Our “Visuals” interview with Jaime Owens expands on a video part, trick, photo, and board graphic that have embedded themselves in his grey matter over the years. From an iconic board mail-ordered from a magazine in the 80s, to an Olly Todd video part that made it’s way to the other side of the pond, Jaime came through with the goods…
Words and interview by Jacob Sawyer. Jaime Owens out hunting noseblunts. PH: Mike Heikkila
For nearly four decades, skateboarding has been Jaime Owens’ constant guide, a journey which began in South Carolina. Magazines have played an integral role in his experience ever since his sister brought him a copy of TransWorld home from the grocery store, a kindness which opened a whole new world. Little did she know that one day he would be editor-in-chief of that very publication. Jaime’s story involves his time at TransWorld SKATEboarding (TWS) as editor, and at Skateboarder magazine before that. It even saw him become associate producer of Jackass in the early days, a role he passed up in favour of becoming immersed in the print game. His dedication, and love for skateboarding have always remained paramount. When TWS as a print mag ceased to exist Jaime continued to forge his own path by creating the excellent CLOSER magazine, an independent passion project that delivers his undiluted vision of how skateboarding should be presented. It’s a publication we’re proud to have on the shelves.
It seemed fitting that we connect with Jaime in a format that celebrates the time he has spent ensconced in our culture, and appreciates the significance of some of the visuals that have ultimately inspired him to keep their spirit alive. Jaime picked an Olly Todd video part from Chris Massey [RIP]’s seminal video Portraits, a VHS tape which would have winged it’s way to him all the way from our old Neal’s Yard address. He selected a Guy Mariano noseblunt slide that appears in Video Days, a watershed moment that evolves into a celebration of the trick itself. His photo choice is a striking Daniel Harold Sturt image of Matt Hensley which ran as a Gullwing advert, and the graphic he selected is a Vision Gonz board he ordered from the pages of a magazine. Prepare your eyeballs for some treats, and enjoy Jaime’s reflections on their relevance to him and our culture.
OLLY TODD – LANDSCAPE: Portraits (2003)
For some reason Olly Todd’s Landscape part has always stuck in my mind over the years, it stood out from the gazillion amazing videos and video parts. It has stood the test of time, I recently rewatched it again while thinking of this list and it holds up to this day. Even when it came out, in an era of big Zero and Girl videos full of massive rails or crazy tech skating this spoke to me. There was this video in the midst of it with a fully UK skater, skating London, looking like he’s the lead singer in a band, and skating to such a sick song. All of the spots look amazing, and his trick selection is so on point, all the classic tricks: kickflips, backside flips, noseblunt slides. Some of the most beautiful looking tricks I like to see people do. This just stood out so much in that era and I have loved it ever since.
I would have seen this for the first time when I was working for Skateboarder magazine. Oliver Barton worked there at the time. He would shoot all of the Blueprint and Landscape guys. He was also best friends with Chris Massey (RIP) so I think he got copies of the VHS tape sent to him at the mag. I was the photo editor at the time and I had the TV and the VCR in my office, that’s where we would all watch videos whenever they came in. I remember watching the video and just loving the scene it represented, the whole vibe, the spots, everything. When Olly got on Stereo a few years later and came out to the States I was so pumped to go and skate, and shoot photos with him. That transition to Stereo just made perfect sense too, he was such a stylish skater in the same vein as Ethan Fowler or someone like that.
The last trick in this video part is so great, it’s the exact opposite of anything coming out during that era. Last tricks would always be big handrails as I said before, or some crazy technical trick. When he ollied up that bank and did a kickflip nose-manual down I was blown away, it was such a weird last trick, so awesome, and so different. Watching it now, it’s still so sick. I love that you get to see it in regular speed after the slow-mo too. I got to go to that spot one time when I was over there on a Volcom trip and I was geeking out. I know everybody has hit that spot but for me that was the “Olly Todd last trick spot”.
“You could put this out today and it would still be a banging video part, it’s over twenty years old now which is crazy!”
