Heroin is a longtime U.K.-based board company ran by Mark Foster aka. Fos, local avant-garde skate visionary due to being quite the authentic being, punk ethics enthusiast, and regular displayer a notable weakness for coffee and cassette tapes that has to go along nicely with being a visual artist (as
his recent-ish guest board on Magenta could attest). One notably responsible for the art direction of Altamont Apparel, but also for countless deck graphics (on top of the Heroin ones) for the likes of Black Label, Toy Machine, Real, Deathwish, Zero, Element and Baker.
In an era of U.K. skateboarding where most eyes were set on the refined aesthetics of Blueprint Skateboards (version 1.0, also known as the right one; the current iteration looking like a Canadian counterfeit), upon its inception in 1998, Heroin popped up and stood out as the wilder alternative that appeared more brutal, and definitely crazier. Its philosophy was made obvious by how it embraced any supermarket parking lot piss corner as a potential spot to document on Sundays, and any type of motion as a trick as long as one - or more - instance(s) of the object "skateboard" was somewhat visibly involved.
Very much like Traffic, Ricky Oyola's company (see this post for "Look Right", their latest Far-Eastern trip video), Heroin recognized the creative frenzy of the Japanese skate scene quite early on, by sponsoring Gou Miyagi for years (after an early guest board), but also by casting some light over the genius of Chopper, DAL and Osaka Daggers, of Triangle Park. More insanity that was quite notably featured on a scientology website back in 2013, and that you can now catch a clear glimpse of here.
In the considerable time span over two decades makes for, Heroin did undergo quite a few changes, most notably as far as its roster; but a long trail of full-length videos help keep the entirety of their legacy alive, each of them imprinted by their respective author's personal style but never without that very specific Heroin imagery at the core. "Everything's Going To Be Alright" (2002), "Live From Antarctica" (2005) or the later "Video Nasty" (2013) are some good ones to check out, or revisit. On this topic, Alan Glass (the man behind some of Heroin's early productions) and Pixels.tv produced this neat little two-part documentary on former rider Chris Pulman, not too long ago.
"Magic Sticky Hand 2" is the 2017 Heroin video that just now found its way online - and it's exactly the type of plastic spank you might need to get inspired to go skate right now (and maybe forget about caveman boardslides for good).
