Only Love Can Do That

Front door of Andre Page’s old office ♥

“You Americans are too serious about the pro board shit, in Europe you just turn the homie pro. Fuck it! It’s not about being ‘pro’ at skating. If you are a sick character, you should be pro!” Chris Milic and Jesse Alba interview Hjalte Halberg for Solo mag, with a resulting transcript that you can read in everyone’s voice inside your head.

Wise words: “Bro, you just skate and put it on the internet.” — Genesis Evans, who practices what he preaches considering he uploaded a a clip of his L.A. trip to the new Sahbabii song within like…24 hours of it being released.

Thrasher has Nick Ferro and Mark Humienik’s Calzone part, YouTube has Mark Wetzel’s Calzone part, and Big Cartel has Calzone DVDs.

One of the most astute eyes for spots out there. Chris Jones’ new part for Free is obviously great. And P.S. Casper Brooker went pro this past weekend. Congrats G.

Mostly park footage, but still heavy on the smiles: Louie Lopez IG remix to some Sade.

If you want to get bummed out, Vice did an article on how the city of Seattle is suing 35th North (the city’s longest standing skate shop) over a D.I.Y. bowl they built in the middle of the woods. Never not saying shout out to Europe in situations like these.

New Jerry Mraz footage in the promo for a new board company called Adult Inc. Guessing there’s ledges at the top of that L.I.E. hill from the old Bronze videos now?

Strobeck has an over two-hour interview with The Nine Club.

Chapter six of Elkin raw tapes is now live.

Dude I don’t even know how many years ago 2017 was, but apparently the Theories guys still want to talk about the best videos from that weird ass year. It’s dope that one of their fave videos was “Theories in Chicago” ;) ♥ My fave was Josh’s Inkwell part.

North interviewed skate photo collage god and frequent Quartersnacks contributor, Requiem For A Screen, in their latest issue, and just published the piece online.

That Sixth Sense era raw footage clip that everyone was re-posting last week actually got uploaded in 2011, but gave us a good excuse to fix a typo in an old post!

The cultural institution known as the Delancey McDonald’s finally reopens today!

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Anthony Davis what the shit.

Quote of the Week: “The only jobs in London are working for i-D or Dazed.” — Sean Kinney

Ghosts of Christmas Clips Past

Collage by Requiem For A Screen

This past year, nobody else incited as many smiles and reminders of the glorious escapism that skateboarding provides. Thank you Jamal Smith, 2017’s Q.S.S.O.T.Y., for inspiring us to enjoy the world on a skateboard. Sadly, we can’t fly you to Canary Islands like Thrasher can (…not yet), but just wanted to say thanks :)

Iron Claw’s new 11-min video, Not Not a Video, is now online. Shout out Colombia.

Even as an institution that often gets chastised for Rihanna songs in skate clips and bad filming, we gotta chime in here: wtf is with the choppy frame-rate, wtf is up with the darkass clips, and wtf is up with that Morrissey song in Antonio’s new Berrics part? The skating though…is absolutely F U C K E D.

Oddly enjoyed this way more than expected, probably because they skate a bunch of weird shit that nobody bothers with, e.g. they got two clips at the Gristedes on 96th Street — a Weed Maps “Summer Trip to New York” clip with Jaws, Tommy Sandoval and Boo Johnson. I think we ran into Jaws at a rave when he was filming this.

Rolling Stone has a great mini-doc with Josh Stewart about making independent skate videos in 2017, via the lens of Traffic’s Look Left.

Jenkem has a “Day in the Life”-ish feature with The BX’s Public Housing Skate Team.

Style god Jimmy Chung is featured in the new teaser for Chris Mulhern’s upcoming Love Park documentary, 15th & JFK. Anyone know a release date?

“Mean Streets” volume 10 from LurkNYC with more weirdness at Chase.

Boil the Ocean is on entry #6 of its annual “Top 10 Parts of the Year” wrap-up, and Slam City’s blog has some words on the year’s best videos.

…aaannndddd Village Psychic made a “Best of 2017” mix of the year’s ACTUAL S.O.T.Y., regardless of what the yellow t-shirts may have told you.

“Belgrade is the best city I’ve ever been to in my life.” The Rios Crew continues to inspire skateboard travel dreams far outside the conventional Euro destinations with each new clip. “Dunja,” their latest, hits Serbia’s capital, Montenegro and Croatia.

“Platano” is the new montage from our friends down at Andrew Skate Shop in Miami.

Jason Lee’s Video Days part was a starting point for a $3.6 billion crossroad.

Vol. 4 of Elkin raw files. You think Thrasher is gonna give us a Louie “West End” one?

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: It’ll never not be funny that Kyrie was just like “nah, I don’t wanna play with this dude anymore.” He lost yesterday, but this was sick.

Quote of the Week: “You should just make Q.S.S.O.T.Y. ‘The Max Palmer Award.'” — John Choi

Official 2017 end credits song ♥

For Those About To Be On A Hype, We Salute You

Photo via Colin Sussingham

Perfect video to begin your day — three-minute Jamal Smith IG compilation.

One of my life partners, Josh Velez, has an interview over on Skateboard Story. “It makes it even better to get a couple pats on the back from the fellas.”

You already know that new “Busshead” video from Gang Corp is essential viewing.

TWS posted the transcript and photos from Cyrus’ interview on their site.

Copies of Matt Velez’s new video, Calzone, are on sale. Another teaser here.

“This urgent, shouty Mannie Fresh anthem, a sort of primal materialistic scream from within a sumptuously appointed mansion, stands as the best song in any Ty Evans-helmed Film to date; paired off Lucas Puig’s luxury-brand tech, it makes a strong argument for the greatest song in any video ever.” Boil the Ocean offers up eight of Ty Evans’ best #musicsupervision victories, the man who introduced skaters to electro.

