Eric Ricks – Powell Chaos (1992)

This is how you make potatoes.

Thankfully Eric Ricks was better at skateboarding than cooking in 1992 so he gets included in this trip down memory lane. Eric’s part in Powell’s Chaos is a pretty perfect snapshot of skateboarding transitioning from its early Nineties youthful spirit to its dreaded Goofy Boy angst.

The same year Plan B released The Questionable Video which turned everything up to eleven and left all the other companies eating dust or keeping pace. This is pretty obvious with Eric leaping onto some pretty big rails – some kinkier than others – and gaps whilst also mastering the nollie bigspin heelflips and double flips.

If that wasn’t obvious enough, there’s a complete shift between Eric doing impossibles and one foots with a typical bullet shaped board from the 1990-91 era and footage of him in baggy clothes doing switch frontside 360s and possible the first ever documented illusionary switch frontside flip – later dubbed the Muska flip – off a bench with a popsicle board and tiny wheels.

Thankfully Eric keeps his tech abilities in check without going too wild and counter balances it with the ballsy moves. Overall a lovely reminder of Eric’s skills on a board when almost all I ever remember of him is an awkward interview in Big Brother Magazine.