Monkey climber is a one man concept run by a guy called Gio. No intro needed, the boy has carved his own path, and in some ways hot steps some of the current UK scene, leaving his mark for others to follow in his slip stream. The brand has grown from the magazine, into a fully fledged business covering all manner of products and collaborations, but always with an underground edge to what he does.
We have a divide in angling, with carp anglers separate from coarse fisherman. The match scene has its own thing going on, with game anglers still slightly turning their noses up to all other divisions of the sport. Traditionalists rarely mix with the modern game…tweed and carbon are like ying & yang, and it’s just another display of human nature, that tribalistic instinct to remain in groups like primates to strength your clan, and this is where Swanshot sits between both the old and new worlds. Not everything has to be in a box to define itself, maybe it helps the algorithm’s to streamline us all into a narrow bandwidth. You’ve seen it, click on a particular theme, then your in-feed is guided in that direction……screw that!
Nature favours diversity, so staying true to a cause may not be conducive to social likes, but that’s where we couldn’t give a flying toss ……passion is where it’s at for us.
Where am I going with all this? Well Gio has done just that. He has followed his head and heart, and is one of the very few who has managed to keep his roots embedded in the old school scene of carp fishing, while walking the tightrope edge of the modern game…….that’s no easy task.
Maybe this is an age thing, being brought up in a moment in time that teetered on the edge of change, a crossover from the past to the present, and certainly that’s the case for ourselves in the early 90s. It was a magical transition and advancement in the angling world, a line we are trying to tread that has meaning from both sides of the fence.
Gio had the idea of mashing up “Killing In The Name Of“….. which was an album title from “Rage Against The Machine” He wanted to twist it to “Chilling In The Name Of” and splice some artwork into the piece for the mag. It’s a crazy concept, and it was obvious he loved the maverick vibe of Zack De La Rocha, lead vocalist of the band, with the “chilling” “being the connection to time on the bank.
I chewed the fat, but felt it would go over most anglers heads, so I started digging a little more to find a thread I could intertwine to make it a little more relevant. I came across a mega B&W shot of Zack with a camera in his hand, and thought about linking it with angling by putting another G.O.A.T as a reflection in the camera lens……it could only be Tel! I made a call, to make sure he was cool with me doing so before going ahead, and after getting the nod, I set about putting the piece together. It’s a nod from two legends from different worlds paying each other homage, and I sort of liked the fresh vibe it brought to the table.
De La Rocha was monstered up a bit, giving him oversized demonic hands, and other sinister elements if you look closely.
There’s a fair bit happening in that drawing if you look past the first glance, and I added a few words about my own angling to sit alongside the artwork.
I posted the original drawing as a gift to Gio after completion, and in true European style the fooking thing went missing. I thought it was long gone, until it arrived back on my doorstep over a month later, with the packaging on the outside a real mess, but the contents intact.
So sorry mate, it sits in my drawing room now as if it didn’t want to leave, that beastly stare has grown on me somewhat, and that rye cheeky grin of our Terry can only raise a smile……………long live the mavericks
Words below that featured in the mag.
I slumped low in the chair, out of sight inside the reserve, just me and the wild things to embrace. I watched the Ghost that evening quartering the fields like a silent movie, not a sound as her white silhouette levitated over the marsh ground, a pause, heavy wing beats, then a stoop into the long grasses to claim her prize, a vole or mouse clamped tight in those talons would satisfy her hunger this evening.
I glanced back at the Neville’s as silent as the owl, but I was just as content as her, knowing that it was always about the escapism, just any excuse to be unshackled from the constraints of a modern world. Life is tough in the big city, time is money, so any justification to sit and do nothing, is not even an option for the urban man.
But in this world, in my world…..
I’m free.
Mr E