Australia suffered from none of the angst and stagnation that marked the California surf scene during the first half of the 1970s. Just the opposite, in fact. Aussie surfers had already left the rest of the world behind in the small- and medium-sized waves that were the focus of the shortboard revolution. Now the nation was looking to put an even broader imprimatur on the sport. “Soul surfing” was the sport’s hip new wave-riding ideal, and for awhile the Australians—some of them, anyway—out-s...
Chapter 5:
Barefoot Revolution
- Revolution is not a Dinner Party /
- The Tao of George /
- Getting Slippery with Bob McTavish /
- Bismarck with a Tan /
- Plastic Machine /
- Enlightenment at Honolua Bay /
- Panic on the Showroom Floor /
- Style Takes a Dive /
- Everybody Must Get Stoned /
- Surfer Goes Electrical Bananas /
- No Contest /
- There Will be Slaps /
- Kook Straps, Cadillacs, and Sex Wax /
- Blame it on the Boogie /
- Country Soul /
- Higher and Brighter with Alby Falzon /
- Fresh Blood on the Newsstand /
- Long Road to Bells Beach /
- Speed Freaks /
- Gods of Thunder /
- The Rubberman Cometh /
- The Impossible Wave /
- Into the Vortex /
- Gerry Lopez, Pipeline Firewalker /
Country Soul
Energized by his rebirth as a bare-handed agrarian surfer, Nat Young chopped wood for the stove, cleared brush, built a solar-heated shower, grew a magnificent beard, and decorated the inside of his minibus with a poster of Meher Baba, his favorite Indian mystic.