About Dogtown Skateboards, The Z-Boys, and the Dogtown and Z-Boys Documentary

July 10, 2023

About Dogtown Skateboards

In 1976, C.R. Stecyk III's Dogtown Cross was first shown to the public in the pages of Skateboarder Magazine. It was soon used by Wes Humpston and Jim Muir to make new art and paint designs for skateboards. Mike Muir moved in with his brother Jim in Venice in 1981. Shortly thereafter Mike formed Suicidal Tendencies and Skate Rock history was born. Dogtown and Suicidal Skates are still pushing wood more than 40 years later. In 2014, Jim Muir and his brother Mike Muir brought the names back together under the Dogtown X Suicidal distribution label, making it once again a family business like it was in the 1980s. DTxST is owned and run by skaters, so you can count on our knowledgeable skate staff, customer service, quality of goods, and on-time, accurate deliveries that come straight from the source. The only thing we did wrong was being original, and Possessed To Skate is still going strong after all these years.

About Z-Boys

The Zephyr Competition Team, also called the Z-Boys, was a group of skateboarders from Santa Monica and Venice, California, in the mid-1970s. The Z-boys started out with 12 people, and the Jeff Ho Surfboards and Zephyr Productions surf and skating shop helped them get started. Their innovative style was based on surfing, and their tricks in the air laid the groundwork for modern vert and transition skating. Lords of Dogtown and Dogtown and Z-Boys are just two pictures that tell the story of the Z-Boys and the Zephyr shop.

Initial beginnings
The Z-boys started out as a surf team for Santa Monica's Zephyr surfboard shop. Jeff Ho, Skip Engblom, and Craig Stecyk opened the shop, called Jeff Ho Surfboards and Zephyr Production Team, in 1973. They soon started looking for young locals to represent them in surfing events. Nathan Pratt, who was 14 at the time, was the first person to join the team. He had been working in the shop as an assistant surfboard shaper for Ho, Engblom, and Stecyk. Pratt says the following in an interview with Juice Magazine:

"Within our world, the surf team was primary and the skate team was secondary. Allen Sarlo, Tony Alva, Jay Adams, Stacy Peralta, Chris Cahill and myself were on the surf team before there was a skate team. We were junior members of the surf team along with John Baum, Jimmy and Ricky Tavarez and Brian Walker. Guys like Ronnie Jay, Wayne Inouye, Wayne Saunders, Pat Kaiser, Barry Amos, Jeff Sibley, Bill Urbany and Adrian Reif were the top dogs. The history, skill and accomplishments of all the team members was represented in those shirts. Then we added Bob Biniak, Wentzle Ruml, Paul Constantineau, Jim Muir, Shogo Kubo and Peggy Oki to the skate team so that a team shirt represented a decent number of people."

Allen Sarlo, Jay Adams, Tony Alva, Chris Cahill, and Stacey Peralta joined the Zephyr team in 1974. These local teens had a street style and were bold on and off the surfboard. Most of the team lived in the "Dogtown" area of Santa Monica, and the Cove at Pacific Ocean Park was their favourite place to surf. But when urethane wheels were invented, the Z-boys started to switch from surfing to skateboarding.

Formation of the Zephyr Competition Team
The first members of the official Zephyr skateboarding team were Cahill, Pratt, Adams, Sarlo, Peralta, and Alva. They joined in 1975. Soon after, the Zephyr shop got the last two people they needed to have a full team of 12. Bob Biniak, Paul Constantineau, Jim Muir, Peggy Oki, Shogo Kubo, and Wentzle Ruml were the other people who joined. The team started to practise in the backs of four schools in the area. The Z-boys showed how well they could switch from surfing style to skating style on these asphalt banks. The Z-boys would skate low to the ground and drag their hands along the pavement as if they were riding a wave. They got this idea from surfer Larry Bertleman.

The Del Mar Nationals
The Z-Boys first competed on skateboards at the Del Mar Nationals in 1975. This was the first big skateboarding event since the mid-1960s. Even though their low, aggressive style in the freestyle part of the race was new, the older skateboarding community didn't like it. At the end of the competition, though, Jay Adams came in third, Tony Alva came in fourth, Dennis Harney came in second, Nathan Pratt came in fourth, and Peggy Oki won the women's freestyle event. When Z-Boys like Jay Adams skated, it changed the way of skateboarding all over the country.

Backyard pool skating
Southern California went through a very bad drought from 1976 to 1977. This made 1976 and 1977 the driest years in California's history. In order to save water, people in the neighbourhood were draining their swimming pools, leaving smooth concrete bowls. The Z-boys pushed the limits of what was possible with flying skateboarding by using the sloped walls of the pools. Craig Stecyk's pictures of the Z-Boys' aerial tricks were published in Skateboarder Magazine as part of a series called "Dogtown Articles." Stecyk's collections helped skateboarding become more famous in the late 20th century.

Later years
After "Dogtown Articles" did well, the Z-Boys' fame grew by a factor of a thousand. As rival companies became more interested, many Z-Boys left to take contracts that paid better. The Zephyr Competition Team was no longer around by 1977. Even though the Zephyr team didn't last long, the Z-Boys are still seen as one of the most important teams in the history of skateboarding.

Members
Original members
Jay Adams
Tony Alva
Bob Biniak
Chris Cahill Chris Cahill
Paul Constantineau
Shogo Kubo
Jim Muir
Peggy Oki Stacy Peralta
Nathan Pratt Wentzle Ruml IV
Allen Sarlo
Mike Morris Aspinall Aspers

Later members
Coben, Marshall
Paul Cullen
Cris Dwight
Jose Galan
Dennis Harney
Hoffman, Paul
Donnie Olham
Tommy Waller was a boxer.
Cory Coffey, M.F.

