Vikings Of Hesh Law.

Happy Halloween!

Purple? Now that's scary.

This was a series of boards with art by Todd Bratrud. I dig the Shed band logo on Sam Hitz's helmet.

As a spooky season bonus, here's a Pushead graphic for Scott Stanton from 1991:

I always swap out my Facebook profile picture for a Pushead graphic at Halloween. I had to crop this one a tad and obviously I colored it in orange. It's the closest I come to doing anything for the holiday, aside from the annual theme week here.

This thing is slowly creeping up toward the 3,000 post mark.

The Skateboard Mag - January 2009 Issue 58

Al Partanen #9.

"Some of my favs were Reese Simpson, he had the style; Ben Schroeder shook the ground; Chris Miller fell his first time rolling into the triple pool but then absolutely destroyed the place with sick lines and nosebones over the keyhole channel. Jeff Grosso killed it 'til he took a hearty head stack. Jason Jessee taught me rock and roll slides at a session for Salba's birthday. Being a young kid and being exposed to those dudes, my mind was doing backflips."

Al talks about some of his favorites at Milwaukee's Turf. It must have been awesome to grow up with a skateboard park that brought big names from all over the place to your little corner of the world.

Lance Dawes was the photographer.

For the quote: Thrasher - June 2008 Volume 28 Number 6

The Skateboard Mag - October 2009 Issue 67

Darren Navarrette #15.

"Sam Hitz and me would fight for a pair of Zombu wheels, 50s. They'd get 'em at the skateshop and he'd jump on his bicycle and I'd run, and the first dude there would get the last set of Zombu wheels. He got 'em, and I had to ride 45s."

Darren recalls the struggles of finding bigger wheels for vert in the 1990s. Vert Is Dead fully endorses footraces for deciding things and larger wheels.

Here's what a Zorlac Zombu wheel looks like:

The photo is by Chris "Rhino" Rooney.

For the quote: Thrasher - March 2009 Volume 29 Number 3

The Skateboard Mag - September 2009 Issue 66

Brue Killers.

"We've got nothing better to do than watch TV and have a couple of brews."

Creature made some cruiser boards with a built in bottle opener. Was Gravette even old enough to drink in 2009?

The photo is by Keith Wilson. I think I got the name right.

The Skateboard Mag - August 2009 Issue 65

Josh Perkins.

Born Dead.

I'm going with a week of Creature for Halloween this year. I figure it is a smart move to stick with a classic for spooky season. Creature was resurrected around about 2005 or 2006 after roughly eight years in the graveyard. They released a video called Born Dead in 2006 to showcase the new team. The OGs of Darren Navarrette, Al Partanen, and Sam Hitz were on the squad, along with new faces like David Gravette, John Ponts, Cody Boat, and a few others.

Josh is from Cape Neddick, Maine. His other sponsors were Sessions, Independent, Dekline, and Accel Wheels. For his part in Born Dead, Josh skated a lot of handrails. He slammed a bunch on those same handrails, too. His skating reminded me a little of Jon Allie. In addition to the 50-50s, feeble grinds, Smith grinds, lipslides, and 5-0s, Josh did a pop shove-it down a big four block, cruised a bowl, and did a nice ollie shifty off a bump on the sidewalk. This backside 180 ollie is in his section. He skated to the haunting punk sounds of The Rakes.

It was super tough to find Creature ads, especially ones I hadn't posted. I don't think they do an ad every month and they always rotate where they are in the mags. At the same time, I flipped by so many Ricta ads. I suppose one product sells itself and the other needs all the promotion it can get.

The photograph is by Chris "Rhino" Rooney.

Thrasher - August 2006 Volume 26 Number 8

Darrell Stanton & Dennis Busenitz.

As the world turns.

The photo is by Gabe Morford.

Transworld - December 2002 Volume 20 Number 12

Think Team 2003.

Thinking folks.

Think was fairly consistent with taking a team photo each and every twelve months. They might have even run two group ads in the same year once or twice. Long time riders Pat Duffy, Pancho Moler, and Danny Fuenzalida are there along with the elusive Jessica Krause and a young Daryl Angel. Jason Masse has ridden for a few companies over the years, including Real and World Industries. Sean Payne lives in Hawaii so that's a rock solid excuse for skipping picture day.

Thrasher - April 2003 Volume 23 Number 4

Rob Dyrdek #5.

Diamond shine.

I figure I had to include DC in this week of ads with profile photos. They weren't afraid to head into the studio to make a little photographic magic happen, as is the case with Rob admiring his new shoe model.

Transworld - October 2002 Volume 20 Number 10

Shorty's Team 2002.

Guilty of fulfilling the dream.

There's definitely a team vibe to this photo, but it also starts to feel that things are beginning to drift apart. Shorty's was a little bit past their high water mark in 2002, but still a fairly big entity in skateboarding.

Thrasher - September 2002 Volume 22 Number 9

Emerica Team 2002.

