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Tony Alva (born 1957, in Santa Monica, California, United States) is one of the original Z-Boys and considers himself to be one of the most influential skateboarders of all time.

The level of aggression with which Alva skated was in stark contrast to the traditional style of the era which was still based around tricks formulated in the 1960s . Alva and the other Z-Boys were among the first to bring skating empty pools into the mainstream. In these early days, it was noted that Alva was hitting the lip so hard that he was actually taking off, hence Alva is responsible for the first recorded aerial, a frontside air, although Alva himself claimed that George Orton was the first to perform aerials (Skateboarder magazine, July, 1978).

In 1977, at age nineteen, Alva shunned the major skate companies to form his own skateboard company, Alva Skates. The same year he was voted 'skateboarder of the year' in Skateboarder Magazine's readers' poll and he set the Guiness World Record for barrel jumping [1].

Alva is featured in the documentary on Venice Beach skate culture Dogtown and Z-Boys which was fictionalized into the 2005 feature film Lords of Dogtown and he also stared in 'Skateboard the Movie' in 1978.

Tony Alva recently signed a 3 year deal with Vans shoes and is sponsored by Independent trucks. He also has a watch with his name on it by Vestal.

Tony also played bass in the band The Skoundrelz, which featured ex-Suicidal Tendencies members Mike Dunnigan and Mike Ball as well as ex-member of Wasted Youth Dave Hurricane.

Tony Alva was recently in the video game Tony Hawk's American Wasteland.

References

• Skateboarder magazine (07/1978).

External links

• Tony Alva - Official web site.

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