About the Dogtown and Z-Boys Documentary

Dogtown and Z-Boys is a documentary movie from 2001 that was made by Agi Orsi and Stacy Peralta. The documentary looks at how the Zephyr skateboard team, which Peralta was a part of in the 1970s, helped to start the sport of skateboarding and how the sport has changed since then. The documentary tells the story of a group of teenage surfers and skateboarders who had an impact on the history of skateboarding and, to a smaller extent, surfing. Craig Stecyk shot footage of the Zephyr skateboard team (Z-Boys) in the 1970s, and there are also interviews with people from today.

Synopsis
Sean Penn narrates Dogtown and Z-Boys, which starts with a look at the history of skateboarding in Southern California and how it was heavily affected by the surf culture in the Dogtown areas of Santa Monica and Venice.Jeff Ho, Skip Engblom, and Craig Stecyk, who own a surf shop, put together the Zephyr Skateboard Team with teens from broken homes in the area. Skateboarding became a sport as the Z-Boys kept coming up with cool moves that were affected by surfing. During one of California's worst droughts on record, home pools were emptied and became popular places for young skateboarders to skate. When members of the Zephyr team participated in skateboard championships and started getting attention from the media for how good they were as young athletes, they became well-known and famous across the country. This documentary is about the history and lives of the original Z-Boys and the skateboarding subculture in California. It has interviews and comments from the members and founders of the Zephyr team, as well as a rock-and-roll soundtrack and old videos.

Production
The documentary has old film clips and photos of the Zephyr skateboard team from the 1970s. It also has interviews with some of the original Z-Boys. The movie uses old 8-mm and 16-mm footage that has been edited in a modern way and has a soundtrack made from songs from the 1970s.

Stacy Peralta, an original member of the Zephyr team, directed Dogtown and Z-Boys. He and Craig Stecyk, a top surf and skateboard film producer and photojournalist, also wrote the script.

The movie had a budget of $400,000, which was paid for by Vans, Inc.Stecyk and the photographer Glen E. Friedman worked together to write and make the movie. Daniel Ostroff and Stephen Nemeth were also co-producers, and Debra MacCulloch and Christine Triano worked on the film as assistant producers.

Cast
The documentary has video, interviews, and comments from eleven of the original Z-Boys, as well as the team's co-founders, skateboarding champions, and other important skateboarding figures, journalists, and artists from the time.

Sean Penn tells the story.
Jay Adams (Zephyr Skate Team member) as himself
Tony Alva (Zephyr Skate Team member) as himself
Stacy Peralta, who is part of the Zephyr Skate Team, plays himself.
As himself, Jeff Ament
As himself, Steve Caballero
Skip Engblom, who helped start Zephyr, plays himself.
Craig Stecyk, who helped start Zephyr, played himself.
Tony Hawk as Tony Hawk
As himself, Henry Rollins
As himself, Tom Sims
Peggy Oki (Zephyr Skate Team member) as herself
Jeff Ho, who helped start Zephyr, plays himself.
Reception
The documentary was shown for the first time at the Sundance Film Festival, where it won a number of awards. Many critics liked the movie. Steve McKee, a writer for The Wall Street Journal, said that the documentary opened to "boffo reviews" from people all over the country. Rotten Tomatoes gave the movie a score of 92%, and Metacritic gave it a score of 76, which means that most critics liked it.Stephen Holden of The New York Times called the movie a "rock 'n' roll-filled history of skateboarding in Southern California that will make you giddy."

Dogtown and Z-Boys made $103,355 in their first weekend of business in April 2002. In the United States, the movie had made $1,293,295 by August 2002. In a 2004 interview, Peralta said, "Dogtown has sold over a million DVDs and more than 700,000 VHS."

Awards and acknowledgement
Dogtown and Z-Boys was in the 2001 Sundance Film Festival and won two awards: the Audience Award and the Directing Award. Also in 2001, the film won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Documentary.

Music

Aerosmith – "Seasons of Wither"
Aerosmith – "Toys in the Attic"
Alice Cooper – "Generation Landslide"
The Allman Brothers Band – "One Way Out"
Black Sabbath – "Into the Void"
Black Sabbath – "Paranoid"
Blue Öyster Cult – "Godzilla "
Buzzcocks – "Fast Cars"
David Bowie – "Aladdin Sane"
David Bowie – "Rebel Rebel"
Devo – "Gut Feeling"
Emilio Pericoli – "Volare"
Fila Brazillia – "Subtle Body"
Fila Brazillia – "Harmonicas are Shite"
Herb Alpert – "A Taste of Honey"
Herb Alpert – "Lollipops and Roses"
James Gang – "Funk 49"
Jan and Dean – "Sidewalk Surfing"
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – "Ezy Ryder"
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – "Foxy Lady"
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – "Freedom"
The Jimi Hendrix Experience – "Bold as Love"
Joe Walsh – "Rocky Mountain Way"
Led Zeppelin – "Achilles Last Stand"
Led Zeppelin – "Hots On for Nowhere"
The Lively Ones – "Surfrider"
Massive Attack – "Exchange"
Neil Young – "Old Man"
Peter Frampton – "I'll Give You Money"
Pink Floyd – "Us and Them"
Robin Trower – "Hannah"
Rod Stewart – "Maggie May"
Sneaker Pimps – "6 Underground"
The Stooges – "Gimme Danger"
The Stooges – "I Wanna Be Your Dog"
T. Rex – "Children of the Revolution"
The Pretenders – "Bad Boys Get Spanked"
Thin Lizzy – "Bad Reputation"
Ted Nugent – "Cat Scratch Fever"
Ted Nugent – "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang (Live)" Ted Nugent – "Motor City Madhouse" The Trammps – "Disco Inferno" ZZ Top – "ZZ Top – "La Grange"