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#23
G Magazine about Skateboarding, Photography and everything else
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issue twentythree Magazine about Skateboarding, Photography and everything else
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Product Reviews
Steve Baily
00066 Camera: Mamiya Universal Book: Francis Wolff
00040 Interview with Bailey about growing up skating in San Diego, traveling Europe, Mexico, Japan, skating vert and backyard pools.
Zach Lewis 00008
Lester Kasai
Zach talks about vertical ramps and the scene in Berkely Ca.
00016 Lester gives us some insight about skating legendary spots like Sadlands, Skate City Skatepark and the change from skating parks to vert ramps.
Jai Tanju 00032 We met Jai in the Seeing Things Gallery and talked about photography, travel and skating.
Camdon Davis 00024 Camdon Davis is a up and coming ripper from Hamburg, Germany who likes to skate concrete curves.We met him at some of his home spots to give you an impression of his talent.
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Editorial by Gerd Rieger Photo by Harris & Ewing
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Issue #23 was supposed to be in print BUT it‘s not. In the future there will be some Bailgun print issues but for this one we decide to bring it to you in the digital form that has worked pretty well, even if we love print the digital format has it advantages. So enjoy issue #23 with some interviews and photos of skateboarding legends, vert shredders, ramp builders and more. Enjoy, Gerd
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What is the story? Well, we don‘t know ... Harris & Ewing (1927) Format: Glass Negative; 4 x 5 in. or smaller Gift; Harris & Ewing, Inc. 1955
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YOSHIHIRO „DESHI“ OMOTO – SLAPPY CRAILSLIDE • PHOTO: PEP KIM
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Z A H L E VI
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OAKLAND
I‘m Zach Lewis and 32 years old, an East Bay native, D.I.Y. ramp builder, rambling vert jock. Born in San Leandro California and now live in Oakland California.
PHOTOGRAPHY PLUS INTERVIEW
Gerd Rieger
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When and how did you start skateboarding?
I started skating when I was 12 years old, back in the summer of 1996. I have an older sister who at the time was a punk rocker and hung out with the local skaters around town. I would use their skateboards when they came over our house to drink beer with my sister. At the time skateboarding was a dirty, grungy outcast part of society and with a brand new public skate park in town, from that point in life I knew I‘d be a lifelong skateboarder. When and how did you start skating vert?
As a kid watching skate videos, I would always look forward to the vert parts and I would always street and park skate like I was skating a vert ramp, just always dreaming of it but there weren‘t any ramps in the east bay near me at the time. The first vert
ramp I found was the San Jose Ramp Club and I dropped into love, I think I was 15. That ramp soon disappeared and a few years later the Vans Milpitas Park opened and the Berkeley vert was built and it was on. What‘s so rad about vert?
What‘s rad to me about vert is the holy shit feeling you get when you finish a fun run. When you are in the zone, you feel like you are standing still and the ramps are moving around you. The speed and power that you create from pumping the ramp is a rad feeling. The challenges you make up in your head and the figure out how to make a reality is pretty rad. What‘s the difference of skating a halfpipe and a pool/ bowl?
For me when I skate a pool or a bowl it‘s all about finding the speed and carve lines to get to payoff trick. It‘s the journey as
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well as the destination that is so much fun to skate a pool or bowl. The swing set is more setup, punch, setup, punch and finding a rhythm, you know. When you get some good vert legs and ramp rhythm going, it feels like the ramp does all the work for you and you are just along for the ride trying to hold on.
beautiful a view of San Francisco and is surrounded by trees and nature. We couldn‘t ask for a nicer location for a vert ramp. In the summer we have a skate camp program we run with the University of California Berkeley for kids 8-16. The rest of the year we maintain, improve, rebuild and create vert. Tricks you like? Tricks you‘re
Tell us a bit about the Berkeley Vert-Ramp and about the scene in the Bay Area.
The current ramp is 4 years old and is 56ft wide, 12.5ft high, 11ft transitions, has 2 opposing 4ft wide high to low channels. The ramp is a beast! Our vert sessions are about 5-15 men deep according to how popular vert is that week, haha. For the bay area and the huge skate scene that exist here, the vert scene is still a small nitch community and still is very much underground here. Our ramp is pretty hidden in the Berkeley hills with
working on want to learn?
I like lip tricks, not my strong suit though. I want to work on my lips slides more. Backside 360 tailgrab is one I want to hammer down. When I see that one go down it gives me chills and just need to learn it! Favorite spots you‘ve skated?
My favorite spots to skate is pretty much all of Oregon. They have the best skateparks there, and they are everywhere. Skate all day, hit a river and wonder out into the woods for some epic
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camping, wake up and repeat. I‘ve been doing that for the last 10 years and I look forward to it every summer? Lincoln City and Red‘s house are my favorite places ... hands down. How was your trip to the Malmö Vert Attack this year? You were a whole crew from Nor Cal and hit a few more spots on the way to Malmö. How was that?
