When not teasing other people who write about skateboarding, I’m poaching their work. Concrete Wave has made their current issue available for viewing online at a site called Banquet Action Sports Video Community. Even though it says it is the full issue of Volume 5 number 5, it’s actually missing about seven or eight spreads in the back of the magazine that contain an artist spotlight and a lot of the smaller ads. Personally, the back is one of my favorite parts of the mag. I like checking out the small companies to see what interesting or weird new products have come out. The interface is OK, you can click on a page to make it larger, and most of the larger ads act as web links to the companies in question. One annoying thing is that linked ads have a pulsing glow that distracts from the reading experience of the page next to it and prevent a clear view of the ad itself. A better way to implement that would have been to activate the glow on rollover only. Come to think of it, a better way to implement it would have been to make the whole thing a downloadable PDF. The web links could work and you wouldn’t have to wrestle with a proprietary interface. In any case, it’s still useful for being able to read most of the current issue of Concrete Wave if you are too cheap to buy it or just want to check it out. I believe they make each issue available this way, but they don’t seem to keep an archive. Check it out.

[Source: About.com]

As seen in the May 2007 issue of People Magazine, this advert for the Chevy Cobalt features street skating prominently. Some publicist or team rider over at Powell ought to be getting a fat check for this product placement. Usually company logos are not so readily identifiable. As for the Devil Dogs lyrics to Brand New Chevy… Devil Dogs? Never heard of them, but according to Last.Fm “People who like The Devil Dogs also like New Bomb Turks, Radio Birdman, Supersuckers…” Really? OK, Sounds good, but going against their credibility is the fact that they released the song in 1989, which would not have been an especially noteworthy year in the annals of American car design. Is anyone in this day and age excited by new Chevrolets, Corvettes even? I doubt the Devil Dogs would find the Cobalt that inspiring, but I’m sure the publishing rights inspired their bank accounts. Enlarge the advert after the jump.

A copy of TokyoLOCO from 1999. I’ve seen other Japanese magazines and websites like this. Chock-full of shots of what people are wearing on the street. I think people over here do that too and call it cool-hunting but I think here, people use it as research to try to find something to market. They don’t just serve up the images. The New York Times had a column called Street Fashion that would point out a certain trend through a series of photos but I’ve never seen a whole American magazine like that.

Stock imagery of skateboarding was stock in the 80’s until the last couple of years. Sure, the cheap and free online resources still have a lot of cheesy clip art believe me, I have collected a lot of it, but most stock imagery of skateboarding has gotten a lot more current. I think there was one photo session of an 80’s vert dog skater that was used forever. I recall in the 90’s and early 00’s he was on everything from watch packaging to toys and more. Here are two recent examples of stock houses advertising in consecutive issues of the design magazine Print. Hey Masterfile, that elbow pad probably hasn’t been available for sale in over 10 years.

I was surprised to find an article on older Australian skateboarders in the May 2007 issue of the United Airlines in-flight magazine Hemispheres. After reading it something reminded me of an earlier post I made in February titled A civilized way to spend an evening. It turns out this article is almost a word for word reprint of a 2006 article in an Australian publication called The Bulletin. They changed the title, the intro, and little else. One note of interest is the “Cyber Sidebar” feature for this article, which is a link to a United Airlines hosted excerpt of the NCP production Tent City. They also recommend checking out Fruit of the Vine. Well, don’t we all? I hope Rick and Buddy got a good chunk of change for that. United Airlines certainly isn’t spending money on in flight meals or removing extra seats to create more legroom. I was flying back from Florida late last night after spending an entire week’s worth of splendid weather not skating due to a separated shoulder and a jacked elbow. I couldn’t even get motivated to get some local coverage, which might not have been a bad thing since shooting skateboarding in Florida can be risky. You can check out the first page of the article after the jump or read the whole thing here. Also check out Australia’s Charlie don’t skate.

I’m not sure what the barometer is for art and skateboarding, but the difference between eccentricity and just plain crazy is often a matter of how rich the person in question is. Likewise, you can bet that if Dan Gesmer had put on this performance instead of Mark Gonzales, it wouldn’t have been as well received in the skateboarding world. Jason Schwartzman (the lead in the excellent movie “Rushmore”) has a solo record out and a video for the song West Coast which is made entirely from footage of Cheryl Dunn’s film documenting the Gonz’ 1999 art installation at the Abteiberg Museum in Germany. You can watch the video and read Paper Magazine’s original 1999 article covering the event after the jump.

That’s no typo in the the title, it’s editorial commentary. The April 20th issue of Entertainment Weekly has a “Style” page with this breaking news: “The latest hip-hop style trend? Skateboard Chic.” Apparently, the style is called Skurban. The layout features a couple DGK decks in the layout, and assorted trite skateboard culture observations. If you can stomach it, you can see and read it all after the jump.

Actually those guys aren’t actually trying to spread any musical gospel, I’ve just been dying for an excuse to use the STFU acronym in a post title. Pierre Luc Gagnon Says “Skate Culture Isn’t Just About Punk Rock Anymore” in an article in Chart Attack (Your Canadian Music Source, eh?) and Tony Hawk is narrating a feature documentary on the 90’s punk scene.

It’s good to see that skateboarding on gravel is finally catching on. This picture is part of a feature called Day in Pictures from the international version of the BBC News. You can see it larger here, but you’ll have to manually select picture number 5 once you get there. More skateboarding in Iraq after the jump.

This quick wall in the street area at Glenhaven remided me of some photos of Glen Woodruff from the first issue of Skateboarder when they revived it in the seventies (Vol. 2 No. 1).