Jacob Rupp #4.

Wild Style.

Jake does a crisp and clean tailslide back when he rode for Element. It took me a minute to figure out who this was with the graffiti letters. I was a tad surprised nobody had scanned this ad before. Jake went through some quick sponsor changes in 1999. He was on Santa Cruz and Krux to begin the year and switched over to Element after an offer from Donny Barley. He's riding Ventures in the photo. I believe Jake was on Kastel to some extent before they closed up shop.

Vert Is Dead is taking a late summer break.

I'm going to take some time to get everything organized for this site before posting any new stuff. My friend was able to copy everything off the old iMac's drive so I'm in great shape in terms of having all my files. I'm thinking maybe do a four day week after Labor Day or wait until September 9th to start back up. I'll see how it goes.

Have a good one. Feel free to leave suggestions in the comments.

Thrasher - January 2000 Volume 20 Number 1

Karl Watson #4.

ASR Booth #405.

Karl does a noseslide on a bannister. I'm not sure who his board sponsor was at the time, as I think Mad Circle was done by the fall of 1999. He might have been on Expedition One. This was the first two page Ipath ad and it was used to generate some hype for the upcoming Action Sports Retailer trade show. Sadly, they didn't get the booth number that they wanted.

Thrasher - September 1999 Volume 19 Number 9

Matt Field #10.

Grasshopper.

Big ollies and nollies are usual tricks for Matt, but a frontside crooked grind is something you don't see very often.

I suppose the Grasshopper is one of Ipath's iconic designs. I like how the shoes look, but I can't wear high or mid tops. In thinking about it, I don't believe I've ever seen a pair of Ipaths in the wild, which doesn't seem possible given how long the brand was around for. I probably have and don't remember.

The nollie and ollie photos are by Gabe Morford.

Nollie 180: Thrasher - July 1999 Volume 19 Number 7

Front crooks: Thrasher - October 1999 Volume 19 Number 10

Ollie: Thrasher - December 1999 Volume 19 Number 12

Matt Pailes #6.

The shoes with soul.

Matt is from the Boston area and now lives in Sacramento. Think, Supernaut, and Creation made boards with his name on them. He has been playing reggae music for years and records under the name Ras Matthew.

A lot of the artwork for Ipath was done by Bigfoot. He is an East Coast artist who relocated to San Francisco in the 1990s. The logo in the Nomad ad is one of his creations.

The nollie sequence is by Gabe Morford.

Nomad: Thrasher - August 1999 Volume 19 Number 8

Frontside slider: Thrasher - June 1999 Volume 19 Number 6

Matt Rodriguez #6.

Roots.

Ipath was a footwear brand launched in 1999. The main pros on the team were Matt Field, Matt Pailes, and Matt Rodriguez. Other important riders from the early days included Mike Daher, Karl Watson, Tony Cox, and Jacob Rupp. The brand is slated to return to production and I was a little surprised not many of their old ads are online. There are the assorted scans on Thrasher in their magazine archives, but I hadn't scanned anything and neither had the Chrome Ball Incident. When you search for Ipath, you mainly find people selling old and musty sneakers. I decided to fix that.

Of note is that Matt is riding a board with a square nose. Element copied his idea and sold a version to the masses called the Thing. Slap even called them out for doing this in their product review section.

I'm going to do this week of Ipath and then take a summer break. I need to organize files after the old iMac passed on to the spirit world. It's going to be a more involved process than I realized. I'd rather get everything squared away before scanning any new stuff.

The photos are by Gabe Morford.

Back tail: Thrasher - May 1999 Volume 19 Number 5

Hemp Cats: Thrasher - November 1999 Volume 19 Number 11

Max Schaaf #16.

Max literally lurking in a bowl. The board he is riding is based on the James Kelch flower graphic from 1992, which was borrowed from an album cover for the band James. I'm not sure if it is a reissue or if they redid the art for Max. It could also be a redone graphic for Nate Jones. I've got catalogs from this time frame and intended to look it up last night, but forgot.

I'd hazard a guess the photo is by Gabe Morford.

Transworld - Winter 2002 Volume 20 Number 13

Brian Anderson #15.

BA is chilling in France on Girl's Harsh Euro Barge tour from 2002. I like the nautical theme Fourstar was running with in the early 2000s.

The photo is probably by Gabe Morford.

Transworld - December 2002 Volume 20 Number 12

Mark Gonzales #29.

Inspiration meets innovation.

When everybody else was doing nollie to boardslides on handrails in the early 2000s, Gonz started jumping onto rails using a boneless. Brian Anderson was also doing the same thing.

There's been a rumor that Mark was a potential rider for Girl, but somebody on the team didn't want him so he wound up on Fourstar as a compromise of sorts. I assume this would have been around the time in the mid 1990s when 60/40 had ended. If you look at from a what they skate perspective, it makes sense for him to not be on Girl. He's more of an all terrain type who fit in better at Real.

Transworld - October 2002 Volume 20 Number 10

Eric Koston #16.

Playoff basketball.

Eric watches the Lakers during their 2002 playoff run. If my hazy memory serves me correctly, I think this Shaq moment happened during the Western Conference Finals when LA beat the Sacramento Kings in a hotly contested and controversial series. The Lakers swept the then New Jersey Nets to win yet another championship in the Finals.

I imagine the photo is by Atiba Jefferson. (Unless of course he was at the game.)

Transworld - September 2002 Volume 20 Number 9

Paul Rodriguez #5.

Video Days.

A young P. Rod does a kickflip backside 50-50 on one of those popular California handrails. The trick wasn't in his part in Girl's Yeah, Right, which surprised me a little. I imagine it wound up in one of the video magazines that were around at the time.

Who is the filmer in the picture?

Transworld - August 2002 Volume 20 Number 8

Jerome Campbell.

Eiffel Tower High.

Jerome is from Sheffield, England. He rode for Blueprint and was pro for Polar. Converse sponsored his feet. He's into photography and possibly works in advertising. This is a melon grab done in Paris from 2013. I like the photo and I'm a little nostalgic for this era of Polar.

The photo is by Nils Svensson.

Free - March/April 2022 Issue 41

Skip Pronier #10.

A young Skip flies up and over yet another hip. This picture would have been taken in the period when John Lucero had moved Lucero's distribution from NHS to Vision. The switch happened in the fall of 1989. That's probably why Skip is wearing Vision shoes. I thought he might be riding some early Spitfires, but I don't think that's the case. I was stoked to find another photo of one of my favorites in the old Poweredges I borrowed from the Look Back Library.

The photo is by Rick Kosick.

Poweredge - March 1990 Volume 3 Number 3