Clockwise from Left:
1990-Christian Fletcher is
taking skating to surf and
surf to skate. 1989-Jay
Adams, homeboy inside
homebreak, charging Venice
jetty. 1990-Into his own,
sporting low tops and long
hair, Neil Blender casually
grabs tail off an over-vert
wall at Westminster.
"But I can't do any tricks there"
Pipes are highly guarded secrets
shared by a discreet few. The Alba
bros categorically rule them. A few
pipes whose existence is on record:
Ammo, Glory Hole, Elgin Metal,
Pipa Grande, San Onofre, Lake
Pleasant, Florence, Phoenix, Texas,
Bombora, the Hook...
"Sort of a raw, crossover, mosh,
speed-metal, punk, funk dub"
From the California coast comes
the HB strut, and ballroom dancing
is never the same. Early ragers: the
Germs, Black Flag, Circle Jerks,
Redd Kross, Adolescents, Chiefs,
the Lewd. Descendants, X, Weirdos,
Dickies, TSOL, the Crowd. Agent
Orange, Social Distortion, DOA, No
Alternative and the Dead Kennedys
Along the East Coast SS Decontrol,
Minor Threat, State of Alert, Void,
Cro-Mags... The Bad Brains blow
the doors off of both punk and
reggae. Skate Rock emerges as
something to roll to the Big Boys,
JFA, Free Beer, the Skoundrelz,
Suicidal Tendencies, Aggression,
Drunk Injuns, the Faction, Riot
303, Los Olvidados, McRad, Septic
Death, Poison Idea, MCM and the
Monster, Accused, Ancestors,
Skatemaster Tate and the Concrete
Crew. Rock still rolls with ZZ Top.
AC/DC, Led Zepplin, Thin Lizzy,
Nugent, Iggy, the Meat Puppets, the
Ramones, Sex Pistols and the Clash
Metal means Metallica. Speed metal
shoots sparks: Corrosion of
Conformity, Exodus, Slayer, Celtic
Frost, Merciful Fate. The Misfits
teach the ghoul school.
"I stopped sharing when I joined
Black Flag because I kept breaking
my right wrist. I figured I had a real
responsibility to not show up to
practice in a cast all the time.
"In DC, me, lan (MacKaye) and
these other people were skating when
we were 13 or 14. There were no
skateparks or anything. We did a lot
of street sharing, which, to me, is the
best. We'd find drainage ditches that
were totally deserted and shate them
all day. It was total male bonding
(laughs), just talkin' shit and hang-
ing out. We used to have so much fun
skating, just going out and getting
bloody-hands, knees and elbows full
of glass. We did that for many years,
building ramps, skating religiously.
"I wasn't at school, doing my
homework or working a job, I was
on my skateboard-up in the
morning. They were some of the best
times I ever had
"I went to skateparks when they
came around and I never really en-
joyed that. You had to get into all
these ego trips and pay by the hour,
which seemed very alienating to me
I was always more into experiencing
the streets"
Henry Rollins
October 1990
"The walls come tumbling down"
East Berliner Marco Sladek rolls
through the rubble of the Berlin
Wall and buys a new deck with his
freedom money
S
C
Clockwise from Above: 1985-Lance, tipping out
an indy air and ruling Upland's fabulous combi-
pool. 1987-Señor Stecyk, an honest guy trying to
make an honest buck. 1983-Joe's Ramp Jam and
barbecue, the first and possibly only contest of its
kind. 1990-Two things that keep coming back,
the Nude Bowl and Jeff (we love ya) Grosso.
1983-Steve Caballero, Punk Pool, San Jose,
California. C'est la vie.
THRASHER