Gino Iannucci #2.

The Islander.

This ad would have been from when Gino turned pro for the Label. He rode for 101 later and then switched to Chocolate for the long haul. What else do you really need to say? It's Gino after all.

Thanks again to the good folks at the Black Label for the link and posting this site on their Facebook page every day.

The weather looks promising enough to allow skateboarding over the weekend. It refuses to stop snowing around here.

The new clip of Grant Taylor skating an indoor masonite vert ramp on the Thrasher website is awesome.

Vert Is Dead will be back on April 8th with something involving Creature. I need a break from doing this thing.

Thrasher - August 1993 Volume 13 Number 8

Joey Tershay.

Aces.

Joey rode for Black Label and was the team manager at Independent Trucks. He started Ace Trucks in 2007. His cousin is Chocolate all terrain am Raven Tershy. His brother Nick is the man behind the Diamond Supply Company, which has gone from making bolts to become a big time street wear company.

Note: There was a weird screen pattern incorporated into the design of the ad, which is why it looks slightly pixelated. It makes sense in print.

Thrasher - September 1993 Volume 13 Number 9

John Cardiel & Skip Pronier.

Two mainstays of the early 1990s Black Label.

Cards does a noseslide and Skip spins a frontside 360.

Thrasher - November 1992 Volume 12 Number 11

Max Evans #3.

Whatever happened to this guy?

Max was pro for the Label and then vanished in the early 1990s. I want to say he rode for Poorhouse before joining up with John Lucero and company.

The photos are by Chris Ortiz.

Transworld - December 1991 Volume 9 Number 12

Jake Burns.

It's onto week two of the Black Label.

"Elle MacPherson, Cindy Crawford, and Paulina Porizkova, if you're reading this, don't get bummed. Jake really does like you, it's just that he wants Anne Pritcard to be his wife. He also wants a black Ford F-250 4x4, a lot of money, and a Cro-Mags/Black Flag record collection. Of course, if that fails, this all-terrain riding sixteen-year-old Huntington Beach resident will just hang with his friends, chase rad girls, eat tasty food and admire Mark Gonzales, Chris Miller, and Jose Cerda."

Jake happens to have the same name as the frontman for Stiff Little Fingers, which is why it says Nobody's Hero in the ad.

Alec Schroeder took the photo.

For the info: Thrasher - February 1990 Volume 10 Number 2

Thrasher - August 1990 Volume 10 Number 8

Jeff Grosso #4.

Whatever he is doing, he's at the forefront of it.

The picture is by Sean Sullivan.

Thrasher - January 1990 Volume 10 Number 1

Shawn Martin #2.

"I first met Shawn about three years ago, I think. It took place out in front of Concrete Jungle Skateshop and Orb introduced us. He was surprised that Shawn and I hadn't already met, seeing how we both were riding for the Concrete Jungle team. We then talked, and after that we went skating.

Shawn had just moved to San Francisco from Eugene, Oregon and didn't know many people. He was #@!*ing bad ass. He could do flippity wipp tricks three years ago, and he was the first person I ever saw do an ollie backside grab. He was also the first person I knew of who could do nose-grinds - he called them novacanes. He'd go up like he was going to do a regular slappy front truck lapover, and he'd scrape his rail like a Smith grind, then come off revert. I also saw him doing nose-grinds on Stewart's ramp and coming off of it without hanging up.

Shawn skates like himself and has since I met him. Wherever I've gone with him, he has juiced it, and ripped. He can ride anything, which qualifies him as a real skater in my book. Take him to a vert ramp and watch him learn tricks out of nowhere. Shawn and I are into the same kinds of stuff - skating fast, hanging out, and getting down to some blitzkrieg speedpit action. We just saw Suicidal Tendencies the other night and it was awesome. Muir got us both in for free."

- Noah Peacock

That was Shawn Martin's Check Out from 1991. He rode for Lucero and then Black Label, Independent, and Spitfire. He did turn pro for the Label.

Luke Ogden was the photographer.

For the Check Out: Transworld - May 1991 Volume 9 Number 5

Thrasher - July 1990 Volume 10 Number 7

Mike Lohrman.

Sunday at Lohrman's.

Mike rode for the Black Label. He had or maybe still has a ramp at his mom's house that was even the subject of a short article in Thrasher by Andy Harris. All sorts of legends skated there, including Jeff Grosso, Duane Peters, Jim Gagne, Kyle Yanagimoto, and David Hackett. Mike is the singer for LA punk band The Stiches.

Thanks to Michael Burnett for the assist on this one.

It's another photo by Marty "Jinx" Jimenez.

For the info: Thrasher - August 2003 Volume 23 Number 8

Thrasher - February 1989 Volume 9 Number 2

Riky Barnes #6.

"The guy with the spiked black hair and Levi's. Yep, that's him. He rides and projects his ideas of what he wants to do with his skateboard while navigating it. He just won a contest in Arizona, a banked street type, which is his main thing, contest-wise. Hellbow lists high on his places to visit regularly, along with pools, various plywood structures, and the streets of his native Huntington Beach and Newport Beach zone.

