Concussion 19

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Editorial

Rant

Ok, so maybe we played the joke a little too straight, but as you now know, the rumors of

So since all of you shiver at the thought of a world without Concussion Magazine, maybe

our death were greatly exaggerated. I mean we just thought it was a funny joke, at the time

it’s time some of you gracious patrons helped us out a little bit. It seems like we kind of

at least. Kind of like when the Dwarves put out a press release that said their drummer

get treated like public television, people are stoked on it for free, but nobody wants to pay

was dead, a gag that even their label believed. That was funny until they got kicked off

for the service. And then we’re forced to beg. We’ve been making this mag/zine for six or

Sub Pop. Our little joke became progressively less funny as we kept having to tell everyone

seven years, and while the quality of it has improved by leaps and bounds, our financial sit-

- even our close friends - that we were not throwing in the towel and quitting the mag. “It

uation never really got off the ground. Getting paid in decks and other product may sound

was just a joke, dude.” But it was nice to know how many people were sad or bummed out

cool to some of you, but you can’t trade a box of Lucky boards with the printer or the pre-

that we were over it, and it was also nice to know that a lot of you actually read the maga-

press shop. It’s funny when people think we have an office and stuff like that, and even

zine, because we were under the impression that most of you illiterate fucks only look at

funnier when our contributors ask to be paid. Ha! So buy a shirt or a hat from us, and if

the pictures. Ha ha, that’s a joke too.

you’ve been thinking about doing an ad but have been on the fence since 1999, well step it up. Maybe if we get some money, we’ll take a couple business courses and try and get half a clue to figure out how to run a magazine. And learn Flash so we can update the website.

But until then, you can still catch us down at the park peddling decks, getting cut off by roller bladers, and falling down. - The Editors

Concussion Staff Senior Fucktards Davoud Kermaninejad Jonathan Hay Senior Art Fag Lee Charron Photo Dorks Jason Murray Charlie Middleton Bruce Rodela Terry Roland Contributing Photo Dorks Rhino Jai Tanju Jon Steele Rodent Paul Wingert Jason Bedient Brendan Klein Blair Alley Aaron Sedway Chris Carnel Matt Patterson Chris Wellhausen Brooks Fritz Arnaud de Grave Dawndra Budd Matt Sharky Rob Taylor Uri Korn Gonzo Stan Lee Video Goon Dave Amell Writer Nerds Dave Amell Sam Cunningham Jason Jessee Paul Morrison Jason Bedient Sean O’Loughlin Bryan Fisher Paul Morrison Linda Pazdirek Sarah Drexler Patrick from Arcata Artist Freaks Dalek

FINE PRINT: CONCUSSION MAGAZINE IS COPYRIGHT © 2003 BY CONCUSSION PRODUCTIONS. NOTHING FROM THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE USED IN WHOLE OR PART WITHOUT WRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE PUBLISHERS OR COPYRIGHT OWNERS. CONCUSSION AND THE CONCUSSION SKULL LOGO ARE TRADEMARKS OF CONCUSSION MAGAZINE DISTRIBUTED BY DESERT MOON PERIODICALS, SANTA FE, NM. - WWW.DESERTMOON.COM DISTRIBUTED BY TOWER RECORDS, WORLDWIDE - TOWER.COM CONCUSSION WEBSITE: WWW.CONCUSSION.ORG SEND ALL CORRESPONDENCE TO: PO BOX 1024 SANTA CRUZ CA 95061-1024 OR EMAIL CONCUSSION@CONCUSSION.ORG. WHILE WE WELCOME UNSOLICITED EDITORIAL SUBMISSIONS, WE CANNOT RETURN YOUR PHOTOS OR WHATEVER WITHOUT A SELF-ADDRESSED STAMPED ENVELOPE. AND THAT DOESN’T MEAN THROWING A FEW DOLLARS IN WITH YOUR PACKAGE, IT MEANS WRITING YOUR ADDRESS ON AN ENVELOPE AND PUTTING STAMPS ON IT. DOMESTIC SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE $20 PER YEAR CANADIAN AND MEXICAN SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE $30 ALL OTHER INTERNATIONAL SUBSCRIPTIONS ARE $40.

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Concussion Magazine PO Box 1024 Santa Cruz, CA 95061-1024

Source: The Collins English Dictionary © 1998 HarperCollins Publishers Tragedy n., pl. -dies. 1. (esp in classical and Renaissance drama) a play in which the protagonist, usually a man of importance and outstanding personal qualities, falls to disaster through the combination of a personal failing and circumstances with which he cannot deal.

2. (in later drama, such as that of Ibsen) a play in which the protagonist is overcome by a combination of social and psychological circumstances. 3. (in medieval literature) a literary work in which a great person falls from prosperity to disaster, often through no fault of his own. 4. the unfortunate aspect of something. 5. a shocking or sad event; disaster.

Neil Hedding’s young son Marty died last December. As horrible as that is, the situation is made worse by a misguided child welfare system which has put itself between Neil, his wife Pinky, and their three children. On February 15, 2003 there was a fundraiser/memorial session at the Clinton Keith pool. I don’t know Neil, but I do know he’s a skater being railroaded by the system, so I made the eight hour drive to show support. Of course, I also got to session a great pool, which was worth the drive in itself. - Dave Amell

The bands were funny. The first band was funny because they sang songs with names like “Mormon Fury” and “I Hate Hippies on Speed.” The last band was funny because the singer was so drunk he passed out in the bushes by the second song.

The super love seat carve is no joke. Hitz, Hewitt, Reul, and some others all made it, but Matt Moffett was the only one to carve grind it.

Product Reviews

Vans TNT Signature Shoes

Jinxed Clothing Usually when random clothing companies contact us about sending us some product to review, we’re all “Yeah sure dude, send us some stuff,” and then when their schwaggy clothes come with their lame, unoriginal logos pasted on them, we try and figure out how to get rid of the shit as soon as possible. This was not the case with Jinxed.

While they are most certainly random, their designs are clean and the artwork appropriately dark and anti-social. Shoot up or shut up was one of my favorites, followed closely by the HATE logo parody which most of you will get a chuckle out of. Also, I don’t think they print on anything but black shirts, which lends credibility to the evil factor. So the next time you consider bludgeoning your neighbor with a hammer or robbing a bank, consider doing it in Jinxed clothing.

Word up, Tony Trujillo finally got his pro shoe. While some people commented that this shoe has very little differences from the Rowley, I beg to differ. Does Rowley’s shoe have checkerboards on the inside, or come in a box that looks like an amplifier? Hell no. This shoe screams rockstar, which is exactly what Trujillo is these days.

Living the dream dude, he’s the fuckin’ fifth member of Motley Crue.

All I gotta say is Tony should milk it while he can, because one of these days he’s going to look in the mirror and see a washed up expro skater with an alcohol problem and two bad knees who’s now a team manager for some skate company, if he’s that lucky. And when he’s having a hard time making rent, he can always think back to those salad days when he had royalty checks coming in every month and his mug was on the side of every bus in California. vans.com

jinxedclothing.com

Nikita Clothing

Deathbox Skateboards Deathbox kind of had some of the wind taken out of their proverbial sails when Jay Adams quit riding for them after he figured out that he signed one too many board contracts and decided to cash in on the Dogtown wave. Anyway whatever, that’s life in the skate industry.

Deathbox still has a good team, and their boards are still good. These decks that just showed up are sick, especially since they’re 8.25” wide so me and my dumb buddies can ride them and we aren’t forced to try and sell them to the kids down the street. The Eric Dressen pro model comes inked with some crazy dragon graphics and the other deck is a more standard Deathbox logo, but I don’t think any of that will make a difference once the shit is gripped and setup. Tum Yeto has always had a solid reputation for their wood and urethane, and the new line of Deathbox boards will not tarnish that rep. deathbox.com

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It would be a lie to proclaim that I am a girl who rides. Nevertheless, clothing

by Nikita-for girls who ride, is both comfortable and stylish. If I did ride, I imagine it would be great for riding, except for some of the skirts and other more girlie items. The T-shirts come in a nice cut with several appealing logos.

On some items the sizing seems a bit random, and a few of the zippers and clasps are on the cheap side. However, there is something for everyone in this city inspired line of sporty clothing. Check out their web site and see for yourself at nikitaclothing.com. All I know is that I'm enjoying my complementary items from Nikita. - LP nikitaclothing.com

Skatepark Reviews We have developed a new park rating system here at Concussion.

Skulls are out, piles of shit are in. Why? Besides the fact that skulls were cliché, most every park we review is more like a steaming turd than a beautiful cement creation. Whereas before, the more skulls a park got, the better it was - now the more piles of dookie a park gets, the worse it is. A low dookie rating or no dookies means the park is pretty good, and if we ever run across any good parks in California again, we’ll try and let you know that it is not a hunk of shit. But until then.... hold your nose and dive in.

Martinez Skatepark Martinez, CA Another Wormhoudt park, oh boy, just what we need around here! That’s what I thought when initially hearing about this new park, but once I got to check it out I was pleasantly surprised for once. From the guy who was responsible for Novato, Healdsburg, Ben Lomond and a host of other mediocre parks, Martinez is the least crappy Wormhoudt park I’ve ever skated. With hardly any street course (just one section of fun box pyramids), the park is mainly 6 foot bowls with a couple of corners and round hips.

The highlight of this park however is the 30 foot wide spine, which is actually done correctly for a spine.

That’s right, no six inches of cement in between the two pieces of coping or any bullshit like that, the two pieces of coping butt up against each other like they should. How many years did it take to figure that one out, dude? Anyway it will be rad to see Wade Speyer fuck that spine up, and I’m sure Drehobl and the rest of the Deluxe crew will wreck this park and/or themselves appropriately. There are also some pretty big gaps for AP to spin his backside 360s over.

If I had to point out flaws in this park, which of course I will, it is that the cement finishing work is crap.

Consistently lumpy sums it up nicely. I don’t think Wormhoudt does any cement work himself, so whoever the cement contractor was on this job needs to go back to doing sidewalks.

It is quite a surprise that there are more positive aspects about this park to point out than negative ones, and here is the kicker: you are allowed to drink beer at this skatepark. Well ok, not exactly allowed, but you are allowed to do so (if you’re of age of course) in the park right next door, which is about 10 feet away from the skatepark. They even have BBQs, picnic tables, and horseshoe pits, for those interested in non-skating activities. Being at this skatepark almost felt like being in Oregon because of how mellow it was. Ok there’s still no vert and the park is not that good, but for Nor Cal standards, this one ain’t so bad.

One and a half piles of shit. - dk

Martinez, where they finally got the spine right. 23rd time’s a charm.

Sean grinding off the edge of a steaming pile of shit. Photo by Sam

Concord Skatepark Concord, CA “White trash & little coping” Concord’s new skate park was completely packed with Corey Duffel and/or Eminem look a likes. Overweight, housewives smoking cigarettes lined the perimeter. There had to be at least one hundred kids there, and as a result the place screamed crossfire. I walked around the park searching for something remotely resembling a line, but instead I just found a bunch of one hit wonders. Even though the park has an eight foot high half pike, it’s only sixteen feet wide and has kinked walls. And let’s not forget that the two foot decks are littered with kids just sitting around. Even if they weren’t there, its useless due to the fact that a) they not only WAXED this shit to death, but b) the coping is only one inch aluminum. Two words my friends: steaming turd.

If you’re into ledges, this place might be for you. Ledges are scattered around the park in all sizes. Short and long. Tall and steep. Big and useless. They put a pyramid in the middle of the park that has a pyramid on top of it–plus it’s not really a pyramid because it has tranny and coping on it. Did I mention there’s a pyramid on top? The only novelty is the twin towers, but those are pretty useless too. Probably the hardest line at the park is dodging all the dirt clods and pebbles.

The best part is that no pads are required Well, not yet anyway. That and the liquor store and taqueria across the street. And the chance to ride with Wade Speyer if you’re lucky. There’s got to be a secret treasure hidden somewhere amongst the rubble that is attempting to pass itself off as a skatepark. Maybe since the park is so jammed up with useless obstacles there will be some new talent that can claw its way to the top of the pile. At least Concord has always produced hot punker girls.

Fresno Skatepark Fresno, CA The Fresno park is fun, and worth the drive from the bay if you like cheap Mexican food AND you stop at a few of the local swimming holes. If you are into street, the park has an egyptian pyramid course bigger than Berkeley, however it's about the same style and not much more creative. The bowl however has all the elements of a shitty California skatepark bowl with the fundamental shapes and hips of a Southern Oregon bowl. The bowl goes to vert in most places in the deep end, which extends to about 8 feet. The rest of the bowl has some bumps and bruises at about 4 to 6 feet and even an escalator and some other fun possibilities. The coping is slick and buttery as fuck, but with all the BMXers of El Fresno, that might not last long. Altogether this park has all the options of being stuck in the Mustang Ranch. It can be a beautiful thing if done right but if not....whatever you know the rest. - Patrick

Concord gets three steaming turd piles.

Fresno bowl area

Backside Smith on “the vert” 22

On January 24 2003, Deathbox skateboards held their second annual ‘Expression Session’ and decided to call this one ‘Deathrace 2003’. The event was held at the world famous Skatelab indoor skatepark and museum in Simi Valley. It was hyped up all over old school sites on the internet, and the Deathbox site promised that the contest would be a gnarly park slalom event, but warned competitors to leave their slalom sticks at home. Over 70 skaters signed up for the race. All kinds of skaters were on the roster, pro vert riders, ex pro vert riders, slalom champs, longboarders, skatelab locals, old farts and young kids. The boards they brought with them were just as diverse, popsicle decks, longboards, pool boards, one guy was even riding a 12” wide old school pig board. Handrail champs and gap flippers were suspiciously absent.

The course was set up in the street area next to the bowl. Deathbox stickers were strategically placed where the cones were to be set. The course wound through the place over funboxes, on vert walls, and a steep bank. The skaters would be timed using a high tech laser digital LED readout contraption. Practice started at 3 pm and the lines had been laid out with red tape, but the cones had not been set up yet. It was apparent early in practice that this would possibly be a ‘death’ race. The ramps at the Skatelab are finished in birch, which is a excellent surface for skating on. But the kids have gone crazy with the wax at this park, and it covers everything, making high speeds slick and deadly. For those who are accustomed to riding cement, it might be like skating on ice. But this is a race, and it’s all about hauling ass, slippery surface or not. Another challenge was one of the funboxes that was tight and small, and hard to keep speed over. This funbox, ‘the funbox of death’, took out several racers. Others couldn’t manage to keep enough momentum over it to make it over the first cone, placed on a kinked vert wall. To make it through the entire course was a challenge in itself. Over 70 skaters signed up, but after practice about 20 dropped out because they either slammed or they couldn’t deal. It was time to start the contest. The rules were simple; go as fast as you can, miss going around or through cones, or hit 3 cones, or fall, and your run is disqualified. Skate however you want - just negotiate all the cones and go fast and you might qualify for the final race.

At 8pm the contest starts, and the cones start flying. It took something like the 15th skater to make it all the way through with getting disqualified. Eventually, some of the skaters who had it down took their runs and were kicking ass. The ones who could fly over the funbox of death had the fastest times. Those who tried to pump it lost too much speed and sent the cone replacer kids scrambling. Skaters riding longer boards seemed to have the advantage, they were the ones getting the best qualifying times. By now everyone is having a blast, spectators are cheering every single run, competitors are stoked, the bowl session is going off, this fucking rules. After two qualifying runs, a group of 8 skaters posted fast enough times to make it to the finals. The break in action was a chance to get some grub that Skatelab and Deathbox had catered in for all the skaters. These guys covered all the bases and this was turning out to be a classic event. Okay break’s over time for the finals to begin. It’s down to the top 8 riders, and they get two runs each.

After the first few runs, it’s obvious that these guys are getting the course wired. Posted times are faster. Nanoseconds are being shaved off previous times. The crowd is going nuts. In the end, it’s Brian Patch on top with a seriously fast run. Where he pulled it from, no-one knows. In second is Eric Nash! That’s right, Eric Nash! Fuck yeah. Third place went to Brad Edwards, who was everyone’s pick to win it all. He was seriously flying through the course all day. Brad was also handed the ‘style’ award, though many preferred Ben Schroeder’s sketchy attack. Dave Hackett, who put on the contest and was also entered to compete, got taken out by the funbox of death during practice and received a broken finger - and the biggest slam award. All of the awards were really cool, handmade from wood and various skateboard parts. A huge thanks to Todd Huber at Skatelab and Dave Hackett at Deathbox for putting on such a first class event. From the laid back and fun vibe, to the bad-ass awards, they did everything right. Hopefully there will be more events like this in the future. That was just too much fun.

