The Shutes
The Shutes are a four-piece from the Isle of Wight who make well-crafted indie-rock with psychedelic and surf flourishes. The Shutes are Chris Jones, Michael Champion, Dave Champion and Rob Potter.
“The most far our rock ‘n’ roll joyride to leave the Isle of Wight since August 31st 1970, when Hendrix’ trailer pulled out” – NME
The band grew up on the Isle of Wight and still live and record on the island, taking their name from a long, winding pathway known as ‘the Shute’ which runs down the cliff edge to the shore near their homes.
The band formed about 5 years a go when Mike, Chris and Rob got together for a jam having met through playing in other bands. Within a few months they were playing gigs in London and released their first cd soon. The band has toured Europe three times, playing in Hamburg, Berlin, Zurich, Vienna to name but a few. They have supported the likes of The Go! Team, The Bees, Alexander Ebert and Peter, Bjorn and John and will be supporting Level 42 at Northwood Park this Jubilee weekend.
In recent years The Shutes have headlined at the ‘Barfly’ and Koko in London and closer to home have played the Isle of Wight Festival and Bestival for the last 4 years. In 2011/12 The Shutes recorded in London studios their latest release, ’Echo of Love’ which was released earlier this year.
Chris and Mike met through surfing on the Island. Mike grew up surfing around Niton while Chris’s local breaks were Compton and Freshwater Bay. It was a few years before they both realised they had a passion for music.
Mike was inspired by the likes of Raff with his retro style and Chris started surfing with people like Dougie Richards, Ian Pacey and friends.
2011 British Interclub Championships
The Isle of Wight Surf Club team headed down to Woolacombe last weekend for the 2011 British Interclub Championships. Matt Harwood had put together a strong team with Doug Richards, Josh Jupe, Chris Mannion, Mark New and Craig Sharp joining him. This years event was being scored differently to previous years with only one day to fit everything in and there was only one heat for each team member. During free surfing the boys looked good, but during the heats they couldn’t seem to find the high scoring waves. Local knowledge paid off for the teams from Devon coming out on top. With the Island scoring 2nd’s, 3rd’s and 4th’s in their heats it wasn’t enough for a podium this year. In the Masters category the old timers in the team faired better, Craig and Chris showing that experience was the key coming 2nd overall.
Hurricane Katia brings a few waves to Shanklin
Hurricane Katia may have tracked north but it still delivered a few waves to us here on the Island. Last Sunday and Monday I got down to Shanklin capturing some of the action.
Fantastic finish to the Frost Bite Series
Rapanui Frostbite Surf Series Event 5 May Bank Holiday Monday saw the fifth and final event of the 2010/11 series take place at Sandown. After a poor run of swell no contest took place in April but a fortuitous Easterly wind-swell arrive at the start of May. With strong winds & currents it was going […]
IOW Surf Club – Frost Bite Series Event No 2
The Isle of Wight – Frost Bite Series
October – Event No 1
With two events into the IOW Surf Club Frost Bite Series sponsored by Rapa Nui Clothing , Matt Harwood leads the Open division with an in-form Doug Richards hot on his heels.
The October event took place in stormy two to three foot conditions at Compton. With a competitive field of surfers competition was heated to get to the final. After two superb semi-finals, four surfers made the final consisting of Doug Richards, Alan Reed, Joe Truman and Matt Harwood.
The final was a closely fought battle. After dominating earlier heats Doug failed to produce earlier form. Alan found a superb right but could not find a back-up score. Whilst Joe showed consistency catching several stylish rides. However it was an in-form Matt Harwood who started with a spectacular opening wave consisting of three big turns and then backed up his score with a good second wave and just pipped Joe to take first place.
November – Event No 2
However, in the November event held last weekend (Sat 13th) Doug Richards showed his true talent by overcoming a competitive field of talent to take the win in very testing, weak two foot surf at Compton.
Against tough competition Doug surfed well through all rounds to book a berth in the final along side the ever-stylish Joe Truman, competitive Matt Harwood and Chris Mannion who has just returned from training in Australia.
Matt Harwood and Joe Truman opted for a strategy of catching inside waves and trying to build scores from medium size waves, but it was the patience of Chris and Doug who waited for bigger set waves out back who caught bigger waves that allowed room for faster moves and bigger turns. Finally, Doug edged out Chris to take the win with Matt coming third and Joe fourth.