Yeah we had rad crew, Ffej, Kevin Reynolds, Noraa Wical, Tony from Colorado (egg disasters!) First stop was Stockholm to get time adjusted and warm up for the contest on a BIG ramp at the Fryshuset skate park. They have a solid crew and a perfect ramp. We hit a few scooter parks in town and Highvalley skate park where if you walk into the bushes to pee, watch out for gypsy poo, its everywhere. We took an 8 hour bus ride from Stockholm to Malmo on easter Sunday, that kinda sucked but we met a rad chick on the bus who claimed
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to have been to every single vert attack contest. The vert attack ramp was feeling nice and the practice sessions were insanely fun! Bumping elbows with dudes like Mike Fraizer, Rune,Beckett, Dove on the deck while Clay Krainer absolutely dismantles the ramp ... shit, in those moments life as a skater couldn‘t get any better. Grindline fucking killed it! After the contest, as like most everyone else I was sick as a dog for about 3-4 days. We went into Christiania and skated wonderland and enjoyed Copenhagen for a few days before heading home. Fucking so worth it! Favorite sessions?
The Friday night session before any Saturday event is always the best session, all homies you haven‘t skated with in a while, and everyone is fired up and vibes are loose. Hangover sessions are sometimes the best skate ses-
sions too. Favorite countries/locations you‘ve traveled to.
I recently visited Jamaica and just skating all around downtown Kingston you can feel the overwhelming love for skateboarders and how much they could use a skate scene there. I would love to build a vert ramp for the kids there and I know that they would excel at skateboarding. I went to the Party at the Ponds event in Michigan, a back yard vert ramp. I skated that ramp for a week straight and that ramp is definitely one of my favorites. Any shout outs:
Sean O‘loughin, Mom, Skeleton Key, 4Q, Deluxe Distribution, Bailgun (best skate mag!), Vertkeley Crew! and check out our short vert crew video on youtube: VERTKELEY
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L E S T E R K A SA I
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ORANGE COUNTY
Lester Kasai has a long history on is board, coming from the 70‘s skatepark era, he skated all the concrete parks back then, including Skate City, Whittier, Upland Pipeline, Del Mar just to name a few. PHOTOGRAPHY PLUS INTERVIEW
Gerd Rieger
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How and when did you get introduced to skateboarding?
In 1977, my cousin Terence and I found a Black Knight skateboard in a trash can down the street from my house. We cruised around on the sidewalk with it and got hooked on it. We then started to go to all the skateparks in Southern California like Concrete Wave, Skatopia, Big O, Marina, Skate City, Del Mar, Oasis, Lakewood and so many more. What was your local park? What was your favorite park? Who did you skate with?
The first park I skated was Skatopia in Buena Park. It was such an awesome skatepark. The landscape was kind of futuristic. I remember seeing Ray Bones showing up and just shredding the halfpipe. I think he may have been the first pro I had seen skate.
My favorite local park was Skate City. It had so many pools with tile and pool coping. There was a clover, a capsule, a kidney, a long pool halfpipe, a huge keyhole, some little bowls and some banks. The full pipe was huge and the top half was made of metal. However, my favorite pool at Skate City was the clover bowl. It seemed so perfect. At Skate City, some of the main guys I skated with were Neil Blender, Lance Mountain, Jeff Grosso, Eric Nash, Hagop, John Lucero, Dave Church, Richard Armijo and my cousin Terence. I would also hang out with Hawk and Staab from time to time. You skated Skate City a lot. What was the scene like? Seems like
a pretty creative and fun
crew was skating there - Neil, Lance, Lucero, Hagop ‌
It was such a fun scene at Skate City. We would goof around
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most of the time. Just have fun with goofy tricks or imitate the style of our favorite skaters. Some gnarly sessions went down there as well. You also skated Sadlands regularly, right? Another classic spot, how were the sessions there? What was special about the spot?
Sadlands was just a regular park for baseball, basketball, playgrounds and barbecues. It was not made for skateboarding but it was designed to resemble the moon. There were moon craters and pylons made of concrete. There were huge sessions there all the time. I learned most of my tricks there. It was a sad day
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when the city covered the craters with cement and rocks to stop anyone from skating it. When all the skateparks closed in the early 80‘s how was the transition from skating round walls mostly to skating half pipes? Did that change skating styles too? What were your best ramps?
Yeah, when the parks closed we skated whatever we could. We skated curbs, banks, ditches, backyard pools and wooden ramps. The whole pro circuit went to backyard vert ramps all over the country. I seemed to remember just wanting to skate something big and do airs. So vert ramps were perfect for that. Going from round wall to straight wall seemed completely normal to me. I guess skating styles did change once vert dominated. Taking carving and pool coping grinding out of the scenario creates a different flow and grittiness to skating style.Â
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Some of my favorite vert ramps from back in the day were Tiki, La Mirada, Eagle Rock, Fallbrook, Brea, Hawk‘s, Hosoi‘s, Mcgill‘s, Houston, Clown Ramp, Virginia Beach And Moreno Valley. You were known to blast some of the highest airs, is there a secret to it that you can tell?
Guess I just wanted to go as high as I could back then because it felt so good. I would just go as fast as I could not caring about getting hurt. You‘ve traveled a lot, what are
Where and who do you skate with nowadays?
I skate with Lonny Hiramoto, Christian Hosoi, Bennett Harada, Eddie Reategui, Lance Mountain, Endo, Pammy, Steve Godoy and many other locals at Huntington Beach Vans. HB Vans is the new hot spot in Orange County. The clover bowl there is so unbelievably good. Any travel plans coming up?