Britney Snorts at Coke Rumors

By Julie Keller Britney Spears might not be that innocent, but she swears she’s no coke addict.

And she is going to court to prove it.

The pop tartlet is fuming over a Star magazine story that says she has used cocaine and is reportedly planning to sue the supermarket tabloid.

“The only one who’s guilty of doing cocaine has to be the source of this story,” Spears’ rep Nathalie K. Moar said in a statement released on Thursday. “It makes for good reading, but it’s simply not true.”

The story, which hit newsstands Friday, is indeed a page-turner. Star said a member of the Britney entourage dished about the singer’s close encounter with the white stuff November 14 at the Crowbar Club in Miami. The loose-lipped groupie says he was jammed in the bathroom stall (in the VIP toilet section of the club, no less) with the popster, some guy with drugs in his pocket and a female friend when the incident went down.

“Once we were in, the guy cleans off the toilet top with a tissue and then takes out some cocaine,” read the Star transcript. “Using his driver license, he chopped it into four lines. Britney just stood there and watched him, not saying a word. He took out a dollar bill, rolled it up and did the first line. He then handed the bill to Britney. She took the dollar and bent over the cocaine.”

That same source also claims Spears did a spot check after said snorting and asked one of her gal pals to check her nose for white powder.

The drug rumors are just the latest salvo in recent media reports about Spears’ walk on the wild side. Aside from the cocaine allegations, the 21-year-old publicity juggernaut has also been making headlines for her high-profile, post-Justin Timberlake love life.

Most recently, she has been linked to Colin Farrell, showing up at the premiere for The Recruit holding hands and sucking face with the foul-mouthed Irish hottie. (“She’s a sweet, sweet girl. There’s nothing going on-we’re just mates,” he swore to Entertainment Tonight.)

1. Learn backside Smith grinds.

2. Learn pivot to fakies.

3. In a pool, do a backside Smith grind, and then in the middle of it, pretend you’re doing a pivot to fakie.

4. Ride away clean, playa.

5. For bonus points, try it on Anthony coping.

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Name: Mimi Knoop Age: 24 Sponsors: Nikita, Osiris, Tracker, Velvet Where do you live?

I live in San Diego, California.

What got you into skating?

I first tried skateboarding when I was about 6 yrs old-one of the neighborhood kids had a board, and I asked to try it. We didn’t have any ramps or anything like that to skate on, so we’d just take turns hopping off curbs, or seeing who could skate the fastest. Then when I was about 10, my family got shipped over seas to Cuba. That’s when I really got into skating. One of the cargo guys from the Guantanamo Bay airport used to build us ramps, and rails, and skate with us. He taught us everything. Lip tricks, airs, power slides; you name it. So, everyday after school, we’d all meet up at the ramp and skate until it got dark. It was awesome. Looking back now, I’m glad there was skating on that island, b/c if there wasn’t I don’t know what we would have done with ourselves-the naval base itself was only 45 sq miles (surrounded by live mine fields) and the coolest thing there was the McDonalds.

Where did you go after Cuba?

After Cuba, my family was moved to Cincinnati, OH. The skate scene was pretty dead there (being the early 90’s) although there were two brothers that lived a block away from my house, and they had a launch ramp. I ended up meeting them because my dog crapped in their yard one day when I was taking him for a walk—and I just happened to have my skateboard with me… They didn’t believe me when I told them I skated so we had a sort of “stand off” between us, seeing who could do the most tricks. I had been skating a lot at that point, and I ended up winning the stand off. We all ended up becoming really good friends (and still are), and their ramp was pretty much the only ramp to skate in the whole county. We later ended up building a mini-ramp in their back yard.

How does the CA skate scene compare to the scene on the East Coast?

The skate scene here in CA compared to back east is very different. In the west, skating is more accepted and recognized; almost even encouraged. You can make something of yourself through skateboarding out here. Back east in Virginia, it’s not like that. If you skate back east, in most cases, it’s simply because you love to do it. The boys back home skate with straight up heart and soul. To me, they are skateboarding.

Where do you skate?

A little bit of everywhere. Wherever the action is; but lately a lot at the Clairemont bowl in SD. Who’s the posse?

I’m usually skating with the rest of the girls – Kim, Holly, Elena, and Cara-Beth; or with some of my old friends from the east coast—Sick Willie, and Redneck Dave. And if I am not with them, I am usually skating with the old rippers over at Clairemont—Mike Stelmasky and John Tuisl.

What do you think about all the girls out there charging these days?

I think the girls are really stepping it up these days. I think in this day and age it’s easier than it used to be for the girls. Now, it’s like the girls have proof that it can be done— there’s Cara-Beth and Elissa—now that younger girls have women skaters to look up to, it makes it all the more possible for them to envision their goals, and it gives them direction. And there’s a ton of younger girl skaters out there, right now; invisible to the rest of the world, skating in their hometowns; and in time they too will come into their own.

Besides skating?

On a good day- surfing, catching some sun, reading a book, or watching the Price is Right keeps me busy; Although lately, paying off my numerous hospital bills and searching for employment has taken up most of my non-skating time.

What’s in your stereo?

Either the Pointer Sisters or the Descendents; I don’t remember.

What’s in your fridge?

You really don’t want to know…

Best video?

I don’t know of too many videos since ’91 or so.. I’d say Future Primitive, Public Domain, Hocus Pocus, and for the new schoolers, definitely Tony Trujillo’s part in In Bloom.

Best spot?

Just for now—Clairemont bowl.

Word to…?

Word to your mutha.

The room was almost completely dark. The only light came from the glowsticks clenched between her fingers, cutting the crisp air in a mesmerizing and strangely hypnotic way. The techno music pumps loudly out of the speakers and runs through her veins and into her brain. It’s too late now. There’s no way to escape the rhythm and the only thing she can do is dance. And dance she does. The woman I’m talking about is none other than Kenna Gallagher. If she would stop all this silly skateboarding she could easily be a professional raver. I guess she’s alright at skating, but to watch her work those glowsticks is like looking into the eyes of God and having him tell you that he created this whole world just for you, and that your very existence is his greatest accomplishment.

-Ernesto the Exquisite

Name: Rose Dittfach Age: 29 Sponsors: K2 Snowboards, Cliff Bar, Cutting Edge Sports, Spy

I first met Rose in 1996 at Kirkwood. I started talking to her on the chair lift and remember telling her how we were going to start a skate, surf, snow, music magazine, focusing on bails, and we were thinking about calling it Concussion. She was one of the first people that we shot the name off, and she loved it. She led me down one of her favorite warm up runs, and only half way down did I realize she was flawlessly carving fakie. I was impressed. The next day she went and shot photos with my friend, busting off a number of steep craggily cliffs. Seven years later, Concussion remains, and Rose continues to huck herself off huge cliffs, kickers and enters contests. She regularly wins the extreme contest at Kirkwood, and earlier this year she qualified for the x-games, but broke her wrist the same day on an icy kicker, which stopped her from attending. Oh well, contests kind of suck anyway, but Rose is a competitive creature and likes the thrill competition provides. Rose was featured in Issue #1 of Concussion, a full page shot by Jason Murray of her busting off this 80-foot cliff.

Gnarly stuff. The original slide has since been lost, but you don’t need a photo to see how hard Rose rips, actually, photos don’t really do her justice. You have to ride with her yourself to experience how good she is. She also just got into motorcross and has recently acquired a snowmobile for some backcountry sessions. Be on the look out. Rose rips and she’s fearless of hucking off cliffs that would shrivel up your little balls and have you crawling on your hands and knees back to your mommy. – J. Hay

This ditch is not new and has since been busted, so it’s ok to tell you that it is located in a PG&E facility in San Jose. When people first started telling me about this rectangular ditch with perfect trannies, I was all “Oh yeah, I skated that in ‘89”, because in high school I had skated a PG&E ditch in south San Jose that was exactly as this one was described. Except it turned out to be a different ditch, because the one I skated didn’t have a wall right next to it that you could ollie out to wall bonk and disaster in like Jason Adams is doing here. All you could do on the old ditch was lip tricks and shoot your board over the fence into the super high voltage area where you’d probably get electrocuted if you dared hop the fence to retrieve your stick. Anyway this is a sick ditch, and as you can see Jai got the recon of the SJ loc’s destroying it. This is what real skateboarding is all about: finding spots that aren’t meant for skating and taking advantage of them. Until next time, the search continues...

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Back before he had a ramp in his living room, Dave Nelson had to go all the way to this ditch to get his frontsides and backsides in.

Jai wanted us to take out the frame of Louie Barletta’s noseblunt slide where his foot comes off, but fuck it. Shit’s still pretty sick as it is, no?

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photo: hay

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Chilling. We all love it. The best thing about chilling is you don’t really have to do anything to chill, it’s the very action of not doing anything at all.... I’m not sure what happened in the beginning, you know, how it all came together, but I vividly remember driving over the 17 with J.Hay, Noah and Adam Morgan in a brand new mini-van. We were on our way to Richmond to pick up Davoud and Tanner. Caravaning behind us was John Rock(a fellow), his pale friend and Matt Carlene. So at this point we will be having what I will call CHILL CHECKS. The chill check will be points through out the story when we count how many dudes are chillin’ and how many dudes are taking care of business. For this CHILL CHECK we have 5 chillers including myself, the only guys that would be making shit happen would be Adam Morgan and John Rock.

By the time we get to Richmond it’s like 11:30pm, Tanner’s band was playing at Burnt Ramen, but we got there too late. After several beers and trash talking to piggies, we kidnapped Tanner and went to Davoud’s summer abode. Davoud was in a bad way, I didn’t think he would make it for this little adventure. It seems just the day before he had an accident at the Berkeley park, when I say he had an accident, I don’t mean that he crapped his pants, I mean he twisted up his knees pretty bad and needed crutches to walk. We have everybody and it’s a little after midnight. We’re headed to Fresno, that’s right, 4 hours to Fresno at a little after Midnight. CHILL CHECK-we have 6 chillers including broken ass Davoud. Good thing we picked up Tanner to add to the list of non-chillers.

It’s funny how the first hour or hour and a half of a road trip are maybe the most fun, everybody is anxious and excited to be on the open highway.

Then BOOM and hour goes by and everyone is passed out.

We woke up in Fresno and headed straight to the Vagabond. If you haven’t been there lately you don’t know what you’re missing. It’s like a legit skatepark now, complete with quarter pipes and other wacky obstacles. By the time we showed up, the session was already on. No chillers here.

Good thing we showed up. Now, a chiller isn’t usually called a chiller, he’s generally called a photographer or a videographer. Needless to say we had it covered from all angles. The word must have gotten out that we were chilling cause all kinds of dudes showed up to chill later. Honestly, I think if you would have counted at it’s peak there was 9 guys skating and 20 guys with their thumbs in their ass, hanging out, including myself. I called up Tim Garner and we left to hook up with him in Visalia. Oh ya, we also met up with Eric Noren and Terry Roland too, who came to video and take photos..WOOP-WOOP CHILL CHECK, that’s 8 chillers and 3 gnarlers. We better hook up with Tim fast. As a little sidenote- Matt C., made friends with two girls who he told he was Jesus, they asked us which one of us was a pro skater and we naturally replied “All of us.” They were impressed.

An hour or so later we are skating the Visalia park, which, in retrospect, was a good park, a little shy with the coping if you know what I mean, but not bad. Tim was there and already killing it. We had never met, just talked on the phone. I decided I will introduce myself later and chose to ride a bit. I was rubber man. It was noon and I was fairly drunk and had smoked my share of the devil’s lettuce. So I’m carving it up, slarsh dog style, I roll over a bump, not paying attention and what do you know, here comes Tim right for me. He bailed, I bailed, and I apologized and introduced myself, “Hi, I’m Lee, the dumbshit.” He wasn’t bummed at all. So we skated more and then Tim suggested we go to a pool not far from there. We left some of our chillers at the park and showed up to this pool that had only been drained the night before, it was in some lady’s backyard that she said it was cool to ride. Woah. OK. We get there and this thing is a pit of death, tight as fuck with two love seats. Adam and Tim were killing it and themselves. Hats off to Tim for ollieing into that thing, Jesus Christ, and Adam for rolling in backside, Holy Shit. Let’s not forget the sick chilling that went down there too, we were like 6 chillers deep. That night Tim took us to the community college in Visalia, it was a wacky roof spot, like continuous whoopties all the way around.

It was getting late so we dropped off Tim, said our goodbyes and headed to Sactown to hook up with Casey Lindstrom. We spent the night at this Motel 6 that was right across the street from this cowboy bar. A few of us went to check it out and there was a live band there playing country covers.

The highlight was Matt shouting “hhooollllaaa” while everybody clapped for the last song they played. Casey met us in the morning, and was going to take us to some street spots, and after driving a bit, it looks like Sacramento is loaded with them. This was the session that would cripple the whole trip. In a matter of two hours Tanner had destroyed his ankle trying to crooked grind this rail and Adam, well, Adam manned-up to this huge wall, dropping into a little bank from a nose pick. For the results see the last page of the article. Sidenote- the general feeling of our crew as he sat on that ledge was pretty crazy man, I mean I’m trying to chill over here and this guy is getting mega-gnarly. He basically blew up.

So, that was it, of our 3 productive guys, there was 2 down. The last of the Mohicans wasn’t unscathed either, Jon Rock was killing it all day, but he was bloodied and tired. J. Hay wanted to step up as a productive dude and tried to ollie these steps like 20 times, I talk shit but it was more skating than I did that whole trip, unfortunately he was unsuccessful. Jon Rock took this as his cue, said goodbye and headed back to Olympia. That night we drove home and listened to Mac Dre Dawg, the drive back was nice and I finally got a chance to chill.

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Clockwise from the top: Jon Rock hops the whoopties at the Visalia Community College. Adam Morgan takes on Vagabond’s new gnar cradle. Tim Garner ollies in to Visalia’s death pit. Photos by Davoud Tanner goes BSTS on Vagabond’s ass. Photo by J. Hay.

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Clockwise from the left: John Rock ninja-style backside tizzy in Sacratomato. This photo pretty much describes the whole trip, serious lurkin’. Casey Lindstrom backside lip on Sac rail, nice, Sac rail. Photos by Terry Roland. Tanner moments before disaster, feeble in Sac. Photo by J. Hay.

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This Page, clockwise from the top left: John Rock frontside tail revert. J. Hay gets lumps at Vagabond.

Adam goes frontside over the deathbox in Visalia.

Photos by Terry Roland. This was to be the last spot on our tour, Pittsburg pool, good thing all the dudes were hurt and it was filled with shit and water. Digi-camera highway art. Adam, destroyed.

That Page: Two sequences the first is Mr. Morgan destroying himself, nosepick to blow up. The second sequence is one of Jonathan’s 20 tries down the “big 5” set in Sac, Mary Lou style sucka’s. “Photos” by the video goons.

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San Diego and a lot of the LA area has rad stuff to skate, especially pools, but we never seem to find ourselves down there very often. Most of the time we just end up driving north to check out the new parks in Oregon, but on New Years Day 2003, me and Dave finally managed to get down there again. I hadn’t been down to San Diego in over four years since the time we went to the Nude Bowl with Bailey and Texas Dan (see Concussion #5), but I never forgot how many fucking pools there were. None of this Nor Cal shitty square stuff either, they’ve got enough pools to ride strictly good kidneys if they felt like it. On the way down we stopped at the Vagabond for a short session. That combined with a stop at Lorena’s in Fresno made for a nice break from the monotony of the drive.

Bailey was finally back in PB after an extended stay in Spain, and so we figured we’d try and organize some Hesh Crew sessions with Bailey’s buddies Sam Hitz, Peter Hewitt, Al Partanen, Darren Navarette, etc. There are supposed to be some pretty good public parks down there too, but I neglected to bring any pads, so we didn’t really get to hit too many of those up. Sam snuck us into the OB park (which you have to pay $5 to skate!) and we cruised it for a while with borrowed helmets, but it wasn’t that great and besides, we didn’t drive 500 miles to pay to skate with rollerbladers and be forced to wear full pads.

After rounding up a crew to go ride with, we ended up at Ray’s pool in Claremont. Ray’s is a permission pool deal with a nice left hand kidney, super slippery (and the shallow end was full of dog shit when we arrived), but still very fun. Ray wasn’t home, but the guys said it was cool anyway, and we proceeded to session the thing. I don’t know what happened, but the next thing you know we’re in the middle of a 20 person session, even Delgado showed up. And at some point Ray’s girlfriend showed up and started wondering why there were 20 people in Ray’s backyard when he was out of town.

