Concussion 10 by Davoud Kermaninejad

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alley-oop 270 Roberto tears Alameda with punk moves such as the over the spine. Photo by Davoud

Adam Morgan comes close to stick ing the old frontside bluntslide around the hip at Derby. Photos by Hay

a car in the Little Cory Duffel charges down a big rail before hitting Rodela by Photos kid. up, parking lot. Keep it

This is Heath, tailsliding down some waxed cement handrail. Photo by Rodela

covER: Eric j bLaStS An ovErhEaD frontSiDE Air AT THE CRIB RAMP PARTY. PHOTO DAVOUD

Editorial Rant-Skaters Aren’t Dirtbags, right? It seemed that lots of people had something to say about last issues’ Sean O’Loughlin interview, but the most surprising and amusing comment we received by far came from Jake Phelps. Let me digress. Right after the last issue came out I had the good fortune of attending a Supersuckers concert. As usual in our attempt to forgo the torture of the opening bands, we spent a little too time across the street at the Twenty Tank Brewery getting “Twenty Tanked” and were cutting it pretty close. I wanted to shoot some rock and roll photos, so I scurried around to the front of the stage, and found myself standing in front of the esteemed editor of Thrasher. Since our magazine was hot off the press, I thought I’d attempt to give Jake a copy, seeing as he might be interested in it. He refused to take it, shaking his head and stating, “Naw. Already seen it.” Then he proceeded to tell me what he thought of Sean. “Fat Sean, you shouldn’t have done an interview with that guy. He stole from me. That dude’s a thief. One time, I caught him stealing wheels out of the Thrasher van.” It’s funny - everybody who likes Sean calls him Big Sean (to distinguish him from the rest of the Sean’s that skate), and everybody who hates him calls him Fat Sean. “Yeah,” I replied, “I can see Sean doing that. Sure that dude’s a dirtbag*, but so what - he still rips.”

“Skaters aren’t dirtbags,” Jake shot back. I must say that I was quite taken aback at his comment. Coming from the editor of Thrasher, supposedly the punkest, most hardcore skate magazine there is, I would think that Jake knows plenty of dirtbag skaters. Some of them might have even been featured in his magazine at one time or another. I mean come on, let’s not kid ourselves. Although its mainstream acceptance is certainly on the rise, skateboarding has always attracted the fringe element of society, people who don’t fit in playing team sports such as football, baseball, or basketball. Some of them aren’t the nicest people, but still share an addiction for skateboarding. So I dunno, I guess you shouldn’t be seeing many of the photos of people in this magazine, because they might be dirtbags. After we’re done shooting photos, some of these guys go out to get drunk and steal tips from the bar. Then they break into a car on their way home, and then bomb a hill home to do drugs and draw pictures of skulls and evil faces. In unrelated news, production of this issue was slightly delayed because Davoud had to go and break his collar-bone during a skate break at Derby Park. What a kook. So if there are any misspellings or weird errors in this issue, blame it on the fact that he can only type with one hand, or the Vicodins. - The Editors *Sean later denied that he was stealing wheels from the van, because Mic-E had told him he could have some.

concussion Staff -Senior EditorsJonathan Hay Davoud Kermaninejad -Senior Artface killahLee Charron -PhotographersBruce Rodela, Jason Murray, Patrick Trefz, Terry Roland -Contributing Photographersguerin mayall, chris wellhausen, max dolberg, jeff goldberg, jason bedient, david royal, linda pazdirek, Joel Chavez, james mcbride, mickey stamm, mike mcreery -videographerdave amell -Writerssick boy Eric Bigler Dave Amell scotty greathouse jennifer boyden jason bedient -ArtistsLee Eschliman JEREmey Fish Shawn pacheco DEREK From ANtioch Tim McCaffrey brian reed

Copy Editor prod. asst. Web Hosting

Frank Gilbert dawn beggs tromaville.com

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Concussion, I'm writing to you from the world of fun, Susanville (correctional center). I'm 20 years old, skating since I was 8 on and off. Your mag kicks ass. The only thing it needs is a correspondence section so lonely losers like myself have someone to write. Well it's summer up here, and it's good skate weather. Unfortunately I can't skate, or can I. You see, heat induces hallucination, and you know what? These mountains instantly turn into hips and transitions. I become miles taller as I catch fat air on these nice hips and transitions. I can touch the tiny sparkles. I grind till there's mulch. I skate, I destroy, I look over and see thousands of green and blue ants. I try to ollie over them, but fall. As I fall I can see one blue ant staring at me, as I fall onto them My eyes open, only to find the same mountains I've been staring at for years. Only 18 months left and I'll be falling on my face again. mmm, love that clamato, Casper. Any comments write: Chris Tobias K-70283 L-2140 L Susanville, CA 96127-2210 Concussion, This is the Sick Boy. I am having a problem that I'm hoping you can help with. The two mags you sent me were denied and are sittin' in the mailroom waiting for me to send them home. The reason they are denying them is the back page. I guess there is a cop with a gun to his head on that page. Well, they won't just rip the page out for me. So, I'm going to send those two home. I'd like to ask a favor of you. Could you please send me back the originals of my drawings? Did I send you an old picture of me on a launch ramp? How is everything going? I'm out of here shortly, 3 months, yippee! Please talk back to me and let me know what's up. I'll write another story soon.

To: concussion@concussion.org From: OLINFD@aol.com Subject: geography lesson just thought you would like to know that the pool on the cover of issue number nine is in SONOMA, not Napa. Napa is an even shittier little town thirty miles east of Sonoma, in the Napa Valley- as opposed to SONOMA, which is in the SONOMA VALLEY. While there is not much in SONOMA, there is even less in Napa. currently, the SONOMA pool in question has about three feet of green water in it, which is probably a good thing since the cops have gotten wise to us and started writing trespassing tickets. maybe after they forget- what with the rampant crime in SONOMA- it will be skated again. kristel daunell olinfd@aol.com ya, we know where the pool is. we just called it napa so that every dumb fuck in the bay area (that didnt already know about it) wouldn't go there and make it more of a bust than it already was. To: concussion@concussion.org From: UniversalSoal@cs.com Subject: TONY HAWK,MR.JUSTIN YES MY NAMES JAMES I KNOW A SKATE BPRDER NAMED MR.JUSTIN AND HE HAS ALSO BEATEN THE GAME TONY HAWK.WE HAVE SEEN HIM AND HIS FRIEND SKATE THEY ARE GOOD UM I ALSO HAVE A QUESTION CAN YOU GIVE ME TONY HAWKS E-MAIL ADDRESS OR DO AN INTERVEIW ON HIM that's great. no, i dont have tony hawk's email and i dont think you'll be seeing an interview with him in the pages of concussion anytime soon. but thanks anyways. Dear Sir, My name is Nicolas Bertin-Mourot, and I’m a french TV journalist. I would like to make a documentary about the surf rage incidents in Hawaii. Indeed, I heard that Hawaii is a very hot place at the moment because of many surfer gangs (the “Black Shorts” for example).

I'd rather skate than masturbate, Paul "Sick Boy" Morrison. I sent the drawings back with the issue the pigs wouldn't let in, they must have sent them home to your house, or hopefully not tossed them away. To: concussion@concussion.org From: Josh Robinson Sk88er@webtv.net Subject: why? Why dont you have skateboarding giveaways? why why why.. why dont we give everything out for free? why dont skateshops give free skateboards away? why does everybody want something for nothing? guess we're just not that cool.. and nobody gives us free skateboards to give away, and if they did, we'd probably ride them ourselves....

Could you please give me more information about it? What’s the best place, according to you, to shoot our reporting? Where are the most virulant gangs? Is there a police department specialized on it? I thank you very much for your consideration. I wish you the best. Uh... surf rage? Happens in Santa Cruz all the time. Too many people, not enough waves. write to concussion at: po box 1024 santa cruz ca 95061-1024 or email concussion@concusion.org

A Look at the True Business of Prison. By Sick Boy If one had systematically and diabolically tried to create mental disorder, one could probably have constructed no better system than the American so-called correctional system. What business enterprise could conceivably continue with the rate of "recall" of its "products" that we see with respect to America’s prisons. If you go back in history and plot the population of all prisons and compare it to all the other variables you can think of, you will find a positive correlation only with unemployment. The higher the rate of joblessness, the higher the rate of prison commitments. There is no question about it. From this perspective, prisons may be seen as warehouses for people who have no place in the economic order. Alternatives to prison will inevitably fail to become true alternatives without explicit policies for reduction in the use of incarceration, becoming instead merely supplementary programs to continue prison and jail expansion. The real roots of "crime" in America are associated with a constellation of suffering so hideous that as a society, it cannot bear to look it in the face. So, it hands its casualties over to a system that will keep us from its sight.

The bottom line is money! Prison (slave) labor has emerged as a complement to the international movement for jobs. For many decades, U.S. based corporations have been moving abroad to avoid high domestic wage rates as well as labor and environmental regulations. Now, such factors as the relocation, and the shipping expenses involved have caused most manufacturers to recognize that American prisons, with their abundant supply of labor, are an alternative to foreign-based production. No wonder California passed the three strikes law. What better person to have in these P.I.A factories than a man or woman with 25 to life. ALL prisoners must come to realize that the prison system’s goal is to psychologically inferiorize us. Inferiorization is essential to the process of oppression. It ensures that the villains (corporations, world leaders, and established media) need not be troubled to hold the oppressed from effectively challenging the process and system. In this way, the oppressors mold the individual to share fully in the process of their own oppression (look around you!) In the final analysis, the process of inferiorization is

It is a bitter irony that the high cost of crime cut into health, education, and welfare services needed by the very people who, lacking such supports, often end up in prison. Prisons do not protect society from crime. Instead they avoid the far more challenging solution of economic justice by reinforcing patterns of economic and social inequality. It is only by discouraging reliance on incarceration that we can seek humane, healthy and productive communities and most of all, safe places to live. Local so-called "leaders" see a potential state or federal prison as a "recession-proof" economic base. In fact, prisons are more than "recession-proof"; they are the one industry that greatly benefits from recession. The corporate world is extensively involved with prisons. From architects to academics (who study prisoners and the prison system), from food service vendors to health care firms, from corrections bureaucrats to psychologists/psychiatrists and social workers, there is big, big money to be made from the proliferation of prisons. Prisons are the number one indus- designed specifically to prevent the maximum try in America (especially California), after war. development of the individual. Prisoners must Actually, in many cases the two industries overlap. realize too, that no system of oppression structured to dominate, which explains why there are

no programs on the prison yards that would truly benefit the populations. Such a system only permits the individual to survive so that they can continue to destroy itself. The prophesy of B.F. Skinner in beyond freedom and dignity is now a reality (Skinner, 1971). Skinner articulates that it’s possible to "delude" people into believing that they have the essence of life-freedom and dignity, yet, still control them. The ultimate weapon of the villain is the mind of the individual! Ultimately, when

you control a man’s thinking, you do not have to worry about his actions. Prisoners must face the ugly reality of what is going on, because in the final analysis, it’s better to search for something in the darkness than to search for nothing in the light. Revolution within a modern industrial capitalist society can only mean the overthrow of all existing property relations and the destruction of all institutions that directly or indirectly support existing property relations. It must include the total suppression of all class and individuals who endorse the present state of property relations or who stand to gain from it. Anything less than this is reform! Government and the infrastructure of the enemy capitalist state must be dismantled to get the heart of the problem: property relations. Otherwise there is no revolution. Reshuffle the government personnel and forms, without changing property relations and economic institutions, and you have produced simply another reform stage in the old bourgeois revolution. The power to alter the present imbalances, to remedy the critical defects of an advanced industrial state ordered on an antiquated set of greed-confused motives, rests with the control over production and distribution of wealth. If the 1% who presently control the wealth of society maintain their control after the reordering of the state, the changes cannot be said to be revolutionary. We all know that the government of the U.S.A. and all that it stands for, all that it represents, must be totally flattened! This is the point, and the end. We have the means to end this, the problem is to develop acceptance of their use. The first struggle is one waged within our own minds. Be aware, question every-

thing, seek the truth, and never be influenced by established media. write to sick boy:

P. Morrison #H72927 PO Box 2210 L2-240 UP Susanville, CA 96127-2210

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Sacramento has always had a thriving vert scene, but with the closure of the indoor park the Grind in the mid-90’s, things were looking grim in Sac for a while. Earlier this year, the Grand Prix skatepark opened in West Sac, and once again there is more than enough vert to go around. The vert ramp is of behemoth proportions, and is dwarfed only by the immense vert extension on the opposite wall of the over vert ramp. The park is built on a driving range owned by Kevin’s girlfriend’s father, and they recently obtained their liquor license, so one may now enjoy a cold one in the hot Sac sun whether it be on the links or the deck of the ramp. If you’ve been craving big vert, this is the place for you.

l Clockwise from above: Danny McNaughton clears the channe f himsel hucks Waas Bobby Davoud Photo: between two of the ramps. Photos: Rodela style. tail to lien ramp, vert the on canyon over the but one of They brought out the BMXers for the opening day demo, we bad Too home, went and up â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;em crashed, so they packed a throws r Speye Wade ound: Backgr Davoud Photo: missed the crash. Davoud tweaked method over the vert ramp channel. Photo:

People sometimes give us flack for being too negative in our skatepark reviews. What they may not realize is that our famous “Five Skull Review System™”, is an objective method based on scientific principles. By way of a demonstration, let’s look at the new Grand Prix Skateboard Park in Sacramento. Beginning with 2 skulls, we ask certain questions, and add or subtract skulls depending on the answers. The first question as always -- is there vert? In the case of the Grand Prix Park, a definitive YES. In fact, the park features a 12’x48’ vert ramp. Add a skull. Next question, any bowls? No, but that’s not surprising at an all-wood skatepark, so, in this case we’ll only subtract a 1/2 skull rather than a full skull. Now, taking a holistic view of the park, we find that the construction is sturdy, the transitions are clean and the coping is done right, so no subtraction there. On to the rest of the park. Although the street course wasn’t done when I skated there, it didn’t look too promising; everything was way too big for the space and kind of fucked up looking. But they may have changed that by now, and besides that’s just the street course, so we’ll only subtract a 1/2 skull. On the other hand, the mini-ramp is fun so add a 1/2 skull. Now, these days a good skatepark should have a distinctive feature, something that you can’t find everywhere. At the Grand Prix, that would be the over-vert-3/4-pipe ramp, which is pretty crazy. Also, the transfer lines between the three ramps are cool. Add a 1/2 skull. Lastly, it’s important to consider the off-your-board issues. The Grand Prix Skatepark has two big things going for it in this department; they don’t allow rollerbladers and they have a liquor license. Add a full skull. Do the math, that’s a 4-skull rating, making the Grand Prix one of the better skateparks to be reviewed. Get there and get some.

