The Red Bulletin January 2016 - ZA

SOUTH AFRICA

BEYOND THE ORDINARY

Joe Daly

GLOBAL COMIX SUPERSTAR, BUT UNKNOWN IN SOUTH AFRICA

MEXICAN MADNESS

Inside a nine-day pyrotechnics party

RALLY GOD

Sébastien Loeb is so good he can drive a race car blind

2016 GAME CHANGERS

SPACE MAN Elon Musk and 15 other innovators, ideas and inventions that will transform your life

GOING DOWNHILL FAST

Speed queen Gabi Murray-Roberts

R30 INCL VAT (R4.20) JANUARY 2016 02416

9 772079 428009

STELL STEL PUMAPUMA OFFICIAL OFFICIAL TECHNICAL TECHNICAL SPONSOR SPONSOR #CROSSTHELINE #CROSSTHELINE IN 2016 IN 2016

LLAR LAR

www.toyota.co.za - Visit your nearest Toyota Dealership for more information.

10018458JB/

JHB/E

THE WORLD OF RED BULL

40 PARTY BANGERS

Each year, pyrotechnic bulls rock Tultepec, Mexico, at the mother of all fireworks festivals

What do a chemical engineer, a graphic artist, a townful of Mexican pyromaniacs and a champion rally driver have in common?

They’re all doing things differently in this month’s edition of The Red Bulletin. Discover innovations that could change your life next year in our Game Changers Special, like the bacteria that save you the hassle of ever showering again, and the arrival of a virtual reality world. We also get hot under the collar at a nine-day fireworks spectacular. And rally ace Sébastien Loeb reveals a whole new skill: seeing without using his eyes. Plus, we meet South Africa’s underground comix genius Joe Daly. And downhill skateboarder Gabi Murray-Roberts invites us into her world of thrills. We hope you enjoy the issue.

08

ART STREIBER/AUGUST (COVER), FLORIAN RAINER, PICTUREDESK.COM

WELCOME

“If you’re lucky enough to be different, never change” TAYLOR SWIFT, PAGE 32

THE RED BULLETIN

JANUARY 2016

72

AT A GLANCE GALLERY 14 GOOD SHOTS! Photos of the month

SENSE OF SECURITY

FEATURES

Is it really possible to see without using your eyes? Yes, says the king of rallying, Sébastien Loeb

21 Game Changers Special

Our lives will never be the same again, – here are 16 reasons why…

40 Mexico’s fireworks party capital

Sparks fly on the streets of Tultepec

FLAVIAN DUHAMEL, JA TESCON, SAM STRAUSS/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, IAN WILTON, SYDELLE WILLOW SMITH

50 Heroes of the month

54

58

ESCAPE ROUTE

Fitness coach and former law student Robin Arzón relates how a terrifying ordeal in New York changed her life

WAKE UP!

Dams, walls, rivers – you name it and renegade wakeboarder Dominik Hernler has ridden it. Here are some highlights…

Downhill skateboarder Gabi MurrayRoberts, actor Tim Roth, climber Kenton Cool, running guru Robin Arzón and rock star Dan Auerbach

58 Take 5: Dominik Hernler The maverick Austrian goes where few wakeboarders have gone before

64 Joe Daly

The underground comic-book writer/ illustrator – in person and on paper

72 Sébastien Loeb

When visibility fails him, the driving legend brings other senses into play

78 BPM festival

A 10-day techno takeover in Mexico

ACTION!

78 64 BASS INVADERS

How the BPM festival has transformed the Mexican city of Playa del Carmen into a magnet for techno fans THE RED BULLETIN

THE ILLUSTRATED MAN

The Red Bulletin explores the weird and wonderful world of Joe Daly, South Africa’s greatest-ever graphic novelist

85 SEE IT. GET IT. DO IT. The best travel, gadgets, films, music, wheels and events. Plus Wings for Life World Run and our cartoonist’s horoscopes 98 FLASHBACK Into the Kaleidoscope

09

CONTRIBUTORS INSIDE THIS ISSUE JANUARY 2016

WHO’S ON BOARD

SEAN CHRISTIE

La Familia (Joris Voorn and Nic Fanciulli) rock BPM 2015

Tacos, tequila and techno This issue, we dive into Mexico’s hottest electronic music festival, BPM. From January 8-17, in the coastal resort of Playa del Carmen, BPM will host more than 375 artists spinning the best dance tunes around. Imagine partying all night at a pool bar to the music of Richie Hawtin, then heading to a beach club at sunrise for a John Digweed set. Our associate editor in Mexico, Marco Payán, talked to the festival’s head organiser, Phillip Pulitano, to find out what makes it unique. Read our story on page 78.

IN FOCUS BEHIND THE LENS

“Meeting Joe Daly was a powerful reminder of what true dedication entails,” says the Capetonian writer of the comix genius. “It’s heartening to know people like him live among us.” Read the interview on page 64.

THE RED BULLETIN

AROUND THE WORLD

FLORIAN RAINER

The Vienna-based lensman travelled to Mexico to report on the country’s biggest pyrotechnics festival, but got so close to the action that he ended up with burns and holes in his clothes. Feel the heat on page 40.

The Red Bulletin is available in 10 countries. This is the cover of this month’s German edition, featuring Red Bull Soundclash 2015 stars Sido and Haftbefehl.

Read more: redbulletin.com

Duhamel grabs a few shots of Loeb. Quick ones. The driver has rubber to burn…

“Sébastien likes short shoots, so you have to work faster” FLAVIEN DUHAMEL Action photographer Duhamel has a special interest in fast cars.

For The Red Bulletin, the in-demand Frenchman shot nine-time rally world champion Sébastien Loeb at his training session in Morocco for the Dakar Rally. See the results on page 72.

12

THE RED BULLETIN

Editorial Director Robert Sperl Editor-in-Chief Alexander Macheck Editor-at-Large Boro Petric Creative Director Erik Turek Art Directors Kasimir Reimann, Miles English Photo Director Fritz Schuster Production Editor Marion Wildmann Managing Editor Daniel Kudernatsch Editors Stefan Wagner (Chief Copy Editor), Ulrich Corazza, Arek Piatek, Andreas Rottenschlager Contributors: Muhamed Beganovic, Georg Eckelsberger, Sophie Haslinger, Werner Jessner, Holger Potye, Clemens Stachel, Manon Steiner, Raffael Fritz, Martina Powell, Mara Simperler, Lukas Wagner, Florian Wörgötter Web Kurt Vierthaler (Senior Web Editor), Christian Eberle, Vanda Gyuris, Inmaculada Sánchez Trejo, Andrew Swann, Christine Vitel Design Marco Arcangeli, Marion Bernert-Thomann, Martina de Carvalho-Hutter, Kevin Goll Photo Editors Susie Forman (Creative Photo Director), Rudi Übelhör (Deputy Photo Director), Marion Batty, Ellen Haas, Eva Kerschbaum Illustrator Dietmar Kainrath Publisher Franz Renkin Advertising Placement Sabrina Schneider Marketing and Country Management Stefan Ebner (manager), ­Manuel Otto, Elisabeth Salcher, Lukas Scharmbacher, Sara Varming Marketing Design Peter Knehtl (manager), Simone Fischer, Julia Schweikhardt, Karoline Anna Eisl Head of Production Michael Bergmeister Production Wolfgang Stecher (manager), Walter O Sádaba, Matthias Zimmermann (app) Repro Clemens Ragotzky (manager), Claudia Heis, Maximilian Kment, Karsten Lehmann Office Management Kristina Krizmanic IT Systems Engineer Michael Thaler Subscriptions and Distribution Klaus Pleninger (distribution), Peter Schiffer (subscriptions)

THE RED BULLETIN South Africa, ISSN 2079-4282 Editor Angus Powers Chief Sub-Editor Nancy James Deputy Chief Sub-Editor Davydd Chong International Sales Management Lukas Scharmbacher Country Project and Sales Management Andrew Gillett Advertisement Sales Ryan Otto, ryan.otto@za.redbull.com Printed by CTP Printers, Duminy Street, Parow-East, Cape Town 8000 Subscriptions Subscription price R228, for 12 issues/year, www.getredbulletin.com, subs@za.redbull.com Mailing Address PO Box 50303, Waterfront, 8002 South Africa Office South Wing, Granger Bay Court, Beach Road, V&A Waterfront, Cape Town 8001 Tel: +27 (0) 21 431 2100

THE RED BULLETIN Austria, ISSN 1995-8838 Editor Ulrich Corazza Sub-Editor Hans Fleißner Advertisement Sales Alfred Vrej Minassian (manager), Thomas Hutterer, Corinna Laure anzeigen@at.redbulletin.com Subscriptions Subscription price €25.90 for 12 issues/year, getredbulletin.com, abo@redbulletin.at Printed by Prinovis Ltd & Co KG, D-90471 Nuremberg Disclosure according to paragraph 25 Media Act Information about the media owner is available at: redbulletin.at /imprint Austria Office Heinrich-Collin-Strasse 1, A-1140 Vienna Tel: +43 1 90221-28800 Contact redaktion@at.redbulletin.com

THE RED BULLETIN France, ISSN 2225-4722 Editor Pierre-Henri Camy Country Co-ordinator Christine Vitel Translation and Proof Reading Étienne Bonamy, Susanne & Frédéric Fortas, ­Frédéric Pelatan, Claire Schieffer, Ioris Queyroi, Gwendolyn de Vries Country Project and Sales Management Leila Domas Advertisement Sales Cathy Martin; 07 61 87 31 15 cathy.martin@fr.redbulletin.com Printed by Prinovis Ltd & Co KG, 90471 Nuremberg France Office 12 rue du Mail, 75002 Paris Tel: 01 40 13 57 00

THE RED BULLETIN Germany, ISSN 2079-4258 Editor Arek Piatek Sub-Editor Hans Fleißner Country Channel Management Christian Baur, Nina Kraus Advertisement Sales Martin Olesch, martin.olesch@de.redbulletin.com Subscriptions Subscription price €25.90, for 12 issues/year, www.getredbulletin.com, abo@de.redbulletin.com

General Manager and Publisher Wolfgang Winter Global Editorial Office Heinrich-Collin-Strasse 1, A-1140 Vienna Phone +43 1 90221-28800 Fax +43 1 90221-28809 Web redbulletin.com Red Bull Media House GmbH Oberst-Lepperdinger-Straße 11–15, A-5071 Wals bei Salzburg, FN 297115i, Landesgericht Salzburg, ATU63611700 Directors Christopher Reindl, Andreas Gall

THE RED BULLETIN

THE RED BULLETIN Ireland, ISSN 2308-5851 Editor Ruth Morgan Associate Editor Richard Jordan Music Editor Florian Obkircher Chief Sub-Editor Nancy James Deputy Chief Sub-Editor Davydd Chong Advertisement Sales Deirdre Hughes 00 353 862488504 redbulletin@richmondmarketing.com Printed by Prinovis Ltd & Co KG, 90471 Nuremberg Ireland Office Richmond Marketing, 1st Floor Harmony Court, Harmony Row, Dublin 2, Ireland Tel: +353 (1) 631 6100

THE RED BULLETIN Mexico, ISSN 2308-5924 Editor Luis Alejandro Serrano Deputy Editor Pablo Nicolás Caldarola Contributor José Armando Aguilar Proof Reader Alma Rosa Guerrero Country Project and Sales Management Giovana Mollona, Paula Svetlic Advertisement Sales Humberto Amaya Bernard; +55 5357 7026 humberto.amayabernard@mx.redbull.com Printed by RR Donnelley de Mexico, S de RL de CV (RR DONNELLEY) at its plant in Av Central no 235, Zona Industrial Valle de Oro en San Juan del Río, ­Q uerétaro, CP 76802 Subscription price $270, for 12 issues/year

THE RED BULLETIN Switzerland, ISSN 2308-5886 Editor Arek Piatek Sub-Editor Hans Fleißner Country Channel Management Antonio Gasser Product Management Melissa Stutz Advertisement Sales Marcel Bannwart, +41 (0)41 7663616 or +41 (0)78 6611727, marcel.bannwart@ch.redbull.com Subscriptions The Red Bulletin Reading Service, Lucern; Hotline: 041 329 22 00, Subscription price 19 CHF, for 12 issues/year, www.getredbulletin.com, abo@ch.redbulletin.com

THE RED BULLETIN South Korea, ISSN 2465-7948 Editor David Bae Deputy Editor Jung-Suk You Sub-Editor Bon-Jin Gu Publishing Director Michael Lee Advertisement Sales Hong-Jun Park, +82-2-317-4852, hjpark@kayamedia.com South Korea Office Kaya Media, 6 Samseong-ro 81-gil, Gangnam-gu, Seoul Tel: +82-2-317-4800, Contact redbulletin@kayamedia.com

THE RED BULLETIN United Kingdom, ISSN 2308-5894 Editor Ruth Morgan Associate Editor Richard Jordan Music Editor Florian Obkircher Chief Sub-Editor Nancy James Deputy Chief Sub-Editor Davydd Chong Country Project and Sales Management Sam Warriner Advertisement Sales Mark Bishop +44 (0) 7720 088588, mark.bishop@uk.redbull.com Printed by Prinovis Ltd & Co KG, 90471 Nuremberg UK Office 155-171 Tooley Street, London SE1 2JP Tel: +44 (0) 20 3117 2000

THE RED BULLETIN USA, Vol 5 issue 8, ISSN 2308-586X is published monthly by Red Bull Media House, North America, 1740 Stewart St, Santa Monica, CA 90404. Periodicals postage paid at Santa Monica, CA, and additional mailing offices.

Editor Andreas Tzortzis Copy Chief David Caplan Director of Publishing and Advertising Sales Nicholas Pavach Country Project Management Melissa Thompson Advertisement Sales Dave Szych, dave.szych@us.redbull.com (LA) Jay Fitzgerald, jay.fitzgerald@us.redbull.com (New York) Rick Bald, rick.bald@us.redbull.com (Chicago) Printed by Brown Printing Company, 668 Gravel Pike, East Greenville, PA 18041, bpc.com Mailing Address PO Box 1962, Williamsport, PA 17703 US Office 1740 Stewart St, Santa Monica, CA 90404 Subscribe www.getredbulletin.com, subscription@redbulletin.com. Basic subscription rate is $29.95 per year. Offer available in the US and US possessions only. The Red Bulletin is published 12 times a year.

