Comfort Station

jake johnson wallride

Who wins the battle of most insane thing accomplished on a skateboard for the past week — Jake Johnson (above) or Dane Burman for 5050ing the Philadelphia Municipal Services rail? (As a result of those two, one of the crazier bluntslides in recent history may have unfortunately been overshadowed.)

Though it doesn’t have the particular Montreal trick in question, the new GX1000 montage has a good bit of Jake Johnson footage from Montreal.

Copenhagen seems like a good time.

Small Wheels has a short, entirely New York-set welcome video for Aaron Herrington. (Still tough to spell that with an “E” instead of an “A” given memories of a guy who spells his name with the latter.) Also, while (somewhat) on the topic of Polar, their section in Grey Area is nostalgic in a EE3 sort of way and generally awesome.

On Golden Pond 2 is a 20-minute homie video, mostly filmed in New York.

With winter midtown season fast approaching, here’s a chill black and white gallery of the DQM team on a high ISO session.

Some footage of dudes skating a bank spot that people began venturing out to in 2011, but in 1993 though

How long until someone 5050s this new traffic sculpture in Park Slope?

Watermelon Alex and Belief Skate Shop are hosting a best trick contest at the Astoria Park next Saturday, November 2nd.

Speaking of Belief, their 2013 video, Ever Upward, is on Vimeo in its entirety.

The good news: Someone up there likes skateboarding, because the Chase two up, five down has been remodeled into exactly what it once was. The bad news: The building has been sold to a Chinese company, with “plans to expand and enhance the retail space at the base of the building,” so it may soon become a bust.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Tyler Hansbrough was about to bring Psycho T out, until he realized who was behind him

Quote of the Week: “Maroon 5 has a hood pass.” — Ty Lyons

Slow news week. You’ve seen all this stuff before. OMG :(

From the Cell Block to the Skate Spot

shawn powers sutherland

Shawn Powers for Dior Homme S/S ’14. Photo by Peter Sutherland.

We cut a few prices on some remaining QS gear in anticipation of fall items.

Much like Riff Raff is the undisputed king of Vine (sooo spring 2013, right?), Lucas Puig is perhaps the only Instagram user making good use of the app’s video function. He put together a brief “Best Of” video of his straight-to-Instagram tricks. Also, why exactly didn’t he skate to “I Can’t Wait” in Bon Voyage?

There’s a new minimal, manual-friendly skate park in Bushwick, similar to the one that popped up in Park Slope two years back. More of these please.

Though they are less “minimal,” Templeton from Mostly Skateboarding put together a cool #listicle of the most innovative skateparks on earth for Complex.

Yaje Popson came back from Brazil and is still really good at skateboarding.

One of Yaje’s friends, Luke Clerkin, has a fun midtown night session clip online, too. It can easily get frustrating, but its still tough to think of a spot more fun than a good night in midtown. (P.S. The ground is fixed at that wallride on 65th Street.)

Billy McFeely has a quick interview and a few tricks over on the Transworld site.

Added Lurker Lou’s Williamsburg Monument spot check from Faux One One to its spot page.

Deep Dish is a new video out of Chicago with a New York section as its opener.

Some stuff that has been online for a bit (i.e. content that is ~five days old): Jake Johnson came back to the city and destroyed everything in thirty seconds, Alex Olson skated New York for a bit and then went to Iceland to exfoliate, Huf put out the obligatory “Summer Trip to NY” clip with some lesser seen spots (fakie boardslide down Black Hubba is nuts), and Chris Nieratko ran down the history of New York’s first skateboard company for ESPN.

The New York Times had some skate-related content in the past week: an article on preserving the first skatepark ever built in New York (and still the only public vert ramp in the city, right?), and a site feature on some of Allen Ying’s photos.
Quote of the Week: “Sick, now there are babies crying. This is like eating in a hospital.” — Josh Velez on eating in Golden Krust

Boil the Ocean claims Quartersnacks is the skate industry’s Traps N Trunks. And here we were thinking we were its Purple Diary :(

God Bless America, Never Been to Colombia

young jeezy the recession

Though not the holiest of QS holidays that July 26th is, this week marked half-a-decade since the release of Young Jeezy’s The Recession, the record that more or less soundtracked the lead-up to Barack Obama’s election (and also predicted it two months ahead of time #natesilverofthestreets.)

Unbeknownst to much of the American public, Young Jeezy was the President of the United States from 2004 to 2008. The Recession was his going away gift to America, and a passing of the torch to a more visible and official black president.

It was also his last *great* record, as he has since been more comfortable making uncharacteristic loverman raps and Bay Area-inspired club homicides (although he does make an occasional foray back into politics.) Following a summer of bank failures and mixtapes marred by awful drops, The Recession gave us more of a reason to feel hope than the to-be-elected president did. The social content implied by the title flew out the door by the time he said “I want a new Bentley, my auntie need a kidney,” but nobody wanted to hear Jeezy get on some Immortal Technique nonsense anyway. There was a pinch of desperation to his standard demands that you get off the couch and sell coke. It added to the urgency of America’s plight at that point in time, even if it required appropriation into legal avenues. Michael Phelps got it as he swam to record numbers of goal medals, so everyone else had no excuse.

