Josh Kalis.

Oh, shit. Josh has damn near the best pop, flick and catch for switch flip tricks.

Sophisto was Andy Howell's clothing company. It was initially done with the help of the New Deal, but I believe Andy took it solo at some point. Probably after the word Underworld was cut from Element. Originally the company was called Zero Sophisto. Jamie Thomas, Pepe Martinez, Vinnie Ponte, Shiloh Greathouse and Kenny Hughes all rode for the business over the years.

Tobin Yelland took the photo.

Transworld - October 1995 Volume 13 Number 10

Ronnie Bertino.

Ronnie was one of the new kids that pushed street skating in the early 1990s. He turned pro for Think, but soon left for the greener pastures of Steve Rocco's empire. He rode for Blind and Plan B. When Plan B folded, Ronnie found a sponsor with ATM. He is no longer pro, but is the domestic sales manager with ATM these days. 48 Blocks recently posted an interview with him.

Orion was a 1990s truck brand out of the Tracker camp. They had a solid team of big names, including Rob Dyrdek, Eric Koston, Steve Berra, Kris Markovich and Kareem Campbell to name a few. The company lasted into the early 2000s.

Transworld - December 1995 Volume 13 Number 12

Vinnie Ponte.

This guy had some massive pop. It seemed like in each new video part he put out at the end of 1990s, he was doing ollies higher than the previous one. He also went fast and subscribed to the school of doing your tricks better over doing every single trick out there. Vinnie rode for Zoo York and Pig Wheels after Tree Fort. I believe he rode for War Effort after Zoo and then he kind of just faded away.

Paul "Skin" Phillips snapped the picture.

Transworld - October 1995 Volume 13 Number 10

Heath Kirchart.

"switch backside 180 kickflip"

Heath looks so young in all the old magazines. I don't think he gets as much credit for all the massive switch stuff that he does either. He would have been riding for Foundation at this time and those look like Duffs on his feet.

Three things I saw at the skatepark over the weekend:

3. A kid was riding a DGK board. Not that rare, but it doesn't happen very often around my town.

2. A kid was wearing a pair of Ice Cream shoes. They looked like a pair of adidas Stan Smiths that had been spray painted green. It took me a few minutes to figure out what they were. He probably got them because they were on sale somewhere since the company has melted away.

1. A kid was riding an Expedition board. That right there is like seeing Big Foot.

The picture is by Chris Ortiz.

Transworld - November 1995 Volume 13 Number 11

Matt Pailes.

I was trying to figure out what to post today and I really had no clue what to go with. Matt Pailes seemed about right since he rode for Think with Drehobl and he's skating a classic SF spot.

Gabe Morford took the photo.

Transworld - October 1995 Volume 13 Number 10

Dan Drehobl #6.

Vert Is Dead turns one year old today.

Big thanks to everybody that has checked out the site, left a comment or given me a link.

Thrasher - January 1995 Volume 15 Number 1

Mike Frazier.

Frazier took a lot of the early 90s technical street tricks to vert. He came up on Powell, rode for Birdhouse and then Stereo. He also rode for Toy Machine, Element and Santa Cruz. He has the distinction of being the only vert rider Ed Templeton ever put on Toy Machine. Mike's been around for a while and has a new interview in the current issue of Skateboarder.

Thrasher - November 1994 Volume 14 Number 11

Israel Forbes.

Israel rode for SMA until NHS merged the company with Santa Cruz. I liked his part set to CCR in the slightly Mexican themed El Video Número Tres video. The video featured Jason Adams, Frank Hirata, Ron Whaley, Paul Sharpe, Tim Brauch and Hideo Sackuragi. The soundtrack had a good sampling of early 90s listening habits for many and included NOFX, White Zombie, Ween, Quicksand, The Sex Pistols, Dinosaur Jr. and more Ween. Somebody at SMA liked the Ween.

Israel stuck with the Dot as did Ron and Tim. Hirata and Sharpe moved to Foundation. Jason went to Scarecrow and then Sonic before hooking up with the Black Label.

The photos are by Thomas Campbell.

Thrasher - October 1994 Volume 14 Number 10

Note on Steve Olson from yesterday: He skates regular. Which means there is no way in hell he is doing a switch 360 flip. Maybe a 360 flip, but from the position of the feet and the board, the safe money is on an inward heelflip. Transworld didn't run a correction or anything. Let's chalk this up to either the photographer forgetting what the trick was or an editor wanting to make the mag seem more advanced than it was at the moment.

