An August To Remember — How August 2023 Became A Landmark Month In Skate Video History

📝 Words by Ian Browning
📷 Headline Photo by Morgan Rindengan Courtesy of HUF

If you count everything in the Thrasher Junk Drawer, ten full-length videos, plus another handful of solo parts and edits came out in August 2023. We’ve come to expect that sort of programming when marketing teams try to get a thumb on the scale during the S.O.T.Y. race, but the end of summer has traditionally been a much less productive time of year for skateboarding.

At least until this year.

Lakai’s Bubble, Pass~Port’s “Trinket,” and Johnny’s Vid all came out in the same week. Palace’s Beta Blockers and WKND’s Rumble Pack came out on the same day, creating a nineties skater version of the meme about how eating a bag of Takis would overwhelm and kill a child from the 19th century.

What are the chances? How did it happen? And did anybody realize what was coming down the pipeline? I called a handful of skaters and filmers who worked on the projects that were released that month to find out why it was so stacked, and how it felt to navigate the spotlight.

More »

Drive The Fiat Like It Was A Chevy

📷 Photo by Joel Meinholz

“I hate to lean on this clichéd-ass targeted-ad-ass assertion, but skateboarding is a global support system.” Zach Baker wrote a trip article about an Alltimers trip to Medellín for Thrasher. The video + Joel Meinholz’s photography from it are all included 🇨🇴 Somebody bring Tom Knox to that first plaza.

Known goat, Jawn Gardner, empties and shreds an abandoned pool in Bridgewater, NJ that was built during the Eisenhower administration, and skated as far back as the mid-80s — while giving us a nice history lesson in the process 🐐

Ron Allen is 60 years old 🤯

Joe Buffalo has a new part out for his Anti-Hero guest board. If you don’t know about Joe, please watch the New Yorker mini doc about him from 2021.

More »

Ball N’ Parlay

Photo via @whatisnewyork.

“h” is a new, eighteen-minute homie video by Blaine Williams that’s mainly filmed in New York, with a sick part from Aidan Spencer to close it out. The fact the Polish Park planter-side ledges have endured for so long despite having three-feet of landing space is reason enough to never give up on your dreams ❤️

Casper Brooker has a great interview over on the Angel & Z podcast.

“So it was a little bit of everything: disappointment in myself, a little bit of wanting to try something new, and a lot of not thinking about it.” Spanky speaks about reinventing the way he skates and approaches video parts in the latest installment of Village Psychic + Ian Browning’s “Rules of Skateboarding” series. Spanky was also a recent guest on the How Long Gone podcast.

More »

Earth, Wind, Water, Content

Karim by Atiba 📷

Pocket set out to capture the endless good vibes that emenate when you’re kicking it with Karim Callender for their “Followed” series. Yeah, they succeeded ❤️

“I don’t want to be the first skateboarder to skate the ramp and the first skateboarder to break the museum.” Alexis Sablone spoke to the New Yorker about being the first person to ever skate inside the Guggenheim for her Converse pro model commercial.

The Lookback Library got ahold of Gino Iannucci to talk about his two magazine covers — both switch flips and both from 2004. (How the hell has Gino only had two covers? Especially coming from the era where there were four or five magazines?!)

More »

Skateboard Oscars Season

And so, with the December 2022 Thrasher cover, the hyper-speed of Skateboarding’s Oscars Season is officially underway…

“For me, skateboarding in Buffalo, New York really starts in March. We have a long winter, a crapshoot of a spring, a short summer, and a shit fall. Once the snow starts to melt I start driving around checking things out again.” Skate Jawn has the premiere of “Call Your Mother,” the new video by Moms Skateshop out of Buffalo.

Mixtape legend Anthony Correa is the latest guest on The Bunt. (The Bobshirt from 2016 is also a good rewatch.)

More »