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 at the sake of the integrity of the printed piece. As a result you occasionally get some super saturated colors and some unnatural looking areas that look retouched. Aside from that, it’s pretty excellent man. Check out Cal Streets vintage ad archives.

UPDATE: Check out the vintage ad gallery on Skate and Annoy.

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 strange as Andreas probably doesn’t have little kids.

Get in the mood for the Mark Mothersbaugh interview by watching Freedom of Choice before those greedy bastards at Viacom have it removed. There’s skateboarding in that video, so there.

Separated at birth: This photo of my old friend Jay taken circa ’85 in suburban Illinois, and this photo of Mike Blake at the North Vancouver Canadian Nationals in 1980. No, not the skaters or the action by any means, but the graffiti for sure. It even takes the hatred a little longer to filter out to the Midwest. Or at least it did before the Interwebs™! [Photo: Right – Calstreets]

Granted, the site is named Hypebeast, but they are reporting that the Disney corporation has Christian Hosoi to design some limited edition skate decks and apparel. No actual confirmations yet, so maybe it was just an excuse to make that cool graphic. Old Walt must be (rock and) rolling in his grave, except for his cryogenically frozen head. – Thanks to JF for the tip.

Some time in 2003 Steve Grover was skating by himself at the West Linn skatepark in the middle of the day. Steve Olson showed up out of the blue and took a few runs. Then he got out an old Polaroid camera and asked Steve Grover if he would snap a few shots. Grover said sure, but also suggested that he get to keep a couple. It was a win-win situation. Check out the Shot of the Week, plus a bonus alternate shot after the jump.

Just because Tony Hawk has financial stake in ShredorDie.com doesn’t mean he has turn over every embarrassing bit of memorabilia, but it looks like he has to some extent.

I was sent to Japan to be on a show called “Incredible Kids” (or something like that) when I was 14. They asked me to demonstrate tricks, but to change some of the names to be “Japanese friendly.” I was just excited to be overseas on my own, so I went along with it.

Tony says he was 14 at the time but he looks more like a 12 year old Macaulay Culkin in some of these shots. It’s pretty entertaining stuff. Part of the show has Tony attempting a few launch ramp gap jumps over an increasingly large number of audience members. No, the distance doesn’t get any greater, they just stuff more people in between. It’s pretty crazy how young he looks. It’s even crazier that these people think helmets will help them if Tony comes up short. Tony even grabs for the jumps. Nowadays he’d ollie it or 360 air over it. Check out the takeoff ramp. It looks like one of those old Firestone metal frame and plexiglass covered ramps laying back and propped up a little. Two part video after the jump. Please excuse the lame post title, but you should listen to the Vapors anyway.

Here’s a still from the music video for the 2003 track Heartbeats from the Swedish band The Knife. It’s got some vintage skateboarding footage, about 15 seconds or so looped repeatedly. Those kids in the striped shirts look kind of cool going downhill together. I thought they might be up to some editing trickery at first.

[Source: Drawer B]

A generic sports and healthy lifestyle website called Realbuzz.com has their Top 5 greatest (defining) moments in skateboarding listed as

1. Rodney Mullen flat-ground ‘ollie’ – 1982

2. Bob Burnquist’s 98.0 ‘perfect run’ – 2001

3. Danny Way jumps the Great Wall of China – 2005

4. Tony Hawk’s 900 -1999

5. Shaun White enters summer X Games – 2005

Really? Shaun White? He’s a talented mofo for sure but creating one of the defining moments of the sport just by deciding to compete? Absurd! You can head on over to Realbuzz.com for their long winded justifications if you want. The only one I can kind of agree on in the list is number one. However, if you put in number one, you have to trace it back to the obvious precursor, which was Alan Gelfand inventing the damn “Ollie” in the first place. Did the Mutt actually do it on flat ground first? I guess it wouldn’t surprise me. As for Bob Burnquist’s 98.0 perfect run, nothing against Bob, but who cares? Tony Hawk’s 900? Ok, I can cut them some slack there, but I think the more accurate description would have been more encompassing. Check out my top 5 defining moments after the jump.

[Photo: Skateboard trophy on far left is 60’s vintage for the “International Skateboard Championships” as found on Hawaiian Surf Auction]

Censorship is Weak as F##k: A Skateboard Art Retrospective:

Censorship is Weak as F##k is a collaborative retrospective featuring over 40 skateboard graphics designed by Marc McKee and Sean Cliver. The show features work the two have done for World Industries and its subsidiary brands from the formation of the company in the late 1980s to its mid-90s rise to industry dominance. The collection of original skateboards demonstrates, literally in graphic detail, how World Industries set itself apart from its competitors by using a totally uncensored approach in its graphic program, relentlessly featuring one controversial subject after another, covering issues such as religion, pornography, gun control, sex, profanity, racism, drug use and violation of copyright law, all on the bottoms of its skateboards.

Trying to pass off that entire period of World Industries as a battle against censorship is a bit of a stretch, but they certainly were infamous, and they certainly did shake up the industry. Besides, with the way these things sell on eBay, this may be your only chance to see some of these decks in person. I’ll tell you what’s weak as F##k… There’s nothing like having to register and log into a bullshit corporate site like MySpace just to be able look at a few pictures. Surely there is a better way. Looks like an art show I’d like to see though.

[Source: Juxtapoz]

Whatever your stance on Nike’s presence in the skateboarding industry, you’ve got to hand it to them for the commercials they made and actually aired on broadcast TV the first time around. They are great from a skating and an advertising perspective. I’ve been trying to get ahold of these and post them, but someone else has already done all the work, so why reinvent the wheel? My personal favorite is the running one because it brings back the times when people literally thought you were a freak if you were over 12 and still skateboarding on a public sidewalk. Of course now you’re a freak if you are over 30 and the hassle often comes the skaters instead of the non-skating public. So you can still be a rebel and participate in one of the world’s most popular sports.

[Source: Transworld beat me to it.]