He likes Duane Peters, Chimp, and music of the original hardcore fashion. Anything else is unknown, except to friends John Lucero, Tony Chiala, Mike Lohrman, Willi, and E.T.

He's good at this skateboarding thing. He has a Levi jacket. Ricky Barnes is on his way."

- Danny Tsang

This was Riky's Check Out in Transworld from 1989. He rode for Lucero, Independent, and Santa Cruz Speed Wheels. He stuck with the changes from Lucero to Black Label and is currently on the Emergency Division. Riky was also on Spitfire.

Thanks to the Black Label for the link. Let me know if I get anything wrong.

The photo is by Marty "Jinx" Jimenez. I think he used Man Child as an alias.

Transworld - February 1989 Volume 7 Number 1

John Lucero #4.

This is the Black Label.

Lucero started his self titled company in 1988 after he had been riding for Schmitt Stix. He originally partnered with Steve Rocco, but that did not last long and soon NHS was distributing the brand. A year or so later, Lucero took the company over to Vision. Then in 1990, the Black Label began, independent of anybody else. Over the years, there have been ups and downs, team changes, and other distribution partnerships, but the Label has always remained with Lucero at the helm.

Some of the team riders have included Jeff Grosso, Tim Upson, Jim Gagne, Omar Hassan, Matt Hensley, Skip Pronier, Max Evans, John Cardiel, Simon Woodstock, Jason Dill, Jonas Wray, Wade Speyer, Jason Adams, Mike Vallely, and quite a few more.

Lucero has had pro models on Madrid and Schmitt Stix. He is a prolific artist and has designed a large number of classic board graphics in his decades involved with skateboarding.

The photo is by Dave Swift.

Thrasher - July 1989 Volume 9 Number 7

Claus Grabke #2.

Eight Dayz.

Claus turned 50 at the end of January. He's from Germany. Hopefully he is still rolling around a little bit. He played in bands and did art in addition to shredding the giant halfpipes. Claus is vegetarian. He turned down the chance to have the first pro model shoe on account of the fact that the shoe used leather and suede. So instead Natas got the first pro sneaker with Etnies.

Claus' name came up the other night when I was talking to my friend. He said he needed to get a new helmet because he was going to a birthday party at a skatepark soon. He was saying how back in the day he got a pink helmet because Claus had one.

Get ready for two weeks of Black Label starting on Monday. Basically it's going to be a bunch of guys you never really heard of and that one ad with Gino.

The photos are by Uli Niewöhner.

Thrasher - February 1989 Volume 9 Number 2

Jeff Kendall #3.

One of the great things about the Santa Cruz videos back in the 1980s and early 1990s was the music in them. Growing up in a small town in the pre-internet days, you certainly weren't on the cutting edge of what important things were going on in the world of underground music. It was something that you weren't even positive existed.

The Santa Cruz video soundtracks were filled with bands on SST Records. This would have been one of the first places I ever heard Black Flag, The Descendents, fIREHOSE, Minutemen, Dinosaur Jr., and Sonic Youth. Unlike the Powell Peralta and H-Street productions, you could actually find the music of these bands at the local record store. Of course you usually had to special order them, which was a bit of gamble in case you picked the wrong tape that didn't have any songs from the video.

I remember pondering over the cassette of Sonic Youth's Daydream Nation at Record Giant and wondering if I should buy it. I didn't. It was expensive and the cassette holder covered the song listing so I couldn't tell if "Catholic Block" or "White Cross" were on it, which they weren't. So I'm a little glad I didn't buy Daydream Nation then because I would have been disappointed. I wasn't sure what I thought of Sonic Youth at the time based on the two songs that I knew. I didn't dislike them, but it didn't register instantly as something I liked. And that was probably a good thing. All of this is funny now because Sonic Youth became one of my favorite bands.

I sometimes wonder if videos today have the same influence on the music selection of the younger generation of skateboarders. Truthfully they probably do, although I don't know if that is always a good thing. It probably is no different than back when I was a kid. It sort of doesn't feel the same, which could be the perspective you gain from growing older and developing your tastes. Other than the Beach Fossils album from a couple of years ago, I can't remember the last time I checked out a band I'd never heard before solely from a skateboard video. I'm at a point now where I'd prefer a well edited part set to a song that didn't think much of over somebody skating to a band I enjoy. Although there are often bands I do like a lot used in videos these days so I guess everything evens out in the end.

Thrasher - June 1990 Volume 10 Number 6

Hugh "Bod" Boyle #3.

Bod is from London, England. His nickname is from an English cartoon. He grew up skating around the city and at the Crystal Palace ramp with Steve Douglas. At the end of the 1980s, he started doing really well in a lot of vert contests. Bod also moved to San Jose around that time, too. He was on G & S before Santa Cruz. According to an interview from twenty three years ago, his favorite bands included Black Sabbath, the Sex Pistols, the Damned, and Bad Religion. Some of his favorite skaters were Mike Smith, Todd Prince, Sergie Ventura, and the locals at Jeff Kendall's warehouse ramp.

