JFA and Christian Hosoi Skate Show / Little Rock / 1989

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JFA and Christian Hosoi Skate Show

Rick's Armory

christian hosoi, jfa, ricks armory

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Matthew Thompson // I was at this event but don't remember seeing JFA. If I had a nickel for all the things I've forgotten about. I do remember the floor being so smooth, and Christian Hosoi doing eternal nose wheelies, which inspired me to nail that trick...which is about the only trick I ever try anymore when I get on my skateboard these days. I can still do them fairly well, too, surprisingly. I'd much rather have remembered JFA and forgotten about Hosoi, but I'm grateful I was there and remember ANY of it.

matthew thompson

Lincoln Smith // I was really trying to get David Burns into the whole skate thing because for me, being into skateboarding was so fused with punk rock... you really didn't enjoy one without enjoying the other... and by this point I think David had that Dogtown Satanic Suicidal deck, the one to which EVERY major skate entity has payed some sort of homage to and if he still has it, he sould sell it because it's probably worth bank now.

Christian Hosoi was really a big deal. Probably the biggest deal to happen the the mid-southern skate scene since Paige Hern managed to to have an official NSA contest at his half-pipe with all the pros (all 20 of them) skating it. Paige had something to do with this, too. His half-pipe was this pink fiberglass, so all of his ramps and street obstacles, save for the one railroad tie, were this pink fiberglass.

The armory wasn't even open to the public and all these kids from all over were outside and a small session was underway at this loading dock across the street. I'm skating and within 10 minutes a have a large gouge of flesh dug out of my right shin by ... (More)I was really trying to get David Burns into the whole skate thing because for me, being into skateboarding was so fused with punk rock... you really didn't enjoy one without enjoying the other... and by this point I think David had that Dogtown Satanic Suicidal deck, the one to which EVERY major skate entity has payed some sort of homage to and if he still has it, he sould sell it because it's probably worth bank now.

Christian Hosoi was really a big deal. Probably the biggest deal to happen the the mid-southern skate scene since Paige Hern managed to to have an official NSA contest at his half-pipe with all the pros (all 20 of them) skating it. Paige had something to do with this, too. His half-pipe was this pink fiberglass, so all of his ramps and street obstacles, save for the one railroad tie, were this pink fiberglass.

The armory wasn't even open to the public and all these kids from all over were outside and a small session was underway at this loading dock across the street. I'm skating and within 10 minutes a have a large gouge of flesh dug out of my right shin by a piece of corrugated metal. I am squirming uncontrollably in my chair as I write about it. For some reason, there was an ambulance taking an older person on a gurney from a business next doo and I ask one of the EMT's if she could clean me up and bandage me. She took one look at it and said, "You're going to have to go in and get stitches for this." But I told her, "M'am, see that place across the street? Well there are some fellows there whom I have waited some time in my wee- short life to see and I'm not about to miss them now. Think like a winner." So she takes pity on me and bandages me up.

Inside, it was really fucking hot, kids and boards are all over the place inside this giant Nissen Hut in the fucking Summer! I remember seeing one of those guys from Ft. Smith band, The Squids, the skinny one with the mohawk. Steve Schmidt was always a head and shoulder above the rest when it came to skateboarding. He was just so nonchalant and fucking gnarly. His facial expression hardly ever changed, he was just one cool customer and that was al there was to it. (And he did "so totally" house Christian with these rail-slide variations that would prove to be prophetic when vert skating would be eclipsed in the shadow of street skating some years later...)

Skate Master Tate played his set, but he was a rap act. And I don't mean, "Hip Hop," I mean RAP, which wasn't the coolest thing going at the time... RUN DMC had cut "Walk This Way" with Aerosmith and that was party-rock for frat kids. (Though now I regard this track as visionary and WAY ahead of its time.) JFA was also a big deal... a nationally known punk group from "somewhere else," coming all the way out to our little, over-grown town to perform. And they were really musically diverse... they played a cover of the Charlie Brown theme, which is a Jazz tune. That's some hard shit to play.

Christian Hosoi came out and we all went nuts. He was a vert skater, basically changing his game up just slightly to do the street ramp thing... really fast and really big, in those baggy JIMMY'Z pants he always wore... he would stick these wall-rides (something we only got to see PHOTOS of in magazines) so hard and fast and that was the first time I got to actually "SEE" the kind of commitment it took to pull big tricks like he did... how fast he had to go and just hit it. You could hear those wheels slap and skid on the cement.

I had Hosoi autograph the bloody bandage on my shin and I held onto it well into my adulthood. But I never could convince David to stick with skating. (Less)

lincoln smith

John Pugh // Yes this might be the first punk rock show I went to. It was technically a skate show (everyone I knew was there to see Hosoi, not Skatemaster Tate), but in Arkansas, punk means whatever you want it to mean. My most vivid memory was waiting in line outside, watching some scary-looking punks with shaved heads squeezed the skin of each others scalps together, which somehow turned the skin green. I know it sounds weird, but if you know a skinhead, go and squeeze their scalp with both hands, like you were gathering a bunch of flowers...it should turn green....fucking weird.

Jason White // We knew of JFA through skating at Paige Hearns' pink ramp in Levy, and what skater kid didn't know Christian Hosoi then? Colin Brooks and I went together. Skatemaster Tate had this huge, long skateboard that he never rode. There were punks there slamming to JFA. They were beautiful. After Christian Hosoi finished his demo, all the kids were skating like crazy and he came out later and skated with everyone. I remember watching Steve Schmidt totally show him up doing street tricks on a crosstie. Hosoi was just a big air guy anyway.

christian hosoi, colin brooks, jason white, jfa, steve schmidt

Cory Walker // I remember Graham talking about this show, and it was like he had just been to the front lines and lived to tell about it. He'd gotten an actual glimpse of this secret, supposedly dangerous society that we'd been reading about. Punk to me seemed like the most radical thing imaginable at that time. I remember going to Graham's house and checking out his older sister's copy of the Repo Man soundtrack. When Iggy Pop sang "I didn't get fucked and I didn't get kissed, I got so fucking pissed" on the title track, my 11-year old mind could barely handle it. Cursing on a record? Who would've imagined? AND it was harder than Def Leppard. So I had to have more, but secretly - being the era of the PMRC (and, uh, me being 11), my mom took it upon herself to confiscate every "questionable" cassette tape for screening. I don't think I saw my Suicidal Tendencies tape for 6 months, which was perfect - now I could claim parental oppression just like the "All I wanted was a Pepsi" guy in their anthem "Institutionalized." Fuck yeah.

christian hosoi, cory walker, graham cobb, jfa

Richard Matson // Pictures of Burt Taggart in 1989 are hard to come by. Yes, he was a bmx'n, skateboarding, burgeoning punk rocker, but he also had a permed mullet. But that same weird sense of style was prevalent in the LR punk scene in general and some pretty awkward styles were showcased at the JFA Rick's Armory show. JFA was a skate-punk band and they'd set up a pipe in the Armory for Christian Hosoi and Skatemaster Tate (I think).

burt taggart, christian hosoi, jfa, richard matson, ricks armory