James Turvey: Skate Mag Collector
James Turvey is the man. And as overused as that saying is, I don’t know how else to describe him. He is who I want to be when I grow up.
He collects Australian print media and is on a mission to own every single Australian publication ever published, even small local zines (hit him up if you’ve made or have anything). He even publishes his own zine, Sprawlers, that showcases the Newcastle skate scene, and a new issue is set to come out very soon. He is a published author, with short stories being published in many literary journals, and his book of short stories, Since Asbestos, was published in 2017. Currently, James manages a bookstore in his home of Newcastle and is three years into getting his Ph.D. in creative writing. Among everything else he is doing, he curated an exhibition for the Newcastle Museum called, Shralp, which explored Newcastle Skateboarding from 1985 to 2022 through Australian print media. As you read this, he is working on a book that documents the history of skateboarding in print in Australia, starting from pre-skate magazines to now. I spoke to him to get the inside scoop about the book.
Photo: Brendan Frost
You’re currently working on a book. What’s it about?
It’s a history of skateboarding in print in Australia. Starting off pre-skateboarding magazines. The first representation of a skateboard in an Australian publication was in Women’s Weekly in 1964, and it was a CSR Sugar ad. It just had a kid on a skateboard, and it just broke down why you need sugar in your day for energy. The next one was in Popular Mechanics in 1965, and the article in it was an American article about skateboarding, but this was the Australian issue of the magazine. Then skateboarding got into surf magazines around 1966, but it doesn’t get its own magazine until 1975. This American surfer who lived in the Northern Beaches in Sydney, Thor Svenson, had a magazine called Skateboard – Australia’s First Skateboard Magazine. The guy, Thor, was like this weird guy that was in charge of the surf associations in the Northern Beaches. He was from San Diego, but he was run out of town there because he was allegedly a pedophile. Then he moved here and started all these surfing associations. Also, you know how there is footage of people bombing a hill for a Coca-Cola competition in the 70s in the Forever Young video? He organised all of that. I’ve been doing research on him; he’s dead now, but all these older surfers and skaters from the Northern Beaches who are in their 50s now are implying that he was a pedophile. It is so gnarly that the country’s first skateboarding magazine was by this dodgy dude.
What was the next magazine that existed and had more than a single issue?
Slicks, a magazine by this guy, Michael, who I interviewed and is a lovely guy. Slicks came out in 1976 and had three issues. It was a broadsheet newspaper; it was huge. It’s a big paper. The very next one was in 1984 and is called Perfect Transition, which was out of the outer suburbs of Melbourne. I just interviewed both of the guys. One of them is Dave Ross, who was in some seminal hardcore bands in Australia. He was in this one called Vicious Circle. I organised to do a zoom call with them together, and I had thought they had been in touch this entire time; they were vibing off each other it was really good, a great interview for the book. Then they were like, ‘You have to realise that none of this is planned, and we haven’t spoken to each other since 1986’. After they started Perfect Transition, Dave Ross was involved in the first five issues and then goes overseas touring with bands. Then this dude Paul AKA Poz, who is famous in the old school Melbourne scene for doing a bunch of stuff and he kept Perfect Transition going for 13 more issues.
The first issue was a zine that was photocopied, Dave Ross worked at a Westpac bank and stayed back after hours and made 200 copies on the bank’s printer in 1984. Then for the next issues Poz, he was an apprentice printer and worked in a print shop. He would leave one of the sliding windows of the print shop open, and at night they would go in and break in and use all the printing supplies to make a proper magazine that was distributed by news agencies. They made a proper magazine for free, illegally, and you could buy it around the country. I was laughing so much; it was just a great story. He also made a bunch of stickers for the skateboard companies in Melbourne in the 80s, in the same way.
That is crazy. How many of the people how you’ve interviewed are still involved in skating or are skating themselves?