For the info: Thrasher - May 1990 Volume 10 Number 5

Thrasher - March 1990 Volume 10 Number 3

Jason Jessee #3.

Strangeness does feel right.

Jason was pro for Santa Cruz and then retired about twenty years ago. We're all glad he is still around and not living in a retirement home in Florida. He was one of the original riders on Consolidated with Alan Petersen, Karma Tsocheff, and Cory Chrysler. After a long time at the Cube, Jason did his own thing called the Driven. He rejoined the veterans division at Santa Cruz within the last few years. He also recently acquired Converse as a shoe sponsor, which seems about right since he always wore their sneakers.

Transworld - April 1990 Volume 8 Number 4

Steve Alba #3.

The Dot hits the big 4-0.

Since Santa Cruz is turning 40 this year, I figured I'd take a quick look back at the company. I originally intended to have a few different scans from over the years including from when I first started skateboarding to some of the mid 90s to a couple more recent ads. However when I started looking through the mags, I decided to go with some classics from 1989-90. I also kept it strictly Santa Cruz, no wheel ads or other companies they distributed.

Santa Cruz Skateboards was started in 1973 by Richard Novak, Doug Haut, and Jay Shuirman. They originally were making stuff for surfers, but soon started making skateboards and have been so ever since. The pro team has included Steve Alba, Steve Olson, Duane Peters, Rob Roskopp, Eric Dressen, Tom Knox, Jason Jessee, Ray Meyer, Jeff Grosso, Tim Brauch, Brian Childers, Richard Kirby, and many, many more.

Salba turned 50 this year and he just keeps going. It's a little weird seeing a photo of Steve on a regular vert ramp and not in a pool, but he was hitting up a lot of ramps around this time.

Transworld - December 1989 Volume 7 Number 8

Jim Greco #2.

Grecs goes over the back for a Smith grind

Jim was an am for Birdhouse and rode for Zero. He was part of the original Baker team. Jim has had quite a few fashion phases in the last fifteen years, but he seems to have settled on a relatively normal skateboarder look as of late. He has also been paying tribute to Jeremy Klein with tricks off of vans and over things. The man has contributed a lot to the vocabulary of skateboarding over the years, too.

That does it for Deathwish week. Up next is a quick look at forty years of the Dot.

Chris Ortiz photographed the sequence.

Transworld - September 1997 Volume 15 Number 9

Brian "Slash" Hansen.

A rare sighting of Slash sans beard.

Brian was part of the Pig Wood team and turned pro rode for Black Label. He was on Deathwish from the beginning. He also rides for Fallen, Altamont Apparel, and Spitfire. Slash is a motorcycle enthusiast.

I think this week at Vert Is Dead could be described as something that skateboarders under thirty would appreciate.

Thrasher - April 2004 Volume 24 Number 4

Lizard King.

Passion. Green Room. Satan.

Mike "Lizard King" Plumb is from Salt Lake City, Utah. He has been sponsored by Pig Wood and Think. He joined up with Deathwish at the beginning of the company. Lizard has jumped the Mega Ramp and is known for throwing down street grabs switch, among other things. I think he even gave out his cellphone number in an interview once.

Thrasher - May 2007 Volume 27 Number 5

Erik Ellington & Aaron Pearcey.

Erik rode for Balance and was one of the first riders on Zero with Jamie Thomas. He was also on Danny Minnick's Clout Skateboards prior to Balance and at the least appeared in a commercial for them in 411. Erik switched over to Baker when the company first started, but then went back to Zero briefly before opting to stick with Baker.

Aaron Pearcey is one of Erik's friends from Arizona. If the YouTube can be believed, Aaron, Erik, and Scott Copalman were in charge of things at Balance. I'm pretty sure Aaron is still part of the Piss Drunks/Shake Junt crew.

Transworld - March 1996 Volume 14 Number 3

Jon Dickson.

Welcome to Deathwish Week.

Erik Ellington and Jim Greco started Deathwish in 2008. Part of the motivation was that the team on Baker had grown larger and another board company would allow more exposure for some of the new faces. They also started their own distribution company as well, which now handles both Baker and Deathwish, along with Shake Junt and Heroin.

Jon was an am for Birdhouse and then joined up with the crew at Deathwish. He's still an amateur for them, but I'm thinking he will probably be turning pro sometime after the new video drops. It's interesting how many guys have ridden for Birdhouse before switching to either Baker or Deathwish. Such a sponsor change might seem a little unusual, but up until the fall of 2011, both companies were under the Blitz Distribution umbrella.

Thrasher - August 2008 Volume 28 Number 8

Ocean Howell #3.

Ocean rode for H-Street and turned pro for Birdhouse. He was on another level of smoothness with flip tricks back in the early 1990s compared to nearly everybody else. Everything was fast and caught clean without venturing into ugly pressure flip territory.

How about Ben Raybourn? Gnarly. I like the Birdhouse graphic with the glasses.

Atiba Jefferson took the photos.

Transworld - April 1996 Volume 14 Number 4