Yes, I‘m planning to go to Brazil for my first time and skate a backyard pool party there. Super stoked!!!
your favorite countries/locations you‘ve visited?
New Zealand is a favorite. It‘s such a chill place. I really like Germany and Italy too. Australia is always an awesome visit.
Shoutouts:
Thanks to my wife Insa, son Keenu and my sponsors for keeping me on my board all these years. Howzit to all my homies in Hamburg and to all my OMSA boys ... . See you all soon for another sick session bruddahs!!!
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C AM D O ND A VI S
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OAKLAND
Check out Camdon Davis, a young ripper from Hamburg who likes to shred concrete transitions and you‘ll definitely will see more of him in the future.
PHOTOGRAPHY PLUS INTERVIEW
Gerd Rieger
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How long have you been skating?
Honestly, I‘m not really sure when exactly I really started, but it must have been like 7 years ago. I‘ve had a board before that but it just had been sitting in the corner of the shed and then some day I started to use it more and really skate. How and where did you start?
My first spot was just in front of the garage where I live. And pretty much at‘the same time my dad and I started to built little ramps from scrap wood to make things a little more exciting, that definitely was a rad time. Then I started going to the “i Punkt Skateland” skatepark and other spots in Hamburg. Your local spots?
I‘m lucky that I live relatively close to some cool spots and can just ride my Bike to the Flor-
abowl, Fruchtallee or Holstenpark. Favorite spots?
My favorite spot is the Florabowl by far. It was the first real bowl I skated and it has a really unique design and feel to it. It‘s total DIY and definitely special! I also really like the IGS park in Wilhelmsburg that was built by Minus Ramps. Favorite tricks?
Frontside smith grinds, Backside Disaster, FSA to Disaster, Bombdrops are tricks I like. What setup are you riding?
I‘m riding a 8,5 wide deck with deep concave, 149 Indys, 99er Spitfire wheels and Reds bearings
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Who are you skating with?
Most of the time I roll with my crew, the Bowlbashers, they are Benjamin Gleichmar, Benjamin Voges, Elena Buss and myself. But there‘s a lot of other guys I skate with, but I don‘t even wanna name names because I‘d certainly forget somebody. But as Hamburg is kinda small you pretty much know everyone and have been skating with pretty much everyone. What skaters are inspiring?
There‘s definitely Dann van der Linden, Chris Russell, Jimmy Wilkins and of course my favorite Grant Taylor, if you can call someone perfect then it‘s Grant Taylor. But there‘s also locals like Friedrich Otto with his unique style and mosher attitude who‘s inspiring.
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Any future road trips? Like going to the states or something?
I‘d like to go to Vert Attack in Malmö and I‘ve been talking about a US trip with my buddies, but not sure when. Do you check print mags or do soley watch digital media?
I still read some print mags like Confusion Mag or this one time I was hoping to get a Thrasher Mag supscription as a present, but my mom wasn‘t into it for some reason. Music??
I like all the classic stuff like Slayer, Metallica, Motörhead, Judas Priest, … but also other generes like funkadelic, like Sound Defects for example. Currently I listen to Graveyard a lot.
Sponsors?
Currently the Mantis Skateshop is supporting me Shout Outs:
To all the skaters from Hamburg that keep transition skating alive!
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SAN JOSE
Bailgun gave Jai Tanju a visit at his Seeing Things Gallery in San Jose where he does photo and art exhibitions and sells Zines, Magazines and Books.
PHOTOGRAPHY PLUS INTERVIEW
Gerd Rieger
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How and when did you start skateboarding?
They are amazing! Im old so these days I‘m just stoked that I can do some grinds, disasters and a few rock n rolls! and be able to skate so many parks in a few days! I‘m glad they aren‘t as big and gnarly as they used to be. its seems to be a bit more about the flow and uniqueness these days and I like that.
I got introduced to skating through my uncle Chris in the late 70s. It was just something we did as kids and it really didn‘t take hold until I moved to San Jose Ca in 1980. When I got out of the moving truck at our new home there was two kids skateboarding When did you pick up photography? across the street, these kids ended up became my best friends all I didn‘t get into photography unthe way threw high school. til my late 20s. Who did you skate with? What were I was too much into skating your favorite spots? and traveling before that to even take the time to do anything I basically skated with my else. I lived in Hawaii for 5 or so friends from school. We skated years straight out of high school local curbs, ditches, ramps and then traveled vagabond style to whatever we could find. I did 2 or 3 then moved back to San catch the tail end of Winchester Jose. When I got home my mom skateboard park but we were said I needed to go to school if more in awe of what was going I wanted to live with her so, I on and weren‘t good at all. took some classes at the Jr collage and photography was one How do you like some of of classes. I got a D in my first the newer parks? class then got a better teacher and that helped but I didn‘t
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learn anything from school. It wasn‘t until I started to shoot skating that I cared enough to try, then you meet other skate photographers and they show you the ropes. Who were your influences in photography?