“It’s cool”, someone replied, and that seemed to be enough to cool out the situation. I guess it was cool.

Sam has been using a skillsaw to make all of these Blade Hater boards with super gnarly spikes and hessian styling on them, and there are currently about six or seven boards set up which people cruise to the bar on. This one coffin shaped board seemed to be everyone’s favorite, and as we brought it to many of the pools we skated, it quickly became the preferred cue of Hitz and Partanen among others. Some of the boards had such sharp points on them that if you got sharkbite after bailing a trick you’d be liable to cut your achillies tendon or something. Fuckin’ gnarly, dude.

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The next day we went to the Megaladon pool, another permission pool in the area. It is a deep, extremely tight egg which is something like 11’ deep with 6’+ of vert. Hewitt said it was the gnarliest pool he’d ever rolled into, and I wouldn’t contest that. I thought about dropping into the deep end for about two seconds and decided it would be wiser to go to the store for beers instead. When I got back, Bailey, Hewitt and Al P were fucking the thing up.

Now in this pool, “fucking it up” is all relative. I don’t think many of those dudes have even got a frontside grind in this pool, that’s how gnarly it is. I couldn’t even get over the light. Fucking it up means you can get a carve in the deep end and make it back to go over the shallow end steps and then do battle with the deep end again. The pool has two loveseats on either side of the deep end which are generally as high as the coping would be on most pools, and Bailey was trying to do tailslides on them, which he almost pulled. But the gnarliest shit was saved for the shallow steps, where the tranny was actually the best. All of those dudes were carve grinding over the steps, but then Hewitt started trying it switch. After not

that many tries he’d managed to switch backside carve grind it, how’s that for modern pool skating? Now he can say that the Megaladon is also the gnarliest pool that he’s switch carve grinded over the shallow steps in. Ha ha. This would definitely be a good pool to see Pete the Ox and Tony Farmer ride, although I don’t think it will be going that long so you guys better get down there.

We skated that pool until dark and then it was back to OB and the OB Bar. Later that night, P-Stone took us out on a bar tour in his van, which was nice. He’s got a cool van that fits a bunch of people, and we got to listen to a pretty cool mix tape he’d gotten from Chet, the highlight of which was a hilarious radio interview Chet did after winning some Austrailian contest. Anyway it was interesting to note that while we only seemed to make it to one skate spot per day while in San Diego, we had no problem making it to more than one bar.

The next morning we got another call from P-Stone who had room for a few more heads in his van for a day trip up

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to Salbaland. After picking up an 18-wheeler of road chugs, we were off. While there is an abundance of pools in the San Diego area, nothing really compares to the pool scene in Fontana/Rialto/San Bernadino, etc. Pool after pool after pool after pool. Salba and his crew of buddies have the scene wired and the pools drained. I’m not even really sure where we were (San Bernadino I think? I was just along for the ride, sitting in the back with the curtains pulled, drinking beers) no more than a mile or two apart from each other.

The first pool we pull up to was an abandoned house at the end of a court. There was some other dude lurking around, but we quickly concluded that he was not the owner of the house and was probably just there to steal the copper out of the walls or something like that. This pool, which we will call the Dirt Pool, was a nice little amoeba with a loveseat, but it was the dustiest, most cancered out pool I’ve ridden in a while.

Everything was filthy, covered in white pool dust, which you couldn’t help but taste when you sat in the shallow end.

Lemme tell you, it’s pools like these that are great for ruining your camera equipment when you change rolls of film.

Anyway some ripping went down, some chugs were chugged, and we were off to the next pool.

This one was a beauty of a Blue Haven, slight left hander with super smooth, super grippy surface, a big loveseat in the deep end, and nice ladyfinger coping. Every line in the deep end was over the light and deathbox, loveseat, light and loveseat, etc. For regular footers it was pretty much manditory to hit the box which was a nice little challenge, as was going frontside over the loveseat. Sam pretty much tore the pool a new asshole with speed carvegrinds over the box and frontside 5-0’s over the loveseat. He eventually worked himself up to hucking a frontside air over the loveseat, and after he stuck it (perfectly), he looped out on the next wall and almost got worked.

With a catlike ability to right himself, his hands somehow found the sidewall and he landed on his feet. Minus one life for Sam. The third pool we rode was a big blue kidney which had been freshly painted by Preston and the crew the weekend before.

This was another great pool, although my knees were starting to run out of steam, and I relegated myself to watching from the sidelines. Sloppy Sam killed it with nice backside grinds in the shallow end, Bailey pushed through three block grinds and almost killed himself rolling in, and Sam closed it down with the crailslide revert. After that, it was pretty much time to go.

One more stop for the obligatory killer Mexi-grub, one last 18-

wheeler of Bud cans, and we were off. All in all it was a great day, nobody got too hurt and by the time we got back to OB we had consumed eight 18-packs between us.

The next morning my battered body told me it was time to go home, and what do you know, it was. Dave insisted we hit one more pool on our way out, so we drove up to the infamous Pala Pool (see the cover of Concussion #17 and most every other skate mag in the past couple months) for a little session with Brendan Klein. Amazingly it was only the three of us there, and so with a lack of beers and abundance of heat, we were hard pressed to get the stoke going, although Brendan had no problem fucking the pool up. Frontside grinds over the light and deathbox were quite nice, and he even managed to stick a crailslide revert, despite wiping his face down the deep end wall on an earlier botched attempt. Good to see that there are some young guns still coming up and keeping it real.

After that it was pretty much a barge home, no stopping to skate the Vagabond or to get more road chugs. There was plenty of shit that we wanted to skate but didn’t get to (like Washington Street) so I guess we’ll just have to skip one of those trips to Oregon this summer and make another barge down to OB.

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Photos: Jon Steele

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So I’m supposed to write an intro about C.F. …The “Dark Horse” of surfing; the drug-using, satanic tattooed, ego-eccentric, crazy-ass, mysterious, low life known as Christian Fletcher…I am supposed to glorify him, to build him up, and show the kids how not to grow up…

But this isn’t true, Christian is a clear-headed, mellow, half-crazy ass athlete, who happened to pave the pathway of aerial surfing. So if you do airs, you better know your history and show him some fucking respect because he put his neck out for you in order to take surfing to the next level.

Most people remember the Body Glove Surf-out/Bud pro at Lowers where he put his new arsenal on display. With a shuv-it to finger flip-off, after killing every left that came through, he took first place. Christian became a pioneer to much of what we call “modern surfing”. He made aerial surfing what it is today. He started putting grind-core in his video parts, as well as mixing in skating. He transferred all skate grabs possible to a surfboard and no one had a fucking clue! To top it off, he played in a band “Blood Shot” which ripped! Both Christian and Nathan, his brother, are profound skaters, surfers and snowboarders, and now C.F. has an interest in street bikes.

This man came from a family drowned with talent. Do your homework, check out this family tree: Joyce Hoffman was his great aunt, and his dad Herbie is a phenomenal longboarder. The list goes on and on. Like him or not, his name has become synonymous with the common person on the street to surfing.

I respect the fact that C.F. was doing something different and still is today.

Thanks for the inspiration. I‘m not saying he is the best athlete ever or anything, he’s just tough as nails! And like Johnny Cash said, “Upfront, there ought ‘ta be a man in black…” - Jon Steele

Jason Jessee: What’s your full name?

Christian Fletcher: Christian Li Fletcher JJ: No way. Crazy. Li. Is that Asian?

CF: Yeah, Chinese. Like Jet Li. JJ: Let’s go through everything from beginning to end, starting from…

CF: I won’t make it home for at least a week.

JJ: No way, we’ll make it fast, and furious.

CF: I was born, I went to the beach, I fucking surfed, got addicted to drugs, married, divorced, court appointed psychiatrist, random drug tests, monitored visits to the kid, then I hired someone to kill my x-wife.

JJ: Wait, you want that on there?

CF: No, I was just joking. I was giving you a quick synopsis.

JJ: Have you been in any movies?

CF: Yeah, I’ve been in some real great ones. North Shore.

JJ: Nice. That’s the raddest one.

CF: Fresno Smooth. Where I was this soap opera star, and had this chick. Then I walked in on her while she was in the bathroom, I walked in on her while she was standing up taking a piss. I was the soap opera star, and all the ladies loved me, you know, the ones in the trailer park that had their legs chopped off, and the other one that was pregnant drinking beer and smoking cigarettes. A lot of it was just my voice while they were watching the TV and stuff. Blade Flanegan was my name. And I just worked on Charlie’s Angels II. Me and Brad Gerlach.

JJ: He rules.

CF: Yeah. He used to tell me he was working on his cutbacks and shit, and this time he told me he was working on doing his airs. He’s all, Christian, I’m pulling 3 out of 10 airs.

So I sat him down and gave him a lecture for about an hour. Three weeks later, we were on the set and again, and he’s all “Shit, my percentage went up so much, I’m making 9 out of 12. You should see it, little kids are even going wooooh!!” He was so pumped. I’ve been working on this instructional video and I thought about how to explain this shit a lot.

Little kids, they’ve been growing up around it, but I took a guy down and gave him a lesson that doesn’t do airs, just rides tubes, and he busted 3 airs the first day, and made ‘em. And Gerlach, who’s just a traditional power surfer, learned and improved completely in 3 weeks. He went from 3 out of 10 to 9 out of 12. He had the hugest smile on his face and was just so stoked.

JJ: What about Mark Gonzales was going to do a movie with Gerlach, but Gerlach didn’t

Photo Jon Steele 74

Photo Jon Steele

want to do it or something?

CF: No, I’m kinda out of the loop when it comes to surfing and skating.

JJ: Any commercials?

CF: Yeah I did a Volkswagen commercial when I was kid, it played during the World Series. I Did a Volvo commercial with my parents and my dog in front of my house.

JJ: Did you get anything out of that commercial?

CF: Yeah, I got a little money, I didn’t get a car or anything. I was also in a Cadillac commercial. I saw a quick shot of someone surfing, and I was like, hey, that looks like me. A couple of weeks later the photographer sent me a check for $300 or something, because he sold the footage. I was actually super stoked because he never told me or anything, and all of a sudden I just got a check in the mail. It wasn’t much money, but it was more like the thought that counted. I never would have known who took it or anything.

JJ: What about magazines? You were on the cover of Thrasher twice?

CF: Yeah, my name once, my picture once. Yeah, that’s crazy. I’m a surfer, and you’re a skateboarding legend, and I’ve been on it twice and you’ve never been on it. Someone needs to get fired.

JJ: No they’re kings because they’re smart. What about Elle magazine?

CF: No, not Elle. Detour, Interview, Vanity Fair.

JJ: Rolling Stone?

CF: No, but Nathan has. He’s got lots of ads in there. Quiksilver’s poster child. I’ve been in US magazine when I was a kid, and we were both in RIP. JJ: Yeah, who owns that? LFP? CF: That would be Larry Flynt.

JJ: Yeah, he owns Penthouse or Hustler?

CF: Hustler.

JJ: Yeah, how cool. What about that picture of you and Malcom McClaren?

CF: That’s been all over and now it’s in Vanity Fair, a 2 page spread. It’s an Annie Leibowitz photo…what they’re claiming is one of the most important photos in the world.

JJ: What about that picture you took with Jamie Lynn or something?

CF: Me, Hosoi and Burt Lamar. Style Eyes ad.

JJ: No no. It was something else.

CF: Oh, the Versace catalog with Palmer and Archie. Me and Archie got drunk and stole the boat and we were coming up the dock while they were doing the photo shoot, wakeboarding, just doing board slides across the dock. It was sweet. Then there was the cover of Motorcross action, Surfing, and the new Japanese Vogue.

JJ: That’s hot, you read it backwards. Has any one translated it for you.

CF: I speak Japanese. Voko Huffa? Where’s the weed?

JJ: Yeah you can’t bring it over there.

CF: No. Everyone over there fucking does speed. It’s crazy.

JJ: They invented it?

CF: In the Phillipines, I think. Yeah, they all shoot speed. Japan is a country where they give themselves medicine with needles and stuff, like Mexico, and they call it Pump.

JJ: So all the Japanese people that I’ve met were just high on speed?

CF: Ice. I couldn’t believe it. They listen to Death Metal, but they wear suits.

JJ: These are the stupidest…Interviews are so lame. They’re the worst. I can’t be that guy that goes, “So, we’re looking at this”, and explain everything.

CF: For the record, interviews suck. They’re boring and they always betray you like a retard. They’ve been my biggest downfall. I don’t do them anymore. I ask them to break out their check book, and they go ‘What are you talking about?’, and I say, ‘Well, you’re getting paid right’, and they say, ‘Well yeah’, and I say ‘Bust out the check book’. And they say ‘What are you talking about’. And I say ‘If I wasn’t here and people like me, then you wouldn’t have a job’. Interviews fuck me up because they take shit out of context, and they ask me questions that are a set up because they know I’ll speak my mind and that sells more magazines; if there’s controversy. They want tabloid issues, because it sells. The professional basketball players and shit like that, they pay them to do interviews, we just give them out for free. People say ‘You need the publicity.’ But I don’t. All that’s going to do is make it harder for me to walk down the street. It ain’t going to pay my rent.

JJ: Or counseling, it won’t pay for that either.

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CF: Yeah. Unless it’s something cool. I did one for . . . it was the Rolling Stone.

No wait, what’s that big huge magazine? Oh, ESPN magazine. They gave me a few pages and one guy did it and he never turned it in. I spent 3 weeks with the guy and had to teach him about surfing, he didn’t know one thing. He spent time with my grandma and my parents. I drove to the store with him in Hawaii which was an hour each way, and when it was done he just decided he was never going to turn it in. I fucking worked my ass off for it. I put the word out that I’m looking for him. I’m going to fuck that dude up.

JJ: What else?

CF: I surfed my first contest at 5 years old in the San Onofre Surf Club. I surfed the contest, and it was the 8 and under division. Clint Carroll was 9 because his birthday was before the deadline. I beat Corky’s kid. And my dad went to school with him, and they called him Kooky Corky, they all hated him too, just like we hated Clint. Clint’s a kook. $25 a gram, to his buddies, beat it dork. So I beat him, he was 9 years old, and won the contest.

JJ: And you were 5? Holy shit.

CF: It was 1976, I went out, beat him in the contest, and my dad put me in an ad for his surf shop, because I got 1st place or whatever. It was on page 32. My dad used to drink a little bit here and there, or a lot, now and then, and he ran into OJ Simpson in the Red Onion in Dana point, and OJ’s number was 32. So that was my first picture in the magazine, and he got OJ to sign it because it was on his page number. And I was all jacked up when OJ committed those heinous crimes…..

JJ: He didn’t do it.

CF: I walked in and I saw OJ on the TV, and I was like, YES. I was so stoked because that thing was worth money. At the time his stuff was worth a lot of money when that first happened, but then it just went to shit.

Photo Jon Steele

Judge mental hate unbiased, for absolutely no reason whatsoever except for the fact that you just can’t fucking help it. If you see them, you judge them. It doesn’t matter how wrong it is: you see, you judge. It’s a part of human nature and sometimes it can

[They go outside and start loading up shit. Jason busts out some guns] CF: What gun do we get to bring?

JJ: You really want to bring one?

CF: Can I borrow it until I come back up here, because I can bring it down to the beach and shoot shit.

JJ: What, you can’t. It’s a .22, it’s dangerous.

CF: No I can. At the beaches I go to there’s no one around. I sit on the rocks by myself and throw rocks at birds. There was just a double homicide after the Super Bowl. Right by there, and they didn’t even catch the guy.

