Kevin Kinnear

This is too damn weird. I was just telling someone else on the forum about Sacred Craft honoring Yater this weekend. I wish I could be there but a really good Robert Johnson style blues player named Scott Ainslie from Vermont is playing at the Museum of Making Music for free this Sunday. I had him do a workshop at Epic last year and we really hit it off. He plays a Froggy Bottom. Just asked Kenny Sultan to be my friend on Facebook yesterday so we're hooked up. I put on a workshop for him at our other store Old Time Music when I was working at Buffalo Bros. Shot lots of photo of him and his son.

This is great! Frank Morales! I can't believe it. Tom Sims talked about you last time I saw him six months ago after surfing the Ranch with Andy Neumann. Tom has a really nice Les Paul and was trying to figure out Pro Tools. You should've seen my high-end guitar shop on State Street in Carlsbad right down the block from where I used to work at Breakout Magazine. I had an amazing collection of Goodalls, R. Taylors, Froggy Bottoms, Ehlers, a few RKS electrics that blew my mind including a Ruby Red I wish I could've kept, a hand made electric by Andy Powers, who is the best 29 year old guitar maker in the world that I know. Right here in Oceanside. andypowersinstruments.com I'm supposed to be doing a profile on Andy for The Fretboard Journal but looking for a job is the hardest job of all. I interviewed with R. Taylor a few weeks back but am still waiting to hear if they're going to recreate the sales/marketing position my friend used to have there or not. I sold so many of their guitars at Buffalo Bros, where I was general manager, that Bob Taylor gave me a Style 2 worth almost seven grand. kevinkinnear@att.net

So you grew up around Newport? Did you know they're honoring Yater at the Sacred Craft Festival in Ventura this coming weekend? Check it out. Please contact me via e-mail so I can find out who you really are. I like to keep track of important details like who rode where and when. I'd like to write the early history of snowboarding one day in the not too distant future and you're definitely part of Colorado snowboarding history and I'm on a brand new committee for the Vail Ski and Snowboard Museum with Dave Alden, Kurt Olesek, and the moving force and board member for the museum, Trent Bush. kevinkinnear@att.net

What kind of board were you riding in the surf photo?

Was there anyone else riding at Buttermilk back then?

I see you started in 1984. In Aspen, I assume. What was your first board? More importantly, that's a really cool surf shot, where was it and who took it? I've been riding for Donald Takayama since 1983 when I was editor of Breakout magazine based in Carlsbad. Used to compete before I had too many kids. Beat Donald in my first contest on his team because he starved completely in our semi. I got second to Dale Dobson in the most pathetic waves I've ever surfed, period. Donald beat me in the next one at Del Mar and I got second. It was all downhill from there. He's just about retired from shaping and just made me two new boards. Just in the nick of time.

Man, you've been around a long time. Grell developed his Hibak there as well. When did you start riding?

Oh, you were the guy with his chest on the snow. Like Cliff said on his video this morning, it doesn't matter how your carve, it's all good. I remember watching Shannon Melhuse and Chris Klug and Peter Bauer all cutting loose after a race just having fun carving down the mountain and it was amazing.

I know Jeff Grell and Chris Karol were both in Aspen before the freecarve era and doing a lot to get the resorts to allow snowboarding. I still think the carving underground is the best kept secret in snowboarding.

Great to hear from you. It was a lot more interesting when every form of snowboarding was taken seriously.

It's time for a Cliff comback, he was one of the smoothest and best carvers ever. And he's got the original Buttermilk carving videos and put on the best Expression Session events from that era. Cliff was the biggest catalyst for the freecarve movement that started about the same time I cranked up Snowboard Life and ran stories on him and the other surf carvers. What a great era when Buttermilk corduroy was virtually untouched.

Beautiful shots of some of the most classic carvers ever. I remember loaning Joey Cabell my snowboard during a race at Buttermilk in the mid-90s. I had Burton bindings that don't need tools to adjust so he could cram his ski boots into them. Joey disappeared for a couple of hours and I was wondering if he was ever coming back. That was the beginning of the Buttermilk freecarving movement as far as I know started by Joey and then boosted by all the younger surfers, notably Cliff Ahumada who cranked up Pure Carve and made the earliest videos of surf carving.