Please allow four to six weeks for delivery of the first issue.

For Customer Service 888-714-7317; customerservice@redbulletinservice.com

13

GALLERY

AIR GAMES MONUMENT VALLEY, USA PHOTO: ARMIN WALCHER

Red Bull Air Race pilots Kirby Chambliss (front), Nicolas Ivanoff (middle) and Matthias Dolderer set out to simply transport their planes to Las Vegas for the last race of the season. But then, above the Utah desert, their aerobatics genes kicked in. The result? A formation flight with all three in a tilted position.

Season highlights: redbullairrace.com

14

ARMIN WALCHER/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

SOUTH ICELAND PHOTO: ERIC PARKER

Aniol Serrasolses grew up in Catalonia, a region not known for its kayaking spots.

So he invested every last penny he had in travelling to the world’s wildest waters.

Serrasolses became a kayaking icon in 2015 when he was the first person to plunge down Canada’s 35m-high Keyhole Falls – so, for the seasoned paddler, this 15m drop in Iceland constitutes a nice thrill on the side.

Splashy tweets: twitter.com/aniol10

16

ERIC PARKER/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

WATER FALL

LUKASZ NAZDRACZEW/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

ROLLING STONES

KEMER, TURKEY PHOTO: LUKASZ NAZDRACZEW Red Bull Sea To Sky lures the world’s dirt-bike elite to the Turkish Riviera each year. Though the event is billed as ‘The Most Enjoyable Hard Enduro’, relaxation isn’t on the menu. Instead, it’s a three-day endurance race across pebble beaches and through wooded trails up to the 2,300m-high Mount Olympos. This year, Britain’s Graham Jarvis emerged victorious.

Video highlights: redbullseatosky.com

19

THE FLAVOUR OF TROPICAL FRUITS. THE WINGS OF RED BULL.

THE RED BULL SUMMER EDITION.

The Red Bulletin Game Changers

PEOPLE, THINGS AND IDEAS THAT WILL CHANGE OUR LIVES IN 2016

THE RED BULLETIN

1. Elon Musk 2. The Void 3. Dave Asprey 4. Nuclear waste 5. Polyamory 6. Raúl de Anda & José Medina 7. Angry Birds 8. Bacteria sprays 9. Taylor Swift 10. Loretta Lynch 11. Insects 12. Live tracking 13. Graphene 14. Megan Ellison 15. Emojis 16. The Internet of Things

21

ELON MUSK Taking the human race to Mars

“It would be pretty cool to die on Mars some day, just not on impact.” When a man such as Elon Musk – the South African-born entrepreneur who became a dotcom billionaire in the US via a little idea by the name of PayPal – says something like that, you know he sees it as a genuine possibility.

While he has one eye on space, Musk is also concerned with saving planet Earth on the back of the American Dream, setting up one successful company after another.

In 2003, he invested in Tesla Motors, the electric car manufacturers; he’s now the CEO and Product Architect. Musk is also Chairman of the company SolarCity, which 22

ART STREIBER/AUGUST

1

designs and sells solar panels. And in the Hyperloop, he’s come up with the concept for a super-fast, environmentally friendly, air-cushion transport system that could make aircraft redundant.

With his project SpaceX, the 44-year-old’s ultimate aim is to fulfil a lifelong ambition and usher in an era of the colonisation of Mars. He claims his aerospace concept could reduce the cost of journeys into space by 90 per cent. SpaceX rockets have already delivered supplies to the International Space Station (ISS), and it’s been predicted that we’ll see the first humans on Mars within 20 years from now.

“We’re at the dawn of a new age [of space exploration],” says Musk, the man on which Hollywood is said to have based its version of billionaire world saviour Tony Stark, alias comic-book superhero Iron Man. The real-life business magnate wants to take the next step in his mission to land on the Red Planet this spring. If the latest SpaceX rocket, Falcon Heavy, can prove its space-worthiness, it will be the most powerful rocket of our time.

THE RED BULLETIN

The new Steve Jobs? Elon Musk, the idol of a whole generation of tech geeks and start-ups

THE RED BULLETIN

23

THE VOID Making virtual reality

an everyday resource

An astronaut making repairs to the exterior of the ISS for the first time will have practised every possible manoeuvre thousands of times at NASA’s Virtual Reality Lab. The technology does its job very nicely and is constantly improving. So why, the videogamers of this world have been asking for years, is there still no equally sensational virtual reality game available?

Their prayers might finally be answered in 2016, thanks to Ken Bretschneider, Curtis Hickman and James Jensen. This summer, the three American entrepreneurs hope to open The Void, a huge indoor amusement park where non-astronauts will be able to explore fabulous landscapes, eerie buildings and extraterrestrial spaceships, using VR goggles with a 180° field of vision and a special suit that can make it feel like you’re walking through long grass, rain is falling onto your skin, or that 20 tarantulas are crawling up your back.

In actual fact, the gamers will be poking their way around a labyrinth of grey, shifting walls that they can touch, but on which they’ll see computer-generated images. The Void is currently 24

being built in Pleasant Grove, Utah. Half an hour of fun will cost from around $30.

So, is this it? Will The Void finally bring about the breakthrough in virtual reality that we’ve been waiting for since, er, the wired glove of the 1990s?

Perhaps. Meanwhile, the geeks at Oculus – a subsidiary of Facebook – are also working feverishly on a virtual gaming universe. And it’s likely that, before long, augmented reality will make its way into our everyday lives – and not only for entertainment purposes. Software giant Microsoft has already presented its HoloLens – augmented-reality glasses that could, for instance, help the handyman of the future with repairs around the house by virtually demonstrating the process of changing a pipe.

From there, the next technological leap seems all too obvious. But before the day comes when virtual reality is brought directly to your contact lenses, we’ve got a few more levels to conquer at The Void, in headsets that make us look like giant bugs.

CORBIS

2

Gamers can strap into a whole new world when Oculus Rift finally hits the stores in 2016

THE RED BULLETIN

4 NUCLEAR WASTE Working for us, not against us

There’s one thing we know for sure: Doc Brown was wrong – you can’t travel through time with radioactive plutonium. Which is a shame. But we can still use deadly radioactive material to save the world, as three young geniuses have proved. Taylor Wilson, now 21, built a small-scale nuclear fusion reactor in his parents’ garage when he was 14. He has since been tinkering with plans for nuclear fission power stations, which would solve the problem of radioactive waste rather than contributing to it.

Two MIT graduates, Leslie Dewan, 31, and Mark Massie, 29, are forging similar plans. They too have designed a next-generation nuclear reactor – on paper, at least. All three want to solve one of humanity’s most pressing problems. Their molten salt reactors could use the highly radioactive waste from regular nuclear power stations as a source of energy to produce electricity with an efficiency level of 98 per cent. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll be dusting off Doc Brown’s time machine again.

Do we seriously want to bury the stuff for the next 100,000 years? Turning it into electricity is a much brighter idea

THE RED BULLETIN

DAVE ASPREY Fine-tuning our biological make-up

This 43-year-old is basically a pop star to the global community of roughly 100,000 ambitious biohackers – that is, people who make sometimes drastic changes to their own bodies with the aim of improving them or even adding superhuman abilities, such as using eye drops that help you see in absolute darkness. Asprey has come up with a somewhat less invasive, though no less effective, hack for his own life. He drinks a special coffee each morning, adding a knob of butter (yes, really) along with some coconut oil extract. Allegedly, this unusual brew increases your productivity and intelligence.

3

Ingenious? A marketing ploy? Or an ingenious marketing ploy? Mix some butter into your coffee tomorrow morning and see for yourself

25

26

THE RED BULLETIN

POLYAMORY Our love lives are set to become more exciting

NIK HARTLEY/CORBIS OUTLINE

Why stick to one relationship when you can have two? Or three?

Or more? Increasingly large numbers of couples are opting to ditch monogamy in favour of polyamory – meaning ‘many loves’ – which allows them to enjoy several relationships at a time with the full consent of all concerned.

Though there has been no major study on the subject, a conservative estimate is that five per cent of Americans have permission to find love of all kinds with people other than their primary partner. The trend isn’t limited to the US: in China, a prominent economics professor recently advocated polyamory as a solution to the country’s surplus of men. And in Brazil in November 2015, three women were joined in a polyamorous civil union. But San Francisco, USA remains the spiritual home of polyamory, and it seems it’s no accident that the birthplace of the term itself back in the 1990s is also a global tech mecca.

“With the advent of connected mobile devices and the internet, we’ve entered into the era I’ve dubbed Big Dating,” designer We don’t know what Cara Delevingne thinks of polyamory.

But one thing’s for sure: when it comes to Cara Delevingne, we’re absolutely polyamorous

THE RED BULLETIN

5 Chris Messina, famous for inventing the hashtag, told CNN. “Now it’s like, ‘Wow, my weird is not so weird.

I can find a community of 100,000 people online, whereas a couple of years ago I would have felt like I was the only one doing this.’”

With divorce rates as high as ever, there is a certain techentrepreneur logic at play, too. “If you’re trying to build a product and it’s failing 50 per cent of the time,” said Messina, “you might want to think about ways of improving it.”

Since guys like Messina were the first to carry a smartphone and tweet, it follows that in the near future we’ll all be opening our minds to polyamory, too. “In 1990, Steve Jobs observed that a computer is like a bicycle for our minds,” said Messina. “To say that much has changed since then would be an understatement. So, when we look back from 20 years into the future, we might think of non-monogamy as a bicycle for our hearts.” ​

27

6 Raúl de Anda (left) and José Medina help people who want to change the world

28

THE RED BULLETIN

7

RAÚL DE ANDA AND JOSÉ MEDINA Promoting unreasonable

AGUSTÍN DE JESÚS ROMO RODRÍGUEZ

projects around the world to free us all from the tyranny of conformity

We’ve tried being reasonable for decades.

Take development aid, for example. Millions of people donate billions of dollars to the poorer nations of the world, but the money is often frittered away with no discernible effect. Which is why Raúl de Anda and José Medina are taking a completely different approach to social improvement. The two founders of Unreasonable Mexico select people with ‘impossible’ ideas, allocate them mentors with an entrepreneurial background and convince investors to finance these bold schemes. Successful, profitable projects include Eneza Education, which improves student learning in rural parts of Africa via smartphones; Solidarium, an online marketplace for Brazilian artisans; and Girl Effect Accelerator, where young women from poor backgrounds can receiving training to set up their own businesses.

“We have to be superheroes because the world needs us,” explains Raúl de Anda, whose business incubator is just one branch of the global Unreasonable Institute. Their credo: it’s always been the lateral thinkers, the outsiders and the ‘mad’ scientists who have changed the world for the better, rather than the conformists, the accountants or the pen-pushers.

The name of the institute harks back to a famous aphorism from the pen of Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw, who wrote, “All progress depends on the unreasonable man.” Or, as the late Apple boss Steve Jobs put it in his legendary Think Different campaign: “Here’s to the crazy ones!”

THE RED BULLETIN

ANGRY BIRDS Heralding a new era of violent,

mobile game-based cinema that’s bad for children. Attack!

Even the biggest Angry Birds addicts will have to stop playing and switch their handset off to watch The Angry Birds Movie

May 20, 2016 could be a date that changes Hollywood. That’s the day when The Angry Birds Movie, the first blockbuster based on a mobile game, opens in US cinemas.

We can be fairly confident that the film will be a blockbuster; an unbelievable two billion people have downloaded the game, so just a small fraction of that number would guarantee success at the box office. And if those angry little birdies reach impressive heights on what is traditionally the best opening weekend on the film calendar, we can expect further mobile game-based films to follow hot on their tail feathers. The scripts for Fruit Ninja, Doodle Jump and Candy Crush Saga are no doubt already taking up space on Hollywood hard drives.

29

8

BACTERIA SPRAYS One day, these will replace

our showers. So says David Whitlock, who hasn’t washed since some point in the late ’90s. He lets micro-organisms do the dirty work for him

30

CORBIS

It takes 16,000 litres of shower and bathwater, several kilos of soap and anywhere between three and six bottles of shampoo and shower gel to keep the average European adult clean for a year. Or so we think. According to chemical engineer David Whitlock, who trained at the esteemed and credible institution known as MIT, such excess isn’t necessary.

Whitlock and his start-up, AOBiome, have developed a spray that he says will make showering redundant.

Whitlock readily admits that he last took a shower at some point in the late ’90s. Since then, he has THE RED BULLETIN

let something else do the cleaning: the legions of bacteria that live on his skin.

The star of the spray can is Nitrosomonas eutropha, an ammonia-oxidising bacterium that normally lives in the soil beneath our feet. Each of these rod- or pear-shaped bacteria is typically two micrometres long, meaning 500 of them laid end to end would measure just 1mm in length.

Whitlock says you should use the bacterial spray twice a day. Billions of these little bacteria then settle on the skin and start working wonders.

As Whitlock explains, before people began to shower on an almost daily basis and wash their hands with soap at every opportunity, these cleansing bacteria would have felt right at home on our skin. They would also have brought about cleanliness in a natural way by eroding our sweat.

What we see as hygiene and cleanliness today has no doubt curbed many severe, infectious diseases over the last two centuries. Yet, according to Whitlock, excessive hygiene also brings allergies and opens the door to other pathogens which, in the past, would have been fended off by friendly bacteria such as the ‘nitro’. Whitlock has demonstrated that the presence of ammoniaoxidising bacteria on the skin curbs inflammation and irritation, and strengthens the immune system.

An adult human carries around approximately one hundred trillion good bacteria, which can weigh up to 2kg in total. Most live in our intestines where they do indispensable digestive work, and we all now know that we can support these invisible friends of ours by eating foods such as probiotic yoghurt.

Whitlock is convinced that our skin bacteria will soon experience the same steep rise in popularity with the general public as their intestinal cousins.

