1977 ABC WIDE WORLD OF SPORTS: CATALINA CLASSIC

Fantastic for numerous  reasons:

Burly downhill decents with the guys riding out the speed wobbles.

Bobby Piercy and John Hutson riding for TURNER SUMMER SKI and SANTA CRUZ respectively....absolutely charging it!

Dale 'Sausage-Man' Smiths insanely camp freestyle moves.

Amazing Mustaches.....short shorts.

Herds of Buffalo roaming majestically across the horizon.

Jamie Hart's attache briefcase containing his race formula OJ WHEELS.

Tough girls on skateboards.

The anchor mans neat bright yellow blazer!

ACTION NOW MAGAZINE TV SHOW 1981

My good friend Tim Stamp had a VHS copy of this that we hammered when we skated in '83-'84.
ACTION NOW magazine rose out of the ashes of SKATEBOARDER magazine when the skateboard boom took a dump in 1980.
It was a last ditch attempt to stay afloat and the mag opened its doors to other action sports: BMX, roller skating, surfing, skimboarding etc. Unfortunately, this ploy didn't work out...it totally alienated the hardcore few that still skated, the lowpoint for me being a photo of someone on a horse down at the beach.
On a plus point, the mag did have a reasonable music content and it was quick to champion the LA punk scene. Lots of Circle Jerks, Black Flag etc as well as features on the big UK punk bands at the time.
The mag didn't last long and around this time a new, truly independent skateboard magazine was launched called THRASHER that drove the final nail in the 'Action Now' coffin.
The Action Now TV show was a self financed 30 minute showcase produced at one of skateboardings all time low points. By todays standards it looks nothing special but the skate footage blew me away. It was the only way to see moving images of the new 'bionic' skating that was starting to come through. particular stand outs are Neil Blender and Steve Alba....totally inspired by this, me and a few friends built STIFFNECKS RAMP.
I wish the rest of the show was on Youtube. Its been over 25 years since I saw it but I recall some good footage of Jeff Watson on his BMX in the Upland fullpipe and some early Bob Haro ramp riding.

One night in September 1995....

Classics from Barry Thornton on Vimeo.

Psychick-Boy does it again unearthing unseen footage of THE RAMP COMMANDOS sessioning my old mini-ramp back in late September 1995. On duty that night were me (blue shirt/dyed black hair) Psychick-Boy, Captain Highside, Julian Parkinson and Daz Robinson.The list of tricks I have forgot I could do leaves me at a loss for words......look out for my backside boneless one, Psychick-Boy's Lein to tail and Captain Highside's frontside roll-in.......LIVIN' IN A WIGGLY WORLD!

YOYO'S POOL PARTY 2010

Thanks to everyone that showed up to YOYO'S POOL PARTY 2010.

As the sun set, folks started to show up...skaters and non skaters alike. I spent a good coupla days fixing up the backyard and setting the scene with a Tiki/Voodoo theme, which looked really great. GoGo Lou and Lady Di took care of the skarfing material, serving up killer veggie chilli dogs and an awesome Indy cake.

It was mainly a gathering of older skaters and a great session was had by all. Some skate highlights were PSYCHICK BOYs Slob-Airs and Rock 'n' Roll slides, CYBs backside grind to tail, CAPT. HIGHSIDEs Rock to Fakies and Cess Slides and BULLCRAIGOs Tail-Drop, his first time on a skate in 22 years!!

Some other things worthy of mention were JOHNNY ALPHA and CONWAY CASTLE providing a terrific aural backdrop to the nights activities, my "BMX Bastard" nephew Jake pledging to skate more often, my neice, Shea, skooting around on my 33 year old G+S slalom board and Capt. Highside drunkenly barbecuing a 2 foot long giant marrow at 2am!

Other shout outs to Geoff from CO-BUILT, driving over from Oxford to make the scene, Foxy (with a broken foot) and Daisy for hooking me up with a new S.S.S.-SHRED-SLED deck, Mr. Wilson, out of action with a back injury for all the photos and Joe Crow for his electrical expertise and inadvertantly taking the "slam of the night".

ERRAND-RUNNER....

I put this board together from old parts I had lying around. Its best feature is the ultra soft 78a Kryptonic wheels. Slalom wheels, originally 66mm diameter but lathed down by Capt. Highside to a managable 58mm. The board skates like a regular board but able to roll on rough terrian without feeling tall and cumbersome. Got the deck directly from Duane Peters on a U.S. trip a few years back. The perfect tool for stocking up on veggie hot-dogs and Vimto for Saturday nights upcoming Pool Party

BLUE TILE FEVER

Spent the afternoon skating YoYo's bowl with Psychick-Boy....making the most of the hot summer weather. The light blue paint reflected the glare of the sun and also seemed to intensify the heat. Feels good to be skating regularly again. After a couple of weeks, I'm starting to ease back into it and I'm 10 tricks into my list of 32 tricks to nail before I'm fifty!

Psychick-Boy even has a time machine!!

