Stab Podcasts

Jaksot

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  Joel Parkinson Enters The Confessional | StabMic Ep. 31 14.09.2026 1t 1min

  “I’m not sure if I’m allowed to tell this story… But I’m gonna do it anyway.” The best stories tend to live on the wrong side of the velvet rope, and every so often a gentleman must ignore the bouncer and let the public in. Parko, being a gentleman of considerable repute, has brought several such stories with him. Bisous! Fresh off the Surf100 $100k Finale, where the public judges may have been a touch less charitable than the man deserved, Parko joins Dane and Dooma at the StabMic desk to unpack the experience of putting a jersey back on, and what he’s been doing since hanging it up for good in 2018 after almost two decades on tour. There’s an obvious bit of crossover here, too. Joel spent the entirety of Dane’s relatively brief CT career on tour, before Dane left the building and Joel eventually did the same. Between them, they’ve seen enough of the institution from the inside to have developed some opinions on how the thing is constructed. It’s a good old-fashioned trip down the rabbit hole. The contents of said hole: waking Adriano De Souza from his slumber for the traditional Namotu Skulldrag onslaught, the night before a heat, only to face Dane Reynolds in that very heat; rescuing Kelly Slater; the early days of the Cooly kids; Joel’s diagnosis of what the modern tour has lost; and a tantalising hint at a new film project in the works with Mick. Thanks to our partners at Red Bull, Dome Dust, TurtleBox, Visit Dominican Republic, and Devium, for making StabMic possible.
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  A $100k Judging Controversy + Lowers CT Picks 11.09.2026 1t 25min

  Surf100 spoilers + a Lowers preview. Mikey C is joined by Buck and Stace.
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  Cloudy Report: Questionable 10s, Kelly Call-Outs & Late-Season Title Runs 05.09.2026 30min

  Cloudbreak just concluded with more questions than answers... Who was actually surfing well, and who was doing the bare minimum? Who gets priority when skis are involved? And how does the Abu Dhabi news affect the world's best surfers? Stace G and Mikey C investigate.
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  How Zeke Lau Became Surfing’s Villain | StabMic Ep. 30 05.09.2026 1t 25min

  Coming into this year’s Surf100 Challenger Series, Zeke Lau’s reputation preceded him. Part of the calculation in casting him was that his history of hyper-competitive, occasionally confrontational surfing might make for good television. Zeke as antagonist, Zeke as disruptor, Zeke as villain. But, as anyone who’s been keeping up with the show knows, Zeke doesn’t really seem to be that guy anymore. He was also only a kid when he was on tour. Now he’s a dad, humble in defeat, generous with the other contestants, and enthusiastic about drinking beer. Josiah even wrote an essay about how much he loves him. Here, in episode 30 of StabMic, Zeke revisits both the John John incident at Bells and the Jacob Willcox incident at Margaret River, offering previously unknown context around what led to each, alongside a little insight into his upbringing and psychology that might explain why he did what he did. And looking back eight years on, does anyone even still have a problem with Zeke big-dogging John? Sport is, after all, a ritualised form of conflict. The old human appetite for competition, dominance and spectacle, with most of the blood taken out. We’ve agreed not to kill anybody these days, but the appetite hasn’t changed. Conflict creates stakes, and stakes are what make us care. Every good story needs a bastard, and Zeke, for a while, seemed happy enough to volunteer. We could certainly use one on tour now, eh? Thanks to our partners at Red Bull, Vaer, Dome Dust, TurtleBox, Visit Dominican Republic, and Devium, for making StabMic possible.
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  Roasted by Reynolds 02.09.2026 1t 27min

  A Drop of epic proportions. Harry Bryant fin discourse, a Dane vs. Joel Tudor music beef, Shane Dorian's tips on aging and an interview with the Hog? Yep, all inside.
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  Harry Bryant On EAST, Big-Wave Psychology & Fin-Gate | StabMic Ep. 29 30.08.2026 1t 21min

