Converse | Quartersnacks

Quartersnacks Top 10 — May 11, 2018: A Ben Chadourne Special Edition

Daily News May 11th, 2018 · 12:15 am · 5

Been a bit slow around here on the front end of things — but we’ve had a good deal of stuff going on in the background that should bubble to the service sooner than later. There’s fifty Drought Is Over mixtapes, so we can afford to take a drought week here and there from regular programming…hopefully ♥ ;)

This week is dedicated exclusively to Ben Chadourne’s Purple video. All due respect to Yaje’s new part, the DC South America tour vid, and Tao’s new clip from Marseilles, but like the Login Lava edition that went live last September, the video is special enough to deserve its own episode.

(And even then, we couldn’t fix close to enough in there. Leave all your “What about ______?!” to yourselves.)

((Jk, you can complain in the comments all you want. Have a good weekend ya.))

Original Clips:

Spoiler

All clips via Converse’s Purple video [link] 10) Kevin Rodrigues 9) Zered Bassett 8) Brian Delatorre 7) Aaron Herrington 6) Sage Elsesser 5) Mike Anderson 4) Eli Reed 3) Louie Lopez 2) Bobby DeKeyzer 1) Jake Johnson

[collapse]

Previously: May 4, 2018

Took the Links Offshore

Daily News May 7th, 2018 · 4:54 am · 6

This bench has made a long journey from Delancey Curb, to the front of a Rivington Street pizza restaurant, and eventually, back to its rightful community at T.F. — though none of us have been there since Thursday, and also the D.A. softball league is back, so it might be up in heaven now.

Oh, so you’re just throwing barricades now?

Tony Choy-Sutton has a rad new video entitled “Gas,” which features John Gardner, Franco, Pat Gallaher, and a part from Sean Frederickson full of scary spots.

“Sownd” is a 13-minute video of mostly New York footage from some (mostly?) North Carolina ex-pats. The boardslide line at Riverside Park and the ender are wild.

Was kind of wondering how long it’d take for an all-Borough Hall part to come along. Would be shocked if someone wasn’t working on an all-Borough Hall video right now too. (Also, seeing 2k18 American footage of people doing a line at a real street spot with dozens of skaters chilling on some steps in the background is ♥♥♥)

While sifting through a box of random skate DVDs, I remembered I had these two nineties Boston videos, the earlier one of which includes a Jahmal Williams part from literally 27 years ago. Just uploaded to YouTube here.

Mark Del Negro has a new five-minute part over on Theories.

“In the never-ending Instagram demo, perhaps the pro daily dribbling out indifferently phone-filmed park clips is not some navel-gazing lazy, tossing half-baked bones to his or her followers while too hungover to step to street spots.”

Krak did an “all tricks” compilation from the long Barcelona hubba ledge that has been popping up in quite a lot of videos as of late.

“There’s something modest to his skateboarding, in that he can realistically do anything, but rarely rolls away with flair or arrogance. It’s a very polite way to ride a skateboard.” A guy with the same name as a former Cons pro offers up a review on the Cons video, which — if you haven’t been on the internet all weekend — is now online.

The Gristedes on 96th Street closed down, which means you can now skate the bank in front of it that only Jaws otherwise skated in some Weed Maps clip…idk dude ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: This is one of those weeks where if it didn’t go to Lebron, it’d just look like some full hater shit. So it’s going to Lebron.

Quote of the Week: “This is a pretty sweet spot. It reminds me of Germany…not that I’ve ever been to Germany.” — Nolan Benfield re: a French restaurant in France

Follow @quartersnacks

Parisian Notes on Cons & Ben Chadourne’s Purple Video

Features & Interviews May 4th, 2018 · 3:10 pm · 3

Words & Photos by Zach Baker

It is wild to me that a person could ever get to a point in their given field where they could even consider the idea of making something perfect. In skating, I’m reluctant to say that it is even possible, given the subjectivity that is part and parcel of anything creative. Be it the way a person holds their arms, or the viewer’s disapproval of whatever “bullshit fuckin’ trap song!” was chosen — in 2018, considering the our varied and fickle tastes, no video is going to make everyone happy. I doubt that the people involved in the making of Purple had any delusions in this regard.

