80's Surfing and Cultre

And then... It ended. The vcr. The vhs. I went to a surf flick and started hooting my head off at the opening credits barrel and i was the weirdo outcast and we sat on our hands with our mouths closed. It is so gay. It is so over. We used to be so stoked. Pure stoke. Surf flicks. Totally gay. Totally over.

 

Some of those 80's wetsuits are pretty hilarious.

Now I know why I remember thinking they looked like a fire suit that Nascar pit crews and drivers wore haha.

 

Haha Richie Collins, remember his webbed gloves?

 

Devo.b-52's.talking heads. I'm not no limburger. Dance this mess around! We're pinheads all. Jocko homo. This ain't no party! This ain't no disco. This ain't no foolin' around.

Well they do all sixteen dances! We must repeat d e v o we must repeat! This ain't no mudd club or cbgb's, i ain't got time for that now

 

I started surfing in 1975 so was fully involved in the 80's. I thank god I was too poor to wear most of that horrible fashion although I did have some pretty tight trunks. I still have an orange agrolite vest in my closet. I always hated those high waisted bikinis. I had a girlfriend who when dressed was pretty hot, big boobs etc. She used to wear a bikini like that and it wasn't good. I literally hated it and refused to go over to her house on sunny days because I would have to look at her in that thing.

 

Well guess what they're back. And i agree. Someone needs to tell these women.

 

I would have killed for a one piece on that girl. I can remember her parading around the pool and I would literally turn my head in the other direction and cringe. Cute girl in every way but not built for that at all. What made it worse was the first time she wore it she had tan lines from long shorts. Her bottom legs were chocolate brown and up top white and mushy. Uhhhg, I gotta stop, still makes me uncomfortable.

 

To top off the bad bikini she hated my pigeons. I kid you not, she hated my pigeons.

 

Don't forget, probably the single most important invention in modern surfing history took place in the early 80's...Simon's Thruster.

It ushered in Curren's blend of pure power surfing blended with the modern moves started on the short-lived twin fin.

And when I say twin fin, I'm not talking about the original Fish, which was clearly a better board than the twin fin. And maybe just as important as the Thruster.

 

The 80s was the worst decade for surf, music (noise), culture. Everything sucked. And american girls were and still are ugly. Real ugly with the sh1tty hair styles. Feces look.
A lost generation. Those that grew up then are still lost, with their thumbs up their ass--they stood, and still stand for zero, nothing, nada.
Did you expect anything else, assholes??

 

But the 20's was awesome huh Barry?

 

lived it. loved it

 

Sure were. But not for me!!

 

O Barry

 

True. Thrusters made everything difficult easier, and everything impossible possible. Tom Curren showed the way and proved it over and over again. Al merrick made good boards, thanks to simon starting it all and proving it at 15' bells, then narrabeen, then pipe.

Going from burying the rail and spinning out and bogging down on singles, to squirreling out on twins, getting on a thruster and pulling off maneuvers previously impossible instantly changed our lives forever.made everything easier, made everything possible.

 

My first thruster was a 5'8 channel bottom. Keep in mind there were no fin boxes for shortboards at the time, so everything was glass-on. Full on bright, multicolored spray job. Ugly as sin...

But in the '80s, surfing pushed board design, not the other way around. Guys like Simon knew what they were after, and knew their boards were holding them back. Their performance was pushing well beyond what their boards were capable of doing. After the thruster became standard on shortboards, suddenly equipment wasn't the limiting factor in the progression of surfing. Very few "average joe's" could take full advantage of the design, and people like you and me were no longer held back by our boards. That's when board design drove progression more than any other decade.

You could do the same thing with surfing as I did on the other page with music... watch a video of the top surfers ripping in '79, and the top surfers ripping in 1990. There's no comparison... unlike surfing in '69 vs. 1980, where the differences are there, but in no way as dramatic as the progression that happened in the '80s... or the '90s... or the 2000's.

 

Oh man, thanks Archy! I loved that time period. I had a 6'0 Hotline surfboard that was grey, teal and other crazy colors. That's actually what I learned to surf on in Stuart, FL and then Cocoa Beach. Also skated.

Black Flag, Violent Femmes, Bones Brigade, Rat Bones, Gotcha, Op, Wave Tools, Oakley Razors, Astrodeck, Bad Boy Club, Jimmy Z, Stussy

Good times

 

who had Echo Beach boardshorts?

 

Don't forget the '80s skate culture...

Santa Cruz decks, Kryptonic wheels, Tracker Trucks... Sims German Racing Bearings.