#224 - Jim Turvey: Skate Zines and Subculture Chronicles.

Join me as I sit down with the remarkably knowledgeable Jim Turvey, skate historian and zine aficionado, for a captivating exploration of the gritty heart of Australian skate culture. In a storytelling tapestry weaved with personal anecdotes and historical threads, Jim takes us on a ride through the pivotal moments of his life, starting with his family's move to Newcastle and leading into the DIY dynamics of skate zine culture that have become the lifeblood of the skateboard community. We tackle the tall poppy syndrome that often shadows success within Australian skateboarding, and delve into the reflective journey of maintaining humility while celebrating the strong bonds and friendships that are as much a part of skateboarding as the boards themselves.

In a celebration of subcultural print, we trace the evolution of skate zines, those raw, personal leaflets that captured the essence of skateboarding long before mainstream media took notice. Listen as we highlight the journey of Amnesia Skateboards and its transformation from a local zine into a cultural touchpoint, casting hometown skaters into the limelight. The complexities of skate history curation are unpacked, with a sensitive eye on the delicate balance between documenting a community's narrative and honouring those who feel overlooked.

Enjoy,
Shan

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Transcript

Speaker 2: 0:21

Hey, it's Shan here. This week I get to spend some time with journalist, article writer, lover of everything Zines, producer of legendary Zines sprawlers it's Jim Turvey. Jim is somewhat of a skate historian. I think he owns that title. I called him a skate historian and he was okay with that and we just go deep into his life. So far it's a long conversation starts a little slow, then we sort of build up to it.

Speaker 2: 0:52

Yes, for all you skate nerds out there, we do talk a lot about skateboarding, skate history, and Jim's just got like deep knowledge on Australian skateboarding and culture. I'll actually probably skate culture globally, but mainly Australian skate culture. He's just a real fan of documenting history and learning about the history like in every detail. But he's also a fan of promoting the culture of Zine creation, like DIY documentation of whatever you're into music, skateboarding, art, make something and make it yourself and do it cheap and use a photocopier and he just loves it. He's a fan and we talk a lot about his passion for that, but he's kind of on next level with it.

Speaker 2: 1:42

Jim's an academic, he's also a librarian and he's had shows at museums for his work. He's photography. He is a short story writer. He's written numerous articles for Australian skateboarding magazine SLAM and ultimately he's just a really kind, interesting soul who I thoroughly enjoyed hanging out with. He talks about his life as well outside of skateboarding growing up, his family's transition from Sydney to Newcastle and the experiences he had as a little child and how they affected him later on in his adult life. So as always, we do go deep on those things, not just skateboarding. Skateboarding is always kind of like the conduit that brings all that stuff together, connects it all together. So I loved it and I loved his willingness to open up about that stuff too. So it's a good conversation, good dude, and enjoy getting to know Jim Turvey. Everyone Cheers.

Speaker 3: 3:08

I'm a huge fan of Tony Hawk. Heast is was one of my first videos Street Tony was it Street Tony Huge fan and I'm a big fan of his career, so I'd be more than happy to sit through him doing a, you know, like a bit of an open mic thing, but I don't know. Overall, I think sometimes there's a tendency, once people get a little bit of fame for one thing, like skateboarding for example, they think that then that's a platform to kind of I don't know be an expert in everything else as well and sometimes.

Speaker 2: 3:43

I'm not down for that.

Speaker 3: 3:44

It seems like Tony's been pretty good at like staying level Totally, and he's a really he's a naturally intelligent guy as well. He's pretty easy to listen to talk and always does good interviews. I think so.

Speaker 2: 3:55

I actually felt sorry for him that night because I really did feel like he needed someone on stage asking him questions to dig more out of him. He was like a couple of times he was high and dry out there, you know, talking about his life. I was like oh, he needs someone to bounce off, poor guy. But sucked it up just like the champion that he is, you know.

Speaker 3: 4:16

Yeah, I can imagine, Look he'd be. So you know, he's been in the public eye since he was, you know, a kid, so weird with that?

