2018 feels like the first lllooonnnggg year in a while. Like, did the Cons video come out in 2016? But alas, we had to cuff up our macaroni denim before it went out of style, and recap just what the hell happened in this year that felt like three.
Past Editions: 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, 2010
Once upon a time, we went years without breaking the annual tradition of End of Summer clips posted right before each Labor Day Weekend.
Then, we were lead astray. To give you some context, the last time we posted one, it was to a Rich Homie Quan song in 2015, and not long after, he devastatingly walked out of our lives never to be heard from again.
Some might say we were too busy indulging in the finer things life has to offer at the expense of time spent on a skateboard. Others blame Instagram for cannibalizing the footage economy, i.e. how often do you see a run of the mill city montage getting uploaded to YouTube or Vimeo these days that isn’t a longform project promoting something or a trip clip? Like, who makes clips over sixty seconds just for the sake of it anymore?
…we do! At least we’re trying to again! Because montages are fun! You get to use more than sixty seconds of a song you like! You don’t have to hoard footage for twelve months waiting for everyone to get their parts together! It’s way more fun than uploading shit to an IG story and getting a bunch of praying hands emojis in your DMs! Montages have vibes! Montages are memories! Montages are beautiful!
Following the start of this year’s summer solstice — amidst the build-out of this snazzy new redesign — we made a resolution to start bringing the #RealCamera™ out all the time. Also, we were still reeling for the devastating loss of Final Cut 7; we had to get with the times and figure out how the hell to use Premiere. August was hindered by a bit of a nagging health issue, but as a bonus, we mixed in the footage from the two-and-a-half days we spent in Prague because there were never any concrete plans for it. (So, it’s basically a July 2018 montage.)
We’d like to extend a special individual thank you to Antonio Durao for keeping everyone hyped this summer, because without him, there’s no way this clip would exist. (You’ll see.) Contributing filmers: Jesse Alba & Emilio Cuilan.
Features Antonio Durao, Daniel Kim, John Francomacaro, Conor Prunty, Connor Kammerer, Chris Milic, Brian Brown, Myles Gable, Hjalte Halberg, Ruben Spelta, Anton Juul.
Who knows, maybe we get real wild and drop a Christmas clip this year too ♥
Photo via The Shady One
Not quite sure why the willy grind has been making a comeback as of late, but there’s a lot of good stuff in Brandon Gironda’s part via the Westchester County-based PFP5 video (ender is wild) + an accompanying Q & A with Mike Sassano about the long-running video series.
Austyn Gillette with four minutes of L.E.S. Park footage you’ll actually want to watch the whole way through. Had to throw that tune on mute tho ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
“When people are in public spaces or people are walking through public space…They conceive it as a kind of as a private property. Do you understand what I mean? So it’s like, ‘this is for this…Look there’s a bench here and it’s clearly meant for people who have shopped in that store to come here and eat this kind of fucking sandwich…’ They have a certain kind of possessive sense of everything.” — The always insightful Ocean Howell, with your #longread for the week via an interview about *shock* how skateboarders interact with public space in 2018.
We’re holding an editor’s meeting first thing this morning to see if it is possible to do a skateboard version of this New York mag article: “The Oral History of Four Loko in New York. A lot of cancelled following day sessions, and a lot of unnecessary nights in bookings coincided with this era writ large.
Gang Corp has a four-minute montage from their trip out to L.A. and S.F. + a new teaser for their upcoming video, Black Business.
Kyota made another video filmed exclusively on a Nintendo DS, aptly entitled DS2000. Includes a full Chris Milic part, who also has a bunch of fried tricks in this Frog Las Vegas trip montage.
ICYMI: Cyrus, Bobby Worrest, Challex Olson + others ripped through that Texas/Oklahoma/Mississippi part of country with Nike SB.
Two Brazilians came through and filmed his five minute shared New York part during that one magical week when the planters were moved away from the CBS Ledge. I know GX got all you psyched, but everyone please be careful filming in traffic, for the love of God.
Hopps rider Dustin Eggeling has a handful of New York clips in his new quick part for Live.
“I didn’t really receive shit out of it other than 11-16 year-olds hating me. Now that they’re 23 and they finally meet me, they tell me I’m a nice guy.” Love Skate Mag has an interview with Lurker Lou.
