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00:00Ladies and gentlemen, all the way from Latvia,
00:07Matters on the buckloops!
00:18I'm Matterzaps, and I'm on a mission to explore skateboarding outside EDGE.
00:22Hop in as we travel the world meeting skateboarding mavericks
00:26to find out what skating means to them.
00:47Welcome back to Skate Tales. We're in Des Moines, Iowa, in the USA.
00:53And in this episode, we're visiting an all-around awesome human being,
00:57one of the founding fathers, street skateboarding.
01:00Mike Bolelli. Let's go!
01:18Is this Philly? Des Moines? Where are we?
01:38So what do you know about Mike V that you can tell us?
01:40He's like top three or four street skating, like OG.
01:43And how many people have had the longevity that he's had?
01:47He's walking his own walk, and he's unapologetic about it.
01:49If that's not skateboarding, I don't know what is.
02:06It's a hot sunny day in Iowa.
02:08I'm gonna meet Mike V, Subsec Skate Shop, the local, local skate shop from Des Moines.
02:19What's up, man?
02:21Good to meet you, man.
02:22Good to meet you.
02:23Yeah, how's it going?
02:24Good to meet you.
02:25Good to meet you.
02:25Mike Bolelli is one of the most legendary and influential controversial skaters that have ever lived.
02:32Skateboarding's greatest enigma has always lived life against the grain.
02:36Often admonished, more often adored.
02:3935 years since he entered the pro ranks, he has ridden for many of the greatest brands at their greatest
02:44points,
02:45but only ever on his own terms.
02:48Pioneer of many of the tricks which are still done to this day,
02:51he is also famous for his aggressive approach to contest obstacles and intensity in general.
02:57Influenced by his East Coast roots and punk rock, Mike has always been involved with music and has played in
03:03many bands.
03:05Always on the outside edge, but always in demand, Mike V has sailed the seas of professional skateboarding like nobody
03:11else.
03:12There are no other Mike Valleys.
03:15He still carries the flame within, and his fire will forever burn.
03:21So is this like the OG skate shop?
03:23This is the skate shop.
03:25Yeah, but OG for sure.
03:27What year did you guys own shit?
03:2997.
03:3097, yeah.
03:3224 years.
03:33See ya, see ya.
03:34And I ordered these boards last year, and I finally got them.
03:41I was like, oh man, that's a cool cruiser.
03:47I'm like, well, the tricks you're doing were invented on a cruiser then.
03:52The street plan's been around since 1984.
03:55Christmas morning, that's when I got my first board.
03:58But the company's established in 2015.
04:01But in spirit, it's a Christmas baby.
04:04It's born December 25th, 1984.
04:10Time will stay.
04:15Time will stay.
04:19This the first glimpse?
04:21This the first time seeing it.
04:23Uh-huh.
04:25Oh man, it turned out killer, dude.
04:28He started doing a t-shirt company that was called Street Plant.
04:32It was just t-shirts.
04:33And he was giving me the whole back story about how it was Emily's idea,
04:37and his daughter Emily, and it was her idea to kind of start this
04:41and get like kind of Mike's history out there.
04:44And I remember telling him, I was like, man, I was like, I know it's just a t-shirt thing,
04:49but I said, I really think that this could be a board company.
04:55It's a product shoot for Street Plant's website.
05:05You know, people romanticize and talk about the 80s and the graphics then and the time period.
05:12And it really was.
05:13It was a special time.
05:14Really?
05:15I think that with Street Plant, I put the same, it's the same effort.
05:21It's the same energy, it's the same ideas put into the boards that I put into my boards in the
05:25early days.
05:27And idealize that time period.
05:29And it's hard because I know it's their memories.
05:35Like people, I've been introduced as like old school, OG, or pro skater from the 80s.
05:42It's like, dude, I didn't come here in a time machine, you know?
05:46I'm alive now, man.
05:48And I believe that the things I care about and my philosophical approach to skating is as relevant today as
05:57it ever was.
06:00The first skateboard video I ever saw was Public Domain.
06:06I started skateboarding in 1988, summer of 88.
06:09One of the kids in my neighborhood got Public Domain.
06:12I hadn't seen it yet, but I'll never forget my buddy Tom Matthews.
06:16There's a guy, he rides backwards, and he ollies backwards to tail on a bench.
06:24And that, like, it just blew my mind.
06:27Because I started skating, we were doing bonelesses and jump ropes, right?
06:31We could hardly even, we were just learning how to ollie.
06:34We could hardly wait when you're sitting in the alley.
