Video Review: Flow Trash

April 30th, 2011 | 10:17 am | Reviews | 7 Comments

(Better late than never)

The release of Welcome to M.I.A. this past winter was rude and sadistic. As the majority of the country was pummeled with snowstorms, the main anticipated video for that period happened to be from a region blessed with endless 85-degree days, and hordes of drunk girls on vacation from state colleges in New Jersey. Welcome to M.I.A. was hard to watch, as your attention would divert to various travel sites, looking for airfare to any place where the temperature is constantly above 70 degrees. Those unwilling to leave behind life’s responsibilities in exchange for perfect skate weather were able to pick up Flow Trash, a video filmed in Minnesota, some 1800 miles to the north of Miami. There, they skate rails into snow, have a far worse winter than the northeast, and could relate to sitting home watching skate videos with three sweaters on, instead of rejoicing in the glory of life near the equator, amidst multi-colored strobe lights and Tiesto concerts. Flow Trash comforted us this past winter — “Hey, we know it’s tough, we got it bad too” — it didn’t laugh at our unfortunate state of affairs, like M.I.A’s offering did.

On the video’s back cover, being on “flow” is described as “toiling away for little official recognition, not officially on though technically sponsored, bottom of the ladder, skating for sticker packs.” As Minneapolis does not have a massive bar-backing, party promotions, or art economy, the toil of a flow “career” must be intense, given the lack of supplementary work, which is far more available in places like New York, Miami, and Los Angeles.

Reporting Live From the Tompkins Bench

April 27th, 2011 | 3:55 pm | Daily News | 14 Comments

Who knew E.J. and Jason Dill were in a band together?

While Quartersnacks company policy dictates Flip/iPhone cam clips to be relegated to our weekly “Monday Links” installment (unless they are produced in-house), our editors decided to make an exception to the rule after a two-hour meeting. Not because the respective clip has behind-the-scenes footage of the secret Pappalardo and Gino part currently being filmed on a Seaport replica located on a man-made island just off the coast of Long Island, but for more journalistic and informative reasons.

The latest installment of the “Diamond Days” series serves as a news report on what major events have occured in New York skateboarding throughout the first month of spring. Any absentees would be well-advised to watch it, so they could be brought up to speed. It covers everything from:

- The opening of the season on three-up-three-down, the westside super-spot that is vastly superior to the entire Tribeca Park.

- Slicky Boy’s loss to the T.F. box after a grueling battle with a heelflip tailslide, and thus his inability to claim the proposed $38 reward.

- The rapid growth in marketshare of Dylan Reider’s shoe within the New York region, well beyond Paulgar. (Remember that prediction about shoe companies making more scene-friendly shoes in 2011? Surprise, surprise.)

- The new, *permanent* steel quarterpipe and ledge over cobblestones at 12th & A. (Thanks to California Skateparks for providing the concrete.)

- E.J’s new hair color.

- Billy’s transformation of “Wu-Tang!” into an adlib, used with a tourettes-like frequency, not unlike how Lil’ B and Odd Future devotees blurt out “Swag!” every three seconds.

The one fault of this throwaway-clip-turned-news-report is the lack of music in E.J’s section. While many prominent sections receive their own soundtrack, he was left with mere skate noises. Perhaps a hit song from his (and possibly Jason Dill’s) former band, No Doubt?

There’s Always Next Year

April 25th, 2011 | 9:27 am | Daily News | 15 Comments

We kept wishing 1999 would show up. 2010-2011 was a good building block of a season. The future doesn’t look as dim as we’ve grown to expect it.

Let’s get the most important news out of the way: Soulja Boy is set to remake Juice, the 1992 film starring Tupac and Omar Epps. Somewhere deep in his subconscious, Giglotti’s hip-hop side is screaming blasphemy. Cam’ron is said to have a role in the ambitious remake, but his track record with completing motion pictures is somewhat iffy. In other words, what happened to Cousin Bang?

Ladies and gentlemen, here is Theodore Barrow skating Stoner Park.

Haven’t skated Jersey City in quite some time, so perhaps this is a bit late, but there’s a new medium-sized gap right next to that building on Second Street and the Hudson River with all the [knobbed] step-up ledges.

