The Red Bulletin_0910_UK by Red Bull Media House

www.redbulletin.com

an almost independent monthly magazine / september 2010 Experience

Print 2.0

Picture Perfect The worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s greatest sports and action photography contest: Red Bull Illume

The soul of New Orleans

How music saved The Big Easy

F1â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fallen idol

40 years on, the only posthumous world champ remembered

Lord Raaawck!

The aristo-rocker who hosts Oasis, The Stones and U2

In association with

BullHorn

COver Photography: Jeremy Koreski, Alessio Barbanti, Dean Treml, Josh Letchworth

picture perfect “There are always two people in every picture: the photographer and the viewer”. The quote is from Ansel Adams, one of the most celebrated landscape photographers of our time, and it touches on the relationship that’s central to the photographic art: that between photographer, subject and audience. It’s a relationship celebrated by the Red Bull Illume competition, winning entries from which you’ll find in the centre of this magazine. It takes a special kind of talent to ‘catch the moment’ as each of these 10 winners have, and then to share that image, connecting photographer forever with their subject and their audience. As Chris Burkard notes of his winning entry in the ‘Illumination’ category: “It was as if everything in nature fell into perfect harmony for this moment.” The 10 pictures featured are each the best of their respective categories and result from a search lasting two years, across 112 countries that netted 22,764 entries. If that doesn’t constitute a ‘pick of the pics’ then it’s hard to know what does. We’ve let the pictures do the talking on the Illume pages – you wouldn’t want journalists’ gobbledy-gook across those stunning images, would you? But elsewhere in the magazine you’ll find our usual mix of stories to amaze and inspire. We’ve been to New Orleans this month (page 68) to uncover the compelling story of how The Big Easy’s brass bands have kept the soul of the city alive through years of hardship and natural calamity. And we’ve taken a lingering look back at a fallen hero: Jochen Rindt (page 60). Forty years ago he was crowned Formula One World Champion – weeks after he’d been killed in practice for the 1970 Italian Grand Prix. The first pop star of his sport, who achieved fame at just the moment when image – and images – became so intertwined with success, Rindt remains an icon of his age. Gone too soon, but assuredly not forgotten.

This is Chris Burkard, who took the best action and adventure photograph in the world. His shot, and 249 others, are brought together in the stunning Red Bull Illume coffee table book. Order your copy now at www.redbullillume.com

Your editorial team

Your Red Bulletin can do more than you think Movies, sounds, animation 10

12 Print 2.0 – the extra dimension in your Red Bulletin. In this issue you’ll find it with the following stories:

Print 2.0

The new multi-media experience. Wherever you see the bull’s eye!

How to get started: turn to page 7 or enter en.redbulletin.com/print2.0 in your web browser

SPORT ACTION PHOTOGRAPHY

PREPARE TO BE ENLIGHTENED PREMIERE OF THE RED BULL ILLUME 2010 EXHIBITION DUBLIN IRELAND TRINITY COLLEGE AFTER SUNSET SEPTEMBER 212

www.redbullillume.com

Contents

welcome to the world of Red Bull 100 pages that positively reek of adrenalin in this month’s kick-ass Red Bulletin

Bullevard

10 pictures of the month

16 now and next The latest happenings in our wacky world, from TV on the web to a celebratory gossip with the newly crowned 2010 Red Bull Air Race World Champion 19 where’s your head at? Heart-throb to females, nemesis to felines, Antonio Banderas opens up about life as a screen idol… And that pesky Puss in Boots

22 kit bag Snap happy: why Leica lenses remain the optics of choice for top photographers 25 me and my body Despite recent setbacks, on four wheels or two, yoga-loving NASCAR ace Brian Vickers knows how to get the most from his hard-trained physique 26 winning formula Want to understand what it really takes to hit a six? We did, so we asked South Africa’s beast of the boundaries, JP Duminy, to reveal all

28 lucky numbers Know your golf? So how many holes did ‘gentle’ Ben Crenshaw play without his putter in the 1987 Ryder Cup after smashing it in a fit of temper? Hmm?

Heroes

32 AWOLNATION International fame and fortune beckon for this breakthrough indie success – just don’t take him too far away from water… 34 Marquess conyngham No tame garden parties for this Irish peer. Instead he uses the family pile, Slane Castle, to host the world’s biggest bands 38 makode Linde A self-proclaimed ‘ultimate misfit’, Linde was born to do things his own way, in pursuit of true artistic self-expression 40 anna stöhr & kilian fischhuber They might appear to be the archetypal Euro-‘cappuccino couple’, but take a closer look and you’ll see the ripped torsos of top climbers 06

contents

Action

46 Red Bull Illume After a global search across 112 countries, lasting more than two years, we present the world’s finest sports action images 60 The first F1 POp Star Forty years ago, at the 1970 Italian GP, world champion-elect Jochen Rindt was killed. The sport lost a genius, but weeks later gained a posthumous world champ

Photography: Thomas Karlsson, afp/Getty Images, Brady Fontenot, kraeling bildagentur, Graeme Murray, Philipp Horak

68 brass soul of the big easy No American city has endured greater hardship than New Orleans, yet its proud musical spirit remains unbroken

More Body & Mind

80 sarka pancochova World domination is on the menu at Hangar-7 for this snow(board) queen 82 Get the gear Even the mightiest boulders present no obstacle with champions’ kit. Here’s what you need. Magnesium powder, anyone? 84 uphill struggle Mountain runner Jonathan Wyatt tells his tricks for tippy-toe-ing to the top 86 listings Worldwide, day and night, our guide to the ultimate month-long weekend 90 nightlife Cash on making music, not, erm, money; Montreal unskinned; what happened at Sonisphere; and a Brazilian’s guide to the ultimate club caiphirinha 96 short story I’m a comedian, so laugh, damn you. Why aren’t you laughing? I’m hilarious… 98 Mind’s eye Our columnist’s view

the red Bulletin Print 2.0 Movies, sounds and animation wherever you see this sign in your Red Bulletin 1

en.redbulletin.com/ print2.0 In your browser window you’ll see the magazine cover. Just click at ‘Start Bull’s Eye’

Switch on your webcam If a webcam activation window opens, just click ‘activate’

Hold your Red Bulletin up to the webcam You’ll see all the multimedia content in this month’s mag – movies, sound and animation

illustration: dietmar kainrath

K a i n r at h

the only Shot that giveS you wingS.

Small enough for your pocket, Strong enough for the home Straight. Ah, physical exercise. Getting your limbs and lungs working is the perfect antidote to a stressful day. But sometimes, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s difficult to keep enough fuel in the tank for the final straight. So why not work out with a friend? The new Red Bull Energy

Shot delivers Red Bull energy in a sip, without carbonation and with no need to chill. It fits snugly into your pocket or gym bag along with your water bottle, and provides the boost you need to not simply go the extra mile, but to fly it.

Bullevard Who’s making the biggest splash this month? Keep reading to find out

P o l i g n a n o a M a r e , I ta ly

High Drama Orlando Duque of Colombia undertakes a dive during the training session of round four of the 2010 Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series. Duque, the reigning champion, secured second place during the competition proper. Britain’s Gary Hunt, winner of the first three rounds, finished third thanks to a slightly muffed landing for his Triple Quad, a complex dive that begins with a running start from the platform (which here is 26.5m above the Adriatic). Hunt had landed the dive in training, but, for the one that counted, said Duque, “I think he might have been caught by one of the waves.” Artem Silchenko of Russia was the weekend’s winner, which took him to second in the overall standings, behind Hunt and above Duque. All three go into the final two rounds, in Sisikon, Switzerland and Hilo, Hawaii, with hopes of overall victory. Watch Duque, Hunt and all at www.redbullcliffdiving.com

Print 2.0

Photography: Damiano Levati/Red Bull Photofiles

en.redbulletin.com/print2.0 Watch the spectacular cliff diving action from Polignano

U t r ec h t, N e t h e r l a n d s

Pole Position

Photography: Rutger Pauw/REd Bull Photofiles

It’s a gondolier’s worst nightmare, but it’s the very foundation of fierljeppen: a pole stuck in a river is the only equipment required for one of Europe’s oldest sporting pastimes. As far back as the 12th century, Dutch farmers used poles to navigate wetlands; since 1972, an annual national fierljeppen championships has determined the leading exponent of the ‘far leap’. Competitors sprint towards the water’s edge, leap for the pole and then climb it, hoping to reach the top before gravity kicks in and forces a descent. The rules are simple: get to the other side – and don’t get wet. In competition, leapers land in sand, as they do in the long jump, the best of them making their mark as far up the riverbank as possible. A crowd of 13,000 turned out for Red Bull Fierste Ljepper: a Dutch sporting triumph to lessen the blow of that World Cup final loss to Spain… Cross ‘insane river crossing’ off your to-see list at en.redbulletin.com/fierljeppen

Print 2.0

en.redbulletin.com/print2.0 Discover the history of the Netherlandsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; oldest extreme sport

Photography: Christian Pondella/Red Bull Photofiles

Lo s A n g e l e s, U SA

Miracle Smile Ryan Sheckler has such a big grin on his face because he knows he’s just snatched X Games victory from the jaws of defeat. A few seconds before this picture was taken, a few seconds from the end of his final Skateboarding Street run of X Games 16, he had very nearly bailed after sliding down the metal handrail on a flight of concrete steps – a ‘cab lipslide’, to those in the know – and landing awkwardly. Superb reactions, and a strong left arm, thrust out behind him and to the floor for a fraction of a second, allowed Californian Sheckler to maintain momentum and win a third X Games gold (he also has a silver, from 2006). He first topped an X Games podium in the summer of 2003 when he was just 13 years old. There can’t be many sportsmen considered veteran at the age of 20, but Sheckler is certainly one of them. A day in the life of Ryan Sheckler: en.redbulletin.com/sheckler

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And Action!

Welcome. Make yourselves at home. Then enter Shaun White’s secret stunt factory, or get inside the head of Felix Baumgartner. Maybe you’d prefer a peek into the private life of Sebastian Vettel? Or to watch what’s probably the world’s most bonkers gaming show? Get ready for Red Bull Web TV

HEROES AND LEGENDS Momentum

Sebastian Vettel, Mick Fanning, Sébastien Loeb… Momentum casts light on the stars of the sporting world from a very personal angle. Touching, human, surprisingly different.

ProgrammE Highlights on new

Red Bull Web TV

THE REBELS

Action… until the police come. Wakeboarder Duncan Zuur tears up a flooded St Mark’s Square in Venice while NASCAR driver Brian Vickers makes an unscheduled pitstop on Times Square in New York.

FREAK FRIENDS

STAR SCHOOL

LIVE SHOWS

THE ADRENALIN DUO

RED BULL CLIPTOMANIACS

Tricktionary

LIVE WEBCASTS

Red Bull Rivals

Freestyle freaks and snowboarding professionals Tim Warwood and Adam Gendle present the best sports clips under the sun, such as breathtaking Red Bull Crashed Ice action from Munich.

The show for people who want to learn from the best: snowboarding and skateboard hero Shaun White (above) explains the stunt that won him Olympic gold, while Ryan Sheckler shows you how to wall-ride blunt.

Best of motorsport, live: hair-raising action in the Red Bull Rookies Cup, legendary Red Bull X-Fighters and the Motocross World Championship (catch it on Redbull.com/tv on September 12, live from Fermo, Italy).

They’re the missing link between the couch potato and extreme sports stars. Matt Littler and Darren Jeffries jump off 26m-high cliffs and try their luck in the world’s toughest endurance race.

PICTURES OF THE MONTH

every shot on target Email your pictures with a Red Bull flavour to letters@redbulletin.com. Every one we print wins a pair of adidas Sennheiser PMX 680 Sports headphones. With a Kevlar-reinforced, two-part cable (it can be short when running with a music player on your arm, or extended with a built-in volume control), reflective yellow headband stripe and fully sweat- and water-resistant parts, they’re perfect for sports. Visit: www.sennheiser.co.uk Email: letters@redbulletin.com

Rohr im Gebirge After five rally victories in a row, Raimund Baumschlager has secured his ninth Austrian state championship win Joseph Bollwein

photography: Ray Archer/Red Bull Photofiles, imago stock&people, Jörg Mitter/Red Bull Photofiles, rutger Pauw/Red Bull Photofiles, Christian Pondella/Red Bull Photofiles

Pirate TV

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photography: Christian Black/Red Bull Photofiles, JONATHAN BRADY/EPA/picturedesk.com, John Gibson/Red Bull Photofiles, Gold and Goose/Red Bull Photofiles, flo hagena

THE FAMILY MOB

THE WILD PRINCES

THE EXTREMISTS

Young Guns rising

Red Bull TopS

A docu-soap about the MotoGP champions of tomorrow, who are still children today. The Red Bull Rookies Cup has Danny Kent and Co fighting it out over hundredths. Then they play with their teddies.

Faster, higher, crazier. If it’s Felix Baumgartner jumping into a black hole, a helicopter doing somersaults or sports stars defying the laws of physics you’re after, you’ve come to the right place.

HOW TO GET RED BULL WEB TV An hour of fresh material every day on your mobile or computer Action and entertainment, pop stars and sporting heroes, live events and lifestyle shows at their best: all-new Red Bull Web TV is TV for a new generation: an hour a day, round the clock and updated daily. You can watch Red Bull Web TV on any computer with internet access, on Red Bull Mobile or on your iPhone. Just download the Red Bull Web TV app from iTunes, and ‘Action’! Click through to Red Bull Web TV free of charge at www.redbull.com/TV

Hangar-7

Neil Armstrong, the first man on the moon, gets behind Felix Baumgartner and his Red Bull Stratos project Servus TV

Silverstone

THE MADMAN

The Atherton Project

Play!

Docu-soap starring the world’s best mountain-biking family: Dan, Gee and Rachel Atherton on their famous victories, major falls, everyday worries and sibling rivalry v sibling affection.

Plenty of people hate him, but a lot more love him. Cult presenter Uke Bosse showcases the latest computer games. But really he showcases just how utterly bonkers a gaming show can be.

POP STORIES

HIGH-FLYERS

watch it loud

on the loose

Get up close and personal with Lady Gaga, Eminem or the Rolling Stones. A new music video every day, plus exciting background info on the superstar in question and their latest song.

Aaron Hadlow and Ruben Lenten’s travelogue: the kite-surfers take us with them as they travel to the most beautiful places on earth and show us stunts a human really shouldn’t be able to pull off.

At the International Formula Student 2010, FH Joanneum’s JRX scored with economical fuel consumption, design and endurance Julia Feir

Cairo No time for seeing the Egyptian sights: riders at Red Bull Wake It Up kept their eyes firmly on the prize Ramy El-Shakry 17

Super Fly Guy

This self-confessed “grumpy, grouchy, impatient” English gent also just happens to be one hell of a pilot. Paul Bonhomme reflects on his second consecutive Red Bull Air Race world title

Bonhomme celebrating. Where would he like to race in the future? “Hong Kong, Silverstone, Brands Hatch”

You’ve had a year filled with trophies. You were always on the podium; the Royal Automobile Club awarded you with The Seagrave Trophy and there was another from the Royal Aero Club. Where are all those cups? I’m not very well organised with my trophies. I don’t even know where they all are. I should have a trophy room, but until now I’ve been kind of busy winning them. Your biggest rival was 2008 champion Hannes Arch. How did you beat him? I think it’s consistency. What’s amusing

Cheltenham The hat and glasses may be a little bit big, but the Red Bull Shot is just right Benedict Jones 18

this year is that Hannes won four races and I won two, but I took the title. Two years ago it was the other way around: I won four races, he won two and got the title. I learned that lesson from 2008. It’s all very well winning races, but you need to be on the podium every time, be consistent and if you don’t win, just be somewhere nearby and pick up points. Have you altered your flying style at all? I read an article about Graeme McDowell, the Irish golfer who won the US PGA Tour. There’s a lot of psychology in sports

Durban More than 180,000 spectators at the Durban Airshow at Virginia Airport get treated to a top-class aerobatics display Prem Moodley

articles, which is very useful for a competitor. One comment in the article said McDowell won because he had nothing to lose: he wasn’t expected to win and he had no expectations of victory himself, so he could just go out, have fun and play. Brilliant. He won because he was so relaxed. I tried to think: ‘Actually, as long as we all walk away on Sunday, it doesn’t matter if you win or lose.’ That is a good mind-set to go into a race. We had the first Red Bull Air Race in New York this year. How did the Big Apple taste for you? New York was special. Its aviation history hasn’t been so bright recently, with 9/11, the Airbus landing in the water – where everybody got out safely, that’s not too bad – then the midair collision with the helicopters, which was very ugly. That we had a race there was great. Firstly, because the New Yorkers said we can come to their city and secondly, us really going there. We had a fantastic race with no scares. It was a healthy competition and I won, which was the best bit. How’s your temperament? Grumpy, impatient, grouchy… Before a race there’s the fear of failure and the fear of losing; then the fear of frightening yourself or crashing. The fear of frightening yourself should be a very big bubble, the fear of losing should be a little bubble floating around. That’s important. Flying can be very dangerous, you have to avoid distractions. If I get distracted on the morning of race day, I get grouchy. What are your plans for the off-season? We didn’t have off-seasons until now, we were always busy getting the plane ready. There will be an off-season now. I’ll be spend some time at home, chasing an 18-month-old around the house. Read more about the Red Bull Air Race World Championship and Paul Bonhomme at www.redbullairrace.com

Chichester Mike Skinner looks peaceful as he smokes his way up the hill at the Goodwood Festival of Speed Martin Henn

Words: nadja Zele. photography: Hamish Blair/Getty Images for Red Bull Air Race

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Where’s Your Head At?

Antonio Banderas From homeland theatre to Far Far Away via heroes, villains and a few hundred thousand bottles of wine: the Spanish actor has led a full and fascinating life. Here are the highlights

Hollywood wife

s Since 1996 Banderas has been married to actres Melanie Griffith. “To be married in our profession isn’t easy,” he said. “There’s too many beautiful people around, very interesting people. It’s just a matter of being patient and probably having the capacity and the faith of falling in love with your own wife again.” Then again, his motherin-law, Tippi Hedren, star of The Birds, runs a big-cat sanctuary, so he wouldn’t want to upset her…

Break A Leg

José Antonio Domínguez Banderas was born in Málaga, Spain, on August 10, 1960. As a boy he set his sights on becoming a professional footballer, but, aged 14, an injury forced him to quit the sport and focus on other activities. His acting talent led him to Spain’s national theatre, where he was spotted by film director Pedro Almodóvar, who then cast him in several films, including Matador and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

Drink and drive

In June 2009, Banderas bought a 50 per cent shareholding in the Bodega Anta Natura in Ribera del Duero, renaming the northern Spain winery Anta Banderas. It exports 600,000 bottles a year. He has also started his own motorcycle racing team, fielding Joan Olivé and Kenny Noyes in the Moto2 category. He hopes to have his team firmly established in this class within two years. “Maybe then we can make the step up into MotoGP,” he said.

The Big Time In 1995, the 50-year-old actor broke through to the movie mainstream thanks to roles in three Hollywood films. In the excellent Desperado, he starred as the bandito with a gun in a guitar case; he appeared briefly in the hotel-set anthology Four Rooms; while in Assassins he and Sylvester Stallone played rival hitmen. This very daft film was written by the Wachowski brothers – their first film credit – who four years later would unleash The Matrix on an unsuspecting world.

Words: Uschi korda. illustration: lie-ins and tigers

Village people

That lovin g feline

Having appeared in more than 70 films and TV shows, Banderas is both prolific and wide-ranging in his choice of roles. He was Benito Mussolini in an Italian TV movie, and one of his earliest Hollywood roles was that of Tom Hanks’s lover in Philadelphia. “I don’t believe in careers,” he said. “I just picture myself always as one of those old actors from the 19th century who go from village to village in their repertoire.”

Providing the voice of Puss In Boots for the Shrek films has been one of Antonio’s biggest earners, but its success has proved to be a double-edged sword. “I hate that cat,” he explained. “Ever since he app eared in my life he’s more important than me. Now women always say, ‘Oh, I love that cat. He’s so cute.’ Before, it was, ‘I loved you in Zorro…’”

All That Jazz

Curryi ng favour

in Before his private jet touched down 2004, England for the Shrek 2 premiere in meal n India an for d ahea d dialle eras Band n Luto at him to en to be chauffeur-driv rind airport from the Michelin-starred Tama curry the love just “I air. restaurant in Mayf ious.” in Britain,” he told reporters. “It’s delic rest the took ith Griff He and wife Melanie . of the meal to the film’s launch party

Alarmed burglars

Banderas claims to keep the sword from his 1988 film The Mask of Zorro in a secret place at his home as a deterrent to intruders. “I truly pity any burglar who shows up,” he said, “although I wonder what the authorities would make of it if I said, ‘Officer, he tried to rob me, so I cut a giant Z into him!’”

