I have skated pretty much Lucero boards since 1987, I grew up in Ohio and had a bunch of them Street Thing, Thumbhed, Thumbhed 2, Ben Schroeder. In Berea, Ohio they had a indoor park with vert ramp, mini ramp, and big street course called the Berea Triangle. Kristian Svitak skated that park when he was real young I remember seeing him there. He said in a Thrasher interview he was poor, and would cut out magazine pages and tape them to his helmet for stickers. The park had alot of older punk skaters, with cut off sleeveless jean jackets, chain wallets, Chuck Taylors or Vans. They had about 10 parking blocks on the street course, grinded to shit and I would hit this transition ramp to park vert wall and come down and do a 5-0 over the whole set of parking blocks and sparks are shooting off the Indys. Lurch was one of the older skaters at the park, he rode vert and super loose Indys. About the most technical trick I ever saw happen at the park was on a 4 foot quaterpipe. A guy from Akron, did a fakie no-handed blunt on a Tod Swank board. When the Mike V. World Industries board came out, a kid had it at the park, and was bummed out that everyone was not in to progressing their skating, but he sucked and couldn't ride transition worth a shit. I moved from Ohio, during my senior year in highschool but someone at the park told me Lucero was coming out with a new company.
I had the Thumbhed 2 board at the time, and kept riding it till there was barely any tail left. Finally there was an ad in Thrasher for Black Label, and I wrote John Lucero a letter and I asked him about Duane Peters, and if he would be on the company in like 1991. He mailed back a hand written letter and gave me the Lucero Ford Van sticker, and a few others and a xeroxed copy of the first pro models available. In his letter when he wrote back he had a ? after Duanes name. The first pro models, were Grosso Cig butt board, Riky Barnes couch surfer, Ben Schroeder handicap board, and John Lucero van board. I bought the Riky Barnes board and I sent a copy of the pro model pictures to Thrasher, and they sent me back a huge box of shirts and a beanie. The big boards didn't last much longer, a friend came over to the mini ramp like a month or two later with a Wade Speyer Powell popsicle stick, with the Slayer Hell Awaits graphic on it. I still skate I ride the Emergency boards, I have a few Jeff Grossos, Duane deck, and I have 2, 2005 Neil Blender 9.75 boards coming in the mail this week. I am looking forward to the new video, and hope they have an Emergency section in it. I will always skate Black Label.
Topic: Black Label Premiere (Read 7331 times)