Looking Sideways Action Sports Podcast

Welcome to an extra-special episode of Roundtable, free for all subscribers, and a collaboration with my pal and podcasting peer Matt Pycroft of the brilliant Adventure Podcast, recorded live in front of an audience at the 2023 Kendal Mountain Festival.This conversation came about when Kendal founder and friend of the show Steve Scott asked myself and Matt to pull together a panel for a discussion on the topic of The Power of Storytelling - New Perspectives. We invited our pals Adam Rajah, Soraya Abdel-Hadi and Roundtable regular Lauren MacCallum to join us, and this conversation is the result.In this episode, we discussed, among other things, the following topics:- Vulnerability in storytelling.- How do we take climate storytelling out of the echo chamber?- Is longform dying?This one was really special. I’m really grateful to Steve and Matt for being such great collaborators; to Adam, Lauren and Soraya for their trust and openness; and to the audience for being so engaged and receptive to this format and conversation. Let’s do it again!As usual, I’d love to hear what you think about this episode. And make sure you follow Matt and his brilliant podcast. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

If you follow what I do at all closely, whether through my newsletter or my podcast, you’ll know that ‘how we talk about activism and the climate’ has been a bit of a preoccupation for me these last few months.I’m loosely connected to what you might call the wider activism movement, which has become a proper industry these days. And much of it leaves me cold. From my slightly remote perspective, it seems to be an echo chamber full of impenetrable language, where activism tends to be cast as a personal journey or - worse - a nakedly commercial business opportunity: as opposed to a genuine attempt to invoke change that will benefit everybody, and not just those that trade in the same wonky jargon.Fumblingly exploring these ideas is why I’ve published stories by Calum McIntyre and Lesley McKenna this year, why I am careful about which events I attend and which causes I personally lend my name to, and why I was so keen to speak to Gavin Fernie-Jones for this episode of the podcast.You probably haven’t heard of Gavin. But for me, this is one of the most insightful and important conversations I’ve hosted this year. Gav lives in the French Alps, and originally his story was a well worn one - Brit skier moves to the mountains, embraces the seasonaire lifestyle, and ends up staying put.And yet, over the last few years, Gavin has been slowly but surely changing his life in response to the climate crisis he can see unfolding around him, and impacting his local environment and community.He’s quit the lucrative, ski season job that enabled him to work a mere few months a year; started a local grassroots community group called Re-Action; embraced a slower, more purposeful life; and has begun actively living as a ‘citizen’ rather than a consumer.Why is this important? Because change is coming, and mountain communities like Gavin’s will be at the forefront of this change. Personally, I also feel that the type of ‘activism’ that Gav and his Re-Action peers are engaged in - local, grassroots, community-based, circular, symbolic, and undeniably impactful - is the type of quietly revolutionary approach that has the power to drive real change. Where the work has an impact on real people, is forward-thinking and inclusive, and will actually help real communities address the challenges they’re going to face.So that’s why I asked Gavin to come on the podcast, and why I really implore you to check out this episode. Inevitably, because Gav is just an ordinary bloke rather than a massive name, these episodes tend to get much less traction. But I’m hoping that if you do give this a listen, it’ll give you as much food for though as it did me. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

I go back 25 years with these Adam Gendle and Johno Verity, my guests this week. We met back in the late 90s through snowboarding. But looking back, making things and creativity were equally as important. Music and writing in my case; film-making and art for Gend and Johno.I’ve had a ringside seat as they’ve developed as artists and film-makers over the last two-and-a-half decades, so to see them have a hit on their hands with their new film Here, Hold My Kid, which they’ve just made with Jackie Paaso and Elyse Saugstad, is a really proud moment.Here, Hold My Kid has a lot of interesting things to say about motherhood, parenthood, and the different ways men and women are treated in the industry. It’s funny, too.And it’s also a really great combination of the pair’s talents, as well as the culmination of all the ideas, dreams, occasional dead-ends, and risks that go into the average creative career.With all that in mind, it was such a treat to sit down with Johno and Gend to discuss the new film and all of the above. Hope you enjoy our conversation This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit www.wearelookingsideways.comPaid subscribers! This episode comes with an extra 15 minute bonus section with me and Ray so make sure you have your paid podcast feed set-up.Free subscribers! Don’t worry! You’ll still be able to listen to the main interview with me and Ray (that’s the ‘free preview’), but to hear the bonus chat about Ray’s music and next record, and HKC, you'll need to upgrade to paid.Just where do you start with a legend like Ray Barbee? After all, this skate, photography and music legend, who happens to be one of the most influential skateboarders ever, has probably been interviewed thousands of times during the course of his career.Perhaps it helped that our mutual friends Thomas Campbell and Don Brown did the intros, because I’m happy to report that Ray bought into the spirit of the podcast whole-heartedly, completely happy to ‘windbag’ about any topic that crossed our path. The resulting chinwag covers a lot of ground in the classic LS fashion: everything from how faith helped Ray cope with the intense fame he experienced early in his career, to his memories of THAT 1995 Radlands comp at which he came second to Tom Penny.Even better, it is hallmarked by the wisdom, humour, generosity and candour for which Ray is legendary. We had such a laugh having this chat that I kept the tape running once the ‘main’ conversation was over, and am including this extra 15 minutes on Ray’s next record, his approach to music, and why the beat is the pulse of all things, as an extra section exclusively for paid subscribers. Free subscribers, of course, can still hear the bulk of the chat as per usual.

