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 tagged by company, rider, product type, year, decade, magazine, magazine issue, and photographer if they are credited. So if you want to sort through ads by any one of those taxonomies, you can.

Things that need work: The navigation and layout is a little clunky right now, and likely will be for the time being while I concentrate on adding new ads. Some of the scans are not the greatest quality. I tried using one of those sheet fed scanners (Brother) and it just doesn’t do a very good job a lot of the time. After I run through the ads that I’ve already scanned (rescanning some of the worst offenders) I’ll be switching to a different scanner. I’d like to add an advanced search so you could do something like search of all ads from Z Products from the 80’s, or all ads with Jason Lee riding for Blind.

PLEASE leave some feedback on ways to improve, keeping in mind that there will be other decades and magazines to be added. Now go visit the Vintage Skateboard Magazine Advert Gallery

– Kilwag

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!

Why bootleg just one graphic when you can combine them for twice the potential profit? The “designer” of this deck obviously used the Powell ‘Ban This’ deck from 1989 for inspiration on the top. He even copied the name ‘Caballero’ or at least a part of it, but it’s very hard to see in this blurry picture. The bottom of the deck is a copy of a Variflex graphic.

I was going to say “I like this kid” but he’s a grown man for the love of Hosoi. Check out his new video part for Sector 9, it’s got a good mixture of street, transition, ditch, diy and skatepark terrain. The guy that looks a little like GVK in the doubles section is actually his father, Larry Martin.

Another shot of vintage skateboard equipment from one of my favorite sources, old department store catalogs. These offerings from JC Penney were available in 1977. There’s a generic board, a Free Former brand, and two that I can’t quite make out with the name Class in it, possibly ODO Class or DDO class. (Update: Pro Class. Thanks Daymond! Pics added.) At the top the page is the venerable Roller Derby brand roller skates, a company that also made skateboards at the same time.

There’s certainly no shortage of skateboarding documentaries, but I wouldn’t mind seeing one on the larger history of Powell, the company and the man. Stacy Peralta put together this short 4 minute video that plays like a mix between a trailer and a marketing piece for Powell. For me, one of the more interesting things about the footage are the teasing glimpses of their manufacturing equipment and process. Everybody knows how skateboards are made, but everyone does it a little bit differently. Make it longer Stacy!

– Via Tim Jamison on Facebook.

“Goodluck” brand safety equipment for French speaking children. Everything, helmet included, seems to be made out of dense, soft foam. Almost like wrestling mats. Check out the trim on that helmet. Weird, but stylish. No idea what year this is from… 70’s? 80’s?

[SOURCE: Leboncoin] – Thanks to David ODK for the tip.

Scion brings you the worst ever Northwest skatepark tour, featuring Riley Hawk and something called a “Shep Dawg” crew. There’s something to be said for traveling off the beaten path, but given the wealth available terrain in the Northwest, the park selection is pretty weak. They actually go to a good spot (Windells) but it’s raining, so they stick to the indoor section. Let’s face it, nobody wants/needs to see a session at an indoor wooden skatepark unless it’s phenomenal. Then there’s a prolonged, implied commercial for Exit Real World that sticks out like a sore thumb. The contrast and tension between the spots, action and bad soundtrack (which you can download) makes the whole damned thing really awkward. But then here I am reposting it, so it works on some level. The screen capture above is the best part of the video, watch the rest at your peril.

– Thanks to MC for the tip.