Ever since he all but deactivated his Instagram and grew his hair out, Ruben put out two parts in the span of a half year (“Astratto” originally premiered in December), plus had a good bit of stuff in that “Storia Italiana” Magenta edit. (Actually, between him and Shogo Zama, Magenta now has two of the best flowy skaters out there, look at that.)
This latest one went live on Free yesterday, and is by Hadrien Buhannic, the guy who has been quietly at the helm of the Bloby edits that shaped up to be some of the most influential skateboarding of the past half decade. It’s about a third Milano Centrale stuff, with the rest in Paris, and like the last part, it is music-supervised by someone who did fire movie scores in the seventies.
Threw the remaining bits of our fall 2019 release on sale in the webstore. Truthfully, it’s mostly beanies and smalls, but there are a few loose other sizes left in there. Figured now was a good time to clear this out as everyone adjusts to the slower pace of life while we wait for this shit to calm down — yes, skate shops are affected. We’ll be good though, just gotta ride it out and be smart. It’s not like we have another choice, yaknow? ♥ Everyone be clean, be safe, be nice and be patient. QS content resumes as usual, because you already know that fashion never sleeps :)
All the Streets Are Silent: The Convergence of Hip-Hop and Skateboarding (1987-1997)is coming soon. Think about that Slam interview with Eli Gesner from last week, but wider in scope, and in documentary form. (Timely name, too!)
No matter how much has gone down on the world’s most famous white marble, there’s no way to overstate the hidden power of simply… skating it (or any well-worn spot, for that matter.) If that “Trick History” clip from Milano Centrale proved anything, it’s that after a while, gunning for some N.B.D. over the grate just starts to blend together with the last guy’s trick.
We first met Ruben on a QS family trip to Italy back in 2016. Milan has a tight-knit and friendly skate scene — it feels like a lot of it revolves around Milano Centrale and the Chef Family crew. He and his friends were kind enough to show us around their city when we summoned the willpower to leave an absolutely perfect plaza spot. When a spot is that good, you willfully forget that the whole “exploring the city”-thing is a big part of skate trips. (Colleagues echo our sentiments.)
We visited Milan again a year later. On the train-ride into Centrale (yes, the train from the airport drops you off at Italy’s best skate spot), I remembered out loud, “Oh, I should probably DM Ruben and let him know we’re coming.”
“Don’t worry, he’ll already be there,” a mutual friend replied.
Ben “Actually, I Like Wearing Wack Gear” Blundell receives redemption after barely any clips in Courtesy. Go watch his “OJO” part over on Thrasher. Rest in Peace Dillon ♥
Gotta hand it to Europe’s Most Productive Crew™ for consistently doing something that feels so natural and different than everything else out there, year after year — especially in a country without much of a skate industry. Also ~love~ the recurring role of dogs in their videos. “Nap Mint Nap Volume 4” is the latest from the Rios Crew. We really gotta make it out to Budapest, pretty much everyone says nothing but good things…
In hindsight, it’s pretty crazy that a peak shiny suit era Bad Boy song ever slipped into an Alien Workshop video, even for 45 seconds. And guess what! Twenty years later, we get the full [re]edit: Manolo remixed two decades of Kalis footage to the complete extended version of Black Rob’s “Whoa.” FWIW, that album has some sleepergems.
“Pornography had already been done, and the skate/fetish graphic thing said all that needed to be said on the subject. Take away the black bag and the sticker about censorship, and you just have a dumb idea repeated endlessly. For nearly 3 decades.” Ted Barrow wrote a nice piece on the history of the black bag World Industries board, and everything that followed it over on Skateism.
Solange in a skate clip ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Def worth the watch from Peter Deigaard + Drew, Hugo, Ville, and all the Copenhagen boys, which will make you feel the summer even if you have no Danish travel plans :)
“DOA RMX” is a video featuring some upstate dudes (pretty sure…), and has a random ass remix of Pat Washington footage from the early 2000s at the end, which is timely given Jamal Smith reminded us about his iconic Got Gold? part last week.
Realized the other day that Tao’s “KBH MIXEN” video is the 2018 video that still gets the most revisitation in 2019. Felt Ville’s section deserved it’s own upload :)
