Category: 1980s

  • KZ Zapata

    KZ Zapata

    Flipping through old Thrasher magazines I spotted two mystery photos of a skater named KZ Zapata. In April 1986, a photo of her was included in an article by Bonnie Blouin called “Sugar and Spice…?” alongside Stephanie Person, April Hoffman, Babs Fahrney, and Michelle Sanderson. The caption said she was a 19-year-old student at UCSB…

  • Thalia Zelnik

    Thalia Zelnik

    Thalia Zelnik grew up in in the West Village of New York in the 1970s and 1980s, and when I stumbled upon a photo of her online, which was also published in Thrasher in the February 1987 issue, and a few other issues, I had to reach out. Thanks to social media, we made a…

  • The Hags

    The Hags

    This hardcore all-female skate crew was launched in 1983 and was the inspiration of Sevie Bates and her punk friends living in West Los Angeles. Bates had received her first skateboard in the early 1970s at age 9 – a wooden board with clay wheels called, “The Black Knight” and she was an inspiration to…

  • Debbie McAdoo

    Debbie McAdoo

    The “Ramp Ranch” began as a quarter-pipe in 1978 in Debbie McAdoo’s driveway, near Atlanta, Georgia. McAdoo wrote an article about its evolution and demise in the October 1981 issue of Thrasher. The photos accompanying the article were taken by Mike Folmer. Photo c/o Chuck Holts (Georgia Spillway, 1979). The local crew called themselves the Rancheros…