Some dude: Do you want me to bring the 300 Magnum? We gotta go somewhere where we have room and shit. We have to have a gnarly backstop or something, because that bullet will go for a long time.

be quite fun. Someone is walking by, you look at them and say to yourself, “look at that loser”. After they pass it’s like, ow, I feel pretty good, no, I feel really good. I think I’m going to have to try that again. The only difference is this time you say it a little bit louder so the person might have a slight chance of hearing it or the comment may be a little ruder. It seems to escalate time after time until before you know it you’re saying something like, “Hey Dickwad. Nice Mullet!” or just basically starting to thrive off being a real prick (not necessarily on purpose). You don’t even realize you’re being mean. You think you are joking. Some people seem to take offense to the most minor things because it seems that they already have insecurities you do not even

[they go off to shoot guns and the interview is over]

think about until it strikes a serious nerve on them, which if it does, then you can really start diggin’ in to ‘em. If it doesn’t bother them, then it isn’t any fun. There are plenty of target areas to poke fun at your buddies. Try to make sure you’re good enough friends with them that you can start in on their personal flaws or short comings like going bald, fat, big nose, fat mom with down syndrome and their dad is a one armed dwarf with 6 toes and a glass eye. You know, shit like that. The kind of stuff that if you said it to a stranger you would get a funny look right before you got your ass kicked, fool. The thing is, if you’re used to talking shit with your buddies, sometimes you can get carried away when someone you don’t know walks by or says something. Better yet, when someone you don’t like walks up, you can just have a friggin’ field day with them and their emotions. “Sorry. It never occurred to me that you are such a sensitive little homosexual, maybe next time I’ll keep my mouth shut and you can suck my dick instead – what do you think of that you little faggot!!!”

– Christian Fletcher

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Photo Jason Murray

with Rodent. Hope Bruce we’ve got a guest Scraps of his Scraps column, so y, shit talking captions and funn of ch bun a te Bruce skipped this issue wro Rodent of tever dude. It’s not like this dude who lives out just is ent Rod n. dow isn’t all pissed, but wha on lock and Walnut Creek spots are all most likely phoe es dud thes k e cas Thin the any of in – all has who else for Slap and I don’t know here, in Concussion, t, so they have ended up his van and shoots photos a bigger, better mag to prin that he likes to talk get or fact sell the t pite ldn’ Des cou f. he ent’s stuf tos that to die. Anyway, enjoy Rod at all. Hopefully go lens tos pho the old ind th beh mon bad is not where six tographer he is, Rodent pho a of d goo how ut himself up abo cussion. be seeing of Rodent in Con this is not the last you’ll Captions:

d Too bad they’re all 4’ roun the many hips at Novato. frontside air over one of Right – Toad leap-frogs a rules, Novato sucks. hips. That place sucks. Toad probably won’t ever before, have you? And you Rob Welsh in Concussion n see er nev up, d Wor – Below rt. ie backside nosegrind reve again. Just kidding. Noll

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Captions, clockwise from left: Rodent is from DC, so he made sure we included a photo of DC in his pages.

Joe Pino, frontside tailslide dude.

Juan Arroyo, backside pivot on the bar at Berkeley. Anyone that can skate that bar is more of man than I am, that shit is scary.

That one guy, frontside rock on some crazy shit somewhere in the North Bay. Karma, ollie over the can at everyone’s favorite ollie flyout in Novato.

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Am I too old for skateboarding? That’s what was in my mind (among other things such as babes in red bikinis, people surfing to their job, Bullet and Primus sucks…) in the plane from Paris to San Francisco. This question had been torturing me from the first time I stepped on a board with wheels, surrounded by kids something like three times younger than me.

In France few are the men true in their soul, and most of them skateboarding dudes carry around boards and expensive shoes and various other pieces of clothing just for the look of it.

“Cherchez la femme” as we say around here. So my vision was blurred, not to say oriented by waves of fashion and coolness. But something was on my mind, something was telling me that skateboarding was not Tony Hawk on a TV set. I started to understand or at least guess that there was something hidden between the lines. Watching a Real video were some people I had never seen on the glossy paper of the hype-only magazines we get here bombing hills and riding mini-ramps… with style. From there and after a deep dive into bibliography, history and epistemology of the science of the most useless, hardest way of transportation ever (expect maybe unicycle which is quite ridiculous in addition, well I do it anyway) I knew that my trip to Northern California was going to change something in me. Roots? Little did I know…

The beginning was hard as I was trying to ollie over a stick on the ground, alone in UC Berkeley at night, more than often kicked off by security guards because THERE’S NO SKATEBOARDING ON CAMPUS!! Damnit, you punk… Apart from this glorious feeling of doing something forbidden (I never said I was mature, I just said old) this was not really exciting. And then I discovered what would became another place to be, another bunch of people to skate, kill time, do carpentry and drink beers… and above all another fistful of friends (hopefully). This place is called the Strawberry Canyon Skate Camp. Yeah I know that for most of you it’s nothing than a crappy place with this grumpy guy and loads of kids where it’s hard to get in and skate. But they accepted me and gave me the chance to be part of it even if I couldn’t “nollie heelflip to

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Above: Judd kickflipping (?) over some contraption at the camp. Right: Joseph is stylish and sketchy. Wallride transfer to fakie.

crooked revert shove-it out” those long rails. I still can’t do that, amazing huh!? This would lead to skating places such as the infamous Glory Hole, the Strawberry Pool on the way to Tahoe, four parks in southern Oregon, etc. This would lead to meet tons of people (not kids) who skate for the sake of it, who truly love skateboarding as a way of living, expressing themselves. I saw or skated with legends such as Tommy Guerrero, Al Partanen, Sam Cunningham, and other incredible stuntmen (I’m a groupie, I cant’ help it). Again keep in mind who I am, where I come from and for how long....what is taken for granted for you was another world for me.

Now I’m back in Grenoble, France, there’s a foot of snow on the curb and ten times more in the mountains. I won’t complain, snowboarding in dry powder is good and sun will shine later on and my wheels will make the cool noise on concrete again but I’m changed. And happy to be.

I’ll be back. Anyway part of me will stay here. See you at the Marseille bowl. - Arnaud De Grave A big thanks, for time spent, to: All the staff and the kids at the skate camp, at the Berkeley park (toxic water my ass!!), everyone I skated with at Kevin’s ramp (thanks for hosting me, dude for life)… and those I forgot.

Thanks for inspiration and/or friendship (in no particular order) to: Tommy Guerrero, “Pirate” Paul Avila, Joseph Wartes (We’ll meet way out there), Kat (I’m a groupie but it’s OK), Sue (my fingers forgive you no trouble), Bradley, Sam Cunningham (True metal will never die), Garry (yeah yeah I’m very franch), Davoud (killing is my business and business is good), Uri (“girolle” that’s what it is, peace), Judd.

And very special thanks to Sean O’Loughlin for everything.

Clockwise from left: Kat should get up to Oregon more than he does. Smith grind at Grant’s Pass. Dan Garcia frontside transfer from the mini to the flat bank - overthe quarter pipe. Unknown Oregon local frontside air at Grant’s Pass. Nobody wants to ride vert with Sean O’Loughlin, at least not at the camp. That ramp is scarier than shit. Kat, backside up the chimney at Medford. Gary, the Glory Hole, and some funny grafitti.

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84

Land of fish, jars of wine, cigarettes, graffiti, steep curvy cobbled streets, hash dealers, wind, waves, toll booths, 180 km/hour drivers, ramps on the beach above surf spots with castles, cable cars, cervejas, tiny bars, 80s style metal heads, gutter punks, statues & fountains, trains and buses, cement skateparks, policia, artists and swindlers.

I spent 3 days walking, busing, and taking the train around Portugal until I felt restricted by the lack of freedom public transportation fails to offer. When I finally broke down and rented a car, a whole new world opened up to me. I checked out the Lisboa skatepark which is under a bridge, reminiscent of a Burnside type of deal, but without the flow and size of Burnside, or any gnarly locals. Unfortunately, the skaters there were trying kickflips over the one and a half foot pyramid rather than dropping in off the banked wall and hitting high speed 50-50s on the curved coping that surrounds half of the park, or several other possible lines the park offered. The rest consisted of bowled half pipes with hips connecting to other half pipes, ledges, and strange gigantic pump bumps. The park definitely doesn’t compare to any of the latest Oregon and Colorado parks, or it’s European equivalent, Marseilles, but it’s not so bad. I was stoked to be skating around in Portugal, with people that spoke another language, but I noticed that screams of pain sound the same worldwide.

The oldest skatepark in Portugal, where they have a contest every year, I couldn’t find and no one within 10 miles of the park knew anything about it. After 2 hours of driving in loops, and repeatedly paying a toll, I gave up. I was surprised at how few people spoke English in Portugal. I struggled to communicate with the aid of my little Portuguese phrase book, sometimes speaking half a sentence in broken French, and half in broken Spanish to explain what I wanted.

My surfing attempts were foiled either by 80 mile an hour winds (after a 3 hour transit by bus and train), or my A.D.D. not allowing me to stop at one place long enough to wait for the wind to die, the swell to pick up, or to acquire a surfboard and wetsuit to do some actual wave riding. I took a few photos here and there of surfing, but unfortunately for me, the waves weren’t as good as they were when I left Santa Cruz, or when I returned, which is often the case when I venture hundreds or thousands of miles away to search for waves. I don’t think I went in the prime surfing season because Portugal has some famous surf spots that were so blown out that I couldn’t even imagine them to ever be surfable.

They had a Bondi Beach (AU) style half pipe/skate park on the beach in Cascais, 20 minutes outside of Lisbon. You get your pre-surf warm up slarshes on before you go out and rip the waves. What a concept! The rest of my trip was spent walking miles and miles in the streets of Lisbon, looking for, and finding, nothing in particular, wandering physically and mentally, and shooting photos. I had many a romantic dinners with myself in the plethora of fancy (and cheap) restaurants, where they serve you fish with its head still attached and a spoon? For one and a half euros ($1.50) you get a jarro pequeno of wine, which is about 4 glasses.

One of the most memorable experiences was getting offered hash, ecstacy or cocaine on a daily basis. The dealers define the word “Pusher Man” as they plead with you to buy sticks of Lebanese or Moroccan hash. “Why not? Good price, good stuff!” I had to make excuses that I was a reformed drug addict and one hit of the stuff would throw me back into a relapse. “But come on, you’re on vacation!” they begged. After a 30 minute discussion with one dealer, I finally had to get rid of him by explaining, “But wait, why would I give you money for drugs, when I don’t want the drugs?” He finally walked off confused, not quite understanding why anyone wouldn’t want drugs. I mean, I was on 85

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vacation, and trying the Moroccan import was a mild temptation, but it was more the incessant badgering that put me off, and the constant fear of getting ripped off. Walking around with expensive camera gear, in the darkest and dingiest areas I could find, was sketchy enough, so I chose to avoid any confrontations with illegal activity or professional con artists.

Portugal is an amazing country with friendly people, beautiful scenery, stylish women, hundreds of small restaurants and bars, and as many surf spots as you have time to look for. There’s a skate park in all the larger cities, as well as half pipes at some surf spots, and a few cement parks within 15 minutes of Lisboa. For anyone planning on going to Portugal, I would recommend learning Portuguese or going with a friend, especially if you don’t speak the language. Traveling is much cheaper if you go with someone else, and you won’t drive yourself crazy thinking too much on long isolated drives across the country; but everyone is different. Endless stretches of coast with no one around, cliffs that drop off into the ocean, and miles of beach breaks, and a similar (yet warmer) climate, leads me to compare Portugal to a mix between California, New Zealand, and Baja.

Lisboa, the cultural rich capital, especially reminded me of San Francisco, with its cable cars, restaurants and steep streets, but with an older European feel.

So I almost made it through my stay without anything bad happening to me, until the final day. I woke up in my room to the sounds of beep..beep...beep. Trash people?? 5 in the morning?? No. It was my rent a car getting towed for parking on the sidewalk. I spent from 5 AM - 8:30 AM relocating my car by walking to the police station, trying to explain to the chief of police what happened, finding the tow yard, getting a taxi, paying 60 euros for the tow and 30 euros for parking on the sidewalk, “which is for people, not cars”. I made it to the airport and returned the rental car with 30 minutes to spare, not a euro to my name, and that was the end of my “vacation” in Portugal. - J. Hay

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Chris Nelson. You know he didn’t pay to play today. Photo Sedway

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Robbie Sell doesn’t buy tickets at Squaw. But he does cash in by launching huge tailgrabs off hand built kickers. Photo Sedway

Mike Wier,free floating a 360 over a 90 foot tabletop gap in K-Town’s launch park. Photo Sedway

Brian Richardson free rides through the trees and looks for the pot of gold. Photo Wellhausen Here’s Brian again, using the force to pull this corked 540. Photo Sedway

Everyone seems to think Snowboarding is an activity suited only for the rich. Snowboarders are either rich trust fund kids who never have to work, college kids who get everything paid for, as long as they pretend they’re working hard at school, or snooty Euro world travelers. On the contrary, I would like to state that snowboarding is not only for the rich, but also for those that aren’t afraid to take a risk and chance getting caught. Sometimes sneaking on is half the fun. Here are a few ways to snowboard, without paying the steep fees they charge at the resorts.

1) Start a magazine that contains at least a little bit of snowboarding. After 3-5 years you might start getting a few comp tickets a year, after faxing your letterhead, sending a bullshit story idea, a sample copy of your publication and a business card.

2) Kick buds.

3) Show up around noon (not like you get there much before then anyway you hungover lagger) and look around for someone leaving. Bring wire cutters. Some people get tuckered out around 12-1, after a few tough biffs on the mountain, or they leave early to beat traffic. Hit them up and ask them if you can clip their ticket. Bind the wires back together around your belt loop and you’re good to go.

4) Hike up the mountain through the trees. Get a few hundred feet up and dive in the snow.

Get it all over your jacket and beanie and slap yourself in the face about three times. Strap in and ride to the closest lift. They won’t ask you for your ticket because you were obviously just riding down the mountain.

5)Use the force. If you show confidence, not fear, they’ll think you have a ticket, and won’t even ask for it. Shabooya.

After you get up the mountain, stay away from the base of the mountain, and preferably stay on the backside. The backside lefties won’t ask you for your ticket, because how else did you get there?

Each method has been extensively tested, and has been known to work (and fail) on any given day.

Alternatively, you could take the safe and worry free method by paying 50 dollars or fall into more debt and swipe that tempting credit card. - J. Hay 89

Concussion- current location?

Dalek- the Greenpoint neighborhood in brooklyn ny.

C- what does the word “dalek” mean?

D- they are robots built to destroy mankind..

C- how long have you and space monkey been together?

D- about 8 years now. from its infancy.

C- do you hate him at this point?

D- there are definitely days where i don’t want to look at them.. it can get a little maddening.. but overall they still keep me pretty entertained C- how long did you work for duffs?

D- a bit over 2 years i think...

C- when did you decide that you were gonna quite the 9-5 and be a full time player in the art game?

D- when i left duffs. i decided to try and give this spacemonkey shit a shot. and i figured i needed to dive in all the way... that was in 99.

C- are you rich now?

D- that’d be nice... i am about as broke as a bitch... never believe the rumors about artist making big money... i don’t think it happens too often.

C- can I borrow five bucks?

D- sure. i can get you there.

C- have you ever encountered an art groupie?

D- i have met people who really like the work... which is great... good to know anybody cares about a monkey... but no groupies in the sense of people throwing themselves at me with reckless abandon

C- it seems like you have alot of freedom in the confines of space monkey but do you ever get caught up or blocked trying to create new ones?

D- i run into blocks all of the time.. usually after a working spurt... you know..i’ll get in a zone and hit for a few weeks or a month.. whatever.. and then nothing... usually after a show it happens..when i try to get back to work and i am looking for new ways to grow out the monkey and the work in general.. i can get nailed down for days ..weeks... it sucks..

C- what’s the most monkeys you’ve created in one day?

D- i think the most would be 6 or 7, i have never really tried to bust out as many as possible in one day.. maybe i’ll give it a try sometime... maybe i could get 15.

C- what’s up with ben affleck? i hate that guy.

D- that guy is an annoying fuck... ...not to mention how bad of a fucking actor he is. i am assuming j-lo ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed to be messing around with that fool. too bad..

C- who or what inspires you?

D- a lot of different artist... kaws, twist, espo, reas, giant, those are some big ones. henry darger, diego rivera, jack cole, the simpsons, takashi 92

murakami, ryan mcguiness...tons more...just the quirkiness of everyday people trying to get through everyday life... thats probably the main source for me. i am fascinated by humanity.

C- do you still find time to go bombing? not really... i was never a heavy bomber in the first place... i always enjoyed it, but to be honest there were usually better things to do at night.

C- what’s your favorite medium?

D- acrlyics on wood or paper.

C- is this the worst interview you have ever done?

D- no... its really pretty good i think... you seemed to avoid most of the stupid how much beer can you drink questions. that whole genre of trying to be funny type shit–the ben affleck one was good though... i am sure everybody has an opinion on that guy.

C-what’s your worst head injury story ever?

