Meet At The Ledge-to-Puddle

February 28th, 2022 · 12:00 am · 3 Comments

One of the lesser seen Harlem Banks shots — the infamous uptown spot discussed in the Full Bleed ten-year anniversary interview earlier this month. Mike “Tex” Kelly, shot by Spike Jonze in 1988. Spotted via Science Versus Life.

Definitely one of the last tricks to be captured at the Carroll Street manny pad — one of Gabe Tennen’s favorite skate spots — via Max Rowlette’s “Shadow” part, spotted via Skate Jawn.

Chauncey Ledges is an entirely different spot once the ground gets cold. Headgear’s “I’m Just Livin’ It” edit is pretty much an all-Chauncey video features James Sayres and friends.

Feels like this one should have some more eyes on it: “kindasorta” by Nate Hanson. The needle-thread ollie to completely perpendicular boardslide in Murray Hill (?) is wild.

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

November 27th, 2019 · 12:00 pm · 15 Comments

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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QS Film School — An Intro To Modern Skate Videos With Plots

April 3rd, 2019 · 2:30 am · 6 Comments

In Boogie Nights, Paul Thomas Anderson’s film about the porn industry of the 70s and 80s, Burt Reynolds’ Jack Horner gives a fateful speech admonishing the advent of home video: “I have a stable of actors and actresses. They’re professionals. They’re not a bunch of fucking amateurs. They’re proven in the box office. They get people in theaters, where films should be seen, and they know how to fuck.”

It is not hard to imagine similar tirades (maybe with a few words switched out) occurring in Powell-Peralta boardrooms as the 80s were coming to a close, and skateboarding was around the corner from a crash. Skate videos of the decade were refined and narrative-driven, and for good reason. There were only like, six tricks invented at the time, so they had to fill up those other 53 minutes in an hour-long skate video with story, personality shots and other shit.

But what would come after skateboarding’s believed-to-be demise was a rebirth. Videos like Snuff, Video Days, Tim & Henry’s Pack of Lies, and Questionable were unrepentant in their progression — they were too busy inventing modern skateboarding in front of your eyes to worry about the extracurricular malarky from the Animal Chin days. New faces and a camera thrown in a backpack was the name of the game. The old mode was dead. But for how long?

Skateboarding draws many parallels to pornography, but one of the most curious ones is an incessant need to add narrative to something that nobody watches for the story. As we will soon learn, plots returned to skate videos as quickly as they went.

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Ten Years Since Yeah Right! and the Case For Increased Plausibility

November 16th, 2012 · 9:23 am · 30 Comments

Yeah Right! was released a few months shy of ten years ago. That video, the Girl/Chocolate video disguised a shoe company video plus a Cairo Foster part and Cliché section, and likely the one being premiered today in Los Angeles / Sunday in New York, have come to represent benchmarks in “just how far we’ve come” technologically. Yeah Right! = Motorola Razr, Fully Flared = the first iPhone, Pretty Sweet = an iPhone 7 or something?

Despite the fact that Yeah Right! was the most advanced video of its time, it had a running gag in which green screen ramps would be set up to “unskateable” obstacles, skated, and later removed in post-production as a self-referential nod to the video’s title. “Skateboarding is pretty crazy right now, this dude 360 flip noseblunted a handrail, but like, yeah right bro! It’s not *that* crazy!” Well, the predictive spirit of Jules Verne must have taken up an interest in skating and channeled itself through Spike Jonze and Ty Evans, because since then, many of the tricks that were only possible with lime green ramps and After Effects began happening without them. Below is a list of Yeah Right! green ramp tricks and their counterparts in reality.

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Snack League

May 9th, 2011 · 2:38 pm · 6 Comments

So, Waka Flocka released a video for “Lil’ Debbie.” The video and the song are disappointing from the perspective of this website, because the visuals / lyrics do little to live up to the title. In fact, the only mention of the snack cakes that the site is named after is “I get stupid cake, you can call me Lil’ Debbie.” One can only hope that a Lil’ Debbie diamond chain will eventually surface alongside the Fozzie bear one.

With all due respect to Brandon Westgate, this website’s favorite skater with a proficiency for skating up things that go down and absurdly high obstacles is Luis Tolentino. Pause right before the pop on the last 5050, just to ballpark how high the ledge probably is.

The Gonz, Spike Jonze, and Bobby Worrest skating around downtown Manhattan.

Did you know there is a decent sidewalk bump across the street from 12th & A? (Technically on the 11th Street side.) Billy and Shawn Powers knew. They did some ninja stuff over it.

The black marble banks on 48th Street & Park Avenue (or what remained of them) are completely gone as of this weekend. Someone tell the city to give companies tax write-offs for donating marble to 12th & A instead of just hucking it into a dumpster.

Attention all broke skaters: Gray’s Papaya now serves dollar slices. Not only did they price themselves out of the “Broke Skater Diet” bracket once the “Recession Special” slowly rose from $2.45 to $5.00, but they sold out by offering pizza slices cheaper than their hot dog specialties. If the mafia controls cheese prices, thus contributing to the rise in cost of pizza, does it control the hot dog market too? Or do they just melt Polly-O string cheese on dollar slices, and circumvent the mafia entirely?

Not really sure if the Fish is still “relevant” in skateboarding, but the NYPD shut it down for “illegal sale of alcoholic beverages.” (That probably means it was open after 4 A.M.) Naturally, people started a petition to get it open again.

Quote of the Week: “I went to see Paul Muni in Times Square and got blackout drunk…the only thing I remember is someone punching the Cookie Monster.” — Sweet Waste

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