We here at The Solitary Life have been watching a whole field of new, small companies cropping up over the last couple of years. It's starting to get very, very difficult to keep track of all of them. To solve the problem, we decided to come up with this series of "Small Company Field Guides" to sort them all out, and to give our readers a quick who, what, where, and why of all these little businesses that are out there littering the landscape.
The Solitary Life, of course, habitually supports all small skateboard companies. Because, they're usually skater-owned and operated; they generally give a lot back to their local skate scenes; and they represent the very best of skateboarding's grass roots. Some of them make some really cool stuff, and quite a few of them even have their stuff made right here, in the 'ol US of A.
These are all super-important things, and they all help to keep skateboarding in the hands of skaters, and out of the hands of greedy industrialists and corporate whores.
So follow our lead, and support one of these guys today:
Toast Skateboards
Home Base: Indianapolis, Indiana
How We Discovered Them: We're both headquartered in the same city, so they're as "local" as local gets, relative to The Solitary Life.
Team: Cody Weaver, Jody Wiegle, Brennan "Binger" Boothe, Wrex Cook, Erich Bambei, and Carl (the owner of the gig)
Website: www.toastskateboards.com
YouTube Footy:
Fuck yeah...! Can you say, "Straight Shredding"...?!
Summary: Street boards with a very "Children Of The Corn" vibe. Bigger shapes for vert and bowl riders. And: They just announced a summertime price drop "To help you with your beer money", so most of their boards are selling for $35 to $45 right now, direct, for a Made in the USA product. Good deal.
Volume Skateboards
Home Base: Minneapolis, Minnesota
How We Discovered Them: We were up at the Top Shop shindig at 3rd Lair with AJ Kohn (of One Skateboards), and they had the booth space across the parking lot from us.
Team: The website says "New page coming soon!", but they're promoing an Ian Sherman Bro Model on the front page...! That deck looks pretty killer, too.
Website: www.volumeskateboards.com
YouTube Footy:
It's not a "Volume video" per se... we couldn't find any current Volume footage online. This is footage from a Volume-sponsored contest, so we swooped this, instead.
Summary: Great little street company from the Twin Cities that does a lot for their local scene, and that has a ton of heart.
Five Points Skateboards
Home Base: Somewhere in Ohio
How We Discovered Them: I think it was through Concrete Wave Magazine... or maybe, via Skull and Bones...? Either way, we've known about them forever.
Team: Chris Higgins, Max Growick, Tim Birt (the owner), Dave Duvarney, Troy Birt, Kevin Krahel, and new guy Mike Nypaver.
Website: www.fivepointsskates.com
YouTube Footy:
(If we could have found any, it would be here.)
Summary: Five Points basically hand-builds fully customized, one-off decks for their customers. Even their "production models" can be fully tweaked and re-sized to meet your specs. We've been trying to get an interview (or something) out of Tim for years now, but apparently he's pretty damned busy these days. Good for him...!
Character Skateboards
Home Base: Chicago, Illinois
How We Discovered Them: I think I saw their stuff on the wall of some skate shop, quite a few years back. We chat with Al (the owner) once in a while. Great guy, a real skaters' skater.
Team: Corey Hendricks, Andy Patterson, Dan Little, Mike Owen, Jackson Hennessy, Ward Cramer, Joseph Linzemann, Shawn Turner, Joey Adamczyk, and Soma Fuller (the team manager).
Website: www.charactersk8boards.com
YouTube Footy:
Chicago fucking rules, doesn't it...?! There's a whole lot more where this came from...!
Summary: Great, great, great little deal out of The Windy City. Al! Get your damn ad in here someday, willya...?!
Instrument Skateboards
Home Base: Cincinnati, Ohio
How We Discovered Them: I saw their stuff on the wall at Blacklist, while I was shooting the bull with Joe. The stuff looked good, so I started asking a million questions.
Team: Ed Kennedy, Gary Collins, Kokomo Joe, Devin Abner, Cyril "CJ" Jackson, Taylor Nawrocki, Ian Storm, and Jordan West.
Website: www.skateinstrument.com
YouTube Footy:
Edward Kennedy, from Instrument's full-length feature, "Can't Stop The Shine". Great trick selection, harsh spots, tight execution, clean style, and booming (yet funky) sounds equals a favorite with us.
Summary: We like this one. Check out more of "Can't Stop The Shine" on YouTube. You'll be glad you did.
Fickle Skateboards
Home Base: Florence, Kentucky...? Good question. How about, "Somewhere in the Tri-State (Indiana, Ohio, Kentucky) area...?!"
How We Discovered Them: We bumped into some guy at the Mike V. demo yesterday (at Ollie's in Florence) that was telling us all about this program. If it weren't for all of our Alzheimer's, we might have remembered more than we did.
Team: Josh Viles, Weston, Ben Osborne, and Poor Old Lew. Maybe even more, depending on how much stock you put into YouTube.
Website: www.fickleboards.com
YouTube Footy:
Apparently, Carrie Willis is on the team as well. Note how that nollie flip was landed clean bolts, boyz.
Summary: Looks like a fun little scene to us.
So: What if you're a small company owner, and you'd like to be included in our Field Guide? It's easy! Just send your information over, and we'll be happy to invite you to the happenings. Party on!
