DIG ARCHIVES: BUTCHER FRAGMENTS
FRAGMENTS: JOE ‘KOWALSKI’ BUTCHER - ARTICLE REPRINTED FROM DIG 15, MARCH/APRIL 2001
Photos by Sandy Carson, Ed Docherty, Josh Root & Tedd Nelson
Just like his sponsor ‘The Condor’, ‘The Butcher’ also freed himself from high school to master himself as a bike rider. Photo by Sandy Carson
Joe ‘The Butcher’ Kowalski is a rider. A rider just like you and me. A rider who also enjoys getting kicked out of Woodward. He’s a quiet guy off his bike who doesn’t really seem to let life get the best of him. And on his bike, he is a powerful force. (There aren’t many people I know who can do tailwhips to disaster to fakie with hockey style shin guards on. But I guess his shin guards aren’t the issue here.) Butcher has left a pretty big mark on the world of technical street riding, mostly from just riding the streets of the Lehigh Valley, PA area with his friends. He can do most any trick on either side of his bike, with either foot forward on his pedals. So he’s a pretty versatile guy with a huge list of grind tricks he can claim as his own if he wanted to. Most people would be content feeble grinding their life away on the normal side with the same footing they always have. But not Butcher. He’s pushed his progression way past that, to the point where he has no ‘regular’ side or ‘regular’ pedal position. He just sees it as something different to do on his bike, oblivious to the fact that he’s light years ahead of most people bunnyhopping on a BMX bike today. And you couldn’t ask for a more healthy outlook from such an innovative rider.
Brakeless fakie tyre tap. Photos by Josh Root
“This is in a city called Allentown, PA. That’s where Luc-E lives right now. You just gotta go up into it and lean back and just put a lot of pressure on your forward foot with your pedal and just kinda pop it off and pull back out.” - Butcher
The first time I met Butcher was in the winter of ‘95 shortly after I moved to Bethlehem, PA. He gave me a ride to Shimerville skatepark in his Chevy Blazer and was blastin Ol’ Dirty Bastard at an unbearable volume all the way there. Our conversation had no hope due to the combination of his sub woofer and my accent, which he couldn’t understand. So there was a lot of ”eh’s” and “what’s” being said, but I didn’t have the nerve to ask him to turn it down even though I loathe hiphop. I had only met him...and I had to take it. On arrival at the park, Butcher wasted no time in acquainting himself with the spine and was tailwhipping it within the first few runs like the cheeky twat that he is. He was riding a Hoffman Condor, which was set up in an unorthodox fashion unlike any Condor I had seen around that time. (The seatpost was an inch tall, the stem was flipped upside down, his bars were short, his brakes were miserable to squeeze and his forks were raked. His wheels were squared and littered with tennis balls. When they spun, they resembled that buggy on the Atari game ‘Moon Patrol.’) I couldn’t believe what he was doing on that piece. But to him it didn’t matter, he made it work. And that to me was a real bike rider. Later that summer, Mat Hoffman and the Sprocket Jockeys stopped by the 1st superdome house (RIP), and Taj showed Mat a ‘Sponsor me’ video that Butcher had put together for fun. Mat was impressed by the variety of gnarly stuff that he saw. He immediately flowed Butcher a new Condor frame after witnessing him do no-handed Neil Armstrong jumps at the Tioga trails. Little did Mat know how many rims and forks he would have to flow to keep this kid going. And now, years later, he has his own signature frame on Hoffman bikes. Butcher grew up only a stones throw away from the infamous Posh trails at his dad’s house. He had the world’s best trails literally on his doorstep. And he was one of the original builders and riders there, along with Mike ‘Mach 6’ Walker, Marky Hall and the ECD crew. He also originated some of the craziest “dirt jumping tricks” way before their time. But to the kids today, trails are something you won’t see him riding much now. He still builds and rides and has the skills to charge through some of the most intimidating runs down at Posh. Brakeless, while it’s hard enough for most to get through with brakes. (By the way, Butcher’s brakes came off for function, not fashion. They always sucked, and his wheels were always buckled to fu*k!) Butcher might look like a livid bike boxer at times, but that’s because he’s so determined and knows what he’s capable of. He’ll tell his bike who’s boss and has even been known to stare a rail down on occasion before performing every trick imaginable on it! He’s not into contests and would rather ride with his bro’s. He studies skate videos religiously and plays a lot of video games (and now also stars in them, which might have something to do with his originality in street riding.) To me, Butcher is P.R.O. - Sandy Carson