06:37Yes!
06:41Oh yeah!
06:43Oh.
06:44Oh yeah!
06:46Oh.
06:47Oh.
06:48Oh.
06:48Oh.
06:51Oh.
06:52Oh.
06:54Oh.
06:54Oh!
06:58Oh.
07:26Discovering skateboarding for me was what I call sort of
07:29over the rainbow moment where my life went from black and white or sepia tone
07:36to full-blown technicolor. Like it just, my world opened up. I started skating in
07:42September of 1984. I got my first sponsor which was Pal Peralta in June of 1986.
07:49So I wasn't skating for that long. It happened pretty quick and then I turned
07:54pro in May of 1987. I started skating in the streets. That was the most exciting
08:00aspect of discovering skateboarding. Street skating, street styles, what it was
08:05called at that time, was brand new. That you didn't need a ramp. You didn't need a
08:12swimming pool. You didn't need to be in California under some palm tree. You could
08:17do that in Edison, New Jersey.
08:24I chose to move here mostly wanting to live somewhere where I really felt like I put
08:29down roots and create a decent life for my family and my kids and hopefully my grandkids.
08:39It's 8 a.m. and these guys been up since 6, riding mountain bikes. And now they come here to
08:47get
08:47donuts and beer at 8 a.m. before going to work. Is this skate tails or is this bike tails?
08:55Mountain bike tails.
08:56Oh, my goodness.
08:57Ultimately Iowa spoke to me because of the bicycle culture here, when I see the bicycle culture
09:06the amount of paved trails, and hundreds of hundreds and hundreds of miles of paved
09:10trails all over the state, and the way that bicyclists have been facilitated and given the
09:19the respect and the appreciation to pursue riding bicycles in a safe way.
09:26I knew this was a fairly forward-thinking state as far as recreation is concerned.
09:32The same people here are Iowa nice, just really engaging, kind people.
09:39And that's what I want to be around.
09:47This is so exciting.
09:49Iowa State Fair.
09:52Woo-hoo!
10:04Is it possible to get a haircut?
10:08Yeah?
10:13And how do you turn this thing on?
10:20Hot dog on a stick.
10:22Oh yeah.
10:23You guys got apples here or no?
10:26Apples?
10:27Or a lemonade stand, so we don't have apples.
10:29I'm not gonna lie.
10:31I'm not gonna lie.
10:32I'm not gonna lie.
10:37I'm not gonna lie.
10:37Please help me, somebody.
10:41Excuse me, I'm sorry.
10:47Okay, I'm done.
11:06Skateboard school, Mike Vee is the best coach.
11:13Since I've been here, and skating's exploding here,
11:16and there's so much interest.
11:17But there's so many new people getting into it.
11:19I found the time and the opportunity to really start
11:23investing my time in helping people into skating.
11:27Teaching skating is very fulfilling.
11:31But most importantly, it's about welcoming people
11:35into skating with love.
11:37Like, no judgment, no entrance.
11:41I always say no entrance exam.
11:54Look at the location here.
11:57It's downtown on the river.
11:59It's not tucked away in some far off neighborhood or some bad
12:03neighborhood or something.
12:04It's here for everyone to use, and it's a jewel.
12:08It's a jewel on the river.
12:09And that says a lot about the people here that live here,
12:13and the people in the city about how they think about things,
12:16and what they want to do to encourage and facilitate
12:18young people.
12:29And even if you go wide, you're back, you're going to sleep.
12:35You've got to listen to Mike.
12:37I'm not listening.
12:38Mike, he's got it.
12:40He's got it.
12:49He's got it.
12:50There's a trick that I saw Mike V do, like, 10, 15 years ago.
12:55No, longer.
13:08You have one other birthday, too.
13:11I'm up at the Garden CityFC.
13:16That's the biggest mistake.
13:18You have to be able to use your left hand, buddy.
13:23It's just there.
13:26I got the confusion.
13:27Wow.ynthesis.
13:27Mom.
13:29I lost
13:30his fasteur. I broke
13:32his hand performance. Mom.
13:32Mom.
13:32Mom.
13:32Dad.
13:32Mom.
13:33Mom.
13:52Pow, pow, pow!
14:16The company started basically sitting around our kitchen table, myself and my wife and
14:23our two daughters, and it's a family business.
14:28This shape, do you know this shape?
14:30It's the infamous barnyard shape, so this is the shape.
14:36We put a different graphic on it, we put a Des Moines, Iowa graphic on it.