An Interview With Ben Chadourne

Features & Interviews November 9th, 2016 · 5:20 am · 5

Photo by Manuel Schenck

Words & Interview by Zach Baker

It seems like yesterday that we were blowing on cassette tapes and using t-shirts to dust DVDs off. Even shitty 240p YouTube videos feel like they weren’t all that long ago. Technology has evolved at a downright sketchy rate over the past couple decades, and it’s fun to watch society transform in its effort to keep up. The ways in which we waste money, photograph our own genitals and ingest media have changed drastically, and both we, along those in charge of doing the creating, have found ourselves adapting alongside them.

Skateboarding’s past couple years have been defined by the Vimeo auteur’s surge in popularity. Guys like Johnny, Peter, Nick Von, GX — without sponsorship from a larger company or any real promotion — have been able to go out, film their buds and throw original, quality edits up on the web for anyone to see. Skaters meritocratically recognize what’s tight and show these things enough love that it has gotten to the point that these guys are actually turning their creative side projects into full-blown careers. They have not only shined a light on lesser-known scenes, skaters, spots and tricks, but in using the tools at their avail, upheaved the traditional means by which a skate video is made and watched. The industry has been forced to keep up with them, and shit, even hire them.

Ben Chadourne has been on a serious tip lately — belting out HD edits of the Blobys, the Converse team and most recently, the Bobby Worrest/Hjalte Halberg edit for Nike SB, a love letter to skateboarding’s greatest plazas by two of the best ever to skate them. And Chadourne, with his admittedly useless art school degree, taste for Rod Stewart, and familiarity with the state of New Jersey, couldn’t be more on-brand for this site. We FaceTime audioed all about it while he paced up and down his street in Bordeaux, watching the people pass by and being self-conscious about his English, which is nearly perfect.

+++++++

What’s the last trick you learned?

Damn, I haven’t been skating that much anymore, that’s not good. I don’t know. Fuck. I’m doing the same. I’m working on my v flips because they’re trendy now.

What’s your favorite trick?

Fakie flips and ollies!

You’re from Bordeaux?

Yeah, it’s like a little Paris. It’s southwest, forty five minutes from the coast, three and a half hours train to Paris. You can refresh really easily compared to Paris; you can escape. That’s why I stay here.

What are a couple of your favorite French films?

You know this movie called L’Argent? It’s five short films in a movie, from different French directors. I like that, and La Haine by Mathieu Kassovitz. I like Raymond Depardon as well.

When did you start skateboarding?

I started at a skate spot called Malraux, it’s like a skate plaza. I started with guys who were way older than me: I was 13 and they were around 20. They helped me out all the time, gave me boards and stuff.

Weren’t you sponsored?

Yeah, I used to ride for Nike SB and 5Boro. The first time I came to New York, I was 16 and I went to Tombo Colabraro’s house in New Jersey — the big skater house with the Ax Throwers, Andrew [McLaughlin], Willy Akers, Danny Falla.

What A Time To Skate At Night — A #TRENDWATCH2015 Special Report

Daily News November 5th, 2015 · 4:54 am · 17

what a time to skate at night

November 3, 2015: Future Hendrix drops “Helluva Night,” a somber unreleased tune chronicling late evening escapades of standing in the middle of orgies, putting smiles on the faces of women with loose morals, and being #influenced by Tootsie’s Cabaret in Dade County, Florida. MERE HOURS LATER, the skateboard media news cycle drops TWO night-themed video clips. Hell of a night, indeed.

If you had the slightest bit of a thought that Nayvadius DeMun Wilburn isn’t the gatekeeper of all forms of art and culture in 2015, you can lay that doubt to rest.

Skating at night was once a necessity, not an aesthetic. We waited til night to evade security, avoid the crowds, and bask in the shadows away from surveillance cameras. As the dominant mode of skateboarding in New York and other metropolises has shifted away from well-lit business districts into dimmer outer-borough crust, skating after the sun set has become a lost art. You can count the amount of night clips in your average Johnny Wilson video on your hands with a couple of fingers missing.

That doesn’t dull the fact that night footage, particularly in cities, looks cool as shit. Except that after asking your team to wallride off cobblestones in the Bronx for an entire afternoon, making them shy their sights away from the nearest bar with at least three girls in it ends up being a tall order. A “NIGHT CLIP” becomes an event, not a byproduct of zoning that placed the best marble in an area best visited after the people with real jobs had left.