RICHARD ARMIJO
Frontside Rock 'n' Roll.
124 THRASHER
O
HIS PICTURE, TAKEN OF AN ALMOST FORGOTTEN SKATER
twenty years ago, sums up skating's uniqueness, appeal, and soul. The
picture could have been taken yesterday. It is timeless.
The frontside rock 'n' roll was a sick and valid trick then, and it still is.
All that concentration and focus put into the back toe hanging and piv-
oting on the small corner of the board's tail-the split-second com-
mitment to making the difficult turn frontside is emblematic of
skating's physical moments of grace. And then there are Armijo's
arms thrown up with a huge dose of style.
Besides the trick itself are the two kids and their environment.
They both say a lot about skating. The shaved heads, the
tattered no-frills clothes, the battered boards. They aren't
normal kids. They are going against the grain, using
scavenged found materials to construct a makeshift
ramp that allows them to transport themselves
above and beyond the banality and grimness of
the suburban wasteland surrounding them. They
got kicked out of Whittier skatepark for the last
time but that hasn't stopped them. They're
punk in the truest sense of the word-
releasing aggression and rebelling against
the stagnation of their environs, making
their own fun and not paying for it.
The trick itself wasn't that old when the
picture was taken. Not long before, a
sequence of Eddie Elguera doing it for
the first time had appeared in
Skateboarder. The sequence showed
Eddie doing what had been consid-
ered impossible; in fact, doing
something that nobody had even
thought of. That is skating's
strength, destroying precon-
ceived notions with the incon-
ceivable. And the trick has lived
on, taken from vertical to the
street with all its boardslide vari-
ations. This picture shows part
of the DNA of skating, and its
spirit, style, and substance.
Jocko Weyland
October 1999
Richard Armijo, frontside rock'n