SUPRA PRESENTS SPENCER HAMILTON from SUPRA Footwear on Vimeo.
JUST MY TYPE EXHIBITION PHOTOS
The Just My Type exhibition featuring work by One Horse Town, Ben Johnston and Jason De Villiers launched »
ROB DYRDEK KICKFLIPS A CHEVY AT THE SUPER BOWL
Rob Dyrdek Kickflips a car over the largest skateboard in the world.
Really, what will they do next.
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ULTIMATE X 2012
R20 000 up for grabs at the Ultimate X skate comp this year fellas. Facebook event HERE.
PRESS RELEASE:
“It’s »
MUSIC VIDEO MONDAYS
Wilco & Popeye “Dawned On Me”
Arctic Monkeys “You And I” (Featuring Richard Hawley)
Comeback Kid “Do Yourself A Favour”
Ryan »
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Tag Archives: Interview
DANIEL TING CHONG INTERVIEW
What’s your day job?
I’m a freelance graphic designer / illustrator / artist.
What kind of art do you make and enjoy?
My artwork is more hand based on canvas whereas my design is computer based and very mechanical. They’re very opposite mediums for me, but balance me out.
Other than that, what do you get up to in your free time?
I sometimes DJ+VJ, otherwise, drinks and gaming is always a win.
Who are some of your favourite artists?
Alex Trochut, Siggi Eggertsson and Sanna Annukka.
Are there any particular things that inspire your work?
There’s nothing specific, I’ve always said that everything in one’s life is the inspiration.
What were some of your favourite projects from 2011?
There’s been some really great projects from 2011, i think some memorable ones were The New York Times covers, but most recently the collaboration I did with Jordan Metcalf, where we produced woodcuts of weapons/items used in acts of crime in South Africa, both by criminal and the law.
We named the project Fear.Less and sold them at Salon91 on Kloof. The show was a great success and we’ve managed to sell all the pieces. More importantly it has had a very strong online presence and we’ve been receiving great feedback. It was also a great project because i got to work with Jordan for the first time and both were quite naive about our idea initially. Through lots of research, energy and testing we came to a point where we were both overwhelmed and happy on the final product.
What do your plans for 2012 look like?
I hope busy. I’ve recently launched my own pillowcase range and looking to spend more time on that project to expand the idea and lead it to different brand extensions. I’ve got a few projects lined up for next year, I’m doing something possibly with Absolut Vodka, B-Guided> and a few self motivated projects. I’ve got some ideas rolling around in my head to do something with RVCA.
Top 5 Movies:
1. Stranger Than Fiction
2. Life Aquatic
3. Clockwork Orange
4. Superbad
5. The Never Ending Story
Top 5 Favourite:
Artist: Alex Trochut
City: Cape Town
Vice: Nintendo & Whisky
Meal: Burgers
Past-time: Creating
You can follow Daniel on twitter here, check him out on behance here and check out his website here.
MOSES ADAMS INTERVIEW
Well done on placing 17th in the Maloof Money Cup Pro Street. Did you have any expectations of how you would place before Maloof?
I just skated and saw what happened hey. In the first round, I came 5th and then in the finals I came 17th, so I don’t know how that happened, but I guess I just messed up.
How did you find the contest, skating against all the pro’s? Were you nervous, or did you just do your thing?
I was nervous, but it was just a really really big experience for me getting to skate with all the pro’s because they’re on another level, and they were impressed by my skating.
What were some of the highlights of your weekend, besides the Pro Street competition?
Well I stayed with Andrew for one night, and staying with my friends in the campsite. They were all partying and stuff. Apparently there was this one guy who got so drunk that he knocked himself out with a bottle.
What was your overall impression of the Maloof Money Cup?
I think that the way the whole event was run, the marble, the whole park, was really cool. I mean, where can you find a park like that here? It was unbelievable.
What are your plans for the rest of the year?
Well it would be nice to go on tour, and maybe go overseas again.
RONNIE CREAGER INTERVIEW
What are you looking forward to most about coming to South Africa?
I’m looking forward to seeing the park and skating with all my friends and having a good time. Maybe learn a trick or two as well.
Do you have any expectations of the Maloof Money Cup South Africa event?
I expect to see some awesome skateboarding happen right in front of my eyes.
What have you heard about skateboarding in South Africa?
I haven’t been to South Africa in about 8 years. Being from Orange, California, I haven’t heard much but I know skateboarding is alive and there are people there that share the same passion for skateboarding as I do.
You are among a group of over 60 other pro skaters competing. Are there any pro skaters coming out for the event who you’re looking forward to watching? If so, why?
I’m looking forward to seeing every one of the 60 pro skaters skate. I get excited to be among them, skating right beside them, feeding off of their energy and good vibes. It takes a different mindset and strategy to win a contest. Deep down I would like to see Andrew Reynolds win again. I don’t see him as a contest skater, but a true street destroyer. Happy skateboarding!