Welcome to the latest in an irregular series of bonus episodes of the Looking Sideways Action Sports podcast.No fuss, no fanfare, just a non-traditional episode banged out every now and again when this opportunity comes up.This episode you’re about to listen to is the full live chat with Schoph, Andrew Cotton, Helena Long, Marcus Chapman from Tour de Test Valley and Simon Gunning, CEO of CALM, which I hosted at the Vans store in London at the beginning of September 2023.This was an event organised by my old pal Marcus to raise funds for CALM in memory of our much-loved and much-missed friend Nelson Pratt, who took his own life back in 2012.This year, Marcus and the family decided to take year off organising the Tour de Test Valley proper, so this event was a way of celebrating Nelly, bringing a load of his friends together, and of course continuing to raise awareness of this important issue. I personally lost another close friend to suicide this year, something which has made me more determined than ever to speak about this issue.It was a lovely evening. Bittersweet, as usual, but another fitting tribute to Nelly, and a great impromptu gathering of his tribe. I’m really grateful to Helena, Schoph and Cotty for trusting me to ask them some pretty sensitive questions.Anyway, I’m releasing it as a bonus episode - these are usually paywalled and exclusively for paid subscribers, but give the topic here I thought I’d get it out there for everybody to hear.Ride on Nelly. We miss you brother X This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

The average professional surf, skate or snow career tends to follow a pretty set path. Five-to-ten years at the top, usually from the mid-teens to late-twenties, before time, injuries, and the shifting vagaries of the industry draw things to a close, and the rider heads off back into obscurity.Any pro hoping for a career longer than this simple arc better find another string to their bow quickly, ideally something marketable alongside the actual board-riding ability, which kicks in as their actual ‘riding’ career draws to a close.Then there’s Cliff Kapono. Somebody who has done things the opposite way round and, as a result, has surely carved out one of the most unique careers in surfing.As Cliff explains, he realised at young age that talent wouldn’t be enough - especially when your peers are surfers like Clay Marzo. Instead, he focussed on science as much as surfing, using academia and his intellectual smarts as a way of surfing more.Today, this unlikely route has propelled Cliff to the top of the surf industry - supremely respected as a surfer by his peers, while also having an increasingly important voice on some of the topics that also impact wider surfing and surf culture, such as climate change and colonialism.Perhaps it’s because Cliff’s route to the top has been so unusual that has such a reflective and insightful unique take on surfing, the surf industry, and the way we as surfers interact with our environment and the history that has impacted us in countless ways, whether we realise it or not.I’ve wanted to chat to Cliff for a while, and this conversation didn’t disappoint. Hope you enjoy it. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

Looking Sideways is proudly ad-free and reader and listener supported. Thanks to all my paid subscribers, who help keep the podcast and newsletter free for everybody. To support Looking Sideways with a free or paid subscription, sign up via www.lookingsideways.substack.comIt’s been a long time coming - five years since I first contacted him - but in July 2023 I finally caught up with artist, director and all-round creative legend Thomas Campbell for this Looking Sideways conversation.And I’m happy to say that this conversation was everything I hoped it would be, and much more. Sure, Campbell - much as he would balk at such talk - is one of surfing and skateboarding’s most important influences thanks to classic films such as The Seedling, and a singular aesthetic and approach that has an outsized influence on what it means to be creative in our worldThomas is a true omnivorous polymath, as happy to experiment with sewing or his record label as he making era-defining surf flicks, and for whom the act of ’sitting in the chair’ is the point of it all.But as I discovered, he’s also a thoughtful and generous conversationalist, and our chat covers music, life, art everything in between.This is already one of my favourite ever LS chats, in which one of most successful and engaging influences delves right into his process and motivation, and displays the charm, curiosity, and appetite for life that is such a feature of his work. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

