Tag Archives: decks

New deck – Death Skateboards Richie Jackson

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Time for another new deck.  I got this Death Skateboards Richie Jackson deck a while ago, thought I’d share some pics of it for posterity.

I bought the deck from Native Skate Store, who provided a really good online service.  I requested that it was gripped (as I’m crap at gripping decks) and it arrived all done and looking pristine.  It was very affordable and delivered quickly, no pain at all.

Regular readers will already know that I’m a big fan of Death Skateboards.  I’ve had several Death decks and I’ve loved ’em all.  A very cool company with a rad, individual approach to skating and a great aesthetic – their products are tough and reliable, always up to the job.

This time around I opted for the Richie Jackson pro model.  Richie is an inspirational skater who constantly evolves and develops new ideas.  His innovative style is just ridiculously creative and constantly forging new ground.  Google him now!

The extraordinarily detailed Art Nouveau graphic is breath-takingly detailed, I probably should’ve just kept the deck to put on the wall.  I’ve skated it and the graphics are shined from rock’n’rolls on curbs.  Should’ve bought two, I guess.  Such is the transient nature of skateboard graphics…

This phenomenal art is by Liane Plant, and I think her work is incredible.  Some of the best art I’ve seen on a skateboard since the eighties classics.  I apologise whole heartedly to Liane for destroying the graphic.  It may well be a crime for a skater as bad as me to defile something so beautiful.

So anyway, the deck is 8.25″ wide and I set it up with my trusted Independent trucks and Death wheels.  So far, it’s been a blast.

Thanks to all the above, long may you roll!

The Death Skateboards website is here.  Go take a look.

Richie Jackson is all over social media, just search – you won’t regret it.  There’s some stuff on the above Death website, too.

The amazing art of Liane Plant can be seen here.  I need some T-shirts and stickers.

You can visit Native Skate Store for all your needs by clicking here.

And finally, here’s a picture of me being a total dork, trying to ape Richie Jackson’s style, rocking an old paisley shirt.  Just thought some of his psychedelic magic might rub off.  I bought that shirt back in 1990, knew it was worth keeping hold of…  And no, I didn’t really wear the shirt to skate in, I chickened out.  As great as Richie is, even I am a little old for hero worship on that level…!

Two Bare Feet Longboard

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OK, so I admit: I don’t really need another longboard.  I already have Sector 9 and Mindless longboards.  But I found this Two Bare Feet set up for a crazy price and I couldn’t resist.

I first came across the brand in a surf shop in Rhosneigr, Anglesey.  They looked pretty cool and I looked them up online.  In particluar, I was interested to try out this type of shape, with the drop through trucks too.

This is a 42″ 821 complete longboard, and it’s ridiculously cheap to buy from the Two Bare Feet online store.  In fact, the low price made me cautious and it was a while before I clicked “purchase”.

I had to wait to get some spare cash together anyway, and in the end I figured the risk was minimal.

Glad I decided to buy: for a budget board, I’ve been very impressed so far.

As I stated, I really wanted to try out this “twin tip” shape deck and it’s turned out to be a lot of fun.  Although I had been curious about learning tricks on this shape deck, so far I’m not convinced that’s a good move (though that’s my problem, nothing to do with the board).  It has been good fun for cruising around on though.

I’ve never skated drop through trucks before, and I like the lower ride they provide.  I found these trucks a bit unresponsive at first however; this problem seems to be improving as they wear in a little.

The board comes with great, big, fat wheels that are nice and soft; they roll very comfortably with the ABEC 5 bearings supplied.

Graphics wise, it’s simple and clean with a slight retro 70’s style that I like a lot.  You can select different graphics and colours (including wheel colours) on the online shop.

The board arrived fully gripped (nice job).  Unfortunately the only major downer was that it was shrink wrapped, which takes ages to remove satisfactorily if you’re obsessive like me.  Still, the whole delivery and transaction was totally painless.  Well done, Two Bare Feet.

This has proven a great addition to my longboard collection, we’ll see how it performs longevity wise.  For now, I would say that this is an ideal skateboard for a more experienced rider to own as a back-up or for a different riding experience.  The real beauty of the 821 complete though, is as a budget price entry level board for a beginner who fancies trying out longboard riding.

