Chapstick Season

The obstacle purge at T.F. West rebounded quick!

With Hollywood hobbled by the pandemic, Jawn Gardner came through with the life-affirming motion picture event that we needed as we head towards the holidays ♥

Zooted” is a New York video by Stephán Lewis with appearances from Brandon Scott, Jiro Platt, Yaje Popson and a bunch of other people you’ll recognize from skating around downtown.

The Village Psychic dudes spend the lockdown months creating Village Archive, an early stab at a Wikipedia or an IMDB of skateboard footwear. (Man, have skaters been responsible for designing some awful shoes.) Kinda inspired to think up some ideas similar to this one now…

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‘A Place For The Nerds’ — An Interview With Nick Sharratt of The Palomino

Interview by Farran Golding
Photos by Chris Mann, Rafal Wojnowski & Rich West

As we age, it’s easy to only remember the “big” changes: VX to HD, social media, Thrasher becoming the only magazine. The smaller ones are tougher to catalog, but when you think about it, had a substantial impact. In the not-so-distant past, “raw files” weren’t a “thing.” You couldn’t DM on Instagram. Polar was a small brand selling outline logo tees to the few who could get them. These things changing had huge reverberations, and in many ways, helped make “underground,” independent skateboard brands the dominant brands they are today.

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The Best Skateboard Videos of the 2010s — QS Reader Survey Results

Illustration by Cosme Studio

This was the decade that the full-length skate video was supposed to die. We began the 2010s with everyone insisting that Stay Gold would be the last full-length skate video. Then, Pretty Sweet was supposed to be the last full-length video. Some people thought that Static IV would be it — the end, no more full-lengths after that. But I feel like I heard someone say Josh was working on something new a couple months back? Idk.

The experience might’ve changed. We’re not huddling around a skate house’s TV covered in stickers to watch a DVD bought from a shop anymore (if this past weekend is any indication, it’s more like AirPlaying a leaked .mp4 file via a link obtained from a guy who knows a guy), but the experience of viewing a fully realized skate video with your friends for the first, second or twentieth time is still sacred.

Just as we asked for your votes for the five best video parts, we did the same for the five best full-lengths: if you could choose the five videos that defined the 2010s, what would they be? The results were a bit more surprising than the parts tally in some ways, given that it felt like independent, regional and newer, small brand videos dominated the decade, yet Big Shoe Brands™ and Girl + Chocolate still made their way into the list. The top-heaviness of some companies or collectives was less of a surprise, in that certain creators loomed large over the 2010s.

Like the installment before it, this list is sans comment for 20-11, and then via favors from writer friends for the top ten: here are the twenty best skate videos of the past ten years.

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Proper Shit Out

Keeping along with last week’s 76ers theme…

Been a slow start to the year out there. Pretty excited for this heatwave though.

Steve Mastorelli (the guy who made The Meadowlands last year) has a sick new edit up, which screened before the video at the NJ Skateshop Stop Fakin’ 3 premiere. Features a bunch of familiar north Jersey faces and spots.

One of the standout ex-pat / visitor in New York vids in recent memory — “Dice of Life: Twenty Eighteen.” Huge array of spots (shout out to everyone venturing out to the still-good spots that weathered locals otherwise gave up on), really sick skating (the line at the Escape From New York cathedral on Amsterdam is fucked + the varial heel at Southbridge Towers is sick too), and one of the best No Limit songs to start it off, though they only used the worst verse on it :)

Coda has new montage for 2018, with some wild moves, especially in the first part, which seemed like it was about to be filmed exclusively under the J train.

Kinda an interview with Aidan Mackey + photos from the roof of the former QS office.

R.B. Umali mashed up a bunch of his old footage to create a “15 Years of New York skateboarding” montage that covers 1995 to 2010, with the first ever (?) regular-motion footage of the best kickflip ever done.

#comebackwatch2018: 1) Never been the biggest fan, but the DC Lynx is *officially* coming back into their line. 2) Gino Iannucci’s onetime Long Island Skateshop, Poet’s, is being relaunched as a standalone brand. 3) The sneaker nerds were already up on this, but Nike’s Grandstand 2, which you might remember Reese Forbes wearing in his first-ever SB ad, is set to re-release sometime soon. (It’s not an SB model though.)

“I never thought I’d send DVDs to Iraq.” Solo has an an interview with Nick from The Palomino, the internet’s best skate shop ♥ You can find QS on there too obvs ;)

An ocean away and old, but new, but a #spotcheck nonetheless.

Ten years since Static 3 with Soy Panday and Danny Renaud.

“The backside 360 with that gentle and (sarcastically?) smug roll away off the ledge is the first trick I think of when I think of Bobby Puleo in Static II.” And on that same note…“musing on” Puleo’s part in the second Static video.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Russ being Russ ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Quote of the Week: “If you’re a guy who pays girls to kick you in the balls, you drink scotch.” — Barnes

Shout out to all the stable geniuses out there ;)