HARD DRIVE is a New Haven, Connecticut scene video from the younger generation gyrating around Plush Skateshop. We have a soft spot for CT videos on here in general, but this one is very special. It makes a small(ish) city like New Haven feel like a big city scene and a small town all at once, full of night footage and the sort of third-eye-open spots you find when traversing the same hometown back lots over and over. No names, no info, but it rules. Last dude rips.
“Most Wanted” is the latest bi-coastal edit from Crazy Ass Paterson Skaters. Ross’ kickflip front 5050 was 10/10.
There is always an endearing quality to skate crews that stick together into adulthood — navigating work, family, and all the hurdles life throws in the way of linking up to watch your friend try a wallride behind a dumpster on a Saturday morning in December.
Decade is the third video from the Be Easy crew out of Sherman, Connecticut (about an hour and 45 minute drive from New York for our friends from foreign lands), concocted while the crew was reminiscing over old tapes from the VX days. The video was filmed over the past six months and dispersed with MiniDV memories celebrating a decade since their earliest projects filmed as a collective.
We’ve talked about it on here before, but it almost feels like your average New York-based crew is more likely to drive two hours to Philly for a day trip than just over the Westchester border to skate Connecticut. Videos like Decade (or 2021 favorite “Your Big Cheesecake“) do a great job of showcasing the vibrant homegrown scenes that exist in those smaller cities — places that have historically produced skaters as wide-ranging as Alexis Sablone to Brian Anderson to Jim Greco. Shout out to Alexis and Trevor Thompson’s new shop, Plush, in New Haven, where Decade premiered, too. (Somehow the first CT shop to carry QS goods!)
Ollie in front of Supreme by Max Wheeler. No, a different Supreme. Photo by Bobby Murphy.
The scope of skateboard travel got way smaller this past year-and-a-half. Connecticut — that lil’ big state that is basically just outside The Bronx — posed an interesting case study. Following the thaw-out from the most depressing winter of our lifetimes, our first trip out of New York was to CT. We came armed with inspiration from “Your Big Cheesecake,” a March 2021 Connecticut video that was blurbed about on here in the winter, and originally found on Skate Jawn. In it, you find a vast network of cutty, underseen spots sitting in small cities that are all a shorter drive away than Philadelphia. It wasn’t until just recently that our brains were forced to understand that maybe there was some skateboard escape nearby that wasn’t one we have been to dozens of times before. The rewatchability of “Your Big Cheesecake” definitely helped hammer that point home.
There are tried-and-true tales of crust synonymous with New Jersey, Philly, Ohio and the greater midwest — but for some reason, as the eastern seaboard begins transitioning into seafood shacks and Ivy League schools, a lot of that narrative gets lost, despite the fact that spots in places like Connecticut are every bit as rugged as those of its crustaceous neighbors. “Your Big Cheesecake” is a 14-minute video out of Connecticut by Dave Sullivan that is well-worth your time, and full of spots that you haven’t grown tired of seeing ♥ It really ramps up a few octaves at the end …that nollie at Trinity in particular, wow.
Manuel Schenck has a new all-Parisian edit for Supreme to commemorate their upcoming Nike SB Air Force 2. Features Nik Stain (!!!), Vince, Sage, Sean, K.B., Kyron Davis and Koston returning to gap skating at my favorite spot in the world.
“But even in his most powerful Diamond t-shirt, Chaz Ortiz can’t carry 2.7 million souls on his back alone.” Boil the Ocean reviews Realm, the latest video from Chicago’s Deep Dish crew, which came out last month.
Tennyson Corporation put together every appearance Rick Howard and Mike Carroll ever had in an issue of 411to a four-song mega mix.
C.J. Keossaian, Sean Dahlberg, Hugo Boserup, Andrew Wilson, Nik Stain and John Choi traveled to the Westerly and Groton skateparks in Connecticut, and came back with “Jet Fueled Hog.” We did that once. Good times.
Frontside 5050 to nosemanual is maybe the last trick anyone expected to see on Pyramid Ledges from that period where the one side was unknobbed.
Heaps Chat interviewed A.V.E. about his favorite restaurants and least favorite streets.