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First I want everyone who has gotten into punk through skateboarding to raise their hands. I got a feeling that quite a few hands were risen, that is if you weren't too lazy to get your hands up... I know for a fact that many many people who got interested in hardcore punk about 15-17 years ago were first introduced to it through skateboarding. I'm one of those people who read about hardcore bands from skate mags and heard some of those bands in skate videos. I don't know if I'd ever gotten into bands like Black Flag, The Misfits, 7 Seconds, COC, DRI and Minor Threat if I hadn't read about them and saw their logos in skate mags in the late eighties. Those logos and t-shirt designs looked cool and that was enough to make me want to hear those mysterious bands. And when I actually got to hear those bands there was no turning back...

Being a little skater kid who thought that everything about skateboarding was super cool I was quick to take an interest in hardcore punk , cause that seemed to be the music many pro skaters were into. I still listened to some speed/thrash/crossover metal (which was another crucial thing that led me to punk/hc), but soon I got more and more into hardcore. Hc just had the most energy and the coolest lyrics (which were not about fighting dragons or holding hands with girls, but about stuff I could relate to, like hating your peers and wanting to be yourself), nothing I had heard could compare to it.

Something about skateboarding and hardcore punk just clicked with me. Hardcore had the same kind of adrenaline filled crazy energy that skating had. There wasn't and still ain't a better way to get yourself amped up for skating than listening a few spins of your favorite hc records (Circle Jerks' Group sex or Suicidal's first album do just fine). And humming some wild punk tunes in your head while skating can even give you some extra courage to go and try tricks you're not even sure you can pull off.

Although the connection between skating and hc can feel pretty artificial and maybe even silly to some (basically to people who don't have a background in skating or who have a very strict rules of what punk should be about), I and a lot of other people have felt and continue to feel very strongly about the connection between the two. I will always (hmm, I really shouldn't make any promises like this, but I cannot help myself...) connect hardcore punk and skating with each other, I just can't separate the two completely. I don't know, there may be people who connect punk with playing golf or shooting pool, and that's fine with me, I guess punk/hc can be connected with a lot of things if one wants to. Rules suck anyway... But at the same time it's obvious that punk has been connected to skateboarding very often since the late 70's. More so than probably any similar activity. So, punk and skating have a quite strong common history, which is something that say golf and punk don't share.

Also, the same way punks have traditionally seen punk rock as an alternative lifestyle, skaters have seen skateboarding as a lifestyle, not a sport. Many skaters still tend to feel strongly that they are involved in something underground and even rebellious thing, even though skating is once again (like in the late 80's) very popular and widely spread thing to do. Some of the more independent minded skaters truly hate the way skating is often being portrayed as a safe, mainstream accepted, family friendly sport; much in the same way that the DIY-orientated punks dislike the more commercial punk bands and labels, which are not always exercising the traditional DIY punk ideals.

Both punk and skateboard culture encourage individuality (to a point...) and rebellion, and many skaters and punks feel that they are outcasts in the eyes of their peers and maintream society as a whole. Even though this rebellion has often been quite petty and shallow (for example when punks have rebelled against hippies or other punks and skaters against rollerbladers), it's a shame that there seems to be pretty little rebellion in today's watered down punk and commercialised skating. But then again, that's only the more visible part of skating and punk, there is of course healthy and quite big underground scenes in both skateboarding and punk, which you are probably aware of...

Even though skateboarding was obviously quite popular among punks and hc kids during the eighties, not that many punk/hc bands had songs directly about skateboarding. Skating and/or skateboards got mentioned in some songs (by bands like Black Flag, Agression, Suicidal Tendencies, Gang Green, Spermbirds, Kraut, Token Entry, Boneless Ones, Violent Children, Intense Degree and Room 303, who had a great skate anthem called Skate punx), but there never were dozens and dozens of strictly "skatepunk" bands. Of course there was a whole bunch of bands that emphatized the fact that they skated and didn't mind getting labeled as skate punks. Some of those bands were truly great too, like the Big Boys, Los Olvidados, Drunk Injuns and JFA. And there definitely were some cool songs about skating, check out these lyrics for instance:

AGRESSION: Intense energy

"Have you ever seen a skateboarder Surfin' in a pool Flying over the coping With a skateboard as his tool Well you've got no time for me You think it's cuz you're too cool Then I'll see you later I'm going surfin' in the pool

It's a way to release, intense energy It's a way to release, it's a way to release We just go in there and go crazyyy!

