Hey Sprout is playing tonight at the Pacifica Firehouse 7 and 9pm. Ray Barbee is playing music live before the movie.
Last night there was a close to full house at the Rio in Santa Cruz. The crowd was into it- hooting, cheering and laughing. A bit rowdier than SF a couple weeks ago. The crowd in Santa Cruz had many surfstar types, tons of stoked groms, many many older surfers- but thankfully I didn’t see many of the “old guys rule,longboards rule!” types.
Go see Sprout -you’ll be glad you did.
Here’s a press release that came my way:
Thomas Campbell has made one other surf film prior to Sprout called the Seedling. Released in 1999, the Seedling documented a very small group of California surfers that were riding in a style that was quite unique but heavily shadowed by mainstream surfing’s aesthetic preferences for equipment (shortboards) and approach to riding (attacking the wave). It was called “traditional longboarding,” and was labeled so because these kids weren’t riding ultra light thruster shortboards. They were gliding stylishly and e
legantly atop 1960s heavy single-fins. Using a classic style and approach to riding them, they drew clean, beautiful tracks on waves not seen for decades. Like surf films, this type of surfing was a lost art form too, unearthed and passed on to this next generation by just a dying handful of holdouts who still remembered how it was done. These kids preserved and continued a line of surfing and aesthetic that nearly disappeared in the late ‘60s when the “shortboard revolution” all but whipped longboards off the map. But these traditionalists weren’t just mimicking what had been done before. They were taking this lost art to the next level—doing maneuvers never seen before, while still maintaining a crucial connection to their roots and surfing’s past by doing more traditional moves. Clean, eye pleasing surfing was the benchmark of this style, and it was what made it stand apart from the more aggressive approach found in shortboarding. The release of the Seedling planted the idea in viewers minds that there were alternative disciplines to enjoy within the art of riding waves, and that sometimes surfing a longboard is a better option—especially when considering that the average day in America is ideal for such equipment. The Seedling started a buzz that rumbled through the surfing community. Die-hard shortboarders were soon seen sliding atop a longboard, something that was unheard of during previous decades. Campbell’s second film, Sprout, documents that change. And within this film, viewers will see that the surfers minds’ have expanded beyond just the shortboard and longboard realm as they are now embracing other forms of wave riding like fishes, eggs, mats and bodysurfing.
this movie(sprout) also has a very nice sound track that includes-----calexico,the shins,will oldham,tommy guerrero,the sprout house band(tommy guerrero,jack johnson,money mark and adam topol),sam prekop, brokeback, hope sandoval, tortoise, oliver nelson, for carnation, ray barbee, him ,gojogo,hampton hawes, slap band(ray barbee,doug scharin, tommy guerrero ,matt rodriguez) among others.