His spray, which retails under the name Mother Dirt, should give us the same healthy skin microbiome our unwashed ancestors had. Dirty is the new clean.

It seems 2016 is the year your skin will go organic, thanks to living micro-organisms that will happily graze on your dirt. motherdirt.com

THE RED BULLETIN

31

32

THE RED BULLETIN

9

TAYLOR SWIFT Turning sexists into feminists?

In the last five years, country music starlet Taylor Swift has blossomed into the world’s biggest pop artist, with the world now eating out of her manicured hands. Last year, even Apple succumbed to Swift’s power, making overnight changes to the way it pays artists on its music streaming service, so as not to annoy her.

She has also adorned the covers of some of the world’s most influential magazines, from Vanity Fair to Time.

One publication she hasn’t posed for is Playboy – no surprise given that the star very publicly embraced feminism in 2015. Rumour has it that the men’s magazine would love to feature the Queen of Pop on the front of its March issue, and even made her an offer that would break with 62 years of magazine tradition: she could be the first women to adorn the cover fully clothed. With or without her, it will to be an historic issue – from March onwards, Playboy will no longer feature any (totally) naked women. Could this be the Swift influence at work again?

SARAH BARLOW

If you’re a rich musician a couple of years from now, remember Taylor Swift. If it wasn’t for her, Apple would be getting all your money

THE RED BULLETIN

33

LIVE TRACKING The tech is getting more

precise. And smaller. And it’ll soon be ubiquitous

10 LORETTA LYNCH Taking FIFA to task – and saving it in the process

Wait a minute… wouldn’t she be the perfect new FIFA President?

Has anyone asked her? Can we nominate her?

In early 2015, the US Attorney General almost single-handedly stormed the defences of FIFA, the world’s largest and most powerful sports organisation. What was required to bring to light the highly suspect conduct of various FIFA officials was for an unbiased woman to come off the bench. In May, Loretta Lynch had various high-ranking members of staff at football’s governing body arrested, precipitating the resignation of its scandalbeset president, Sepp Blatter.

Two of Lynch’s strengths when conducting this investigation have been her distance from the football world and her unshakeable willingness to tackle burning issues. Back in her days as a prosecutor, she blew the lid off several human trafficking rings and took on corrupt Wall Street bankers and police.

Her stance is axiomatic: “No individual is impervious to the law,” she says. “No corrupt organisation is beyond its reach.”

Lynch and her team are only at the beginning of their investigation. Blatter and UEFA President Michel Platini have been suspended, but the process of reforming FIFA may prove problematic. The old powersthat-be won’t be willing to give up their authority easily. Quite a few more red cards will need to be handed out before FIFA regains the trust of football fans.

34

How far mankind has come since the invention of the humble treadmill.

From these bulky beginnings, fitness technology has become a whole lot more portable. With the present-day emphasis on tech being mobile, the latest gadgets have to tick a number of new boxes – they have to be, above all else, small, light and multipurpose.

One of the smallest, lightest and cleverest new devices is The Dash by German firm Bragi. This stylish pair of wireless earphones plays music as you jog, cycle or even swim, and features a miniature tracking device that plots your physical activity, along with a thermometer, motion sensor and optical sensor. The Dash gives us a taste of what we can expect in the coming year when it comes to live tracking, namely the premature end of tracking bracelets and the rise of everyday items equipped with sensors.

12

Turns out your life needn’t take up all that much space.

Almost everything you need to know fits into this tiny little device from Bragi. bragi.com

THE RED BULLETIN

11 DDP IMAGES, DREAMSTIME, CORBIS

Take a deep breath and tuck in. The reward is a greater variety of tastes – there are around 11,000 types of grasshopper alone

THE RED BULLETIN

INSECTS Minibeasts are the meat of the future (as long as the menus of the future don’t include photos)

Some people simply see them as bugs, but others believe that in the future they’ll be our most important source of protein. Like chickens, sheep and cows, insects produce high-value protein from plant-based nutrients – but they do it in a much more cost-efficient way. Producing 1kg of meat currently requires up to 13kg of animal feed; with insects, you can produce the same amount of protein with as little as 1.7kg.

Eating creepy-crawlies may not appeal to all palates right now, but it’s all just a question of habit. Beetle larvae were a delicacy in Ancient Rome, and in many parts of the world, grasshoppers and mealworms are seen as a nutritious snack. The UN predicts that in 20 years’ time, a 10th of the world’s protein could be sourced from insects, most likely dried. Mealworm flour is very versatile, and New York start-up Exo is already making protein snacks from ground crickets.

In the meantime, who’s for Mexican grasshopper tacos or Thaistyle fried water scavenger beetles?

Famous chefs such as René Redzepi and David Faure have had insects on the menu for some time. Also, biotech artist Katharina Unger has developed an insect farm which allows you to breed delicious black soldier fly larvae at home. And let’s not forget those crispy-fried honeypot ants… Delicious.

35

GRAPHENE It’s the material of the

future. But that future is still some way off

A single layer of atoms: this is what tech researchers imagine the future will look like

14

MEGAN ELLISON The Hollywood producer

turning brave filmmaking into box-office success

13

Until as recently as two years ago, Megan Ellison was chiefly seen as a businessman’s daughter: her dad is Larry Ellison, software guru and the third-wealthiest man in America.

Had it not been for her background, the 29-year-old might just be another college dropout dreaming of a movie career. But Ellison used her wealth to produce films – good films – and she’s now a key player in a cultural shift in Hollywood.

While the major film studios have sought refuge in safe-bet remakes, prequels and sequels, the heiress has financed unusual, courageous cinema with medium budgets but big stars. Kathryn Bigelow’s boxoffice smash Zero Dark Thirty, Paul Thomas Anderson’s Scientology epic The Master and Harmony Korine’s punk/Disney crossover Spring Breakers wouldn’t exist were it not for the young producer. Ellison doesn’t give interviews; she only communicates with the public via cat photos and snappy tweets. She knows what the future’s about.

Ellison, the founder of Annapurna Pictures, is behind a variety of big-screen offerings, from Her to American Hustle

36

THE RED BULLETIN

GETTY IMAGES(2)

Scientists are calling graphene the miracle material that will revolutionise the tech industry. Why? Because this single layer of carbon atoms is incredibly light and thinner than any other material on the planet. Thanks to graphene, we’ll be able to fold away or roll up the displays and touchscreens of the future. Microchips will become even smaller and 10,000 times faster than the chips we use today. There’s no doubt about it: the future belongs to graphene. But science is still looking for ways to mass-produce the stuff. When you consider that it usually takes about 40 years for any new material to get from the research lab to the market, it’s clear we’ll just have to sit back and watch as a little more time and money is ploughed into it. After all, we only discovered graphene’s miraculous powers about 10 years ago.

15 For anyone born before 1990: the stuck-out tongue and winking eye emoji means, “Welcome to the hellish irony of Generation Y!”

EMOJIS Adding colour to our language

(if we’ve understood correctly)

APPLE INC.

THE ORIGINAL:

THE RED BULLETIN

WHICH TRANSLATES AS: People the world over now communicate using emojis.

It doesn’t matter if they’re happy, sad or deep in thought. Sadly, it’s sometimes rather difficult to know what the emoji actually means. A dictionary would come in handy. But don’t overthink it, and don’t get confused. The main thing is to send the ‘pile-of-sh-t’ emoji as often as you can. That’s just the sort of thing that makes us laugh around these parts. We’re told 2016 will see the arrival of several new emojis, like this hand. It means, “Call me!” Perhaps that should have been the very first emoji.

37

THE INTERNET OF THINGS Making everyday life simpler

38

“If This Then That.” Linden Tibbets wants to revolutionise the Internet of Things with this simple phrase. The world around us increasingly consists of devices fitted out with smart, networked sensors, from your toy drone to the light switch on your aquarium, not to mention the apps downloaded onto your smartphone.

Tibbets’ IFTTT platform hopes to make this never-ending stream of data manageable for each individual user, with the result that our digital lives become a little simpler, not more complicated. So IFTTT might connect two apps, for example, and

MASHA TACE/DEPOSITPHOTOS

16

automate their actions. Tibbets will thus make us a little less scared of what the Italian professor of philosophy Luciano Floridi is calling the “infosphere” – the not-toodistant future when our lives will be completely shaped by digital information and any action we perform will generate new pieces of information and interconnect them.

Tibbets’ stroke of genius reminds us that we’ll never stop being active players in the infosphere.

Your fridge now talks to your phone, and you can switch on the light while you’re in your car… The light in the house, that is

THE RED BULLETIN

/redbulletin

Visual Storytelling

© John Wellburn/Red Bull Content Pool

Beyond the ordinary

THIS IS NO TAKE-OFF IT’S A ONCE-IN-A-LIFETIME LANDING

„IT‘S THE THRILL OF THE CHASE.“

PRINT

|

WEB

|

APP

|

SOCIAL

redbulletin.com

FIRE TULTEPEC IS MEXICO’S FIREWORK CAPITAL – AND WORDS: ANDREAS ROTTENSCHLAGER

A fireworks bull at the Feria Nacional de la Pirotecnia in Tultepec – Mexico’s largest pyrotechnics display

STARTERS FOR NINE DAYS EACH YEAR, PYROTECHNICS RULE PHOTOGRAPHY: FLORIAN RAINER

41

TULTEPEC MAKES FIREWORKS FOR 120 MILLION PEOPLE. EVERY YEAR, THE FACTORY WORKERS ORGANISE COMPETITIONS FOR PROFESSIONAL FIRE-RAISERS

Early evening in Tultepec: a dummy bull heads for the parade downtown

The residents of Tultepec take weeks to make larger-thanlife papier-mâché bulls (far left), which are then filled with fireworks (left). More than 300 of these toritos are paraded to the town’s main plaza at the highpoint of the Feria Nacional de la Pirotecnia. Then the explosions begin, and the town goes wild

W

hen I read online about the Feria Nacional de la Pirotecnia in Tultepec, I was instantly fascinated,” says Viennese photographer Florian Rainer. “Tultepec is Mexico’s fireworks capital, and its residents make rockets and firecrackers for 120 million people. In the first week of March every year, the factory workers organise nine days of competitions and parades.

It’s a festival for professional pyromaniacs. I had to go.

“I flew to Mexico City in early March and took the first bus north. Tultepec is 35km away. An incredible number of men with burns got on the bus – I knew I was going in the right direction.

“There was already a party atmosphere in the streets when I arrived; women were barbecuing chicken over shopping trolleys, and men drinking tequila, all anticipating the big fireworks displays that mark the start of the Feria. That evening, I marched along with 5,000 people to a field to see the castillo competition.

Castillos are wooden towers with Catherine wheels and launch platforms attached to them, and each belongs to a pyrotechnician who sets off his fireworks by remote control. If a Catherine wheel ever got stuck, men would clamber up onto the burning towers and get it going with their bare hands. That was a surreal sight.

“My personal highlight came on day two of the festival. The town-dwellers had created more than 300 papier-mâché bulls for the parade of the toritos, and each bull could contain anything up to 4,000 fireworks. The parade moved towards the town’s main plaza as night fell, and when these bulls filled with explosives were set alight, the town just went berserk. There were sparks everywhere, magnesium caps were exploding, and people danced around the smoking toritos. I took photographs until 4am. As dawn began to break, I gave up trying to count the burn holes in my jumper. My trousers were hanging off my legs in shreds.

I had burns to both hands. But you can really only be part of this kind of pyromaniac passion when you’re right up close to it.”

To see Florian Rainer’s photo reportages, go to: florianrainer.com

43

Inset: a bull spits sparks at the parade of the toritos in the centre of Tultepec. Main picture: for the castillo competition, pyrotechnicians ignite fireworks towers up to 30m high

THE FIREWORKS TOWERS ARE AS TALL AS ELECTRICITY PYLONS. THE PYROTECHNICIANS SET OFF THE FIREWORKS

BY REMOTE CONTROL

45

Emergency fire crew: four men try to restart a Catherine wheel that has become stuck on a castillo, 20m from the ground

MEN CLAMBER UP BURNING WOODEN TOWERS WITHOUT ANY SAFETY EQUIPMENT

Top and middle: the papier-mâché bulls at the parade of the toritos are stuffed with up to 4,000 fireworks. The rain of sparks from them is, unsurprisingly, pretty dramatic.

Below: Tultepec’s pyrotechnicians add to the display by planting rockets at the base of the fireworks towers

47

Blaze of glory: each team in the parade is whipped by the crowd as they go

Festivalgoers don’t dress up or wear protective clothing – most make do with a hoodie. The purists don’t even bother with that

48

THE RED BULLETIN

THE RESIDENTS OF TULTEPEC WEAR THEIR BURNS WITH PRIDE

Dancing till dawn: the last sparks die out at 4am. The next day, locals examine the inevitable bodily damage

HEROES

“BORDERLINE SPIRITUAL” GABI MURRAY-ROBERTS This fiercely competitive

and successful downhill skater gives back to a scene that has done so much for her

50

see that when they’re skating.

In the community they just click. Even if the kids have real issues, the skaters just accept them. And try to help them.”

As the head of SAGRA, Murray-Roberts is working to evolve the organisation into a sanctioning body for privately organised races throughout the country (rather than being the primary event organiser itself).

Running SAGRA is a labour of love, but she doesn’t take the responsibility lightly.

“SAGRA represents the history of skating in South Africa,” says Murray-Roberts. “There’s

skaters looked at each other in amazement. They said, “Speak to Gabi Murray-Roberts.”

That’s how Murray-Roberts found herself being flown to Johannesburg’s OR Tambo Airport, where at a meeting, a seed was planted to stage an IDF (International Downhill Federation) event in Lesotho in the very near future.

While she thrives on the administrative and competitive sides of skating, MurrayRoberts recently took part in a race that she had no hand in organising, and she organised a race in which a she didn’t participate – she found both experiences liberating.

“I’ve grown a lot as a person,” she says. “I’m still

“IF YOU START SKATING, YOU’RE IMMEDIATELY ACCEPTED INTO THE COMMUNITY. WE’RE LIKE A FAMILY” a legacy there. And what skating has done for me, what has affected my life so deeply, I want to give that back.”