It's kinda like an addiction Hard core craving attention Do you know of my position I need to fly on the transition

You know we could be out busting heads But we get rowdy in the pools instead Laybacks, inverts, bio blackslides Roll ins, roll outs, gnarly slides, we're grindin' it"

Skaters had been listening to a lot of hard rock and heavy metal in the 70's, but at the end of the decade they also took notice of punk rock. And soon many skaters were heavily into punk and later hardcore. There weren't really any skate punk bands in the 1970's, but when the decade turned to 1980's first skate punk bands powerslid into the punk scene. One of the first (if not THE first) skatepunk bands was Big Boys out of Texas, USA. Big Boys was by no means a conventional bunch of skateboarding punks nor were they playing the standard thrashy hc of the early eighties. Big Boys played punk, hardcore, funk and everything between. They had strong DIY ethics and spread cool slogans like "Skate for fun" and "Go start your own band". Aside from their marvellous records Big Boys were known for their great live shows and the fact that they skated (even though some of them really were "big" boys).

JFA (or Jodie Foster's Army) was a hardcore band full of skate enthusiastics. They came from Phoenix, Arizona, USA. They had their own Placebo record label, which also put out JFA skateboard decks. JFA were so confident about their skating skills that they challengd other skatebands to compete with JFA, but no band dared to take on that challenge...

Another punk band that was known for their skating skills was The Faction, which featured well known pro skaters Steve Caballero and Gavin O'Brien. The Faction played fun teenage hardcore punk and had some songs about skating (like Skate & destroy and Skate Harassment), but also some about living on fast food (Fast food diet) ja Coke (Let's go get cokes). The Faction has played some reunion shows every now and then.

Other noteworthy skate bands were Code Of Honor, Drunk Injuns (led by long time Thrasher photographer MoFo), McRad (which featured pro skater Chuck Treece), Free Beer (their bassist was legendary pro skater Tommy Guerrero) and Los Olvidados (another underrated, Dead Boys -influenced band who got their first record out 20 years too late...).

The Skoundrelz, who played your basic generic early 80's hc punk featured one of the greatest skate legends ever, Tony Alva, who was one of the first (along with people like Duane Peters and Jay Adams) pro skaters who got heavily into punk rock.

German Claus Grabke, who was a pro skater for Santa Cruz, had his own punk band called 8 Days a Week (later 8 Dayz).

Steve Olson, who skated for Santa Cruz and Skull Skates in the 80's played in a punk band The Joneses, who later transformed into a silly glam rock band.

Some other 80's hc/punk bands that got skaters in their ranks were Negative Approach, Blast, Septic Death, Black Flag, Soul Side, Minor Threat, Stupids, Necros, The Abused, Tales Of Terror, Beyond Possession, Decry etc. etc.

Eventually in the 80's skaters and skateboards were everywhere in hardcore punk: in song lyrics, on record covers and sometimes even on the stage. In no time punk band skateboard decks started popping up. Black Flag had decks with many different designs. Gang Green, DI, Misfits, Social Distortion, Wasted Youth, Big Boys, Agent Orange, DRI and Suicidal Tendencies were some the bands that got their own skate deck. Since the first band decks in the early eighties, skateboard companies have continued to do decks for punk bands, nowadays probably more than ever before. And besides punk band decks, there has been a lot of decks for other kinds of bands too, and it's quite probable that some of those bands don't even know jackshit about skating...

Skate punk was first pretty much an american thing, which is quite understandable, cause that's where skating and ultimately also punk rock got started. But during the 80's skating and punk/hc mixed in other countries too. In western Europe punks were picking up skating, but not everywhere, at least in my home country Finland punks didn't skate that much in the eighties (too busy drinking booze and writing band names on their leather jackets I guess... Ha ha...).

After the eighties, in the 90's and 00's skating has been linked closely to hc/punk, but it's definitely not the only music that gets connected to skating. Especially in the 90's rap became big trend in skateboarding scenes all over the world. It must be stressed that you can't really tell someones musical taste just from the fact that he/she skates (at least not anymore). Skaters listen to all kinds of music (well, maybe not that much anything too commercial, mainstream MTV crap), not just punk or rap.

