Five Favorite Parts With Aaron Herrington

Photo by Pep Kim

The request line has been open for a while with this series, but now is maybe the first time it followed through. This installment comes from a guy who’s latest Static IV part has been re-edited a hundred times, so it’s only natural to see which parts inspired that section. (And in the rare case that you find yourself looking for more Rae Sremmurd-related content after yesterday, this entry in the Herrington re-edit contest works in some strange way, even if it doesn’t make much sense …not that there’s anything wrong with not making sense.)

Have a good weekend everyone.

411VM #19 – Industry: First Division Wheels (1996)

When I was a kid watching this, I had no clue what Love Park was. “What is this kind of skating?” Fairman’s has a three-minute shop check-out in the same video, so there’s a lot of that classic Philly footage in this issue. That style of skating is so relevant today, and everyone is still doing those sort of tricks.

I didn’t have a city. I grew up two hours south of Portland, but if you’re a kid, you try to recreate it with what you have. I’d go down to the waterfront to push around and try my best. Just waxing random ledges for no reason.

There’s no music and the raw audio from the skate noises are imprinted in my brain. There’s specifically this part where they’re slappying these big rails in Philly and young Kevin Taylor does a bluntslide and noseblunt at Love — they make these sounds that you couldn’t replicate if you tried. It’s probably filmed on a Hi-8 camera.

Ricky Oyola also polejams onto this marble block towards the end, and it’s filmed so bad, but still might’ve been one of the most epic clips in the part. They quickly threw it in there.

Jayme Fortune – Cal’s Pharmacy: The Pharmacy Video (2006)

[Part begins at 0:50]

That came out just before I graduated high school. I’d skate Department of Skateboarding, which was the indoor park in Portland that Cal’s Pharmacy owned, and always see him hanging around. Jaime and Silas were the hometown skate hero kind of guys. I’d sit in the park or shop, like fourteen-years-old, hearing this dude with purple hair and a nose piercing tell crazy stories.

No disrespect, but this part is pretty funny to me because it starts with the progression of his board graphics, and then goes to a blank when he became sponsorless. Then it started and he was doing some of the gnarliest ledge tricks being done at that time — maybe not landing them perfectly but still having fun. Being from the area, I’d know certain spots he’s skating, like the Zoo Bomb Gap and this bank in my town that he switch flips.

Pat Stiner – Static 3 (2007)

I watched this almost every day when I was living San Francisco. It was the inspiration for each day: “Look at how his arm is, or how he pushes.” There’s something really timeless about his skating and style. Those Static parts were insane for me to watch as an eighteen-year-old who looked up to east coast skateboarding: “We gotta watch Puleo and we gotta watch Pat before we go skate.”

Mikey Chin – Why Wouldn’t You? (2008)

He pretty much skates Burnside for the entire part, but does the gnarliest tricks ever on the three foot spine for the last minute. It always reminded me of home, and he was a pretty legendary dude in Oregon. He never really wanted to blow up and always kept it low key. This part is the best at showing how rad his skating was. It’s really fun and easy to watch.

It’s non-stop technical Burnside tricks — kickflip nosepick over the spine and nollie inward heel noseblunt pop over — the craziest tricks to do on transition. I feel like him and Brent Atchley skated Burnside in the most unique way. They were street skaters on transition.

Nick Jensen – Eleventh Hour (2013)

It’s only about two years old, but I’ve watched it hundreds of times already. Just the whole London vibe, with everything looking super grimy, defines street skating for me. Everything looks good and is still super technical at the same time, with a lot of well thought-out lines. London is probably one of the toughest places to skate, and he makes it look super easy.

Previously: Jerry Hsu, Brad Cromer, Brandon Westgate, Jim Greco, Jake Johnson, Scott Johnston, Josh Stewart, Eric Koston, Karl Watson, Josh Friedberg, John Cardiel, Pontus Alv, Alex Olson, Jahmal Williams