180° nosegrind.
The little boards are more like...
Controlling something.
That's the difference between two different
kinds of riding. That's what 20 years of skate-
boarding has taught us: that it's changed. Like
the Hirsch boards: they were like big thumbs.
Yeah, they were fun to ride. And that's the
thing that I see: overpowering your board or
having too much control over your board
makes you forget that mankind isn't in con-
trol. Nature really is in control. On a bigger
with people then you're a crew, and people
look at you like, who are these guys? Then
you're like a gang or something.
Do you think kids now just want to backside
tailslide a ledge? Wouldn't that get boring?
No, it's just the same-I've said this many
times. When I was a kid all I wanted to do
was backside airs. It's the same thing. They
just want to do the hottest trick of the
moment. That's what I wanted, but hope-
fully if they keep going and keep doing it,
When you think back on Thrasher, can you
name any two images that really stood out for
you over time?
Maybe the one photo of Christian at Upland
where he's tweaked underneath.
That backside air-I thought that was fakie
ollied too.
And I liked the one cover with Chris
Miller where MoFo did it like the German
flag-Chris Miller doing a frontside nose-
bone. I used to like Product Showcase,
"I NEVER THOUGHT THAT STREET
SKATING WOULD PROPEL TO THIS
LEVEL. IT'S LIKE A SCIENCE"
board you have less control, but on a'smaller
board you're controlling it. So when they're
constantly controlling it, obsessed with con-
trolling it, they lose focus. They're not riding
the board anymore.
It's riding them.
Yeah. The bigger board is riding you, in a sense.
That's what I like about some of the vert
guys, like Giorgio Zattoni: when he
skates it looks like he's just hangin' out
on the board, and the board's going-he
looks scared.
Yeah, Tom Groholski skates like that too-
when he does tippy-toed...
Backside airs?
Yeah, yeah, barely holding on.
What do you think about all the new
skateparks opening? Do you think that's
where it's going?
I don't know.
Do they think if they make all
these skateparks...
That's the problem. When I go out street
skating people look at me like, "Don't
you know there's parks now?" But
I'm out skating; I like being out
in the environment.
Skating is all around us
and you see things wher-
ever you go. You said
when you were sitting
on the bus as a kid in LA,
you'd say, "That's where
I want to skate," or you'd
see a line while you were
sitting on the bus.
To me skating is about
being out in the street
and interacting with peo-
ple and the environment
and the things around
you. It's better to go alone
though. When you go out
they'll realize that sometimes you have to
learn everything to appreciate it better and
understand it. For a long time I couldn't
even do 50-50s or pivots because I didn't
really know how to ride my board. I could
do backside airs and I could do certain tricks
but I couldn't do the basics.
because it always seemed like you could see
the solitude in it. It looked like the photog-
rapher took the skateboarder to a spot and
then shot a photo of them, but you could
feel the essence of being alone in those
photos. Like the one Asian guy, with his
hat, just carving. I liked that Thrasher con-
nected to people who were kind of on a
loner kick.
Skateboarding's a pretty loner deal.
B)
-Jake Phelps
Markfamples