“We were at Poppies Restaurant, about 1980, and Rory Russell, who knew who he was from that show Saturday Night Live, just went up to him and said: ‘Are you Bill Murray?’ Bill goes ‘Yeah, yeah’. So we were sitting there just smashing them after dinner, could have been arak for all I knew, and he was getting into them. So we just told him what we were doing, and said ‘Do you wanna come?’ And fuck he went and got his stuff and came with us in the bus!”- Peter McCabe, current issue of Tracks #542
The above is an excerpt from the latest issue of Tracks, which features a story and rarely seen photos by John Ogden of the time Bill Murray randomly travelled to Grajagan with a group of intrepid surfers including Peter McCabe and two-times Pipe Master, Rory Russell. Murray had apparently just finished making Caddy Shack and was already something of a big deal in the US’, but he didn’t mind hanging out with a few surfing trailblazers in the east Java jungle, at a time when only a select group knew about the fabled wave at G-land.
The engaging double feature by Dave Sparkes covers the reunion of Lopez and McCabe at G-land earlier this year. Both goofy-foot tube aficionados reflect on the late 70s and early 80s when they enjoyed countless sessions together at G-land with only a handful of other surfers in the water. In the second part of the feature McCabe goes into great detail about his early G-land experiences and his role in pioneering Bali’s Padang Padang. In regards to G-land, McCabe paints a picture of a genuine jungle-fringed paradise where his only task was to decipher and name the different sections of the majestic reef. For the better part of a decade he and Gerry rode so many perfect waves at G-land they started trying to get barrelled together just for something to do…
For the full feature Check out the current issue of Tracks, #542, on sale now.
