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| Q&A: Michael Brooke - Publisher, Concrete Wave Magazine (7141 Posts)
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Skateboard Mania
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On 4/29/2003 Glen D.
wrote in from
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Hey Judi, I saw that show at the Forum. I still have the Skateboard Mania sticker I got there. Lance Mountain and I were talking about it a couple of months back. He had tickets to go the last day and I guess it was canceled so he never got to go. He's still bummed to this day and has a hard time getting out of bed because of it.
I'd be interested in what ever happened to those ramps. They had some cool configurations. Skating on the plexiglass sucked, but resurfaced in birch, they would be great.
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Downhill speedboarding
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On 4/29/2003 Kludy
wrote in from
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I race speedboards, there is no market for speedboards.I have been told by the top street luge riders that we are the navy seals of skateboarding. To say the industry is hurting is like in 1965 that skateboarding is just a fad. I am am roofer /pro. speedboarding and have the feeling that skateboards are and need to keep going foreward!I test stuff all the time and have a brand new deck that I will bring with me in the season opener in San Fran. this next weekin. The sport or hobie will never die because kids, and I have a few kids will ride what they love not cheap boards. Save your money and buy good U.S.A MADE. Good people that have been around forever are you best buy!
STAND-UP RULES!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Skateboard Mania
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On 4/29/2003
Judi
wrote in from
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Michael,
Have you ever thought about doing a piece on "Skateboard Mania" where are they now ?
I don't know if you heard about the mulitmillion dollar skate tour that got sabotaged over an affair with the management and the Lakers owner's wife who cancelled all bookings across America after the first shows at the LA Forum. That's where I met Duane Peters back in 1978.
We worked with choreographers, costumers, lived in the Holiday Inn off of Hollywood Blvd for 3 weeks practiced at the old Paramont Studios, stayed on the Queen Mary for a week while we practiced in the Long Beach arena. Was fun back in the day. Not a core show but definitely a good time when your 16-24 years old have roadies and can fill 7 1/2 semi's when on the road in our Rock and Roll bus.
Nineteen skaters, 13 men and 6 women. I was a replacement for Laura Thornhill since she was 16 and they didn't want to hire a teacher.
Lelani Kiabu, Vicki Vickers, Deana Calkins, Laurie McDonald, Kerri Cooper, Ray Flores, Skitch Hitchcock, Tony Jetton, Paul Hoffman, Randal Buck (Race Car Driving Instructor at Laguna Seca) Brian Buck, Jeff Sands (Founder of Switch) Paco Prieto...
6 from Nor Cal and 13 from So Cal.
I came across an old issue of Skateboarder with Olson doing a layback on the cover and saw the old article.
Just wondered.
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subscriptionated
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On 4/29/2003 psYch0Lloyd
wrote in from
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Oh, if you want me to be more specific...
...they both started in their back yards.
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subsrcupulous...
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On 4/29/2003 psYch0Lloyd
wrote in from
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They're both located in San Diego?
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CRUNCH TIME
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On 4/29/2003
michael brooke
wrote in from
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From the San Diego Tribune...this past Sunday
A big post...I know, but highly worthwhile.
thank you Steve Olson !
by the way, Bruce Logan called me today, LOGAN EARTH SKI is coming back
Subscribble is close...but no cigar...I need specifics!
we are talking about a major prize here folks!
By Conor Dougherty
STAFF WRITER
April 27, 2003
Six months ago Chris Miller, a professional skateboarder turned
entrepreneur, took stock. The president of Atlas Distribution in Carlsbad
had a healthy apparel and shoe business, but sales of the Planet Earth brand
of skateboards were faltering.
The solution? Ditch the boards.
"It was kind of a math problem for us," Miller said of the skateboard
company he started in 1992 with $15,000. "We decided that for right now,
it's better to back away from it."
After years of booming sales, skateboard companies have taken a swift kick
in the pants. That has prompted business owners to scale back with the usual
downtime measures - reducing inventory and laying off employees. It also has
forced them to acknowledge an industry paradox: The money in skateboarding
isn't in skateboards.
Looking to compete in a fickle, low margin industry, companies such as
Miller's Atlas, a unit of K2 Inc., have rejiggered their offerings to
emphasize more profitable items, such as shoes and T-shirts. Others have
closed shop. Most firms, however, are quietly looking to make boards in Asia
and Latin America.
