You know my love for the Surf Punks. Futurismo is adding a rerelease of Locals Only to compliment the My Beach reissue. Unlike the My Beach reissue, Locals Only has two bonus tracks, and I’ve never heard them before. This is exciting to me, and at least one other person I’m sure. Be happy for me. Then take a moment to reflect on the fact that a band like the Surf Punks could not have crawled out of the primordial slime in any other time and place than late 70’s Southern California, and yet you have the import these masterful reissues from the UK.
Day two of 7 Days of Jughead features the story “Skateboard Fever” from issue 272 of Jughead, published in 1978. I don’ know why I didn’t go chronologically and post this one first, but I’m already posting Archie comics, so all taste and logic has gone by the wayside. This story is once again set in the hallways of Riverdale High. Poor Principal Weatherbee, or “the Bee” as Jughead refers to him, spent decades either purposefully or accidentally trying to learn how to skateboard, but he never gets the hang of it. Highlights include Veronica calling the guys “bean bags,” and Betty acting like a Karen – “It’s against the rules to skateboard in school!”
This is the beginning of the sacred holiday here at Skate and Annoy known respectfully as the 7 days of Jughead. We’ll see if I have the intestinal fortitude to actually follow through with it, so here goes. Let’s start with Jughead #13, AKA Volume 2 #13, from 1989. The first series started in 1949, but volume 2 started in 1987. This issue features story called “Roll Model” that takes place in the hallways of Riverdale High, like half of all Archie-realted skateboarding stories. Oh, the antics… The tomfoolery! Shenanigans!
Commercialized motorized skateboards have been around since as early as 1965, and every decade or so someone brings another one to market. In 1993 Tom Shanahan Inc expanded their small engine powered equipment for farms and yards to introduce the Powerboard motorized skateboard. The image and text on the right (above) come from Volume 17 #3 of Farm Show magazine in their section “New Products Especially For Women And The Farm, Ranch Home.” Farm Show is still around, but it appears the Tom Shanahan company has ceased to exist. It isn’t really mentioned anywhere on the internet except for some outlets where you can still find parts for some of their engines. These boards do turn up for sale, and some people have refurbished them.
It’s not the first time someone tried to bring skateboarding and/or Punk Rock to golf. It even predates those old excellent Nike SB commercials from their first toe around. I’m talking about High Speed Productions short-lived Schwing! magazine that was around from 1999-2001. Adidas calls the line Rolling Links, and near as I can tell… actually I can’t tell that there’s any skateboarding influence here at all. I guess you have to invent ways to hype product lines, and here it is, working, because you’re reading about it on skateboarding web site. Marketing seems kind of forced, right down the promo video with a tiny bit of skateboarding tacked on to the beginning and end.
From the folks at Brand X, life-size skateboard deck puzzles, AKA S8zzles. The name doesn’t exactly flow off the tongue, (I keep hearing “skuzzles” in my head) but you get the idea. The first 4 releases feature the classic Weirdo, a later era X-Dream, and the Brand X flavored Lester Kasai reissue deck featuring his famous Sims graphics in 2 color ways. What’s the connection? Brand X was started by Bernie Tostenson who did most of those early 80’s Sims graphics. I’m not sure how they are getting away with this copyright-wise, but The Brand X folks have a ton old screen printing films from the Bernie days, including Sims and Kryptonics artwork. The thing that makes these skateboard puzzles more interesting (and expensive to produce) is the decision to die cut these puzzles in the shape of the actual boards instead of just leaving them on a rectangular background. Check it out in the Cool Stuff category.
It was way back in 2009 that rumors were floating around about a possible rebirth of the Turf when the current tenants were allegedly not going to renew their lease. That turned out to be false, or so we thought. Then it turned out to be sort of true again, in that they had obviously vacated the property during the freeway ramp construction, which led to the temporary excavation in 2010. The locals didn’t give up! In 2019 it was announced that WDOT sold the land to the city of Greenfield for one dollar. The plan was to turn it into a new (old) skatepark, the old bowls would be brought back to life and new terrain would be added outside the existing footprint. Why can’t I find an internal S&A link to that story? We must have been on hiatus… Great news right? Would they do it? Yes! I had always been skeptical about the ability to just patch up the old bowls and add some new coping, and apparently I was right. They ended up scrapping that plan and instead took “detailed 3 D sonar” scans of the bowls that would allow them to excavate and rebuild as close to the original as possible. Let’s talk about that after the jump, OK?
Because this site is still part of the Skatewing Preservation Society, enjoy these pics of a red Skatewing. This one is in pretty good shape until you get a look at a side view of the tail. Once again, this site is also the only member of the Skatewing Preservation Society.
Check out this 1989 CBS Records compilation titled “Skate Hard.” Nothing says “Skate Hard” in the 80’s like a skeleton shredding the wasteland, or a garbage can for that matter. The board may say early 80’s but the Rectors and fingerless gloves say… well, early to late 80’s as well. It’s got a curious lineup of bands, many that I know and sometimes love, and a few that I’ve never heard of. The vast majority of the acts hail from Australia. There are many that are comparatively well known like the Hard-Ons, Cosmic Psychos, Celibate Rifles, and Screaming Tribesmen. Then there are those that are more (globally) obscure, like Ratcat, Ya Ya Choral, Hitmen, Massappeal, Proton Energy Pills, Voodoo Lust, Hellmen, Psychotic Turnbuckles, Splatterheads, and the Kryptonics. Did the Kryptonics get their name from the wheels? I have not been able to discern this. This compilation seems like a great time capsule of a musical scene in Australia, except for the bands that aren’t only out-of-place geographically, but musically as well. Why include Ozzy Osbourne, Living Colour, The Godfathers, and 24-7 Spyz? Probably because the brass thought those names might expose fans to the Australian scene. Here’s a worthless tidbit of info: I was an early adopter of CD’s and 247-Spyz’ Harder Than You was the very first CD I ever bought. I enjoyed their high energy cover of Kool & The Gang’s Jungle Boogie but the rest of the album did not click with me. You see kids, at one time you had to buy the whole album to listen to tracks that weren’t played on the radio or MTV. Music on MTV you say? Yes, that used to be a thing as well.
– Thanks to Jason Harrison AKA Bobcat for the pics.