I also really like the backside 360 ollie he does out of a kicker. Lots of the spots in there look like New York, he obviously filmed a Static part years later with Josh Stewart, and I can imagine Josh Stewart watching this video part and thinking “dang I want to film with this guy!” because he skates exactly the type of stuff Josh loves to film. That opening line filmed at night that’s just lit by the light on the camera with him pushing and cruising the streets. It was just so different to the normal style of editing videos at that time. You could put this out today and it would still be a banging video part, it’s over twenty years old now which is crazy! The Death In Vegas song is amazing too, if I ever here that song somewhere I’m stoked. Really great video parts have to have that great song to compliment it and this does. It’s the whole package: filming, editing, skating, music. It’s all perfect, wrapped up in a nice little bow.
This is a part I can definitely always pull up and revisit. I know Olly is at a different stage in his life these days but it’s been proven that older skaters can still put out amazing video parts. I would love to see another little video part from him that shows him still skating. Get that dude on some sessions and film some clips.
Guy Mariano – Noseblunt slide in Blind: Video Days (1991)
Video Days is obviously one of my favourite videos of all time and Guy Mariano’s part in that video is just iconic. The noseblunt slide I picked is not a monumental one at all. He does one in the middle of this little parking lot line where he does a tailslide first, and a 50-50 afterwards. I remember that trick stuck out to me even then, the trick looks amazing for one, then the fact that he was so little, and his board looked giant, yet he was able to go up and do a noseblunt slide then pop out in the middle of the kerb. I was always just fascinated by that. Any time that I was at a a spot I was too scared of even trying to throw that trick in. How the hell did this little kid do that? Obviously it’s Guy Mariano but it’s a little kid with a giant board making it look so easy. Then of course Gonz [Mark Gonzales] invented them and has one in his part too on the white bench down the stairs. It’s so cool that Guy was skating with Gonz, learning these tricks from him as they’re invented.
Just the other day I was looking at a TransWorld with an A1 Quality Meats ad published the same year. It has a photo of a very young, and very small Jason Dill doing one on a bench. That ad made me think the same thing at the time, how did this guy get his board up on top of the bench to do a noseslide downward? I was trying to figure out this downwards noseslide, what the heck is that? So this particular trick has always fascinated me, how you get the board up and over, then push down into it. It just looks so cool, and it all began by seeing Guy Mariano do it. Noseblunt slides put your body in this cool position, in the same way a backside smith grind does. Both of those tricks put you in this karate style position if you get into them right, the coolest position for a photo
“how did this guy get his board up on top of the bench to do a noseslide downward?”
Through the years I have also loved watching Ed Templeton make them look cool, he would always lock in so good from the first ever one you see him do in the New Deal 1281 video. He does an impossible noseblunt on a kerb in that part too! Those tricks look so easy and mellow when he does them but if you roll up to a kerb and really think about doing that, it’s death. You’re definitely going to your hip on that trick. Also don’t forget Ed’s Welcome To Hell noseblunt slide at Beryl Banks to kerb. There’s a timeline with the trick, obviously Gonz inspired everyone to learn tricks but there’s a direct lineage with this. Gonz inspired Ed Templeton to do them and it became one of his favourite tricks. Then it continues, Tom Karangelov is a huge Ed Templeton fan from the Huntington Beach, Santa Ana area and he has kept it going. He does it because of Ed, knowing that Ed does it because of Gonz.
In the “Enter the Museum” part that he put out Tom’s last trick is a tribute to Ed’s noseblunt slide in 1281, they’ve put rails on the ledge but he managed to do a backside bluntslide and kind of wallie one of them. It’s crazy and weird but he was able to skate it as a tribute to Ed. Tom [Karanglov] is keeping the tradition alive. I skate with him a lot, and love that trick so it’s great to get to regularly see one of my favourites done so well. Tom loves the history of skating, he’s always asking me questions about what it was like seeing Natas [Kaupas] or Gonz skate for the first time as a kid. His enthusiasm for the history of skating, and appreciation of it is really cool. I would love to see more skaters nowadays look backwards to understand where we came from, and how we got here.
