Zaturdays: Look Back Library

A few weeks ago I did a Zaturdays about how I’m a minimalist, and have never wanted to own a bunch of stuff, but that I’m basically cursed with this amazing magazine collection that goes back to the first ever issue of TWS from 1983, the one with Steve Cab on the cover dive bombing an indy air and sorry about the run on sentence. I also mentioned how I have all this junk I’d like to get rid of, and since my print collection has always been missing a key issue of TWS [Feb ’85 with McGill unveiling the McTwist on the cover], I might be willing to trade some rare SPoT Nike Dunks if someone had the issue I was looking for. Well, unfortunately I didn’t get to trade any of my junk away, but thanks to Kevin Marks from Look Back Library I still ended up with the McGill issue. Yeah buddy! A couple things, Kevin Marks is an interesting fellow. When I lived in San Diego, let’s say I’d be standing outside The Casbah smoking cigarettes and waiting to buy a ticket to Rocket from the Crypt, Kevin would pull up alongside the curb in some beater van, get out with this zorched radio / microphone contraption, and launch into elaborately choreographed karaoke while playing a cardboard guitar. I guess he still does it, he calls it performance art. But back to the Look Back Library. In the “About” page on LookBackLibrary.org, Kevin sums up the Library as basically a “journey” to help preserve skateboard magazines. It’s rad. Here’s a link to an article Jenkem did on it. To finish the saga of my missing McGill issue. I was just out in Long Beach for the Agenda trade show and I bumped into Kevin at a Converse function on Wednesday night. We talked about the Library and I told him that the first issue of TWS I’d ever seen was the McGill McTwist issue, and that my friend who had it left it in an airplane seat pocket and I never saw one ever again. The next morning I got a text from Kevin that said: “I have the McTwist issue.” And now I have it. THANKS KEVIN! Support the Look Back Library by getting in touch with Kevin at LookBackLibrary.org and sending him your old issues.