Kicked table to fakie. Photo by Ed Docherty
“This is up in Allentown. Domino Banks, that’s what they’re called. It’s at a Domino’s Pizza Shop. But they kinda kick you out a lot there. It sucks. Probably a month before this picture, I think, we were there with like 8 people or something. Cops just came skidding up, screaming at us telling us we had to get off the sidewalk and everything. He pretty much just gave us this big lecture. He was all pissed off cause he was working and couldn’t see some football game or something. He swore we were selling some crack. Cops get pretty pissed. I don’t know why. It sucks. We’re just riding some bank. It’s concrete. We ain’t gonna wreck it. We don’t really session that spot too much cause of the cops or the people inside the pizza shop. That sucks cause that bank is fun.” - Butcher
On the early days....
“The first two videos I saw were Head First and Dirt Brothers. I definitely was into just dirt and street, but rode dirt all the time. It was just in the woods. It was a hangout too. Just go there, ride, hang out and chill. No one bothered you. The cops even knew we were back there and it didn’t matter.” - Butcher
Switchstance bench bunny hop (above) and regular (below). Photos by Ed Docherty
SIDENOTE: Team Sano’s David Frame filmed butcher bunnyhopping over this bench about 20 times and never noticed it was switch. When it was pointed out to him later he said ”achh christ, if that’s bmx then I’m oot!”
“I also skate too. I watch their videos and they’re doing a lot of switch stuff, like switch stance. I don’t know..... It just came to my head one day, like what it’s like to do bunnyhops with the pedals opposite. I tried it out and it was pretty hard so I kept trying it and learned it. I like doing it with all kinds of tricks now like grinds and gaps and stuff. It’s just something different. I just think in my head, like Mel Cody told me, “Why can’t you bunnyhop as high as with your regular foot?” I just try to keep that in my head and go as high as I can” - Butcher
Random quote - “Butch just hucks himself and tries to land back on both wheels” - Luc-e
Darth fader guns the baseball bat drive through before a liberty high school street session. Photo by Sandy Carson
On the nickname Butcher…
“It dates back from my early days of riding. I kinda had long hair in the back, maybe one of those mullet things and looked like Rich Bartlett or something. I’d do sidehacks and stuff. And there was a picture of him in the magazine doing those. This dude Buttman, Greg Spiker, started calling me that. Butcher, back in the day. That one just kinda stuck. I always had different names. No one ever knew my name. I was just kinda this shady little kid that rolled into the trails, hung out and rode. But that name Butcher, just stuck.” - Butcher
Death drop rail at Liberty High. Photo by Sandy Carson
“I don’t know. We were just chillin’ at this one high school (Liberty) we ride at in Bethlehem with a bunch of ledges and stuff. Just had a marker on me, decided to throw up a little tag. I like graffiti art and stuff. I like lookin at it. I’m not too good at it but I like to throw up a little tag every now and then.” - Butcher
Organic Ninja plant. Photo by Tedd Nelson
“This day was cool. Me and Luc-E just went out and took some photos. Luc-E was doing some tailwhip footplants that day and some roughriders rolled on through and were yelling at us. They were all stoked. I remember we saw some kids hanging out on top of a roof just chilling. We thought they were gonna fall of cause it was pretty steep. That footplant is definitely old school influence right there from Vic Murphy or Eddie Roman. The wall’s in Allentown. It’s kinda like a little ghetto part. It gets pretty shady around there. This one corner across from the parking lot, there’s a lot of drug deals going down and drive by shootings. It gets a little shady over there.” - Butcher
Butcher on the cover of DIG issue 15.