Clockwise from above: Big Sean flirts with the over vert 3/4 pipe, but ends up going home with the flat bottom. Photos: Davoud Bobby Waas is probably one of the only people to have grinded the gigantic vert extension. Go Burl. Photo: Rodela Sequence: Chad Vogt gets mad tech on the vert ramp. Letâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s see you try this one at home kids: Half-Cab kickflip noseslide revert. Maybe on Tony Hawk 2. Photos: Rodela Background: Another view of Burl crossing the channel, I mean canyon. Photo: Davoud

California has far too many lawyers per capita, everyone has lots of money, and people like to sue each other for bullshit reasons. Oregon is much more relaxed about people’s civil liberties, and tolerates drunk drivers, hicks with guns, money hungry loggers, and crazy skateboard park builders. They don’t

care if you kill yourself, whether it’s wrapping your truck around a tree or breaking your neck on a skateboard – if you’re doing it on your own time, it’s not their problem. That’s how it should be, and that’s partially why they’re able to build parks with lots of vert.

g grindin davoud bowl the

‘kettle’ rippin it up with nice ollies out of the deep end

wife s ’ swim e air mike rontsid f

dave amell slaps a shitty rock

ty jocham is 12 years old and charges this bowl harder than people twice his age. hip transfer. photo by davoud

Mickey enjoying a cold one

Volcanic activity

Mickey Stamm,

Boneless@Talen t

One might easily assume that California, the birthplace of skateboarding, would have the biggest and most badass public skateparks in the nation. And maybe if it weren’t California, then it would surely be Texas, since Texans like to build everything really big. This is why it comes as somewhat of a surprise that Oregon, California’s neighbor to the north, continually steps up to the plate, outdoing itself with bigger and bigger skateparks every six months. Every time I think they’ve built the biggest one, there is something bigger planned that they surprise you with. First there was the Burnside project - the mother of all DIY skateparks, which was built under a bridge in Portland one Halloween in the early 90’s. Other smaller, shitty cement parks were poured at cities along the I-5. Bend gets a similar shitty park, but because of the metal vert ramp its shortcomings were easily overlooked. Then along came Eric Dawkins who firmly put southern Oregon on the map with the finely built Jacksonville, Ashland and Talent parks. Not to be outdone, Red was commissioned by Lincoln City to build an even

bigger, badder park with more vert and more lines, which Thrasher dubs the gnarliest park in America. In June of this year, the cement on the fabled Medford park was finally dry. After years of hard work, the fourth installment of Dawkins’ master plan for the domination of southern Oregon was opened to the public. Words cannot accurately describe the sheer size and impact of the Medford park, but let’s just say that its bigger and better than all three of the other area parks in the area combined. The street course is huge and done very, very well. Nothing is under 4’ and there’s good coping and sweet speed lines everywhere. You can go around the whole park five times without pushing if you can stay on. Big ass street kicker? You got it. Snakerun / halfpipe section with a spine, pool coping, and extensions? Of course. Burnside style vert cinderblock pillar? You betcha. Gigantic 10’ deep bowl with a 7’ shallow, hips, pool coping, killer trannies, and a million lines? Without a doubt. Don’t forget the spine into the 9’ square bowl. The list could go on and on, but the bottom line is that

there is something for everyone here. You can make it as gnarly as you wanna make it. In an attempt to be concise, let’s just say that Dawkins and his crew did it up. I couldn’t find one complaint with the park. These guys (and gals) are true professionals, which means that unlike most of the fuck-heads in California who claim to call themselves park builders, they actually know what they’re doing. The trannies are perfect, the coping is set right, and there are so many lines and transfers and crazy shit that it is out of hand. The big bowl is almost as big as the Vans Combi Bowl, but it is definitely better and more fun than the Combi. The place has the buzz of a tourist attraction. Cars filled with teenage girls hoot and holler as they drive past. Area metalheads and stoners throw the devil horns and honk as they speed by. Rogue Valley area families take their children to marvel at the architectural and engineering wonder of the big bowl, as if it were Hoover Dam. They ooh and ahh even more when someone takes a ride in the big beast, especially if it is Ty or Tuck Jocham, two of the area’s youngest and most ripping groms. One mother — there with her son, who had just got out of baseball practice — asked me if riding the bowl was fun. “For sure” I enthusiastically replied,

“It’s the best thing thing ever,” “Besides baseball” she interrupted — half to me and half to her allAmerican, baseball-playing son. “Yeah, but it’s not the same thing. Skateboarding isn’t a team sport,” I countered. “It’s more of a ‘you against the bowl’ thing. There’s no competition between these people.” “You mean they’re not having a contest right now?” the ignorant lady asked. “No. This thing is so big and so hard to ride, you’re just stoked if you can stay on, let alone do tricks.” She didn’t get it. I was over talking to her. Back to do some more battle with the bowl. A few runs into the session, an unfortunate thing happened. I went to do a frontside 50-50 in the 7’ “shallow” end and my board slipped out over the deck. My feet were suddenly above my head, and I fell backwards and upside down, missing the transition and landing partially on my back and partially on my head in the flat bottom. Lucky for me, the annoying bike cop who’d been lurking there all day had just returned from her donut break, and I had put my helmet back on only minutes before. But still, that was the most fucked up slam I’ve ever taken – it probably would have been better had I attempted it in the deep end because the transitions are so much bigger. Whatever, I was just lucky that I could get myself out of the bowl on my own that bowl’s gnarly. Still, it’s so much

fun, I wish there would have been more dudes tearing it up. The scene in southern Oregon is probably the best in the world right now. Their new park is easily the best park I’ve ever been to (although I haven’t yet skated Lincoln City), and that soonto-be legendary bowl is one of the best things I’ve ever skated, hands down. Oregon is continually raising the bar on the standard for public skateparks; guys like Red and Dawkins are masters at their craft, and deserve to be bought a beer at the least. Compared to Oregon, California’s supposed cement park revival seems like a joke. Maybe in time, people will take the hint from Oregon, but until then, their scenes are far superior in most every way. The only thing I am left wondering is who is going to be the first to pour the full pipe? Medford rocks. Five skulls.

little ty is probab ly better than you

Adam Goes to Oregon (with a disposable camera)

In late July, like many other California skatboarders, Adam Morgan charged up to Oregon to skate all of the crazy new stuff that has been built. He tore the shit out of the brand new Newberg park and then proceeded to destroy Burnside and Lincoln City. He brought a disposable camera along to document the trip, and these were some of the best shots. Oregon parks rule, and so does Adam. Maybe next time weâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;ll loan him Jonathanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Nikon and a fisheye.

Psychedilic? Photo:Goldberg

Nole Algers making the Mammothpipe look not so...Mammoth Photo: Max Dolberg

Right now Gian Simmen is yelling “SWISSSIDE!” Photo: JG

Uriah Birch having a Truckee style backyard BBQ Photo: Goldeberg

Tracy Latzen knows how work a chainsaw...watch your ass. Photo: Goldberg

Chris Woodman grabbin’ some tail Photo: Stone Cold Goldberg

Darren “Mad Links” Cingel does a turny spiner grabberowski Photo: Goldberg

Shawn Sterken is “big pimpin” Photo: Goldberg

Jason Cockrum super shredmonster Photo: JG

Shawn Grisler Photo: Chris Wellhausen

Shawn Sterken does sweet ass frontside smith grinds. But not here. Photo: Goldberg

Eric Arnold Photo: Chris Wellhausen

Robert Hammer Photo: Chris Wellhausen

CLOCKWISE FROM ABOVE: UNKNOWN BACKSIDE ROLLIN AT WHAT APPEARS TO BE THE PLEASANT HILL POOL. PHOTO BY BRUCE RODELA. BIG SEAN SMITH GRINDS OVER THE DEATH BOX AT A POOL IN OAKLAND, CA. WHILE THE PUMP DRAINS THE WATER OUT OF BERKELEY’S BARRACUDA POOL, JACOB TILLMAN ENTERTAINS HIMSLEF BY DROPPING IN ON THE TIGHT TRANNY. PETE THE OX GRINDS OVER THE DEATH BOX ONLY MOMENTS BEFORE THE PIGS BREAK UP THE SESSION. PHOTOS BY DAVOUD

Vans Park Puts Milpitas on the Map Milpitas, CA Milpitas is this shitty little suburb bordering the foothills of East San Jose. Once open farmland, the Silicon Valley invasion has mutated Milpitas (Spanish for ‘Little Cornfield’) into a combination of computer companies and track housing nightmares. Milpitas also holds the dubious distinction of having the largest indoor mall in Northern California; the Great Mall of the Bay Area, which is built on an old Ford plant. I guess “Great Mall of Milpitas” wouldn’t quite cut it. Still, this tumescent, vile mall is quite an appropriate place for Vans to (finally) build their Nor Cal skatepark, considering their flagship skatepark in Orange is nested in the most horrendous, evil mall in the world.

Milpitas actually has quite a history of involvement in skateboarding. During the first wave of cement parks in the 70’s, the Milpitas park was up there with Winchester and other quality Nor Cal parks. The park was dozed in the early 80’s and replaced by Splashdown waterslide park, which was eventually dozed and replaced with condos. Imagine that. Then all of the computer companies moved in, over half of which came complete with skateable loading docks which were the rage for some time. Ever hear of the Montague banks in San Jose? It’s the same kind of shit, only five miles to the north. Then in the ’90s, the new, reinvented Milpitas decided to build a skatepark for all of the rollerbladers who lived there. It was an outdoor, cement park, which is considered by some to be the all-time worst skatepark ever built in California. It had a circular freestyle [read: flat] area, a 2’ hip, a few steps, and a

couple of unskatable pump bumps. It made Benecia look rad. The park was only open for a few months before the neighbors complained to the pigs about vandals and hooligans, and the place got shut down. Imagine that. Good riddance to that shitty park. Well, it is nice to know that the Vans park inside the Great Mall is a damn good skatepark. They have a huge, super fun wooden street course, a bigass mini ramp with a hip, a “Mickey Mouse” ears bowl with hips and speed lines, and a vert ramp. And then there’s the “Washboard”, the cement, four-pump-bump-in-a-row-leading-to-a-big-quarterpipe thing that

was reincarnated from the Winchester park, thanks to Steve Caballero. But my favorite bowl is the cement 10’ deep round bowl with square shallow end corners and pool coping all around. It was all the old dudes’ favorite bowl for sure, and that was where the session was going down. While the bowl is no Combi Pool, the dudes who turned out to skate it, were, and are some of the most ripping, legendary pool destroyers in California. Old dogs like Randy Katen, Fish, Bryce Kanights, Steve Caballero, and Todd Prince were going head to head with dudes like Pete the Ox, Tony Farmer, Wade Speyer, Matt Dyke, Herb, and a bunch of other rippers who I’d never seen before. Shit, the Faction should have been playing. The snake session was out of hand – to my right is Salba, to my left is Lance Mountain. Salba’s getting twice as many runs as everyone else. I get snaked by him, again. Everytime someone falls six or seven boards go over the deck, and one or two people drop in without so much as a second thought. “Snake, or be snaked,” Wade consisely sums it up. The guys who built the bowls are ripping harder than most everyone. People are hitting sparks on grinds, and skulls are getting smacked in high speed collisions in the deep end. Pete the Ox is going off – killing it so hard it cannot be explained. He pulls the most insane shit, sketches out on tricks going way too fast and just jumps back on. The photos and sequences sort of explain it, but you gotta see him skate in person to fully understand. The only complaint is that they were not serving free alcohol, like they were at the opening of the Orange park. That would have made the bowl session that much more fun, but oh well. The catfish burrito wasn’t bad though. So while I am somewhat insulted that Vans built three parks in So Cal before opening one in Nor Cal, it’s nice that it is finally open. I was saying that I wouldn’t be willing to pay $15 to skate for two hours or whatever bourgeois fee Vans is charging to get in, but now that I’ve been there I must admit that I’m more than willing to go back again, and again. Especially when our “harsh” California Winter kicks in and it kind of gets cold and rains for six or seven weeks. - Photos by Jonathan and Davoud / Video Sequences by Dave Amell

But I sure used to.

I don’t think I ever skated that place without getting at least a sprained ankle. Two foot high trannies which go to vert are fun, but the bottom line was that I sucked too much to have any fun there. So I didn’t shed too many tears when they finally “busted” the tennis court banks by lining the bottom with a big metal rail; that place was nothing but trouble for me anyways. My tune started to change though, when I heard that Big Sean had not only gotten a job as the head counselor at the summer skate camp at UC Berkeley, but also procured space at the tennis court banks to build the skatepark for the camp which among other things included a vert ramp.

Turns out they ripped out the old basketball court that was there and used the whole space to build ramps. In addition to the 11’ vert ramp, there was also a 5’ mini ramp with a hip, two 8’ high quarter pipes, and a bunch of crazy wallride ramps and other stuff. They even added a sheet of plywood above one section of the tennis court banks so one could now do shallow end-style wallrides on the vert. And yes, there is still a skateable, unmodified section of the banks to ride if you are so inclined. The park was designed by Sean, the trannies cut by Wiggy, and all kinds of East Bay heads showed up to screw plywood and help out with the construction. The camp is sick, and I’d be stoked to be one of those kids learning how to skate on that stuff. I hope they don’t tear it all down at the end of the summer - but if they do - it was good while it lasted. - Words and photos by Davoud Clockwise from left: Judd Hertzler throws down a frontside slider on the fun box rail. Tony Miorana clears pretty much the biggest gap in the park - huge air from the 1/4 pipe hip onto the flat bank - and does it with style to boot. Fuck yeah. Original 510 local Joel Chavez gets some on the vert above the tennis court banks.

Adam Repogle pulls into the gnarliest closeout tubes and somehow makes it out of them. Here he is pictured pulling into one of the more perfect waves. Photo: Trefz.

I only witnessed Jeremey Scribner surfing once, but that one time, i saw him pull into about 7 or 8 barrels. I guess some people are good at getting barreled, while others are not. Photo: Guerin Myall RaTboy is known more for his futuristic aerial manuevers than he is for his uncanny ability of getting tubed. Ph: Guerin

Stephan Woliczko is an up and coming Santa Cruz ripper. He used to be a little grom, but he got older. Weird how that works. Photo: David Royal

Lighouse.

Photo: Trefz.

Anti-clockwise from below: Peter Mel gouging it at one of Santa Cruzâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s best breaks. Photo: Patrick Trefz. Barney doesnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t just do radical tricks in small waves, he barges Mavs. Photo: Trefz. Ryan Schnell, wacking it in your face. Photo: James McBride. Rizal Tanjung is from Bali and he rips the snot out of anyones mei goreng. Photo: Jason Murray. Barney showing his diversity in destroying small waves with his layback bash. Photo: David Royal. Marco Foreman throwing up a picture perfect slash. Photo: Guerin Myall

Little groms charge down hills in recyclilng buckets. Photo: Rodela. Justin Strubing hucks a huge blindside ollie to fakie over the hip at Derby. Photos: Hay Eric J ollies to grind on the couch-extension at the Crib Ramp. Sequence: Amell. Jacob Tillman transfers from kinked bank to kinked bowl at the Dublin park. Photos: Rodela.

Ramp Lurkers, clockwise from left: Louie steps up with a body jar at a recent Crib Ramp party. Photo: Hay Brian launches a huge air off the extension onto the mini during a pre-couch extension Wednesday night session. Photo: Davoud Blair is so good, this backside grab at Leeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new ramp does not accurately portray his skills. Oh well.

