Salad Days: DC Punk

When I started really skateboarding around 1985, everything changed for me. I didn't care enough about sports to actually try and be good at them and I never really got along with the people in my peer group that played sports or whatever. So when I discovered skateboarding, I started hanging out with different friends that liked to skateboard, I started changing the way I dressed to accommodate my skateboard lifestyle, and subsequently I started listening to different music. A friend gave me a tape one day, one side had The Dead Milkmen, the other side had the first Minor Threat album. I was blown away, it has such a different sound from the Van Halen and Iron Maiden albums I was into at the time, with the energy in the music and I loved the fact this music wasn't on the radio and you could go to your local teen center or community center to see them play when they toured. I listened to that Minor Threat tape over and over until I wore it out...and to this day its my all time favorite album. I always had a love for the music that came from the DC punk scene, though I was into a lot of the west coast punk, my heart was on the east coast and what was labeled "hardcore punk".

Anyway, here is a documentary on the scene. When I lived in DC in the late 90's, I met several people that were actually there to see this all happen. I'm sure they are in the scenes of this...here it is broken down in 8 fifteen minute episodes:

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Part 6
Part 7
Part 8

Frame builder fuck around

Hack Bike Derby from Hack Bike Derby on Vimeo.

Paperwork schmaperwork

Have a Blatz, calm down, build a chopper.

sweet hog

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/lac/mcd/5518437490.html

Same story different bike

She can touch the pegs, look out!

Fuses are for commies.

Another bike apart in the living room.  No big surprise that the more I look the more I find.  This is part of the deal with a dusty crusty 45 year old barn bike.  Luckily it's still pretty crappy outside.  Parts are in the mail and the takeoff box is getting heavy.

repost of the video that changed the game

There are tons of sumo videos out, but this is the one that caught my eye a few years ago that made me realize the connection to street skating.  I don't really street skate much anymore because I can barely ollie up a curb and if I hit a pebble I end up with a bloody palm.  Then I cry a lot and nobody needs that.

This is inspiring me to re-evaluate the carbs on the xl, put back on the stock air box and get trying to get it right.