509: Spit and Goo Issue 2 “THE BARN ISSUE” and Mark Gonzales comes to En-Jay by Ken and Steve Deitz 1986

Spit and Goo Issue 2 1986 By Ken and Steve Deitz NJ

BARN article

WestWood Cycle Sponsored contest with Marc Gonzalez

This is well worth a read… classic 80’s skatezine from ken and Steve Deitz. All the usual suspects appear in The Barn section. It really makes me recall what was going on in our lives circa 1986. I must admit to having watched Mark Gonzales instead of the contest.

Great stuff

Thanks to Jeff Roenning for vaulting this gem all these years.

480: Saturday Night Live at The Barn – Circa 1986..Thanks to Mike Vallely

I’m not gonna say much about this video except thanks to Mike Vallely for getting this filmed back in the day and giving it to us for the archive and another thanks to Larry Ransom for his editing and THOS support throughout the years. Another big thanks goes to Dennis who after searching the web for this footage decided to go to the source and clinched it all. The still images are of Mikes early Vert days at The Barn and the song is Revolution Mother “Night Ride” (pretty fitting) If you comment with a time and a name I will create a gallery of screen grabs…I will get the ball rolling with an important one: 1:24 Weep on Deck.

Enjoy the show…The time is now!!

Jason

This is great. Mike talks about the first video he was in. “Action East” If I remember correctly, they showed up at The Barn with all this high-end video, lights and sound gear. It was right in the middle of a hot session. I was like, “What the hell is this???”

The guy who owned the company was like, “Can we film a video here?” and I said, “What’s in it for me?” (as if I was going to say No). This was way beyond squeezing 10 bucks out of some squid for “the new layer.” So he flowed me a “No Fun Joe” deck, a t-shirt and some other free shit and I said, “Go for it!” Of course, our power situation was a 300 yard extension cord to the house that kept blowing out. The next contest I entered as….sponsored by Action East.

Let’s see if we can get this classic film posted.
DennisK

Skater by order of appearance:

1st couple stills Mike Vallely

Papo Capillo No Shirt Red Shorts

Dennis Kane Silver helmet after Papo…Big Indy Air later on

Jimmy Kane Yellow helmet white Tee no sleeves

Mike Vallely Yellow helmet layback air

Papo on roller skates?

Matt padulo Red shorts Layback Air/Backside Air

Tom Groholski Black Shirt Inverts/Layback Air

Bernie O’Dowd No Helmet Frontside air/Invert/Layback Air

Who does the big air with the pink helmet?

Loads of peeps on the deck and on the couch too

Weep on Deck

Dan Booger Brown

Matt padulo

Tom Groholski 1:14

387: The Barn’s History:First picture ever taken at The Barn, NJ…Birth of a legend Jay Henry

JAY HENRY 1st Barn picture, NJ

 

BIRTH OF A LEGEND (or Jay Henry is a slave driver)

Being as this is The House of Steam site, I thought I would tell the story of the Origins of the Barn Ramp, complete with the first ever photo. This was taken at the first session, before we even put the coping on this side, still running on the original 2 layers of used wood. The wood came from my crappy 8′ wide backyard ramp that had to come down. This ramp was so kinked that we had continued to add layers to it over the years in an attempted to smooth it out a little. When I had to move it I realized that this of course was usable wood, so I went about the daunting task of removing one piece of plywood at a time salvaging whatever I could. I was thinking of working with Dave to add on to the Girl ramp, but Jimmy and Dennis said “to heck with that, we should build a ramp at our house!” I was weary due to the hassles my neighbors had given me so I asked what was the backyard setup like. Jimmy Kane said “Oh, we’ve got a huge backyard, and we can build it on the cement left behind from the chicken coops”. I thought that sounded pretty good and asked how far from the other houses the cement platform was and Jimmy said “way back from the houses, back by the barn”. OK, this is the point where my heart pauses, “Come again, did you say “barn?” I asked Jimmy. He immediately knew what I was thinking and told me it was full of junk. And it was; we pulled 2 kitchen sinks out of it, as well as used tires, golf clubs and other junk, not to mention almost all of the 2 X 4’s that we would need to build the ramp. I wanted to make it 9 foot transitions, a foot and a half of vert, with a 12 foot flat. After I measured though I found that there wasn’t enough room, so I had to go with the 8, 1 and 10 that made this tight little bastard the ramp that it was. Jimmy, Dennis and Stevie D were my crew, but they had jobs. Everyday I showed up early, started measuring, cutting and planning. When my crew got home, they would come back to the Barn to have me bark orders at them for hours on end, putting all of my pre cut pieces into position. Those guys were great, and I now realize just how much of an ass I could be, but they dealt with me and we got it done. Mrs. Kane at first was in shock, she had thought it was going to be maybe 4 feet tall! At the same time she was so astonished at my construction skills and thought, hell if these guys want to make it, let them do it. She was really the champion of that whole thing, I’m not sure I ever thank her appropriately for letting us have that ramp, and all the people there. Mrs. Kane, if you’re reading this, THANK YOU!!!! So it’s no shock that I was the first one that got to ride it, here I am doing a….yeah, you guess it, a handplant.

Jay Henry 2009

Well this is pretty darn cool. I wont add much except enjoy a little more oral history of The Barn…and feel free to send me more like this. As always Jay Henry is out front setting an example for us all to follow. Fricken cutting edge!

Jay, thanks for thinking of me… Those are memories that neither you nor I will ever forget…You are right.. I was in awe of your talent. Not every guy your age would have been able to build a structure of that magnitude.. I am so thrilled that those few years are embedded in all your memories and that it allowed you a time in your life that most of you will never forget..  I tried to keep you safe. Seems you all will never forget “The Warden”  LOL  I wish you all love, happines and success…

Hugs to you all,  

Nancy (Jim &; Dennis’s Mom)

352: Team Steam 1987 Photo Annual

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Team Steam 1987 Photo Annual created by Ben Cornish

Music Raging Lamos

Photos by:

Ben Cornish

Jason Oliva

Video by Jason Oliva

Try out:

303: The House of Steam: July 20th, 2 Years!! Benjamin Cornish’s Super 8 Youth (The Directors cut)

 

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

300: Team Steam Trading Cards (series 1): Circa 1986

Jason Oliva

Dan Tag

Jimmy Kane

Rick SteamBoat Charnoski

Rocky Vertone

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

299: Team Steam 1987 Photo Annual

Dan Tag O.C.

Jim Murphy The Kink Sink, PA

Rob Mertz O.C.

Bernie O’Dowd Girl Ramp, NJ

Dan Tag The Barn, NJ

Rick SteamBoat Charnoski The Barn, NJ

Darren Menditto Blue Ramp, NJ

Rocky Vertone The Barn, NJ

Jimmy Kane The Barn, NJ

Jim Murphy The Barn, NJ

Weep (DJ King) The Barn, NJ

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!