Technical Specifications:

  • Length: 42″
  • Width: 9.5″
  • Canadian maple deck
  • 70mm x 51mm wheels
  • ABEC 5 bearings
  • Supplied set up and complete

Two Bare Feet are a British company offering lots of different board riding equipment.  You can visit their website here.

Bring Your Own Vinyl Night #15

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Bring Your Own Vinyl Night

The Queen’s Head, Mold

Friday 22nd June 2018

The mixed grill on my plate was a massive meal, and I tucked in with ravenous glee.  For I knew that I would need my strength tonight; this would be Vinyl Night unlike any previous.  Tonight, I would test the mettle of all of us in attendance.

Otherwise, it was business as usual for Bring Your Own Vinyl Night at the Queen’s Head in Mold.  Beers, goods company and the opportunity to play whatever you liked during a fifteen minute set.  Vinyl only, mind!

Although I don’t always run with a theme, this evening I had a definite plan.  Ever since I’ve first attended one of these events, put on by the brilliant Halcyon Dreams and VOD Music, there was one song n my collection I really wanted to play.  It would inform the rest of my set and provide a connection between all the songs.  I decided to leave that track till last, and put together a collection of songs to accompany it.

The question was: How would my star track be received by the audience?

The Beatles – Here Comes the Sun

To start the set, a classic Beatles song written by George Harrison and needing no introduction.  Of course it’s from “Abbey Road”, and I love it as it instantly makes me think of summer days, sitting in the sun on the beach.  It’s a perfect song; beautifully written and with such an uplifting feel.

Nancy Sinatra + Lee Hazlewood – Summer Wine

Next up was this gem; a duet between Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood.  I have the album with this track on it, however this version was a 45rpm single that my friend Colin lent to me for the event.  “Summer Wine” reminds me in some ways of a Bond theme, it has a little of that drama, but somewhat more relaxed.  A wonderful song that brings back memories of holidays abroad and cocktails.

Black Sabbath – Laguna Sunrise

A brief interlude on side 2 of the absolutely essential “Volume 4 album”, here’s yet another tune that demonstrates just how versatile Black Sabbath were.  A beautiful relaxing instrumental that effortlessly conjures up an appropriate image, this shows perfectly the genius of Tony Iommi.  As good as any song you’ve ever heard.

The Cult – Sun King

After that, the tempo was raised with a full on turbo charge rocker from my old faves, The Cult.  This was the 7″ single version, edited down from the album track.  One of my preferred songs on the massively successful “Sonic Temple” album from 1989.  With a title referencing French King Louis XIV, this is a great fun fists-in-the air macho rocker that reeks of burning up desert highways in a hot rod.

Johnny Griggs/Simon May – When You Go Away (Eldorado Theme – Instrumental)

Could you tell what the theme was, reader?  All leading up to this final cut, I wanted to play songs related to summer and sunny days.  I used to be a huge fan of hyper naff BBC soap Eldorado when I was a student – so bad it was good, and the Spanish setting used to cheer me up on dreary wet days.  Sadly that amazing programme was canned, but I found the single in a Woolworths bargain bin (for 29p, I think) back in the day.  Along with my VHS cassette of “The Best of Eldorado”, that’s all the merch from this class show that I have.  I played the instrumental B-side here, but cocked up by playing it on 33rpm at the very start.  Years of planning, bollocksed. 

So there you have it – my summer sun themed set.  Although I was ridiculed for the Eldorado song – and quite rightly too – I loved playing it.  I managed to ruin my cool reputation with one song, though.

Never mind – as she was leaving, one old dear told me she enjoyed my set very much.  I’ll take that as a win.

She must have been an Eldorado fan as well.

Nice one Halcyon Dreams and VOD Music, yet another great Vinyl Night – more soon please.

The Halcyon Dreams blogspot is here.

The Halcyon Dreams mixcloud page is here.

The Halcyon Dreams Facebook page is here.

The VOD music website is here.

