The FREESTYLIN’ Book

2012 Talks

What Happened to the Big Idea in Music Technology? (with Dave Allen, David Ewald, Rick Moody, Jesse von Doom, and Anthony Batt)
2pm, March 14th, Room 17A
Austin Convention Center
SXSW
Austin, TX

My Books

I was Assistant Editor on Paul D. Miller a.k.a DJ Spooky's Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture, which is available from The MIT Press and fine bookstores all over.

My first book, Follow for Now: Interviews with Friends and Heroes, is an anthology of interviews with all kinds of minds. Disinformation named it "among the most important books published in 2007," and Erik Davis called it "a crisp and substantial remix of the major memes of the last decade or so."

I have a little piece in Disinformation's first book, You Are Being Lied To, a compendium of dissent, which also includes essays by Noam Chomsky, Howard Bloom, Douglas Rushkoff, Howard Zinn, Richard Metzger, Alex Burns, and Mark Pesce, among many others.

Shutter to Think

October 15th, 2008 | 4 Comments | Category: Announcements, Videos

Earlier this year, Mark Lewman somehow conned Nike into funding the FREESTYLIN’ Magazine reunion book he’s been wanting to do since FREESTYLIN’ stopped printing pages in the early 90s. Having finally received my copy, I am glad he did.

If you came up in the 80s BMX world, or even if you missed it, this book is a must-have if you’re interested in the history of BMX. Andy Jenkins, Spike Jonze, and Lew got back together, went through the archives, contacted everyone they could find, and reassembled the magazine that we all worshipped during BMX freestyle’s original heyday. From the pros to the zines to the behind-the-scenes is all here.

FREESTYLIN’ covers…

Craig Grasso puttin’ it down.

80s zine covers [Yes, even I have a couple in there... and I got the opportunity to contribute writing some to this thing as well. Thanks, Lew!]

Here’s a video clip from the L.A premiere of the book [runtime: 4:38]:

Further Posting:

4 Comments »

Brian B said:

Props to the write up of our culture Roy. Where can I order one of these books?
BMX made me who I am today!
Team Anonymous!
BB

# November 10th, 2008 at 12:30 pm

Roy Christopher (author) said:

Thanks, you two (for some reason, I can’t get Paul’s comment to show). Sandy just gave me a BMX bike to replace the one I had to leave in Portland, and Taj just ordered me a new fixed-gear frame. It’s on like ‘fridgerators…

Miss you guys…

# November 11th, 2008 at 12:57 pm

Matt said:

Wow. Just wow. Whoever chose the live Agent Orange track knows what’s up. I still have all my freestylin mags from back then, waiting to be busted out & read by a couple of drunks. Isn’t that one of our zines in the 1st diagonal down from the NW corner?

# November 17th, 2008 at 10:01 pm

Brian B said:

roy, what up! How can I purchase this book? Email me at my email if you have any info.
Peace
BB

# April 01st, 2009 at 9:21 am

Respond / React:

I marshal the middle between Mathers and McLuhan.

I am currently an Assistant Instructor corrupting the youth at The University of Texas at Austin, where I am also pursuing a Ph.D. in Communication Studies. My main interests are figurative language use and the social impacts of technology. My main goal as a writer is to entertain and as a scientist is to find novelty. I’m more of the former than the latter and more of a fan than a critic. This site is where all of these things play out. It’s where I think aloud about all of the above.

I’m an aging BMX/skateboard 'zine kid. That’s where I learned to turn events and interviews into pages with staples. The pages and staples have long since given way to links and scrollbars, but the rest is basically the same. I still ride bikes, and I still skateboard. I do still commit quite a bit to actual pages, too. Read on »