Meet One Of The Pioneers Of Street Skateboarding Mike Vallely | SKATE TALES S2

we're in des moines iowa in the usa and in this episode we're visiting an all-around awesome human being one of the founding fathers of street skateboarding michael let's go [Music] is this philly des moines where are we [Music] so what do you know about mike v that you could tell us he's like top three or four street skating like og and how many people have had the longevity that he's had he's walking his own luck and he's unapologetic about it if that's not skateboarding i don't know what it is [Music] it's a hot sunny day in iowa i'm gonna meet mike v subsec skate shop the local local skate shop from des moines who's in there good to meet you man yeah how's it going mike valley is one of the most legendary and influential controversial skaters that have ever lived skateboarding's greatest enigma has always lived life against the grain often admonished more often adored 35 years since he entered the pro ranks he has ridden for many of the greatest brands at their greatest points but only ever on his own terms pioneer of many of the tricks which are still done to this day he is also famous for his aggressive approach to contest obstacles and intensity in general influenced by his east coast roots and punk rock mike has always been involved with music and has played in many bands always on the outside edge but always in demand mike v has sailed the seas of professional skateboarding like nobody else there are no other mike valleys he still carries the flame within and his fire will forever burn so is this like the og skate shot this is the skate shop yeah but og for sure what year did you guys do and uh i've ordered these boards last year and i finally got them this this thing called everyone's like oh man that's a cool cruiser i'm like well the tricks you're doing were invented on a cruiser then street plant's been around since 1984. christmas morning that's when i got my first board but we companies established in 2015 but in spirit it's a christmas baby it's born uh december 25th 1984. [Music] this is the first this is the first time seeing it oh man it turned out killer dude he started doing a t-shirt company that was called street plan it was just t-shirts and he was giving you the whole backstory about how it was emily's idea and his daughter emily and it was her idea to kind of start this and get like kind of mike's history out there and i remember telling him i was like man i was like i know it's just a t-shirt thing but i said i really think that this could be a board company it's a product shoot for street plants website [Music] you know people romanticize and and talk about the 80s and the graphics then and the time period and it really was it was a special time really i i think that with with street plant i put the same it's the same effort it's the same energy it's the same ideas put into the boards that i put into my boards in the early days and idealize that time period and it's hard because i i know it's their memories like people i've been introduced as like like old school og or pro skater from the 80s it's like well dude i didn't i didn't come here in a time machine you know i'm i'm alive now man like you know and i believe that the things i care about and my my my philosophical approach to skating is as relevant today as it ever was the first skateboard video i ever saw was public domain i started skateboarding in 1988 summer of 88. one of the kids in my neighborhood got public domain i hadn't seen it yet but i'll never forget my buddy tom matthews there's a guy he rides backwards and he ollies backwards to tail on a bench and that like it just blew my mind because i started skating we were doing bonelesses and jump ropes right we could hardly eat we were alert just learning how to ollie [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] wow [Music] discovering skateboarding for me was what i call sort of over the rainbow moment where my life went from black and white sepia tone to full-blown technicolor like it just my world opened up i started skating in september of 1984. i got my first sponsor which was pal peralta in june of 1986. so i wasn't skating for that long happened pretty quick and then i turned pro in may of 1987 i started skating the streets that was the most exciting aspect of discovering skateboarding street skating street styles what it was called at that time was brand new that 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 you could do that in edison new jersey i chose to move here mostly wanting to live somewhere where i really felt like i put down roots and create a decent life for my family and my kids and hopefully my grandkids it's 8 am and these guys been up since 6 riding mountain bikes and now they come here to get donuts and beer at 8 a.m before going to work is this skate tails or is this bike tails mountain bike tails ultimately iowa spoke to me because of the bicycle culture here when i see the bicycle culture the the amount of paved trails hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of miles of paved trails all over the state good breakfast and the way that that bicyclists have