San Ramon is one of the most jacked, wack-ass parks I have seen yet. The only good thing about San Ramon is it actually has vert - albeit in the form of a kinked quarter pipe and pool shallow end walls. This place is pathetic - filled to the brim with ten year old roller bladers, the park has conflicting lines, confusing obstacles, and a spine into a small bowl with one skinny piece of coping. Maybe this place looked ok on the plans, but it was most certainly built and designed by people who have never set foot on a skateboard. My favorite obstacle has to be the six inch and one foot high “Jamie Thomas” rails which lead down into the street pit. You just gotta see some of this stuff to believe it. San Ramon is a nasty little rich town in the valley on the other side of the East Bay Hills. People out there try and claim East Bay status, but they’re nothing but valley kooks. The skatepark is filled with rich kids and their vile yuppie parents, who talk business on their cell phones while their kids get in my way. The only good thing about this is that the kids all carry $100 in cash, so if you’re one of those sponsored skaters who likes to sell his decks and stuff for beer money, this is the place to come.

I’d bet that the San Ramon skatepark is fun when it is devoid of these little kids, but I have never had the pleasure of such a session. One time the news crews were there when I was skating, and I got a bit of weak footy on the WB20 News. I guess they were talking about putting cameras in so you could get busted for not wearing pads quicker. Don’t think they ever did that, but you can get busted there pretty damn quick. So if you’re in the area and you have a helmet, it’s worth checking out at least once - as long as you’re not expecting too much. Captions: With the long snout of the law behind him, Sam Cunningham smith grinds through the vert quarter pipe. Photo by Bruce Rodela. The rest of the photos are self explanatory and were taken by Davoud

Healdsburg was one of the best parks in Northern California for about two weeks. And then something better came along and we forgot all about that place. Or maybe it was the ever-lurking Heladsburg Police who would ticket you for not having both of your elbow pads on. Anyway, this north of Santa Rosa town got a skatepark built by non-skateboarder Zack Wormhoudt, the son of the infamous Doug Wormhoudt, who built Derby, and set the low standard for all of the other shitty cement parks in Nor Cal. Part of the park is your standard 90’s (I mean 00’s) skatepark crap - fun box, grind rails, weird lumpy hips, and then part of the park is 6’ no-vert bowls, kind of like Truckee only in the shape of a dog bone or something. The bowls are fun, there are plenty of speed lines and a weird not-quite-a-spine spine that goes into a long, shallow 4’ capsule which is unfortunately where most of the bumbling rollerbladers end up. The last day we were there, there was a birthday party and everybody got to rollerblade. Boy it was a real treat! There was even cake and ice cream. And then the nice police man showed up and ticketed my friends for not wearing all their pads. This place is definitely better than the overrated Santa Rosa park, but the prospect of having to wear full pads in usually 90 degree temperatures makes you think twice before driving two hours to skate there. Maybe someday people in California will learn how to build and regulate skateparks correctly, but until then, we’ll be stuck with parks with no vert and shitty coping, designed by people who don’t skate. Captions, clockwise from above: The bowl is just right for tattooed ripper guys who do indy airs over the hip. Overview, sort of. Birthday party bladers falling on their face. The pigs, busting people for not wearing all their pads. Lame. Photos by Davoud

New lines are being laid everyday at the new Ocean Beach Park in San Deigo. Locals of San Deigo have the convenience of the new and monstrous, all cement park. You can go skate it for five dollars a session or buy a membership for $35. All the locals seemed to be confused as to whether the fee lasted for a year or a lifetime. I payed my hard earned cash but neglected to bring my helmet and the park was kind enough to supply one free of charge, an uncommon nicety that private parks are less likely to provide. Overall the park is incredibly well designed and built. With plenty of terrain, the park seems sparsely populated even at relatively full sessions. The speed lines are inevitably a slower m.p.h. due to lack of anything over the 6 foot range as usual. This park is great and the time you could spend there perfecting your skills is only limited by the amount of direct sunlight that beats down on the park due to lack of trees with branches planted around itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perimeter. Check it out, carve it out and do ollie stalefishes like Jon Ponts over the hip. - Jason Bedient

W hy wa it for yo u r c it y t o b u i ld yo u t he $200,000 skat e p a rk t hey ' l l p r ob ably s c r ew up . Bu i ld yo u r ow n , for f r e e . My f r ie nd Dav id s t u mble d up o n this do-it - yo u r s el f p a rk w he n he wa s s k at i n g up at UC S C a nd de c ided to go to the q u a r r y w ith his "chalic e " . He fo u nd a f u l ly ho m e m ade p a rk w h ic h h ad b e e n de s i g ne d w it h le f tovers from construc t io n . P ly wo o d , P VC , m etal scaffoldi n g , & foam to build up t he jump. A garbage can wa s u s e d a s t he object to be cle a r e d . At first on it ' s s ide , a nd t he n s t a nd i n g up r i g ht . E ve r y t h i n g can be arranged to meet yo u r abi l it ie s . You don't ne e d p ad s a nd it doesn't cost a cent . G o r a id yo u r local construc t io n s it e a nd b u i ld yo u r ow n l ittle s t r e et course. Why wast e go od m o ney p utting in silly s t r e et courses in cement p a rk s , w he r e t he m o ney wo u ld b e b etter used mak i n g b owl s , w he n you can just build yo u r ow n s t r e et course out of le f t ove r s from construc t io n . - J. Hay

the Mooch mooch (mách) v. mooched mooch•ing mooch•es Slang v. tr. 1. To obtain or try to obtain by begging; cadge. 2. To steal; filch. v. intr. 1. To get or try to get something free of charge; sponge: lived by mooching off friends. 2. To wander about aimlessly. 3. To skulk around; sneak. Aka The Leech leech n. 1. Any of various chiefly aquatic bloodsucking or carnivorous annelid worms of the class Hirudinea, of which one species (Hirudo medicinalis) was formerly used by physicians to bleed patients. 2. One that preys on or clings to another; a parasite.

When confronted with the offer of legitimate income opportunities or gainful employment, in many instances the mooch will shun these opportunities in favor of easier, less legitimate ways of getting by. After being laid off from his job, the mooch would rather spend all day in line at the unemployment office than half a day out on the street looking for work. And once those monthly checks from the State start rolling in, the mooch will do almost anything to keep them flowing. Now that we have a general overview of the mooch, let’s examine some specific types of mooches which you may be familiar with in daily life:

Aka The Freeloader free•load (frT2lÅd1) v. intr. free•load•ed free•load•ing free•loads Slang 1. To take advantage of the charity, generosity, or hospitality of others. In our continuing series of “Know your friends and neighbors” reports, we are pleased to bring you “the Mooch” AKA the freeloader. Like the lurker and the cockblocker, the mooch comes in a variety of shapes, sizes, and stereotypes, but there are a handful of subtle and not so subtle characteristics which any mooch can be identified by. The classic archetypal mooch would have to be Wimpy from the old Popeye cartoons (remember those, kiddies?) who would gladly pay you Tuesday if you would give him a hamburger today. Did he ever pay up? I doubt it. Nonetheless, the mooch is always down and out, but is always talking about a few money making schemes which will supposedly bring in some cash in the foreseeable future. The mooch is always broke, but never wants to miss out on the fun. Phrases such as “Yeah, I’d really like to go, but I just can’t afford it,” are often employed in the hopes that one of the mooch’s friends will take pity upon him and “loan” or “float” him the money to come along to whatever is going on. The mooch usually does not have any money for gas, let alone a vehicle of his own, and is therefore always trying to bum rides here or there. The mooch and the lurker can occasionally be one in the same person, especially if the mooch is too broke to afford his own place to stay, and ends up sleeping on your couch or floor for multiple nights in a row. While the mooch is generally not a bad person and may attempt to pay for his room and board by doing chores or housework, rarely do these things make up for the imposition the mooch puts on the household.

The HippiePunk Mooch These are the homeless kids you see sitting on the sidewalk. They dress like punks and smell like hippies, but are actually most closely related to bums. They panhandle and scrounge for change despite the fact that most of them could find some sort of minimum wage job if they bothered to get up off their asses. Sure, nobody wants to work for a living, but if you’re young and have a strong back then sometimes there’s just no excuse. Mooch at the Bar The bar mooch is very common, especially in lower class “dive” bars, or bars which have exceptionally reasonable drink specials. Their tactics include getting their friends to buy them beers, telling the bartender it’s their birthday, stealing tips, and when it gets desperate, pouring the contents of various old drinks together. If the mooch knows bartenders or owners at a bar, he will attempt to open up a long running tab, kind of like Norm from Cheers or Barney from the Simpsons.

sion fluid out front of the mooch’s house, or even worse – your house. The mooch does not own a bicycle, or if he does, it has 2 flat tires or just got stolen last week. If by some stroke of luck the mooch’s car is running, the mooch will call you up and tell you that he is drunk, and needs to be picked up. The Borrower We all know the Borrower. Your friend or neighbor who borrows household items, CDs, tools, whatever, and never gives them back. Some borrowers are simply lazy and irresponsible, but there are others who intentionally borrow things with the intent of never returning them. Sometimes if these Borrowers are one’s roommate, they borrow things when you aren’t home. They’ve got a big bag of excuses to why they haven’t returned the item, or when they borrow good stuff they might sever the ‘friendship’ so they can keep the goods. The Borrower is a slimy fellow who should generally be avoided unless you like to give your possessions away. Academic/Office Mooch The academic, or office/workplace mooch is a different kind of character. They do not leech physical objects, goods, or services from you; they suck away your ideas. Often this person will pose as your friend, classmate, or co-worker, and will attempt to engage you in the subject the mooch is interested in. Upon hearing your thoughts on said subject, the mooch will concur, say how smart you are, and slyly change the topic of conversation. Later on the mooch will use the information leeched from you to his advantage. It could be in the form of writing a superior research paper to get a better grade, or it could be suggesting an idea to management at the place of employment in hopes of a promotion or favor being bestowed. This kind of mooch often obtains information during the drive after they have asked for a ride from work or school to their home, which makes for delicious irony.

Can I Have a Ride? The Can I Have a Ride mooch probably does not own a vehicle. If he does, it is most likely broken down, leaking transmis-

How to Weasel Stuff For Free A Companion Guide to the Mooch Free. Gratis. Nada. Zip.

Contrary to popular belief, there is such a thing as a free lunch. It’s called dine and ditch. If you were in an ice cream parlor, it would be called lick and leave. Ha-ha, pretty funny ice breaker, huh? Well anyway, aside from being an out-and-out thief who resorts to shoplifting and dine and ditching to get stuff for free, there are many ways to procure goods and services without having to shell out your hardearned cash for them. The following paragraphs list various ways to get all kinds of stuff, but it should be clear that we would never, ever, recommend that you, gentle reader, go out and try any of these methods. Besides many of them being illegal, they are simply downright immoral, and you don’t want to go to Hell do you? In any case, that’s the disclaimer and you’ve been warned. How to get free magazine subscriptions They are starting to catch onto this one, and it certainly won’t work with us (we’re not that trusting), but there are still many magazines where you can pull this one off. In the Fall, a couple months before Christmas, many magazines advertise “gift” subscriptions that you, the reader, may wish to purchase for a friend or family member. You fill out the form with your friend’s name and address, and then fill out the “billing” portion with your name and address. The key is to make the billing section a fake (or not your) address, and make yourself the recipient of the gift. You can usually get two or three free issues before the bill gets past-due and they catch on. But it’s never your fault that your deadbeat friend didn’t pay his bill, right? Right. How to get CDs and music for free Getting free CDs follows pretty much the same thinking as the method mentioned above. Find a magazine that has record club advertisements, such as Colombia House or the Sony Music Club. Fill your address out with a fake name and pick your first 10 free CDs that you want sent to you. You’re supposed to be obligated to purchase a handful of CDs (at regular, rip-off club prices) over the course of the next year, but of course if you never asked to have CDs sent to you, then you don’t have to pay for them. The catch with this one is most of the CDs you have to choose from are Top 40 crap and tend to

suck. There are also a variety of ways to get free mp3 files from the Internet. Using software applications such as Napster or Macaster, one can search and download mp3s from various servers around the world for only the cost of your internet connection. Then using an mp3 player and converter, one can convert the mp3s to audio files (AIFF) and burn them to CD. Hence, free CDs. The catch with this is most of the servers are run by kids, and kids tend to have horrible taste in music so the selection is often limited to the same kind of shit the CD Clubs peddle. And then even if you get the goods, you’re likely to get sued by Metallica, who apparently are still finding new ways to shred any credibility they still had left. Metallica died with Cliff Burton. How to get into concerts for free Another classic, this one usually involves an accomplice. The first person goes up to the will call/guest list window at the concert, states their name, and attempts to get free tickets to the show. Because they know they are not on the list, they will obviously be denied, but they spend a few moments arguing with the listholder, explaining that there must be some mistake. Eventually they leave, acting dejected, but not before they have spied and memorized one of the legitimite names on the guest list. A few minutes later, the second person goes up to the window and says they are so and so, who is down on the list for two tickets. And voila, free show. Now you can spend your $10 on beer instead. Note: This one doesn’t work if you have to present identification at the window to claim your tickets, as is usually the case at larger, arena/stadium type shows. How to Get Brand New Electronics Equipment for Hardly Anything Rule of thumb for electronics products: When the product is more substantial than a “throw away” item (e.g., a cheap Walkman, radio, etc.anything less than $50 or so), always fork out for the Extended Service Policy [“ESP”]. Yes, these things are a full rip-off and do go straight into the pocket of the not-so-helpful customer service person, but you can still use them to your advantage and get more than your money’s worth. Just make sure that you remember to cash in before it expires! Try to gauge when the product might start malfunctioning usually just after the manufacturer’s warranty expires, which is 9 months or a year in most cases. Case-in-point: After discovering how easy it was to exchange my portable CD player for a brand new one on the spot, no questions asked, I decided to try my luck with my Denon home stereo system. The ESP for the Denon was in its fourth year (I originally purchased the 5-year plan) when cassettes started to jam the tape player. I wasn’t

interested in waiting around for the Good Guys to fix the system because technology had advanced ten-fold since my original purchase date. The 100 CD players were just starting to come out, and I loved the idea of having a juke box right in the comforts of my own home. Rule number two: Always keep the original box and packaging-otherwise most places won’t touch your shit. Since I had, I repackaged the Denon and lugged it down to the Good Guys. I told the guy behind the counter what the problem was, and since I had just received a call this morning from Ecuador offering me a teaching job for the year, I would be leaving at the end of the week-clearly not enough time for them to fix my stereo. And with the mail system being unreliable at best, shipping it to me was not an option. I HAD TO HAVE A NEW SYSTEM, AND I HAD TO HAVE IT TODAY. The guy gave me a double take to see if I was for real. And I was. He put the Denon to the side (maybe he was going to keep it for a pet project of his own), and brought me over to the showroom to make a recommendation. He showed me what he had at home: A 100 CD/Tape/Receiver by Pioneer. I asked him how he liked it, and how long he had had it (to gauge its estimate life time), and within 20 minutes I was out the door with a better, more technologically advanced product, without spending a cent. This is just one specific example of weaseling a new stereo without spending any money. With subtle variations, this same method can be applied to any variety of home electronics, computer, and video equipment. Just make sure to buy the extra insurance and keep the box. Here’s some lower scale finds that have consistently worked for me: Ross Dress-for-Less: Not that any of you shop there, but just in case you get the urge. Find a spot (or rub some dirt in if you can’t find one) and when you take it up to pay for it, ask for the 10% discount for imperfect products. The cashiers are authorized to do this without approval from the manager, so it’s a nice way save a few extra bucks on already . Most food products have customer dissatisfaction policies written on the labels, and it’s worth it to take them up on their offer. About a year ago I bought a bottle of “fresh” orange juice that was rancid. I sent in my receipt and proof of purchase with my complaint, and within a few weeks I received eight coupons for free bottles of juice (about a $32.00 value) along with an apology letter. Most companies (the smart ones at least) will bend over backwards to keep their customers happy-and you rarely have to send back the contaminated item so you can just make up a good story and get free stuff. The lower form of this style of weaseling is the mouse in my beer, pubic hair in my meal routine.