14:41This was a big nose for 1989, but there was a lot to it, it wasn't just the shape, it
14:48was
14:48also the art, it was also the company, World Industries, the art by Mark McKee, the shape
14:54by Rodney Mullen, and then the skater, me.
14:58All those things came together to make the barnyard, this thing that people make it out
15:03to be today.
15:04Got this stored away for a little bit, but Modders is here, so we'll open it.
15:09So this was a vegetarian-themed board, yeah, Mark McKee, 89.
15:15This is my shape in 2021, you know, this is my shape in 1989.
15:20I skated this throughout the 90s, but I prefer to be on something like this these days.
15:29The box we ship the wheels in.
15:32Our wheels are called Street Scoundrels, because in 1986, I had my first picture in Thrasher
15:39magazine, the caption said, Street Scoundrels roll from New Jersey.
15:4686?
15:46Yeah, 86.
15:48I was born in 89, just so you know.
15:50Three years, three years, three years before you were born, I was on the cover of Thrasher.
15:57Our boards are made with love, shapes, the art concepts, and everything that goes into them
16:02is done with love, and every box is packed with love, and every interaction we have with
16:08any of our supporters is with love.
16:11The whole thing is built around love, and it starts with the love of skateboarding.
16:15I love you.
16:17I love you too.
16:21Well, you know, I always loved music since I was really young, but it really wasn't until
16:26I started skating that music became a really big part of my life, and that was the exact
16:33same time that I discovered skating, I discovered punk rock music.
16:36You know, the stuff I was listening to informed my style of skating even, like, it opened my
16:42mind up.
16:43I was just, my mind was being opened by the skate magazines, the skate videos, and the music
16:48I was listening to, it all worked together.
16:51Mike plays in a band, it's called Complete Disaster, and they're having a show tomorrow,
16:56and we're going to the radio to promote it.
16:59Let's go.
17:01Mike Vallely is in studio with us with Bruno on a Thirsty Thursday.
17:05All right, Mike, so I want you to walk me through some process here.
17:08I heard awesome things about the Limp Bizkit show that happened in town.
17:13You've got, Mike Vallely and the Complete Disaster open for Limp Bizkit?
17:18Yeah, our first show was on the street in Cumming, Iowa.
17:23Literally on the street in front of Cumming Tap.
17:25And a month later, you're opening for Limp Bizkit?
17:27No, no.
17:27A day later, we opened up for Limp Bizkit at the Horizon Event Center in Clyde.
17:32A day later?
17:33A day later, yeah.
17:34So our second show, we had one show on the street, the second show on a proper stage,
17:39proper sound, lights, everything.
17:40You know life's not supposed to happen that way, right, Mike?
17:44If you put the right energy towards the things you're passionate about,
17:48then things ensue in their own way.
17:50Yeah, you have to be ambitious, you have to be driven,
17:52you have to pursue some stuff, but things will ensue.
17:54Dude, I love that.
17:55All right, Z and I will be back here for the 5 o'clock hour on Fanatics,
17:581460 KXNO, 106.3 FM.
18:03Very cool.
18:04Thanks, man.
18:05Yeah, turns out the radio's got spots, so here we are.
18:10No sledding, a head tall outlet.
18:20Once you get deep into it, then you're in, you know,
18:23but the beginning, like the first feeling it out, it's so hard.
18:30Hell yeah, man.
18:31That's it right there, man.
18:45Yeah.
18:47Thanks for the inspiration.
18:49I didn't inspire that.
18:51A month after I started skating, I went to see Black Flag play.
18:54That was the first live music I ever saw was Black Flag.
18:59I started a band in 2001.
19:02We started gigging in 2002.
19:04That band was called Mike V and the Rats.
19:06We got lucky and we got to do some shows with Gray Ginn,
19:10who's the founding member of Black Flag.
19:12We kept opening up for him, and then at one point,
19:14he approached me and said, hey, if I ever reformed Black Flag,
19:19if I ever put the band back together, I'd love to have you sing.
19:21Complete Disaster is performing tonight, so we're going in for a rehearsal.
19:27There's Eli, the guitar, lead guitar.
19:41And then we'll call you up, and then we'll start real, we'll start real,
19:45like just the drums, the little guitar.
19:47And you can just .
19:49Never look back when they never took away.
19:54Now I want to hold you in my arms.
19:59To get the wheelchair when it ever comes.
20:19It'll be something like that, but not like that.
20:21We never know what it's going to be.
20:23I like it this way, but I got to get up where it'll stop.
20:26It'll be the last song on the show.
20:28I've been writing poems since I was a little kid.
