Cracks & Crevices

Nah Yeah is an all Long Island video by Duran Murphy, which is a twenty-minute deep dive into a scene that we too often only associate with the most obvious names + an annual trip to the Rosyln Banks/pool. It’s also crazy how much a dude switching between éS, Etnies, Vans & Osiris in a single part stands out in 2019. Also, shout out to Mook.

A bit north and to the left, we have Concerned Citizen, a rad 15-minute video filmed all around upstate New York: Rochester, Elmira, Binghamton, Ithaca, et al. Noticed a lot of Homegrown tees and boards, so assuming they have something to do with it :) We really need to make it back up there next summer. “What the FUCK does ‘really’ mean?”

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The Best Skateboard Videos of the 2010s — QS Reader Survey Results

Illustration by Cosme Studio

This was the decade that the full-length skate video was supposed to die. We began the 2010s with everyone insisting that Stay Gold would be the last full-length skate video. Then, Pretty Sweet was supposed to be the last full-length video. Some people thought that Static IV would be it — the end, no more full-lengths after that. But I feel like I heard someone say Josh was working on something new a couple months back? Idk.

The experience might’ve changed. We’re not huddling around a skate house’s TV covered in stickers to watch a DVD bought from a shop anymore (if this past weekend is any indication, it’s more like AirPlaying a leaked .mp4 file via a link obtained from a guy who knows a guy), but the experience of viewing a fully realized skate video with your friends for the first, second or twentieth time is still sacred.

Just as we asked for your votes for the five best video parts, we did the same for the five best full-lengths: if you could choose the five videos that defined the 2010s, what would they be? The results were a bit more surprising than the parts tally in some ways, given that it felt like independent, regional and newer, small brand videos dominated the decade, yet Big Shoe Brands™ and Girl + Chocolate still made their way into the list. The top-heaviness of some companies or collectives was less of a surprise, in that certain creators loomed large over the 2010s.

Like the installment before it, this list is sans comment for 20-11, and then via favors from writer friends for the top ten: here are the twenty best skate videos of the past ten years.

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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.

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Deep Rich Sepia Tone

Via Hopps on IG

We have a small run of new hoodies, and we found a box of the old “Vacation” tees in the warehouse. Everything is over in the shop.

Someone mashed up five minutes of Tyshawn loosies and b-sides.

Brad Cromer skates New York with the enthusiasm of someone who hasn’t been burned out by seven thousand consecutive weekends of “where do we skate?” / “that spot sucks” conversations. Also, that kickflip back smith at Man Ledges was ~beautiful~.

“There’s so much bullshit in that fuckin’ thing.” Bobshirt interviews Aaron Meza for an hour and twenty minutes to find out what parts of FTC videos are lifted from Scorsese and Godard. (Also kinda crazy how pretty much anybody in the “content business” has been inspired by the Ego Trip Rap Lists book.)

And editing an artsy clip to movie quotes from probably the most quoted New York movie in existence is a bit too, um, on the nose, but footage of Appleyard skating the city was a nice surprise.

Mike Munzenrider explores the trajectory of how skating in shorts became an industry standard practice.

“Born of those spastic curb cauldrons in the early 1990s, the crooked grind to backside lipslide lay low for a certain number of Earth years until Bastien Salabanzi donked one down a semi-legit handrail in Sorry, drawing immediate reprisals in the shallow backwaters of the early message-board days and inspiring several other related atrocities over the years to come. It was a time of war, girth and widespread musical pirating.” Can’t say I was too worried about the crooked grind to back lip feeling it its been neglected these past ~15 years, but Boil the Ocean felt otherwise.

The perpetually making-clips-that-look-like-no-one-else’s collective of Russia’s Absurd Skateboards went to the seaside city of Sochi in the offseason to search for spots.

Skate camps, self celebrations, and reeaallyy long manuals — Chromeball runs down a history of nineties skate video clichés for TWS.

Of course Tompkins is on a list of the the 69 best places in New York, for better or worse.

Posed another hypothetical “how long until” over on the ol’ Twitter now that T.J. got the 33rd Street subway station ollie out of the way: how long until / is it actually possible for someone to ollie the eight-flat-eight at the Met?

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: About due time we got Luca on here.

Quote of the Week
Observant Gentleman: “I think you’re not supposed to order seafood on Sundays or something.”
Jesse Alba: “Yeah, you’re not supposed to skate on private property either, and here we are.”

Stumbled on this two-hour mix of New York jams that appeared on DJ Screw mixtapes, which made me never want to listen to some of these songs at regular speed ever again. The Rakim one is insane, and never would have thought that Tribe screwed would sound so good.