“‘Cause you know I’m doing 300,000 every week! Unless they take the shit down, then I gotta throw it back up. Start me back at the beginning, but I’m still killin’ ‘em.“

Skateboarding is finally getting its head on straight and taking some welcome cues from the rap music media world. As we enter an age where everyone is good, and essentially spending their adolescence tailoring their skills in well-built skate plazas, personality-building supplementary materials may be needed to help distinguish Cory Kennedy from a kid that skates like Cory Kennedy. And this means more than just a Crailtap “Fives” where Mike Carroll’s status as the world’s greatest skateboarder is reaffirmed. Anyone can rap about coke, fat asses, and Louis Vuitton, much like anyone (well, anyone who’s good) can nollie flip a fourteen-stair nowadays or switch crook a gnarly rail, but it will be the behind the scenes videos that help us decide where our allegiances with various athletes stand. Just as long as no one gets shot.

Yums, a shoe brand spearheaded by Soulja Boi, one of the greatest internet marketers in the history of the medium (I say this with utmost sincerity — you don’t have to like him, but if you disagree, then you’re wrong, simply put) took a saavy WorldStar-esque spin on the world of skate gossip in relation to the Manny Mania fight that seems to have eclipsed every other New York related skate event this past summer. We can only hope that this is the beginning of an endlessly entertaining path of Kat Stacks videos victimizing Alex Olson, or maybe a skateboard equivalent of the “oh you mad ’cause I’m stylin’ on you” classic.

(Stating this for no reason: The black suede Stevie Reebok is one of the most underrated skate shoes ever, if you have some pairs buried under your house because they were selling at stores for $30 at one point, e-mail me.)

Spotted via 48 Blocks. The fakie heel nosegrind at the end of the Pulaski line is pretty sick.

Given that the environment surrounding skateboard videos in 2010 typically shoots through a one-month cycle, in which the routine of them being premiered at some bar, uploaded to YouTube, released on DVD, deleted off YouTube, re-uploaded onto some sketchy eastern European video sharing site predominantly used for personality gauges of mailorder brides, and finishing their lifespan with a three page topic on Slap that usually dies out around the time some token asshole says “It’s kind of boring, I don’t get why everyone likes it so much,” it’s hard to maintain a longstanding presence, or even find something you may have missed from years before. The phenomenon is particularly pertinent to local videos, which went from their nineties/early-2000s existence of being passed around their respective regions on VHS dubs, to the complete opposite end of the spectrum, where every single twelve-year-old has a HD camera and desperately tries to make the defining document of their generation, right before the majority of their friends find out about cocaine and start filling out their art school applications.

Everyone knows that Mixtape is the best New York video (of the nineties, because “New York” videos don’t really exist anymore in the same way, unless you’re Flipmode.) Maybe if you’re more concerned with dat real hip-hop than with skateboarding, or are a Japanese person who doesn’t know who Eric Koston is, it’s your favorite video of all time. Choosing such a distinction as a clear-cut statement is more difficult for the 2000s, given that there are probably, like, a hundred New York skate videos that have been forgotten by this point. But unless you have personal allegiances, a safe top three would be Vicious Cycle, Flipmode 4, and Lurkers 2, probably the best time-capsule of what it was like to actually skate in New York during 2004, with the drives to Staten Island to pretend like you’re in California for a few hours, and the shift away from skating the Financial District with the recent loss of the little Banks.

Lurkers 2 has been uploaded to Vimeo for about two months now, and is teetering around one hundred views, which is only fuel to the suspicion that it is criminally under seen outside the immediate circle of Manhattan and North Brooklyn inhabiting skateboarders. Plus, it’s a good way to cap off August. The quality looks decent, not what you’d expect from the age of faux-HD Vimeo uploads, but you’ll live. Features full parts from Dharam Khalsa, Ted Barrow, Jason Dill, Ian Reid, Lurker Lou, and Charles Lamb. Has a riveting opener by Aaron Szott, and cameos from Quartersnacks team members, Matthew Mooney, Ty Lyons, and Pryce Holmes.