Skateboard Museum: SMA Jim Thiebaud

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Come with me as I take a roll down skateboarding memory lane, ollieing the cracks as I go…

Santa Monica Airlines Jim Thiebaud

This classic deck dates back to the late 80’s, I picked it up in 1989 if I remember.  At the time the Chester branch of Milletts, the camping and outdoors shop, were stocking skateboards for some reason or other.  They had some pretty rad stuff, too.

When the time came to replace my worn out deck and get a new one, I saved up my pennies/swapped vinyl records and got myself this Santa Monica Airlines deck from Milletts.

At least I think that’s where it was from, I can’t remember.  Either way, I didn’t support a skater owned shop on this occasion, to my shame.

SMA

SMA were really blowing up at the time, and Jim Thiebaud had been on my radar since I saw the (criminally minimal) footage of him in some of the Powell vids.

Thiebaud was – and is – a supremely cool skateboarder with a smooth, rad style.  He was one of those original street pros that I really admired.  Along with Gonz, Natas, Guerrero and Vallely, JT was a bona fide street skating pioneer and innovator.

The shape was perfect for me at the time, exactly how I wanted a skateboard to be.  It’s still a classic shape now, I really like it. Nice size tail, comfy wide deck – but not too wide.  Great street deck of the era.

This deck also had the cool comic book style superhero graphics which I loved.  I’ve always been a big fan of superheroes.

Top view
Graphic

However I wasn’t cool enough to get on this particular wave of popularity earlier.  If I had, I might have picked up the previous variation on the graphic, which featured a bad guy designed to resemble the Joker.  The Batman movie was out around that time, so I guess the whole theme was prominent back then.

So the Joker version had to be scrapped due to some issue with DC Comics, I believe the story goes, and I ended up with the purple suited thug instead.

Side view
Other side

No matter – cool graphic or not, this deck was to be skated.  I transferred my Indy trucks and OJII wheels and was ready to go.  Well, when I’d also added the Powell Rib Bones as well.  Not to save the graphic, mind – in those days the received wisdom (at least amongst my friends and I) was that the rails helped you slide better.

This particular set up was particularly long serving and loyal.  It was like a magic carpet that seemed to respond perfectly to my wishes.  Honestly, I remember learning tons of tricks on this finely shaped beauty.  Footplants and Boneless variations were (still are) major tricks in my arsenal and I learned several on this very set up. 

Biggest of all though, was the kick flip.  We called it an “ollie kick flip” back then, and it was a pretty desirable trick to own.  I learned kick flips on this gorgeously wide beast and was unbelievably stoked.  I still remember that first one.

It was well skated – in fact the tail is worn to a sharp and splintered point – but this set up is still skateable.  It’s still around as it was replaced with thinner decks and trucks as shapes evolved; thus I never swapped it.

The SMA Thiebaud is still on the garage wall, still looks great, and still gets a roll every now and again.  Classic.

Take a close look at the photos and you’ll notice some interesting features:

  • Madrid Fly Paper grip tape (note the fly shapes cut out)
  • Rad SMA top graphic
  • Santa Cruz Cell Block riser pad
  • A couple of cool stickers from back in the day still hanging in there
  • The trucks are fitted with Grind King reversed kingpins, there’s even a sticker on the front hanger…
  • You can see some of the bands I was into at the time from the grip tape art, which I did with Tip-Ex…

New Set Up – Death Skateboards

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It’s summer, which inevitably means that I attempt some skateboarding yet again.  So far this year, I’m happy to report that I’ve learnt/re-learnt some new tricks.  This does however mean that my ankles are wrecked and I can hardly walk.

I needed a new deck, so I paid a visit to my old friends at Lost Art skate shop in Liverpool.  After a bit of an adventure finding the new shop, I picked myself a new deck and got it gripped up while I was there.  A great service – really helpful – and a profesh grip tape job.  Very happy, nice one again, Lost Art. 

I had been skating a wider deck for a while, over 8.5 inches – and while this gave me some added stability, it wasn’t as easy to do tricks on.

