Only 113 Days and 7 Hours To Go Until GoldCoast Oceanfest 2012... RT @atephoald: Looking forward to @Oceanfest this year, now the sun's out I am more excited :) (21 February 2012 10:39 am) RT @Molliee_Lewis: Bring on @benhowardmusic can't wait to see you at @Oceanfest (21 February 2012 10:31 am) RT @KathyyLarc_x: i think i should buy my @Oceanfest ticket already!! (21 February 2012 10:31 am) Passing a Starbucks? Pop in + grab their pick of the week free itunes download "Old Pine" by @benhowardmusic our headline act! (18 February 2012 1:10 pm) RT @Demelzaaa: cannot wait to see the amazzzzzzing @benhowardmusic at @Oceanfest ♥ (17 February 2012 11:55 am) Our History
A very long time ago in the mid-seventies, two young brothers, Shaun and Warren Latham lived to surf and sk8. Coming from Westville, just inland on South Africa’s KwaZulu Natal coast, the groms used to take advantage of their uncle’s flat at Snake Park on the beachfront in Durban, spending the entire school holidays surfing from dawn till dusk along the ‘Golden Mile’. A suncrested dawnie at Rockpiles or Bay Bowl, followed by midmorning session at the Dairy Bowl, Wedge or Tramps. Back at the ‘Bay of Plenty’, under the shadow of the Gunston 500 Tower, they’d watch the ‘overseas’ surfers’ who had come to take on local hotties Shaun Tomson, Kevin Todd, Mike Esposito, Gavin Rudolph, Peers Pittard, Jonathan Paarman, not forgetting JJ! It was so inspirational – pure stoke!
This was ‘DogTown’ – Durban style, with Donna Summer’s ‘Love to Love you Baby’ dominating the airwaves alfresco and sticky rollersport wheels on hot tar. Not even the park keepers at the amphitheatre could spoil our world. Life was easy, the days were long and if you’ve ever seen Harry Hodge’s film debut ‘Band on the Run’ you can almost smell that same sweet warm aroma of Mrs Dantes’ milkshake parlour, mixed with the heady elixirs on Durbans ‘sea breeze’. Occassionally, they’d spot Dane Kealoha and Dennis Pang near the Cuban Hat, or spy a young Cheyne Horan after a quick game of airhockey in Newtons, before heading up to the Windemere cafe’ to stock up on Super-Moos, Surfers Delight (crisps poured into the gouged hole of a quarter loaf of warm white bread), samoosas and coconut cakes. Good old Prop Fremos – we loved you and you loved our money. But, hey, kids will still be kids and seagulls will always swoop for a free meal.
Through all the years as groms, livin’ the Gunston 500 – so consummately organized and promoted by the legendary Peter Burness (now The Mr. Price Pro – one of the World’s oldest surfing competitions), little did the Latham boys know how deep it would engulf their subconscience. For, it wasn’t until nearly twenty years later, after they had grown up, been educated and served conscription both as commissioned infantry officers under the old regime in South Africa, then emigrated to the UK, that a search for their surf roots began to manifest themselves. Both brothers worked in professional capacities in London for about a decade. Both now married with young families. After extensive foreign travels and a few sorties back to the land of their birth, Shaun and Warren decided on making England their home, with one proviso… gotta move ‘lock, stock and barrel” to the coast!
Left: George Thompson – Whale back, Bay of Plenty.
An inspirational picture.
After a few years in business together, running a design and marketing agency in Hertfordshire, servicing a London client base, UrbanSafari Productions (est. 1994) moved to Braunton in North Devon in 1996, citing the area as probably the closest place in England to replicating their carefree adolescent days back in Durban.
Thanks to the positive support of fellow Durbanites, Gus and Ross Thomson, who were doing their Tok thing with a, then infant, SaltRock brand, they had arrived in the land of milk and creamed honey. Now back in the water, although not quite surfing as well as they’d remembered, but still stoked with the glide, the bros’ were happily ensconsed in a lifestyle they could equate to; raising young families, with very supportive wives and doing something they loved back next to the ocean. Developing their business in the tight surf community in North Devon was not always easy. Warren (below) and Shaun (right) have worked with a broad client base locally from Organic farmers such as Heal Farm and Higher Hacknell, to Chimans Spices and The Chocolate Society. An early haunt was the Broomhill Art Hotel in Muddiford, where owners Rinus and Aniet van der Sande not only have become solid clients, but great family friends too.
On the surf scene SaltRock, Tiki, LeSport, Hunter, Quiksilver Boardriders and Alder all employed the creative and marketing services that USP as the Mac Wizzards continued to build their local reputation. During this time USP were responsible for ensuring SaltRocks’ exposure and marketing prowess was extended and maximised when SaltRock signed as the sponsor of the 97 Euro’s in Bundoran, Ireland. A fantastic experience with great people. The memories were hazy due to the copious amounts of Guinness one is forced to consume, but the mission was accomplished and the foundation for the brand had been further enhanced.
Always keen to initiate fresh impetus and, at times, a little ahead of the game, USP are to be credited with launching London’s first surf, sk8, sno restaurant in Covent Garden in 1998. Lombokwok was designed, marketed and launched by USP on behalf of a London Plc and brought to the capital a unique blend of Thai Cusine, with eclectic music and extreme sports action on large format TV screens smack bang in the middle of the Thomas Neil centre of Covent Garden. Sadly, the wave that brought the momentous impact of the board culture into the mainstream, something that many of London’s Ad Execs seemed to have all kooked into now, had not reached far enough back then.
The time had arrived to cut the umbilical cord of London and create something locally without the constraints of client ownership, extensive travel and time consuming commitments on behalf of someone else’s future wealth. Thus, the Oceanfest vision was born as the means around which USP would showcase its creative and dynamic abilities as an agency.
