SALBA
INTERVIEW BY BRIAN BRANNON PHOTOS BY BRYCE KANIGHTS
WITH OVER TWENTY YEARS OF SKATEBOARDING
under his belt, Steve Alba has been riding cement
longer than a lot of skaters have been living. When
it comes to pools, Salba can carve grind circles
around anybody, and when it comes to going high
in pipes, no one can touch him. A few years ago he
married his after-school sweetheart Julie and they
had a little buckaroo named Jesse, but that hasn't
stopped Upland's resident anarchist from raiding
the pipes and backyard bowls across America.
What do you think when kids talk shit about pool skating?
I don't think kids talk shit anymore, really. The more kids I talk to,
they just realize that you don't want to break up skateboarding like
it was maybe five years ago, how it had a street camp and a vert
camp and a mini-ramp camp or whatever, and I think everybody
nowadays just appreciates what everybody does, and a lot of
younger kids are learning the history of skateboarding and realizing
that skating's been around for a long time, and they're looking at
some of the people who've been doing it for a while and going,
"Well, if this guy does it, maybe I can do it that long." They just
respect each other more. I think that's good. Personally, I think
street's totally rad, don't get me wrong, I can't do it, and I don't
really like to say anything bad about it, the only thing that disap-
points me is when you've spent a hundred tries trying something
and you're not even rolling. The whole essence of skateboarding is
rolling and keeping your speed. You've just got to keep moving.
Tell me some memorable skating moments.
Well, to me, just skating a pool is a memorable
moment, just because every one is so different.
When I first started, I just did freestyle, like high-
jumps, a couple 360's, nose wheelies, shit like
that. My friend's buddy, his brother was skating
this pool, and we're all, "Damn, we've got to
do that." So, since that was the first pool we
ever rode, that one was fully memorable, just
because that's what we always wanted to do.
And I'm still doing it to this day, like whoever
thought twenty years later I'd still be even riding
a skateboard, much less skating pools still? And
that Devo video for "Freedom of Choice" was
pretty trippy. They'd already kind of been doing
it a little bit, shooting at Marina skatepark with
Steve Olson, Darrel Miller, Eddie Elguera and Jay
Smith. We skated for a couple days, they paid us
300 bucks each, had full catering, and fully hung
out with Devo the whole time.
Were they geeks?
Yeah, they were pretty much wacky geeks, but
I was pretty awestruck. But at that point, we
were maybe already over Devo, but they were
still rad, because they were one of the first bands
you liked. Like before punk was even big, the
first thing that people caught onto was Devo. If
you were walking down the street in your purple
Converses and your Levi's and polka-dot shirts,
they'd go, "Devol" They wouldn't even call you!
punk. That shit was just out of control. Mark
Mothersbaugh was really cool. The other guys
didn't really talk that much. Jerry Casale, the gui-
tar dude, he was pretty cool. The other guys
were fully into it, they were just all, "Yeah, you
guys are rad!" just freaking out, because you've
just got to figure they were from Ohio, the corn-
field, spud boys and all that crap.
Was Upland's Combi the raddest pool ever?
Maybe for its time, but now I think I've rode a
couple pools that are actually better than that.
But for what that place was, and how big it was,
and what it stood for, as far as a skatepark, will
never change. There's no way you could ever
build a skatepark that good.
90
The square part of the Upland Combi-Pool
was the ultimate proving ground. Deep,
rough and kinked, it lead to the demise
of many skaters' dreams. Salba (top left)
rode it like he owned it-lien in 1987. You
can count on one hand the spots that have
lasted over twenty years, but the Baldy pipe
is one finger in the fist of Steve Alba. This
click-out in '95 (above) is a roach's eye view
of the voodoo pipe and pool master doing
his thing. Freeform ollie to grind (opposite
top) off a hip in someone's backyard. Taking
on inside look (sequence) at Salba's death
box attack. The man with the hat and buck-
ets (left) on another quest for virgin terrain.