Hickory Nines

The SB Band- Walk to Zamberk

Last year I spent a bit of time with the SB Band. After a summer of gigs they started to record an album that has now been released. In February the band arrived at Sawmills Studios in Cornwall.

Sawmills is a remote house on an estuary in Cornwall, and the only access is by boat at high tide, or a walk down the railway tracks. I arrived one morning to take some photos for the Album and had a great time listening to the recording and watching producer of the year Bruno Ellingham keep a really clean, warm sound in the studio. The band had a good dynamic going on, joking and enjoying each others company but really serious about the work they had to do.

I wandered around outside with the music echoing across the creek. I learned that part of the success of Reef’s ‘Mellow’ was the fact that a microphone was placed on the other side of the water. The bass speaker is outside in a shed, and those low tones throbbed through the winter trees.

I am pleased with the photos. The old sawmill is full of warm colours and a mellow vibe. Later that evening we stopped for dinner for a couple of hours and then the band went back into the studio until late. At about one in the morning I had a look around and noticed that everyone was having a great time- focussed on what they were doing, loving the creative process, and not wanting to stop making music.

The album is out now on itunes, and on CD and vinyl. It sounds really good- I have often been asked to describe the sound, and it has been really hard to explain it as a genre. It’s not rock, it’s not folk, it’s not country, it’s not blues, and it’s not country-soul. But it has parts of all of these in a modern, tight, rambling way. The SB Band comprises Amy Newton, Dominic Greensmith, Gary Stringer and Jack Bessant.  There is a fair amount of swapping of instruments throughout the album and live it can be quite hectic making sure guitars and leads are in the right places.

I took some footage too during the day, and thought I’d put it together for a track called ‘Walk to Žamberk’. Last June the band played a festival in the Czech Republic called ‘Jamrock’. After a late night in the festival bar we walked back to the town of Žamberk in the early rays of a warm central european morning. Not wanting the night to end we joined in with a crowd enjoying good beer in a bar on the town square. It felt damn good sitting in the sunshine.

 

VanWesting

Unmistakable dirty engine thrums, jam jar drink vessels and some serious denim interior that has convinced me to save every pair of jeans I ever own in case I want to one day reupholster my back seats. Add gusts of 3 little pig’s magnitude, the really wet kind of rain and a chest rugged lead singer covering the rock greats Reef, The Jam and Black Eyed Peas and you got yourself a show!

Not as big as some of the obese VW shows, Vanwest held in the seaside town of Brean is the VW show I’ve always been asked to and there is a very good reason why. It’s the atmosphere that makes a show, some are too cumbersome and don’t know what they are anymore, some too contemporary and occasionally you’ll find one that takes itself far too seriously. Easy going, entertaining, a campsite of friends and raucous once the cider flows, in its eighth year Vanwest is going from strength to strength. Created by 2 petrol head pals back in 2006 Chris and Adrian are a testament to why it grows year on year, the good-humoured and laidback attitude was intended from the start and that is what has remained.

Throw in the regular VW show necessities, show ‘n’ shine (washed vehicles) an auto-jumble (old metal which I’m sure must have some use in an engine somewhere) new shiny stuff (electronological things) for the T4 and T5 modern day folk, and what I like to call “stalls with other peoples old stuff” (vintage Thermos and pineapple ice boxes).

Always with a theme, this year’s Space genre didn’t disappoint. Saturday night saw a multitude of morph suits, astronauts and light-sabers, and a Terminator so impressive I gave him my boots and my motorcycle.

The final day of this 3 day happening is the highlight, every imaginable model of Volkswagen lines up to parade the streets of Brean down onto the beach for one of the most spectacular runs of non- stop campervanage I have ever seen and, although mizzly, this year was no exception. We ooooed and eeeeeek-ed as the lowered T4 drivers wince burying their noses in the sand on the slip way down and cheered as the bay drivers give it full beans without giving a care to their underbellies.

Warren Farm campsite excels at hosting, it’s nice to frequent shows in actual campsites, less saucepan toilet emergencies in the early hours thanks to rather dashing wash blocks or as we call them “posh loos” making the whole affair easy, enjoyable and more than anything family friendly.

Build a Bus competition, some very creative parents…I mean children

The usual suspects were around, vans with eminent status, notorious owners and recognised work in the form of restorations, artwork and merchandise but it was great to see a lot of new generation devotees embracing the reverence of the VW. Something for everyone from the die hard split screen survivors who haven’t touched an inch of their van to cherish its heritage, the committed early and late bay-ers, the half and halfers with a mismatched front and rear end through to the squareness of the 80’s the T25-ers, my personal partiality and the ever exploding world of T4 & T5 aficionados.