Banderas’s next film, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, is his first time in a Woody Allen film. “When I was 25 years old, I worked in Madrid wearing a T-shirt printed with his face,” said Banderas. “So, being on the set and seeing the same guy on my T-shirt – he is literally the same guy because he wears the same glasses and the same hat – it was quite impressive. I talked to him a lot. All you have to do is just talk about jazz, and he will go on and on.” Watch his latest trailer at www.sonyclassics.com/ youwillmeetatalldarkstranger

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Race days recalled

High flier: Levi Sherwood’s moves won him the London round of Red Bull X-Fighters

Wet ’N’ Wild The London leg of the FMX world tour The fight for the 2010 Red Bull X-Fighters crown is wide open after New Zealand’s Levi Sherwood dominated the competition at London’s Battersea Power Station. The 19-year-old was the clear favourite with both the judges and the 30,000-strong crowd and pulled off a string of excellent moves, including the heart-stopping, super-twist-and-out-kiss-of-death backflip to secure a well-earned first place. Last year’s winner here, Nate Adams of the USA, put in a strong performance to finish second, leaving Spain’s Dany Torres to take third spot on the podium. In typical English summer style, rain had left the course soft and slippery, making conditions tough. “We couldn’t go right to the limit in the evening,” explained Adams, “it was just too dangerous.” As a result, a decision was made to take the results of the ‘dry’ qualifying session during the afternoon as the final standings. This meant that Australian rider Robbie Maddison, noted 20

for his jump last year over an open Tower Bridge, just down the Thames from Battersea, could only finish 10th after a hard fall in qualifying, while championship leader André Villa had to settle for an uncharacteristic ninth place. The results have opened up a threeway battle for the title as the series approaches its final event in Italy next month, with Villa’s overall lead cut to only five points: he now has 310, to Nate Adams’ 305. Sherwood’s win gave him a total of 290, good enough for third place in the standings. The final round will be held at the fittingly grand location of Rome’s Stadio Flaminio, a key venue in the 1960 Olympics and current home to the Italian national rugby team. “It’s been insane,” said Sherwood. “I’m going to give everything at the last event to try and knock Villa off top spot.” Don’t miss a trick: follow the action at www.redbullxfighters.com

A new exhibition in London commemorates the life and work of one of the world’s great motorsport photographers. German lensman Rainer Schlegelmilch has been standing trackside with his camera since 1962, capturing the action both on and off the circuit at more than 500 Formula One Grands Prix. This remarkable body of work will be celebrated later this month when a selection of his most notable images goes on display at the Proud Camden gallery in London. Schlegelmilch, who turns 70 next year and is still very much active, bridges almost half a century of F1 from Brabham to Button. He has earned the pick of the vantage points thanks to his longevity, but he is as adept at capturing the intimate moments of racing, such as his 1965 pre-race shot of Honda’s Richie Ginther and his pit crew (below), as he is documenting high-speed action and drama. A companion book of Schlegelmilch’s early work, The Golden Age of Formula 1, will be published later this year by teNeues. For a more immediate fix of classic F1 action, turn to page 60. The exhibition runs from September 16 until October 24: see www.proud.co.uk

Words: Ruth Morgan, Paul Wilson. photography: Jörg Mitter/Red Bull Photofiles, Schlegelmilch photography

A chequered flag career: one man, six decades of F1 photography

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Whatâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s more, the cola from Red Bull contains no phosphoric acid,

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B u ll e v a r d

KIT EVOLUTION

Snap Judgement

Old Photos Leica Compur c 1930 Oskar Barnack, the head of development at German camera firm Leitz, came up with the idea for the first 35mm camera in 1914, so that he could take photographs when he went out hiking. The camera, the Ur-Leica, was improved upon over the next decade and eventually went on sale, 22

under the name Leica I, in 1925; it was during the following year that Leitz released the Compur. It had the same housing and lens as the Leica I, but featured a new shutter system that gave it faster shutter speeds of up to 1/300th of a second. This made for sharper images

of moving objects, and thus the Compur became a boon to the growing band of professional photographers. Legendary French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson acquired his first Leica in 1932, and to him it was like “a sketchbook. Quick, discreet and no bigger than one’s hand.”

words: robert sperl. photography: Kurt Keinrath. with thanks to leicashop.com

From a film-loaded black box to a computer with a hole in the front, the change in compact cameras has been astonishing. Here’s how one legendary camera maker developed its picture-taking

New Shoots Leica M9, 2010 The fortunes of some of the great names in photography have fluctuated wildly with the advent of digital imaging; Polaroid and Kodak are not the leading lights they once were. However, Leica has survived and thrived for the best part of a century (the Leitz company became the Leica

company in 1986), making cameras upon which professionals and enthusiastic amateurs alike lavish a nerd-like level of reverential devotion. Its latest camera, the M9 – a descendant of Leica’s first digital compact, the C1, which was released in 1998 – has an 18-megpixel CCD, developed

by Kodak, which can replicate, in super-high definition, the 35mm format picture so beloved of photo pros. Plus, there’s that red Leica dot right where you watch the birdie: a reminder of a century of photographic quality. www.leica-camera.com

hard & fast Top performers and winning ways from around the globe

With a cheque for $50,000, 17-year-old Carissa Moore from Hawaii bagged the biggest prize in women’s surfing history at a wavestarved US Open Pro at Huntingdon Beach.

Beach volleyball’s top-seeded duo, Phil Dalhausser and Todd Rogers, claimed their seventh gold medal this year, at the Mazury Orlen Grand Slam in Poland.

South Africa’s Khotso Mokoena easily beat 11 others to win the men’s long jump final at the African Athletics Championships in Nairobi, with a jump of 8.23m.

American queen of motocross Ashley Fiolek overcame stiff competition in the Moto X Super X Women’s Final at X Games 16 to take gold for the second year running.

Words: Ruth Morgan. photography: SIMON MAINA/AFP/Getty Images, Christian Pondella/Red Bull Photofiles, FIVB, J.R.Kenworthy. illustration: dietmar kainrath

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me and my body

brian vickers

A well-earned reputation as one of NASCAR’s best counted for little when the 26-year-old Red Bull Racing driver had his 2010 cut short by a blood disorder. Here’s how illness has – and hasn’t – affected him

Thin king Time

Being out of the car has been tough to deal with: it is the blood clots have definitely affected me, but what it is. I think these things happen for a reason and I’m trying to make the most of my time away and learn something from the experience – but obviously I’m itching to get back racing.

Scoff For The Off

Over the years I’ve figured out a routine that seems to work for me. On race day I have a good, hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs, for the protein, then for lunch I’ll get in some more protein, some carbs and a little bit of sugar for some punch – probably a chicken and pasta salad, and I’ll make sure I have sweet potatoes, since they’re really good for sustaining energy for the long term. I’ve worked with nutritionists in the past, and I’m going to work with one again because the blood thinners I’m on can affect my diet.

really Great Outdoo rs

Words: matt youson. Photography: Thomas Hoeffgen

I’ll go in the gym and do weights and some cardio work, but it drives me crazy, so whenever the opportunity arises, I’ll do my training outside. If I’m not on a bike, I’ll swim or surf or go rock climbing, conditions kayaking, hiking… whatever suits the right time the it’s and West and location. If I’m out the winter for ies Rock the into up get I’ll year of ings, which spor ts. I’ll cross-country ski in the morn lf in the myse enjoy and out, work ome awes an is ding. boar snow or hill down afternoon with some and hike. s place same the to go I’ll er summ In

What Sup?

We have to drink a lot of fluids in the build-up to a race because it’s very hot in the car. It isn’t specifically something for race day; the hydration process is something I’ll work on in the 72-48 hours leading up to the event. The day of the race I’ll hydrate with electroly te drinks, sports drinks or even just water. The temperature outside will determine when I stop drinking: it might be 4°C or 44°C – in fact, one time in California it was 47°C when the race began. If it’s cool outside, I’ll stop drinking three or four hours before the start; when it’s really hot I’ll keep going until 30 minutes before the start. I’ll be hydrated, but I don’t want all of that sitting on my bladder.

Hot

Stuff Bikram Yoga is the best exercise I’ve found to prepare me for what I do for a living. The biggest thing for our racing is def initely the heat inside our cars. There is a physica l strength aspect to it also, but the heat is fore most. I used to make fun of yoga and pilates, but I had a girlfriend who talked me into going to a class with her. Bikram Yoga is a hot yoga; it’s held in a steaming room, hea ted to 105°F, and is an intense workou t for an hour and a half. It’s fantastic preparation for driving in NASCAR. And holding those yoga poses… not eas y. Four Wheels For Two I’m based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and when I’m there, I’ll jump on a bike and cycle to the ocean to swim for a couple of miles. One of my favourite vacation spots is New York City, where I love to cycle just about everywhere on my single-speed, fixed-gear track bike. I have a proper road bike for when I’m taking longer rides outside the City and out into Jersey. Basically, wherever I am I’m usually out on a bike.

Switch It Off

Meditation is good for inner peace and being a calmer individual. I have a little bit of ADD and I find meditation helps me with that tremendously. It isn’t something I just use to help me at the race track, it’s something that’s useful for my everyday life, but when I’m at the track it helps me focus and gives me the ability to just turn everything off.

Sit Back An d Rela

For me, being in a raceca r is a ver y comfortable, ver y relaxin g environment. Under red flags or betwee n practice sessions, I’ll tend to doze off. We do have huge crowds, but for me I don’t really pay attention to the fans when I’m in my pre-rac e routine and in the race itself. Before and after that they are a massive positive influen ce and help me get into the right frame of mind – but sometimes I like having the ability to switch it all off as well.

Follow Brian’s progress at www.brianvickers.com

Winning formula

best of the six

It’s one of the great sights in sport: an attacking batsman smashing the ball back over the bowler’s head for a six. Here, one of international cricket’s finest explains how it’s done, while back in the pavilion, our resident scientist explains why the ball files so hard and fast

Smash It! “Hitting a six back over the bowler’s head is almost always a premeditated shot, says JP Duminy, the South Africa batsman, “especially in limited-overs cricket, where scoring boundaries is a key part of the strategy. “I keep my backlift low, to generate power. My legs are not too wide apart, with my front foot pointing toward where I want to hit the ball and the back foot properly planted: this anchors your core, where all the power really comes from. All the guys who hit the ball far have well-developed core muscles. “There are two crucial factors in the connection you make with the ball: where on your bat you make contact, and the timing. The bat’s sweet spot is about 15cm up from the bottom. You feel it when it happens – there’s hardly any vibration through your hands and you’re still in full control of the bat. “Timing comes from making sure the ball is just below your head, under your eyeline, when you connect. Hit it earlier, when it’s too far in front of you, and it’ll go straight up in the

Words: Steve Smith, Dr Martin Apolin

b u l l e va r d

Photography: Gallo Images. Illustration: Mandy Fischer

Hit squad: Batsman JP Duminy (South Africa) and wicket-keeper Kamran Akmal (Pakistan)

air and won’t clear the boundary rope. Hit it too late, and its trajectory will be too low to make the ropes. I focus on hitting through the line of the ball, making sure I follow right through. “It’s not about how hard you swing, but getting your body into the right position, making the right contact with the bat and then following right through.” Math It! “Cricket is a duel between bowler and batsman, says Dr Martin Apolin, of Vienna’s Institute of Sports Science, “and the best bowlers can reach bowling speeds of up to 87mph/140kph (39m/s). “When you knock one object by moving another, heavier object – bat hitting ball – then the lighter object can travel at speeds significantly greater than the first object. This is why tennis balls can reach 155mph/250kph (69m/s) on the serve. “Let’s consider momentum (p). Multiplying mass (m) and speed (v) gives the linear momentum of an object. A cricket ball has a mass of about 160g, whereas a tennis ball’s is only 57g.

That means a cricket ball has a maximum momentum of about 6.2kgm/s whereas a tennis ball’s is only 4kgm/s. So the impact of a cricket ball can be about 55 per cent greater. “It’s not the momentum, but the force (F) generated by the collision that hurts. Force is the change of momentum multiplied by time, therefore F = ∆p/∆t or F x ∆t = ∆p. When the ball hits, there is a decelerating force that generates counter-momentum, which the ball’s momentum almost absorbs until the ball is compressed as much as possible and comes to a standstill. “Let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the ball is coming up against a hard surface and that the force increases in line with the ball’s distortion. A cricket ball is significantly harder than a tennis ball: distortion is shorter and the resulting force is considerably greater. A simulation following balls until they come to a standstill reveals that the force of a tennis ball is about 1,700N, whereas that of a cricket ball is 9,000N, more than five times higher. No wonder those guys wear a box.” JP Duminy’s free-scoring ways are plain to see at www.youtube.com

B u l l e va r d

Lucky Numbers

What was once a friendly transatlantic golf tourney is now one of the most keenly fought and anticipated contests in all sport. But did you know about the guy who played without his putter?

Handicap of Mr Samuel Ryder (on the left), upon joining the Verulam Golf Club, St Albans, England, in 1909. Ryder, then 51, had a successful business selling seeds via mail order and had taken to golf a year earlier. By 1911 he was club captain and in love with the game; by the ’20s his firm was sponsoring tournaments, and in 1926, after an informal Britain v America match at Wentworth, he proposed a competition proper. A gold trophy was commissioned in his name, and the first Ryder Cup took place at the Worcester Country Club in Massachusetts in 1927. The United States beat Great Britain by 9 ½-2 ½.

Cup-winning percentage of the United States team. Of the 37 tournaments played, the US have won 25. They only lost two and drew one of the first 19 Cups, so, in 1973, players from the Republic of Ireland joined the Brits. Three defeats later, in 1979, the United States lined up against a combined European team for the first time. With the likes of Bernhard Langer of Germany and Seve Ballesteros of Spain among the world’s best, the tide slowly turned, and, including a first victory in 1985, Europe have won seven and drawn one of the last 12 Cups. A toothless Tiger (right) hasn’t helped: Woods’ Ryder Cup record is 10-13-2 (won-lost-halved).

Points won by the Ryder Cup’s winningest player, Nick Faldo (right), thanks to a record of 23-19-4. The Englishman also holds the records for most tournaments played (11, from 197797) and most matches (46). He was also the non-playing captain for the last match, in 2008, at Valhalla in Louisville, Kentucky – a US victory to which Faldo’s captaincy was said by many to have contributed – and, in happier times, aced the 14th at The Belfry in 1993 to record one of only six holes-in-one in Ryder Cup history.

Distance in feet of Justin Leonard’s tournament-changing putt in 1999. Immediately after holing out on the 17th during his final-day singles match at the Brookline Country Club, Leonard (left) was congratulated by his US teammates, some of whom ran onto the green before his opponent, José María Olazábal, had chance to putt. No rules were broken, but as on many occasions in the Ryder Cup, the gentleman’s agreement that is the game of golf was pushed to flashpoint. It’s not all like the ‘Battle of Brookline’, though: the Cup is also noted for its many moments of good sportsmanship.

Holes played without a putter by Ben Crenshaw (left) of the United States, in his 1987 singles match against Eamon Darcy. The American, one of the all-time great putters who was nicknamed Gentle Ben because he was most certainly not, snapped this most vital of clubs on the sixth green after going 2-0 down to the Irishman. The rules meant he wasn’t allowed a replacement, so for the remainder of his round, he putted using his one-iron, sandwedge and, on the 18th, his three-iron. Darcy sank a five-footer on the last to win by a hole.

135,000 Spectators expected for the 2010 Ryder Cup at the Celtic Manor Resort in Wales. The crowd plays a large part, with European players complaining of zealous American fans, and the US team getting a hostile welcome. After the 2008 Cup, Lee Westwood called the abuse he received “shameful”, while in 1999, a nadir of misbehaviour was reached when a US fan spat at Europe captain Mark James’ wife. For next month’s match, the internet can tell you what “hit it in the trees” is in Welsh.

The 2010 Ryder Cup is on October 1-3, Celtic Manor Resort, Newport/Wales. www.rydercup.com

Words: paul wilson. photography: Action Images (2), Bettmann/CORBIS (1), Getty Images (3), PA (1)

Ryder Cup

kunde

DEFYING LOGIC

Reg. charity 267444 Photo: © Rodrigo Baleia.

Cattle ranchers in Paraguay want to cut down vast tracts of uncontacted Indians’ rainforest and still portray themselves as environmentally responsible. How? Simple. Just call the islands of forests that are left ‘nature reserves’. Help restore logic. www.restorelogic.org/paraguay

Credit photography: Thomas Karlsson

Art of the matter: Swedish artist Makode Lindeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s work is designed to make people think. Find out more about the man and his methods on page 38

Heroes

Men and women climbing mountains â&#x20AC;&#x201C; in sport, music and art 32 AWOLNATION 34 Marquess Conyngham 38 makode linde 40 anna StĂśhr & Kilian Fischhuber

Heroes

Awolnation AWOL has never met Madonna, even though she got him his first record deal. But it doesn’t matter, as now he’s sharing the stage with the greats of indie rock Words: Florian Obkircher Photography: Mark Glassner

The last three weeks of AWOL’s life have been exciting. They’ve had more excitement packed into them than many other musicians get in their whole career. He played an open-air show in Brooklyn with Weezer, one of his childhood heroes. There was a sea of people in front of him and the Manhattan skyline behind. He was the DJ for the VIP launch of M.I.A.’s new album. He played to a sell-out crowd in his home-town of Los Angeles, gave his first European concert in London, and in Chicago he shared a stage with MGMT, the hippest indie band in the world right now. In between, it’s been all airports, hotel rooms and interviews. It’s stressful, says AWOL. But it’s the best stress in the world. This Californian singer created AWOLNATION only two years ago, an experience he found liberating: at last he wouldn’t have to compromise; at last he’d be able to do his own thing. “There were often endless discussions in the two bands I was in before,” he says. “Things shouldn’t go in this direction, we can’t do this like that. I’ve cast off those shackles now. AWOLNATION is 100 per cent my vision.” His two previous bands were Home Town Hero and Under the Influence of Giants. Both were successful and both had record deals with big record companies. Home Town Hero was even signed to Maverick Records, Madonna’s label. “Sadly I’ve never met her in person,” AWOL explains, “but when we were signing the contract, the guy promised us we would.” There was no huge breakthrough, though. Two years ago AWOL had to make a decision: should he carry on making music or become a lawyer? “I made the right decision, and it probably would have been too late to become a lawyer anyway,” he says with a smile. “I wrote the best songs I’ve ever written during that time.” You can hear those songs on AWOLNATION’s debut album, Back from Earth. And there’s no escaping the anger and doubt that AWOL felt in those times of upheaval. “If you need a little hit in your face, then that’s what I’m here for,” he rasps in the energetic 32

opener ‘Burn It Down’, an electronic rock anthem which just screams at you: “Stand up and let it all out!” “That’s what life’s all about,” he says. “Giving your feelings free rein. Whether it’s euphoria or rage, whether it’s in your professional life or your love life.” The other songs on Back from Earth are testament to AWOLNATION’s musical scope. He shows his soulful side in ‘Guilty Filthy Soul’, and with its droning synthesisers, ‘Sail’ sounds like blues rock from Mars. The recurrent theme is raw, unbridled energy. AWOLNATION’s debut is an emotional powder-keg which threatens to explode at any moment. It’s high-voltage rock music. Off-stage, AWOL is a very relaxed kind of guy. He’s a calm interviewee. He answers thoughtfully. He loves surfing, the ocean, Californian beaches. At private gatherings he likes to mimic freestyle rappers. And his party habits have given him both a nickname and the name he performs under today. “I often just up and leave without saying goodbye. Which is how I became AWOL: Absent Without Official Leave,” he explains. AWOL has three main musical influences. Firstly, his father, who taught him to play ‘La Bamba’ on the guitar when he was eight. Then Kurt Cobain, whose band Nirvana encouraged him to write songs. And finally Jeff Buckley, whose songwriting masterpiece Grace made him realise that it needn’t be embarrassing for a man to sing up. “When I was in a band in high school, I screamed more than I sang, because I was afraid to reveal too much of myself, especially in front of girls. Which meant that we soon ended up just playing to drunk guys,” he says and shows me a tattoo on his arm. It says ‘Grace’ in blazing letters. Given the band’s stellar rise, we probably shouldn’t be surprised if young musicians are soon having AWOLNATION tattooed on their arms. He’ll get under your skin, one way or another. You can find AWOLNATION videos, sound samples and an iPhone app at www.redbullrecords.com

