Once The Chrome Ball Incident came around and monopolized the scanner-based skate site game, posts of old magazine scans became somewhat unnecessary. That’s why there hasn’t been one since November 2010. But after watching those R.B. Umali “Shoot All Skaters” episodes, it’s hard not to get nostalgic for more nineties east coast images, so we dug into a stack of old magazines to look for things that the internet’s leading skate magazine scanners have yet to unearth. Special thanks goes to Alex Dymond, as he donated the stack of mags depicted above, which included an October 1998 copy of The Source (ATCQ break-up issue.)
The following five interviews are from Fridge, which was an occasionally free magazine from the late-nineties. Its content was maybe 40% skateboarding (often east coast-centric), 20% snowboarding, 35% music, and 5% other stuff. It’s amazing that just ten years ago, people actually put money into *printing* magazines based on somewhat inconsistent interests. There was somehow an audience for a magazine that would interview Keith Hufnagel and Larry Holmes, provide a guide to shitty craft beers and snowboard boots, and review Less Than Jake, Björk and M.O.P. albums alongside one another all in the same issue (which, by the way, literally had a clown on the cover.) Nowadays, if you want to talk about, say, skateboarding, the Knicks, Atlanta rap, a concrete baseball diamond in the East Village, and a bunch of rich girl hangouts on the westside of Manhattan in one place, you pay $10 for a domain name and start a website.
Police Informer Blogspot R.I.P. Shout to the Skate.ly ad archive. All images are enlargeable.
March / April 1997
Winter 1998
Winter 1999
Got a kick out of this — a review for Red Bull when it first came out. Who would’ve thought it would turn into an empire based on being mixed with vodka and re-sold for $16. Surprisingly, a regular can hasn’t strayed far from its $1.99 price tag.
Relevant Chromeball Filters: Jeff Pang, Vinny Ponte, Keith Hufnagel
rip strength mag.
you know what would change lives? a DIAMOND DAYS SOUNDTRACK. could that be arranged. or just a list of the opening songs. cause man
rip magazines
black serge gainsbourg is a sick name, you got shazam son?
diamond days soundtrack? That’s just the sounds of BOSCO crying about girls.
I still have my collection of tws’, thrasher mags, big brother mags, and strength magazines from 97-2000. I still look at them…they never get old. This post has just inspired me to make more scans of them to post on my tumblr like a dork. Lol!
Btw….love this site!
I worked at Fridge around 1995-1998. It was a good publication for its time, when nobody really cared about the East Coast besides people from the East Coast.
I had this magazine and many pictures on my wall from this exact issue. It was cool to see east coast skating, as an east coast kid. Remember vividly that Ponte shot of him crooked grinding the file cabinet. I was constantly searching te back of outlet buildings and dumpsters for similar pieces to skate. The most memorable was the Steve Rodriguez article, with the shot of him skitching the back of a car in a suit. I remember thinking I wanted to be like that guy. You can still shred and have your shit together. I’m now in my early 30s, put myself thru college, have to wear the suit to work, but still keep my board and kicks in my trunk to rip after work, when I can. Thanks Steve, and thank you for scanning this long lost mag from my teen years. Been searchin for this for so long!!!