Skate Mag Scans by Skate Media Nerd: 2004 April

Showing posts with label 2004 April. Show all posts

Mock Covers: A Photo Feature Full of Front-Pagers

The title pretty much says it all. Photographer credits are prominent on each page. Appears in the April 2004 issue of Skateboarder.

Divulge: Peter Ramondetta

From the April 2004 issue of Skateboarder. In this interview, Pete talks about how he got an Real, how he made the move from Tulsa to having a room in the Newell house, and how he got the early nickname "Rambodetta". Words by Mackenzie Eisenhour and photos by Brian Gaberman.

Mark Appleyard's kickflip back tail bigspin

In the first half of the 2000s, it seemed like Mark Appleyard could do anything he wanted on a skateboard, and look good doing it. His kickflip backside tailslide bigspin out on a handrail from his Really Sorry part is indicative of that time in his career. 20 years later, that same trick on a ledge could still feasibly appear in a pro skater's video part. As has been said by the others, the best sign of how incredible this trick is, is Tom Penny's reaction of disbelief after Mark rolls away.

Below is the two-page Volcom ad of the sequence of the trick, which was published in celebration of Apple winning the 2003 Thrasher SOTY award.

Too Cool For School: The home-studies class of '04

Alex Klein performs a case study on homeschooling & skateboarding, and whether or not it is an effective educational alternative to high school, by briefly interviewing six up-and-coming skaters about their experience. Photo credit is within the scans.

Cairo Foster Milestone article

The subject of the Milestone article for the very first issue (April 2004) of The Skateboard Mag was Cairo Foster, and was written by Kevin Wilkins with photography by Jon Humphries. This was a fun feature to read through because Cairo has always been a favorite of mine, and a lot of the photos are of tricks that appeared in his Fully Flared part.

Instant Gratification by Atiba Jefferson

One of the features from the very first issue of The Skateboard Mag (April 2004) was called Instant Gratification, which was a series of portraits and skate photos taken by Atiba Jefferson. It was a simple but interesting idea that was obviously very popular, as I have seen many of these images on the Internet for years before seeing them for the first time in physical print form today when I scanned it.

I won't say anything else; I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

New Jack: Bryan Herman

Bryan Herman had the honor(?) of being the very first New Jack interview for The Skateboard Mag, appearing in the 1st (April 2004) issue. It's crazy how good he already was at such a young age.

Words by Paul Zitzer, and all photos by Atiba.

Mike Rusczyk ("Rus-Sick") Appreciation

Let me start by saying that for years, I did not like Mike Rusczyk's skating. I remember watching Cataclysmic Abyss for the first time and being psyched to watch guys like Don Nguyen and Corey Duffel skate huge gaps and rails, but then wondering why they included a guy in the same video who was doing no-comply tail stalls on brick banks and varial kickflips down 4-blocks.

*pause for dramatic effect* 10 years later, it's my favorite part in the video.

Don and Duffel's skating is still awesome to watch, but Mike's part is so much more interesting to me now, and pretty mind-blowing. Every no-comply is flawless. And no-comply wallride??? He pops out of nosebluntslides so effortlessly. He skates a lot of spots no one else is skating and doing tricks on them that few others or no one else was doing at the time, and doing them quite well.

I won't go on and on, but if you've never seen his skating or haven't watched his parts for years because you didn't find them appealing, I recommend you watch his Cataclysmic Abyss and Art Bars parts now. And by no means am I an expert of his skate career, so if you are reading this and know of some other skating of his that I didn't mention, let me/us know!

TL; DR, I used the Skatepark of Tampa website to look up every piece of magazine coverage that I owned that had Mike Rusczyk in it because he fucking rips and is one of the most underrated skateboarders ever and I wanted to feature him on this page.

April 10th, 2022 update: Since putting up this post, I have found more Mike Rusczyk photos. I decided that instead of making new posts whenever I find another photo of him in a magazine, that I will just update this post. For the purists, everything up to the June 2010 The Skateboard Mag post was what was I originally published on March 20th.