SKATE ROCK INDUCTED INTO SEATTLE EXPERIENCE MUSIC PROJECT AT BIG OL' HOTEL POOL IN COLTON

by Brian Brannon

Salba throwing a slob air across the corner.

It all went down at a rad pool at a Howard Johnson's hotel in Colton, California, home of the now defunct Holiday Bowl, a nice banked slalom run and a sweet ol' snake run going from shallow to deep. The Seattle Experience Museum had come to interview significant exponents of the early Skate Rock movement. The film crew was called Good Cop Bad Cop, which proved an fitting portent of events to follow.

The scene was pretty much typical Salbaland - pay off the security guard with some beer and dinero and everything is cool, or so they say... With all the film crew, the interviewers and the interviewees there, it didn't take long for the cops to show up.

Steve Turner, bassist for Mudhoney and The Monkeywrench, was interviewing Ron Emory, guitarist for TSOL, and Steve "Bulky" Olson, bassist for The Joneses, when the boys in blue first made the scene.

Mad Dog laps up the bowl

The Law necessitated the proper permits and a representative of the film crew was sent down to city hall checkbook in hand.

World Skateboard Champion of 1976 Tony Alva, bassist for The Skoundrelz and inventor of the tuck-knee frontside air, spoke next about Dogtown, Venice, Jay Adams, Ted Nugent, Mofo and the evolution of the sounds heard to rise from backyard bowlriding sessions.

Mike Roche from TSOL, who is playing in the band again with original members Emory and Jack Grisham also said a few words though refusing to make any assertions of ever having ridden a skateboard. Nonetheless, he is still a rad ass bass player and deserves to be mentioned in the Skate Rock Hall of Fame for the all the fuel his bass lines provided at many pool parties across the land.

Salba and Mad Dog, (the new one, not T.A.), proceed to assault the big square right hand kidney with solid lines that began testing the potential there to be tapped. Not to be outdone, Salba's boys Jesse (5) and Riley (3) were also taking runs in the deep end on board and trike respectively. The tile in the deep end said nine feet but it looked more like a Hawaiian nine feet than a measurement of the face to me.

Then the dude came back from city hall and said everything was cool. Meanwhile the interview with Alva, which had been cut short earlier at the cop's "cease and desist" request was already wrapping up.

Your humble narrator was asked to say a few words about the early days in JFA driving around in the Big Green Bus. I obligingly shared a few stories of the Texas hospitality, Arizona pools, the relationship between Johann Sebastian Bach and desert pipes, the riot at the show in Seattle, that one "T" intersection I discovered while downhilling in Nashville and our habitual ditching of sound checks to skate local ditches.

Steve Turner said he interviewed guitarist Tim Kerr of the Big Boys who claims that though JFA was the first punk band to declare themselves skaters, the Big Boys had their deck on the market before ours, so technically they were the first band to have a board. I said though that was an arguable point I would concede to whatever Tim said on the matter because the Big Boys f#*%ing ruled!

U.S. Bombs vocalist Duane Peters, inventor of the indy air, acid drop and layback rollout, was next on the mic, along with his old Santa Cruz sidekick Salba. I could tell from the crew's faces that these guys were saying some funny shit so I hobbled over on crutches from injuries incurred breaking up a three dog versus one cat night.

Duane told stories how dudes from out of town came down one night before a contest to get him drunk so he'd be too hung-over to win the next day. He says he stayed up til morning drinking the visiting team under the table, didn't get any sleep and slammed a Heinken right before his run and won the contest.

Salba pointed out that though many people had come and gone in both skateboarding and skate rock since he, Duane and Olson were part of the original punk Santa Cruz team, that only the true were still skating pools.

The skate crew.