As 12th & A’s stronghold on New York City skateboarding waned, it began to rise as an epicenter for New York City skateboard rap. With artists like ASAP Rocky, Odd Future, and Krayshawn getting deals off YouTube videos, the young skaters of 12th & A drew inspiration from their D.I.Y. attitude, and set out to make a name for themselves in perhaps the only professional world more overpopulated than pro skateboarding: rap. Slicky Boy remixed white people’s favorite Ice Cube song and has been promising a mixtape all year. The Stoned Rollers took Lex Luger out of the trap and the strip clubs, and brought his trademark thump to the skate spot. And Black Dave, perhaps 12th & A rap’s greatest success story, is one-for-two with making it onto WorldStar with his videos.
It sucks to end the year off on a sad note, but today will be the last day Autumn is open for business. They still have tees, beanies, and shop decks, so run over there and grab something as a keepsake. (No Bradley “Demon Child” tee re-issue, but there is talk of a Slicky Boy update of the same tee.) The shop will be open until 7:30.
There had been rumblings of the shop closing earlier in the month, even when we celebrated their ten years in business, but frankly, “Autumn is closing” rumors have been going on for years, so no one took it seriously until actually walking in yesterday and seeing this. Dave is deciding how he wants to proceed with the shop, and is still potentially re-opening in another East Village location come springtime. There is also the possibility of turning Autumn into something else down the line (e.g. more projects like the Autumn Bowl), but everything is still very much up in the air.
Like every other great thing in this city, it was easy to take the shop for granted. Much respect goes to Dave, Paul, Grandpa, Martin, and everyone else who has worked there throughout the years. None of us can imagine how tough it is to keep open a respectable skate shop in such a high-rent neighborhood without running some sort of gimmick along with it, especially when parents buy everything online, and outer-boroughs all have their own shops. Thanks to Dave and the crew for always being friendly, helpful, and down to talk nonsense or let us post up and watch a video whenever it was too cold or too dark to skate Tompkins. Thanks for all the T.F. boxes you built, all the discounts you gave, and all the lurk sessions you endured these past ten years. We’ll miss you guys, and hope to see you back in business soon.
Until then, the AUTUMNNYC.COM shop is open. You can buy tees, hats, etc. on there while the physical shop is still in a transitional stage. They’ll be adding more things to the shop in the coming weeks.
Caviar came out on December 28, 2010. The week between Christmas and New Year’s is a dark abyss of un-productivity and not responding to e-mails, so it doesn’t really belong to either year. We’ll count it for 2011.
Phil Rodriguez didn’t ruin every skate career based on name brand handrails, or do two of the few remaining regular stance never-been-dones over a picnic table (or skate to a song from a car commercial.) No, he didn’t bring back the noseslide either. But if you’re old fashioned, and judge video parts based on how much they inspire you to go shred new spots and learn new tricks, rather than as benchmarks for the absurdly high level of progression skateboarding reached in a given month, then Phil’s part is better than pretty much everything else released in 2011.
The part manages to be distinctly New York, even without recognizable spots, and completely organic, never “trying” to be weird/different/abstract/pick a word. It somehow makes a noseslide nollie big heel look fitting alongside wallies and firecrackers. If you knew nothing about it, it’d be hard to tell whether it comes from 1997, 2007, or 2017 (the same can be said of otherQS favorites.) People might think it’s a New York bias, but this part made us want to leave the house to go skate more than any other in the past year.
Flipmode/Bronze already released a throwaway clip as a preface to a new full Phil Rodriguez part in 2012. Lurker Lou is also working on a video with him for Iron Claw, so there’s more to look forward to in the future.
If you simply crave more year-end mania, here are ten video parts that stood out in 2011. One per video. An asterisk denotes that the given part would have been better off edited to Juicy J’s enchanting love ballad, “She Dancin’ Like She Fuckin’.”
2011 ends in less that four days. Wow. Previous installments of the countdown: #25-21, #20-16, #15-11. Final installment goes online December 31.
10. Lucas Puig Re-Legitimizes the Noseslide
The northeast may be the last place on earth that does not fully buy into the ballet of flip-in-flip-outs synonymous with the modern day noseslide. We were delighted to see Lucas Puig, one of European skateboarding’s most agreeable technicians, be the one to bring back a completely glitter-less version of one. Puig’s re-induction of the noseslide into acceptable territory for line choreographers has already been felt in videos since his Transworld spotlight, most notably via Stefan Janoski in The SB Chronicles.
Note: Whether or not this trick is acceptable for those under the age of 25 (i.e. those who have not been skating long enough to remember when the noseslide was an acceptable ledge trick) is a controversial subject.
On Christmas Day, Lil’ Wayne attended the Lakers’ season opener against the Chicago Bulls with his current love interest. The striking part of this occasion was not Derrick Rose shitting on the Lakers on their home court with with 20 seconds left in the 4th (as lovely as a Christmas gift as that may have been), but Lil’ Wayne’s odd choice to wear camo shorts and snowboard boots. Yes, snowboard boots. In L.A.
Quartersnacks has been covering how Wayne’s influence permeates into skateboard culture since the beginning (see here, here, here, here, or here), and this may be the most shocking development yet. It is possible we are jumping the gun here, but this could indicate three things…
#1 (and the most likely scenario): Lil’ Wayne is over skateboarding due to a miscalculation that equated skateboards (i.e. “white boy shit”) to higher levels of disposable income. Upon realizing most skaters are broke as hell, Wayne’s marketing team re-strategized his involvement with “extreme sports” to cultivate to the higher income bracket associated with snowboard equipment and lift tickets. We look forward to hearing skate references replaced by snowboard ones in whatever this winter’s equivalent of “Look At Me Now” might be.
#2: Lil’ Wayne is taking a break from pushing his pro-skateboard agenda during our winter off-season, and merely attempting to tap into an alternate, winter-friendly snowboard market while we are left to pay less attention to skateboarding (thus more to partying and watching Netflix.)
#3: Lil’ Wayne is back on drugs. The Weather Channel reported that it was 72 degrees in L.A. on Christmas, yet he is wearing snowboard boots. That certainly sounds like a richer version of the New York crackheads who wear bubble goose jackets in July. This also means that many impressionable urban teens who purchased the hood’s beloved ‘Lo duck boots at the onset of winter will be switching to Burton boots midway into the season. No, really. You ARE going to see kids making rounds shopping on Broadway and Lafayette Street wearing snowboard boots with tight sagging pants by mid-January.
This once again proves how far ahead of the curve Chris Brown (who sported snowboard goggles in his video earlier this year) is. If the pattern we observed between Chris & Wayne as it relates to “extreme sports” holds true, Wayne should be riding a scooter by April.
redtubedude: dude is the best canidate for anti-hero
Slam Crunk: This is the worst review I have ever read. The writer probly got blasted on THC and forgot his was going on the internet. WTF is this guys...