  Though not quite as internet-breaking as Kim Kardashian’s bare-cheeked, gravity defying Paper Magazine shoot back in 2014, nor inspiring quite the same conspiratorial energy as the great Slater-Mann affair of early 2026, the first episode of Harry Bryant’s EAST produced a similarly divided response. Some hot and bothered, taking a long, appreciative look at the unusual shapes, admiring the more exaggerated features; others left jostled by the jarring exhibit, muttering that they’d seen enough. Not entirely dissimilar from Kimmy, actually. Before filming, Haz was our most requested EAST pilot, and in episode one he certainly came in hot. Direct and matter-of-fact, he offered his opinions on boards with the bluntness of a mechanic telling you what’s wrong with your car. It was the kind of thing Mikey Feb was heavily criticised for in the opposite direction: being too polite with his feedback. Haz, well, he’s certainly on the other end of the spectrum, and the comments section was quick to let him know. “It doesn’t always have to be brutal, but the best boards I’ve ever had, and the best relationships I’ve had with shapers are when you provide them with honest feedback,” Haz says here. “If you just say the board goes good, then they’ve got nothing to go off.” Viewers also took issue with Harry’s refusal to ride the fins the shapers had supplied specifically for their boards. One submission came with a 2+1 setup rather than a thruster. Harry, having been handed the diminutive rear fin, chose instead to trust his own theory, replacing the dwarf with a fully grown one. The decision was particularly spicy because the board had been submitted by Tom Morat, with whom Harry has some history, including a rather uncomfortable exchange at the Palm Springs wave pool last year. To his credit, Harry addresses the whole thing here. He says he had no idea the board was Morat’s when he made the call, and insists his fin decision had nothing to do with their previous beef. He also concedes that he may have got it wrong, while making clear that he respects shapers who supply fins with their boards — a gesture, he says, that shows care and consideration for how the board is meant to be surfed. All of which, plus considerably more, makes for a rather different Harry Bryant from the one the comment section spent the past week flogging. Affable, thoughtful and refreshingly willing to interrogate his own behaviour, Haz gets his chance to make his case. Thanks to our partners at Red Bull, Vaer, Dome Dust, Colby +, TurtleBox, Visit Dominican Republic, and Devium, for making StabMic possible.
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  Cloudy Picks + A Cole Houshmand Cameo Live From Tavarua 25.08.2026 55min

  How does it feel to jump from a two-story building onto three feet of reef? We asked Cole Houshmand after a recent Cloudbreak hiding... from the sands of Tavarua Island Resort. Finally, Stace G and Mikey C dive into their Cloudbreak picks and predictions. Comp starts tomorrow!
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  The Year Cocaine Washed Up in France | StabMic Ep. 28 | Paul Evans 24.08.2026 55min

  “Between Christmas 2003 and New Year 2024, packages of cocaine started washing up along the beaches of Southwest France. National television news reports carried the story of the coke de la plage — the beach cocaine, around a month after the first local rumours of finds emerged. One TV report on France 2, 30th Jan 2004, stated one-and-a-half tonnes had been recovered along French and Spanish coasts that month. If that’s just what the authorities had found, it’s safe to assume lots, lots more had been picked up by members of the public, mostly surfers.” - Paul Evans. Our guest this week is WSL commentator, Surf Europe editor, Stab contributor, and, as of a couple of weeks ago, the creator, producer and host of a long-form narrative podcast about cocaine. It was late 2003, and Paul had recently moved to southwest France from the UK, initially seduced by the prospect of good, uncrowded waves and rumours of mystics like Tom Curren and Robbie Page having made a life there. A few months later, bundles of pure Colombian cocaine started washing up on the beach. Paul first heard about it from a hitchhiker he picked up. The man had travelled several hundred kilometres from Toulouse and seemed remarkably determined to reach the coast that day, despite the weather. It had something of the sirens about it: a gift from the sea that was difficult to resist. Only here, instead of a beautiful song and certain death, it was exceptionally pure cocaine washing up on the beach, floating around in the lineup, offering a direct challenge to your capacity for restraint. What followed was a summer of abundance, debauchery, good waves and various forms of personal ruin, eventually building to a crescendo at the Quiksilver Pro France in 2004. The waves were pumping. Bruce and Andy Irons met in the final. The afterparty that followed, you'd have to imagine, given the situation and what was essentially being handed out to all, was fairly substantial. As Paul says in the podcast: “It’s kind of cliché… everyone refers to their youth as the best times in the world, but objectively, some of those people are right.” If you’re partial to good, uncrowded waves, a cacophony of beautiful women, and happen to possess even a passing curiosity about the sensation of your mouth going numb after sampling some uncut Colombian cocaine, then you’d have a hard time arguing against this as a purple patch in the history of mankind. Humanity has definitely had worse summers and here, Paul talks about how he went about telling that story. This is the making of Hossegor Beach Cocaine, told by its creator, Paul Evans. his is the making of Hossegor Beach Cocaine, told by its creator, Paul Evans. You can listen to the episode one for free here. Episodes 2-4 will live exclusively on Stab Premium and the Stab Premium app. Thanks to our partners at Red Bull, Vaer, Dome Dust, SlowTide, TurtleBox, and Devium, for making StabMic possible.
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  Cocaine Spoons & Raw Cowabunga Spirit 19.08.2026 53min

