When We Was Rad: Skateboard History from UK Vintage Magazine » Covers

Steve Caballero, South Bank, London, 1988.

timlb — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 19:25:04 +0000

Time for a look at 1988… Flipping through the year, this cover caught my eye as redolent of the time. The Powell Tours help defined that era and provided a focal point in an age before stadium skateboarding even seemed a possibility. But I note now that one of the cover lines reads “hot street sequences” and the Munster competition coverage is advertised as “Monster Street”, suggesting that the rise of street skating was well and truly under way. There’s BMX coverage in this issue as well and, perhaps best of all for me, a big report on a sunny pool party at Livingston skatepark.

The cover picture also makes me smile. I can remember that very well indeed. We were all down at the South Bank with the Powell Team in one of their semi-off-duty moments. I was trying to take pictures and having a real struggle with the conflict between trying not to intrude but also cope with the challenges of the gloom while trying to keep an eye out for who was doing what and where.

Then Dobie wandered over, “lend us your camera, Tim”. So I gave it to him. He sidled over to one of the little pillars, took this one picture of Caballero, gave me back the camera and carried on just hanging out.

Well, that’s how I remember it. Perhaps he actually took a couple of shots. But in my memory Dobie had spotted what was about to happen, wandered over to the exact spot, taken the single shot with a borrowed camera and then given the camera back knowing that he’d got the best shot of the day. Meanwhile I carried on sweating away, working at it until everyone had stopped skating.

By the way, if you like this, you might well want to take a look at Steve Caballero’s blog.

Winstan Whitter on the cover of issue 96 of R.a.D Magazine in May 1991

timlb — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 09:35:27 +0000

In May 1991 Winstan Whitter (Rollin’ Through the Decades) featured on the cover, skating the fly-off on the bank at Harrow Skatepark. The cover lines promised to tell you “How to be the Worlds Greatest street skater (in 30 days)” as well as tempting references to “Brum Street” and vague offers of “All play and no work”.
My first reaction when I look at this issue is to wince at the low standard of the reproduction. We were clearly having one of episodes of trouble at this time. These were particularly painful to an editorial team led by a photographer and full of artists of one kind or another. But the contents include one of my own favourite photographs and article which I was really pleased to publish. There’s also a review of the Blind Video complete with Jason Lee as well as plenty of “news and attitudes.”
So here we go.

Christian Heitman, cover of Issue 82 of R.a.D Magazine, December 1989

timlb — Sun, 21 May 2006 07:17:39 +0000

Issue 82 contains a lot of interesting material: an article about freestyle evolving into streetstyle, coverage of skateboading in Nothern Ireland and my favourite Slam City Skates advert.

This cover shot by Mike John shows Christian Heitman at the Madrid competition, allowing us to get a bit of sunshine on the front of the magazine in the middle of winter. The stained-glass border illustration is credited to “Ian, who skates Crouch End” — a great example of someone who just got in touch and said “I’d really like to do this”. It was great to be able to say “yes”.

72 packed pages? It was Christmas and there was enough advertising around to allow us to add on a few extra pages.
Cover lines:

Madrid
F.I.S.T
Freestyle Punch
Ireland
Full on Blarney
72 Packed Pages

Cover price was £1.00

Sorry not to have jumped do a different year, but I think it’s interesting to be able to include the full text of articles where I can get it and this is the only disk I have available at the moment.

Cover of R.a.D Magazine November 1989

timlb — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 09:00:23 +0000

Arron Bleasdale featured on the cover of this issue, skating the pool at Rom.
Cover lines were:

Eco Thrash
Skating Goes Green
Dundee
Hardcore and Hooligans
Attitude Adjustment

Cover price was £1.00 and for that you also got a free Santa Cruz sticker. We loved the free stickers, but the distributors always wanted us to find some other promo item. The stickers just didn’t deliver as far as the newsagents were concerned. Probably because a lot of them were nicked. These days there are books about skate stickers of course.

Cover of February 1990 R.a.d Magazine (Issue 84)

timlb — Mon, 09 Jan 2006 10:54:57 +0000

Wurzel featured on the cover of Issue 84 of R.a.D Magazine at the start of 1990, in a crisp winter’s shot from Cantelowes. Cover lines were:

Sick Competition — Win a mini-ramp
Street –Outdoors vs In — Why Choose
Worldwide Comp Circuit — Oz UK USA
The Pursuit of Happiness

The cover price was £1.00.
The scanned image in the R.a.D logo and the paint-splattered background for the cover itself showed the distinctive style of Ian Lawson. The even more remarkable thing about this cover was that something almost identical appeared on the cover of the rival magazine Sk8 Action a couple of months later.
Their April issue also featured Death Box rider, Wurzel (real name Duncan Holton), against a yellow paint-splattered background. The location was Bloblands (Norwood Park), I think, not Cantelowes, but the resemblance otherwise is bizarre. OK: it’s not quite in the same league as the The Observer and The Sunday Times using the same tennis cover-shot on the same day, but it’s still an unlikely coincidence.

R.a.D Issue 58 Lucian Hendrickse Cover

timlb — Fri, 25 Nov 2005 14:20:54 +0000

58 was the eighth issue of the real R.a.D magazine, and the first issue to be posted on this site. The reason for starting with this issue is that the cover date was “Christmas 1987″ which corresponds to Novemember/December of the first year of the magazine.

The strapline on this issue was “Number One for Skateboards Streetstyle and Street Action” (clear evidence that the influence of Gavin Hills was yet to be felt) and the BMX Action Bike logo was still in evidence, although very small by this stage.

The cover price was 85p.

Cover Lines:

Lucian Hendrickse
Skating’s Mr Bad Speaks Out
Exclusive! World’s Hottest Ramp
Caballero and Hosoi at Raging Waters
Holeshot Preview
American Skaters and Freestylers Coming Here!
WIN!
New Pacer Scooters
Raging BMX Air
Canning Contorts

The picture of Lucian was shot on the big ramp at the Level Skatepark in Brighton, Rodga Harvey can just about be seen on the platform. It looks like it was shot on a medium format camera, which was handy in those days because it could be used with fill flash at high shutter speeds. The cover lines look like they were put through a couple of photocopy stages to generate a moderate amount of Nick Philip’s “spanked up” effect.

Lasting memory of this? Lucian was understandably offended by the cover line. Richard Grant and Nigel Thomas, the creators of BMX Action Bike, had come from a Fleet Street background and some of this had rubbed off on me. So at this stage I was still making feeble attempts to put some kind of hook onto the features in the magazine.

Full List of Contents of Issue 58 of R.a.D Magazine