The year 2014 was a great one for Murray-Roberts. As the No 1 female skater in SA for four consecutive years, she went on to compete overseas, and participated in a road trip that could culminate in the first World Cup Series race in Africa.

“At the Maryhill [Festival of Speed in Portland, USA] I raced against 30 other girls,”

was like a dream. We joke that that road trip was borderline spiritual. But it really was.”

In December 2014, a smaller group (not including Murray-Roberts) returned to Lesotho. On that trip, a group of skaters happened to wave down a vehicle that belonged to the country’s Minster of Sport. After chatting to the skaters, the minister wanted to know what it would take to organise an event of this nature in his country. The

a control freak, but I’ve learnt that there are certain things you just have to let go of.”

But also that some things are really worth holding onto.

“Skating has shaped my life,” she says. “It has given me direction and I now have longterm goals and plans. Skating has given me more than just joy. It has given me a family, a philosophy, and a purpose.”

Ami Kapilevich instagram.com/gabsincpt THE RED BULLETIN

GABRIELLA ACHADINHA

G

abi Murray-Roberts is one of those people who’s tried everything. “I’ve done rock climbing and Muay Thai and horse riding,” she says. “I tend to get bored with things and move on. But skating stuck.”

Skating did more than just stick. Skating took over.

Murray-Roberts works at a skate shop, lives with some colleagues in a house that her boss owns, is chairperson of SAGRA (South African Gravity Racers Association), has made some of her closest friendships through the sport, and has been South Africa’s No 1 female downhill skater since 2011.

“What drew me in originally,” she says, “is the community. And it’s the community that has kept me in skating since then. It doesn’t matter who you are or what your background is, if you start skating, you’re immediately accepted into the community.

We’re like a family.”

And she’s not the only one to have benefited from it. “You hear stories from the parents.

That some of the kids don’t have any friends at school or they don’t fit in. But you don’t

she says, “which was huge for me. I missed the final by a hair, and placed eighth overall.

But it was next level; a huge learning experience. When I came back, my progression had shot forward.”

It was a well-timed boost.

When she returned to South Africa, Murray-Roberts joined a group of 12 hotshot skaters on a trip to Lesotho – southern Africa’s ‘Mountain Kingdom’.

“It was the road trip of my life,” she says. “After racing overseas, I was amped and my confidence was at an all-time high. When I got to Lesotho, my mind was blown. Day after day, just skating down mountains. Twenty-minute runs. And the scenery there, it

Skate expectations: Gabi Murray-Roberts, 30, and SAGRA are working to develop a downhill skate culture in Lesotho and hope to bring an international downhill race to the kingdom in early 2016

Despite his roles, Roth doesn’t dwell on the dark side of life.

“I’m not a Methodist,” he says. “That’s what I call Method actors”

“VILLAINS HAVE AN IMPACT” TIM ROTH Known for portraying intense

characters, the Hateful Eight actor explains why you shouldn’t be afraid of being a bad guy

O JOHN RUSSO/CORBIS OUTLINE

ne of the great character actors of his generation, Tim Roth displays such skill and nuance that he’s become a favourite with moviegoers despite playing a vile assortment of killers, creeps and cunningly awful miscreants. In Quentin Tarantino’s latest gorefest, The Hateful Eight, he portrays a hangman who, conveniently, can also handle a gun quite well. Here, the 54-year-old discusses why it’s important – and a hell of a lot of fun – to creatively explore the dark corners of life. the red bulletin: We found a photo gallery online of your performances. In 80 per cent of them, you’re holding either a gun or a sword. What attracts you to being the bad guy? tim roth: The first role I played was that of a Nazi skinhead. I was the kid who got bullied at school. I was always on the run. I knew how to play the bullies from watching them. Those characters tend to stand out. They have an impact, THE RED BULLETIN

as compared to something very, very quiet that you do.

What does it say about us as a society that we remember the bad guy instead of the contemplative character?

It depends what you’re going to the cinema for. That kind of scenery-chewing stuff, if it’s done well, it’s such fun to sit in the audience and watch. As Quentin says, you’re going to the movies, it’s not public TV. There’s a lot of dark humour in Quentin Tarantino’s work. You grimace, then you laugh. Does that make it less intense?

nomination goes forward, the racism is just astounding.

They’re not hiding it; they’re trying to outdo each other.

It just makes the movie even more poignant.

It seems like a way to double the impact: playing the memorable bad guy in a movie with a message. Is it important to you to seek out roles that have a broader social commentary?

It’s better if they do. But then sometimes you’re just doing crap. [Laughs.] The next film I’m doing, which is for the BBC, does have relevance – it’s about a man, Reg Keys, whose son was a military police officer in Iraq. He was due back in a few days and

That’s incredibly wrenching.

Do you ever take the roles home with you?

My wife sometimes goes, “Oh God, you look spooky right now.” That’s happened a few times. There was one time. when I was working with director Michael Haneke and we were doing home invasion hostage drama Funny Games. It was shot in sequence, so you start the day, and you get distressed.

You pick it up the next day, you get more distressed. All the way through the film, for five or six weeks. That one beat us up. Oh boy, that was a tough one. It was very depressing. When I read it, I didn’t want to do it. I watched

“IT’S BETTER IF ACTING ROLES HAVE A BROADER SOCIAL IMPACT. BUT THEN SOMETIMES YOU’RE JUST DOING CRAP” It’s not creepy on set – actually, most of the time, you’re laughing your ass off.

The Hateful Eight, which is set in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, is funny, and incredibly timely. When we were doing the read-through for the film, that’s when the Baltimore protests were going on. It was completely apropos of the moment. It was quite shocking, honestly. As the campaign for the Republican Party presidential candidate

he was killed. And then the father starts to question what happened and sees a link to the Chilcot Inquiry into the Iraq war. And the father opens his son’s coffin and he sees what happened, and he wants his questions answered. Prime Minister Tony Blair wouldn’t answer him. So he ran against him in the election and got to confront him onstage in front of the cameras. He took on the government in a very elegant and quiet way.

the German-language version and I was like, “Oh sh-t.”

How did you disassociate afterwards?

I got a plane and went away.

Next!

What character have you not played that you’d like to?

I always liked Iago.

That’s another bad guy.

He’s a great guy! He’s a good soldier. [Laughs.]

Ann Donahue thehatefuleight.com

53

“I DON’T BELIEVE IN LIMITS” ROBIN ARZÓN The online running guru

A Kenton Cool, 42, is in love with a mountain called Everest

“IT’S ALWAYS WORTH THE PAIN” KENTON COOL The Brit climber has scaled Everest 11 times – once as a guide to Sir Ranulph Fiennes – all while battling chronic injury

the red bulletin: At 22, you shattered both your heels in a climbing accident. Did you think your career was over? kenton cool: No. I was told I’d never walk without a stick, never run or climb again. But I kept my focus. I went to a climbing wall in my wheelchair and hauled myself up, then I progressed. I still have pain and it’s constant, chronic.

But now I have what my wife calls my ‘mistress’ – I disappear every year for an affair with a woman called Mount Everest.

How do you push through the pain?

If you have a passion for something, you’d do anything to get it back. Overcoming pain isn’t about physical ability, it’s about finding the goal that motivates you to push beyond it.

Is it always worth it?

Always. When you’re standing on top of Everest, you’re on top of the world. You feel so small and yet so big at the same time. It’s absolutely fantastic. Florian Obkircher kentoncool.com

54

self-proclaimed ‘ambassador of sweat’, Robin Arzón quit a promising career in law to pursue her love of fitness.

The passion dates back to her days of legal training, after a night out in a New York bar turned into a nightmare when Arzón and others were held hostage by a crazed gunman, before a brave few were able to overpower him. She found solace in running – a mental release that, over the next 10 years, became a way of life.

Today, Arzón is one of the world’s most respected fitness coaches and ultramarathon runners. Here, she tells The Red Bulletin how putting on a pair of running shoes changed her life. the red bulletin: You went through a terrible ordeal – how did running help you deal with that? robin arzón: After being held hostage? Running was definitely positive, but it was only in retrospect that I put two and two together. At first, I just felt compelled to run, but then I realised it allowed me to let my thoughts go.

It was an escape, cathartic, both physically and mentally.

I was able to run my feelings out and work through emotions I didn’t even know were there. It became like a moving therapy for me.

What made you fall in love with running and fitness?

I think one of the most powerful things we can do is to push and pull our own

bodyweight and own our space in the world. I don’t really see a better way to do that than through fitness.

What has been your biggest achievement since changing your career?

I’m now at probably the most successful point in my life since I did law. I just signed a book deal, I have a TV show coming out… I feel like my biggest accomplishment is creating this life. I wasn’t happy, so I decided to pursue something else. I didn’t know what that something else was, so I decided to define that for myself. I would encourage people to uncheck the boxes that others use to define them and create their own box.

You’ve embraced social media as a motivator...

The idea that we’re a global community of athletes training together virtually is really powerful. Using these things for inspiration is fantastic, but they need to be a touchstone to actually act. It’s easy to scroll through Instagram and feel inspired, but then what are you going to do with that?

What do you think is the biggest thing holding people back from pursuing an active lifestyle?

I think people are driven more by what they think they can’t do than what they think they can. I’ve seen people with all kinds of physical limitations conquer amazing feats, so I encourage everyone to excuse their excuses.

Honestly, I just don’t believe in limits. Richard Jordan robinarzon.com THE RED BULLETIN

MARTIN HARTLEY, JA TECSON

changed her life by embracing fitness – and she’s now inspiring others to do the same

Robin Arzón, 33, has a ‘do epic sh-t’ list, which includes running around the world

Dan Auerbach, 36, swears by soups.

“We were really broke for a very long time.

It taught us a lot”

“SCREW PERFECTION!” DAN AUERBACH hates the music industry. And yet he became a star with The Black Keys. Here he explains why. (And how soup helps)

D ALYSSE GAFKJEN

an Auerbach has won seven Grammys and sold over two million albums as part of blues-rock duo The Black Keys. Not bad when you consider he’s resolutely been ignoring the rules of the business for 14 years now. The American musician writes old-fashioned songs, hates media attention and boycotts music online.

What’s the secret of his success? “Don’t trust anyone who tells you to stick to the rules,” he says. the red bulletin: The current Black Keys album, Turn Blue, reached number one in the American charts last year. What does that feel like for a person who says he couldn’t care less about success? dan auerbach: (laughing) It feels good. But I still stand by what I said. I don’t make music for the fame. I feel like I’m in the wrong movie when I’m at awards ceremonies such as the Grammys.

Trend researchers would never pick your dirty, bluesy sound for success – it THE RED BULLETIN

doesn’t conform to the modern zeitgeist.

Our albums are a reaction to what’s currently going on in the music industry.

Everything is over-styled, calculated, horribly perfect.

Our success shows that there are still people who want music to be made by real musicians. By musicians who play their asses off and put their hearts and souls into their music.

Don’t rock’n’roll and perfection go together?

I’m no virtuoso myself. I can’t read music. Technically speaking, my partner, Pat, is a bad drummer. But we

Are you calling for a musical revolution?

Exactly. Do what we do, don’t trust anyone who tells you to stick to the rules.

Is it that attitude which has stopped you offering your music to streaming services such as Spotify?

The trouble with streaming platforms is that it’s mostly the industry middlemen earning the money and not the musicians themselves. If your song is listened to 100,000 times on Spotify, you, as the artist, earn $13. I think that’s not OK. Streaming services make people think that music is just some free gimmick.

If you were a young musician today, would you give up on the industry with the direction it’s going?

with it. While other bands that started out at the same time as we did got rich and famous quickly, with us it was a very drawn-out process. We were really broke for a very long time. It wasn’t always easy, but it taught us a lot. It’s good to have staying power.

How do you manage to stay in shape?

When you’re on tour, the most important thing is eating right. I have a Vietnamese pho noodle soup every day. Whereas, say, Chinese food gets cooked once and then gets reheated, pho is always made fresh.

That sounds very sensible for a rocker.

I think that healthy eating is the cornerstone of everything.

If you live on fast food, you

“THE THING WITH REAL MUSICIANS IS THAT THEY HAVE NO PLAN B. THEY’LL JUST CARRY ON WORKING AND WORKING” compensate for that with abandon. And that’s what it’s all about – screw perfection!

You’ve got to enjoy what you do. And be completely devoted to it. That’s more important than making sure that everything’s flawless or following the industry’s rules. Which is precisely why so much music sounds so boring and samey now. We deliberately counteract that.

No, I wouldn’t. The thing with real musicians is that they have no plan B. They’ll just carry on working and working. As the Black Keys, we’ve been on tour or in the studio since the start of our career. We don’t know any different.

How do you keep up that hectic schedule for 14 years?

We’ve never really thought about it, we’ve just got on

just end up feeling bad. Then it affects your creativity and your drive and also your voice, if you’re out on tour.

Old-school rock’n’rollers should be sure to remember that, too. There’s a saying: you are what you eat.

Marcel Anders Yours, Dreamily is the debut album

by Auerbach’s new outfit The Arcs.

Find it at: thearcs.com

57

1

RIVER

In a unique expedition, Austrian professional wakeboarder Dominik Hernler tests out spots in his home country that have never been considered wakeboard-worthy before. The star of the show is a mobile winch. “It turns every dam, lake or hydroelectric power plant into a playground,” says the 24-year-old. “First stop: Neuhofen on the River Krems. The winch pulled me through the emerald green water. I had to make sure I didn’t fall, as the river’s not even half a metre deep there. But that also gave the experience an edge.”

THE RENEGADE ROUTE TAKE 5: A STORY IN FIVE PICTURES

58

AUSTRIA’S DOMINIK HERNLER DISCOVERS THRILLING WAKEBOARDING SPOTS WHERE YOU’D LEAST EXPECT THEM WORDS: AREK PIATEK PHOTOGRAPHY: SAM STRAUSS/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

2

DAM “The great thing about dams is the artificial waterfalls, which allow you to jump from one body of water into another. There was a cool 3m drop at this dam in Salzburg. I used the concrete piers as kickers.