Speaker 2: 4:23

Yeah, Do you? Do you feel like that? That concept of tall poppy syndrome is primarily synonymous with Australian culture.

Speaker 3: 4:35

Yeah, I mean to an extent. I mean yeah, I suppose, if you know, we are kind of talking, going to be talking through things through the lens of skateboarding alone, and in Australia definitely.

Speaker 2: 4:52

Do you think it's more predominant in skateboarding? Because skateboarding can get so well. I think it's changed just a bit more over, but you get so clicky.

Speaker 3: 5:01

Huge? Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, if you grew up in any kind of regional scene, like I did and you did, it's really easy to fall into those clicks and you know when you're the grommet and stuff like that as well, it's easy to be kind of in and out of those things and you know you can experience the as soon as you try to do anything. You can kind of I don't know feel the wrath of that, the tall Bobby syndrome, and you know.

Speaker 3: 5:25

But yeah, I kind of in the other way. It kind of keeps you in check as well. You know I'm always. There's lots of lessons that I learned from growing up. I had Newcastle skate park and at the admin building being part of that scene, really early on and I was quite young, I started hanging out with all the older kind of guys that are still with me today and I think really kind of can keep you, keep your wits about you, but also, like I know, keep you in check and not to I don't know, not to get ahead of yourself as well keep the ego in check.

Speaker 2: 5:56

Yeah, absolutely those, those places you mentioned, and the friends that you were skating with in. Are you still friends with them today?

Speaker 3: 6:04

Yeah, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of people that kind of you naturally fall out of touch with. But I don't have, you know, definitely no beef. I can't think of any like big falling outs I've had with anybody. But the thing is that as you get older I think you get the opportunity to kind of um, what was once a big age gap narrows and so somebody that was six or seven years older than you isn't, you know, that much older than you when you're middle-aged. And so a lot of my peers that I suppose were really influential to me and that were kind of like my heroes and now my friends- that's really nice, I think wow give us some names well, I mean Ben Cox would be the first one dude.

Speaker 2: 6:51

I was hoping to say that because his name is just organically popped up in this podcast a lot over the last couple years.

Speaker 3: 6:57

Yeah, and I think His name would. I think you just said the word pop up, like his name would pop up in magazines and things more early on, more so than his coverage, as well than actual photos and documentation. You know, if anybody listening that has only ever grown up with social media, has only ever grown up with the internet, it's hard to describe how Word travel like gossip would travel, and we only had these magazines that were coming out. You know, slam was, you know, coming out every two months. You might get crank magazine if it was late enough, you know.

Speaker 2: 7:43

So skates? No, yeah, which is so skate and snow.

Speaker 3: 7:45

So skateboarding was only pretty much a third of the magazine, maybe a quarter if they had a lot of music in that issue. And that doesn't really start until the end of 93, beginning 94 anyway. So you kind of Word would travel between towns and you would hear these stories about people like I can remember hearing stories about. You know tricks would happening at the pit, for example. You know you'd hear that. You know I can remember hearing that Phil Mackie had kicked, looked into the pit before I even really knew, yeah, and before I even really knew who feel Mackey was like.

Speaker 3: 8:17

You just attached this name to a trick and and, yeah, and Ben Cox was one of those people. I think his reputation kind of like preceded him and he was like a I don't know still is. I live in Tassie now and and we keep in touch from time to time but, um, he's one of those people. It was almost like a myth about him and you know as a. Well, the first time I saw a Ben skate, I was probably nine or ten and he was skating a jump ramp out the front of my auntie's house with my cousin and they were just skating because he lived in young street and cooks hill at the time with his mom and Absolutely just ripping like. I remember he was doing like big backside 360 lays out of this jump ramp and this would be nine, ninety one, 92, just before I started going into town and I can remember he was kind of cool. He was, like you know, quite nice. I don't know if you'd remember this day, definitely remember skating with my cousin, but I I can remember when he went home or went into his house I can remember asked my cousin, oh, who was that guy? And he was like oh, that's Ben Cox, he's the best skater in Newcastle, which is such a funny thing to say the best skater anywhere you know.

