Dave Rastovich, Joel Tudor, and Skip Frye, who were rediscovering the surfboards of the '60s and '70s.

Suddenly appreciated for the things his critics had previously used as kindling, Alex has embraced the creative opportunities being handed to him. You only have to spend a couple of hours in his company to understand the entrepreneurial drive and motivation under the rock 'n' roll haircut.

"He's motivated as f--k!" says Campbell, who helped produce The Japanese Motors' forthcoming album. "He's at the zenith of motivation right now. This is it for him. This is when the energy in his body and his mental capacity are connecting, and he's really able to focus. And he's doing it. It's fun to be able to work with people like that."

We finish lunch and start to think about our next moves. Alex has a busy week coming up, full of gigs, movie premieres, obligations to RVCA, and summer south swells at San Onofre. I ask one last time about his critics and if he sees them multiplying or disappearing as he experiences success, and his answer is as unorthodox coming from the mouth of a pro surfer as is the arc of his career. "I gravitate to people who inspire me. People with ideas," Alex says. "Someone once told me that ignorant minds discuss people, average minds discuss places, and genius minds discuss ideas."

That quote's most commonly attributed to Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, who modernized the United States Navy after World War II and was known for his ability to organize and lead vast numbers of people toward the future. On the surface, the Admiral and Alex don't have much in common, though I did run into another Rickover quote that could apply just as easily to a 20-something surfer in Costa Mesa as it could to the future of war: "Good ideas are not adopted automatically. They must be driven into practice with courageous patience."

http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/how-a-newport-beach-longboarder-is-redefining-the-postmodern-surfer-the-summer-of-alex-knost_20383/ 

Última Entrevista Johnny Cash 2003 (Subtitulada Al Español) Last Interview

Johnny Cash Hurt Sub En Espaol HQ

vintage longboarding "the 1966 world surfing contest"

vintage longboarding miki dora at malibu

RIGHT ON THE NOSE Joel Tudor

RIGHT ON THE NOSE Joel Tudor on why competitive longboarding is in danger of being irrelevant

July 20, 2009 35,592 visits | 145 comments

Longboarding isn't dead, it's just gone underground. Or so says nine-time US Open champ and arguably the best surfer to ever set foot on a log, Joel Tudor.   But after a few years of conscientious objection from longboard contests, Tudor is back with his interpretation of logging at its finest. Warning: if you've ever tried to hit the lip on a longboard, this may hurt your feelings.