"It's only a matter of time, between 12 months and 36 months, before the
vast majority of skateboards will be made down south or overseas," said
Frank Messmann, chief executive of Kubic Marketing in Los Angeles, a unit of
Globe International.
Making boards abroad has long been frowned upon in the insular world of
skateboarding, which despite its rebellious image can be as conservative as
it can be stubborn. That's about to change, industry insiders say, because
as the price of a board has been about the same for two decades, the
manufacturing cost has continued to increase.
An exodus of skateboard manufacturing would be bittersweet for San Diego,
home to a slew of skateboard companies and two of the biggest board makers:
Watson Laminates and Taylor Dykema Manufacturing Co. The cost benefit of
overseas production would make it easier for the dominant compa
nies to thrive, but it also could heighten the financial barrier for
newcomers. And it could kill local woodshops, which created the modern
skateboard for customers and, with them, have weathered 30 years of peaks
and valleys.
"Companies that have supported the industry might not have an industry to
support," said Charles Watson, owner of Watson Laminates.
Stung by the recent downturn, Watson said he has laid off 35 employees,
three quarters of his staff, since January.
Promotional dollars
Skateboard companies live and die on the tastes of teens. Brand names
routinely pop up and then die, while the number of distribution houses that
create them remains relatively constant. Messmann's Dwindle Distribution is
home to the ultra-popular World Industries and Blind brands, but it has
retired many others, such as 101, Prime and Decca.
The actual product, however, has been stagnant for five or so years. "There
hasn't been any technical innovation, for the most part it's a pure
marketing game: just paint on a board," Miller said.
A skateboard is made from seven layers of Canadian Maple, which are glued
and pressed to form the curves of a board - the nose and tail in skater
parlance. The board is then cut, sanded and covered with sealant. In the
last step, a company screens graphics on the bottom.
"It is a very labor-intensive, nontechnical process that can be done
anywhere in the world," Messmann said.
A start-up company can create a line of boards for as little as $10,000,
Miller said. That's not enough to make an impact on the market, but taken in
aggregate, fringe brands create intense competition for bigger players.
Building a successful brand is more complicated - and expensive. To create
demand, companies recruit teams of amateur and professional riders who are
typically paid an annual salary and board royalties. The riders, some of
whom have travel budgets of tens of thousands of dollars a year, are
documented by photographers and videographers, then promoted through company
videos and advertisements in the five major skateboarding magazines.
All of which adds substantial cost to what in reality is a wood plank - a
fact not lost on older consumers. While a branded skateboard retails for
about $50, a blank board costs about $30.
"Consumers have realized that if they buy the blank board, they're getting
the same thing," said Miller, who recently purchased a blank board for
himself.
At one point the industry was so scared of blank decks, companies urged
their professionals to cease riding unpainted prototype boards for fear
blanks would become cool.
So between competition from rival brands and the soaring popularity of blank
boards, which are sold by most retail shops and often are displayed
alongside their painted counterparts, companies have little room to raise
prices, putting a squeeze on profits.
A wood shop can make a board for about $9, according to various sources in
the industry, and sell it to a skateboard company for about $14. Retailers
and distributors pay about $30.
"So after a guy gives his riders six boards a month and pays them, for the
margins you make on the board it isn't worth it," said Larry Balma, owner of
Climax Manufacturing in Oceanside, which houses the Neighborhood and Sixteen
brands.
Rich history
The first skateboards, which appeared around the turn of the century, were
wooden planks attached to a vertical handle and operated more like a
shopping cart than a toy. Since then, skateboards have been skinny and fat,
long and short. Manufacturers, most of them in Southern California, have
used oak, birch and maple as well as fiberglass and composite materials.
The first commercial board appeared in 1959, according to "The Concrete
Wave, The History of Skateboarding," by Michael Brooke. Soon came the first
skateboarding contest (in Hermosa Beach in 1963), the first publication (The
Quarterly Skateboarder, published by Dana Point-based Surfer Publications in
1965) and at least one skateboard-themed movie ("Skater Dater," an 18-minute
film that appeared in 1965 about a troupe of skaters in a suburban
neighborhood).
In May 1965, San Diegan Pat McGee, the national girls' skateboard champion,
was featured on the cover of Life magazine doing a handstand atop a rolling
board. Also on the cover: "The craze and the menace of skateboards."
Modern, wide-axled boards were inspired by the hills of La Costa. Freshly
paved and traffic free, the streets became a hotspot for local riders in
1974.
