While we treat each and every cover as a major event, every ten issues we like to put in the extra effort and do something special. Issue#10 had the Goldfinger inspired metallic gold paper with Bryce Golder’s frontside blunt. For issue#20 Jack went to work on a hideous, scabby, talking knee and for issue#30 he laboured night and day creating a faithful miniature reproduction of the Shakespeare Hotel in Surry Hills, Sydney where we first spawned the idea to start The Skateboarder’s Journal all those years ago.
To celebrate the milestone of 30 issues back in 2013, we included each and every skateboarder to have graced our covers and the all-important photographers who slaved away behind the scenes to bring us those fantastic images.
What is the history of the Shakespeare Hotel and the Journal?
Jack Tarlinton: I’ve been going to the Shakey for almost 20 years now. I originally started going there with a bunch of older artists after gallery shows. It was pretty much two derros and a dog in those days, so I dug it. Around this time a lot of skaters began to move to Surry Hills, to be close to the music venues, pubs, skating the city and Waterloo. Nighttime sessions at Ferny generally ended up at the Shakey, and it became an after-work meeting point for a lot of us too. Over those years it’s been a place of to celebrate birthdays, funerals plus everything and anything in between.
When Sean got the editors job at ASM he and his girlfriend moved to a place a few blocks away from the pub, so it was logical that when I joined ASM as the art director that the Shakey was where we went to brew on ideas and complain about the bosses upstairs. The heady combination of creativity, bitching and beer led us to agree that skateboarding deserved better, and we made a pact to do something about it. It probably took a month to get our heads around how on earth we could pull a coup of this scale off, and the local chatter over emptying glasses was our soundtrack each night.
The Shakespeare has acted as a Journal office for over ten years now, there’s a stack of back issues behind the bar for visiting skate royalty to read, and even though we live in different states and now it’s become mainly my office, Sean and I still make time to go over business over a drink or two.
What was the inspiration for building something this intricate… Crazy?
I knew that we had issue 30 coming up and it really felt like a milestone. I mean, we did the Goldfinger cover for issue 10, I made the knee cover for issue 20 so it was a no brainer that I would make the cover for issue 30. I can’t remember if Sean had asked me or I told him that I had it covered, but I had this idea of an inner city street scene that had torn away from its foundations and had floated off into the sky. I remember thinking about the house in UP, and Monty Python’s Crimson Assurance pirates in The Meaning Of Life where their office block takes off, and I had seen a cover somewhere of the New Yorker or something that had a brownstone in the sky. The first sketches I made on a plane to Brisbane show a whole block with a guy skating past a corner coffee shop. A whole fucking block! What the fuck was I thinking? [Laughs]
Then I was sitting on my own late at night at the bar at the Shakespeare, looking into the fridge at the bottles and everything became clear – the Shakey was where we started the whole thing and it was the building I needed to make.
Sitting there looking at the bottles, smiling to myself about my revelation for the cover I realised that just about every photographer, artist and skateboarder who had been on the cover had been in the pub at some point – even Dane Burman! I went over it in my head – Glen E. Friedman hadn’t been to the pub, and the dude in his Playboy bunnies jump photo went missing in the seventies. I wasn’t sure if Gonz and Gaberman had been there and that was it. Everyone else had been there at one point, even Daniel Cardone. We recorded a bunch of interviews in there too.
“The heady combination of creativity, bitching and beer led us to agree that skateboarding deserved better, and we made a pact to do something about it.”
A few people pull you up on the spelling of ‘Shakespeare’… (obscured by your pearly whites above) What’s the story behind that?
The actual spelling on the pub up there is ‘Shakspeare’. No one really knows why, but I’ve spoken to some English history buffs and they seem to think that the spelling of old William’s surname wasn’t set in stone until the 20th century, and the pub predates that.
Tell us a bit about the build process…
It took two weeks to make, and I was doing other stuff for the mag during that time too. It’s made from book binder’s cardboard, which is really thick and dense and probably not the ideal material for it, but I was really budget conscious for this build. There are real brass details, modelling clay for the guttering, I think matchsticks in the windows, expanding foam for the below ground area – it’s all really basic model makers techniques and materials, stuff you get at art and hobby stores.
What was the most challenging part of the build?
Making the whole thing on my coffee table! Just not having room to lay everything out and plan it properly… I have a very tolerant missus!
What are the logistics like when it comes to rounding up that many portraits?
I worked hard at that part. You have to remember I was basically doing this solo to try to surprise Sean. I sent mock up sketches to all of the photographers and told them to get shots of themselves in whatever poses they wanted, but they had to be shot at the right perspective or it wouldn’t work. I used the same brief with the skaters, and they were all over the world on skate trips and doing whatever skaters do, but everyone was enthusiastic and came through. O’Meally tracked Lance Mountain down and he was happy to do it – Lance thought it was a dress up so he’s dressed as Indiana Jones – that was awesome! O’Meally sent a photo of himself in a Tasmanian mine dressed in mining gear and stipulated that he wanted to be in the cellar with me. I loved that Mappy and Alex Campbell had their kids, Andy Murphy was throwing up over the edge, Gabbers in his work gear as a chef. Moey with a footy!
Who is your favourite portrait on there?
I snuck Dustin inside peeking out of the doorway – when he comes home each summer he spends a lot of quiet afternoons in there before hitting the pubs that have girls and no old ladies. He still owes us a cover… I actually dig all of the shots because everyone made such an effort to get the angles right, even Glen E. Friedman with the folded arms – he posed that at the bottom of a bowl!
“…I realised that just about every photographer, artist and skateboarder who had been on the cover had been in the pub at some point – even Dane Burman!”
Where does the sculpture live now?
It’s exactly where it should be – in the pub! It’s behind the corner pane of glass that Alex, Jake, Brophy and Chima are standing in front of.
We have a church down the road and each Christmas they put their big statue of Christ on their shoulders, the priest burns some frankincense and off they go with him for a walk around the neighborhood. They walk past the pub at the end of their journey on their way back to church, which can be quite surreal to watch from inside the pub. So the next day I grabbed the model of the pub and walked it past their church while the crowd was waiting to go in for mass. They were all very nice about it and made room for me to pass through them on the footpath. It was like Moses parting the waters (Laughs). It’s been in the corner of the pub ever since. I walked in there a few months ago and the owners had hung a framed copy on the wall near where I like to sit. That was nice.
It keeps an eye on the place for me when I’m not there. When I have too much to drink, it fills me in on what’s been happening (Laughs). Its seen lots of amazing pro skateboarders eat chicken parmas, witnessed one bloke open up his mates face with a schooner, a heap of tragic out-of-place-looking middle aged people waiting for their Tinder and Grinder dates, the odd argument between locals over politics and religion, ineffective police dog raids, a few spilled dinners and people falling off stools at the bar. Some dickhead stole the parking sign off of it so it’s pretty pissed about that…
