No overall disrespect to Tony, but the quick sketch of what you consider "cool" and engaged in the '80s mostly just reveals your level of taste. Liking those things together would've made you more of a neoliberal narc-"creative" working as an adman in marketing. For a contemporary equivalent, it might be like calling Austyn Gilette cool while there's the 917 team or the Atlantic Drifters skating amongst us.
"Repo Man" is good, as was Devo in their time. Bret Easton Ellis, John Hughes starlets, Duran Duran, and yes, New Order was not (although it's worth noting in this context that the Alva guys were really into Joy Division). X had their place, especially really early, and John and Exene's voices snaking around each other can be pretty neat, but Billy Zoom was and is one of the worst right wing pieces of shit.
The Alva Posse was a mixed bag. I'll agree that Duncan, Eddie Reategui, and Danforth pretty much fit your profile. Fred Smith was cool, in the later days Mario Rubalcalba and Jesse Neuhaus were awesome, and Alva himself was complicated: in some ways very cool, in others not. However, the Team THC subset of the team – John Thomas, Jef Hartsel, and Chris Cook – absolutely fucking ruled. Cooksie was my fave: weird nosewheelie variations, fakie wallrides, the earliest polejam attempts (on vertical poles), over-decked rock-and-rolls on deckless ramps, teaching Julien Stranger slappies, skating Pacifica's demented gunnite Devil's Pit far better than anyone, doing micro-edgers when that trick was forgotten, and all with great style. He even did the first (stationary, sloppy) kickflip on a non-freestyle board in a video. Basically, he was about doing weird, original shit, with good taste.
The Alva crew had a rep for being troglodytes, and that held true to a point, but they were kind of the pioneers of being extremely non-corporate and organic in everything they did...they definitely paved the way for (the better aspects of) Anti-Hero, GX1000, et al. The self-aggrandizement would get old, but they were also fighting a bit of a culture war against A LOT of bullshit in skating the '80s. Lastly, the boards themselves were really good and having Mondo Beck airbrush many of them uniquely by hand was really cool and something no one else was gonna do.
Topic: Tony Alva (Read 1804 times)