I remember seeing an image of Luke Moore in a magzine back in the 1970s. I was floored!  He had a Dogtown tuck -knee style, long bleach-blonde hair & he represented power & speed. He was cruising a super rad frontside thruster in this HUGE kidney pool. It was located in New York.  I thought only California had pools like that! That image of him was taped to the wall beside my closet door. It stayed there for a few years as a constant reminder of what we should all aspire to be. Fluid. Stylish. Free.

I spoke with Luke recently. He lives in California now but has vivid memories of those hot summer days long, long ago.  He told me how he got started. “I was a surfer in Long Island, NY.  I surfed from  about 1971 on…  I was heavily influenced by Ricky Rasmussen. He was the 1976 U.S Surfing Champion. He had a great style & influenced me in everything. When we weren’t surfing, we skated. Checking out the skateboard magazines, we saw pictures of Jay Adams & Tony Alva. They were riding pools with style. We emulated that. When I saw that first photograph of TA doing the frontside tuck-knee air with his hat on, I started trying them a few days later. That is where my frontside air came from. Around this time, a surf & skate friend– Joey Fucs–gave me a really good pool pump. I started draining pools in the area.”

Luke told me that back in the mid to late 1970s, the wealthy would come to South Hampton for the summer, then once September came, they would return to NYC for the winter. Estates would empty…  and Luke made sure that their pools were then emptied as well. The huge white kidney that Luke skated often was a permission pool. He explains- “This pool was called  ’Amyers’. It was the old woman’s name that lived there. I knocked on her door one day & asked her if we could ride the pool in exchange for yard work & stuff. She agreed. We rode that pool for almost three years. It was mine. Only my friends & I rode it. We had a whole bunch of pools… really good ones. In West Hampton Beach, there were some great guys that inspired me back then. Damon & John Matthews, shaper Bill McGill, Mike Schermeyer & Pipeline shredder-Brendan McGill among others. “

Luke took Glen E. Friedman to ‘Amyers’  & he shot the amazing images of Luke that adorned my walls in Pennsylvania back then. Luke told me that he was influenced by Greg Weaver & Jay Adams. “It was all about style. I surfed after the parks closed in early 1980-1981. I was so beat up from skating that I took a break. I surfed & traveled. I shaped surfboards. I ended up here in California. It is amazing when I see skaters on TV now. They are very mechanical looking when they ride. The new skateboarders are not as surf-oriented as we were. It is insane what they are doing though…” Luke is a huge inspiration to many. I wanted to pay my respects to one of the east coasts most stylish & radical legends.  Luke currently resides in San Diego & shapes surf boards for Rusty & SUPERbrand surf boards. Luke wants to thank Glen E. Friedman for shooting the photographs back then. Thanks to Glen E. Friedman for the images at Amyers. Thanks to Luke Moore for the others. Skate- Ozzie