HOG HOGGIDY HOG INTERVIEW
Photo by Tim Henny
What are your favourite and least favourite things about touring Europe?
There are loads of cool things, like meeting new people, seeing cool new bands and making new friends etc. But I suppose this applies to touring anywhere. The one huge difference in Europe is the hospitality. Every show, no matter how small, the band is sorted out with at least one meal, accommodation for the night and as much beer as you can drink. The mission getting there is the worst thing. From my home in Cape Town to our first show in Slovenia it took about 36 hours. I can’t sleep in the plane so most of that time was spent attempting (unsuccessfully) to drink myself to sleep. I’m still in Europe at the moment and I’m really not looking forward to the flight back.
How did this tour compare with your 2007 European tour?
Well for starters, we braved the 2007 tour in below zero temperatures so it was cool this time to be there for the summer. We’d already been to Europe twice, so a lot of the shows were bigger than 2007 and we had a fair amount of people that had seen us previously come to our shows again. Summer is also festival season, so were able to do a lot of festivals this time too.
Photo by Tim Henny
Who were some of your favorite bands on the tour that you shared the stage with?
Real Mckeznies were awesome, so was Total Chaos and Street Dogs. I also really enjoyed The Crushing Caspers from Germany and Discoballs from Croatia. Some of the big name bands I saw were a little disappointing though. I thought Nofx were pretty average.
Photo by Tim Henny
Do you have any pre-show rituals?
We do “the anal chain”. We’ve been doing it for over 10 years and I can’t actually remember exactly when, where or why it began. It started off as being some sort of war cry but over the years it’s evolved into some sort of homoerotic soft porn dance that I’m sure would look extremely disturbing to an outside observer.
What is your most bizarre tour story?
What happens on tour, stays on tour.
How have you found people’s responses to your music in Europe?
Great! On occasion it takes them one or two songs to get into it if the audience doesn’t know us, but we have been extremely well received across the continent. The biggest problem we’ve had here is that we haven’t had enough songs to play all the encores that these Europeans demand of us. We can play an hour and a half set and they’re still shouting for more afterwards. They definitely make you work for all that free beer.
Photo by Tim Henny
You played a show in Slovenia where you raised funds to build a school in South Africa. Was it a success?
Ja, it was a bit of a long way around of doing things, but evidently it was a huge success. I’m not sure now what the exact amount raised was, but the organisers were extremely happy with the outcome. We actually became pretty good friends with the people that put on that show so we hope to get involved with any further initiatives they have like that too.
Photo by Tim Henny
What does the future hold for Hog Hoggidy Hog?
At the moment we’re working on writing some material for another album. We’re quite looking forward to that. We’ve got a South African tour that we are working on for November and then the plan is to be back in Europe again next year. We plan to focus a lot more on Europe. We now have a management company and a distro deal in Europe so we’ll probably be touring there a lot more regularly in the future.
Photo by Tim Henny
To be kept up to date with what’s going on in the Hogcamp, check out.
www.hoghoggidyhog.co.za
www.facebook.com/hoghoggidyhog
www.twitter.com/hoghoggidyhog
www.myspace.com/hoghoggidyhog
Photo by Tim Henny
WESLEY VAN EEDEN BLOG
Introducing Dallas from Durban, South Africa. We talk about his career as a skateboarder and the amazing work he does at Indigo Skate Camp.
GREG LUTZKA INTERVIEW
What are you looking forward to most about coming to South Africa?
I’ve never been to South Africa so I’m looking forward being in a new country and doing a safari while I’m there.
Do you have any expectations of the Maloof Money Cup South Africa event?
All the Maloof cups are always a blast and have some of the best courses so I’m just stoked that they are expanding the contest to other countries and doing a great thing for skateboarding.
What have you heard about skateboarding in South Africa?
I have heard there are a good amount of kids that skate in South Africa and I’m excited to come out and shred with the local kids.
You are among a group of over 60 other pro skaters competing. Are there any pro skaters coming out for the event who you’re looking forward to watching? If so, why?
I’m looking forward to seeing Andrew Reynolds, Dennis Busenitz, Ryan Decenzo, Adam Dyet, and Figgy skate in the event. There really are so many good skaters! I’m just a fan like anyone else.
MISS TEXAS 1977 INTERVIEW
“Miss Texas 1977″ is a name in honour of Lori Smith. What is it about Lori that inspired you to name the band after her?
It was really a combination of random elements that coalesced in the name Miss Texas 1977. There is an element of the dark south in my musical background. There was numerological significance in the date 1977 and the overall feel was quirky enough not to bore me immediately as most band names I’d come up with did in the past. I found out about Lori after the fact. I haven’t had any contact with her yet. She didn’t have a Facebook profile last time I checked, but I plan on making her a fan as soon as she wanders idly into the mainstream of social networks.
Describe the genre “alt. freak folk”.
