Five* Favorite Parts With Anthony Van Engelen

Intro + Interview by Adam Abada
Photo by Ben Colen

Sometimes, a person’s favorite parts are an array of influences and terrain. By admission from the man himself, these selections can all sort of be grouped in the same era, with similar sensibilities. They come as no surprise, especially given the type of skateboarding Anthony Van Engelen does.

He enthusiastically continued past five, so consider the extra three a bonus.

Danny Sargent – New Deal: Useless Wooden Toys (1990)

Everything about this part speaks to me. It’s so rugged. The sound on the camera is so fucked. It enhances all the slappys and curb skating, and really lets you know how dry and barely waxed it all was. I think when I first saw it, I was pretty young and watched the video a lot. Later, when I revisited it, I think I really understood what I was seeing better. I’ll still watch it to get psyched and go out and skate instead of new stuff.

Henry Sanchez – Blind: Tim and Henry’s Pack of Lies (1992)

This might be my number one pick. It’s got that same aggressive rawness to it, but Henry was such a technical skater who was ahead of his time. When I was filming for the Propeller video, there were tricks in there that I referenced directly from Henry in this part. It still has such a huge influence on me. It’s one of those video parts that was monumental for the time; I think many people agree on that. It’s undeniable that it changed the course of skating. It was as close to perfect as you can get.

Sean Sheffey – Plan B: Questionable (1992)

I had only been skating for a couple of years when Questionable came out — I started in late ’89. I remember buying a board from the skate shop, and they told me “This is the video you want to buy.” I had no idea who any of those guys were, but I watched that video hundreds of times and that was one of those parts that stayed with me. Sean has always been one of my favorite skaters. Even at the time, amongst myself and my friends, we didn’t understand what we were seeing. This stuff was so unbelievable to us.

Paulo Diaz – Chocolate: Las Nueve Vidas de Paco (1995)

This is one of those parts that really embodies a person beyond their skating. That part is Paulo Diaz from the clothes to the style. It was so rad and different and unique. He’s skating where he grew up — it’s a complete embodiment of him. All the nollie skating and how far he took that was so rad. It was gnarly, but with a simplicity and power. So few people had that power at that time.

Guy Mariano – Girl: Mouse (1996)

I saw that part after I came off a sort of non-skating hiatus where I was lost in my own life. That video came out and I remember watching at my friend’s house, and I was blown away. I felt like he unlocked a door to a whole other side of street skating — all the cabs into stuff — it blew my mind.

Guy was so mysterious back then. I don’t remember a full part of him since Video Days at that time. That’s a big gap, especially when you’re young and growing up. You would see clips of him here and there and you knew he was the best, but a video would come out, and you’d only see a couple clips. You’d hear stories about him switch treing the LAX double set or skating the Santa Monica triple set and you never saw it. On occasion, I’d see him in L.A. at spots, mostly not skating. But then that video came out and it was like, “Holy fuck! There it is!” He switch 360 flips over a table off a bump, but then when you go to that bump, there’s cracks like three inches wide in it. Other times, he’s ripping seven feet through dry ass ledges around corners. If you saw those ledges at USC — they’re so dry and crusty.

Kareem Campbell – Trilogy (1996)

All Kareem parts are incredible. But this one – when it starts up that second time and has that nollie hardflip with a peak no-graphic board – it represents, again, another era of skating that got me so psyched. That whole line was just incredible. When you combine that with his power and how big his tricks were — skating over the oil drums — it was just sick.

It’s hard to pick these, though, because then I start thinking about Marcus’ part and how sick it was. Gino’s part is another insane one. There’s so much good skating in Trilogy. I can probably pick twenty video parts.

Fred Gall – Alien Workshop: Timecode (1997)

I feel like with most of my choices, it’s all just straightforward and aggressive. Freddy is the best representation of that. He’s skating the worst shit possible. The more shitty and terrible it is, the more likely Freddy is gonna get a trick on it. Skating to Children of the Grave and the filming is real shitty on a lot of it. You can see a camera light in the dark and it just looks so rugged. That’s what I love, and what I feel is missing a lot these days.

Gino Iannuci – Girl: Yeah Right! (2003)

This is another one that I’ve watched countless times. You could see that it was a comeback part in how he put it together. I think he was at the height of showcasing his abilities — I don’t think it was the height of his abilities, exactly, but just the way it was presented in that part.

I could be wrong, but I think that he was at home in Long Island, got psyched and a buddy of his starting filming tricks. There’s spots in there that seem like no one has skated before or after: switch pop shove manual like, a chunk of shit outside of Ihop. That’s real skating to me. You’ve got that, then you have that perfect giant backside flip at Lockwood. It’s Gino, it’s epic and beautiful.

Previously: Dom Henry, Bing Liu, Andrew Reynolds, Cyrus Bennett, Jacob Harris, Jamal Smith, Paul Rodriguez, Gilbertt Crockett, Ben Chadourne, Tom Knox, Louie Lopez, The Chrome Ball Incident, The Bunt, Lacey Baker, Andrew Allen, GX1000, Brian Anderson, Gino Iannucci, Josh Kalis, Sean Pablo, Wade Desarmo, Chris Milic, Chad Muska, Hjalte Halberg, Danny Brady, Bill Strobeck, Aaron Herrington, Jerry Hsu, Brad Cromer, Brandon Westgate, Jim Greco, Jake Johnson, Scott Johnston, Josh Stewart, Eric Koston, Karl Watson, Josh Friedberg, John Cardiel, Pontus Alv, Alex Olson, Jahmal Williams