Since we have just launched the latest chapter of Manual through this new website we thought it would be apt to tell you all about the roots of Manual (as part of a ongoing series of articles about the history of the magazine). The first installment is the story of Clone Magazine, a one time only zine created by Ruben Byrant, Caleb Smith and friends.
It was around 1996 that you guys made the first and only copy of Clone, tell me a bit about yourselves at the time and what spurred you to do it?
Ruben Bryant: We just wanted to start something up, and a mag seemed like a great idea. We wanted to have something to call our own and it gave us a voice. Caleb and I both skated in the Khandallah Village with the 479 crew and The Boardroom family. We did a bit of trampoline skating too and sessioned jump ramps. We were into mags like Raygun and Lodown, and we were both really hyped on David Carson’s graphic design. I think Caleb was starting to take skate pics, he was studying photography at Victoria Uni, and I was studying graphic design. We just got busy on Caleb’s parents computer in the evenings. Caleb’s mum always made really good desert to give us energy.
Caleb Smith: Yeah, mum’s desert and the spa pool was what fuelled clone. We had the trampoline, a quarter in the driveway and the village for street sessions. Most importantly we had a solid crew, Danny (Santana), Nicky (Bridge), Tim (Hockley), Monkey (Richard Frost).
A fine example of some revolutionary PhotoShop skills circa ’96. Emboss filter I think. That’s Paul Cosgrave blunt sliding on the contents page and Brad Bowes feeble grinding at the now defunct Heaven (AKA Reading Cinema’s carpark).
Tell us a bit about the tools were you using to make the mag (cameras, flashes, computers, photocopiers, pagers)?
RB: Pagers, yes we had those for all the drug deals. I’m not sure what the computer was but when you think about today’s macs, it probably had a 1gig of storage on it. Photoshop was raw dog, no history or fancy 2009 shit. No CD burner. Super slow! Shitty scanners. My folks had a photocopier that we printed Clone with, and it was hand stapled. Very rough. Oh and we are both dyslexic, so there was some amazing writing in there.
CS: It was 286 or something like that, and I forked out like $500 to have the ram and memory extended. In the end I think it had like 4gigs. But these were the days of Zip drives and Jazz drives, so we used them, that was the only way of getting stuff from the home PC to Macs at school.
Can you explain a bit about the scene in Wellington at the time, tell us about some of the spots and people that feature in the mag?
CS: Because there weren’t that many filmers or photogs back then there were a tonne of spots so finding something fresh to shoot was pretty easy. There were more dry spots back then too like the FAI bump and the Mid City steps. It was really a fun time to be shooting. I guess ’cause we are all in our 30s now most of the crew are bit scatted but Kevin was always fun to shoot, Chris Wood, the Kwocksons, Chris Scott, Peter Kani. It was basically the OG Wellington boardroom crew.
Peter Kani gets full credit on a bank statement. Vaulting an ollie over a barrier near the Frank Kitts park lagoon, and boardsliding at the Kilbirnie Rec. Rugby really does suck. Doesn’t it?
Were there any other people involved in the production, or contributions, and what did they do?
RB: Tim Hockley helped out with some rugby hating. I’m sure we had other help but I forget, I don’t think we even had mag credits.
CS: Yeah we pretty much despised rugby and everyone we knew hated it to so there was no shortage of comments for that page… looking back there wasn’t that much literary merit in clone.
Can you give us a run down of the inspiration behind some of the articles such as Rugby New Zealand’s Big Lame or Made Up Letters?
RB: Rugby NZ big Lame… we hated rugby, but mostly the dick heads who played it and they always gave us shit for skating. Jocks VS skaters just like in the movies.
Made up letters… first issue so we had no letters, but everyone loves to read the “letters to the editor” page in mags so we made one up. Mostly just stupid shitty articles. We didn’t really give too much thought to it, just having a laugh really.
King Loser review by plumber and amateur journo Tim Hockley. The Kilbirnie Recreation Centre was a mainstay on the Wellington screen until it’s refurbishment in the mid 2000s. It was worth being there to see Kyle shred every obstacle to bits, here he is doing a feeble grind. That’s Neil the bogan smith grinding on the mini, and Dean Hunt who was one of the few regulars who sessioned the vert ramp feeble grinding to fakie.
More Kilbirnie Rec. That’s Mat Russell blasting a frontside ollie on the mini ramp, and crazy man Pete Stockman flying a melon off one of the many jump ramps.
What was the inspiration behind the name?
RB: We were into copying stuff, na I don’t know. Maybe it was about Alien shit and the raving culture at the time. Shame.
CS: Yeah, aliens and the fact that at the time all Australasian skate mags were generically the same and the title was a pisstake of those mags, were trying to do something different.
Any last words?
RB: I would love to see more people getting off there asses and producing stuff, mags, zines, clothes, etc. It seems everybody is very lazy. Manual is only around because a crew decided to do something to grow, and learn, and create something unique for their friends and scene around them. The hardest part is just starting to do something, so just start small and grow.
CS: Yeah, pretty much what rubes said, but I think in NZ, right now, there are a tonne of people getting off their arses. It’s a good time.
First image: Kevin Francis, lipsliding a bench at Cashmere School in Khandallah.
All photographs by Caleb Smith.