Had a lightbulb moment when Gus sent us the above photo as a headliner option for his Five Faves to do one with Frank — not unlike how Wes Kremer’s headline photo lead to the Nick Michel edition. Brain cells! So cool.
It turns out that videos from his youth are what keep Frank young in 2025, but maybe that’s a bit of the case for everyone though, right?
Eddie Gomez — Santa Cruz: Street Skating With Rob & Natas (1988)
[Part begins @ 32:44]
This might sound corny or whatever, but one of the first videos I had ever seen was Street Skating With Rob & Natas.
It’s fucking long. It is basically a Santa Cruz instructional video that’s like: “This is boardslide.” Then they show Natas and these dudes going off in a warehouse. There was this dude Eddie Gomez, who rode for Epic Skateboards, and he had one of the sickest parts in that video, and it somehow wasn’t part of the instructional part. He skates this playground, ollies up a table, and had these crazy Pumas on. It was this really cheap Puma, and I remember seeing it as a kid and being like, “I have those!” It was something you could identify with.
My friend Dan had dubbed it onto a tape with The Bones Brigade Video Show, so for me, those two were one video. That was my introduction to skateboard videos, and it was all we had for a while. This was back in the day when you’d borrow things and have to bring them back to your friend the next week. I remember being so bummed bringing this one back to him.
Mark Gonzalez — Thrasher: Savannah Slamma (1988)
I ordered this in the mail from Thrasher, like sent a check and waited the six weeks for it to come. It was insane. It took so long to arrive that I forgot I even ordered it. When it finally came, I watched it back-to-back three times.
Mark’s part was insane. I hadn’t seen videos of street skating, and you got a lot of that in this. It was like, “Holy shit, he just grinded a handrail. Holy shit, he did a wallride and yanked off the wall on a handball court.” On the east coast, there was a lag in skateboarding, especially in the late eighties. For the east coast to “get” stuff, you got it later. Your friend had one video, you had the another, and you all dubbed them between each other.
Sean Sheffey — Life: Soldier’s Story (1991)
My friends and I were Sheffey fans already, and we had seen him in this old Santa Cruz video where I think he was skating D.C. — I forget the exact video, but we were huge fans.
When we saw the Life video, it was just like, “Fuck, this dude is a boss.” He backside 180’d this island in a parking lot that is so massive. When he rolls away, he looks down at his board with this expression where he knows how beast it was.
Mike Carroll — Plan B: Questionable (1992)
That shit was epic: the song, the way it started off with the “C” at Embarcadero, with him and Henry sitting on the ledge. The first time you watched that, and the Beastie Boys kick in, you knew you were in for some shit. I like watching the whole video through still, because you get that whole build-up to Carroll’s part. It’s always on my YouTube suggestions.
I was skating a spot called T.O.B. by my house when this video came out. These rich kids from Huntington, [New York] two towns over rolled up in their mom’s Mercedes to skate this one good covered spot we had, and were like, “Dude, we just got the Plan B video! Pat Duffy grinds a double-kinked handrail!” And we were like, “These kids are fucking lying to us.” They’re pulling up in a Benz all with brand new boards, and we just thought they were trying to be cool.
When we finally saw it, we were like in front of the screen like, “They were right! No! He actually did that!”
My copy doesn’t work anymore because I watched it so many times, but my copy of Virtual Reality still works.
Gino Iannucci — 101: Snuff (1993)
I wanted to include Fucktards, because the feel was so different — like these dudes just went out and filmed whatever they wanted — but I can’t choose Fucktards. But I really like those short videos from that era because you could watch them before you go skating. Fucktards, Snuff, Tim & Henry’s Pack of Lies… you just soak that ten minutes, and it propels you into the streets.
Gino’s part was the sickest shit ever. I knew Gino rode for Black Label and 101, and that he ripped, but when that shit came out, it was insane. He was skating the World Park, he had Keenan in his part, he just did the sickest manual trick ever — the switch flip fakie manual fakie flip out. That was the first time I think that had ever been done. Switch back 5-0 heelflip out, switch back nosegrind fakie flip out — he crushed it. He fucks the World Park up. There’s a line where he does a switch back tail shuv-it, and his foot comes off a lil’ bit. It’s that proper Gino. He set like a precedent right there, like how to do proper manual tricks. It’s not like Rick Howard and those dudes in Questionable didn’t do proper manuals, but [Gino] fucked shit up and looked damn good doing it. Like, “You can look that good on a board?”
And him being from Long Island, it was always like “That’s our guy!” It was hometown pride in it. I don’t know what water he was drinking, but his had something special in it.
Previously: Gus Gordon, Max Palmer, Etienne Gagne, Jacopo Carozzi, Nicole Hause, Matt Militano, Evan Wasser, Ryuhei Kitazumi, Sarah Meurle, Vitória Mendonça, Andrew Wilson, Ben Kadow, Chandler Burton, Pedro Delfino, Johnny Wilson, Nick Michel, Wes Kremer, Jordan Trahan, Ariana Spencer, Elijah Odom, Greg Hunt, Zered Bassett, Neil Herrick, Trung Nguyen, Nick Boserio, Elissa Steamer, Casper Brooker, John Gardner, Bobshirt, Brandon Turner, Shari White, Nick Jensen, Tony Hawk, Naquan Rollings, Jack O’Grady, Josh Wilson, Maité Steenhoudt, Jahmir Brown, Una Farrar, Chris Jones, Mason Silva, Beatrice Domond, Mark Suciu, Justin Henry, Breana Geering, Sage Elsesser, Bobby Worrest, Nik Stain, Anthony Van Engelen, Dom Henry, Bing Liu, Andrew Reynolds, Cyrus Bennett, Jacob Harris, Jamal Smith, Paul Rodriguez, Gilbert Crockett, Ben Chadourne, Tom Knox, Louie Lopez, The Chrome Ball Incident, The Bunt, Lacey Baker, Andrew Allen, GX1000, Brian Anderson, Gino Iannucci, Josh Kalis, Sean Pablo, Wade Desarmo, Chris Milic, Chad Muska, Hjalte Halberg, Danny Brady, Bill Strobeck, Aaron Herrington, Jerry Hsu, Brad Cromer, Brandon Westgate, Jim Greco, Jake Johnson, Scott Johnston, Josh Stewart, Eric Koston, Karl Watson, Josh Friedberg, John Cardiel, Pontus Alv, Alex Olson, Jahmal Williams
Beasdtie Boys
I think i still have that rob and natas vhs copy frank you can have it back -dan