A good friend let me borrow this copy of Breakout Magazine from August 1983. It’s fun to look back through old magazines and this one is especially interesting because it’s kind of a Santa Barbara County issue. It seems like the editor handed the keys over to local photographer Joe Mickey, because his photos and writing are featured prominently throughout. I never heard of Breakout magazine, but I learned it existed from March 1979 to October 1989.
Started in San Diego by a guy named George Salvador, Breakout was actually very popular. At its peak, Breakout circulated nearly 80,000 news stand copies bimonthly throughout the U.S. and in over 40 foreign countries. It had nearly 8,000 paid subscribers and was available in over 500 U.S. surf shops.
The magazine mostly covered the California surfing lifestyle and culture. Well known authors and surf photographers from around the world were regular contributors to Breakout. At one point, it was third in circulation behind Surfer and Surfing Magazines.
The name here that jumps out at us is the Director of Photography, Guy Motil. A great photographer in his own right, he was a veteran of Surfer magazine before going to Breakout. In 1993, Guy would help fuel the longboard resurgence when he started his own publication, Longboard Magazine.
There are a lot of well known photographers in the lineup, but most notably our buddy Joe Mickey, who also wrote the article that brought this issue to our attention.
Cobra Cord was a hot new item on the scene. It had a swivel to “keep the leash free flowing”. Revolutionary stuff. The cuff was rainbow, but you could also get the leash in a choice of three bright colors. Evidently we didn’t really need the swivel that bad, because you don’t see many of these today.
Here’s an ad for a local company. Spindrift Surfboards was started in Goleta in 1968 by Bob Haakenson. By 1983, Haakenson had brought in David Puu as a team pro and designer and the shaper was Rich Reed.
Reed went on to shape for Channel Islands Surfboards and these boards would be a collectors item today. Located on La Patera Lane, and using “True Aim” fins, this company was as Goleta as you can get.
Other not so local shapers were advertising as well. Like R. Sleigh out of San Clemente, who was promoting his “MadMadDaddy”, which we can only assume was a board? His “Surfboards Now for the Future” tagline looks heavily influenced by the New Wave band DEVO.
Next up was an in depth interview with Santa Barbara master shaper Al Merrick. They wanted to get some insight as to how he identifies and develops talented surfers.
Merrick goes into detail about his process of teaching them self discipline, forcing them to surf on junky days and also some cutting edge techniques for 1983, like using a video camera to review a session!
He mentions how Tommy Curren’s mom helps out with the training as well. This was the year Curren joined the ASP World Tour, so this was an exciting time for the whole team to be sure. All in all a good interview with a shaping legend.
1983 was a big year for Tommy Curren, and the next story was about his amazing performance at the Australian Grand Slam, showing the legends what the next generation of surfing would look like. “The 18 year old from Santa Barbara surprised ’em all”.
A few pages later, we see one of the established surf stars that was defeated by young Tom Curren, Shaun Tomson. He was so impressed by Tommy’s surfing, he later moved to Santa Barbara.
And Boom, flip the page and there he is, the man himself, in one of his earliest ads, rockin’ those shorty shorts…
No Santa Barbara issue would be complete without mentioning this guy. Davey Smith was a surf innovator and he’s known as one of the pioneers of aerials and floaters.
His love for skating influenced his surf style, which brought out those unusual maneuvers. Davey was featured in several of Joe Mickey’s films. Our old friend David Kuzen said, Davey was “the first surfer I saw riding the roofs and backs of waves”.
And then we get to the article that shook up the local surf scene. A revealing article that describes the surf spots of Santa Barbara County, written by a man that knew the area well.
Apparently Joe Mickey was not a fan of localism. The tagline mentions clear boards and black wetsuits, two requirements for a local surfer to not get hassled in the nooks and crannies of SB County. But the article was really about how this area was the hotbed of innovation and was about to break through on the world surfing scene. Joe was trying to help promote his hometown and his friends that made up the scene.
Also featured on the opening page of the article is this photo of two local surfer beauties, Kim Mearig and Simone Reddingius. Unfortunately, Joe misidentified Simone, it wasn’t her at all, and Simone remembers that mistake to this day!
The next page had this Craig Fineman photo of Tommy Curren with a caption saying how he was taking conservative Santa Barbara and California into the next era of surfing.
Also featured was David Puu, described as one of SB’s most well rounded surfers, being a “competitor, wetsuit sales rep, and aspiring shaper”.
When this article came out, a lot of the local crew were upset with the magazine and the author for naming so many of “their” spots. Today it’s interesting to read Joe’s humorous take on the spots and the scene at the time.
He mentions the “well groomed ladies of the village” and the surfing gigolos at Hammonds. He mentions the epic swell of January of 1983 and the 200 yard non-stop barrel rides at Sandbar. And he mentions the annual invasion of the university students at “College Point”.
Fortunately he chose not to detail every spot North of town, and he only briefly mentions “the secret spot next to the freeway”. But his take on Hollister Ranch is pretty humorous and spot on.
Sounds like Joe may have had some bad experiences at the Ranch, and he calls out the new breed of Ranch locals that bought a parcel and claimed ownership of a wave. He also mentions their minions, the “Brown Nose Locals”, and he condemns the vandalism of the Gaviota boat hoist, still a problem today!
One last ad, this one emphasizing how Tom Curren, Davey Smith and Al Merrick were influencing the whole culture. California Silk Screen announces their “California Pro” collection, dedicated to the “sport/art” of surfing. This truly was an revolutionary period in the surfing world.
Since 1964, Joe Mickey was very involved in the local surf scene. He co- owned the first surf shop in Goleta and then managed Channel Islands for a while. Joe produced several surf films, most notably “Off the Wall 2” with David Natal. He was also a professional photographer that recognized World Champion talent in a six year old Tommy Curren and followed him to his conquering of the surfing world.
To read more about Joe Mickey on his own page.
Click Here.
Tom, your articles are gems of Santa Barbara history. Really enjoyed this Breakout Mag bit of history, but especially found the Joe Mickey article fascinating. All of the locals, some of whom I met in passing over the years —- seeing their names and remembering those times made my heart happy. Thank you.
Great read Tom, thank you. Some classic early 80’s footage right there.
Basic, is 1983 the last time you surfed?
Always a pleasure to read your articles, Tom. Lovely way to pass the time on a grey morning.
Who is on the cover with the Horizon’s West (santa monica/venice) label on the wetsuit?
Don’t talk about Horizon’s West (RIP), you’ll trigger all the hardcore Haskooks locs.