This was skateboarding.

I decided to do a week of group team ads. Team ads can be a little hit or miss, depending on how the art direction goes. For companies with smaller teams that actually skate together, they tend to occur more naturally. Otherwise group photos can drift into the territory of a forced yearbook picture, especially if a theme is involved. One positive is that you know who all is on the team at a given point. Or who is off the team, depending on how things are going.

This is the Emerica team from 2002. The picture was taken in either late 2001 or early 2002. You have Ed Templeton, Erik Ellington, Heath Kirchart, Tosh Townend, Andrew Reynolds, and Donny Barley. Everybody except Barley would have a full part in Emerica's This Is Skateboarding video from 2003. I like how Ed and Erik are both sporting sunglasses.

****

My friend Steve passed away suddenly on Friday. He's in the Vision Street Wear shirt on the left. I'm standing next to him with our friends Jay and Paul to the right. The photo is from the late fall of 1992, probably during Thanksgiving break, but possibly on the front end of winter break. Steve’s brother Dan took it. Steve snapped a few other photos that afternoon. We went skateboarding at the college on a cold and dry Saturday. I don’t recall if it was a good day, so let’s just call it a day. Skateboarding was in a weird and frustrating place in the early 1990s so sometimes it wasn’t always fun. Jay broke his board and it looks like Paul might have cracked his, too. I think I landed an ollie down a bigger set of stairs that don’t exist any longer. Anyway, enough of my rambling on early 1990s skateboarding, take the time to appreciate your friends when they are around because you never know when they might be gone.

Transworld - April 2002 Volume 20 Number 4

Gino Iannucci #6.

"To me, that just feels like the right way to do it. I've had people tell me before, like, 'Maybe you should go a little slower.' But I couldn't really mess around with going slow. Just flying into a ledge or something and coming out with speed, that just makes the whole trick complete."

Gino does a backside kickflip for the Wallride catalog. He's wearing the same clothes as he was in his July 2002 Skateboarder interview so my guess is the photo was taken at the same time and never made it to print.

The photo is most likely by Giovanni Reda.

For the quote: Skateboarder - July 2002 Volume 11 Number 9

Girl Wallride Catalog Fall 2002

Brian Anderson #9.

Busted deck.
Weird griptape.
Saviers.
Fourstar.

Girl Wallride Catalog Fall 2002

Rick McCrank & Jeron Wilson.

European vacation.

Girl released a video for their Harsh Euro Barge tour in 2002. The VHS tape is about a half hour long and is a mix of demo and street skating footage. There are the obligatory life style shots, too. Ty Evans and Dan Wolfe handled the video camera work. The soundtrack is mostly electronica with a smidge of hip hop plus Cat Power and The Strokes. The team travelled around Portugal, France, Germany, and Czechoslovakia by planes, trains, and even a boat. They saved all the best tricks for Yeah Right! so you mostly got hot demo action. Crankers, Mike Carroll, and Brian Anderson were all straight up wrecking everything, including themselves. There's plenty of Brandon Biebel and a very young Jereme Rogers gets a lot of tricks, along with losing his plane ticket and wallet. Eric Koston shows up for a day or two and then bails. This is a decent enough effort for a tour video. I know it is not economically feasible to release short form physical videos any more, but I miss those days. You still got new skateboarding in a more casual and relaxed package than the big time feature productions.

Rick's layback was in Lisbon, Portugal. His photo with Jeron was in Cologne, Germany. Both pictures are by Gabe Morford.

Girl Wallride Catalog Fall 2002

Girl & Chocolate Boards 2002.

Here's a selection of decks from Girl and Chocolate. It's a little odd to me that sizes aren't listed since this is a catalog after all.

The OGS are by Michael Leon, Tony Larson, Rob Abeyta, Andy Jenkins, Andy Mueller, Rick McCrank, Jenkins, and Tony. I like how much variation the wooden figure allows for.

The Abstract Expressionist Chocolate boards are by Evan Hecox. He also did the matching wheels.

Girl Wallride Catalog Fall 2002

Girl Team 2002.

You can't ever get the time back.

Carroll is wearing Adidas.
J. Dubs got food at the Golden Arches.
BA is smoking.
Robbie is filming it all.

This week features a number of scans from Girl's Wallride catalog. Wallride was mostly for showing off all their products, but the Art Dump mixed in some humorous editorial content to make it more interesting. I somehow got a copy of Book 4 from the fall of 2002. This would have been when they were hard at work on the Yeah Right! video. The advertised brands were Girl, Chocolate, Royal, Ruby, Fourstar, Lakai, Diamond, and Crailtap. Lakai would still have generally been under distribution from Podium and I'm not sure how much they had to do with Diamond.

The photo is from the Harsh Euro Barge tour and was taken in Prague, Czechoslovakia. The trip was a filming mission for Yeah Right! with a series of demos in Europe. They were overseas from the middle of May to early June of 2002. Girl did release a VHS tape of the tour.

