Journey

About fifteen years ago, Takuji Masuda met fashion designer Yohji Yamamoto while working on a project in Japan. Tak is one of surfing’s great ambassadors, turning people onto the sport of kings is one of his biggest joys. Yohji is a masterful and avant-garde tailor, the founder the labels Yohji Yamamoto and Y3. Tak brought Yohji to a spot near Kamakura, a beginner-friendly wave just outside of Tokyo. He pushed him into the knee-high rollers. “It was like undressing the dresser,” laughs Tak.

Later, Tak asked Yohji for his take on the session. Here’s what he said: “I really think you have to stick to your attitude towards what you are doing. I say this because for non-surfers there is a sort of high fence to enter that culture.

Very uninviting image. Oh, I had this image of surfing before I went. But after going to the beach with you and your friends the other day, my image for surfing completely changed. I was under a preconception that surfers were like punk wannabes preoccupied with being cool or bad and the whole point of it was like doing tricks. However, you were like, ‘No, it’s not like that.’ The most impressive thing for me that day was to find that you people were intensely focused on playing with the sea, having a blast. It was like seeing men being childish in a very good way. And if it’s like that, I can really get into it.”

Photographer Taisuke Yokoyama was on hand to shoot pics. Below are a few.

There are the ones that mean nothing: Say I’d like to know where / You got the lotion, or Like a virgin / Kissed for the 31st time. And then there are the ones that seem tailored to suit the job at hand—and redirect lives.

I was 21, on the pro tour, an aspiring Superman of the Rocky Balboa variety when the record Instinct by Iggy Pop came out in 1988. Like pro surfers today, we used music to amp ourselves up before heats. Iggy had always been useful in this regard, starting with Raw Power and evolving into Blah Blah Blah. This was music that could make your blood boil, inspire you to leap tall buildings.

“Instinct”, the title track, did exactly that. Not only in the momentum and urgency of the music, but in the lyrics—

Standing on the borderline

Between joy and reason

Tending carefully my fire

Waiting for my season

And then the chorus—

Instinct keeps me running

Running like a deer

Instinct keeps me running

Running through the grinning shadows

And then, later in the song, the big one—

Get me out I can’t accept

A second-rate life story

My season, far as I was concerned, was the event I was competing in: the 1989 Gunston 500, held at Dairy Beach in Durban. And that second-rate life story? That was the shitty, miserable life I’d be stuck with if I did not make my pro surfing dreams come true.

I listened to “Instinct” before my first heat, the round of 48. It worked. And then, like any good superstitious athlete, I listened to it before the next round, and the next round, and the next. Suddenly I was in the semi-finals.

Brad Gerlach, my opponent, was a monster of a competitive surfer. Not only was his ocean knowledge ace and his top turn mighty, but he was insanely fit—windmill arms, a million waves a minute. I tried not to think about this as I stretched in my hotel room, “Instinct” blaring through my mustard yellow Walkman. In the elevator on the ride down, I stared at myself in the mirror. I wore my teal blue and orange Rip Curl spring suit, but it may as well have been a satin robe. My cheekbones were warrior-like. My muscles were ripped. My 6’4” Spyder Murphy six-channel gleamed.

The beach was packed with spectators. The sun blazed. The air smelled of brine and Coppertone. I did a kind of shadow box/hip swivel/yoga stretch at water’s edge. I paddled out with fire blazing from my nostrils. I banged the lip many times.

I lost.

But that’s not the point of this story. The point is that ten years later I would discover that I may have misheard those galvanizing lyrics about Get me out I can’t accept a second-rate life story. According to several websites I went to, it’s actually Let me out I can’t accept a CERTAIN READ life story. According to another couple, it’s Let me out I can’t accept a second RED LIGHT story. Only one presents the lyrics as I heard them. I have not seen Iggy to verify. But this is what we do in a life: we alter, we amend, we turn mere coincidences into giant fateful moments, we insert messages into song lyrics in order to slay dragons.

