pulaski giant and longtime friend of the site, i was actually working on this andy stone post for later this week when some interesting things came to light on comment page of friday's matt reason post. i knew there was an embarassing Sherwood-helmed shady reincarnation of Capital a while back, looks like they're at it again. this time going all out by utilizing the old graphics to sell riser pads, bushings and freestyle decks. ridiculous.
respect the o.g. shit.
22 comments:
sick post! The line up w/ k.t. and igei seems to have been an east coast dream team.
Wow, thanks again bro. I hadn't seen a bunch of those in forever.
awesome post. I miss the capital/illuminati/silverstar era.
Why only 4 frames for that Slap cover sequence? Slow motor? The green bs flip is awesome! Video captures were pretty terrible. So hard to make anything out lol
Big Brother check out... the one with the curly spine and Daewon on the cover! Haven't seen that in a long time. And I also don't remember him on Planet Earth. Earl Parker is the worst!
That new Capital/Nicotine seems really bad. Whoring out riser pads, bushings, bolts, freestyle boards with the Capital/Nicotine name. It's blasphemous!
that lipslide kickflip at pulaski is crazy. I could imagine someone doing that same trick for an ad today.
Always enjoyed watch Andy skate on those old 411's. I remember a 411 ad(element?) that had Andy doing a long nose wheelie at Polaski with Beavis and Butthead talking.... Was that actually Mike Judge?
Andy and Pepe were among my favs from those old vids.
This reminds me that so many of those guys were then, and are now, a class act! Besides being a terrific skater, Andy always had time to talk to up-n-comers, and treated most people with respect -- except shyster entrepreneurs who tried to screw him. DON'T BUY THE COUNTERFEITS!! Andy's Dad
That Nicotine ad with the gap is blowing my mind. I love photos that make you think "how in the fuck is he doing that!?"
Sucks about some mark ass busta's trying to rip and run with the Capitol name.
I just wanna know why andy turned his back on a culture that respected and embraced him? It has nothing to do with age ,Tucci skates more now than he did in the 90s. I guess some dudes can't take the pressure. Its a shame how my opinion probably won't survive the night before its deleted..-Bullet
Thanks guys. Big up Stone.
Bullet, all deleted comments were done so the comment's author, not by me... though I appreciate your unfounded accusatory statement. So relax and enjoy the fact that your ridiculous comment will bless this page with its presence for many years to come, for us all to cherish.
I like the Digable Planets reference. Old 411 Industry Section for Underwold Element.
Bullet.
I NEVER turned my back on anyone and it certainly had nothing to do with pressure. I had the rug pulled out from under me after putting all my eggs in the basket of a crook. The CAPITAL name was in hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt when we were all informed that we were unemployed. I had no access to funds to handle that kind of debt. I would have liked nothing more than to get on some other team and continue skating, but as it was there were no offers made and after having everything that I had worked years for turn to shit in a matter of weeks, I wasn't really that jazzed on the skateboard industry at that time. Not to mention I was engaged and had bills to pay, like rent and stuff.
I appreciate your opinion, and you have every right to it. Without being directly involved, I can't think that you know all of what was actually happening when all that stuff went down.
Needless to say, the point of the whole discussion is that someone else has purchased a brand that Pepe Martinez and myself sacrificed everything for. Sacrifice like leaving ELEMENT and trying to do something of our own; something that represented where we were from and was actually down for the home town. In case you haven't noticed, those guys on Element are doing alright these days. You don't think I'd rather had ridden that train into the sunset?
Anyhow, the past is exactly that, the past. If you choose to support the Capital of today you have every right. I'd hope that the folks that knew what really went into making that happen back then would choose not to support it. That is all and thanks.
Another Andy Stone gem:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9mq8HZvhHE
I watched this part enough times to wear out my VCR.
Thank you Chops. And thank you Andy.
