Since its birth in 2000, Boardstein has been clearly different from it’s brothers in the industry. Being a 100% independent publication, the chief editors Klaas and Arne had all the freedom to do their Magazine exactly like they wanted to. Not having any directives from publishing houses or company’s CEOs, Boardstein brought fresh wind with their ideas and quickly became notorious for its open attitude, that they printed in massive amounts of texts in size 6-8 font. The mainstream voice of skateboarding critizied the mag’s quality in terms of paper, layout, photos and tricks and called it “crappy” compared to the glossy sales catalogues of the skateboard industry (aka the other mags). But many people loved the magazine especially for this “non-heroism” and DIY attitude and for it’s open mind and straight unfiltered talk. Boardstein gave a platform to skateboard culture itself in all its shades: from big names to local guys skating a selfmade curb in the car-park, from pro photographers to bloody amateurs, old school, new school, whatever…
Boardstein had everything that you would not see in the other mags and dealt with all skate connected themes like history, music, graphics, spots, parkbuilding.. They also (and especially) put some extra energy into controversial themes. They got the 2 biggest german distributors and editors of the other magazines together to do a public “podium discussion” during the COS Cup in Hamburg, they did a special issue on Skateparks that you could take as a reference when dealing with the city councils and lately just did a girls special issue. Apart from the solid content, some of the beloved monthly columns were for instance “Deutschlands Beschissenste Skateparks” (Germany’s worst skateparks), “Schöne Schaufenster” (nice shop windows), Schlimme Schilder (fucked up signs), “Kathedralen der Neuzeit” (cathedrals of modern times), “Geile Karren (sick cars), “Scharfe Schwestern” (hot girls), double-page-collages of fresh wounds or skate tats to just name a few, that guaranteed Boardstein a solid community of fans. Boardstein became very active in the german skateboard scene, organized own events and basically gave the whole broadband of people skateboarding a chance to speak their minds.
All this freedom of course had it’s price, cause the magazine could not exist from sales alone. They needed adverts and a lot of big brands from the industry refused to advertise. The result of their nine year journey is that number 47, that just got released in stores, has been their final piece. For the death of Boardstein, the (german speaking) skateboard world showed a lot of reactions. Many brands made special obituary advertisings (as we did too) and a lot of people donated or bought items from the Boardstein office to finance the last issue. For the sad occasion we printed a poster with them with all their covers, that reminds one on one side of all the good times and at the same time displays the now existing hole in Germany’s skateboard scene. Who knows what the future brings, but Boardstein will live on somehow. If not in a compiled single publication, then in different ways. On the net or in Gernot Kynasts Last Try Magazine (who gave em a regular double page column in his mag). The spirit that Boardstein brought Skateboarding is gonna live on and the influence they took on the german scene cannot be undone. Nevertheless you will truly be missed, thanks for everything and keep on keeping on somehow…
Check www.boardstein.com for tales from the crypt and to catch the last issue for 6,66 € in their online store…
(LG)
