Ok, we’re not happy that its current logo is a bastardisation of a competitor, but other than that we here at Mambo World think there’s a lot to like about Surf Ads. Starting in 2015, it’s an Instagram account that taps into the wellspring of 80s and 90s surf nostalgia in a really Aussie way. Want to see that Tracks cover with Cheyne Horan on it? Or Mick Fanning in speed dealers and cargo shorts? Surf Ads is the account for you. And it’s the account for over 16,000 people who are into that kind of thing.
We caught up with with creator Nick [SURNAME REDACTED] in between scanning old mags to get his take on why Surf Ads has taken off, and where it’s headed.
I think it was about three or four years ago now when the ‘gram was first coming to prominence. There were a few accounts already starting to post old surf pics from mags like @oldsurfermags but it was all very American-centric. I grew up in the ’90s imbibing any surf-related mags, videos, books or whatever I could get my grubby grommy hands on. But I always really loved the absurdist larrakin culture of mags like Australia’s Surfing Life, Waves, Underground Surf et al. A lot of the magic from those rags was not the high-production value surf photos (which were still sick) but a lot of the obvious page filler that ended up becoming the unintended gold. What’s Hot What’s Not. ASL Dares. Slash of the Month. Horvath band reviews etc. Plus of course all of the classic posters and pull-out spreads that we had plastered on our bedrooms, school books, dunny doors. So anyway I still had my own collection of mags and started posting stuff that I thought was funny, iconic, whatever. And it went from there.
As much as I don’t want to shatter the illusion of a team of crack surf historian illuminati slaving away at a million old stacks of magazines to bring you the content the third to fourth best surf nostalgia account on the internet is so well-known for… it’s just me.
It will always be the mid to late 90s, which was the time surfing was still finding it feet professionally and hadn’t become too corporate, so brands and companies (as well as the mags themselves) were still keen on doing stuff that pushed the envelope creatively, socially, politically etc. Mambo being an absolutely perfect example of that.
But as I’ve started to grow the collection and been sucked into deeper wormholes, I’m loving eras like 60s-70s Tracks, Sea Notes, Backdoor magazine, because it goes back to a time when surfing was truly counter culture. Like having guides on what are the best magic mushies to pick. The best conditions for growing your weed. Why five-flyer fang tails are the absolute pinnacle of board design. How to live on a commune etc. Compare that to a lot of the ultra slick professionalism of the WSL and certain areas of the culture now and it’s a pretty stark difference. But the spark lives on
This @surfads post is eerily familiar…
A lot of my favourites were the smaller edgier brands/labels/shapers, in particular ones like Gash, Kadu. Headworx. Of course anything by Hot Tuna, and Mambo/Mombassa goes without saying. That shit was High Art.
There’s probably too many to pick. Munga (Michael ‘Munga’ Barry) was for a long time the face of the account (people kept thinking it was his personal account and writing him long messages I never responded to, Sorry Munga) but any of the unheralded core underground chargers from the 80s through to the noughties. Drew Courtney. Simon Robinson. Justin Poston. Joe Crimo. Dave Eggers. Pauline Menzcer. The list goes on.
“Munga on the phone to your mum.” Image stolen from @surfads.
One former owner of a logo I feature quite heavily *ahem* may have joked about suing me, but otherwise no. Everybody from the surfers to the photographers to the former honchos get that I’m doing it for the love, and I’m certainly not making any money out of it. And again that’s been one of the best parts about it, connecting guys like those I mentioned (and the photographers) with shots of them they may not have seen in decades. It’s sick there’s a forum that allows us to do that, even though Zuckerberg is the devil incarnate.
Curren, Occy, TC, Slater, Luke Egan etc. Their surfing gets better with age when appraised by modern day standards. People want nostalgia because when it’s triggered it’s like a shot of dopamine right into their mainline
That is slowly devolves into just me writing creepy homoerotic fan fiction about Brad Gerlach and/or finding illuminati messages hidden in the old State by State updates from mid ’90s Underground Surf. That would be cool.