274: The House of Steam: July 20th, 2 Years and 100,000+ Hits!! Benjamin Cornish’s Super 8 Youth (The Directors cut)
July 20, 2008
Its 2 years on and here is how things stand:
100,000+ hits!! (right on the anniversary too)
274 entries into the archive scattered across 500 categories.
491 comments
Lets also not forget YouTubeSkate with 8,000 hits, 46 videos and counting and a year old too!
No money generated.
No Money lost!
Lots of old friends catching up and getting together. Allan Gibson has put out an all call to skaters wishing to ride his Uber-Ramp. Wreckroom skates is putting out boards for three Steam riders, Dan Tag, Darren Menditto, and Bernie O’Dowd. I have a couple pictures going into an HR documentary and I had a cool email conversation with Guy from Fugazi. If you google/image search the word “signature” my name is number 2 on the entire internet(try it, its crazy!!). The 78 ditch is being ridden again by a whole new generation of skaters. Ben Cornish has dusted off his old films (Cant wait to see “Demo” again) I have gotten no better or worse at writing. SteamBoat released an amazing (cant wait to see it) skate film. Chuck is skating and performing.Jay Henry is still…Well, Jay Henry. The Padulos’s have a quarterpipe in their driveway again, for their kids. Mike Pruskowski is a Dad this year. Rinaldi is blogging away. Rodney opened a shop in the lower east side.Bernie is skating and directing creativity. John is sculpting.Tom Groholski chimed in with a killer essay on East Coast pride. Vallely always has great things to say here. Mertz is gonna be back in action as well as making music. Rocky is spinning, Dennis is fishing. Taylor is blackberrying. 300+ people are trolling through our nostalgic past on a daily basis. Everyone will always miss Weep, JT,Sean, Hula and the rest. Anyway…
So two years ago on July 20th I posted a picture of the Barn on this free blog site. I have not done a thing to change the look and feel of the place since then. I am not sure why I did it at the time, I guess I wanted to throw up a flag and see who would salute. It was dawning on me at the time I had not seen some really important people in my life for over 10 years and I needed to change that. I always took pride in my skate photo album and I felt others took pride in theirs as well. I had hoped everyone would want to dust theirs off and compile it all in one place, The House of Steam like a wing of the Metropolitan museum of art. So I guess its mission accomplished. The main thing I constantly take away from working on THOS is that we had some great early years, surrounded by cool supportive people and families. We had places to go, places to stay and we made our own decisions. Most importantly everyone seemed to know at the time how good we had it then and how good we have it now. Life enjoyed/Enjoying life, so far so good.
Thanks to everyone who reads,contributes,comments,emails, sends pictures etc. etc. Also thank you for all the great comments concerning my art over at Http://jasonoliva.com they are always appreciated (keep em coming!)
I will keep this post up for a bit while I get ready for year 3 and everyone can get a chance to drop a comment or even a suggestion.
Well without further adieu here is Ben Cornish’s SUPER 8 YOUTH in its entirety…Enjoy!
DIRECTOR-EDITOR
ben cornish
CAMERA
dave padulo
dan tag
rocky vertone
others
FEATURING
chris blank
simon curtis
dan tag
rocky vertone
jt murphy
jimmy kane
dennis kane
steve mannion
john ballon
bernie o’dowd
jason oliva
tim cornish
matt padulo
cornish chickens
MUSIC and SAMPLES
dj king weep
apple x
civ
descendents
bad brains
modest mouse
rambling jack elliot
Coolness from En-Jay/SHUT ripper Derek Rinaldi!!
July 17, 2008
En-Jay Ripper and SHUT rider Derek Rinaldi 2008
Still Kickin like a chicken (as Weep might say)
Jason,
The second anniversary of thehouseofsteam.com is just about upon us.
What began as a little place on the internet where old friends could post and view skate pictures & stories has grown into a destination site for reconnecting with East Coast skateboarding’s past.
Submissions have increased, traffic has been over whelming and the wheels are turning, so to speak.
The second anniversary of the steam site is not to be confused with the long history that Steam has in the skateboard community. Since 1985, TEAM STEAM has been synonymous with skateboarding and it’s components.
Before there were frequent traveling pros and instant media surrounding skateboarding, we, in New Jersey, had our own skate heroes to look up to.
We’d usually just get a passing story of what TEAM STEAM was doing, where they were skating and what tricks they were pulling off.
They would at times show up, skate and leave unheralded. And that was fine by them.
When the Steam guys went skating, they were going to work. Blue collar skating at it’s best. Raw, fast, controlled chaos.
If a crew showed up at your spot and the had the word “STEAM” written on their grip tape, shit was gonna go down.
The site is a testament to the legend of the steam riders. Having grown up in New Jersey I would sit amazed at the way in which they would completely dominate sessions.
Congratulations Jason on two years of success and thank you to the original Steam riders for providing motivation and inspiration to New Jersey and East Coast skaters.
Derek Rinaldi 2008
Too cool!!
Jason Oliva
Team Steam Trading Cards (series 1): Circa 1986
July 17, 2008
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- Jason Oliva
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- Dan Tag
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- Jimmy Kane
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- Rick SteamBoat Charnoski
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- Rocky Vertone
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- Weep
So here we have Series 1 (series 2 to be scanned and posted soon) of the Team Steam Trading cards. All of which were created on the old school printing press in our High School graphics arts department. No scans or xerox here just plain old Mr. Abella taught newspaper printing press/ dark room technology. I can still smell the ink and feel my bleary eyes after long hours of cutting class and hiding in the dark room. There are about 10 or so additional skaters in series 2 including The Barn itself and Team Steams House band The Raging Lamos. Look for another post with those as soon as I sort out a new British scanner.
Jason
271:Team Steam 1987 Photo Annual
July 16, 2008
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- Dan Tag O.C.
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- Jim Murphy The Kink Sink, PA
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- Rob Mertz O.C.
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- Bernie O'Dowd Girl Ramp, NJ
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- Dan Tag The Barn, NJ
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- Rick SteamBoat Charnoski The Barn, NJ
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- Darren Menditto Blue Ramp, NJ
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- Rocky Vertone The Barn, NJ
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- Jimmy Kane The Barn, NJ
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- Jim Murphy The Barn, NJ
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- Weep (DJ King) The Barn, NJ
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- Tom Groholski Girl Ramp, NJ
All Photos By Benjamin Cornish (Photo of Bernie O’Dowd by Jason Oliva
With only one copy left to be known in existence (The Oliva copy) we are fortunate that the Team Steam 1987 Photo Annual (8.5″ x 11″) survives in its entirety. All photo’s layouts and printing(Xeroxing) were done by Ben Cornish and we thank him for it!
270:The O.C. Unknown Skater. Can anyone recognize?
July 15, 2008
Unknown Skater
I received this cool pick of OC Marylands Blue Steel ramp. It was taken in June or July of 1987. I get quite a few of these great shots(looking at you Dennis) of Unknown Skaters so I thought I would add a category (Unknown Skaters) and we can immortalize or identify these unsung heros who never buddied up to their photographer.
So any clues, Sherlock?
PS The House of Steam will be 2 years old on July 20th. If you have anything nice to say now is the time to email some comments!!
