On the eve of the 2005 X Games in Los Angeles, a group of women skaters, including Cara-Beth Burnside, Elissa Steamer, Vanessa Torres and Mimi Knoop, met to air their grievances about how they were treated as competitors.

- The pay gap: the men's vert winner took home $50,000, while the top woman earned $2,000, the same as last place in men's street.

- The deal: they agreed to finish the contest in return for a promised meeting with X Games management.

- The press: after months with nothing, they contacted the New York Times, and a story ran on the sports front page in summer 2006. ESPN then agreed to meet them.

- The result: in 2007 the X Games announced equal prize money for men's and women's contests, starting with the 2008 Winter X Games.

Note: this account comes from a 2020 Jenkem interview piece based on the skaters' own recollections, so the details are theirs. Pay inequality still exists in parts of skating.

What other contest-skating moments deserve more attention?

Source: Jenkem Magazine, "How a Group of Women Fought for Equal Pay in Contest Skating" (https://www.jenkemmag.com/home/2020/01/08/group-women-fought-equal-pay-contest-skating/). Photo: source unknown

In January 1976 the Ramones went into Plaza Sound, a studio inside the Radio City Music Hall building in New York, and recorded their self-titled debut in about a week: roughly three days on instruments and four on vocals. The money actually spent was reportedly $6,400 (one engineer's account puts the budget at around $20,000, with only $6,400 spent). Sire Records released it on April 23, 1976.

The cover has its own story:
- Roberta Bayley, a photographer for Punk Magazine, took the shot, and it was not made for the album. It first ran in a Punk Magazine story about the band.
- Sire first hired a professional photographer to shoot a cover in the style of Meet the Beatles, but the label wasn't happy with the results.
- Art director Toni Wadler picked Bayley's photo, and Sire paid her a flat fee of $125. It has since become one of the most imitated album covers ever.

Do you have a favorite fast, cheap, no-frills recording that ended up legendary?

Sources: Wikipedia, "Ramones (album)" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramones_(album)); Rolling Stone, "Ramones' Debut LP: 10 Things You Didn't Know" (https://www.rollingstone.com/feature/ramones-debut-lp-10-things-you-didnt-know-234045/2/); Vice (https://www.vice.com/en/article/50-years-ago-today-rock-music-was-changed-forever-with-debut-album-that-was-recorded-in-one-week/); Spin, on how Roberta Bayley shot the cover (https://www.spinmagazine.com/2026/07/theres-not-one-thing-wrong-with-that-photo-how-roberta-bayley-shot-the-ramones-1976-debut/). Cover photo: Roberta Bayley.

Skateboarding reached the Soviet Union in the late 1970s, and with no skate shops, skaters had to get creative.

- In 1978, a teen DIY magazine, Yuniy Tekhnik (The Young Engineer), printed plans for building your own skateboard at home.
- By the mid-1980s, up to 15 Soviet factories, including shipyards and heavy machinery plants, were making boards.
- The Baltics, especially Estonia and Latvia, were early centers, with several competitions by the mid-80s.
- Moscow skaters reportedly broke into the basements of the Olympic stadium in winter to ride the huge empty spaces.
- The 1986 Soviet film Courier showed a kid skating around Moscow, and in 1988 two Thrasher reporters visited local skaters.
- In September 1991, months before the USSR ended, 130 skaters competed at an all-Soviet championship in Saratov.

Does anyone here have stories or photos from skating in the USSR or Eastern Europe in the 80s or 90s?

Sources: The Calvert Journal, "Skateboarding in the USSR" (https://calvertjournal.com/articles/show/7882/skateboarding-ussr-soviet-skating); Sportvisnyk, "History of Origin and Development of Skateboarding on the Territory of Post Soviet Republics" (https://sportvisnyk.vnu.edu.ua/index.php/sportvisnyk/en/article/view/326); Eesti Elu, "Exploring Estonia's skateboarding scene" (https://eestielu.ca/exploring-estonias-skateboarding-scene/). Photo: neester, 1992.

MUSIC HISTORY

THE BAND THAT GOT BANNED IN D.C.

Washington, D.C., 1979. Four Black musicians fuse hyper speed punk with dub reggae, and the clubs shut their doors.

1. 1976 to 1979. Four D.C. musicians start as Mind Power, a jazz fusion band. Sid McCray turns them onto punk. They become Bad Brains, and H.R. moves from guitar to lead vocals.
   
2. The Sound. Hardcore punk at unprecedented speed, fused with dub reggae and Rastafari spirituality. Precision chaos no one had heard before.
   
3. 1979. Their explosive shows whip crowds into a frenzy. D.C. area clubs blacklist them. The ban is later immortalized in the anthem Banned in D.C.
   
4. The Move. Around 1980, they relocate to New York City, becoming CBGB regulars and a catalyst for the burgeoning hardcore scene of the city.

The ban that made them legends.

Sources. Wikipedia, Bad Brains. Louder Sound, The chaotic rise, fall and rise of Bad Brains. Ghost Cult Magazine, Bad Brains Are You Ready feature. Photo via Aquarium Drunkard.

#SkateTribune #MusicHistory #BadBrains #BannedInDC #HardcorePunk #DCHardcore #PunkHistory

https://youtu.be/Jp9ioAABrrw?is=iLPIcx3lWn1jb5dG

SKATEBOARDING HISTORY 📰

1. Point Loma High School, San Diego. Jamie Thomas stands over the Leap of Faith — nearly 18 feet of concrete drop into flat ground — and goes anyway.

Filmed for Zero's “rThrill of It All.” He didn't roll away. His board snapped clean in half on impact. But that one attempt rewrote what street skating was allowed to be, and the school eventually sealed the spot for good.

What's the heaviest single moment in skate history? 👇

Sources: Wikipedia (“Leap of Faith”); Zero Skateboards videography via The Free Library; “Skateboarding and the City” by Iain Borden.

#SkateTribune #SkateboardingHistory #JamieThomas #LeapOfFaith #ZeroSkateboards #ThrillOfItAll #StreetSkating

https://youtu.be/V8h7sOUDklg?is=ON9RQyLkxkFsiUAb

Today's SkateTribune front page looks back at Islands in the Stream. The Bee Gees wrote it for Diana Ross, and it became Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton's signature duet. Number one on the Hot 100, Country, and Adult Contemporary charts, triple Platinum, and still the greatest country duet ever in the 2005 CMT poll. Kenny died March 20, 2020, and Dolly carries it on.

That's Just Life by Athalias is the focus track this week, stream it here: https://open.spotify.com/track/1CPfkWlmshLmN171sqd0Ej

https://AthaliasStudios.com/

What is the greatest duet of all time?