Steve Olson.

"bugboy flip down eight stairs. O.K. so it's a switch-stance 360 flip."

This is not Alex Olson's dad. This Steve Olson rode for Foundation for most of the 1990s and then joined up with Chad Muska to be the second pro on Shorty's.

I got really stoked on mid 1990s stuff when I was looking for Tim Brauch pictures a couple of weeks ago so that is what it is going to be for the rest of the month.

Steve Sherman took the photo.

Trasnworld - January 1994 Volume 12 Number 1

Spitfire #5.

John Schultes was another Dogtown pro. His gear is so 1980s that it borders on being painful to look at. Sorry, dude. Schultes had the distinction of being in the first full page Spitfire ad in January 1990. His gear situation was much improved the second time around.

Sean Sheffey has been in the game a long time now. He is trying to make a comeback with help from Jake Brown and Blind these days. Shef would have been riding for Shut in 1989. It doesn't seem like it has been twenty years.

Left: Thrasher - October 1989 Volume 9 Number 10

Right: Thrasher - December 1989 Volume 9 Number 12

Note: I had been posting the ads in chronological order, but Spitfire ran vertical half pagers in October and December. For layout purposes, I paired these two together.

Spitfire #4.

Mickie Alba was the first pro to be in a Spitfire ad. He is Steve Alba's younger brother and rode for Dogtown at the time. MALBA was an all around ripper who also did well in contests, routinely placing in the top five with the likes of Tony Hawk, Chris Miller and Bod Boyle.

Coco Santiago was riding for Shut at this point. He would go on to ride for Real in the not so distant future. He stuck with the Fire for wheels.

Top: Thrasher - September 1989 Volume 9 Number 9

Chris Ortiz took the photo.

Bottom: Thrasher - November 1989 Volume 9 Number 11

Bill Thomas took the photo.

Spitfire #3.

Keith Cochrane was the first rider to appear in a Spitfire ad. That's a bit of skateboard trivia you can use. I believe that Keith either rode for or worked at Dogtown for this photo. I don't think he was ever pro. He went on to start Think Skateboards with Greg Carroll and Don Fisher. Keith was also involved with Venture.

Top: Thrasher - July 1989 Volume 9 Number 7

Bottom: Thrasher - August 1989 Volume 9 Number 8

Spitfire #2.

Everybody is probably wondering where the flame head logo is. Spitfire didn't start using it until May 1992. The circle vortex is the original logo for the company.

The first Spitfires were such a contrast to the full color wheels that Powell Peralta and Santa Cruz were putting out at the time. I think that's why they caught on. There were also a lot of issues at the time with wheel hardness versus what color the wheel was. Colored wheels often weren't as hard or as durable as white wheels. Sometimes this worked out for the better and sometimes it didn't. It depended on what you were riding. Generally the break down was 95A or softer for street, 97A for both street and ramps and 98A for ramps. I remember some Santa Cruz wheels at 98A being too hard for street, whereas some 95A green Powell wheels were awesome for street. You lost a lot of speed when you took the softer wheels to a ramp however.

Top: Thrasher - April 1989 Volume 9 Number 4

Note: This ad also ran in the May 1989 issue.

Bottom: Thrasher - June 1989 Volume 9 Number 6

Spitfire #1.

Welcome to Spitfire week. The next five days are going to showcase the first fourteen months of Spitfire ads.

Spitfire is the second oldest skate brand under the Deluxe banner next to Thunder trucks. At the time in the late 1980s, the company was looking to expand and this included Beware Records as well. Beware put out albums by Skatemaster Tate, Drunk Injuns, McRad and UNGH! Real Skateboards came into the picture in 1990.

I started skateboarding in 1987 and the first issue of Thrasher I bought was the November 1988 issue. I'm making an educated guess that the Spitfire advertisement on top was the first ad. The guy with the ray gun would be second. This is one of my favorite images for the company. Spitfire only ran half page ads for 1989 and for the first six months, they would often repeat ads.

Top: Thrasher - December 1988 Volume 8 Number 12

Note: This ad also ran in the November 1988 issue, but with the vortex and address in blue instead of green.

Bottom: Thrasher - February 1989 Volume 9 Number 1

Note: This same ad ran from January to March.

Tim Brauch #8.

