zenagain, 1390999801
This was a great article and nice to see a bit behind the man I grew up reading as a young fella.
Bustin' down the Door and the Occy bio are great books that you can pick up and read from any page.
The bit about Harry Wicke was cool. Glad he's found his little alcove in history. Imagine Snapper or Burleigh in the 30's?
brutus, 1391007605
Can't wait to read it..have a lot of respecr for Tim and being a mate of Waynes from the early 70's I think Tim is coming from a clearer perspective,and more balanced......
his initial comments about kanga and the 3 fin ring true as I stayed in the house with him that year..with PT,Wayne dean and John Pawson...so saw it all first hand,but the best surfer a BK that uear over there to the point Kanga bought some bds off him...
shit just realized what and ol feral Fossil I am.....ahhh......great stuff Tim...
and Zen bustin down the door was a good read but did a lot of damage to Aust/Hawaiin relations and was responsible for the term haole being used as a derogatory term........so hopefully Tim might have dealt with that ??
anyhow I wish Tim all the best!
stunet, 1391025840
Here's a short vid Tim made with Harry Wicke, from Australian surfboard champion to Long Bay Gaol because of his German heritage: "I didn't even know what Nazi's were."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRN7mEca6gs&feature=sharecontrol&list=UU1AckQPcXhSSPodx48hiVZQ&index=1
ACB__, 1391031187
Don't forget MP's book... its a cracker.
braithy, 1391031741
One of my favourite writers ever! If he wasn't so into Hawthorn Football Club, he'd be a pretty good bloke too.
bunker-spreckles, 1391036382
Really enjoyed reading the book and it's always good to get a broader perspective. I have spent a lot of time with Wayne Lynch over the last few years - making the film about him - and one of the things he constantly talked about was the importance of Midget Farrelly and Peter Drouyn in Australian surfing history.
Before Makaha Australian surfers were generally treated as kooks and comic relief in American surf films & media - and Midget was the first to break through and gain credibility and respect. Likewise, Peter Drouyn was a massive influence with his 'power' surfing approach - something which later became characteristic of the top Australian surfers…
So well doneTim, and it's great to see some diversity of opinion rather than the views of a monoculture.
Tim Baker, 1391037432
Thanks for the interview Stu and all the comments. Brutus I'd hope BDTD didn't contribute to worsening Australian/Hawaiian relations. The episodes it documents definitely did but hopefully Rab's book helped explain his deep respect for Hawaiian culture and his Hawaiian surfing heroes, and maybe even helped heal a few old wounds. And Braithy leave HFC alone, we are still coping with the loss of Buddy and it's a difficult time for us!
kneepete, 1391042082
Great interview Tim and Stu. I've got a vision of a bespectacled historian, a Matt Warshaw lookalike, seated in front of shelves and shelves of surf magazines making a sombre assessment of surf culture. Something that could be submitted to Anthropology Monthly. He opens the parchment for evidence and it's an ASL circa 1993 with Tubequest roaring across the continent, Tim playing pranks on poor Stuart Bedford Brown, and a purple dildo with arms called ASL Man dishing out poetic advice.
fraser-gordon, 1391043714
Great to read a different take on things.Australia's surfing history is so diverse and interesting and incredibly spread out across all the state's that it could fill 10 book's.Good work Tim.
brutus, 1391045498
Hey Tim you can always commiserate with the Reverend Ted G........and the whole BDTD thing really would be nice if there was just an apology......as you know I lived through it and saw a very dark side...pardon the dark pun......really hurt the Aloha......but we move on..can't wait to read ya book!!
Andrew W, 1391047186
Great article and a great book Tim. I received it as a christmas present from the kids and loved it. It now has pride of place on the coffee table.
blindboy, 1391050663
"One mission I did have, I feel like Australian surfing's cultural continuum had been severed in '56 or just after, when the surfers left the surf clubs. Surfers just disowned their elders and their previous culture and I don't think that's healthy for any culture, to have such a rift. I think a lot of the drug casualties we've seen since have been as a result of that."
Not sure I could agree with that Tim. It may be that different areas had different surf club cultures but my memory of the mid-sixties is that the local clubbie culture was pretty toxic. Booze, porno, boorish and abusive behaviour, minds about as wide as a 9pt i, deliberate placement of the flags for the maximum inconvenience of the local surfing population, running the surfboat through the crowd for a laugh, there was simply nothing there that we could relate to in anyway at all. By comparison we were angels. We smoked a lot of pot and there was some anti-social behaviour but nowhere near what went on in the surf clubs and in my experience just as many clubbies ended up alcoholics as surfers did drug addicts.
