"Brutal Music in the Night, Enough to Make You Cry!"

After Big Skateboarding went belly up in the late 80's, a strange renaissance of underground skating emerged. I'm not quite sure where it began (EMB? Venice Beach?), but while the aging Vert Gods were off building meth labs and finding Jesus, a generation of teenagers took skateboarding back to the streets.

This was a new era... fakie big-spin pressure flip blunt slides in busted 7-Eleven parking lots, 35mm wheels and XXL raver gear, 9-ply everslick boards, candle-waxed curbs, territorial scuffles with middle-aged tennis coaches and stripmall security guards across the nation!

In this new paradigm, Wade Speyer was kind of an oddball - vert meets street. But damn he could shred!