A few relevant links: Quartersnacks’ 2006 review of the video, and links to some alternate edits from the video.

Flying to a far off land for a few days. Sitting on a few racks of footage on metal grates in SoHo as well. You know how the end of summer clips go. We blew it last year, because there was none. Everyone was busy wasting money on the westside. You know where. But as the cliché goes this year, it’s just “not the same in 2010.” Our productivity level would happen to agree. (That’s a good thing.)

If the people from Jersey Shore are telling the truth, the summer ends on Labor Day weekend. You can’t wear white sneakers or boat shoes anymore. End of Summer clip dropping Labor Day weekend. Is this a trailer for the new clip? No. It’s just a quick reminder that we still suck. Except the line on the rocks, that’s actually pretty sick, you just need to go there to kind of understand it. It doesn’t make much sense otherwise.

Although already a trending topic, has there even been a song for summer 2010? “B.M.F.” not counting because Ross sucks.

Features Switch Michael Strobert, Alexander Mosley, Josh Velez, Ty Lyons, Geo Moya, Matthew Mooney, Torey Goodall.

Become a QS fan on Facebook, follow on Twitter, or don’t do anything and be content with it.

Two “End of Summer” selections embedded after the jump.

It’s always a pleasure to see the old fashioned dinosaur and its DV tapes get some shine in the ever increasing landscape of iPhone cams and HD cameras, all pushing at opposite ends of the spectrum simultaneously. Rob Harris threw together an assorted clip of dinosaur-filmed throwaways involving handrails, Bollywood themes, loading docks, and beards. Yes, beards. There are a lot of beards.

Yaje had the best part.

This past Monday, Bryan Herman, some asphalt, and a couple picnic tables reminded everyone of how fun schoolyards looked in the nineties, before eleven-minute video parts and people not named Daewon made this particular sub-genre of skateboarding synonymous with tedium. What exactly possessed the people responsible for editing Stay Gold to choose a song that kind of sounds like some distant relative of muffled instrumental hip-hop (“It’s a throwback to da golden age, yo!”) to go along with it is anyone’s guess. While watching this video, a fun game to play is trying to fit any of the songs used throughout its soundtrack into a particular genre of music and see how close you get. If you do happen to find an applicable genre, then try to picture the people that actually load up this stuff onto their iPod or car. I basically feel no guilt whatsoever for editing Daniel Lebron or Ben Nazario footage to Gucci Mane anymore, because I have physical, living evidence of people who actually do listen to Brick Squad. “Luh Dem Gun Sounds” has 4.2 million views right now. I have never met anyone who listens to the stuff they put in this video, and contrary to popular belief, I do know a lot of snobby white people with life-long devotions to all sorts of music not featured on Dirty Glove Bastard. Has the always troublesome relationship between music rights and skateboarding videos really gotten this bad? (If it has, it might be unfair to include music choice and its appropriateness as a critique for skate videos. Plus, since most skate videos are viewed on YouTube these days, simply turning the volume off and letting iTunes rock is another solution. That’s what I suspect most people do when they watch Quartersnacks clips.)

Everyone killed it, and the list you expect to appear on any summation of this video is obvious. There’s just a certain intangibility that comes with describing certain parts as being “less interesting” than others. It has nothing to do with the spots of choice, because this video makes an effort to portray Southern California as one endless parking lot, and it becomes apparent which individuals are better equipped with the navigational tactics to mediate throughout the given forest of parking spaces than others. Nor does it really have much to do with the types of spots, because handrail and gap skating is no less subject to the varying degrees of interesting-ness than ledge or “abstract spot” skating. Some people make you care, other’s don’t. Arguing about a skate part being boring, when it is clear that the person up for discussion is insanely talented, is like debating whether Lil’ Wayne is a good rapper — the number of cases for him being a genius or a mumbling retard are equally distributed on both sides of the scale — it is just a matter of which particular ramblings you want to emphasize to build your case. Non-legacy video parts are either “Fly like an ostrich” or “Hustler Muzik,” it can really go either way depending on who’s watching it.

