One Hot Smoking Minute

So, anyway, this is our end-of-summer, welcome-to-a-new-pro-tour-year issue etc etc. Look at this photo of Kolohe Andino back when he was a baby (17) and on his first circumference of the tour. Like, photographed, three weeks ago at a beach just off the mean streets of Tweed Heads.

Anyway, Kolohe was owning the lefts or as the photographer who shot it so eloquently describes, “Brother was ripping the backbone out of ‘em all.”

Dane, only a few notches short of 30 can y’believe, took his time and only plucked the ripest fruits, mostly rights, from the highest branches.

Dane Reynolds shows what one of Kolohe’s mayhems can do under his fantastic feet while kolohe stands hypnotised in the shallows. Photo: Damea Dorsey

So they meet up the back, talk boards, swap and this is the result: Dane flaunts while Kolohe soaks in the sword work of the master.

Ain’t that what progressive surfing is about? Going in your own direction so you don’t get trampled by the flow of history? Mixing your drinks so it ain’t just one flavour? For the first time since I can remember, there are none of the brutal peckings or stompings that were so prevalent in other years.

Anyway, these are good, maybe even, great times.

Inside the magazine, Stab, we home these mechanics of modern surf culture and performance. After reading this you’ll happen upon Julian Wilson (with a full-deck kit…culture!), Oliver Kurtz (backside ferris…performance!), Craig Anderson (new photography technique…culture!) and Chippa Wilson (a nose grab…performance!) and we ain’ts even got into a feature of the fab Basque devils (who own Mundaka), a Charlie Smith profile on the intense but thrilling Rothman alpha males, Eddie and Makuakai, a drill on big, straight airs from Chips (more performance!) and when y’flip the whole shebang over you’re staring at an immaculate love affair starring Jordan Michael Smith and Lyndall Melissa Jarvis.

Call ‘em Jordy and Lyndall. Whatevs, they’re monogamous and following an instinctual path, we believe, to the utopia of marriage and children.

Are you ready for this? Come to Stab world: vital and complicated!

(Click here to purchase Stab’s digital editions!)