Speaker 3: 9:32

Name a town. But that was also kind of a thing. If you remember, during that period, you know, in the late 80s and early 90s, if you lived in a regional area like Especially it was quite common or even a suburb even there might be like the best skater In, you know, and then you just name a suburb or a town and that was a really big thing because there was no I Suppose there was no other kind of accolade, like there was no Skateboarding competitions were few and far between, there weren't really many sponsors around, you know you might be sponsored by the local surf shop or something. So it was kind of like that name or being attached to you was really special. As much as those people would have hated it like I'm sure Ben would have hated, you know for someone to be saying to him oh, you're the best skater in Newcastle. That's pretty awkward Word of mouth is so powerful?

Speaker 2: 10:30

Hmm, it's been, and it's been lost in a way in this modern era. But, like you said it, it makes Characters you know almost like myths and have this mistake to them. And then there's like Stories you know, like folklore about them.

Speaker 3: 10:49

Oh, totally, totally.

Speaker 2: 10:50

I did this and I did that and then the story gets passed on to someone else. It's like a game of Chinese whispers and it gets more and more interesting and more and more like spread and oh yeah. Yeah, but now we're just overloaded with Information and everyone knows everything about everyone because they can just Google it.

Speaker 3: 11:07

Yeah, or it's just shared instantly on social media. You know which is great. They instant gratification thing can be really great. To don't get me wrong, I consume those things. I'm not a lot of it or anything but and not just being nostalgic, you know, I like the now. You know, like contemporary skateboarding. I think it's the best ever. But you know, I really enjoy Kind of making the comparison between then and now as well. Not and not. There's this tendency that people always think that you have to make out like, oh, my Error was the best or my generation did it the best. I think and I've said this before, I'm probably on record saying this, so it could be a cliche or whatever, but Skateboarding is such a progressive thing.

Speaker 3: 11:53

The best skateboarding is always happening like In the now, you know no matter what anybody says, the best skateboarding is always happening, you know, I think yeah, I think it's plateaued?

Speaker 3: 12:07

No, I don't think it's plateaued.

Speaker 3: 12:09

No, I think there's an information overload, maybe, which might make it seem like it's plateaued sometimes Because, you know, because of the abundance of media and and the coverage that's out there, so that kind of thing where you might watch a video part, you know, every afternoon after school or something when you're younger, because that's all you had available to you.

Speaker 3: 12:36

You know that's changed and I do really see the I'm getting hypercritical on those things and knowing every little nuance of the power and every little thing that happens. That might be lost for some people. But then you see, like there are young guys out there now that are kind of the same thing with internet, like with instagram clips, for example. They'll be like, oh, you know so-and-so did this line at that spot, um, and you know they're wearing these shoes and you know they pulled their pants up. You know, like we we would talk about kareem doing that line in 20 shot or whatever with the pager and the their shelters on People kind of, I suppose, attached that kind of level of nerdy to like instagram clips instead of a whole video part. Now interesting.

Speaker 2: 13:28

You know, I think Like yo, I guess I was. I made an assumption of you and hopefully I'm wrong, but you're somewhat of a purist because you still have a zine, yeah, and you also like other zines in you and like there's a zine community you know, and I want to ask you this question is like you know, why do you feel like in this digital era? Why is zines so important to the culture In?

Speaker 3: 14:00

your opinion. In my opinion, personally I mean so there's kind of multiple levels to this, obviously, but for me personally, just making something like the craft of making it and making something physical that I can look at afterwards and that's the selfish side of it, that's. I really enjoy the act of doing that, even when I've like if I, if they're ones I've made myself on a photocopier and printed out, the act of collating them and stapling them all together and stuff like that's really fun. And a lot of that even has nothing to do with the content or anything like that. It can even be just about the look of it as a zine. There's a really kind of stereotypical look of like a DIY zine and I love that and I like making those things and contributing to that world. But the other thing I like is adding the skateboarding element. A lot of the time, and whether that's contemporary skateboarding or historical stuff, you know that I've researched or collected or collated, injecting then the skateboarding stuff into that, into that kind of side of it.