The trick I’m doing here is a Backside Nose Tap 180, a half-turn in the air with reverse landing in shoulder-deep water. It was just fantastic.”

“THE GREAT THING ABOUT DAMS ARE THE ARTIFICIAL WATERFALLS: PERFECT FOR JUMPING”

3 WALL

“A mobile winch means a wakeboarder isn’t dependent on boats or lifts anymore, so you can ride the craziest places.

I was able to do wallrides on the concrete wall of a hydroelectric power station, and an incredible 6m drop at an old dam. The only problem with using the electric winch is that you have to drag a car battery around with you everywhere you go.”

61

“BENEATH ME WAS WHAT WE CALL ‘THE DEAD ZONE’.

A FALL HERE WOULD HAVE BEEN FATAL”

62

THE RED BULLETIN

5

SHINGLE “It’s maybe not completely clear from the photo, but this was actually the scariest moment of the whole route.

After one jump on the Steinbach Dam, I was heading for the embankment at 25kph. There would have been problems if I’d let go of the rope too late. You can tell how fast I was going when I hit dry land by the size of the wake the board made in the water. I actually carried on for another 15m over the shingle – I was fine, the board less so.” redbull.com/winchelroute

4 ROCKS

“The location is Spittal an der Drau in Carinthia. I only risked doing the stunt here because I know the place like the back of my hand. The winch pulled me at full speed over a ramp I’d made myself at this narrow point in the river. Directly beneath me were rocks, a dead zone, as we say in the trade. Falling here would have been fatal. But I got the speed exactly right. I landed 3m further along in deep, ice-cold water.”

THE RED BULLETIN

63

“It doesn’t look like work, but it is.”

Joe Daly describes the creation of his comics as “seriously hard work, but also usually joyful”

The creative extremist Joe Daly is a star of the international comics scene thanks to his stubborn work ethic, savvy craftsmanship and a weird and wonderful signature style

Words: Sean Christie Illustrations: Joe Daly Photography: Sydelle Willow Smith 65

J

oe Daly’s apartment in the coastal town of Kleinmond in the Western Cape is an unlikely headquarters for a multinational comic-art brand. For starters, it’s really tiny – so small that Daly’s bed and desk seem to constitute a single piece of furniture design. There’s also its location at the southernmost tip of the African continent, as far from the major international markets for comic art as you can possibly get.

And yet it is here that Daly – aged 36 and still more or less anonymous in South Africa, despite being this country’s greatest ever graphic novelist – recently completed his latest work, Highbone Theatre, an epic at 570 pages. Like his previous five books, it seems destined to attain cult status when it is published in the USA and France in 2016, where Daly is signed respectively to Fantagraphics and L’Association, two of the biggest names in alternative comics.

So, how did Daly manage to leapfrog the almost non-existent market for local comic art and land right on the big stage? Andy Mason, head of the Centre for Comic, Illustrative and Book Arts at the University of Stellenbosch, has an idea. “Joe is a creative extremist,” he says, “in the sense that comics are his whole life – he eats, breathes and dreams about them, and works harder at his craft than anyone else in the country.”

To give some sense of just how hard Daly works, Mason explains that only a handful of South Africans have ever undertaken creating a graphic novel, and even fewer have attempted a second.

“We’re talking thousands of hours per book, with no expectation of a decent financial return at the end because the market for graphic novels is quite small, even overseas. But in spite of these suffocating demands, Joe has kept on producing these things in solitary confinement, like a machine.”

The books in question – The Red Monkey (2003); Scrublands (2006); The Red Monkey Double Happiness Book (2009) and Dungeon Quest: Book One (2010),

“Mind-bending”, “wildly original” and “very, very funny”: just a few of the comments from international comics aficionados about Daly’s work

THE RED BULLETIN

Daly stylistically subverts comicbook superhero convention 67

“Comics do take it out of you. I’ve been living like a vampire. You could say I’m a bit of a maniac”

Daly (above) was once described by an interviewer as being part Jesse Eisenberg in The Squid And The Whale, part ‘The Dude’ from The Big Lebowski Right: scenes from his 570-page epic Highbone Theatre, due to be published in 2016

68

Book Two (2011) and Book Three (2012) – are all filed away in a small bookcase in Daly’s living room. Approximately 15 years’ worth of full-time work on a single shelf.

“Comics do take it out of you,” Daly admits, rolling a cigarette with a faint look of self-censure, his face made a little otherworldly by his Abe Lincoln beard and high cheekbones. “I’ve been living like a vampire: waking up, drinking coffee, working, going to sleep. I suppose you could say I’m a bit of a maniac. It’s affected my health, certainly.”

But a Spartan work ethic alone won’t win you a global following, or prestigious accolades such as the Special Jury Prize at the Angoulême International Comics Festival, which Daly was awarded in 2010 for Dungeon Quest: Book One. The successful graphic novelist must also possess artistic flair and a signature style, a high level of technical proficiency, an intuitive sense of market tastes and a wild imagination.

Daly had the artistic flair dialled from the start, and it helped that his parents, Niki and Jude Daly, THE RED BULLETIN

are both well-known author/illustrators of prizewinning children’s books.

“As soon as he was able, Joe began to draw on the walls,” says Niki. “First, it was scribbles, and then it became shapes of things that interested him – circles, radials, people – drawn with the authority that all small children bring to their creations, before they become more self-conscious and start to seek approval. Joe always got our approval and continued to draw with authority, curiosity, great imagination, humour and always with a narrative content – as he does to this day.”

A

fter attending SACS and Westerford in Cape Town, Daly enrolled on a twoyear diploma course in animation at CityVarsity. “It was an excellent preparation for drawing comics. Much of the first year was taken up with drawing short poses, which taught me how to capture motion,” says Daly, adding that successful comics are directed in much the same way as films.

“You need to know where to position your imaginary camera, and in which way to direct the action,” he says. “Unless one studies film, you might not be consciously aware of why one thing works better than another.”

After graduating, Daly began work on The Red Monkey. It took him two years to complete 29 pages, and although a local publisher was keen to take it, Daly had to find some way of marketing the material himself. He convinced SL magazine to serialise the comic, two pages at a time, and The Red Monkey soon had a small but enthusiastic local following.

However, when the book failed to sell locally, Daly took it as confirmation that his only real chance of a career in comic art lay in overseas publication.

For this, he needed expert mentorship, and like many great artists he sought out the very best in the business: Anton Kannemeyer and Conrad Botes, creators of the legendary counter-cultural comic Bitterkomix. Their provocative work had already influenced Daly’s own in profound ways, but the friendship and guidance offered by Kannemeyer in particular was soon to prove life-changing.

“I went through a period of constructive criticism from Anton, especially with regard to the technical aspects of making comics,” Daly recalls. “I also learned a lot about the marketing side of things, because they were the first local comic artists to find success overseas, especially in Europe.”

Daly made his first overtures “in the old-fashioned way”, sending his material to as many editors as he could find addresses for. His work quickly snagged the interest of the Seattle-based Fantagraphics, although a year went by before that nibble became a bite (the legendary comics aficionado Gary Groth personally signed up Daly).

In the meantime, Daly travelled with the Bitterkomix crew to the Cyclone BD International Comics Festival on Réunion Island, where he could physically present his work to French publishers, creating a ripple of interest that ultimately led to his THE RED BULLETIN

69

Purists in the comics world celebrate Daly as a keeper of the original fire second graphic novel, Scrublands, being published

by L’Association. For Daly, who had grown up reading classic French comic books such as Hergé’s Tintin, it was a dream come true.

“The French and Belgians have long regarded comics as an art form, which is a view the Englishspeaking world is only now waking up to. As a result, the scene in the French-speaking world is huge, and it’s here that I’ve had my best sales and successes,” says Daly, who suspects his work may be better known in French-speaking African countries than in South Africa itself, thanks to the proselytising efforts of the French embassies’ cultural services departments.

W

hat is it about Daly’s work that has captured the imagination of some of the world’s most discerning consumers of comic art?

Mason has characterised Daly’s work as “100 per cent tailormade… for young wired geeky guys who smoke too much weed and watch slacker movies”, and while there is some truth to this, it does not nearly cover Daly’s achievement or the breadth of his appeal.

One of Daly’s strengths is his ability to work in familiar modes of visual narrative, but without conforming to expectations, so that each book ends up being its own unique, genre-defying artefact.

This is what underground comic art is all about, and purists, lamenting the mainstream turn the graphic novel has taken in recent years, celebrate Daly as a keeper of the original fire.

In Highbone Theatre, for example, Daly stylistically subverts the comic-book superhero convention to hilarious effect by giving all the male characters Incredible Hulk muscles. In Red Monkey, he plays around with the European style of detective adventure comic (Tintin being the most obvious reference), whereas the Dungeon Quest series – if the name doesn’t instantly give it away – sends up fantasy role-play video games.

With the aim of universalising the appeal of his work, Daly has deliberately suppressed anything that might peg it as South African, although he feels some essence of place still seeps through and that this helps to give his books their particular flavour.

“The life of a comics creator in South Africa is a life of obscurity and isolation and I’ve tried to turn THE RED BULLETIN

this situation into my strength,” he has said in the past. “I think when my comics hit the international markets, they have a strange vibe that they were created far away in some bubble somewhere, and I think that helps them to be unique.”

During The Red Bulletin’s visit to Daly’s apartment, a red-eyed pigeon lands on his little balcony and stares in at us. Daly stares back.

“The birds like it here because it’s just about the tallest building in town,” he says. “At first I thought it was pleasant, but then I experienced an infestation of tropical fowl mites. Do you know what those are?

They’re tiny pests that infest birds’ nests, often entering human habitations when their bird hosts disappear. They can’t actually survive on human blood, but they think they can, and the first time you realise your home is infested is at night, when they swarm all over your body, biting you.”

This is vintage Daly: unexpected, unnerving, but still rather comical – a case of reality imitating his particular kind of art. It also signals a point at which the artist begins to feel claustrophobic.

“Shall we take a walk?” he suggests, producing a skateboard from behind his sofa. “Now that I’ve finished Highbone, I’m determined to find a bit more balance. A bit more sun.”

Above: a page from Daly’s award-winning Dungeon Quest series, featuring iconic characters Millennium Boy and Lash Penis Opposite: his use of colour is greatly influenced by the French underground comics scene, says Daly

mungosuthu.wix.com/highbonetheatre

71

“I’VE EVEN

DRIVEN WHEN I COULDN’T SEE”

There’s no end to this man’s talents. He’s done rallying, touring car races and hillclimbs, and in 2016 Sébastien Loeb makes his Dakar debut

CAN WE REALLY ONLY SEE WITH OUR EYES? OR IS IT POSSIBLE TO TRAIN YOUR SENSES SO THAT THE IMAGE IN YOUR HEAD IS SHARPER AND MORE RELIABLE THAN THE ONE ON YOUR RETINA? RACING LEGEND SÉBASTIEN LOEB HAS A CLEAR VIEW ON THE MATTER WORDS: WERNER JESSNER PHOTOGRAPHY: FLAVIEN DUHAMEL

73

Y ou need not be a motorsport fan to appreciate that Sébastien Loeb is an exceptional athlete.

It’s enough to watch the 41year-old Frenchman at work; you can’t help but be amazed.

He creates these very special Sébastien Loeb moments – moments of supreme precision that only he can pull off.

These snapshots are more impressive than the nine World Rally Championship wins, the podium finish at the 24 Hours of Le Mans, the World Touring Car Championship wins, the incredible times he recorded while testing a Formula One car, and the track record at the legendary Pikes Peak Hill Climb in Colorado, USA, where he even beat the best theoretical time as calculated

by Peugeot’s computer.

The tougher the job at hand, the more precise is Loeb’s work. Where his rivals plan meticulously, Loeb plans down to the millimetre. The penultimate turn in his recordbreaking run at Pikes Peak in 2013 was just such a moment.

Having covered 19.5km of the 20km course, you hit the penultimate of the 156 turns, a triple right-hander...

“And when you’re going at 150kph and there are no crash barriers,” says Loeb, “it’s a place where you really can’t afford to make a mistake.”

None of the other drivers took the turn-in point, at an altitude of some 4,300m,

74

blind. Most were happy just to have survived and somehow wobbled their way through the section. But while they tried and came away with little to show for their efforts, Loeb’s front wheel touched the white line demarcating the edge of the track. Total perfection… but how?

What do you see when you think of that turn?

“Two bumps in the road surface, which made things even trickier.”

Does that mean you see turns three-dimensionally?

“I don’t even know if I really see them. When I’m in the car, I retrieve data that I’ve saved while inspecting the track, or from practice runs.”

Long days in Morocco: Loeb learnt the hard way what marathon competitions are all about when he made his rally raid debut in October this year.

First he got lost, then there where technical problems, and finally the car rolled twice.

He finished down in 44th place, but he had learnt and seen a lot

“ACOUSTIC STIMULI HONE WHAT YOU SEE, OR WHAT YOU THINK YOU’RE SEEING. THE VISUAL IMAGE GETS GREATER DEPTH. SKIERS DON’T JUST SEE ICE, THEY HEAR IT, TOO”

So, do you know all the racing tracks by heart?

“With track circuits, that’s certainly the case. I also learnt Pikes Peak by heart. And I’ve probably also got some of the rallies off pat, especially the ones where the landscape changes. I go by crests of hills, trees, rivers. I’ve never found that any trouble.”

Could you theoretically drive blind?

“I already have.”

Er, what?

“The lights on my car were incredibly bad during one night stage on the Wales Rally.

One headlamp was pointing at the sky and the other to the side. It was raining and foggy.

The conditions were awful, so I turned off the lights and drove to the end of the special stage in the dark.”

You were flying along completely blind?

“It’s better to have no light than bad light. The moonlight gave me a rough outline and I filled in the other details of the course with my head.

My co-driver’s words were confirmation that the images in my head were right.”

Does that mean you also see with your ears when you are driving?

“Acoustic stimuli hone what you see, or what you think you’re seeing. The visual image gets greater depth.

Skiers don’t just see the ice, they hear it, too, because it sounds different from snow.