Mini Ramp skating in the late 80's

Many thanks to Pete Rogers for sending me these skate shots. The first three are taken at Dave Davies backyard ramp, in Lark Lane, Liverpool in around 1987. First 2 pics are me (stand-up F/side Grind and B/side Air) and then the 3rd shot is Ian Barwick mid Rock 'n' Roller.

The last 3 are of my own backyard ramp from maybe 1988-89. We used to skate for hours and end up full of splinters!!

the 4th pic is Paul 'Cyb' Lewis with a stylee, relaxed F/side Grind. Next up is Ritchie on a Fakie Smith Stall.

The last shot is Natas Kaupas (F/side Ollie) skating the ramp on a visit with Jesse Martinez at the ramps original short-lived home......upstairs at Split Skates shop in Manchester.

I'm really hoping that Pete digs out some more nuggets for me to post here!

UPDATE: Here's a pic of Pete himself Smith Grinding again on my old ramp

New Glen E. Friedman skate shots

New skate photography from Glen over at his blog what the fuck have you done? Pictures shot on Kodachrome just last week at Pier 62 Skatepark, NYC.
Above shot is Steve "Bulky" Olson, double axle grind on an over vert bowl corner.
Also a cool shot..... of Glen taking the shot!
For those who aren't familiar with Glen, he took the best skate shots in the late 70's, as a 12 year old, regularly submitting his work to SKATEBOARDER magazine. He also documented the early L.A. Hardcore punk scene and also somehow put himself on the frontline of the embryonic Hip Hop scenes in both L.A. and NYC.
His blog is always worth a gander..........

I love my Vans....

HARD TICKET TO HAWAII...

A little too 'Eighties' for me but still very entertaining....

Death of Bob Biniak....

Sad day......Just found out from Trawler that 'Dogtown' skater, Bob Biniak has died from a heart attack, aged only 52.

Here are a few words from Glen E. Friedman. Pictures by G.E.F.and C. R. Stecyk:

Bob Biniak was someone I've known since I was probably twelve years old. You can read in my DogTown book how we first met--it would not be appropriate to include it here. But as his wife said in her note to some of his personal friends thursday afternoon: "Bobby loves Life and lived more in his short life than many us of can ever imagine to do." From what I knew of Bob I can attest to this not being an exaggeration or a cliché.

Back in DogTown's heyday Biniak was known as one of the toughest, hardest skating dudes out there. Few could match his skills skating the infamous pipes out in Arizona or on the vertical flat wall of Mt. Baldy. In pool skating he was a clear innovator as witnessed by my lens, and Craig Stecyk's even earlier when he was interviewed in SkateBoarder magazine's first ever "Pool Riding Symposium." Bob early on received the coveted "Who's Hot" bio, and later, only for the most respected riders, a full length interview in SkateBoarder. He was also voted as one of the top ten Skateboarders of the year in SkateBoarder magazine's first annual poll held in 1977.

In my personal experience he was far and away the toughest guy on the original Zephyr skateboard team. Bob drove a "Beemer" way before most of his comrades even had cars, or were rock-starring out. He led a life that early-on, spanned everything from rumored, sinister behaviors to a career in professional golf, while the rest of us were still just acting like kids. Bob waited for no one and was the ruler of every situation I ever saw him in. He leaves behind many friends and family including his wife Charlene and baby daughter Brie. He suffered a massive cardiac arrest on Sunday and passed away Thursday at 12:51pm EST in Florida. He will be missed.

LIVERPOOL DEATHMATCH

Great clip of the last ever "NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD"  Halloween skateboard all-nighter.
If you don't know about this event, It was the brainchild of Foxy (vocalist for S.S.S.) and was held at a skatepark I built, RAMPWORX in Liverpool. It had a bunch of bands play in the early part of the evening and then at the stroke of midnight, a 10 minute bare-knuckle brawl/ skate session took place. The baying crowd were actively encouraged to throw stuff into the bowl during the Deathmatch. Over the years I saw beercans, pumpkins, fireworks, male and female streakers and a lambs heart.
Foxy is the "Don King" of promotion in UK skate circles and NOTLD was extremely well attended.... maybe 1000 or so people at the last one and things really did get out of hand but it was a real lot of fun.
 Foxy even managed to get Tony Trujillo, John Cardiel and the rest of the ANTI-HERO team to attend one of them...so that was an eye opener for all involved parties!!

"Don't tell me what to do.....N####R!" YoYo's bowl 2003

Finally figured out how to convert analog video tapes to M-pegs, so I can now host stuff on Youtube and then post it here.
Here is a short clip of Duane Peters skating my backyard pool back in 2003.We booked a Manchester show for The Hunns with my band The Stags and we put the band up. As soon as Duane saw the pool he wanted to skate but the weather was crappy. The morning after the show,it was still very cold and overcast but it had stopped raining and we got to skate for about 30 mins or so. Duane did all his trademark moves: Sweepers, Layback Roll-outs, Invert-Reverts, Acid-Drops and Tail-Tap stalls. That's me in the red hoodie putting in the odd run....we coulda done with another couple of skaters sessioning but sometimes ya gotta just take what ya can get!
The pool, named after our cat, YoYo, was home-built in summer 2002 and took just over 14 days to construct.I know its 8 years after the fact but I would like to publicly thank the following people for all their help with the build: Di and Joe Crawford, John Lee, Pike, Tim Stamp, Whitey, my Dad, Adam Wilson, Doug the Hole and Louise Crawford.
At the start of the clip I shouted out "Do a Layback Roll-out!" you can just about hear Duane reply "Don't tell me what to do...nigger!!"

