Looking Sideways Action Sports Podcast Matthew Barr

The average professional surf, skate or snow career tends to follow a pretty set path. Five-to-ten years at the top, usually from the mid-teens to late-twenties, before time, injuries, and the shifting vagaries of the industry draw things to a close, and the rider heads off back into obscurity.
Any pro hoping for a career longer than this simple arc better find another string to their bow quickly, ideally something marketable alongside the actual board-riding ability, which kicks in as their actual ‘riding’ career draws to a close.
Then there’s Cliff Kapono. Somebody who has done things the opposite way round and, as a result, has surely carved out one of the most unique careers in surfing.
As Cliff explains, he realised at young age that talent wouldn’t be enough - especially when your peers are surfers like Clay Marzo. Instead, he focussed on science as much as surfing, using academia and his intellectual smarts as a way of surfing more.
Today, this unlikely route has propelled Cliff to the top of the surf industry - supremely respected as a surfer by his peers, while also having an increasingly important voice on some of the topics that also impact wider surfing and surf culture, such as climate change and colonialism.
Perhaps it’s because Cliff’s route to the top has been so unusual that has such a reflective and insightful unique take on surfing, the surf industry, and the way we as surfers interact with our environment and the history that has impacted us in countless ways, whether we realise it or not.
I’ve wanted to chat to Cliff for a while, and this conversation didn’t disappoint. Hope you enjoy it.


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It’s been a long time coming - five years since I first contacted him - but in July 2023 I finally caught up with artist, director and all-round creative legend Thomas Campbell for this Looking Sideways conversation.
And I’m happy to say that this conversation was everything I hoped it would be, and much more. Sure, Campbell - much as he would balk at such talk - is one of surfing and skateboarding’s most important influences thanks to classic films such as The Seedling, and a singular aesthetic and approach that has an outsized influence on what it means to be creative in our world
Thomas is a true omnivorous polymath, as happy to experiment with sewing or his record label as he making era-defining surf flicks, and for whom the act of ’sitting in the chair’ is the point of it all.
But as I discovered, he’s also a thoughtful and generous conversationalist, and our chat covers music, life, art everything in between.
This is already one of my favourite ever LS chats, in which one of most successful and engaging influences delves right into his process and motivation, and displays the charm, curiosity, and appetite for life that is such a feature of his work.


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When legendary surf writer Matt George got in touch asking if he could come on the show to chat about his new book In Deep, I was all in.
In Deep is a hand-picked collection of Matt’s era-defining surf writing that spans well over 30 years.
But, as I discovered during our conversation, for Matt it symbolises much more than this. It’s a flag-in-the-ground moment to memorialise a passing moment in surf culture, as the analogue age represented by Matt himself and the culture and writers he so venerates, is superseded by a new primarily artificial and digital culture defined by clicks, views and, latterly, AI.
No wonder at one point in our conversation he refers to the collection as his ‘cave paintings’, in what I assume is a very deliberate image.
Matt lives in Bali, and in early August 2023 we hopped online to record this conversation. The resulting chat encompasses many favourite Looking Sideways themes, whether creativity, working processes, literary influences or the importance of the recognising your place in the environment when it comes to the surfing experience.
Above all, Matt is a consummate story-teller and a shameless surf romantic. He’s lived life on a vast scale, has sought out equally big experiences, and has documented the lot during one of THE essential surf writing careers.
It makes In Deep a real time capsule, and this conversation is a wonderfully digressive, occasionally self-aggrandising and always entertaining rove through Matt’s life and times and the modern history of surfing itself.
Buckle up!


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July 23rd note
There's no new episode this week, so I thought that just this one I would lift the paywall on the first episode of Rondtable, the new discussion show which will usually be exclusively for paid subscribers. Looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks!
A few months ago, my pal and staunch Looking Sideways supporter Jon Weaver asked me if I’d ever considered doing a Housekeeping Corner episode for paid subscribers.
I was intrigued, but after chatting to Jon and kicking the idea around for a bit, I decided that bringing in a new, irregular panel discussion format was a way better idea.
So I roped in Jon as co-host, asked another friend-of-the-show Lauren MacCallum to join us as second co-host, quickly jotted down a rough format, and thought of some topics to discuss and guests to invite on.
And here we are. In this inaugural episode, we discuss, among other things:
- The topic of disruptive activism and the lack of engagement on issues such as climate change and water quality among our community. Why is there such apathy? How can we change it? What role should brands play? And was I being harsh when I said the culture of mountain biking had ‘big petrolhead energy’? Huge thanks to listener Hamish Lawson for contributing the first listener question for this section.
- The Byron Bay compulsory leash brouhaha, with contributions from special guests Wavelength editor and pro longboarder Mikey Lay, and long-term surf hack and friend-of-the-show Ben Mondy
-Is the FIS takeover of competitive snowboarding finally complete? What does this mean for our culture? And will Olympic freeriding be next to get the treatment? With special guest Liam Griffin, co-founder and COO of Natural Selection.
I had a blast doing this and am looking forward to doing more. Way back at the end of 2016, when I first had the idea to make Looking Sideways, I originally planned on it being this format. In the end I went with the interview format, so it’s nice to revisit this idea so many years later.
Next time around, we’ll be asking for listeners/readers to contribute a topic for discussion so get thinking. Hope you enjoy this episode!


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I’m on quite a run at the moment when it comes to chatting to wise, inspiring and talented women, and this ace chat with my pal Gilly Macarthur continues this sequence in fine style.
Gilly is a snowboarder, swimmer, open water swim coach, climber, event organiser, speaker - you get the picture. Basically, she’s a proper force of nature, a proper catalyst and peerless communicator who gets stuck right in whatever she’s doing. Plus, she raised the bar for all past and future LS guests by bringing me along a book as a present, which obviously made my day.
And, as I’ve known for a while now, she’s also brilliant company, as I rediscovered in June 2023 when we met up in Brighton at the amazing new Sea Lanes to record this episode.
I must say, for me this was proper ‘If Carlsberg did podcast set-ups’ (hat tip Mat Pycroft) occasion. We met at the height of the heatwave, and just had a lovely morning: swim, coffee, beach, good food, and this brilliant conversation.
Even for me, this one went all over the place; which makes it a perfect podcast conversation, to my mind. Obviously we covered Gilly’s life and career, but we also followed all manner of tangents in a sprawling, multi-layered chat that I enjoyed immensely.
Thanks for being such a great sport Gilly, and humouring my incessant Smiths-related gags. Hope you enjoy this episode.


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Welcome to a classic lifer episode of Looking Sideways with my pal Melody Sky!
If you’re somebody who scans the name of the guest and thinks ‘never heard of them, I’m not going to bother’, I implore you not to make that mistake here, but Melody Sky has surely had one of the most fascinating careers in European action sports media.
Sure, she’s a photographer, filmer, artist and all-round creative legend, but these descriptions really don’t do justice to the sheer range of accomplishments and adventures she has to her name.
And what I love about Melody’s story - and career - is how entirely self-made it is. She’s created this unique role for herself, driven by curiosity, drive, graft, passion and a desire to have a life filled with unique and unusual experiences. Perennial themes during Looking Sideways discussions, and particularly relevant when it comes to this chinwag.
We recorded this one on Brighton beach in mid May, and it’s a rambling, shaggy-dog-story of a conversation in the classic Looking Sideways style. This one for the LS originals, and for anybody looking to be inspired by somebody who lives life completely on their own terms. Melody is a hero and I’m stoked to finally chat to her for the show.


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit lookingsideways.substack.com/subscribe