The one overtly negative thing to be said (neglecting the fact that discussing videos these days gets written off as “hating” or “talking shit” if it’s anything short of “best video ever” or “every part is good”) is the immense levels of brutal falls in this video. Hsu’s part is the obvious example, but there are just so many falls your eyes have to endure, and they all make you not want to skateboard ever again, and that’s the antithesis of what Stay Gold strives to do in many of its remaining portions. No one is trying to watch any harm be done to anyone’s ankle. They should’ve sent those in to re-boot “Scarred” and got back a fat Viacom check to cover production costs instead. There’s enough for two or three seasons.

Beyond the falls, the video-maker’s temptation to channel prominent Swedish masters of the cinema and maintain a close-up on Spanky’s face for twenty seconds, and the six-minute intro that nobody will ever watch after the premiere, the video is tightly edited, with minimal-to-no slow motion and “epicness” that thankfully seems to be seeping out of the routine for long-awaited video projects. Most people have great parts, maybe all of them do. It’s your call as to how much you choose to get out of them. We all desperately await the Memphis-infused Beagle Oneism re-edit of Herman’s schoolyard section.

Reynolds is from the east coast. But he’s from the same state as DJ Khaled, so maybe the two cancel each other out.

The Stay Gold DVD drops on September 1, 2010.

And just because, let’s watch the best little kid skate part of the 2000s from Emerica’s last video.

Every Tuesday and Friday, the Quartersnacks Board of Trustees has a meeting around a fold-out, linoleum-topped table weighed down by New York phonebooks from 1992 on the 18th floor of the Standard Hotel. In between eating ice cream sandwiches, the events of the week are discussed: how our visitor count and site ranking is doing, how we can improve search engine optimization, the latest obscure skate spots, who made out with who at password night, what everyone is wearing to Avenue tonight, Twitter trending topics, how to expand into emerging markets, and the like. In the past week, it has been brought to our attention via word-of-mouth, site comments, and text message communication, that our brand image is becoming less and less oriented with embittered New Yorkers than can do good frontside shove-its. As we seem to be losing our stronghold on the demographic that has been so loyal to us for all these years, an outside consultant suggested that we employ some serious damage control, and come up with “some mad authentic shit, yo.”

As we plowed through the contacts in our phones, discussing potential candidates for this job, we came upon one of our most promising employees in Quartersnacks’ (un)vast network of content generators, Michael Gigliotti. What he came up with after the adjournment of our meeting a mere two hours ago is embedded below.

Do you read the comments? You should. They reveal a lot of pertinent details: “This site has really turned into a west coast site that attempts to take place on the east coast.” A west coast site taking place on the east coast that constantly references southern rap music. Where does the midwest figure in?

Youness Amrani (it’s not ARMANI, for all you dyslexic guidos) deservedly won the AM Manny Mania competition this past Saturday after killing it on the streets for a week-and-a-half. There are some clips of him online, but only from skateparks. He claims there are barely any street spots in Belgium, so maybe that has something to do with it.

The Chrome Ball Incident posted Gino’s Big Brother interview from 1996.

Just felt we should let everyone know that Lenox Ledges has a Facebook page. Now you can stay up to date with all the latest news about skater fights, crackhead ramblings, and misinformed Parks Department employees claiming that you cannot skateboard there.

Remember those Brooklyn Banks interviews we ran back in July? They all had stories about thugged out skaters and brawls at contests throughout the nineties. By the looks of it, the nineties made a resurgence this past weekend at a certain contest sponsored by an energy drink.

Elephant Direct, a Montreal-based video from the crew that brought you the pretty great Lo-Def video, is premiering in New York on Thursday, August 26th, at 9:30 P.M. at (eww) Gallery Bar. Features footage of QS-favorite, Torey Goodall, a title holder for one of this website’s favorite video parts of all time. Flyer here. Stay Gold premieres today in New York. Pre-2k releases this weekend. (I saw a portion of the video that was not on the original, premiere version that screened at Maloof, and it is pretty insane in terms of nineties degeneracy and antics, the premiere sections were straightforward and tame.)