I was always influenced by the other skate photographers I meet like Tobin Yelland, Bryce Kanights or Thomas Campbell. See, shortly after moving back to SJ I met Salman Agha, Jason Adams and Tim Brauch who were all up and coming Ams. I would go skate with them on a daily basis and from time to time someone would come to photograph them I would watch and ask questions. So to answer your question I was influenced by all the 80‘s skate photographers and magazines. To this day I‘m still get influenced by people I know and have known for years like Tobin, Bryce, Thomas and other friends like Joe Brooks. As
I grew up and old you start to find people like Larry Clark and Jim Goldsberg or Dennis Hopper and Peter Beard. I could really go on and on Ray Barbee, Greg Hunt, Brian Gaberman I really love the photography of Matt Price! I think he is looking outside the box a bit and I like that. You learned to shoot with analog cameras and still use them today. What‘s special about analog photography?
I did and still do! It’s hard to explain but somehow it just looks and feels better to me. Its tangible. It seems like digital isn‘t really there to me. Film is in your hand, you load it and unload it, you bring it to the lab, sleeve it, put it in binders or not, it gets piled up on your desk and ultimately can be destroyed! Do you have any favorite cameras?
I am not a camera geek by any means and don‘t know a fuckin
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thing about cameras! I don‘t even know how to use them too well. I’m just lucky, have a good sense of timing and know when something meaningful is happening. I’ve always liked point and shot cameras like the T4 or the Olympus epic stylus and some years I did a lot of polaroids with the SX70, but they always broke. I actually break a lot of my cameras. I have a Pentax Honeywell 35mm camera that is my favorite camera. You started theFilm Por Vida Print Exchange a while ago and now you do the Seeing Things gallery and store now. Tell us a bit about those projects. How did you get the idea for the Print Exchange and how did it develop to the Seeing Things gallery?
The Print exchange program was a direct result of watching a documentary called “How to Draw a Bunny” about a 6o‘s artist named Ray Johnson. He started a mail art thing called the “New
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York school of correspondence” It was a time in my life when I was looking for something to do and it inspired me to send photographs through mail to friends! After some years of exchanging mail with hundreds of photographers from around the world I started doing shows of the mail I received and that‘s how I got into currating art shows, which lead to opening Seeing Things ... It was a natural progression of life for me and something that I found out I‘m good at. Both sending mail and running a gallery are very satisfying things to do, especially sending mail! What‘s your favorite countries/places you‘ve traveled?
I‘ve done quite a bit of traveling but also not enough, if that makes sense? As I get older I‘m gravitating more towards remote places. Im a fan of Mexico and Japan but would love to go to Turkey where my family is from.
Any memorable road trips?
I went on a trip with Joe Brook and Arto Sarri for Joe‘s 40th birthday some years back to Utha and that was amazing! It was a full on photo dork out trip more about getting there than anything. I‘m old, so getting there and what happens on the way is really what it‘s about for me. I work for a clothing company called Devium and we do a few trips a year like this and it‘s so rad to not have everything to do with my skateboard, it‘s still a huge part of what we are doing but it‘s rad to be able to have more time to see things along the way and just be with your friends. If we want to stop and see something or have a beer we do it and don‘t trip ... BOOK TIPS: Port Land by Eric Antoine The Atom Bomb by Miki Vuckovich 35mm by Joe Brook, Jon Humphries, Tobin Yelland, Brendan Klein, Mark Whiteley, etc. Collision 66 by Jay Tanju Push by Richard Hard
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S B L
TE V E A I EY
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SAN DIEGO
My name is Steve Bailey, skateboarder, avocado farmer, photographer, Super 8 filmer and film edititor.
PHOTOGRAPHY PLUS INTERVIEW
Gerd Rieger
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How did you get introduced to skating?
I pretty much grew up with it, just being in San Diego, California. I started when I was 9, that was in the early 80‘s and skating was pretty common, so we started around the neighborhood, typical stuff, just tagging around with my older brother and his friends mostly. Then we built a 1/4 pipe in front of the house, then the 1/2 pipe in the backyard, then we built bigger 1/2 pipes and from there going to different neighbourhoods and taking the bus to ride different ramps around San Diego and I was super enthusiastic about it and it was a killer way to grow up and travel a little bit out of your neighbourhood and have friends, you know. What was she local scene like?
The first time going to a contest was super fun and it was like
“oh shoot there’s all those little scenes around that add up to bigger scenes“, like San Diego to Southern Cali, and then before I knew it, I was 14 or 15 and skating for Foundation Skateboards and doing a trip in a van all the way to Florida and back for a month in summer. So skateboarding was naturally there, it just progressed like that from the scene I was in. And through that and through the skateshop I got to know other people and eventually met Peter Hewitt, Matt Moffett. So Peter had this psycho little ramp in his front yard, in his driveway and I remember going over there and seeing that thing, it was about 6 foot tall, up to vert and the platform was right up to his 2nd floor bedroom window and it was pretty rad looking, just in the full suburban community in San Diego. So I got to know Peter and skated with him and Moffett. Matt actually went to my high
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school, I was about 2 years younger than Matt and Peter, so it was a big deal to hang out with those dudes. So I went to school with a bunch of skaters like Jim Gingery, Darren Jenkins, Jason Rogers, it was like a whole posse that was a little older than me and Chad Conner, who was my age, and these were all sponsored dudes … so I really just grew up with skating. How was your first trip to Europe?
