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H-Street and Tony Magnusson

H-street--the-bridge-870-x-
H-Street and Tony Magnusson

The last thing Tony Magnusson ever thought he would do is help change the direction of skateboarding. But that is exactly what his company H-Street and a few other “skater owned” companies like World Industries, Blind and New Deal did. These companies were previously unknown, as the majority of skate companies were owned by big-money guys that didn’t skate. This most influential movement of all time included the building of quarterpipes, and implementing the skate-everything mentality that took precedence over the ramps. This DIY, shut up and skate, “you’ve got a street in front of your house” movement changed everything – all you needed was a board to ride. This made the skating experience available to everyone. Now, you didn’t need a park or thousands of dollars to build a ramp. Here is how it all went down from the H-Street perspective. by Kurt Hurley

KH: Tony, you weren’t very well known when you came to the U.S. How did you start skating, and who was your biggest influence?

T-Mag: I came from Stockholm, Sweden, where the skate scene started shortly after the American scene and we were following it closely. Everyone there was watching H-street-profile-338-x-490the Dogtown guys and what they were doing, and in the spring of ’76 I got my first board. In Sweden skating grew really fast, and as a result they built a super modern indoor skate park, New Sport House. On the weekends they did demos and I got pretty good, pretty fast – at least I thought. Mostly because of this guy named Per Viking, one of the most talented skaters I have ever seen … [He] really influenced me. Even though most people didn’t like him, I wouldn’t have been a pro and moved to California if it wasn’t for him. We were rivals, and we had a kind of love/hate relationship. Unfortunately he passed in the ’90s of a drug overdose, and man, do I miss him!

So what actually brought you to California?

The skate scene died in Sweden the same time as the U.S., sorta early ’80s, even though I really didn’t know it was happening. When I came to the States, I expected to stay because I didn’t exactly have any other life plans, other than going to college. It was either go to So Cal or go to college – a fairly easy choice, but not popular at home.

How was the transition to living here?

In Sweden we skated ramps, and I had a really hard time getting used to riding the big California pools. I also didn’t speak very much English. I had no sponsors, and I was living in my car. I hooked up with some beach bums in Mission Beach, who taught me how to drive that car and where to get cheap or free food, like the Hare Krishna temple in Pacific Beach. It was rough, but at the same time, kind of the time of my life. I’ve probably never been as free as that time: no responsibilities, just skate and figure how to survive and where the party is.

Who then sponsored you?

At first, Dennis Martinez saw me skate Del Mar and hooked me up with Variflex, which was one the cool companies for about a hot little minute there. I was stoked because Eddie “El Gato” Elguera was their main rider, and he was like the Tony Hawk of that time. Then I became the first pro rider for Uncle Wiggley Skateboards. Tracker Trucks was my first “real”sponsor that actually paid me. I think I might have ridden for Caster and Tom Inouye for a month or so at that time too.

Tell me about Uncle Wiggley.h-street-quote

It was really this engineering student Doug Ring and a couple of his buddies. Doug was the original Paul Schmitt, and I think Paul might have been quite inspired by Doug’s work. He also taught me, and paid me to skate for him. I learned a lot about wood, building and high-tech manufacturing. It was there that I created the first Hell Concave boards to be used later.

What year was this, and what happened next?

In 1984/85 Tracker paid for me to go to the Vancouver contest. It was the first big contest of the second half of the ’80s. Skate was really growing again, and we were doing demos in front of thousands of people. There was so much interest because of the classic rivalries between guys like Hawk, Hosoi and Cabby. These guys were super charismatic and so many of the riders in the later ’80s were such individuals that really typified what skateboarding was all about: individual expression and highly technical riding! Being from Sweden, it was tough for me to keep up and super inspirational to have skated with the absolute best skateboarders ever at that time.

How was Uncle Wiggley doing as a company?

As skateboarding grew, Uncle Wiggley couldn’t support me. The boards were handmade and they simply couldn’t keep up with the demand. I really wanted to build it up and create a team around it. And to be honest, I never really liked the name Uncle Wiggley.

Did you feel like you wanted to go somewhere else?

I ended up riding for a company (Sure-Grip) that wanted to start a board company called Magnusson Designs. Like I said before, I had already created the “Hell Concave,” and I really wanted to create a really good team around more progressive art and designs and my ideas of what a company should look like.

How were you going to find the riders for the team?

I went to the very first Visalia skate camp. One day I was sessioning a curb that I wasn’t supposed to skate and I met Mike Ternasky. We had a really long talk, and I told him H-street--boneless-459-x-43what I thought skating and a skate company should look like. I personally didn’t think companies should be run by people that didn’t skate. It would eliminate any business greed, and everyone would understand the basics about skating. Mike liked the idea and agreed with me as well as offering up some great ideas of his own. We became friends after that and created a partnership. A couple of months later we met at the ASR trade show to put the plan into effect.

