Swell Season Surf Radio

Host and producer David Scales sits down with us to discuss how he went from selling wine to being kingpin of surf podcasting, how the audio genre is grown within a visually driven, and whether LA traffic was worth the one-on-one with Mick Fanning. David also challenges New Yorkers Tyler and Ben to defend East Coast pizza. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/swell-...

Filmmakers Lincoln Caplice and Stefan Hunt messed around with cameras together as kids. They now have real deal grown-up careers in art and film. Stefan made waves in 2006 when he filmed his journey surfing all 50 states across the U.S, and more recently, has explored how we understand our demise in his immersive project "We're all Going to Die". Lincoln cut his teeth early with film legend Taylor...

Creative Director Matthew McGregor Mento has ridden almost every possible design of water craft from long boards to knee high paipos to his favorite, belly boards from England. Matt argues why we should ditch our boring thrusters and fish for equipment that is more fun, easier to handle and magic for your wave count. Also, in the show Ben shares his afternoon liberating a private NJ beach and Tyle...

When we invited our guest Matt L. Roar of IG's @matsurfingsocietyofny our intent was to learn about the nuances of getting majorly barreled on an inflation device that looks like a pillow. We got all that but we were not expecting our guest to share his life of non-stop creative output most recently with the band Golden West Service, his lines of poetry and a forthcoming book that deals with frien...

Asbury Park shaper Jon Oppito of Rozbern and TrimCraft Surf designs boards with the steep barrels of his native Jersey in mind. In the second half of our live show at Asbury Park Yacht Club organized by Headland Collective Oppito reveals how winter storms and local sandbars influence his shapes. We learn about the consumer shift away from high performance and why surfers always over sell their abi...

As early as she can remember Jianca Lazarus saw the world as if through the lens of a camera. Just as soon as got one in her hands Jianca jumped into a decades long career documenting the extremes of the natural world and human experience. At a live taping at Asbury Park Yacht Club the Changing Tides Foundation co-founder brings us into the intimacy of documenting sailer-adventurer Liz Clark one-o...

Christopher Clark is a shaper who understood that the rest of us also wanted to get our hands on a planer. We speak to Chris about his company Shaper Studios which offers workshops on board design and craft all the while creating community in cities around the world. We get into the challenges of making a buck in the board business, why Vancouver (six hours and a ferry away from surf) was the perf...

Jonathan Alcock is a high end wood furniture maker who took a busman's holiday to learn how to build a wooden surfboard. Matthew Schenning is an artist who found a surf school foamie in the trash and hacked a swallow tail in it, painted the NASA worm logo it and vowed to tinker with it until the foam can't be surfed. They both presented their creations at last month's It Doesn't Not Work Design Sy...

Kevin Miller co-founder and director of the Florida Surf Film Festival talks about why mounting an annual and quarterly non-profit film fest is best done when you are a CPA. The film fest is one of the sport's best and the line-up of jurists is a whose-who in surf journalism. Kevin tells us why he loves the Shorts and is excited about the the Zimbalist brothers' (ESPN's 30 for 30) ode to 90s surf...

Jen Poyant was winning at New York Public Radio. She was Executive Producer of WNYC Studios and launched the hit shows "2 Dope Queens" and "Note to Self". After the institution fell into its own #MeToo scandal and mismanagement the simmering burn to work for herself only became hotter. So like all good start-up founders, Jen and "Note To Self" host Manoush Zomorodi met at Le Pain Quotidian and plo...

Professional shapers and backyard tinkerers took over Rockaway Beach Surf Club last weekend for the 5th Edition of the experimental water craft symposium: It Doesn't Not Work. Swell Season spoke with several designers one on one, including Johnny Borbone and Grace Moon. Tyler and Ben also moderated a panel discussion with Chris Clark of Shapers Studios, Dan O'hara of Solid Surf, and Ron Shine of B...

September 14th-16th Rockaway Beach Surf Club will host the "It Doesn't Not Work" design symposium. In its 5th year, IDNW hosts professional shapers and tinkerers alike to share their most boundary breaking and bizarre water craft creations. We preview the event with forward looking shaper Kyle Black and show organizer and hosts J Scott and Lois Klossner. We also look back to this day 17 years ago...

