Grit & Grind

May 20th, 2013 | 5:00 am | Daily News | 1 Comment

d wade d reider

Apparently, D. Wade is a D. Reider fan. He’s not the only one.

Chrome Ball’s 900th post is dedicated to the Brooklyn Banks — “A testament to the resourcefulness of skateboarders when they can just be left the fuck alone.” In case you weren’t going on the site several years ago, we posted a series of interviews about the Banks in 2010, after the spot got completely shut down for bridge repairs.

Nick vonWerssowetz’s new video, CCTV, is great. Mostly filmed in New York, save a part in San Francisco. Great spot selection, presentation, and a soundtrack for all those yet to embrace Future / the future. Features Shawn Powers, Adrian Vega, and others. The DVD is for sale online and at Labor Skateshop for $10.

Check out Hopps Skateboards’ spring/summer 2013 collection on their new website.

Taji interviewed Galen over on the Vice site about his latest arthouse triumph, Mmm.

Were things better when Habitat’s logo was busier?

Mandatory reportage of Corey Rubin and Loose Trucks Max sightings: A sixteen-minute bro cam clip of the Brooklyn homies. All they wanna do is have some fun.

Zered and Eli shred around New England and go lobster fishing in the new Converse commercial.

Notable New York-based web parts: Pat Galloway for Michigan’s Plus Skateshop and Jordan Trahan in WeSC’s “Boroughs to Bayous.”

P. Rod v.s. the Bayside Ten in Queens, 2008.

ICYMI: The second chapter in a tumultuous month for sponsor resignations.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Tayshaun Prince dunks on three Thunder players at once. You know what’s weird? Prince has been in the conference finals seven times in his career; Kobe and Duncan have eight appearances.

Quote of the Week:

riri vs jr

— Badgalriri responds to a devout J.R. Smith fan. Unfortunately, she was right.

Thanks to everyone who linked up the Forrest Edwards edit. Let’s go Grizzlies.

Forrest Edwards: The $10 Meals Re-Edit

May 17th, 2013 | 9:55 am | Video Re-Edits | 35 Comments

Better nine months late than never, right?

Below is a tribute to one of the few true personalities in modern, Everyone-Is-Good 2.0 skateboarding. Forrest is such a character that he singlehandedly rendered the One in a Million formula obsolete, as evidenced by the 2012 follow-up overextending itself in trying to compensate for his absence. If you have a skate company, you should probably turn this guy AM, mail him a check, and send him on a few trips. Here’s to Forrest making it out the struggle.

The footage in the edit is sourced from the Thrasher “Unhinged” part, the Crooks 2011 clip, Slap‘s “Dirty 30″ segment, and the Wild Power video. You already know where the soundbytes are from. No varials included, which as you may know, is “the gayest go-to trick.”

Have a good weekend.

Alternate YouTube Link

Synths, Irony & Robots: A Chronicle of Daft Punk Music Supervision in Skate Videos

May 15th, 2013 | 5:21 am | Features & Interviews | 17 Comments

daft punk griptape

Image via Street Piracy

Every skate site was obligated to have a “Dill & AVE Off Alien”-post, and every website on the entire internet is required to mention the new Daft Punk album. Combined with the release of Kendrick Lamar’s debut last fall and next month’s Kanye album, we are in an eight-month rut of opinion onslaught from an unholy trio of annoying fanbases.

…but even skateboarders are talking about Daft Punk! Skaters previously only acknowledged electronic music when posting “wtf iz with dis gay song?” comments on video parts that dared to use it. And now they’re interested in dance music? Instead of giving an opinion about Random Access Memories like everyone else on the internet, here’s an abridged history of how Daft Punk, and in turn, electronic music as a whole, achieved acceptance in skate videos.

olson daft punk

[Much like how Europeans are more sexually liberated than Americans, they also have a deeper history of accepting electronic music in their skate videos. So, please note that this is a North American timeline. Accounting for European usage of electronic music adds another dimension entirely. Frozen in Carbonite wrote about French house, French Fred, etc. back in 2011, so read that for a more worldly take.]

Probably Up In Follies With Jeezy & Cam Newton

May 13th, 2013 | 5:05 am | Daily News | 24 Comments

riri qs

♬ Shine bright like a Fudge Round ♬

We’ve been fans of Christian Willis’ skating for a while now. After what seems like a bit of a hiatus, he’s back taller and with a sick new video part. Why a legitimate company hasn’t given this kid a chance is absurd. Him and Forrest Edwards should be getting checks for skating.

As you may already know, London’s Southbank is facing an uncertain future. There’s a new six-minute montage paying tribute to the spot, featuring every London-based skater you can think of. Huck wrote a somewhat level-headed appraisal of the situation, which doesn’t seem likely to favor preservation of the spot as it stands. But it’s a bit stupid to say “The British skate media is secretly tired of Southbank’s status as the UK’s EMB,” considering skate spots with multi-decade spanning histories are becoming increasingly rare with each passing year.

The inaugural entry to 2013′s “Summer Trip to New York” cycle?! Part 1, Part 2.

AM New York has a new clip with Ariel Perl shredding around Boston and New York.

Ripped Laces contends that Austyn Gillette will inevitably skate for Converse.

Zered Bassett already rides for Converse and has some photos with a new interview about a recent Cons Hawaii trip over on the Transworld site.

The new LurkNYC video, CCTV, is premiering at 44 Troutman Street in Brooklyn this Saturday, May 18. J train to Myrtle-Broadway. 10 P.M. Flyer here, teaser here.

Still mad street.

There’s another part from Mama’s Boys on YouTube now.

An interview with the Mira Conyo crew about skateboarding in Washington Heights.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Either Iman Thug’s Game 2 putback or Nate Robinson’s block on Lebron.

Quote of the Week:

rogers quote of the week

Didn’t Mark Suciu film more parts last year than Rogers did in his entire career?

Cam rapped over the Golden Girls theme and the new Waka mixtape is pretty good because it doesn’t sound like every other tape he released in the past three years.

The Week in Dill & AVE Rumors

May 10th, 2013 | 5:21 am | Daily News | 27 Comments

the week in dill and ave rumors

It’s ironic that skaters — despite typically swearing against “organized” sports and all their constraints — so openly embrace free agency speculation. Skaters all think they’re artists and shit, but really, are no better than the dude on some message board who knew a guy that knew a guy who swore Lebron was coming to the Knicks in 2010. And that’s what this has turned into: skateboarding’s version of summer 2010 NBA free agency, except add a few years and subtract the fact that Chris Bosh couldn’t Instagram screenshots of texts he got from ‘Bron and Wade back then. If you let the internet tell it, every Alien rider, half the Habitat roster and Alex Olson’s contracts all expire this summer.

Since skaters are mad #core, skateboarding does not benefit from organized sport conveniences, which enable something like a Slap trade machine to calculate data based on existing contracts. We’re left with two guys quitting their longtime team, and a sloshy downpour of rumors regarding semi-related skaters. You don’t know that Dylan Reider is, say hypothetically a free agent in 2014. You just assume he’s leaving because you know a guy who knows a guy and it “makes total sense.” It’d be so much better if teams could sign-and-trade him for Alex Olson and a second round draft pick. Fantasy skateboarding teams!

Rumors, especially at a time like this, can be tough to navigate. This is why we sent our army of statistician interns mulling through the Slap message board to compile a convenient graph of all current speculation, organized by the extent to which it has been speculated on. Pie chart percentages are in no way correlated to actual likelihood. These range from distinct possibilities to obvious trolling (e.g. three British companies somehow found their way into the rumor mill, so…) Feel free to start some more rumors in the comments.

rumorz


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