Gallery: Jaleesa Vincent Gets Stoned, Noa Deane Dishes Out The Stimulants

Last night at Iron & Resin — an iconic institution tucked into the back of Currumbin Valley — Volcom hosted an invite-only bash to announce Jaleesa Vincent as their newest team rider and to premiere Noa Deane’s latest film, Stimulant.

The gates opened at six. While Blistar finished their soundcheck, Volcom’s pro skaters went to work on the miniramp, beers in hand, as trays of burgers and oysters (deep-fried, questionably) circulated through the crowd.

“Good luck getting to work tomorrow,” cracked Volcom’s longtime marketing manager Shane Azar, who said the deal with Jaleesa had been a decade plus in the making.

Vincent — the professional freesurfer and creative polymath behind Pussy Surfboards (featured in this year’s EAST), Juju the Surf Musical, and the upcoming Snakes and Surf Breaks — feels like a perfect fit for Volcom. The surf-skate-art experiment Richard Woolcott founded in 1991 has long celebrated exactly this kind of creative chaos. A near-perfect alignment of surfer and brand.

Then came the world premiere of Stimulant, a 45-minute film that filmmaker James Kates was still editing 20 minutes before showtime. The film is, once again, unbelievable. Think: fifteen-foot Irish pits with Russell Bierke. Cape Solander tow mutants. North Point mega oops. Shipsterns steps firecrackers. Even a cameo from that wave in Surfline’s Maps to Nowhere — only this time, it breaks like a two-humped camel.

Kates threads it all together with narration, eclectic soundtracks, and pacing that give the film serious longevity. If you can catch a screening in person, do it.

Noa Deane continues to prove himself the hardest-working freesurfer of the modern era. Between Mash, Munch, Horse, and Stimulant, he and Kates have delivered full-length, high-quality films roughly every six months — an unrivalled A+ output. The behind-the-scenes footage of them sleeping in boardbags and surviving on boiled eggs seals the point. They’re sick for making surf vids. And they’re bloody brilliant at doing so.

The night closed with electric sets from Blistar (Noa Deane, Shaun Manners, James Kates) and Goons of Doom (Vaughan Blakey and Ozzy Wright).

Gallery below.