Jamie Thomas #18.

Happy Halloween!

Jamie was on Mercury prior to starting the Monster project. The rollout was deliberately on the slow side with them taking five months to show a picture of a truck. Starting in October was a good move for a scary looking brand. The nosegrind was the second ad. Jamie's origin blurb was printed eight months after the launch. One thing I'm not sure on is how fast the mags were printing back then so it is kind of hard to pin down exact dates. I want to say Transworld was maybe a bit ahead of the calendar and everybody else was on the proper monthly schedule, but I'm not positive. The Monster ads kind of have a similar feel to what Circa was doing, with all black, night time skateboarding photos. Jamie would switch to Thunder after a couple of years of being scared of the dark.

Nosegrind: Transworld - November 2000 Volume 18 Number 11

Statement: Transworld - June 2001 Volume 19 Number 6

Monster Trucks.

Scary monsters, super creeps.

Monster was started in the fall of 2000. It was a truck brand from Giant Distribution, the home of Element, 411, Destructo, and more. Jamie Thomas was the primary force behind the trucks. The team also included Brian Anderson, Heath Kirchart, and Alex "Trainwreck" Gall. The general artistic direction for the company was dark and spooky, which makes sense, but I'm not sure how well it worked. The look reads as kind of campy in retrospect. I never had a set of Monsters and I don't recall seeing a pair in the wild. I imagine they sold at least a little because of how popular Jamie was at the time. Monster only lasted a couple of years and the riders dispersed to other truck brands soon after.

Note: These things were a mix of blacks and grays on pages that had a little warping from being in the basement. Hence, the scans aren't perfect.

Afraid: Transworld - October 2000 Volume 18 Number 10

List: Transworld - March 2001 Volume 19 Number 3

Trucks: Transworld - December 2001 Volume 19 Number 12

Chris Senn #13.

Death to False Metal.

The Senn Dog puts the metal to the rail for this bluntslide. I think he was on the second go-round of Adrenalin for boards at the time of this photo.

I only ever used the red or black Speed Metal bearings and didn't dabble with their higher performance models. I think by the end they were just making the cheaper red versions.

If you need something to do this weekend, Jamestown Skateboard Products is having their annual King of the Ramp event on Saturday night. There's a contest in the bowl, Halloween costumes, live music by Tiny The Dream, and all sorts of fun. Rumor has it the Lowcard crew is in town for the party.

Shout out to Theories of Atlantis. They were as stoked as I was on that John Igei ollie for an Aesthetics ad.

Are you afraid of the dark? You should be.

Thrasher - November 2002 Volume 22 Number 11

Steve Nesser #8.

"The scene here was pretty much vert and ramp, so all the ramp rippers like Darren Navarrette, Dave Leroux, and Seth "Zed" McCallum ripped and got me psyched. But watching vert and mini-ramp sessions were inspiring because, other than videos, I never got to see that. The only video I owned was Hokus Pokus; that shit is still ill. Mostly we would just skate around, and we had our own spot like EMB called The Fed. That was the everyday street spot; there were some rippers, for sure."

Steve breaks down his hometown scene in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

For the quote: Thrasher - November 2007 Volume 27 Number 11

Thrasher - September 2002 Volume 22 Number 9

Jason Adams #22.

Pointedly punk.

The Kid recently celebrated his 50th birthday.

Speaking of aging, I thought I might be at the age where I'm retired from doing flip tricks, but I've been on a roll with heelflips, just like the olden days. The only drawback is that missed flip tricks mess up your grip tape and that bugs me.

I still need to figure out what wheel size to go with next. I could use up this set of 54s I've got, give 56s a go or order a new set of 55s.

Thrasher - March 2002 Volume 22 Number 3

Donny Barley #9.

"I was born in New London, Connecticut and raised just over a bridge in a town called Groton. Poquonnock Bridge is the actual name of the area I lived in Groton. We have very cold winters - winters that would often hinder us from skateboarding. So back in the day, me and my boys would bundle up and shovel out skate spots and sweep the sand and salt away and session just about anything in town we could dig out."

Gnarly Barley talks about the process for skateboarding in the winter.

For the quote: Transworld - October 2005 Volume 23 Number 10

Thrasher - January 2002 Volume 22 Number 1

Mike Rusczyk #10.

Real Fast Metal.

