The Wall had its roots in the “Sales and Swaps” page of BMX Action Bike, but was already part of the progression which gave birth to this web site. While “Sales and Swaps” had been dedicated to the standard fare of reader’s classified adverts, The Wall was an early attempt to encourage reader participation. The strange messages were far more important than the buying and selling of skateboards, and we cherry-picked ones to encourage this.
An example from this issue which is typical of the process reads:
Beef & Dan, I have returned. Me and Gaz think the zine tears. Keep it up, stay tuned… Dave & Gaz Rothwell. Perth, W Australia.
Messages like that would bounce between groups of friends, though not usually over such great distances, in these days before SMS and chat.
Few on the editorial team saw the point of this, and I suspect most readers would have turned the page too, but this crude attempt at allowing readers of the magazine to have their say without having to write something as long as a letter was a fundamental part of the spirit of R.a.D Mag.
They also allowed would-be skate and BMX entrepreneurs to have a go, witness:
PPLA Pork Sausage Movement. Do you have floppy gonads? Contain them in the new Damage shirt from PPLA. £8 inc p+p. Also Zine 9 and new stickers. Send for part pack: £1 + sae
PPLA was David Slade’s Purple (or was it Pink?) Pig Liberation Army. I think. Someone correct me, please!
4 responses to “The Wall Reader’s Classified Ads”
TIM IT WAS THE PINK PIG LIBERATION ARMY; I REMEMBER A PHOTO OF DAVE SLADE NOSEPICKING A SHOPPING TROLLEY DURING SOME KIND OF COMP IN A CAR PARK, WEARING A BANDANNA WRAPPED AROUND HIS FACE IF MY MEMORY SERVES ME RIGHT.
Thanks!
Funny you should mention that picture, I think I saw the original print somewhere the other day. If it’s the one I’m thinking of, the contest was in Grimsby or Hull, somewhere like that…
ITS FUNNY WHAT THE MIND REMEMBERS, I LOST MY ENTIRE COLLECTION OF RAD / ACTION BIKE DURING AN ACRIMONIOUS BREAK UP WITH MY EX WIFE AND THIS SITE BRINGS BACK MEMORIES OF MY BEDROOM WALLS AS A TEENAGER.
I CANNOT CONVEY THE INFLUENCE THESE MAGAZINES HAD ON MY LIFE AND SUBSEQUENT CHOICES MADE THROUGHOUT IT – NICK PHILIP ET AL WERE LEGENDARY CHARACTERS TO ME AND THEY APPEARED TO BE LIVING THE DREAM RIGHT HERE IN THE UK AND I WANTED A SLICE OF THIS ALSO.
SINCE LEAVING SCHOOL NEARLY TWNETY YEARS AGO I HAVE WORKED IN THE ACTIONSPORTS INDUSTRY UNDER ONE GUISE OR ANOTHER BUT ALTHOUGH THE MONEY HAS BEEN POURING INTO THE SCENE I GENUINELY FEEL THE EXCITEMENT HAS GONE AND EVERTHING IS NOW SO CLINICAL.
I RAN INTO AN OLD ASSOCIATE OF YOURS LAT WEEK – STEVEN BLUNT – WHO WAS TELLING ME ABOUT THE ALPINE SPORTS TRIP HE WENT ON TO IBIZA MANY YEARS AGO. NOW THAT SOUNDED LIKE FUN!!
Good grief! There was even a “windsurfing” edition of the Alpine Action newsletter where Mr Blunt provided all the actual expertise. That seems a very long time ago now.
There are strange parallels, though: Alpine Sport was going bust at the time of that trip, which triggered the change in the direction of my career which resulted in R.a.D. Now New Deal have gone down the tube and here I am moving around again.
As to the dream — to the extent that it was possible in the UK, people like Nick were living the dream. I suspect that one of the reasons that the US industry has so many Europeans at the top of it (and freestylers, come to that) is that it was SO hard here during the dark ages. You had to be extremely determined, a visionary, or a dreamer to stick with it.