Video Review: Fuck Yinz – Volume 2

October 28th, 2011 | 9:41 am | Reviews | 9 Comments

A few weeks back, the crew at One Up Skateshop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania sent over Fuck Yinz Volume 2, their 30-minute promo video from earlier this year. The DVD-R came wrapped in a size small digi-camo tank top with their logo on it. The G-Man, who once received a medium tee from Vinny Raffa only to respond with “You don’t have a 2X?” lamented it was not a few sizes larger.

One Up is the only skate shop in Pittsburgh, and it is run by a friendly, tight knit crew, that has always been accommodating with sharing spots and skating around with us whenever we would make the six-hour drive out there. It’s the sort of shop that every city should have. Their video has parts from several names that have began receiving more coverage in recent history (Kyle Nicholson, Zach Funk, Austin Kanfoush, Nick Panza), plus a whole bunch of lesser-known dudes who still shred just as hard (Dan Peindl, Grem Trails, Rob Dumas, Bill Cunningham, Justin Funk, and others.)

Book Review: On a Day With No Waves – A Chronicle of Skateboarding by Raphaël Zarka

August 17th, 2011 | 12:05 pm | Reviews | 9 Comments

If the act of skateboarding is a universal language, then does a skateboarder need to know how to speak, let alone decipher the meaning of text? – Inquisitive Gentleman

I now leave to the magazines, to the growing number of documentaries, blogs and the internet in general, the task of completing and filling out the gaps in this project. – Raphaël Zarka

Review by Galen Dekemper

The methods of product presentation and transmission are important in a multimedia age. In 2011 one can easily curate a history of skateboarding through video clips. The writer realizes that these video relics show skateboarding to be an act unparalleled in self-containment and visual definition. Filmed video parts are mimicry far more exact than what the writer can endeavor to shape with his words. Yet as the endless amount of footage expands to the point where there is more skateboarding online than pornography, the oeuvre grows nearly as difficult to navigate as the three levels of Central Park Hubba. Still one feels compelled to attempt success in the face of likely failure. Spirited conversation and literacy prove helpful as a way of determining what’s really good. One learns to trust one’s suppliers.

To examine skateboard literature into and beyond the industry canon of magazine writing is an autodidact’s game. Superstars have penned their life tales. Someone in Texas has channeled Justin Pierce’s ghost. The occasional coffee table edition may include a worthwhile introduction. To be aware of Skateboarding, Space and the City, by Iain Borden, shows that one has reached a plateau of skateboard reading. Due to the rarity of books in comparison to other skateboard media, the appearance of a new skateboarding book merits attention. With On a Day With No Waves: A Chronicle of Skateboarding, Mr. Zarka has chosen to document skateboarding’s history in a 230 year timeline.

There is pleasure to be found in reading Zarka’s chronicle in its entirety, as history does exist and ideas emerge through connections in linear time. In George Orwell’s 1984, a misled character claims that books are good to the extent that they reinforce thoughts the reader already believed. This chronology refutes such a claim, as the book is as its best when it prompts one to look beyond its pages, to perform research of one’s own on a subject of interest, much in the way a good skate video sends one outside, firecrackering off the curb, ready to do some tricks of one’s own.

Video Review: Not Another Transworld Video

June 8th, 2011 | 12:31 pm | Reviews | 14 Comments

The past seven or eight years of Transworld DVDs seem like a blur, but specific memories of a Peter Smolik comeback, Dylan Reider’s first major impossible tailgrab, and Richie Jackson’s striped bell bottoms left lasting impressions. The videos have always been vehicles to hype up the latest to-be / just-recently-turned pro, with one or two classic parts that will continue on with a prolonged shelf life. Transworld got worried about any potential redundancies in their video formula, and self-referentially named their latest Not Another Transworld Video. Maybe it is not another Transworld video because it is filmed (mostly? all?) in HD (this website isn’t an expert on formats by any means), with the assistance of some footage that looks like it came from a GoPro.

Although Transworld is a year late for the Waka Flocka train, the recently-pro Theotis Beasley skates to “Hard in the Paint” for the video’s opener, and it works wonderfully. The part is a bit more lighthearted than your typical Transworld section, in a way that makes it feel like the best part you’ve seen in a homie video. They chop up the skating with candid shots of iPod diddy bop sessions, Facebook browsing, and best of all, him standing in a pool wearing a full suit and tie. The skating switches between tech manual and ledge tricks, large bigspin heelflips, flip-in tricks down hubba ledges, and the patented double backside flips, double back heels, and even double half-cab flips. After this part, it may round him out to be the most versatile dude on Baker. (Speaking of Baker, they need to put Forrest Edwards on already. Nevermind.)

Consumption and Production: A Manifesto for Skateboarding Effectively Past the Legal Drinking Age

May 13th, 2011 | 2:41 pm | Reviews | 7 Comments

Quite by possibly the longest skateboard video review ever written.

By Galen Dekemper

In Boston, Shape Deuce rings through the tea-scented air much in the way “Swag,” “Waka,” “Shake Junt,” and “Wu-Tang” have been ad-libs of certain times and places. As ad libs are wont to do, Shape Deuce invokes the good life, with its flip to grinds, vomiting in the company of friends, confrontations with authority, camouflage, street beer, and wet, bare breasts. This potent stew brings to mind Miles Marquez’s flask based younger lifestyle. Before the Doors finish their intro song, the Shape Deuce boys further engage in skating into and through bodies of water, popping confetti and skating New York spots near and far from the Fung Wah bus stop that drops them off at the base of the Manhattan Bridge. The introduction ends with Dave Bachinsky doing a line at a spot from PJ Ladd’s Wonderful Horrible Life, which may as well be a quality comparison.

As with many independent videos, there is the question of initial name recognition. The Shape Deuce crew features Manny Santiago, known for complicated handrail tricks in baggy clothing, the Krooked affiliate Brad Cromer who has done difficult tricks over the bank to bank in Greenpoint, and Dave Bachinsky, who may have a different shine in a homie video than a corporate production since, despite his barrage of bangers and sponsors, has not embraced superstar status in the way of a Greg Lutzka and is the first person to leave Adidas sponsorship for Vox Footwear. The shops that sponsor Shape Deuce’s habits are Eastern Boarder, the Massachusetts skate shop collective and Identity, which has taken Shape Deuce under its west coast wing as they make names for themselves and vie with the City People franchise for a spot atop the post-P.J. Ladd Boston scene. Blues rock replaces Brit-Pop, and as reminders of Coliseum’s presence wither, lampposts, bar bathrooms and ledges feature fresh Shape Deuce stickers.

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.