Street skating. Get Some.

In my never ending quest to acquire vintage skateboard exploitation music that nobody wants to hear but me and maybe one other guy, I found this 1988 cassette only release by the Christian rap group called Megamouth. This ons is listed on eBay for $80, and that’s no typo. I asked the seller about it: This cassette’s rarity and value are due to the fact that it is among the more obscure releases from Terry Taylor, a wunderkind in the Christian alternative music field (both as a producer and as an artist himself, with his bands Daniel Amos, Swirling Eddies, and Lost Dogs). Since this was a cassette-only release aimed at the Christian children’s market, a very small niche market, this title is pretty rare. I thought I’d shop around and look for a more reasonably priced way to hear Getting Vertical (By Trustin’ The Lord), but the only other option is spending $100 at Amazon. Knowledgeable sources like the Holy Hip Hop DataBASE say the two Megamouth releases didn’t find much of an audience. Maybe it was ahead of it’s time, predating Colby’s Place by a year.

Bootz and Glitz has a roundup of some skateboard exploitation songs from the 70’s. Some of the tracks appear on This is Skateboard Music, and a bunch of them have been featured here already, but there are a couple new ones. These guys up top are the Swedish band called the Boppers. They may look like a late 50’s early 60’s act, but they were in fact a 70’s revival act. I’m still not sure that the first track from the Downhill Racers belongs in that post. Check out Bootz and Glitz. – Thanks to Eric Shea for the tip.

Skateboard as fashion accessory. This time from Vogue Pelle, which I thought was Italian Vogue, were it not for the existence of Vogue Italia. And there you have it. I guess this is a step above Teen Vogue.

This spread is from the 1977 Theodor Seuss Geisel book titled Please Try to Remember the First of Octember, written under the pen name of Theo LeSeig, as in the case of all the children’s books he wrote but others illustrated. It seems he saved the Dr Seuss name for books that he both wrote and illustrated. Notice that LeSieg spelled backwards is… Geisel. What a clever man, if I do say so, er, uhmmm, myself. Enlarge-o-rama.

What does this web commercial have to do with skateboarding? Well nothing if this isn’t pro skateboarder Alex Olson. I wasn’t sure at first, but I think it’s an actual real product. Girls love Alex Olson. I mean, obviously Girl does, but girls do too. – Thanks to Freakbeatfuzz for the tip. UPDATE: DUH. Forgot to include the video. It’s there now.

Yes, it’s Jim Henson day on Skate and Annoy. Here’s a bit from the first season of Fraggle Rock, something I have admittedly not seen more than a few seconds of before now. My wife says she loved that show as a kid, but I married her anyway… It’s from a 1983 episode called the Garden Plot. A Fraggle Rock regular known as Traveling Matt makes a visit Venice Beach and takes a spin on some sort of weird Powell knock off deck. Check out the Carrot Top lookalike. Thanks to Kevin for pointing the camera at the TV!

I was at a spot recently where I joked that I could have used one of these bungee cord launchers. At Gabriel Park here in Portland there is a love seat on a banked wall. I’ve tried on several occasions to make it over and even come close, but the trouble is, it’s an uphill push. There’s a fine line between loose enough to make it and too tired to get enough speed. Trouble is, if I used a bungee cord to get the speed to make it, I would get much satisfaction from making it. I suppose if you are trying to get a photo or video footage for your sponsor this might make sense, but it rubs me the wrong way. Then again, it looks like it has the makings of a good dork session., and I’m not above using the same technology to launch a glider. Banshee Bungee.

PLUP is a Finnish company that sells bottled water. In Finland PLUP Ltd donates 10 euro cents from each PLUP bottle sold, directly to the Baltic Sea Action Group to help clean up the Baltic Sea. Stefan Lindfors shot a commercial for them, and lo and behold, it features a certain professional skateboarder by the name of Bam. It also features the music of Bam’s buddies HIM. Just in case you’re wondering, is that really Bam, or a blond guy with creepy blue eyes that just looks like him, he’s got a gratuitous skateboard on his back. Does anyone else see the irony of an environmentally conscious bottled water company? There’s no actual skating in the commercial, but there is some wakeboarding or wake skating or whatever it’s called. I know the U.S.A. is weird for sure, but so is Finland. [Source: Justskate via Kingpin. ] – Thanks to Doug for the tip.

If you have kids, you end up with Elmo crap, like it or not. This thing is called Aquadoodle. It’s some sort of plastic paper printed with an ink that is barely visible until it gets wet. My kids don’t like it that much because they have no control over the colors. And because they are kids, they’ve gone ahead and scribbled on them. This Elmo on a skateboard dates back to 2007, tomorrow I’ll show you another Sesame Street character on a skateboard from 1977.