One of them was Balma, then a commercial fisherman, who became frustrated
with the skinny boards of the day. So he got to work designing a new kind of
"truck" - the axle piece which attaches the board to the wheels - to
accommodate a wider board. Roller skate axles were being used at the time.
Balma enlisted Watson, who was making furniture and cabinets in between
trips to the beach, to make the boards for him.
With a press built in a high school metal shop, Watson made some of the
first maple skateboards in the garage of his mother's Pacific Beach home.
One of them is nailed to a wall inside Balma's headquarters. Watson has
since supplied hundreds of start-up skateboard companies and watched young
entrepreneurs turn meager orders into multimillion-dollar companies.
But as skateboarding has seen its popularity explode and recede a number of
times since those first boards were sold, the sport's business community has
been plagued with high overhead, unpredictable sales and inventory gluts
that come with each bust cycle. Another problem: the low barrier to entry
has created intense competition. And consumers, for their part, refuse to
pay more for a board.
In February 1985 the retail price of a mail-order board was about $45,
according to an advertisement in Transworld Skateboarding, a magazine Balma
founded in 1983 that is now a unit of AOL Time Warner Inc. Today, the retail
price is $50 to $55.
Seeking alternatives
For the past several years, as the sport experienced its biggest boom in
history, manufacturing firms made up for lackluster margins with volume. The
increased capacity "masked the underlying problems of the price structure,"
Watson said. Now, with sales slumping, the high cost of doing business is
forcing companies to revisit the bottom line.
It's not easy getting an accurate read on how badly the industry is hurting
or how big the hard goods business - which encompasses boards, trucks and
wheels - actually is. Messmann estimated skateboard companies, the vast
majority of them based in Southern California, had total sales of $150
million last year. Most companies are privately held, and the few owned by
public corporations do not disclose data about their individual operation.
According to market research firm Board Trac Inc., 7.2 million decks were
sold in 2002, down from 7.4 million in 2001. The number of those that were
blank decks, which many in the industry believe has increased as the economy
has faltered, was not available. Watson said his shop churned out 600,000 to
700,000 boards in 1999 and 2000. He expects to make 150,000 in 2003.
Late last year Globe International, Kubic Marketing's Melbourne,
Australia-based parent, issued a profit warning to investors, in part
because Kubic's performance was below expectations. In the November
announcement, Kubic's cash-flow projections were said to be 20 percent below
budget.
Despite the malaise, skateboard companies are reluctant to talk about
short-term solutions, and most won't say if they're contracting with
manufacturers overseas. Behind the scenes of the fragmented industry, rumors
abound about which companies are doing what. It's long been known most firms
sand down old models and repaint them with new graphics, while others are
said to be making some boards in China, then mixing them in with those
produced domestically.
Messmann said Dwindle is already making its complete skateboards - boards
sold with trucks and wheels attached - in China. The company's various lines
of individual decks are soon to follow. "We are going to test it over time,"
he said.
The industry's troubles have caught the attention of Asian manufacturers.
Steve Cathey, vice president of sales for Sisco Sports Inc., a Taiwanese
company that contract manufactures snowboards, said he is getting ready to
make a pitch to companies that don't already have a wood shop. The biggest
obstacle, the former pro skater said, is the stigma attached to Chinese
birch, which has long been used to make generic skateboards for big box
retailers and sporting goods stores.
Sisco is shipping Canadian Maple to China, making the boards there and then
shipping them back. The well-traveled boards cost 30 percent less than
boards made here, Cathey said.
"In our snowboard business we had two customers last year; now we have 12.
Because once the big manufacturers went there, with the margins they were
making, all the others had two choices: Go to China or go out of business,"
Cathey said. "That's the exact same thing that is starting to happen with
skateboarding."
Conor Dougherty
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subscribble...
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On 4/29/2003 psYch0Lloyd
wrote in from
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They both originated in La Jolla, CA...
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You know ?
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On 4/29/2003
oLsoN
wrote in from
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Micheal Brooks, You are truly amazing ! ! !
Hackett, You are even more Amazing ! ! !
The rest of you, take the cake, and blow
all of them away ! ! !
Olson
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keeping the stoke
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On 4/29/2003
Brady
wrote in from
(66.21.nnn.nnn)
I think a lot of nu-skoolers drop out of the sport because of injury. It is considered lame to wear pads and a helmet. Once these kids figure out that falling is part of the game as is protective gear, they`ll soon learn to push thier own envelope higher and higher. Screw up a couple of rail slides and smack your face once or twice, you`d might consider dropping out too.
