Dogtown and Z-Boys (2001)
Out of the water and onto waves made of concrete
“Vert skating was the kind of skating that was done in pools, where you could get airborne and be weightless. The other style, which is what I did, was called freestyle – tricks you could do on flat ground.” (Rodney Mullen)
Mullen summarizes what the 2001 movie Dogtown and Z-Boys is all about: the evolution of skateboarding in the second half of the 20th century from early skateboarding to world-wide fame and a new style of flying on wheels. Director Stacy Peralta himself plays a prominent role in the documentary about the Zephyr skate crew of which he was a member in the 1970s.
The story is narrated by Sean Penn and accompanied by interviews of the original skate crew and those that saw it all happening with music by Aerosmith, Alice Cooper, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin and many more.
What is Dogtown and who are the Z-Boys?
Dogtown was an area south of Santa Monica where the boom of the amusement parks of the first half of the century was over and had turned it into a rundown coastal resort that was more of a slum than a vacation beach. The movie describes the area a “no man’s land”:
“A place where pyromaniacs, junkies, artists and surfers did excel in symbiotic dysharmonie.” (Quote from the movie Dogtown and Z-Boys)
The “Z” in Z-Boys stands for Zephyr, the name of the surf and skate shop in Dogtown that was founded by Jeff Ho, Craig Stecyk and Skip Engblom. Revolutionaries in the world of surfboard shaping, those three took 12 kids under their wings who later formed the Zephyr skate team: Shogo Kubo, Bob Biniak, Nathan Pratt, Chris Cahill, Paul Constantineau, Peggy Oki, Stacy Peralta, Jim Muir, Allen Sarlo, Tony Alva, Jay Adams and Wentzle Ruml.
Already at a young age, they were the best surfers in town. Later, they would become the best skaters in the world and make it to fame and fortune.
Skating in surf style
Dogtown and Z-Boys guides the viewer through the history of skateboarding – a sport that seemed to disappear after a brief boom in the early 1960s. The now adult Z-Boys remember in the documentary how they built their own skateboards out of wooden boards and clay wheels that they refer to as “stone-age technology”.
For the Z-Boys, skateboarding was an extension of surfing. It was their sport when the waves weren’t good. Inspired by the Hawaiian surfer Larry Bertlemann, they took skating to a new level. The upright approach to skateboarding was replaced by surf inspired cutbacks and barrel riding shown in impressive pictures throughout the documentary.
“These perfectly tapered waves of black asphalt would allow for the virtual transmission of surfing born manoeuvres to concrete.” (Quote from the movie Dogtown and Z-Boys)
“We were surfing these asphalt waves. That’s what we were doing with the skating. We had a surfskate style because we had the waves to ride it on.” (Nathan Pratt in Dogtown and Z-Boys)
The revolution did not end here. Dry summers in the 1970s led to water shortages and what a shame it would have been to leave all those empty Californian pools unused! Modern skateboarding was born when the Z-Boys rode the lips of those pools and took off to the air:
“That time, fall 77, is when T.A. did the frontside air in the pool. I mean everyone was there and people were doing little bits of aerials in different places but what Tony did one day, I think it was in September, he goes up, pulls the board up, turns in mid-air, comes back down into the pool and makes it. It was fucking unbelievable. It’s something, it could be described today, but you just don’t understand because it’s a given and it’s seen. Now other people say that people did aerials in other places all the times. No one did it like Tony did, and no one did it as well, and no one did it with style for many years to come outside of that crew.” (John E. Friedman in Dogtown and Z-Boys)
Growing popularity
The event that changed the dynamics and put an end to the Zephyr skate team as such was the Del Mar Skateboarding contest in 1975. The movie shows original recordings, and no viewer would be surprised why the Z-Boys performed so much better than traditional skateboarders in that contest. They entered as outsiders and left as winners. Shortly after, the Z-Boys became famous around the globe and the dog town articles filled the pages of the Skateboarder magazine.
“We were being paid to ride skateboards. Imagine a kid today being approached by Nike and Nike saying: “We gonna pay you 10,000 Dollars to spray graffiti all over the city. We’re gonna sponsor you to spray paint graffiti.” That’s what it was like in the 70s to get to ride a skateboard. It was crazy.” (Stacy Peralta in Dogtown and Z-Boys)
The movie looks in particular at the stories of Stacy Peralta, Jay Adams and Tony Alva. Stacy is displayed as the most responsible and most commercially successful of them. Tony Alva is referred to as the Michael Jordan of skateboarding and receives in the movie praise by modern skateboarding champions like Tony Hawk and Steve Caballero.