It’s much the same with me when I’m driving. When what 75

I can hear doesn’t tally with what I can see – or what I expect to see – I’ll switch into alarm mode. In my sport, the words of my co-driver are the equivalent of the scraping on the skis.”

When you’re alone in the car, whose voice do you hear?

“I don’t really know.

Probably not my co-driver’s.

Probably my own.”

In his teenage years, Loeb was a gymnast, which is the best way to get to know your body, he says. Loeb’s body is like a second pair of eyes for him, because it always knows, with great precision, the position he’s in.

He illustrates his point with an example from the world of gymnastics. A lot of people attempting to do a backwards somersault would close their eyes when they were in the air and bank on getting the jump right. Loeb, by contrast, keeps his eyes open while airborne, so that he can make small adjustments. If he gets his takeoff wrong – which doesn’t

76

happen very often – he can still react while in the air, because his brain knows the position his body is in and is capable of factoring in the visual information it receives.

This skill has helped him enormously in unfamiliar situations such as his Formula One test drives. With almost no preparation, he came within 1.8 seconds of the lap record. “Everything happens a lot faster in a Formula One car than it does anywhere else.

Whereas you might normally brake 110m out, in F1 it’s 70m out and you’re coming in at greater speed. In that situation, what your body feels supports what you see with your eyes.”

Loeb is convinced that heightened interaction between your eyes and body aids enjoyment and safety in life on a day-to-day basis. He believes the skill can be of just as much use to a layperson as a sportsman. And, of course, the earlier you start learning to see with your body, the better. “OK, so you’re probably not going to take up gymnastics yourself at 40,” he says. “but

parents can sign their children up to a club. You learn certain things very easily when you’re young and they’ll help you your whole life.”

Admittedly, Loeb also has a pair of eagle eyes for good measure. Is that luck? Did he inherit them? The son of a maths professor and a gymnastics teacher, he never had to eat carrots to improve his eyesight. Whereas others are wearing glasses at 41, he still has the 20-20 vision that would have been good enough to get him into flying school.

On the wall opposite him is a photograph of a Citroën Xsara at Rally Sweden, and Loeb can read the number plate, no problem. Or does he just know his old number plate by heart?

“Actually, that’s my teammate Carlos Sainz, not me,” he replies.

Loeb says that his vision has become specialised over the years, out of necessity.

He definitely focuses on the immediate field of vision.

“I’m incredibly bad at the tests where you stand by a wall, then lights come on

briefly at the top, bottom, left and right of the wall and you have to touch them as quickly as possible.”

Incredibly bad, you would presume, by his own extremely high standards.

But it’s this very skill – being able to focus on everything at once – that will be crucial to the completion of his next challenge. When he makes his Dakar debut, Loeb will need

to be able to see close up and far away at the same time.

He’ll have one eye on the route, with his co-driver only able to provide a rough description rather than the turn-by-turn, rock-by-rock indicators that Loeb is used to.

It’ll be a strange new voice inside his head that supports what Loeb’s sight is telling him, which won’t be easy.

So while one eye is trying not

“IN WALES, I TURNED OFF THE HEADLAMPS. IT’S BETTER TO HAVE NO LIGHT THAN BAD LIGHT”

to get lost among the dunes, trees and riverbeds, the other is scanning the surface for rocks and other obstacles that could, at speeds of 160kph or more, spell disaster for the whole venture – or at least lose him a tyre.

“It’s really stressful. You’ve got to process too many stimuli at once,” says Loeb.

“It’s 40°C outside, 60°C in the car, and your brain is constantly focused on two things at once. And if you make one single mistake, that could be the end of it all. Even I can’t see things that fast.” peugeot-sport.com

As if the new Peugeot 2008 DKR16 wasn’t enough, Team Peugeot Total will have an allstar crew at Dakar, with the rally’s most successful driver, Stéphane Peterhansel, plus Cyril Despres and Carlos Sainz

For 10 whole days each year, the world’s top DJs take over Playa del Carmen, turning it into the capital of techno.

This is BPM on Mexico’s Caribbean coastline

JEFF CORRIGAN

Words: Marco Payán

78

The techno Olympics

The music at the BPitch Control showcase was so good, some people asked for forgiveness

No other music festival offers 10 days of sunshine, beautiful women, Caribbean beaches and 24-hour techno

80

Nights at the Blue Parrot mean only one thing: more partying than ever

DOUG VAN SANT (2), DANILO LEWIS, PEARCEY PROPER

By word of mouth alone, BPM went from a party selling 5,000 tickets to a 15,000strong festival the next year

Frank & Tony select their best beats at Canibal Royal

The Rumors showcase at Canibal Royal went on long into the night

anuary is a tough month as far as entertainment goes.

After the excesses of Christmas and New Year, most of us are happy to stick with the comforts of jogging bottoms and the sofa. But there’s one group of people bucking the trend.

“BPM is a festival for jetsetters – young people who work hard all year so they can come here for 10 days in January,” says Phillip Pulitano, one of the founders and directors of this Mexican event. The soundtrack here is strictly for music lovers – the crème de la crème of electronic dance music. And the set-up is no more predictable. “There’s no big area with lots of different stages,” he says. “BPM takes place all over the city of Playa del Carmen. Our stages are the dancefloors, clubs and beach clubs.”

Beats on the beach “I don’t think of it as a job,” says Pulitano.

“When you enjoy what you do, it doesn’t feel like work.” During the planning stages, he and the other founders consider every aspect of the festival, which takes over the Riviera Maya. But it’s also the partygoers who make BPM what it is, and people come in their droves. It’s more difficult to find accommodation here during the festival than it is at New Year. Some bars sell more vodka and beer at BPM than during the other 355 days of the year.

BPM started out as an industry event for people in the nightlife business, but after seeing all the partying at the first one, Pulitano spotted its potential.

When a new music event really works, people start talking about it. By word of mouth alone, BPM went from being a party held over seven days in 2007, with 21 events and 5,000 tickets sold, to a 15,000-strong festival the next year.

“It tripled!” says Pulitano at the Blue Parrot, one of the local beach clubs that’s been adapted for the festival. Generally, beach clubs are designed with the type of sand, size of area and range of watersports in mind; music is rarely a priority. But at the Blue Parrot it’s the main attraction, even when there’s no BPM. This is just one example of the lasting effect the festival has had on Playa del Carmen.

In 2015, around 63,000 tickets were sold, and in 2016 that figure is expected 82

The enthusiasm of the Mexican partygoers gives BPM a unique flavour

to increase to 70,000. “It’s not as if we want to grow for the sake of it,” says Pulitano. “It’s just that more people come every year.” BPM now has a new location in the jungle next to Playa del Carmen, with interesting venues, pools, art and plenty of local delicacies. He’s personally taken care of every last detail.

The sound of the police

DANILO LEWIS, DOUG VAN SANT

Uner and Technasia take their hat off to the crowd during a back-to-back set at the Blue Parrot

“If you can get me a photo with the DJ, I’ll let you play for longer,” a police officer once told Pulitano when a set had reached its curfew. That night, the police ended up doing tequila shots with the headline DJ. It was a longer session than expected.

And that wasn’t the only time the police got into the party spirit. One day, Pulitano was having lunch with Canadian superstar DJ Richie Hawtin at the festival organiser’s favourite taco restaurant. The place has large metal shutters instead of doors, with tables looking out onto one of the city’s main avenues. What a perfect location, they both thought, for a surprise set. A year later, thousands of people filled the restaurant – some to eat, but most to listen to Hawtin and Dubfire.

The owner carved the meat and danced, losing count of the number of tacos he’d served. Tables were banished to create a makeshift dancefloor, and traffic outside was blocked by crowds of dancing people.

“It’s one of the main thoroughfares, so the police arrived,” says Pulitano. “But after a while even they were dancing.”

Today, evidence of the night when those old gringos had to wait ages for their tacos al pastor can be found in the form of a screensaver on the cash register. In 2016, they’ll be doing it all again, though the time and day will be kept a secret.

How did underground music become so big? The question keeps Pulitano awake at night. Literally. His parties are so popular, he only gets three hours’ sleep a day when the festival is in full swing. And as BPM continues to grow, this will soon seem a luxury. “For me, the best thing to do is to party a little during the day and then a little at night,” he says. “Go to the beach at about 6pm, listen to two or three artists. Enjoy them. Have dinner, take a nap, wake up at two to carry on into the night. That’s how the professionals do it.”

Expecting the unexpected The idea behind BPM is to be able to walk around the streets of Playa del Carmen, from one club to another, listening to your favourite DJ. And while you’re

strolling, you’ll meet other DJs doing the same. “Here, the DJs don’t show up, play and then leave,” says Pulitano.

“We’re always having to postpone their flights because they don’t want to go home. You won’t believe how many times we’ve had to do that.”

For 10 days, Playa del Carmen and BPM become one and the same. The festival may involve a year’s worth of detailed planning, but some of Pulitano’s favourite moments are completely unexpected. For instance, Seth Troxler, one of the most popular DJs at BPM, always brings his mother and, Pulitano recalls, “I suddenly caught sight of him with her, buying souvenir hats from a shop.” That night, the mostly Mexican crowd in front of Troxler’s booth went wild when they saw him put on one of the hats in Mamita’s Beach Club. You can’t plan those moments.

There’s only one thing that Pulitano wishes he could control: the weather.

But he’s not about to lose sleep over it.

“That’s the way it is,” he says. “You win some, you lose some.” This is the philosophy of a person who wants to create a community in Playa del Carmen for electronic music fans, his friends and the founding partners; they’re definitely not the words of a ruthless businessman.

One time at Mamita’s Beach Club, the wind and rain blew over an entire tent and top-quality sound equipment was destroyed. Within a couple of hours, they had rebuilt both the tent and the equipment, so that the party could go on.

“Despite the rain and everything else, people keep coming and having fun,” he says. It turned out that 2015’s BPM was one of the wettest on record.

Growing up The festival looks set to continue its meteoric rise. There’s a launch event in a yet-to-be-announced South American country. Plus there’s already a club night in Europe, and tour dates in Mexico and beyond. “But nothing compares to Playa del Carmen,” says Pulitano, “where we have 10 whole days.”

Though the event attracts thousands of people from all over the world – from South America to Australia and Zimbabwe – the majority of revellers still come from Mexico. “They’re underground music connoisseurs,” says Pulitano.

Perhaps, thanks to the influence of BPM, that’s truer now than ever before. thebpmfestival.com

83

SUBSCRIBE

NOW! SOUTH AFRICA

BEYOND THE ORDINARY

BIG BROTHER IS

WATCHING YOU Skateboarding with the Adams family

NO DIG,

NO RIDE

BEST OF

2015

Amazing images, incredible stories

BMX pioneer Wayne Reiche

FREE

N I XO N

WAT C H

While stock

s last.

R30 INCL VAT (R4.20) DECEMBER 2015

NEED FOR

SPEED

KEANU REEVES builds a bike like no other

12 months + one Nixon „The Unit” watch (value R599) – all for only R228 (R19 per issue).

tin.co.za SIG N-U P TO DAY: getredbulle a; 086 0 100 209 OR REAC H US AT: subs @ra msa yme dia. co.z

See it. Get it. Do it.

AC T I O N !

TRAVEL

BIG FREEZE

Scale spectacular icy summits at the top of the world…

KEITH LADZINSKI

If climbing a vertical rock face isn’t enough of a challenge, how about climbing a vertical sheet of ice – in one of the most remote regions in the world?

That’s the adventure that awaits in Ilulissat, Greenland, where you can really test your mettle by scaling stunning frozen waterfalls and ice-covered cliffs in temperatures as low as -20°C…

85

87

90

92

96

TRAVEL

GEAR

WHEELS

CULTURE

EVENTS 85

ACTION

TRAVEL GREENLAND More to explore

Light show Strap on a pair of snowshoes for a guided night tour of Ilulissat’s frosty surroundings, where you’ll find a perfect viewpoint for one of nature’s greatest spectacles: the Northern Lights. pgigreenland.com

THE INSIDER

“KICK THE ICE HARD – LIKE YOU’RE KICKING A FOOTBALL – AND ALWAYS KEEP YOUR HEEL LOW OR, IF POSSIBLE, AT 90° AGAINST THE WALL,” SAYS MARC CARRERAS. “IF YOU CAN MASTER THIS, YOU’LL BE FINE.”

86

Equipment is provided; bring your own nerves

climbing in -20°C. It’s bitter and very, very tricky, especially with the wind, so you have to be familiar with a winter environment.”

Mental and physical tests aside, Greenland’s stunning icy landscape provides climbers with a spectacular vantage point, pushing their limits from within the Arctic Circle itself. “It’s an extreme activity in an unusual location,” says Carreras. “There are places that are more well known for ice climbing, like Canada or Norway, but here you’re climbing in the ice cap, which is epic.”

Hanging onto the ice from four small points means that climbers also experience something they’re unlikely to find with traditional mountaineering. “It feels like you’re suspended in the air,” says Carreras.

“It’s a unique perspective on the world.”

Chill out Drift alongside the icebergs and explore the stunning polar coast from a traditional Greenlandic kayak – the same vessel used by the country’s first wave of immigrants almost 4,000 years ago. greenland.com

Meet the locals Get up close and personal with Inuit culture by attending a ‘Kaffemik’ – a good old Greenlandic gettogether where local families open their homes and invite you to eat, drink and be merry. touristnature.com

MADS PIHL (5)

Even for more experienced climbers, ice ascents present a whole new challenge – as anyone who’s come a cropper crossing an icy path can probably imagine.

For starters, there’s not much to grip onto, with every contact point holding a slippery peril. “Ice climbing is not as intuitive as rock climbing,” says Marc Carreras, managing director of adventure company PGI Greenland. “The challenge of mountain climbing is one third technical, one third physical and one third mental. With ice climbing, the mind plays a much bigger part than one third. Ice is not nearly as stable, so you have to be patient and prepared to learn a very specific, finessed technique. The main thing is that you’re ready to cross your comfort zone.”