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SURFLINE: HAS COMPETITIVE LONGBOARDING LOST ITS WAY? JOEL TUDOR: I don't know if it's lost its way. It's more that the competitive aspect has become pretty one-sided. The bad emulation of shortboarding gives us no identity. A lot of guys are just trying to do what the shortboarders are doing, which is kind of ridiculous. HOW HAS THAT DAMAGED LONGBOARDING'S IMAGE? Well, it's kind of gotten to the point where no one really cares. All of the stuff that's cool in longboarding -- and where the bar's really being raised with the kids and the next generation -- is kind of underground now. It's hard for those really good kids to want to compete now. They have very little support, barely any sponsors... "It's what separates us from everyone else: the principle of riding the front half of the board. That's where the real level of difficulty comes in." -- Joel Tudor WHAT IS THE "COOL STUFF" IN LONGBOARDING? It's what separates us from everyone else: the principle of riding the front half of the board. That's where the real level of difficulty comes in. It's everything. ARE YOU SEEING PRO LONGBOARDERS COMPLETELY ABANDONING THAT NOSERIDING APPROACH? Completely abandoning? I think the guy who won the US Open last year was doing aerials. I'm not going to name names, but guys were trying to do Christ airs on nine-foot longboards in one-foot Huntington. You do the math. IS THAT WHAT'S KEPT YOU AWAY FROM THE EVENT? I've just been bored with it. I mean, I've been there the last couple years. But I think it was last year when I was standing there, watching one of the longboard heats. The waves were super bad and guys were trying to do airs. I looked over at the guy running the contest, looked over at my friend who was first alternate and said, "You can have it. Take my name off." BUT WHAT ABOUT GROWING UP? SURELY YOU TRIED "RIPPING" ON A LONGBOARD. Sure, when I was a kid, I tried all that. Hit the lip and shit. But I was just going through the paces of learning how to surf. That's what you do. But when I was 18 or 19, coming into my own, that was when I really started riding logs full time. You know, the 25-pound, 9'8" single fins with no leash. And from 1995 on, that was what I used to beat everybody in contests. The way those logs forced me to surf was just so different from everyone else that it kicked their asses. It was easy. Like a formula. I knew exactly what I had to do to get the score every time. Because those guys were all lip bashers. It was, like, "Guys, you're making it too easy for me to look different." SO, TELL US ABOUT THE CORONA NOSERIDING INVITATIONAL AT HUNTINGTON. I'm just so stoked they're finally allowing us to show longboarding what it really can be. Noseriding events exist -- they have one at Noosa every year, and I think it was Tom Morey who put together the first one back in 1965 in Ventura. But there's a whole crew of kids who've been given the right lineage to draw from, and they do some amazing stuff. They might not be able to do Christ airs, but they'll do stuff on the nose that'll blow your mind. And so that's what this event is about. I handpicked these guys because they're the best in the world at riding the nose. I invited Herbie Fletcher as well because he's such a legend and still rips. This event revolves around the principle we're all dedicated to: maximum tip time using the most subtle, graceful movements possible. For us, to win a big noseriding event is like winning the Pipe Masters. It's the end all be all. Cause, man, to do it right, it's f--king hard. WHO'S THE FAVORITE GOING INTO IT? Well, some of the technical stuff these guys are doing, with switchstance noseriding, is really gnarly. CJ Nelson's raised the bar pretty high in that category. Christian Wach is incredible. Harrison Roach from Australia is amazing. But what's cool is that no matter how far we push it, a lot of what we're doing is on par with what David Nuuhiwa did 40 years ago. You put him back then in a heat today, and he'd give any one of us a run for our money. Hopefully he'll be there to watch. WHO'S SHAPING YOUR LOG THIS YEAR? That's another cool thing about this event -- it forces people to really think about design and what will work best. Stu Kenson will be making my board, and it's pretty much what I always ride. More than anything, I'm just stoked that good longboarding will have its day. It's not about me; I've had my day. It's more about the next kid who will hopefully have the same opportunities. *** The Corona Noseriding Invitational will be held next weekend during the Hurley US Open at Huntington Beach Pier. A field of eight invited noseriding specialists will be competing for $10,000 in prize money and major bragging rights. The field includes: 1. Joel Tudor 2. CJ Nelson 3. Christian Wach 4. Tyler Warren 5. Alex Knost 6. Kevin Connelly 7. Harrison Roach 8. Herbie Fletcher Two semis will be held Saturday at 2:30 p.m. and the final will be on Sunday at 11:15 a.m. Come check it out or watch it live on www.usopenofsurfing.com or www.hurley.com. MORE SURF NEWS SURFLINE HOME PAGE  http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/right-on-the-nose-joel-tudor-on-why-competitive-longboarding-is-in-danger-of-being-irrelevant_28801/

Toes on the Nose with Mickey Muñoz

Noseriding tips from one of the all time greats!

