Frozen in Carbonite | Quartersnacks

Sports Club — An Interview With Roman Lisivka

Features & Interviews January 29th, 2021 · 10:00 am · 12

Intro & Interview by Frozen in Carbonite
Photography by Kubo Krizo

Anyone whose parents forced them to take piano lessons remembers that antiquated wooden metronome with a metal needle going back and forth. Practicing scales might “suck,” but maintaining a consistent tempo forms the foundation of any musical journey.

ANYWAY, a symbolic representation of the discipline necessary to achieve mastery of one’s instrument, the metronome at Stalin Plaza has become a metaphor for the technical excellence that locals like Petr “Euro Wenning” Horvat and others have created there since the 1990s. After the supernova of They Don’t Give a Fuck About Us, EuroTech™ expanded across the continent. Gunslingers from all over the continent migrated to Barcelona, but only a few — like Roman Lisivka and fellow Slovakian Marek Zaprazny — gained widespread recognition on account of their undeniable virtuosity.

Lisivka has produced some of the most forward-thinking EuroTech™ content of the past decade — including the “Stalinista” edit, footage in Sportsclass’ “Enter the Stalin” (the Only Built 4 Cuban Linx of contemporary EuroTech™), and a two-song last part in Primitive’s “Rome” vid — a section that I claimed as my favorite of 2020.

We caught up with Roman to discuss coming up skating in the aftermath of the Soviet Eastern Bloc, his new venture Métronome, and the process that goes into composing some of the most diabolical technical skating ever put down.

‘All Part Of The Show’ — The Politics of Pants in Skateboarding

Features & Interviews October 29th, 2020 · 1:00 am · 24

Intro + Interviews by Frozen in Carbonite
Top Collage by Requiem For A Screen
Illustrations by Charles Rivard

Pants, as an article of clothing and a philosophical entity, dominate the skate zeitgeist. They consume the daily banter on #skatetwitter, inspired an Instagram account dedicated to IDing them, and have the potential to become the most controversial item of one’s kit. Pants factions line up like the gangs at the beginning of The Warriors — Dickies disciples, nineties enthusiasts, Polar people, and so on.

So began our quest to investigate — not so much the what of pants — but the why. To accomplish this goal, we interviewed four skaters over a generational spectrum and asked the same set of questions.

As we stitched together the interviews, one common thread stood out: Like everything else in 2020, one’s choice of pants is a political act.

‘If You See Someone At The Door With a Board, Let ‘Em In’ — A Review of ‘All the Streets Are Silent’

Features & Interviews June 18th, 2020 · 12:00 am · 4

Words by Frozen in Carbonite
Poster Design by Order

I think it says in that book The War of Art that just sitting down and doing the thing can break down a creative block. Sometimes, a project takes on a life of its own and becomes something you never imagined. Skate videographer, Jeremy Elkin — whom you might remember from Poisonous Products and The Brodies — initially set out to make a documentary about the seminal Zoo York video, Mixtape. His research led in a more expansive direction.

More than once.

Now is the Winter of Our EuroTech — On Hélas’ “Fellas” Video

Features & Interviews March 18th, 2020 · 12:00 am · 14

Words by Frozen in Carbonite

Winter. A time for contemplation. Way back at the season’s inception, The Hélas Cap Company dropped the most essential EuroTech document since Lordz’ They Don’t Give a Fuck About Us: the double-DVD skate video, Fellas. I, for one, welcome the current Instagram era if it results in fucking immaculate physical media packaging like the aforementioned. The film comes in a double-CD case like a musically bloated late nineties double album, the track listing printed on each gold disc (the same kind on which your grandfather listened to classical music.) If you no longer own a digital video disc player, it’s also available as a USB keychain fabricated like a lil’ soccer uniform. Truth be told, I’d probably pay triple to avoid watching this or the Pass~Port video part-by-part, on a bunch of different web sites, or both.

Which Celebrity Allegedly Got Bit in the Face Outside of Max Fish?

Daily News February 10th, 2020 · 12:00 am · 4

“Classic” • Photo via Nik Stain

Another addition to the “wish this was 4x as long”-pile: just under a minute of Kevin Bradley and Alice Coltrane, via Johnny Wilson.

“For this reason, any alternative headspace that can be conjured by a Palestinian, is a radical form of resistance.” Medium has a photo feature and article about the growing skate scene in Palestine.

The Poetic Collective video is online in full. Wtf is Poetic Collective? Funny you should ask…