Mick Fannin and Jordy Smith, focusing on the task at hand. Photos: ASP/Kirstin Scholtz
I dawn patrol before work for the majority of my sessions and generally speaking, it’s a solo venture getting there. Except in the summer, it’s dark when I wake up, so no cams, reports or feeds. I usually surf at Ocean beach in San Francisco – a two mile stretch of beach that might as well be a handful of completely different breaks in one line. It’s also a break that is very sensitive to wind and catches the smallest of swells, so you wake up to anything. Checking buoys is my morning religion and that dictates if I must travel. Then I’m filling my rinse jug, grabbing a piece of fruit and the journey begins. Having music dialed up is critical and almost makes me want to drive farther sometimes, which sounds ridiculous when I write it, but is it?
Currently I am obsessed with Snoop Dogg’s ‘Drop it like it’s hot’. I admit, preceding that there was the Beyonce ‘Naughty Girl’ phase. This lasted, dare I say, months? It was the perfect combination of mobilization and looseness for both the swells at that time and my mood. It felt like I was bringing a dance party to the waves, if only in my head. A couple of years ago I had a winter where I gave in to Ted Nugent’s ‘Strangehold’. I don’t even know how that song made it into my iTunes library but there it was patiently waiting for the right moment. It was a rare run of everyday consistent surf here in San Francisco and something out of left field was needed to support it. Beautiful crisp surf with offshore winds for two weeks straight, he fed that need perfectly. I went out of my way to line it up and listen to it before I headed out. Sometimes the mood is not so buoyant as in 2007 when there was the Cosco Busan oil spill here in the bay area. That spill was devastating on multiple levels. It closed beaches all over the area in November, one of the best months in our season. I remember having to drive down the coast for my morning sessions and passing police cars posted along the Great Highway. You could see beautiful peaks and no one riding them, that was a Cat Power ‘The Greatest’ run. Sometimes the pre-surf mood can be contemplative.
I don’t limit myself to pre-surf musical discernment, as post-surf choices can be just as important. After a bad session, I almost always go to anything by Bonnie “Prince” Billy or Neil Young’s ‘Down by the River’. Consistently for years now, I have found solace in both of their music when I felt I wasn’t up to snuff. Right now good sessions have me reaching for Heart’s ‘Magic Man’, I don’t know why. I had a Biggie Smalls phase awhile back, specifically ‘Goin’ back to Cali’, which I thought would start things off right but tended to lead to inconsistent sessions. After a poor session his bravado only made me uncomfortable and I felt embarrassment when the stereo blasted upon my return.
To this day, I hear songs and think of specific surf years. Early in my surf career when transitioning from a long board to a short board I listened to The Distillers ‘Coral Fang’ relentlessly. That’s a difficult phase for a lot of people, including myself, and that high-energy edge practically pushed me into the water. Now I can’t help but cringe a little, experiencing flashbacks of some of those frustrating sessions, if I ever hear one of their songs. There are no rules to what can lead to a golden session song and it depends on so many factors. But it made me think of all the small rituals that lead me to my session and how important each element can be. It all led me to ask, what kinds of rituals are all of us performing to lead us to that perfect session and how important music might be? Music to amp us up for when the waves are crap and also, music to focus us up when the waves are pumping in fear. Do we take solace afterwards when things do not go well and do we celebrate when things play out better than expected?
When I first started surfing I don’t remember being so in tune with these feelings but as the years gathered, I definitely became aware of it. Are some people’s music the sound of friends in the car egging them on into bigger surf or maybe their sound is comfort when we are paddling out making something out of nothing. The same idea goes through my head with songs that we consider private, the comfort of lyrics we know and love to get us through or the hard hitting notes leading us into the challenge. Music and rituals are a huge part of my surf session and after asking around, they seem to be a large part of others. I spoke to one guy who said he prefers silence when he checks the waves. His ritual was to stand on the dunes and just take it all in – fair enough.
The small things like when I choose a song to play or the distinct way I’ve come to put my wetsuit on the same way, every time, lead me out into the water. I like the ritual aspect that goes along with my surf and I nurture it. I like when I see pro’s rituals too. There’s the YouTube clip of Mick Fanning stretching intensely that did the rounds a few years ago. I remember those big earphones he was sporting and wondering what he was listening to and how I bet whatever it was, was intentionally picked. I can relate both to the stretching and listening ritual he was participating in. Yeah, I’m not a world contender and it’s not huge stakes when I paddle out but we all have that ritual to get us going and music that provides a soundtrack to our lives. I like to think it makes a difference.