By Bob Howard

If you're talking great noseriding, and how it's done, there's no way you can leave Mickey Muñoz out of the equation. Muñoz had the following to say when noseriding.com sat down with him at his home in California.
How can someone learn to noseride better?
To learn to noseride, repetition is probably the number one thing you need. Lots of time in the water. Obviously equipment has a lot to do with it, but it is so individualized and particular to a given break that it is difficult to make general statements about equipment. But there are some specific things you can do. Surf with people who are better noseriders than you are, and glean as much information as you can from them. Discuss the break and how they noseride it. Find out what they like about the board they ride there. Try their board and lots of others, and see what works best for you. Just get out there and noseride. Practice, over and over, the same maneuver until you learn that it is just plain impossible -- or until you figure it out. Repetition--it's getting out and trying. If you haven't fallen off or wiped out you haven't learned anything. Mistakes are part of learning. Repetition allows you to practice at a maneuver till you master it.
What kind of wave works best?
Beach breaks are harder to noseride than point breaks like Malibu where the waves set up and just keep going around a nice point. That is the ideal for a sustained noseride. You want a point break that has a nice constant wave of moderate speed--this is probably the easiest and best to noseride.
San Onofre is a difficult place to noseride because the waves have more slope to the face and are peaky. A wave with a more vertical face is better to ride. Doheny is a much easier place to noseride than San O.
What is noseriding?
Noseriding means different things to different people, and it is all noseriding. A cheater-five is noseriding to some people. Riding the upper third of the board is noseriding to others. I happen to have come from the old school and was brought up on Malibu. So I'm pretty spoiled when it comes to noseriding, as opposed to a peaky beach break where everything happens quickly and is over so fast. To me, Hanging Ten is noseriding and the stance is more parallel than perpendicular to the board. The advantage in being more parallel is you can control the rail to rail maneuvering to gain or lose altitude on the wave and then you can steer the board around and under sections and sustain a longer noseride, generally. You want to use a fore and aft stance, if you are in the tube. Then you can crouch down and duck through sections or accelerate and decelerate with more stability. Most things in surfing are a compromise. So you compromise or adjust your stance to best fit the situation and conditions.
Is knowing how to cross-step crucial to learning how to ride the nose?
No. But if you have learned to cross step you probably have learned to noseride by that time. If you are cross stepping, you are probably already sure of position and ability. Cross stepping commits you to an almost imbalanced situation where you are almost toying with disaster. That is part of the adrenaline rush, though--even though it is such a seemingly relaxed maneuver. It has advantages in that you can advance and retreat quicker than shuffling back and fourth Sure, shuffling is OK. You get up there, and that's what counts.. But there are times when shuffling your feet is the only thing that works, like in a more difficult and radical wave.
What about equipment?
Some boards are easier to noseride than others. Like, a single fin board is easier to noseride than a tri-fin board. Now, if you are Joel Tudor, or one of the other genius noseriders, you can noseride anything. Try all kinds. We only limit ourselves by limited thinking. But a single fin is easier to noseride than a tri-fin, which is kind of trackey. They don't allow you to steer the board from the forward part as easily. And, you want to use enough fin to keep the board in the wave. So the tail is not washing out.
What about concaves?
I have seen situations where concave noses worked best and others where a convex nose worked the best. Again, talk to good noseriders where you surf as I mentioned.
What else is really important?
The other number one thing is learning how to read the waves. When is it optimum to attempt noseriding? Again repetition is the key, and after a while reading the waves becomes second nature. You don't have to think. Picking a wave in advance, and picking a place and a time in the wave, all become more natural and easier. Malibu makes noseriding about as easy as you're going to get it. But what if you can't get to Malibu--or can't stand the crowds there? Reading the waves is looking for a part of the wave that is like Malibu, with a more vertical face, and then using that part to noseride.
You also need velocity to develop lift on the nose. Velocity and length of the wave balanced together allows longer, sustained noseriding. You want to be where the velocity of the wave matches the velocity of the board to get enough lift for noseriding.
Why noseride in the first place?
Noseriding is all about what gets you off or turns you on.
You repeatedly try for that situation and that feeling! Hanging Ten is thrilling. With toes over the end of the board--and there's nothing in front of you?!!!--it heightens the feeling of speed. I love that feeling! I think it's a wonderful feeling. And, so is doing a cheater-five inside of a barrel.
Even getting half way to the nose can be fun. It's all about what does it for you. Is it a turn on? And the closer you get, the bigger the feeling. You want more. It's like a drug. You want more of it.
What else really helps?
You have to learn how to visualize it happening, in your own mind. And of course it takes time in the water. Again, there is no substitute for time in the water. Time in the water gives you conditioning for your body, mind and reflexes. By mind I mean knowledge of when to try, and when not to try, a noseride. You can go to the gym, use a balance board, watch videos, but there is nothing quite as satisfying as pulling some warm sand up under your chin and just lying there on the beach watching a David Nuuhiwa or a Joel Tudor noseride. Visualize yourself doing those same maneuvers. See it in your mind. Then go out there and try to emulate them! And again, talking with people who are better than you really helps. Surf with people who are better noseriders
It all gets back to water time. The more time you can spend, and the closer you can get to the nose, the better you will get at doing it.

A Brief Biography of Mickey Muñoz
     -- First stand-up surfing 1947.
     -- Glued fin to paddleboard 1948.
     -- Started surfing Malibu in winter of 1950, on an 8'10 balsa, a Joe Quigg personal board he           bought.
     -- AAU competitive swimmer.
     -- Surfed Malibu through the 50s and into early 60s.
     -- One of a handful of surfers to ride Waimea Bay the first time in 1957.
     -- Winner of first Tom Morey Noseriding Contest, 1965. (Mike Hynson placed second and           Skip Frye placed third.)
     -- Designer/shaper noseriding boards for Hobie.
      -- Contributor to Hobie Cat sailboat design.
     -- Sailboat designer.
 

http://www.noseriding.com/pages/munozQA.htm

Nameless Direction by Jack Coleman - Sea Movies

Stealers Wheel - Stuck In The Middle With You (Subtitulado)