Skateboarding mags and zines 101.

I thought I would bring to life some little rags and mags that aren’t available at your 7-11, grocery, or trendy fashion stores. If you are old you probably grew up with Thrasher skateboard magazine. It used to be theeee magazine for all underground skateboarding lifestyle. Well now Thrasher is just one of those magazines that are full of shoes and railslides. There are a stack of skatemags I thumb through every month to find maybe one gnarley photo of pool, park or street skateing. Don’t get me wrong there is some pretty sick skateboarding in these magazines but being a bit of a transition skater I like to see some variety in a mag and not just shoe adds.

Enter the few skate rags that are going to make you wanna screw your shoes and ride a skate! These are rags that always get me stoked to get my ass down to the park. Rags I have personally hunted down and paid anywhere from free to $6.50 for. Bear in mind some of these rags are DIY, with the spirit that the big glossy mags just seem to miss.

Let’s starts with Diehard skatezine 30 pages of zeroxed old school bliss. This little zine from Tejas is put together by mainly one Ronny Ripper and I have personally been besides the coping in an empty swimming pool that Ronny was skateing. Needless to say my face got sprayed with concrete chunks. Diehard skatezine is full of double truckin, punk pool ridin chit. It’s a good one. Next up is a zine called Skate and Annoy from Portland Oregon is 56 pages of hardcore park, ditch and ramp skateboarding. This rag even has a section on Ebay sales of old skateboards. Someone help me with time travel so I can retrieve that box of old skates I sold at the flea market 10 years ago! Again Skate and Annoy is a good one also. Pool Dust skatezine is the pool skateing answer to Maximum Rock-n-Roll. 64 pages of forbidden frontsides, shit talkers, cockfights and pools is what Pool Dust is all about. Next up is a heavy hitter that deals with grabfulls of old skateboard superstars. This fat mag is called Juice “Pools, Pipes, & Punk Rock”. Did I mention this magazine is fat? It weighs in at 180 pages of skateboardin and some surfin in the vien of the 70’s to the eighties. Interviews with music superstars like Ted Neugent, Joan Jett, and Mike Muir. The skatephotos in Juice are way too much for the likes of the shoe catalog competitors. This mag is perfect for about a month’s worth of reading while on the toilet. The bonus part about this mag is when you’re finished with it you’re so stoked to skate you would even try to skate the bowl you have been sittin on for that month! Last but not least is Concussion is a slick glossy magazine of 84 pages. Pool, park, wall-ride, ramp, curb and a slice if rail for good measure. This is the magazine that features the real men of skateboarding. New superstars that will never get noticed in the shoe catalogs because they are too busy doin some real skateboarding! I mean burly harsh skaters that you have to respect or you might as well put your skull skates hoodie back on and stay home. The photos in Concussion are guaranteed to make you wet. I can’t say enough about this mag. It’s not text heavy but the interviews and reviews are to the point and the truth. The first few lines in the Jason Jesse film review is “I would never review this video but we’re a little hard pressed for filler”.

See you at the park soon. –ricky JaK