Name AWOLNATION Born Westlake Village, California, USA Lives Thousand Oaks, a small town north of Los Angeles Occupation Musician Records His debut EP, Back from Earth (Red Bull Records) was released in May Web awolnationmusic.com

Print 2.0

en.redbulletin.com/print2.0 See the Californian afloat on Wolfgangsee and much more

AWOLNATION loves water. Doesn’t matter if it’s a mountain lake or the Pacific Ocean. “What do I dislike about being on tour? The fact that I can’t go surfing,” he says. “And getting the middle seat on a plane”

Heroes

MARQUess CONYNGHAM Royalty of a different kind has been making annual trips to Slane Castle since Henry Mountcharles, the rock ’n’ roll aristocrat, took the reins of the family estate Words: Ruth Morgan Photography: Nick Ballon

Slane Castle is set against the emerald valleys of County Meath and framed by ancient trees, its grey stone walls mirroring an overcast sky. It’s become as natural a part of the Irish landscape as the Boyne River that runs through its grounds; its domes and turrets having borne witness over the centuries to everything from historic battles to a king’s infidelity. But in modern times the castle has become a destination for royalty of the rock ’n’ roll variety. Over the past 30 years, music megastars including U2, the Rolling Stones, Madonna, Oasis, David Bowie and the Red Hot Chili Peppers have been guests at Slane and performed some of their most memorable gigs to tens of thousands of fans in the natural amphitheatre of the castle grounds. And as Slane Castle has grown in renown, so has the self-styled rock promoter responsible for its reinvention, the eighth Marquess Conyngham, or Henry Mountcharles as he’s more informally known. Slane has been in the Conyngham family for more than 300 years and, since he took over its running in 1976, he has become one of Ireland’s most intriguing characters. Known as the rock ’n’ roll aristocrat, he is a truly modern marquess. On a grey Friday in August, his castle is a hive of activity, with preparations under way for a Buddhist wedding being held the next day. In the Gothic Revival ballroom, under the intricately carved, domed wood ceiling, King George IV, a 19th-century visitor to the castle, looks on from a life-sized oil painting as a golden stage is erected. A middle-aged Australian sporting a David Bowie tour T-shirt has turned up at the gates with his wife, excited to see the place where his musical heroes have performed. Rhonda De Paor, Slane’s events manager, obligingly shows them around despite the fact a coachload of Austrian tourists are due to descend in half an hour. Into the fray strolls a jetlagged Mountcharles. He has been in the US launching Slane Castle whiskey, a locally distilled tipple and the latest addition to his family’s castle-themed businesses. He is tall and 34

lean, dressed in a neat black pinstripe suit, his brightly checked shirt open at the neck and sporting odd socks (a detail that has become something of a trademark), a nod to the mix of tradition and rebellion that characterises both him and his castle. If he hadn’t announced his lack of sleep it wouldn’t have been betrayed by his warm words of welcome, spoken in an upper-class tone. He is clearly a man who, approaching 60, enjoys his position at the centre of the circus. But his 34 years as protector of the family estate have not been as silver-spooned as some might think. After a change in the law, his father had to leave Ireland permanently as a tax exile in order to keep the castle in the family. So a 25-year-old Mountcharles was forced to quit his London life and job with publishers Faber & Faber to return to an estate that required a daunting amount of upkeep that he would need to fund. “I’m a self-made aristocrat!” he jokes. “The great Irish comedian Frank Kelly once said: ‘The problem with Henry Mountcharles is, he was born with a silver dagger in his back.’ I wasn’t happy about it, but dad had to leave and I had to go home, that’s just the way it was. My family have been here since 1701, so we’ve learned to adapt to different circumstances.” As a student, first at Harrow in England and then Harvard in the US, Mountcharles had done his fair share of rebelling, dabbling with drugs and riding the wave of the musical revolution. Now, he decided, the two sides of his life would meet. “I’m a child of the ’60s,” he says, “and that time was Carnaby Street, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Who. A sense of rebellion and excitement has always been in my head, so rock ’n’ roll was culturally a part of my DNA, bringing it here felt natural.” But the idea of a Slane Castle concert seemed anything but natural to many of the people around Mountcharles. The second wave of hunger strikes in Northern Ireland was taking place in 1981 and black flags of support were flying in the village. As Anglo-Irish aristocrats, Mountcharles and his

Name Henry Mountcharles Title Eighth Marquess of Conyngham Born 1951, Dublin, Ireland Likes Whiskey, good friends, odd socks, politics Dislikes ‘Yes’ people, fame for fame’s sake Best Slane moment Too many to count, but probably U2’s first headline gig in 2001 Won’t be invited back Eminem, Madonna Claims To have seen a UFO in the Surrey night sky in the late ’70s

To the manor born: Henry Mountcharles has reinvented his ancestral home by bringing some of the biggest rock bands in the world through its gates. At the same time. heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s secured its future

Heroes

family felt the tension more than most. There were intimidating letters and phone calls, and graffiti sprayed on the castle walls. “It was a difficult time for us all,” he says. “I’m a hybrid. I’m a peer of the realm, but I’m also an Irish nationalist. My family fought on both sides at the Battle of the Boyne just down the river from here. We are Irish, but we are also part of what England and Scotland are. When we started the concerts it was a very dark period in history, but for us that was part of the engine, intellectually, driving us to do it. To do something positive.” So, that August, 80,000 people streamed into the 1,500-acre estate to see Irish rock supergroup Thin Lizzy take to a stage set up on the shores of the river, supported by a little-known group named U2. It was a huge success, and a logical progression for both Slane and Irish event organising as Mountcharles saw it. “There had been festivals and events on this site since pagan times,” he says. “I was bringing it into a contemporary context.” Nearly every year since, musical legends have appeared at Slane. In 1982, the Rolling Stones performed, then Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Queen, David Bowie and U2. “To see your heroes perform in this setting, there’s just something a little bit disordered and beautiful about it,” says Mountcharles’s son Alex, the eldest of his four children, who was just six when the concerts began. “Growing up with the whole music thing going on seemed pretty normal for us. Though when you’d go back to school and say you’re hanging out with Slash from Guns N’ Roses, you realised it was a little bit odd. I remember when I was 12 escorting VIPs from the helicopters and bringing them to the site. You’d get these international bands flying in who are normally greeted by 6ft-wide security guys with earpieces, and they were greeted by a 12-year-old kid and my younger sister. It was so off-kilter for them: they loved it, we loved it.” Mountcharles’s stories are endless: sitting in a deckchair discussing third-tier education with David Bowie moments before he went on stage; chatting to Noel Gallagher (“a true gentleman”) about his Irish roots in Slane’s drawing room; dealing with Madonna’s dressing-room demands; searching for an errant Axl Rose who had disappeared before a gig. It’s the best reality TV series that never was. “The concerts here are huge, but they’re also personal,” says Mountcharles. “And I think all the acts feel that too. Going back to 1985, one of the artists, musically, that I most admire is Bruce Springsteen. He played the entire set that he was going to perform in our dining room the night before, to an audience of six. And when he went out on stage, you wouldn’t have known it by the amazing performance, but he was freaked. This 36

Credits

“I’m a child of the ’ 60s so rock ’n’ roll is part of my DNA”

Heroes

additional photography: getty images (1), reuters (1), rex features (3)

A very special Venue Left: Thousands of fans flock to see their heroes perform in this spectacular setting. Music royalty including Mick Jagger (above) and the Rolling Stones, U2 (below), Bob Dylan (bottom left) and Madonna (centre left) have all performed at Slane Castle. For U2 it’s also become something of a spiritual home. The band moved in to record their album The Unforgettable Fire, turning the ballroom into a makeshift studio

was the biggest, most exuberant audience he’d ever played in front of. About two years ago he quietly came back here with his family to relive that experience and he spent an afternoon here with me and my wife. That is what Slane is about.” U2 were so impressed by Slane and Mountcharles that in 1984 they moved in with the family to write and record their album The Unforgettable Fire at the castle, transforming the ballroom into a makeshift studio. It firmly cemented his friendship with the band, and bassist Adam Clayton in particular, who has since attended Alex’s wedding and is godfather to Mountcharles’s youngest daughter Tamara. Slane is now an aspirational gig for those who haven’t played there, and an unforgettable one for those who have. “The gigs there were amazingly good,” says Rick McMurray, drummer of the Northern Irish band Ash, who have played Slane twice. “The best was in 2001 when we supported U2. I knew it was almost a spiritual home for them. It’s not every day you get to play at a magnificent castle that has so much history and musical history too.” Mountcharles’s personal touch plays a big role in Slane’s reputation. Niall ‘Bressie’ Breslin supported Oasis there in 2009 with platinum-selling Irish band The Blizzards. “It wasn’t so much about who we were supporting but where we were playing,” he says. “It means a lot as you have to be invited. It’s a surreal setting and Henry’s just ridiculously gentlemanly. I’ll never forget the way he treated us and our families, and he’s like that with everybody.” As a result of his raised profile in Ireland and beyond, Mountcharles has been able to indulge his love of politics over the years. He is currently an outspoken columnist for the Irish Daily Mirror and, in 1992, he ran an election campaign to win a seat for Fine Gael in Louth. Though he was unsuccessful, his share of the vote was more than respectable, showing how far the Anglo-Irish aristocrat had gone up in local estimations since he first arrived. He won’t rule out running for office again, but for now he and son Alex are concentrating on securing the next 300 years of family history here: there’s the US launch of Slane Castle whiskey and the organising of the 2011 concert to mark both the 30th anniversary of live music at Slane and Mountcharles’s 60th birthday. He will celebrate here, a more content man than he arrived, king of a castle he’s made his own. “It took until I was in my mid-30s to feel like this was where I wanted to be,” he says. “But this place had always been under my skin. I’m the eighth Marquess Conyngham, my son will be the ninth and my grandson the 10th, so we are merely custodians here for a given time and I feel very privileged to be part of that.” Outside the castle, Mountcharles and wife Iona prepare to finish for the day. “Oh look there’s Jim Corr [of Irish group The Corrs] in his helicopter,” he says, looking skywards and waving. “Hello Jim!” Then the couple go back inside, shutting the castle doors behind them, to enjoy a rare night off. For more information on Slane Castle, visit www.slanecastle.ie

Heroes

Makode Linde The Swedish artist uses his musical and artistic talents, coupled to a real and vivid sense of humour, to play with clichés and cock a snook at racism and prejudice Words: Uschi Korda Photography: Thomas Karlsson

Name Makode Linde Born June 28, 1981 Stockholm, Sweden Places of residence Stockholm and Berlin Occupation Artist Provenance Something of a renaissance man, with talent in a number of areas. He produces and composes music for theatre and film; prepares VJ art performances (with, for example, the artist Klara Lidén) and installations; designs record covers (for bands like Swedish alternative rockers Kent); and has plastered Stockholm’s legendary club/hotel/ venue Berns with his fluorescent wallpaper Upcoming Preparing exhibits for the Aland Art Museum in Finland as well as the KIASMA in Helsinki, for 2011 Web www.makodelinde.com

“I’ve just been in India. South of Goa. It was a spontaneous decision to go. To find myself.” “And, did it work?” “Hell yeah! I found myself, lost myself, found myself again, lost myself again and then stopped counting. So I’m still the same person, just with more of a suntan.” Swedish artist Makode Linde has an innocent look and a serious face, though the rogue can shine through in a fraction of a second. And if, like he has, you have stood out since childhood because of the way you look and the way you think, your sense of humour – no matter how dark – is likely to be perfectly pitched. Linde says he knew in primary school that there was only one way he would get through life: to make himself into a humorous and complete work of art. Regardless of perspective, he was always an outsider. His father is a black musician who fled the strict Muslim environment of the Ivory Coast for Stockholm in the 1960s; his mother is a Swedish actress of Jewish origin. “I am black, but I’m not very dark. I’m not a Muslim, nor am I Jewish. And I’m a Swede, even if I don’t look like one. It’d be hard for one person to invite more prejudices.” Thus the 29-year-old has made the most of what he has been given. His personal style is somewhat eccentric. “I was constantly being stared at because of the colour of my skin. So I began getting interested in fashion, because I wanted to give people another reason to stare at me,” he says. A walk around Stockholm with Linde cannot be an anonymous little stroll. At about 6ft 2in tall, the artist towers over most Swedes – already a tall bunch – helped in no small part by his pinned-up dreadlocks. He will enhance his outfits with little details, like an orange sticker with the word ‘aktas’ on it: “It’s Swedish for fragile and that’s exactly how my heart felt this morning.” Having understood as a child that there was never going to be a nine-to-five to suit him, Linde

first turned to acting. “I was useless. I’m a great liar, but was unsuited to the stage,” he says. The look on his face as he says this suggests he may be lying, but it didn’t matter either way because the young man also had music in his blood. At Stockholm’s famous Adolf Fredriks music school, he studied, among other things, audio engineering and music production, composed music for the piano and synthesiser and founded bands with which he toured Sweden as lead singer. He also developed soundtrack elements for film and theatre and worked for The Royal Dramatic Theatre and Swedish television. His graphic talents were discovered more by chance when he began drawing animations for his music. At 25, he enrolled at the Konstfack, Stockholm’s University College of Arts, Crafts and Design, where he has a small studio to this day. “I’ve been a full-time artist ever since and can make a living from it,” says Linde. Given his family’s background, it was perhaps obvious in which direction Linde’s performing arts would take him. “My work focuses on prejudice, against black people and all ethnic minorities.” He goes about his work with an off-the-wall, slapstick humour, because he knows that people only take things seriously if they can laugh at them too, which is why he once made a mop out of dreadlocks, and he’s currently giving white icons, such as cartoon heroine Betty Boop, black skin. He recently created an irreverent yet memorable installation in which he put the beards of famous characters from world history, such as Che Guevara, on Adolf Hitler. By playing with clichés, the Swede brilliantly shatters taboos, including his own. “So was your India trip a success?” “Yes, and imagine… I discovered I’m racist! The people there constantly touched me and there was a child who pulled my hair and I really screamed at her. I was shocked! I felt really awful afterwards!” See Linde’s work at the Pantocrátor Gallery, Berlin, from October

Zitat Head: Zitat.Velis exer suscipsusto dion ut loborer ostiniamet in henisse vero exero odigna facipsusto corero

Bildtext im Bild ut velesto ercin utatum zzrit lut ea alisi exer sisim dipisl ullaorperos ad euis raesent am deliquipsum dolore te commy num aute dolortie faccum ver at lutpat.Ro od dolorer

A black Betty Boop (in the background on the printing press)? “Why not?” Swedish artist Makode Linde asks. “She looks good, doesn’t she?”

Heroes

Stöhr Fischhuber Anna

and Kilian

The best male boulderer in the world is going out with the best female boulderer in the world. So what’s it like when two rocks collide – and what on Earth is a boulderer? Words: Werner Jessner Photography: Philipp Horak

A young couple trundle through Innsbruck’s pedestrian zone on their bikes, their sporty figures and tanned faces marking them out as, perhaps, fitness instructors or sport science students. He has just turned 27, has a dark shock of hair and a narrow face. She is 22, has long, plaited hair, a bag slung over her shoulder and a beaming smile. Both lean their bikes against the veranda of a venerable café. It’s the sort of scene that occurs thousands of times every day in certain cities in certain parts of the world: a living cliché of boho living. The picture would be complete with an order of two very specific coffees, but both opt for water. Kilian Fischhuber and Anna Stöhr – both studying sport and English, as it turns out – are world leaders in bouldering, a type of rope-free climbing where height is unimportant and complexity is everything. It is a sport that attracts thousands of spectators to events in Italy and Austria and Russia and China and America. It’s a very urban form of climbing: it brings the mountain to the people, and it brings the people to the edge of their seats. If regular mountain climbing is like a rock concert that goes on for hours where the little mistakes don’t matter too much, then bouldering is more like open-mic jazz improvisation: always new, unique, unpredictable. Fischhuber likes the comparison, in theory, “even if I don’t like jazz”. Indie and alternative are more his scene, and he stretches to drum ’n’ bass, whereas Anna, at a push, will swap the last of the three for reggae. Fischhuber’s CV currently has four overall bouldering World Cup wins and he’s finished in the top three for the last seven years. He is a threetime winner of the prestigious Rock Master event in Arco, Italy; all that eludes him is a World or European Championship title. Stöhr has already been crowned World Champion and has also won the overall World Cup and the Rock Master. Where their records of achievement aren’t exactly alike, their climbing styles are: both are quick, powerful and efficient. Whereas most boulderers 40

tend to hang on the wall (either natural boulders or, increasingly, the man-made kind fabricated solely for climbing) while they balance their weight, adjust their hold, pause and shake down their hands and arms in an improvisational and interrupted attempt to ascend, Fischhuber and Stöhr storm up the wall like Spider-Man and Spider-Woman. The two-time World Rally champion Walter Röhrl of Germany had a theory about this approach: “I just take the bends quickly because then they’re done.” For these two, speed is a state of mind. To be able to climb as quickly and safely as they do, experience and physical conditioning are not enough. “Bouldering is all in the head,” says Fischhuber. “No two competitions are alike. Even the best climber might come unstuck against a no-hoper in our sport. The boulders themselves and the holds you get are what matter. Hermann Maier was the best skier there was, but on some courses he didn’t have a chance. Two things count in bouldering: the middle and the top. Nothing else matters. A single boulder, more or less, can often make a difference of 10 places in the World Cup. Every movement is unique and you can’t reproduce them, even when you train 200 days a year, as we do. Everyone has their own style, and that is how you develop problem-solving strategies. You’ve got to think things over beforehand, and the more you do that and the more experience you have, the more solutions you’re going to come up with. Other than that, you’ve got to remain flexible and be able to make changes when you’re up on the wall.” The rules of bouldering say that for a climber to finish correctly, he or she has to, with both hands, maintain a hold in the marked finish holds for three seconds. It’s not uncommon for a competitor to lunge for that last hold while letting out a roar to rival any scorer of any goal, touchdown, point or what-have-you. “When you’re climbing a difficult boulder, you want to rip the hold out of the wall,” says Fischhuber. “All the tension fades away. You’re up at the top, everyone else is down below you, and it takes a lot

Name Anna Stöhr Born April 25, 1988, Reith im Alpbachtal, Tyrol, Austria Lives Innsbruck Occupation(s) Bouldering, studying English and sport Achievements World Champion 2007; overall World Cup winner 2008; Arco Rock Master champion, 2006, 2007 and 2010 Web www.anna-stoehr.at

Name Kilian Fischhuber Born August 1, 1983, Waidhofen/Ybbs, Lower Austria Lives Innsbruck Occupation(s) Bouldering, studying English and sport Achievements Overall World Cup winner 2005, 07, 08, 09, 2nd in 2010; Arco Rock Master champion 2005, 08, 09 Web www.kilian-fischhuber.at

Top couple: Kilian Fischhuber and Anna Stöhr have a successful partnership – both in life and sport

