I’ve been listing to the Hard-ons from afar for decades, ever since I picked up their US debut EP on Bigtime in 1987, purely because the cover had a skateboard on it. I’ve never been able to see these guys live, and the only thing I know about them as humans comes through looking at their artwork and listening to their music. Aside from the skateboard on the cover, the racial makeup of the band portrayed in that crude illustration definitely had an appeal to me. It was unlike anything I was seeing in punk a the time. I assumed they were punk because, you know, 80’s DIY art and a skateboard. The style of the some of the music threw me for a loop at the time as my tiny brain recoiled at anything vaguely-heavy metal. However, their spirit really stuck with me, and I loved the underdog nature of an ethically diverse non-mainstream band from Australia. I kept buying their albums and they really grew on me. Terrible Happy Talks has a long interview with bassist and founding member Ray Ahn. You can listen on THT or wherever else you might find podcasts. This is an atypical band…

Well maybe… They are pro-diversity, Trump be damned. As for the skateboarding on campus, well It’s an assumption based on this interactive display in the University of Oregon welcome center. It’s a heavy duty book affixed to the counter with heavy vinyl-like pages that are coded to trigger the overhead display to show different images and animation on specific pages. The page for racial and ethnic diversity features a skateboarder on a local (Tactics) shop deck no less. Ironically, if you zoom into those benches they appear to have skate-stoppers built in.

Skateboards pop up in unexpected places like this recurring BBC news segment called “Tech Now.” In this episode they are highlighting a robotic hull scrubber (and sea urchin killer) called Hullbot. About 6 minutes in they show a tech working on one of the robots, and in the background there’s a Natas deck hanging up.

Dutch Bros Coffee is a chain of coffee stands mostly based on the west coast., Apparently they give away stickers once a month or who knows how often. They’ve had a handful fo skateboarding themed designs over the years. I believe these are all legit, and I’ve omitted some that I’ve seen on those print-on-demand shops like Redbubble that appear to be unofficial. I dunno, you tell me. – Thanks to Don Tidwell for the tip.

I just wrapped up adding 61 ads from volume 5, number 7 of Skateboarder magazine from February of 1979. There are some good ones in there. A few that caught my eye were for Turning Point, Haut Lamaflex (Lama-flex?), Hobie (skate shoes), Powerflex, Independent (w Henry Hester), and Caster with Wally Innouye. Also of interest, there are four winter-related ads in this issue, two for runners that attach to your skateboard, like the Snow Skate, one for ice wheels (wheels, not blades) and one early Burton ad shot here in the Pacific Northwest at ole Mt Hood. Check it the Vintage Skatemag Advert gallery for Skateboarder v5 #7. The total is up to 1,151 ads as of today.

The cover of Archie #270 (published in April of 1978) features Archie predicting the invention of the Snow Skate, a product that would first be announced in 1979! I’ve seen ads for the 70’s version snow skates before, and I keep looking for them on my hard drive and online like it’s Groundhog Day. I wasted a good 30 minutes just now doing the same until, hold on, what’s this under a pile of crap on my desk? Oh yes, the February 1978 issue of Skateboarder Magazine, complete with an ad for the Snow Skate. That’s the one in the middle. The black and white version comes from Cal Streets. This post is going to cover some of the snow skates over the ages with the exception of the ones that are just a regular board, and those that have one ski mounted to the bottom.

Skate and Annoy makes a cameo appearance about 3:30 into episode #356 of The Nine Club, featuring Steve Olson & Steve Alba. Apparently Alba has a few boxes NOS Clouds that were manufactured by Rannalli. The Nine Club used an ad from the Vintage Skate Mag Advert gallery as a visual reference because not everyone remembers Rannalli. The best part is watching Olson crack up about the fact hat they were able to pull it up so quickly. I’d like to thank the Nine Club for leaving the website visible. Also, thanks to everyone who messaged me when they saw it. Honestly, I love documenting the weird, crappy companies more than I do the ones everyone loves and remembers. Moments like this, knowing that someone out there appreciated it makes it worthwhile.

I love it when worlds collide. You’re looking at a picture of director John Waters and Iggy Pop, likely taken around 1990, possibly promoting the film Cry Baby. And, you’re looking at it on Skate and Annoy because I love both of these guys, and Iggy is wearing a Powell Peralta Mike McGill t-shirt. You have to wonder how Iggy got his hands on that. I would love to credit this photo but all I can find are reposts. It looks like it appeared in a newspaper or magazine at some point. If you know the original source please let me know. On the right: It’s the 40th anniversary of the McTwist? I guest was last year. If you’re going to buy a skateboard commemorating the event you might as well get it from Mike McGgill. Ask Mark Conahan about his Iggy Pop story…

With that title you’d be forgiven for thinking this was a 90’s comic book, but Grrl Scouts Work Sucks v1 #1 was published in 2003 by Image Comics. Grrl Scouts is the creation of Jim Mahfood, and there have been a few volumes with different subtitles such as Girl Scouts: Stone Ghost, Grrl Scouts: Magic Socks, and even a volume 2 of Work Sucks. Near as I can tell the last one was published 2017. The web site listed in the colophon is defunct but now there is jimmahfood.com. I haven’t seen any of the other issues and this one is the only one that showed up with a skateboard key word search. The interior is all black and white, and there is some incidental skateboarding on the inside. During the part that concerns us, the girls are drug dealers and they consider hanging out at the skatepark to get some new customers. It’s never the skateboarders causing trouble, it’s always the hangers-on, usually the girls… amiright? Black and white comics can often be a hard sell, but the artwork in Grrl Scouts is so good that you lose yourself in the illustrations. Love the layouts. One thing that I…

It’s rare to find an Archie Comics Group story with skateboarding that doesn’t focus on Archie, Jughead, or poor Mr Weatherby. Laugh comics #309, published in December of 1976, has a story with a character named Li’l Jinx titled “The Board Game.” The comics seems to be aimed mostly at teens, but they have a small stable of characters made up of little kids as well.