Skateboarding may no longer be a crime (in most cities anyway), so it’s hard to imagine a time when it was a trivialized as the red-headed stepchild of surfing.
It was during that time, in an era known as the 80′s, that the future of skateboarding was being spearheaded by a bunch of kids called the Bones Brigade. These kids were brought together by George Powell, a mechanical engineer and Stacey Peralta, an already-famous skateboarder. Their company, Powell Peralta was responsible for inventing much of the skateboard technology used today. Their Powell Peralta skate team consisted of now legendary names: Tony Hawk, Lance Mountain, Steve Caballero, Tommy Guerrero, Rodney Mullen and Mike McGill. The McTwist that Tony Hawk so famously perfected? You can credit McGill for that trick.
30 years later, their story, and the story of skating itself, is finally being told in a film titled Bones Brigade: An Autobiography. Produced and directed by Stacy Peralta, the film looks to capture the attitude, the music, and the lifestyle of the future legends during “the moment when skateboarding became skateboarding.”
Stacy Peralta, who also directed the skating documentary Dogtown and Z-Boys, was recently interviewed by KROQ’s Kevin & Bean, and spoke about the upcoming film.
“After I finished Dogtown, Tony [Hawk] and the guys asked me if I would make the Bones Brigade film because they felt that they had a legacy that was equally as important as the Dogtown legacy.”
Peralta continued, “I wasn’t comfortable at the time because I didn’t want to play the dual role of film maker and also subject in the film, but they kept at me. Tony and the guys called two years ago and said, ‘Look, we are now older than you and Tony Alva were when you made Dogtown, would you please consider doing this?’ I finally just threw caution to the wind and said ‘OK, I’ll do it.’”
Peralta continues to screen the documentary at film festivals around the country. Visit Bones Brigade’s official website for info on future screenings.
– Carlos Delgado, KROQ Los Angeles
