The Bunt just dropped their first video.
Did you expect a skateboard-sports podcast to drop a video? Well, does every interviewee always have a “favorite sports moment?” Not exactly on-hand, but they figure out a way. And The Bunt figured out a way.
It reminds one of another, seemingly unrelated time: when the now-defunct Coliseum Skateshop, based out of Boston, dropped a shop video in the early 2000s called PJ Ladd’s Wonderful Horrible Life. There is much evidence of shop videos existing before — FTC had a couple of classics, to say the least — but something about Coliseum’s made it the shop video for all of history up until that point. This was the era of the great Skateboard Arms Race™, when board and shoe sponsors were barking at skaters’ heels for constant one-upsmanship. And yet, the namesake of that video went very hard for a shop video. Maybe he didn’t know he had to go that hard for a shop video, but nevertheless, he did — and had thus singlehandedly forever altered perceptions of how hard you were allowed to go for a shop video.
In The Bunt Video, the podcast proprietors put their best foot forward. Céphas Benson does every shove crook variation but the purportedly “easiest” regular-stance one on the most famous step-up ledge in San Juan before a two-punch of brilliant switchwork. Donovan Jones maybe starts out more “relatable,” and then decides to full cab a fat bump-to-barrier and you can relate no longer. J.P. Souza, Morgan Smith, and plenty of others have exemplary outings. Podcasts are about the friends you make along the way, after all. And hell, everyone’s sharing screentime with Carlos Ribeiro — that’s like, idk — sure, I’d love to have Anthony Edwards on my pick-up team, but shit, I need to try really hard now. That sort of thing.
However, the perception-shifting outing is reserved for the end. If you had a idea of how hard you were allowed to go for a podcast video, Mitch Barrette certainly does not share your preconceived notions. Before his name even flashes on the screen, he’s already bleeding from the head onto a white hoody for a trick nobody would wear a white hoody to try. Next, he’s nollie heelflipping out of a nosegrind into cobblestones. Before you’ve had enough time to process all your excoriated expectations for how hard someone could/should go for a skate-sports podcast’s inaugural video: he’s grinding down 73 kinks and blitzing his way through a wall of pallets on the dismount.
Was your podcast planning to start working a video? Fuck. Good luck finding your Mitch.
Video by J Burles.