The new Blue Couch edit is their best one yet — a lot of which is just filmed in the vicinity of the 125th Street Fairway? Never realized those inch-high curbs at Grants Tomb were a doppelgänger for the London ones Tom Knox, Mike Arnold and them always skate.
Krux has a new edit with Arin, Marbie, Cooper, Kristin Ebeling, Ryan Lay, and others hitting Blue Park, Alligator, and all the spots under the Kosciuszko.
“The Creed Video” is filmed around New York, Richmond and Charlotte. These sort of homie videos have a special charm ♥ Sincerely smiled at the turnaround after the 5-0 180.
In Boogie Nights, Paul Thomas Anderson’s film about the porn industry of the 70s and 80s, Burt Reynolds’ Jack Horner gives a fateful speech admonishing the advent of home video: “I have a stable of actors and actresses. They’re professionals. They’re not a bunch of fucking amateurs. They’re proven in the box office. They get people in theaters, where films should be seen, and they know how to fuck.”
It is not hard to imagine similar tirades (maybe with a few words switched out) occurring in Powell-Peralta boardrooms as the 80s were coming to a close, and skateboarding was around the corner from a crash. Skate videos of the decade were refined and narrative-driven, and for good reason. There were only like, six tricks invented at the time, so they had to fill up those other 53 minutes in an hour-long skate video with story, personality shots and other shit.
But what would come after skateboarding’s believed-to-be demise was a rebirth. Videos like Snuff, Video Days, Tim & Henry’s Pack of Lies, and Questionable were unrepentant in their progression — they were too busy inventing modern skateboarding in front of your eyes to worry about the extracurricular malarky from the Animal Chin days. New faces and a camera thrown in a backpack was the name of the game. The old mode was dead. But for how long?
Skateboarding draws many parallels to pornography, but one of the most curious ones is an incessant need to add narrative to something that nobody watches for the story. As we will soon learn, plots returned to skate videos as quickly as they went.
Hey what’s up hello. It’s the latest Monday post since the queen turned 30 back in February, but this week is a wash, let’s be real.
“The democratic process is going to march on with or without you and it’s up to you to make a difference in it. Whether or not skateparks really make the city a better place or not – you can argue it one way or the the other – the fact is that they bring vitality and youthfulness. That’s kind of the new currency, really.” Village Psychic caught up with our friend Will Cornwall about how the skate community in Providence, R.I. turned a neglected bit of their downtown into a multi-use skateable public space that wouldn’t look out of place in say, Malmö. Honored to have been a tiny part of the story ♥
We try to steer clear of the “fashion ripping off skateboarding YJ&&&T&%R$$^&!!!” angle considering skate graphics have been riffing on high fashion logos for decades, but Dolce & Gabbana’s DG King line looks eerily similar to that company the guy with that part in The Reason started… A wise man once said “you don’t have to be smart, just don’t be so fucking stupid” — this is more like “you don’t have to be original, just don’t be so fucking obvious.”
Michael Mackrodt’s “Fishing Lines” in Paris sequel is damning evidence of the fact that Paris is somehow even more afflicted with the “all visitors skate the same exact spots” dilemma than New York is. After maybe ~5 skate trips there, we have been to zero of the spots he skates. Keith Denley claims that it’s because those spots being “in the Paris equivalent of Bayridge,” but also he is not a licensed geographer.
Just when you thought DS1000 was the most fried concept you were gonna get for a video, Rob Fraebel made a 2018 video partially filmed on a Fisher-Price camera released in 1987 entitled PLX2000. (Don’t worry, it’s mostly VX though.)
As the early 2000s become a burgeoning reference point for nostalgic skateboarders, it is important we avoid the temptation of lumping everything in as “nineties.” Baggy does not immediately equal nineties, man. It’s convenient to group #movements into ten-year intervals, except in reality, that boom-bap-cassette-tape-subway-at-night shit that adorns modern “Summer Trip to New York” edits went out the door by 1996 once Ma$e’ flow and Puffy’s shiny suit came around.
Sure, John Shanahan might gleefully season his skateboarding with spices from the purported “golden age” — most notably via Anthony Correa’s big DC shirts and a nod to the instrumental that played as Big Ill the Mack tried to make us forget the shit Keith Nut said about his sister five minutes earlier — but the early 2000s are even more present. Look toward the inconvenient task of skating the E.S.T--fave Penn Plaza manual pad post-renovation, apparent homages to Kalis and StevieDC Video bump tricks.
Tino. Scan via Science Versus Life. Slow news week last week, but guess what? It’s going to be sixty degrees all this week, and it’s going to start getting dark after 7 P.M. starting Sunday :)
If you have even $10 you can spare and acknowledge that skateboarding is a really cool thing that more people across the world should do to be happy, please support the construction of the Addis Abbaba skatepark in Ethiopia. It’s going to help people’s lives a lot more than that six-pack you were otherwise gonna buy with it ♥
Wow, there’s already a hill bomb clip crazier than Gerwer down the Bullitt hill.
#TRENDWATCH2016 — switch heelflip indy grabs and nosegrind body varials! Jk. Although J.B. Gillett already has a strong Quartersnacks Line of the Year Contender *and* a Noseslide of the Year frontrunner, based off the latest Dalavas clip.
DGK fam Connor Champion, John Shanahan, Dylan Sourbeer, Will Mazarri, and The World’s Best Dressed Skateboarder™ 2016, Daniel Kim, at the Nike SB Garage.