Chewy Cannon. Slept On
August 01, 2007 @ 1:55 PM
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Great Yarmouth is a place apart. The seaside town lies far to the east of England, across the endless empty flatlands of East Anglia. Unemployment runs high here, alongside teenage pregnancy and all the other social indicators of a lost and unloved people. Although no-one but Morrissey knows the true identity of ‘ the coastal town that they forgot to close down’, if it wasn’t Great Yarmouth it was somewhere very similar.
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Not, as you might imagine, ideal skateboarding country- which makes the Chewy Cannon story all the more remarkable. Of all the surprises in Blueprint’s last video offering Lost and Found, Chewy was surely the most profound and extended. His skills on a skateboard are not only a different level, they are also a different variety. Tricks no-one has thought of, executed like an afterthought. Not just technical, but inventive and exciting. The question is: where did this approach come from- and where is it headed?
“ I started when I was fifteen, so almost ten years ago now. My old man got me this ‘One Earth/ One World’ board from a fishing tackle shop. Proper hardcore steez, before they were in Argos. The scene in Great Yarmouth then was five people. Greg King- the Guru- was my main influence. Without him I wouldn’t still be skating. Greg is out filming in Barcelona now, still skating- but the others, gone. Drugs, drinking- seaside town boredom, basically. Once you hit sixteen, you’re out on the piss. There’s not a lot Great about Great Yarmouth.”
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Chewy’s sponsorship story runs a bit like this: his mate Greg made scene videos. You know the sort- 6 crap sections, loads of pissing about, and then a little nugget of gold glimmering in there. Just a suggestion of something unpolished but brimming with potential. His shop sponsor, the now- defunct Norwich shop Hoax, sent the video’s up the skateboarding food chain until they were doing the rounds in London, where Chewy’s bit came to the attention of Blueprint’s Dan Magee.
As Magee reflects: “ It was kind of eye catching because Chewy is from literally the arse- end of nowhere, there’s just barely anything to skate. When you see that part its not necessarily mind blowing, but you can spot little things in the way he does tricks or the lines really flow or he does the odd tech thing...but it really stands out because he is doing this stuff on the worst spots, they kind of made something out of nothing- to speak.”
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It is said that Flip svengali Jeremy Fox assesses skateboarding talent by taking the rider to battered old ‘70s parks, the logic being that if you can ride that you can ride anything; and so it seems to have followed for Chewy that the Catholic School in his hometown ("two plastic benches- that’s it") gave him a grounding in the basics of skateboarding that have allowed his ability to just explode as better opportunities and better terrain came his way. But it was never that straightforward- his first forays into faraway London left a bad taste in his mouth:
“ The first few times he came to London he was totally a fish out of water.” says Magee “For a while, the Tubes, the attitude of Londoners and the general rush of London made him visibly uncomfortable, you could tell.”
In fact it was only his girlfriend’s encouragement and advice that kept Chewy from packing it all in and leaving the big smoke for small town life and big smoking.
“I had to get out of there, man. I was always a bit of a hometown boy, I never wanted to venture too far, especially not to London because its a bit hectic. My girlfriend knew I had to be here to further myself.”
So instead, he decided to give his opportunity a serious roll of the dice- travelling, getting coverage as and where he could, and filming hard for upcoming video projects of both the board and shoe variety.
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Would he jump in with both feet and go to America like his mate from down the coast, Bennie Fairfax?
“ I don’t really know about that-I’d like to go to the States because I love travelling anyway, but I don’t know if I could handle living there. I need to be in England, its more me. That’s why Blueprint is the ideal company for me; I’d never want to ride for anybody else.”
And there, I suppose, you have the essence of the lad: talented but not pushy, keen but not desperate. Where does that leave his future?
“ My girlfriend is studying two languages- she wants to be an interpreter, so I can see myself ending up somewhere nice- like Spain.
There’s no concrete plan, though- but that’s always been my steez- freewheeling, you know?”
Chewy rides for Blueprint, Matix
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