The graphic on this Rolls Racer ‘Conqueror’ deck is clearly stolen from the Eddie Reategui ‘Warrior’ deck from 1988 by Alva. This bootleg even has wheel wells and comes in a vivid green, it sold on eBay a while back, but I forgot for how much.

Kevin Kowlaski has a new pro wheel model with Bones. My heart isn’t really broken, I’m just slightly bummed out because I’ve been sitting on an “Oregon Skate Parks” graphic that riffs on our Oregon State Parks logo for three years now. Then one day I walk into a skate shop and see that Kowalski’s model on Lifeblood beat me to it. I’m more of an ideas man than an action man… I haven’t even watched the video yet, but it’s not even a limb that I have to go out on when I say prepare to be stoked.

No, this isn’t an outtake from an episode of The Prisoner. It’s a June 6, 1978 press photo from Leicester Polytechnic School. Yes, it will soon be framed on my wall. Three models wearing the latest in Skateboard fashions designed by the Leicester Polytechnic School of fashions and textiles. They are L-R Cindy wears multi-coloured knitted stripped sweater, shorts andd leggings. Stephanie wears Navy jumpsuit with velour stripe trim and bolero, and Debie wears multi-coloured two-piece in striped velour. I’m going to hop in the old time machine and see if I can get a date with Cindy and tell Stephanie to get a damned skateboard and stop lurking. Maybe I’ll bring back her jumpsuit for GVK.

A Secret History of the Ollie by Craig Snyder is here, and it’s a whopper. It’s two inches thick and 912 pages! It’s going to take a long time to sift through this for a proper review, but in the meantime you can get yours at OllieBook.com.

A horrible screen grab from a good video. Sometimes I like to put a little “skate” in Skate and Annoy. Check out this very short, very ready sequence.

Impact Reduction Apparel has a kickstarter campaign for their product which is essentially a soft insert for a baseball cap made out of a substance that hardens on impact, much like we profiled back in 2007. Quicksilver had originally licensed the technology for snowboarding beanies, but then not much was heard about it. It remains unclear if this is the same technology or not, but it appears to do the same thing. It’s soft and pliable until microseconds after impact, after which the outside momentarily hardens into a shell. The idea being, maybe you secretly want to wear a helmet but are embarrassed. Or maybe you just want a little bit of protection. It’s a good idea if it works, although the short nature of the back of the ball cap might make it ineffective in real world situations. Does it cover enough skull to help if you wilson? I don’t want to find out. It looks like they did some not too scientific tests with fruit and vegetables before taking a more credible approach. The product has not been certified as a helmet yet, which is part of what they want your money for. They’re going to have to…

I’m going to force you to look at the vintage skateboard magazine advertisement gallery.

The July 15th, 1977 issue of Rolling Stone featured a 7 page spread on skateboarding by Tim Cahill and photographs by Warren Bolster. The cover story is on remembering the Beatles. Flipping through the pages is a trip, Roling Stone, supposedly with it’s finger on the pulse of alternative youth culture and rock and roll, but woefully square. One highlight, a full page ad for the Ramones first album, also shown here. A lot of the other ads seemed to be aimed at actual musicians instead of the general public. Check it out after the jump.

I’ve been working on a new addition to the Galleries section of Skate and Annoy. It’s an archive of advertisements from old skateboard magazines. The goal is to cover the 60’s through the 90’s. It’s been interesting going through these old magazines, finding things I’d forgotten about and other I still have no idea ever existed, like the Brian Martin pro model on Action Sports Skateboards. It’s funny to see some of the ads that the smaller companies put out in hopes of breaking into the industry. Like everything on the site, it’s a work in progress. I’ve scanned about 300 ads so far and uploaded only 64, but now that the mechanism is in place it’s really easy to add new ones. There are other ad archives out there, most notably the one at Cal Streets, which I profiled in 2008. They’ve since changed they way their gallery is presented, but it’s still a hefty one. I decided to make one for S&A because I have OCD, and I don’t like having to search/link on other sites when doing “research” for posts here. Plus those other galleries aren’t organized how I’d want them. What works so far: Everything is…

New Orleans is the largest U.S. city without a skatepark! It’s been a long time since we’ve reported on the scene that gave birth to the now defunct Peach Orchard. Since then the park has a new name to go with a sanctioned location and some ramps donated by Spohn Ranch, leftover from the Mississippi Grind skatepark on a floating barge. The next step is to get back to their D.I.Y. roots by pouring their own transition, and they need your help. Parasite Park has one of the slickest incentive programs via kickstarter that I’ve seen. They’ve got some great looking gear that starts at just $7. Go help ’em out!