The time? December 2017. The place? The buzzing hallways of the Quartersnacks office — editors scrambling to determine which 25 events from the past year impacted New York life the most. The off-hand topic? S.O.T.Y. Our take? Well, it had to be between Enrique Lorenzo on High Grade Steroids x5, or the sleeper contender in America’s sweetheart. The reality? Thrasher gave it to the big boy.
No disrespect — but he took third place of most discussed around the QS water cooler, some 3,000 miles from Thrasher‘s H.Q.
We took the concept of Boil the Ocean’s most ambitious bizzaro world S.O.T.Y. post a few steps further. In a year where Time gave its “Person of the Year” honors to a group rather than an individual, we propose an alternate reality for 2017’s skater of the year.
Shout out to Dana Ericson for help on the graphics, and Diego Meek on the dubbing ♥
Like every facet of American life, skateboarding was hit hard by the 2008 recession. Lurker Lou has an oddly insightful glimpse into the industry of the pre-recession, pre-iPhone era by giving a 2007 Thrasher a last look. “Respect the Machnau.”
Here’s post-Love Park life in Philadelphia, with a Grandpa cameo in Cell Jawn #26.
Yo for like a casual, pre-premiere session around the Lower East Side and Chinatown, this clip of the Volcom team before the Holy Stokes screening has some jams in it. Nobody’s ollied those two double bump-to-bars on Madison before, right?
Even if you skate zero transition, there are certain skate landmarks you gotta pay a visit to just because (think Burnside, the Christiana bowl, etc.) The La Perla pool in San Juan, Puerto Rico is on that list. Monster Children did a quick story on the spot’s history, and how it slowly revitalized one of the slummiest parts of San Juan.
As per the note re: everyone still wanting to see Todd Jordan skate in Lou’s segment, here’s his gem of a “Wheels of Fortune” section, checking off every box of late-90s/early-2000s New York skate nostalgia:
The Canal Wheels section from Transplantsis now online.
QS Sports Desk Play of the Week: Gotta be Steph’s 4-on-1 off glass lay-up to close out the first half last night? What’s everyone thinking, Warriors in six? Durant leaves?
Quote of the Week Inquisitive Gentleman: “Have you ever seen a shark out in the water?” Dave Dowd: “I don’t believe in sharks.”
“Whether he knew it or not, a Bowie song in a skate video was more than just another song in the credits ━ you had to fucking earn that song.” Can’t say another artist’s passing has ever resulted in such an outpour of reflection from skatemediaoutlets.
New Pete Eldridge footage! New J.B. Gillet footage! The Cliché team in Paris, unfortunately sans Lucas. Despite having seen that Créteil brick bank spot in videos for two-plus decades, there hasn’t been really much footage of people skating it like a halfpipe (way harder than it looks tbh.) All the footage is super fun :)
Have a suspicion that Tiago Lemos’ secret is a bit more sophisticated than “rice, beans and lots of acai,” since half the skaters with jobs in New York live off that stuff…
Guess the word is out on this one. Proud to say QS will be releasing a ten-year anniversary book on Powerhouse this fall, entitled TF at 1. It’s a fun look back at the past decade give-or-take of the extended family that surrounds this website. More details later this year. Keep an eye out for snippets on Instagram.
The list of people who look as good as peak-era Rob Welsh on a skateboard is in the single digits. Also, since skateboarders love rappers from the nineties so much that we’re still editing to songs off The Sun Rises in the East fifteen years after Static 1 came out, you guys might be interested to learn that a lot of those rappers are still making music in 2015!
“In terms of visibility and reach, the Thrasher part gives the skater the prime-time spot, and to have one of these nowadays is almost like being a contestant on America’s Got Talent that made it to the next round. Everyone gets to see your part for that day, but next week there’s a whole other round of contestants to replace you.” SMLTalk with a funny one about the most awfully titled Thrasher parts. “The Raybourn Identity” is insane, though we called something “Djosh Unchained” before, so…
Here are the TWO winners of the Jason Byoun remix contest. Considering both of them incited equal amounts of laughter, it wasn’t fair to just let one win. Check your emails. Make sure to watch the first one through the end :)
Quote of the Week: “Fetty Wap is like Willie Nelson.” — Corey Rubin
The 2013 edition of Frozen in Carbonite’s always great song of the summer + best video parts of the summer wrap up is now live. It tackles important topics like Mark Appleyard’s longevity, French Montana’s lack of figurative language, and Javier Sarmiento’s fashion choices. Notable omissions to the songs include “Versace,” “No New Friends,” “Type of Way,” “Fine China,” “Get Lucky” (“the Lone Ranger of summer songs” i.e. force fed garbage), and “I Hit It First,” the S.O.T.S. that sadly never was. You can check the 2012 edition here and the 2011 one here.
Some dudes put together a historic mini documentary about Milano Centrale, the most famous skate spot in Italy. If given the choice right now, would you rather go to Milan or Prague for a ledge skating trip?
Mountain Dew seems committed to monopolizing the skateboard-related #listicle game, and taking a bit of Complex’s marketshare along with it. They have a new one that breaks down the history of Girl and Chocolate in a convenient form for those intimidated by seeing multiple paragraphs on the same page.
Speaking of #listicles, here’s one that makes the case for New Jersey contributing more to skateboarding than any other non-Californian state. Dave Filchak’s name is oddly missing from it though.