So I opted for something a little smaller, and chose a 7.75″ Death skateboards deck.  Fixed up with Independent trucks, Indy truck bolts and Death wheels, it’s a formidable monster of a skateboard and is preforming fine (unlike me).

The whole set up looks really cool, though it didn’t look all nice and shiny for very long.

Regular readers may recognise this deck – I’ve had one before.  Exact same size and everything.  Which means that this blog post is a waste of time.  Unless – of course – like me, you love looking at pictures of skateboards.

Death have always been a really reliable, quality company and it’s no surprise I’ve decided on another of their decks.

2 x Death decks
3 x Death decks

Bring Your Own Vinyl Night #9

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Bring Your Own Vinyl Night

Queen’s Head, Mold

Friday 4th November 2016

It was great to be back in Mold for another Bring Your Own Vinyl Night.  It’s been a long time since the last evening in the Queen’s Head, with summer holidays and whatnot getting in the way – so it was good to see the familiar faces and crank out some tunes.

The usual rules applied: each person got 15 minutes on the decks to play whatever they liked, genre free – vinyl only!

Adam went for it first, here’s an over view of his varied and very enjoyable set:

  • Voice of the Beehive – I Think I Love You
  • Grandmaster Flash – Whitelines
  • Queen – One Vision
  • Willie Nelson – On the Road Again

I am so jealous of that Willie Nelson single!

Halloween had just been and gone a few days earlier, so I was still in a spooky mood.  This time, my set went like this:

Monster Magnet – See You in Hell

One of the many stand out tracks from Monster Magnet’s classic “Powertrip” album, this is acid drenched stoner rock at its finest.  The retro sound is augmented by a churning organ that whirls around as the bass chugs.  Psychedelic wonderment from Monster Magnet that sounds like a forgotten late 60’s gem.  I’ve owned the “Powertrip” album for many years on CD, but recently acquired the new vinyl re-issue.  Money well spent.  A truly great, under appreciated band.

Donovan – Season of the Witch

This fantastic song was featured in the Tim Burton movie Dark Shadows, a film I’m a huge fan of (though it appears not many other people are).  Whilst the previous song sounds like something from the sixties, this one is.  It’s a mellow groover that manages to wander out of hippy territory and sound somewhat sinister… Love this track, I felt it was a suitable jam for a Halloween inspired set.

The Damned – Plan 9 Channel 7

Ah, the Damned!  Where would a Halloween themed set be, without a tune from these punk rock proto-Goths?  One of my favourite bands, one of my favourite songs – from the indispensable “Machine Gun Etiquette” album.  Every home should own this!  The song is, of course, written about a viewing of Ed Wood‘s infamous “worst film ever made” – Plan 9 From Outer Space – on American horror channel 9.  Vampira, James Dean, Hollywood after dark – it’s all here in a perfect slice of rampaging pop punk.

The Misfits – American Nightmare

Finally, more horror punk from the masters themselves – the one and only Misfits.  On this track, Danzig and pals abandon the usual Ramones inspired turbo punk and offer up a ridiculously catchy rockabilly number.  Complete with handclaps and Danzig crooning more like Elvis than ever, this track sounds like a lost piece of 50’s nostalgia.  Classic stuff.

There we have it ladies and gentlemen – another great night in Mold!  Thanks to the guys from Halcyon Dreams and VOD music – and Dylan who helped out with an extra turntable!  More soon…

The Halcyon Dreams blogspot is here.

The Halcyon Dreams mixcloud page is here.

The Halcyon Dreams Facebook page is here.

The VOD music website is here.

Santa Cruz Street Creep

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IMG_4705A few years ago, I had an urge to get me an old school set up.  I already had my everyday double kick street machine, but I felt I needed something that reminded me of my skateboarding youth in the 1980s.

This Santa Cruz Street Creep was the answer.

I remembered the Street Creep from those halcyon days.  I never owned one at the time, though I did own other Santa Cruz decks (see the blog about my Rob Roskopp deck, for one).  The Street Creep was a very cool shape and a cool graphic.

Luckily for me, numerous skateboard companies have been re-issuing the old shapes as collectors pieces.  I picked this re-issue up fairly easily.  I fitted it with some new, wide Independent trucks and some old Santa Cruz Slime Balls wheels and it was ready to go.