Was Sure-Grip going to be involved?

No, they didn’t want to hear anything about building a great team. It was like we were speaking a different language. So we started knocking on a lot of doors.

Is this the start of H-Street?

Yes. We talked to George Hamad and he understood our ideas, and helped us launch H-Street. He had the money and manufacturing part down, and what he didn’t know Mike and I were good at. Another person who helped a lot was Dave Andrecht. He handled the sales and the office. He was very approachable, a great sales guy and an incredible skater.

Where did the name H-Street come from?

It came from a curb, and it was actually the name of the street we skated in Chula Vista (San Diego). I thought it was a fun and powerful name. It had a lot of marketing potential as a name and it was also important because it represented what every kid in every town had: a local skate spot. Every kid has a curb in front of their house. It was synonymous with the ability to skate anywhere without having a ramp to build or a skate park nearby.

How is the birth of H-Street synonymous with the birth of  street?

First of all, skating was getting bigger because of the big backyard ramp jams. It was super DIY already. So, you have normal guys building big ramps – not rich people trying to make money, just regular skaters. Ramps were expensive, so kids were building quarterpipes that were cheaper. They were just riding curbs and of course the streets for free. I thought this was the best thing for skateboarding because you don’t have to spend a lot of money to create something to skate or pay to go skate somewhere. That meant access for everyone. Believe me, a lot of skaters looked at me and H-Street and said, “If he can do it, I can do it.” It was a real DIY time. This includes writers, photographers and other skaters who cared about skating, who’ve in later years told me how inspired they were by the fact that two essentially unknown dipsticks could create something so impactful, and how H-Street was the source of them making a decision to F the establishment and go after something they were passionate about, in and around of skateboarding. To me, that’s also been one of the most humbling and meaningful parts of the H-Street experience.

This was a real shift in the skateboard world.

Yeah, and I would say that 1985 to 1992 is arguably the most progressive and meaningful time skating ever had. Even Europe and Australia [were] developing an incredible scene. I think some of the most fundamental shifts happened during this time. Street skating is still the most commercially successful type of skating, and park skating is getting huge and longboarding and downhill is equally huge.

How did you put together the incredible H-Street team?

We decided to use the Visalia skate camp as our big marketing push for the year, as Mike was good friends with Bobby Goodsby, who started the whole camp thing in the U.S. before Woodward came around. It H-street-vert--460-x-588gave us the ability to see new kids skate who had talent before anyone else got to see them. We were there before any other company. So, H-Street was essentially born out of skate camp. Vista (northeast of San Diego) was another hot spot for H-Street because of all the talent there. Both Matt Hensley and Danny Way came from Vista, along with a bunch of other great skaters.

When would you say was the official beginning of the street skating movement?

I feel like a lot of people did some form of early street skating at different places, but maybe it was the Oceanside contest of 1986 that kicked things off in a more serious way. You could look at that contest as the beginning of the movement.

A lot of people will mention Matt Hensley when they start talking about street and the birth of street skating.

Matt had such a unique style. He was technical, but didn’t do super big stuff. I hadn’t seen that before, so I didn’t at first know what to think of it. But Matt was so smooth that there was no way you could not like watching him. He also had a kind of a mystical persona about him that I think a lot of people just gravitated toward.

How about Danny Way?

Danny rode anything and everything. He truly is the ATV of skateboarding and continues to push the limits of what you can do on a skateboard today! Probably the most innovative skateboarder of all time.

Who were other H-Street riders?

Originally it was John Schultes and John Sonner, then Ron Allen, Danny Way and Matt Hensley. Other second-generation riders were Sal Barbier, Mike Carroll, Jason Rogers, Alphonzo Rawls, Colby Carter, Eric Koston and Chad Vogt and a lot of other really great skaters.

Shackle Me Not and Hokus Pokus are videos that everyone remembers changing the face of skateboarding.

Yea, I always thought Shackle Me Not was the beginning of the street skating movement in some ways. Ironically, those videos might never have been made. So I have to thank one guy I almost went into business with who had a lot of money and wanted to do a high-end skate company with me. I pitched him the ideas of H-Street and the name H-Street. He didn’t like the name at all. I guess I dodged a bullet there.

In the end, I would never have imagined that people would still care about videos and riders that were around more than 20 years ago, as skateboarding has always been such a progressive and forward-looking movement. When the Dogtown documentary came around, it was like all of a sudden everyone took a collective look backwards and had a lot of appreciation for what happened in the ’70s and ’80s, which I think is super healthy for skateboarding in general. Not that we were trying to create that effect, it just organically happened that way and I’m super stoked and humbled that I was able to contribute that.

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