  We could all use a little Yolanda in our lives. This week, Buck confronts Mikey C on his failed QS campaign. Then the boys chat Tahiti, EAST with Harry B, cocaine spoons, the best surf bikinis and more.
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  Kolohe Andino Is Sick Of Watching Surfers Eat Breakfast | StabMic Ep. 27 17.08.2026 1t 8min

  “Everyone’s trying to sell the core thing, so we actually went for corny.” Kolohe Andino and his brand, Steko, have a new surf film, Fudo, coming to theatres in late August, followed by a run of premieres before eventually landing on Stab Premium shortly thereafter. From the trailers and clips released so far, it’s clear a serious amount of effort has gone into making the thing: week-long setups for elaborate concept shoots, multiple international trips, a hired snake, and a deliberate move away from what Kolohe sees as an increasingly exhausted aesthetic — the Y2K-heavy, aggressively “core” fetishisation of surfing that has dominated the last five years or so. In its place is something Kolohe thinks surfing has lost, but which was abundant when he was coming up during the Joe G and Kai Neville era: style, artifice, mystique, and, above all, the simple biz of making surfers look cool. Fudo wears those influences openly, with the trailer borrowing liberally from the visual grammar and, in places, the actual concepts of those earlier films. Kolohe is upfront about the borrowing, seeing Fudo as a way to pump some air back into an old wheel he thinks has gone flat. Part of that, he argues, means giving surfers back a little mystique, rather than encouraging them to squeeze and share their lives into a vertical rectangle. Kolohe thinks brands have become too eager to merchandise the entirety of their surfers, and in doing so have diminished one of the things that made surfers compelling in the first place. The coolest surfers, in his mind, are the ones you can’t quite get your hands around, the ones who retain some fog around the edges, and certainly aren’t livestreaming the full record of their existence, a la Clavicular. It’s strange, then, to consider Kolohe’s progression: once-in-a-generation prodigy, pursued by every brand under the sun; top-five Championship Tour surfer who perhaps never quite satisfied the enormous expectations attached to his name; premature retiree from competitive surfing; and now brand owner, cultural critic and surfer-philanthropist, attempting to excavate the thing he fell in love with when he was a teenager. Jordy Smith joins Dooma as co-host, and the lads get into tour expectations, Kolohe putting millions of his own money into Steko, his final against Italo at D-Bah, the lingering brat reputation that followed him around the tour, his habit of putting fists through boards after losing, rookie-year Ethan Ewing thinking Kolohe was a pussy, and plenty more. Thanks to our partners at Red Bull, Vaer, Dome Dust, SlowTide, TurtleBox, and Devium, for making StabMic possible.
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  Kelly Combos Medina, Calls Out His Arch Nemesis 11.08.2026 51min

  Why did Kelly win that heat against Gabriel Medina? It wasn't for his thousands of fans, his young family, or even himself. It was for Ronnie Nelson. Let's drop in.
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  Mason Ho On Farming, Andy Irons, And The Day He Punched Kelly Slater | StabMic Ep. 26 10.08.2026 1t 55min

