Dudes … you’ll have to be older than Moses to understand the context of my little story coming up … but those old enuff to remember will remember.
(this is a picture of a Croatian Semi Precious Stones Dealer or his twin brother, not too sure which)
Like in 1988 or something like that, our local Montreal skatepark was the St-Ambroise SK8 Parc … A.K.A. the Swuit Park … I remember pre opening night showing up to the new facility and walking in and being blown the fuck away! Natas was there, Jim Thiebault, Julian Stranger (i think) and Jason Corbet. It was freaking awesome (until someone stole Natas’ board) … but then … it got found … and all was awesome again.
(ols school pics jacked from Michel Poulin)
Anyways the SK8 Park attracted lots of heads, all kinds … but I remember the bunch that marked me the most was the King Diamond Crew A.K.A. The Mackenzie Brothers (my name for them, not theirs). They came rolling by from Toronto for a contest at the park and killed it. I don’t remember the whole crew but the 2 prominent members I remember were Bill Weiss and Justin Bokma.
Those dude were on a whole other level of delinquency than what we were used to. For one, they’re were fucked up as fuck, secondly they had all these horrible tattoos all over their arms (don’t remember exactly … but either Mercier or Eric Gagnon ended up with a little permanent forearm souvenir from those guys), third … these guys ripped and didn’t give a flying fuck about anything. The day after the SK8 Parc comp … they showed up to Canada Day Skate Session/Comp in Pierrefonds … and I remember Bokma showing up drunk (or something) literally 1 minute before his run was gonna begin … and he just pushed like a motherfucker towards the launch ramp and busted out a 360 ollie. He was bananas.
Those dudes were freaking awesome. Apart from the tatts and badder than bad attitudes … I also recall that these guys all LOVED King Diamond. King Who? Fuck I was into The Cult, skate rock from Vision movies and still kinda liked Duran Duran … I was not ready to be exposed to some full blown Evil Satan shit.
Anyways … now I’m older and am totally down with Evil and Satan and shit like that … plus it’s been over 20 years since then… so … what seemed crazy and dangerous back then, seems like a god damn walk in the park now a days.
I found these King Daimond clips on The Nuge’s Blog … which, for fans of the Shake Junt’s hi jinx antics will be another outlet to keep tabs on these guys.
The Nuge rips it, is a total stoner and is asian … so you know he’s freggin awesome!
March 16th, 2010 - 6:18 pm
The dudes from Toronto were Jay Stevanson and I think Marc Richardelli. I remember Marc throwing down McTwists and Jay Stevanson had a super smooth style.
At the Pierrefonds comp Justin Bokma had drawn a bat or some devil shit on his face in black marker. I’m not sure if Pierrefonds was ready for that.. The only other disturbing thing to see that day was when Glen McPhee wore his little jean shorts and one of his balls was hanging out the side. I’ll take Satan over that any day of the week.
March 17th, 2010 - 8:34 am
heh … McPhee balls … I remember those things. Canada Day festivities … how awesome was Canada Day back then.
March 17th, 2010 - 9:20 am
Haha…The Radical team rider’s pic with Natas !!! Steve G et Fred…
Anyone has footage at the st-Ambroise Sk8 park???
March 18th, 2010 - 1:04 pm
Corbett was from TO also. Richadelli killed the 13 foot ramp. To bad he quit skating after a bad slam at the Hoof. I think the year was 91 and 90 for the Jean-Talon park. Both parks were better then any park since in MTL.
Natas didn’t need his board anyways, he was injured and only took like 3 runs. Those guys walked away with a tons of clothes though. Free workmen clothes…those were the days. The Sk8 Parc piece in the first photo is still there day according to Ray.
Tison has some video of the park. From a night session with him and Barry.
March 18th, 2010 - 4:36 pm
Sk8 parc was one of my all time favourite places to skate. I could skate the blue curb, the manual boxes and the quarter pipe for hours. I even liked riding the other 9 foot ramp with the big wall. The place had such a good vibe to it. The day Richadelli showed up is still super vivid in my beer soaked mind. I remember watching him warm up and right away I was like ’shit this dude’s going to be good’. Something about his style he didn’t look intimidated at all. Then they all padded up and it went nutty. The only other Canadian that I had seen to rip up a vert ramp like that was Tom Boyle at Beaubien and some other dudes in Toronto.
Didn’t they make it out the Townsends later in the night to score hash?
March 19th, 2010 - 11:34 am
Boyle is not Canadian, he’s from Texas; he just lived in the GTA for a bunch of years. He’s back in the US (PA) now. The guy with him at Beaubien was Brent Jordan. When I found vert skating, those were fun times.
March 19th, 2010 - 4:47 pm
I have pics from Beaubien with Steve Coffey doing gnarly frontside grinds. Some of Patty doing airs of the launch ramps, Morrisset, Barry. Good times.