The weekend was topped off by Alan Reed stylishly dominating and winning the first Longboard event and in the Junior Division Robin Forrest just edging out Henry Holmes(2nd) and Dylan Hamlet (3rd) to win. All three surfers showing great progression and skill.
www.iowsurfclub.com
Current Standing after 2 events (4 remaining)
Open
1st Matt Harwood 34 pts
2nd Doug Richards 32 pts
3rd Joe Truman 28pts
4th Alan Reed 24pts
5th Nick Whittle 20pts
6th Luke Forrest
6th Rob Forrest
6th Chris Mannion
Longboard
1st Alan Reed
2nd Doug Richards
3rd Joe Truman
4th Matt Harwood
Frost Bite Series – Event No 2
The Isle of Wight Surf Club Frost Bite Series – Event No 2
Congratulations to all involved, another great event. Compton had very challenging conditions for the competition but once again we were treated to a very high standard of surfing from all who took part. The onshore waves grew in size as the day went on and all the competitors had their strength and endurance tested as a lot of paddling was needed to get out through the waves and to get themselves to best place in the line up, which seemed to continually move about.
The Longboarders were up first witht the majority of contestants heading to the outside to try and get the set waves. This may have been a mistake as they didn’t seem to be making it through to the inside and early on Matt Harwood seeemd to see this, taking a few waves on the inside right through to the beach. It definitely looked very hard to find some good waves early on and a few very frustated faces came up the beach after the first few heats.
The Juniors were up next and now there seemd to be a waves making it through from the outside. This only made the paddle out even harder and the boys struggled in the difficult conditions, but eventually pick off a few waves.
When the Open started the waves had picked up and they were competing quite far out. There were some good size sets coming through but it still looked very hard to find the best spot to line up. The Open saw 4 heats with the winners of each heat going through to the final. One of the heats saw Chris Mannion, Andrew Tyrrell and Alan Reed against each other. This was going to be a very closely contested heat and didn’t disapoint. Andrew and Al pushed Manni all the way but Chris held on to his lead. The final was Douglas Richards (sporting a moustache rivalling anything I ever saw in the old World War II movies I used to watch with my Dad as a kid), Matt Harwood, Chris Mannion and Joe Truman. Matt got straight into the final catching a few through to the inside but I think his mind was on getting into his pyjammas and watching X-Factor as he didn’t seem to be able to find any of the set waves. We saw Joe treated us to some of his lovely style with some beautiful cutbacks but I think by this time hyperthermia was setting in and we didn’t see him perform at his best. Dougie and Manni got the best of the set waves that came through putting in some big moves with Dougie coming out the winner. But Manni definitley came out of the water with the best spiked punk hairstyle that I definitely think Al was quite envious of (ok I admit, and any of us lacking in that department).
[gallery]Tiki National Interclub 2010 Surfing Championships
The Isle of Wight Surf Club Team came so close to getting on the podium and a 3rd place at this years Tiki National Interclub Surfing Championships. The gap between themselves and Croyde Surf Club – A Team was only 3 points.
Saturday started with some very challenging conditions and at least a couple of contestants didn’t even make it out to the line up. Even when you made it to the line up it looked difficult to to be in the right place when the sets came through.
As the day went on the swell cleaned up and we were treated to some great surfing. The Island Team finished the day in 4th place with James and Johnny both winning their heats.
On the Sunday the boys had all drawn the Island on their boards, very proud to be representing the Isle of Wight. Later some of them even had the names of Island breaks and their postcode on their boards.
The day started much smaller than the Saturday. Doug was first up again and got two waves scores early on.
There started to be a bit of a wait between the larger sets and you could see the frustration on faces as contestants looked for the best waves.
As Johnny paddled out a nice set came through just before they blew the horn then it seeemd to go flat for about 10 mins. I even started photographing Rock Pipits and a Cormorant, at which point I realised that if I had time to photograph wildlife during Johnny’s heat then he must be so frustrated. A few waves came through towards the end of the heat and he ripped them all the way to the beach. Typically just after the horn went a great set came through and you could see the frustration all the competitors faces in that heat.
It finished a very close thing between Croyde A Team and the Isle of Wight and after the event the conversations were all about how they lost the 3 points or how they could have gained those three points if only….. until someone said ‘so where are we going to surf now’ and it all changed to the where the next surf destination was to be. It was agreed on Sandymouth and within minutes cars were packed and they were on their way.
Surf’s Up with IW History on Film
‘Surf’s Up with IW History on Film’ by The Isle of Wight County Press