Real Chill

astor riviera

Astor & Lafayette, in a galaxy far, far away. Jacked from That’s a Crazy One.

It’s the end of the summer, 100 degrees out, and people are fucking pissed.

“In fact, they feel it was exploitative, that Clark capitalized on the brilliance of the crew while failing to capture the true beauty of their world. They weren’t as sex crazed as the film portrays them, for one. More important, in Kids, it seems all the boys want is to fuck the girls, but in real life, the girls weren’t sexual conquests. The boys and girls ran neck and neck and were best friends.” Ok, so lately been wondering about the origins of the photos from @thatsacrazyone on Instagram, which has tons of early and mid nineties stuff around Astor, Washington Square and the Banks + some same faces from Out & About, etc. (This Loki photo is the coolest a slappy crook on a six-inch curb will ever look.) Turns out its for an upcoming book of the same name, whose website hasn’t been updated in a year-and-a-half, but apparently is still coming out as per this feature in August’s issue of Vice. Really looking forward to this one :)

Byrd Gang videos are my new favorite videos out of New York. Teaser for the new one.

File Jawn Gardner’s Bruns 2 part under: Video Parts That Made Me Yell At My Computer Screen More Than Three Times in 2016.

Probably listened to The War Report more than any other venerated nineties New York rap album as an adult, so this’ll be a nice addition for the wall.

“Rifuckingdiculously Sorry” is the forth and final installment to Flip’s Sorry series, oddly starring a bunch of Canadians skating in Toronto.

The history of skateboarding unfolded pretty much alongside the development of trucks, and plot-twist — women run everything in skateboarding. Part two of Jeff Grosso’s history of skateboard trucks is now live. (Part one went live last month btw.)

Andrew Allen interviews Austyn Gillette.

Village Psychic with another round of strange skater + sponsor match-ups.

Probably the best *sounding* video of all time, Tim Dowling’s Listen, in full.

Speaking of videos that sound like they look, Budapest’s Rios Crew A.K.A. the New Jersey-ians of Europe just dropped a new one called “Nap Mint Nap Volume 3.”

You probably already saw this: Austyn’s TWS cover footage and Brad Cromer front blunting a Seaport bench in Huf’s new NYC edit.

This is six-years-old and has nothing to do with skateboarding, but I read it on the plane twice. “If journalism’s more vital traditions of investigating corruption and synthesizing complex topics are going to be restored, it will never be at the expense of the personal, the sexual, the venal, or the sensational, but rather through mastering the kind of storytelling that understands that none of those things exists in a vacuum.”

Quote of the Week: “They make MTV music that I want to listen to.” — Pryce Holmes’ Sremmlife 2 review

Trying to Get Off the Fall-Off List

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The QS Sports Desk didn’t have a horse in the playoff race, but it’s pretty obvious that this Cleveland title is both A) the closest New Jersey will ever come to winning a title thanks to Freehold’s J.R. Smithony, West Orange’s Kyrie Irvings, and the back-to-back Finals appearances New Jersey Nets’ Richard Jefferson, and B) the closest the New York Knicks will ever come to winning a title because we now live in a world where Timofey Mozgovonzsky and Iman Shumpert’s hair are NBA Champions. (It’s still fuck Dan Gilbert forever though.) Last night and Game 7 OKC-GSW were the two best basketball games of all time :) lol Melo.

ANYWAY, been pretty bad at updating lately, huh? Should be back to normal programming this week. Sremmlife 2 is delayed and we’re devastated.

Shout out to Sage and TJ for turning pro :)

Are there even people out there whose favorite skater isn’t Max Palmer? Unofficial Frog x 917 demo @ Tompkins via Genesis Evans.

Yaje has a new part out for Venture, where he brings the 2000s back super hard by ending it off with a trick over the Grant’s Tomb four-stair ledge instead one of the banked ledges. Shout out to Ja$onwear x infinity.

“I don’t think we ever really thought of who we were writing for, we did what we wanted to do and what we liked.” Yet another interview about the Big Brother book, but all of them have been pretty great and strangely echo a lot of what’s going on in skateboarding now. (QS review of Shit here btw.)