Split Skates indoor mini ramp

This is Pete 'insomnia kid' McNiel doing a f/side smith grind on a mini ramp that I built.

This ramp was the 2nd ramp I actually got paid to build. It was situated upstairs in Split Skates Manchester in 1988. I built the ramp for the owners and on the back of that somehow ended up working there as Shop Manager. The ramp was heavily used every day for about 6 months until there was some argy-bargy between some skaters and the neighbouring businesses. People came to skate from all over and we even had Natas Kaupas and Jesse Martinez do a demo there.

When the landlord forced the shop to shut the ramp down, we hired a Luton van and relocated it at my house, where it stood for almost 14 years.

I like magazines....part one

Whilst up in my attic space, photographing the stickers for the last post, I came across my stash of old magazines. I've never been that much into books but have always really loved magazines. I think this started as a 5 year old when my Grandad took on the role of night watchman at a magazine distribution warehouse. The warehouse was located on the same grounds as the Joinery company he worked for. He agreed to keep an eye on the warehouse on the understanding that he could take a few comics and magazines, for his trouble, to give to his grandson. This was 1969-'70 and I vividly remember visiting my Nana and Grandads in St. Helens, Merseyside and him taking me into the warehouse every Saturday. The place was just stacked floor to ceiling with mags and comicbooks. As a 5 or 6 year old  I was mainly drawn to the comics, American Marvel and DC. I remember Gold-Key comics with Photo covers of 'Man From Uncle' and 'Star Trek'.

I also got 'Mad' magazine and 'Famous Monsters' magazine plus all the other FM ripoff publications.

I still have some of the 'Famous Monsters' today but regretfully, I sold all the other comics (200 plus) for 6 pounds back in 1980.

 As with a myriad of things, I think the internet has killed off the Raison D'etre of the specialist magazine. In the late 70's the only way of checking out what was going on with U.S. skateboarding was to read SKATEBOARDER mag. This was before the video age and you would just look at the pictures and try to imagine how the guy got up there.....and how he got back down and there was never ever any question that the guy bailed the trick. Nowadays, its all de-mystified, you are aware that Jake Phelps smashed his glasses within minutes of it happening and if you wanna see him do it, it will be on Youtube.

The old mags featured in these pics are just a few of the hundreds that I have boxed up. I have most THRASHERs from the beginning to the mid 90's. I also have a good collection of early BMX PLUS, KUNG FU MONTHLY, FAMOUS MONSTERS, EASYRIDERS, IRON HORSE, MONSTER MAG, AWOL, BACK STREET HEROES, 60'S PLAYBOY, 60'S MOTORCYCLE MECHANICS, FANGORIA, FLIPSIDE, MAXIMUM ROCKNROLL to name a few.

I think I'm gonna go back in the attic and find the issue of the English SKATEBOARD mag with the topless model kneeling on a giant skateboard!

UPDATE Fri 19th Feb: Here it is.......in issue # 9

I like stickers......

I am a sticker nerd. I just emptied out my sticker shoebox....I've had some of these for a really long time. Within the skateboard community, stickers were regarded as "currency".A fistful of cool stickers could get you a long way! A lot of these stickers have been given to me over the years, as a gesture of goodwill or whatever. I must admit I am not shy when it comes to asking "Give us some stickers!" I think the oldest ones I have are the BMX ones which I was given when I got to visit the 'Mr. Sticker' factory in California in 1981.The newest are the various Chris Carr related ones, which fellow Skooter Farmer 'Racin' Jason C # 99 won in an auction last year (2009) and then gave to me. Thanks very much Jason!

KILL ME...I NEED THE REST

Here are some pictures of Duane Peters and the U.S.Bombs from at least a decade ago.This is the first time we met.It was after a poorly promoted show in Derby and the band ended up with no place to stay, so we put 'em up for a couple of days.

Duane has always been a hero of mine and  it was really great to get to know him. I think everybody concerned had a good time, we made stencil tee shirts, rode my motorcycles, ate nice food and skated the pool my company built in Stockport.

The highlight was going shopping  for breakfast with  Duane . We rode on the chopper to Kwik Save and Duane bought sausages for the band. He really freaked  out the woman on the meat counter wanting to know the difference between Cumberland and Lincolnshire sausages.

U.S. Bombs have had many line up changes over the years but this one was classic : Kerry Martinez  (guitar)

Wade Walston (bass), Johnny Two-Bags (2nd. guitar) Chip Hanna (drums) and Duane Peters (vocals).

I believe that things have gone full circle and this is once more the current line up.

Here is a link to a very recent interview with Duane. Its in 5 parts

Thrasher Magazine video interview