Superbly run, stupendous company and like-minded folk who were all there for the same thing, to get their dub on.

Big Jet Plane

So it’s Tuesday (or indeed Wednesday), the weekend is a fading memory and the working week stretches out before us. For now let me mop your fevered brow (musically speaking). Grab a glass, sit back and enjoy, after all every day you’re above ground is a good day.

Bright Lights

Last Saturday I caught up with Elsie Pinniger, creator of neon wetsuits. You might recall, though it seems like a distant dream now, that last weekend was actually sunny. So when I chatted to Elsie she had been chilling out on the beach and was even brave enough to take a quick dip in the sea without a wetty… but that could well have been the Prosecco. Or cocktails. Or both. My kinda girl. So after yabbering away for half an hour we got down to business and I got the down-low on neon…

Let’s start from the beginning. When did neon wetsuits start?
It was about 2007 that I first started making wetsuits. I wanted something in particular for myself; I just wanted a long arm black hot-pant suit and you couldn’t find them anywhere. So I designed one and Paul, who taught me how to make wetsuits, made it. And then I made a couple others and people kept saying ‘Oh that’s nice..’ but it was nothing for a long time, I made a few and my friends had them and it definitely wasn’t a business it was just a bit of fun.

Then I had a bit of a rough patch, just relationship-wise.. It’s mad how things like that affect you so much: I was just in a really bad relationship, and I just didn’t do anything with the suits for ages. It’s mad when you look back and think, I’m quite a strong person, emotionally strong, and I thought I could cope with his dramas. So for a couple years it is quite stagnant, I’d do a little bit here and there but not much. When I out of that relationship last Summer and I felt really free. I started making what I wanted again. So I made the swimsuit myself and it just went ballistic after I put a picture up on Facebook!

So the website is the next step and it launches this Monday [launched Monday 6th May] How is it going?
It’s exciting but scary. I keep thinking what if no-one orders anything?! Ha!
I’ve tried to make it just easy. Easy for me and easy for the customer. At the end of the day, although it is something that I love doing, it has to work as a business otherwise there’s no point in doing it.

I think you are going to have a pretty busy Summer…
It’d be great to have a busy summer. I’d like to employ someone so I am hoping the orders come in so I can justify employing someone. That’s my aim this Summer; to get someone on payroll.

Because you do it all by hand don’t you?
Yeah, yeah. It’s getting a bit hard doing everything, especially if I start getting busy with it. I don’t want to work 6 days a week, every hour I can, that’s not why I do this. There’s an acceptance if you’re busy you must be doing really well, but I don’t like to be really busy all the time, I want the time to do the things I want to do; see my friends and just hang out. It’s not all about work. To be too busy to see your friends isn’t the balance.
I am keen as mustard to get someone on board. I can get by on next to nothing but there is a gap for making a working business, and it’s a cool job. Rather than our usual seasonal work in Cornwall: I mean I still waitress, I’ll be stoked when I can give that up.

I always find myself going for straight black in wetties because all I can ever find in garish pink and blue in mainstream wetsuits: Your colour palette is real funky, how do you choose it?
It’s funny because when I started neon it was a completely black range and I loved it. I loved that sleek black. With no pick bits of blue bits under the arms and I love that still. The nice thing about the suits on the website is you can make all the panels black and it looks really classic, and some people just want that. But the colour palette is just me going ‘Ooh, I like that colour’. There isn’t a massive choice of colour with the neoprene, but they are always trying to do different tones, but it is hard to choose because you have to but 10 rolls of it at a time. It did take me a while to choose the colours.

How have you set out the website to integrate the personal touch and choice of colour?
The designs are all the same and you can change all the colours, you can customise all your colours. So it’s really fun to use, you can change the colours on all the panels until you find the combination that you like. And their all made to order. It was the best way I could think of doing it. So you don’t give entire freedom, but you give the customer a lot of freedom.

Sometimes too much freedom doesn’t work. Sometimes it doesn’t work because you have to keep your standard. You could still make it pretty bad if you tried. But they [the colours] all pretty much compliment each other.

The first time I ever saw one of your suits was about 3 years ago, modelled by Rob Royal and Friend O’ Mine. I know Rob believes in a mixture of function and art in his surfboards, do you think your suits have a similar ideal?
The function of them I have made as simple as I can, because I don’t believe in all the hype around.. key pockets and stuff like that.. it’s just a another zip. So I’ve tried to limit fastening, all the swimsuits and guys short johns are fasten free, entry through the top. All that side of it is real simple. And with design I use my panels. I love neoprene and the way that it works, it goes together so smoothly, it’s a really nice material to work with. You get a really flawless finish because it glues flush. The art form is just the colour and the shape, it’s just what I’ve always done. With the girls stuff I’ve tried to do things that are really flattering, like the high-waist. I did it because I want it!