Speed Metal was a bearing brand out of Giant that was launched in 1998 and lasted until about 2015. I rode them for nearly the entire time. They seemed to be good bearings. I figure as long as they are new and clean, most bearings will be fine.

Remember when Giant distributed Zoo York? Me neither. This is from a fall 1998 catalog so I wonder if Zoo had some type of production and distro deal for the Mixtape video?

Thrasher - November 2001 Volume 21 Number 11

Vinny "Vegas" Gambardella.

Long way back from hell.

Vinny is from Las Vegas and acquired the nickname of Vegas upon meeting Chad Muska. His sponsors included Birdhouse, Adio, and Spitfire. He was on Destructo for trucks after Mercury. Vinny is a big Danzig fan.

There was quite the influx of Las Vegas skateboard talent in the early 2000s and they all had difficult to spell last names. This probably led to nicknames that fit well with the burgeoning rock revival of the low aughts. It's way easier to type out Ragdoll than it is Anthony Scalamere. It sounds cooler, too.

This frontside bluntslide was in Adio's One Step Beyond video from 2001.

Transworld - July 2001 Volume 19 Number 7

Kenny Anderson #5.

Get a crooked grind on.

Kenny was pro for Planet Earth and needed a truck sponsor so he rode for Mercury. He was added to the team early on in 1998. At some point he switched over to Independent, if I recall correctly.

Chris Miller reportedly had boxes of Mercurys leftover and was so used to them that he kept on riding dead stock long after Planet Earth closed up shop. I think this statement was buried in an interview in the Skateboard Mag that nobody other than me will remember.

Chris Ortiz created the photograph.

Transworld - August 2000 Volume 18 Number 8

Jamie Thomas #17.

All of the thrills.

Jamie had a few ads for Mercury. I thought this was the better one for the feature since he was doing a grind. I like how the fisheye lens makes the Smith grind kind of resemble a frontside feeble. His connection with Chris Miller led to a spot on Adio when the footwear brand was launched in early 1998. A couple of friends did ride Mercurys. They said they turned kind of oddly, but that you got used to it.

This sequence is by Atiba Jefferson.

Transworld - July 1998 Volume 16 Number 7

Chany Jeanguenin #3.

Across the void.

Chany floats a kickflip over parts of a building. He left Planet Earth in the fall of 1997 to start Expedition One. I'm not sure how long he stayed at Mercury, but Chany was firmly on Orion by the middle of 1999. This might have been his only ad.

As near as I could tell, there wasn't always a Mercury advert each month due to a rotation with Planet Earth and Rhythm. I don't think Caine Gayle ever had an ad. The team started to expand with Adrian Lopez, Charlie Wilkins, and Kenny Anderson being added. Heath Kirchart was riding Mercurys as well and I believe those are the trucks he would have been using for Birdhouse's The End video.

The photo could be by Atiba Jefferson, but don't hold me to that.

Transworld - May 1998 Volume 16 Number 5

Mercury.

Liquid Metal.

Mercury was a truck brand launched by Chris Miller in 1997. He was already running Planet Earth and Rhythm so the structure was in place to expand his business with a truck line. The initial pro team was Jamie Thomas, Chany Jeanguenin, and Caine Gayle.

The truck photo is of their second design. From what I recall, there wasn't much difference between the two models and I wanted to include good photo of the truck. Mercury definitely benefited from Jamie's popularity at the time.

Team: Transworld - May 1997 Volume 15 Number 5

Truck: Transworld - December 1999 Volume 17 Number 12

Alex Chalmers #2.

"Guys like Alan Petersen, Chris Senn, Wade Speyer, and John Cardiel have paved the way for people like me to start this new facet of skateboarding. Possibly one that will overshadow the coolness of street skating, and I'm hoping that skateboarding in the future is just about skating everything."

The stuntman does a furious frontside kickflip in pool.

After three days of rain, I got to skateboard again yesterday. It was the first time since January that I had taken more than two days consecutive days off. Today looks good still and it appears the weekend might be dicey.

For the quote: Big Brother - December 2001 Issue 79

Transworld - December 2003 Volume 21 Number 12

Bastien Salabanzi #2.

Turntable Scientifics.

Bastien takes his Furys down a rail for a nosegrind. I think Fury developed a couple of more street friendly trucks since their initial model was geared towards ramps and transitions.

