Small, Dribbly, And Oddly Fantastic: Day Two At The Duct Tape

We missed the majority of the surfing at the Duct Tape Festival, but not because we weren’t in attendance.

Instead, we were wrangling a blacklight cage beachside studio that our ever-so-detail-oriented photographer, Zak Bush insisted we set up to take portraits of the competitors. They will be releasing soon.

I spent the morning fighting off the remnants of a party at the Flower Shop on the Lower East Side. We called it an early night, about 1:30 AM, which for Los Angeles standards is pretty average. For New York standards, the 1-2 AM hour is when the party is just getting started.

Harry Roach did not call the night early. In typical Australian form, he had a grand ole time doing god knows what and arrived at the event holding a hangover amplified by a bit of sleep, or possibly none. Then he went ahead and won $8K and the event in surf pushing double over shin.

A drop-dead day, indeed.

Photography

Jimmy Wilson

On the ladies’ side, a young blonde Hawaiian named Kirra Seal took the other big check, cross-stepping to the bank.

Rockaway Beach is an, er, fascinating place. On the coast it’s superb, tranquil, with planes flying overhead from any given direction in and out of JFK. Yesterday, the wind blew offshore, the waves weren’t extraordinary, but you don’t need much to host a contest that involves heavily-glassed nine-foot-plus logs. A few blocks inland, past the budding gentrification, the town opens up into a quasi-apocalyptic scene. Jagged, beatdown cars sit off curbs at ill-fitting angles. The road is torn. Employees at the front desks of Boost Mobile shops and delis sit with half-burnt cigarettes dangling from their lips. A woman outside of a grocery store screams at passing skateboards. At the very end of it all, a bar filled with hip kids in tiny jackets wearing beanies above their ears saturate their skullcaps into an oblivion state at a cool little joint called Rockaway Surf Club. Here Vans footed the bill, and we watched Ainara Aymat and Lee Anne Curren’s Sambal Sambal, followed by Karina Rozunko and Lola Mignot’s film.

Duct Tape NY Champ, Harry with his hand held high.

Photography

Jimmy Wilson

Afterward, a few bands played. We all got a bit drunk and to be honest, I couldn’t tell you any of the band’s names. They were bar musicians who you won’t be looking up on Spotify anytime soon. However, they got our feet moving with cover songs that sent the establishment into a cacophony of out of tune vocals from a crowd that will be coming to no stage near you.

We then packed our sunburnt bodies into a charter bus, grabbed a few packs of cheap beer, and while 1/3 of the bus took a nap, the other 2/3rds partied into the night. It gets a bit hazy after that, and Stab’s resident punk rock squirrel/camera wielder Sam Moody’s battery died from filming a BTS clip of our portrait series, so we don’t have much evidence to share or destroy.

You can tap right above for scenes from the party at the Flower Shop from Thursday, instead. 

Duct Tape NY Champ, Kirra on the tose.

Photography

Jimmy Wilson

The Vans Duct Tape is good for surfing. It’s about much more than performance, heat totals, and whacking three to the beach. And, we like that.