D- years ago. i was up in madison wisconsin and a friend of mine was play fighting with me and he shoved me and i tripped over the hood of a sportscar and fell backwards into the curb. i truly saw stars. and then the other one was snowboarding in wisconsin.. jesus...wisconsin is responsible for all my head injuries. anyways, i hit an ice patch and straight to my head... my right arm went numb and then did the pins and needles thing for 3 days... it was a little scary...

C- thanks dalek.

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SKATEPUNK! What does that label/name mean to you? Well, I’ll tell you what it means to me. It is a sacred name placed upon those who believe. The title alone (when carried with honor) bears the weight of the world. I grew up in a town where Skaters were hunted by jocks. Where punks were one in a thousand and hunted by mostly everyone. It wasn’t accepted and it wasn’t cool. I have been in more fights over my tastes in music and lifestyle choices than I could ever remember. Growing up in Reno, Nevada as a punk in the 80’s was HARDCORE. Being a SKATEPUNK was fuckin’ insane. We didn’t have parks or cool stores with loads of good music in them. We had a record store that had an import area and the streets of the city to destroy. My friends and I would turn this whole town into a skatepark. Sure, we were run out of everywhere, ticketed, jumped, shot at, Boards stolen by gangbangers with weapons, et cetera. That is what made you a SKATEPUNK. The fact that you were willing to endure total banishment and constant danger around every corner, just so you could do what you enjoy. The fact that when everything started running dry you kept going, never straying from the path. The Love of the music and board. I relinquished my life to these things I hold so sacred. But, I’m not the only one. The list of True SkatePunks out there isn’t very long. We’re few and far between. I want to introduce you to a fellow SKATEPUNK. His name is Spencer Benavides and if you know him, you like him. He is a vital figure in the “Scene”. Helpful, Hardcore, Talented, Modest, Nice. He’s probably one of the nicest guys I have ever met. He’s been working in skateshops for the past ten years. His current shop has a nice little mini ramp in it. He was the lead singer of Redrum, a old Reno Skatecore group. He now sings for TateLaBianca. They are not, too far, from what Redrum was doing. When he’s not working at his skateshop “50/50”, He’s skating for Madkap, singing, going on the road with Coalesce, The Casket Lottery, Bloodlet, or Fall Silent. He has started to help design and build skateparks all over town.

Unfortunately, The city planners got in the way. The man, also, has a lovely lady that he wants to spend time with.

So, to put it lightly, he’s busy. But he always seems to find the time to help. That’s a good man. His skating style is one of diversity. He can skate just about everything. I did a little Q and A with him and here’s the outcome.

Sick Boy: How long have you been skating ?

Spencer: 15, 16, 17 ? No, 18 years.

SB: What brought you to skateboarding ?

Spencer: It just looked fun. I was really little and didn’t know anything about it. I just knew that it looked fun.

SB: For me skateboarding brought me to music. What was your experience with that ?

Spencer: Yeah, skating got me into music, too.

SB: I would like to know, what tricks are you having fun with right now ?

Spencer: 360 flips and nollie flips, I’ve been having a lot of fun with lately.

Also, backside 180 kickflips, because I used to do them, then I lost ‘em . So now I’m getting ‘em down.

SB: What’s the sickest pool trick you’ve ever seen ?

Spencer: Damn, I don’t remember the guy who did it. It was on the 1984 video. The guy frontside 5-0’s over the deathbox and keeps enough speed to grind all the way around and does it again. It was the sickest thing I’ve ever seen in a pool.

SB: How many bands you been in ?

Spencer: Three.

SB: Are you a pessimist or an optimist ?

Spencer: Hmmm....Both. I guess, I could see the value of both.

SB: Half full, half empty. It’s still just half. What are your favorite bands right now ?

Spencer: Lately, I’ve been listening to Antidote. Not the band from Ireland.

These guys are from New York. They are 80’s Hardcore. As far as current day bands that I listen to........ I’m drawing a blank. Oh, I like The Snobs and The Spits.

SB: What skate companies are doing a good thing out there, which you’ve seen ?

Spencer: I like the smaller skater owned and operated companies. I’m really digging on them. Madkap is one of them. There’s one in Sacramento called Legend, he actually presses his own wood in his garage. I just read something about a company called, “Wolfs Brigade” ? You know, all of those companies. ‘Cause all the big companies now, are not down for the little skate shop at all. They want the fuckin’ dollar and it sucks.

SB: ‘Cause they want to sell through the corporate stores. There’s more money there. Fuck the skaters, we want the trendies.

Spencer: Yeah, Totally.

SB: O.k., So what do you think of the “State” of the current skate “Scene” ?

The “Skate” scene. You know, what do you see happening in the skating world ?

Spencer: I think it’s rad right now. ‘Cause, any type of skating you are into, you can get the stuff for it. It’s not hard to find. That’s rad! It’s never been that way in skateboarding before. Like, in the early nineties you couldn’t get a big board or big wheels at all. So now, it’s rad that anybody that wants to do, whatever, can get that shit. That’s rad and I’m stoked on it. Industry-wise, I’m really disheartened on how things have been going. They are not down for shops at all. They are only with the distributors. You’ve got these mail order companies that do exclusive decks to mail order companies. Which totally screws us (small shops). CCS and Copeland Sports are my biggest main competitors. They take so much business from me. I skate I know what I’m talking about when it comes to product. They don’t even care.

SB: What does skating do for you? For instance, for me it’s my meditation, my valium, my focus. So what does it make you feel ?

Spencer: Well, since I’m working so much, it is my relaxation.

SB: Have you ever had a concussion ?

Spencer: What’s that ?

SB: Have you ever had a concussion ?

Spencer: No! Came damn close, when I broke my nose on the ramp in the shop. It was opening day for the ramp and I fucked up. Busted my nose right open on the transition.

SB: What is the worst thing you’ve ever done ?

Spencer: Like, as far as being mean ?

SB: Yeah, in life, tell me a story about the worst thing you’ve ever done. You know, you are such a nice guy that I have to know what meanest thing you’ve ever done is.

Spencer: When I was younger I was really, really mean. I’m trying to think. I was just a mean spirited kid. I talked a lot of shit. I said a lot of mean things to a lot of people.

SB: So mostly, verbal abuse ?

Spencer: I stole a c.d. from a store once...no wait.

SB: I mean the meanest thing. Like someone’s on the ground dying and you kick ‘em.

Spencer: Oh, I know, I’d say one of the meanest things I’ve ever done. Was a fight broke out at a bar and everybody was dancing to this band. There was this guy that was trying to be king dude and he pushed me. I fell down and got so mad, but before I could react everybody else jumped on the guy. So he was down on the ground and he was laying on his chest. He had his face up and I looked at him. He was looking up, he was pinned down on the ground. I ran as fast as I could and I kicked him in the face as hard as I could.

(Laughter all around) So that was pretty mean.

S.B: That is Mean. Who are your sponsors ?

Spencer: I’m sponsored by Madkap Skateboards, Chikara wheels, SickCo. Clothing, and 50/50 Boardshop.

S.B: Famous last words or Thanks ?

Spencer: I want to Thank my Mom, Alle, Emma, Paul (Sick Boy), All the S.O.D.C., Fall Silent, Bludgeon, Bloodlet, Neurosis, Unruh, Coalesce, The Casket Lottery, Rocky Votolato and Waxwing, Small Brown Bike, Redrum, TateLaBianca, Skeeno Hardcore-past, present, and future, Reno Punks, Skins, Rads, and Scumbags, T.H. (RIP) and the Reno Outlaws. Hardcore Rules......OK.

Dr.Know, Stalag 13, Chix Pack, Gluehorse, with Special Guests D.I. At: Ark-A’ Ik Reno, Nevada January 10, 2003

First off, I must say, that this show cost six bucks, like good punk shows should. ARK A IK is BIG so you have alot of room to move. They got food, I had a close friend meet me there. He hadn’t been to a Punk show in years and had a good ear for music. I wanted his opinion on Gluehorse. The band which opened this here gig. Then went down the street and opened for Marky Ramone and the Speed Kings + D.I. . The veteran bands that were at those shows were stoked on Gluehorse. They played two opening sets within a hour and a half of each other. Also, look at the names they got to open for. Plus, the next day they did a show with Watch It Burn. To put this bluntly, Gluehorse are a Rock Train leaving nothing in it’s wake. Hail GLUEHORSE! So, Gluehorse opened the show. They weren’t too enthusiastic, usually they like to immerse themselves with the crowd. You know, How good Rock is, where the band intracts with the crowd ? It’s a wonderful thing. But, when the crowd are hanging back in the shadows and not up at the front where the band is.... Well, then you just don’t get the energy.

You understand ? I’m saying Gluehorse rock hard, but on this particular occasion, I didn’t get the chaos and violence I usually get from these lads. Dylan The Guitarist, Kept the beat through a whole song after breaking two strings, I believe. They rocked the unsuspecting crowd. My friend later described them as, “Sleaze Crampsy Rock”. Definitely, worth checking out. I went out to get a beer. This is a all ages venue, so the store is a couple feet away, and then the back alley is just right there. You understand right ? So I missed some weird artypoppunk band that all the kids went to the front of the stage for. I apologized to Gluehorse because of this fact. Chix Pack came on with the Nardcore banner raised high on the wall behind them. After all, the next three bands are Oxnardians. So Chix Pack were a group of hardcore Chix. They played heavy metalish punk. It was like Death Metal, almost. The Ladies, themselves, were very cool. A short set and onto Stalag 13. I sat in the Backstage area drinkin’ a beer with, Blake from Stalag 13, before they went on. He plays the guitar and sings. I’m pretty sure he was in the original line up. We talked about how stupid the straightedge scene got and the motif of the whole following. It was fun to have a beer with an old straightedge band member. Stalag 13 came on and got the crowd dancing. How could you not ? The sound was exactly like I remembered. Just to let the kids know where that sound came from. They covered two Minor Threat songs. Everybody was dancing. Stalag 13 are still a force. I like them drunk. After a brief break of beer swillin’. Dr.Know came on. I saw Dr.Know just recently (a year and a half ago.). At that show I really enjoyed them. First thing Brandon (Child Actor) Cruz says is something like, “We shouldn’t have violence at shows. We need to be more loving”. Some shit like that. Just really hippy-style speak. I’m standing there thinking what a fuckin’ schmuck. He is a singer of a hardcore band. What the fuck do you think that music stimulates within the human mind ? Violence is an essential part of our scene. If you don’t like it, there’s another scene with more cuddling. It’s called, “The Hippy Scene”. The kids go to the show to release all the penned up aggression. That’s why we dance so hard.

So Brandon, pretty much, pissed on his own fire. I don’t think the guy knows what he’s doing, anyways. I mean singing for The “New” Dead Kennedys ? (Who have Gluehorse opening for them, also.) So they do their set and scream all the classics. Kids in the crowd are slamming and being violent. He sings “FistFuck” and the crowd goes off. Fists in the air. Yeah, Fuck violence, who needs it. It’s late and all us old fucks got our kids there. So, as Dr.Know get off the stage, my friends and their families start to leave. I stick around ‘cause I heard D.I. were probably going to drop by. Sure enough Casey Royer comes walking through the door with band in tow. D.I. are one of my favorites. Along with Adolescents, who Casey played drums for. Once they were set up, Casey asks the crowd what they want to hear. I yell my requests and so does everyone else. They just rip through five solid classics. “Hang Ten in East Berlin”, “Weapons”, “Richard Hung Himself”, “Johnny’s Got A Problem”, and one other that I can’t remember right now. I talked with the guitarist. He told me they hadn’t practiced “Rip It Up”. I was yelling for them to play it. I know it’s an Adolescents song, but still, D.I. could do it good. Great show. Catch these bands out and about. Afternote: At the other show where Gluehorse were opening for D.I. and Marky Ramone. I was told, a little ways into their set the lead singer Zach. Took a bottle and broke it over his head, but instead of pulling the bottle away from his head, after breakage. He drug it down the side of his head, unknowingly. He continued to sing a bit more, then the blood began to trickle down Zach’s neck. He paused and said, “oops”. Into the microphone. Then he really began gushing. He had hit an artery.

Off to the hospital for 20 stitches. Marky Ramone dedicated their set to Gluehorse for being a True Rock band and for Zach’s sacrifice to the ROCK GODS. All the veterans were impressed. You’ll hear more soon.

Sick Boy

ConcussionAre you guys gonna do your intro names and shit, so we know who is who?

Matt O War-Wait, when the Doors did it the last guy just said “Jim”.

Johnny- Yah, the Doors, it was good to play with the Door-ves tonight.

Matt O War- Matt O War, and yah it was great to play with the Door-ves, Guitar.

Johnny-Johnny Feverfuck Concussion-What do you do?

Johnny-I jump around and have no talent.

Von- Mr. Kevetzky, Bass Guitar.

Concussion- That’s fuckin’ Vonny Mc Bon Bons Brian- Brian Hamiltron, Drums.

Concussion- What do guys think of the new Melvins album?

Mattowar- We enjoy it....collectively...

Von- We listen to it..

Johnny-Superb.

Mattowar- Shut up, I’ll speak for us, I’ll do the talking here....

Johnny- Yah, you do the talking..

Mattowar-The new Melvins, we like it, we just played with them, I didn’t even know they had a new one, I just got it, I heard there was this new one that they had that sucked and so we played with them and I traded CD’s with their

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merch dude and he gave it to me, and I was like “Hostile Ambient Takeover” I think this is the one that sucks and I put it in and it’s fucking great. So this isn’t the sucky one and we like it. That’s the verdict.

Concussion- If you had to compare France with the new Melvins albums, what would be the comparisons?

Johnny- Well, here is the thing...

Mattowar- Well, you can’t...

Johnny- Here is the thing...

Mattowar- I disagree John, I digress from what he was saying...

Johnny- 30% of the French enjoy anal sex to the point of orgasm, whereas the Melvins, 50% of the Melvins enjoy anal sex to the point of orgasm.

Mattowar- See, that’s not even interesting, I’m the one that got to hang out with Dale, the rest of these guys don’t have shit to say.

Von- Yo, that shit’s passe. (everybody passes the weed pipe around and says Passe about a hundred times) Von- All I know is that this is some quality alcohol from backstage.

Johnny- We’ve been drinking the Dwarves liquor all night.

Mattowar- yah, the doors liquor...

Von- The doors!

Brian- Like the Oliver Stone movie.

Johnny- Yah the doors have the best liquor.., it makes me want to die in a bathtub.

Lee- You guys had a real ambient set, man, it really made me want to chill out.

Johnny- Yah, we’re segwaying into our stoner rock mode, pretty soon we are gonna sound exactly like Electric Wizard.

Von- Fuck Yah! Johnny- 6 months.

Concussion- Is this your tour van?

Von- This our third van.

Johnny- This one actually made it across the US twice, but we had another van that we bought from Lopez for $300.

Concussion- The band?

Johnny- Yah, it made it across the US one full time.

Brian- On our last US tour we destroyed three vans which culminated in me getting poison oak in Oregon.

Johnny- Brian was jacking off in the poison oak bushes..,the savior of the whole tour was Lopez because they sold us a van for $300.

Mattowar- It was painted flat black with

devil horns.

Johnny- We ended up going to South Dakota and getting license plates. If you get South Dakota license plates you will never get pulled over by anyone.

Concussion- Because South Dakota is Mormon or something?

Johnny- Because it’s All-American, it’s got the Presidents on it, [the plates] got Mount Rushmore on it.

Concussion- What’s the worst state you guys played in?

Mattowar- I think that would probably be Iowa.

Johnny- Yah, Iowa was pretty shitty.

Mattowar- We played with that frat boy band.

Concussion- You ever get beat up for getting in somebodies face?

Johnny- Yes, I’ve been hit in the face..a couple of times, in Reno I got hit in the face for kissing a guy. He was dancing really aggressively so no one else could dance, so, I jumped on him and straddled him and gave him a kiss.. and then he hit me, it was OK though I just backed up and winked at him, he just yelled at me for the rest of the set, but it was OK because he stopped dancing like an asshole.

Concussion- What’s next for the Fleshies?

Von- We got a record called “The Sicilian” coming out, it’s about a pizza. It’s a full length album on Alternative Tentacles, 15 songs.

[Mattowar announces his solo project and leaves, while the rest of the band talks about Jello Biafra] Johnny- You wanna hear why it’s called The Sicilian? So the last time we were in Santa Cruz, when we played with Queens of the Stone Age, Jello was there. Jello and Matt were talking and Matt was like “So Jello, the next album is gonna be on 800 gram vinyl and gonna have a quadruple gate fold” and Jello said “Aw, great, why don’t you just do a picture disc of a pizza and call it the Sicilian and put it out with somebody else.”

