Being a Santa Cruz Skateboards devotee since the late 70's sent my life down the path of controlled chaos. Despite the difficulty of a subculture existence, which of course was based purely on my appearance, which of course stemmed from the music and activity I lived for, I could not have been injected into a better place and time for a dream job in my favorite company. Steve Olson, Duane Peters, and Steve Alba had made Santa Cruz the unofficial skate company of the Punk Rock element that had spread like wildfire, not in the industry itself, but out in the streets, in the skate parks, and backyards across the country. While all the other companies were ignoring or trivializing the aggressive new style, Santa Cruz was actively promoting it through their team riders and marketing schemes. You cannot underestimate the balls it took Santa Cruz to do that! I willingly fell right in the deep end, purchasing 15 consecutive Big Duane' decks at every skate shop in my town over a two or three year period.

In the early 80's I had made one of the first three skate zines. Skate Scene was a shameless plug for any and all things my friends and I evangelized: skateboarding, pissing people off, Coca-Cola, Punk music, and, wait for itÉSanta Cruz Skateboards! NHS took notice of my blatant flag waving and actually paid for the last couple of issues of Skate Scene to be produced. And when I called it quits on Skate Scene in 1987, the marketing division at Santa Cruz moved swiftly to secure my infantile view of all things NHS into a propaganda tool that would be given out at skate shops Around the world. I was given 100% control of all production, features, contributions, ads, you name it & it was mine.

The name Strange Notes was taken from a song on The Germs first album, ÔGI'. It just sounded cool I guess, and their singer Darby Crash wrote some deceptively clever lyrics about controlling his environment. How fitting. The first logo was done with whatever rub-on lettering I had laying around and some weird shapes were added to the back side of the S and N to make it look like I had spent a lot of time on it. It was July of 1987 and everyone had a Mac to do desktop publishing. Not me though! I still didn't trust computers, so I used the exact production methods I had used making my zine, cut and paste with a typewriter for copy! The only difference was that now my photos would actually be half-toned, and Strange Notes was printed, (30,000 per issue if I remember right), not photo copied! Wow, the big time.

After the first two issues were published I was asked to become Santa Cruz's team manager in a phone conversation with Bob Denike. I think I peed my pants. This meant I had a 9 to 5 j.o.b. at NHS itself, and was directly responsible for the team. I was paired with Steve Keenan who was NHS' new photographer, ear to the ground fireball red head. Together we built Santa Cruz up in the image we thought best by recruiting team riders and taking care of them. We used Strange Notes to promote them in any way possible. I'd do a blue line mock of the next issue and show it to Steve. "See on page 14, Steve? A Bushka Vidal interview. I'll book our flights for Virginia Beach right away so you can click photos and I can ask him questions" was usually along the lines of what I'd say.

We had the idea to do The Strange Notes Secret Service, which is the equivalent to a street team that a lot of companies and record labels do now. It was your typical ÔGive us all your info and we'll flood you with all the swag and marketing materials that'll fit in your mail box' deal. At it's peak, The SN Secret Service had 10,000+ agents worldwide. Not bad when you think about it. I remember having a Secret Service shirt made that had artwork from a World War II era Russian anti-Nazi poster. Because it depicted two skeletons in German infantry helmets on a black shirt, some of the granola types who worked at NHS were very upset with me. Silly cows.

The videos were an eventuality. I had wanted to use the model that 411 would use years later; bring in the rest of the industry and sell them ad space, then take over the TV's across the globe, but I was shot down within NHS in large part because we didn't have the resources to make it happen. Did I mention it to my pal Steve Douglas at New Deal at the time while drunk in a downtown bar? Neither of can recall, and it really doesn't matter. Shooting those first six videos was a gas! More cross country trips in search of new terrain and riders, learning the dos and don'ts of video shooting and editing, and a guy in the Santa Cruz Shipping Department named Birdo.

Birdo was the clown at NHS who was as passionate about the company as Steve and I were. He would do anything on camera to promote our gear, and I mean anything. Most of the ideas and footage shot of him was deemed way too offensive to be shown in skate shops, and was lost forever as his best stuff was nixed. There was one pre-screening of Birdo in action where the brass at NHS sat stunned in silence. At the conclusion all I heard was "Let's just pretend we never saw this."

But the SN Video series was a big hit. Shops from everywhere begged for extra copies to sell, but we stuck to our guns for as long as possible.

When I relinquished control of the zine production of Strange Notes, it's production quality quadrupled. It was a great run for NHS and myself.

-Gavin O'Brien 2-22-2004