“I would love to see more skaters nowadays look backwards to understand where we came from, and how we got here”
I was never able to do this trick through the years but I finally learned them on transition, on little quarter pipes. I have still never done one in the streets on a sidewalk kerb though, and I’ve been trying to do it. I’m about to turn 50 later this year and I’m determined to get one, either by the time I’m 50, or as a 50-year old. I want to do one on a kerb like Guy Mariano, and pop out in the middle, not go off the end. I’m going to be so happy when I do one, it will have only taken 30 plus years. Hopefully I can learn it, I’ve gotten close so I hope to do it soon but that trick can definitely take you out. I think it’s one of the most classic, rawest, street tricks you can do. It’s so scary, I’ve done the slip out to my hip so many times. I feel confident on any type of medium sized bank though, I’ll happily throw a noseblunt slide in there all day long, but the street one is a completely different vibe.
Aaron Meza lives in Burbank and every time that we go and hang out we’ll visit some Video Days spots because they’re all around his house. I’ve actually been to look at the kerb where Guy [Mariano] does the noseblunt slide that we’re talking about. That parking lot has only changed a little bit. I’ve always dreamed of recreating Guy’s little line that he did there once I’ve learned noseblunt slides, it would be so cool to get Meza to film it long lens the same way.
Matt Hensley. BS Noseblunt slide. PH: Daniel harold Sturt (1992)
The significance of this one is that it’s Matt Hensley who is one of the coolest skaters of all time. It’s Daniel Harold Sturt who is one of the greatest skate photographers of all time, and Matt is doing a backside noseblunt slide, one of the sickest tricks of all time. All of these things combined make for one of the greatest skate photos of all time. The photo itself is just incredible, the lighting is amazing, no-one had lights above skaters pointing down at that time. I don’t even know how he had a light set up like that. The long exposure with the burlesque sign behind him works so well, the colours are amazing. The timing is perfect too, it’s shot just before he gets into the backside noseblunt slide. This photo also came out at the peak of Matt Hensley being a god, the shaved head, the cargos, the chukkas, he looks so freaking cool. It’s three of the greatest all in one: skater, photographer, trick. I can’t believe it was used as a Gullwing ad! It could have been it’s own whole spread
This is the perfect snapshot of him during that era, shot by one of the greatest, most elusive, weird, behind-the-scenes photographers to ever do it. No-one can speak to [Daniel Harold] Sturt to this day, no-one can interview him, he doesn’t want to talk about skateboarding. That all adds to the mystique of this photo, how did they get this shot? This is pre-Photoshop, just an incredible photo by a master. All of the iconic Matt Hensley photos were shot by Sturt, they obviously had a relationship and shot a lot together. I don’t think a lot of skaters always realise that if there’s a chance to align yourself with one of the best photographers at the time, you should really do it. Jump at the chance to be captured by these people. Matt Hensley was obviously fortunate to be friends with him.
“This is the perfect snapshot of him during that era, shot by one of the greatest, most elusive, weird, behind-the-scenes photographers to ever do it”
Matt’s wife Desiree worked with us at TransWorld for years so we got really close with the Hensley’s. We would go over to their house, and their family photos were all shot by Sturt too! Child portraits on the wall and everything, he was fully integrated into the family over there, he’s a family friend still. He shot all of Matt’s most famous skate photos, and all the family pictures of him and the dog, hahaha. It’s so cool. He is still this mysterious dude even though he is still a family friend who comes over to visit all the time. He is someone everyone would die to interview and get his story but he just doesn’t care, or want to be involved in that part of skating. We’re so close to him, just one degree of separation, but still all bets are off when it comes to getting anything going with him. His photos are just incredible though. Being at Skateboarder in the early 2000s meant I definitely got to get my hands on some of his original negatives, some of the stuff they used, and also prints. He would often send prints to the mag and not the negatives, he’d print it, stamp his name on it, and that’s what you’d get. I saved some of those for archival reasons.
