The Didjits did indeed, rock the nation. This was from their only Champaign Illinois appearance after their reunion for the Touch And Go 25th anniversary show. The crowd packed the High Dive even though it was an early show. Instead of the crowd feeling threatened, which was a common occurrence at early Didjits gigs, everyone seemed to be in awe that they were witnessing the Didjits again, on their home turf, and possibly for the last time. This is part one of two installments.

Classic Devo and classic skateboarding, circa 1980. Maybe the first music video to feature skateboarding if you don’t count Skater Dater. The DVD compilation The Complete Truth About De-Evolution has been out since 2003, so it’s not surprising that this clip turned up on You Tube. Peep it via Earth Patrol Media, who had the good sense to spot this. Yes that’s Stacy Peralta up top. Some other pros are in it as well, but I can’t remember who.

What is this countdown to GSD on the new Foundation web site? Is it some sort of cryptic announcement about the inventor of the boneless one? (Yes, the correct name actually has two words..) Can anyone shed some light?

Praise God The Christmas Fish, I’m headed to see the Didjits again, for second time in one week. This time as I’m hooking up with the band in advance so I should have no problems getting my camera in to what could be the last show… ever. Rumor has it there will be a vert session of old CU skaters thanks to Mike Poor. All I can say is Balls… Fire.

Vieira has some cool pics of Wallos aon a new blog that I thought I’d pass on seeing as how our Newcastle feature just made mention of it. Looks like they dug a weird trench through the middle (10 years ago..). Not sure if that was to dissuade skaters, cause Vieira’s short on the details. In any case, make sure you click on the pics to get the larger view on Claiming. Top: Tommy Guerrero skates Wallos on the April ’85 cover of Thrasher over a detail from Vieira’s post. Check it out.

Wednesday, September 6: Legendary surfing and skateboarding photographer Warren Bolster took his life after a long battle with debilitating arthritis and a pain killer dependency. In the skateboarding world he is known for his coverage of the desert pipes among other shots as editor of Skateboarder Magazine in the 70’s. He was also on the staff of Concrete Wave Magazine, although I’m not sure if that was honorific or not. The legends are all going to die sooner or later. We’re reaching a period in time when all the old punks and other visionaries are going to start dropping like Ramones. It’s sad when they take their own lives. We wish his family, friends, and fans well. The picture above is of his retrospective book published by Concrete Wave Editions and the portrait is poached from the Surfer Magazine epitaph.

“Mellow Cat?” you ask? In the late 70’s it ran in Skateboarder Magazine, making it older than most people with a skateboard these days. I’m not sure if it ever really fit in with the times. Maybe it was a California thing. From what I remember there were always a lot of weird looking guys flying out of skateparks Mad Magazine style. We co-publish the Hopeless Old Men on Skateboards comics that are kind of the antithesis of Mellow Cat, except when he’s not pissed off there are sometimes similarities. Man, MC is going to be pissed when he reads this. In any case. Author Ted Richards might be getting a Mellow Cat book together. Sounds like a project for Concrete Wave Editions, but as an old hippie, maybe Richards doesn’t trust the Man anymore. What else is he doing? Richards appears to be a thriving Illustrator/Multimedia/Web Site artist. His site has an example of a Mellow Cat and some interesting production notes in case you don’t have any 25 year old copies of Skateboarder laying around.

Mellow Cat – Poached from EPM

Not Wet Willy’s, but these are some Champaign Illinois waterslide action pics from Fall of 1986 near as I can tell. Awesome hairstyle dude… Oh wait, that’s me. Can’t figure out the post title? Skip to the end.

August 2006 eBay Watch is up. Recognize those eyebrows? Anyone wanna buy some shoes for $1844? Anyone? Check it out.

Where is this waterslide called Wet Willy’s? Somewhere in Missouri. An earlier post sparked some interest so I dug around on the Interweb and found some very intersting non-action photos and a video on YouTube. Reminds me of a waterslide session we had in Champaign Illinois back in the 80’s. Until I dig up those photos you can see more from the two sources above. The top pictures are poached from Memory Machine and the bottom two are frame grabs from Workshop’s video.