A holiday snapshot: Stรถhr and Fischhuber in South Africa

Heroes

“I need my muscles and I like the way they make me look”

photography: Reinhard Fichtinger

Anna Stöhr of aggression. You’ve got to push yourself. When you’re up there, you can let it all out.” The pair do have a common weakness: they are terrible spectators. “Problems look more logical from far away than up close,” explains Stöhr. “Often I want to shout to him: ‘Look, this is what you should do!’” “From a couple of metres away, the layman in the audience can see the solution quicker than the athlete on the wall,” agrees Fischhuber. “Plus, it really brings out your stubborn streak when another top sportsman says to you that you should be doing things the way you just have done.” There will be lots of boyfriends and girlfriends who will tell you that the last person they want advice from is the interfering so-and-so with whom they share their life. But when those other halves are the best in the world at what they do, and what they ‘do’ is the same, then things can get complicated. “I try to give Anna tips during training only,” says Fischhuber. “You want to help, after all. But it’s often no use.” That has to do with something very specific to the sport: you alone define your boulder in training. Technique is one side of the coin, but pre-existing physical capabilities the other. Climbers that don’t have the best technique, but long limbs, can leave competitors of smaller stature in the dust with holds and reaches that they’re unable to make. Any ambitious male amateur climber, for example, would be able to negotiate a boulder that Anna couldn’t do, even if she is better technically: “He’d just have to increase the gap between holds.” It is said that the ideal body for bouldering is 170-175cm tall, weighs 60-65kg and is male; that pretty much perfectly describes Kilian Fischhuber. But, he hastens to add, “women’s climbing is more aesthetic because they have less relative strength and so their technique is more important.” However, Stöhr points out, “Kili’s main rival, Adam Ondra from the Czech Republic, has a physique you’re unlikely to see the like of on anyone else: an incredibly long neck and little muscle.” Bouldering isn’t beach volleyball, but climbers still care what their bodies look like. “Defined muscles are considered nice on a man but not on a woman,” says Stöhr. “I need my muscles and they suit me. I like the way they make me look.” “Neither of us goes to the gym,” Fischhuber says. “Compared to other top sportsmen and women, we have lower basic stamina, but that’s not the point of bouldering. If I go out cycling, I do it because I like cycling and not as training. Our fitness is largely down to us doing lots of different sports.” For Fischhuber, this plurality of pastimes began at school. “We had a wonderful PE teacher at my secondary school in Lower Austria, which focused on sports. His name was Herbert Lettner and he commanded

complete respect. He tried all sorts of sports with us, and he laid the foundations for my career.” “Kili was incredibly talented. Regardless of the sport you presented him with, he was always good at it,” remembers Lettner. “You couldn’t go wrong with him. He could do 40 chin-ups without batting an eyelid.” The responsibility for their careers fell to others. His first trainer was Martin Kerscher, followed by Rupert Messner, who’s also Anna’s trainer. “Our success wouldn’t be possible without Rupi as our trainer and advisor, and Reinhold Scherer, who opened doors for us in the climbing hall,” says Fischhuber. Stöhr herself was born into a sporting environment. Her parents both climbed and would take their young daughter with them to the mountains in France. She grew up in Innsbruck’s climbing community and never had to force herself to train; climbing was an excuse to meet friends and to do something fun with them: “It’s such a social sport. I climbed because it was always such a laugh. My social circle is extremely important to me. My rival Olga Bibik has to train alone in a basement. We wouldn’t put ourselves through that.” Stöhr believes that fate brought her a fellow climber for a partner. “It’d be really boring to be with a guy who doesn’t climb. I like the fact that we get to spend so much time together when we’re competing and training, and the fact that there’s always someone there for me, in good times as well as bad. If my boyfriend wasn’t a climber, training would be a chore, and that would make everything more difficult.” You’d be right to think that Fischhuber and Stöhr lead very happy lives. Neither of them gets bored, and as he explains, “we can live our dream and make a living from it too. We’re not in a hurry to finish our studies either. We travel abroad, earning money from sport. How could things be any better?” Their preparations for competition are simple. Stöhr switches on her MP3 player to relax, Fischhuber most certainly does not: “I have to try and let my nervous tension build,” he says. “You shouldn’t be too relaxed when you’re about to compete. And I get into that frame of mind, on my own, in my own way. “Up on the wall, we can’t help each other. I have no way of communicating with Anna during a competition. Only when I know that she’s made it into the final and hear the audience going wild do I realise it’s all gone well. If we want to get on well as sportsmen and people, it’s important to understand each other and to be able to put yourself in the other’s shoes. We do that well. The worst thing would be to patronisingly console one another if one of us has done really badly in a competition: ‘It’s not that bad. There’s always next time.’ We can do better than that – we’ve got to be honest with each other. “I came third in a competition in Russia this year and was annoyed with myself. At the next competition in Holland I came third and was happy. People outside the sport don’t understand the difference: for them, third place is third place. No one can appreciate what a sportsman or woman does as well as someone who’s done it themselves.” Stöhr, listening intently, nods in agreement. The European Sportclimbing Championships are on September 15-18, in Imst/Innsbruck, Austria. Visit www.euro-2010.at

photography: brady fontenot

Music in the blood: Drumming class at the Roots of Music Programme held in the Cabildo in Jackson Square, New Orleans. Find out more about the cityâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sounds on page 68

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Snapshots from a big, wide world of amazing exploitsâ&#x20AC;Ś 46 red Bull Illume Photographic contest 60 the first formula one pop star 68 The Brass bands of New Orleans

category: illumination

Chris Burkard USA

Athlete: Peter Mendia Location: Buchupureo, Chile “The light, wind, and swell were perfect. It was as if everything in nature fell into perfect harmony for this moment. As Peter eased into the wave, the backwash hit, sending him down another barrel.” And he’s not just a category winner. Burkard’s image has been voted the best adventure and sports photo in the world by the Red Bull Illume jurors.

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en.redbulletin.com/print2.0 Explore the relationship between photographer and athlete

a winning

vision

In Red Bull Illume 2010, a global photography competition, 4,337 lensmen and women from 112 countries entered 22,764 images in 10 categories. The 53 jurors had their work cut out in selecting the 0.04 per cent of photos worthy of winning, but their pick of the pics is astonishing in both its scope and impact. Here the winning photographers talk us through their champion shots

Category: Playground

Tim Korbmacher Germany

AthletE: Stefan Lantschner Location: Krefeld, Germany “The setting was perfect by the time we arrived. Stefan rode intensively for a while, so I had the chance to test various shots. It took me some time to realise how massive this pipe actually is when you look at it from the outside – and it’s only a piece of what was destined to become part of an even bigger industrial pipeline system”

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Category: spirit

Adam Kokot Poland

AthletE: Michał Król Location: Spišské Tomášovce, Slovakia “The main issue I had was talking climbers into going to this spot, as the region is known for this kind of dangerous and unsafe climbing route. The idea for the photo only came into my mind when we were up there during Michał’s climb. He was resting before the difficult final section of the route and I just asked him to lean back and enjoy the views.”

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Category: sequence

Miguel Ángel López Virgen Mexico

Athlete: Alfredo Salcido Location: Guadalajara, Mexico “I was a little bit worried because the deadline for the contest was approaching and I didn’t have any pictures to enter. So I decided to take pictures of my friends’ shadows while they skated at night.”

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Category: energy

Stuart Gibson Australia

AthletE: Ryan Hipwood Location: Shipstern Bluff, Tasmania, Australia “When the waves here are this big, you have to be towed in by jetski. They’re moving so fast, drawing so much water from the reef, that paddling is out of the question. Ryan’s wave wasn’t the biggest of the day, but it was the heaviest. He’d had serious wipeouts and made the typical ‘one more’ call... then this huge black beast filled the horizon.”

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Category: culture

Vincent Perraud France

Athletes: Alex Baret and friends Location: Tallinn, Estonia “This photo was taken during the Simpel Session, one of the biggest international BMX events, after a long day of qualifiers. Everyone was tired and looking forward to getting back to the hotel because of the weather: it was -10°C. So the riders started cramming into the bus, which wasn’t going anywhere in a hurry.”

Category: wings

Marcel Lämmerhirt Germany

AthletE: José Eber Pava Ordoñez Location: Hamburg, Germany “This is the Speicherstadt, the world’s largest warehouse district, a perfect backdrop for the Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series. It was 4pm and I moved to a bridge over the canal to get this angle, so I could shoot against the sun.”

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Category: close up

Nathan Smith AustraliA

Category: Experimental

Daniel Grund Germany

AthletE: Andrew Mooney

Location: Wamberal, New South Wales, Australia

“This is my mate and fellow Central Coaster Andrew Mooney, a damn good surfer who’s got all the tricks. The shot was taken late in the day, when it was pretty dark, at his home break, only about 20 minutes from where I grew up. Surf photography is all about moments like this one. It’s what I’m addicted to.”

Athletes: Alejandro Maclean, Nicolas Ivanoff

Location: Monument Valley, Utah, USA

“Alex and Nicolas executed this perfectly, switching on the smoke on at precisely the right moment. It all happened so quickly: you’re standing outside the helicopter on the skid and the planes race toward you at about 220mph (350kph). Of course, this picture looks a lot better when you’re wearing 3D glasses.”

Category:

New Creativity

Eric Berger Canada

AthletE: Dan Treadway Location: Whistler, Canada â&#x20AC;&#x153;I took this in snowmobile-only backcountry just south of Whistler. I managed to position myself in a sort of cave and shoot out towards the opening. I was both nervous and excited when I realised that it was a unique angle and there was the potential to get a great shot.â&#x20AC;?

An exhibition of Red Bull Illume 2010 photos is currently at Trinity College, Dublin. www.redbullillume.com

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Jochen Rindt died 40 years ago at Monza. Afterwards he became World Champion.

The first Formula One pop star

When he died at the age of 28, Rindt had only just pushed open the door to new dimensions. He brought a new form of glamour, esprit and lightness into Grand Prix motor racing, unknown ’til then. To say nothing of his outstanding talent to master a race car of the ‘wild era’. Those who shared some of the journey found it magnificent – a fabulous splash of colour in their lives

As a youth in Styria, Jochen Rindt was held in the way, it was simply too tight. The Impala, caught same social esteem as his similarly aged pal Helmut in the headlights of Rindt’s Simca, seesawed a Marko, today Red Bull’s motorsport consultant. couple of times on the bank until Marko decided to Their Graz secondary school approached the two abandon ship. The car fell in the other direction.) young gentlemen with a tempting offer. Making a The intended car-less time in the remote boarding mockery of their educational prowess, the principal school was, however, made bearable by a skiing would give them a positive leaving certificate if they accident that befell Rindt: leg in plaster. The company would just clear out, schnell, and rock that he would eventually inherit (a spice up at some other school – preferably in mill in Mainz; his parents were killed in Name a remote place, as far away as possible, the Hamburg bombing raids), sent a VW Karl Jochen Rindt where their arrival would surely be Beetle with chauffeur for the poor boy’s Born awaited with great anticipation. daily shuttle service. The chauffeur April 18, 1942, Mainz. The ‘Boarding School of Last Hopes’, immediately received his marching orders Germany Died on September 5, 1970 in 100 miles away in Bad Aussee, sounded – after all, there were other pupils who Monza, Italy ideal. There, Jochen Rindt’s bundle of already had a driving licence. In fact, Lived police moped fines would never find entirely predictably, the only people Graz, Vienna, Paris, him, nor would questions be raised as to ever to take the wheel were those sans Begnins near Geneva why, late at night and without any form documents. And a plastered leg firmly Profession of driving licence, Helmut Marko had planted on the throttle was no handicap. Racing driver demolished his father’s Chevrolet Impala. Four would sit on the car, the driver Success (Their intentions hadn’t been all bad: plus three witnesses who looked at the Formula One following the clique’s code of honour, the stopwatch, checked the maximum revs World Champion faster car [Impala v Simca Monthléry] was and gave points for cornering style. If (posthumous); Six only allowed to overtake in the corners. grand prix victories; 10 the committee found fault, the next Even as a teenager, Jochen Rindt wasn’t passenger took a turn at the wheel. pole positions one to offer the ideal line to rising talents, During one serious test run back in Web www.jochen-rindt.at and with a lorry then coming the other Graz, a snowplough split the Simca to 60

photography: Bildagentur Kräling

Words: Herbert Völker

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“The cars were incredibly fast but had little grip – wings were only just being developed, the underbody had no aerodynamics, the wheels were narrower”

photography: Alois Rottensteiner/Archiv Klein (2), Milan Schijatschky (1), Bildagentur Kräling (1), Schlegelmilch Photography (2)

the front axle – the skier, attached by a 3m rope to the back of the car suffered the usual bruises. Helmut Marko: “Today all the talented youngsters start out at kart tracks. We had the twisty roads and cars that we ‘borrowed’ from Dad’s garage. Our street competitions replaced two Formula 3 seasons, today it would be a case for the juvenile court.” Five, six years later, 1965, Rindt won the 24 Hours of Le Mans in a private Ferrari against the works Ferraris and Fords, putting his name on the map. Formula One contracts followed with Cooper, then Brabham, but the cars were lemons, just good enough for spectacular moments in the F1 album: but how he would harass the Ferraris and Lotuses, a Jim Clark or Jackie Stewart, so fabulously sideways in the corners. Jochen Rindt’s overwhelming talent became even more apparent in Formula 2 where all Grand Prix stars competed those days. Rindt was practically invincible. Helmut Marko, who went on to race in Formula One before being involved in a career-ending accident, can best vouch for Jochen’s talent: “He went absolutely flat out, so mercilessly that I can only compare him to Ronnie Peterson and Gilles Villeneuve, and to Gerhard Berger on his best days. His extreme car control, which defies further explanation, was complemented by extreme courage. This became obvious in the fastest track sections – for example in 150mph (240kph) corners like the notorious right-hander after the finish straight at Silverstone – before it

Licence to thrill Jochen Rindt is remembered as one of the boldest and most spectacular drivers in Grand Prix history. He pulled off some amazing sideways manoeuvres. The king of Formula 2 (1968, top left), mischievous with the heavy Cooper-Maserati (1967, top right), brilliant in his triumphant year in 1970 (in the Lotus 49 at Monaco, bottom row). In the Lotus 72 at Brands Hatch (main picture).

Rindt could do what he wanted. It always somehow worked out OK

was tamed. It was a corner where you needed all the faith in the world to take it practically full tilt. Rindt took it sideways, in full drift. It was his trademark way of letting the car’s rear hang out where no one else dared.” There were practically no neutral or understeering vehicles, if there were, it was purely a design failure. Helmut Marko: “When it got serious there was oversteering. When the rear came around you knew you were at the limit. The cars were incredibly fast but had little grip – wings were only just being developed, the underbody had no aerodynamics, the wheels were narrower. It was an unbelievably dangerous generation of race cars, and no one mastered it more brilliantly and resourcefully than Jochen Rindt.” Jochen’s beginnings with the Finnish beauty Nina were less successful. She prescribed a two-year pause before discovering in this rakish young hero a person she could take seriously. They married in 1967. His “funny looks”, that gave young Nina a start at their first chance encounter, turned into an international photo motif: a pop star in progress, coincidentally at

the time when America’s fashion for posters and T-shirts flooded Europe. He couldn’t put a foot wrong, which made a huge impression on the likes of young Niki Lauda, later to win three Formula One World Championships: “There was a marketing photo for Ford. Jochen was wearing the most unbelievably apish fur coat you could imagine, a racoon monster of a coat. Anyone else would have looked completely ridiculous in this fur, but Jochen looked so fabulous that it gave you goosebumps.” Jochen’s voice was unmistakable. It had something nasal about it, like in the jokes where people come to the doctor with adenoid problems, but there was also something metallic, and an accent of husky, Styrian barking. Added to this was his perfect English with clever abbreviations – opening another door for witticisms. With such an easy lightness of word, there unfolded for him a culture of conversation that was unique. Rindt’s career received a very special kick through his relationship with Bernie Ecclestone. The Briton was 12 years older than Rindt and had just saved his neck from his own racing attempts. Now in his mid-30s, Ecclestone was in the fast lane of wheeling and dealing in the racing business, with an immaculate reputation and ‘handshake’ business qualities. The grandeur to regard motor racing as British Territory by right was part of Ecclestone’s basic equipment. It soon enabled him to set the style in the world of racing, wherever he moved. And the friendship with a total outsider, an Austrian (though born in Germany), opened new worlds for them both. Two characters of this calibre alone would have been enough to evolve the consultant-driver constellation to become a very special and successful team, and the mutual attraction added an extra quality to life. Part of this was the legendary school of practical jokes, which a lad from the Styrian provinces went through to get entry into the inner circle – and rightly so, because such an honour wasn’t easily bestowed. It would be a few years before backgammon became the dominating pastime of the racing circus, Ecclestone’s circle favoured Gin Rummy in the mid-’60s, all bets on, of course, but still at reasonable levels. Rindt loved this game and would quickly pick Bernie off between two practice sessions. What wonderful paddock magic. Imagine it today. A certain, shall we say, respect for money was typical of the two. This went 63

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Driver interviews: Anthony rowlinson. photography: Getty Images (1), Grand Prix Photo (1), Bildagentur Kräling (2), Milan Schijatschky (1), Schlegelmilch Photography (3), Sutton Motorsport Images (2)

His “funny looks” gave young Nina a start at their first chance encounter, and turned him into an international photo motif: a pop star in progress as far as the mutual outlines of business ideas, far exceeding people’s imagination back then. That’s why the topic always keeps popping up: what if Bernie and Jochen had grabbed all of Formula One for themselves? The fact is that Jochen, even in 1968, was completely convinced there was a great deal of room in F1 for entrepreneurial fantasy and that he just had to survive in order to then leap into a joint venture with Bernie. Looking back today, how would that have affected Ecclestone’s 30-year world domination over F1? Long after Rindt’s death, Ecclestone said: “I wouldn’t have had to worry about the clashing of characters… Jochen was as gentle as a baby.” With the announcement of a switch to Lotus in the autumn of 1968, interest in Rindt grew dramatically. Lotus was sheer excitement, and its boss, Colin Chapman, an awe-inspiring constructor and team boss, the charismatic, absolutely unique ‘Mr Lotus’. His most important heroic deed had happened several years earlier – the invention of the monocoque for motor racing [an idea that would revolutionise racing car design]. So it came to the legendary summer of 1970: Jochen Rindt in Lotus took on the rest of the world. At the unbelievable conclusion to the Monaco Grand Prix, where he hounded triple champion and race leader Jack Brabham into making a mistake in the very last corner, Rindt’s image as a hell-raiser was cemented. Then came the winning streak: victory at Zandvoort [Holland], at Clermont-Ferrand [France], at Brands Hatch [UK] and at the Hockenheimring [Germany], gave Rindt

THE BEST OF TIMES Compared with today, drivers were much more relaxed with one another: with Jacky Ickx and Piers Courage; with Jackie Stewart. The start at Brands Hatch in 1970 (front row l-r): Rindt (Lotus), Jack Brabham (Brabham), Jacky Ickx (Ferrari). A Repco engine in Brabham’s F1 in 1968. Victory ceremony at Monaco with Princess Grace, Princess Stephanie, Prince Rainier and Princess Caroline

memories of rindt by those who raced in the 1970 Italian Grand Prix

Jacky Ickx

BE, Ferrari Not winning at Watkins Glen was such a release. How could you beat someone not able to defend his own chances? [Post-Monza, Ickx was the only man still capable of out-scoring Rindt. But Ickx’s fourth place at the American GP, the penultimate round of the championship, confirmed Rindt as champion.] The fact that Jochen won the world championship was the most perfect solution. Now when I think back I feel so sad.

sir Jackie Stewart

Jochen Rindt at the beginning of his Grand Prix career in 1965

a clear world championship lead. Austria and Germany were mad for F1 and mad for Rindt. The stories that emerged later about Rindt knowing the danger he was in, about his desire to retire and his yearning for a real life were largely true. First, Rindt was intelligent enough to work out the statistics, that eventually it would be him. Racing those days was Russian roulette, especially in a Lotus. Drivers lost their lives back then in even less daring constructions. In Rindt’s six F1 seasons, 12 drivers died, the most famous being Jim Clark, Bruce McLaren, Lorenzo Bandini, Gerhard Mitter and Rindt’s close friend Piers Courage. During his international years, Rindt had matured considerably and become a serious person, so much so that he could very well imagine a life without the madness. He loved his wife Nina, he loved his daughter Natascha, he wanted to see how it was to be a normal father. But then, on the other hand, he was crazy enough and seemingly invulnerable enough to hunger after Chapman’s talk of a turbine car, how they would take home the first world championship and then the second; how they would show the whole world. And this wasn’t wild talk: in the sum of their genius they were

GB, Tyrrell It was very traumatic. Helen (Stewart) went to the hospital with Nina (Rindt) and that’s never a nice thing for a wife to do, to look after another wife. After the accident I’d been to Jochen and come back to Nina, who had totally disappeared with Helen. When I went out later to qualify I was in tears. But when I had the visor down that was when I did my qualifying time, which was the best lap I had ever done at Monza. I didn’t have a death wish, but as I came back in, my best friend John Lindsay, handed me a Coca-Cola, I took a drink and I was so angry I smashed it against the concrete wall that separated the pits from the track. That was my emotion.

John Miles

GB, Lotus (team-mate) Jochen had a tremendous urgency about the way he conducted his life and he was very quick to judge. The Lotus 72 [the title-winning car on which Miles helped the development] was such a troublesome child – every time I got into it something broke. Jochen kind of didn’t want to drive for Lotus in one sense because he knew the cars were liable to let him down, but there was engineering rashness with the 72. If we hadn’t been doing stupid experiments like taking the wings off with zero aerodynamic data to base it on and if the mechanics hadn’t pulled an all-nighter to do this stuff, then maybe Jochen would still be alive.

