From 'The Chrome Ball Incident' (for more, click those links on this page):
Small Room Skateboards was this mysterious micro brand out of cali in ...
From 'The Chrome Ball Incident' (for more, click those links on this page):
Small Room Skateboards was this mysterious micro brand out of cali in the early 90's that suddenly found success when "not being trendy" became the big trend in skateboarding. Alongside fellow geezer fave, Molotov (and early Think), Small Room was one of those "small ad" companies. With the ad space usually reserved for bottom-barrel novelty brands, Small Room took out cryptic b&w quarter page ads in Thrasher and Poweredge to seperate themselves from the evil corporations of the time and bolster an underdog cult-like status that people could really rally behind.
truth be told, I honestly can't tell you that much for certain about the company. I know Russ Pope was involved. That Phil E, Joey Pulsifer, Mako Urabe and a young Frank Hirata all rode for them. Their boards were always great and with surprisingly excellent distribution for such a small company. The logos and ads were sick... even though they didn't really make any fucking sense.
but in a way, that's kinda what made them awesome. be it Neil Blender or David Lynch, if you can somehow manage to incorporate some enigmatic mystique into your vibe to where you're allowed to just remain open-ended without explaining every detail and people still give a shit, you have to ride that out. and that's exactly what Small Room did.
after a good two-year stint (I think), they finally pooped out around '92 in a sea of flash-in-the-pan companies whose runs weren't even close to being as long (public, shine, chapter 7, milk, 1more... the list is endless).
[Photos on this page come from The Chromeball Incident and Vert Is Dead. Click their links found on this page for more.]
