Skateboarding
Skateboarding
Roll out with a true skating maverick as Madars Apse meets Mike Vallely
This time around Madars Apse is bringing Skate Tales to the streets of Des Moines, Iowa, where we get to meet Mike Vallely, a veteran pioneer of modern skateboard culture.
In truth, we probably haven’t got enough bandwidth here to do the twists and turns of Mike Vallely’s skateboarding life story justice.
Instead let’s consider some of the many roles he's played in order to provide some context as to what makes him such an enduring enigma. Continue reading to get the lowdown on Vallely’s pioneering life and watch the video above to see Madars Apse rolling around the strees of Des Moines, Iowa, with him.
Forthright while accommodating yet provocative while undoubtedly respected, Vallely is the outlier’s outlier – always on the outside edge of skateboarding’s clannish tribality and yet always in demand. As he's noted in the past, the reason why he isn’t venerated by today’s sponsored skateboarding cohort like his Bones Brigade peers is because, unlike them, he's still taking board sales off the contemporary scenesters.
Mike Vallely – Layback Slob Pivot
© Gaston Francisco
Mike V and the Complete Disasters rehearse
© Gaston Francisco
Mike Vallely – Frontside Wallie Handplant
© Gaston Francisco
Mike Vallely – Beanplant
© Gaston Francisco
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There are worse places to start charting Vallely’s cultural ascent within skateboarding than his breakout section from Powell Peralta’s game-changing 1988 video release Public Domain. Skateboarding was changing daily at that point, with the genesis of street skating and Mike V’s East Coast aesthetic and floppy-wristed silhouette catching the attention of the entire skateboarding world.
People were beginning to realise that there was more to this culture than hero-worshipping the MTV-generation of Californian vert professionals who were appearing more dated and anachronistic by the day.
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There’s a guy and he rides backwards and he Ollies backwards to tail on a bench. That blew my mind!
From Powell Peralta, Vallely would jump ship to nascent upstart brand World Industries, in effect kicking off a culture of cellular division within skateboarding. It was a scene where the pros themselves would serve notice of a brand having peaked and signal the advent of something fresher – the effects of which are still seen today in the creation of sub-brands and sister brands in order to appeal to different demographics.
Discovering skateboarding for me was like an ‘over the rainbow’ moment, where my life went from black-and-white to full-blown technicolour.
Vallely’s double-kick Barnyard board for World Industries effectively signalled a new era in skateboarding trick development which Salman Agah would later pioneer. This increased the skateboarding lexicon by adding Nollie and Switchstance possibilities to every trick that had hitherto utilised the Ollie alone.
By 1991, Vallelywas riding for New Deal, the coolest brand on the planet by some distance. His closing section for their 1281 video demonstrated what made him unique in skateboarding terms: while everyone else was heading down a road of more complex and inevitably slower skateboard tricks, Valley was just blasting: faster, bigger and with more confidence than anyone else except perhaps for Kris Markovich.
Street skating or ‘street style’, as it was called at that time was brand new. You didn’t need a ramp; you didn’t need a swimming pool; you didn’t need to be in California under some palm tree.
Despite being on a tangent to what the skateboarding mainstream was doing, Vallely was still an enticing prospect to sponsors because he's always had his own constituency.
Vallely also rode for brands like Powell, Black Label and Element Skateboards when each of those brands were at the peak of their powers before finally starting his own Street Plant label in 2015. He somehow found time along the way to front the re-formed punk band Black Flag and serve stints in both semi-professional wrestling and ice hockey.
What is skateboarding to me? It is absolutely joy, fun, self-expression, creativity and love.
Now settled with his family in Des Moines, Iowa, he's enjoyed a 35-year pro skating career on his own terms. Madars Apse hits the streets with a true original to learn about Street Plant, punk rock and the journey of a street scoundrel from New Jersey. Enjoy it all just by hitting the player up top.
