evidently the subconscious theme of the week was "tum yeto goes to hawaii"... i'm just gonna roll with it. went with some 90's steve olson to close out the week... back when he burned bibles and skated to bowie and didn't wear those all-one-color sweatsuits.
always thought this dude was ill (he killed hubba hideout back in the day and his fulfill the dream part is still amazing) but it seems like history's kinda swept him under the rug a bit... the kids grew up and turned on shorty's while the daggers came back and reclaimed the name. sad really.
didn't he try starting a rap career too?
thanks for all the support everybody. see you monday
big up to tod swank.
r.i.p. eric stricker
12 comments:
Hard to believe the dashing young Alex Olson came from that four-eyed chia pet...
for some reason that 1st pic made me think of good ol' vanik hacobian.
hell yeah this kid ripped
"Dashing young" Alex came from another Steve Olson...a decidedly more hesh one. Does this steve Olson still skate?
Fun fact from Ol' man K !!!
1. Element hothead Billy Pepper was asked to do the burning bibles cover, but backed down at the last minute.
What the hell happened to this dude. I always liked his lanky and loose style. Who can forget his ill mini part in "Tentacles of Destruction."
All my people loved his part in fulfill the dream cuz dude skated to Gangstarr AND Gravediggaz (a huge + for all us NY hip hop skate heads in the late 90s early 00s).
Him rapping reminds me dudes at parties who are like "Yo yo yo, lemme on the mic real quick. I can rap for realzzz"
damn! All I can remember was him doing a fs flip to fakie 5-0 on iirc that Seattle ledge. So sick. And that bs 180 backward nose grind on hubba is insane. Dude was definitely a character.
Steve moved back to Tacoma Washington after things didn't work out with Creation skateboards. The video of him rapping is at the shop he works at call "all aboard". My friends all see him waiting for the bus or wandering around downtown, he still skates sometimes.And he does still rock brightly colored sweatsuits.
It seems like Shortys might as well have been called the Chad Muska Skateboard Company. When he was popular, so was the company. When he faded out, so did Shortys.
Steve Olson reminds me of Heath Kirchart, in that- and I don't mean this in a bad way- they both seem like weird guys who were fearless on a skateboard.
On an unrelated note, does it seem to anyone else that Element is like today's version of Powell? Successful, corporate, inoffensive... just substitute skulls for nature vibe.
" smorales said...
Hard to believe the dashing young Alex Olson came from that four-eyed chia pet..."
I hope your joking.
I hope nobody really thought I was serious...
I think you were, but then realized your mistake
Thanks for posting these. I thought I was the only one in the world with a collection like this.
I became interested in Steve Olson because of his unique style and personality (at least whatever personality comes through skatemags/vids/interviews, etc.) Actually, some of the only things I even have from my "skate days" are clippings of Steve that I kept and the whole of that Big Brother issue which a good friend gave to me and told me I could never cut up for my collection. So I never did. Actually, I probably have some things that aren't on any of these three postings (if interested I'll scan and send them for inclusion here).
I met Steve three times. The first time--I was fourteen at the time-- was at a Foundation demo in Nelson, B.C. before the demo began. I asked him about Tentacles of Destruction, he said he didn't really like the title too much and it was all Swank's idea. He wondered how I even knew about it as it hadn't been released yet. He told me he was bummed because he didn't know where the other dudes were (Frank Hirata, Josh Beagle, Steve Berra, etc.) Besides Steve, only Leigh Peterson and Heath Kirchart were there. The indoor park was a really shitty set up and the demo was pretty much Steve doing bs/kickflips over this huge box with a barricade set up about 4-5 feet on top of it. He landed it a few times and was very fast and intense on the course. I can clearly remember the music was Cypress Hill (second album, can't remember the title) and David Bowie. He was rocking bright green/white Airwalk Ones. Everyone seemed to be stoked even though only one Foundation pro had shown.
I'm surprised no one has mentioned his 360 flip lipslides on rails or the 360 flip gap to manual over steps. While I agree he had "crazy arms" ,at times,(as great as his uniquely tech "Tentacles" section is) he could also be very smooth too, don't let the arms fool you.
I didn't really follow after Shorty's second vid, because I didn't really want to pay attention to the soap opera that was (is?) professional skateboarding coverage. Steve just seemed to be someone who was just himself. That sounds stupid/simple but you try it: it's harder than he made it look. Not a "hip-hopper" "gansta" "hipster" "punk" etc. I think people limit themselves by labelling themselves and others. The media does this, sure, but the media are also boring, reductive and unimaginative.
I found Steve Olson to be a unique skater who was a lot of fun to watch and also to listen to when interviewed. A great influence on my growing up.
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