Hmmm, I think it’s a whimsical attempt to distinguish new developments in “folk” music from what one might immediately associate with Simon & Garfunkel or any typical folk band. Maybe it’s also an attempt to illuminate the psychedelic and experimental aspects of certain folk outfits from the typical singer/songwriter genre. I think Devendra Banhart is the most distinguished example of someone who defined the style, and yet it encompasses a broad range of expression.
Who or what influences your music?
Hmmm, I regard my mind as a big black lake of random juicy creatures. These little beasts rise from the depths and blow bubbles on the surface from time to time. I perform a rather random act of fishing by recording snippets I come up with in various states of mind. Often I don’t remember recording them and I’ll stumble across them when I’m trolling the files for treasures. My latest song is a ditty I recorded in 2008 (according to the file info), in which I sang all the made up words beginning with the letter F. Of course, in developing the song, I wrote real words for it but the original feel of the melody is exactly the same as the first take of F words. My single biggest influence is a delight I feel in producing something odd and yet beautiful.
Who are some of your favorite South African bands?
Wow, many. Mr. Cat and The Jackal, Gary Thomas, Andy Jamieson, Lauren Fowler, Taleswapper, The Sleepers, Josh Grierson, Lark and the list goes on.
What are your favourite and least favourite things about Cape Town?
I love the fact that it’s a tiny little village. I see the same people everywhere. I love the natural beauty of the area; I depend on it to keep my soul alive. I’m only sad about how unconvincing Capetonians can be in their pretensions. I like to have genuinely pretentious bastards around me more often.
Does Miss Texas 1977 have any future ambitions?
Yes, we want to become a symbol of artistic genius. We want to achieve total opulence in charitable contributions to the development of music and mathematics as subjects that should be studied as sibling subjects in school. Finally, defeating stage fright once and for all.
WESLEY VAN EEDEN BLOG
Introducing Anna from Turku, Finland. We talk about minority rights and where she has travelled.
ASHA ZERO INTERVIEW
When did you first realise that you were going to be an artist?
I guess the possibility of it started during my high school years, art was pretty much the only subject I was really interested in, so that led me in the graphic design direction as a possible career. I was fortunate enough to be able to pursue it at tertiary level, where I decided to ditch design and continue a major in fine art. I only really got going a couple of years after art school though.
What do you enjoy most about working in collage?
Well… I don’t work in collage, I work with the idea of collage. I’m interested in the methods of sampling and translation and, I suppose, re-interpretation of found material. These images are paintings, paintings made to resemble collages. Printed, pixilated, highly mediated, mass media images are translated into the medium of acrylic paint. I reckon I enjoy the “building blocks” nature of collage. It’s sort of like Dadaist lego.
How would you describe your art to someone who doesn’t know anything about art?
One could say that a way of looking at the work is as a playful investigation into the influence of mass media imagery in the depiction of the “personal” by contemporary crafters in the context of the urban landscape or mediascape and portraiture, in which the very traditional medium of the pigment and brush, the slow, laboured technique of hand-painted imagery is used as a method of translating and remixing imagery, a possibility of what portrait painting, for instance, looks like in the age of icons and social networking. I guess it’s just Pop Art.
Who or what influences your work?
I guess a strong influence has to be popular culture. “No kidding” you say. More specifically, popular culture as presented by the media, like magazines or billboards and street advertising, album covers, gig posters etc. Then all of this stuff is influenced by art school training, electronic music and urban street culture. I was involved in skateboarding for many years.
Take us through your typical creative process for when you make art.
I collect images from the magazines, Internet, computer-generated images and so on. I then come up with a basic composition in a graphic program. Since the work is hand-painted, I then shift back to creating textures and surfaces to prepare a surface onto which the selected images are to be rendered, based on the computer “collage” template. Once I have a basic feel of the piece and composition, I allow for “accidental” marks and image generation and then from there I simply allow it to grow.
Are there any central themes that run through your work?
Pop fiction?
If your work was transferred into music, what would it sound like?
It would probably be something like “Plaid”, maybe a little bit of “Autechre” or Beck’s “Odelay”.
BRIAN HANSEN INTERVIEW
What are you looking forward to most about coming to South Africa?
I’m looking forward to skating some new terrain in a new continent I’ve never been to.
What is the furthest country that you’ve been to so far and what difference there made the biggest impression on you?
Australia probably; it was pretty Americanized in my opinion, so there weren’t very many differences.
Do you ever have to deal with fatigue when touring? If so, what do you do to manage with it?
I’m always scared before I leave for a trip because I’m going somewhere I’ve never been and don’t know what to expect, but it always turns out amazing because once we start skating and settle in, we all adapt and have a good time.
Lately, what music gets you hyped before you go skate?
Black Sabbath all day gets me stoked.
When playing a game of S-K-A-T-E, what’s your go-to-trick that you know no-one else will get?
Switch inward heel.
If you were cornered by an angry Elephant or Rhinoceros and had to escape, which do you think you’d be able to out-smart and why?
I’m going with the Elephant, because I think it would be hard for the elephant to attack someone with my cat-like skills.