It’s crazy, a lot of them are involved in skateboarding in one way or another, even if they’re collecting boards on Facebook groups. A lot of those guys go to old-school skate jams and stuff, too. I always thought of so many older skaters as being a bit bitter about not making it in skating. But none of those guys are like that; it’s probably because if you were one of the people who started your own magazine or zine and contribute something else back to your scene, you probably wouldn’t be the same person who would be bitter about not making it as a pro skater.
Do you have a goal of how much you want to collect?
I want every Australian skate publication. Which sounds crazy because there are kids in Ballarat or in Bourke who have made their own zines. But I want those. Even if it is just a black-and-white thing that they did on their school printer. I want that.
What is your favourite Australian publication of all time?
Even though it was a catalogue for Hardcore Distribution, Street Noise was so fucking sick. The name is so good. It was cool. Dave Walshe, who was the photographer and editor, was amazing. Mike O’Meally starts being in that, taking photos and photos of him skating. Slam too, but during a certain period, the Andrew Currie and Mike O’Meally combo of Slam, it was untouchable. At the time, Australia was world-class, as far as the magazine goes. When they were doing it, it was basically like Slap.
Do you follow what Lookback Library is doing? He seems like he’s on a similar wavelength to you.
Yeah! He is one of my biggest influences. I have always been collecting magazines and zines especially, and I’ve always had this idea to create this book. But he made me realise it was possible.
Not to get too philosophical, but there is something really nice about people who are that passionate about things, because there is so much pressure on people in this day in age to have a career and focus on what’s expected of them. Getting older myself and having a family, I know that pressure. I had a real career. I worked in the library at the university. Now, I’ve stopped doing that to go back and study and start doing all this stuff. Sometimes it feels frivolous to be doing all this. Lookback has a passion which is something people need; it’s refreshing and inspiring seeing how much he cares and how stoked people get. Even anyone who works in print media, anyone making magazines. Anybody who is keeping print alive. I get jazzed on it. I just think it’s so sick.
For sure. I think having that passion is so important. Is there something about collecting magazines that you think the average person may not even think about?
I guess I feel this funny responsibility to preserve this stuff. I see magazines on eBay that I may have copies of and, if I have the money, I’ll buy them because I think, What if there are only three copies of that left? What if the person selling it is just trying to downsize and they aren’t a collector, just selling a magazine for six bucks, and if it doesn’t sell, they’ll just put it in the recycling bin? Another thing I’ve realised as I’ve been doing this is there are people that don’t even have copies of their own things. It’s nice if you have doubles of things to be able to reach out to people and give them copies. People even message me, saying, ‘I had a photo in a Slam in 2001; this was on the cover. I don’t have a copy. Do you have it?’ and I can scan it and send it to them. It’s nice being able to do that.
How important do you think it is to preserve history?
All history is important. I am not someone who is stuck in the past, but for now and for progress it is important. Even if it is something like someone who wants to know about an ABD. To know what has been done. You can even look at it like this: local governments don’t go and take bi-monthly photos of their streets. You can’t go to a council and be like I want a photo of this handrail on the main street in 1994 and again in 1999. You can look through old mags and find photos of almost every part of the inner city of Sydney that Aaron Brown or Mike O’Meally took, and you can go, ‘This building is gone.’ There was no Google Maps or anything at that time. Skateboarding is accidentally recording this history. Magazines also have interviews with people, so you can see how people spoke, the slang, and what was going on culturally at the time. You can see the fashion, the graphic design and what products were being made. In the background, you can see what cars people were driving, what street fashion was like, what graffiti was like, and what new architecture was popping up. Magazines encapsulate what is exactly going on at the time. They are like tiny little dated time capsules.
Jim Front Nose. Photo: Ty Neilson
That is such a great way to put it. I had never even thought about it in that way.
Yeah, its something people dont really think about. But there is nothing else like it that captures time so authentically. The guerrilla style of shooting skateboarding, means the backgrounds are accurate and real, because due to the very nature of skateboarding itself anything else is cheating.
It’s true. It was a pleasure speaking to you.
Thanks mate, you too.