The LCBO’s On Strike

“Running a business is hard work. Running a business that feels personally and creatively fulfilling is even harder. Kudos to them for not riding Alltimers into the ground, a soulless, empty thing, because that’s easy. And hey, 11 years is nothing to sneeze at. A good run is one where the people in charge know when to stop. If you run forever, you lose the chance to look back and appreciate where you’ve been and why you were running in the first place.” Simple Magic on Alltimers shutting up shop after an eleven-year run 🍸 (All of the boards are sold out, but there are some soft goods left over on the Alltimers going out of business sale if you wanted to grab a keepsake.)

“I’ve had a few ABDs in video parts that I battled and had no idea. One of them was Mark Suciu so I was like fuck it, I’ll use it.” Jenkem spoke to Matt Militano about his journey through sponsorships, the Foundation van, ABDs, and prank shows.

More »

Hard Post

Fall QS merchandise is arriving at U.S. & Japanese shops now. Check your local shop’s IG for availability, and our stockists page for a local QS dealer (that page actually needs to be updated, tbh.) Arriving in Canada, Australia and Europe this week and next. Fall 2019 gear will be available in our webstore next Monday, October 28th @ midnight E.S.T. (So technically Sunday night.)

You have 72 hours left to vote in the QS Readers Survey about the best parts and full-length videos of the 2010s. We’ll have the results for you in November ♥

Merry Christmas from Ben Chadourne, creator of the QS office’s two favorite Paris edits: his latest is ten minutes long, entitled “BOOM,” and features just about everyone you’d expect to see in a Ben Chadourne Paris edit. (“Paul is ok.”)

More »

Put A Date On It

T.F. Global. Photo via Claudio Majorana’s book, Head of the Lion.

Is there a compilation of board flip challenge fails yet, or are we going to have to assign that grueling job to an intern?

Looks like the solid barrage of upstate New York videos is gonna keep rolling in 2019 (see #5.) The Seasons guys have a new ten-minute video on Thrasher entitled “Albany 2.5” with tons of Empire State Plaza footage, and a mini S.F. section at the end.

Wasn’t really sure what to expect from this upon click, and it thankfully ended up being smiles the whole way through ♥ Here’s a good seven minutes of Fred Gall iPhone footage at some D.I.Y. spot and a bunch of typical New Jersey crust.

ICYMI: Cooper Winterson unlocks another dimension of ConEdison Banks in his Skating Is Easy part.

Had a bunch of “wait, that spot’s been gone for years” thoughts watching this, and then realized it’s more of a remix than a new part. Either way! Any B.A. is good B.A., and Grant Yansura was nice enough to pull together a bunch of his [mainly New York] footage from SB Chronicles 3 and onward for a new-old “Slappy Seconds” edit, which includes a handful of unseen clips.

Theories is doing another “Underground Skater of the Year” thing this year, and we’re writing in a ballot for Jawn Gardner.

“Oh, you were just skateboarding? That’s weird. You can leave.” Solo has an interview with John Shanahan, and Skate Jawn has a lil’ feature on his photos.

Haven’t had a chance to listen yet, but Tim O’Connor posted up an unreleased episode of his podcast with Ricky Oyola, and Steve Brandi has a “Skater’s Favorite Skater” TWS vid where he talks about how Ricky influenced him over the years.

Not a lot of content like this going live on the skateboard internet in the age of Instagram Stories: the Village Psychic dudes drove from Minnesota to Memphis to escape the cold and did a long[ish]form blog post with photos about their journey.

One of those “I’m not really sure wtf this is about” Boil the Ocean posts: something about testing for weed and the Olympics ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Forever love that double noseslide line. Or any double noseslide line, for that matter. Matt Velez uploaded three minutes of Mark Wetzel raw files to his YouTube.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Gotta be that Kyrie v.s. Iggy highlight — no, wait. J.R. Smith’s hat. Yeah, J.R. Smith’s hat is the play of the week.

Quote of the Week: “OVO is the new RDS.” — Torey Goodall

Autopilot For The Weeeek

“Without that skater/photographer communication, you have no choice but to sit and wait for the photo to show itself. It felt like I had photographed a wild leopard in the jungle.” Bobby Worrest — 360 flip noseslide. Photo by Jeff Comber. Head over to King skate mag for the full blurb.

