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Duane Peters (above left) - riding his extra fat (10.6 inches wide) signature Santa Cruz model at an early 80's competition. Peters was known as a hard charging skater and hard charging partier who eventually got heavily into drugs and punk rock, chronicled in a very interesting documentary. Mike Folmer (above middle) - A Florida skater, he is shown here heavily padded and grabbing some nice air at Clearwater Skatepark in the late '70's, a couple years before his pink signature model from Sims - a birthday present of mine in 1982 (above right) - came out.
Jennifer Midlton
Chiff Advisor
Steve Alba (above) - This picture of Micke's older brother from Jan 1978 predates his own signature models with Kryptonics and later Santa Cruz Skates.
1979 Micke Alba 'K-Beam' Kryptonics Deck (left) - Micke Alba was another talented youngster winning major competitions before the age of 15. This was also my first 'fat' deck, Christmas '79.
Bert LaMar / Sims - LaMar (above left) was a late 1970's prodigy who rode for Sims, winning competitions against far older skaters. His signature model was quite popular, debuting in late 1978 alongside the Dave Andrecht (black/green) and Brad Bowman (blue/yellow/red) models. By his late teens, LaMar had moved on to competitive snowboarding and in 1989 started LaMar Snowboards, still around today. In 2005, he made the unconventional move to golf accessories, starting Iliac Golf.
Steve Caballero (right) - One of the original members of Powell Peralta's 'Bones Brigade' skate team, Caballero has skated hard for 3 decades now. I met him in a freshman dorm room at UCSB in 1987. Very mellow.
Jay Adams (left) - 1970's Dogtown legend...an iconic, creative revolutionary on the board, trouble-making rebel off it. Above, his 1970's Z-Flex signature deck.
Skateboarding - 1970's/1980's
Growing up in Southern California during the 1970's, I was a huge fan of skateboarding, visiting Marina Del Rey Skatepark, subscribing to Skateboarder Magazine (still have many of those mags), practicing tricks in my driveway, and getting new boards outfitted with the latest wheels, trucks, and decks from Kryptonics, Sims, Powell Peralta, Independent, and Tracker. I still like to ride now and then at parks with my 8 yr old. Above are pictured my boys' custom boards, top and bottom. I put them together in early 2012, hiring an artist who worked at my local Staples. Below are some major figures from that era. LINKS, for further reading: DOGTOWN '70s Powell Peralta '80s
Tony Alva (above right) - Maybe the most famous of the original Dogtown gang from the 1970's, he very early started his own brand of decks and wheels.
Tony Hawk (right) - The richest and most famous skateboarder of them all, and maybe the best as well. He built upon the Dogtown vertical skating foundation while touring early on with the Bones Brigade team, wowing fans everywhere with huge arials and a plethora of highly technical mid-air maneuvers.
Christian Hosoi (left) - The graceful, artistic rebel known for massive arials and smooth style, but also living life on the edge into his young adulthood. He was Tony Hawk's major rival for many years, providing a stark contrast to Hawk's clean-cut image.
Left and right are some true amateurs - my son and I at Skaters Point in Santa Barbara, December 2012. The little guy is riding his custom deck (top of page - silver top, black bottom) while I'm riding a Sims Folmer re-issue I bought in 2011. Independent trucks, Powell-Peralta Bones wheels.
And Finally...
Below is an email from a friend, 4 yrs older, who also grew up and skated in the L.A. area...captures the 1970's scene perfectly.
The skate page is classic...i was on a skate board pretty much all day long for about 4-5 years (age 10-14...bleeding into 15 before surfing just took over completely)....we skated all over LA...looking for pools , irrigation holes etc. Not uncommon for us to be in the Palisades Highlands (living in Westwood at age 12-13)...gone all day....parents with ZERO idea where we were??? Skating, blue bus, biking with board bungie corded on somehow.... a few of the bros hitch hiking (never appealed to me)....smoking weed from about 13 on.....we would encounter the Dog Town boys from time to time....they were assholes....nothing cool about them at all except they could really get after it...that’s all I got Toddo....1 last thing.....my favorite all time board was a green fiber glass Zepher with bennett trucks and road runner 4’s....the thing skated pools soooooo well...had a couple Logan earth ski’s also with bennett trucks and these soft pastel colored “Zuma” wheels...didn’t last too long but gripped anything...Paul Revere Jr high black top banks, Marina skate park, skate park out in the valley for a while....go!!
LEFT -- Christmas Eve, Dec., 2013... yours truly going frontside at Skaters Point in Santa Barbara. My 8 yr old took the pic with my phone. The two kids sitting down in the background are my 5 yr old boy and his 11 yr old cousin.
RIGHT -- Same day, same photographer...going backside.