I first met Bruce Gilbert on the North Shore of Oahu in 2006. He was traveling with Kelly Slater; in fact he’d done much of that year’s tour with Kelly. Bruce had been working as a music supervisor for movie trailers, but he’d hit a kind of ceiling and decided to take some time off. He and Kelly were friends, Kelly invited him along, and also invited him to shoot photos of what would be Kelly’s eighth world title campaign, many of which were featured in the book Kelly Slater: For the Love (see below). Bruce shot a ton of pics and surfed himself senseless (“That was the year of magical living, I surfed all the waves I’d dreamed of surfing!”). When the season finished he returned to Los Angeles and found his way into a working life that is quite magnificent.

Bruce is a music supervisor, which is to say he’s the reason why you get songs stuck in your head from watching TV and movies. Bruce is constantly listening to music. He taps his toes through breakfast and taps his fork and knife through dinner. Here, I’ll let him explain:

“At any given time I’m working on three or more shows, plus a movie or two in the background, generally an indie film or a documentary. My current shows are “Transparent,” on Amazon, and “Orange is the New Black,” on Netflix. I do “Childrens Hospital.” I just finished doing “Wet Hot American Summer,” an eight-episode prequel that aired on Netflix.

My earliest music memories start with Rush. I moved to Toronto, Canada from South Africa in 1976 and was spoon-fed classic rock, thanks to my older brother Craig. Rush played a huge part. And I ended up learning to play the drums when I was about ten years old, so Rush stuck with me for obvious reasons. Later it was Prince and Talking Heads. But songs and records that fucked me up? “Waiting Room” by Fugazi. The first time I heard that song I felt like it changed things. Bad Brains “I Against I.” Neil Young “Harvest.” And the first Coltrane Quartet album—that broke my brain. Elvin Jones plays drums on it—he’s like my spirit guide.

As far as putting music to scenes goes, I used to think music was doing its finest work when you were feeling a certain way but weren’t necessarily noticing the music. It was featured but it wasn’t drawing attention to itself, but it affected the overall emotion of the scene. So I feel like that is how score should operate. But then when I’m finding songs for a montage where the music features strongly, maybe vocals and lyrics, or maybe punctuating an episode with a big musical number, or a big musical idea, then I think it’s the exact opposite. Then the music becomes really conspicuous. You’re asking the audience to join you in celebrating a scene, or asking a question about what they just encountered.

I listen to music all day. Each song passes through whatever particular filter I have engaged. My brain is compartmentalized in such a way that when I hear a song it sort of falls into a bin for one of the projects I’m working on. It’s good and bad. As a music freak, I don’t get to hear music just as music anymore. I’m always hearing stuff that I think I want to revisit at some point for a future project. So I’m on a steady diet of every possible thing I can jam into my ears. We’re living in a time when it’s never been easier to find music, but there’s never been more music to choose from. It’s tricky. I used to be worried that there was a perfect, perfect, perfect song and I didn’t know it. And then I had to let that go and settle into the idea that I could only draw from the music that I knew, and that that was good enough. Kelly once told me that he thought there was a perfect line to riding a wave. The idea that there is the truest way to something, and that you have access to it is a lovely pursuit.”

An exclusive playlist from Bruce:

If you're unfamiliar with the artwork of legendary waterman Mark Cunningham, you're at a loss. His ability to take abandoned man-made objects out of the ocean and turn them into art pieces with such authenticity is something only a true waterman could do. By choosing to not use any new material in his work, Mark brings to the forefront the idea of how we consume by creatively reusing and reclaiming items that in another light would just be seen as trash.

For his most recent show, Mark pairs the remains of wipeouts like fins, coins, cameras, watches, keys, and sunglasses – all of which he discovers while diving the reefs and beaches on Oahu's North Shore.

As a canvas Mark uses flotsam and jetsam he finds while beachcombing between Kahuku and Makapuu on Oahu's windward shores. Piecing these items together, Mark creates visual stories from likeminded treasure in an attempt to recover their mysterious history, while also pushing forward ideas of environmental consciousness by creating a sustainable, completely recycled installation. It’s Mark’s whole-minded approach to his work that makes his art so authentic and so compelling.

Below is the full selection from of Mark's work from 'Shore Pound Lost and Found' now featured at Wittmore in DTLA through the 15th of November