Emerson Fittipaldi

BR, Rob Walker Lotus (team-mate) By the time of Monza I was the third driver at Lotus, behind Jochen and John Miles. Over breakfast before practice, we were talking about my 1971 contract. Then came the disaster. It was awful for me. I was only 22 and he was a guy I had looked up to as an idol. He was always very good to me when I arrived in Europe from Brazil and his death was a big shock. Although Jochen could sometimes seem quite cold if you didn’t know him, he was a really warm guy underneath. He was an extreme talent and a fantastic guy.

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memories of rindt Chris Amon

NZ, March I talked to Jochen at Monza just before he went out for his last practice lap. His confidence levels were very high. He was on his way to winning the world championship and he was confident of a good result. A few minutes later he got in the car and never came back. I don’t know if we ever saw the best of him. Around that time the two guys I really rated were Jochen and Jackie (Stewart). For me he will always be one of the best.

Peter Gethin

GB, McLaren As a competitor he was exceptional, in everything he drove. When he came into F1 he was with Cooper which at that time wasn’t a great car, but you could see he was exceptionally good and that he was destined to be a world champion. I was on track when he crashed and not that far behind him. I remember Jackie Stewart running back to me in the pits asking if I’d seen what happened. It was a very sad and traumatic day, but if you thought about it too much you couldn’t do your job. That’s how it was.

Sir Jack Brabham

AUS, Motor Racing Developments Monza 1970 was a very sad weekend for me. I had become very close friends with Jochen and we had so many great races together. I rated him very highly as a driver and felt he was a wonderful competitor. He was a very good type of man and beyond that he was one of the best drivers of that period and captured the imagination of the racing public.

Jean-Pierre Beltoise

FR, Matra At that time, it wasn’t a question of if we would die in a racing car but when. So after I learned that Jochen had died, I didn’t really feel a huge shock. I’ll always remember him as a very nice guy. I knew him well and we were very good friends. When he died he was the man to beat: definitely one of the great drivers.

THE FINAL MINUTES Practice on Saturday, September 5, 1970. A standard routine in the pits, with Nina taking up her customary position – until a horrible silence drifts across the track. Jackie Stewart (bottom right) with Nina during the Monza weekend

indeed unbeatable, with their technological foresight, in the art of their implementation, in the sheer scope of their visions. Looking back now on the accident on September 5, 1970, during Saturday’s practice at Monza, it seems just as banal as it was 40 years ago. Approaching the Parabolica a brake shaft broke – legacy of the lightweight-daring Lotus construction – and Jochen had no chance. The crash

against the barriers (in those days guard rails) would have left a modern F1 car heftily crumpled, then in the gravel trap the driver would have removed his steering wheel, climbed out, refitted the wheel, the marshals would have pushed the car away, maybe the safety car would have come out, while the driver, helmet in hand, would have marched back to the pits. In fact, Rindt had a very clear idea that racing had to become safer, if only to prevent sanctimonious politicians from eventually banning the entire sport, as happened in Switzerland. Jochen, with his friend Jackie Stewart, were standing at the very beginning of the development leading to calculable risks, that would subsequently pick up great

photography: Paul-Henri Cahier/The Cahier Archive (1), Milan Schijatschky (3), Sutton Motorsport Images (4)

John Surtees

GB, Team Surtees At that time there were a number of drivers, if they were in the right car at the right time, who had the potential to become world champion and he was one of those. The accident was probably caused by mechanical failure, too, and that reawakened memories that there are things beyond your control at times, particularly in those days. You had to recall why you were there and what you were there to do – a job that generally you loved.

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memories of rindt Tim Schenken

AUS, Williams That weekend was only my second Grand Prix. I’d been doing F2 up to then, so I’d already raced against Jochen and he was a bit of a hero of mine. When you were with him you knew you were in the presence of someone special. Then suddenly someone who you look up to is killed and you feel very confused. So somehow you put another driver’s death out of your mind. I didn’t reflect on it, which seems quite harsh and at the next race it was if he had been forgotten, which was quite odd and quite sad.

Andrea de Adamich

IT, McLaren By Monza 1970, the only reason that Jochen was not dominating, rather than simply leading, the championship was that his Lotus was fragile as well as fast. Just before Jochen crashed he had come out of the pits. It’s my belief that his belts weren’t done up properly, and this is what caused him to slide under them, with the buckle crushing his neck. We’ll never know, but I think if his belts had been properly fastened, he could have survived

Nanni Galli

IT, Ecurie Bonnier The fact that Jochen is the only posthumous world champion tells you how good he was. We were firm friends. Sadness has blocked some of the memory of the weekend, but at first I thought the accident was not too serious, because there was no fire. Fatalities were just a fact of life, but it also meant that the relationships between people were closer and that driving standards were more correct.

photography: Crash Media Group (1), Milan Schijatschky (2), Sutton Motorsport Images (4)

Jackie Oliver

As hard as the impact was, Rindt would have survived the crash had today’s safety standards been in place momentum with Niki Lauda and later Ayrton Senna and lead to the era of carbonfibre monocoques and wide run-off areas. Heading to Monza, Rindt had twice as many points as closest rival Jacky Ickx, of Ferrari. Afterwards, there were races in Canada, the USA and Mexico. Rindt couldn’t defend himself anymore, and

mathematically Ickx was still in contention for the title. But when he secured only fourth in Watkins Glen (USA), the guessing was over. Jochen Rindt became World Champion posthumously. It was good and right like this, said Ickx back then, greatly relieved, and he still says it today. More images at en.redbulletin.com/print2.0 Explore today’s F1 at www.redbullracing.com

GB, BRM It was a very dangerous period for motor racing. Lots of us were getting nailed and in a situation like that you didn’t dwell on accidents. I shut myself down. No remorse. No sadness. No tears. As far as I was concerned Jochen was just gone. Looking back it was probably an inappropriate way to behave, but I suppose a number of others were exactly the same.

Henri Pescarolo

FR, Matra Jochen was exceptionally fast, very spectacular and aggressive. Great for the fans to watch. I remember the year he died, 1970, at Monaco, I stayed ahead of him for most of the race until he won at the very last corner when he passed Jack Brabham. I knew that if I had stayed ahead of Jochen I had done a good job.

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The Rebirth Brass Band raisinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; the roof at their regular Tuesday night gig at the Maple Leaf bar

“Y’all ready for the Rebirth?”

New Orleans has been shaped by the music of its beloved brass bands, in good times and bad Words: Andreas Tzortzis Photography: Brady Fontenot

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T he ceiling fans turn lazily, showing little commitment to dispersing the heavy air and cigarette smoke wafting to the tin ceiling of the Maple Leaf. A mix of black and white faces, shirts and tops in various states of perspiration, squeeze together in the long room at the end of which a group of nine musicians file unhurriedly onto the stage. They settle, and a short man in a white wife-beater and holding a trombone, grabs one of the microphones. “Ya’ll ready for the Rebirth?” he hollers, a double entendre, if ever there 70

was one, in New Orleans. A few tentative slaps of the snare drum by big Derrick Tabb looming at the back, a testing bass drum beat or two, and Tuba Phil plays the bouncing, mellow first notes of the opening song, a funk and R&B-infused homage to the brass band music that has defined this city’s musical reputation for more than a century. Willowy college students on summer break, grinning, awkward tourists and the practised locals roar their approval, hands in the air, hips jutting out this way

and that to the staggered metronome of the bass drum, the shouted lyrics from the Rebirth Brass Band and the swooping melodies of the horns. It’s like this every Tuesday night at the Maple Leaf. It’s like this every night in New Orleans. Harmonica-frosted blues and zigzagging Cajun zydeco intermingle in the sweltering air above Frenchmen street. The tight woodwind and brass sections of the stately Preservation Hall Jazz band offer an elegant riposte to the thudding

action and that’s what’s keeping us going, keeping us alive.” Perhaps no other genre mirrors the ebb and flow of the city’s fortunes more than the brass band music that has been part of the cultural fabric since the late 19th century. Descended from military marching bands, early New Orleans musicians reworked the structured melodies into uplifting, improvisational pieces the world would come to know as jazz. Brass bands were the proving ground for Louis Armstrong and Jelly Roll Morton (on trombone) as they’ve been for subsequent New Orleans legends, from Grammy-winning trumpeter Wynton Marsalis to rising star Troy ‘Trombone Shorty’ Andrews. In the years since Katrina, the music has served as a welcome constant, the city’s lifeline in times both good and bad. Slow, mournful dirges and upbeat riffs are played by nine-piece bands at jazz funerals and boisterous second line parades commandeer city blocks across New Orleans every Sunday. On street corners around the French Quarter, the evolution of the sound is pushed by a new generation of teenagers, adapting the discipline of their high school marching band experience to the infectious funk of bands like the Rebirth. “You can play on any occasion,” says Tabb. “From the womb to the tomb, you can listen to brass band music.”

FREE AGENTS BRASS BAND In the living room of a modest home rebuilt by Habitat for Humanity in eastern New Orleans, the Free Agents, led by drummer Ellis Joseph (centre, seated), tighten their sound.

hip-hop of Bourbon Street. There’s muffled trombone tones emerging from a Habitat for Humanity-built cottage in eastern New Orleans, and a meandering piano scale drifting from the open window of an antebellum mansion in the Garden District. On Jackson Square, where tarot card readers ensnare tourists, the drowsy, damp sound of a sousaphone bounces its tones off of the stonework of colonial-era buildings, wrought-iron balconies and, finally, the muddy churn of the Mississippi. On August 29, the city marked five years

since Hurricane Katrina’s storms assaulted woefully built levees that kept the subsea-level city safe, flooding 80 per cent of New Orleans. There are still homes that look like smashed accordions and schools shuttered behind chain-link fences. And now the BP oil spill, the latest calamity to befall this region, has put Gulf coast fisherman out of work and challenged the resourcefulness of New Orleans chefs. “We just get screwed, bro, down here at the bottom of the map,” says musician Ellis Joseph. “The music is still there,

A MAN WITH white whiskers and a white baseball hat sits on the porch of a clapboard funeral home in Treme and watches the world go by. His is one of America’s oldest neighbourhoods, a melting pot back when the southern United States was deeply segregated, and the birthplace of a civil rights movement decades before anyone knew what that was. Its dynastic, sprawling families have also produced generations of fine musicians. In the past year, Treme’s cultural mélange and quirky musical personalities, from trumpeter Kermit Ruffins to Trombone Shorty, have been beamed into American living rooms, with the neighbourhood taking the starring role in a new HBO drama series. But unlike the city’s Lower Ninth Ward, where Brad Pitt is helping rebuild a neighbourhood devastated by the floods, busloads of tourists have yet to wind their way through the streets of Treme. The voice of a DJ queuing up another song on local jazz station WWOZ drifts up from an old boombox with busted tape decks on the funeral home’s porch, where Sylvester Francis sits. In two air-conditioned rooms inside, are New 71

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Orleans’ most personal collection of Mardi Gras and jazz funeral artefacts and photographs stretching back more than three decades. Among the pieces: the cooler of a popular beer vendor who worked second line parades; suits worn by members of the various social aid and pleasure clubs in the city; and a starburst room full of elaborate, feathered Mardi Gras Indian costumes. The Back Street Cultural Museum’s unique selection was spared when flood waters hit Treme. Francis was one of the first to return in September 2005. “I wasn’t worried about my house, I was worried about this,” says Francis. “When I came back here, it was a symbol to others to come back.” On October 7, 2005, a jazz funeral and the ‘second line’ of relatives and neighbours who follow along behind, began at Francis’ museum. Austin Leslie, the great New Orleans creole chef, had passed away, and members of the Hot 8 Brass Band led the jazz funeral through the neighbourhood. It was the first held in New Orleans after the floods. The first life sign. UNIQUE TO NEW Orleans, jazz funerals and second lines were traditions begun in the late 18th century by social aid and pleasure clubs. Rooted in African tribal tradition, the clubs provided for the families of members who had passed, and families responded in kind. “To show appreciation you got a music band to thank people for helping, with the funeral,” says Francis. “You’re poorer in a way, but you’re richer in others.” They’ve formed the backbone of the black

“ You feel the music, when you’re from New Orleans” community in New Orleans for more than 100 years, and carry colourful names, from the Uptown Swingers and Money Wasters and the Black Men of Leisure. From September until July, a second line parade is held in New Orleans every Sunday. In mid-June, just a few blocks from the Corinthian columns and painted shutters of the Garden District, the Uptown Swingers march in the sweltering heat of early summer. About 20 members, resplendent in baby-blueand-white suits and sashes made just for this occasion, follow behind the The Stooges Brass Band. Most wear sunglasses and the second line is humming despite the humidity. Hundreds follow along the route, past unkempt narrow ‘shotgun’ houses, their front lawns overgrown with weeds. A police truck tails close behind, attempting to dictate the pace of the second line. The strained relationship between the police department and second lines is evident, a mutual distrust borne of expensive parade licences and occasional violence that has flared along parade routes in the past. Each sound of the siren is greeted by cusses and shouts. But the atmosphere is defiantly jubilant. Porches are commandeered by young black men in T-shirts and shorts and Morning radio show host Lebron Joseph makes sure his listeners get one or two songs by local brass bands to supplement their hip-hop and R&B breakfast diet

immaculately clean sneakers, dancing with abandon. Their feet slide and glide across the ground, their torsos rigid and their legs and ankles elastic as they buck jump, sweat pearling on their temples and shoulders. Children and scolding mothers follow along, as do a few people dragging beer coolers on wheels. “You feel the music, when you’re from New Orleans,” says Trisha Ellsworth, as the second line moves by at a leisurely pace. “Don’t matter whether rain, sleet or snow, it’s our heritage. And if nobody don’t get along no other day. They get along on a Sunday.” A large man wearing dark glasses, a white hat and baby-blue suit keeps order among the club members holding Uptown Swingers banners and the grand marshals dancing at the head of the line. Ezell Hines has been second lining since he was six years old. The 50-year-old is now president of the Uptown Swingers, his devotion to the tradition helping him overcome debilitating illness. Suffering from diabetes, Hines fled to Baton Rouge during the floods five years ago. His sugar levels began climbing at an alarming rate because of the stress. “He was practically almost going blind,” says his wife. “I needed to hear that music, man,” he says. “I got home and my sugar started going down.” He pauses. “Second line is what got everybody back,” he says, in a guttural, southern drawl. “The city was destroyed. It was bad. It was bad…” AMONG THE HUNDREDS of thousands displaced were, of course, the talented musicians who have maintained New Orleans’ reputation as the birthplace of jazz music. Fats Domino, a New Orleans fixture and the crooner of ‘Blueberry Hill’, had to be transported from his yellow and black mansion in the Lower Ninth Ward by Coast Guard helicopter. Thousands of musicians were forced out to Texas and Mississippi, their record collections, sheet music and instruments destroyed by the rising waters. Ellis Joseph left the city before the Hurricane hit and headed up to Shreveport, Baton Rouge, and, finally, Atlanta. “I was on my ass. I was living in a hotel and waiting on apartments, and that’s when the creativity kicked in,” he says. “People called me for shit, trying to get instruments, so I was like ‘All right, let me get this ball rolling.’” A smooth, easy-going 30-year-old with a gravelly voice, Joseph, like so many in New Orleans, came from a

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REBIRTH BRASS BAND The Rebirth Brass Band, formed in 1982 by brothers Phil (back, right) and Keith Frazier (second from left) and Kermit Ruffins (no longer with the band), is the city’s most successful brass band export, with 13 albums of their own and appearances on many others. The current generation of brass bands lean heavily on the Rebirth’s funk and hip-hop influenced sound.

musical family. His cousins sang back-up with Smokey Robinson and another cousin is the Rebirth’s Derrick Tabb. Joseph played clarinet until Tabb taught him the bass drum and cymbal. Bit by bit, musicians began returning to a city forever transformed. Shuttling back and forth over a year, Joseph joined the stragglers in August 2006. “Some cats needed bands, and needed the gigs,” says Joseph. “I found myself calling the same people every week, every weekend.” He later made it official, calling the band the ‘Free Agents’. The nine-piece band have toured in Europe and now get four or five gigs a week, charging around $450 a half hour. It’s still less than pre-Katrina, when brass bands could count on conventions packed with out-of-town businessmen, bars, birthdays and second lines for a solid five engagements per week. Many bars are still shuttered and, though the city has reached 91 per cent of its pre-Katrina population levels, the

number of potential clients are fewer. Regular gigs are hard to come by. On a Sunday night, Joseph sits in his car outside of a dive bar called the Green Room in the Fourth Ward. He’s in a reflective mood. “I really want to see my band do good, make some nice money and travel and see the world,” says Joseph. “But in the meantime we got to live. I don’t want to give it up, but it’s some hard living.” The Green Room has been a steady paycheck for the Free Agents. The bar is a bit too rustic for the French Quarter tourists but beloved by locals. The frosted glass cubes near the front door shine red and pink on the outside. Across the street a man called Bittles with the Vittles grills smoked hot sausages and chicken wings. He wears a shirt on the back of which is written “Hot Meat for Your Mouth”. Business is humming along. The car park is filled with women carrying large purses, their generous frames packed into tight dresses. The men are in short-sleeved button-downs

and baggy shorts, some sporting the dark glasses and pulled-back dreadlocks local rap star Lil’ Wayne has made fashionable. One by one, the band members slouch past two bouncers and through the front door of the bar, instrument cases slung over their shoulders. Joseph greets some of them outside, separately. Then he moves into the back room where the band settle before coming out onto the dancefloor to start the first of three half-hour sets. At 11.23, the opening bop of the sousaphone announces the beginning of the show. An audience that has been hovering near the bar breaks up into a sweaty, jumping mess on the dancefloor. The Free Agents sound is a rousing, cacophonous homage to the high-energy funk that New Orleans brass band music has become in the past 30 years. The new sound was pioneered by the Dirty Dozen, who shook up the city’s traditional brass music in the 1970s by including James Brown tunes in their song lists. Bands such as the Soul Rebels have layered on additional genres, but it has been the Rebirth that has popularised the sound in the last two decades. With numbers that are infinitely danceable, punctuated with lyrics gleaned from funk or hip-hop songs that are easily shouted back, the reason for the band’s longevity is obvious. “We wanted 73

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UPTOWN SWINGERS Steeped in African tribal culture and community fixtures in black neighbourhoods, the city’s social aid and pleasure clubs continue to hold weekly ‘second line’ parades through New Orleans. Serious money and time are invested in the club’s choice of colour scheme and banners, with bragging rights going to the best-looking crew. Local brass band The Stooges played the Uptown Swingers parade in mid-June.

