The Minutemen. I think the first time I ever heard them was on a Skate Rock compilation. They were always championed by Thrasher. The DVD of the documentary has been out for a while. MC weighs in with a review of the 2 disc DVD, which you can buy from the web site along with some pretty cool looking skateboards that say it all. Check it out.

It’s just my opinion. That’s all. Skateboards should be screen printed directly is all I am saying.

If you are waiting for your Black Label Emergency boards to ship, you shouldnt be waiting much longer. They ran into a problem with the transfer papers which caused a lag on getting them printed. They are supposed to be done and shipping any day now.

Ahhh… Errr… Hmmmm… This isn’t really a new item but it’s just starting to be publicized more. Man, I love the Clash, and you should too. I don’t know where I stand on these new Clash shoes from Globe. Regardless of how you feel about hearing Clash songs in adverts from Levis and Jaguar, they have a right to earn a living and provide for their families. Money can’t be a motivating factor when they are limited to 250 pairs and selling at prices comparable to other Globe offerings, and there’s no mention of any money going to charity or anything, such as the Strummerville Foundation.

There’s a french company called Mekanisim that makes art/skateboards designed to appeal to contemporary hipster art collectors as opposed to the usual eBay crowd. I’d never heard of this company before, but then again I’m not French and I don’t buy a lot of raver/tagger inspired art. The new collaboration with Invader is all over the web, so here it is yet again. Invader is responsible for the little stencils of Space Invader symbols around the world. It’s cute, sure, but a bit shallow to base your whole artistic identity. Mekanism has a variety of boards ranging from standard heat transfer decks to the hand crafted one of a kinds. If you can put up with the artsy-fartsy nonsense descriptions of the artists work (I went to art school. It’s all bullshit.) Some of it is kind of cool and has an interesting attention to detail, while others are just a silly waste of money in the context of skateboards, even if it’s supposed to be art. At least Designarium doesn’t pretend to be more than it is. If you’ve got the cash (amount undisclosed) you can buy one of these. Otherwise you can head to Good Will to pick up a few Rubic’s Cubes and make you own. Maybe these type of decks will be eBay fodder for the next generation of collectors after the current one enters the Viagra and Rogaine phase of their lives.

I quote from the press release: “In the 80’s there was no bigger skateboard company than Powell Peralta. . . . One of the key factors to Powell’s dominance as a skateboard powerhouse were the ground-breaking graphics. Using extremely dark and detailed hand drawn image of skulls, snakes and dragons, PP was the first skate/street company to throw such taboo images into the mainstream. . . . Today designer Danny Drake has teamed up with George Powell to reissue a collection of 8 of the most memorable graphics in skate history on updated bodies. These PP items are an extremely limited edition and are only available in “The Rail” at Nordstom”.

Yup, new reissues from Powell. As normal they are all over the place. Sometimes they get it right (the Frankie Hill Bulldog for example, which looks awesome), but did we really need another Gelfand reissue, especially in ghetto camo? And the choice of a reissued Jay Smith snubnose is just bizarre. Good luck selling more than 50 of those. The others are just new colorways of existing reissues. The cutaway on the Cab might be new, but there have been so many reissues of that graphic, that it’s tough to keep up. And why not put ALL of the reissues under the Powell-Peralta brand? It sure would make the line more unified.

There’s some new stuff out from Emergency: the old school side of Black Label. Of particular note is the Lucero X2 graphic on an “old school” shape. Also, take note of the Blood Spots wheels that people seem to dig (after the jump).

Conspiracy has a new video out titled Saikou. Yeah, I don’t know what it means either, but we’ve got a review.

Posting the Didjits Houlie Ghoulie head reminded me that I had another skull issue to deal with. Sometimes something is so ugly that it becomes a thing of beauty.