John Witzig elbowed his way to the US surf world's attention in 1967 as the flame-throwing author of "We're Tops Now." Published in SURFER just after the 1966 World Championships, a justifiably pissed-off Witzig called out the American surf media for not giving proper attention to winner Nat Young, and Australian surfing in general.

Three years later, Witzig, along with filmmaker Alby Falzon and writer-editor David Elfick, were huddled up in Sydney, about to launch a new kind of surf publication; something that would look at the sport with a broader perspective than magazines like SURFER. Politics, the environment, nutrition—these things and more would be in play. "Tracks" was the name Witzig came up with.

I emailed Witzig a few questions about the magazine's early days, and he not only got right back to me but sent this gem of a photo, above (taken by Rusty Miller), of himself and Alby Falzon suavely powering out one of the early issues. Homemade work desks! Portable typewriter! The smallest of filing cabinets! Tracks went on to become an Australian surf-world institution every bit as original as Witzig himself.

What made you, Alby and David decide to go into the mag biz in the first place? Who was driving the project?

I was editing a magazine called Surf International and I got sacked; this was early 1970, around there. Alby was working on Surfing World for Bob Evans. I needed something to do to earn a bit of money; I was making my way through university at a leisurely pace, doing a year-on, year-off sort of thing. I’d thought about a tabloid-style magazine and suggested to Alby that we combine forces and do it. David came on board then—he was the Sydney editor of a pop music magazine called Go Set. The idea was mine, but Alby had a movie in mind [

] and needed a vehicle to promote it. David was hugely enthusiastic and had actual magazine-business experience—of which Alby and I had none.

How did you guys divvy up the workload those first few issues?

Alby and I just shared the tasks for the first issues. There was no ‘editor’ as such. That suited me fine.

With Surf International now and then I’d put dotted lines on pictures to show where the surfer had come from and where he was going. We did that on the cover of the first issue of Tracks. The name came from that.

Rolling Stone debuted in 1967, you guys did Tracks three years later. Did RS have an influence on Tracks

Definitely one of the influences, yes. A Californian friend, Garth Murphy, was living up in Byron and he had a subscription. He also got the Whole Earth Catalogue which had an impact. There was another one too, called Earth Times. Apart from the tabloid format, RS ran politics in a music magazine. I figured that we could do the same in a surfing magazine.

At that point were you still sort of pissed off at the American surf media for the whole post-'66 World Titles freeze-out? If so, did the anger extended to American media in general? Or (back to Rolling Stone), did you dig some of it?

Nah, I’d got over that. All the Tracks influences were from the US, in fact. No wait, you can add a magazine called Oz to that list. Oz started in Sydney but had moved to London. We loved that one, too; mainly for graphics, but also the fuck-you attitude.

I lasted about two years. I liked the way that Alby and I were sharing the work, but I was still intent on going to university, so the idea of a full-time job didn’t appeal to me.

Did Tracks turn a profit in those early days?

Sales of the first issue would’ve stopped us dead, but we didn’t actually know how few copies we’d sold. We did realize that our small independent distributor (chosen for philosophic reasons I’m sure) was incompetent, and went cap-in-hand to Australian Consolidated Press, one of the country's publishing giants (who we continued to mock), and we must’ve amused them because they took on the distribution.

Tell me a little about the Tracks space, and what the work schedule was like.

The first issue was done in the house I was living in at Whale Beach in Sydney. I only had one drawing board so how we managed the layout I don’t know. I remember that Alby and I often worked right through the night. Quite quickly we moved up the hill to a room under the house where Alby was living. Rudimentary doesn’t quite describe it.

IN THE BEGINNING: JOHN WITZIG AND TRACKS MAGAZINE

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