Peter, Matt and I went to Europe when I was 15, the summer of 91 and did a trip with Graeme ‚Stan‘ Stanners, from Scotland, he was a couple years older, lived in San Diego for a few years, so he took us under his wing a bit, and we went to the contests around Europe that summer and that was like a huge deal, basically being a full youngster on a pretty heavy trip with those guys, who were super good and sponsored, at like the peak of vert skating, the late
peak of that wave of vert, of contests and everything. We traveled through 7 or 8 countries, for about 2 months. I learned to drive a car basically, I had a leaners permit, and we bought a little Mini Cooper and I would do the stick shift driving. There were tons of adventures, basically just seeing the brotherhood of skating, in a way through Stanners, he was really showing us … if you had been like he had, where you travel all around Europe for 3-4 years, going to contests and meeting everybody. The summer we went with him it was a whole network of dudes and really cool people and everybody skating together and traveling together, you know, going to the Le Grand Bornand contest, then Münster and there was a contest in Spain, I think that was the 1st one, it was down in Barcelona, we met Rick Charnoski, and Jan from the Netherlands and dif-
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ferent people jumped in our car and rode with us for part of the time and we met up with Davie Philipps and another crew of cars and camped on the beach in Monaco for a week and just swam and waited for the next contest and met up with everybody and we all just had huge bags of product, so we sold some product and had some money to live on for the next week or till the next contest kinda thing. So that was pretty cool, you know, but then after that summer it was funny, it was like the vert scene died, everything switched gears, the next summer there was no trips like that happening, it was like basically the collapse of the skate scene. And by the time I was 17-18, I was like, I was almost over it for a little bit. What was it like when the scene changed from vert to street in the early 90’s?
My friends and I were primed
and ready, we had the skills and were going to be skaters and have that be our lives, but it all just fell apart, the mags turned in those street oriented bailfests of flip tricks and little wheels, we all saved up big wheels and boards, because you could not find them. It was just this weird bastardization of what we grew up loving and of course people continued to do it, we continued to skate pools and ramps and stuff, but it was just way scaled back, so I took a step or two back too and went to school, went to collage up in Santa Cruz and it was like a die back period for about 4 years, before the next resurgence of stuff happening and the scene we were stoked on. It took a little while but it did come back. But that‘s what caused me to branch out I guess and get some more education, learn Spanish most importantly for me and travel in a similar style with my skateboard. Each summer,
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I would go down to Mexico or Guatemala or do different trips, skate a little bit, surf some waves and just basically check out different cultures and stuff. The Trip with Stanners, Peter and Matt just showed me the format - Just Travel - whether its by train, car or bus, but you go somewhere and you maybe see a museum or check out something cultural too, meet people through skating and get to know another culture, another version of life, through your skateboard. That was super formative for my whole life. And that‘s where that came from basically. Through those guys and a lot through Stanners really.
ing Lee Ralph skating that pool, that was pretty sick. Kicked it with him a little bit and was pretty stocked on his crazy nomadic skate vibes. But yeah, the sessions were pretty rad there, I remember the Berg Fidel skatepark, I remember that more than the contest itself, manly because it was just another arena with a bunch of obstacles and a vert ramp you know and after you‘ve seen a bunch of those it‘s kinda like the same.
But the skatepark scene was super rad, I remember being blown away being in Germany and Münster seemed like a relatively small town being invaded by skateworld. Tons of skate fans, you could sell all of the shit How was the Münster contest? One of there, it was just like totally inthe biggest contest back then. Did you sane. I remember being at dinskate the pool too? ner at the hotel, we actually did not even stay at the hotel, we set We skated the pool, took some our tents up in the garden of the photos, I got a couple pictures of hotel where a bunch of skaters that pool and stayed, that was Stan just taking I remember the first time seethe lead, we would just wake up
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early in the morning and put our shit away in the car and then go and get breakfast at the buffet, I remember this Müsli breakfast and I was like what is… it‘s like all seeds and grains, yogurt and some fruit and Stan was like yeah, that`s it man, that is like killer breakfast… ok, just learning about shit like that, it was funny. I remember ordering a beer at dinner with like a big group of skaters, like a dozen at a big table and I was 15 and I could order a beer and I was like, this is fucking trippy, but looking back on it, it was a super amazing experience and almost nothing else like it in my life. There were a lot of skate trips later but that trip man, with Peter, Matt and Stanners in that little car and another cast of characters that would come and go with us, that was super amazing.
What was the Marseille skatepark like?
We skated Marseille, that was like the first summer of Marseille park was built. We heard about that I think in Belgium, there was a little bit of word about that new park and it sounded incredible, it was on the beach. I think Ed Templeton and Mike Vallely had been there, they were about the only people that had been there, just a week or two before, so we detoured our path that way and got to skate that place for 4-5 days. Just brand new, never photographed, no evidence of it ever in the skate world and we were like wow man, this place is epic. That was a super new conception of a skatepark, even though it did not have that much of vert but it was a big park, all interconnected almost like an old 70’s park. In the states there was really no cement being built in 91 it was all ramps, so we were super hyped on that.
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What were the ramps you skated before or after that trip?
