Smack bang off Bourne St. Brisvegas, five-piece indie rock outfit Shag Rock are about to launch their self-titled mini-album at non other than The Flying Cock.
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These true blue Aussie mates are set to burst onto the scene as a shagaholic indie sensation, with the release of their new single 'Champagne'. Surfer blokes by heart – and choccy milk addicts – the boys have brain-stormed their top five places to surf for a week:
North Stradbroke North Stradbroke
Bloody heaven on earth. Strad is a place we all seemingly go back to year after year. It has max chilled vibes, you feel like you’ve left Australia and turned up in a paradise coma. It’s impossible to stress about anything when your there. With roads and ice-cream it’s the more civilized of the two Strads, so you can still have your customary pie and choccy milk post-surf. If you want to cut a rail you can head over to Cylinder for a longboard surf, the most northerly break. Most of the year round it has some of the most crystalline water you’ve ever seen, and planted right next to a rocky headland with Pandanus’ galore it’s feels like the earth’s 420. If you’re looking for something heavier you can’t go past Frenchy’s and Main, they are good fun on most days but when it gets big they tend to slab pretty hard onto shallow sand. People often talk about Shark’s on North Stradbroke but look, there are sharks everywhere.
South Stradbroke
There are no roads, pie shops, or ice-cream shops, and out of holiday season there are no people either. It’s an island smack bang on the Gold Coast but no one really seems to know about it, which makes it all the better. South Stradie holds a pretty special place in the Shag Rock collective heart. It is reminiscent of easy summer days, jetty jumping, playing cricket, ping-pong, fanging dinghy’s everywhere and having huge dinners. There is no morning or afternoon it’s all just good times. If you want to go surfing however, there are miles of it on the easterly facing side of the island. The best spot to go is further toward the Gold Coast at The Spit. It’s pretty crowded on a good day or a weekend, but still beats the entirety of any other crowded five-kook per wave spot on the GC. It’s always heavy though, even in smaller conditions it still slams onto the sand-pumped banks. However the reward is so worth it. If you call a good day, or go a weekday afternoon when there isn’t much wind you get uncrowded perfection to yourself. It’s the self-sufficient man’s dream, and there are plenty of spiders too.
Angourie Angourie
A hidden gem along a coastline of bustling breaks where five kooks will be paddling onto the same wave. Not many people know about Angourie so we don’t want to broadcast it too much but let’s just say it’s one of the best bloody surf spots we know. A couple of years back during uni break we packed up all our gear, filled up the boot of our cars with slabs of beer and milo cereal and headed down to the creaky old Yamba town. We did this with a big convoy of our best mates and pumped our Jinja Safari CD on repeat. Best place about Yamba is that it’s quiet, but still feels like a proper beach coastal town. It has great breaks but everyday we’d drive the extra 10-minutes to Angourie and charge the uncrowded paradise. There’s the Point which is literally like word-class and if that’s not working, Backbeach and Spooky’s beach are pumping. Backbeach is probably the most picturesque beach we know of, which is saying something, and this was our retreat to get out of cleaning up the mess from the night before and soak up some salty rays. I guess we want to scare you away from the place so we can have it to ourselves, so we’ll add that since then we’ve actually seen a shark on one cloudy day. But sharks are everywhere man!
BroadbeachBroadbeach
Pretty much our go-to spot, only an hour from Bourne St. in Brissy. If we ever need a quick mid-week break, we chuck our boards on the roof and have a little sesh out at our special bank we know like the back of our hands. It’s sick because you can take any of your mates there and they’ll love it. It’s never crowded either, even when it’s pumping the peaks, it's spread out so much that you always can find a spot for yourselves. Sometimes you get into the water as the sun sets behind the highrises and you can watch the windows of Q1 reflect the orange and pink light of the sky. Every time we’re like 'dammit wish we brought our GoPro out… next time aye?' and we forget every time. Spose it’s just something that you’re meant to absorb right there and then. Best feeling is when you push through and surf under the lights of the highrise buildings and then people will look at you as if you’re a crazy person when you finally paddle to shore in the dark.
Byron BayByron
One of our acoustics is actually called 'Byron' because it’s literally all about our dream of just dropping everything and living there. The real dream stemmed from somehow winning a million dollars and living off that till we grow old there, but now I guess we have the dream of earning it first. It’s a place that you fall in love with as soon as you drive through the town. It’s weird because it’s the most relaxing town in history but still feels busy enough to feel like there’s an energy flooding the streets. One of our band members has lived their life staying at the lighthouse cottages once a year every year since they could remember, so it’s a pretty special place. It’s the most easterly point in Australia so on occasion you can paddle out past the headland and be the most easterly person that’s ‘sort of’ part of the mainland. The scenery though, jeez louise, sit back in a hammock on little Wategos and I don’t think you’ll find a better place to try and start writing an album. Byron’s just got these weirdly addicting vibes you can’t explain. Sick surf as well, all the way down; Wategos, the Pass, Main Beach. The Wreck on Main pits so hard there’s a good chance you’ll come in with half your board in one hand and the other half washed up on the shore.Shag Rock debut their self-titled mini-album at The Flying Cock on Friday 24 April.