This works up and down the scale from McDonald’s to Chez Snooty, but you obviously get a better “savings” at more expensive places. Order a meal and eat half, or two thirds of it. Then discretely place the insect, small rodent part, or pubic hair you brought with you in your food. Call this problem to the waiter or manager’s attention, and watch them start giving you free meals. Minimum you get another hamburger, maximum you get multiple free meals and if you really work it you could probably have a pretty convincing lawsuit. Not that we would recommend such a thing. Scavenge Your Way to Prosperity This is the Joel Chavez classic. A couple steps above going through garbage cans for recycling, scavenging is a great way to get free stuff which you can keep or sell. A successful scavenger always has his eye open for an abandoned building, home, and better yet, one that is about to get torn down. Demolition sites often yeild some of the best finds, since people are too lazy to recycle on perfectly valuble items. One summer I had a job as a janitor, cleaning the dorms and frat houses at Stanford University. Those kids must’ve been in a real hurry to get out of there, because they left some expensive gear behind. In cleaning up after their messy asses, in-between the used condoms (yuck) and

Klimdt and Ansel Adams prints, I walked away with a set of speakers, a new pair of shoes, a skateboard, $300 in college textbooks (which I sold), and a bunch of other misclelanous trinkets and cash. Some of the dorms where the richer kids must’ve stayed were gold mines, and I didn’t even get the best stuff overall. Become a Professional Victim This is pretty sleazy, but I guess we have to include it. Professional Victims set themselves up for accidents and then sue people, or get watches and jewelry, as I saw once on an episode of CHIPs. They throw themselves in front of cars and then force the driver to compensate them for hitting them. Back in the early 80’s they settled this on the spot, but these days you sue people. Want your car fixed? Suddenly slam on your brakes when you’re driving in front of a BMW or a Lexus or some rich-ass car. No matter what it’s their fault. There are a million ways to sue people but we don’t recommend that you sue anyone who is not a rich scumbag. Forgery Forgery is a great way to get things for free, and an even better way to get yourself in a heap of trouble. But thanks to the affordability of today’s computers, scanners, and printers,

forging common legitimate documents can be no more difficult than designing a flyer for a garage sale or a lost pet. If we were making recommendations (which we’re not), good things to forge might include concert tickets, ski resort lift tickets, or other things that get you a substantial discount on goods or services. Fake IDs are one of the classic items many forgers have spent time on, but due to such antipirating measures such as laser holograms and fancy lamination, you’d have to drop a pretty fat wad of cash to have a fake California ID look good these days. If you’ve mastered all of the above items, feel free to take the ultimate challenge and start printing your own currency, but be warned that this is some serious shit and getting caught printing fake money is a federal offense and could get your ass thrown in federal prison. But it’s always fun to test your skills. ‘Nuff said. Summary So as you can see, there are many ways to weasel things for free. We could have gone on and on with this column, but for the sake of space and for certain trade secrets which our contacts would not allow us to disclose, we could not include all of the tips. Still, there are many creative ways to get by without robbing people or committing violent crimes. Or so we are told.

nice installation

as you can see, the underside of the installation is not only beautiful, but when people are skating it one hears the sounds of the wheels rolling, but is removed from the experience, thus making a new experience.

My friend Mickey lives in Chicago and told me about this bowl they built in an art gallery down the street from his house. It seemed kind of weird, but any excuse you can find to biuld a bowl is ok with me, including calling it an art installation. He sent me some pretty humourous literature discussing the artistic aspects of the bowl and skateboarding. And skateboarding is art, to a reasonable degree. But to go as far as to say that the decision to model the bowl specifically on the form of an inset shaped kidney pool refers to a motel amenity doubling as a sign of suburban affluence, and that the real tension between street and vert skating is ground in class, might be taking it a little bit too far. But whatever - they spewed out some mumbo-jumbo, they built a bowl in an art gallery, and got to skate the fuck out of it, which is really what itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all about. Just donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t tell the people at the art gallery. - Photos by Mickey Stamm

CONCUSSION WORD FIND FIND ALL THE WORDS LISTED BELOW UP, DOWN LEFT, RIGHT, AND EVEN BACKWARDS.

TILES, MORON, PUNCTURE, DUANE, ARSON, ICEPACK, LIEN, LEMMY, CUT, STITCHES, STAPH, FRACTURE, MEDFORD, MILPITAS, POOL, CONCUSSION, PUS, INFECTION, SLAM, HEMATOMA, ABRASION, BRUISE

photos by scotty g

The Tim Brauch skate jam, held on May 13th this year, was a sure fire day for all to enjoy! Clean bowls and no trace of rain really kicked this years “rememberance session” off. It’s cool that this type of event is held at a place like Greer Park in Palo Alto- it is definately a place that “Beans” skated well, and I think he was handin’ down some of that skill down from above that day; everyone there seemed to be havin’ a great time (another thing that Tim was really good at) and that was a nice thing to see. The skateboarding was once again off the hook- there was probably even too much to mention- too many people to mention, there’d be writin’ “for days” to cover it all. Basically, Tim would have been stoked. Crap, he was stoked (a little bird). If you missed it, come on out next year, they just keep getting better and better and better- if you attended, thanks for the lot of the good times...it means a lot to us and we’d like to show our appreciation. Thanks. The friends and folks of the late, great, supernatural Timothy Michael Brauch

I f t h e r e w a s e v e r a t i m e i n y o u r l i f e t h a t y o u l i s t e n e d t o t h e D e a d K e n n e d y ’ s , i t ’ s s a f e t o s a y t h a t y o u a r e f a m i liar with montage madman Winston Smith. He’s meticulous with the exacto knife and his story telling is a smack in the face to western “civilization”. So crack open that skull of yours and rub some Winston on your brain. For the record, name and location Winston Smith, San Francisco, California Could you tell me a little bit about the process you go through to create your artwork? Well, its pretty haphazard and undisciplined in that I don’t have any method for arriving at any picture. I generally have to go

through thousands and thousands of old images and cut out pages from old books and magazines and flyers and they are all out of order sometimes I think people think that I must have a file for, you know, tv sets or airplanes or, you know, antelopes but it’s really all mixed up. So I have to just keep on going until something kind of you know draws my fancy and then I start applying more and more nonsense to it and it builds that way. It’s pretty much, um, subconsious, that is there is no set plan when I start off. I don’t say “okay I’m gonna make a picture of an army tank flying out of the sky and landing on the Empire state building.” I don’t work that way. I have to let the image make itself. Is there a perticular source for images that you use the most? Well, anything really, I kind of tend to utilize imagery from magazines that were around in my childhood alot of them were old, even at that time but they were things that I saw when I was growing up and mainly because they would use illustration alot for

advertisement more than photography because photography just couldn’t be printed very well to get a good luster to them. So there was this very garish use of color and generally exagerrated imagery in ads for the 40’s and 50’s that by the time the 60’s it had gone completely to photography. So, the really cool imagination of the artist that made these things wasn’t being used anymore because you could just get a girl in a bikini to up a can of motor oil and there was your ad. So, I tend to go to older magazines, you know, generally American mass consumer magazines like Life and Post. Tell me about the history between you and the Dead Kennedy’s I met up with (Jello) Biafra years ago. A mutual friend of ours insisted that we meet, they said that we thought alike because of my artwork and his music. We did meet and we hit it off pretty quickly and he wanted to make a record that would feature a piece called “Idol” that I done a couple of years before, it was an image of Christ crucified to a cross of dollars. It was a general statement of curruption of religion. So, it kind off started out there and then one time he asked me to do a for there band. I thought about it and thought about it and experimented with alot of diffrent things until I came up with a logo for them. Which I was surprised how spread that logo had gotten. Wish I could get royalties off every tattoo of that, that I’ve seen or graffitti I guess there’s no chance getting royalties off of graffitti. After that, every now and then there would be another record and I’d participate in one way or another, either the cover or an inside illustration or booklets there was usually some connection on almost every record. I rememer in one DK album there was this large format booklet fool of collages, did you have anything to do with that? That thing was insane. That was a record called “ Plastic Surgery Disasters” and it was a 28 page booklet. Biafra just gave me a sheet of lyrics and said “ here, could you make some picture that, kind of correspond with or that would illustrate the songs” I had never heard any of the music until then all I had was the lyrics so I made a bunch of things and he only liked about half of them. So he liked maybe 5 or 6 of the originals and we rebuilt other ones together over the course of a week, working everyday until about four in the morning with kerosene lamps. I live on a ranch way up

in the woods and I have no electricity, I still have no electricity, so we just lined up a bunch of kerosene lamps and cut outs and we worked on it together and it was pretty successful in that they do illustrate the songs pretty well. I don’t think that people know that the pictures go with the songs . That’s crazy you never heard DK until after the fact. Yah, who knows maybe I would have changed my mind if I had. What your worst head injury ever? Um.. hmmm.. speaking of concussions....It was a motocycle accident in Italy. I grew up in Italy. I was there in Florence and Rome for 6 or 7 years. I had a Ducati. One time some French tourists in Florence had run a red light and I had the right of way and i hit there car, they were in a Citroen, those big ole bombers that the french have, great cars, there built like tanks. That didn’t help me any. So I go flying over the top of the car, it was wierd it was like slow motion, I could see the cobblestones go by like film in a camera and suddenly I hit the ground. Fortunately, I’m kind of a wimp when it comes to pain, so I had helmet on. Which wasn’t required by law, but I had one any way. It had a bubble mask, like a man on the moon bubble mask. Thank goodness I was wearing that helmet or I probably wouldn’t have a nose today. I got up and I was okay except for this damn big headach that lasted for a few days. Who knows maybe that contributed to my point of view, who knows. But I lived to tell the tale. The frogs were pleased that I wasn’t killed and drove off before I could get a number. It didn’t matter I was alright. Thanks for your time Winston. Thank you. All images are property of Winston Smith and Art Crime. B e s u r e t o c h e c k o u t m o r e o f W i n s t o n ’ s a r t i n f u l l , v i b r a n t c o l o r a t w w w . w i n s t o nsmith.com

Always Coca Cola Got milk BF Goodrich Because so much is riding on your tires Mcdonalds We love to see you smile These are phrases that bombard you on the freeway huge billboards that offer sweet release right after you purchase their product What we all forget is that they have teams of people that figure out the best way to that get in that sponge you call a brain To “the corporations” Sheppard Fairey is the Antichrist “What the fuck is ‘Andre the giant has a posse’?” I screamed and nobody could tell me In the following years I did my homework and it seems that Andre’s is all over the f)ckin’ place and not souly at the hand of Mr Fairey There was a “posse” What’s he selling? Art Sure ain’t the latest Insano Super Cheeseburger Propaganda Consumption at +’,” -./lbs Alright name and location Shephard Fairey San Diego California How long have you been doing Andre the Giant? I started doing it in 2343 so eleven years At this point do you ever find that you have dreams about Andre because you work with his image everyday? Not about Andre but about sketchy situations like being up on a billboard with no escape route and all of a sudden there are five cops cars on the ground and I’m thinkin’ “What am I gonna do here?” Anxiety dreams you know like when you’re a kid you dream that you forgot to do your final report and you get to study hall and everybody’s saying “What’d you do?” or you went to school without your pants on or something Those are the kind of anxiety dreams I have now Black Market’s kind of nice huh? ‘Cause you have a place now where you can produce everything? Yeah it’s good I mean I still keep the Giant stuff is funded separately it’s all my own money But Black Market is really