A good, quick read from New York O.G., Rodney Smith.

If you ever skate North Jersey, there’s a sick new spot along the waterfront. The part depicted is alongside a fountain, so it might be a better winter spot, but there are other things over there. It’s super-smooth polished concrete that’s pretty rare for skate spots in this part of the county. Not going to post the location, but the Palisades in the background should be a pretty dead giveaway if you know your Jersey geography. Just watch out that the rich Koreans don’t call the cops on you.

They call it stormy Monday, but Tuesday’s just as bad…

Quote of the Week: “[I've been] training. Getting ready. For zombie apocalypse. Or the Russians. Whichever comes first.” – Michael Gigliotti

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The Five Best Tricks That Have to Do With Impossibles in the New Dylan Rieder Gravis Video:

5. The impossible to 5050 down the hubba ledge is a maneuver that will solidify the resurgence of impossibles within modern skateboarding to a more absurd height than ever previously imagined, granting it the sort of ubiquity that coincides with the 360 flip or the nollie flip. Only time will tell how long it takes for east coast “trendsetters” to adopt this trick, and grant it permanent residency in the canon of previously neglected tricks (the backside 360, the no comply, etc., thanks Gino.)

4. The impossible to nose manual down the low hubba ledge, that could easily be straight out the nineties if not for the distinctly post-millennial skateboard fashion at hand and fancy HD camera. Give him some baggy chinos, a XL tee, and film it with a Hi-8 and see how well it fits.

3. The impossible tailgrab. I previously would have never thought that such a maneuver could look appealing to the eye, especially since grabs on street are the most unnecessary things known to skateboarding, right up there with doing a no-comply to revert your stance in the middle of a line, but there are exceptions to this rule. (Another major exception is Benjamin Nazario’s kickflip backside grab down the FedEx six-stair in 2002.)

2. Angle two of the impossible over the Seaport Bench.

1. Angle one of the impossible over the Seaport Bench. My policy on the use of slow motion is that it is absolutely useless, unless it makes it easier to see the trick at hand, i.e. if it is difficult to understand what trick is being done without slowing down the movements onscreen. Mouse barely had any slow motion, therefore, its overall usage is unnecessary. Not only is it unnecessary, it’s stupid. It is just that the majority of videomakers (skate-video-makers are not filmmakers, and skate videos are not films, sorry) have the little kids filming their friends convinced otherwise. This particular trick made absolutely no sense when Bill Strobeck dropped it into one of his B&W montages a while back because it went by so fast. The slowing down of things enables us to see the nuances of the trick in question. It is so absurd that it tends to slip everyone’s mind when discussing the best tricks done at Seaport (P-Rod’s switch back tail, Matt Miller’s switch back lip, Pudwill’s flip back smith, and if you’re as stylistically inclined as you should be, Anthony Correa’s most-tweaked-backside-smith-grind-of-all-time from Peep This.) Seeing it in the beloved slow motion shed some light on the otherwise illogical feat at hand.

But then again, maybe that’s because we’ve all been to that spot, and have never seen any of the others ones in person, so those could all be just as crazy.

The Five Best Tricks That Don’t Have to Do With Impossibles in the New Dylan Rieder Gravis Video:

5. The frontside tailslide kickflip out on the white, gradually ascending ledge. The best line in this dude’s Mind Field part was the frontside nosegrind nollie back shove out, hardflip, and tailslide flip out to fakie on those strips that gradually get higher until they end in Europe somewhere, largely because it was simple, and insanely well done. The tailslide flip out in this video is basically a deluxe version of the last trick in that line, which is saying a lot.

4. The backside tailslide flip out to regular on the ledge over stairs. Doing this trick to regular is a vastly underrated endeavor. Wieger is the only one that seems to really take to it, but maybe more people do it, who knows. I don’t watch that many skate videos.

3. The fakie flip over the double kinked rail. I saw Matthew Mooney almost die after hitting a crack trying to fakie flip the Chinatown seven-stair. How this guy went about doing that over a double kinked rail into a bank is really beyond me.