When legendary surf writer Matt George got in touch asking if he could come on the show to chat about his new book In Deep, I was all in.In Deep is a hand-picked collection of Matt’s era-defining surf writing that spans well over 30 years.But, as I discovered during our conversation, for Matt it symbolises much more than this. It’s a flag-in-the-ground moment to memorialise a passing moment in surf culture, as the analogue age represented by Matt himself and the culture and writers he so venerates, is superseded by a new primarily artificial and digital culture defined by clicks, views and, latterly, AI.No wonder at one point in our conversation he refers to the collection as his ‘cave paintings’, in what I assume is a very deliberate image.Matt lives in Bali, and in early August 2023 we hopped online to record this conversation. The resulting chat encompasses many favourite Looking Sideways themes, whether creativity, working processes, literary influences or the importance of the recognising your place in the environment when it comes to the surfing experience.Above all, Matt is a consummate story-teller and a shameless surf romantic. He’s lived life on a vast scale, has sought out equally big experiences, and has documented the lot during one of THE essential surf writing careers.It makes In Deep a real time capsule, and this conversation is a wonderfully digressive, occasionally self-aggrandising and always entertaining rove through Matt’s life and times and the modern history of surfing itself.Buckle up! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

July 23rd noteThere's no new episode this week, so I thought that just this one I would lift the paywall on the first episode of Rondtable, the new discussion show which will usually be exclusively for paid subscribers. Looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks! A few months ago, my pal and staunch Looking Sideways supporter Jon Weaver asked me if I’d ever considered doing a Housekeeping Corner episode for paid subscribers.I was intrigued, but after chatting to Jon and kicking the idea around for a bit, I decided that bringing in a new, irregular panel discussion format was a way better idea.So I roped in Jon as co-host, asked another friend-of-the-show Lauren MacCallum to join us as second co-host, quickly jotted down a rough format, and thought of some topics to discuss and guests to invite on.And here we are. In this inaugural episode, we discuss, among other things:- The topic of disruptive activism and the lack of engagement on issues such as climate change and water quality among our community. Why is there such apathy? How can we change it? What role should brands play? And was I being harsh when I said the culture of mountain biking had ‘big petrolhead energy’? Huge thanks to listener Hamish Lawson for contributing the first listener question for this section.- The Byron Bay compulsory leash brouhaha, with contributions from special guests Wavelength editor and pro longboarder Mikey Lay, and long-term surf hack and friend-of-the-show Ben Mondy-Is the FIS takeover of competitive snowboarding finally complete? What does this mean for our culture? And will Olympic freeriding be next to get the treatment? With special guest Liam Griffin, co-founder and COO of Natural Selection.I had a blast doing this and am looking forward to doing more. Way back at the end of 2016, when I first had the idea to make Looking Sideways, I originally planned on it being this format. In the end I went with the interview format, so it’s nice to revisit this idea so many years later.Next time around, we’ll be asking for listeners/readers to contribute a topic for discussion so get thinking. Hope you enjoy this episode! This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe

I’m on quite a run at the moment when it comes to chatting to wise, inspiring and talented women, and this ace chat with my pal Gilly Macarthur continues this sequence in fine style.Gilly is a snowboarder, swimmer, open water swim coach, climber, event organiser, speaker - you get the picture. Basically, she’s a proper force of nature, a proper catalyst and peerless communicator who gets stuck right in whatever she’s doing. Plus, she raised the bar for all past and future LS guests by bringing me along a book as a present, which obviously made my day.And, as I’ve known for a while now, she’s also brilliant company, as I rediscovered in June 2023 when we met up in Brighton at the amazing new Sea Lanes to record this episode.I must say, for me this was proper ‘If Carlsberg did podcast set-ups’ (hat tip Mat Pycroft) occasion. We met at the height of the heatwave, and just had a lovely morning: swim, coffee, beach, good food, and this brilliant conversation.Even for me, this one went all over the place; which makes it a perfect podcast conversation, to my mind. Obviously we covered Gilly’s life and career, but we also followed all manner of tangents in a sprawling, multi-layered chat that I enjoyed immensely.Thanks for being such a great sport Gilly, and humouring my incessant Smiths-related gags. Hope you enjoy this episode. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wearelookingsideways.com/subscribe