been facilitated and given the respect and the appreciation to pursue riding bicycles in a safe way i knew this was a fairly forward thinking state as far as recreation is concerned they say people are here are iowa nice just really engaging kind people and that's what i want to be around this is so exciting iowa state fair whoa [Music] is it possible to get a haircut yeah you and how do you turn this thing on [Music] hot dog on the stick oh yeah you guys got apple here or a lemonade stand so we don't have options [Music] please help me somebody [Music] excuse me i'm sorry okay i'm done skateboard school mikey is the best coach since i've been here and skating's exploding here and there's so much interest but there's so many new people getting into it i found the time and the opportunity to really start investing my time in helping people into skating you know teaching teaching skating is uh it's very fulfilling but most importantly it's about like welcoming people into skating with love you know like no judgement no no entry no i say i always say no entrance exam we both landed at the same time fan out hand out to mike v dude look at the location here it's downtown on the river it's not tucked away in some far-off neighborhood or some bad neighborhood or something it's here for everyone to use and it's a it's a jewel it's a jewel on the river and that says a lot about the people here that live here and the people in the city about how they think about things and what they want to do to encourage and facilitate young people skate school with mike lee what a lovely day and even if you i'm not listening [Music] there's a trick that i saw mike v do like 10 15 years ago no longer [Music] that's the biggest mistake [Music] wow [Music] the company started a little bit basically sitting around our kitchen table myself and my wife and our two daughters and it's a family business this shape you know this shape it's the infamous barnyard shape oh so this is the shape yeah we put a different graphic on it we put a des moines iowa graphic on it this was a big nose for 1989 but it was a lo there was a lot to it it wasn't just the shape it was also the art it was also the company world industries the art by mark mckee the shape by rodney mullen and then the skater me you know it was all those things came together to make the barnyard this thing that people make it out to be today is here so we'll open it so this was a vegetarian theme born 89 yep mark mckee 89. this is my shape in 2021 you know this is my shape in 1989. i skated this throughout the 90s but i prefer to be on something like this these days the box we ship the wheels in our wheels are called street scoundrels um because uh in 1986 i had my first picture in thrasher magazine uh they the caption said street scoundrel from new jersey 86 yeah 86. i was born 89 just so you know three years three years three years before you were born i was on the cover of thrasher our boards are made with love shapes the art concepts and everything that goes into them is with done with love and every box is packed with love and every interaction we have with any of our supporters is with love the whole thing is built around love and it starts the love of skateboarding i love you i love you too well you know i always loved music since i was really young but it really wasn't until i started skating that music became a really big part of my life um and that was the exact same time that i discovered skating and discovered punk rock music you know the stuff i was listening to informed my style of skating even like it opened my mind up my i was just my mind was being opened by the skate magazines escape videos and the music i was listening to it all worked together mike plays in a band it's called complete disaster and they're having a show tomorrow and we're going to the radio to promote it let's go mike valley is in studio with us with bruno on the thirsty thursday all right mike so i want you to walk me through some process here here i heard awesome things about the uh lint biscuit show that happened in town you've got you might follow in the complete disaster open for limp bizkit yeah our sec our first show was on the street in coming iowa literally on the street in front of cummington and a month later no no a day later we opened up for limp bizkit at the horizon event center in class a day maybe a day later yeah so our second show we had one show on the street the second show on a proper stage proper sound lights everything you know life's not supposed to happen that way right right um if you if you put the right energy towards the things you're passionate about then things ensue in their own way yeah you have to be ambitious you have to be driven you have to pursue some stuff but things will ensue dude i love that all right z and i will be back here for the five o'clock hour on fanatics 1460 kxno 106.3 fm very cool thanks man yeah turns out the radio's got spots so here we are no sliding a head tall outlet [Music] once you get deep into it then you're in you know but the beginning like the first feeling and out it's so hard [Music] thanks for the inspiration i didn't inspire that a month after i started