Speaker 3: 15:06

Now, skate zines are some of the I mean, fan zines have been around, you know, since the 60s. It's a really. You know, people making their own, predominantly around music and rock stars and stuff like that in America. But people have been making their own fan zines, you know, for that long and I think that as soon as skateboarding started getting some kind of I suppose pop, cultural kind of popularity, skate zines were really integral to the skateboarding scene and a really integral way of like of spreading information. That word of mouth we were talking about, well, the written word, you know, before the LBC was the best way to spread that information and not everybody's scene has access to like a mainstream magazine back then, you know. So amnesia skateboards from Newcastle, like Chris Yo's magazine, that became amnesia skateboards. It started off as a skateboarding scene and a for zine edited Chris Yo and this guy, brett Abahad, put it together, but it was mainly Chris's thing, I believe. Now that magazine was absolutely like a huge part of like.

Speaker 3: 16:30

I can remember reading early issues of amnesia at my cousin's house and the people that were in that were living in kind of like suburban like you know, for me living in suburban Newcastle the people that were in that were almost like they were as famous as people that were in slam or thrasher but they were just dudes like skating at admin, the administration building across from civic park in Newcastle, because that world was so small to be elevated within any way, shape or form.

Speaker 3: 17:02

So even like a photo copy day for zine, to me as a reader, you know and there was not much skateboarding content around at the time made those people like kind of like superheroes almost, and so I just the idea of perpetuating that even, you know, like 30 years later and making my own zines and even yeah, that to me is really special, you know, like the idea of that I'm putting something out there and it's not about me when I say I'm putting something out there that I there is like almost like a lowercase I, because it's about the scene and the local skateboarders and just sharing that kind of and I'm not some big Newcastle guy or anything, you know, I was born in Sydney or whatever.

Speaker 3: 17:51

I like the Australian skate scene, I like studying that and researching that, but just because that's where I live. So it's not that I'm being, you know, super patriotic about Newcastle, it's just that's where I am and these are the things that surround me and these are the people that I know I want to spend time with or that I can reach out to and have access to. So it's easy for me to kind of get photos, or yeah.

Speaker 2: 18:13

How do you feel about the term skate historian?

Speaker 3: 18:17

It can be a hard one, because I call myself that. Sometimes I was going to say but skate history is such it's for most people, for most skateboarders, it's just a personal thing, and to not, to not be included in somebody else's history can really hurt, I've noticed, and so you have to apply a lens to any kind of history that you're putting out there. What do you mean? So if you were sharing say, for example, I had an exhibition at Newcastle Museum in 2022. That was a history of Newcastle in skateboarding through the lens of skateboarding magazines. Now there are lots of people that are amazing skateboarders and amazing people, amazing writers and photographers that might not have been published in magazines, but to narrow it down to something that's actually workable and to be able to share with the rest of the community, you have to have a lens and my lens for that exhibition was in print in magazines, so they're friends of mine.

Speaker 3: 19:29

That, I think, are some of the best skateboarders I've ever seen in real life that have never had a never had a photo in a magazine, but they're the parameters of the exhibition. You know that's, you can't, so they in the exhibition.

Speaker 2: 19:41

No, I'm, I'd say, you just kept it to whatever was published.

Speaker 3: 19:45

Yeah, I tried to be as thorough as I could and so, um, yeah, anybody that, any photos or any spots that were in Newcastle or people from Newcastle I tried to include, and there are people that you know. I mean, I don't regret it. I really love the way the exhibition turns out, but that's something you have to apply, because Do you feel bitterness from those people? Oh, yeah, definitely Sometimes. What's funny is I make a scene that has been going since 2015. And I made other skate scenes when I was younger as well, but the current one I do now is called Sproul. Sproul is yeah, and it just started off as a scene. I was working at the university library, I had access to a photocopy and I just kind of like the first two is mainly because I was getting with you by the museum and your friends would find it and they would have conversations all person, officially in an official meeting Little.