20:31And then when I got a little bit older, when I was a teenager,
20:34really I was writing song lyrics, but I didn't have a band,
20:37so they were poems.
20:39But everything I ever wrote really was intended to be a rock song.
20:43So I did this book.
20:44It's kind of a collection of skateboard poems.
20:46And it's about aspects of skating that I really value.
20:50I could talk about all these things, and they're good stories.
20:53But in a poem, in the form of a poem, I find them to be something
21:00that has their own life as well.
21:02So this is the poetry book.
21:04It's called Natus On My Mind.
21:07And the title comes from, there's actually several poems that mention Natus.
21:12One specifically really about him.
21:16And then this photo from 1987 of him doing a wall ride over me,
21:21which was in Thrasher magazine.
21:25And the caption of the photo said, Natus On My Mind.
21:28Here we are at Captain Roy's.
21:32Mike V and The Complete Disaster are playing tonight.
21:35And they invited me up on stage to do some back vocals.
21:39So I've never performed in front of so many people.
21:48All of our shows have been for free, other than we opened for Limp Bizkit.
21:52People had to pay to get into that.
21:53But that was, that came out of nowhere.
21:56We didn't plan on that.
21:58Our attitude, our philosophy is bring the music to the people.
22:03Check, check, check, check, check.
22:08We are Mike V and The Complete Disaster.
22:11We love you, Des Moines, Iowa.
23:10Let's go.
23:13Let's go.
23:18Good night.
23:33When you said I'm going to do Mongolians,
23:36I thought you were full of shit.
23:38Me too.
23:38Me too.
23:44I've seen skateboarding change a lot.
23:47I've seen it go from this thing that my dad told me was pointless
23:52to being in the Olympics.
23:55It's changed a lot.
23:59I've seen through all these years, I've seen it grow up.
24:04I've seen it mature.
24:05I've seen it evolve.
24:06And I've also seen it keep its independent spirit.
24:11It's a strange paradox that skateboarding has now.
24:14But ultimately, at the end of the day, there's just my skating.
24:19I still have to enjoy riding my board.
24:27This is Jake.
24:28He's on the subset skate team.
24:29He also works at the shop.
24:31And he's one of the best rippers in town.
24:34Thanks, man.
24:34Yeah.
24:55Looks like some karate to me.
24:58Was that being planted judo?
25:00Yeah.
25:00Being planted judo.
25:13For me, he symbolizes East Coast skateboarding.
25:17But there's so many of us skaters that were not from California,
25:20and he was just the first guy that I was like,
25:24that's East Coast skateboarding.
25:27And the aggression and, like, you know, there's no palm trees, no sunshine.
25:31It's just really raw, like.
25:33Being from New Jersey completely informs my skating.
25:36You know, I was the first East Coast-based street skater to ever get sponsored,
25:40ever turn pro.
25:41So my skating was far more derivative of punk rock music, hip-hop music, breakdancing, than it was of surfing.
25:55Jersey Bear is the type of thing that you're, like, I just don't skate enough.
25:59So that's, used to be that's the shit I loved.
26:04Like, that was the first thing I'd want to skate.
26:05Now it's like, ooh, that seems hard.
26:08You know, that seems like, you know, you have to be in the zone to skate stuff like that.
26:15That thing right there? Shit.
26:22When I started a street plant, I decided to wear a helmet because I no longer had any sponsors.
26:27I decided to put the helmet on. It's a personal choice.
26:31I don't really go out of my way to advocate for helmets or anything like that.
26:36I feel like I get judged for it, but that's okay.
26:40It's a decision I can live with, my family can live with, and that I feel good about.
27:07That was a gnarly slam right there.
27:09This is what that flat does to you.
27:12Aie, aie, aie, aie, aie.
27:33It's been a while since I've done something there.
27:35I'm not handy.
27:36It's been normal, motherfucker.
27:39A special spot needs a special skate tool.
27:43Unlock your spot now.
27:53Ladies and gentlemen, Christian Svitek.
28:05Yeah.
28:06I hope this is sick.
28:12Yeah.
28:18That's sick.
28:29Yeah, man.
28:30One, two, three.
28:33One, two, three.
28:38So what is skateboarding to you?
28:40What is skateboarding to me?
28:43It's absolutely joy, fun, self-expression, creativity, and love.
29:04It's super figured out if you just walk out into that space.
29:06It's a little bit more.
29:07It's a little bit more.
29:07It's a little bit more.
29:08It's a little bit more.
29:09It's really interesting to me.
29:10It's really a little bit more than that, though.
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