I was a little too young for Del Mar, I went there a couple of times, but I didn‘t know that scene too well, I was like 1213 and snug in once or twice, when they had a little ramp contest outside. But I got in pretty heavy park localism at Linda Vista, that was a boys club, super famous, super rad scene, Stanners, Hewitt, Moffett, Steve Claar, occasionally Jason Jesse, Tim Romero, really rad ripping vert dudes, at a rad almost like a backyard ramp scene, it was a skatepark, but nobody bothered us there, you could do whatever you wanted. After Linda Vista closed, Moffett bought the ramp, a lot of us chipped in and we helped move it and set it up at Moffett‘s house, so the scene transferred out there for a another two or three years pretty solid. And then there was a ramp called Happy Land it was a backyard
mini bowl with an over vert cradle, it had all this futuristic stuff, it was super homemade and crappy, with holes and bad coping, but you could just get to know it and fly around it, it was so rad, such killer design. Reese Simpson, Bruno Herzog, Tom Donnelly, a buch of old BBC and SMP guys. I saw those dudes skate there a bunch, that shit was pretty rad. Saw a couple big partys there, saw Jeff Grosso drop in on the over vert and completely break himself, drunk tyring to drop in on over vert, that scene was kinda like the 90‘s die down. And then I disconnected a little bit and went to Santa Cruz and connected with a different scene up there, with Jason und Justin Strubin, Ron Whaley, Thomas Campbell, Consolidated Skateboards, Jason Jesse, Steve Keenan, Alan Petersen, Richard and Jesse Paez. I somehow just became part of Consolidated Skateboards two or three years into that. That was a different chapter.
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How did you discover Mexico?
I did a study abroad in Mexico City for a junior year of school, so I kinda packed up and bailed for a year. There were several abandoned or just unknown skateparks down there. Mainly we were going to Mazatlan, I kinda discovered that and took some photos of the park. l learned to do some darkroom stuff with a little seminar I took at school, so I started to develop my own negatives and printing photos in the darkroom. I brought back some photos of Mazatlan and that park and showed them to Peter and Matt, Sam Hitz and Al Partanen and then it just became a thing where I just was on a mission to uncover skatespots. Tell us about dickering forgotten spots.
Most significantly the park in
Japan, I just kinda crossed paths with these spots that were forgotten about and a lot of times even the skaters in the countries there didn‘t skate there, in Mexico they don‘t really care about a vert ramp, 9 foot cement vert ramp, they didn‘t even skate the thing, but I brought pictures home showed them around, dudes got hyped, and we‘d do a trip, we‘d go back down there, some friends and skate the thing, that was pretty exciting to me, that was rad it almost felt like surf exploration. I was influenced a lot by surfing too through the years. The coolest thing about surfing is, that dudes travel deep into these foreign countries along some coastline, where no westerners go and they find a wave, and they keep it secret and they come back and bring a friend or two and slowly word leaks out and photos leak out and eventually if it‘s good enough of a spot it becomes a huge discovery and maybe even ruins the place and blows it out.
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It occurred to me like a similar thing could happen with skating, but the crowd thing isn‘t so sensitive with skating, it‘s kinda cool to bring your friends. So that happened to me a couple places like Mexico - Mazatlan, El Salvadore, Japan … got home from trips, developed my negatives, printed some photos, showed them around, watched people trip out and kinda like catch a little excitement and then back. How did you come across the Mikasa skatepark in Japan?
Eventually a thing happened in Japan, where the Japanese Consolidated distributor invited me over there, I barley knew the distributor and somebody else couldn‘t go, Alan Peterson was going to some contest or something, so they pitched it on down to me and they‘re like “yeah go to Japan, and this guy is gonna hook you up” and I was like “cool, I‘ll go – I‘ll go for two weeks man”, great you know.
The dude barley spoke English and I barley met them, I think they were around the Consolidated vert ramp for one session and I kinda kew them from there. Who built the Mikasa skatepark? Who designed it?
