Remember the Texas Skatepunk Scrapbook? Bill Daniel has been on the road touring with his many artistic endeavors. He had a show with the same base of material under the title Texas Punx Pix. Check out the link for coverage as well as a chance to buy some prints (old school darkroom, not digital!) for the very reasonable price of $25. That’s my kind of art! The show pics are different form the ones we host on Skate and Annoy. I think Bill said he has something like 10,000 negatives to chose from, so it’s a different show all the time. He basically photographed every band, local or touring, that came through his part of Texas in the early 80’s. What do you shoot when there are no shows to go to? The skate scene! Photos Clockwise – Top left: Pfluerville ditch, Misfits, Back Flag.

There is Xerox on the Insides of Your Eyelids is the title of the skate art show happening this month at Needles & Pens gallery in San Francisco. An art exhibition exploring the realm of 1980s Skate Zines & Xerox Art featuring the zines and art of the original makers with work from : Garry S. Davis (skate fate), Tod Swank (swank zine), Thomas Campbell (joke), Chris Johanson (karma boarder), Andy Jenkins (bend), Bernie McGinn (tiki), Kevin Wilkens (7 zine), John Dettman-Lytle (naughty nomads), Mark Waters (408), Rich Jacobs (skate-edge), Jocko Weyland (elk, revenge against boredom, author of: the answer is never), Dennis Remsing (rem zine), Dan Esabrook (contort), Tim Kerr (Big Boys), Chris Shary (burly obsession zine-uk), Ron Cameron (dope zine- a blockhead mag, and skate slate), Mofo (thrasher mag photographer ), Rodger Bridges (grim ripper, powerhouse, dancing skeleton zines) Dang, I have a bunch of those zines and know some of those cats… Still something is missing… oh yeah Kilwag and Skate and Annoy! Fine! Be that way. I’m going to take my toys and go home. – Thanks to GSD for the tip.

Man, I had to get some actual skating up on this site today. Sonny Robertson sent in a few pictures a long time ago: …my favorite part of skating has always been that sense of identity in time, place, friends, music, etc. that comes from a scene, be it centered around a ditch, a ramp, skatepark, etc. We had a ramp in our small town YMCA – the Box Ramp – that was in a raquetball court, touching all four walls, and we would get people dropping in from all over the place and it was just so great to be a part of. And then to go to Dallas or Houston and see the scenes at places like the Clown Ramp, which was in a sketchy-ass section of town, was just the coolest. The whole Zorlac scene was just nuts. Wish I had been a little older at the time. I have plans to add a section that will roughly equate to “this is/was your scene” but you know how it goes with so-called plans. Rather than let them rot in my inbox (?) I’ve posted them here for your enjoyment. I’m holding out one of them for a…

Up for auction we have rare and hard to find Fisher Price Skateboard and the Little People Asian Boy who rides it. Fisher-Price Little People are an iconic toy. They started out being constructed entirely out of wood in 1960, eventually adding plastic bits and ultimately ended up being molded out of plastic completely until they were discontinued in 1990. In 1997 Fisher-Price revamped the Little People. Although they are highly detailed injection molded pieces, (seen above on the right) they are ironically somehow more generic looking than the very simple original versions. The classic little people had a school play set in the late 80’s that came with a skateboard toy for the kids to ride. It looks like it has bindings (kook!) but surely is less painful to ride than the new version that is more akin to a butt plug.

This week’s SOTW is a Jason Oliva shot of Christian Hosoi launching a backside air at Jeff Roenings ramp in New Jersey circa 1986. The larger size photo has a link to Jason’s recollections on the session. Check it out.

… are soon parted. While sifting through the surf and skate detritus at 4Q Conditioning the other day, I became obsessed with an old model of Rat Fink on a skateboard called Superfink. All of the sudden I needed one right away, despite the fact that I was completely not into monsters and hotrod stuff as a kid and preferred WWII airplane models. The original Superfink model came out in 1964, but was reissued by Revell in 2004. Ed Roth’s official site is out of stock, but I found one soon enough for $13 bucks. The vintage ones don’t appear to be showing up for sale anywhere, so I pulled the trigger and it showed up on my door step a few days later. As usual, I dissected and over-documented almost all the fun out of it. As a result, I’ve taken to adding the word “fink” to words whenever I can. “Fink” is such a cool word. Repeat it over and over in your head. If you don’t like it, then fink you!

Man, when I don’t make a timely post you guys get all over me. I was saving this for a rainy day, but I keep getting tips on it, so here it is. Modern Design Classics remastered with skateboards. This is a collection called Skate Study House now showing at a gallery in France called Colette. They’ve got one of those web sites that is expertly made and fun to look at, but is a pain in the ass to actually use. To get to the pictures you have to click on the jumping News robot and then look for the dancing Gallery robot. It’s all in Flash and there’s no direct link. Skate House Study is supposed to be an homage to the Case Study House project, which was an expirement where major architects were commissioned to design inexpensive modern homes during the 40’s up until 1966. I’m not sure how they are an homage other than the style of furniture (sans skateboards) would have fit well in those houses, except for the inexpensive part. The collection was made by Pierre-André Senizergues and Gil Le Bon de Lapointe. Who are those guys? You may recognize PAS as the man…

Sorry this has taken so long. I set it out weeks ago, but none of the decks really excited me too much, so it’s been tough building the enthusiasm to actually sit down and do it!! This month the column is brought to you by the sounds of The Jam. All Mod Cons actually. Bruce Foxton and Rick Buckler are currently touring with 2 other guys as From The Jam. They play all of The Jam classics, and in Jam style, not the hippy crap style that Weller does these days. From hat I hear they put on a kick ass show. I’ve got a ticket for the Chicago show, so we shall see. eBay Watch: December 2007

Cal Streets has an impressive collection of vintage skateboarding ads from the 70’s. This particular 1977 advert for Lan Skateboards is from volume five of eight. (Update: They’ve since changed the organization of the gallery, so that link has been removed.) Those were they days when if you needed an ad concept all you had to do was have a possibly underage and definitely under-enthusiastic girlfriend in a risqué product shot. – “Come on Larry, let’s get this over with. I have to get back to my class at cosmetology school.” There is some funky stuff in there for sure. The entire archive is full of gems from the past. On the plus side, Cal Streets transcribed some of the ad copy and included the publication and date. I found the site because someone contacted us looking for an obscure piece of skateshop history called the accu-drill. They included a picture link that led me there. now that we are on the subject, we have a column called eBay Watch, but we don’t have a warehouse full of old skateboards. you’d be surprised at how many requests we get. One bone to pick, Cal Streets has “refurbished” their adverts, some…

MC hipped me to this interview but declined to post it for some reason. He said it wasn’t skateboard related, and I had to remind him that we also cover rock and/or roll on occasion. I am here to tell you that you should check out the Mark Mothersbaugh interview on Fecal Face Dot Com conducted by Andreas Trolf. Andreas is an admitted fanboy, but he also tackled the tough questions like WTF is up with all the DEVO songs in TV commercials. As a fanboy myself, I was afraid that the answer and indeed the whole interview would be as unsatisfying as Smooth Noodles, but after reading it I am pleased to pronounce that I remain as devolved as I ever was. We are all Devo. The shot above is Mark is standing front of one of the handmade rugs he is currently exhibiting. It’s good stuff. There was something a bit odd about them, and I didn’t realize they were rugs just by looking at the pictures. You may have seen Mark as a recurring guest doing sketches on the kids show Yo Gabba Gabba. Strangely, that didn’t come up in the interview, or maybe it isn’t so…