Nik Stain London footage. Everyone in it rips though.

A most unexpected “Welcome to the Team” video for an expected acquisition.

The Bunt’s new one is with that dude who shared the part with Vince in the 917 vid.

^^^2017 Best of Dustin Henry, reigning titleholder for QS’ “Skater You’d Be Most O.K. With Your Daughter Dating” Award. Edited by Tyler Warren.

This one was pretty heartwarming: Monster Children has a mini doc on Josh Kalis’ relationship and history with the city of Chicago. I’ve seen that street gap kickflip a hundred times before and still said “oh my God” on this go-around. (Maybe Ride will finally stop asking us why Chicago isn’t a bigger deal in skateboarding with this one?)

~ Quick fun one from Frog Skateboards baby ~

Yeah, I know, l*ngb**rds… but this is a fucking amazing program.

Jahmal Williams reflects on getting back into filming in the Static III years.

Some more Elkin raw files from the days when you first started seeing Aaron Herrington out and about, and Kevin Tierney was still drippy ♥

A joint remix video for Tom Penny and Bryan Herman, two icons of “G” style.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: 76ers-OKC was game of the year so far, yes? Gonna give it to Embiid’s block on Russy in OT1, but only because Russy ended up winning anyway :)

Quote of the Week: “I fucking hate getting phone calls.” — Andrew Wilson

Late on this one, but it’s cool the boys got a shout out ;)

Control the Links Volume 1

Via Charles Rivard Ph.D.

We should be caught up with shipping all orders from last week by the end of today. If you ordered before the weekend and didn’t receive a shipping confirmation to the email address you ordered with, feel free to check in with us. Otherwise there are some loose sizes and hats left. Available at European accounts now. Arriving in Canada and Australia this week ♥ Thanks everyone for the support.

Josh Velez has a quick interview over on the Air Jordan blog.

“You want a toke?” “I don’t do drugs.”

Frog posted the raw footage and B-sides to Hjalte’s guest board part.

…and Ben Chadourne posted the full battle behind Franco’s nollie cab flip.

“Is the speed of Jamie Foy’s ascent, from amateur to pro and SOTY the same year, a reflection of or reason behind the breakneck pace driving skate media these days?…Could the nod to Jamie Foy also serve as a quiet acknowledgement that it shoulda been Fred Gall one of those years?”

Iron Claw is [not] having a premiere for their new video this Wednesday, December 13, at 122 Meserole Street. Two showings: one at 8 P.M. and another at 9. Teaser here.

L-O-FUCKING-L at your poor ass life.

Though Ride doesn’t do much these days apart from continue to ask us why Chicago isn’t a bigger deal in skateboarding, Slap brought back the article predictions thread for 2018. “Shake Junt hires Ty Evans for next video: Chicken Drone Nowison.”

Here’s a new one from Jake Kuzyk and all the Vancouver boys.

Theories is posting raw files from Elkin’s videos. First episode is fall 2010, and features Aaron Herrington, Leo Gutman, Quim, and Vert God before he started to GRoE.

Tony Manfre and Pat Stiner look back at Static 3 for its ten-year anniversary.

“Like the flow of posts through social media, skateboard graphics are inherently ephemeral. They are destined to be worn and scuffed and distorted until all that remains is smeared paint and exposed wood. But some images are designed to linger, if only in the imagination.” On the ascent of Polar Skateboards…as a menswear brand.

Jeff Lenoce still has that flick. Go make a stack or something ;)

New Bunt with Hermdog. You think the guy in the comments found the song by now?

Harry Bergenfield filmed a two-minute Carlos Mendoza part in L.A.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: The end of Clippers-Wizards was a little nuts.

Quote of the Week: “Marriage? Fuck that. I’ll never get married. Unless she’s rich as shit.” — E.T.

Jamal Smith tweeted this one yesterday. Probably, haven’t watched it this decade, but remember that finally tracking down that Diamond D song was a pivotal prepubescent moment. Also, shout out to all the 2017 Kasperholics.

Winter Viewing: The Brodies

brodies

Photo by Pep Kim

Jeremy Elkin made his Brodies video available for online viewing today. Deep freeze depression = temporarily suspended. You can still purchase the DVD set with all four of his videos, a photo book, etc. over on the Theories site.

Who was the last skater to do four or five tricks in a video that got everyone hyped, who didn’t have a readily available part somewhere in the depths of YouTube? Accessible video technology put a stop to that towards the latter end of the previous decade. Except the dudes in this one came a bit before that shift: Akira hasn’t had a part since Mixtape 2 (during which he was probably a teenager), German has two awesome shared parts to his name but they’re seven years apart, Rob Campbell has been meddling in YouTube compilation land for years since EST 2, and Leo Gutman, legitimately one of the best skaters in New York, hasn’t been seen outside of the occasional montage since Flipmode 3 in 2006.

The Brodies is a slice of 2001-2006 — when filmers were fewer, resources were scarcer, but distractions were just as rampant — plus six or seven years of the advancements we have today. New York skateboarding is full of sick “whatever happened to” guys, and this video thankfully keeps that title away from a handful of the top candidates. Added bonus of Aaron Herrington, Daniel Kim and Jason Spivey footage. Both teams played hard.

(BTW since it’s awards season it all, it should be mentioned that The Brodies won two of our year-end honors: #22 for Akira’s entire part filmed in sweatpants and #4 for Leo’s Q.S.S.O.T.Y. win.)

Related: Theories has interviews with all of the dudes in the video, and Elkin’s Vimeo page has his other three videos if you’re too poor to buy the DVD.