Skate videos have long been a portal for musical discovery. Except in recent years, it has began to almost feel like …filler. If one editor finds success with an untapped genre or artist, there is always an avalanche of imitators. If you find that “how has nobody skated to this?!”-song, the answer to your question is often “someone has, it was just in some video you missed.” And a popular song? Forget it, it has been in twenty kids’ IG edits since the day it got uploaded to YouTube.
(Don’t even start with the dude editing his “Trip to N.Y.C!” video to Big L right now.)
Choosing a song that makes an impact, and gets people tracking it down is hard when our attention spans are their fickle 2019 selves. We reached out to five people who routinely put out edits (i.e. not the guys dropping one full-length every few years) to get their thoughts on how the process of selecting music in skate videos has evolved.
All of a sudden you’re only three minutes into a seven-minute-long Black Hubba compilation clip, and realize that you’ve already passed the switch 360 flip lipslide. If you live in New York, you waste at least .5% of your life sitting around at Blubba doing nothing. Here’s a video of all the moments that didn’t go to waste.
“Bronze 56K is all about rolling up switch to the Carlsbad gap after just barely falling off pushing on your skateboard and popping the most brolic switch hardflip.” Japan’s VHS Maginterviewed Peter Sidlauskas on the occasion of It’s Time.
Pete Spooner’s new video is [by chance] named after one of Will Marshall’s favorite observations about skateboarding. Skating is Easytrailer here. Always find it charming when a teaser for a new skate vid is longer than 60 seconds in the Instagram era ;)
2018 has been a mega year for upstate New York skate videos nvm, it’s for a central Pennsylvania video, so let’s just say it has been a mega year for upstate New York spots in videos ;) One Mo’ Gin is another feather in upstate New York’s 2018 cap. At least I think it’s an upstate N.Y. vid…
R.I.P. St. Dymphnas A.K.A. Yellow Bar A.K.A. Same Difference. You were never anyone’s favorite bar, but you were the best cheap bar by Tompkins when it started raining, and for that reliability, you will be missed.
QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Knicks fans are in for yet another soul-crushing season of false 8th seed dreams, and we’re avoiding all temptations of having the first regular season Play of the Week be related to Rondo V.S. Chris Paul, so here’s a cool Tim Hardaway J.R. pass to Kanter that you can overreact to.
Quote of the Week: “Those guys make me feel stupid for not having kids when I was like, twenty. They’re all just doing ecstasy with their kids now.” — Torey
Haven’t been in a proper headspace to um, “process” a Juice WRLD and Future mixtape over the past few days, but feel compelled to come clean on here that this is one of the most oft-played songs at the QS office since it came out ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Watched this guy Ruben Spelta skate at Milano Centrale this past summer and it was insane. Dude is a good follow on Instagram, but this compilation video should bring you up to speed for now. Who’s everyone got for best steez 2k16 award?
“I wish Brandon Turner was wearing a Bronze tee when he switch Hardfliped Carlsbad in the Guilty video.” Skateboard Story interviewed Peter Sidlauskas from FlipmodeStick Up Kids Bronze. Link to the “How I’m Living” video please :)
“And I guess I’m also saying that Tiago, if you care bud (which hopefully you don’t) you should maybe consider changing your name to Trevor, switching from Mountain Dew to beer, and getting on Anti-Hero or something.”
“There is no reason that a campaign born out of the streets cannot be intelligent and incisive.” Something that is probably going to come in handy in Tr*mp’s litigious America: Love Live Southbank’s Guide to Saving a Skate Spot. (The city of Barcelona is restoring Sants, by the way *side-eye Emoji*)
Hey did you know that there was a moment when Dill and A.V.E. might’ve got on Aesthetics at its inception? Sal Barbier got Chromeballed.
“Don’t put this in one of your stupid edits, dude.” “NY Times Vol. 20” via LurkNYC.
“Tood” is the new one from Rios Crew, Hungarian skating-with-backpacks devotees.
R.B. just uploaded some raw footage of Zered, Eli, Westgate, Tierney, Dela, et al. skating around the city from a summer or two ago.
Part two of the Right Coast Tour with Freddy and Quim is now live.
