We all agree that conversations about Instagram are an egregious insult to our short time on earth. Yet, we cannot help ourselves. How do we crack the algorithm? How do we attain #maximum #exposure? How do we make a million dollars doing not that much, or at least get a follow-back from @emrata to give us a reason for getting up in the morning?
Young Chop[s] on the beat scan
New Jahmal Williams footage is an honor and a privilege. Him and Steve Brandi share a jazzy seven-minute section on the occasion of Hopps’ collaboration with Converse, composed by Static auteur, Josh Stewart. It’s one of those rare videos that you just watch with a smile on your face the whole time. And shout-out to Steve Brandi for his commitment to the iconic Paine Webber benches.
Also re: fountain of youth, the 39-year-old Dave Caddo has a sick New York part on Thrasher, which scours all the unturned crust the city has to offer.
“The rest of the boroughs, excluding Staten Island, have had so many regular Americans move into the neighborhoods, spreading the disease of uptight suburbanites. The average mainland American is just more concerned about the use of private and public property. Maybe I’m wrong, but I like my theory…The Bronx has Bronx hospitality, and I think the average person in the Bronx is more socially advanced.” Caddo also has an awesome follow-up interview on Thrasher that discusses the complacency of finding spots in New York, his favorite borough (guess), and more insight into his ability to film a part here full of fresh backdrops.
Canal has a full clip from the new spot out by Owl’s Head, which I guess is being called “The Salmon Spot.”
The New Yorker did a feature about this year’s trio of skateboard movies, and how they advance the current draw in Hollywood towards casting non-actors.
“But when I dropped in I was like, ‘Damn, why that ramp is moving?’ I thought I was on acid or something.” Harold Hunter retells the story behind his most famous slam.
Tombo and Richard Quintero run down the history of every Californian’s favorite place in New York to huck, D7. Fwiw I think Kerel was the first to ollie it, and btw, Antonio switch tre’d it (lol.)
The latest episode of the “Skate Muzik” podcast chronicles the #musicsupervision of the Static series with Josh Stewart.
Real celebrates 25 years of having Huf on the team with a remix of all his past parts + an interview with some new footage of him cruising around Lower Manhattan.
This is one of those videos where you think the editing is going to mellow out after the intro, but then it just stays that way for the whole time. “Lentiicular” is a montage from Carhatt-WIP, and features Roman Gonzales, Andrew Wilson, Chris Milic, et al.
“As the human attention span shrinks to rival the goldfish’s, ’tis it better, in pursuit of longevity and countercultural heft, to regularly shed teamriders every few years or hold to the original foundation of dudes as long as can be?” Boil the Ocean takes a ponder over Element and Girl’s new videos.
This is like when Kevin Durant signed with the Warriors, except Tiago Lemos might actually be better at skateboarding than Durant is at basketball, if that’s imaginable.
“Critter” is a nine-minute video of an American road trip featuring a bunch of Pass~Port guys, and has an ender section in New York.
Can’t tell where this “Mud Monsters” mini vid is based out of, and can only pick out a few Chicago and New York spots, but going to guess Texas (?) because it’s maybe the first time I heard Z-Ro in a skate clip, but also have no idea what any Texas skate spots look like, but also also also it’s a fun watch regardless ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: D. Rose, D. Rose, D. Rose, D. Rose.
Quote of the Week: “Oh shit! I gotta watch Corey Duffel’s new part.” — Adam Zhu, morning after Halloween
Calling all nerds / hoarders: Does anyone know if there’s an existing copy of the DNA Continuum DVD left on earth? Sources say that the video as a whole is whatever, but it would be nice to update the internet’s only existing copy of Jahmal’s part from the 240p upload on YouTube that is probably older than Kader.
Official Grammy Afterparty
Sean Dahlberg has a sick new 11-minute clip featuring tons of 917 video outtakes, Max Palmer doing a hardflip, and John Choi footage. (Related.)
R.B. Umali and Ron Deily with the best “guy skating around Lower Manhattan on a weekend” clip in while. Haven’t seen anyone skate that Robert Puleo bank in forever :)
TWS uploaded Charlie Cassidy’s ender part from John Valenti’s new video, NY Archive. The frontside kickflip over the big rail in the Westside Highway Park is pretty wild, and is that the first multi-level Reggaeton Ledges line?