Co-Host Tyler does the tough duty of broadcasting live from a dance party and film screening at Low Tide Bar at Rockaway Beach, Queens. Guests include Rockaway Beach Bakery owner Tracey Obolsky, Tyler's E.S.A arch-nemesis Peter Egan, local legend Shane Murphy and lifeguard and poke bowl slinger Greg. Also, the stars of the Irish Surf film "Green Means Go" and Long Beach NY's big wave commanders Wi...

Big Wave Surfer Leah Dawson and Big Wave Surfer Attorney Becky Mendoza visited the north coast of the Dominican Republic with a team of other female wave stars who make up the Changing Tides Foundation. The team worked with a group of local girls who attend the Mariposa Foundation, an organization which aims to end generational poverty by educating and empowering young women. The first thing the g...

Scientist and surfer Tyler Cyronack of Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, Ca shares the magic behind the Smartfin: a Future fin loaded with sensors that record water temperature and GPS data. Tyler studies the chemistry of coral reef environments and he looks forward to fellow surfers capturing - while getting shacked - all that hyper-localized data that traditional instruments and t...

Mösco came to NYC in the late 90s as a skater and graffiti artist. Sand in teeth from Zicatela he sought a new home to surf, so he looked at the subway map and saw that the A train went to the beach. Mösco has been making the commute to Rockaway ever since. We talk about his life's pursuit to make the beach cleaner and safer with his work with Surfrider Foundation and his public art. We also discu...

Alex Valich is the host of the Bodega Boarder Crew, a podcast that mixes old school hip hop with modern day surf culture. It’s a fun listen if you ever get a chance to listen to it. Born and bred on the streets of Brooklyn, this 30 something creative director made the move to the west coast some years ago and picked up surfing. As he delved more and more into the culture, he noticed that diversity...

There are 253 miles of shoreline in Connecticut and only seven of them are free and open to the public. Andrew Kahrl Associate Professor of history and African American Studies at University of Virginia brings us the story of Ned Coll who mobilized a multi-decade battle against town residency requirements and other segregating mechanisms along the Connecticut coast which make a day at the beach ex...

Co-host Tyler Breuer nerds out with Nick (last name withheld), the founder of the Instagram account @surfads, which both honors and "takes the piss" out of the bleach tipped, neon glory of 1980's and '90s magazine advertising. The conversation covers how social media has changed how stoke and rad is sold to us and why the 90s surf culture remains so potent in popular imagination. Music: Hoodoo Gur...

The non-profit A Walk On Water brings individuals with disabilities to the beach with their families for a day of surf, fun and celebration. Volunteer staff share the joy and healing power of surf and sea with athletes of all ages who may have never believed it possible to glide through the ocean. Garden State winter barrel hero Sam Hammer talks about the obstacle leveling nationwide program in ad...

Right on top of Memorial Day Weekend, the unofficial start to beach season, the NYC Parks Department drops the news that due to extreme erosion it is closing indefinitely the beach between 89th St and 102nd in Rockaway. We speak with Local's Surf School co-owner Mike Reinhardt about the pace of erosion he's seen first-hand and how the closure might affect other businesses on the boardwalk. Our fea...

Teton Gravity Research's latest film, Andy Irons: Kissed by God, is bold in ways you might not expect for a documentary featuring the famously fearless three time world surf champion who died in 2010 at age 32. The documentary goes to a challenging space that many of the bravest in the extreme sports will not go - an open discussion of mental illness and opioid addiction with of its own. Todd Jone...

Mavs, Nazare, Jaws. If it is huge and scary Will Skudin has surfed it. He's one of the elite on the WSL Big Wave World Tour. Will's performance and confidence out in the water is supported by his partner on land, Jenny Hanono. The couple join us in the studio to talk about a relationship around the world, on the water and how balance makes the difference with an extreme sports athlete. Music credi...

Victor Lucia studied fishing culture in college and realized that the NYC fishing community was deep but disconnected. In response he launched Brooklyn Fishing Club in order to connect city anglers and help them get on top of fish. The club, now in the hundreds, has evolved into a take no prisoners crew who patrol the most unexpected fishing ground, like the East River and a lake in Central Park....

On a balmy May Tuesday at Union Pool in Brooklyn, the 2nd annual Clif Bar Cold Shot Challenge awarded cash and prizes to the best photography taken from land, air and sea this winter. The contest started in freezing and dark January and ran through a procession of record size and conditions of blizzards, named winter storms, and Nor' Easters that pounded the the East Coast the first four months of...