  For most non-human animals, if you think about it hard enough, you can place yourself inside their brains and assume their experience of the world based on their behaviour.  We observe, infer motivation, project our own experience onto theirs, and arrive at some rough approximation of an inner life. The further down the mammalian ladder you go, the easier this can seem. A small mammal wants food, wants sex, wants to avoid being eaten. A reptile might want much the same. Strip away the elaborate machinery of human society, and it’s not really all that different from our own lives, at the end of it all. If there is something it is like to be something, something we can relate to through our own experience, then bang, you’re in the territory of consciousness. Or so said Thomas Nagel in his 1974 essay, What Is It Like to Be a Bat? The essay became one of the foundational attempts to articulate the problem of consciousness: not simply what a brain does, but what it is actually like to be the thing possessing it. It is one of the enduring problems in the philosophy of mind, and one science has yet to put entirely to bed. But it’s 2026 now, and the literature is due for an update. Surely it’s about time someone wrote the follow-up:  What Is It Like to Be Mason Ho? One would imagine that, were we somehow able to peer directly into the subjective experience of Mason, to see the world, for a moment, as Mason sees it, the implications for our understanding of consciousness would be considerable. Is it like something to be Mason Ho? After watching this episode, it is difficult to say. What we can establish is that he is a gifted storyteller, and a particularly unusual one. In this episode, he touches on rubbing Andy Irons' face, punching Kelly Slater, forgetting his own age, his new passion for farming and how it has improved his surfing, being nice to judges even when he feels wronged by them, Jimi Hendrix, LSD, his dad and uncle, and much, much, much more. Saddle up. It's a long one, but to cut it down any further would be to interfere with the integrity of the anthropological record. Thanks to our partners at RedBull, Vaer, Dome Dust, SlowTide, and Devium, for making StabMic possible.
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  Hossegor Beach Cocaine Ep 1: Y2K to Infinity 08.08.2026 35min

  Remember when thousands of kilos of cocaine washed up on the shores of Hossegor, France, in the early 2000s, upending the entire surf community for years to come? Paul Evans does. In this Stab Premium podcast series, Paul speaks with dozens of people involved in southwest France's cocaine scandal and how it affected their no-longer sleepy surf village — and pro surfing as a whole. Episode 1 is available for free above. Episodes 2-4 will be available exclusively on the Stab Premium app, dropping every Friday starting on August 14. This is Hossegor Beach Cocaine.
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  A Wildcard May Just Win In Tahiti 07.08.2026 49min

  Stace G and Mikey C provide our Tahiti preview and picks, presented by Betonline.ag. Make your own picks here: https://www.betonline.ag/sportsbook/futures-and-props/surfing/surfing-events
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  Jamie O’Brien Doesn’t Believe Pro Surfers Are Core | StabMic Ep. 25 03.08.2026 1t 27min

  Who is JOB, really? One of the greatest surfers of his generation, for one. At Pipe, he’s right there in the best-ever conversation, on any respectable list. In terms of pure comfort at one of the deadliest waves on the planet, he’s the prize mattress in the showroom. Five stars, perfect lumbar support. He toys with Pipe like the reef beneath him is a foam pit rather than a death trap, riding colourful pool toys and soft tops through a place that has humbled generations of very serious adults. Naturally, he’s now selling his own soft-top brand, Fun Days Surf. If you’re going to spend your life doing something ridiculous, you may as well own the factory. Build a business around your bad habits. The venture marks a clean break from Catch Surf, the brand he helped build. Jamie gets into the split in this episode, and he has plenty to say about how it all unfolded. “Sometimes people forget about the value you bring to the brand,” he says. “When they forget about that, it’s time to forget about them.” And though it seems perfectly ordinary now, a grown man wandering down the beach, board under one arm, phone held high in the other, live-commentating one’s own existence, it wasn’t always this way. Jamie essentially invented surf vlogging. At one of the most intimidating, tradition-bound waves in the world, no less. Imagine the abuse he copped, paddling out with a camera pointed at his own face. Then again, it helps when you’re one of the best to ever surf the place. Genius affords a certain social licence. Jamie is also a vocal advocate for saying exactly what he thinks, and he’s refreshingly punchy here. He names his greatest Pipe surfers of all time, unpacks what really happened with Catch Surf, and argues that most people claiming to be “core” are still cashing cheques from surf brands, which by his definition at least, means they’re not core at all. Thanks to our partners at RedBull, Vaer, Dome Dust, SlowTide, and Devium, for making StabMic possible.
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  Why JJF Should Return In 2027 31.07.2026 59min

  Let's play a game of surf BINGO. Cards ready. This week Mikey and Buck touch on: - sharks - the WSL - the ISA - the Olympics - John Florence - the US Open - river surfing - stand-up paddling - beer - the deeper meaning of tuberiding Any winners yet?
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  From The Championship Tour To Louis Vuitton | Mikey February | StabMic Ep. 24 27.07.2026 1t 27min

