As you might remember from that Dickies video, Jake Johnson has been posting up in his hometown of State College, PA while he’s not traveling. Home to Penn State’s largest campus, and at the literal center of rural Pennsylvania, State College has a small but tight-knit scene, built around the small-town staples: D.I.Y. spots, curbs in parking garages, and backyard mini ramps.
Congrats to Jason on the pro board ♥
Chrystie NYC’s first full-length video, Chapter One in now live on Thrasher. Features an ender part from Aaron Herrington, a bunch of footage of that dude Kuae Cosa who’s been popping up in Cons edits, the up-close angle of the other way ollie at the Crosby Street Vespa Bump… and that ride-on grind at LaGuardia High School is insane.
As far as “concept parts” go, filming one entirely on cobblestone spots is a bold undertaking.
On the opposite end of the texture spectrum, Village Psychic made a montage only at playground spots around New York, and reminded us of why we don’t do remix videos without skate audio anymore.
“The guys in the video don’t give a fuck about the American industry anymore. We were also all listening to a lot of Tupac at the time and getting kicked out of spots in Cali, then jumping into the van and blasting that Tupac song kind of cemented it.” Ok then. Free has a full retrospective on one of the seminal skate video imports of the 2000s, Lordz’ They Don’t Give A Fuck About Us (and answers the question we were asking a lot back in 2013: what happened to William Phan?
Steve Mastorelli made a rad Silvester Eduardo remix. Actually missed a bunch of this footage before. Syracuse nollie flip was sick.
Jake Johnson v.s. The Louvre. Still holding out for Chris Pfanner v.s. The Met one day.
These Bunt episodes are getting pretty long. Kerry Getz is the latest guest. Love a level-headed, smart former pro. Shame that the angry, “everyone screwed me over” curmudgeon types tend to get all the attention though.
Theories uploaded what will be the final installment of the Elkin raw tapes series, and Tombo uploaded #9 of his raw deals series in the event that you need some VX footage from a long time ago to go along with your morning coffee ;)
Copenhagen and Malmö still got Paris beat on the whole “skateable obstacles integrated in public spaces but not exactly skateparks”-thing, but yeah! What they said! But for New York! Would trade like 3-4 New York skateparks for just that little red plaza on the side street in Berlin.
Paper has a quick feature on Skate Mamis, a collective of girls doing cool shit in Puerto Rico.
Aaron Herrington and Mark Suciu go on an artsy cruise around Lower Manhattan.
The Sabotage crew is releasing another video in 2020.
Ricardo Napoli’s new video, Ciao is premiering in Williamsburg, next Monday, April 8. Flyer + more info here. Teaser can be found here.
QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Tyshawn’s T.F. West part on the big screen at Barclays.
Quote of the Week
Charles Rivard: “He skates like he’s on coke, and parties like he’s on weed.”
Rob Harris: “More like he skates like he wishes he had friends.”
♥
“Without that skater/photographer communication, you have no choice but to sit and wait for the photo to show itself. It felt like I had photographed a wild leopard in the jungle.” Bobby Worrest — 360 flip noseslide. Photo by Jeff Comber. Head over to King skate mag for the full blurb.
*First great video part of 2019 alert* The scientists at Palace realized they needed some young blood on the team and got Heitor Da Silva (alum from the same Swedish skate school as Oski) onboard. He has an awesome new Adidas part out right now (that backside flip, switch frontside flip line…), and an interview about his journey from Brazil to Norway to The Triangle™ over on Grey. Could have probably dug a bit deeper on the song, but oh well.
Know a few people who would die happy after skating this spot for an hour.
Me, you, and Cyrus Bennett have the same favorite skateboarder. Hint: he skates more than everyone, for longer than everyone, is older than everyone, and is more oblivious to what’s going on in skateboarding that everyone.
Jake Johnson gave Dickies a tour of his hometown D.I.Y. spot in State College, PA + skated his backyard mini-ramp with a handful of special guests.
Skating is easy for Pat Gallaher.
Traffic scanned a 2005 TWS article about a D.I.Y. tour they did in Hartford, Albany, Rochester, Akron and Pittsburgh back in the early days of the company, with words from Ricky, and a bunch of rad photos. Never knew they were the architects behind that still-running Albany bank-to-ledge. #respect.
Jimmy Marketti uploaded uploaded an old edit of some Rob Campbell footage from 2005. The rollaway on the frontside wallride at the Banks is hall of fame.
The Village Psychic guys like Borough Hall a lot A.K.A. they made a video of all their 2018 iPhone footage. They look high, but when the hell were those plastic orange blocks there?
Not sure how to feel about this… A skateboarder at Le Dome was the main tipster to unraveling the biggest art heist in a generation ;)
Wow. Quite literally, “sorry I didn’t say hi.”
Spot Updates: Not the most oft-skated spot these days (unless you’re winding up there after getting kicked out of Bigscreen or something), but there’s not much to skate at Penn Plaza anymore, as the building put astro turf all over the upper portion of the spot.
Winter #TBT: The Brownsville igloo from ~2011.
QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Giannis just doing what we all feel…except maybe if you’re a Rockets fan.