good for incubating or catalizing Here I’ve got you know scanners printers CD burner I have all the stuff that I need and then a nice work area photo copier And then I have a studio at home where I produce the posters but the main thing that Black Market’s done is given me I guess a little more financial stability which has allowed me to produce more materials for Giant and travel more so it’s really allowed me to spread it And getting my name out through the corporate work that I do helps me get more work that represents my style that’s what I enjoy so the Giant stuff has been around and a lot of people didn’t really put it together that I also did design work but the more I do both the more people figure that out It really helps me do the kind of design work that I want to do Did you bomb before you started doing Andre? No I came out of like skateboarding and punk rock not grafitti I always thought grafitti was cool when I would go to bigger cities I’m from the south The real way that this stuff came about was in high school I got ahold of a screen and started making paper:cut stencil T:shirts of like the Misfits and Husker Du and Thunder trucks and Independent all stuff like that Jimi Hendrix whatever and the Sex Pistols Clash So I was into making my own stuff in the skateboarder/punk rock kind of way and then when I got to college at Rhode Island School of Design I learned a little bit more about screenprinting and doing more xerox stuff you know looking at a xerox as a great may to mass produce images that you make That’s when I got into doing a lot of stickers for a skate shop where I worked and I got into doing the Giant sticker because I got kind of bored mak: ing the stickers for the skate shop I worked at the shop so I was kind of by default the king of that domain and it got kind of tiresome having the kids say “Can I get on Team Shred dude hook me up with some stickers I want to represent ” So I was looking through the newspaper for a picture for my friend Eric to learn how to cut stencils on because I was working on one and he was bored and I came across this ad for wrestling and I thought it was really funny and thought “Yeah I want to do something with this this guy is so ugly ” In a way it was just a reaction to all the kids who wanted to be a part of Team Shred I’m gonna do this new thing with this new team that was really stupid but I’m gonna tell people that it’s the elite new thing to make them want to be involved so it’s like a coup like a joke on you if you fall for it you know what I mean? So that was just gonna be an inside joke for a while but what happenned was from putting the stickers around at skate spots and on stop signs people were reacting to it and they didn’t even skate or anything and I thought “Wow this thing’s getting a reaction with very little effort what if I put some effort into it?” I started considering more the way people absorb imagery in advertising and things like that and I thought it was just funny to put some: thing around that had no purpose That’s when I got into bombing I kind of just stumbled into it And then all the grafitti methods you know stenciling and wheat pasting everything else to get your ups just sort of evolved from this simple accident with a Kinko’s sticker Have you noticed a big change moving to the West Coast in the mentality of the writers and the people that you’re surrounded by? I think that on the East Coast I was generally around people that were really supportive of what I was doing and were happy that I was getting up and happy to get up themselves kind of doing whatever and I’m not sure whether that I was just lucky to run into a lot of people like that or whether that’s more the mentality out there but here especially San Diego there’s a lot of grafitti crew sub:mentality and the idea that if you don’t have can skills what you’re doing is wack People have like a marker tag on a huge wall and you do a ten:foot installation over it on paper and they’d be like “Yo dude why’d you go over my piece with a big sticka?” Like what are you talking about? “Yo my crew be wreckin’ trains ” Look go wreck your trains that’s fine with me I don’t go over anybody generally anyway but I mean occasionally there’s just a wack tag taking up the biggest spot and I always figure size and quality go over The reason they all want to be in crews is because they can suck and then get their boys to come after you and they don’t have to prove themselves with any skill I don’t even like to deal with the politics of that community that’s not really who I’m doing it for There’s cool people on both coasts and the people I really respect are down with what I’m doing and we always end up hooking up and working together What about cops East versus West? Man the cops on the West Coast have been mellow comparitively I’ve had cops roll by when I was doing stuff on a freeway pillar with a ladder in San Francisco and they didn’t even stop The only place I’ve ever been arrested on the West Coast was in Long Beach It was right by this convention center during a trade show and I had wrecked a bunch of boxes in the area ‘cause I’ve always sold shirts of my graphics and I was out there try: ing to get exposure on a shoe:string budget ‘cause I don’t have any money to compete with the bigger compa: nies except through just going out and doing it my way I pasted all the electrical boxes in that area like fifty posters which is like fifty different corners and I guess a bus driver starting seeing the posters going up and getting pissed off and then he saw me actually doing it an called the cops and they came and they took me in But that wasn’t even too bad I got out in like five hours But I’ve been in New York and Philly and Providence and all those places you’re gonna be in for at least a night In New York I spent thirty:six hours both times in Philly was thirty:six hours It’s pretty ill out there plus the cops are just dicks I gots punched in the face in Philly trying to just explain to him that I was diabetic and that I was going to get really sick and he might get fired if I died in that cell you know? When you’re in there that’s the risk you’re taking you know that once you’re in jail you’ve got no rights at all you’re just a piece of shit so I try to avoid getting caught But this last time I was in New York I got caught by undercover for putting one sticker up They just have no tolerance Guiliani is such a nazi he just wants to put people through the system for anything I mean there were people in there for just smoking a joint on the street for jaywalking for open container for urinating on the street the most petty crimes And so it’s super backed up and it takes forever to go through just like the post office like if things go too fast they close a window It’s totally lame But anyway that was the first time I’ve gone to jail in four years I try to be really careful whenever I do like billboards and things I have a lookout we use walkie talkies and I’ve had to run In San Francisco I had to run off a billboard onto a roof and they had the whole building surrounded but I jumped from one roof to the next roof and down to another roof and they thought they had me trapped on this one roof and I got away I think that getting arrested for doing a bill: board to add resisting arrest by flight is not much worse

What’s the best exposure

that Andre ever got?

It’s hard to say I’ve done some stuff on the freeways in LA that I’m sure millions of people are seein Right now I’ve got on the 2/2 free: way in LA like four different big spots on that freeway so most people that live in LA have seen it that have a car ‘cause it starts off right at the beginning of LA and then there’s spots all the way to North Hollywood so you can’t really go anywhere in LA and not see it But when I was in New York I think probably the best piece was this DKNY mural on the corner of 4th and Broadway and I really think that of all the places in the world I’ve ever been it’s the best intersection I’ve been to London I’ve been to Tokyo I’ve been all over the US and I did a piece an eight:foot giant head over this mural during this past trip So who knows how long that’ll last it’s still up now though it’s been up for two weeks which is like if I got two days I would’ve been happy But for me big small it’s all kind of important because anybody can go out and do one huge piece and then document it But it’s really just the perpetual bombardment of things large and small and the persistence over time is what really gets people to notice it remember it and scratch thier heads like “What is this thing ” It’s around you know they can’t just write it off because it’s too pervasive and too persistent What’s the ultimate goal? The ultimate goal is to get people to question the process of imagery absorption conspicuous consumption to sort of just take everything with more of a grain of salt Question your surroundings because I think you get so numb to everything just being the way it is whether it’s okay skirts got longer this year cuffs got wider on pants so I’m gonna go buy the new stuff just because a company’s got to turn out new stuff to keep sales going You know it’s a capitalist society and so people latch onto things really easily I’m putting this thing out there that’s stupid it’s got no purpose but to make you react to it and to latch onto it or hate it or whatever but to react So because there isn’t some simple justification like “It’s fresh it’s a new clothing company it’s a new cigarette brand it’s a new hip:hop release it’s whatever In a way it deconstructs those processes That’s like one side of it which is the intellectual side which is part of my personality then the other side of it is just that I’m an antagonist I just like to get something out there and feel like it’s kind of messing with people and I think it’s fun It’s a sense of humor I think it’s amusing to do Even though it doesn’t say my name on it it’s my thing and I get satisfaction knowing that my thumbprint’s out there in the world The world’s kind of vast it can feel really anonymous you know So I like to feel Iike something I’m doing is getting seen and contributing in some way It’s not just that I existed as that tree that fell in the woods that nobody heard you know what I’m saying? The ultimate goal really though is for it to be such a huge coup that everybody’s going crazy like “This giant thing what is it?” and it kind of snowballs to this point of total absurd stupidity like the Rubik’s Cube or something And then when the smoke clears people have no choice but to say “How the hell did this happen?” and then maybe go “Maybe I kind of got caught up in the whirl: wind the feeding frenzy and bought into something that I shouldn’t have ” For me I’m not saying this thing is valuable or not valuable it is what it is it’s kind of reflexive if you know what I mean I just like making art and you know it’s a cool way to make my art and get it out there and get people wondering what’s up Favorite skater of all time? I’m probably gonna sound like such a new wave sissy but I’d say Gator and Hosoi were my favorite skaters of all time and Tommy Guerrero too for street But I think your favorite skater is established probably in your first couple years of skating the person that you most idolized Mark Gonzalez too but that’s later on But after seing Skate Visions when I first started skating Gator had a bad attitude and yet good style and he had cool graphics on his board and Hosoi was just so stylish on a skateboard such a paradox because his fashion was so damn bad As far a style goes for street definitely Gator and Hosoi those are my boys Okay last question What is the worst head injury you’ve ever had? On two different occasions I’ve smashed my head Once was getting hit by a car when I was riding my bike across the street and I started skating right after that I was eleven and I was riding my bike across the street and a guy made a right turn on red and didn’t see me and hit me and I had to get seventy:five stitches in my head Then just recently when I was in New York I was climbing trying to get on top of this building and there was an air conditioning unit on a teenie ledge and I jumped up and grabbed the ledge and was pulling myself up and I hit my head on the very corner of the air conditioning unit and just put this gash in my head I had get down because the blood was dripping in my eye and I couldn’t complete the mission I went and did that piece at another spot Yeah those are the two

#1 Cometbus - Always a treat, great writing. This one’s about people who have all worked at the Dead End Cafe. Great stuff. Don’t get it if you can’t read. Address-PO Box 4726 Berkeley, CA 94704. #2 This is a Cry For Help - And that it is - some of the most offensive comics ever, a must have. Address-PO Box 661 Soquel, CA 95073 #3 Censor This Great mag out of LA, lots of good writing, funny and dare I say irreverent. Address-PO Box 4312 Sunland, CA 914014312 #4 Crap Hound - Fuckin’ A, the best of the best as far as clip art is concerned, this magazine is doing it for all the right reasons, buy this if you can find it Address-PO Box 40373 Portland, OR 97240-0373 #5 Damage Inc. - Graff mag out of Minnesota, color pages and lots of variety Address-PO Box 14185 St. Paul, MN 55114 #6 Copper Press Snowboarding, art, music done correctly, if you haven’t seen one of these your missing the boat pooface. AddressPO Box 1601 Acme , MI 49610 #7 What do you think yer doing? - Black and white graffiti mag out of Sacto, trains, blackbooks, whateva yer lookin fer. Address- PO Box 161177 Sacremento, CA 95816 #8 Crap - Tons of transition and funny shit, magazines like this and ourselves are all that will be left when commercial America is done with skateboarding Address-2510 N. 47th st #k Boulder, CO 80302 #9

CKY2K Perhaps his parents should have named him Bam-Bam, because Bam Margera is truly a destroyer of everything. He is also a gifted skateboarder, comedian and filmmaker; CKY2K is the proof. I got my first taste of Bam and Brandon Dicamillo's (Bam's best friend and CKY2K sidekick) 'routine' in the Toy Machine video 'Welcome to Hell'. Basically, Bam screams at Brandon while smacking him across the face for laughs. Yeah, it sounds juvenile, but think of the hours of entertainment slap stick comedy has provided throughout the history of cinema. Now, factor in the influences of previous videos such as 'Barbarians at the Gate' (Foundation) and the Whiskey Series (Boozy the Clown Productions), and the antics in CKY2K all become a little easier to understand. Hell, watching Bam skate while being covered in bubble wrap and wearing size 60 pants is enough reason to see this video. Add in the Kung-Foo fighting, Bam rapping, various stunts and pranks, a few planned falls, random boobies, 'Naked Dave' and a great soundtrack (mostly by Camp Kill Yourself) and you have a cult classic. Certainly havoc and wanton destruction are not new concepts to skaters, but I venture to say that the boys in CKY2K have upped the ante. Sure Tony Hawk blew up a van in 'The End', but he did-

Paying in pain - Former East Bay Skatezine from Visalia, good writing and good photo’s, Black and White, pain is the premise, get it stupid. Address- PO Box 4128 Visalia, CA 93278 10# Nowhere fast - Black and White, introspective writing and comics, the best part is they have recipes too Address- PO Box 235 Jericho,VT 05465 11# Angry Young and Poor - If you come to realiztion that you need to be a punk rocker, this is your one stop shop, everything you need. Oi! Address-140 N. Prince st. Lancaster, PA 17603 12# Marejada - This is a surf magazine is out of Chili, I can’t read a word of it but all the pictues are super nice Address- I can’t find it 13# NMP - Half English, half in japanese? Super nice photo’s and layout, pretty much just surfing, Go ahead get it if you are not afraid. Address- PO Box 4031 San Clemente, CA 92674 14# Crap - More Crap see #8 for address. 15# High Pressure - Santa Cruz’s premiere surf mag, they told me so. Lots of local coverage, full color, good stuff. Address- 2040 Alice st. Ste 5 Santa Cruz, CA 95060 16# Life Sucks Die - Best of the best baby. Graff and so much more. Full color and sassy. All kinds of good stuff. If you have never seen this, smack yourself jackass. Address-PO Box 14801 Minneapolis, MN 55414. -LC

n't just rent it and pay $9 for insurance so he could torch it! Add in riding on the roof of speeding cars or being dragged down the street on random pieces of furniture and you are starting to get the picture. My only criticism would be, MORE SKATING, MORE SKATING, MORE SKATING! Don't get me wrong, the skateboarding segments are excellent and border on insanity. However, they are few and far between. The first time you watch CKY2K, it's hysterical. The next few times it's funny. But eventually, I found myself fast-forwarding through the silliness to see the footage of FDR, Philly and West Chester! Basically, if you hate the 3 Stooges, random acts of stupidity or falling and jumping off of things for fun, then CKY2K probably isn't the video for you. And if you're looking for a 'skate video' you might want to shop around, because although it's entertaining, it certainly isn't chock full of skating. Rent it? Definitely. Buy it? I did. - Eric Bigler Progression Video Magazine #4 Brian Meehan, is offering a series of surf movies called Progression Video Mag. This video includes super sick footage of Occy killing the North Shore and other top pros like Archy in California beach break conditions. It even includes some Santa Cruz aerial specialists. Overall the movie is very well made with no attempt at a plot or narration just surf scenes and tunes, which range from rap to punk and even some Mary's Danish. Go Mary. This movie should be played on repeat in every sports bar in San Diego until the Juke box's explode. Go San Diego. - Tranny Will

Slider Snowboarding Magzine #2 Lee says it's supposed to be Snowboarding's answer to 411 skate video magazine. Well, I don't know if it's the answer, but it's an attempt. There's some sick footage, like of Concussoin Team rider Martin Gallant charging off cliffs in BC's heliboarding backcountry, but that footage only lasts about 15 seconds. The rest of the video is half pipes and lame trade shows where Japanese adolescents are yelling "I love you" to the Snowboarding Rockstars. There is some crazy half pipe footage, but it gets old fast. There's a run by Todd Richards where he does back to back to back switch rodeo back flip misty mute grabs to revert, with a smile on his face, so it makes everyone else look like total kooks on the pipe. It looked like my best run in the half pipe on Coolboarders 3, but he was really doing it. There's hardly any powder footage, except the aforementioned Martin Gallant footage in O-Canada, and there's way too many competitions. It's hard to get good snowboarding footage, because when it's really good, YOU want to snowboard, not video. So, this video seems like the sacrifice to video instead of ride was made too few times. Davoud thinks there's better footage on Tahoe's X-treme Cable channel than on this video. I guess the point of the video is to show that people are still snowboarding in the summer time, in Japan, Europe, in Tahoe, riding their roofs and rails, with barely any snow cover. But, I guess they should have just waited until there was more snow to make a SNOW boarding video. I'm not saying this video sucks, but with all the Blue Torch style X-games crap on cable these days, you gotta have some sick footage to compete, especially if you want someone to BUY the video. Anyway, I look forward to seeing the next one, when they ride the powder, not the slush. - Jonathan Hay

Concussion Long Sleeve shirts and T-shirts make excellent rags for drying a pool, mopping up blood, or cleaning up a spilt beer. Choose from 3 cool styles, the “Junkie Longsleeve” ($20), “Cannibal Logo” or “Classic Logo” (both $10). Shipping is included in the price. We also have an assortment of stickers available for $3. Send a check or money order* to the address below and be sure to specify style (1-6), color, and size (M, L or XL.) Longsleeves are in very limited supply and only available in L and XL, so order now, fool. Check concussion.org for more styles of shirts Concussion Merchandise PO Box 1024 Santa Cruz, CA 95061-1024 Please allow 2-3 weeks for delivery * Make checks payable to Concussion

