Pittsburgh | Quartersnacks

Getting There…

Daily News December 5th, 2011 · 9:40 am · 5

59 today, 58 tomorrow, can’t really complain…yet.

The Pittsburgh homies from One-Up did a cross country trip this past summer, and have started to upload doc-style clips from it in small pieces. The first installment is for Minneapolis. It’s not too heavy on actual skate footage, but serves as a good reminder that it’s never too early to start planning a summer road trip, even at the onset of winter.

There’s a new Krispy Du-Rag clip out. All Maloof Park and House of Vans footage, but Luis Tolentino does some pretty sick stuff in there. Manny Santiago also dropped a new, quick clip of some Luis footage.

Two new teasers for the Poisonous Products video. The Rob Campbell cameo and abundance of Leo Gutman appearances make this video look real promising. It’s available on DVD for $7.99 over at the Color site, but “Allow 4 weeks for shipping” sounds a bit crazy in this day and age. That’s longer than the iPhone 4S waitlist.

There’s an art installation on 46th Street and Eighth Avenue right now, described as “a massive sculpture that represents suburban over-development and its effect on our natural landscapes.” Given that people skate on cars, in abandoned water parks (that Grant Taylor part in the SB video is insane), and other absurd obstacles nowadays, it wouldn’t be surprising if someone broke in to get a clip on it. (Or arrested.) Overhead view here.

Quartersnacks shot/edited Black Dave’s newest music video for his song “One Take.” He’s in skateboarder form, rather than his Black Donald Trump alter-ego, but B.D.T. is set to make a comeback sooner than later.

If you don’t personally know the G Man, and have only been able to gather a composite of his character based on his skating and endless Quote of the Week appearances, watching his latest Flip Cam clip is the best way to get to know him without actually having a conversation. A lot of ditch footage, piglets, flowers, llamas getting shaved, strippers, and a Future/Travis Porter/French Montana soundtrack that encompasses 90% of the music that matters in 2011.

Eye-Roll of the Week: Some French people are seriously making a skateboard video called Breathless. Wowwwwwwwww. (If you don’t “get it,” be grateful.)

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YouTube redesigned its channel pages and made them slightly less cluttered. So, subscribe to Quartersnacks on YouTube if you have yet to do so, and browse through some of the oldies.

This is going to get deleted, and we already told you to buy the Shake Junt video, but here’s Dollin’s ender part in glorious 240p. Buy the video, you’re going to watch it a lot this winter.

An Interview With Jake Johnson

Features & Interviews November 25th, 2011 · 9:30 am · 38

Photo by Emilio Cuilan

Sorry this took so long, but here’s an interview with the always talkative Jake Johnson. Some of the answers are long, and took a different turn from the questions, but you can treat it as an open-ended thing. Not having to worry about space is one of the good things about the internet. Read it in two sittings if you have to. Enjoy.

Just to backtrack a little bit…Everyone seems to move to L.A. or New York, why did you move to Pittsburgh?

After I messed my knee up, I just decided to get away for the recovery. In New York, you’re paying for your ability to move everywhere fast, and share space with tons of people. It just wasn’t worth it for me. My ex-girlfriend and my brother lived in Pittsburgh. I was seeing doctors there, I just felt comfortable moving there and hibernating. I think I work better in New York, but there’s a lot of value in having more space and you save a lot of money living out there. I don’t want to be a victim of rent forever.

You’re trying to buy a house?

Eventually, but my rent is really cheap as it is.

Is that where you’d most likely settle at?

I don’t know yet. I just signed another one-year lease there. I actually have a pretty sick skate house out there now, because I live with two young kids, Justin and Zach Funk. We have a mini ramp in our backyard, a whole house to ourselves, and central air.

You think you’re going to stay in Pittsburgh after this next lease runs out?

I do need to move back to New York, but I’m going to be traveling so much this next year. Right now, I’m paying $400 a month to have a whole house and a mini ramp.

Since you’ve been posted out there, do you want to talk about the scene they have in Pittsburgh a little bit? It seems like New York, Philly, etc. are nowhere near as rough as Pittsburgh is spot-wise. How was it adjusting out there?

It’s really small, I adjusted well. There’s One-Up Skateshop, and a crew of guys that skate for that shop. It’s like a dozen core skaters of all ages. There aren’t lot of people out there that are skating for any image, and most of the skaters out there are from very rural areas around the city. They’re just resourceful, country-type people. In New York, there’s a “scene” to everything, and you’ll bump into skaters everywhere. Being a skater puts you into a scene, like a network, night clubs, this and that. Out there, there’s nothing to skating except gnarly rugged street spots and a small skate shop. They drink just as much as people do here [in New York] or anywhere else, but there’s no scene to it. I relate to people from those sorts of areas real well.

Video Review: Fuck Yinz – Volume 2

Features & Interviews October 28th, 2011 · 9:41 am · 9

A few weeks back, the crew at One Up Skateshop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania sent over Fuck Yinz Volume 2, their 30-minute promo video from earlier this year. The DVD-R came wrapped in a size small digi-camo tank top with their logo on it. The G-Man, who once received a medium tee from Vinny Raffa only to respond with “You don’t have a 2X?” lamented it was not a few sizes larger.

One Up is the only skate shop in Pittsburgh, and it is run by a friendly, tight knit crew, that has always been accommodating with sharing spots and skating around with us whenever we would make the six-hour drive out there. It’s the sort of shop that every city should have. Their video has parts from several names that have began receiving more coverage in recent history (Kyle Nicholson, Zach Funk, Austin Kanfoush, Nick Panza), plus a whole bunch of lesser-known dudes who still shred just as hard (Dan Peindl, Grem Trails, Rob Dumas, Bill Cunningham, Justin Funk, and others.)