If you could re-score the events of late-2008 all over again, there really was no better record to play alongside intangible promises of “hope” than The Recession. “Put On” sounded like the end of the world, despite the fact that it addressed topics unrelated to the actual recession. Soon after, we found it necessary to restructure Jake Johnson’s Mind Field part, which emerged from the 2008 debris as the first great video part of the Obama presidency, alongside a more timely tune. (Sure, that “My Girls” song probably meant something to you if you wore sweaters with holes in them to Lit Wednesdays in 2009, but remains utterly meaningless around these parts.)

Here are some other people that get it (yes, that includes Sheckler):

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Based on a 25-Cent Story

Four-word Review of Based on a T.R.U. Story: Pluto is way better.

While on the topic of 2 Chainz, there is another round of Death Video throwaways edited to his insistence of starting a riot.

The next thing you should watch today is Manolo’s “Best of” Jovontae Turner mixtape. It puts particular emphasis on the proper form of a 360 flip, and is edited to a RBL Posse song closely associated with one of the more infamous PWBC episodes.

Even when Alien Workshop riders are presented outside the context of an Alien Workshop clip, they are contractually obligated to have their skating surrounded by video “art.” A minute of new Jake Johnson footage for Brick Harbor, plus mandatory shots of lightbulbs, smoke, sparklers, etc. (Our editing department is currently re-editing all of Jake’s recent footage to 50 Cent as a sequel to this.)

The Chrome Ball Incident has a sick Zered Bassett post up.

There is an upcoming skate video named after the (better) Chief Keef song that doesn’t have an annoying Kanye remix. 3Hunna is a video by the Endless Grind crew out of North Carolina. Features a new Connor Champion part.

We missed this month-old early entry to the “Summer Trip to New York” clip cycle. The residents surrounding a certain park on 8th Avenue sure do have a lot of “real” issues to worry about. Apparently, you deserve to go to prison for skateboarding.

Some kids from Jersey threw together a pretty cool 19-minute mini video filmed in New York and outlying areas. Shout out to everyone who takes a NJ Transit train to skate Manhattan every day. NJ Transit suucckks.

Black Dave is opening up for Juicy J at an event in Brooklyn this Thursday.

2012 is weird, man. Dylan Rieder, ASAP Rocky, Zoe Kravitz and other people in the September issue of Vogue. Looks like Rieder settled for Alexander Wang as a fashion sponsor instead of joining Alex Olson on Chanel.

Is poetry the new VHS?

Well, now we know the answer to last November’s question about whether or not dollar burgers could steal some marketshare from New York’s dollar slice industry. A resounding “NO.” Hopefully, no one went in there to try it out.

Quote of the Week: “Slappying curbs is like talking to girls, you just have to press up on them a bit.” — Andre Page


Got a cruiser re-stock in. Tees this week. Both available online (in store?) soon.

“I guess we’ll never know where BMCC gets us…”

Slicky Boy met Eric Koston this past weekend, so there’s that.

The new Bronze / Flipmode video, 56K premieres at Wreck Room in Brooklyn (940 Flushing Avenue, off the Morgan L stop) this Friday, at 10 P.M. Flyer & more info here. According to an anonymous QS commentor, the premiere will soon be followed by a release of the past three videos on a DVD disc. Who said DVDs were dead?

To get all the events out of the way — Black Dave is opening up for Chief Keef at S.O.B’s (Varrick & West Houston Street) tonight. Flyer here. Doors open at 7:30, show at 9. Age 16+, so you can cool with your young’ns. Tickets are $20.

Watch what “throwaway” footage from Lucas Puig and Mark Suciu looks like. Apparently, there are still a bunch of kids out there today who think they have a chance of going pro. Good luck with that.

Gravis has a new clip out with a minute of unseen Jake Johnson footage from the past year or so. Lots of gnarly, middle-of-nowhere midwestern spots. “Perfect trick selection, pants improving” — Ted Barrow. Ripped Laces has a post detailing the sketchiness of the bank to rail in Yonkers he backside 5050s.

E.J. with another Super 8 lifestyle-y summer in New York clip.

Here’s Zered Bassett’s second commercial for his UXA guest board release.

$$$ is a New York-based video with a bunch of young kids ripping around the city. Teaser here. It has a couple of really sick lines down the double-sixes at FedEx.

Lots of tie-dye and a Quim-ish backside 180. Speaking of #tiedyestylez…

This is the Satori wheels commercial from EST 2. Cool spots, and a nineties Stereo video vibe, except a bit more hippie-er.

Get well soon, Derrick Rose.

Quote of the Week:


Eddy Curry won a NBA championship. Don’t bother going to work or school today.