skating i went to see black flag play that was the first live music i ever saw was black flag i started a band in 2001 we started gigging in 2002 that band was called mike v and the rats we got lucky and we got to do some shows with greg ginn who's the founding member of black flag we kept opening up for him and then at one point he approached me and said hey if i ever reformed black flag if i ever put the band back together i'd love to have you sing complete disaster is performing tonight so we're going in for a rehearsal there's eli the guitar lead guitar [Music] [Music] we'll start real like just the drums the little guitar and you can just [Music] it'll be something like that but not like that we never know what it's going to be but i like this way but i got to get it where it'll stop but it'll i've been writing poems since i was a little kid um and then when i got a little bit older when i was a teenager really i was writing song lyrics but i didn't have a band so they were poems but everything i ever wrote really was intended to be a rock song so i did this book it's kind of a collection of skateboard poems and it's about aspects of skating that i really value i could talk about all these things and they're they're good stories but in a poem in the form of a poem i find them to be something that has their own life as well so this is the poetry book it's called notice on my mind and the title comes from there's actually several poems that mention nadas one specifically really about him and then this photo from 1987 of him doing a wall ride over me which was uh in thrasher magazine and the caption of the photo said nadas on my mind here we are at captain royce mike v and the complete disaster are playing tonight and they invited me up on stage to do some back vocals so i've never performed in front of so many people and all of our shows have been for free other than we opened for limp bizkit people had to pay to get into that but that was that came out of nowhere we didn't plan on that our attitude our philosophy is bring the music to the people yeah check check check check check [Music] [Applause] we are mike not only in the complete disaster we love you des moines iowa [Music] oh [Music] [Music] [Applause] foreign [Applause] [Music] [Music] don't let yourself [Applause] thank you good night [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] me too i've seen skateboarding change a lot i've seen it go from this thing that my dad told me was pointless to being in the olympics you know it's changed a lot i i've seen through through all these years i've seen it i've seen it grow up i've seen it mature i've seen it evolve and i've also seen it keep its independent spirit it's a strange paradox that skateboarding has now but ultimately there's just at the end of the day there's just my skating you know i still i still have to enjoy riding my board this is jake he's on the subset skate team he also works at the shop and he's one of the best rippers in town thanks man [Music] looks like some karate to me was that being planted judo yeah bean planted judo [Music] for me he symbolizes east coast skateboarding but there's so many of us skaters were not from california and he was just the first guy that i was like that's east coast skateboarding like the aggression and like you know there's no palm trees no sunshine it's just really raw like being from new jersey completely informs my skating you know i was the first east coast based street skater to ever get sponsored ever turned pro so my skating was far more derivative of punk rock music hip-hop music break dancing than it was of surfing a jersey bear is the type of thing that you're really like for like i just don't skate enough so that's used to be that's the i loved like i was the first thing i'd want to skate now it's like oh that seems hard you know that seems like you know you have to be in the zone to skate stuff like that that thing right there [Music] that was the first one when i started street plant i decided to wear a helmet because i no longer had any sponsors i decided to put the helmet on it's personal choice i i don't really go out of my way to advocate for helmets or anything like that i feel like i get judged for it but that's okay it's a decision i can live with my family can live with and that i feel good about [Applause] [Music] that was a gnarly slam right there this is what that flat does to you yay [Music] [Applause] [Music] a special squad needs a special skate tool unlock your spot now [Music] ladies and gentlemen christian sleetak [Music] [Music] [Music] so what is skateboarding to you what is skateboarding to me it's absolutely joy fun self-expression creativity and love you

Channel: Red Bull Skateboarding

Views: 193,208

Keywords: red bull skate, skateboarding, skate, skate videos, skateboard, skater, skateboard tricks, pro skater, legend, mike vallely, skate tales, iowa, street skateboarding, olympics, Tony hawk, Nyjah huston, ledges, stairs, rails, street plant, hand plant, creative, mark gonzalez, bam margera, madras apse, Anthony bourdain

Id: msF7D1qJBSo

Length: 28min 29sec (1709 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 30 2022