Blow off a few hours and watch the videos (trailers + clips) on Mollusks site. Surfing Hollow Days, Stylemasters, Second Thoughts, Tubular Swells, Ultimate Sessions, all Jack McCoy films... there are so many - none better, none worse - just sick surfing

So if you are going to ride retro, don't be metro! (sexual that is)

www.mollusksurfshop.com/

Thanks for the up.

But I thought it was all about "Quit marketing yourself and your lifestyle."

Touche Willy!

But, life is full of irony and contradiction. (and trite introductions) I don't want to bruise mother nature either but, fuck... accepting life in Babylon makes for a whopping chore. I mean, I'd love to go 100% solar or geo heating at my house but... have you seen how much that shit costs? (mark my words: IT WILL HAPPEN! And should I give my wife heat every time she lets the hot water run when its her turn to wash up? Okay yes, even though we usually only scrap with each other when there is crap on supposedly clean dishes. I added the link to Mollusk as an empathetic gesture towards romantics who allow themselves to be seduced by the aura of retro boards. Some of them even take the time to shape their own...like Erik G or this German dude I met in Klitmøller who made a wooden 5 foot something beauty - no kit!. Respect. Anyways, even though I pity their board choice, sick surfing did occur on retro boards back when retro boards were modern and even... futuristic. Check out the quads shaped in the Michael Junod shaper video or Larry Bertelman's 360's. Yaddda, yadda, yadda- I wanna see that kind of surfing by all the retro riders today as much as I hope to figure out how the fuck to ride my latest, greatest, half a kilo, durable material thruster. And as for grainy footage of guys longboarding Rincon during the winter, without legropes, in boardshorts - that's just ... sick surfing! I ain't buying the nostalgia, just admiring what it is. Turn the music off while watching at first and just admire the surfing for what it is, humans riding waves. Then tune in again with the "aura" on. See?

Am I pschizo or just human? History is history. I'm not a hater - just wish that the flow of newbies would be quelled by minimizing exposure to things like "lifestyle" "aura" "mystique" and "fashion" that businesses market. Surf music, art and travel will always be a part of the sport's heritage. Cool. Pick up a guitar, go to the show, hit the road, paint away, spin some pottery. Unfortunately, business often bundles, mangles and markets it all. Not so cool. People played music before the beach boys and Pennywise and hit the road before surf camps and all that. As far as I can see, it's the business dudes who want to grow the sport's influence over the purchasing decisions of people, not so much it's practitioners: riders, artists, musicians and travellers. Businesses will come and go, but good surfing - preserved in whatever format - will always be around. I'm stoked Mollusk made it easy for me to watch the stuff in a nice format but will I cry if they cannot survive as a shop? Uh, no. They'll still be surfers and so will you and me and we'll all be surfing come the next swell. And the footage will just be complied somewhere else in cyberspace. And if it weren't? We'd still have story

Also, Mollusk, the shop/ website -and what it represents- has been mocked pretty extensively by some in San Francisco and in the US, but I gotta hand to them for being true to their niche and giving us casual browsers a really good historical library at our fingertips. Still not off the hook for what and how they "sell" though. Talk about marketing lifestyle! Blacgh! Shameless.

Two pretty funny stories by Lewis Samuels (former Surfline 'Power Rankings' writer)can be found here tangential to Mollusk and/ retro:

www.surfline.com/surfnews/article_bamp_400_v03.cfm?id=17437
postsurf.com/2009/02/08/making-friends/

Postsurf is a pretty crazy place actually - check out this article from San Francisco newspaper that is related to elsewhere in PS by Lewis Samuels:

www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/05/06/BAA717FRCT.DTL
postsurf.com/2009/05/10/comment-of-the-week-death-to-surfers-update/


Okay that's it for me. No more bullshitting away on Surfsverige for a while. See you in the lineup

I am truly impressed by your posts and sincerely hope my post hasn't in any way affected your decision in not post here on Surfsverige. Because your posts are the type of posts that are seriously needed in this forum. Posts with thought, experience and substance, not just some cheap-shot, half-joke post like mine.

Personally I don't think there's any point in hiding the sport (even though I do hate the way the surfing lifestyle is portrayed as fashion statement). What I'm against is the outing of Swedens good spots. Go out and search. There are tons of good spots around Swedens coasts no matter where you live, it's all just a case of reading the coastline and weather maps then spending time looking in the right places. When it comes to newbies I'm all for guiding them to half-decent already outed beginner spots where they will fight on-shore beach breaks with their over sized BiC surfboards. By my reasoning this will sort the chafe from the wheat and the people who really catch the surf bug will be able to cope with the Swedish surf conditions (howling on-shore, stoney beaches and five degrees celcius, and that's on a good day!) and leave me to surf my point with my friends. I met one guy who had surfed a few seasons in Hawaii and is a pretty good surfer (Swedish standards of course) and couldn't cope at all with the lumpy cold waves, and I haven't seen him out since. Swedish surf is not for everyone.

But by giving the newbies a few outed easy to reach, crappy on-shore spots it quells their curiosity to find the spots whispered by more experienced surfers who's breaks are usually are out of their league anyway. I can see the positive sides of making a spot guide for Sweden where only spots with below average surf AND can swallow a lot of surfers are published.

This all kind of landed in the wrong thread but it's not like we have a moderator...

I am truly impressed by your posts and sincerely hope my post hasn't in any way affected your decision in not post here on Surfsverige. Because your posts are the type of posts that are seriously needed in this forum. Posts with thought, experience and substance, not just some cheap-shot, half-joke post like mine.

Personally I don't think there's any point in hiding the sport (even though I do hate the way the surfing lifestyle is portrayed as fashion statement). What I'm against is the outing of Swedens good spots. Go out and search. There are tons of good spots around Swedens coasts no matter where you live, it's all just a case of reading the coastline and weather maps then spending time looking in the right places. When it comes to newbies I'm all for guiding them to half-decent already outed beginner spots where they will fight on-shore beach breaks with their over sized BiC surfboards. By my reasoning this will sort the chafe from the wheat and the people who really catch the surf bug will be able to cope with the Swedish surf conditions (howling on-shore, stoney beaches and five degrees celcius, and that's on a good day!) and leave me to surf my point with my friends. I met one guy who had surfed a few seasons in Hawaii and is a pretty good surfer (Swedish standards of course) and couldn't cope at all with the lumpy cold waves, and I haven't seen him out since. Swedish surf is not for everyone.

But by giving the newbies a few outed easy to reach, crappy on-shore spots it quells their curiosity to find the spots whispered by more experienced surfers who's breaks are usually are out of their league anyway. I can see the positive sides of making a spot guide for Sweden where only spots with below average surf AND can swallow a lot of surfers are published.

This all kind of landed in the wrong thread but it's not like we have a moderator...

No, no.. as far as posting goes, its just not something I get into. 2 kids, life etc.. don't allow all that much time and there is other stuff to tend to. However, I check surfsverige for weather info all the time when the wind is up. Its also fun to peek in and see what's going on, see what some of the boys are up to. Nice to have a grasp on how the sport is developing here in Scandinavia. Pretty epic to get to be a witness and participant in this growth spurt. Pretty epic to get to enjoy that frontier as well, the one that you mentioned re: spots. This winter ..... never mind


Anyways, take care Willy. And... there are no wrong threads or wrong comments. Web 2.0 man, we create the content and steer the narrative.

I just wanna say that Molusk has some INCREDIBEL BEAUTIFUL boards. When this fucking world economy decides to turn upwards I will be eager to buy more than one of those. Awsome!