Concussion- He was heckling you guys?

Johnny- Yup, but now he gets his come-uppets, cause we named it that.

Concussion-You guys wanna thank anybody?

Johnny- We wanna thank the Los Rabi’s for making us three 312 minute Melvins tapes, I don’t think we thanked them properly, so thanks to them.

Von- I wanna thank my momma, that’s it.

Brian- I don’t wanna thank anybody, I feel like I am in Junior College or something right now smokin’ weed with a bunch of guys in a van.

97

Video Reviews Big Gun Underdogs Paying in Pain This is a perfect example of how a good street skating video should be. Paying in Pain has long been one of my favorite zines, and this video steps it a couple notches beyond how rad the zine is. No bullshit demo footage, no night generator sessions, just pure skateboarding. Street skating that is thankfully far from the 100% rail only clips that permeate most skate videos. Featuring guys from the Bay Area and Central Valley, including, but not limited to Jesse Hotchkiss, Tim Garner, Jay Moody, Lucian Moon, Doug Shoemaker ad Jon Newport, they truly are all big gun underdogs because they fucking rip and are all highly underrated. Artfully combining 8mm and video, almost everything is shot with interesting angles that are not limited to the standard poaching below the rail with the fisheye on. There are some “parts” but there is also just lots of random montage footage and plenty of good slams. Although the film is on the long side, I didn’t mind at all, so make sure to watch after the credits for the second half. I was truly impressed with this video and can’t say enough good things about it–props to everyone involved. Definitely worth the wait, seek Big Gun Underdogs out and buy it before it goes out of print and you’re super bummed that you missed out on owning one of the best skate videos that’s come out in the past ten years. payinginpain.com - DK

Wasted Beer City Skateboards It is ironic that this Beer City video came out after half the guys in this flick no longer ride for Beer City. Duane Peters split for Black Label, and Smiley got the boot because his knees are too jacked up to be pro. Despite that fact, this second offering from Milwaukee’s Beer City is damn good. Maybe not as good as Tanked, but it still got me amped to skate. Featuring Duane Peters, Scott Smiley, Tim Kulas, and Marfa, Wasted takes you from the streets of Milwaukee and Chicago to the skateparks of Australia and Equador. The Australia footage is especially good, as is any clip with Scott Smiley in it, but that clip at the end making out with the old bar hag was pretty gnarly. Produced by Rick and Buddy of Fruit of the Vine fame (who also did Tanked by the way) this is good shit, short but sweet. Get your copy at beercity.com. - DK

7 Ply Cursive

Holy caca! I had not anticipated such an invigorating video experiance. This video focuses on Santa Cruz area ripper dudes like Gizmo, Chris Landaker, Andy Minsloff, Henry and Emanual Guzman, not to mention some non-Cruz riders like Sean Renos, John Rockafellow and Charlie Wilkins (who throws down a blunt to fakie on Milwakee parks vert wall, gnar-gnar). There is a healthy bit of Salinas park in there too, and homeless freaks, as well as a Razor scooter bail that is not to be missed. Who knows how Dante found the time to make this video, between making dream catchers and studying the anarchist cookbook but he definately came through with a great video..\45555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555 555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555555r. Davoud's cat, Alley typed that last part, I think 5's mean she liked it. This video left me with a tingling in my nether regions, a tingling that could be ignored, so soon after viewing the video I dipped my balls in a glass of warm water. Thank you and goodnight. - LC

A Life of its Own This is kind of shop video and kind of not a shop video, if you know what I mean. Produced by this guy Jon Lohne who is from Sebastapol or somewhere kind of near Santa Rosa, A Life of its Own is not a bad effort by any means. Featuring mostly unknown local guys, there is lots of footage of the Santa Rosa skatepark (yes it’s still there) as well as some of the other local schwaggy California parks, as well as a ton of street footage from SF and the North Bay. Most of the guys are pretty good but I’d say there were a few too many boardslides on handrails for my liking. Step it up y’all and take some slams.

Speaking of slams, there is a pretty good slam part in the begenning, which is ALWAYS nice. I’d like to see someone make a whole video that is nothing but slams, that would be hot. Anyway back to the video–John Ponts is probably the headliner of this video and he does some sick shit, but I was left wanting to see more. Tony Trujillo also makes a couple cameo clips, but other than that it was all unknown young gunz. Definitely some hammers in there but there were also a few dudes who could’ve probably been cut. And I don’t know what’s up with the shirtless guy with leather pants, he was pretty rad, but his look was a little, um, gay biker stylee. Anyway, no offense intended. Overall this video was pretty good, the soundtrack did not offend me and the editing was alright, but if I was going to kick down some constructive criticism, I’d say that nobody really wants to see any more lines filmed at 3rd and Army or Santa Rosa. Other than that, these kids make me want to ride some street and take some lumps. - DK

98

When you’re 28 and going to punk rock concerts, you sometimes feel like an old oak barely wavering in the wind next to a bunch of saplings.

Seen it all before, wondering what will be different about this show. Maybe you should just hang up the gloves and let the half-your-age’s have their fun.

Young kids figuring it all out or trying. Cute punk-chicks that a peck on the cheek could land you in jail.

Sipping a beer, your mind keeps wandering while half paying attention to the lame opening band. The lead singer looks more like Ben Stiller than a gnarly rocker as he waves the horns in the air. Wearing a polo and wire-rimmed glasses, you try to remember shows growing up. “This kid would’ve gotten his ass kicked,” you think, as your mind spins and your old eyes try to remember the opening bands from yester-years.

All these thoughts ceased immediately for me when Flogging Molly took the stage. Through the backlit stage smog the silhouette of legendary street skater, Matt Hensley materialized, bearing his accordion. Next to me, a longhaired Grizzly Adams, skater guy, named Brinkers, brought two old skate videos, Hocus Pocus and a Plan B video, for Hensley to hopefully sign. Brinker’s jean jacket had almost every Powell patch ever known to Caballero stitched on there.

“These are gonna be for my retirement fund,” he claims, in regards to getting them signed. Don’t get your hopes up buddy.

Flogging Molly is one Irish-American punk band you got to see because they kill the stage with presence and energy. It’s easy to feel young when King, the lead singer takes the stage. The guy must be 50 and he’s up there raging.

King does crazy Irish Jigs and yells at the microphone in perfect harmony as only a middle-aged crazy Irishman could which sends the crowd into a frenzy. Hensley, bending the fuck out of his accordion isn’t getting any younger either, but this guy is up there, and he is seriously having a blast.

A pretty big band, Flogging has drums, mandolin/banjo, bass, electric guitar, violin/tin whistle, and an accordion. Put all these on stage with a group that knows what they’re doing and you get a rocking’ sound. My favorite song of the night was one King dedicated to all the alcoholics in the crowd, “It’s been the worst day since yesterday.” This song, like many they

played, really kills it.

Knowing only too well about hangovers that can last for two days, it really struck a chord with me.

One thing I haven’t mentioned is that this is all taking place in Holland. Yes, Europunk-rock. This seems to be the bands second time playing in the Dutch town, of Utrecht. Unfortunately, when it comes to stage dives, these Dutch kids are pussies. But what they lack in weak, “I hope they catch me”, dives, they make up for in quantity. The crowd must have done about a 150 stage dives.

At one point I saw three people on stage all acting like Eddie Vedder in a Pearl Jam video.

A band really impresses me when they not only come out for an encore, but they came out into the crowd after a show. Just human beings like everyone else. Talking with Hensley, I realized I was wearing my Concussion Mag t-shirt. He hadn’t heard of it. Besides not getting enough skate time, he apologetically replied, “You’d be surprised at how much I don’t know what’s going on.”

Brinkers got his retirement videos signed by Matt, who seemed astonished that they survived the mosh-pit.

Nathan, the bass player was glad to meet somebody whose name he could pronounce. He told us the band was going to go out for some Guinness at a bar afterwards. A couple of the bands roadies and Nathan, all from California, showed up a bit later. They put myself, and two friends on the guest list for the next night. This gave my Dutch friends the chance to ask Nathan their favorite question to ask any American: “What do you think of George Bush?”

To this Nathan proudly responded, “Well, Satan has an infinite number of dicks. Anybody that wants to can come up and suck on Satan’s dick. Well, that’s what George Bush is doing. He’s sitting there sucking on Satan’s Dick!”

They got a good laugh out of this. I was surprised they didn’t ask him their second favorite question about McDonalds. Maybe they were saving it for the next night. We didn’t make the show the next night so I guess the chance was lost forever. They were hung over and I was going to a skatepark. The second night of a show usually sucks so a word from the old (which means wise) “One night of music and one night of skating is always better than two nights of music and no skating.”

- words and photos by Jason Bedient

99

More Video Reviews Hammer Surf: Not For Sale SDR Films The first video from Oregon’s Hammer Surf, and premier effort of Shane Rafferty comes Not 4 Sale. It seems Shane has been busy with more than singing for Santa Cruz punk band Leveler & throwing the hammer. Not 4 Sale features Santa Cruz underground favorites like gromfather Jason Miller, and Leveler’s Kevin Rafferty and Mike Sanatella. The rest of the team is made up of newly graduates from gromhood like Jimmy Herrick, Tyler Walls, Jeremy Davis and Nick Norman. The editing is solid and has a good mix of video montages and individual segments with no effects or cheesy title animations. The soundtrack rips with bands like Dead Kennedys, Spaceboy, Primus and Nirvana, and the Budweisers are continually flowing throughout. The surfing, except for a few new school airs, is mostly your standard surfing moves, executed with style. It’s the antithesis of the latest Ozzy Wright flick, but it actually gets me more amped to go out and go surf. I can understand what’s going on with the roundhouses, barrels and lip bashes, where I would get lost in bedazzlement watching 180 shuvit reverts. There’s some sick below sea level pits of death as well as some long mushy waves Santa Cruz is also renowned for, which can also be quite shredable. All the surfing takes place in cold water, mostly in Santa Cruz’s East and South side, and other unnamed spots up and down the west coast. Demonstrated throughout the video are various high performance Hammer thrusters and some fish models that look like a lot of fun for those mushier days where you need the extra pump and gyrate power. The rest of the video consists of drinking Budweisers, puking in buckets, good wipeouts, heavy closeouts and some stony (non computer generated) interludes between segments. The video has a feel good quality to it that makes you want to go hang out with your bros, schralp it up until you can’t paddle any more, get a burrito, and then drink a lot of beer. – J. Hay (For info on getting a copy, email sdrfilm@aol.com or log on to hammersurf.com)

“Urban Rubble” Urban Rubble video is all about Seattle street skating. Since I’ve never been to Seattle, I was stoked to check out footage of skate spots I’ve never seen. I was even inspired to go seek out some new street spots. Except that I live in San Francisco, where there’s no such thing as a new street spot. The closest you get is the New New Spot, and that’s like 6 years old. Which means it’s neither New nor New. What a stupid name anyways–the New New spot.

Whoever came up with that name is an Ass Ass. Anyway, this video didn’t have one line from the New New Spot in it, thank god. Nor did it have footage of blown-out San Diego schools or all those other terrible street spots that are in every pro video. The skaters in Urban Rubble are mostly unknowns, or at least, I haven’t seen their names on any skate shoes. So as expected, some of them skate better than others. I got the feeling in some cases that the skater had a part because he was friends with the editor or something. Also, there are some clips in this video I personally could do without, such as the ledge tricks to flip out. These types of tricks reminds me of the early 90’s; the worst years for skating. That aside, a lot of these guys throw down some serious shit on some crazy looking terrain – not just handrails. But even the mandatory handrail footage is good, better than most videos. Plus the slam section is great. The box says that there’s footage of the Butter Bowl, and there is, but aside from a few lines by Hubbard and Swim, there’s not too much to it. So don’t buy this video if that’s all you’d be interested in. If on the other hand, you’re down for checking out the Seattle street scene, check out Urban Rubble, it’s cheaper than a plane ticket. - DA

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Record Reviews Think your band has got what it takes?

Send CDs, tapes, vinyl, etc. to: Concussion PO Box 1024 Santa Cruz, CA 95061 The 440’s Hot to Go Steel Cage Records It should be well understood, by know, that I am a ROCKNROLLMADMAN. Therefore, when I got the new 440’s into my ears, I stiffened up a bit. Lead singer and lead guitarist “Sparkle Plenty” rules to no end.

She combines the toughness of a man and is sexy enough to woah at.

She’s a Rockin’ Woman. There are 16 tracks. They cover Joan Jett’s “Bad Reputation”. She’d like it. Not all songs are sung by her. Hollywood Jay plays bass and sings. Superstar Steve Wolff plays guitar and sings, and Downtown Dave beats the drums. A unique twist on Rock. I can’t pin down exact influences. So I will say they play Rock the way Rock should be played. Fast and Hard....Suckers. This label is also one that you should give your hard earned cash to. They are PUNKROCKNROLLHARDTOUGHLIKE. steelcagerecords.com - SB Abdullah Graveyard Poetry Meteor City Records I don’t know what happened to the “stoner rock” genre, but I have not heard a good band who claims stoner rock in a long time, aside from High on Fire of course. All of this other shit is too fast with weak riffs, not heavy enough with weak riffs, they have a lame singer, or some combination of the above. I think Abdullah falls into the category of too slow with a weak riffs and a lame singer. Cheesy. - dk American Heartbreak Postcards from Hell Sin City Series / Coldfront Records I am in admiration of Brett Mathews. He has done so much for the scene. The bands that he helps release music are some of my favorites. The two magazines that he works with (HitList and AMP) are top notch publications. I speak of him because he and I share a love for this band I am reviewing. I can’t begin to tell you how good these guys are. I listen to my music at loud levels. It is like turning up a morphine drip when I listen to these guys. Honestly. I have a euphoric experience when the music is good.

If you are still unaware of these guys...well that sucks for you. The members of this band were also in Exodus, Mordred, Jetboy, and The Bay City Rollers. The sound is extremely talented music. They don’t stick to one style for very long. Of course, it is Rock n Roll through and through. They jump styles from Rock to Rockpop to Punk to Classic rock to a dozen other styles in the blink of an eye. Truly one of the best bands in the “Scene” today. Get everything they ever did and do. I promise you will be pleased. That is, unless you are a poser ! Fuckin’ posers. - SB

104

Anti-Nowhere League So What (Tin case edition) Harry May Record Company The League rule so huge it sickens me. When I say things like, “This is one of the bands that matter” or “This band is Legend”, I say that with full intent. These guys are that.....LEGEND. Hard Rock punk done better than most others. This is just a compilation of some of their songs. What makes it great, is the arrangement of the songs. All are good songs, other than a couple, in my opinion. You get it starting out with “So What”. Different versions of “I Hate People”, “ Animal”, “Woman”, and “Let’s break the law”. Their perversion and Rock stokes me. I love Sex and Violence, so they sing to me and those like me. I’m not sure on the cost of this.

It pretty much is a collectible release alone. You could find these songs elsewhere. But, for you collectors, here you go. - SB Call the Police World Crashing In (demo) Ratpack Records Hi-speed hardcore with a snivel of snot in the pissed off female vocals, singing about things like big brother, the police state, machines, money and greed. The lyrics are powerful and thought-provoking, making you question your freedom in this world. Call the Police needs to be played loud, while you drive fast, weaving in and out of lanes, ignoring all threat of the police state. My favorite number is 1984 in 2003, about the Orwellian prophecy that rings true in today’s omniscient world. I just saw Call the Police live at Mission Records, and they managed to capture much of the rawness and pissed-off-ness they delivered live on this demo. Ginger is bad-ass screaming in the mic, and I have no complaints about the skills of any of the musicians in the band. Super tight, super fast, angry at the modern state of the world, hardcore music. Blast it until your neighbors call the fucking police. Do it now. Send $3 to 4507 N. Gantenbein Ave., Portland, OR 97217 - JH Cat Power You Are Free Matador I’m still pretty irked that the guy from Matador never sent me this album to review, and I had to go out and buy it. Once again we are forced to pay for the albums that are really good and all we get sent is the dregs. Typical. Anyway Cat Power is not your typical “Concussion music” (if there is such a thing) and is on the extremely mellow side, but I like it a bunch anyway. In fact I’d go so far as to say that this album is getting the most rotation in my CD player for the past couple weeks. This is the first electric album Chan Marshall has released in several years, and not unlike most of her other albums, there are a few stinkers on here. Or maybe they’re not stinkers if you’re looking for some inspiration to kill yourself, but you get the point.