It‘s kind of a mystery, I tried to investigate it as best as I could. There were two people that kinda knew the history behind it and it seems it was built in the 80‘s, the design seems to be similar to a couple parks like Harrow and Romford in England, that have half pipes that are similar to Mikasa. They are partly buried and then like 6 feet up and the vert are out of the ground and there‘s no plattform just maybe a 6 inch little deck of cement. That’s how Mikasa is too. So they think it‘s from the 80‘s and it‘s on the north island of Japan, it‘s up in the Mountains and there‘s a ski resort, so they
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have lifts that go up the hillside for skiing in the winter but for summer they also have some tourism, where there‘s that mini zoo, there‘s a Go Kart track and some other stuff and they also had the idea to built a skatepark, that‘s the best explanation that I have heard about it and it seems to fit. I think the 2nd night I was there the host, Tsuyoshi, he had the Felem skateshop and a little skatepark in his little compound there, in Ibaraki. So checking out his scene for a day or two and by like the second night he showed me a little bit of video from the park, from a trip him and his friends had done from the summer before and I saw this video and I was like “oh my gosh, this park looks insane dude” and it was just like this long snakerun and this long half pipe with a little bit of a bend and a thermometer kinda bowl thing at the bottom‘and some weird thing next to it that
was almost like tranny street course and then it was like really exiting, like oh wow, we‘re gonna go to some killer stuff, I mean just dream scenario stuff, they hooked it up perfectly, we were on a plane and I remember we landed in Hokkaido, with a totally trippy crew, none of these guys really spoke English, I think Tsuyoshi spoke like 20% fluency English and I know no Japanese… … driving up the mountain in a rental van and we pulled in for some famous ramen of Hokkaido, that was really good. I had some trippy noodle dish and had no idea what that was. Later we ended up at the park and I was just blown away, the park was super rad looking, almost like a sculpture, it was just such a weired conception, not the halfpipe/thermometer thing but especially the thing next to it, it was like a circular volcano and an S tranny part and you could skate it pretty rad, just by deflecting of everything kinda like
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a bowl and it had a really nice cement edge all around virgin everywhere, there were no grind marks in the thing. And I remember I tore my spleen about a month and a half before the trip. I had a pretty gnarly slam in a pool in Baja, locked up backside and smashed my elbow into my rips and inner organs and I had a torn spleen, so I had been to the hospital for three days and monitored and all this stuff. I was recovering and barely even skated the month and a half before the trip so basically I was off my board for a while and then I was on my way to Japan to the most insane dream spot in a dream scenario where you just want to get it and you only have like a day‌ we had one day there, stayed at a hotel and had part of the second morning, got to skate and flew out. It was like super fleeting in and out, but so damn fun, it was one of the things in life
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where it’s like I can’t believe the scenario that you find yourself in, like where things took me. Because discovering a park like that and getting to skate it like that with cool and friendly locals bringing you there. And then after going home and developing the photos and getting the prints back showing them to Peter (Hewitt) and Phelps and Luke Odgen and these dudes, they of course just tripped and within a month or so they called me up and they were: “we gotta organize a trip out there and skate that thing and document that thing.” So that was a whole rad phase of travel and skating that came out of that place in Japan. How did you get into skating backyard pools?
The first pool I went to was here in Valley Center, near my families avocado ranch. There was this pool called the VC Pool, and my friends Eric
and Chad Conner and I somehow got word of where it was and we came out here to it. And we happed to go when there was a session and we saw Aaron Astorga and a couple other dudes, but I just remember Aaron Astorga backside grinding the shallow end, it had this rad shallow end pocket, just like a curve, and he was just grinding that thing and it was the first time seeing a shallow end skated properly. That was really impressive and it was cool. And just the amount of vert and the little bit of tranny and the way he carved into it and out of it and the grind on raw pool coping, that really made a big impression on me. We were these ramp kids that had a lot of skill on mini ramps and vert ramps and whatever and there was this San Diego pool crew that occasionally pitch us a pool and bring us somewhere. So the Nude Bowl was the first
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pool we got to localize and go there several times and get used to and that scene was just totally amazing and one of a kind. From that area everybody would just descent on the pool in the middle of nowhere and camp and skate and the pool was just really good. Pool skating really just caught on with us, any time we had the opportunity to skate one, we were stoked and we kinda got inaugurated into it by the other dudes that were a little more senior and a little more advanced. Luckily we got to learn what was up with that and eventually you know there’s a lot of pools around here, so there’s a lot of years where we were skating some super good pools, and having some really rad sessions with a crew of really good pool skaters. I saw some amazing skateboarding from everybody, like from Peter and Matt (Moffett) to Christian Brox, Darrel Delgado,
Tony Farmer… Jody Royak was a really early influence on us, he brought us to a couple of the first pools we went to and he skated really good I really liked his style always. That really was attractive to us, because it was different than the parks and the ramps, it was super intimate, you gotta know the spot, somebody gotta introduce you to it or you gotta find your way to it and there’s no cameras or audience, there’s no people around, you’re sneaking in, you’re sneaking out and you’re barely ever documenting it. To me and to all of us, that was just a really pure form of skating and really like sacred, its almost like some Samurai shit you know, like good pool skaters are really specialized in their skills and its really a treat to watch them, you don’t see it documented… I mean you do now, but… now its kind of a whole different world, but it used to be that you never saw that world, maybe two
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percent of all photos you saw in the mags were pool skating and they were really rad looking. I had a photo on my wall when I was a kid of Chris Miller doing a frontside ollie in a backyard pool and it said “Stay Free” and it was a G&S ad and it was just the epitome of just pure rad skating.
When did you discover Spain and the Bask Country?
