2007 got off with a bang. Now that tax refunds are starting to come in, purse strings are getting as loose as Paris Hilton’s knickers. This month I’m starting a reissue section. Why? Because I can. Seriously though, I’m putting it in because some of the reissues are starting to get up there in price. Ridiculous? Maybe, but that’s the reality, and I cover what’s hot. Also new to this month’s report is the ability to click on the thumbnails to see an enlarged version. Check it out

sideshowskateboarder wants to share a video with you. Well, they wanted to share a video with me and I want to share it with you. A bunch of crazy Bob Burnquist footage. Including the above – which I’m guessing is that giant Shanghai park with the pipe into the pipe thing. I hadn’t realized it was so big. I’m all impressed that Bob is going over it and then I see he’s nose grinding.

Bamboo is an amazing plant. You can use it to feed pandas, make flooring, furniture, and even bicycles and saxophones. And yes, skateboards too. The crazy thing about bamboo is that it has a stronger strength to weight ratio than maple, but has been know to grow 4 feet in a week’s time! Think about how many boards in a year that a typical street skater goes through. What if you could make a bamboo board that performs as well and lasts as long as a hard maple deck? There are companies making decks containing various percentages (up to 100%) of Bamboo, but they are mostly carving or downhill setups not meant to take the torture of street or bowl riding. Today I received an email and pictures from a Slovakian company with a Chinese manufacturer of 100% bamboo skateboards shaped like a typical popsicle stick. Even that’s nothing new. Check out some bamboo Skateboarding action after the jump.

Zero Hero from Zorlac Skateboards, circa 1991. I’ve watched this video quite a few times. It has some really good vert skating, and the kind of street skating that still had tons of potential behind it. More about Zorlac Skateboards after the jump!

The French have to have a different word for everything. Not only that, they even use their skateparks sideways. I have provided a link to the video but unless you want to watch a bunch of ledge and stair skating, don’t bother.

Sure, some guerilla marketing tactics can get you into trouble. Others, not so much. Take this video footage of skateboarding being projected on buildings from a moving van. It makes it look like a guy is skateboarding down the street or along the roof tops and ledges of second story buildings. This projection trick has been done before on subway trains, but for art, not money. The skateboard projection is for a gum called Sportlife, Holland’s equivalent of Gatorade Gum (yuck!), proving Americans aren’t the only ones trying to jump on the Extremeâ„¢ bandwagon. Catch the video and more after the jump. [Source: Ninjawax.com]

Colin at Bacon Skateboards forwarded a link to a Benji Galloway interview on Skateboarder Magazine’s website. Check out the two photo sequences: one a backside-lipslide over the steps at Donald and the other a backslide-tailslide over some other pool steps. Sick! Benji is an amazing skater and has been incredible to watch in the Oregon Trifecta. He won the 2005 series. Bacon’s Southern Slaughter Tour video also looks pretty insane. The 162MB video is available for download. photo: Kyle Bunker

Get out your overpriced plastic watches and put on at least three of them RIGHT NOW!!! Swatch used to sponsor an extreme sports like tour before it was, you know, Extreme!â„¢ It was purely spectacle, no contest. There was BMX and roller skaters in addition to skateboards. Bands? Seems like it but I might be confusing it with one of the old Vision Street Wear tours. They also used Per Welinder, Rodney Mullen, and Lance Mountain in one of those in store promo videos. You might think it strange that I listed those Bones Brigaders in that order, but that’s representative of their respective footage totals. Apparently, someone at Swatch had a thing for Per. Mullens’ stuff is impossible, and Lance is barely in it. It’s three minutes and thirty seconds of pure 80’s synthesized drums and keyboard soundtrack. Odds are that Stacy Peralta was on the production team and Dennis Dragon did the soundtrack. Catch this video from 1987 after the jump.

Mike from Old Man Army sent us this interview with Dave Hackett. He said we could post it directly on Skate and Annoy, but it will be a better reading experience directly on their site. They did a good job they did withthe side illustrations adds to the atmosphere. It’s a long one too, compared to their recent ones with Lance Mountain and Russ Howell. Actually, the crew at Old Man Army are putting us to shame with all the old school interviews they’ve been getting.