7.17.2008

chrome ball incident #87: in the woods



Everybody has that one older dude around the way when you're growing up that's super good and you swear that he could be pro. Well John Drake was that dude for us back in the day and he actually did go pro. While others can just refer to him as Rob's pre-Big Black roommate, those who actually saw him skate know him as one of the most underrated pros of the 90s. Holmes was no joke.

Don Pendleton is also from around my way and jumped aboard the Alien mothership along with John back in the day, going on to pump out their graphics for damn near a decade. Don has always been a super nice/talented dude and I'm glad to see him doing his thing. Bob K recently hooked up a documentary about Don and it looks pretty amazing. Hard to believe that guy used to do my griptape.

11 comments:

GBoots said...

That Droors ad was in one of the first issues of Transworld I owned. I remember trying to figure out what was going on, whats up with the extended lips? Looking at it close to 15 years later as an adult, I still have no clue what its deal is.

Anonymous said...

Love that Don P. graphic, Captain...he makes me jealous.

Justin said...

John Drake is dope. That little line from Timecode where he does the nose grind 180 out and turns the corner for the frontside bluntslide is cool.

chops said...

hey boots, that ad is a reference to an illustration in the inner sleeve of De La Soul's third album, buhloone mind state, where all three members are also seen with this weird lips. I know where it comes from, and I love that album... but i have no idea what the lips mean either. (Jovontae also used De La's logo from this era for one of his board graphics also.

justin, timecode was nice but its unfortunate in that i don't think any of john's clips gave him justice. i remember kareem called john the most underrated in an interview of his one time... and that blew our minds.

and Peel, i know what you're sayin', g. crazy.

Anonymous said...

aren't their lips tied in a knot? that's what I always thought it was.

chops said...

yeah, they're tied in a knot... maybe their heads are balloons? (buhloone mindstate)?

Keith said...

nice. That first sequence was at the skatepark west of Toronto called Rudy's. Same one I refer to in a few other posts here about the Real demo.

John Drake has a slick loose truck style. He's always seems to be carving a bit.

Anonymous said...

thanks for the props, dude. Very few people were able to experience my grip tape masterpieces back at Iguana.

chops said...

awesome!

i'm waiting rather impatiently for my copy of the doc to get here. very excited.

you gotta be pretty stoked... congrats. well-deserved.

Jeff said...

John has a shop in Charlotte NC called Atmosphere. He and Don and the crew at Iguana were the top innovative skaters of the time and it was no surprise that JD went pro. Now if I could only find my Iguana skatepark ID card...

Robert said...

Very interesting interview. I have always had great respect for Don Pendleton and I had a similar situation with Johnny when I worked at Element. Many of the graphics were heavily influenced by looking at Girl/Chocolate and Alien catalogs while designing. Don even called it out on his website. Don is also 100% correct that Jeff Dickson is one of the most honest, hard working, rad dudes in the skate industry.