The Best Skate Video Parts of the 2010s — QS Reader Survey Results

Illustration by Cosme Studio

Back in October, we asked QS visitors to choose their favorite video parts of the 2010s. If civilization and skateboarding were to end today, which five parts would you bury in a weather-and-nuclear-proof time capsule for post-apocalyptic earth dwellers to reference when they rediscover skate culture of these past ten years?

QS prides itself as being a destination for people who think a lot about skateboarding. Rather than poll a few close colleagues for their favorites, we felt we had a wide enough reverberation in the skate nerd universe to try and crowdsource a canon of the 2010s from anyone willing to sit down and think about it. I can emphatically say that in reviewing the mountain of ballots, everyone took their votes seriously — save maybe the guy who voted for five Micky Papa parts.

As we tallied the results, consistent trends in the count were apparent. Any fears about a recency bias went out the window; there’s only one part from 2019, and the average year of the top 25 is 2014. QS obviously has its own breed of skate nerd audience — this poll would look different if taken by Thrasher or Free — but I would bet that their lists wouldn’t be TOO far off from this one.

Presented without comment for the top 25-11, and then via a lot of favors from writer friends on the internet for the top 10: here are the 25 best video parts of the past ten years.

More »

#LUXURYWATCH2019

Sometime during those drunk final ten days of 2018 when no e-mails went answered, an associate mentioned the difficulty of isolating “trends” as we approach the final year of the decade. In this era of post-everything where the past exists at the same time as the future, what even qualifies as a #trend? Gone are the simple days of noticing a sudden spike in camo-panted legs at Tompkins, or bleached heads doing no complies and being able to declare: “trend!” No, in recent years, the #trendwatch has leaned towards psychological states of being, and on occasion, fully fallen short of fruition. Even something as under-a-microscope as “BLESSED” is a more refined version of what the same cast had already been molding since 2014.

And then, the associate says [name redacted for fear of “YOU’RE WHAT’S WRONG WITH SKATEBOARDING!” retribution], “What if the 2019 Trend™ is simply skating in really expensive shit?”

This goes beyond Dill or Dylan being inspired by Prada shoes, or Pappalardo waiting for a flight with his Louis luggage. Obviously skateboarders have been documented with nice shit before, but now, you open Instagram and see Lucien Clarke and P-Rod posting photos of them in Louis Vuitton outerwear within an hour of one another. Further out in the Instagram universe, in a galaxy most-closely observed by those who list their favorite skaters by handles rather than government names, there is a burgeoning sect of volunteer teamriders for Gucci, Versace, and Burberry. At a cultural crossroad where Playboi Carti is one of Jay-Z’s biggest influences, there seem to be two choices across all spectrums: reenact a skate version of the intro from John Shanahan’s It’s Time part, or take advice from the other Jonah Hill sports movie, which is, of course, “adapt or die.”

More »

An Interview With Lucien Clarke

Interview & Intro by Zach Baker
Original Photos by Mike O’Meally
Collages by Requiem For A Screen

Despite our many Ludditical tendencies — like an asinine reverence for a MiniDV camera that was born the same year as Meatball — skaters can all agree that the internet has been a great thing for us. You can argue about megapixels, what to call a nollie cab (the correct answer being “nollie cab”), and which tricks do and don’t deserve Renaissance; the globalized culture of skateboarding has benefitted as a result of our generation’s interconnectedness. From the ease of recording it, to the ease of uploading, sharing, and seeing it, makes it feasible to peek into any scene to see how people skate, dress, talk, and talk shit.

For a person from the eastern United States, one thing that I’ve come to terms with is how little my peers and I actually know about the scenes and histories throughout Europe and really, much of the world outside of the U.S. I thought I knew a little something about the U.K. from watching Blueprint videos, liking Tom Penny, and retaining a handful of shit that’s gone down at Southbank, but in recent years of following dudes like Science Versus Life, I’ve been shown myriad photos from mags, photographers, skaters, and spots I had never heard of.

This sense of cluelessness is heightened when sitting down to watch Palace’s first video. Palasonic, a seemingly authoritative report on what’s going on in London, was logged camcorders of the cavemen, captured digitally on a tripod from a VCR, then edited on a twenty-year-old Macintosh. Convoluted as this may be, it gives the vid a sense of timelessness and intertextuality with a regional past that, frankly, I know very little about. So, I talked to Lucien Clarke, the man with the video’s seven-minute ender, whose rumored to be able to singlehandedly sell out even the most flamboyant Triangle-stamped kits just by filming an Insta line in them.

More »

It’s Our Holiday, and They Wanna Take It Away

IMG_2400

Some fucking balls, badmouthing America. Especially now.”

You should re-watch Nik Stain’s Bruns part just because.

There are some Photosynthesis-era outtakes plus one-pants-leg-pulled-up extras from Andy Bautista’s INFMS part in the latest installment of In Absentia C-roll.

New part from Lurker Lou for Prizefighter, which features a ton of chill avant-garde noseslide maneuvers. Slappy Flushing is up there for N.S.O.T.Y. honors.

For anyone keeping track of WATTBA #musicsupervision… Free’s Lucien Clarke + “I’m The Plug” compilation part is great, and the new Cell Jawn video features a sslloowweedd rendition of “Plastic Bag” + an emphasized Conor Prunty flick. FYI your “Summer Trip To N.Y.” clip prob isn’t good enough to waste “Scholarships” on ;)

Was wondering when footage on that abandoned BMW at Lenox Ledges would begin to surface. Surprised that thing wasn’t the most popular spot in New York this summer.

Green Zine has a detailed and rather biographical interview with James from Labor.

Interviewing young skaters without ~a decade’s worth of coverage is a tough assignment, especially if you’re trying to avoid asking the same shit you asked the last young skater (“Soooo, like Instagram and Street League? So crazy right?”). The source shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, but Chromeball pretty much did an under-25 skater interview as best as you could possibly do it with Ishod Wair.

The guy behind Fakie Hill Bomb, one of my favorite skate sites with words on it, wrote a piece about knobs and other prohibitive architecture for The Guardian.

Boil the Ocean re: Love Park, Sabotage 4, and the discontinuation of Actavis. Here you were thinking it was a drought

The body varial has had a bit of a resurgence in recent years, and there’s still a raging battle in ballcourts throughout the city for someone to do it over a vertical can (sans bump.) SMLTalk stops to contend that the best has already happened for said trick.

Ever want to glo up at the skatepark before? (You gotta.)

Village Psychic interviewed Mehring about his new book, Skate the World.

The Theories guys give an #authenticportrait of what skating in [north] Brooklyn is like.

When I was a little girl in Poland, we all had ponies.

QS Sports Desk: Can’t wait for the season to start man.

Quote of the Week: “Do you think Johnny’s complete disregard for anyone’s feelings is the real source of MPC’s productivity?” — Nick Boserio

Three weeks late on “Thotline Bling” :(

Endless Bummer: The New Palace Video

benny kickflip

You know how rappers drop mixtapes before the album? With the Palace video on the way, and intent on only including London footage, they just dropped the would-be mixtape before the “official” video, which may or may not be out by 2020. It includes street footage from trips to Los Angeles, their 2013 U.K. tour, Copenhagen, Paris, and probably some other parts of Europe that are less recognizable to the untrained eye.

Rather than go the Euro barge, edit-by-city route, this one features full parts from Rory Milanes, Lucien Clarke, Charlie Young, Karim Bakhtaoui, Benny Fairfax, Chewy Canon and Danny Brady. Guest tricks from Torey ♥, Rich Homie Juan, Powers and others.

Previously: The Annual PWBC News Segment