Padded Cell Productions + Bio Bob got together to put on a skate and music fest at the Civic in Santa Cruz. There were about five bands and over 30 people came to skate. Mohawks and little punkers were out in force. As the night came for the show, the timing couldn’t have been worse. There was a serious skate jam going on at the Crib Ramp in Palo Alto, with kegs and bands, AND it was free. This show cost $20, which, although may have been worth it for some, is a lot of money to shell out for any band, except for some old legends, which is exactly the status that Fear hold. I’m not the biggest Fear fan, but I do remember them from when I was younger with their hit: More Beer. As the night unfolded, I realized that almost every song by Fear is in fact about beer. The first band I checked out were the old school mohawk punk rockers Damnation. They punked out pretty well, with good covers of Exploited’s “Sex and Violence,” and Twisted Sister’s, “We’re Not Gonna Take It”. The skate ramp was behind the stage, and ripping was going on the whole time the bands were playing. Sometimes shit kind of got out of hand as boards went flying towards most of the drummer’s heads. A ton of people came out to skate. Standouts in the crowd were: Justin Strubing, Andy Roy, Jesse, Brian Starn, Yucef Gammino, & Zach Richesin, who was attempting 50-50’s off the ramp, onto the stage and then off the stage to the floor. Oh yeah, did I forget to mention one of the most ripping skaters I’ve ever witnessed, Tony Trijuillo, who was absolutely KILLING it with old school tricks like big bonelesses mixed in with kickflips and alley-oop disasters. Then there was Duane Peters, who nailed about half the tricks he invented in his old school barging hang on style. So many people wanted to skate that it became a total snake session/demolition derby of which I partook in some serious head-ons in the few minutes I skated. As for the music, Leveler (formerly Lost Cause), put on a sick show with some new hardcore numbers and a high-energy Black Flag cover of Drinking and Driving for good measure. Leveler ripped as usual, and got the local fans in a frenzy. Riff Raff bashed out their set, with their angry hardcore style, locals once again were singing along to their classics, with flip offs flying in the air. LA mexican Hardcore band Union 13 put on a great show. I ran off to the Red Room for a couple of libations before they came on, and ended up missing half their set, but the song I did catch them on was my favorite song by them, “I Can’t Take it Anymore”. The skating never stopped as the US Bombs took stage and played some of their better songs, including a couple off Never Mind the Opened Minds. It was cool skating with Duane Peters and then see him take the stage five minutes later. Fear finally took the stage, and they looked old like I thought they would look. They played a bunch of old songs about beer, most of which I didn’t remember, but it was cool to see Andy Roy and Tony Trujillo on stage at times singing the words to a bunch of old Fear classics. Fear played a good short set, and left the crowd wanting more Fear, or maybe they just wanted more beer. The SC Skate Jam was a great idea and it was cool that Todd from Padded Cell put the whole thing together. Everyone who paid the 20 bones seemed to have a good time, it just would have been cooler if more people showed up. - Words & Photos by Jonathan Hay

Interview and photos by Jonathan Hay Concussion: What tricks did you invent? Duane Peters: Ok, I’ll tell you the ones I can remember. Sweeper, invert, revert, indy airs, layback rollouts, a lot of the reverts, different slide variations, 360 rock n roll reverts. I don’t know, it was a weird time, different tricks would come out all the time. Concussion: When did you start skating? DP: When I was six, in ’67. Concussion: I heard you were the first person to do the loop-de-loop? DP: Yeah, the Loop of Death, it was called the Loop of Life, we called it the Death Loop. That was in 1978. Concussion: How come everyone made such a big deal about Tony Hawk doing it 20 years later? DP: I don’t really know, and I don’t sit around and huff and gruff about it. I guess there was a lot of politics. It was in Skateboarder magazine. Paul Woldrige has footage of it in 16mm. It was in a show when I was 16 years old and I did it before a contest to stay from being homeless. I ended up doing a show with it. It was a travelling circus. It was a $14,000 left hand loop. I don’t know, Tony Hawk wasn’t even out of his dad’s sack at the time, barely. I just don’t really care but I think it’s pretty pathetic. I get over it but when it first started happening, I thought it was pretty amazing, I kinda laughed because I don’t live in yesterday. I worry about what I’m doing today. Anyone that was around knows what I did and I don’t really have to stake my flag. It doesn’t matter that much to me, I know what I’ve done. Concussion: I heard you used to spit on him? DP: I spit on everyone back then. It’s a big deal now because Tony Hawk became whatever he became. The thing is, I don’t really know why he became whatever he became. He’s a horrible looking skater. He’s more of an athelete, and America doesn’t care about style, they never have. The mass media is very acceptive, safety first, HE’S A KOOK! And I threw Cokes on just about every little kid that was coming up. We were punk rockers. There were very few of us. We were assholes you know. That’s the way it was. That’s how I was raised. It was very dysfunctional families when I started skating. We found pools rather than breaking into houses. We hated our parents. A lot of people now get into skating for different reasons

now. The tricks that we knew, we were making them up. Everyone was making them up. It was really underground. It was really great. These guys grew up in skateparks. We were at every skatepark when it was coming up. I haven’t left yet. I’ve gone through the mill and a lot of life things, but I’ve lived life. I’m not just a fucking kook that should have been a fucking gymnast or something with big dorky feet who couldn’t get a chick. I had chicks all my life. This guy’s a fucking knob, if he wasn’t a skater he’d have been a fucking suit-geek behind a computer like every other suit that’s at Starbucks getting coffee every morning. He’s still a geek. Concussion: As far as US Bombs go, what’s your intrigue with the world wars? DP: I think war is amazing. We’ve been through all these crazy wars. I love the history channel. I quit school in the 8th grade, and I wish it was as interesting

Concussion: Have you ever seen the Sex Pistols live? DP: No. I never went and saw them live and I refused to go see them on their last tour, with PiL. I mean, they needed some money; they deserved to cash in I guess. I look at all those views different. I wrote a whole record because of that.

Concussion: Where did you live?

Concussion: Yeah, Never Mind the Bollocks or something, the tribute to Sid Vicious.

DP: All over. Huntington Beach, Orange, I’ve lived all over San Francisco.

DP: Yeah, Never Mind the Opened Minds. That’s how I felt at the time, now I don’t think about it. You get your shit out, get over it, and move on.

Concussion: Now half the people who live in Huntington Beach are all covered in tattoos and wear wife beaters and are all punk, well not really punk but…

Concussion: What kind of music did you listen to growing up?

then as it is now to me. I write a lot about the wars, and I’ve been all over the world and the world’s in fucking bad places right now. I mean look who’s running for president, it’s all fucked.

DP: I didn’t really listen to music growing up. My sisters who were a little older than me listened to Led Zeppelin, I hated Led Zeppelin, I never wanted to be in a band ever until I heard the Ramones. That was it from there on. I was 17 when I first heard that, then we cut our hair on July 4th, ’78, me and my friend, and we

Concussion: Do you think we’re going to have a nuclear war?

went to war, ourselves. You were a freak. You had to fight just because you were a freak. You were a martian. Bikers, hippies, jocks…

DP: Who knows? We could be blown off the planet. America’s got so many fucking enemies. We’ve got this Bush guy, he’s flexing his muscles, all he wants is to show what we got. He doesn’t know anything, he wants to be a puppet. He’s got all kinds of people with money and strings and his fucking antichrist dad. It’s horrible if that guy comes into office. But wars are amazing. The Civil War, these guys were 3 feet from each other in hand to hand battle. At night some guys would be talking, “Oh, you know my sister”, “Yeah, she’s a really nice girl”, and they’d be blowing each other’s fucking heads off the next day. More people died in the Civil War than all the other wars put together – Vietnam, the Political War. We don’t support war at all, it’s fucked up, but it’s amazing to see what we’ve done, but what are you going to do, it’s a catch-22.

DP: Shaved head, every color hair, every kind of fucking cut. It was fun. Quadrophenia, we idolized all that stuff. We’d ride our scooters, and we’d get beat up just going down the road. Jocks would pull up and fight us.

Concussion: Because you had a shaved head?

DP: Very Korn, very trendy…A record that just came out today by a band called The Huns has a song called 1 2 3 Nuke HB. It’s

all about that whole trendy scene. I live in Huntington right now. It’s better than a lot of places, but there are a lot of places that are better. Concussion: Do you ever surf? DP: I love surfing. I still surf…when it’s warm enough. Concussion: Have you ever surfed in Santa Cruz? DP: Yeah I’ve surfed in Santa Cruz. I used to skate for Santa Cruz Skateboards.

I’d come up here with Steve Olson and we used to surf every now and again. But that was years ago, now I surf back home in the summer time, when I’m home. I’m touring 9 months out of the year, and when I’m home, I’ve got a record label, I’ve got a bunch of shit, and I skate at least 2 or 3 times a week, or my chick won’t deal with me. Concussion: What do you think about the way skating has gone from pool skating to street skating? DP: I think it’s all good. Things evolve. I think it’s all fine. Skating is what

you make of it, just like life is. If you want to sit around and stew and that’s your only fucking deal, whatever. Everyone goes through different stages in their life. It’s like a movie, if there’s a bad scene there’s usually a good one coming up. Concussion: Do you think pool skating is coming back like with the rebuilding of the Combi and the other bowls at the new Vans Parks? DP: The Combi, they rebuilt that pretty poorly, but at least it’s there. They’re building more shit like that; it was really horrible about seven or eight years ago. So it’s gotten better. The separation of the new school and ...continued on pg. 89

We had the pleasure of seeing a legendary Reggae group recently - the Abysinnians. They are a full old school dub group, and unlike many has-been reggae bands who are still around, not only are the Abysinnians as good as ever, but their newer material does not suck. We got to see them at the Catalyst in Santa Cruz, which meant that there were plenty of stinky hippies (the ones who could afford to get in) there, but it was still a good show. Jonathan didn’t even get kicked out for taking photos! They played well over two hours, which included most of their old school hits off of “Satta Massagana” which is one of the best Reggae albums ever. Get it if you can find it - it was recently reissued on Heartbeat, which I believe is an arm of the fine Rounder Records label. - Words by Davoud / Photos by Hay

I once heard James Hetfield attribute the birth of Metallica to MOTORHEAD and Lemmy concurrently is often introduced as the greatest fornicator in rock and roll. So could it be that Lemmy spawned a Bastard band? Well, if the decision was left up to him, that would be the name of his band today. That’s right! Back in 1975 Lemmy originally wanted to call the band Bastard, but his manager told him the name would never get a slot on Top of the Pops, so he changed it to Motorhead. I guess it still didn’t bump them onto the pop charts, but the band quickly gained an enormous following and a reputation for playing loud shows. For five years Motorhead reigned as the loudest band in the world and even made it into the Guinness Book of World Records by using 117,000 watts to power their stage full of P.A.s! And although he is in his 50s Lemmy admits he “still loves it loud”. Thursday May 25, 2000 proved to be no different. 5:30 pm and I was en route to see perhaps the greatest metal band of all time. As if that weren’t enough, Speed Dealer (formerly REO Speed Dealer), Fu Manchu and Nashville Pussy were also on the bill. Unfortunately, thanks to San Francisco’s parking nightmares, I completely missed Speed Dealer and entered the show in the middle of Fu Manchu’s set. Both Fu Manchu and Nashville Pussy worked the crowd into a ‘horned-hand’ frenzy. Nashville Pussy is truly a redneck’s rock ’n roll wet dream come true. Dare I call it “Twangy-Metal”? However you classify it, they definitely play some tight fast music and know how to put on a show. To keep things exciting Corey Parks, their busty bassist, stripped away most of her excess clothing before exhaling enormous flames into the crowd. She could kick Kid Rock’s ass for sure. Nashville Pussy finished and a roadie quickly boosted the mic stand high into the air as smoke machines went to work preparing the Maritime Hall for the entrance of the ‘Godfather of Metal’ - Lemmy Kilmister. The crowd pushed towards the stage as the back-lighting came up and two silhouettes emerged from the billows of smoke. The bass drum pounded and the band exploded with ‘We are Motorhead’, the title track off their newest album. Mayhem ensued as the band blazed through a nonstop set that included every classic Motorhead tune you can imagine, and an amazing cover of ‘God Save the Queen’ to boot. I had heard rumors that, “they ain’t what they used to be.” and if that’s the case, I don’t think I could have survived one of their old shows! Of course you’re all wondering, “What about Ace of Spades, they had to play that one?” And indeed they did. After a short break, Motorhead returned to the stage for an encore that started off with ‘Ace of Spades’ and included a little help from their ‘biggest fan’, the previously mentioned James Hetfield. Yes, while Lars was busy crying about MP3 sharing, James borrowed a guitar and sang the lyrics to ‘Overkill’, and jammed with Lemmy for a few songs. It was a glorious site and I only hope that somebody will release a bootleg of it on Napster so I can hear it again. Fuck Lars! - Eric Bigler

Thanks to Wilma.com for some facts and quotes about Motorhead Photos by Jonathan Hay

...Duane Peters from page 85 the old school, we’re fucking no school. The miniramp thing, and then the street plant thing, it’s gone through all these stages, but I’ve always just been skating pools. I skate streets, like downhills here and there, I’m not manic about it, I just do what I do when I feel like it. Concussion: Do you want to talk about drugs? DP: Drugs are a weird thing, you know, if you get caught into it. I don’t know what to think about it. I didn’t even enjoy weed when I was a kid, I only did it because all the other kids were doing it. Then I just went into all these different…I wanted to die. I spent most of my 20s trying to die. I was DOAed three times. I was one of the worst drug addicts out of anyone that I had ever met. I was homeless, 10 years of horribleness, and it took me14 years to get off heroin. It’s a horrible thing, and it’s something that you can’t tell anyone, “Don’t do drugs”, and now I’m living in the moment. I’m not even drinking anymore. When I quit doing drugs I doubled up on drinking and weed, which cost just as much as heroin did. And I got just as soaked. It was great for a while because I was going through that childhood shit, I don’t know what I was going through, but it relieved the pain, but after a while it just turns into a fucking nightmare, the party’s over, you don’t want to admit it, and you just want to die. I know a lot of people do. Never say never. I’m having more fun now, because I was so soaked out for so long, all this normal shit seems like a high. My brain is still immature it’s kinda like being juvenille again.

was the drop of death. It was 11 feet of vertical and you would do tail drops on these really skinny boards. It was gnarly, but there were so many gnarly things from the old days. They made everything too big, really vertical. My favorite gnarly thing was that fucking — I can’t remember what it was called — Lake Berryessa, it was great, huge. Concussion: The Glory Hole. DP: Maybe that was it, yeah that was it. The top of it looks like a landing pad for spaceships.

DP: Is that who he is? He was going off. That’s the kind of shit I love. I see new guys all the time, but I like the way that guy skates. Concussion: What do you think about the current state of hardcore and punk music? DP: It’s alright. It’s like skating, it’s what you make of it. Concussion: What newer bands are you into right now?

DP: I never thought I’d get on it, but ever since I stopped drinking I got on it, and checked it out. I don’t really stay on it very long. I write for some column called Blue Torch, and I get on it and check my emails. Five or six months I’ve been doing it. I think in itself it’s good because it’s worldwide communication, but you can’t live on it. Get outside, it’s like video games. You can check your emails and check out some sites, or whatever you gotta do, but I like playing outside. That’s how I was raised. If you play outside you get more character. You get more life. Living inside on a machine isn’t for anyone.

Concussion: Do you have any head injury stories? DP: Yeah, downhilling at this school in Orange in 1981 with Blackhart, and we were both riding my board, the Santa Cruz red and black stripe board. We were downhilling. We used to downhill there all the time, and my front wheel came off, and I had a really great concussion for about a week. That was the worst one. Concussion: Did you have to go to the hospital or anything? DP: I think I did. I didn’t know who the president was or anything. It was really weird. I had a headache for a week then came back and skated. I still don’t skate with a helmet very much. Concussion: Who are some skaters you admire?