I knew a couple Spanish skaters, Roberto Aleman had come through Consolidated, and hooked up and stayed with me for like a month and we travel around and we had gone to Baja and he was always telling me - “man you speak Spanish and There’s like a million stories you love skating transitions and about it… We were fortunate to parks and stuff and surfing, you be able to check out pool skating gotta come to Spain you’ll be and then see its development. stoked, its really killer there” Buddy and Rick came around And I was like “yeah, yeah, whatand made a film basically ever”, I just go to Mexico and around pool skating and a couCentral America and I got plenple other people did too and kin- ty to explore and all this stuff da like opened up this crack into and its close and it’s super cheap. the world of pool skating and it But eventually I got a ticket to became a lot more visible a lot go to a Marseille contest and more public and that changed it hook up with Joey and Julian a lot. I really liked it the old way, Stranger and a couple other peoand I really feel it was rad to see ple and were gonna go to Spain that. I was real fortunate, it was following the Marseille contest. just a super pure and almost secretive sub sect of skateboard- I just made it happen, I think I bought my own ticket, aling, but yeah that’s what we grew up with here in San Diego. most always and would go and
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get sponsors later to get reimbursed, that’s the way we did it. I think it‘s an important point, we didn’t have full company sponsorship and hook up and just like go “oh, you know, they buy you this ticket and send you there”. It was more like we made our own shit happen and it usually worked out. Usually I had done a lot of shit, got photos and entered the contests and placed and so I had a good case to make. But when you do it like that it’s a really different trip, its like you find your own way, you hook up with your buddies and you make your trip happen and you plan it and you do it the best you can do. And it worked out for us 9 times out of 10 way radder that way and I’m stoked on that way. But it was harder. So we went to France and did the Marseille contest, you know
that whole blowout, whatever kinda rad the first year or two, but then it kinda got stale, just because the park is the same park after 3 days of skating it. It’s kinda like, “why are we still skating this stupid slow tranny park”, you know, “I wanna go down to Spain, I wanna skate some gnarly shit”, so once the contest was over, all the partying and all that vibe, we all possied up and it was a group of 8 or 9 of us, just the full dream crew with Preston to take some video, rad rad crew to skate with, so we all went down on the train to San Sebastian, saw a little bit of Spain there, stayed a night or two and then went on to Algorta and Bilbao, stayed for 4-5 days around there and then went to Madrid for a few days. Luise, the distributer for Deluxe and Consolidated at the time, just totally hosted us, hooked it all up, we skated the raddest cement, Praque Sindical, Alcobendas, just this rad stuff and so my first trip was that.
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And I went home and was just like, “Spain is epic, you know!� So it took about a year before I got an opportunity and another trip came up, me, Pete Hewitt, Neil Heddings and Joe Hammeke got sent to Barcelona to do a demo, with this trade show thing Spoko, and we made a little trip around that and Preston went too. After the trade show we got on a train and rode over to Algorta. Alain Goikoetxea met us at the station and put us up at the hostel, we rented our rooms there, right up the street from the park, practically views of the bowl, that was when the bowl was built and then it was really like La Kantera is the place man. I had packed my bags extra big and extra product and just intended on staying. The day came when the rest of the troop was packing up and went to the train station and I went with them to the train station and it was funny, I remember Peter was talking about it one time just a couple
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years ago, they were really wondering whether I was gonna stay. I think, I had all my bags, we had to check out of the hostel and I just wanted to hang with the crew and I took the subway to the train station, for them to leave on and then I just stayed on the platform and was just “later guys” and they are like “oh shit dude, you really are staying.” So I stayed and I think it was like 10 month, I just left my return ticket home and just found my way through finding a place to stay, and skating that park a ton and then branching out and doing some really killer trips around Europe, Yeah, that was a killer experience and Spain is just big, super love in my heart for that place zand the people and the skaters and all that tradition. It really felt cool, because it wasn’t a stretch for me living there, you know, I lived in Mex-
ico City for a year when I was studying and I can function totally good in Spanish and do everything you need to do. So it was a really rad exciting time. It was a good way to spend a year because there were like certain changes going on with sponsors and the skate scene, so I was kinda stoked to take a break for a minute. And then I always went back for he next several years every summer in some form or another, visiting Spain and go back to La Kantera and do trips.
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Blue Note
Francis Wolff seems to be a bit underrated at times but he‘s definitely one of the greatest Jazz and portrait photographers. Wolff was co founder and owner of the legendary Jazz label Blue Note Records and as he was a trained photographer before immigrating to New York to escape Nazi Germany and start Blue Note Records with his friend Alfred Lion, who had left for New York a little earlier. So it was natural that he captured every recording session with his Rollei camera. A lot of his images were used for the record covers by the designer Reid Miles who did the artwork for most of the covers. Also worth checking out is the great documentary‘ about the Blue Note history and story of Fancis Wolff and Alfred Lion. Hardcover: 288 pages Published: October 6, 2015 Language: English ISBN-10: 2080202200
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Mamiya Universal
The Mamiya Universal is a medium format rangefinder camera that is as the name suggests quite versatile. There‘s about 8 lenses that go from 50mm wide to 250 long lens but the best part about it are the interchangeable backs, you can put 6x9, 6x7, Polaroid backs, ground glass Mamiya 67 and Graflex backs on it using the M adapter. I like the Polaroid back the best, because it‘s the peel apart pack film that is still available from Fuji. And the really cool thing about it is that it gives you the positive image and you also get a negative that you can scan. To make the negative scannable and useable, you need to clean/bleach the black side of the negative with a little effort, but it can give you some cool effects and is fun to play and experiment with it. Fuji stopped the production of their pack films, the Fp-100, earlier this year,‘but it‘ll be still available for some time. And there might be an alternative in the future or you can built your own DIY back taking Fuji Instax Wide film for example.
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Instasnap
Check out the Bailgun Instagram with rad pics from the archives. Here we have Alex Schärfe on a trip to Oregon in 2004 obeying the rules to protect his head with his beerhelmet.‘ Link: instagram.com/bailgunmagazine
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EDITOR IN CHIEF
Gerd Rieger (V.IS.d.P.) gerd@bailgun.com
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Gerd Rieger gerdrieger.com
Axel Torschmied torschmied.com
Robert Rieger robertrieger.com
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Alex Enge alexenge.com
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