However, there are also a handful of Cat Power Czlassics on this album, particularly “Shaking Paper”, “Baby Doll” and “Maybe Not”. “A Good Woman” is also finally released on an album, a song which

has been around for ever and ever in Chan’s live shows. Same goes for the “Werewolf” song, which is a Michael Hurley cover. This album may not be for everyone, but if you’re looking for some ‘mellow wine and dine the lady’ music or some ‘I feel like killing myself music’, Cat Power will usually fit the bill. - dk The Cherry Valence The Revival 12” Ep FlappingJet Records I put this on the turntable with no idea what was going to come out of the speakers. I am and was surprised, when garagey Rock N Roll came out. It sounded familiar to what the better Garage Rock bands in Sweden are doing right now.

These guys are from America, though. Raleigh, North Carolina to be exact. You get six songs on this slab. One is a cover of “Tobacco Road”, the rest are originals. These guys are a two drum set rock/punk band, just enough to make them stand out. The only problem is, they probably won’t get the attention they deserve. I mean, with all that great crap poser shit being pushed everywhere. The true ROCKNROLL bands are untouched, ‘cause it is too real for societies sheep/puppet/fool/fucks. This is great, you should own it......I do. - SB Cocknoose Badmen, Butchers, and Bleeders TKO Records The Confederacy of Scum offer, yet another reason, for you to drop the whole carebear / liberal / ignorant hippy trend you are in. This is TOUGH Punk Rock. Honest, rude, offensive, rockin’, with thought proving lyrics.

Here’s a taste, “My answer to you is a boot to the face / Fuck You.....Die! “ All of their original songs on here, rule. They do three covers from what I can tell. The first, is a cover of David Allen Coe’s country song “Livin’ on the Run”. This song alone is worth the price of this disc.

AC/DC’s “Kicked in the Teeth” is covered, almost as good as the original. There are two covers of G.G. Allin. Again, very well done. Way beyond what G.G. could have pulled out of those songs. If you aren’t familiar with The Confederacy of Scum, I suggest you play some catch up. When it comes to real, truthful, rockin’ punk out there. You can turn to any of their bands, and Be Saved. The fact that this is on TKO Records should tell you something. TKO Records don’t put out crap. Too much pride at that label. It makes me very happy. Yes, I do expect you to drop the mag and go buy this. -SB Damone From the Attic RCA The first song starts with a girl singing, “I’m rocking a BMX bike, I’m rocking a muscle head car, I freestyle wherever I go, I don’t cry whenever I fall”. Heavy girl laced pop-punk with sensitive lyrics and full background choruses and a little bit of grit. Lyrics about broken hearts, and love, and I think that’s it. They sound like if The Breeders and The Muffs had a scandalous sleep-over-freestylin’ karaoke party, with the Donnas hiding in the closet video taping. Oh no! I just

found out the only female member in the band is the singer. That screws up everything. Oh well, the show must go on. - JH Darlington Louder than Morrissey Stardumb Records What a horrible start to an album. I read the title alone and expected nothing but shit. Who the fuck in the “Punk Scene” wants to be linked to Morrissey? Nothing but pansies with tattoos. The picture on the cover has a guy with a neck tattoo and covered in tats. He sits there, smoking a cigarette in a diner, while wearing a Green Day T-shirt. I’m sorry, but this guy ain’t a threat.

Neither are Green Day. Neither are these guys’ tattoos. The worst threat he’s presenting is one to his health. This album is supposed to be sung entirely by a woman. I don’t believe I heard her once. Unless she sounds like Joe Queer or Ben Weasel. Weird. They play pop punk just like The Queers and Screeching Weasel, only not as good. I believe they are from Texas. Two songs are worth mentioning. The first, “Joe Queer Sux”, is only interesting because it is done in a Queers style and I think it’s a love song. The other song is “Mustang Ranch” a song about the local brothel here in Reno that is now shut down.

Although this is better than anything Blink 182 ever put out, that isn’t saying much. There’s better out there. - SB The Deed 4 song CD Demo From the death of The Strange, emerges a new Santa Cruz super group known as The Deed. Evil growling bass lines make hate with lurching guitar riffs, that seem to crawl their way up from the depths, along with sinister drum beats from hell. They do a mean Kyuss cover live as well. - JH Dirty Power Dirty Power Dead Teenager This is produced by Jack Endino which is one point in their favor already. A wall of guitars starts off the first track, and then all of a sudden I feel like I’m in that movie Singles that was like the “Seattle sound” movie and had Alice in Chains and Soundgarden and all that cheesy shit. I didn’t know grunge was still around, but I guess Dirty Power is proof that it is. I would have probably liked this in the early ‘90s, and as it is right now, this album has its moments, but it’s got some pretty cliche moments as well. - dk DRI Dirty Rotten CD Beer City Records I was never a fan of DRI so it’s no real surprise that I wasn’t super psyched to review this, but somehow I forgot to give it to someone who would like it so I’m stuck reviewing it. And what do you know, DRI has grown on me since I last heard them 10 years ago or whenever it was. Actually the reason I was never a fan of DRI was because I saw them play live in like 1988, and by then they were pretty washed up. This is a reissue of their

first LP, Dirty Rotten LP, and has some good songs. “Money Stinks”, “Reaganomics” and “No Sense” are a couple of my favorites, but I have yet to get through the whole disk.

But I will soon, because most of the songs are like 30 seconds long, perfect for those listeners with a short attention span. There’s also a shitload of live stuff (44 tracks in all), demos and even some video tracks (which didn’t even crash my computer!) so you’re sure to get your money’s worth out of this disk. Get this shit, it’s good. - dk Fighting Riley To Dwell on Dreams Melodic Emo / Punk for all your sad asses, that will make you want to cry all day and wine all night. I’m not really impressed in the least bit by this band. Considering this band didn’t even have a cd case they just have a plastic sleeve makes me think this is going to be a few kids that decided one day to start a band in their garage. But when you finally take the attempt to listen to this senseless nonsense, you realize that most of songs sound about the same, and once, just once, if moved at all by this cd, you might grip a blanket tighter or shed a tear for this pathetic excuse for a band. - BF The Fuses 7” Slamdance Cosmopolis This is a very unique 7”. You can play the cover for a bonus song. It didn’t work really well for me, but if you use a couple pennies on the needle, it will work for you. The cover song is a cover song by

Fashion. Then the first side has two songs, “The fixwas in” + “The poor need opera”, on it. This side is played at 331/2 speed. One song on the flipside called, “If the communists don’t dance”, it is played at 45 speed. All of their original songs are hopped up rocknroll with new waves rolling through. Like,The Stitches whacked out on early Talking Heads and Psychadelic Furs.

A true collectible. Seek to Own. - SB Good Clean Fun Positively Positive 1997-2002 Equal Vision Records This has got to be one of the most involved jokes I’ve ever come across. These guys claim positive straightedge vegan. They do it with the most insincere songs and hilarious songwriting. It is like I’m listening to a band be militant about being non-violent. The song “In Defense of All Life”, they proclaim, “Dad was bugging, he started to run. But he’s a meat eater so I pulled out my gun. Shot him in the back, then shot his wife. That’s how it’s got to be In Defense of All Life.”

These guys have teddy bears in masks and with straightedge symbols on ‘em. This shit rules. It is such a brilliantly done album. Very similar to the humor of the 80’s in hardcore. I’d even say that Crucial Youth are probably somehow involved with this band. Great Hardcore, though. Extremely funny songs. Well written and put together. This band should be heard by everyone. Everyone will enjoy it. SB

Gotohells Rock n Roll America Vagrant Records This is one of the rock/punk groups that I really like. I just believe they would be better on a different label.

These guys would fit perfect on Acetate or SubPop or TKO. Oh well, I still dig the shit out of them. They play a style of rock that resembles Supersuckers / AC-DC / Kiss.

American Rock N Roll Mother Fucker!!! Even though AC/DC are from Australia, I believe they are one of the biggest influences on American Rock. It is so good to drink to, you will be flat on your face before you realize you just got rocked. Do yourself a favor, get this. It has a great lady back up singer that brings a lot of depth to their sound. 11 Tracks of Rock for you Rock Junkies. - SB The Grays CT Last Man Standing Self Produced Until now I successfully managed to avoid writing these music reviews.

Not that I don’t like music; I do, and that’s why I usually don’t want to review the music cd’s that we get most of them suck. The stuff that actually gets reviewed is usually the better stuff, and even that sucks a lot, so I spare myself the pain, and disappear from Concussion HQ when the to-be-reviewed cd’s are passed around.

But a non-Concussion person I know and respect asked me to review this cd, and I’m not even bummed that I agreed to do so. From their sound, you’d think the Grays CT are an

Adeline Records band, living in Oakland and drinking Bud. But they’re not. They’re an unsigned band that lives in some shithole down south, but according to their lyrics, they hang out in the Mission district a lot, and drink Pabst and Seven and Sevens. Seven and Sevens? Isn’t that a drink for teenage girls? Maybe their poor taste in booze is the reason these guys aren’t signed, because they should be. This cd is good. Why is it good? I don’t know — that’s why I never write these reviews. I guess it’s good because these guys know how to play their instruments and the singer can sing. About half the songs talk about how fun it is to drink, with the other half of the songs expressing remorse for drinking too much and in general being drunk fuck-ups. Which is sort of schizophrenic, but I can relate.

Anyway, I’m told these guys do a decent live show, so catch up with them. Then tell all your friends how you were into these guys before they were signed, when they still wrote songs about girly drinks. - DA Hollywood Hate Product of Our Environment TKO I’ve always liked a lot of bands on the TKO label (except for Antiseen, but that’s another story), and Hollywood Hate is no exception.

Good fast punk rock, the singer has a good, gravely voice. This isn’t anything special and some of the guitar licks border on the cheesy side, but these days when something doesn’t completely suck ass then it stands out. Couple losers on this disk which I had to fast forward, but overall

good work, the vocals make the album for sure. - dk Icons of Filth Nostradannedus Go-Kart Records Considering the last time I listened to the Icons of Filth was when I was sixteen and still in high school.

Hearing this definitely brought me back to young years of punk and made me dig the 7 inch “Not on Her Majesty’s Service” out of the wood work and give it a good listen. It was nice to see that after all of these years they could still put out an album that rocks. It was no doubt that they would put out another great album. I was also surprised that they hadn’t changed their line up either and that the lyrics had been just as inspiring as before. So all you youngsters, saddle up and get this album. - BF JFA We Know You Suck: Recordings 81-83 Alternative Tentacles Jody Foster’s Army, with the help of Alternative Tentacles, have released 2 years of music from the pinnacle of their punk rock career. They are still putting out new material, but obviously their early works (20 years ago) are more raw and powerful and filled with pure anger and passion. Skate/surf rock classics like JFA, Skateboard, We Know You Suck, Preppy and Beach Blanket Bongout about bronze babes and bonghits in the sun. These, along with another 30 other tracks, make up this greatest hits album. The last 11 songs are rare and live tracks, repeating some of the previous tracks, but with different versions.

The liner notes are classic with quotes from Duane Peters, Remy Stratton, Caballero, The Vandals, and the Big Boys discussing skate rock emerging back in the 80s, when it was rebellion rather than the trendy thing to do. If you haven’t heard JFA, I don’t know how I’d really describe them except early skate hardcore-punk rock, with fast, quick bass plugs and angry yelling vocals.

They also have a smoking version of “Walk Don’t Run” by the Ventures, which sounds comparable to the original as well as a cover of War’s “Lowrider”. - JH

Leviathan Self Titled Judas Cradle Head-banging metal with long 2 minute Slayer-esque guitar solos, cliché lyrics about hell, love, pain, misery, going insane and using a razor blade to scrape your soul.

Some songs are fast and some are slow and droning. Despite the lack of originality, which is hard to find in music these days, Leviathan are a killer band. The whole sound of the band, accentuated by their lyrics is quite humorous and I hope they don’t take themselves too seriously.

Some songs sound like the Melvins while others sound like Elvis singing for Tool. The last song, Swallow, you can guess what it’s about. I suppose it’s attempting to be a metaphor, but the lyrics are the most detailed account of such an event I’ve ever heard. I’m guessing they are quite a fan. - JH Lo-lite Sidekicks Slovenly Records I have reviewed these two guys first album called...... I couldn’t tell you. Either way, this sounds pretty close to that album. Only maybe a bit more rockin’? I must say they are talented, but too repetitive. The whole album is a song chopped into fragments. I’ve heard a lot better than this, when it comes to their style. I believe these two guys are from Sweden or somewhere in that proximity. They play two man garage rock. For me, the occasional two man garage band song is welcomed. Though, if a whole album is presented and becomes repetitive, well, then my good people, I say nay. Not for me. The silver lining in this review is that if you think the White Stripes are good, you’ll be happy to know there’s better. Worth at least groovin’ to once. Then sell it for something more rockin’. - SB Los Olvidados vs. The Cliftons Skate Rock Fight 7” SuperSpeedway Music I wanted this, the minute I saw the ad for it. Good fortune has smiled upon me. The vinyl is cherry red see-through. There are two songs, on each side, from each band. Los Olvidados play great old skate punk.

The Cliftons play hard dirty

skatepunk. I really like The Cliftons a great deal. They would probably not exist without the influence of bands like Los Olvidados, Free Beer, or The Faction. So, it is a great thing, this here 45. The sleeve artwork is Fuckin’ Awesome. It is a record collectors warm feeling. You should own this and the albums that both of these bands have released.

- SB Manda and the Marbles More seduction Go Kart Records Fashionable, loud, catchy punk rock, with a girl singer sounds to me like The Donnas meet L7 and it sounds like the rest of the people in the band probably should be girls and lyrics that just make me want to get a sex change and be a girl for one day. Not to say at all the music isn’t good because it definitely is but I think that too many bands take the simple formula of one word songs and songs about being on the road just way too often for me to make a judgment call on their lyrics, but they are catchy and you just might see me singing them out the window of my car. But then again, I’m not that lame. - BF Mofos Supercharged on Alcohol Hell Beach Records My personal favorite pick of the issue is the fuzzed out surf guitar rock of Mofos. Every song is an instrumental, and they’re all really, really good. This blows away every other surf guitar band, leaving them tangled in their lease coughing up salt water on the beach with kelp coming out of their ears. - JH A Planet for Texas Sprechen Sie Rock Diaphragm Records Has anyone felt that for a while now you typically see punk rock lacking the kick and the thriving fun, punting humor, and laughter from local punks. If so you might want to pick of a copy of this album. It got me dancing in front of my mirror all day, ever since the second song. With anthems like “the ballad of skinhead Joe,” and “Death Rock Love Song,” you wont know when to dance or when to roll on the ground with laughter. This really caught me off guard at first until you really listen to the lyrics, but I still can’t tell whether or these guys are being serious or just laughing at themselves. But you can somewhat guess fair enough by the name of the album. Definitely a buy if want a good laugh. - BF Portrait of Poverty Poor Princes of Punk Power Sudden Death Records

Well, both of these CD covers are certainly pretty menacing, but only one one will leave the victor.

After weeks of study and countless hours of cover art scrutiny we came to the conclusion that clearly the Molly Hatchet cover is the most fearsome. The reasons were quite simple, the viking on the cover of the Molly Hatchet CD is in full gallup towards the victim, battleaxe drawn and prepared to kill. In contrast the 50 cent cover shows Fifty relaxed almost too confident as if to say "It's OK, I'll kill you when I feel like it." Another point of interest on the Molly Hatchet cover is that there are already carcasses around the viking, he is obviously a ruthless killer. So, kudos to Molly Hatchet for winning and 50, sorry you got shot 9 times and stabbed by Ja Rule but it ain't nothin' but a battle boo. - LC

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First song on this here disc of tasty goodness is reminiscent of RKL. In my book, that’s top notch Skatepunk. The picture of them inside shows them drinkin’ and rockin’ out on the flat bottom of a ramp. So they’ve got everything going for them in my book. Fuck, I just lost my book. What the fuck was I saying? Oh yeah, these guys rule your little skatelovin’, I got concussion on my belly world.

They’ll smoke crack in front of you without offering any. Yeah, you know what I’m saying. That old fuck

you up in the right style....sickness.

Get this if you want to have one of the best current day skatepunk bands around. They are from Tacoma, Wash. They got great songs.