Somewhere along the way in the 90's skate punk became almost synonymous with Bad Religion influenced melodic hc/punk that bands like Pennywise, No Use For A Name, Millencolin, Vandals and Offspring played. Also in the late 90's and 00's "skate thrash" became a big trend in the underground hardcore scene. Bands (like What Happens Next, Bones Brigade, E.T.A. and H-Street) started to play fast, thrashy skateboarding-fueled hc and took influences from DRI, COC, and the old Oxnard scene of the 80's where so-called nardcore bands were playing fast, Minor Threat influenced hc. Old nardcore bands like Ill Repute, Agression, Stalag 13 and Scared Straight also used skateboard motives in their record artwork and song lyrics. A couple of years ago Alternative Tentacles released four great full lenght records from Drunk Injuns, Los Olvidados, Free Beer and JFA in their "skate punk series", which reminded people where the whole "skate punk" genre first got started.

Skateboard magazine Thrasher was especially important in spreading both the skate and punk gospel to it's readers. You'd often find reviews and interviews with punk/hc/indie bands from the pages of Thrasher. You could gather information on punk from those articles and also from various record label and t-shirt ads that appeared on the pages of Thrasher. It became clear that the staff at Thrasher dug punk and other kinds of alternative music. One especially crucial article for me was Pushead's list of the 100 best punk/hardcore records of the 80's (I think it was issue of January 1990?). That list (which can be found somewhere in the Internet too) was very helpful when I tried to figure out what bands and records I should be checking out. I used to put a mark beside every record on the list that I got. Slowly but surely I managed to get my hands on quite a few of the records mentioned on the list. At the same time I got other great punk records too, which in my opinion should have been on that list of Pushead's (like the first MDC LP!). Also, you could tell by reading skaters' interviews or profiles that punk and other underground music was the music the skaters were into, not mainstream pop of the day. Thrasher also released a series of cassettes (couple of them were on vinyl too) under the name "Skate rock", which featured bands like SNFU, COC, Septic Death and TSOL. They also put out a video in 1986 called "a blast from the past and present", which comprised of both skating and punk/hc cuts.

Nowadays skate videos have an extremely essential role among young skaters. Skaters seem to be constantly making their own videos or watching different skate videos. Videos (or shoud I say DVD's?) are used in a communicative way, which lets skaters not only show off with their coolest tricks, but they can also make a statement with the music they put in their videos. Different types of punk and hc music have been among the most used music in skate videos since the 80's and no doubt skatevideos have introduced lots of punk/hc bands to people; I for one remember hearing bands like Operation Ivy, Minutemen and Drunk Injuns first time on some skate videos.

In the last 5 years or so punk-influenced clothing style has been one of the biggest style trends in skateboarding. Kids are sporting punk t-shirts, tattoos, colored hair, mohawks etc. like it was '77 or '82 once again. It isn't too rare to see kids that were total rap kids a year ago look like gutter punks today. I can't help but wonder if this punk style is really more than just another passing phase for most of these kids or have they also looked into the ideals and ideas that punk and hardcore include. Maybe they have, but I'm still a bit cynical about the punk skater trend, as I am basically about almost every new trend... Sometimes the trendy "punk skater" fashion just feels pretty damn confusing, I mean it's funny to see these 13-year old kids in their Ramones t-shirts and leather jackets skating around looking like Sid Vicious or Johnny Thunders... Okay, I guess it's kinda cool in a way too. And I'm sure those kids have to confront some pressure and shit talking from their parents and peers for their choice of punky style, so more power to them.

Even though many (hopefully most) skaters like to think skating is this underground, rebellious thing, it's clear that there is the ever growing capitalistic side to skating. Skateboard industry is very big right now and there is lots of money to be made. And some use skating simply as means to get their hands to that huge pile of money. Mainstream big business, corporations like Nike and Adidas have been capitalizing on skateboarding pretty heavily in the last few years. You can see skating and skater stereotypes constantly in tv ads and series, Hollywood movies (I guess late 80's movies Thrashin' and the awful Christian Slater movie Cleaming the cube started this trend) , glossy magazines etc. The same thing has of course been going on with punk for the last ten years, after The Offspring and Green Day started selling crazy amounts of records. In these days when punk rockers can "make it big" and sell millions of records kids can easily dream about being a punk rock superstar and quite the same way they can fantasize about being a rich and famous pro skater. Things are twisted, man... But at the same time it feels comforting and encouraging to think about all the grass roots skaters and punk people who are keeping things in smaller DIY-level and are doing things (be it skateboarding or playing in a hardcore punk band) because they have a passion for doing them, not because it happens to be the expected thing to do or because they could get rich by doing it. Yeah, death to posers, right?

Any comments or/and questions are more than welcome:

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