Jack Johnson seems to get a lot of stick in the British surfing community.
Throughout my years in the ‘surf scene’ many have scorned his music, seemingly because they associate it with the great surf cliché of ukulele’s, activism and neo-Buddhist values. Even in surf magazine articles he is used as an associative example of cliché. And a few cliquey locals I have known (guys about as local as you can get), from different areas and social groups have made comments and groans when my ipod shuffles to a bit of Jack.

This, to me, is an unnecessary slight on a very talented man.

And that kind of attitude is exactly what creates the dreaded cliché in our culture. In between dreams was the soundtrack to my summer long before I started surfing (I was a latecomer), and once I did start I certainly didn’t go out and buy boardshorts, sunglasses and a branded hoodie, and start calling everyone dude…
Although I know a few who have committed this sin and have become apt at spotting those with ‘all the gear and no idea’, as they say.

Or is that not ‘cool’ to say anymore?

The only thing that changed about me when I started surfing is that I have been happier.
Along the way my goals have changed somewhat to accommodate my relatively new passion, but I was never going to leave the coast. I was born here after all and have lived within walking distance of the ocean all my life.

So, I like what I like and everyone else can go do one.
And that’s the way it should be.

As soon as you begin rejecting a pleasure like music for fear of being associated with a cliché, you become the cliché.
None of these people I have spoken to have ever denied that Mr. Johnson is talented, or that they personally dislike his music. They often became very vague after that admission. I call this The Sheeple effect.
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When people become sheeple.

God forbid we become associated with the thing we have devoted our lives to. If that were the case then we wouldn’t buy the brands, or indulge in the fashion, or say dude and sick and all the other identifying colloquialisms that we would never have encountered on our grey and frigid isle, had it not been for surfing and the culture that came with it.
As humans we seek identity. We want to be part of something. If there is a high proportion of people who like the same things as you do, that just means you’re normal.

If you want to kill puppies and have appalling personal hygiene, you’re not.

Taboo and socially abhorrent I can understand, but denying yourself the pleasure of some easy tunes because you don’t want to be put into a ‘category’ (while wearing your billabong hoodie, beads and long blonde curls, you philistine), is all just a little ridiculous, and as I mentioned earlier, a cliché in itself.
I’m worried that our own home grown, salty super-star; Ben Howard may go the same way. And that would be a travesty.
So don’t knock Jack Johnson. Buy Nalu beads if you like them. Ride a fish and go retro. Get a VW camper or save the whales.

Do it because you like it, because you find it interesting and fulfilling.

Everyone else can go do one.

Words by Josef Williams

Editor: GSUK