Concussion: What’s the gnarliest place you’ve skated? DP: That one pipe in Texas was one of the greatest places, a bowl in Paramont that had a lot of vertical, and some of my friends used to get $5, they had nets, and it

Concussion: What do you think about the Internet? Concussion: Tony Trujillo.

Steve Olson, a lot of the old guys, Tony Alva, Steve Alba, I like a lot of the new guys, Jason Jesse. I’ve seen this guy all the time, this kid out there with the mohawk? He’s got great style, he’s really fast.

DP: I like a lot of bands. I like Smogtown a lot, they’re from Orange County. There’s a lot of bands, a lot of smaller bands. I lot of bands we tour with, but I’m still a big fan of the older bands, the later 70s, Sham, early Stiff Little Fingers, Chelsea. I still listen to records a lot. Concussion: What do you believe in? God, or anything like that? DP: Yeah, I believe in god, but I don’t believe in religion. It’s kind of what I was raised with, it’s kind of like if I have to say a prayer, I say a prayer to god. But, I’m not religious. I don’t believe in religion, I don’t believe in politics, I don’t believe in the way a lot of things are run. I think it’s fucked up the tradition that kids have been thrown into. The world has gotten actually better as far as that goes. Tradition is finally being swept out because basically tradition teaches you to sweep things under the carpet and tell everyone you’re alright. But it’s like, believing in yourself and then maybe things will work. I don’t know. Keeping it simple.

Concussion: What about getting free music off the Internet? Like Metallica is sueing everyone for getting free music. DP: I didn’t get to that stage, my nephew does that. You can download all this, but it takes too much time for all this shit, and I don’t have the time. (Someone comes into the small bathroom where I’m forced to stare right into the cold blue eyes of Duane Peters. Eyes that have seen death pass before them 3 times and then reopened in the land of the living, and he tells him says it’s time for them to play.) Concussion: Anything else? DP: I like Concussion, I’ve got a couple of the old ones in my bathroom at home. I read it when I’m taking a shit. Concussion: That’s what it’s for.

Think your band has got what it takes? Send CDs, tapes, etc. to: Concussion Reviews - PO Box 1024 Santa Cruz, CA 95061

Contradictions/All Bets Off 7” Split Cynic Squad Records Good clean simplistic punk rock. I was just reading the liner notes on the record and it says these guys are 13 years old!! They sound more ritars. The singing is killer and sounds like it’s sung by a madman. I think his little brother’s band is better. Another worthy 7”. - JH (Cynic Squad Records, 530 Divisadero, PO Box 121, SF, CA 94117) Cradle Of Filth “from the cradle to enslave” ep Music for Nations This just started with an eerie beginning and now they started in with the keyboards and it sounds like 80’s pop with evil vocals, ok now the keyboards stopped and they started rockin. So far, this doesn’t sound as good as their other stuff. I really liked the last record, but I saw a video of them and they were really stupid. These guys with their makeup and evil gothic crap is just for show, kinda like Kiss or something. It’s hard to look evil in a Thrasher hoodie. Ok the second song came on and it’s better, pretty rockin, the song after this is “Death Comes Ripping”, could this be a Misfits cover, lets see, it sure is. They do this pretty well. I gotta admit, I like Cradle of Filth’s covers and this one is fitting since the Misfits were kind of a gothic band. Fourth song - more goth. Songs 5 and 6 - rockin. That’s it, I don’t know what else to say about this, it’s ok, but their last album was much better. - SH Crispus Attucks ...Destroy the Teacher Soda Jerk Records “Punk music, generally, that is hard core punk, is characterized by it’s speed. It has a lot of fuzz as musicians call it, cranked into the music. It’s high volume, high speed, usually monotone vocals, characterized by protest type lyrics.” This intro to Crispus Attucks pret90

ty much sums it up. Not really, but it would have been easy S o n s o f O t i s if that’s all I had to write. s p a c e j u m b o d u f g e Crispus Attucks M a n ’s R u i n isn’t as brutal as a lot of hardThis is the re-release of the Sons’ first album, but since core, it’s more I’d never heard it before, it was quite a blow to the soothing. Yeah, head. Frequently bands’ first albums are their best, as is the case with Sons of Otis. This shit is classic hessian you’d think this doom rock - put your sunglasses on and get aboard the shit is real spaceship for a ride to everywhere and nowhere. Slow, soothing. One Melvins-style tempos are mixed with faster songs and thing that bizarre sound effects that were most likely created while sucking nitrous balloons. One cannot help but to makes it stand become possessed to headbang to this music, as if it is out is their use a subversive form of mind control. One of the last songs has this pretty grating, high hum through the whole song (and of harmonics in that’s all), which was reminiscent of the end of Husker Du’s “Zen Arcade”, and pretty painful to listen to, but other than the guitars, it that, this album fuckin rocks. We’ve said this before, but to reiterate, Man’s Ruin is putting out some of the best albums sounds lovely. It right now in a variety of sub-genres, one of them being stoner rock. spacejumbofudge is one of the best albums I’ve helps give them heard in a while, so if you’re not hip to the Man’s Ruin yet, maybe it’s ‘bout time you got a clue. Their stuff can be difficult to find, but it is available through mail order and on mansruin.com. - DK a unique sound of their own, in copy, because it’s not out in the stores. It’s JH a world like a DIY thing, you know) stricken Dune TX with Drowning Man Machowagon mediocRock and Roll Killing Machine Tasty Melon Records rity. I Revelation Records guess Well, the cover is a total Fu Manchu rip off - a some of We have a contender here for Concussion Pick closeup up of an old sporty Mustang. What a the songs are bordering on emo, but not quite of the Litter. This CD rules. It’s got it all, hardsurprise I got when I threw it in and it soundin that realm. Good, clean, fast hardcore...it core, anger, force & emotion. Thick flogging ed like them too, just not as hard or heavy, even has a secret ballad as the last song, to bass lines, emotional lyrics that turn evil more poppy. Then the next song comes on show they can touch your sensitive side. - JH with a heartbeat pounding of the drums and it sounds like a weaker version of At the (Soda Jerk Records, PO Box 4056, Boulder, complexity is high with Drowning Man, and Drive In or Modest Mouse or something. CO, 80306) - JH they almost fall into the math rock genre of These guys are pretty good actually. Their next the Champs, Don Caballero and Mechachucha, song sounds like, Led Zeppelin’s, Dot Commies but they are a lot more hardcore than those “Heartbreaker” mixed with Offspring. It’s cool Prepare to be Poo Dazzled bands. Each song has about 20 time that these guys have so many different styles, Self-Produced changes, and they don’t all sounds like the you’re bound to like one of them. Check them same damn song. The production is solid. You out. - JH Dot Commies has to be one of the best can hear all the different instruments separatenames for a band in ly, on different layers, sometimes overlapping, Femi Kuti the last few years. but never getting in the way of. Maybe it’s Shoki Shoki These guys sound a because I’m listening to these guys with headMCA Records little like NOFX, but phones, but Drowning Man seems like an way more punk. I orchestral movement in the black light of day. Femi Kuti is the son of Fela Kuti, the much actually like this a Highly recommended if you can take hardadmired Nigerian Afro-beat creator. Fela Kuti lot more than the core, thrash, emo, and math rock and mix was idolized by a wide range of incredible new NOFX, if that helps you out at all. I’m them all together in your head, and still be musicians from Bootsy Collins (who claims he sure they don’t want to sound like NOFX, but able to sift out any discernable music from the only wished that the JB’s could play as well hey, that’s what I thought of first, so they sounds that formed this thick brown sludge. as Fela’s band), Ian McCay who looked up to must be somehow influenced by NOFX. They But, if you hear music that’s complex and him for his political activism, to Flea from aren’t pop punk at all, like a lot of the loud and hard to follow and label it some RHCP who just dug their music as a whole. bands that sound like NOFX. Dot Commies are more punk/hardcore crap, you’ll probably lisFemi keeps his father proud (who incidentally aggressive and don’t seem like they are just ten right died of AIDS because he thought that black filling out the formula for the pay check, like over these men couldn’t get AIDS aso he had sex with 7 so many bands these days. The singer has a guys. I, different women a day, unsheathed). The pretty original voice and some of the songs however, music hasn’t changed much in Femi’s band. get pretty punk, reminiscent of early punk stopped The music is Afro-beat Jazz Funk with a fierce rock. I like it a lot. These guys rock. They’re and lishorn section, 3 drummers and sometimes a not just another rip off band, they’re really tened. keyboard. Femi plays the Sax at times when feelin’ it. - JH (Write to Concussion for a

Concussion’s “Pick of the Litter”

he’s not singing. I recently checked them out in Santa Cruz and they put on a great show. 3 Nigerian dancers kept the hypnotic beat going and they were pleasing to the eye, watching them shake their booties with such determination and seductive smile on their faces. Fela is a little better than Femi because it’s more tribal and out of control sounding, but Femi does a good job of keeping the music real. It’s actually sometimes hard to tell if its Femi or Fela, but you definitely can tell. Any of the music by Femi or Fela is a great to have to impress your friends, to make you seem like you’re really cultured. Girls don’t like guys that only listen to punk or hardcore. They want a cultured guy. Go out and get one of their 20 CDs if you ever wanna get your groove on again. - JH File Underwater Flu’id Underwater Music “Alternative” music here. Not so bad, but nothing that’s really gripping. It’s not really my deal, but if you like more popular sounding alternative, with riffing guitars with a lot of stops and a kind of dramatic vocals, this is for you. You’d probably hear a couple of these tracks on your local alternative radio station, right before Creed, and right after, Rage Against the Machine. - JH Four Letter Word Nasty Piece of Work BYO Records This album has been out for some time. The problem I’m having is it doesn’t get the praise it rightfully deserves. This truly is one of the best things I’ve heard come out of Wales, ever! They have the political mind of Joe Strummer and Jimmy Pursey (The Clash and Sham 69 respectively). The talent and power of English Dogs and The Business. Songs like “Departure” and “Gunpowder Plot” ring with a Stiff Little Fingers influence. They end the album with a full on assault cover of Black Flag’s infamous, “Six Pack”. I listen to them then throw in Swingin’ Utters and the Utters are soft. Four Letter Word have a brand new one out called, “Zero Visibility”. Get this and that, you’ll be glad you did. - SB From Ashes Rise LP Partners in Crime After two seven-inches these guys have come to crush you with a full-length of super heavy brutal hardcore. This is the best thing they’ve done. Great recording, nice glossy sleeve and cover. Hailing from the same state as His Hero is Gone there are some similarities, but From

Ashes Rise have their own distinct sound. They toured this spring and are touring again this fall/winter so go see them, cause they are great live too. – SH (Available from atlasdistro.com/PO Box 11046 Portland, OR 97211) Groovie Ghoulies Travels with My Amp Crimson Moon Music They sound kinda like the Queers, with a touch of the Ramones. This stuff won’t even offend your grandma. I guess I kind of like it. This music reminds me of girls with thick rimmed glasses wearing white button up shirts shyly wanting to ask you to dance in the 50’s. - JH (write to the Ghoulies at: PO Box 2847, Sacramento, CA 95812) Heavy Metal 2000 Soundtrack Restless Records Call me a narrowminded anachronistic old sac, but the current generation of heavy metal music just doesn’t hold a flaming fart to what it used to be. The first Heavy Metal soundtrack [released 1981] gave us songs by Black Sabbath, AC/DC, and Devo. Even Sammy Hagar’s contribution rocked. Sure, there were one or two shitty bands on there, like Journey, but those were just a few exceptions to an otherwise kick-ass compilation of songs. Now it’s the other way around. A couple of good songs sit atop an otherwise stinky pile of crap. Among those few gems are tunes by Queens of the Stone Age, System of a Down, and, yes, Billy Idol. The other songs are overpolished, plastic tonka toys compared to their thundering predecessors of years gone by, complete with whiny vocals, flat electronic beats, and tin-can guitar tones. Maybe the music sounds better within the scenes of the movie itself….I haven’t seen it yet. Maybe this is just a reflection of the sad state of modern heavy metal music. Maybe I’ll just start listening to Carly Simon. Who knows….. - WF In Extremo Verehrt und Angespien Metal Blade These guys are from Germany I think. They wear crazy Conan clothes and the music actually sounds like it would be great for Conan 2000 The Avenger. This music is bizarre. They have some bagpipes and the mood is all somber in one song, and the second one sounds like a mix between Accept, Disco, and

Arabian music played while Conan screws the witch. If you are in the mood for something completely different, sung in a language you don’t understand, In Extremo are your men. Definitely interesting. –JH In My Eyes Nothing to Hide Revelation This is by the book “youth crew” hardcore. I really have a hard time getting into this style anymore. The music sounds the same and the lyrics are the same as they have been for the last 12-13 years or so. There is nothing new here. But if you like this style, In my Eyes does it pretty well. This was ok to listen to, but I can’t see myself listening to it again. – SH Lobotomy Born in Hell Metal Blade Clean death metal. Good guitar sounds that grind with the heavy death vocals & massacring drums. If you don’t listen to death metal all the time, it all kind of sounds the same. These guys are very tolerable, unlike a lot of death metal. I guess it’s one of those genre’s where you either love it or hate it. These guys tear it up. The double guitar action leads you on a demonic path through the underworld. Their first track, Born in Hell makes you wonder if these guys were born in hell. I think if you listen to this kind of music, you will go to hell. But, they have better music down there anyway, so fuck it. I’m throwing my two horns up for Lobotomy. -JH Mint 400 Intercomfort Beatville Records From their name I thought they be really weak, like an after diner mint or something, oh wait, those are kinda strong. Anyway, Mint 400 plays good music. They sound like a mix between Sonic Youth, Boris the Sprinkler, Pavement and newer Nirvana, but not that catchy. Some songs rock hard, while others are more sensitive. I think they’re from England too. If you can’t find it in the store, go to their website (www.vilebeat.com) for more information. - JH

