Richard Perkins boofing 10ft pole on Manns Creek.
Boof and Destroy is a collective of like-minded kayakers from Fayetteville, West Virginia who banded together to create an alternative media source. We live in cabins and out of cars along the New River Gorge throughout the year. Our hunger for whitewater stems from the morale of the generations of video boaters who came before us; this counterculture helped to shape our style of boating and media. Fayetteville offers us multiple world-class whitewater outlets and provides us with the setting to film all types of kayaking. Our quality rivers, tight knit group of paddlers, and the amazing support of the community provides us with the resources to make the B/D feed happen.
Before Boof and Destroy created whitewater media, Josh Collins, Corey Lilly, and Perfecto (Tig) Dacal were young West Virginia rippers jamming punk rock, skiing around the local resort, jumping over ropes and being chased by ski patrol. Undeterred, we enveloped ourselves in throwing down on the two planks. A serendipitous friendship formed with some older video boaters working at the ski resort and eventually we acquired some beater gear from them, busted out a few rolls, and then lucked into the video boating gig at a young age.
Meanwhile Paul Griffin was making the move from his native land of Ireland to pursue school and kayaking in the United States. He scored a video boating gig in the summer of 2011 and decided to stay in the area. Richard Perkins on the other hand has actually been video boating in the W.V. rafting industry almost his entire life, getting paid for river labor before he was of legal age to work. Steve Marangi traveled from his home in the Northeast U.S. and found himself in the Southern W.V. boating scene during the 2011 rafting season where he linked up with Lilly and crew and began firing up the local goods. We six individuals comprise the group that keeps the feed afloat but by no means are we the only influential contributors. Many other local kayakers such as Charlie Watt, Shane Groves, Gus Willis, Pat Mullins, Barney Bonito, Marcus Babbs, Peyton Love, Zach Shelly, John Moore, and Caleb Adams are all a part of the feed.
Once we began video boating in 2011 we quickly realized how rad the scene was. Trained by video boater gurus John Cornwell, Marcus Babbs, and Peyton Love, we quickly learned the rules of the job: Bring sunglasses, don’t forget your camera, have 2 lighters, and don’t swim. Over the next five years we created rafting films and kayaked 200+ days a year. The crew began firing up some big shit while getting creative in the playboats and so the ideas and integrity of Boof and Destroy began to form. In the local rafting industry we, the new generation of video boaters, acquired the name “Surfer Punks”. We’re not sure who first called us that but it is believed to be Peyton Love. The name fit because we were consistently found skipping our river trips lunch to go have surf sessions.
The opportunity to kayak every day as a job with a camera in hand allowed for the B/D Entertainment Feed to naturally begin. We had so much footage of the crew throwing down and nothing to do with the film. During work one morning at a daily “safety meeting” on the rocks, Lilly proposed the idea of the feed and the rest of the Surfer Punks chimed in. Boof and Destroy fell into place and we all started compiling our media under the single name.
The Colorado tour this summer added an enormous momentum boost to the crew as a huge group of Boof and Destroy Fayetteville shit runners rallied west for the spring melt including Josh Collins, John Moore, Corey Lilly, Shane Groves, Caleb Adams, Steve Marangi, Richard Perkins, and Paul Griffin. We filmed and shot photos quite often and the feed began to take off. As the trip ended and the momentum carried over into the W.V. summer floods, multiple Mann’s creek runs and 20,000+ cfs Upper Gauley laps took place. Gauley season quickly rolled around and we took the feed a step further as we have just released our 2015 Gauley Season short edit on our Vimeo channel.
B/D Entertainment Feed has been in operation for about 5 or 6 months now. Our Facebook and Vimeo pages are active but we are primarily known for our Instagram feed (@BOOF_AND_DESTROY). The feed took off on Instagram and people seemed to dig it.
The majority of the new age kayaking media, although badass in its own right, is monotone, too similar to one another and does not showcase the style of kayak media we want to see. We had always really liked the Falling Down videos by B.J. and Katie Johnson and really related to the raw and hardcore character of their films. Demshitz also creates some killer work— those guys are rad and have drawn in an awesome community of support.
We hope to create great work like the Johnsons and Demshitz but in our own creative integrity and style. We are stoked to generate a new style of kayak porn and have some special ideas in the works.
We owe everything to the community of Fayetteville, all of the Southern WV kayakers, and video boaters before us— the local legends we chase around such as John “The Mayor” Moore, Shane Groves, Peyton Love, and the many other Fayetteville shit runners who got us up to the class V speed over the years. We also owe a lot to Barney Bonito and Ken Kruger for continuing to give us surfer punks the best job in the world: video boating. Another big thank you to all who support and follow our feed. We are forever grateful.
B/D Entertainment Feed’s future plan is to kayak. Period. And film as much of it as we can. We are no heroes or legends and what we do really isn’t any great tribute to humanity. But maybe we can help you with your mid-week whitewater cravings at work through our videos or help get you stoked before you go fire the shit up. People may dig our stuff but it’s not like we are delivering babies, we are just making kayaking videos. Kayaking is the best waste of time but we’ll boat ‘til we’re dead or be dead ‘til we boat. One Love, one river to all the whitewater fiends trying to get their fix. Say hello to us on the river! Boat on Dirt Bag Paddlers!
Some links and photos of B/D entertainment feed.
2015 Gauley Season short edit:
BOOF REEL EPISODES:
Josh Cunard put in kickflip:
Corey kickflip off of Kanawha Falls:
Paul at Bouncy Betting on Manns Creek:
Josh Macho Man:
Paul Switch Freewheel:
Josh Surprise Kickflip:
Corey downriver kickflip combo:
Paul Splat combo:
Corey, Paul, and Josh Manns creek lap:
PHOTOS:
Photo 1. B/D crew on the last U.S. Wavesport tour. Shane Groves was captain of the rig as the rest of the boys tagged along.
Photo 5. Shane Groves Boofing the First waterfall on Vallecito Creek during the CO tour.
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