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younger crowds, and the younger crowds wanted us,” says Tabb. “We started playing more upbeat (music), more hype.” Their success has spawned imitators at street corners and second lines around New Orleans, and explains the relative youth of the Green Room crowd watching the Free Agents. But there is quality lacking in the quantity. Some of the new bands lack the technique and improvisational polish of generations before. “They out there blowing loud and challenging one another… and it’s too loud,” says ‘Uncle’ Benny Jones Sr, the 67-year-old leader of the Treme Brass Band. “If you tell them what they’re doing wrong, they don’t listen. You got to play a tune, but control your volume.” Tabb, a brilliant drummer, laments younger bands lack of interest in learning traditional music, but feels hypocritical in dismissing it. “I can’t knock them for trying things, because without trying things, Rebirth wouldn’t be here,” he says. “They might add something that brings a little flavour to it and change the game.” Most of the Free Agents began playing at the age of 11, in the city’s junior high

school music programmes. But the distractions of youth meant nearly all didn’t continue on in high school, where young musicians transition from learning their instruments to understanding what can be done with them. “I can’t say I didn’t miss out, not taking it as serious as the others,” says trombonist Larry Brown, 24, who left high school. “But as I started playing brass band music, it became a lot more heartfelt. I was playing with my heart and ear.” The group rehearse every Tuesday at the home of trumpeter Chad Brown, which was rebuilt by Habitat for Humanity after nearby Lake Pontchartrain flooded eastern New Orleans. Larry Brown has brought a copy of Music Theory for Dummies to the rehearsal. It lies on the coffee table

as the Free Agents practise scales and tune their instruments, their eyes on the NBA finals game playing on a big screen TV. After an hour or so, Joseph calls them to order and the band go through a set list without sheet music from which to read. Traditional second line tunes are mixed in with new songs that have very little to do with the slow dirges or soft bounce of the jazz funeral pieces. There’s no break, or pause to correct. The harmonies are mostly on even if some of the soloists miss a note or two, and the sousaphone and bass drum keep the beat chugging along. The group end their practice with a prayer and then Brown snaps up the book on the table. “Everybody in the band need that book,” he tells Joseph. “It might be simple,

TREME BRASS BAND The respected veterans of the scene, the Treme Brass Band features some local legends, including ‘Uncle’ Benny Jones Sr (third from left) and the always-dapper Lionel Batiste (second from left) – both of whom feature

on the wall mural of the Candlelight Lounge in Treme. Fiercely traditional in their style, Jones Sr sometimes wishes the current generation of bands would pay more attention to technique and the city’s musical heritage.

but you got to get it backwards and forwards,” chimes in John Perkins, a talented trumpet player the band have dubbed ‘Curfew’ because, at 19, he’s the band’s youngest member. “You can take it anywhere you want.” MOST NEW ORLEANS musical legacies begin at home, with instruments and skills passed from generation to generation. Dynastic musical families have populated the city since the early 20th century, from the descendants of alto horn and clarinetist Louis Barbarin, to the Neville brothers and Marsalises. The kids hang around street corners and squares, listening to their brothers and sisters and cousins jam, until they get their own instrument and can play along. Trumpeter Ruffins and ‘Uncle’ Benny learned on the streets of Treme. Trombone Shorty and Tabb went to Jackson Square to learn traditional jazz and showmanship from Tuba Fats, the city’s most electric tuba player until his death in 2004. “Jackson Square was full of musicians playing that stuff,” says Jeffrey Mills Sr, a brass band sousaphonist and music teacher. “Eighty per cent of what I learned about traditional music, I learned on this square.” But many of the older musicians who once played there either never returned after Katrina, or passed away. The flood also wiped out most of the New Orleans school district, and, as part of the postKatrina budget restructuring, all the city’s junior high school music classes were cut. The dearth of musical education spurred Tabb in 2007 to start Roots of Music, a nonprofit providing after-school musical instruction to children aged 11 to 14. Every day, 125 kids file through the doors of the Cabildo, the old city hall under Spanish rule that faces Jackson Square. The building blends the stylistic flourishes of the two former superpowers that once battled over the city, with the Spanish arches on its façade complemented by a French mansard roof. On the top floor of the building, four rows of drummers and cymbal players in yellow T-shirts bearing the Roots of Music logo stand at perfect attention. The room is utterly silent but for the occasional instructions of Shoan Ruffin, their teacher. A movement from him, and the drum corps – four bass drums, four tenor drums, a row of cymbal players and four snare drums – unleash a tight marching beat, their backs straight, their eyes ahead. They finish with a snap, drumsticks held aloft, and the room is silent again. “Junior high is where you get their attention,” says Tabb. “You have to catch

The “Roots of Music” advanced brass class and drum corps, rehearse in rooms off Jackson Square

RED BULL STREET KINGS The Claiborne Overpass was built in the 1950s, destroying Treme’s beloved treelined Claiborne Avenue and slicing up one of America’s oldest neighbourhoods. But it also created a unique rehearsal space for brass bands, with concrete pillars and girders providing a distinct soundscape. On October 23, the site will be the location of Red Bull Street Kings, a showcase for the next generation of brass bands.

them right then and there, because they have a lot of music to learn.” The room holds a jumble of prepubescent shapes and sizes, but for one startling exception: a little boy of three, his snare drum resting on the ground in front of him. Lawrence ‘Tuda’ Honore is the youngest in the group by years. He’s also visibly talented, wielding drumsticks that look like 2 x 4s in his hands with astonishing agility. Tuda, in turns out, is Tabb’s grand nephew, “He cries when you take away the drum,” says Tabb. “He started playing even earlier. Just like me.” He talks about the legendary band instructor Donald Richardson and playing on street corners in Treme, and a smile comes across his face as he stands outside the Maple Leaf on a break. Locals nod at him and he nods back, stopping to chat to those he knows and those he doesn’t. And then it’s back into the club, where the second of three hour-long sets awaits. The crowd hasn’t tired one bit. And as Tabb and Co launch into another set, neither, it seems, have the Rebirth. More info at www.redbullusa.com/streetkings

Photography: Andreas Panzenberger/Red Bull Photofiles

One of the hottest of Hot Spots on page 86 is the final of the FIM Motocross World Championship featuring MX2 leader Marvin Musquin of France (pictured)

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80 sarka pancochova visits hangar-7 82 Get the gear 84 how to conquer red bull dolomitenmann 86 listings 90 nightlife 96 short story 98 Mindâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s eye

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Hangar-7 Interview

Sarka Pancochova New to the scene but already a huge hit, this Czech snowboard prodigy credits her success to a pre-jump soundtrack featuring Queen and Abba Words: Ruth Morgan “Oh shizzle – this place is crazy!” Sarka Pancochova is all smiles as she bounds into Hangar-7 for the first time, a whirlwind of energy. Anyone who knows this snowboarding prodigy would tell you this is nothing unusual: excitement is Sarka’s default emotion. And, though still recovering from knee surgery, she has plenty to smile about: the 20-yearold from the Czech Republic is changing the face of women’s snowboarding with her uncompromising style. She’s just been named Rookie of the Year 2010 by Snowboarder Magazine, won the first-ever women’s quarterpipe world championships and is currently ranked third in the TTR World Snowboard Tour. Not bad for a rider approaching only her third season as a pro. Red Bulletin: So you’re staying at the Red Bull Diagnostics and Training 80

Centre (DTC) here in Salzburg for a few weeks to get back on track after your surgery? Sarka Pancochova: Yes, I tore my anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in my left knee. I’ve been out for three months and I have another three to go before I can compete. I’m not even sure how I did it. But it’s cool as now I’ll be more inspired this season, like ‘get me out there!’ And the DTC is cool. You have physiotherapists, psychologists and coaches all working out what’s best for you and how to train. So you’re being your usual, positive self, then? It could be worse. Surgery was pretty cool. It was done under local anaesthetic and they had a partition there so I couldn’t see any of the gory stuff, but on a screen I could see what they were doing inside my knee. I could see the surgeon

screwing the ligaments back together. And I’m quite proud of the scar. An editor of Snowboard Magazine recently said you were the best overall female rider in the world today. Is that how you see yourself? Oh, he was kidding (laughs). No. I don’t know. Maybe. I want to be the best. But there’s definitely so much more to do. Learning new stuff makes me so excited, so if I have snow and a board, I’m happy. Would you agree that women’s snowboarding is moving to another level? Yes, everything’s growing so fast for girls’ snowboarding. Guys’ snowboarding is already big in terms of tricks: they do doubles, some even do triple flips. But the gap is closing. It’s a physical thing, but attitude plays a part. Now loads of girls are like: “Right, let’s push it, let’s progress,” which is perfect. I’m very

Photography: Vitek Ludvik/Red Bull Photofiles(1), Monika Saulich (2)

“Get me out there”: Sarka Pancochova has been out of action for three months following ligament damage, but she can’t wait to get back to competing. “I’ll be practising a double backside rodeo when I’m back on snow,” she says

excited about this season. I’ll be practising a double backside rodeo as soon as I’m back on snow. You seem pretty fearless in terms of what you’re willing to try. Is that how you feel? I was always up for everything and wanting to try everything when I was a kid. In the Czech Republic I lived in a tiny village and all my friends were guys. We were always running around the forest and climbing, getting into all sorts of sports. I think that helped me when I started snowboarding at 11. But I do get scared sometimes, you just have to learn how to talk yourself through it. You’re so new to the pro scene you’re still winning rookie awards. Has it sunk in yet that you’re already up there with the best of them? At first it was really strange. I rode in the European Roxy Chicken Jam

competition, then the European Open, with all the pro riders that I’d watched on TV. I was competing against my idols and I wanted to show off, so of course I fell (laughs). But now it’s normal to hang out with them. You have a reputation of being quite a party girl… Yeah, I do. It’s quite hard not to party when you’re travelling with riders like Jamie Anderson or Kjersti Buaas: one of us is always on the podium so it’s like, ‘Right! Let’s celebrate!’ But I also love sleeping. Sometimes I have a nap after lunch and it’s so amazing. I get very excited about sleep. What would be the soundtrack to your perfect competition run? I always ride with music. A great song pushes you, and you don’t get scared. I listen to a lot of old-school stuff – Abba, Queen, The Beatles. Dancing Queen is

a great track to listen to as you prepare for a big jump. I think there’s a secret rock star in me somewhere. Me and some of the other pro girls have a sort of band. There’s five of us with two guitars, a harmonica, a ukulele and me on drums. We hang out together on tour and play the The Beatles and stuff for fun. You reached the semi-finals at the Winter Olympics earlier this year. Is going back to win a medal high on your list of goals? Yeah, I just couldn’t land my last run. I was kind of bummed not to reach the finals, but I know I’ll be back next time for sure. A medal would be fantastic but you can’t plan these things too much or you jinx them. For now I’m just getting fit so I can go for it this season – it’s going to be intense. Follow Sarka’s snow progress at www.sarkapancochova.cz

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Kilian Fischhuber and Anna Stöhr: world-class boulderers

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Anna and Kilian’s Kit

These two can be found on climbing walls the world over. This is what Anna Stöhr and Kilian Fischhuber take to feel at home on the road 1. Sony headphones www.sony.com "Anna likes to listen to music to relax and motivate herself before competing.” 2. Mammut Basic Chalk Bag Trio www.mammut.ch “You can’t climb without magnesium supplies Simple as that.”

3. Mammut Lucido headlamp www.mammut.ch “Makes bouldering and reading possible when it’s late.”

Photography: kurt Kainrath, Philipp Horak

4. Recheis wholemeal pasta www.recheis.at “Gives us power.” 5. Mammut Venus climbing harness www.mammut.ch “Safety comes first. This one is tailored specifically for the female body.” 6. Brushes “To help remove the chalk on the holds left behind by previous climbers.”

7. Edelrid belay www.edelrid.de “Light and welldesigned – this one is ‘oasis’ coloured.” 8. Zillertal: Klettern und Bouldern [Climbing and Bouldering] “Climbing guide by Markus Schwaiger. We’re locals after all…” 9. Sunglasses www.smithoptics.com “For those sunny days.” 10. A small first-aid kit “Emery board for skin, tape, plasters, painkillers.” 11. Around the World in Eighty Days www.amazon.de “Jules Verne’s classic.” 12. Deodorant www.dove.com “Shower in a can.” 13. La Sportiva Solution climbing shoes www.lasportiva.com “Soft and precise.” Find out more at kilian-fischhuber.at

more body & mind Print 2.0

Jonathan Wyatt is a seven-time world mountain-running champion and four-time winner of the running leg of the Red Bull Dolomitenmann (the other legs: mountain biking, kayaking and paragliding). Here the New Zealander shares his tips for getting to the top

Eyes Front When you’re running off-road, you need to look a bit further down the trail than you would if you were running on an easy, smooth path. You want to see what obstacles are coming up, and know what to expect. If you’re looking at your feet you’re going to hit a tree root, or something, before you notice it. I tend to scan the trail ahead and focus 5 or 6m in front of me.

Train To Strain When I’m training for longer mountain runs I try to run continuously for 30 minutes uphill: you need a goodsized hill to do that. To work on my speed, I do shorter repetitions of three minutes uphill, followed by two minutes of recovery. I jog slowly uphill for the first minute of the recovery and then jog back down the hill for the second minute.

Game Of Two Halves Watch any of the top downhill runners and you’ll see their arms flying about all over the place, but from the waist down they are very stable and relaxed and their legs seem to move quite easily down the hill. Good downhill runners rarely put the brakes on because if you try and use your legs to slow you down, it has a jarring effect and can deaden and harden your legs. I’ve heard that if you get out of control on a descent, jumping straight up in the air will slow you down, but I’ve never tried it myself.

Beat It The most important thing about mountain running is to get into a good rhythm. Runners who are used to running on the road tend to overstride, and they get fatigued much more quickly on hills. Chop your stride a little and take slightly smaller steps: the steeper the hill, the smaller the steps.

One Step At A Time Looking at the top of the hill can be a bit daunting and you think, ‘I’m never going to get there.’ So focusing on getting to the next tree, or the next rock, is a good way to break a run down into manageable parts. If there’s a particularly steep section, I say to myself, ‘I’ll work hard to get to the top of this section and try and recover on the next section.’

Push And Pull I use my arms a lot to generate more power and momentum. I try and keep my shoulders and arms relaxed, and as I pull back with my arms I exaggerate the movement a little, because on the way forward it gives me a bit more momentum and my legs then usually follow suit.

Pick Your Battles I sometimes take a slightly longer route if I think it’s less steep and easier to run, rather than choosing the absolute shortest way up a hill. I’d rather run all the way than stop and start, and I don’t like to walk.

Save Some In The Tank You don’t want to waste energy on exaggerated movements: go bounding up a hill you and you’ll travel fast but not for long. The most efficient way to get up the mountain is to use as little energy as possible.

A Lean Spell Something I’ve always done on steeper hills is run on my toes more, digging in and pushing off hard from them with all my leg power. The steeper the hill, the more you need to lean into it. If you’re running at 90 degrees to the hill, you’re going to fall backwards. I lean into it and try to keep my momentum always moving forward. Follow Red Bull Dolomitenmann live on September 11 at www.redbulldolomitenmann.com

Words: Robert Tighe. photography: GRAEME MURRAY

Mountain King

en.redbulletin.com/print2.0 Discover one of the planet’s toughest extreme sport relays

EYEWEAR + ACCESSORIES . SAN FRANCISCO www.sutrovision.com

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Red Bull Rampage 01 – 03.10.2010 The world’s top riders, including Gee Atherton, Darren Berrecloth and Andreu Lacondeguy, compete in this unique mountain bike downhill challenge to the finish line 1,000ft below. Virgin, Utah, USA

hot SPOTS

photography: Ray Demski/Red Bull Photofiles, Garth Milan/Red Bull Photofiles, Erwin Polanc/Red Bull Photofiles, Christian Pondella/Red Bull Photofiles

Wet and wild or thrills and spills, there’s a sporting event to suit every fan’s tastes

EHC Black Wings Linz – EC Red Bull Salzburg 10.09.10

Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series 12.09.10

Having won both the 2010 Continental Cup and the 09/10 Erste Bank Hockey League season, the Red Bull Salzburg team starts the competition in a strong position. Linz, Austria

The action arrives at the sport’s spiritual home for a spectacular finale to an incredible year of competition. With new dives and locations, this season has proved there’s more to come from this exhilarating sport. Hilo, Hawaii

Red Bull Dolomitenmann 11.09.10 More than 100 teams from 20 nations take to the Dolomites to do battle in mountain running, paragliding, kayaking and mountain biking disciplines, each determined to take victory in one of the world’s toughest races. Lienz, Austria

Formula One Italian GP 12.09.10 With only five races to go after this event, tension is mounting. While Rubens Barrichello hopes for a repeat of last year’s win, leaderboard top-enders Red Bull, McLaren and Ferrari will vie for pole position. Autodromo di Monza, Italy

NASCAR Sprint Cup Series 11.09.10

FIM Motocross World Cup Final 12.09.10

With Brian Vickers out for the season, it’s down to team-mate Scott Speed and stand-in driver Reed Sorenson to bring home the points for Team Red Bull. Richmond International Raceway, Virginia, USA

An adrenalin-fuelled final is a given as defending champion Antonio Cairoli from Italy hopes to seal his second successive world cup victory. Fermo, Italy

Red Bull 5000 Down 11 – 12.09.10 The 250 fastest MTB riders on the first day will gather at the mountain’s peak for a massstart race to the finish down a 7,000ft-long track, with a vertical drop of 5,000ft, to cross in Whistler Village. Whistler, Canada

Red Bull Beach Boys 11 –12.09.10 After heats all summer, the best 32 amateur beach volleyballers in Germany have been chosen, and the final will decide which four will take on world champions Julius Brink and Jonas Reckermann. Düsseldorf, Germany

ASP World Tour 12 – 18.09.10 While South African surfer Jordy Smith enjoys a strong season, defending champion Mick Fanning needs his first win of the year to stay in with a chance of defending his title. Trestles, California, USA

Red Bull Under My Wings 15.09.10 Motocross world championship contenders Marc De Reuver and Jeffrey Herlings give young Dutch riders a taste of the big time as they invite them to watch the pros prepare, race and evaluate their performance during a world cup round. Veldhoven, Netherlands

Red Bull Latitude Zero 23.09.10 Some of the world’s best beach volleyballers line up either side of the equator to compete in a game of south versus north. Macapá, Brazil

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FIS Grand Prix Skispringen 03.10.2010 This event is the last of the summer mat-jump competitions. Then it’s time for the world’s best ski jumpers to gear up for the winter season. Klingenthal, Germany

Red Bull King of the Rock 18.09.10

Formula One Singapore GP 26.09.10

Alcatraz is the location for a tough basketball head-to-head between the best West Coast amateurs, hosted by All-Star guard Rajon Rondo. Alcatraz, USA

Sparks tend to fly during any F1 get together, but this is the only place you’ll see them. The one night-race on the calendar provides the ultimate spectacle for fans and a challenge for even the most talented drivers. Marina Bay Street Circuit, Singapore

Red Bull Flugtag 19.09.10 More than 100,000 gather on the banks of the Dambovita River in Bucharest to see 40 teams launch off a ramp in homemade contraptions, all hoping not to make a splash. Bucharest, Romania

German Touring Car Championship 19.09.10 With only three races to go before the teams head out to Shanghai for the November finale, pressure is rising. Oschersleben, Germany

Red Bull Rising Camp Mexico 2010 19 – 26.09.10 Twelve of the most promising surfers from around the world, including Wiggolly Dantas and Conner Coffin, gather to practise on near-perfect waves. Salina Cruz, Mexico

Extreme Sailing Series 23 – 26.09.10 The penultimate high-octane racing weekend gets the crowds on shore as close to the action as possible. Trapani, Italy

IFSC Climbing World Cup 24 – 25.09.10 The world’s top male and female climbers, including Austrian Angie Eiter, compete in the lead discipline as the 2010 World Cup competition enters its final phase. Puurs, Belgium

Red Bull Motocross of Nations 25 - 26.09.10 Red Bull Box Cart Race 24.09.2010 More than 250 participants and 50,000 spectators put handmade box carts to the test down a punishing hill in Soweto. Johannesburg, South Africa

What began in 1947 as a race between three countries’ teams is now a beast of a battle involving more than 30 nations. The annual event returns to the USA, with all teams determined to break Team America’s five-win run. Lakewood, Colorado, USA

Red Bull X-Fighters world tour 02.10.10 Having visited Mexican and Spanish bullfighting rings, London landmarks, an Egyptian sphinx and Moscow’s Red Square, all roads lead to Rome for a thrilling FMX finale which sees the 2010 king crowned. Or should that be emperor? Stadio Flaminio, Rome, Italy

WRC Rallye de France 01 – 03.10.10 It’s all change at this year’s French rally, which moves from its long-term home on the island of Corsica to a course in the Alsace region. But for defending champion Sébastien Loeb, it won’t be the course that counts, but the winning. Strasbourg, France

FIM Superbike/ Supersport France GP 03.10.10 With Jonathan Rea and Eugene Laverty enjoying strong seasons in the Superbike and Supersport competitions respectively, the 2010 final is a chance for the riders to end the year on a high. Magny-Cours, France

MotoGP of Japan 03.10.10 Title challenger Dani Pedrosa is determined to beat his impressive third-place finish last year, and so, as the competition reaches it final stages, every second counts. Motegi, Japan

Red Bull Roof tops 05 – 08.10.10 The town’s beautiful balconies, domes and spires become a picturesque playground for British freerunning’s first man, Ryan Doyle, who won the Red Bull Art of Motion competition in 2007. Santorini, Greece

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Lunice The multi-talented B-Boy, dancer and singer Lunice takes us on a personal tour of his home town of Montreal. The port is a no-no, but he’ll show you where you can party all night, on page 93. Montreal, Canada

night spots

Photography: Jennifer Dunaj, Green Valley, Jacob Hodgkinson, www.thudrumble.com

And the beat goes on – come party with us at festivals and gigs all around the world

La Bâtie Festival 03 – 18.09.10

The Black Seeds 09 – 11.09.10

Since 1977 the event has showcased some of the best local and international actors, musicians and dancers. Originally held in a forest, it now takes over urban sites including old theatres and industrial hangars, creating exciting venues for the local population and the many visitors it attracts. Various locations, Geneva, Switzerland

The octet may hail from Wellington, but the band’s musical roots lie elsewhere. With their fusion of dub, afrobeat, funk and soul, lead singer Barnaby Weir and his boys bring together the feelgood sounds of summer. 9.09 – Sammy’s, Dunedin; 10.09 – Memorial Hall, Queenstown; 11.09 – The Bedford, all Christchurch, New Zealand

