Time Capsule | Quartersnacks

#TBT: Big Brother Mag Is Back…on Instagram

Time Capsule May 8th, 2014 · 5:21 am · 2

bigbrother

Print lives on! …via Instagram.

If you need a new follow on the Gram, someone not affiliated with the magazine started a Big Brother fan account: @bigbrotherskateboardmagazine.

Though this is the sort of thing that is probably better-suited for Tumblr, as Instagram sizing issues will render most type unreadable, it’s a nice 612 x 612 reminder of that magazine’s brilliance. There was talk of the entire archive being made available on the Jackass site some years back, but that never happened. (What’s up with troves of nineties skateboarding nostalgia having so many false starts in the digital era? Skateboarder even went under before their plans of making the whole 411 collection available on their site gained any momentum.) The Jackass site became Dickhouse.tv, and while there isn’t anything remotely close to a full archive on there, you can find plenty of good bits relating back to the mag under the “Big Brother” tag on their blog.

People will compare stuff to Big Brother today, but should probably stop. It’s a product specific to another time, and that’s why it’s special. That mag or anything like it could never exist today — even on the internet — without alienating pretty much all potential advertisers and skateboarders they could cover i.e. we got shit for the blatantly tongue-in-cheek Mind Field remix…could you imagine the backlash at some of the insanity that those dudes pulled if it took place in today’s #skateboard #industry?

Stuff We’ve Scanned Before: The Black Issue, The Yellow Issue, Billy Rohan interview from the “Hated & Misunderstood” issue, Danny Supa interview

#TBT on a Friday: Jahmal Williams 411 Commercial

Time Capsule April 11th, 2014 · 4:21 am · 4

jahmal

Or is #FBF Flashback Friday still a #thing?

With “cherry” out, Static IV might be the last major video left to look forward to this year. (*Insert blurb about full-length videos not being what they used to be*) We all want to see a new Tierney or Aaron Herrington part, but Jahmal and Quim having sections is probably the most awaited aspect of the project, at least for the born pre-1990 skate nerd contingent. Anticipation for both has a bit of an east coast Pretty Sweet cloud around it, in that there’s an understanding this will likely be the last time we see a substantial batch of footage from these guys.

After watching Quim’s Overground Broadcasting part for the 100th time, a subsequent YouTube binge revealed his seldom-seen Adidas commercial that ran in 411 back in 1998. Everyone would rather forget what most major shoe companies’ first jab at a skate program in the nineties looked like, but Adidas kinda killed it with these commercials. They were shot on film and covered a pretty eclectic team (Paulo Diaz, Quim, Jahmal, Matt Beach.) Jahmal’s version somehow isn’t online, and we have a FQ one left over from last year’s “Lost Tapes” re-edit, so here it is below, uncut.

Though probably to a lesser extent than how Gino is “the Wu-Tang guy,” between this and his Eastern Exposure 3 part, Jahmal is sorta the Gil Scott-Heron guy. That’s why we subconsciously ended up using the most Gil Scott-Heron-sounding song not by Gil Scott-Heron in the aforementioned remix video.

Have a good weekend everyone. (70 degrees tomorrow!!!)

Previously: 5 Favorite Parts With Jahmal, Jahmal Williams: The Lost Tapes

Unrelated but important: New all-China Lucas Puig part on the TWS site. He does a nollie crook nollie varial flip out in it and it somehow looks awesome.

Relax With Pep

Time Capsule March 25th, 2014 · 2:04 pm · 11

pulaski

This got a mention as a Monday Link yesterday, but deserves a more focal post, especially since it evolved into talk of “broken window” theory ‘n stuff.

Pulaski actually did have a period when it was “Kosher to skate there,” most clearly exemplified in this video. For whatever reason, 411 never got around to making a Washington D.C. Metrospective until issue #27 (~1997, 1998?), whereas they caught New York and Philadelphia in their most heavily romanticized, low-bust, first-half-of-the-nineties primes. By the time issue 27 rolled around, Pulaski was a complete and total bust (to the point where they claim “Pulaski Park, rest in peace, don’t try and skate it” in the voiceover), and everyone skated MLK instead.