Did you know there was a time when John Cardiel had a pro snowboard, and Burton advertised in Thrasher? Our bud Alex Dymond just released a book entitled Snow Beach, which chronicles an era when snowboarding was very much an offseason activity for skaters, with tons of crossover via fashion, style, etc. from skateboarding.
The new Watermelonism video, “Keep Biting,” is premiering at 2nd Nature on Thursday. Flyer here. Music by the world famous DJ Thando of “Needed Me” remix fame.
“Dipset: The Movie” — a big topic around here some ~ten years ago — is back and is actually still great. “You’re so ugly I could hear it through the phone.”
QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Sooooooooo, ANYWAYYYYYY…
Quote of the Week: “I just found out through Google that I have chlamydia, I should bounce.” — Name Withheld
Today marks ten years since the release of The Inspiration, which was 95% of the way as incredible of an album as TM101, this website’sfoundingpieceof scripture. (Even did a tribute post to it the day it leaked online, and distinctly remember listening to nothing else that winter.) There really is no greater three-peat of motivational speaking than the first three Jeezy albums. The guy has nothing left to prove #jeezysaves.
Throughout the VHS and DVD skate video era, the brunt of the work put into the few New York full-lengths that existed was at the helm of New Jerseyians, Long Islanders and ex-pats.
Then, Flipmode came along — a crew of virtually sponsorless (unless you’re counting Shut or Official flow) Queens kids who grew up skating the Forrest Park Bandshell and Flushing Meadows Park. They became the first group of dominantly-actually-from-a-New-York-City-borough kids to make a rewatchable, hour-long skate video.
On this day, exactly ten years ago, Suck My Flipmode A.K.A. Flipmode 3: The First Flipmode Video (the first two had low circulation on VHS tapes among friends) premiered on the screen in front of Supreme. In 2006, a skatepark meant either Mullaly’s, Riverside, Owl’s Head or recycled plastic ramps under the Manhattan Bridge. The Banks were still semi skateable. iPhones didn’t exist, and everyone found out about the premiere on Myspace. YouTube was in its first year of existence, and Official New York was on the way out. New York was also far from occupying its current day status as the second home of the skate industry, April thru September.
Skateboarding in New York, up until that point, was a grown-ups only club. You could tag along on their sessions if they liked you, but you never truly belonged. Their footage would either get hoarded, sent out to video mags, or if lucky, end up in the few full-length artifacts from the era (those ABC videos, Lurkers 1 & 2…that’s about it.) The average age in Flipmode was ~17-18, and it exceeded the natives-only litmus test unlike any of those other videos. It also helped that it got co-signs from those same older guys, as New York still had a lingering us-v.s.-them line drawn between our generation, and the generation of dudes who were around for all the shit from the 90s that people today still *ahhhh* over.
It might be forgotten in a sea of solo jazz cups now, but it was a truly a watershed moment for below-drinking-age skateboarding in New York — an initial building block in the brick maze Windows 95 screensaver empire known as Bronze 56k.
Thank you Peter. Thank you Jimmy Marketti, Billy, X, Leo, Joseph, Ryan O’Donnell, Drippy, Pedro, and Derrick — by the way, my post got over 800 likes. What’s up with the comeback part?
Here’s the circa ~2007, pre-Bronze montage Peter Sidlauskas made to the eight-minute entirety of “Purple Rain.” Features a Shut-era Shawn Powers, a young Gonyon, a hesh B.D., and a bowler hat Derrick Z. Shout out to Esteban for re-uploading :)
Part one of the Josh Kalis “Video History” series is now live. Kind of touches on some of the same stuff as his Epicly Later’d, but a bit more personal and anecdote heavy. Amazing that so much of that early nineties footage is so well preserved.
Germany’s Solo mag caught up with Pontus Alv for an extra-detailed interview about the Polar video, the classic “r full videos #relevant?!”-discussion, the origins of the title, and how he still hates the song he skated to in Mad Circle’s Five Flavors.
Upon hearing Prince had died, one of the first things that popped to mind was Chris Milic’s It’s a Secret part. I YouTubed it once I was back at a computer, and the comments revealed that I was not the only one: “This made me start listening to Prince more.” Everyone loves a lazy discussion about the #importance of skate videos in 2016, but they still leave long-lasting imprints when done right. Whether they’re watched off an old tube TV, a computer screen, or a cell phone really doesn’t matter.