  “Anyone who does surfing is going to do it in their own way.” “The WSL does it in their own way, Stab does it in their own way. Obviously Louis Vuitton is going to do it in their own way. It’s going to be extra and over the top.” The question, really, is not whether Michael February belongs in a Louis Vuitton campaign. The question is whether any other surfer make the whole proposition look quite so fabulous. When the images dropped online, Mikey clad in a magnificent yellow knit, clutching a man-purse, the surf world was, you might say, a little divided. Some lamented the death of core surfing. Others accused LV of appropriating surf culture, or of repackaging the cultural myth of the Hollywood surf movie through an entirely outsider perspective. Rushing to the defence of Mikey and the great French luxury conglomerate were the wizened souls of Evan Slater and Joel Tudor. “It is so wild to me all the shit talking going on about the recent LV surf fashion line,” wrote Joel. “Yall are some hypocritical barneys.” “Where were all these passionate ‘saviours of surf culture’ when licensing conglomerate @authentic acquired the souls of every major surf brand from the past 30+ years?,” wrote Evan Slater. “This is life after death, guys. Keep surfing and keep generously sharing the gifts of surfing with others. The rest will take care of itself.” A lot more yapping, back and forth, can be found in the comments here. Also in this ep: did Pharrell and Louis Vuitton rip off Vans? Dane seems to think the whole thing might be a marketing play, and a very smart one at that. The boys also talk team surf films, EAST, and check in with the Rip Curl Padang Padang Cup comp director, Harry Mann.
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  Special Guest: Albee Layer's Psychotic Shark Encounter 25.07.2026 1t 4min

  Albee Layer and Torrey Meister got water-herded by a shark in Maui, and he's still a staunch proponent of sharks' rights. The same can't be said at Fred Pawle — to some the star, to many others the villain of our currently-running Shark Week. Keep your ears peeled for a snippet of the Great Shark Debate inside. Also in this ep we announce our new EAST surfer (presented by Kona Big Wave and Vans), dissect the financial realities of the Challenger Series, and why tradesmen actually have better surfing lives than the "pros". PS, we're throwing a US Open party with Quiksilver this Saturday night, July 25th at Bungalow in HB. Get there.
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  JJF vs Dane at the world's best righthander 17.07.2026 43min

  What's the best film section of all time? Mikey and Buck believe they've found it. Also in this week's ep: - drama in the latest Surf100 ep - the great fin debate - sharks v ketamine darts - and more!
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  Why Surf Films Will Never Win An Oscar | StabMic Ep. 22 13.07.2026 56min

  “I used to just drift through the world and have all these magic moments surfing. Now, I try so hard to make them happen, and it’s just so rare. I can’t believe how lucky I was.” For those suffering from Dane deficiency, some numbers: in the average StabMic episode, Dane accounts for roughly 15% of the single-camera shots. This time, he's north of 50%. Which is to say: this is the most Dane-heavy conversation we've ever released. For the starving, for the long winter, for the Reynolds romantics, here's your feed in full. First, a few bones from the carcass before we hand you the entire beast. Y2K is out. “It’s cool to get inspiration from the past, but to completely replicate it is weird.” On the fear of being stuck in the past: “Sometimes I wonder if I'm playing in a dated format, making surf films. But making 15-second clips for Instagram just doesn’t excite me.” On the architecture of a good surf film: “You’ve gotta create some sort of a narrative or a storyline. A lot of the time I like to edit body positions to match, from frame to frame. It’s not like a Marvel movie or anything, but you’re definitely carrying the viewer through it. It needs context. In my opinion, what makes a film is carrying from wave to wave, from song to song. It needs some sort of arc.” “I feel like I’m sounding like a kooky artist or some shit. Like I’m making surf films more complicated than they are.” On music: “Say using a Rolling Stones track - the viewer already has that song embedded in their psyche. They already have an emotional connection to it, so the surfing doesn’t look fresh.” On the Instagram torture chamber: “It’s kind of maddening. Like a hot chick that's having a margarita at sunset at a nice pool… you're just like, cool. Really glad for you. Stoked for you. What the fuck!” On the creative process: “There’s no playbook for making things work… you’ve gotta trust your feeling. It’s a lot of feeling.” Alright then. Grab a fork. Dinner is served.