So if pros get into more all-around skater type contests and do so wearing protective gear, maybe the new kids will get the right idea and skate with confidence.
Scabs hurts..heh heh !!
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The Future
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On 4/29/2003
Brian "TheBrain" Morris
wrote in from
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I have gotten alot of flack reciently for slalom skating. People are saying "oh, nobody slaloms its just a joke" than I am quick to point out that some of the biggest skateboarding companies manufacture slalom parts, like indy, tracker ect.. And some famous skaters Olson, Hackett, Peters ect.. are top notch slalom riders. I posted something on indy offsets on another website and the kids were amazed that there is actually engineering involved in skateboarding. Now with the invention of park slalom, the regular kick flippers are getting involved in racing, and close to traditional slalom. In kick flipper videos Rodney Mullen is still doing traditional freestyle tricks in his video's, and in the Tony Hawk pro skater games there are freestyle tricks, and even some popular 80's vert tricks like rocket airs, christ airs, judo airs ect......
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Mementos
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On 4/29/2003
Geezer-X
wrote in from
(149.2.nnn.nnn)
Does a yellow Bobby Turner fullnose on top of my desk/bookcase thing count? Does it help that I used most of lunch swapping a set of system 1 Rad Pads on in the parking lot? One of the 20 somethings from the lab walked out as I was wiggling in the parking lot, seeing where the wheelbite was, and he said "That looks like fun"
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trivia question
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On 4/29/2003
Michael Brooke
wrote in from
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I was saving this for a future issue...
As you know, sometimes the past has a strange way of hooking up with the present...
Call it karma ....
Sector 9 and Turner Summer Ski share something in common...it's not the fact that they make slalom boards... it's something else
Do you know what it is?
Free 1 year subscription to anyone who nails this...Sector 9 and Turner employees (are not included in contest!)
good luck!
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uh oh
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On 4/29/2003 snoball
wrote in from
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"ya heard dat? I think he was talking about you!"
LOL...the snoball effect...i like it...and will use
it when i break my other wrist doing a backflip
off the bank eh heh heh...
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Slopestyle
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On 4/29/2003
Ratty
wrote in from
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Some of the guys who ride for freebord are starting to spice up downhill with ramps and rails...like 'slope-style' snowboard events.
I think they are planning to bring some ramps and rails to SF Gravity Fest for a demo on Sunday morning.
The skyhooks most free freebord riders use really let you ride aggressively and bully the board around when you have to...its fun...thinking about putting hooks on one of my longboards now...
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snoball...
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On 4/29/2003 psYch0Lloyd
wrote in from
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...ya heard dat? I think he was talking about you!
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More trivia questions!
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On 4/29/2003
JBH
wrote in from
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Got any more trivia questions, Jack? I want a T-shirt, too! :-)
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Pauliwog
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On 4/29/2003
michael brooke
wrote in from
(209.183.nnn.nnn)
Pauliwog...
you raise some excellent points
couple of things to tell everyone..
There is no doubt in my mind that the "retro thing" is fashionable and marketable. Quite frankly, I will never be the size of Thrasher or Transworld or Big Brother....although, if larry flynt wants to cut me a check for 5 million....well, maybe i'd consider it!
My model is really Surfer's Journal or Longboard Magazine. Highest quality with as little advertising as possible. (under 35%).
I know that the current crop of mags will start featuring more variety of skateboarding...I've already seen it happening.
The funny thing is that yesterday someone asked me if there was enough material out there for Concrete Wave to cover. I replied that my children, if they live into their 90's would still a ton of things to write about!
The bottom line is that for far too long, the mainstream skate media has ignored what Adam and the NCSDA has been doing, they've ignored the great longboarders out there, the superb freestylers and amazing slalom racers.
They have completely snubbed their noses at non popsicle board manufacturers. God help you if you make different kinds of trucks or wheels too!
We have been ignored for too long....so it will be a welcome change to see some new stuff in there.
This will help create snowball effect and current crop of young skaters will see that longboarding, slalom, freestyle etc is cool.
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Bahne Team Captain
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On 4/29/2003
Jack
wrote in from
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And the winner is Michael Brooke.
The t-shirt, DVD and the you know what are on the way!