Music Fest NW 08 – 12.09.10

Bestival 09 – 12.09.10

One of America’s largest indoor festivals annually takes over the city of Portland to showcase some of the world’s most exciting musical acts. This year an outdoor venue is added, and the line-up is characteristically high-calibre, with Major Lazer, The National, and The Decemberists among those joining the party. Various venues, Oregon, USA

With fancy-dress theme ‘fantasy’ expect to see the unexpected as the much-loved annual gathering turns the Isle of Wight’s green fields into a musical wonderland. The Flaming Lips, Roxy Music, Hot Chip, The XX, Jonsi and Erol Alkan are sharing in the magic. Robin Hill Country Park, Newport, Isle of Wight

Numusic Festival 08 – 18.09.10

FABRICLIVE 10.09.10

Always showcasing innovators and original sounds, this year’s mix fits the bill. Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Grandmaster Flash, Whitest Boy Alive and Aeroplane are a few making their way there. Stavanger, Norway

It’s a night for genre top dogs as dubstep poster boys Skream and Benga join Caspa, the grime stylings of London’s Plastician and drum ’n’ bass legend Shy FX for the latest in the FABRICLIVE series. Fabric, London, England

The New Pornographers 09.09.10

Elektronikka Festival 10.09.10

The pop quartet can now add new album Together to a long list of critically acclaimed releases spanning more than a decade. Formed in Canada, the band’s sounds have travelled the globe, earning them fans in some far-flung places. The release of their fifth album has prompted a world tour. Concorde 2, Brighton, England

Yes, smoking laws even apply to a dance festival in a tobacco factory. But Moonbootica, the house duo from Hamburg, and electro entertainers Stephan Bodzin and Fritz Kalkbrenner should fire up the smoke machine enough for the dancers to become lost in the haze by the end of the night. Tobacco Factory, Linz, Austria

Green Valley When the girls from Ipanema go for a picnic they go to the Green Valley, in southern Brazil. It’s probably the hottest club in the country, see page 92. Balneario Camboriu, Brazil

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Cash Two Kiwis conquer London: Rosie Riggir and Mailee Mathews, alias Cash, make super-cool electro-pop and take over the Red Bull Studio for their debut album, on page 90. London, England

Hunter Gatherer 10.09.10

M.I.A 16.09.10

Dark, twisted electronic beats designed to create “an audiovisual nightmare” greet any one daring enough to take to the dancefloor. Fresh off the back of his debut album Left For Dead’s release, the robe-wearing dark lord of the dance showcases his forthcoming offering: ‘I Dreamed I Was a Footstep In The Trail of a Murderer’. Twisted Pepper, Dublin, Ireland

Being a Grammy Awardwinning singer, rapper, producer, visual artist, activist and fashion designer, it’s a wonder the controversial and oft-outspoken Londoner finds time to take to the stage. But US fans have the chance to see her live this month when she appears at the famous Tabernacle. Tabernacle, Atlanta, USA

Berlin Festival 10 – 11.09.10

The South-Eastern European Music Event is a music conference for anyone who’s involved in the industry. It gives everyone from DJs to label heads the space to meet up and test out the latest technology. Then as day tuns to evening an important element is added to proceedings – the dance-hungry crowd. Sofia, Bulgaria

The airport is the final destination for two days packed full of the best in international entertainment. Editors, Hot Chip, Fatboy Slim, Peaches, 2ManyDJs, Soulwax and Tricky are just some of those who will be touching down. Tempelhof Airport, Berlin, Germany

SoundEdit Festival 10 – 12.09.10 The festival devoted entirely to music producers was an instant hit when it began last year. Therefore it’s back for 2010 with a line-up that includes Neil Hannon of the Divine Comedy and Peter Hook of Joy Division fame. Klub Wytwórnia, Lodz, Poland

Green & Blue 12.09.10 That’s Green for the festival’s forest home and Blue for the sky if lady luck is smiling. Or the colour of the lake where festivalgoers can cool off while listening to the likes of Ricardo Villalobos and Sven Väth. Forest Lake, Langen, Germany

Scopitone Festival 15 – 19.09.10

Hipnotik Festival 18. 9. 2010 A celebration of hip-hop culture with concerts and workshops – graffiti, breakdance, rap and DJs such as QBert feature. Barcelona, Spain

The worlds of music, art and dance collide at this multi-venue explosion for the senses. Cinemas, castles, factories and swimming pools open their doors to film, video, multi-media collaborations, interactive installations and a soundtrack courtesy of Andrew Weatherall, Busy P, Carl Craig and Uffie. Friche Numérique, Nantes, France

SeeMe 16 – 18.09.10

The Golden Age of Formula one 16.09.10 – 24.10.10 Sixty years on from the first Formula One World Championship, the sport’s foremost photographer, Rainer Schlegelmilch, has opened up his archive of over 350,000 images documenting all the action both on and off the track. Those he has selected best sum up his five decades of passion for the sport. Proud gallery, Camden, London, England

felix da housecat 17.09.10 The electro-house DJ from Chicago reached über status in the early noughties, remixing stars like Britney and Madonna. Tonight he’s bringing the bling to The Forum, Scotland. Aberdeen, Scotland

Alpha-Ville Festival 17 – 18.09.10 Leave the tent and canned ravioli at home, and pack the black-framed spectacles and turtleneck sweater instead: this festival takes place inside London’s well-respected Whitechapel Art Gallery. It’s an appropriate location for the avant-garde beats in store. Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, England

A sterling achievement: Cash’s Rosie Riggir and Maliee Mathews find London life to their liking

Studio Sessions

Money Talks

CASH LONDON

Colourful and charismatic, New Zealand pop duo Cash have charmed their home crowds. Now, it’s on to London, where Andreas Tzortzis caught up with the girls as they laid down the first song of their album at the Red Bull Studio Fronted by the curly-locked and charmingly named Rosie Riggir and guitarist and keyboardist Mailee Mathews, Cash (the more literal interpretation of their original, cockney rhyming-slang name Charlie Ash) have spent the past three years unleashing frosted ’80s-flavoured indie pop on an appreciative Kiwi public. Their elaborate stage shows have been augmented online by fantastical, coloursplashed videos, produced by Riggir, for each song they’ve recorded. With their first album firmly in sight, the duo decided to break out of the plucky, if insular, Kiwi music scene and head to 90

London. In late summer, Cash headed down to the Red Bull Studio near London Bridge to cut a first track – as yet unnamed – over two day-long sessions. Did you get drunk last night? Rosie Riggir: No, I had a couple of ciders. Mailee Mathews: I had a few beers. A short discussion on favourite tipple follows before guitarist Geordie McCallum, who’ll be joining Cash on their song, shows up and Mathews leaves to greet him. Many new albums are the product of laptop producers. Is going to a studio still worthwhile? RR: Sometimes it’s not worthwhile, because

we’re sitting in a very static room, with soundproofing. Often, quite strange people are running studios. Ultimately, when you’re in a studio you’re collaborating with the people around you. And sometimes it doesn’t work, and it’s not worth it, which is why lots of people work at home where they can have control over the whole thing. But here, it’s different, because there’s amazing gear. We’re sitting next to seven different microphones, with different qualities. The gear is definitely better than what I could afford in a normal type of studio. And because there isn’t the pressure of spinning hits and money… they don’t have the

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Sounding out: The girls and guitarist Geordie McCallum laying down some tracks at the Red Bull Studio in London

expectations or constraints or worries. With tech and computers, even I could make some track and beat. I think you really have to earn live instruments. What do you mean, earn them? It’s more expensive. You can download a plug-in for your computer and make a beat. It doesn’t take any skill, really. It doesn’t take time. It doesn’t take any money. I really want, on the new album, a big saxophone solo. But to do that you need a really amazing sax player and you have to have a good studio. All these things have to be earned. You have to be in a position where you can pay. And all that live

instrumentation, it’s tough to get that sounding really good. You can’t do it in your bedroom. You’re working on a song at the moment, but do you want to do the rest of the album here as well? We’re going to try and produce most of our album here. We’re working with a big team. We’ll make three to four songs with different producers and musicians. So they’ll all sound different. How important is a good album at a time when live shows are the bread and butter of most artists nowadays? I listen to more albums than I ever used to before. I find shuffle really irritating. I think albums are so awesome. It’s so much more exciting to give an artist an hour and say, “take me somewhere”, instead of, you know, three minutes. You go all out with your videos. How big a role do they play in your overall presentation? And are you taking the same considered approach to your album? Definitely. We’ve just made an EP. All of the songs are very different and very individual. They do work together, they’re brothers and sisters, but they’re not exactly holding hands. The EP was made pretty much with shuffle in mind. But it’s the album, the artwork, the videos, the live shows, the merchandising, all together, an all-sharing concept, and all working to make some sort of great thing. I think what we’ve been doing with our recordings is testing borders and I think these recordings (at the studio) are going to be closer to a true sound. How do your songs come together? Mailee understands structure. I’ll usually have a poem, or Mailee will have a chord structure. But when it comes to the structure, I will blow it up and Mailee will bring it back down. I’ll have a paint brush and swipe the canvas and she’ll draw the nose. So that’s how it works: crazy, sane. But who’s the craziest one, actually… Are you happy you decided to make the move from New Zealand over to London? London is really inspiring. In New Zealand I felt like I was a fish in a bucket with the lid on. Here in London, it’s like ‘Aaaahhh, the lid’s come off.’ Someone leaves the door to the studio open and the rough cut of Cash’s song comes drifting out. The beginnings of a cigarette lighter holding, crowd-swaying love paean are clear, as is Riggir’s lush voice. She gets up to shut the door again. Why did you do that? Because… it’s not finished. Cash songs and info: www.myspace.com/charlieash More on Red Bull Studios: www.redbullstudios.com

Reworks Festival 17 – 18.09.10 As much a treat for the eyes as the ears, the first completely audiovisual arts festival in Greece is back for 2010. It combines beats with live performance, exhibitions and original visuals, with greats such as Fischerspooner, Kraak & Smaak and Miss Kittin joining in. Vilka Complex, Thessaloníki, Greece

N.A.M.E Festival 17 – 18.09.10 The annual musical celebration of all things electric returns to three sites in neighbouring cities for two days of dancing. National treasure Laurent Garnier will be headlining, with Radio Slave, Boys Noize, Erol Alkan and Busy P making sure there’s no break in the beats. Tourcoing, Dunkerque, Lille, France

Earth Dance 18.09.10 At 200 locations, in over 50 countries, there is one message: The ‘Prayer for Peace’. It will be sung at the world’s largest synchronised music festival, in the morning in Australia, in the afternoon in California and at midnight in London. The Cape Town, South African edition of the global party will see acts including Krushed & Sorted, Richard III and Funa Fuji take to the turntables. Nekkies Resort, Worcester, South Africa

New Zealand Fashion Week 21 – 25.09.10 Kiwi fashion goes way beyond flipflops and surfer style. In fact, the country’s fashion industry has doubled its exports since 2000. Now the Viaduct Harbour Marine Village is set to be transformed into a fashion hub as designers, models, buyers and fashion lovers flock to see the new creations hitting the catwalk. Viaduct Harbour, Auckland, New Zealand

L’Ososphére Festival 22 – 25.09.10 An apartment block is shut off and oversized speakers take over, as music lovers gather to witness six stages of the best new sounds. Visuals light up the stage and fringe exhibitions draw in local artists. But it’s the beats that rule, with reggae, dub, electro, techno, funk and hiphop from Birdy Nam Nam, Chloe, Alva Noto & Blixa Bargeld and Dave Clark keeping the windows shaking. Laiterie, Strasbourg, France

Pygmalion Music Festival 22 – 25.09.10 Artists from far and wide flood into Chicago. Caribou, Janelle Monáe, Cut Chemist and Plastician are just some of those taking over the city. And there are no worries about missing out, as Red Bull Music Academy Radio won’t miss a beat. Various locations, Chicago, USA

Reeperbahn Festival 23 – 25.09.10 Fifty years ago this year, The Beatles first began to frequent the Reeperbahn, and the ‘wicked mile’ is still a hub for entertainment today. Each year established talent perform alongside emerging acts. Various locations, Hamburg, Germany

Decibel Festival 23 – 26.09.10 This annual gathering has aimed to bridge the gap between technology and creativity, holding innovative live performances, workshops and seminars. This year Carl Craig, Mary Anne Hobbs and Moritz Von Oswald Trio are among those experimenting. Neumos, Seattle, USA

Photokina Party Night 24.09.10 Photography, light installations and visuals combine with the sound of top international acts. This year they include La Roux and Simian Mobile Disco. Stadtgardten, Cologne, Germany

Dance K.O 24.09.10 The fourth running of the contest invites anyone who thinks they can dance to show off their skills, in any genre and at any level. The winner receives a $1,000 first prize and the all-important bragging rights. Tempo Dance Center, Amman, Jordan

The Notorious IBE 24 – 26.09.10 Returning for its 10th edition, crowds witness both amateur and professional B-Boy battles, including the European qualifications for the upcoming UK B-Boy Championships, across a number of venues in south Holland. And the Red Bull BC One All Stars will be there to add extra excitement to the proceedings. Various locations, Heerlen, Holland

GREEN VALLEY Balneario Camboriu World’s Best Clubs

Sweet Valley Yes, no one does nightlife quite like Brazil. But Cassio Cortes discovers this expansive tropical paradise defies all superlatives Rio, Salvador and even nearby Florianopolis get the international hype, but Brazil’s bestkept secret in the oceanside-party-town category has an even funnier-sounding name: Balneario Camboriu. Extravagant yachts and cars line the marina in this coastal city of 200,000 down on the country’s southern shore. Its global reputation is guaranteed by two elegantly curved beaches and the tram cable car that

connects them, and also by a fantasy-like club spread over an impossible 10,000 square metres of tropical landscape and three, man-made lakes. It’s called Green Valley, after – you got it – the lush vale across which it spreads. The great ambiance has attracted some of the world’s top DJs over the years. Tiësto and Carl Cox, the British rave master a ‘regular’ of sorts, have manned the pickups on the club’s last three birthdays. There are no major flights to Camboriu, so a plane ride to Florianopolis and a 50mile drive are needed to gaze upon Green Valley’s massive entrance. On the Tuesday I find myself inside, under the lush trees made even greener by coloured lighting, Greek-Swedish DJ Steve Angello is the star attraction for a crowd nearing 8,000. The night is hot and humid. And that means a shortage of fabric covering the daughters of Brazil’s Eurocentric Southern elite, most of whom have paid well over R$225 (£80/ ¤100) to see Angello play. The VIP boxes or “camarotes” for 20 people fetch R$6,780 (£2,450/¤3,000) with R$2,260 (£1,650/¤2,000) spent on drinks. Even in this high economic realm, synthetic drugs are rare: security asks you to turn on your mobile phone and digital camera at the entrance to prove they are electronic devices, not mini drug mules. Good connections mean we’ll have a camarote of our own, with one downer: no 20 people to fill it. Our problem is solved by Junior Lima, one of the biggest pop singers in Brazil, who arrives with two male friends and 15 females, all improbably gorgeous. Lima’s decision to come was last-minute, so although the management quickly arranged for VIP wristbands for him and his friends, they won’t have a camarote. How do you say, “mi casa, su casa” in Portuguese? Green Valley, Rua Mamoré 1083 , Rio Pequeno, Balneario Camboriu, Santa Catarina, Brazil; www.greenvalley.art.br

credit Photography: Green Valley

British rave-master Carl Cox has manned the turntables at Green Valley’s last three birthdays

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Lunice Montreal

Resident Artist

A Royal Tour

Lunice loves the slow pace of his home city, Montreal

Photography: Jennifer Dunaj. map: mandy fischer

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Unlike London or New York, Montreal isn’t a fast-paced city. Montreal leaves the speed up to you. And I really value the city’s multifaceted character, its balance. Take a walk through the old town with its imposing 19thcentury buildings and you’d think you were in Europe. Then you go to the east of the city, to Mile End, and all of a sudden you’re in a hip, artsy area. That’s where most of my musician friends live. There are loads of galleries, studios, rehearsal spaces and nice bars. There’s creativity in the air. You can feel it as you wander down the narrow streets. I grew up in Lachine, a western suburb of Montreal. And although the area is anything but urban, it had a huge influence on me musically. Or, to be a precise, a hip-hop store called Sam Tabak (1) did. I spent a good deal of my youth in there, met friends, hung out and listened to new music. And I discovered my love of B-Boying at the Do-ItJam, Sam Tabak’s huge hip-hop festival held by the large graffiti wall next to the store. I still live out west, but thankfully a lot closer to the city centre. LaSalle isn’t the

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Avoid the port and check out his home town’s mobile clubs and midnight feasts, Lunice advises Florian Obkircher

Autoroute

CÔTE-SAINT-LUC MONTRÉAL-OUEST

Local delicacy poutine – chips and cheese curds

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LA SALLE

1 Sam Tabak Inc, 915, Rue Notre-Dame 2 Manzo, 1033, 90th Av, LaSalle 3 Blue Dog, 3958, Blvd Saint Laurent 4 SAT, 1195, Blvd Saint Laurent

most exciting area, but it has a few gems which attract people from all over Montreal. The best example of this is Manzo (2), which is well-known for making the best ‘subs’ (submarine sandwiches) in the city. It’s not the kind of place you’re going to stumble across by accident though. Manzo is small and inconspicuous. There are only four seats. It’s totally ghetto. But they work wonders in the kitchen: sandwiches with loads of meat in them. They’re amazing. Other than poutine, a Canadian speciality of chips and cheese curds, it’s the best afterparty snack for when you’re on your way home from Boulevard Saint-Laurent. That’s where most of Montreal’s nightlife is to be found. The street is lined with bars, clubs and pubs. Blue Dog (3) is one of them. It’s very relaxed. A really straightforward kind of place. It’s somewhere between a club and a bar, which I appreciate both as a customer and as a DJ. It’s the perfect place to get the night started. My favourite place is SAT, which is short for Society for Arts and Technology (4). SAT is a modular

space and its structure changes every night depending on the event being held there, which might be an exhibition, a club night or a workshop. So SAT might be huge one night and tiny the next. They achieve the effect by using huge black curtains to divide the loft-like space up differently every time. And as if that wasn’t enough, did I say that SAT’s sound system is also world class? They say Montreal is a romantic city. And they’re right. But appearances can be deceptive! Because the most obvious place for a date, the Old Port, might look like the perfect place to film a romantic comedy, but any couple that meets there will bicker by the end of the night. Believe me. I know what I’m talking about. My new girlfriend and I avoid the port whenever possible. We prefer to walk hand in hand around Le PlateauMont-Royal, a cool part of town. It has a lot of small galleries and bars and a great view of this city’s namesake: Mount Royal. Lunice’s new record, ‘Stacker Upper’ (LuckyMe Records) is out soon. Find videos, tour details and sound samples on www.myspace.com/lunice

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Green Room

The Kids Are Alright

Sonisphere Knebworth

Metal and rock royalty dominated Sonisphere’s top stage, but Tom Hall was on hand to witness the festival debut of two bands that are looking to join their ranks

Just like the musicians, fans sport skinny jeans to watch the bands playing on the Red Bull Bedroom Jam Stage

street fashion that sets these bands apart from their black-clad metal brothers. From metal to punk to hip-hop, that old mantra of Keeping it Real is slowly giving way to a more considered approach to getting music out there. Staying afloat might be the new maxim. With the traditional music business failing, Blitz Kids say it’s fallen to brands like Red Bull to help get new bands heard. “I don’t care. It’s not about being cool,” says James. “They’ve gone out of their way to help us. Why wouldn’t we accept help?” Hawx elaborates, “If the band is writing their own music and enjoying it, then what does it matter? Give me £50 billion, I’ll take it, that’s not selling out.” At 6pm Saturday, the band take to the stage to deliver a short set of anthemic pop punk. It’s a tight performance that shows they can compete with the big names given the chance. But it’s not without incident:

