Who is bill danforth

Photo:Grant Brittian. It seems like you were a good person to test out products based on the way you skated, which was aggressive and hard. I liked the lip tricks. I street skated the old-fashioned way, on loading docks, etc. Being from the Midwest, we skated in colder climates and I saw a lot of trucks break, but Trackers always held up. I did help out after the launch of the Ultralite baseplates, because those did crack in the cold temps, but because I passed on the info, they were able to fix the problem quickly.

Anybody who still rides Trackers. Seriously, anybody who has stayed true through the years is my hero! Yes, I had a favorite ad, for sure. I hung up on a rail in Arizona, took a full header to the concrete, and my face was all fucked up. That one made me popular with the chicks, because I looked all tough. I remember a great trip we did with Tom Groholski, Dan Wilkes and Jeff Phillips, when we did all sorts of demos and shop appearances up and down the East Coast.

Q- Why keep skating? A- I didn't start skateboarding to quit, so I never will. I might get older but the memories will always be there, It would be like forgetting to breathe. Q- What is your impression of skating in its current state? We had more fun in the real days, eat my FUCK. I said to Pete, "You know what, I got a guitar player out there skating the pool and I also got a drummer out there skating the pool. Come back and meet them.

I actually put those 4 members together for the first solid Negative Approach. They never even had to pin the ad up on the bulletin board. They all jammed one night, and the next thing you know, they got a band together.

Y ou guys had a hand in every aspect of a gig, from roadying to booking and making flyers to cleaning up the mess the next day. Talk about that. When the bands showed up on a Friday or Saturday night, there'd be a bunch of us year old kids that would help them carry the equipment in. We'd sweep out the Freezer Theatre and pick up all the crap from the night before and just maintain the venue.

We were proud to do that, cause we were contributing to a scene that we believed in. We wanted our place straight and as cleaned up as possible for our friends to come in and see Negative Approach, the Necros or whoever. Everybody created their own fanzines, wrote show reviews and promoted upcoming shows.

We did so much before desktop publishing. We'd hand write this shit or type it out, take it to Kinkos and come home and staple it. That was how grass roots this shit was in Detroit. Chris Moore worked in a print shop. Where do you think all the flyers came from for all the fuckin gigs? Everybody pulled their own weight in a certain way that made that punk rock scene thrive.

Chris Moore from Negative Approach was one of your close skating friends , right? How did you guys connect? Ya, he rode for Powell and Tracker. He now lives in New York City, teaches music, performs a lot and occasionally plays in Negative Approach. He's a fantastic artist; very unique style.

He's been one of my best friends for my entire life. I've known the guy for over 40 years. He was a skate park buddy, and we were the same age and we just hit it off. We grew up in the skatepark Endless Summer and grew up with punk rock, but when I see him in person, he's just the same 14 year old kid and I'm still the same 14 year old kid.

We talk about the same silly shit. It all came from the bond that we formed at the skatepark. That skatepark was our high school; it was our clubhouse. If for some reason we missed a day, everybody would be like, "Hey man are you alright?

Where were you today? There was maybe about a dozen of us. Everybody went and formed bands. Most of us still remain friends, and we had a reunion in and there was a good bit of us there. I swear to god we were all 14 when we saw each other again; 14 with a couple of kegs. Our Endless Summer dozen were all involved in the punk scene, so not only were we seein' each other at the skatepark every single day, but also at shows.

One guy has the best photographic history of punk rock Davo Scheich because he was like, "I'm not gonna go to these shows and not take pictures, I'm a photographer. That was before you needed press passes and all that other crap. You bring a camera in, you pay 8 bucks, you go see a show and you shoot these photos that you can now sell for fuckin' thousands! Detroit was hurtin' back then. The Freezer Theatre was in the worst part of town; it was rough.

There was always a group of people around you, and the the local hoodlums in the neighbourhood were scared of the punks. That's what Detroit was all about. This independent guy found the cheapest place to rent in the heart of the shittiest part of Detroit, and decided he was gonna have bands play there. He'd have bands on Friday and Saturday nights and it payed for the place. Didn't have windows, only had one working bathroom that was never even accessible because it was always filled with amps and other equipment.

So basically it was piss outside on your own in the alley or across the street at the Burger King. People knew there was something going on at the Freezer Theatre, either Friday or Saturday night. That place only lasted maybe a year and half because it wasn't legal and they didn't sell anything. All they did was unlock the door and that was the club.

There was a shitty stage built out of scrap plywood. Negative Approach had a practice space down the street and around the corner, and that place was even smaller than the Freezer Theatre. There is neon green grip tape on the surface of the board with a black spider web pattern on a pink ground on the front of the board. A black spider web design is also on the bottom of the board. Grip tape covers the original purple line design. This board was used during the 's by Midwestern skateboarder Bill Danforth, star of the Street Survival Video and was autographed by Danforth as well.