When We Was Rad: Skateboard History from UK Vintage Magazine

I’m certainly no expert on vintage skateboard companies, so I’m not quite sure where this fits in, but what we have here is a Santa Cruz advert promoting a Natas Kaupas deck which includes the “Santa Monica Airlines” logo. Perhaps someone can help out with the details of the relationship on that brand to various skateboard companies over the years? I have a vague recollection that it’s a complicated story.

On a simpler note the three other decks featured here are from Rob Roskopp, Claus Grabke and Jeff Grosso.

Those last two are skaters who both had a direct impact on Rad Magazine at various points.

Claus Grabke’s multi-talented and prolific approach included photography, writing and music so he contributed to the European skate scene and the magazine in a very direct way.

Grosso’s influence was less specific, but he was one of those fascinating people who influenced the magazine through his words as well as his skating. He struck chords which resonated strongly with the spirit of the time.

Hills Skates in Muswell Hill were a long time advertiser in R.a.D. but I can’t remember a great deal about them. The Bauer Turbo Roller skate which features so prominently here encourages my notion that their background was in eight wheels, not four.

I’ve just noticed one point of interest here:

Mapled Blank Deck with Concave, Blue Stained and Varnished 30″ x 10″ £14.95

Blanks in 1988? That would have been a very early example of a phenomenon which I normally think of as coming along later.

Or have I got that wrong?

Skate Paraphernalia from September 1988:

Motobilt and Rannalli trucks, Schmitt Stix Chainsaw and Chris Miller decks, Dog Town Micke Alba deck, a Swatch pouch and a Stussy No 4 T shirt. But my favourite thing here is the custom skate badge from Ian Walker in Doncaster.

Meanwhile for everyone interested in vintage skateboard decks, look at these beauties from the days when shapes were different. Very different in the case of the Schmitt chainsaw! Interesting to note that 33″ was considered a longboard at the time.

“To Remain Underground and Exclusive is to Resist the Mainstream
Therefore This is Not an Anarchic Adjustment Advert”

It may seem unfair to place so much emphasis on the Anarchic Adjustment advert here when there are also ads from Glasgow stalwarts, Clan and Mach in Edinburgh, but I saw Nick last month for the first time in a decade. So this is very topical.

In the early days of R.a.D there were two of us sharing a single desk in the corner of someone else’s office. Nick defined the future of R.a.D just as much as I did. And he’s still at it: as his blog puts it: “Somewhere Something Incredible is Waiting to be Known.”