Surf’s Up

Mr Rowan Chernin co-founded Loaded and was the magazine’s original music and clubs editor. More recently, he’s put together a surfing songs so underground they were practically buried, Chairman Of The Board: Surf Soundtracks ‘64 to ‘74. uk-fusion talks to the dude about Newquay, men’s mags, and remembering the first time

There are near enough half a million surfers in the UK, when and why did you become one of them?

I blame the Welsh. In 1988 I ended up living in Swansea, on the doorstep of the Gower Peninsula, home of Welsh surfing. I was drawn to the sea – there wasn’t much else to look at in Swansea.

How much a labour of love has it been putting this album together?

It’s been on going for years, since I first saw Crystal Voyager, in Swansea. The VHS (no DVDs back then) was collecting dust in the window of a porn shop. I bought it, watched it, and watched it again. That led to me searching out more films. It didn’t start collecting the soundtracks until I noticed Morning Of The Earth on eBay. I’ve been pestering old-timers in Australia and on the West Coast about films and music some of them had all but forgotten had existed.

What sort of timescale are we talking?

It was October ‘88 when I first saw Crystal Voyager. I started working on the album in 2004 after a trip to Norfolk where I met UK surf photographer Neil Watson, who’s been around since surfing boomed in the ‘60s. He talked about how he used to put on film surf nights back in the ‘70s and how the music totally blew him away. Back in London I forced a number of non-surfing friends to watch some of these films and they all said the same thing as Neil. I started hosting nights where I’d play these soundtracks in the back room of a pub and the feedback was always positive, along the lines of “Where can I get these tracks from?”

The album includes tracks from ‘64-’74 only, why did you reduce it to that period?

It was a golden era when surf film makers where using underground music that reflected the counterculture of the times. Around ‘64 was, for the time being, the last stand of the surf guitar on surf films with the mainstream crossover of The Endless Summer. Then after ‘74 the psychedelia faded out from the musical scores. End of an era.

The last time I was in Newquay, the beach was full of middle-class, middle-aged surfers – just how sanitized has boarding become?

Fat old men on big long boards, but that’s not even half the story. Surfing is more than what you can see on a popular beach break during peak times. The UK has a very diverse crowd of all ages, shapes and social classes that enjoy its waves and why not? So depending on which beach at what time of day you care to choose, you can see the middle-class middle-aged surfer enjoying their mid-day splash or catch the next potential world champ out amongst the dawn patrol. It’s just a question of timing.

You were Loaded’s music and clubs editor. Of all the great nights you enjoyed out at that time, which one’s the most memorable?

Almost impossible to pick one out. I had seven years of it before I finally retired.

Loaded changed the face of magazine publishing: for better or worse?

At first, for better. Nothing else like it existed on the shelves before April 1994. But if you look at that editorially-vacant scrapbook they call Loaded today, the sooner the advertisers stop filling the pages the better. Burn it.

You were the first UK journalist to interview The White Stripes, what were your early impressions and how surprised have you been by their success?

Jack’s trousers didn’t fit him – too small. However, this really didn’t matter because two shows into the first UK tour of sweaty little venues, the hairs on the back of my neck were knackered. I was blown away by them, still can’t believe how good those gigs were.

How bizarre an interviewee was Lee Scratch Perry?

It was a daytrip to a place that couldn’t really exist unless you saw it with your own eyes. He was a lot of fun, living in his own world of eccentricity, waiting for people like me to show up so that he could spray-paint his beard blue, stand on top of a table with a radiator on his head with his sword Excalibre and shout “Jah Rastafari” at the mountains.

What’s only kinky the first time?

Your first time, but that memory can last forever.

Chairman Of The Board: Surf Soundtracks ‘64 to ‘74 is out now on Harmless Recordings.