Luckily, there’s help at hand thanks to advanced ice tools – ice axes for each hand and technical crampons with huge front spikes for your feet – Ilulissat, which give you the ability to hang tight to Greenland the glass-like surface. Climbers are also Ilulissat anchored from solid rock points above and Want to tackle an connected by rope to a guide, meaning ice climb? Head to: the chances of sliding to your doom are pgigreenland.com pretty slim. (“There’s one rule among the professional ice-climbing community: don’t fall!” cautions Carreras with a smile.)

The real test, though, is holding your focus in the freezing temperatures. “You’re climbing in very extreme conditions,” Carreras explains. “Last year in Ilulissat we beat all weather records and we were

THE RED BULLETIN

ACTION

GEAR

REMOTE CONTROL

Sync your life wirelessly with this innovative smart tech Anki Overdrive

Sengled Pulse

Nest Thermostat

A Scalextric-like system for the wireless generation, the Overdrive enables you to race model cars around a customisable track using your smartphone as the controller. anki.com

This smart bulb combines an app-controlled dimmable LED light with a Bluetooth speaker.

A master can be paired with ‘satellite’ bulbs for more immersive audio. shop.sengled.com

The third generation of this gadget allows you to control your home temperature remotely thanks to an app. It’s slimmer, sleeker and can now ‘learn’ your habits. Scary. nest.com

Drop Connected Scale Rubbish at cooking? Impress your doubters with this clever kitchen scale, which syncs with your phone or tablet to make sure you follow recipes to the teaspoon. getdrop.com

The cars are powered up by placing them on the accompanying charging platform, with a full charge taking under 10 minutes.

Razer Nabu

Smarter Coffee

Combining the best features of a smartwatch and a dedicated activity tracker, this classy but rugged wristband even lets you exchange social media info via a handshake. razerzone.com

A caffeine lover’s dream, this WiFi-enabled coffee grinder/brewer will have a hot, fresh pot of perfect joe waiting as soon as you wake up or get home from work. firebox.com

THE RED BULLETIN

Fugoo Style

One of the most dapper new Bluetooth speakers on the market, the Fugoo has a changeable outer ‘jacket’ and offers 40 hours of meaty, 360° audio per charge. Style and substance. fugoo.com

87

ACTION

WATCHES

Edited by Gisbert L Brunner

THE NEXT GENERATION

The digital watch faces mimic classic TAG Heuer three-hand and chronograph designs.

Blue, black and white options are available at launch, but with the ability to download new and specialedition faces in the future, the possibilities for customisation are endless.

TAG Heuer unveils a smartwatch to challenge the market titans Ever since the Apple Watch burst onto the scene in April 2015, traditional watch brands have been faced with a dilemma: do they try to compete with the tech giant’s wearable phenomenon or forge ahead with their own classic, beautifully crafted timepieces? For TAG Heuer, the answer was simple: they would do both. Following an announcement at trade show Baselworld earlier this year, the brand has unveiled the TAG Heuer Connected – a new kind of smartwatch that sees the Swiss watchmaker join forces with computer chip specialist Intel and software giant Google to offer a credible, luxury rival to Apple’s latest game changer.

For all its technological wizardry, the Connected stays true to TAG Heuer’s roots – as its CEO, JeanClaude Biver, emphasises, “It is, primarily, a proper watch.” And, true to his word, the round, 46mm titanium case bears all the hallmarks of the company’s trademark Carrera watches.

But the real innovation can be accessed via the scratchresistant, sapphire crystal touchscreen, which covers a sophisticated, Intelengineered micro-computer.

Welcome to the future… tagheuerconnected.com

88

A huge array of apps will be available to download from the Google Play store. The watch has external sensors – useful for fitness and sleep-tracking apps – and the wearer can record voice memos, check weather reports, get calendar reminders, and much more.

The TAG Heuer Connected comes with a USB charging cradle for powering up and has 30 hours of battery life with normal use.

The TAG Heuer Connected will save or download data directly to and from the cloud (via WiFi) or your smartphone (via Bluetooth). Unlike the Apple Watch, the Connected is ‘bilingual’, meaning it can communicate with both Android and iOS devices (although there will be some restrictions to the latter).

THE RED BULLETIN

GEAR

TAG Heuer CEO Jean-Claude Biver

FUTURE PROOFING

GETTY IMAGES

TAG Heuer CEO Jean-Claude Biver gives the lowdown on Connected…

The Red Bulletin: What was the idea behind the TAG Heuer Connected?

Jean-Claude Biver: The idea is in our slogan: ‘Avant-garde since 1860.’ If you’ve been avant-garde since 1860, then obviously you should be avant-garde in 2015, too.

It’s an ongoing process.

TAG Heuer is about both tradition and innovation. In that sense, the Connected watch fits the bill perfectly.

So how did it come about?

We came up with the Connected watch thanks to Apple. The Swiss watchmaking industry has never been very deeply involved in [smart technology].

We have always thought of it as something peripheral, for sport

THE RED BULLETIN

and outdoor activities. But the Apple Watch really woke us up and gave us a bit of a fright.

By the time that happened, Apple was already way out ahead. We understood that we would be entering the arena with a lot of catching-up to do.

You’ve brought some powerful partners on board in Intel and Google...

The only way for those of us who were so far behind to make headway was to team up with partners who were as advanced as Apple. For software, Google and its Android Wear was the only option as it has a 70 per cent market share. As for hardware, Intel is undoubtedly one of the technological market leaders. They’re our strategic

partners: Google gives us the chassis and Intel the engine.

It was a logical move; linking up with the market leader means you always keep up with the latest developments, whereas if you only buy the technology, there’s the danger that you might end up with something obsolete.

Did TAG Heuer develop the hardware alongside Intel, or did the ideas all come from California?

Intel provided us with multiple suggestions. The last involved

“TAG Heuer is about both tradition and innovation. This watch fits that bill”

using a real computer. In summer 2014, there was still talk of using a microprocessor, as Apple and some of the other companies were doing. But then the head of development turned up with this thing that was just the size of a coin, but full of electronic components.

When I asked what it was, the answer I got was, “A computer.” I was stunned.

They told me that this element was easy to operate with a monitor and keyboard.

It was the world’s smallest computer. And I said we should use this technology, as long as it was available in time.

‘Computer’ implies a certain degree of autonomy...

Yes, that is the case – as far as certain basic functions are concerned, the Connected is indeed autonomous. You can listen to music on it or just keep abreast of the time. But, to access the full range of its functions, you will still need a WiFi or Bluetooth connection via your smartphone. The Connected is first and foremost a watch, even if it does contain a microcomputer.

One of the biggest problems with smartphones – and also smartwatches – is that they become out of date so quickly. How does the TAG Heuer Connected measure up in that regard? Will we have to buy a new watch every one or two years?

No, of course that’s not the case. You will be able to install new or improved software, as you can with a smartphone.

Naturally, anyone who wants to stay up-to-date with the latest technological advances, such as having a watch with a built-in camera, won’t be able to avoid buying a new one eventually. But it seems to be the case that the people who might potentially buy a smartwatch accept that sort of thing. I admit that we don’t have any experience in the area yet; this is virgin territory for us. We have to learn as we go along.

89

ACTION

WHEELS MOTOR MERCH New gear, shoes and, er, a mini 4 × 4

Bentley Collection

BACK WITH A BANG

Alfa Romeo returns with a saloon stunner The pricing and specification of Alfa Romeo’s new Giulia Quadrifoglio invites comparison with all the other titans in the compact-saloon class. Thanks to its 510hp engine and 0-100kph time of 3.9s, the model is inevitably bracketed with BMW’s M3 Saloon, Audi’s RS4 and the MercedesAMG C63. But it shouldn’t be, because where other brands inspire admiration, Alfa Romeo inspires love. And after being absent from the performance-saloon market for too long, the sight of this new Cloverleaf will have Alfa’s army of adoring

THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL

Bentley takes luxury style off-roading Given the proliferation of high-end SUVs, it was perhaps inevitable that genuine luxury carmakers would eventually jump on the bandwagon. So, for those who don’t find the new flagship Range Rover opulent enough, there’s the Bentley Bentayga – a Bentley and an SUV. The Bentayga has a 6-litre W12 twin-turbo engine capable of producing 600hp, and its interior was hand-built by the craftspeople of the Bentley workshop, offering a level of luxury and detail that only generations of training can provide. And, as usual, the customer can have pretty much any pallet of colours, type of leather and grain of wood he or she desires. So, if you have very deep pockets and a yearning to go off-roading without having to rough it, there’s a Bentley Bentayga for you. bentleymotors.com

90

fans jumping up and clapping their hands like teenagers at a One Direction gig. More restrained Giulias will follow, but Alfa has decided to launch its flagship first. Beneath the long bonnet lies a Ferrari-fettled, turbocharged 2.9-litre V6 engine, and the elegance usually seen in Alfa saloons has been replaced by a pronounced rake and more muscularity. Despite all that, though, the Giulia is still pretty in ways that its German rivals are not, as Alfa looks to inspire its existing devotees while also moving the brand forward. alfaromeo.com

The Alfa Romeo Giulia Quadrifoglio reaches a top speed of 307kph, with Active Torque Vectoring for better traction and handling

Rather more understated than the Bentayga are the latest additions to Bentley’s lifestyle merchandise range – everything from leather bags to cashmere equestrian blankets. bentleycollection.com

Land Rover pedal car Land Rover is clearly keen to recruit a younger audience – this scaleddown version of its classic Defender model has jaw-dropping detail and is yours for around half the price of the real thing. landrover.com

Jaguar by Oliver Sweeney This carmaker/cobbler team-up has spawned two new formal drivingshoe styles: Weslake and Sayer (below), named after engine builder Harry Weslake and car designer Malcolm Sayer. oliversweeney.com

THE RED BULLETIN

CAPTURE THE ACTION! GIDEON CAMERA 1 WASPCAM WLVD WRIST WATCH REMOTE

1

The all-new ‘Gideon’ is WASPcam’s premium camera model, with serious pixel power, higher frame-rate quality and WASPcam’s new Live Viewing Display (LVD) Wrist Remote!

5 99995

2 HD ADVENTURE

ACTION CAMERA

Capture all the action with the awesome Adventure HD. Features include a 120º HD wide angle lens, 1.5-inch LCD screen, 32G SD card and 70 minutes’ battery life, plus accessories including a waterproof casing.

2

99995 3 WASPCAM ACTION SPORTS

CAMCORDER DUAL REMOTE

Packed inside the tiny 9900 or 9901 edition WASPcam Action Sports Camera hides the latest technologies, to film, edit and share your biggest moments or most interesting perspectives.

3 99995

3

4 WASPCAM POLE MOUNT

Made from lightweight aluminium for extra durability, with a handle grip with a wireless wrist remote holder, the WASPcam Extending Pole Mount extends from 12 inches to roughly 26.5 inches.

44995

5

5 WASPCAM 2-IN-1 PORTABLE HAND GRIP TRIPOD

Both a hand grip and a mini tripod, this 2-in-1 mount offers a comfortable hand grip, allowing users to stabilize their WASPcam while holding it, while fold-out legs allow for use as a tripod.

19995

4

ACTION

CULTURE Break time: Ramîrez learned surfing for his role as Bodhi

COMING ATTRACTIONS The best new releases to keep you entertained

MOBILE App happy Mobile gaming spend is set to hit R1.3 billion in 2016, according to a new PricewaterhouseCoopers report.

This trumps the expected R601 million to be spent on PC games and the R817 million on console. pwc.co.za/outlook

NO LIMITS

With an even more extreme remake of actionsports thriller Point Break on the way, we catch up with the new Bodhi, Édgar Ramírez The Red Bulletin : How did you feel when you were offered the role of action-sports nut turned bank robber Bodhi? Édgar Ramirez : I was 13 when the original Point Break came out and I was very inspired by it. Little did I know that years later I would be playing Bodhi! He was the character I was most impressed by, because of his freedom and the spiritual battle he leads. Back then society was all about money and accumulating, and Bodhi was trying to rebel against that. Now, we’re paying a huge toll for that era of excess and the guys in the new movie are taking action – it’s not only rebelling against the system, it’s taking down the system.

How many of the stunts did you do yourself?

We came as close as it was safe for us, and sometimes we pushed it even further than that. When we were filming the climbing scenes at Angel Falls in Venezuela, I was hanging at over 900m above the highest waterfall in the world. I learned how to surf in one of the biggest swells so far this century in Tahiti. We shot everything for real. It was more than a production; it was an expedition.

You had top action-sports athletes on set as your advisors and stunt performers – how did they enhance the shoot?

It was a huge privilege having Laird Hamilton as your surfing teacher, Xavier De Le Rue teaching you to do big-mountain snowboarding and Chris Sharma as your rock-climbing mentor. They were there to support us both technically and emotionally – we were trying to recreate not only their form, but their state of mind, the things that these guys feel to achieve the impossible. It was a very humbling experience.

Point Break is in cinemas from February 12.

92

ADRENALIN JUNKIES When action sports meet action movies…

Point Break (1991) Spiritual warrior Bodhi (Patrick Swayze) and his gang of surfers/bank robbers are infiltrated by former American football player turned rookie FBI agent, Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves, below).

Cliffhanger (1993) Sylvester Stallone stars as climber Gabe Walker, who gets caught up in a deadly game of cat and mouse with John Lithgow’s band of mercenaries in the Rocky Mountains.

FILM The Revenant An ambitious project from Birdman director Alejandro G Iñárritu, this epic thriller stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a frontiersman out to get revenge on the men who left him for dead. Expect Oscar buzz when the film is released on January 15. foxmovies.com

Terminal Velocity (1994) Charlie Sheen’s maverick skydiving instructor teams up with Nastassja Kinski’s former KGB agent to foil the schemes of the Russian mafia. Really.

GAME Lego Marvel’s Avengers Play as minifigure versions of Captain America, Iron Man, the Hulk and more in Lego’s latest digital outing, which follows the plots of Avengers Assemble and Avengers: Age Of Ultron (and every Marvel movie in between). Available on all platforms from January 26. lego.com

THE RED BULLETIN

INTERPOL PICTURES, TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX FILM CORPORATION, NIKO TAVERNISE/HBO

FILM

ACTION

CULTURE

KAINRATH’S WISE WORDS An eternal horoscope for 2016 Capricorn

Pisces

January 21-February 20

February 21-March 20

Up that mountain with you! After that?