The swimsuits, if you are somewhere hot, they’re good at keeping you all in. Stops getting bruises on your hip bone from longboards. I didn’t get out of mine in Aus[tralia]. You feel protected but you get your legs out so a good tan too, they’re so comfortable. Perfect in that climate. And they’re flattering too, I was stoked with them. Every surf out there someone asked me about them.

That’s really cool.
Yeah it’s wicked. I’ve always tried to keep true to my design and style. I’ve always just done what I’ve done and stuck with bright colours and simple shapes..

So how was Noosa.. Not jealous, not jealous at all.
It was great. They are falling over themselves for it in Aus. They love it. So I’ve got a couple shops over there interested in selling my suits. What I have done is made a separate set of designs only for sale in shops, which gives the shops and my online customers that feeling of exclusivity. The climate is perfect for it over there. We’ll see how it goes, I’m not pushing that side. Online is amazing but it is good to put out bulk orders too.

It’s all picking up speed pretty quickly!
Yeah! Now I feel like I am totally ready for it. I’ve learnt a lot and grown a lot. I think it’s important to take it as it comes and keep it fun. If it works, brilliant. If it doesn’t… I don’t worry about that. I’d rather try and have a great time learning loads of stuff. I didn’t realise before how much you learn doing things you have never even thought of doing before and how much freedom that gives you. Now I think, Wow, I have learnt so much. Just like doing all my accounts myself. It’s good. I’m a limited company, its a whole new ballgame. I never went to uni so this is my really long degree course!

Well it’s proving to be pretty successful
I hope so..

Geton!
We’ll see.. We’ll see. I’m like nervous about it. It’s a bit stressful… What am I saying? I’ve been outside enjoying the sunshine all day and drinking proseco!

Elsie’s website www.neonwetsuits.com is up and running.. I’m already saving my pennies!

Bonobo’s new album: so good. Trust me.

Mad Dog Mcrea can be relied upon to get you in the mood for a right-on Friday knees-up.. and any issues you may have with not drinking enough. Really looking forward to their gig in my hometown this June. If it is anything like the last one it’ll be a belter! Check out their tour dates.. maddogmcrea.co.uk/tour/

Eighty Eight

Next Door Films are an up-and-coming name in the film industry and they certainly deserve it. I have been lucky enough to have seen these boys working through their entire process, from the sourcing, filming and grueling editing. Eighty Eight stands out for me as a touching piece and is testament to the compassion with which they treat their subjects and the process itself. Well worth a watch.

The new John John. YES.

The Wednesday Ritual

So I’m back at work after 3 days off and what a day it is. Been staring at the computer screen scratching my little noggin trying to think of creative and politically correct ways to tell people to “nob off”..

This morning I bumped into our dearest Curator of this ‘ere site. He had just parked his car really badly, as is his way. He asked me if I was posting today and I answered “Why yes, of course.” Then I had to think about what to post and what I could post within my 15 minute break.

There is only one thing that I really can post about on Wednesday: Wednesday.

I am turning you on to my Wednesday ritual and I urge you to do at least one stage one Wednesday and I promise you will reap the benefits.. Wednesday is my favourite day because it has five stages that must be adhered to after work. Specific stages, which are as follows:

Stage 1: 5K run along the beautiful North Cornwall coastal path with the with the sun upon my face, the wind lashing about and my friend Pervy Pete shouting tentative abuse at me. Now if you do this stage it is imperative that you run with someone faster than you who shouts encouraging things like, “Come on Swamps. You can do it” whilst you are huffering and puffering up a dastardly hill.

Stage 2: Circuit training. Once again there are specifications. Must be done with slightly unhinged, worryingly fit, ex-army trainer who doesn’t shout at you but makes you feel ashamed if you don’t push yourself to the point of wanting to puke.

Stage 3: Kebab. Bleddy lush. Must have all the trimmings.

Stage 4: Dogging… Exploratory more than anything. No one has yet flashed their lights at us as it were.. but we are confident that it is only a matter of time.

Stage 5: Gin. Lots of gin.

You see life is all about balance. Work vs. Play. Working out vs. gorging self on greasy kebab. You know it makes sense..

And if my inspirational words don’t work you up into a frenzy to go for a run then maybe my ultimate running tune will get you going. Check your bad self…

thevintagesurfauction.com