The wheels were rescued from an old relic of a board that was passed to me a few years back.  I always wanted some Slime Balls, finally I got a set!

Full view
Top view
Trucks and wheels

The result is a rad skateboard that brings back loads of memories.  The shape is great, though it takes some getting used to after skating shorter, thinner boards for ages.  It’s a fantastic skateboard for blasting a few old tricks on – I find no-complys and some boneless manoeuvres easier on this set up.

With the big, softer Slime Balls attached, this board is great for carving up some of my favourite banked skate spots.  In particular, there’s a messy old “bowl” I like to skate – tarnished with grit and stones, but very skateable with this monster.

Plus there’s the graphic – if you’re an old 80’s skate hound like me, it’s all about the skulls!  Check out the close up the graphic and you’ll see dozens of smaller skulls and faces within the image.

Skateboards are a thing of beauty; this Street Creep looks and rides superb.

IMG_4713

Graphic close up
Wheel close up
Under carraige
Top graohic

Top graphic

Bring Your Own Vinyl Night #5

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Bring Your Own Vinyl Night

Queen’s Head, Mold

Friday 4th December 2015

Unlike the last event, I didn’t have a theme for Bring Your Own Vinyl Night this time around.  Just some tunes I fancied playing.  I hadn’t even decided exactly what they would be till the show was on.

For anyone still uninitiated, the night is hosted in the Queen’s Head pub in Mold, North Wales.  There are two turntables and each participant gets to play 15 minutes of whatever music they want, vinyl only.

I had myself a couple of beers and rattled out this selection:

Motorhead – Ace of Spades

When you buy your first Motorhead album, you know you’ve entered the world of grown up music.  Big, nasty unapologetic rocking grown up music.  A song that never gets old, I was introduced to “Ace of Spades” when the band performed it on the classic “University Challenge” episode of The Young Ones.  It’s just a non-stop, joyous racket that simply will not stop or slow down for anyone.  Absolute perfection.  I played this in memory of drummer Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor, who sadly passed away recently.

The Vapors – Turning Japanese

A New Wave/Punk Rock classic, I was donated the brilliant “Turning Japanese” by a friend.  Thank you, Simon.  It was supposed to be part of a tribute set that I’m still working on.  It was going to be hard to follow up the adrenaline rush of the previous song, The Vapors pulled it off here though.  A great power pop song that kept the pace of the set nicely.

Dinosaur Jr. – Freak Scene

A slight fast forward to the late 1980’s for this next track.  The first track on Dinosaur Jr.’s album “Bug”, this track nicely covers the appeal of early American alternative rock.  Born out of punk and hardcore, with one foot in old Black Sabbath and one in jangly pop; Dinosaur Jr. constantly delight.  Reminds me of my skateboarding youth.

Beastie Boys – Sabotage

I couldn’t decide which track to play last, so I let the audience choose the album.  The Beastie Boys “Ill Communication” won hands down, and I chose “Sabotage” as the track to play.  Another unrelenting monster of a song, “Sabotage” has a funky groove delivered with a rocking style.  Again, a song I never tire of.  Plus the Spike Jonze video, with it’s 70’s cop show homage, is a work of genius.  It’s been over twenty years and I still want to dress up and play Sabotage Cops for a day.

My buddy Adam strode up to the decks next, and delivered another fine set.  It went something like this:

  • Queen & David Bowie – Under Pressure
  • The Blasters – I’m Shakin’
  • Mark Ronson/Bruno Mars – Uptown Funk
  • DJ Kool – Let Me Clear My Throat

Four top songs from Adam there, the Queen track was a load of fun and had me doing my world renowned Freddie Mercury impression.  It was nice to hear a modern song on vinyl too, with the Ronson/Mars number.

Great night, great songs – well done all on another fine evening’s entertainment.  I’m currently stumped what to play next time.  I’ll work on it.

The Halcyon Dreams blog is here, where you can find listed (very helpfully) all of the songs played on the night.

The Halcyon Dreams Facebook page is here.