Hearts Under Fire lead singer Mary O’Regan has her heart on her sleeve

text: Stuart Codling; fotos: Thomas Butler

Skin marked for war, hair down to the waist, men are traipsing in their thousands to the main Apollo stage at Sonisphere, Knebworth Park, UK. It’s mid-afternoon. It’s Slayer time. “Dance with the dead in my dreeeams!” wails chief screamer Tom Araya and as devil horn salutes go up in unison before being replaced by a churning sea of black leather, we’re witnessing something tribal. But on a nearby stage, there’s another tribe fighting their corner. They’re younger, fresher, and probably smell better too. Among the skinny jeans and wonky haircuts of the 20-plus bands playing on the Red Bull Bedroom Jam Stage this weekend come acts playing punk, electro, emo, hip-hop, hardcore, all those catchily perfect sub-genres tailormade to soundtrack a slightly over-dramatic teenhood. Most of them are still teenagers themselves, having battled for a place on the bill each week via the Red Bull Bedroom Jam web TV show. Six months ago, playing to festival crowds just wouldn’t have been possible for a band like Blitz Kids. “We’ve been around for a while, but never in the eye of the industry,” says lead singer Joe James, “but now we’re being allowed to show more people what we can actually do. And that’s exciting.” He’s is the serious-faced spokesman for the emo-tinged quintet from Crewe filled out by Jono Yates and Billy Evanson on guitars, bass player Nic Montgomery and drummer Eddie Hawx. But the excitement James nonchalantly refers to is obviously catching. “I just got my picture with Corey Taylor from Slipknot!” beams Montgomery. But you can forgive him. They’re meeting their craggy metal heroes while only two shows into a possible festival career. But it’s more than a fresh-faced brush with high-

Blitz Kids deliver a tight set of anthemic pop punk

Elements Festival 25.09.10 This day-long electro extravaganza includes the Redbull Elektropedia Mainstage, showcasing homegrown talent such as Mish Mash Soundsystem, Turntable Dubbers, Ed & Kim, Soda & Sunds and The Mixfitz. In addition, there are four other stages ensuring a wealth of music to choose from. Stal Tillegem, Bruges, Belgium

Park Life Gold Coast 25.09.10

The Kids relax after their act

The festival season gets underway down under. Groove Armada, Sinden, Holy Ghost! and Missy Elliott are all on hand to help usher in the summer season. Parklands Showgrounds, Gold Coast, Australia

Deer Tick 28.09.10 Far from his US home in Providence, Rhode Island, frontman and band founder John McCauley leads his fellow Deer Tickers in performing their own brand of indie folk, blues and country with his customary growl. Cargo, London, England

The Loerie Awards 01 – 03.10.10

Photography: James Pearson-Howes

The world’s biggest advertising, communication and experimental media awards don’t stop at a ceremony. After the winners have been announced, Long Street becomes the site for one big street party, with live music, DJs and a battle of the bands contest. Cape Town, South Africa

James somehow takes an unplanned tumble across the entire length of the stage, but laughs it off like a pro. “It’s a big stage,” muses Mary O’Regan in a rare moment of reflection. The normally mouthy 19-year-old stands in front of the stage barrier nearly 24 hours on from Joe James’s superman-like stage crossing. “Better go fill it then,” says Lexi Clark, the no-nonsense drummer for the all-girl quartet Hearts Under Fire, completed by guitarists Nicky Day and Steph Forrow. They waste no time unleashing a tide of aggressive punk tunes. It’s textbook American emo-punk stuff with hearts on sleeves and riffs everywhere. By the time they’re done, the thin crowd they started out with has turned into a respectable throng for their insanely early one in the afternoon slot. “The amount of people we’ve had come up to us and talk to us just because

we’ve played these festivals has been incredible” says O’Regan of the band’s newly found reach. “It’s helping us to make a living doing what we love,” says Day. “At the end of the day it’s a business,” adds O’Regan. “So these shows have helped us get a wider following, and it allows us to keep doing our job. That’s how you have to see it.” And it’s business as usual as the band quickly pack up their equipment in order to make their 4pm show later on down at Underage Festival in London. Will they be back to headline Sonisphere next year? Youth is unpredictable. But in the short term there are colourful times ahead for bands willing to put in a little hard work. Just as long as that colour’s black. Check out redbullbedroomjam.com

Deadmau5 02.10.10 The mouse-headed master of the decks is fast heading for superstar DJ status, winning coveted industry awards and bringing out fans in force to populate dancefloors. The Canadian arrives in the US, ready to give the auditorium exactly what they’re hoping for: house from the mouse. Nashville Municipal Auditorium, Tennessee, USA

Aloe Blacc 02 – 05.10.10 His soul anthem ‘I Need A Dollar’ is the theme song to US TV series How To Make It In America. Now the Californian Red Bull Music Academy graduate tours his first album, Good Things in Europe. Bohannon, Berlin, Germany

A story by Howard Shemp

The Last Laugh Joking apart, comedy can be a serious business… The lights – stinging my eyes. And beyond the stage, beyond the dazzle of the lights – the audience, mute, invisible, enveloped in darkness. I may as well have been in an empty room. Time to hit them with a crowd-pleaser, get a feel for them. Warm them up, sound them out. Do you know what the secret of comedy is? Timing. Delivery. Wit. Get a load of this: A man gets home and says to his wife, “I’ve won the lottery. Quick, pack your bags.” “Why,” she asks, “where are we going?” “No questions. Just pack your bags…” -BEAT“… And sod off!” Goes down a storm in working men’s clubs, that one, and it’s not even mine. I stole it from Bernard Manning. Here? Abject, hateful silence, broken only by a few sharp intakes of breath, some contemptuous muttering and the grinding of cheap false teeth. The booking agent had forgotten to tell me the party was for OAPs. I only found out when the lights went up – well, if I’m honest, there was a bit of a frisson even before that – but once you’ve lost an audience, they’ve gone, 96

you can’t get them back. Especially when half of them haven’t cracked a smile since Flanders and Swann went off the air. “Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m here all week. Try the coronation chicken.” My name is Tarbuck Braithwaite. I know, stupid name. Blame my gran. She insisted on it. She loved the old variety performers. When they got shuffled off to the procelebrity golfing circuit in favour of smug berks like Ben Elton, it was the final disappointment that tipped her over the edge. Mother shipped her off to a home, where she could lose the rest of her marbles well away from the fearful spectre of alternative comedy. Now she spends her days dribbling, drinking tea – sometimes both at the same time – and being unfailingly polite to visitors because she can never remember who they are or whether she owes them money. And I’m saddled with a daft name, a pointless memorial to Saturday nights in front of Eric and Ernie, which keeps bouncing me between the nostalgia circuit and chav pubs. I could be writing for Radio 4, you know. Meanwhile, the

egregious Jimmy Carr is coining it in: panel shows on every TV channel, endorsements, stand-up tours, corporate parties. I bet he opens nightclubs as well. I’d settle for a gag-writing gig on I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue. Jimmy Carr? I’ll spit on his grave – once I put him in it. Bob Monkhouse said you should keep all your ideas for jokes and speeches in a card file. I have two card files: one for jokes, the other for details of people I’m going to murder. It doesn’t pay to cut down on your potential audience, so I prefer to kill people with no sense of humour. You can find them every day on internet message boards: joyless ghouls, braying and heehawing at one another from behind their pseudonyms, dropping pastry crumbs into their keyboards. Tracking down the physical locations of these greasy-fingered keyboard jockeys is sometimes tricky, hence my filing system. But I edge my research along a few names at a time, then pay them a visit disguised as a pizza delivery man. And when they’re dead, nobody misses them – except, perhaps, their mothers, who they usually live with. I do make exceptions, though. Remember that booking agent? “Look, mate,” he said. (Mate? We’d never previously met. I felt positively violated by this unsolicited and thoroughly insincere proclamation of amity.) “I’m really sorry. In fact, I’m mortified.” By the time I’ve finished with you, I thought, mortified is exactly what you’ll be. “But here’s the thing,” he continued, although I was barely listening now. I could predict the outcome of this exchange with the accuracy of a caesium oscillator. “You bombed out there tonight. It was a disaster. They’ll all want a refund. You know what pensioners are like. “And they’ll never come back. You’ve materially damaged my business. The Playhouse is supposed to be a familyfriendly venue – no wife-beating or cheap penis jokes. I wouldn’t have minded if you’d done politics – well, actually, yes I would. “But you’ll understand, won’t you, if I can’t pay you for this? One old dear actually pissed herself – and not in a good way. I’ll have to get the seat cleaned. Most of the front row looked so clenched, I thought they were going to prolapse.” “Fine,” I said. “Goodbye.” Here’s another joke for you: A man walks into a bar. Ouch! It was an iron bar! I’m being economical with the actualité, of course, because he didn’t walk into it. I swung it in a crude but effective trajectory towards his head as he left his grotty little enterprise via the back door after counting the day’s (meagre) takings.

illustration: James Taylor

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More Body & Mind His eyes had just enough time to register a modicum of surprise before the iron bar smacked his nose back into his cerebellum with a satisfying crunch. I relieved him of his wallet, decanting into my personal coffers a sum equal to what he owed me, plus a little extra for my trouble, and then I used his credit cards to order a substantial quantity of pornographic DVDs for delivery to someone I hate – that someone being Colin Byfield, the glorified bean-counter who is BBC Radio’s head of comedy. I’ve had enough rejection letters from him to remember his address without consulting the card file. Once, and once only, I managed to submit a joke successfully to Byfield’s lackeys. It was a moment of great pride. My fingers trembled as I pressed the tape machine’s record and play keys simultaneously, capturing the entire episode of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue. I salivated throughout. And when Chairman Humph curled his elderly but lascivious tongue around my cunningly constructed, wine-themed double entendre? Dear reader, I had a Semillon… See, I can do clever jokes, but they just don’t pay unless you get on the BBC. The Archangel Monkhouse knew that. He could write intelligent material, but he knew the real money was in motherin-law jokes and corporate speaking. Shame he spunked half of it on fake tans. Apart from poverty, the other occupational hazard of the marginally successful comedian is the standard question at parties: “So, what do you do?” If you’re lucky, when you tell them what you do, all they’ll say is, “Tell me a joke, then.” That’s if you’re lucky. At some do in Palmers Green once I was mildly taken aback when my interrogator replied, “All about temporarily suspending the rules of adulthood, innit?” “Eh?” “Comedy. All about temporarily suspending the rules of adulthood. Innit?” Oh God. Spare me from these know10-things-about-everything types. “Well, that’s the Freudian reading of it,” I said. “The Aristotelian view is that laughter arrives as a result of a narrative or discourse being interrupted by a surprising conclusion. The more developed version of that theory is that the moment of surprise contains two contradictory syllogisms, one plausible and the other implausible, but each with its own functional logic. “What’s yellow and dangerous? Sharkinfested custard. Obviously sharks couldn’t live in custard, even if you built a big enough tank for them to swim around in – but if they could and you did, then the

‘ Once you’ve lost an audience, they’ve gone and you can’t get them back’ result would indeed be shark-infested custard, which is both yellow and dangerous. The implausible syllogism beats the plausible one. Bang! There’s your laugh. If you’re five years old.” You don’t need me to tell you that, as of my second sentence, his eyes had taken on a glazed appearance. “Right you are,” he said. “So – do you do mother-in-law jokes?” That’s why you’ll never find me in the kitchen at parties. Visiting my Gran is always an ordeal. I don’t mean the general atmosphere of the place – the joyless staff, the constant olfactory interplay of disinfectant and urine, the old dear who shouts, “Edith? Edith!” every 20 seconds – but the tawdry routine of our opening exchange. “Oh, hello dear,” she’ll say every time, concentrating on my face, smiling even as her synapses fail to connect. “How are you?” “Fine, Gran. How are you?” “Fine, thank you, dear.” The familiarity confuses her. She sets her teacup down and smacks her lips, looking briefly away to study the patterned wallpaper carefully before she turns her head back. “You’re not from the gas board, are you? I think I left the gas on. Or did I forget to pay the bill? I don’t rightly recall.” “No, I’m your grandson – Tarbuck.” My name is a gap-toothed key to memory. Some of the tension dissipates from the lines around her eyes as all those electrical impulses inside her brain start to connect again. “Oh, Tarbuck, I haven’t seen you for weeks,” she says (actually, if I’d visited the day before yesterday we’d be having exactly the same conversation). “Are you still doing your comedy?” “Yes, Gran.” “You know I always liked my comedy. Except later, when it all started to get blue. I never liked it when it was blue. You don’t do blue jokes, do you, Tarbuck, love?” “No, Gran.” “You look a bit scruffy, love. You should dress smarter. Your grandfather never went anywhere without his hat. Or a tie. And you should wear a jacket. That nice Richard off the telly always wears a jacket.” She means Richard Whiteley. Funny how she can remember someone who’s been dead for years but can’t tell you what she’s had for breakfast. I was walking home from one of these dispiriting encounters when my phone

rang. The unfamiliar voice at the other end of the call brought strange tidings. “Tarbuck Braithwaite?” The voice bore the nasal twang redolent of a respectable middle-class education, followed by a simpering progression to upper middle management. “Colin Byfield at the BBC. I was wondering if you’d like to come in for a chat. We have an, er, situation. What’s your address? We’ll send a car.” Next time, whether you’re queueing at the post office or waiting on the phone to renew your TV licence, or falling back onto your sofa in horror as you open the renewal notice, picture me reclining in the back of the Mercedes as we wafted through London to Broadcasting House. Byfield, who looked like he talked, offered me a sweaty-palmed handshake and pushed his wire-rimmed spectacles back up his nose as he ushered me into his office. “Is Tarbuck your real name or a stage name?” He sat down behind his desk and fiddled with a pencil. To one side I could see a large brown-paper parcel that could conceivably contain a rather large number of unspeakable DVDs. “It’s my real one, believe it or not,” I said, feeling a little edgy. “Seems a little odd and old-fashioned. Not what a modern broadcaster usually likes to hear listed in the credits. But still, we’ve, ah, got a – situation. The writing team of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue came down with the Norovirus after their script meeting yesterday. They’re utterly incapable of producing a script and we’re recording a show tonight. You’ve written for the show before so you know the drill, don’t you? It’s trickier now that Humphrey’s dead and we’ve got all these guest presenters. I need totally dynamite material. You think you can do it?” “Of course,” I stammered. “Who’s presenting? Jack Dee?” “No. Jimmy Carr.” I felt light-headed. It was as if I was rushing through a tunnel. And at the end of it, rushing towards me – the smug countenance of Jimmy Carr. Timing. Delivery. Wit. Syllogisms. Was this some kind of joke? Oh – what to do? Reader, I strangled him.

About the author

Howard Shemp was born into the automotive aftermarket parts business. His father invented the wedge-shaped, ‘stick-on’, wide-angle mirror. When the patent (and the family money) ran out, Howard turned to short fiction. 97

hips are much more than mere floating vessels. They are powerful symbols: the Christian church was once known as the Barque of St Peter – a barque, or bark, being, from the Greek, a handsome boat with three masts. The English word ‘barge’ is etymologically related, although none of us would, perhaps, feel flattered to be in a utilitarian barge chugging with diesel slops towards heaven. Maybe because the English associate barges with canals and it seems fanciful that the Shropshire Union might be a route to Paradise. Anyway, from this image of a company of voyagers on a journey through life, the main accommodation of a church is known as a nave, from the Latin for ‘ship’. European thought has been often enlivened by ship imagery and ship allegory. Modern psychologists know that dreams about rough seas and safe harbours are simple narratives of mental states. One of the most influential books of the late Middle Ages was Das Narrenschiff by Sebastian Brant, a 1494 allegory about some dim folk cast adrift without a pilot and, no misprint here, without a plot. This was the ‘ship of fools’, the inspiration for Hieronymus Bosch’s splendidly satirical reprimand of a painting which hangs in the Louvre. These rare, fine, elevated thoughts came to me on Tower Bridge. From there you can see one of London’s great sights, one so familiar that you no longer really see it. But reboot, look again and you start thinking. As Wilde knew, the real mysteries of the world are not the invisible things, but the visible ones, and very visible from Tower Bridge is the fantastically mysterious sight of HMS Belfast. Simple questions are always the best: why exactly is there a huge retired warship in the middle of London? I have made it the business of the next few paragraphs to answer that. HMS Belfast was launched in 1938 at the Harland and Wolff yard in the city that provided its name. It was conceived

Mind’s Eye

From Ship to Shore Stephen Bayley explains why every big city should have a big vessel moored in it in response to the Japanese Mogami class cruiser, although I do not know what question the Mogami class cruiser actually posed. In a 25-year service life, Belfast protected Arctic convoys and assisted in the sinking of the German battleship Scharnhorst. Among its armaments, besides the big guns, were 18 20mm Oerlikon guns and an hilarious pair of Supermarine Walrus seaplanes. The Walrus was a fabulous piece of work by RJ Mitchell, the designer of the Spitfire. Since it was stressed to tolerate the forceful indignity of a catapult launching, the hideously ugly plane could loop-the-loop – though not, I presume, immediately from a catapult launch. I would have dearly loved to meet the person who first tried this manoeuvre in a single-engined, metalbodied biplane. I imagine it changed his view of life’s prospects forever. Before being decommissioned in 1963, HMS Belfast was adapted to withstand nuclear, biological and chemical attack. My own feeling,

however, is that the mere sight of a Walrus being steam-catapulted across the briny with a swivel-eyed naval aviator at the controls would deter all but the most audacious adversaries. What a range of memories Belfast represents: heroic, quirky, determined, pugnacious, layered. A little like the national character, and there is nothing quite like it in Paris, Rome, Madrid or Berlin. But there is something like Belfast in New York. At Pier 86 on 12th Avenue at 46th Street, is the most imposing presence of USS Intrepid, the name of the ship more properly known in the arcane US Navy Hull Classification Code as CVS-11 (CVS standing for, somewhat improbably, Antisubmarine Aircraft Carrier). Intrepid is just five years older than Belfast and was launched by the Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company of Virginia. This warship’s history is equally vivid: visitors to Pier 86 can enjoy a kamikaze simulation based on Intrepid’s oh-my-God Pacific experiences. Great emotions recollected in tranquillity? In October 1966 during the Vietnam War, Intrepid launched a Douglas A-1H Skyraider. With great poetry, the last propeller-driven attack plane in the Navy shot-down a MiG-17 jet in the ultimate encounter of its type. Four years earlier, Intrepid’s helicopters had rescued NASA’s Scott Carpenter from the Atlantic after his Mercury capsule splashed down 250 miles off target. So not just great emotions recollected in tranquillity, but great astronauts recollected from space. HMS Belfast and USS Intrepid are both wonderful: much more symbols of ingenuity and resource than imperious bellicosity. You start to think about them and you realise how impoverished are big cities that do not have a big ship in town. Symbols indeed. Stephen Bayley is an award-winning writer and a former director of the Design Museum in London

United Kingdom: The Red Bulletin is published by Red Bulletin GMBH Editor-In-Chief Robert Sperl Editorial Office Anthony Rowlinson (Executive Editor), Stefan Wagner Associate Editor Paul Wilson Contributing Editor Andreas Tzortzis Chief Sub-editor Nancy James Production Editor Grant Smyth Photo Editors Susie Forman (Chief), Fritz Schuster Deputy Photo Editors Markus Kucera, Valerie Rosenburg, Catherine Shaw Design Erik Turek (Art Director), Miles English, Judit Fortelny, Markus Kietreiber, Esther Straganz Staff Writers Werner Jessner, Uschi Korda, Ruth Morgan Contributors Martin Apolin, Stephen Bayley, Cassio Cortes, Tom Hall, Florian Obkircher, Olivia Rosen, Howard Shemp, Robert Tighe, Herbert Völker, Matt Youson, Nadja Zele Production Managers Michael Bergmeister, Wolfgang Stecher, Walter Omar Sádaba Repro Managers Christian Graf-Simpson, Clemens Ragotzky Augmented Reality Christoph Rietner, Martin Herz, www.imagination.at General Managers Karl Abentheuer, Rudolf Theierl International Project Management Jan Cremer, Bernd Fisa Finance Siegmar Hofstetter. The Red Bulletin is published simultaneously in Austria, the UK, Germany, Ireland, Kuwait, Poland, South Africa and New Zealand. Website www.redbulletin.com. Head office: Red Bulletin GmbH, Am Brunnen 1, A-5330 Fuschl am See, FN 287869m, ATU63087028. UK office: 155-171 Tooley Street, London SE1 2JP, +44 (0) 20 3117 2100. Austrian office: Heinrich-Collin-Strasse 1, A-1140 Vienna, +43 (1) 90221 28800. The Red Bulletin (Ireland): Susie Dardis, Richmond Marketing, 1st Floor Harmony Court, Harmony Row, Dublin 2, Ireland +35 386 8277993. Printed by Prinovis Liverpool Ltd, www.prinovis.com For all advertising enquiries, email adsales@uk.redbulletin.com. Write to us: email letters@redbulletin.com

The next issue of the Red Bulletin is out on October 3 & 5, 2010

Illustration: Von

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