Troy Stilwell’s Balmain Mixtape, featuring Connor Champion, produced by Josh Velez

Photo by T.J. Marshall

Productivity on a skateboard is known to be partial to a more, ummm, let’s say, “open-ended” schedule. Life obligations and responsibilities do have a well-worn way of interfering with clips. But given too much time on our hands, we start to take it for granted: how many of those slacker days end up spent kicking around Tompkins, L.E.S. or Blue Park? (Obvs the answer is…a lot.)

On the other hand, the guys with actual jobs have a way of making those two free days and two weeks of paid vacation count. Case in point: Josh Velez has been on a half-decade streak of filming a part a year on his days off for the purposes of, in his words, keeping him sane. Where are the fire parts from the years prior to his foray into gainful employment? Blowing in the wind somewhere…

(Nah jk, we were driving around with Dre looking at bump-to-bars that nobody was going to skate for months on end in those years.) But really, this past year, him and Connor Champion, another full-timer since leaving the Young Money payroll, put together the best one from either of them yet. Maybe there’s more to this “having a job” thing than just a consistent bank account balance ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Filmed and edited by T.J. Marshall. Filmed throughout 2018 in San Francisco, Copenhagen/Malmö, and New York. Guest tricks from Troy Stilwell, Tyler Tufty, Bob Reynolds, and Nolan Benfield. Collective electronic “booooo” from the stands to all those who failed to get requested guest tricks, including but not limited to: Andre Page, myself, Genesis, Meatball, and most egregiously, Kevin Tierney (wtf bro.)

7 Comments

  1. love the whole updating with stuff that’s not qs top 10 and monday links thing that you guys have been up to in 2019 keep it up

  2. also this was fucking amazing

    the two switch boardslides really caught me off gaurd

  3. Amazing. Randomly revisited Josh’s part from last year yesterday and then get to see this today.

  4. incredible part, i’m glad i finally know troy stilwell’s name.

    working a lot and accepting adult life has been extremely beneficial to skating for me. no spare time wasted.


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