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"pinky and the brain"
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On 4/29/2003
michael brooke
wrote in from
(209.183.nnn.nnn)
My God!
the brain has it nailed perfectly!
"I think the concept of the all around skateboarder will be important to pros again, which will in turn promote the more "underground" disciplines like Freestyle, Slalom ect.... I think we might even see a new interest in old disciplines like Barrel Jumping, High Jumping, Pipe Pasting, Wall Riding etc"
WELL SAID BRAIN
This is exactly what I have been trying to explain to fellow skaters, shops, the media and anyone else who will listen (oh, the patience of my poor wife!)
The current skate myopia...tunnel vision at its finest is about to be smashed to bits... in a nice way.
like water hitting a rock....over time the rock will change appearance....
can you smell regime change???
PINKY
(trying to take over the world...eh Brain?)
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The whole "change" thing
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On 4/29/2003
Pauliwog
wrote in from
(140.211.nnn.nnn)
Hey! glad to see all the input.I really don't think anyone really will need to "try" to change skateboarding, every time something becomes overly homogenized it becomes really, really boring. Just like by the mid to late 80's when big airs where starting to look the same and all the "kids" said "vert's dead, don't you know?", I think the same thing is happening now as every flippity-do techno trick has the same aspect of a lot of talent behind it but the whole mental image of the tricks and the completely utilitarian (functional for what it's made for) popsickle stick is starting to bore people more and more. Yeah I'm 40 and I look like it when I skate, but I'm happy with what I do (slalom and vert). I'm glad for Concrete Wave and what it's come to represent for all us older skaters and honestly I'm fine if Thrasher, TWS, Big Bro and the rest want to ignore us, but they're already seeing now it's "marketable-cool" to rehash the old stuff and show the "old guys". There's an old chinese proverb that goes something like this:"When everyone sees beauty in the same thing, ugliness is already afoot". The Change has already started, we really don't need to push it, it will guide itself well enough. I'm just glad I've been skating long enough to "pass the torch" once already and I'm stoked about doing it again when kids ask me to do some old trick or better when they ask me to teach it to them. I'd just like to see techno stick around and not die (even though I don't do it) because it's labelled as uncool some day when the next new (or old) thing comes around.
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Mementos
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On 4/29/2003
Mike Moore
wrote in from
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Do scars, scabs, and bruises count?
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freestyle
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On 4/29/2003
michael brooke
wrote in from
(209.183.nnn.nnn)
There is no doubt in my mind that freestyle, like slalom will see a resurgence. It's just a question of time,
I wanted to get back to the idea of "skater for life." At one point in my career, I had a picture of the bones logo (remember the skeleton ripping through something) on my office wall. It may not have been seen by many folks, but it stood their, guarding the door and was a constant reminder of what my past was.
Any of you bring skate momentos to work?
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freeze style
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On 4/29/2003 psYch0Lloyd
wrote in from
(198.160.nnn.nnn)
Now I remember that trick where you almost scrape your chin on the ground...
...beard sweepers!
Yeah, I used to be one of those freestyle monkeys.
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Sequential photos
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On 4/29/2003
Duane
wrote in from
(64.223.nnn.nnn)
Michael, if you haven't seen the sequential photo links posted by no-comply on the speedboarding page, check them out. I saw some sliding shots done like that some time ago, same guys did them, absolutely great shots. I have never seen anything like that in a skating mag, done so well. It would make a great centerpiece of an article on sliding.
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Freestyle/New School/Slalom/ The Future
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On 4/29/2003
Brian "TheBrain" Morris
wrote in from
(149.151.nnn.nnn)
I think skateboarding is entering the new wave. The new generation of skaters are stumbling on slalom and longboarding through NCDSA and other websites, and pool and pipe riding are making a huge uprising due to teams like Team Goon ect....... I think the concept of the all around skateboarder will be important to pros again, which will in turn promote the more "underground" diciplines like Freestyle, Slalom ect.... I think we might even see a new interest in old diciplines like Barrel Jumping, High Jumping, Pipe Pasting, Wall Riding ect...... The old school is changing from a novelty to everyday riding, and now the kids are seeing it as a style to go by. I don't know how many times where kids see me working on some freestyle or some slalom and the kids are amazed that boards look that wierd, and its so oldschool. Kids are riding around on pigs again, with the new Vision, Powell, and Sector9 lines, and longboards are more popular than ever.
Skateboarding is seeing a new day!
TheBrain
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