Tim Baker, 1391057963
Good points blindboy and i'm not really commenting on the relative merits of surf club culture versus boardriding club culture but just that we lost our lineage along the way. I wanted to learn about guys like Keith "Spaz" Hurst and Harold "Rastus" Evans and those that came before. There's plenty unhealthy about surf club culture but there were great ocean people amongst them that surfers became disconnected from. Like a forest with all the mature trees chopped down, it doesn't make for a healthy human ecosystem.
mickj, 1391059363
And to continue your analogy Tim, those same young saplings of several decades ago are now themselves 'old growth' members of the surfing community, effectively putting us back to where surfing may have been in the 60's (i.e. 3 decades on from the movement's (re)genesis).
Having done all the research, do you think we're doing a better job today of connecting the surfing lineage across generations? My take is whilst we remain pretty youth focused generally, we're improving nonetheless.
And I haven't read the book yet mate but I likely will, collected every episode of ASL from about 91 or 92 (I turned 12 that year) to sometime in the early noughties so know your body of work pretty well! Always been a fan.
Cheers,
Mick
ol55, 1391478860
Interesting
The Link a picture half way down the page on Midgets surfboard site begs the truth??
http://www.farrellysurfboards.com/
Can you answer Please Tim?
Its been told to me by many who have waded through Bobs latest book that he has claimed inventing everything from Vegemite, butter and the bread its on…. What truly innovative design has been ever really been responsible for??
brutus, 1391490367
Interesting stuff ol55.........I am sure though that I invented the pintail in 66 as I had to ride my bike down to the surf dragging my 9 3 mc Donagh....until I wore off each side of the square tail and when I plugged up the worn out edges with Plasti-bond....the pintail as born.......
Midget has some very interesting takes though on the historics.....question though is what was the advancement in hull design with the Simon Anderson thrusters??
blindboy, 1391493452
Going back to the Midget, McTavish issue. Being the first is important but so is inspiration. As a teenager at the time, McTavish's writing was a huge influence on the way I surfed and Witzig's images of Honolua Bay inspired a whole generation. As Midget said, he only ever made one V bottom and it was for small Sydney surf. Keyo must have pumped out hundreds that summer. The vast majority were used in small east coast waves and sparked a period of intense design innovation for several years after as every shaper in Brookvale modified and improved the design to produce an incredible variety of craft.
There are very few people in surfing for whom I have greater admiration than Midget. As well as being a great surfer/shaper, he has been a model of integrity and consistency. That said, self promotion was never his strength so the times required characters like Nat and McTavish. If Midget kicked the process off, the others gave it an impetus that he never could have done. All great characters, all great surfers and contributors to our history. So by all means correct the detail of the history but not by denigrating any of them.
blindboy, 1391493647
Hi brutus if you are seriously interested I will ask him about it. Also if you are ever in Sydney The Powerhouse Museum have an original Thruster on display.
ol55, 1391496122
Thanks blindboy
I was interested because of Bob's rave on the century of surf site ....Lovely pics of Midget with his nice V bottom...
Bob might have made hundreds @ Keyo but in this instance we are talking about where he saw it??
Is that design innovation or capitalising in on someones else's ??
So my original questions remains unanswered as to the innovators own inventions??
Can we get a list?
mehollywood, 1391505573
Re; Midgets website link .
Oh yeah Col Smith was so good . Way ahead of his time . I watched him in a Coke heat out at the Bower and he just ripped the bag out of it. It was solid and he took short board lines while most of the other guys were taking a more big wave line.
I dont know why he didnt win every contest he went in . Must have been that inconsistency that was alluded to on the Midget page .
brutus, 1391526630
Hmm there was a guy named Wayne Lynch who in the 70's world title was actually going verticle up under the lip ,doing back hand re-entrys while all the others like rolf Arness ,Dru Harrison..were doing long speed line....
I was actually there and was blown away by what I saw......as wayne would usually fall on his last reo....and would be penalised for not making the wave....
So Col Smith was a little after WL....
As or the Simon A hull designs,WL was the first to order some,and we made different Hull shapes like our twin fins and went and made Storm Riders at the Bluff and Gnaraloo for a couple of months....I am not sure there were any great advances in the Hull design.....but the thruster set up was insane.....
On another note I was at Patagonia Ventura about 6-7 years ago and a guy showed me photos of thruster type set ups he did in Hawaii in 1973......
I guess there is a fine line between who popularized and who actually was the first....??
ol55, 1391560889
Who popularised and who was first?? a great question brutus....
Saw an interesting film about the guy who actually invented the intermittent wiper for cars... Ford took the design used it in all there cars and it took 25 years before he was legally recognised as the innovator and inventor....Ford sweared blind all that time they did rip it off.
So thats why I wanted an explanation on the picture in the Midget link from the Tim who used the picture in his book?
By its coverage in this article( over 1000 words) its clearly important to the writer ,reader and interviewer.
Further to that in Surfsearch we find the first advertisement for Keyo's plastic machine in Dec 1967 http://www.surfresearch.com.au/mkeyo.html ...