I wonder how many team riders at the assorted Blitz board companies were encouraged to ride Fury if they didn't have a truck sponsor? Or to make a change over to the in-house brand? I don't really see that second one happening, but you never know.

Transworld - August 2003 Volume 21 Number 8

Javier Sarmiento #2.

Dodging cars.

Javier is a stylish street technician from Vitoria, Spain. I think this trick was in The Firm's Can't Stop video from 2003. He rides for SK8MAFIA these days.

Transworld - August 2002 Volume 20 Number 8

Bob Burnquist #10.

Light Tower.

After splitting from Anti-Hero, Bob lined up a new set of sponsors, which included The Firm, Ricta, and Fury. He stuck with éS for footwear. His vert skating was bordering on absurdity with the level of switch tricks he was doing on the big ramps. Bob wasn't only performing the tricks for video, he was stringing them together in lines during contests. Contests maybe aren't always everything in skateboarding, but he was in such an innovative and consistent zone that it was amazing to watch.

Transworld - December 2000 Volume 18 Number 12

Fury.

Bring the Fury.

Fury was a truck brand started in 1999 out of Blitz Distribution, the home of Birdhouse, Flip, The Firm, and Hook-Ups. The team had the heavy hitters of the era with Tony Hawk, Chad Muska, Geoff Rowley, and Rune Glifberg. Tony was on Tracker nearly the entirety of his pro career so this was a big change. It made sense with the growth of skateboarding at the end of the 1990s for Blitz to expand to include a truck line.

The ad with Geoff holding the truck is from 2001. It was about the best I could find to show what a Fury looked like.

I believe the trucks were designed more for ramps and I want to say they were on the heavy side. I have no idea if the street skaters actually rode them. My guess is probably not since there was a Shorty's ad with Muska's setup in the same April 1999 issue of Transworld. He had Indys on the board in the ad.

Team: Transworld - April 1999 Volume 17 Number 4

Geoff: Transworld - December 2001 Volume 19 Number 12

Sean Mullendore #7.

The DC guy with the massive pop takes a tailslide to the hood of a car. Sean wouldn't have gotten any photo incentives from those Stereo stickers on the car because the Stereo was shut off by the late fall of 2000. He had the last Stereo ad that ran in January 2001.

Transworld - July 2001 Volume 19 Number 7

Kris Markovich #25.

"I'd basically got to the point where I'd put the bolt on one thread and then super-glue it on so it wouldn't fall off. You'd pick up my board and the trucks would just flop back and forth. So for like a year and a half I'd have my trucks this loose and try and do my tricks as fast as I could go."

Kris speaks about how he was influenced by Julien Stranger's loose trucks and the lengths he went to get his trucks as loose as possible. I get the overall appeal of loose trucks, but I often see many beginners riding utterly wobbly setups that make it more difficult to learn how to skateboard. By definition my trucks are loose since the nut is basically flush with the end of the bolt, yet they never feel overly loose. I can turn and carve smoothly while the trucks remain stable for ollies. I say I ride medium trucks for the sake of being different because everybody is either loose or tight.

I dug up a vintage Chomp On This sticker for my current board. How do you even explain that video to anybody that wasn't around when it happened?

For the quote: Thrasher - September 2002 Volume 22 Number 9

Transworld - April 2001 Volume 19 Number 4

Chad Knight #5.

Ghostly.

Chad skips a gnarly stair ollie to jump down the gnarlier gap next to the stairs instead. Those Osiris should offer plenty of protection for his feet upon impact.

Transworld - February 2001 Volume 19 Number 2

Mike Rusczyk #9.

Mail air.

It was cool to see a vintage photo of Mike doing a 43 in the recent Thrasher article on the history of the no-comply.

Transworld - November 2000 Volume 18 Number 11

Chris Pastras & Richie Belton.

Wheel beef. You love to see it.

The punch in the nose refers to the physical retaliation Deluxe inflicted on Tum Yeto after Ethan Fowler split from Stereo for Foundation. Stereo was on its last legs by 2000, but it is still kind of mildly surprising to to see a long time DLX employee riding wheels other than Spitfires or Metropolitans.

Richie was an up-and-coming amateur who previously was on Ricta. I doubt there was much push back from them about him leaving via ad.

Of note is that Chris is wearing Vitas.

Dune: Transworld - August 2000 Volume 18 Number 8

Richie: Transworld - December 2001 Volume 19 Number 12