*First great video part of 2019 alert* The scientists at Palace realized they needed some young blood on the team and got Heitor Da Silva (alum from the same Swedish skate school as Oski) onboard. He has an awesome new Adidas part out right now (that backside flip, switch frontside flip line…), and an interview about his journey from Brazil to Norway to The Triangle™ over on Grey. Could have probably dug a bit deeper on the song, but oh well.

Know a few people who would die happy after skating this spot for an hour.

Me, you, and Cyrus Bennett have the same favorite skateboarder. Hint: he skates more than everyone, for longer than everyone, is older than everyone, and is more oblivious to what’s going on in skateboarding that everyone.

Jake Johnson gave Dickies a tour of his hometown D.I.Y. spot in State College, PA + skated his backyard mini-ramp with a handful of special guests.

Skating is easy for Pat Gallaher.

Traffic scanned a 2005 TWS article about a D.I.Y. tour they did in Hartford, Albany, Rochester, Akron and Pittsburgh back in the early days of the company, with words from Ricky, and a bunch of rad photos. Never knew they were the architects behind that still-running Albany bank-to-ledge. #respect.

Jimmy Marketti uploaded uploaded an old edit of some Rob Campbell footage from 2005. The rollaway on the frontside wallride at the Banks is hall of fame.

The Village Psychic guys like Borough Hall a lot A.K.A. they made a video of all their 2018 iPhone footage. They look high, but when the hell were those plastic orange blocks there?

Not sure how to feel about this… A skateboarder at Le Dome was the main tipster to unraveling the biggest art heist in a generation ;)

Wow. Quite literally, “sorry I didn’t say hi.”

Spot Updates: Not the most oft-skated spot these days (unless you’re winding up there after getting kicked out of Bigscreen or something), but there’s not much to skate at Penn Plaza anymore, as the building put astro turf all over the upper portion of the spot.

Winter #TBT: The Brownsville igloo from ~2011.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Giannis just doing what we all feel…except maybe if you’re a Rockets fan.

Quote of the Week: “I was back at the hotel in bed watching everyone’s Instagram stories…just thinking ‘we’re all so fucking stupid.'” — Pryce Holmes

Everybody Loves the Sunshine

Photo via Stu

Here is a rad ten-minute documentary about the scene in Nairobi, Kenya. Shout out to skateboarding. No shout out to anything we have ever complained about on here.

The Vacation apparently condensed into Politic. They have a sick new montage up with new footy from Ross Norman and curtains from Dave Caddo #officefaves.

Skateboard graphics have always been low-key political, and this came out good: An oral history of presidential skate graphics. “Straight talker?” Whatever you say, Henry.

Two years after the historic “Vogue Skateboard Week,” Anna Wintour comes through with what actually amounts to pretty decent mainstream magazine coverage of skateboarding re: the progressively shifting tide against its gender bias.

“Luke Malaney or Keith Denley?” “Both in 2007.” Jersey Dave interviewed New Jersey sweetheart, Josh Wilson, for Skate Jawn.

Jersey Dave’s part from Stop Fakin’ 3 + cameos from Freddy, Quim etc. is online.

“I guess it’s kind of like, for example, a guy builds his dream house and then he goes off and has a cabin in the woods elsewhere. You know, a lake house. When you can have that, obviously that’s a privilege. You don’t always want to be at the one place, and it’s overrun with children and remote control cars and rules.” Village Psychic with a piece on the rules of contributing to and skating D.I.Y. spots.

Always a safe bet for some interesting noseslide variations — Mark Wetzel’s part from Traffic’s Look Left is now online, and includes guest tricks from Ricky and Rich Adler.

John Valenti uploaded a B-sides clip of Charlie Cassidy’s N.Y. Archive part, and Theories uploaded volume 11 of Elkin raw files. Rest in peace Saint Vincent’s Bank.

Whoa, wtf happened at House of Vans

We’d mark this as non-skate-related reading, but everyone knows it is just as skate as anything else on the list ;) NY Mag has the complete history on the rise of halal carts in New York. “Halal carts cross barriers. Cheap food triumphs over bad politics.”

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Jay Arrrrrrrr Smith!

Quote of the Week: “Y’all lives suck.” — Josh Velez to a group of schoolchildren

Thank you to post-7 P.M. sunsets & anybody who’s ever made a song about the sun ♥