"my Mike York is a faggot! comment was gone in minutes and not deleted by me."
news to me. though if that's all you wrote... I don't care if you like somebody or not but try to be a little more insightful than just that.
and the Tucci post is coming along rather slowly... honestly, I'm not finding much I can use.
for the sake of clarity, I did just find your Mike York comment filtered as spam by blogspot (along with a few other actual reader comments as well).
I was a huge Stone fan after seeing him at one of those Newburgh Skatepark contests (the ones Willy Santos won every year). Andy's run was just so far ahead of everybody elses. Consistency, pop, and style. While everybody else just dropped their usual stock tricks (Carl Shipman's fs flip the hard way, etc...), Andy Stone just blew us all away. He may not have won the contest, but we were all huge fans after that.
Stoner was a top notch sk8er, and all around good guy and friend. I don't have any personal insight into what went down with Capitol, but I know that if there were ANY possible way that Stoner could have kept it going, he would have. That company WAS Andy and Pepe, and they put everything they had into it.
If he turned his back on anything, it was on the California sk8 industry in favor of trying to start one on the east coast. Not everyone wants to have to move to california to be pro, and back then that's really what you had to do. Andy and Pepe really liked living in DC, and repped the scene as much as anyone else.
What Capitol was trying to do had only been done with moderate success up to that point in time by Shut and Toxic (pretty sure they were from Maryland).
Andy and Pepe quitting Element was a HUGE leap of faith in Capitol and their business partner, and they were trying their best to make it happen, but their partner obviously screwed them over big time.
I can't blame Andy for moving on from pro sk8ing after that because that would have soured me on the whole business as well. Actually it would have made me really bitter and depressed and resentful, and it probably would have messed me up pretty bad, but Andy moved on, got a college degree, and as far as I know is doing pretty well for himself these days. Hopefully he's doing better than his former business partner.
One thing I lament as an outsider is that Capitol never got to make a video. If they could have gotten someone like Dan Wolfe to produce a video, and everyone on the team could have sk8ed at their full potential for parts, then that could have been one of the great videos of the era. Stoner, Igei, Pepe, Kevin Taylor, Sean Mullendore- wow, that would have been a bangin' vid.
And BTW- I really don't understand what that east coast skates website is thinking. It's pretty sad to have to just use someone else's ideas from 15 years ago to sell crap to clueless kids.
I would respect someone more if they just called their company Ass Clown Skates or Enema Bag Skates, or Hershey Highway Board Company. At least that would show some creativity.
I can see the ad now-
Look out for Enema Bag Board company in 2012, just in time for the apocalypse. Watch out for top notch pros Dick Hertz, Hershel Savage, Will Ryder, Drew Blood, and Les Money to really make a mark in 2012! YEAH RIGHT!
I grew up skating Pulaski and looked up to that crew as a kid. Andy, Eben, Hojin, Carlos, Jimmy, Pepe, this crew ran Pulaski and taught me how to skate
Andy was always 100% ripper and a nice guy. I hope your well man and happy holidays!!
I called my sponsor eastcoastskates and we discussed what were doing and decided to let capital fade away out of total respect for the history of it. There liquidating the current capital decks, getting rid of them for next to nothing and were setting up a massive wheel donation for the "board for bros" thing that spot does every year. There going to put out eastcoastskates decks instead now. I'm a total skatenerd myself and probably have more useless skate facts in my head than anyone. I remember reading capital went out of business in transworld when i was 12 or whatever, I had a capital board at that point in time, it had a "C" stamp on the top ply of the deck and was awesome. I sent a vhs out in high school to eastcoastskates, they called me and started helping me out with products, By that time capital/nicotine had bought intensity skates entire inventory and fizzled out a few years later and recently came back. You have no idea how many history lessons I had to give people and always would mention Stones name as well as the other dozen or so legends involved. Most of the ancient product is gone but if you or anyone you know is looking for some seriously nostalgiac gems let me know. We mean no disrespect to skate history. All were trying to do is skate and help out those who actually skate, the people who buy decks, skate everyday and don't give a shit about documenting it. thanks, skate or die
Will. I appreciate your position and would love to hear what you have from back in the day.
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