Lords of Dogtown
Love watching this film. The beginning of competitive skateboarding.
http://zputlocker.com/watch/OGgZkYxR-lords-of-dogtown.html
Jay Adams pictured with Rodney Mullans | inventor of the Olli
Jay J. Adams (February 3, 1961 – August 15, 2014) was an American skateboarder who as a teen, was the youngest member of the Zephyr Competition Skateboarding Team (Z-Boys). His spontaneous freestyle skateboarding style, inspired by ocean surfing, helped innovate and popularize modern skateboarding. His aggressive vertical tricks make him one of skateboarding's most influential stylists. Adams died of a heart attack on August 15, 2014
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Adams
Tony Alva (born September 2, 1957) is an American skateboarder, entrepreneur, and musician, most prominently known as a pioneer of vertical skateboarding and as one of the original members of the Zephyr Competition Skateboarding Team, famously known as the Z-Boys.[1] The Transworld Skateboarding Magazine ranked him 8th in its list of the "30 Most Influential skateboarders" of all time.
nfluenced by the new, aggressive surfing style happening on the Hawaiian Islands, Alva brought a radical new and powerful free form surf style to skateboarding. Alva's style was revolutionary and stood in stark contrast with the contrived traditional style of the era, which was still based around tricks formulated in the 1960s. His skill, style and charismatic nature led him to become a professionally sponsored skateboarder and a very famous athlete from his early teens.[3]
In 1972, he joined the Zephyr Skateboard team along with Jay Adams and Stacy Peralta. Alva and the other Z-Boys (also all surfers), were among the first to bring the dangerous art of skating empty swimming pools into the mainstream. Alva is considered an originator of vertical skating and is credited as one of the first skateboarders to successfully pull a Frontside Air. That moment, captured on film by photographer Glen E. Friedman, is considered by many to be the birth of modern skateboarding.
Alongside professional skaters Arto Saari, Brandon Biebel, and Stevie Williams, Alva completed a photo and video shoot for Playboy Magazine, that was shot by Irish photographer Tony Kelly.[4]The shoot is entitled "Playboy Poolside" and features the four subjects skateboarding in and around an empty swimming pool.
Alva started his long relationship working with Vans in 1974, helping to design the off-the-wall skateboard shoe, the original skate shoe. Alva's father had been buying Vans shoes for his kids since they were young. Vans was established in 1966 and was the shoe of choice for the Santa Monica youth culture.[6]
In 1977, at the age of 19, Alva shunned the major skate companies to form his own company, entitled Alva Skates. It was the first company run and owned by a skateboarder, as well as being one of the first to use layered Canadian maple plywood in skateboard decks. In December 2005, Alva opened two retail stores in Southern Californian located in Oceanside, near San Diego, and on Fairfax Avenue in Los Angeles.[6]
In December 2006, he celebrated the first anniversary of the stores with a party at the Los Angeles shop, which was attended by some of the old Z-Boys, current Alva Team members, MySpace friends, skate fans, and other minor celebrities. Alva signed autographs and served as the DJ for the catered event. The "bad boy" image of the Z-Boy was reiterated in the postcard invitation for the event, which featured a profane drawing.
Alva also pioneered the first Rip Grip product, a material that could stick onto the underside of a skateboarder's deck, making it easier to maintain grip.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Alva
Stacy Peralta (born October 15, 1957) is an American director and entrepreneur. He was previously a professional skateboarder and surfer with the Zephyr Competition Team, also known as the Z-Boys from Venice, California.[1]
Peralta was born in Venice, California, of Mexican and Irish descent.[2][3] At age 15, he began competing with the Z-Boys, a group sponsored by the surf shop "Jeff Ho Surfboards and Zephyr Productions". His second sponsor was "Gordon and Smith". Peralta graduated from Venice High Schoolin 1975.
Peralta can lay claim to the invention of the frontside lip to fakie,[citation needed] although this was on the rolled-over lip of skatepark bowls—it was Alan Losi who applied the trick to the coping at the Upland Pipeline skatepark. To help skaters ride this maneuver in, Peralta came up with a device called a "lapper" which was essentially a tough polyethylene flap that bolted to the front of the board's rear truck. These are rarely seen nowadays. Part of his gear line also designed the first "mini-ripper" skateboard.
At the age of nineteen, Peralta became the highest-ranked professional skateboarder.[citation needed] Soon after, he joined with manufacturer George Powell to form the Powell-Peralta skate gear company. With the financial backing of Powell-Peralta, Peralta formed the seminal Bones Brigade, a skate team composed of some of the best skaters at the time, many of whom revolutionized modern skateboarding.[4][5] He also began directing and producing the first skating demo videos for skaters such as Tony Hawk.
Peralta is also credited in the 1985 movie Real Genius, starring Val Kilmer, William Atherton, and Gabriel Jarret. Peralta played commander of a fictional space vehicle delivering a deadly laser toward an unsuspecting criminal during the film's opening scene.
In 1992, Peralta left Powell-Peralta to direct and produce for television full-time. His love of skateboarding manifested itself in Dogtown and Z-Boys, a documentary film co-written with Craig Stecyk regarding the legendary skateboard team known as the Z-Boys. The film reinforces the all-consuming nature of the subculture and the film's conviction that all life centered on Dogtown in the 1970s and skateboarding. He also directed Riding Giants, a 2004 documentary of the history of modern big wave surfing and tow-in surfing. Dogtown won Director's and Audience Awards for documentary at the 2001 Sundance Film Festival. Peralta also wrote the screenplay for the dramatic retelling of the Dogtown days in Lords of Dogtown (2005). His 2008 documentary, Crips and Bloods: Made in America (2008),[6] focuses on gang violence in south-central Los Angeles which provides insights into the origins of the infamous Crips and Bloods with a look at the social injustice of 1950s and 60s L.A. In 2012 Peralta released Bones Brigade: An Autobiography, which chronicles the Powell-Peralta skateboarding team of the same name. It includes interviews from Rodney Mullen, Craig Stecyk, Tony Hawk, Lance Mountain, Steve Caballero, and Peralta himself, among others.
In 2008, Peralta directed a series of television commercials for Burger King in which the Inuit people of Greenland, Transylvanians of Romania and Hmong of Thailand, known as "Whopper virgins" in the ads, were offered their first taste of a fast food hamburger and asked to compare the Whopper to McDonald's Big Mac. Peralta subsequently came under attack for what some deemed exploitation of native peoples.[7][8]
Peralta's experience as an entrepreneur and skate demo filmmaker was adapted for the video game Tony Hawk's Underground. In 2003 Peralta also did cameo work in the game where he played himself.
Divorced in the 1990s, Peralta had one son, pianist Austin Peralta who died on November 21, 2012.
