Sweet Home Long Branch

Despite Quartersnacks’ coverage of Brian Wenning’s undeniable influence last decade, we haven’t really come to expect much from him since he was spotted nosegrind nollie heelflipping in board shorts in the DC video (unlike the rest of the tri-state area.) Well, some dude who’s pretty much an absolute genius, reminded us of why people are still in love with this guy’s skating ten years down the line. This is the best remix video ever, as far as execution goes.

Not to take away from ourselves, it’s likely that they were at least somewhat inspired by the QS Pappalardo / Skynyrd combo from the Mind Field re-edit (I’d upload the individual part, but some people weren’t too psyched.) Even though “Free Bird” is basically the cliché classic rock song and most obvious “great guitar solo” ever, it has a certain epic quality to it that’s undeniable. You can be driving down the interstate at 4 AM, with 300 miles left to go and all of the people in the car asleep, and they can’t really fault you for waking them up by turning the volume up to the max when it comes on whatever classic rock station you switch to. Just like Jeezy makes music for those moving work on I-85, Skynyrd makes music for road trips where you go at least thirty-five miles over the speed limit the whole time.

I never realized that this guy amassed 9:14 worth of footage in his career either. Thanks to whoever made this, you’re brilliant. The part with the guns right before the guitar speeds up and the Staten Island footage starts is so good.

That thing said last week about Creedence being the only QS-approved rock band is actually false, because Skynyrd is most definitely on that list.

“Never succumb to the temptation of bitterness.”

Not that much happened on the internet this past week. Everything related to skateboarding was eclipsed by Daewon Song and Brandon Westgate, while all other non-skate news was put aside once Gucci tatted an ice cream cone on his face with his trademark “Burrr” misspelled (notice the ‘U’ or lack thereof.) But either way, here are some things that surfaced, which you have probably seen.

If you’re active on Tumblr, please re-blog this initial post of the Quartersnacks cruiser board to help get the ball rolling on it. Depending on how FedEx pulls through, they should be at the door sooner than later.

A two-year-old, but seldom seen clip that reinforces this website’s opinion that the T.F. is one of New York’s finest cultural institutions, regardless of what ups and downs it has been through these past several years.

Although as of late, Taji has been focussed on his journalist / documentarian grind and thus on the board a bit less, you can still catch footage of him with the Acapulco Gold squad ripping at the House of Vans park.

KCDC Skateshop re-designed their website and draped it out with some new content.

The thirteenth installment of the T.C. mixtapes from out in Michigan is more than worth ten minutes of your time. Witnessing insane things being done on ledges is always more fun to watch when there’s some sketchiness involved, in that it adds a tangible and human feeling to the skating. None of us are ever coming close to landing anything Shane O’Neill manages to casually pull off, so it’s good to sometimes remind ourselves that imperfect rollaways exist in the terrestrial world. All-around solid video with a musical affinity for remixes as opposed to original versions, but whatever.

While on the topic of ledges, allow me to quote one of my associates: “When you talk about ‘style icons,’ we think about Rob Welsh.” His first line at Third and Army in Madness remains to be one of 2010’s brightest moments, but you already knew that.

The (big?) 360 flip debate. Where you stand invariably has to do with what decade you were born in. Dylan looks so wonderful doing it “the new school way,” so we’re kind of torn between a choice over here.

Quote of the Week:We must remember that intelligence is not enough. Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education. The complete education gives one not only power of concentration, but worthy objectives upon which to concentrate.” If you’re in, about to go, or going back to college, read this one. It’s important, and for the attention span deficient, short.

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Kickflip of the Year

Skateboarding gets more absurd by the day. Westgate looks like he has been watching a lot of Busenitz parts and maybe smoking PCP.

Back smith up a handrail? What the hell is going on?

Below is the gold standard for kickflips around here (obviously solely on a professional, not company-internal level), let’s include a side by side comparison. It looks pretty up to par.

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New York, Ten Years Ago

For some reason, between now and some sort of ill-advised session at cutting this out of a magazine ten years ago, I lost whatever archival steps I had taken at preserving this article. That is, until The Chrome Ball Incident came to the rescue and provided scans of it so Quartersnacks may share them with you. The Chrome Ball is basically like The Library of Congress when it comes to skateboarding, except probably better organized, since I’ve haven’t heard many flattering things about The Library of Congress’ organization skills.

This article originally appeared in the July 2000 issue of Transworld. All of the photography and words are by Tony Cox. Normally, I’d be making sarcastic comments about drugs and art school when dealing with an article that has the phrase “Sharing eternal moments learning that time doesn’t really exist” in the intro, but this thing is just such a far cry from anything that Transworld would do today that it’s hard not to admire the sort of direction they were occasionally known to go ten years ago. The whole thing is essentially a scrapbook-like layout with little rhyming captions scribbled underneath each photo, and minus the Corcoran 5050, none of the tricks are really the sort of things you expect a magazine like Transworld to run (then and now.) It is the closest they have probably come to channeling a full-on homie ‘zine. Occasional changes of pace like this, and those “A *insert city here* Minute” where they’d dedicate two pages to random cities in the U.S., are some of the fondest memories I have from the days when I actually still opened skateboarding magazines more than twice a year.

Thanks again to The Chrome Ball for a neverending effort in bringing things we never thought we’d see again back to surface. All of the photos are enlargeable.

That “Summer heat keeps us asleep” photo is just a distant memory right now. Anyone claiming “If if it was the summer, you’d be complaining about the heat” can go to hell. As can anyone who complains about heat. Winter hurts, summer can get uncomfortable, but it doesn’t hurt.

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From Seattle to Pink Houses

Have you seen the forecast for Tuesday night into Wednesday yet? Seven to twelve inches overall. Should be fun.

Film Me, the summer 2010 video that came before Goin’ Ham’ from the same crew, is available in its full forty-minute form on Vimeo.

Some real nineties-looking footage. The video says it’s from 1993-1994, or “around the time when people started skating switch.” You can see the barren asphalt wasteland that Battery Park City was prior to the completion of construction some years later, The Humps (or at least the spot I think was The Humps), and the nineties version of Midtown.

The final update from the Autumn Bowl. It’s been a wrap for a minute now, but just in case you wanted visual proof of its final state. Here’s a clip from the final two days as well. But according to Forrest Edwards, “It’s not like you get paid a million dollars to skate transition.”

This Keith Hufnagel-channeling clip of Zach Moore is about a year old, but a solid watch largely due to to the speed with which he skates through things.

Mama’s Boys is an upcoming local video that has a Loose Trucks Max part, you can watch the promo here, and a few New York-set throwaway clips here.

The nollie off the hip to boardslide down the rail in Pat Gallaher and Jack Olson’s shared part in the Flow Trash video is pretty official.

As a follow up to our new street plazas post from November…there’s a new street gap on Maiden Lane down the hill from C.I.A. (foot and a half high ledge over seven or eight feet of sidewalk into the street), and the new Grace Ledge is black marble, over four stairs, and lower (although still closed off for construction.)

Quote of the Week:Yo Dre, what are you doing?” — Inquisitive Gentleman
I have been sitting here watching the ‘Ride’ video for hours and don’t feel like I have wasted a second of my day.” — Andre Page

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