Up the next one! The journey is the goal.

Spend some time alone. Plunge into the depths of the ocean… or your soul.

Don’t overthink things, especially affairs of the heart. Just go for it!

Aries

Taurus

Gemini

March 21-April 20

April 21-May 20

May 21-June 21

Practise the true art of battle. Become your enemy’s kindred spirit.

It’s not your victories that matter, it’s how many friends you have. Buy them a drink.

Ask yourself what you need more often.

Though it’s best not to do it out loud.

Cancer

Leo

Virgo

June 22-July 22

July 23-August 23

August 24-September 23

There’s no turning back. So ditch the doubts and keep going forward!

You know what your problem is. You’re a king in a democracy. Be patient. Things will change.

You are worldly-wise, it’s others who are clueless. Most of the time anyway…

Libra

DIETMAR KAINRATH

Aquarius

December 22-January 20

Scorpio

Sagittarius

September 24-October 23

October 24-November 22

November 23-December 21

Don’t dwell on your mistakes. It will take a load off your mind, and that’s the way to happiness.

You’re never bad at anything. But there is such a thing as being too good!

Love can be dangerous. Only give your heart to someone who is offering theirs in return.

THE RED BULLETIN

93

CULTURE

THE PLAYLIST MATT BERNINGER

BREAKING THROUGH New year, new musical talent. Here are three up-and-coming female artists we’re tipping for big things in 2016…

Following the release in 2013 of their Grammynominated sixth album, Trouble Will Find Me, which reached number three in the US and the UK, indie-rock titans The National went on an 18-month world tour. But instead of then taking a break, frontman Matt Berninger went into the studio with fellow musician Brent Knopf to work on a side project, El Vy. In contrast to The National’s melancholy songs, his new group serve up snappy new-wave riffs and upbeat disco rhythms on their debut album, Return To The Moon. Here, the 44-year-old reveals the songs that have inspired him. elvy.co

Minutemen

Olivia Newton-John

This Ain’t No Picnic [from Double Nickels On The Dime]

Hopelessly Devoted To You

“When I started writing [Return To The Moon], I’d been watching We Jam Econo, a documentary about US punk band Minutemen and the friendship between its members D Boon and Mike Watt.

It’s about love and pain and all the sh-t that people go through during adolescence. The film moved me and was a big inspiration for the characters in my songs. As for Minutemen’s music, this is one of their finest moments.”

“As a young boy, I was totally in love with Olivia Newton-John.

When I think back to the first time I felt true love, it was either her or Annette Funicello from The Mickey Mouse Club. Olivia Newton-John’s music was amazing, too. There’s so much romance in a song like Hopelessly Devoted To You, and when you’re a 12-year-old, that’s powerful stuff. It’s impossible not to fall in love with her.”

The Smiths

Leonard Cohen

Bigmouth Strikes Again

Famous Blue Raincoat [from Songs Of Love And Hate]

“Like most of my peers in grade school, I listened to Van Halen, Rush and AC/DC. But all that changed when my sister brought home this single. Listening to this was the beginning of me forming an identity. It was the first time I realised that music is more than entertainment, that there were musicians digging into the ugly and insecure parts of their hearts and turning these thoughts into great pop songs.”

“I’ve been trying for years to write lyrics that compete with the great Leonard Cohen’s, but it’s almost impossible. My Leonard Cohen moment on the El Vy album is the song Sleeping Light, in which I try to bring out the ladies’ man in me, although I’ve got no idea how convincing I am. This wonderful Cohen classic was my reference, but I’m afraid Matt Berninger is not particularly sexy.”

Duran Duran Rio “I love this song. I adore the video, too, with Simon Le Bon and his band on a big-ass yacht, hanging out with supermodels.

That’s my vision of the good life, too; it’s what I’ve always dreamt of. But look what I’ve achieved in my so-called rock-star career: I’m married with children and I’m the lead singer for The National, a band who would never ever get on a boat. I guess I’m a goddamn loser.”

94

Dua Lipa The 20-year-old from London is signed to the same management as Lana del Rey, and her husky-toned debut, New Love, was co-produced

by Emile Haynie of FKA Twigs fame. Listen if you like: Sia, Adele Our tip: New Love

THE GADGET Batband

This device not only looks like a prop from a sci-fi movie, it might actually be the future of how we listen to music on the go. Unlike regular Bluetooth headphones, the Batband uses conduction technology.

Music is transmitted via vibrations through the bones of the skull, while the ears remain uncovered, allowing the user to interact freely with the outside world. studiobananathings.com

Miya Folick Considered to be one of the most talented young songwriters around, this Californian musician is influenced by Buddhist chants, which feed into her sparse, melancholic folk songs. Listen if you like: Feist, Cat Power Our tip: I Got Drunk

Alessia Cara In less than a year, the 19-year-old R&B singer has gone from YouTube fame to a record deal with industry giant Def Jam, counting Taylor Swift among her fans. Listen if you like: Lorde, The Weeknd Our tip: Here DEIRDRE O’CALLAGHAN, KIRSTIN SINCLAIR

ACTION

THE RED BULLETIN

p ro m ot i o n

Must-haves!

1 Salomon SpeedcroSS pro The Speedcross Pro is an SLAB inspired , quick footed trail shoe for the avid trail runner, who is tackling single-track and technical trails. This is especially true, for those who run wet muddy trails or through streams and rivers. Weight : 325g UK 8.5. Heel-Toe Offset: 10mm; 20mm (heel), 10mm (forefoot). Upper: Anti Debris Mesh, water resistant textile, Mud Gaurd, endofit and tongue guard. Outsole : Premium Wet Traction Contagrip. R2 199. www.salomon.com/others

1 2

2 aKG n60nc noISe cancellInG HeadpHoneS The AKG N60NC headphones deliver Grammy awardwinning sound while also utilizing best in class active noise cancelling technology. This newest member will rock your world continuously with up to 30 hours of battery life and can still be used in passive mode after the battery dies out. Accented with premium material such as aluminium, memory foam and leather, this unparalleled listening experience comes magnificently packaged in elegantly crafted lightweight headphones that provide both viewing and listening pleasure.

Available at Musica. What Hifi 5 Star Award.

R 3 999.95. www.musica.co.za 3 TreK GarmIn edGe 520 The Edge 520 is the first GPS bike computer with Strava Live Segments, connected features and a high-resolution, colour display offering cyclists a complete package of cutting-edge features in a compact, lightweight device.

Advanced analysis features include time in zone, functional threshold power, cycling-specific VO2 max and recovery time. Through Strava and Garmin Connect indoor trainer support, cycling dynamics and in-ride segments will ensure cyclist’s will have the competitive edge and the latest in innovative training tools. R 6 499.00. www.garmin.co.za

3

4 5

6

4 TreK GarmIn edGe 520 The Cadence Nutrition CarboFuel Energy Bar is a long awaited addition to the Cadence Nutrition line of products. The CarboFuel bar is a scientifically formulated carbohydrate energy bar that provides an optimal composition of carbohydrates to ensure the maximum delivery of energy to working muscles. However, when Cadence Nutrition set out to develop this bar, the aim was to create more than just any energy bar. They aimed to create the best tasting and most easily edible bar on the market. To top it off the bars are made with 100% natural ingredients. No artificial flavours, colourants or preservatives. RRP R20. http://www.cadencenutrition.com/ 5 BIllaBonG Billabong, the world’s premier surf brand, introduces its 2015 boardshort collections. Boardshorts are the quintessential Billabong garment and this year the classic style is elevated through exciting colourways and carefully curated fabrics for surf and turf. Boardshorts introduce colour and print excitement into a summer wardrobes. The Billabong summer collection is an assortment of refreshing styles – from bold colourblocking to slick stripes and dynamic prints that play into subtle detail. R749.95. http://www.billabong.com/za/ 6 new era x man U Like Manchester United, New Era’s heritage lies within the world of sport. Established in the US in 1920, the company is best known for being the on-field cap for Major League Baseball, an accolade it has held for 81 years. New Era’s flagship product is the 59FIFTY fitted cap. However, the Manchester United product range will include different headwear styles, including fitted caps, baseball caps, Snapbacks and beanies. The partnership will see New Era produce co-branded leisure headwear aimed at the club’s 659 million global followers.

R349.95 (9Forty), R399.95 (39Thirty), 549.95 (9Fifty), R599.95 (59Fifty). www.neweracap.com

ACTION

EVENTS SAVE THE DATE Three great events for the diary you’ll get for Christmas

26

Dec Billy’s Beach This Eastern Cape pop-up party is based at St Francis Bay, but will also be coming live and loud to punters at Kenton-on-Sea. Expect a different party theme every day until January 2, with tickets limited to boost the experience. facebook.com/ billysbeachstfrancis Sand man: Sébastien Loeb is aiming to win his first Dakar Rally

22

The Dakar, the world’s toughest rally, continues to evolve with the course being routed away from Peru this year due to El Nino fears. The start list looks increasingly intimidating, too, with Team Peugot-Total boasting an all-star line-up of Stéphane Peterhansel, Cyril Despres, Carlos Sainz and Sébastien Loeb. South African contender Giniel de Villiers will have his work cut out. dakar.com

Dec 28 Perfect match

Jan 30 to Feb 14 Who will rule the air waves?

Old Trafford, UK Manchester United will be primed to blow Chelsea away at their Old Trafford festive season fixture with the Blues having made their worstever start to the season. But at some point the Premier League defending champions should come good, and it could be against the old foe. premierleague.com

Big Bay, Cape Town The most extreme kitesurfers will flock to Big Bay to take their medicine from the Cape Doctor, aka the pumping south-easter that scours the Mother City in summer.

But only one will be crowned Red Bull King of the Air. redbullkingoftheair.com

Jan 29 to Feb 7 On the road again Various locations, South Africa After taking six weeks off over Christmas, Mumford & Sons start their 2016 tour with six dates in South Africa. With tickets selling out almost instantly for their original three gigs, the British folk-rock outfit have added three more: Cape Town now gets three, Pretoria two and Durban one. mumfordandsons.com

96

Jan Highveld highlight

Xterra Buffelspoort will get your pulse racing with a dam swim, a challenging mountain bike course and an undulating bushveld run. All this takes place at lung-burning altitude, with three events in three days.

Twitter: @XTERRASA

28

Jan Up the Creek One of South Africa’s best-loved festivals continues to deliver great music at a unique venue just outside Swellendam. Black Cat Bones, Shortstraw, The Ballistics and many more will be there. So should you. The festival runs until January 31. upthecreek.co.za

THE RED BULLETIN

FLAVIEN DUHAMEL/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, GETTY IMAGES, CRAIG KOLESKY/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

Jan 2-16 Heat and dust Argentina and Bolivia

ACTION

EVENTS

GET GOING! Schiester’s tips on how to start and never stop

Do it now Banish the excuses – once you get going, there will be no stopping you. Procrastination is futile. The starting point of an active lifestyle is right now.

(Well, you can read to the end of the page…)

Whether it’s the Wings for Life World Run or action sports, it’s taking the first step that counts

RUNNING REVOLUTION

PHILIP PLATZER/RED BULL CONTENT POOL, MIRJA GEH/RED BULL CONTENT POOL

He was overweight. He smoked. He drank. Then he began running and became an extreme sportsman. Christian Schiester gives us tips on how to start an active lifestyle There are two steps to banishing the couch potato in you. “First you need a definitive starting point, which takes immediate effect,” says Christian Schiester. “Why hang Christian Schiester, around? Humans are long-distance runner born runners. There’s no reason not to go running.”

Forget expensive fitness trackers – the next step is to get yourself a blank sheet of paper. “Note down the kilometres you cover each day,” he says. Speed and pace aren’t important. “Even going for a walk is better than being stuck inside, sitting down.”

In Schiester’s pile of notes, which he consults every day, are details of runs through deserts and over permafrost, along with the very first metres he noted down, which he remembers all too well. “I weighed 100kg and wanted to cover the 3km to the

THE RED BULLETIN

castle in my home town without having to stop for a rest.” His first runs were to the postbox at the end of the street. But, he says, “I didn’t give up, because I had to walk past those sheets of paper every day.”

His third tip is to reward yourself. “When you get home from a run, everything feels different: the shower, your clean clothes…

At this point, you can allow yourself a beer as you watch the sunset. But you have to have got off your backside first.”

Progression is like turning a big wheel, he says. “At the start, you need a lot of strength to get it going. But the longer you keep turning, the easier it gets. Until eventually it’s almost as if it’s happening by itself.”

The starting pistol for the 2016 Wings for Life World Run will be fired simultaneously in 34 countries – the South African event is being held in Pretoria – on May 8, 2016. Who will hold the Catcher Car at bay the longest? For information on how to register, go to: wingsforlifeworldrun.com

Take notes Grab a blank sheet of paper to note down how far you’ve run each day.

It’s important to note how far you actually got, not what you’d hoped or planned to run.

Leave the sheet of paper somewhere you’re likely to see it.

Treat yourself Everyone has something they particularly enjoy: a piece of cake, a glass of wine or curling up with a good book. But you have to earn that reward. It will be all the more enjoyable, too, if you’ve done something to deserve it.

97

MAKES YOU FLY

“The video shoot worked out perfectly.

Even hours later I still felt dizzy” Pro rider Kriss Kyle on breaking BMX boundaries RUTGER PAUW/RED BULL CONTENTPOOL

GLASGOW, SCOTLAND October 3, 2015 Kickers gliding through the room on rails, tubes the size of a truck: for his Kaleidoscope video, BMX star Kriss Kyle built the bike park of the future, a place to perform never-before-tried tricks. Check out the clip at redbulletin.com/ kaleidoscope

THE NEXT ISSUE OF THE RED BULLETIN IS OUT ON JANUARY 12 98

THE RED BULLETIN

JHB 50434/OJ As seen on DStv/SuperSport

WATCH THE BEST OF THE 2015/2016 FOOTBALL SEASON LIVE IN HD ON SUPERSPORT