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.]

The 360 Flip’s Less Attractive Sister: A Study of the 10 Greatest Varial Flips in Skate Video History

April 26th, 2013 | 5:54 am | Features & Interviews | 51 Comments

top 10 varial flips

The varial flip occupies a strange space in skateboarding. It’s pigeonholed as a little kid trick — a midway point between the kickflip and 360 flip, and sometimes even the first flip trick learned by a kid who found the shove-it motion easier to land on than a straight up kickflip. Beyond that, it has a far better looking, more shapely and marketable sister trick: The varial flip is the Khloe to the 360 flip’s Kim and Kourtney.

Even when you run an image search for “varial flip” (every result is hideous), Google is right there with “360 flip” as the sole related search. Except when you Google “360 flip,” the term “varial flip” ceases to be relatable. No need to backtrack.

google varial flips

As observers of professional skateboarding, an eternal question burns in our minds every time a pro does a varial flip: “Why wouldn’t he just do a 360 flip?” Whether you agree or not, 360 flips infallibly share the “you can never have enough of them” category with ollies, kickflips, backside tailslides, or anything else you’ve seen Keith Hufnagel do several times in each his Real parts, while the varial flip remains a lumpy oddity that sets alarms off for critics of trick selection. No company would dare introduce a new rider with a varial flip ad, and Skechers certainly had no intention of calling Khloe for their Super Bowl commercial if Kim was unavailable.

Surely the most standard of 360 flips is superior to the greatest varial flip — if such a thing were to exist. Is there even such thing as a “great” varial flip? We set out to find an answer to this question. Here are the ten instances in which the Khloe Kardashian of flip tricks looked jussst good enough to do, by ten of skateboarding’s Lamar Odoms.

An Interview With Adam Abada & Zach Baker, The Two Guys Who Skated From Boston to New York

April 17th, 2013 | 5:12 am | Features & Interviews | 5 Comments

backstreetatlas1

There are obviously more serious things going on with Boston right now, but here is a quick lighthearted distraction from that whole situation. This past August, these two guys skated from Boston to New York City — twenty-five miles at a time on hard wheels — stopping in New England towns that your average skateboarder would only know from exit signs on I-95. The short video of their journey, “Backstreet Atlas,” premieres at the Jane Hotel (113 Jane Street) at 8 P.M. on April 18 (tomorrow.)

+++++++

How did this idea come about?

A: It was initially a joke. We talked about skating from Boston to New York without ever having the intention of doing it for a long time. We were having a conversation about skating distances and one day Zach was like, “I’m gonna skate back home from Boston” one day. It wasn’t an epiphany or anything, the joke just became more of a good idea. We entertained it for so long, that we just decided to go for it.

Z: We first planned to do it two years ago. First it was supposed to be in the fall, then spring, then Adam hurt his knee, so it kept getting pushed back.

What was the process of getting it from being a joke to an actual trip?

A: First, we thought we were gonna wing it and just skate, but the more we thought about it, it made sense for us to plan to hit up cool stuff along the way. We weren’t gonna make a movie. Then figured if we were gonna do it, it’d potentially be worth sharing. We planned on shooting whatever interesting things we see along the way, but nothing specific. We did want to go to all the skate shops though.

An Interview With Brian Anderson

April 12th, 2013 | 7:00 am | Features & Interviews | 32 Comments

BA_madonna_China_Colen

All photos by Ben Colen

B.A. already had an Epicly Later’d series, so we set aside history and spoke with him about more recent happenings — namely moving to New York, filming for Pretty Sweet, bonelesses into grinds, and his next full part.

+++++++

When did you move to New York and what brought you here?

I moved to New York in October 2011. I was in San Francisco on and off for 11 or 12 years. I love it with Thrasher, Deluxe and all my friends there. But I grew up three hours from New York in Groton, Connecticut and a lot of my family still lives there. My sisters’ kids are growing up, so I wanted to be around. It’s also cool being back and having some seasons. San Francisco is beautiful, but it’s a hoody every day, all year around. In New York, you get the nice hot summer and the cold winter, and I love that.

You mentioned in an older interview that you were trying to get more into design work. Was that part of the move back east at all? Is that something you’re trying to pursue more or are you still fully focussed on skating?

It’s a bit of both. I’ve been fortunate to have a few projects since I’ve been here. One, for example, is Four Star contacted Moleskine and I went over to their offices in Manhattan, brought some art and we figured out a way to lay some stuff out. For the past year, I’ve been flying to Portland quite a bit and Nike has been showing me the ins and outs of footwear design. I’ve been focussing on making a sneaker which is going to be released in the fall, so I’ve been trying to plan for all of that.

I’m still trying to skateboard. I got to skateboard a lot in the fall with William Strobeck. I skate for CCS, but I’d like to have some stuff in the Supreme video he’s putting together. I’ve been doing a little of everything: sketches, trying to keep my legs warm with skateboarding, and designing the sneaker.

Are you focussing on any video projects aside from the Supreme video?

I might give a few more things to Bill for the Supreme video. I really want to have some stuff in the Trunk Boyz video, but the next big thing is the Nike SB Chronicles 3 video, which is about two-and-a-half years from now. They’re working on the second one now. I’m getting older — not old — I’m just stoked to have a project to work on. I want to stay pro for another four or five years, so I’m psyched to be in it.

Ayo For Yayo: A Salute to Mike York, An Icon of Low Impact Skateboarding

March 13th, 2013 | 8:28 am | Features & Interviews | 15 Comments

york

“All of my video parts, I had fun. I tried to be realistic so if you saw me, it wouldn’t be a letdown. I’ve seen video parts then seen the dude skate in real life and been like ‘Wow, he’s a video skater. He don’t really do that stuff for real.’ I wanted to be honest. This is my level. Yeah, my toe dragged. Yeah, that wasn’t high. Yeah, it was kinda sketchy. Yeah, I didn’t slide that far…But there it is. When you see me skate, I’ll probably land another one like that and you’ll be able to identify with it.” — Mike York

Certain corners of the QS office have long contended that Mike York had one of the best parts in Yeah Right! Though this may be a tall distinction in a video that ends with a 360 flip noseblunt down a handrail, our bias for low impact skateboarding is widely documented on the pages of this website. Noseslide-heavy trick repertoires are infinitely relatable; skateboarding will progress to bigger and techer feats, but for many, our ceiling is a shove-it and noseslide combination (or two 360 flips in a row.)

In sports, there is always talk of “good locker room guys” (ayo) — role players and veterans who provide personality and intangibles that build the character of a team. That’s something that isn’t as apparent with Girl/Chocolate in the Everybody-is-Good Era 2.0, at least from an outsider’s perspective. While the new riders are likely all great kids, positive, fun to have on trips, etc., a big piece of Chocolate’s appeal in the pre-E.I.G. era was how it had more blue collar skaters like Chico, Richard Mulder and York to fill roster spots around guys who were unequivocally the best skaters on earth. Nowadays, it’s only the latter, and yeah, it does get a bit exhausting watching seventy minutes of tricks one cannot even begin to comprehend.

(There is also the argument that the average skill level of a young skater today is way higher than it was ten years ago, so the skaters in videos that they find immediately relatable might just be unrecognizable to those of us accustomed to, say, the aforementioned three. Plus, please keep in mind that this is being written by someone who believes Ben Sanchez had the 3rd or 4th best part in Mouse…)


Supreme