The Matt Hensley Gullwing ad shot by Daniel Harold Sturt as it appeared in TWS January 1992
I fully remember seeing this photo for the first time, it looked like a painting. The lighting, and the colours were unlike anything else, it almost didn’t look real. There’s mystery involved, you saw the photo and wondered what the trick looked like but there was no footage. They would have just gone and shot this photo without a filmer. Thinking of it now, since you can’t get a print of it, it would be pretty cool to get someone to paint it so you could have an oversized version of it. If I could have a giant wall dedicated to one skate photo this would be the one. I always loved looking at photos by Daniel Harold Sturt, and Spike [Jonze], they were an inspiration. Also growing up and seeing J. Grant Brittain’s name over and over again in all of those TransWorld’s definitely planted the seed that it would be pretty cool to hang out with these dudes and shoot iconic photos of them. I was at High School in the early 90s, I gravitated towards photography as a way to document the lives of me and my friends. I wanted to do that because no-one else was, then I slowly began wanting to become a better photographer. I wasn’t even thinking that I could shoot skate photos but those guys were definitely an inspiration. If I was going to shoot photos that’s what I wanted them to look like. I never got to that point but looking at their work made me want to try.
“I fully remember seeing this photo for the first time, it looked like a painting. The lighting, and the colours were unlike anything else, it almost didn’t look real”
I would pick up magazines at my local skate shop, that’s how I would have seen this photo for the first time. Where I lived you could even pick up skateboard magazines at the grocery store. My sister bought me my very first issue of TransWorld from the grocery store when I didn’t even know that skate mags existed. At that point I would get copies of Freestylin’ which was a BMX magazine that had skate photos in it, that was where I’d see skateboarding. Then my sister brought home this issue of TransWorld with Rodney Mullen on the cover in 1986. It was a fat issue too, I couldn’t believe it, a full issue about skateboarding! I was blown away that there was a mag dedicated to it. So from that point on I would get them, from that same store, and then the skate shop. I’s so cool thinking back and remembering her bringing it, I can still clearly remember her saying “I saw this at the grocery store, I thought you’d like it”. It was this window into a whole other world, it was the coolest thing in the world, and it still is. I’m so thankful during that era of my childhood to have stumbled upon this whole world and been sucked into it. We’re still talking about it forty years later, still involved in it, still love it, still doing it. It’s very fortunate to find something you love that early in life.
Vision Skateboards: Mark Gonzales Pro Model (1985-1989)
The first time I saw this board was in mail-order ads. You would always thumb through those pages of completes in the mag to see which one you wanted, and I remember seeing it in the CCS spread. This Gonz [Mark Gonzales] Vision board always stood out to me. It looked so cool. That graphic is 1000 percent 80s, and it encapsulated the era it came out in, it was so awesome. This was the first, and pretty much one of the only boards that I ever mail-ordered, I ordered it from CCS. Waiting for that board and it coming in the mail was one of the coolest experiences ever. Beyond that, our local shop would get all of the latest boards. I can’t remember why, but they can’t have had this one, which is why I felt like I had to mail-order it. I would normally buy boards from the shop, I didn’t want to wait for this because I was impatient, so the anticipation of it arriving drove me crazy.
It just looked like the coolest board in the world. It then became evident from looking through the mag at ads with Mark Gonzales that he was one of the best skaters ever, even before you had seen any footage of him. Looking back at it now I love how 80s the graphic is, all of those Vision boards were full 80s creations. Growing up I was a Powell Peralta kid like a lot of people because they were the coolest, and most popular. I had various Lance Mountain boards, a Tommy Guerrero, I learned kickflips on a Steve Saiz of all boards. Obviously as a kid you’re influenced by everything, but looking back now I love all of the Vision graphics from that era because they are so defined by that decade.
