When We Was Rad: Skateboard History from UK Vintage Magazine

What an amazing issue this was. So much stuff all happening in one month. This was the seventh Munster World Cup and Europe had never seen anything on this scale in the eighties. It would rate as pretty big even by today’s standards. And the quality of the skating would also stand the test of time, I think.

All the pictures in this opening spread were by Dobie.

Skating in Europe’s going mad. No doubt about it. Every year the competition at Munster in Germany gets bigger but this, the seventh one, was even better than everyone had expected.

It started out as purely European competition, but gradually more and more Americans joined in. This year there were dozens of them. The Munster World Cup was a world class event: the first real one since the Vancouver Worlds a couple of years back.

• Sick Colours!
• Melt Your Eyeballs!
• Bright and Sticky!

I hope Billy’s will forgive me if I dwell on the R.a.D Magazine sticker advert this time. This one honours the designer of the logo, and master of the spanked-up Xerox art, Nick Philip. That’s Nick’s face squashed on the photo-copier montaged in with the R.a.d logo.

After working on R.a.d Nick moved to California, where he has been involved in many wonderful things over the years. Right now he’s back with his roots, applying his special vision to clothing: in this case astonishing T shirts where the design covers the whole shirt.

Those who remember some of the early Anarchic Adjustment shirts, which covered your chest in so much plastic ink that they felt like a bullet-proof vest, will be reassured to know that these use a new sublimation print system which allows the broad canvas without making the shirt feel like it’s made out of sailcloth.