20 Years of S&M Bikes....

*20th Anniversary Shirt*

Last night was the 20th Anniversary Party for S&M Bikes. It was pretty much THE event for Southern California and I knew I had to go and I knew there was going to be a lot of friends from back home along with several friends I haven't seen in years. I knew the S&M crew had been working all week on preparations and the last few smaller gatherings they have had were fun, so this in no way could be a let down. Let the good times roll!

There were several Holy Shit moments during the night but the Number One by far were all of the Legends. *Caution heavy name dropping session is about to commence* You can imagine with the X-Games going on in town that the odds of some of those guy's stopping through would be pretty good and they did. Most importantly was Mat Hoffman himself. The Ora that guy gives off and the look on peoples faces when they see him and approach him takes you back to your child years, fucking great. Ian Morris, Steve Crandall, Moeller, Robo, Van Homan, Cameron Wood, Mike Aitken, Edwin DeLaRosa, Tom White, Brian Tunny, Taj, Gonz, John Peacy, Chase Hawk, Day Smith, I would be here all day if I wanted to type them all. Here are some more though, most of the Original POW Guys, Sheep Hills Locals, S&M Riders, Give D North County Crew, and PDX Locals. At one point I was saying that if this place was bombed, all of the amazing and rad legends of BMX would be wiped out.

Besides getting to meet, re-meet, shake hands, hug, nod and give D to tons of friends old and new I actually came for one reason, Snake Trap. Taj has a band called Snake Trap and they were flown in to perform for the party. I have wanted to see these guy's perform for some time now. That want increased when the Rock and Road Fools Video came out. They are an Instrumental band and they are great. They did seem to spice thing up for last night and actually learned a song with Lyrics to perform just for the party. It was great, and it turned into a huge crowd sing along. At one point their guitarist broke strings and thanks to the airlines had no new ones to fix his guitar with. Understandably bummed he had thrown his guitar down, at that moment the singers turn to him for a guitar solo and he just grabs the mic, shoves it in his mouth and proceeds to mouth the most rocking air guitar solo ever performed *see pic*. It was fucking great and reflects why this band is so rad. After a borrowed guitar they then started their last song. Their last song was 20 Minutes Long. It covered every range of rock music imaginable, it was great. They have a very sneaky way of playing this tune while letting everyone in the 3 man band getting their moments of rest. I could explain it, but just do your best to see them in person and you can see what I am talking about.

At one point during the evening Chris Moeller grabbed the Mic, after some introduction words from Harold "McGoo" McGruther. Chris graciously thanks everyone in the crowd for supporting S&M for the last 20 years, FIT for the last 8 and everyone for showing up. He also announced that the 2040 cans of PBR they had purchased for the party were all gone, "So if you could go pick up about another 1000, that would be great." That last announcement was a great example as to why S&M has always been the riders company and why people love them, they know how to have a good time.

I stopped by the T-Shirt Booth on my way out and picked up a 20th Anniversary Beer Koozie and T-shirt. Inside the Koozie were a bunch of old S&M stickers, that was a nice touch. Looking back on last night I was really happy I made the trip, hell it was 15 minutes away, but it will be something I can look back on for some time. I brought along my camera to capture the night for you guy's, but you get caught up in the moment and forget to use it. Here is what I did shoot.-ben

posted by pdxbmx @ 9:31 AM