I Can Buy Myself Griptape, Write My Name on the Tail

📸 via Zach Baker

For Fuck’s Sake: The Tompkins construction start date has been moved …again. October 16th. Going to stop posting these every week from here on out. It starts when it starts. (P.S. Some of the in-better-shape obstacles have been moved into storage.)

“They had a trashcan fire in one of those iconic Love Park bins. It was so cold that people’s bushings were freezing up making turning impossible… They had to grab their board and leave it by this trashcan fire for five minutes, which would buy them five minutes of skating before the bushings froze back up and they had to do it again… It was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen, people everywhere.” Palace videographer, Jack Brooks, is the latest subject of the Slam City Skates blog’s “Visuals” series, in which he discusses Bill’s “Pigeon” edit, the Palace Kalis board, filming Lucien’s Palasonic part, and more.

A watershed moment in the Bobshirt franchise: an hour-long interview with Rick Howard and Mike Carroll.

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Bed, Snacks & Beyond

📷 via @mariosk8

Zered is the latest subject of the Lookback Library’s “Cover Discussions” series, chatting about his three Transworld covers and three Skateboarder covers. (Crazy he hasn’t had a Thrasher one before, especially given the Massachusetts connection with Phelps.)

“Caller 10” is a crustaceous journey by Pittsburgh’s Radio Skateshop through one of the roughest cities for skate spots. Includes a great Zach Funk part to close it out.

While we’re on the topic of crust, peep Adam Meuller’s part in Justin Bohl’s Detroit video, Minted, which includes everything from lines on broken boats through abandoned buildings to polejams out of snow piles.

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“Skating Belongs To The Kids” — An Interview With Michael Nicholas

Interview by Farran Golding
Photography by Michael Nicholas, Razy Faouri & Ben Colen

One of the joys of watching independent, crew-based skate videos is observing their maturation with each passing project. The skating gets better — obviously — but videographers have their own way of figuring things out right in front of your eyes. The tone, the pacing, the ~vibe~.

Michael Nicholas’ Untitled popped up on the Free site this past September, and felt like it came out of nowhere in a way that few things today are capable of doing. This was a fully-realized video featuring unknown kids who — in twenty minutes, right then and there — cemented their stakes in skateboarding’s future. Untitled was the most confident “first” video in memory.

We had Farran track down its creator to find out a little more.

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