Zero Hero from Zorlac Skateboards, circa 1991. I’ve watched this video quite a few times. It has some really good vert skating, and the kind of street skating that still had tons of potential behind it. More about Zorlac Skateboards after the jump!
Zorlac Skateboards was the brainchild of Jeff Newton, a 70’s freestyle skater, and Thrasher photographer. Using his mom’s garage, he started the Texas based company. Jeff organized numerous backyard contest series, ditch contests, and founded the infamous “Shut Up and Skate” Events. With pros like Craig Johnson, Jeff Phillips, Dan Wilkes, and John “Tex” Gibson, he created the first Texas skate team. Zorlac later perished. Some say it was due to shoddy product, or the fact they were no longer a Texas based company, having moved to California.
Zorlac’s art was the product of Pushead (Brian Schroeder), a punk rock artist most famous for his work with Metallica and The Misfits. He was also responsible for creating the record labels Pusmort and Bacteria Sour. He was the frontman for the band Septic Death, which also featured his artwork.
Jeff Newton is now reprinting the old Zorlac designs, but his new focus is Gringo Skateboards. Gringo is a Texas based company, so I’m assuming he got back to his Texas roots.
If you visit the Zorlac Homepage, theres a shot of Jimmy Finley at Pier Park.
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run time: 48 min 1 sec – Check it Out
12 comments
James Finley
You’re a badass vet Brad. Much love. How all this shit really went down was Craig and I were at a Newton get together at his home. Craig and I were in the shop smelling some cocaine. The original machines were there, graphics, everything needed to print shit. So we started fucking with stuff. I’m looking up to Craig because he’s taller and he’s Craig fresh off a brain Injury motorcycle crash. Fucking Newton realizing we’re missing from party comes and finds us almost breaking stuff. “Fuck that! Zorlac is here!” So he started gringo to test the waters. There’s three facts
todd
Newtron sold out Texas Zorlac circa 88 but allegedly started selling reissued Zorlacs in the past resurgence and got the cease and desist I guess. His book would be kick ass!
paul
didnt zorlac make a second video?
brad
Yeah that propbaly wasn’t professional, but now its done. Jimmy’s cool, I met him at Burnside once. They love their cats man!
Rich
Brad – Are there HIPAA issues with broadcasting your client’s names? If not, what kind of animals do they keep? 🙂
House of Neil
Zorlac was owned by somebody else, so he couldn’t use that name at first. He reacquired the rights to the name and then started rebranding Gringo decks with the Zorlac name.
brad
Hey I just figured out that I am Jimmy Finley/and his gal’s vet!
brad
Randy can explain that Mr. Chompy.
chompy
I would imagine most people would be buying the Zorlac decks because of the nostalgia, which doesn’t exist for his Gringo line. It’s strange that he would try to start up a completely different name at all…
House of Neil
and I disagree about Gringo being his focus. Gringo is all but dead. Check out the product pages. Tons of great looking Zorlac stuff, while the Gringo product page is very thin and very uninspired.
House of Neil
by the time this video came out, wasn’t Newton no longer involved? And weren’t they in CA by this time?
Kilwag (k.ed)
Yes! The video that made made me ask you to join Skate and Annoy. I was reading one of your other posts a while ago and started digging around for more old videos online and found this Zorlac video. Here were my thoughts in order:
So.. getting back to #1. I never knew they even made a video.
I met a girl (woman, I guess) working at a restaurant Portland who noticed my Gringo sweatshirt. She said she used to date Craig Johnson and knew Newton as well.