Brandon Biebel #4.

"That kid's good, man." - Rick Howard

Lakai released a tour video called Beware of the Flare in 2002. It was made during a trip around Europe in March and April of that year. The team stopped in England, Germany, France, Spain, and Portugal for demos and street skating. Dan Wolfe, Ty Evans, and Atiba Jefferson handled camera and production duties. The skaters on the trip were Rick Howard, Mike Carroll, Scott Johnston, Anthony Pappalardo, Brandon Biebel, Rob Welsh, and Marc Johnson. JJ Rousseau and Lucas Puig make appearances as well. Jeff Lenoce and Cairo Foster pop up at the end of the video, with Lenoce in Florida and Foster closing the vid with his only trick. It's a nosegrind on the bottom half of a double set handrail so that is just fine.

Beware of the Flare is mostly demo and park skating. There's an MJ cover in it with a backside 5-0 down a big hubba. Carroll and Pops were taken out by injuries so there's not much of them. Rick Howard clocks a lot of on board time as well as Scott Johnston. This might be the most footage Scott has put out in any one place. Rob Welsh rattles off a lot of tricks. Biebel is shredding and this is probably what put him on the path to joining the pro ranks. All and all, it's a good little video.

Vert Is Dead will be back on Monday, July 3rd.

I'm worn out and need a break. Topics for the future include Capital/Washington D.C. and famous bowls. I'd like to put a little something together on the first King of the Road contest, too. Please feel free to leave suggestions in the comments.

Thrasher - December 2000 Volume 20 Number 12

Cairo Foster #8.

The Official Cairo Foster Fan Site.

After some research, we believe that Cairo was on Adio prior to Lakai. He's on Etnies these days.

Gabe Morford took the pictures.

Thrasher - November 2000 Volume 20 Number 11

Rob Welsh #4.

36 Chambers.

Rob said in an interview that he only did nose and tail slides because he didn't want to mess up the graphics on his board. This nollie frontside noseslide will take some paint off the front end.

Luke Ogden was the photographer.

Thrasher - October 2000 Volume 20 Number 10

Jeff Lenoce #2.

Birdhouse Amateur.

The reason I decided to look back at the early days of Lakai was because they have a new video in the works. The latest issue of Thrasher has interviews with the current team about the upcoming movie. I'm hoping they release it on DVD because I'm over the internet. It sucks that Creature only made a limited run of discs for their most recent video. (If anybody has one and wants to tape a copy, hit me up.) Anyway, the team these days consists of Mike Carroll, Rick Howard, Rick McCrank, Vincent Alvarez, Raven Tershy, Riley Hawk, Danny Brady, Stevie Perez, Jesus Fernandez, Sebo Walker, Cody Chapman, Yonnie Cruz, Simon Bannerot, Tyler Pacheco, and John Sciano. It's almost a completely different lineup from when Lakai started and then who was in Fully Flared ten years ago. That's to be expected since the company has been around for nearly 18 years. I'm interested in seeing how The Flare turns out. The premier party is tonight so people should be complaining about it on social media by tomorrow morning.

I've never dabbled in collecting any of the Powell Peralta re-issues, but the Nicky Guerrero Mask reprint looks totally awesome.

Atiba Jefferson snapped the photos.

Thrasher - August 2000 Volume 20 Number 8

Mike Carroll #18.

The Biz vs. The Nuge.

I owned two pairs of Mike's first pro model on Lakai. I had the blue ones that he is wearing in the ad and a light grey pair that was released later on. I really liked the blue version, but the grey ones seemed a bit different.

My job has been super busy this month and I had a bad head cold last week so I've been frazzled as of late. I've also got a couple freelance things I need to get done, too. I might end up taking the rest of June off from this thing after this week of Lakai. I'll see how it goes.

The sequence is by Atiba Jefferson.

Transworld - September 2000 Volume 18 Number 9

Scott Johnston #4.

Shoe Designer.

Scott had been on DC prior to Lakai. He scored a couple of pro model kicks and then moved behind the scenes to work on designing shoes. He left the company in 2015 for a design position at Adidas.

Next week will be more of the early days of Lakai.

The sequence is by Mike Ballard.

Thrasher - June 2000 Volume 20 Number 6

Rick Howard #13.

A bucket of water will put out the fireworks.

Atiba Jefferson took the photo.

Thrasher - May 2000 Volume 20 Number 5.

Cairo Foster #7.

F-i-r-e-i-n-C-a-i-r-o.

Cairo had the first ad with actual skateboard riding for Lakai. Now you've got that in your arsenal for the next night of skate trivia. I think he might have been on Duffs previously, but I'm not positive on that. Lakai gave him a pro model in 2003. Cairo stayed with them until 2011 when he left for Etnies.

Thrasher - April 2000 Volume 20 Number 4

Lakai #2.

It's gotta be the shoes.

There's not much to say about this one. Lakai again ran different versions of the ad in different mags, but they only had two versions. This did run in Thrasher, but it was a duplicate of the Transworld ad.

The photos are by Andy Mueller. Andy is the art director at Lakai. He's also contributed to Girl, Chocolate, and Fourstar. He's got his own little company called the Quiet Life. Andy took the photo of the band Hum in their van for the You'd Prefer an Astronaut CD booklet.

Top: Big Brother - March 2000 Issue #58

Bottom: Transworld - May 2000 Volume 18 Number 5

Lakai.

Beware of the Flare.

For the next two weeks, Vert Is Dead will be taking a look back at the beginnings of Lakai. The company was started by Mike Carroll and Rick Howard at the end of 1999. They had both been riding for DC and decided to launch their own footwear company. Lakai was originally distributed by Podium, who handled DVS Shoes and Matix Clothing. Later on things would be moved over to Girl and Chocolate for distribution. The team in the early days included Cairo Foster, Brandon Biebel, Jeff Lenoce, Anthony Pappalardo, Scott Johnston, and Rob Welsh.

There were three versions of the first ad, with a different version in Thrasher, Transworld, and Big Brother. These all would have hit the newsstand at roughly the same time, depending on when the mags put out their issue for the month.

#1: Thrasher - February 2000 Volume 20 Number 2

#2: Big Brother - February 2000 Issue #57

#3: Transworld - April 2000 Volume 18 Number 4

Reuben Sawyer.

Fine Art Friday.

Reuben is an artist who has done work for a number of bands, including Russian Circles, Deafheaven, Chelsea Wolfe, Thou, and a whole lot more. He's a musician, too. I might even have a tape he has put out. I listen to a lot of stuff that falls under the vaguely defined sphere that is noise and/or experimental music. I don't usually expect to see the bands I listen to in Thrasher so it was a nice surprise to see Suzy Poling's name in the article. She's an accomplished visual artist who also releases awesome records of otherworldly electronic music under the name Pod Blotz. In other music news, I saw Pharmakon last night. It was a straight up face melter of a gig.

It will be the early days of Lakai on Monday.

The photo is by Jeff Davis.

Thrasher - August 2016 Volume 37 Number 8

Raney Beres.

One Eight Youth Squad.

Raney is from San Antonio, Texas. He's pro for Anti-Hero. His other sponsors include Indy, Spitfire, and Vans. His younger brother Rye is a camera guy over at Camp Crailtap. Raney survived a nasty head injury on a trip to Israel in 2015. He's one of those new kids that shreds transition.

Transworld - January 2017 Issue 383