Can you judge a book by its cover? Of course you can’t, but it might help you pull it off the shelf if it appeals to you. Aside from Manual, I don’t think I have looked at a magazine properly in a while. I used to skip through ‘em at Gusto’s crib, never really reading the articles. I think I would have to say that the biggest turn off for me in the last decade or so, has been the stair count/gnar factor bar that seems to have been set. If I see some guy screaming down a 20 stair or flipping off some small skyscraper on a cover—which is 99 percent of the time—I will generally move on to the next best thing, which would usually be turning round and leaving the store. Who was the idiot who decided that this was how it is? And more to the point, who are all the foolish sheep that abide by these rules? I would like to pay tribute to the one percent of the covers from a genre that doesn’t normally make the cut these days. And doing so without having to get injured or potentially scarred for life in the process. Some of them didn’t even involve a skateboard, but they have been forever etched in my skull! Sorry if you disagree, I’m just bored of seeing the same cover on every magazine, month after month.

1. Pepe Martinez, Slap Magazine May 1994.

2. Kareem Campbell, Transworld Skateboarding June 1998

3. Rick Ibaseta, Thrasher Magazine March 1993

4. Ghetto Kid, Big Brother Number 12

5. Marcus McBride, Thrasher Magazine July 1999

6. Billy Valdez, Slap Magazine January 1996.

7. Stevie Williams, Thrasher Magazine May 2001.

8. Josh Kalis, Transworld Skateboarding November 1995.

9. Chico Brenes, Slap Magazine September 1997.

10. Guy Mariano, Skateboarder Magazine July/August 2000.

My Peripheral

I had this dope ‘Rasta Baby’ Stevie deck from Profile in ’96. I think it was a 7.3.

Stevie Williams Profile board.

Stevie Williams Profile Ad.

Quick Pic

This one is, again, for Jake and Alex. A bit of your mate in his wonder years.

Jason Dill, 23 Skateboards ad.

Double E-Clipse

I keep thinking about how good and ahead of his time Koston’s Snuff part was. It’s a hard one to match. Then I remembered this gully mo-fo! Mad Circle has alwas been one of the greatest and Ed Devera was one of my favourites on their team. I used to be able to do switch kickys until I was fourteen and the only board I ever broke doing one was an Ed Devera Mad Circle. It had cartoon cigs and an ashtray on it. It would have been a dope wall board! Anyway, this part came out in ’93 or early ’94 and I’m pretty psyched on how high Ed pops his ish and how stylishly he executes them. Check his tré bomb over a sideways trash can on flat and his switch front heels up and over everything. I then realised I had forgot bout Mike Cao. Better watch his part again. (Fuck, now I gotta post that too.) What part should I put up? Fuck it, I’ll do both. Strange because the last time I put two joints up on an E-Clipse it was from the other Mad Circle vid Five Flavours. Cao’s got maaaad pop and ninja steeze. I especially like how you see his socks with out him larking all over the place. How’s his manual on ‘that monolithic thing!’ @ 1:37. Heavy. These two parts are from the Mad Circle video Let The Horns Blow.

Ed Devera Mad Circle board.

Mad Circle Let The Horns Blow.

Fine Tuning

I got heavily involved in Guru’s Jazzmatazz vibe, in which Guru would collaborate with a bunch of jazz musicians to make an album. Hip hop seems heavily influenced by jazz whether you like it or not. If it be samples or full tunes, it’s all a part of it. We used to raid homeboy’s pops stash of jazz discs. He had all the classics and some more new age stuff which was also kinda freakish. Some of it was dope, yet a lot was fairly down tempo and sunday afternoonish. A man whom tops the list for me is Miles Davis, a cleverly talented trumpeteer from Illinois. He’s one bad man! This song became a bit of an anthem in ’94 and you may also remember another of his tunes, entitled Mystery from an old Eastern Exposure vid in the NYC section. Here’s Miles Davis ft. J.R., A.B. Money and Easy Mo Bee with The Doo Bop song from the album Doo Bop. Peep game on his threads, or should I say thread on his album cover. Timeless!

Miles Davis Doo Bop.

Stomping Grounds

Props to Mr Alex Dyer for showing me this joint last week. Had to put it up even though it’s just about to drop, because it’s a hybrid of two classics that I have previously posted in Stomping Grounds. I give you the all mighty Filabee, do the math. And yes, I will be adding a pair to the endless shopping cart of footwear dreams.

Clarks Wallabee x Fila, Filabee.

Tommy features again in the opening of this Transworld montage.

Transworld Skateboarding are doing a series of interviews based around Cliche’s new vid Cle, I’m pretty sure a new part will be featured each time. Anyway always interesting to get an inside look into certain things, check it