“Smokin’ Resin”, “Portrait of Poverty”, and “Scumbags in Paradise” are just a few of the sick ass tracks. What the fuck am I doing talking about it for? If you don’t get this, then you shouldn’t exist. - SB A Radio With Guts Beat Heart Sweet Stereo Stardumb Records Expect nothing and be pleasantly surprised. That is the story of this here piece of wax. The first song is heavy Jawbreaker styled punkpop. I like Jawbreaker. They (Jawbreaker) just put out “Etc.” which was an album of outtakes, comp tracks, and B-sides. I really enjoyed it the first hundred times I heard it. Now I want more from Jawbreaker. Only problem is, they are no more. Blake is doing that “Jets to Brazil” band now. They are too soft for my tastes or maybe the fact that Blake had his throat fixed. They just don’t have that rough gravelly lead voice that I loved with Jawbreaker. So here you go, a band that sounds almost identical to old Jawbreaker.

They even have three members just like Jawbreaker. A lot of songs based around smoking, women and drinking. What other band wrote songs like that? Either way, I am truly impressed with this release. I guess, the lead singer was, also, in The Connie Dungs. These guys sound nothing like them. If Jawbreaker were still around and I didn’t know all their good material. I’d say these guys should find their own sound, but in this case, I like the filler. It only works like this with certain things. There’s twelve tracks on it. I liked every one of them. If you don’t appreciate music, you won’t appreciate this. P.S. I’ve listened to this several times since this review.

I must make a statement that will piss off a lot of people. That statement is “This band has taken Jawbreakers sound and made it BETTER!” I shit you not. If you like Jawbreaker here’s a band that has shown they can contend or surpass them. Here’s a taste of the lyrical poetics “She smokes menthols.....Burns ‘em down like churches.” Fuckin’ A. - SB Rise Above Black Flag Tribute 24 songs to benefit the West Memphis Three.

In the age when Kelly Osbourne remakes “Poppa Don’t Preach” and is pushed by the media to be the coolest and hippest new thing, it is nice to see remakes that actual are a good idea and worth a shit. Black Flag being one of the best bands ever, I feel that 24 cover songs can’t be that bad especially if most of the songs are about drinking. I am unaware of the West Memphis Three incident but have heard they were wrongly accused of a murder because the way they act, look, or something of that nature. I am truly sorry for these boys if they are innocent. On the other hand, I am not sympathetic to Henry Rollins selling out and sobering up! I think he sucks now. I think he is a sellout and is not worth the ink that is tattooed on him. Thirsty and Miserable

is covered by Lemmy and is fuckin’ unreal! (grab a case of PBR before listening to this one) No one else could have complimented it so well.

Tim Armstrong and Lars of the skaqueer band Rancid finally pull their heads out of their asses to get pissed and give “No More” a screaming new face lift which leaves you thinking, “Why don’t these guys sing like this all the time?” Chuck D sings with Henry on the opening song which is pretty dope and I know the rest of the album pretty much kicks corporate America in the balls. The next best thing to having Black Flag return to the skate punks they originally were is to buy this album and pretend. God Bless drunkin angry Punk.

- Jon Steele Sahara Hotnights Jennie Bomb Jetset Records Of course, 4 rocking chicks are going to get compared to the Donnas, but I don’t see hardly any resemblance between the two bands. The Donnas sound like the Ramones and Sahara Hotnights do not. These Swedish rockers have a style of their own, that is somewhere between old rock and roll and punk. Their 3rd album, Jennie Bomb, has finally crossed the Atlantic, to reach the US. Apparently, they have a song in the Jackass movie, and a video directed by Jeff Tremaine which I’m sure is pretty artsy and cool. I don’t really have anything specific to say about these chicks, except they rock it pretty hard, mixing punk with melodic rock, new wave, pop

punk, and metal and that they’re cute Swedish chicks so I’d like to check them out live. This cd is more complex and varies between songs more than that other chick rocker band I mentioned earlier, that they sound nothing at all like. I always trip out that bands from different countries sing in English. It’s like me starting a punk band and singing in French or something. That would be strange...wait, I just had an idea.. JH Sensus Inertia Self Produced Someone took the time to send us this CD all the way from England, so I’ll take the time to review it. You might like this if you are a girl in your teens or early twenties and are looking for a nice, safe band that would go good in your CD changer with the Dave Matthews Band, Coldplay, John Mayer, and the rest of the pseudo alternative sensitive boy band chick rock CDs you own. - dk The Shakedowns Move VMS Records Every time I go to the bar looking for a good time and see some moron pick a fight with some young kid that can’t hold his own, I think to myself, those morons could be anyone in this band, who are just so full of themselves considering the totally hipster cover. Well, let me just give you a reminder. You ain’t no rock stars, and with luck, there

is help for all of you. Remind yourselves that it is possible to better yourselves and your music if you do two things; one, get counseling, and two, kill someone in your band.

Preferably, the singer because after listening to this cd all the way through, I got the most horrific headache and he probably wants to die anyway. And why not, you guys probably want go out like rock stars, like everyone else. It could be worse though this could be these guys only source of income - BF Solace 13 Meteor City Records “Fans of Down, Audioslave, CDC and Soundgarden must hear ‘13’” is what it said on the promo blurb that accompanied this disk. Not a good sign, considering that all of those bands are poser stoner rock bands at best. Yup, sounds like Soundgarden with a bad singer.

Maybe this stuff is ok if you’re in middle school and it’s a good alternative to the safer things on Top 40 radio, but I’m 30 and this shit is weak. Sorry.- dk Sonic Dolls Riot at the Sheep Dog Trials Stardumb Records The jacket to this record has a heavy 60’s garage-punk look to it.

The music contained within the vinyl grooves is more straight punk with bits of pop. I believe these guys are from Germany. You couldn’t tell it from the vocals or lyrics, though. I guess I would add the garage sound

to the punk and pop sounds. So here’s my final judgement: Very good Garage/Punk/Pop band from Germany. Better than anything on the radio right now. - SB The Spits S/T Slovenly Records I’ve met and hung out with The Spits. They are funny Skatepunks.

Their first album was a very skate punkish Ramones sound. This new album has more keyboard guitar. It is a bit arty in a violent manner. I like it a great deal. My buddy Spencer told me these guys are his favorite band. A Skatepunk band loved by Skatepunks. You just can’t go wrong. They play drop by gigs here, in little bars, the way it should be. Seek, Listen, & Destroy.

SB Star Strangled Bastards Whose War is it?

Loud Energy Recordings If any one listens or cares what I say, or follows my opinion in these reviews to establish “their own” opinion in purchasing music, you have learned how I like and judge music. With that being said, I enjoy, beer-spitting, punch in the fuckin’ face, spikes in your eye, hardcore punk! Mohawks and knuckle-sandwiches. These guys are pissed about religion, war, and government issues. They contain “An Angst” that is lacking in this day and age in music and the scene. Star Strangled picks up where you left off! This album has a backbone and balls enough to drive that point across. If 107

I had to compare them to another band (it would be an injustice), it would be The Exploited and AFI meets Reagan Youth. The album is consistent throughout, with songs like “Unacceptable” “War Crimes”, and “Keep Punk Alive” as well as “Thief”, which contains a scream for at least 35seconds or longer. As with every good underground band, their theme song rips! This album will have you skating tough in no time flat... Orange County’s best! JS The Starting Line Say it like you mean it Drive-Thru Records This is one of those emo poppunk bands that are struggling to get on MTV. The sound is patented. I saw another one of these bands on MTV the other day. They were called, New Found Glory. They sucked and so does this. This is so far from what punk is, that it might as well be The Smiths. These guys will probably be featured on the next cover of Rolling Stone and have their mansions looked at on MTV. It is so discouraging to hear mainstream media place the “PUNK” label on these kinds of bands. What exactly is so punk about these kooks?

Nothing. Maybe they bought some shit from Hot Topic and wore it once in a video or something. The only things that I would say are good about this album are the fact that the sleeve is huge. So I’m going to paint on it. The other being, the color of the vinyl itself. It is a marble bluish gray, cool. So there it is.

This band sucks so bad, that they will probably be millionaires by the time this reaches the presses. - SB S.O.D.: Stormtroopers Of Death Speak English or Die (Silver Edition 1 Million Sold) Megaforce Records Inc. I’m not exactly sure when this was released, but that doesn’t matter.

What matters is that this is one of the bands that blazed the path for Hardcore and Thrash Metal in the Salad Days. You know the 1980’s. It is amazing how much this album holds up after all this time. When I listen to it I can’t help but to move.

You should all know this album, but for those that don’t, I have a quick tip. Own this or be an ignorant fool.

I’m a big fan of M.O.D. / S.O.D. / early ANTHRAX that shit is still tougher than all of this shit being passed off as hardcore. But I digress...There are bonus new songs called “Identity” & “Go”. Also, there are about 14 or so songs from the Live in Tokyo 1999 S.O.D. show.

Great shit. Worth going after. SB The Streets Original Pirate Material Locked On/689 Recordings The streets... can be chunky or smooth, and sometimes they have cracks. You gotta be careful of cracks at night because you’ll get tossed, especially if you’re pickled and skateboarding. The streets in Santa Cruz are contaminated with dirts who like to harrass every breathing human for money. They suck the joy out of walking in the sun as they flood the side of the streets that get light. Anyway, The Streets from the UK are way better than the streets of Santa Cruz. In 108

fact, I haven’t had an album on such heavy rotation since the Supersuckers came out with their country album. I’m not sure how to label these guys - fuck labels anyhow. Original Pirate Material is so good you just need to go out and buy a copy, put it in the stereo, and proceed to track three, “Let’s Push Things Forward.” As they say, “...no sales pitch, no media hype.” You will get hooked, be forewarned. - SD

know, Wayne Kramer and a bunch of other ex-rock stars are on this album. I guess Sonny Vincent was in some band called the Testors that played with Iggy, the Cramps and other New York bands in the early 70’s. But what do I know, in 1976 I was four years old watching fucking Sesame Street and drinking apple juice. This album is ok, but I don’t know if all of these guest appearances can save it. - dk

Supersuckers Motherfuckers Be Trippin’ Mid-Fi Recordings

The Vindictives 7” Nuttin’ for Christmas/Jingle Bells Stardumb Records

Man this album is a disappointment.

With the exception of their country album(s), every Supersuckers album has gotten progressively worse since Sacrilicious. It’s really too bad, they used to be one of my favorite bands, I even saw them play on New Year’s this year and they played a damn good set-except for their new material, which sucked. This album is horrible. Slow, plodding, poor melodies and overall has nothing going for it. Even the best song on the album, “Pretty Fucked Up”, isn’t that good compared to the rest of their material.

It’s no wonder Ron Heathman wanted to quit the band if this is the direction Eddie wants to go in.

Personally, I think they should just give up the rock act and stick with their country gigs. That shit is the shit, while this shit is just shit. - dk

Glossy comic sleeve. Clear thick vinyl inside. A bonus postcard.

Snotty pop-punk. Both songs are hilarious. I have enjoyed the Vindictives before, but this hits the spot in this holiday season. I usually don’t prop pop punk, but this is violent and vulgar enough to pass certain standards. It’s a 7” so you have to look for it. Do, though, find it.

You will be pleased and very merry...in a nasty sorta knives and dildos way. - SB

Tvh Night Raid on Lisbon Street Flapping Jet Records At first glance this disc looked too kooky for me. So the cover art is beyond me, but the music is not. I opened it up to find that this band is a extension of the 70’s S.F. Rock n Roll band, “Crime”. The band is made up of three guys. Johnny Strike (original Crime member), Jimmy Crucifix, and Biff O’Hara. They redo the Crime classic “Hot Wire my Heart”. Along with covering Sonic Youth’s “Pacific Coast Highway” and R. Johnson’s “ Last Fair Deal Gone Down”. All of their originals are good Rock n Roll. If you like Real Good Rock music. THen you should seek this out. I will be keeping this one. - SB Ultra Maroon Lifeless like Blood Star Time Records Judging from the first two songs I would have thought that the band was just an instrumental band, but the horrible attempts at vocals on the later songs it just makes sense why a band would do this. I know as much as we would want to go back to 1992, we can’t. The music from that time genre is gone. With a band like this I would just have to say, give up while you’re ahead.

Most of the songs sound indefinitely similar and with song titles, “I wanna be a Dolphin” and “Zombie Dirt”, I believe I rest my case. - BF Sonny Vincent The Good the Bad the Ugly Acetate Records Finally, something that doesn’t suck immediately. Well at least the first song was good and fast. Second song kind of sucked but then they got it back in gear. This is early 70’s MC5-style rock, and what do you

V/A 3 Minute Heroes Pelado Records Truly one of my favorite comp’s since Start your Engines or Going after Pussy. The roster boasts so many bands I can’t begin to tell you.

So I will throw names and feelings.

Dimestore Haloes “Saturdays Heroes” (Business cover) done to the point of perfection. I can’t get tired of hearing it. Flash Bastard “Sudden Impact” fuckin’ rules. Life of Riley “And so it goes” sounds so much like old NoFx it’s amazing, but still kick ass. One of my current favorite bands, American Heartbreak, do the title track to their album “Postcards from Hell”.

This band has ex-members of Exodus, Mordred, Jetboy, and Bay City Rollers. You like rock n roll?

Then you like this. Here’s some of my favorites just rattled off; The Riffs, The Superbees, Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs (They do a killer cover of X’s Los Angeles), The Chemo Kids, Dead Empty, Two point Eight, et cetera. Honestly there’s not a bad song on the whole thing in my opinion. True Rock’n’Roll through and through. It’s cheap to boot. Buy wise guy. - SB V/A Stepping Stone Vol. 1 The Best Bands You Have Never Heard The Militia Group These people have to be off their frickin' rockers. The best bands you've never heard .....and hopefully never will again. I mean it isn't just complete trash. THere is one song on the whole comp. that deserves credit. They are "The Reaction". They played a great heavy rock punk song. Stood out like a light. All the songs on this are done by different bands. Each band gets one song.

Every damn song sounded similar if not exactly the same. Now, even though any form of rock is better than hip hop or current day rap.

That doesn't mean you should play rock all weak. The style that most of these bands had was similar to Seaweed or J Church, if they sucked. I mean they can't even ripoff another band worth a shit.

Don't waste your time on this. - SB

V/A Go Kart vs the Corporate Giant Vol. 3 Go-Kart Records The hologram cover of this disc rules! Sex and Violence. It has the Go-Kart kid punching the Green Corporate Giant in the face. Next to it is a cutie watching from the side, that winks at you. The music contained on this disc is far more hardcore in direction than previous volumes of these comp.’s. Lunachicks are on here. They are the only staple between each volume. You get 30 songs. My favorites are: Manda and The Marbles, G.B.H., Two Man Advantage, Heads vs. Breakers, Sick on the Bus, The Hellbenders, Lunachicks, and Leftover Crack. I really have enjoyed this series of discs. This one is my least favorite of them all. Still I do like half the songs. So it isn’t that bad. Plus, you kids like that new hardcore. This disc is for you. - SB V/A: Badsville Part Concert Film, Part Documentary, All Rock N Roll Acetate Records/Cinema Diablo You might think you’re cool because you own Decline or Suburbia or Filth & the Fury or Rude Boy or the other great unmentioned flix. Well, I’m here to tell you that this is one of the best films about the music industry and the “scene” that you’ve never seen. Just the concert footage alone is kickass. Then you get to hear a little bit from most of the bands. There’s funny tour stories and business horror stories.

There’s nudity and cuties being naughty. There’s a day with Motochrist, but most of all there is kickass, rippin’ raw raunchy Rock N Roll. The story begins with each member of different bands telling you about their dealings with being rock’n’rollers. It’s set in The Lost City of Angels (Los Angeles) in the current day scene. To summarize the content of this movie would lessen the power of it. So go buy it right now. More incentive, you say you need? Well, here’s your line up: Throwrag, Dragbeat, Pygmy Love Circus, The Hangmen, The Streetwalkin’ Cheetahs, Motochrist, Bubble, Lo-Ball, Texas Terri & The Stiff Ones, Extra Fancy, Man Scouts of America, Coyote Shivers, The Newlydeads, and The Superbees. All of whom have a video in the extras, on the disc. As I said before, this is essential. You should be thinkin’ about how you’re gonna get it right now. -SB Music Nerds DA - Dave Amell SD - Sarah Drexler BF - Brian Fisher JH - Jonathan Hay DK - Davoud Kermaninejad SB - Paul Sick Boy Morrison JS - Jon Steele

we didn’t get too many good slam photos this issue i guess. michael radziewicz sent us the photo above of drew porter attempting to slide that rail and getting sacked. the photo on the other page is lee’s friend burt who got hit by a car. the video stills are of casey lindstrom and peter hewitt, both of whom are always good for some slams–which is why those dudes are rad, because they slam on a professional level.

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