…anndd Skate Jawn has a new interview with Josh Kalis.
……aaaaaannnnnddddd Jim Thiebaud — someone who has received death threats over board graphics — has some thoughts for the “leave politics out of skateboarding” crowd.
Interviewing skaters alongside their moms could actually be a good interview series idea.
Quote Tweet of the Week:
(On that note, you might want to check out Stefan Janoski’s stop motion short film, “God I Need A Girlfriend.”)
Always loved how this clip came out, and remember lots of good times filming while for it. Rest in peace Miss Aretha ♥
This is perhaps the *SECOND* (!) time in this skateboard media enterprise’s modern history that there has been THREE :( Monday Links post to hold the five slots on the homepage. We’re working our way out of this slow news cycle + backend work and should be good to roll with more than two continuous updates to share with you by this time next week. (Hopefully! …but actually!) In the meantime, please enjoy the above image of Justin Henry and Dustin Henry. Photo by Zach Sheats.
O.J. has a cruiser clip with the actual best skater, Jawn Gardner.
Frog collaborated with Noah on a run of printables, and made this six-minute clip fetauring Jesse Alba, Chris Millic, office favorite Krazy Frankie, and Pat Gallaher, with spiritual guidance from self-help guru, Jason Byoun.
“Oh yeah, I remember what that comment said actually. It was like, ‘My 5 year old cousin could make this on Microsoft Paint.’ Do you actually use Microsoft Paint?” Noah also has an interview with Chris about the history of the always-triggering Frog factory.
The Canal crew has a new edit filmed exclusively at the Grand Street basketball courts (I guess we’ve all just been forced to come to terms with that spot to the point of it being an acceptable place to spend an entire day, huh?), and an interview about their brand over on the Office mag site.
…aanndd the latest round of Elkin raw tapes has footage from the spot before its colorful make-over, and good God did it look way more depressing five years ago.
Free has somewhat of an interview / feature about how they came to “get” Sean Pablo, plus The Shady One™ filmed a bit of a “Day in the Life” montage with him on the occasion of his Cons colorway. Shout out to meeting at T.F. West, skating over the Williamsburg Bridge, only to skate back to regular T.F.
“Cleardata” is a twelve-minute video that offers a glimpse into what post-apocalyptic Philadelphia skateboarding looks like in 2018.
This one of a bunch of upstate N.Y. dudes doing some non-obvious Paris spots earned a couple rewatches. Always nice when a trip video feels like something more than just a mere footage dump.
E.J. told me Antwerp was his favorite city at one point in time. The #RC-enthusiast POP Trading boys made it a point to film their entire new fall launch montage there.
Under a minute of Alltimers good vibrations via Dana Ericson ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Yeah, Chinatown Manny is definitely back in everyone’s rotation…
Quote of the Week: “Scootering is a statement.” — Zach Baker
Never need an excuse to post this guy’s music, but Max always somehow sounds better when the weather is like this.
After millions of dollars spent on airfare and accommodations, nearly a full day of traveling over sea and land, and much meticulous planning that it takes to get dozens of boys across the Atlantic, we were in Paris asking the immortal question that guides our lives: “Where are we gonna skate today?”
About 70% of the way through the trip, Nolan revealed that the only reason he swam to Paris (he’s not a big fan of planes) was for the purpose of skating the famous colored manual pad spot seen in a myriad of skate videos growing up. Much to his dismay, when those “where are we gonna skate today?”-convos were taking place and the spot would get mentioned, the proceeding thoughts were familiar…
“I think that’s still under scaffolding?”
“Are there other spots around there?”
“It’s not as good as it looks in videos.”
“We gotta take a train to get there…I kinda wanted to push around today.”
See, it doesn’t matter where you are, or how many new spots you haven’t grown bored of skating you’re surrounded by. The struggle is real no matter where you go. The only difference is you might not be able to kick it with Sophie that day.
Watch below to see if we made it, or if we did in fact, come to Paris for nothing.
YouTube blocked the video is Canada on account of the fire George Michael song. Canadians!!! Here is a Vimeo link.
Edited by Hjalte Halberg. Features Keith Denley, Kadeem Walters, Nolan Benfield, Daniel Kim, Jesse Alba, Chris Milic, Hjalte Halberg, Andrew Wilson, and Zach Baker.
