“Zooted” is a New York video by Stephán Lewis with appearances from Brandon Scott, Jiro Platt, Yaje Popson and a bunch of other people you’ll recognize from skating around downtown.
The Village Psychic dudes spend the lockdown months creating Village Archive, an early stab at a Wikipedia or an IMDB of skateboard footwear. (Man, have skaters been responsible for designing some awful shoes.) Kinda inspired to think up some ideas similar to this one now…
As we age, it’s easy to only remember the “big” changes: VX to HD, social media, Thrasher becoming the only magazine. The smaller ones are tougher to catalog, but when you think about it, had a substantial impact. In the not-so-distant past, “raw files” weren’t a “thing.” You couldn’t DM on Instagram. Polar was a small brand selling outline logo tees to the few who could get them. These things changing had huge reverberations, and in many ways, helped make “underground,” independent skateboard brands the dominant brands they are today.
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.
Been a slow start to the year out there. Pretty excited for this heatwave though.
Steve Mastorelli (the guy who made The Meadowlands last year) has a sick new edit up, which screened before the video at the NJ Skateshop Stop Fakin’ 3 premiere. Features a bunch of familiar north Jersey faces and spots.
One of the standout ex-pat / visitor in New York vids in recent memory — “Dice of Life: Twenty Eighteen.” Huge array of spots (shout out to everyone venturing out to the still-good spots that weathered locals otherwise gave up on), really sick skating (the line at the Escape From New York cathedral on Amsterdam is fucked + the varial heel at Southbridge Towers is sick too), and one of the best No Limit songs to start it off, though they only used the worst verse on it :)
Coda has new montage for 2018, with some wild moves, especially in the first part, which seemed like it was about to be filmed exclusively under the J train.
“The backside 360 with that gentle and (sarcastically?) smug roll away off the ledge is the first trick I think of when I think of Bobby Puleo in Static II.” And on that same note…“musing on” Puleo’s part in the second Static video.
