Ether Daily

Andrew Kidman produces unique blog inspired by Ether  |  Check it

Surfersvillage Global Surf News, 2 January, 2009 : - - Andrew Kidman has been working on a blog inspired by Ether. Much of the information is first hand, and not available in other forms of media. Andrew's going to feed the blog regularly and sees it as a way to keep the work he's doing, out there, and to continue his independence as a producer.

The blog facilitates sharing electronically the content that appears in the book Ether. Ether was published in 2007 by Consafos Press; it contains photographs, stories, interviews and artwork from the last 21 years of his life. Since Ether's publication Andrew continues to document the things he loves and will be posting relative material as it comes to light. 

The image above is Skip Frye with a twelve-footer, looking back over the ocean in the Hebridean Islands, 2001. He'd just ridden a wave about three quarters of a mile, from a windblown takeoff at the back of the point, across a deep, glassy channel where the wave almost petered out. Skip glided on the energy until the wave reformed, then he rode it to the rocky shoreline.

Blog extracts:

Simon Anderson

(Extracts from the Simon Anderson interview in Ether)

Andrew: Why did you come up with the layback?

Simon: I was really interested in the barrel. Narrabeen would get perfect and there would be hollow lefts running down the bank, week after week. I can specifically remember getting pretty deep on waves, and not being able to make the wave. I was pretty interested in just standing there - the layback was a way to slow myself down. I guess it preceded the arm in the wave, and grabbing the rail. In my day, grabbing the rail was seen as not a good thing. Guys used to grab their rail on their forehand. The layback was one way of slowing yourself down to stay in the barrel a bit longer, without grabbing your rail.  

First Rays of the Sun

The surfboards in the foreground were shaped by Neal Purchase Senior. In the late sixties and early seventies, Neal Senior was one of the great surfer/shapers to come out of Australia, at the forefront of the shortboard revolution. He worked in the Keyo factory, at Brookvale, as a sander, fin foiler and floor sweeper, holding the fort whilst the other surfer/shapers Nat Young, Ted Spencer and Bob McTavish surfed perfect North Narrabeen. In Neal’s words: “They’d come back raving.”

In 1966, inspired by his surrounds, Neal shaped one of his first boards; he called it ‘The Virgin’. Word has it, Nat and Ted both surfed The Virgin and loved it. At a mere eight feet, with subtle asymmetric vee, The Virgin is a piece of the shortboard evolution puzzle that has often been overlooked. After The Virgin, Neal was quickly moved off the broom and into the bay at the Keyo factory

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Skip - 50 Years at the Helm

 
I spent the next three days hanging out at the point watching Skip surf. Skip had in tow, what he refers to as, “The Frye Surf Team” - Three Japanese surfer girls: Masa, Rico and Naru. “I’m all for more girls in the water,” he would say. “I want it 50/50…Nah, 70/30; 70 percent girls.” He’d chuckle. Then go onto explain. “They just bring so much spirit to the experience, they just have the stoke, it’s just pure joy for them. I’m all for that.”

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