Eric Koston is featured on the cover here in some original Es Koston’s and the same Four-Star wind pants that he wears to help him do that humongous backside flip in “The Chocolate Tour.” This appeared during a reboxing of some old magazines and briefly I toyed with the idea of doing a some type of Police Informer spoof with old CCS and Cali4niaSk8express catalogs, but later saw that somebody else already did it. Most interesting are the board graphics and the shoes. Slick bottoms were gasping their last breaths, there’s a nice Andy Roy Anti-Hero, and there are boards from 23, Invisible, Acme, Scarecrow and Wu-Tang. This was around the time when Birdhouse was beginning to bank off Tony Hawk’s X-game reign, and Flameboy and Wet Willy rode high in the saddle. The Kris Markovich circle-K Duffs shoes are in here, along with two pages of Axions and the beloved DC Boxers. There are only two pairs of Vans and “loose fit” is the watchword for the pants section.
By the way, what’s become of Police Informer lately?
Our task this weekend is to watch this Kevin Taylor part and ponder how this did not make it into “State of Mind” as his section (though I’d argue for sticking with the three-step frontside k-grind for the last trick). Execution is mostly flawless and there’s even some of those high-speed runs that have been missing from a lot of his post-Aesthetics footage. The line under the bridge and the kickflip backside lipslide (frontside boardslide?) and the chain-hop to backside lipslide are all highlights. This dude is one of those who is a genuine pleasure to watch skate, if only because nearly every photo he has put out has this explosive quality to it, and it’s cool to see in motion. Stevie Williams should put this dude on DGK next and complete the circle.
So: in the last few weeks, JR Blastoff retired to the tune of a logo graphic, Nike scooped Koston, Heath Kirchart channeled Joaquin Phoenix on the TWS red carpet and Brewce Martin clung to life following a freak accident with a tire mounting machine. Strictly speaking yall can be forgiven if you didn’t notice that the yellow, coned wheels are coming off the skateboard business, while the powers that be do their damnedest to hold it all together, up to and including pro model shoes for Kyle Leeper and Shuriken Shannon. Perhaps it is time for a collective Bad Boys 2 moment.
First there was the nasty fight over who may nurse Active Mailorder back to health… because sometimes, “buy-two-clearance-items-get-one-free” deals just can’t get bros buying flame graphic boardshorts again. Zumiez made a play with designs toward creating some sort of mall-shop conglomerate, but couldn’t close the deal; the ultimate winners of the $5.2 million Active auction chose to remain nameless for reasons that remain their own (think they’re from Florida).
In a similar battle for a faded, yesteryear skate brand, Kareem Campbell issued a big “nuh uh” Tweet towards Circa, regarding the latter’s claimed ownership of the storied Axion footwear trademark. It’s hard to think who’d do better by this company, which had in its heyday the Guy Mariano model, a hot team and Kevin Taylor’s stab at a running shoe. As far as I know they’re currently counting on Brian Wenning to lead the charge back into the mosh pit that is the skate shoe market, which seems like the type of crazy-like-a-fox move the post-MNC Kareem would green-light, so maybe there’s room for the two parties to get together on this.
Elsewhere, Jamie Thomas’s Black Box distribution recruited Frank Messman, a known wizard with powers to conjure profits from skateboard sales. His brief is said to include constructing elaborate financial hedges against the shifting prices of Canadian hard-rock maple, urethane and black leather dye. Messman is familiar to some as the dude who “turned World around,” but considering Messman’s potential supernatural powers this actually could have been a back-door Trojan Horse power move by the Chief to head off competition in the past through time travel. (Terminator part 4 release this summer only a coincidence?) Regardless these are tough times indeed. Jamie Thomas famously tests the work ethic of his flow kids in the trenches of the Black Box warehouse; could traveling sales rep responsibilities await willing amateurs? Highly paid pros set to work devising a comeback strategy for Monster Trucks?
One idea to get the industry back on the rails that’s been floated by multiple industry leaders is that old chestnut, the Olympics. This would “Grow the Sport” while simultaneously putting skateboarders alongside soccer and basketball players, thus earning them the respect of couchbound Americans that they may richly deserve. A similar gambit in the late 1980s resurrected the ping-pong industry, which had been all but dead after star paddleman Jerry Rogerman quit the sport to focus on a career in hair rock.
At Boil the Ocean blog the tendency is to believe that skateboarding in the Olympics is a bad idea, not because of any evil intentions by the IOC or the IASC or even Tony Iommi, all of whom are upstanding persons with nothing but the purest of intentions for athletic pursuits of all varieties. More problematic is the still-fresh memory of poor Bode Miller, pilloried in the press for his love of a good time, and to make it plain, some fear the same thing might happen to the gentle Fred Gall.
A better plan, of course, was already dreamed up by the powers at K-Swiss, who stunned the skate industry and rational thinkers everywhere by naming none other than Greg Lutzka “creative director.” Video evidence follows, for those who haven’t seen it already.
Kareem Campbell was many things–legendary skater, mid-90s cultural architect, Peralta-caliber talent scout, semi-convincing skit actor–but the title of successful businessman continues to elude him, even with all those Tony Hawk Pro Skater appearances. Plenty of dudes have abandoned the board for the darkman role with varying degrees of success, but what made Kareem’s gradual exit from mags and videos suck so bad wasn’t the steady decline of his companies but how raw of a skater he was, even up to the point where he disappeared.
Crailtap linked to a clip from the last Axion footwear tour the other day, and in between Javier Nunez generally being underrated and Devine Calloway ripping all over the place there’s more than a few tricks from Kareem and he still had it, even half-assing it at demos (or full-assing it in the case of the switch hardflip). It’s probably way past the point to hope for any kind of comeback, and his unfortunate link-up with ATM and the supposed Axion revival really do not count. I’m talking more the kickflips over oil drums and the manhandled rail tricks. Those were some good years though. There’s another Kareem-related post in the works, so expect more half-bitter nostalgia to come. But meanwhile check out Devine’s switch hurricane. Jesus christ…
boil the ocean 