Things like the Andy Stone PROfile ended up being permanent placeholders for a Pulaski Metrospective, at least as far as 411 coverage goes. However, the D.C. section from Eastern Exposure 2 is everything a 1994 411 Metrospective on D.C. would have been, which is why most people probably Google “411 dc metrospective” when looking for “the D.C. montage with the Eric B. and Rakim song,” as we were yesterday. BTW, it features likely the best use of a Rakim song in a video. No, he doesn’t actually rap in Keenan’s Chocolate Tour part, which means they more-or-less used a DJ Premier song.

If there’s one glaring ommission from last fall’s “Chillest Lines” post, it’s heelflip on flat, nollie backside 180, fakie heelflip over a can. Fakie heelflip over a can is nuts no matter what era you’re talking about.

Also also also B4 anyone says “OMG how would U know?!” — The Quartersnacks music supervisor and another prominent noseslider who makes frequent appearances on the website are both from the D.C. metro area, in their thirties and have confirmed much of the research above ;)

Related: Chrome Ball’s Pulaski post is always worth a revisit. “Fuck all you idiots who don’t understand how we talk.”

Skate Mags Used To Be Chill: 1997 Strength Magazine Feature on Suave House by Chris Nieratko

Time Capsule March 6th, 2014 · 3:50 pm · 2

[On asking MJG what “MJG” stands for]
“You’re white. He’d definitely shoot you.”
“So you ask him.”
“I’m not asking him, he’ll shoot me too.”

Anyone with a social media presence has been made aware that Lil’ Boosie was released from prison yesterday. Naturally, today’s morning playlist was Boosie-themed, and made a stop at “In My Pockets,” a UGK remix of “Sho’Nuff.” (FYI: The three of them are known to create masterpieces of vulgarity together.) From there, procrastination led back to the “Sho’Nuff” video, and then a cursory Googling of some Suave House-related minutiae, which then revealed that Chris Nieratko had written an article about hanging out with the Suave House guys in 1997.

“The House That Suave Built” appeared in the ~~short-lived~~ not-short-but-not-very-long-lived, mostly-skateboarding-but-occasionally-other-stuff magazine, Strength in 1997. (A lot of the Chrome Ball scans of semi-obscure east coast names likely originate from Strength, as it was known to give east coasters slightly more love than Slap or Thrasher back then.) The article details the 72-hour period Nieratko, Clyde Singleton, and Bill Weiss spent in Houston with the Suave House VP. It’s not some end-of-Thrasher interview with an “underground” rapper, but a feature-length chronicle of rap video debauchery coming as close in contact with intoxicated skate tour antics as it ever has. Amazing to think there was a time when skateboard publications would spend money on travel and accommodations for their writers to come back with something as off-hand as this.

Suave doesn’t enjoy the waves of nostalgia that Cash Money, No Limit or Hypnotize Minds do today. That is partially due to the fact that no streetwear companies have re-released apparel with their logos on it, but also because it was more of a gold-selling label than a platinum one, i.e. 8Ball & MJG were its most high-profile artists. It was responsible for a lot of great music though, in addition to getting Clyde Singleton laid in a Houston hotel room.

Scans stolen from Nieratko’s site. Also related to mid-nineties southern rap dynasties and skateboarding: Nieratko and Mike York interview C-Murder.

Respect the Sand Gaps

Time Capsule November 13th, 2013 · 2:49 pm · 8

sand gaps

Following up their Santa Monica Courthouse stage compilation — a superhuman skate spot if there ever was one — Muckmouth put together a historic rundown of Santa Monica’s other iconic spot, one that’s skateable by normal humans. We’ve waxed about the respect we have for the Sand Gaps before, namely because it might have been the biggest departure from typical eastern conceptions of a southern California skate spot (perfect asphalt ground, low ledges coated in wax and picnic tables.) Sand Gaps was two holes in the ground. It could’ve been anywhere, but it was in a place that we perceived as having the best spots on earth.

Given the existence of this video, is a hole in the ground in Santa Monica the most mundane object we, as skate nerds, have a qualified list of tricks done over? Like, knowing what has gone down the nearby triple set, or a Carlsbad or Love Gap is perfectly reasonable, but being able to name the things done over a square cut out of the ground is something you shouldn’t readily admit to non-skater friends.

And also, whereas Huf and many others skated the two gaps consecutively, always thought Chris Franzen’s line where he circumvents the gaps entirely, opting for the two consecutive pillars instead, was the one of the pinnacles of Sand Gaps’ history.