Fuck, man. It was a stroll down memory lane for me seeing this thing. I loved so many of these bands. There’s plenty of great footage and music. and lots of funny anecdotes. Gang Green touring with a skateboard ramp on stage, remember that?

OK, that’s a lie, there is some Rolling Stones. But by “Rock” they generally mean a heavier sound and have interestingly and thankfully avoided any mention of Elvis and the Beatles. VH1 Classics.com (Wait! dont go!) is running a series this week (and I’m sure it’ll rerun for a long time) produced by the BBC called 7 Ages of Rock. The fact that it was made by the BBC and not VH1/MTV means that it’s a level above the typical fare you find on the US channels. You know, where they play the same clips over and over again as teasers before the commercials so by the time they are actually highlighting the band or event you’re already numb to the footage. 7 Ages of Rock has seven hour long episodes: The Birth of Rock, Art Rock, Punk Rock, Stadium Rock, Heavy Metal, American Alternative and British Indie. On Monday the aired the Birth of Rock, which was quite interesting from the editorial skew of not considering Elvis ROCK, but still digging up the old bluesmen that fueled rock. Tuesday they aired the Art Rock episode (which includes psychedelic) which was also pretty good, but a little disappointing. Thankfully, you…

This week’s late Shot of the Week is Jack Grover killing two birds with one stone, playing a skateboarding video game while standing on his skateboard. At least he’s not sitting on the couch. I have to admit I chose this picture after running out of ideas seeing a shot of little kids goofing off on a skateboard on Skate Daily, last week I think. Check it out.

From the San Jose Mercury News The five suspects, who are ages 18 to 22, burst into the store on their skateboards and began to ride around in the aisles, according to police… …”They did it for the thrill of it,” Pleasanton police Sgt. Jim Knox said. “They were trying to videotape themselves.” OK, so you’re trying to make your own Jackass tapes. That’s fine, just don’t beat up the store manager when he asks you to leave. That’s when one of the suspects, who police believe is a juvenile, walked up to the manager, picked up his skateboard and struck the manager in the face with it. The manager suffered minor injuries that included cuts and bruises to his face, wrist and hand. Now you are officially a dick, and not a very bright one, since they managed to get your buddy’s license plate as you drove away. More skateboarding dicks after the jump. Photos (Unrelated and with no editorial comment intended) are from Rebel Skates, although seems like I’ve seen the slogan on the left shirt somewhere, sometime… Oh yeah, Cow Skates in the 80’s.

I caught Ryan Sheckler’s episode of Firsthand on Fuel TV the other night. If you haven’t seen the series, it’s basically an hour long ride along with one Extreme!™ sports personality per episode. I’ve seen a few of the skateboarding episodes and they are generally worth checking out, even if you aren’t familiar with the skater in question. They offer a little more insight into personality without all the hype of a typical skateboard video setting, and of course they actually talk. Take Sheckler’s episode, it was shot when he was 15 and originally aired in 2005. His backyard skatepark is kind of ghetto compared to his new digs, and the hype hasn’t reached the level it is at today. In particular, one good scene catches him having a dork session at a local skatepark with one of his friends. There’s no front of attitude or image. He’s a surprisingly level headed and generally likable kid who doesn’t cry when he places lower than first. Sure, he’s got a meathead father, but at this point in his young life, he comes off like just a hard-skating successful teenager without an overblown ego. If you already like Sheckler it’s a no…

Gentlemen, here is the link that I believe we spoke of earlier. Mostly interesting for the clay and steel wheel era pictures.

The August 7th 2007 issue of Time magazine had an article about the design of modern skateparks titled “It’s All in the Swoop.” Seriously? August of 2007 and I’m just now finding out about it? Come on people! Anyway, by “modern” they mean tranny, so if you’re looking for street plaza coverage you can save your breath and write a letter to the editor – theirs, not me. I didn’t write it, I’m just reporting on what’s out there. I suspect that delving into that as well would have taken up more editorial space then they had alloted. Quoted in the interview are Wally Hollyday, Mark Hubbard and Tim Payne. Mentioned in article are the firms of SITE Design Group, Dreamland, Team Pain and Grindline. An interesting point is raised by suggesting current skatepark design is also affecting playground and landscape architecture, even for non-skating spaces. There are a few pictures in the print layout that are not duplicated in the online version of the article, so they are preserved and presented after the jump. Both pieces mention a photo essay on the history and evolution of skateboarding but fail to provide a link to it beyond Time.com, and plugging…

Dear Sirs We are one exporter of landwing in Shandong,China. The landwing is new wind sport way. It can help the player of ln-line skating and snow skating to move by wind power on the land. We have two size Landwing as follow: Effective Area Size 2.8m2 297cm*140cm 3.9m2 340cm*155cm If you are interest this products. Please contact us freely. We can send some pictures for your reference. Hope your early reply. Best Regards Jinsheng Qu Weifang Ruifeng Artex Co.,Ltd. Weifang,Shandong,China Turns out by “snowskating” they mean skiing. Sure, the product is called “landwing” but the web site is Landsail.com.cn. It’s all in Chinese and I can’t read it anyway. Sometimes I feel sorry for these guys. This gentleman emailed me a bunch of rollerblade pictures unsolicited, and then took the trouble to send skateboarding shots when I asked if he had any. All for naught.