At some point in our early 20s, Kai Neville and myself were let loose in New York to promote Lost Atlas at the New York Surf Film Festival. I was editing Surfing Magazine at the time and we had just devoted every single page of an issue to the film – something that had never been done in a big US surf mag and we had received quite a bit of pushback before receiving quite a bit of acclaim.

To kick off the trip, we took a cab over to Scott Chenoweth's new Harlem apartment with serious intentions of framing out the new magazine we wanted to start. Scott had made the artistic commitment of moving to New York and somehow our corporate overlord bosses allowed me to continue paying him as our art director. Scott did his job better than ever, but it was pretty unprecedented to work remote at the time. So the tension was brewing anyway. During that morning together we made a list of ideas for the new project which can all ultimately be summed up with: “Interview Craig Anderson inside a bar in New York.”

A fateful meeting in Harlem.

That was the look we were after. That mental image became the Media Kit for What Youth. And if you have ever held a What Youth magazine in your hands (at least one of the first 19 of them) I think we executed that North Star perfectly. What Youth was Craig Anderson inside a bar in New York.

During this formative trip to New York we had the nice people of the NYSFF rolling out the red carpet for us, pumping our tires and endlessly filling our cups with enthusiasm and confidence to go alongside an extraordinary amount of caffeine and alcohol. We did our duty and appeared at most of the things we were supposed to attend — I think we did a Q&A panel. Sorta. But the next thing was already hatched and happening so we left through the backdoor to make it to a Toro Y Moi show down the street. Sharks keep moving. Especially here. And we knew we could keep up.

New York represented an immortal creative culture we’d built up into a goliath monster of romance: design, literature, art and we wanted to somehow bring surf into that mix. We never liked wearing flip flops. We wanted onshore wind ramps and dark bars between our surfs. They would love to have us, right?

Later that night we set out using Frankie DeAndrea’s brilliant blueprint for operating in the city: “One Beer, One Bar.” There is far too much to see and do to stay anywhere for long. And the next best thing was always waiting for us around every corner. Literally. So we stuck to it.

Around 9pm, experiencing a healthy lather from hardcore commitment to “One Beer, One Bar,” we turned one of those miracle corners and who else would be sitting on a stoop straight out of a Basquiat documentary but Ozzie Wright. “What is this place!?” we thought.

Once the serendipity celebration subsided, Ozzie pointed down the street to a spot that had especially good music he said we would like. We left unsure if he was an apparition because he floated up into the sky in a plume of smoke and we never saw him again.

The place he sent us to was called Home Sweet Home. We walked in and it was a scene out of every NY documentary you’ve ever watched. Basically the new Joy Division was on stage and between sets and the DJ played dark, ambient, industrial, dark-wave and post-punk music that could only be made and played in NY. There were masochists rolled up in thick carpet on the ground begging people to step on them as you made your way to the bar. Young creatives, musicians, models and girls with thick red lipstick and leather jackets mingled about. We entered the Void and the future was written.

Kai would end up bribing the DJ to share an obscure track that would end up being the song used in his next film Dear Suburbia (Japan section with John John and Dillon Perillo). And we would go on to execute the Craig Anderson in a New York bar mag for quite a few years.

The Media Kit in its entirety for our new mag. PHOTO: Kai Neville

I tell you this short tale today because the forces of nature will never let you down if you are persistent, curious and a little bit too romantic. Keep going. Keep going. I love saying that and I love hearing it. Keep going. You never know when Ozzie Wright will appear and send you exactly where you need to be.

Even later that night, Kai, Scott and myself found ourselves in a dungeon bar watching Dirty Beaches play and we ran into Warren Smith and none other than Craig Anderson himself. In a bar in NY. It was all too much. We commemorated the night and vowed to start the new mag by carving the word “Bummer” into a bit of wood inside the venue as Dirty Beaches rained down distortion and noise and we’ve been making stuff together ever since. I just asked them to contribute something today in fact. And Scott delivered these instrumental images of that day that Kai shot.

Just keep going. Keep surfing. And check out our new Substack page. It’s going to be sick. Like New York in your 20s. See you there. —Travis Ferré

[All photos above by Kai Neville]