More than once in Dogtown and Z-Boys, the outstanding and natural talent by Jay Adams flickers over the screen. He is described as the most spontaneous and talented skateboarder of them all. Unfortunately, he couldn’t handle the commercial side, the responsibility and the pressure. At the time when the movie was filmed, he was in jail on drug charges and speaks in an emotional interview about certain mistakes he made in his life. He passed away at the age of 53 in 2014, other than what it states in the movie that was filmed many years earlier.
“You get one chance at doing this and if you miss it, you don’t get it again and that’s [mmm] that’s the hardest part of it. That’s the hardest part. And it’s hard for me to see it. Because I see it in a guy like Jay Adams. And I go: “He should have had it all.” Jay should have had it all and it makes me so sad that he didn’t because he was better than all of us.” (Stacy Peralta in Dogtown and Z-Boys)
Back to the roots
Many years have passed since the Z-Boys discovered empty pools in L.A., but if you’re looking at modern skateparks in the 21st century, it seems as if the sport hasn’t changed much. The pools are now skate bowls and half pipes and skateboarders ride lips and fly through the air.
However, the type of skateboard has changed and there is now once again a clear separation between ‘normal skateboarding’ and surfing. Up to a few years ago, it was rare to see skateboards in surf camps, now it is part of the lesson plan of almost any surf school and even professional surfers get involved in skateboard designs. Skateboard brands build popup ramps and pump tracks at surf festivals such as the Wavelength Springclassic Festival in the UK and surfers ride on skateboards towards an artificial wave pool. What has changed?
Skateboarding at the Wavelength Springclassic Festival 2022 in Woolacombe
Skateboarding at the Wavelength Springclassic Festival 2022 in Woolacombe
From surfboards to skateboards (and surfskates)
The original skateboards of the Z-Boys were inspired by the shape of a surfboard with relatively big wheels. The skateboards shown in the movie remind a lot of the modern surf skate. What we nowadays refer to as a ‘normal skateboard’ has a symmetric shape, no recognizable nose or tail, and the wheels are small and relatively hard, and skateboarders aren’t necessarily surfers and vice versa.
Surfing has changed too. It is now much more accessible. Surfers don’t need to live near the sea anymore to become surfers. The year 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic left many of those landlocked surfers stranded. They simply weren’t allowed to get to the coast. This became the big moment for surf skating. Charlie was living in London at that time and saw how a new era in skateboarding began. The Z-Boys had originally discovered skating as an alternative to surfing and so did many surfers in 2020. As soon as they were allowed to, they took over skateparks in different locations in the city. The boards they ride look a lot more like those ridden in Dogtown in the 1970s.
Surfing concrete waves
These modern surf skaters have no need for swimming pools since skateparks usually come with a skate bowl or a half pipe these days but there are many similarities to the Dogtown events: The Z-Boys had to arrive at the pools early to not get caught by the police, the concrete wave skaters have to get early to the skateparks to avoid the crowds. The Z-Boys had to remove some dirt and remaining water from pools before they could skate it, skaters in 2020 often had to remove gravel from skateparks or climb over fences in the lockdown days. At times, you can even see them drying the concrete with towels after heavy rain.
There is one significant difference to skateboarding in the early days: the demographics have changed. It is no longer kids from broken homes, but adults and a lot of them are female skateboarders. Amongst the Z-Boys, there was only Peggy Oki and the movie only mentions this aspect briefly. Today’s skateparks show a much larger number of women of almost all ages. London’s concrete waves group was originally a group of female surf skaters in East London. Within 2 years, it has grown to a group of more than 200 surf skaters that meet in all parts of London.
Is this a new dogtown movement? Maybe in 20 years from now we will watch a documentary about some 30- and 40-year-old surfers in London that spend their Saturday afternoons at the skatepark, roll like a Californian skategang down the roads on wheels produced by Tony Alva himself, and skate more than they surf. Until then, we still have Dogtown and Z-Boys to remember where the foundations for modern skateboarding were formed and we thank them for bringing vertical (pool) skating into our lives. The movie is available at Amazon Prime for £3.49.
