The folks (volks) at Made for Skate recently had a display in The Skateboard Museum called Metal Battle in celebration of a Nike SB collab styled after the oldest school Roller Derby skateboards. Dig the inserts on these. The design for the show flyer was lifted from this poster, which was also on display. It’s a vintage 60’s silkscreened poster advertisement for a body shop. I’d place it at 1965-66 if I had to guess. So why was the the show called the Metal Battle? To celebrate they brought out some vintage steel wheeled death traps and had a session. Video after the jump.

I had never heard of this guy Jeff Stevens before, but I dig this video part. I had to do a little bit of investigating to find out where it was from since the (soon to be removed) clip on Youtube doesn’t give any information other than his name. The soundtrack piqued my interest though, and a search for “Jeff Stevens” and “skateboard” turned up a couple videos from the “A Happy Medium” series. The trailer didn’t have any of the same footage, but I also found a video of a fan reaction to Jeff Steven’s part so I gave it watch to see if I could hear the soundtrack. Mystery solved. It’s from the recently released A Happy Medium 2. The fan reaction video is pretty funny in and of itself. All we need now is for some enterprising person without a lot of pressing engagements to put together a splitscreen version that will be easier to watch than this. Watch ’em all after the jump. – Thanks to Sarib Khalsa for the tip.

Phil Tedder at John’s bowl. Photo by Micah Breshears.

Looks like a new paint job for Donald. Photo by Steve Grover.

Sure they are crappy, but they are so bad that they’re… still bad. Even more so now that they’ve seen an updated, craptacular re-imagining of the graphic. As if there there is a pent up, unrealized nostalgia for the worst boards any given skater has ever owned at any point in their skateboarding life. Blind’s Danny Way Nuke Baby was a brilliant, but these are just as bad, if not worse than the original, especially the most famous of all bad 80’s Nash boards, the Executioner. They did have some cool graphics in the 60’s. It’s ironic that they haven’t tried to cash in on those graphics, even more so because they apparently own the Hobie name. Way to massively miss any sort of reissue connection. Oh well, all the better for someone else. I can’t recall if there was ever a Nash “Blaster” model, but I included it anyway because it’s a confusing mix of 70’s imagery on an 80’s shape that came out some time in the… dammit! What the hell are we calling this decade? The tens? Crap. Nash makes skateboards again. I guess they finally recovered from the fire.

Merde Skateboards is Totally Evil…sort of. Southern Oregon skating and some Shasta City too. Video after the break. Say your prayers.

Iconic skater Dave Hackett recently survived emergency surgery for colon cancer that has left in a precarious financial position. Longtime allies at Skull Skates have set up a donation page to help ease the pain. [Photo: Glenn E. Friendman as seen on Freakbeatfuzz]

The skateboards from the Board Rescue show are up for auction on ebay. There’s no shortage of good causes these days, but you can’t go wrong with Board Rescue. SOme of the names associated with these boards go for big money on ebay when they are just old production decks, let alone one-off original art pieces. Up top: Board art by friend of the site Judi Oyama.

Gene Bowles backyard project gets bigger. He’s got updates planned for My DIY but you can catch some pictures here. Looks like it’s going to be a blast. Gene must have one cool girlfriend and/or wife and/or landlord.

Red Bull is sponsoring… well, it’s a skatepark built on a barge, floating down the Mississippi river. There are events planned – for days already passed, sorry guys, but there’s still one to go October 8th and 9th. Sunday’s contest has top place finishers from earlier events in Saint Paul, the Quad Cities and St Louis. Meanwhile they have a crew on board and on board while in transit. I’m glad I live in a world where someone thinks something like this is worth paying for. Floating street course by Spohn Ranch, web site for the Mississippi Grind by Red Bull. Video on how it went down after the jump.