Quote of the Week: “I was back at the hotel in bed watching everyone’s Instagram stories…just thinking ‘we’re all so fucking stupid.'” — Pryce Holmes
Listen up, fuckers: Voter registration periods in most states end this week. In New York, the voter registration deadline is Friday, and lucky for you, New York offers online registration. (New Jersey’s deadline is October 16, but you’ll need to mail in your registration.) Just under 50% of eligible 18-29 year-olds voted in 2016, whereas nearly 75% of 65+ year-olds did. Literal senior citizens are steering the course of your future. And that whole “my vote doesn’t matter!” / “it’s all corrupt!” / “both candidates suck!” shit is exactly the sort of cowardly laziness that anybody working against your self interests is dependent on. So, if you are eligible A) take the time out of the day you’d otherwise waste filming shitty skate tricks and register if you are not already, and B) if you do not vote on November 6, I hope to every possible higher power there is that you roll the fuck out of your ankle first thing in the morning on November 7 — like I hope it’s an excruciating cantaloupe size roll that takes five hellish months to heal where you don’t get laid once, and I hope that on your first day back skating after those frustrating five months, you roll the life out of the other ankle and it takes even longer to heal.
Psssst…shops have began getting fall QS merch in. Arriving in Europe & Japan this week. Check our stockists page to see which shops will have it in both in the States and globally. Our webstore will relaunch on Monday, October 15 at midnight E.S.T. (basically still Sunday night) with all of the new items.
The Canal video, Mode, is now online in full. Really fun video pretty much entirely filmed in New York, with the highest volume of midtown clips of any local vid in recent memory (always nostalgic for that.) It’s always heartwarming to see crews who grew up together keep skating and making full-lengths into adulthood ♥
Tied with midtown footage, our favorite sub-genre of New York skateboarding is watching Tyshawn skate over trashcans. Plenty of that and more in Thrasher’s recap video from the Hardies Can Jam at Blue Park last week.
Pat Hoblin has a rad new part over on TWS. The curvy boardslide over at the old Red Benches + the ender at Seward Park are both wild.
“Anything that combats the idea that skateboarding should be relegated to the skatepark is cool, and to me a worthwhile cause.” Alexis Sablone, who has a masters degree in architecture, created a sick-looking skateable sculpture park in downtown New York (just kidding, you know that shit is obviously in Malmö), and told Medium mag the story.
Antonio got sick of your switch tre jokes and decided to do some switch heels.
Theories posted a new episode of Elkin’s raw files, and Tombo uploaded another “Raw Deals” video from a 2009 trip to Peru and Colombia, which features a good batch of gold Brian Brown footage.
This is what the skatepark in Red Hook is supposed to look like. Aannddd it looks… cramped. To nobody’s surprise, the “Straight Fucking Ledges” crowd will be disappointed.
Russia’s Absurd Skateboards leads the skate world in companies whose trip destinations I most frequently have to search on Google Maps. Their latest one was to the Sea of Azov.
Here’s an eight-minute Jake Johnson mega mix of like, all his footage.
Lee Smith interviewed R.B. Umali for a new podcast he started.
Just after talking shit about those Citi Field benches on here last week, the city found a body wrapped in chains in the adjacent water on Wednesday. Told you that place has a weird energy…
QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Basketball is back! Honestly started laughing upon remembering Lance Stephenson and Lebron are on the same team now. Lance Stephenson Finals MVP book it!!!
Quote of the Week: “Damn, Frank Gerwer looks like me in ’06.” — Emilio Cuilan
R.I.P. Shorty’s, a place that showed the world the positive power of skateboarders adopting a forgotten corner of the world, and being left the hell alone in it. QS is hardly a transition skating-based enterprise, but there was something magical about each and every visit we took out there, even if it barely involved skateboarding on some days. Grateful to have been a part of it in some tiny way. Thanks to Andrew and all of the boys, and best of luck on the next chapter.
The Orchard boys have some nice items on eBay to support the Roll For Rob fundraiser.
It has been a slow news week out there. Links to Instagram clips: 1) The front noseslide on a foot-and-a-half high ledge heard around the world. 2) The double heelflip in Spiridons currently reverberating around the world. 3) Jake.
“You wanted a skate shoe that you and Sheffey could go to the club in.” “That’s the goal, yeah.” A lot of guys who started brands give interviews about starting brands, but Sal Barbier is a guy who you should listen to if you want to hear a guy give insight on starting brands. Thanks for the shout out man ♥
I’ve heard friends who don’t skate anymore and barely follow skateboarding say Jamie Foy is their favorite skater. Can’t knock that one. He’s got a couple New York clips in this Jenkem video of a recent Diamond trip.
“Does US sports apparel manufacturer New Balance and its ‘Tricolor’ executive production team deserve credit and reciprocal shoe-purchasing decisions for coaxing forth the most complete PJ Ladd video section since the Iraq war’s onset?” — Boil the Ocean re: the rumored-to-be PJ Ladd part in the upcoming New Balance video.
We let Crazy T take over the QS IG story last Thursday, and couldn’t let the fun fade into oblivion after 24 hours. Still watch the Eminem video five times a day.
Hockey has a 30-second commercial to commemorate Ben Kadow turning pro.
So glad to see friends from Vine shredding New York on other video sharing platforms.
Thanks to everyone who supported the QS For Street Machine project. Some stuff still left on the webstore. Anyone who ordered over the weekend should be getting a shipping confirmation in the next 24-48 hours :)
Quote of the Week: “Lil’ Uzi is rap Blink 182.” — Pryce Holmes
Slllllloooooowwwwwww week out there guys ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