That Gonz board has stood the test of time as being one of the most iconic board graphics ever. It’s cool that it’s his first pro graphic at a time when boards stayed around for a few years. There were different colours and some changes but it was in production for four years which is insane to think about now. When he started doing his own graphics they were weird and took on a life of their own but that first graphic was something you saw in the mag over and over again. That ad where the graphic surrounds the Tod Swank photo of Mark was so rad too, there’s a Miami Vice element to it. Miami Vice meets a science-fiction movie, everything I love basically. Throw those things on a skateboard, and there’s your graphic. That’s my childhood right there. I remember trying to learn airwalks out of my buddy’s jump ramp on that board.
“That Gonz board has stood the test of time as being one of the most iconic board graphics ever. It’s cool that it’s his first pro graphic at a time when boards stayed around for a few years”
Finally pulling that board out of the box was something else. I’m so bummed because I have no idea what I did with it in the end. Back then we traded boards a lot, I have no idea if I traded it, or where that thing ended up. I wish I knew where it went, even if I knew who it went to I would be tracking them down to this day. So I couldn’t find my original one, and I wasn’t about to buy a $500 one on eBay, so I finally got one of those reissues which say The Original instead of Mark Gonzales. I’ve been meaning to paint over that and just write his name there but I haven’t got around to it. I have always wanted the silvery grey one that I had. My board collection is from the year 2000 when I was at Skateboarder, and then TransWorld when we would get some boards for free. I never really went down the collector route of spending loads of money on OG decks. 
I’ve got to that point in my life where moving boxes of skateboards that I don’t look at seems pointless. I’m slowly relieving myself of all my clutter, trying to sell things, and move them on. I’m going to save a few that mean something to me but I hate that boards are just sitting in boxes. If I could store things in a warehouse and then go and look at them when I’m 70 years old that would be awesome but it’s not possible. I have to carry them around every time I move house or office. That stuff is heavy!
I have loved all of the graphic tributes to that original graphic over the years, from REAL or Krooked, they are things I tried to get when they were doing that stuff. There was a REAL series where everyone on the team got that graphic as their pro board, I have a few of those, I have the Krooked homage to it with a photo of Mark’s face. When those things crop up I have to have them. If anybody ever finds a silver grey Gonz with clear griptape, and Billabong stickers on top, please hit me up. My first ever board was actually a Town & Country, I finally found an original one through eBay which I bought. Then my friend Chris Rice who is @destroyedwood hooked me up with Gullwings, and Sims street wheels from the same era that I had. So I have that complete sitting in my corner. That’s the last board I’ll ever own. If I get rid of everything I’m saving that board. I told my daughter one day that she’s probably going to inherit a bunch of stuff but the one thing she has got to keep forever is that thing. That’s her dad’s first board, not the original, but close enough.
Jaime Owens closing out this “Visuals’ with two noseblunt slides of his own
Thanks for your time Jaime. Is there anything on the horizon you’re excited about?
I’m excited about continuing to make skateboard magazines through CLOSER, and to still live my lifelong dream of never growing up and being a skateboarder until I die. I’m pretty stoked on that, hopefully I can keep that going. Thank you for even wanting to hear anything I have to say about anything, I appreciate it.
It was a pleasure catching up with Jaime for this. We recommend visiting our Books & Magazines section to pick up copies of CLOSER Skateboarding Magazine, it’s a beautiful publication we will keep regular stock of. Visit the CLOSER website for online interviews. Find out more out about Jaime’s history in his Nine Club Episode, follow his personal Instagram and Closer Skateboarding for updates about new issues. Big thank you to Neil Macdonald (Science Vs Life) for the Matt Hensley ad scan.
Related Reading: Olly Todd Interview, Offerings: Tom Karangelov, First & Last: Mark Gonzales
Previous Visuals Interviews: Charlie Munro, Lev Tanju, Jack Curtin, Ted Barrow, Dave Mackey, Jack Brooks, Korahn Gayle, Will Miles, Kevin Marks, Joe Gavin, Chewy Cannon