Mudhoney March to Fuzz: Best of and Rarities Subpop Apart from Mudhoney being my favorite band, this double CD is so good, and totally worth the money. It cost me $20 at Tower Records, but it has 52 songs. These 52 songs conain 22 of their best songs ever, and they do a good job of picking their best. The real treat, since I already have all the songs on the first disc, is disc 2: Rarities and and B-Sides. For someone like me, who thought they’d heard every Mudhoney song, you get surprise when you hear about 20 different versions of songs. The song “Revolution” is one of my favorites, with the lyrics changed probably to their original version, about being “so sick of getting sick”, and about the Methadone clinic and taking morphine suppositories to come off of the H. There’s some surf tunes, country tunes (probably what inspired the Supersuckers to do a whole country album), and a ton of different versions of their old songs with different lyrics. There’s also a cool Black Flag cover of “Fix It”. Everyone should own this CD. I don’t care what type of music you like. Mudhoney are so roots and instrumental in the US grunge scene and whatever it has mutated to since the original bands broke up, got lame, OD’ed or killed themselves. Mudhoney are still alive but unfortunately they are supposed to break up because the bassist quit. Oh well, they’ve already put out enough great songs to last me a lifetime. This CD is packed full of classics that many of you have never heard. If you like rocking music, this is the best CD you could possibly own. My favorite CD of the year. It’s not the Pick of the Litter, because it’s mostly old stuff, but if you don’t know Mudhoney, you are missing out on one of the best bands in the world. - JH New Bomb Turks Nightmare Scenario Epitaph The New Bomb Turks are back with another album, and it would be safe to say that it isn’t any slower and doesn’t sound much different from their previous stuff. But that’s ok, because there are some bands like the Turks who have a very specific, defined sounds, and if they did go and change it you’d say that they sucked and were selling out or some shit. So yeah, there’s a whole bunch of guitar riffs and rock and roll songs on this album and they all sort of sound the same to me, but I like pretty much all of it - some of it is pretty 91

catchy, but they find a nice balance between abrasive and poppy, and that has always been what has separated the New Bomb Turks from their contemporaries. If you like the New Bomb Turks then you won’t be disappointed by Nightmare Scenario. - DK NOFX Pump Up the Valium Fat Wreck Chords Instead of one long song like their last album, this one has 14. Wow. The first song sounds like “Linoleum”, but not as good...oh woah, they just said the word Linoleum, it must have been intentional to sound like that. I’m so right on it. Yeah, this is the new NOFX. It sounds like…….the new NOFX. I like it, because I like NOFX. I even like their new shit, just nowhere near as much as Ribbed and Punk in Drublic or their earlier punker shit like Liberal Animation. Their lyrics are always funny, almost worth the admission alone. NOFX. Get it if you like them, and if you don’t, by something you do like you stupid idiot. - JH

Q and Not U Hot and Informed 7” Dischord Slow and melodic emo. Some Fugazi style feedback with a lot of minor note harmonic guitar riffs characterize their style. I like it but they’re a little too serious for me. If you’re depressed, want to get depressed or like being serious, Q and Not U is for you. - JH (PO Box 42008, Washington DC, 20015) Queens of the Stone Age ‘Rated R’ Interscope Records You know, among my most-listened-to albums have always been one or two demo tapes recorded on a 4-track by some random bands that never went anywhere. The reason I could listen to these over and over despite their total lack of production quality is simple: great songwriting. In the end it doesn’t really matter what kind of mic was used on the kick drum or how the EQ was set for the guitars. These add flavor but not substance. ‘Rated R’ would still rock if it had been recorded on a Fisher Price tape deck. The songs are just so damn good. As it turns out, the recording is solid, too. It’s safe to say that Queens of the Stone Age have completely broken free of the diet-Kyuss mould that stuck with them at first. In the process, Josh Homme has proven to be a fantastic vocalist. 92

Besides the stupid slap-sticky blaring of horns at the end, this is my favorite album of the year so far. - WF Sidewalk Heroes “Songs from 08638” Self-produced Only a few weeks after receiving the Sidewalk Heroes demo tape ‘From the Basement to the Streets’, I checked my mail again only to find that they had sent me another 5 track CD. Self promotion is mandatory if you want to be in a successful band and I sensed some energy in this punk rock trio out of New Jersey. ‘Songs from the 08638’ contains 4 songs from the original tape and includes a catchy new ‘Oi’ track entitled ‘Heroes til the End’. And although the CD came to me only a few weeks after receiving the original tape, there seemed to be years worth of improvement. Thanks mostly to an overall increase in recording quality and editing, ‘Songs from 08638’ is a much tighter album and the vocals are greatly improved. The first track ‘Possibility of the Impossible’ is ‘polished’ compared to it’s first recording and has a speedy pop punk sound ready for MTV stardom. Lyrics about booze, tattoos, broken hearts, debauchery and friendship are what keep drummer Jonny Treacherous, frontman and guitarist Brian Oblivious and bassist Mike Romantic true to their punk rock roots. These youthful derelicts show a lot of potential for success if they keep the kind of momentum shown in their first two recordings. They have already been playing live shows in and around Philly and have gotten some air-play from local college radio stations. All I know is that two of the Sidewalk Heroes’ favorite bands, the Bouncing Souls and the Misfits, both had there humble beginnings playing small shows in and around New Jersey… - EB (More info at http://www.bluecollaryoga.com/public/hero es/index.html) Slackers Live at Ernestos Hellcat Records Slackers, 2000

Hellcat has some fine bands on its roster, one of the best being the Slackers. These New York cats are keeping the roots of ska, reggae, and rocksteady alive like virtually no one else. Their songwriting is great and they are all masters of their instruments. They have three studio albums out which are all excellent, but the intensity of their live shows is a separate experience. I’ve had the chance to see them a couple times and they have always been excellent. Everyone is drunk and the brass section, led by David Hillyard, is off the hook. They connect with the crowd who often becomes part of the show. For young guys, they have so much style and legitimacy in their act, it tends to impress even the most jaded critics. Live at Ernestos was recorded over two days during their tour of the Netherlands, so it doesn’t take much to imagine the reefer induced beats and laid back atmosphere. This album only has 16 tracks on it, which I recall is somewhat shorter than their actual sets - it would’ve been nice to get a few more tracks on this disk or make it a double live album, but that’s about the only thing I can complain about and I’m really stretching it. - DK

Soulpreacher Sonic Witchcraft Man’s Ruin Slow and Heavy doom metal. The first song chimes in at 10 minutes long. Very Sabbathy, and grooving heavy bass lines says it all. Add it to your collection with Sons of Otis, High on Fire, and Sabbath. - JH Strike Force Diablo/Twelve Hour Turn Split 7” Push Pull Records Hardcore with fancy feedback and tones. Delicate emo-interludes lead into more gritty guitar riffery. Lots of starts and stops with the repetitive guitars and the angry and desperate vocals. At times, the music almost stops. 12 Hour Turn are very dramatic. The other side features Strike Force Diablo. They are similar to 12 Hour Turn, but much faster and the vocals aren’t as angry. The guitars pulse in and out like

an air raid siren, and then it’s over. I want more. - JH (Push Pull Records, PO Box 40766, Portland, OR 97240)

Systral Black Smoker Chrome/Edison/Per Koro OK… This review is gonna be slightly biased since Systral are one of my fave bands, but this shit fuckin’ rocks. They’ve got a more rockin’ sound than on the 10”, a little slower but shit, the intensity and power are still there. Huge production and great riffs. They still have two singers but the German highpitched vocal machine must have been broken cause it’s almost all low vocals on this one. That’s too bad cause I really like the high/low vocal contrast of Systral on the other records. Anyway this is sooo rocking almost like ’80s metal sometimes and there’s some great guitar wankin’ going on. Where they lost some the speed, the heaviness makes up for it. This is one of the heaviest records I have. OK if you’ve never heard Systral before — extreme German hardcore with a strong metal influence. Get this now. It’s been out in Germany for a year already but just came out here in the U.S. on Edison. – SH (Available from atlasdistro.com/PO Box 11046, Portland , OR 97211) The Thumbs All Lesser Devils Adeline Records The Thumbs are a Maryland punk rock outfit who play gritty, fast, off-tempo punk which doesn’t suck. The songs are short, fast and full of energy, the vocals screamed, and the production is gritty. There is a little bit of late90’s NOFX-esque punk sound in here, but it mixes well, and is easily better than most of the punk I’ve heard lately. These guys sound like they’d probably be a really good live band (I’ll bet the album was recorded pretty quickly) so if the Thumbs ever come your way, do yourself a favor and check them out. - DK V/A Old Skars & Upstarts Alive Records This is what it is all about! You want to hear punk rock? No I mean Punk!!! Rock! Well, this little disc here is my newest favorite. There are four good labels out of So. Cal. right now. They are Junk, Disaster, Hostage, and Alive. These last three are tied together somehow. They all have the Old Skars & the Upstarts. That’s what this disc is. It is old guys

playing some of the best punk you’ll ever hear. Intermingled in the disc are the best new (Upstart) bands you’ll ever hear. Let me drop some names for you. The Crowd, US Bombs, JFA, Exploding Fuck Dolls, Dropkick Murphy’s, Ducky Boys, One Man Army, Smogtown, Electric Frankenstein, Need I say more? Well, believe me, there are way more just as good. Duane Peters of the US Bombs/Exploding Fuck Dolls/Ex-Santa Cruz Pro Skater/Sponsored by Beer City Skateboards/Et Cetera puts this badass collection together. You want to hear the bands that will most likely save punk rock? Then listen to all the bands on the labels I mentioned earlier. This is skatepunk, the best of the best, minus Aggression. - SB

the Moon”, and Diesel Boy doing my favorite Motley Crue song, “Looks that Kill”. One thing that bugged me about this compilation is that a lot of the songs aren’t even metal, it’s more like Punk goes Glam. For example, Poison, White Lion, and Warrant aren’t metal. They are hard rock or glam rock or something. Metal is Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth, Testament & Exodus. Ok, now that we’ve straightened that out, some of this is really cool listening to different versions of the old hits, but some is just unbearable and you gotta skip to the next song. It’s funny shit though. I’d check it out if you were pretty into the metal scene or if you like the glamish crap like Poison, Warrant, Guns and Roses and Skid Row. – JH V/A Skate Rock Vol 1-11 Thrasher

V/A Punk Goes Metal Fearless Records This compilation has some killer covers of Metal classics. Some of my favorites were Divit covering Judas Priest’s, “Breakin’ the Law”, Bigwig covering Slayer’s, “War Ensemble”, Strung Out doing Ozzy’s, “Bark at

I just saw an ad for this box set in Thrasher. All I can say is if you skate then you should own this. Period. This has every badass, motherfuckin’, big air pullin’, laid

back grind in a pool rockin’, sicker than me, punk band to ever drive you to skate. This reigns supreme in the skatepunk world. It’s only $65 to boot. Get it now!! - SB V/A The Way it Should Be Sessions Records This compilation is pretty sick. From the cover shot of Meekster at Derby in the 80s to Fu Manchu’s cover of Thin Lizzy’s, “Jail Break”, to AFI’s cover of Dag Nasty’s, “Values Here”, to Supersuckers covering “That is Rock N’ Roll” by the Coasters, there’s some good shit on this mix. There’s a lot of local Santa Cruz bands on this CD, including Fury 66, Too Bad Eugene, AFI, & Good Riddance. Other highlights are bands that kick down songs and put out singles/EP’s on Sessions Records, including Supersuckers, Gwar, and Jughead’s Revenge. Some of the songs aren’t my cup of tea, but that’s the whole point of a compilation, to display a wide variety of music so people get the chance to hear ten different bands rather than just one band. If you want to order this, go to www.sessions.com for further instruction, and checkout photos of their sick skate/snow team. – JH

V/A United Kingdom of Punk Vol. 2 Music Club Int. Through my time in the punk scene I’ve enjoyed several genres, meaning, I’ve embraced hardcore, skatepunk, emocore, OI, political punk, and traditional ’77 style punk. Although I love all of these, nothing thoroughly kicks my ass the way the ’77 era shit does. I think it’s the urgency, the bare bone sincerity and passion. Most of all it was the nihilistic attitude of that point in time. It took a hold of my heart and made me fall in love. This disc has a splattering of the bands that set the ball in motion. You get seven live songs from: Buzzcocks (creators of punkpop), The Adverts (snide & powerful), UK Subs (prolific, true, die hards), Sham 69 (all I can say is, “One of the Best of All Time”), The Damned (in the same class as the last two mentioned), and Vicious White Kids (Sid Vicious drunk and loaded singing Sinatra’s “My Way”). The other bands on here are: Chelsea, X-Ray Spex, Slaughter & the Dogs, The Fall, The Lurkers, The Ruts, Sex Pistols, 999, and Bow Wow Wow. If you like the US Bombs, Rancid, or Swingin’ Utters, now get to know their gods. – SB

V/A United Kingdom of Punk (Hardcore Years) Music Club Int. This is another great disc put out by this little known label. In reading the inlay, it states that they got permission from Cherry Records and Trojan to re-issue these songs. So that’s cool that the original labels, that took a chance with these offensive bands, finally got their due respect. This is the hard stuff. Slayer can’t touch some of this shit. As a matter of fact, these are the bands that inspired several of the now heavy thrash bands to pick up their instruments. Fuck all this new school

hardcore shit. It is weak! You really want to hear power? Buy this disc then buy everything each band on here has ever put out. The Exploited will rip your head off while the Business kicks the shit out of your torso. Peter & the Test Tube Babies will get you drunk as Blitz comes through killing everything. Anti–Nowhere League spit in your face and punch you as The Addicts dance around you laughing. The Crack demand respect with a baseball bat to the kneecap. Angelic Upstarts come in and reduce you to tears with the tale of police brutality. You see them out of the corner of your eye, but it’s too late to run. Chaos UK are already beating you with chains. GBH and The Varukers rupture your eardrums. Just as you think you’ve made it through the gauntlet, Cock Sparrer and Vice Squad run you down with a

full on riot. Just as you are about to proclaim your eternal devotion to all your new favorite bands, in comes Disorder and shoves a drill bit into your brain. You can’t go wrong with this disc. It will make you swear off all charlatans. – SB. V/A Not so Quiet on the Western Front Alternative Tentacles This is a solid re-issued comp. It has almost all of the good bands in Northern California and Nevada from ’80 to ’84. You just can’t go wrong here. It’s like a punk history lesson. The booklet is pretty informative. This was the scene that I grew up in. I was/am a Reno Skeeno Hardcore. I love this disc ‘cause it rocks your ass! The first song sets the stage for this disc. The band is “Intensified Chaos” and the song has the same name. This rules! - SB Yum Yum Tree/Murdock Split 7” Push Pull Records Angry emo-style hardcore punk with gruff

screeching vocals and repetitive guitar rhythms. Repetitive doesn’t mean it’s bad. They’re more on the simplistic style, not trying to meld ten different tracks into one. The guy/girl vocal combination works well or maybe it’s just a pissed off girl growling out some of the verses. The second song on the 7” is really catchy and has good lyrics that you can sing along to: “You say a picture’s worth a thousand words, so I cut the head off all the photographs I have of you.” I really like this. I’ve listed to their two songs three times in a row. Ok, the other side is Murdock. They’re more hectic and have more time changes and complexity than Yum Yum Tree, but they share a similar style. Very interesting music that kept me engaged with the lyrics and the music and left me wanting to hear a full length album by either of these bands. This 7” is definitely a good find. - JH (Push Pull Records, PO Box 40766, Portland, OR) Key to Reviewers: SH - Simon Hay JH - Jonathan Hay SB - Sick Boy DK - Davoud EB - Eric Bigler WF - Wayne Fidler

Clockwise from right: Tuff Enough Kevin went for the drop and got served up some lumps. Photos by Rob Taylor Some surfer, pulling the rip cord. Huge air gone wrong. Hope itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a soft landing.

Clockwise from below: Some dude tried to feeble grind the rail at Medford and kept getting tossed. Seq: Amell. Casualties of the latest Berkeley demo. Photos Davoud. Tillman kept eating it on 360 attempts over the volcano. Photos Davoud. Random injuries, hippers, and cuts. Along with Red, Neal is now in the â&#x20AC;&#x153;I split my head open at Alamedaâ&#x20AC;? club. He left a big, bloody mess of blood and got 7 staples in his head as a reward. Photo by McCreery.