I get about a million emails a day. I’m trying to run two web sites while being a little absent minded already. Things fall through the cracks, to say the least. If I meet you, I will likely have to have several conversations before I remember your name. It’s just how my brain is wired. I just got OMSAZine #3 in the mail, and I recognized the name from something, an email address I’ve seen before, the combination of the OMSA letters somewhere. The Pool Skating issue is 32 pages of well printed black and white on glossy paper. there are interviews with Aaron Murray, Steve Alba, Arab, and Bill Danforth. There’s also a short interview with one of the owners of Riviera Pools, who doesn’t realize he’s being interviewed for a skate zine. Someone should have asked him why he has two completely different web sites for the same company – check the addresses. I can keep telling you about all the features of OMSZine #3, I just can’t tell you how to get one since there is no address printed in the zine or on the web site, which is of the MySpace variety. I don’t understand the…

Contort was pretty much the king of East coast zines. Everyone who traded zines or went to Boston knew about Contort and Dan Estabrook. He and Contort were constantly being mentioned in Thrasher or Transworld. This is issue #2, when Dan was still doing it with a partner. It’s a pretty straight forward zine with just of hint of the more artsy Swank Zine-like approach it would later morph into. I got this as a “back issue” after meeting Dan when he came to visit his parents, who had moved from Boston to Champaign-Urbana Illinois so his father could take a position at the University of Illinois. Blah blah blah. Dan was rad, we had a lot of fun when he’d visit. Later I would go to Boston to check out his scene. Talk about plate of shrimp coincidences, there are a couple of pictures of our own Mark Conahan in this issue. I wouldn’t meet Mark until after the year 2000. Cue Disney theme song.. It’s a small world after all…

Skate Cool #1 is one of those zines that probably never got circulated outside the group of kids that made it. The only reason I got a copy was because one of those kids was the kid brother of my best friend in high school, Jay Niedzwicki who was the guy I rode my first real skateboard and vert ramp with, discovered punk rock, etc… I had completely forgotten that when it came time to scan this. At first glance I thought was completely stupid, and it is, but I started flipping through it, and as stupid as it is, it’s still amusing. Then I read the credits and found my friend’s brother, Scott Niedzwicki on the, errr.. masthead.

When I got a copy of Skate and Mate, I was dumfounded. It seemed so obviously perfect because it combined everything I was interested in as a young male of college age. The photos (mostly pros) were good, there was punk rock, and of course the whole sex with girls thing. They even had an amateur topless pic that someone had donated, which seemed incredible at the time. This was before the days of the internet and Girls Gone Wild, and that kind of exhibitionism wasn’t as culturally pervasive. The humor in Skate and Mate was adolescent and sexist, to be sure, but so was I at the time. Ahh, the folly of youth. Now that I am older and more mature… I still wish I had put that zine out! Ha! The Skate and Mate crew talked a lot of shit, but if anyone could self-proclaim themselves “The King of Zines,” they could pull it off. Pokezine… Brilliant.

Not every zine was a winner. Then again, not every zine was as bad as it seemed on first impression. This is Concrete Crusaders #2, an eight page affair with no date and no mention of who put it together with the exception of someone who did some transcribing. Despite the raised expectations that the Electric Ocean logo provides, on the surface this zine is sucky, However, it was probably the work of one guy, a lone outpost in his community. That’s right, whoever made this was the Dances with Wolves of Ohio skate zines. He went to Ann Arbor Michigan and got some decent pics of Brian Mank, a Midwest staple of the time. Whoever made this zine may not have had a lot of artistic talent, but he was probably stoked by Thrasher to do his own thing, and he did it. This is issue number two, and the editor seems despondent by lack of reader feedback. Of course with a title like “Boring Summer Issue,” what can you expect? Summer should be the best part of the year for skate coverage!

Chi-Town Shred was the king of all Chicago skate zines in the late 80’s. I don’t know how long they published, but I’ve got 7 issues, the latest being #9. Their wacky web site (yes, they are online!) shows a cover for “the Last Issue” which looks like #11 from 1990. These guys had a short but prolific output. I think the key was photo-heavy issues without much blabbering on. That’s a good way to go. Our problem at Skate and Annoy which we still have, was we wanted to pretend we were a real skate mag with stories and coverage of events, interviews, etc… As a result we would unbearably delay getting things out, which explains our 12 year gap in printing. We got distracted, but we always intended on putting out another issue. I was still printing photos from negatives for the next issue in the late 90’s.

This was a Canadian zine out of Ontario. I’ve got four issues, the latest I have is #17. That’s Freezine as in “freezing,” not “free.” This is a good one, not a lot of reading or actual skate photographs if you analyze it, but put together well enough to make it seem like you were getting a lot.

And so begins my project to scan all my old zines and make them available for older skaters to relive their past, and for the younger generation to make an archeological dig into skateboarding culture before it was so easily accessible. These were the days of press type, scissors and rubber cement. Typewriters and hand lettering, or at most computer printed text xeroxed and shrunk and cut up and pasted into the layout to make it fit. Yes, I am aware that Xerox is a proper noun, and not a verb. It makes me want to cry in my Kleenex. First up, Harsh Vibes #2 (revised edition, actually) from Milwaukee. Exact date unknown.

Remember Andy Wissman? Well so far he has resisted our offer for a spotlight photo gallery, but he did let us know about the release of Soytruk issue one. I like the zine, it’s got good photography and a sense of humor. Reminds me of the the old Swank Zine days, although a little more coherent. And in color. And presented digitally. Speaking of the presentation, I’m not too crazy about the delivery. The pages are easy to navigate, but the default image size on Flickr hosting (in this case, the pages) are too small. I also want to see the edges of the page. Give me a PDF file that I can download. It may be the lazy way of presenting a zine, but I guess you can’t beat the free hosting. At least he put it out. I’m still sitting on an print issue of Skate and Annoy that has barely seen the light of day. gee, maybe if I spent less time writing about other people’s work… I took a few liberties with his page layouts for the graphic above, so check out Soytruk.

Circle is a pretty good online ‘zine from Europe. Great wrestling photos from issue three. I know we have a wrestling SIG here at Skate and Annoy.