The guys in the pic are Ty Evans, Jereme Rogers, Mike Carroll, Brandon Biebel, Jeron Wilson, Sam Smyth, Brian Anderson, and Robbie McKinley. A very small cropped version ran in Thrasher where you can only see Jereme jumping up to touch the sign.

The photo is by Gabe Morford.

Girl Wallride Catalog Fall 2002

Jake Johnson #6.

"I’d say misunderstood genius, if it’s one of those. Yeah, I was with Greg Hunt yesterday and Jake had been texting him and was joking with Greg ‘cause he’s working on the Vans video and Jake said, “What’s that? I haven’t heard about it.” And Greg believed him. But he was just messing with him. So I don’t know. He’s really smart and he’s crazy talented at just about everything. I don’t know if people know that, but yeah, they have to." - Gilbert Crockett

I think this bit about Jake bugging Greg over Propeller is what sparked my motivation to do a week of Gravis. Or rather it was the motivation to do a Jake post, which turned into another week about a defunct footwear brand. The guy has got one of the sicker backside kickflips in the biz.

It's funny, I've never seen Propeller. There's a fair amount of bigger name skateboard vids from over the years that I've never seen either. There's only so many hours in the day so stuff is going to end up unseen.

For the quote: Thrasher - May 2015 Volume 36 Number 5

Backside tail: The Skateboard Mag - April 2011 Issue 85

Backside flip: The Skateboard Mag - May 2012 Issue 98

Javier Mendizabal #8.

"The second skatepark in Spain was in Algorta; it's called La Cantera. There weren't many street spots, so the people in the Basque country were always more into transition. When I was a little kid looking at the older guys, they were skating transition. And I learned to skate at the skatepark. But I always tried to skate everything. When I moved to Barcelona, I started to skate more street and less transition."

Escaping the black hole.

A Vert Is Dead favorite talks about his roots.

For the quote: The Skateboard Mag - July 2008 Issue 52

The Skateboard Mag - August 2012 Issue 101

Dylan Rieder #8.

"Well, I wasn't good enough at guitar to get on Habitat, so they put me on Workshop."

Dylan cracks a joke about his six string abilities determining his board sponsorship.

RIP Eddie Van Halen.

For the quote: November 2010 Volume 20 Number 3

The Skateboard Mag - August 2011 Issue 89

Arto Saari #5.

Sometimes those kids who jump down handrails grow up to have a pool built in their backyard. I feel Salba would approve.

The Skateboard Mag - September 2011 Issue 90

Sammy Winter.

I haphazardly picked out a week of Gravis because I thought they had some unique photos for their ads. Gravis is/was a footwear effort of Burton Snowboards. They had a skateboard team for a while, but I don't believe they still do. The brand was started at the tail end of the 1990s.

Sammy is from Eumundi, Australia and was pro for Cliché Skateboards. He rode HUF after Gravis stopped having a skateboard team.

The Skateboard Mag - February 2012 Issue 95

Thom Lessner.

Buckeye artistry.

I dig the Chaz McGee deck and the Andrew W.K. painting. It's like a small time capsule of where we were at for 2002.

Random Odds & Ends

I'm slowly piecing together the next few weeks. I'm leaning towards early 2000s stuff and have to make sense of all the notes I've made for myself recently. I dug up some old catalogs from that era for variety, too. There might even be a rare Gino Iannucci photo that I don't recall seeing anywhere before. With that being said, it will be a week of Gravis starting on Monday.

I sort of haven't been into skateboarding lately. I always go through a slump in September. I think it is mainly due to the change of season, even though summer has been hanging on around here. There has been rain, but I've been lucky enough for it to be dry after work. My goal is to skate at least 300 times this year. I'm at 242 with 90 days left.

I actually watched a skateboard video last week. The Grains Preservation Society DVD has been a favorite since I got it last summer. It's nice to see small town Midwestern skateboarding.

The Chrome Ball Incident has a cool interview with Joey Bast where we learn about his vert skills.

Sound Zone: I've been listening to Future Child by Mi'ens a whole bunch this week. The band's name is pronounced Mittens. They are a guitar and drum duo from Vancouver that play a type of noisy space rock, somewhat along the lines of No Age, Sonic Youth, and Trans Am. There's a mild Krautrock influence, too. MJ Guider has a new album out of dreamy and hazy shoegaze. I've been relaxing to the long-form synthesizer wanderings of X.Y.R.'s latest record, Pilgrimage. As an update to the last one of these, I bought a bunch more music from the Yellow Swans to add to my collection. I'm maybe going to take a little break from them for now. Maybe.

The photos and article are by Patrick O'Dell.

Thrasher - July 2002 Volume 22 Number 7

Elissa Steamer #8.

Wave vacation.

Thrasher - June 2002 Volume 22 Number 6