If they made hundreds before then as stated by Bob (century of Surf Facebook)why didn't they advertise them...?
Just because you popularised it does not mean you designed it..
blindboy, 1391565619
I think the evidence presented on the link established that Midget came up with the design. My point is that McTavish, Nat and Wayne Lynch were important precisely because they popularised it. I remember an image of McTavish "flypapering" on a steep wall that completey changed the way I thought about surfing. He also wrote a number of articles that had a clearer vision of where surfing was heading than anyone else was able to articulate. The images of Honolua Bay were incredibly important and inspiring to a whole generation of surfers. So by all means credit Midget for the basic design work but don't under-estimate the roles of Nat , McTavish and perhaps most of all, Wayne Lynch, in taking that and opening our minds to what was now possible.
ol55, 1391568765
Thanks again Blindboy
Its funny how it works...IF the media had promoted Midget doing all those incredible maneuvers as he did do ( look at that bottom turn in this article) then where would our popular belief of history be?
Probably very different from today.....
That's why I really wanted Tim to reply to my questions as after all its his book and content and this article brought it to our attention..
And why I was so amazed (well not really)at McTavish's rant!!!! I couldn't help thinking a bit like Ford...once your on that slippery path its hard to turn back.
The roles of the others I'm not questioning as it not in relation to McTavish's Facebook claims....
I find it disappointing to say the least...
ol55, 1391652261
Okay
whats more disappointing is that I have had no comment from Tim..???
A comment not on personal perspective but perhaps on the timeline facts would be good.
I notice Tim you were happy to placate Bob when he ranted on Facebook???
Perhaps Midget was right about the media ...??? Keep thinking about the true story of that guy Ford ripped off.....
Watch it for some perspective and the principles behind it...
it's called 'Flash Of Genius'
ol55, 1391980474
Hello !! Tim???
Have you watch that movie yet?? Are you there???
Tim.....................?
ol55, 1393880874
Well Tim.....
Did some digging and I now wonder how many of the real facts you might have looked at before you put that McT V bottom picture in your book....mmm....must have been in a hurry to fill the content....
Tim.......TIM...!! TIIIIIIIIIMMMMMM!!!
Craig, 1393885191
Haha, wow, great little story, and 66 is before Midgets 68/69 claim. Amazing how some design breakthroughs happen through pure luck or accident.
brutus, 1393885504
[quote=Craig]
Haha, wow, great little story, and 66 is before Midgets 68/69 claim. Amazing how some design breakthroughs happen through pure luck or accident.
[/quote]Craig, 1393886299
Another interesting tidbit!
Geoff Cater, 1397603025
Tim,
Congratulations on your recent excellent publication.
Following an email from one of the major contributors to the vast changes in surfboard design in 1967 (yes, it was Midget), I have substantially revised my paper "a period of transition : 1967-1968 ."
I also uploaded all the relevant images, that were only previously cited.
http://www.surfresearch.com.au/1967_VeeBottom.html
Commenting of the local competitors at the Windansea Contest, Bob Evans makes it clear that the innovations in design were widely adopted, and not just the preserve of Midget or McT:
Following the "innovations (of) the last 12 months," the Australian boards varied:
"in length from 7ft. 6in. to 9ft. and in infinite variety of spectacular bottom shapes ... Frank Latta, whose board achieved a new all-time chunki-ness, 26in. wide, 11in. back, 7ft. 10in. long: in surfboard dimensions, that is, almost square."
-Evans, Bob: Oh, those boards!
The Sunday Telegraph, December 3 1967, page 121.
Unfortunately, it looks like I cannot paste images in Comments.
However, I particularly note:
Peter Drouyn, Honolula Bay, Maui, December 1967.- riding Wayne Parkes' 9ft 3in Atlas-Woods (NZ) "stubby."
Photograph: Bob Evans (digitally adjusted).
The Sunday Telegraph, January 21 1968, page 70.
thermalben, 1397603614
Great to have you on the site Geoff. Re: uploading images - the best way is to use Imgur.com, as per these instructions.
Geoff Cater, 1397605770
Here is an attempt to upload the image:
[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/XLpGOyw.jpg[/IMG]
murphy, 1397644970
Midget makes more than his fair share of outrageous claims and doesn't take kindly to those who point out the flaws in his arguments. In the extract on his webpage he claims that Nat Young was still riding Sam, the board he rode at the 66 World Titles...two things stand out in this claim...I'd be surprised if Nat was still riding the same board as he was over twelve months before...even I changed boards in those days more frequently than that and secondly...I was under the impression that Sam was stolen while Nat was in the US in 66. There's no doubt that Midget was shafted by the surf media, but its strange that he was still writing for Witzig's magazine Surf Int in the twelve months after the Windansea comp. Even so and, despite his contrariness, I would have to say that Midget's had more 'positive' influence over surfing's development than nearly all of his peers.