The debut of the nollie to 50-50.
I've always liked the simplicity of this ad. I was also surprised I'd never posted it here, although it has been on the internet nearly every other place by now. This was also the debut of Natas riding for 101 after leaving Santa Monica Airlines. 101 was the fourth brand backed by Steve Rocco to go along with World Industries, Liberty, and Blind.
I eventually learned nollies to 50-50 on the low PVC slider bar I had. I was riding a Matt Hensley church glass board so there was plenty of nose to do the trick off. It took a while to get the hang of how to pop off the front of the board. Nowadays one of my favorite tricks is to just go fast and nollie on flat ground.
I've soured on skateboarding's fascination with everything Rocco in the last few years. Sure his riders ripped, the videos were mostly good, and some of the graphics were funny, but the whole being controversial for the sake of being controversial has grown very tired to me. It all completely made sense in that era of skateboarding. Yet it also feels like some of that creativity could have been directed towards more meaningful endeavors. And when the last few mysteries were tracked down from that time period, the results were disappointing. It's probably always better to not know and leave portions of the past as cheerful and hazy memories.
Thrasher - February 1991 Volume 11 Number 2
5 comments:
These ledges were so much fun. used to skate these almost every weekend.
Love the sepia tone.
definitely agree re: rocco. when i was a kid in the 2000s eating up as much information/history as i could (not all that much, in hindsight), i'd read about the (pre-96) golden age of World and Big Brother and think that stuff was rad; looking back now it's at best generic edgelord nonsense and at worst really cruel. rocco was a total ass! "cool and edgy" but also a suit at heart.
man, anything WI, even before they went off the deep end with mascots, just leaves a really bad taste in my mouth nowadays. keep the shredding, leave the edge and dollar sign eyes in the past.
wasn't really paying attention to skating for like a decade, coming back and seeing how much more broad things are now (and to a certain extent always have been) compared to like, the monopoly World/Dwindle had throughout the 90s/00s is refreshing
Yes, it is good how skateboarding is wide open now.
I get the occasional edgy stuff since most of the people doing it are teenagers or in their low 20s. Doesn’t make it right, but that’s the frame of mind you can be in when you are younger. World keeps looking worse as the time moves on. Whereas Real and Stereo start to look even better as they age.
I liked Big Brother, but more for the creativity they were showing under Dave Carnie. The worst is when I’m tracking down info for a post and the only interview a person did is with Big Brother. You aren’t getting anything usable from those. It also feels like Big Brother should be left in the past without anybody trying to redo it, a la Jenkem. Although they do have some great writing on worthwhile topics.
The ad isn't really sepia toned, that's just age and not color correcting the white. I think they look better that way.
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