2. The boardslide down that super-skinny rail to having the board go under a bus to under an SUV. A combo for the ages.

1. The 5050 up the handicap rail down the steps in front of that Warhol building, which I secretly wished was in Pittsburgh for some rugged Rust Belt points, until I saw the 310 in the top corner. Hopefully he was consciously channeling Robbie Gangemi.

FAQ

Aren’t you the asshole that re-edited his part to Tom Jones and Aerosmith? What, now you’re a big Dylan fan, you fucking fag?

I re-edited his part because he is insanely easy to make fun of, just like Heath having an emotional part to Morrisey is too easy to make fun of, neither one had anything to do with the quality of skateboarding displayed. Despite his controversial stylistic choices (which I personally think make him much more cuter, even without the hair), the dude is a great skateboarder. If you’re dumb enough to think he’s wack because he’s a “hipster,” nevermind the fact that you sound stupid for using that word when assessing skateboarding, then your opinion isn’t really worth anything to begin with. Or you’re fifteen, and just found out what you think that word means.

Do you feel Dylan is transitioning into a new space as a fashion icon with this part?

He is admirably drifting away from the early-twenties, about-to-graduate-art-school-and-start-a-career-as-an-iPod-DJ stage of high fashion and transforming himself into a much more resigned, yet all the more distinctive figure in the cultural landscape. He seems much more comfortable simply wearing blacks and shades of grey, complimenting them with irregularly stretched out necklines than he did in his early-2009 Cobra-Snake-esque waxed jeans phase. It is the sort of sartorial space that Danny Weiss wishes he could occupy one day, if only he were to stop confusing all his friends and make a concrete decision on how he wants to present himself to the outside world.

I’m sure everyone would love to see Dylan tackle a Fall/Winter collection though, because his attire seems to lean heavily towards Spring/Summer lines. It is almost as if he deliberately avoids F/W collections, even when it’s clearly cold out, i.e. the ginormous front board gap-out over the sidewalk where everyone else is wearing hoodies, jackets, and hats.

Why are you posting some straight skate nerd shit instead of some “NYC!!! We da best!!!” content like you usually do?

Because this video is particularly exciting and great, and worthy of the Girl / Chocolate / Lakai / Deluxe / Baker / Deathwish / Cliché / Blueprint category that occasionally does see coverage around here.

Do you have a link to this part?

Sure. Embedded below.

Seriously though, I’m not trying to upset anyone with posting a link. Get a copy of the DVD in the latest issue of The Skateboard Mag, due out this week.

“Whole clique faded, we geeked up crazy.” – Photo by Zach Malfa-Kowalski

Here’s the final edit of what we managed to get accomplished in a week. Some of the stuff has been included in the dailies, but a handful of it was saved for this final montage. Features Ishod Wair, Theotis Beasley, Daniel Lebron, Paul Rodriguez, Shane O’Neill, and Youness Amrani. Thanks to everyone at Nike SB that made it happen, it was a real fun week, and a welcome change of pace for a website composed of individuals that typically do not skate or film at any time before 9 P.M. throughout the summer. Taking people who have never been to New York around to spots in this city is always a challenge, and a fun experience at the same time, particularly if you’re dealing with the added bonus of them all being extremely talented. Altogether, a lot of ground was covered in a week, especially taking into account the rain and heat. Everyone killed it, even when it seemed like the weather and spot factors added up against us, and hopefully everyone is psyched on what we came up with.

(We’re working on a traditional “End of Summer” clip with all of the usual suspects, featuring camo pants, three up three down footage, and maybe some cameos.)

Thanks to Zach Malfa-Kowalski for the excellent photographs throughout the week. And the biggest thanks of all goes to Radric Davis for shutting down the Bowery last night. Burr!

(Alternate YouTube Link)

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QS+SB. Dropping Friday. Tonight.

Day 7: “Lookin’ at My Gucci, it’s about that time.”
Day 6 / Interlude
Day 5: Three Up, Three Down
Day 4: All City
Day 3: Rained Out in Brooklyn
Day 2: Uptown, Baby
Day 1: 25 Cent SBs