You have no doubt seen Ty Evans’ video with a pair of twelve-year-old twins being better at skateboarding than the entire tri-state area if it were combined into one person, but something about it screams for a “Grove Street Party” re-edit. Perhaps even some Pastor Troy.

A friend is casting for a full-length film he is doing, which happens to require people who can actually skateboard for their roles. Go here for more info on the film, and a breakdown of the available roles. It’s the sort of thing that probably requires acting abilities, unlike most skateboarder “castings” in New York. Basically, not like that “All the girls standing in line for the bathroom” video shoot, when they told you to “dress like a skater…wear a flannel,” and it ended early because someone got stabbed.

Not sure who put this together, but it’s a straight-foward 23 minutes of (mostly) New York skating, with no annoying songs, and many Flipmode favorites. Should be enough to get you through the early part of the week.

Here’s the Mandible Claw New York section / intro from the crew’s new video. If people start treating that ledge through the keyhole at Saint Vincent’s as an actual spot, we will reach a new, even more absurd height in terms of “what’s considered a ‘spot’” in New York.

Never really been into Skate Talk, but here’s a compilation of the Antwuan Dixon, “fresh out of jail” episode. Subject matter and slang editorials make it interesting.

Quote of the Week: “That dude’s rat tail is really making me want to party.” — T-Bird

+++ Follow Quartersnacks on Twitter
+++ Become a Fan of Quartersnacks on Facebook

Anyone planning a trip to Slovenia sometime soon?

April 24th, 2011 | 8:09 pm | Spot Updates | No Comments

The sports hall in Podčetrtek, Slovenia, looks like a pretty fun spot.

Modern architects have a fascination for building inclines that don’t serve any purpose aside from skateboarding. Is there some unprecedented rise in skateboarders going to architecture school? Because there isn’t much of an explanation as to why this place has to be draped with banks on all sides. Or maybe they just caught onto the whole inclines = skateboarders thing, and get a kick out of watching people get upset / pretend to get upset (See: Cooper Union) as soon as the entire surface gets cut up with black wheels marks. There has probably been at least one conference call throughout history between a client and an architecture firm that went along the lines of “The building you designed for us is covered with skateboarders every hour of the day, what the hell?”

We need to start attacking the system from the inside, bro! Major in architecture for a brighter future. Build skate-stopper-stoppers in every object you make.

Enjoi went to Kazakhstan, so Slovenia isn’t much of a stretch (although it’s kind of wild that this spot is said to be in a relatively small town.) Someone’s going there in the next year.

[Spotted via Skate and Annoy] Filing it under “Spot Updates,” just because.

The Time They Got It Right…

April 21st, 2011 | 4:33 pm | Spot Updates | 19 Comments

Why exactly skatepark designers, when put to task of maximizing on a space in New York City, have opted for throwing in everything throughout a park minus a regular ledge is anyone’s guess. Tribeca, Maloof, and Astoria barely have anything you could call a regular ledge, yet somehow, ledges would be on the top of the list if you ask someone what sort of spot they’d like to have more of in New York. Lenox is our best ledge spot, and five thousand people will come to the T.F. when there’s a new box. (But then again, many of us go to the T.F. for the culture, so the box is hardly an incentive.) By some miracle, McCarren got it right, and appropriately enough, the park is so awful that you could actually consider it to be a legitimate street spot.

The people at Open Road, California Skateparks, Friends of Douglass Greene Park, and the Tony Hawk Foundation were smart enough to figure out that the best thing for New York, a place predominantly filled with ledge skaters, a place where twenty people would line up to skate a concrete island into traffic in the back of Union Square, would be to put three ledge-like obstacles in a basketball court, as opposed to spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to build a wedge ramp to a ledge with a Euro gap three feet after it. Now at Douglass Greene Park on 3rd Avenue and Degraw Street in (or around?) Park Slope, they have a bench with one curved side and another straight side, a low manual pad, and an up-and-down sort of triangle ledge, all on familiar basketball court ground. Take the D, N or R to Union Street, skate north for two blocks, and make a left on Degraw.

Billy claims that the Parks Department still has all the original marble from Red Benches, BAM, etc. in storage. It’d definitely be a step in the right direction if they recycled it into a similar type of project instead of building six other skateparks that get crowded as soon as school gets out.

[Spotted via NY Skateboarding]

 
All content property of Quartersnacks.com
2005-2011. New York, NY.
Contact / RSS / Advertise