For the anonymous commenter who requested some Toxic a couple of weeks ago, here you go. I went with a team ad instead of a wheel ad because I didn't want just wheels and dead fish. Holler if you did specifically want an ad with only a photo of the wheels.
Toxic was a company based in Maryland who sponsored Dave Crabb, Bernie O'Dowd, Ken Fillion, Denny Riordon and a few others. Jim "Murf" Murphy rode for them after Alva fell apart, too. They totally played up the toxic image with bright neon colors and gross imagery. Even the wheels had names like Toxic Waste and Toxic Poison. Pretty clever.
The photos are by Matt Horner, Grant Brittain and Sin Egelja.
Transworld - December 1989 Volume 7 Number 8
14 comments:
Sweet, thanks Justin. I always wondered who was on or if they even had a team? I had a set of their "Top Secret" wheels. They were very popular here on the east coast way back yonder. Wonder if they made it out west?
"I was doing okay in contests at the time so I probably could’ve got sponsored by some awful company like Toxic or something but I really wanted to get on Powell. They’d send me boards every few months but I was never really on the team." - Jeremy Klein from the CBI
I'm not sure how far out west Toxic made it. Most of the team was east coast vert guys, although Fillion is from Texas and Crabb is from New Zealand. I believe they also had Charlie Thomas as am, who is from Louisiana. The Toxic Secret must have been a much hyped product for the company because they ran the same wheel photo ad for like three months in a row. I don't think anybody in my town ever had any of their gear. I'm from near Buffalo.
For as kind of corny as Toxic seemed, there's something that I like about them. They had their image and worked with it. It's all so perfectly 1980s.
They had a video that came out around the same time as the speed wheels videos. I can't remember what it was called but we dubbed it onto vhs and I've seen it at least a hand full of times. They had a few street guys... Charlie Thomas as well as Kyong Kim. That's all I remember. In Dave Craab's part, he opened it up street skating in moose slippers.
They also sponsored 2 ams up in Vancouver, Darren and Derek, but I don't think either had a video part.
Stacey Lowery, the owner of Roger skateboards rode for Toxic when he was living in Atlanta back in 1993. My favorite wheel or deck by them was the "Toxic Shock"
There is a guy in my town named Ben Mullen that got product from them, at least that's what I was told. Virginia says hello
Skated with Bernie Odowd a few times back in the mid to late 80's in new jersey. He ripped for sure. The only east coast company worse than toxic back then, to an adolescent fuckwad like myself, was walker or lake skateboards. Rough times in the dawn of the street era.
When did this company call it quits?
Probably 1993 or 1994.
Chuck Wampler also rode for them in 1990/1991, maybe a little bit longer. Not sure.
http://paintxdestroy.blogspot.com/2014/06/destroy-vintage-gator-board.html Pictures of an old Gator with a nice set of Toxic Poison wheels on it.
Ok I recently found an ad that listed the toxic team at some point in 1990/1991. A lot of these guys are no names.
PRO:
Danny Mayer
Darren Menditto
Jim Murphy
Mike Kenny
Kyong Kim
Eric Conner
AM:
Darren Brown
Kevin Colin
Brian Connelly
Jay Crow
Holo Grendyke
Ryan Hodson
Scott Johnston
Brandon Jones
Scott Sorenson
Gene Sung
Mark Taddeo
Jeff Taylor
Mike Thompson
Stirling Tyler
Chuck Wampler
Jeremy Renteria
Also, all the names I listed rode for Toxic Skateboards, although some of them probably did ride Toxic Wheels as well.
Also, Willie Sions, Sean Miller, Jamie Klein, Shawn Duffy. Norm in the Ambler shop cracked us up..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKkqHh5CHVY
The toxic video
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