Five Favorite Parts With Etienne Gagne

When discussing formative influences, a lot of people have a tendency to shy away from complete honesty and curate a bit too much. But if we’re being real, there are far more people whose gateways into skateboarding were Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, EA Skate, Jackass, Life of Ryan and Rob Dyrdek than those who woke up with a Mind Field DVD under their pillow.

[Not that all Five Favorite Parts installments are exclusively about formative influences, but let’s face it, the majority are.]

E.T’s list is true to a generation defined by YouTube, skateboarding on TV, and skate DVDs plastic-wrapped with Tech Decks.

FWIW, when pressed for comment on who some of his favorite contemporaries are, he said Genesis Evans and Emile Laurent

+++++++

Ryan Sheckler: Almost: Round III (2004)

Ryan Sheckler made me think, “I gotta gap some crazy shit.”

When I opened YouTube for the first time ever, this was the first skate part that came up. I probably gave this part a couple thousand views.

My next door neighbors used to babysit me when I was six or seven. It was a dude and a girl, and the girl was in love with Ryan Sheckler. She would show me his stuff and I would relate because I was also so young. Not as young as him — me must’ve been, what? 12 in this part? — but he was so tiny. She made me a MySpace that was a Ryan Sheckler background and an Etnies logo for the profile pic.

This was maybe in my first six months of skating. It’s normal for a young kid to like this part at that time, but watching it now, he’s doing grown man tre’s in it. This made me go outside the crib and start practicing kickflips with my Walmart board — before I even had a real board. Fuck, I still can’t even really do them.

But I was definitely a Sheckler kid. My dad would even go to Staples and buy the printer paper that you could iron on to a t-shirt and we would iron on Etnies and Almost logos onto blank t-shirts.

But it was just this part. After he shaved his head, got on Red Bull and got all tatted, I gave up. It’s so normal when you’re young to pick the skater that you can relate the most to, and then after you grow up you’re just like, “Oh, ok. Maybe not.”

Antwuan Dixon — Baker 3 (2005)

I saw this around the time I started going to the skate shop and would chill there all day. The guys at Palm Isle were all Baker and Deathwish heads, so they’d have these videos on all day long. That’s how I got into skating more, because my mom used to work under the skate shop. The skate shop was on the second floor and there was a shoe store underneath it. She would go smoke cigs outside and the people from the skate shop obviously smoke cigs and weed. The front of the shop is all blacked out, like full matte black windows. She thought it was where people would shoot up and thought, “Fuck, this place is so gnarly.” One day, she got the balls to go inside and got me stickers. When she figured out it was a skate shop, I started going every day. Not buying anything, just hanging out and asking for old boards. They were really patient with me.

It tripped me out when someone pointed out to me that his arms don’t move. How does someone do that? People said he had some condition where his arms couldn’t go above his head, but I think it was some made-up Montreal bullshit.

This was a dude with genuine drip. He made Supra and Krew look so fucking sick. Like even when he does a flat trick, it’s so insane. It has to be one of the best parts ever.

Brent Atchley — Element: Elementality Volume 1 (2005)

I’m surprised I never crossed paths with him, but I guess I’ve only been to Portland twice. He probably doesn’t know who I am, but if he did, he’d probably think I bite all his shit. I need to watch more skate videos so I could get more style inspo.

I usually watch a skate video once, and that’s it. I won’t remember anything. This one was definitely more of a recent find; it’s not like I grew up watching this, but every time I watch it, it’s just like, “Damn.” I always thought the tre flip he does where he doesn’t set up his feet was so fresh. I’ve tried to do no set-up tres like that and it’s impossible. Just look at the way he does it, it’s fucked. That was the most impressive shit [in the part] to me.

He makes Element look so sick. But it was dope at that point though, yeah?

Bam Margera — Element: Elementality Volume 1 (2005)

I’m pretty sure I got introduced to Jackass and then had to figure out who Bam was. Jackass was like a movie with skating in it to me. It was still a time when if you saw skating anywhere on TV or whatever, you’d be tripping out. I’d be hyped to see it on like a TV commercial. My mom wasn’t buying me like $30 DVDs with skating, so after YouTube came around, it became way easier, but I honestly don’t think I’ve ever seen the full video, just these two parts.

Daewon Song & Chris Haslam — Almost: Cheese & Crackers (2006)

My best friend Luca who got me into skating bought a Tech Deck mini ramp and this DVD came with it. The first park we ever skated was an indoor with all these ramps, and I remember us thinking it was so sick that it looked kinda like the ramp they skate. I honestly haven’t rewatched it in a while, but I used to watch it every single day.

I was just so impressed, I remember thinking this was the sort of shit anybody who skateboards wants to do.

You can watch this video so many times and you’ll never be able to name every trick they do. It’s still a new video every time I watch it because it’s impossible to keep up, especially at the end when they just start bringing other obstacles out. I’m sure they were just filming anything. Like, “We’ve done every trick, so there’s only insane shit left to do.”

Tech Deck mini ramp with a skate video in it. Such a genius idea.

Previously: Jacopo Carozzi, Nicole Hause, Matt Militano, Evan Wasser, Ryuhei Kitazumi, Sarah Meurle, Vitória Mendonça, Andrew Wilson, Ben Kadow, Chandler Burton, Pedro Delfino, Johnny Wilson, Nick Michel, Wes Kremer, Jordan Trahan, Ariana Spencer, Elijah Odom, Greg Hunt, Zered Bassett, Neil Herrick, Trung Nguyen, Nick Boserio, Elissa Steamer, Casper Brooker, John Gardner, Bobshirt, Brandon Turner, Shari White, Nick Jensen, Tony Hawk, Naquan Rollings, Jack O’Grady, Josh Wilson, Maité Steenhoudt, Jahmir Brown, Una Farrar, Chris Jones, Mason Silva, Beatrice Domond, Mark Suciu, Justin Henry, Breana Geering, Sage Elsesser, Bobby Worrest, Nik Stain, Anthony Van Engelen, Dom Henry, Bing Liu, Andrew Reynolds, Cyrus Bennett, Jacob Harris, Jamal Smith, Paul Rodriguez, Gilbert 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