ON THAT SAME NOTE, you’ve no doubt heard plenty old #oldheads talking about how skating is in some circle (bro) and history repeating itself phase right now a la the post-Bones Brigade era, and while everything it discusses was before my time…thoroughly enjoyed this new Ron Chatman interview about his early career days. “I never did three flips because that was Jason’s shit. I never did impossibles or heelflips because Ed did them. You couldn’t do it better than that.”

Boil the Ocean tackles the growing conspiracy that big shoe companies are deliberately flooding the market with small skateboard brands to dilute the resonance of small shoe brands, or something along the lines of skateboarding’s version of the General Motors streetcar conspiracy? I dunno man.

Transworld was feeling the Non Fiction 2k16 vibes, and picked up LurkNYC’s New York Times outtakes series for their website. Good God that backside flip…

Nice read about what it’s like be a sk8er and work as a professional architect.

Jersey Jersey Jersey… “Meadowlands Promo,” featuring QS favorite Nick Ferro.

“Crybaby,” a new one from the youth.

Here’s the New York-based raw footage from Justin Henry’s OPM part.

Quick interview with Jason Dill over at Place.

Samsung is doing a retrospective event on R.B. Umali’s work later today.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Pipe it up.

Quote of the Week: “The room was $140, but ended up being $500 because my girl picked up the walnuts.” — Carl Williams

I mean, who doesn’t love a good vocal interpolation of a truck backing up? Decisions..

Look Alive

astor

Photo via Matt Weber

Love Park is still skateable!

On the opposite end of the spectrum, somebody unearthed this good bit of footage from a 1994 Love Park contest featuring Huf, Ricky Oyola, Matt Reason, Fred Gall, Andy Stone, etc. Remember when contests just involved jump ramps?! “Yeeaahhhh.”

An interview with Dick Rizzo and Josh Wilson, two prominent figures keeping the rich tradition of New Jersey skateboarding strong in 2016.

Dave Carnie was always everyone’s favorite Big Brother writer, and has probably written more enjoyable words about skateboarding than anyone else out there. Kingpin published the most detailed interview anyone involved with the publicity blitz surrounding Shit has given, with none other than…Dave Carnie. “You know how when you go to an abandoned house and you just start breaking shit and throwing rocks at windows because you can? That’s pretty much what we were doing.”

Better Skate Than Never put all the Lucas Puig #deepcuts in one place.

Genesis Evans & Jason Byoun skating around Tribeca. DANY video soon.

Someone combined all the outtake clips from Bill Strobeck’s IG for a single vid.

Quick minute-long clip from Cooper Park via Johnny Wilson and co.

“Fifteen years since Rob Welsh nearly single-handedly rescued the noseslide from that doomed scrap pile of tricks too basic for blocks and too ‘Muska’ for handrails, a new era beckons in which legs weary from four presidential terms’ worth of pop-outs are offered respite…” — Boil the Ocean on noseslide shove-its and the rise of “dad tricks.”

An interview (+ new clip) with the crew behind Canal Wheels.

Yo Darkstar x Harley Davidson is fire.

Just in time for summer: Sremmlife 2 available June 24.

Spot Updates: 1) You likely stopped caring four years ago, but the Banks won’t re-open until November at the earliest. 2) You likely never cared unless you’re Austyn Gillette, but that bump to wall on Lafayette and Howard is a wrap.

QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Something still feels off with the east being more exciting than the west for the first time since the “Lebron has no rings”-era, except everyone knows that Spurs-GSW are the real “Finals” in as much as Lakers-Kings in 2002 were the real Finals. Hopefully no poisoned room service. Wasn’t an eventful first weekend though, but Jamal Crawford still ripping is kinda like J.B. Gillett still ripping. Understated, underrated and classic.

Quote of the Week: “Ever since I moved to New York I got worse at skating and better at drinking.” — Jesse Alba

Get well soon Weiss.