Ross Bird

Our latest release on Wildlife Recordings is by talented Brisbane based artist Marly Lüske.

Have a listen below

12" https://tinyurl.com/y92ddx7b Download https://tinyurl.com/y92ddx7b Spotify https://tinyurl.com/y86ozhvr Distro https://tinyurl.com/y8c7tqzv

Today I spoke with Roger Buckle, owner of RAPP Australia Pty Ltd about the glory days of his brand Outgear & he answered my question “Why aren’t backpacks made like they used to be” making specific reference to the 1986 issued Outgear "Alice" style military backpack that I purchased in the hope that I could find out why backpacks aren't made to last 30 years anymore.  I told him I want to build bags of a high quality with the same materials as these old packs but with a modern & minimal design.

http://www.ozsurplus.com.au/our-products/bags/genuine-issue-auspack/

We discussed the following

- the fabric of the bag (core spun cotton/polyester) canvas

- core spun cotton/poly vs cotton/poly blend

- why Outgear isn’t on the internet

- the outdoors industry back when Outgear was operating (before the internet)

- manufacturing options, costs etc.

- importing fabrics

- hybrid manufacturing (Overseas & Australian Made)

I often get jealous of my dad thinking about how good it would have been to explore Indonesia in the 70′s. I then imagined having kids or grandchildren & pictured the world they would be living in...I did some research & booked a trip to India with the plan of making my way to the Andaman Islands & it was nothing short of pure adventure.

After a flight to Calcutta, another to Port Blair & a 4 hour boat trip I arrived on Havelock Island. While there were many honeymooning tourists I was able to hire a motorbike and escape the romance finding the solitude I was seeking on jungle trails and long hikes around never ending peninsulas. After a few days of finding no surf I decided to head further south to Little Andaman Island, an isolated island home of the ancient Onge tribe located 10 hours south by boat. 

On the boat i met another surfer named Appu, a young fisherman from a village called Kovalam on the Southern coast of India who was on a holiday after winning a surf comp. Neither of us knew what to expect but we were stoked & looking forward to the adventure. 

Accommodation was basic, thatched huts and a communal outdoor shower, chickens, pigs & an eclectic bunch of travellers - a retired Russian who was living off the land & a young englishman named George who played his banjo to distract his mind from the troubled life he had left behind back home.

Appu and I rode our motorbikes past the villages and through the winding jungle trails where hardwood forest meets the sea and found a left hander at Butler Bay. Appu surfed with 2 & a half fins and despite only having surfed for 3 years he was pretty good surfer by Indian standards. We shared banannas and biscuits, the sun was relentless, the water warm and the wait between sets seemed like half an hour. 

Over the next few days the swell picked up and the surf was an epic 4-6ft. We shared the surf with some French dudes and their girlfriends who were living in the jungle on suspended tents. They had gear to last them two months and ate rice and fresh lobster caught by Nico’s spear gun. While I was there he had speared a parrot fish which is forbidden in Australia but we ate it to ensure it didn’t go to waste. When I had stumbled upon their little land camp it was something I had always dreamed about like finding a mini version of The Beach.

After a week or so Appu and I had become friends and he invited me to share some whiskey with him. He began to open up and tell me his story of how he became a surfer. In 2004 Appu’s village and most of south eastern India were devastated by the Tsnunami. Appu was a trained lifeguard at the time and was one of a few who could swim and assist in the rescue efforts. He said for weeks there were dead people everywhere, and villagers continued to die because the fish the town lived off had been eating the rotting bodies. 

Appu’s family were fishermen, his brother had recently passed away and his father couldn’t come to terms with the loss. A couple of months later his father passed away also due to the grief of losing his son. Appu’s family no longer had the manpower to fish and so they sold their boat and Appu (going against his family tradition) decided he wanted to become a surfer.

Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all -- young and old, rich and poor, good and evil -- the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.

Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current was what each had learned from birth.

But one creature said at last, "I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom."

The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed against the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!"

But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the messiah, come to save us all!"

And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure."

But they cried the more, "Savior!" all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a savior.

From: Illusions by Richard Bach

I often play this as one of the first songs in my sets. I haven't released much music so at my shows the audience is only familiar with a couple of my tracks, so I figured I may as well put this out there!

The field recordings are from 2010 when I ended up in Capurgana, Colombia for a week trying to get over to Panama. I spent the time exploring the jungles, village & surrounding islands and noticed a heavy paramilitary presence. Armed soldiers with machine guns lying in hammocks in the bushes all around the place. This was my favourite part of a 6 month journey, I stayed with a young girl from New York & her husband who was a friendly young local guy. Their baby was conceived a year earlier when she was making the same journey as me. She chose to travel back from her family home in New York to live in Capurgana and raise their child. We were the only english speaking people in the village apart from the 2 Argentinian girls, Shei & Vanina who ended up helping me out heaps by translating for me as I knew very little spanish.