Albe Falzon could feel the shift coming like the first lick of a southerly change. By the late 60s, Australian youth were seeking an alternative path; embracing new music, ideas and ways of living that clashed with the conservative ideals of white bread Australia. “With Tracks we came into the picture when people were looking for a direction,” Albe explained in a recent interview with Tracks writer, Mitali Joshi.    

When Tracks released its first issue in late 1970, many young people were also strongly opposed to Australia’s involvement in the Vietnam War. Surfers were at the vanguard of this rebellion. “In September twenty thousand of us marched through the streets of Sydney in protest against the atrocities of the Vietnam war,” wrote Nat Young in the first issue of Tracks. “Twenty thousand of us were together: ex-servicemen, wharfies, students, surfers, housewives.”

When he started making ‘Morning of the Earth’ and launched Tracks alongside John Witzig and David Elfick, Albe was living at Whale Beach on Sydney’s Northside. The fabled Whale Beach House simultaneously served as the Tracks office, Albe’s home and the edit suite for the film that would become ‘Morning of the Earth’. After a Tracks deadline, Albe would bolt up the coast to film a tribe of talented surfers who were carving new lines in and out of the water. They didn’t need to say anything in front of the camera because their unrestricted self-expression on the waves made it clear they had ripped a tear in the social fabric and discovered a different state of mind. 

These surfers were turning their backs on the travails of city life to cultivate a version of Arcadia in remote coastal regions. “Living in the city has got to be a drag,” claimed Dick Van Straalen in Tracks issue #1.  “People, ...