“We now enter a realm where seemingly everything been done, in which all eras exist simultaneously, where nothing and everything is cool and wack all at once everywhere.” Boil the Ocean re: what it takes to impress us in 2018, and Ty Evans.
Volume 8 of Elkin Raw Files. One of the best ones yet.
Josh Stewart talks to the Nine Club this week + Brian Panebianco and Ryan Higgins talk to Philly’s “City Wide” show.
Chris Mulhern mashed up some of his favorite clips from the past few years into a “Second Sighting” montage, which includes a bunch of T.J. footage at the beginning.
A couple new clips of Stevie Williams skating in Barcelona via…this Weed Maps clip.
B.J. Wishard uploaded all the parts from his NJ-based video, Way Cool, to YouTube.
Not New York, not east coast, not even North American! But this Remy Tav “Welcome to WIP” part is really sick. Fully yelled at the screen when he clipped on the final ollie.
A true testament to the abysmal state of skateboard Twitter is the fact that after ~eight years of being on there, the Quartersnacks account’s most popular post is of a scooter kid focusing a skateboard. Maybe they really are taking over!
“Stripper punched out my teeth after I called her a bad mom.” Good. “One of the restaurants I was interviewing for was called, ‘Smile.’”
Sremmlife 3 is going to be a triple album but they haven’t given us a release date. “The only human on earth I’d trade places with is Swae Lee.” — Pryce Holmes.
QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: The guy who reposted this on Twitter probably summed it up best…”You’d have trouble defending this with a shotgun.”
Quote of the Week
Ashamed Gentleman: “I actually don’t know how to powerslide.”
Max Palmer: “I wish you didn’t tell me that.”
Culture ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
*Asterisk because two out of three of these blurbs are for photo books, with one of them (the first one) having probably less than a thousand words overall. Anyway, all three of these came out over the course of the past few months, and all of them deserve your time, especially as August grinds the skateboard news cycle to a near halt. Shout out to everyone putting cool shit on pieces of paper and sharing it with the rest of the world, whether it’s a ‘zine, a book or whatever the hell else ♥
Love — Paradigm Publishing
Love is less a book of skate photos, and more a visual essay of what skateboarding looks like when it’s forced to become a form of protest.
Jonathan Rentschler’s book tells the story of Love Park’s final years — a period most visibly represented by Brian Panebianco’s Sabotage series — in black and white photographs. Love was the first time I felt genuine anger while looking through a book about skateboarding: anger at the cops raising up skateboards in smiley triumph as they confiscate them, anger at police officers pulling people by the hair after they throw them to the ground, anger at the politicians attending a groundbreaking ceremony for the park’s destruction, who will no doubt spend as little time in its remodeled incarnation as they did when they were leading a stubborn crusade against the thing giving it life. These images are interjected with a portrait of the community that corralled in a place they were told was not for them. This is not limited to the skaters, but also fringes of society who those same faces of civil service often prefer to ignore.
Review by Galen Dekemper. Galen recently went digital with Dollar Stories, his series of ‘zine-style short stories that are available at various stores throughout the city and out of his backpack. “Two Dollar Dances” is probably the most notorious of the bunch. Buy a digital dollar story today.
Most skateboard media displays mastery as representative of much larger voyages. Four visits to a spot results in one photograph. Four years of filming and one may have a video part. The mystique of the trick conquers all, again and again. Format Perspective is Philip Evans’s documentary of six European photographers. Format Perspective is less of a highlight reel and more of a touring anatomy of scenes and sessions. Carhartt-WIP produced the multimedia object, an hour long DVD bound with a 132 page photo volume.
The title Format Perspective refers to how every media device frames then exerts authority over the viewer’s gaze and vantage point. We must see through the capturer’s eye. Each photographer has a ten-minute segment filled with explanations, recommendations and recollections, then music over photo and video montage of shredding. Super-8 film means grainier footage and photographs that appear in sharp contrast with zooms and pans that further direct our gaze. We see how the photographers find their angles and the points at which a kickflip or nosegrind 180 is most visible as such.
