Getting There…

December 5th, 2011 | 9:40 am | Daily News | 5 Comments

59 today, 58 tomorrow, can’t really complain…yet.

The Pittsburgh homies from One-Up did a cross country trip this past summer, and have started to upload doc-style clips from it in small pieces. The first installment is for Minneapolis. It’s not too heavy on actual skate footage, but serves as a good reminder that it’s never too early to start planning a summer road trip, even at the onset of winter.

There’s a new Krispy Du-Rag clip out. All Maloof Park and House of Vans footage, but Luis Tolentino does some pretty sick stuff in there. Manny Santiago also dropped a new, quick clip of some Luis footage.

Two new teasers for the Poisonous Products video. The Rob Campbell cameo and abundance of Leo Gutman appearances make this video look real promising. It’s available on DVD for $7.99 over at the Color site, but “Allow 4 weeks for shipping” sounds a bit crazy in this day and age. That’s longer than the iPhone 4S waitlist.

There’s an art installation on 46th Street and Eighth Avenue right now, described as “a massive sculpture that represents suburban over-development and its effect on our natural landscapes.” Given that people skate on cars, in abandoned water parks (that Grant Taylor part in the SB video is insane), and other absurd obstacles nowadays, it wouldn’t be surprising if someone broke in to get a clip on it. (Or arrested.) Overhead view here.

Quartersnacks shot/edited Black Dave’s newest music video for his song “One Take.” He’s in skateboarder form, rather than his Black Donald Trump alter-ego, but B.D.T. is set to make a comeback sooner than later.

If you don’t personally know the G Man, and have only been able to gather a composite of his character based on his skating and endless Quote of the Week appearances, watching his latest Flip Cam clip is the best way to get to know him without actually having a conversation. A lot of ditch footage, piglets, flowers, llamas getting shaved, strippers, and a Future/Travis Porter/French Montana soundtrack that encompasses 90% of the music that matters in 2011.

Eye-Roll of the Week: Some French people are seriously making a skateboard video called Breathless. Wowwwwwwwww. (If you don’t “get it,” be grateful.)

Quote of the Week: “She looked so bomb because she caught an ill mosquito disease and it thinned her out.” — The G Man


YouTube redesigned its channel pages and made them slightly less cluttered. So, subscribe to Quartersnacks on YouTube if you have yet to do so, and browse through some of the oldies.

This is going to get deleted, and we already told you to buy the Shake Junt video, but here’s Dollin’s ender part in glorious 240p. Buy the video, you’re going to watch it a lot this winter.

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.

That Summer Flip Cam Wave

July 15th, 2011 | 11:20 am | Footage | 6 Comments

Photo by Jason Lecras

Threw together a bunch of cutty Flip Cam and iPhone clips that have been laying around since the end of winter, plus footage of some more recent outings. 2011 might have the worst (best?) ratio of rap songs to non-rap songs as far as music selection in Quartersnacks clips goes. So far, there has been one clip (not counting Justin White’s contribution) where the soundtrack hasn’t dealt with cars, making it rain, pimping, ice cream, inquires to “how ya do that there,” or RACKS. We’ll try our best to acknowledge another genre of music to edit skate clips to in the near future. Have a good weekend.

Features Black Dave, Ritch Swain, Ben Nazario, Corey Rubin, Shawn Powers, Kevin Tierney, Billy Mcfeely, Dennis Feliciano, Galen Dekemper, Alex, AJ, Billy Rohan, Josh Velez, and Luke Malaney. Filmed by Josh Velez. Shout out to all the bums with no footage in this.

Alternate YouTube Link: Roof missin, background pumpin’ Marvin Gaye

From New York to Oklahoma, we don’t care

May 28th, 2011 | 1:51 pm | Footage | 11 Comments

Is this the greatest shirt to ever be featured in a Quartersnacks clip?

This was originally supposed to go online yesterday, but after falling into deep depression at around the 11:15 P.M. mark of a certain sporting event on Thursday night, Friday wasn’t the productive day the Quartersnacks office had envisioned. (To any Chicago readers: Has Scottie Pippen been temporarily banned from the city yet?) But life (barely) goes on, and enough emotional strength was gathered to put together our traditional beginning of summer / Memorial Day weekend montage. It features plenty of diamond plated ledges, long 5050s, a lot of 180s (both backside and frontside), a No Limit classic alongside its respective eastern remix, and even a Brengar cameo.

Features Josh Velez, Alex, Pad Dowd, Matthew Mooney, Galen Dekemper, Alexander Mosley, Billy Rohan, Dave Willis, Stephan Martinez, Kevin Tierney, Shawn Powers, and Ben Nazario.

(Alternate YouTube Link)

P.S. We don’t condone lying on dirty mattresses in SoHo so your friends could ollie over you.

P.P.S. Young Jeezy has a new mixtape out for Memorial Day weekend. Normally, this would get its own, dedicated post treatment, but he has been spending the past year recording Rick Ross bites (things have really changed, huh), so expectations for it aren’t as high as they were in the pre-Lex Luger/Fake Lex Luger beat and celebrity name as a hook era.

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.