"The Brauchenator boosts a frontside fastplant over one of the concrete tubes at Turtles in Boston, Massachusetts."

4/16/1974 - 5/9/1999

Go crack a cold one and raise your right index finger to your brow for Tim today. Make sure you go skateboarding, too. (Unless you're getting rained on like I am.)

The photo is by Jon Humphries.

Transworld - December 1997 Volume 15 Number 12

Tim Brauch #7.

There's no way you can talk about Tim Brauch without mentioning the Beautiful Men's Club. The BMC was started in 1996 when Jason Adams, Salman Agah, Lance Dalgart and Tim were watching a Sean Connery movie. At some point during the film Salman said, "Sean Connery's a beautiful man." The rest is history.

The BMC was all about fun. They were into cheap beer, Schwinns and hot dog roasts. The official salute was an index finger raised to the eyebrow, which was based on a gesture made by the Hamm's bear.

Some other members of the club included Kris Markovich, Ron Whaley, Dave Carnie, Ed Nemeth, Scotty Greathouse, Jai Tanju, J.J. Rogers, Todd Prince and John Lucero.

When Tim passed away, that was more or less the end of the BMC as an official beer drinking, meat eating entity. The torch of promoting goodwill and silliness in San Jose skateboarding was picked up by the Tiltmode Army. You still see "Never Forget Tim Brauch" stickers in Tiltmode group photos.

The photo is by Lance Dalgart.

Thrasher - July 1998 Volume 18 Number 7

For BMC info: Skateboarder - April 2001 Volume 10 Number 5

Tim Brauch #6.

"Thomas Campbell's close personal friend Tim Brauch is a slob, I mean does frontside mutes. I always get that mixed up."

I'm a big fan of Thomas Campbell's art. He did a few boards for Tim over the years. He also took the photo.

I got the graphics from the Disposable website.

Transworld - December 1995 Volume 13 Number 12

Tim Brauch #5.

Este was a clothing company that Tim did with Salman Agah. It was backed by Sessions. Tim found the bird logo, which isn't used in this particular ad, on a trip to Spain. The very first ad used the same bird logo, but the company was named Talon. That quickly changed to Este. Some of the riders on the team included Darren Navarette, Charlie Wilkins, Richard Kirby, Crazy Eddie and Jason Adams.

Transworld - October 1995 Volume 13 Number 10

Tim Brauch #4.

"Tim poised at the wheel of 180 nosegrind."

This photo was from an interview in Thrasher featuring Tim and Jason Adams. They both rode for SMA at the time. There were a lot of new pros coming up in 1993 and this interview was a fun read that provided some background on a couple of new faces. They cover a full range of topics, including music, movies, drinking, hair dye, coffee and contests. Tim and Jason endorse skating fast and riding everything.

Tim liked Valley Girl and Thelma and Louise for movies. For music, he was into the Muffs, Fluf, Supersuckers and Rocket From The Crypt.

Bryce Kanights shot the picture.

Thrasher - September 1993 Volume 13 Number 9

Tim Brauch #3.

Tim was first sponsored by New Deal and had a part in the Useless Wooden Toys video. He left the Deal and turned pro for SMA. Then NHS decided to consolidate the company and Tim was moved over to Santa Cruz. He stayed on Santa Cruz the rest of his career.

The little blurb about him building a mini ramp while his parents were out of town is great.

The photos and write up are by Mark Waters.

Transworld - November 1991 Volume 9 Number 11

Tim Brauch #2.

This week is going to be all about Tim Brauch. It has been ten years now since he passed away. Tim was an amazing skateboarder who rode everything with style and power. He had a congenital heart condition that was not supposed to be a problem, but unfortunately that was not the case. Tim died after having dinner with his girlfriend and her parents. He had been skating earlier in the day with Chet Childress and Jason Adams.

Transworld - September 1992 Volume 10 Number 9

The biographical info is from an article written by Jai Tanju in Big Brother - August 1999 Number 51

Ed Templeton #7.

The poor guy tries to squeeze in skateboard time between art shows only to get rained out in Barcelona.

This is unrelated to Ed, but has anyone else noticed that in some of the current ads with Antwaun Dixon, it appears he has fewer face tattoos? Are they using older photos, Photoshop or different lighting techniques to make it seem like he has less ink? Because at this point any advice for him slow it down a little is a moot point.

Transworld - April 2000 Volume 18 Number 4