On October 29th, one of the biggest, most infamous street spots in the UK, the Milton Keynes Bus Station will be hosting the Buszy Jam for a day of various best trick jams and even a photography comp! Rad.
Check the flyer below for all the information you could possibly need. Now write that date down and get down there.
What more do you need to know? Following on from last week’s opening episode here’s a further insight into the life of the child modelling prodigy that became the raddest skater ever to wear slippers, Dylan Rieder.
Elephant Direct is a visual project by two of skateboarding’s most traditional filmmakers, Jeremy Elkin and Jason Auger. Following in the spirit of Elkin’s Lo-Def, here the work is compounded into a temporary online stream that serves as a tribute to the working class. In today’s post-‘throwaway’ era, senses and memories are all too regularly put under a general anesthetic at the hands of both oversaturation and too many nameless kids doing 360 shove-its better than you could. And consequently, the relationship we form with skate videos rarely extend beyond a one-night stand of gross hyperbole and pressing a fucking ‘like’ button. Enter Elkin and Auger, determined to maintain that sense of mystery and memorable hand-made personality that made the likes of Video Days what it is: something that can never be described as ‘throwaway’.
The full, high quality video can currently be watched on (and only on) Color Magazine’s website, but for a very limited time only; Elkin and Auger’s own pragmatic poke at the limited attention spans the internet generation have. Named after a world-weary convenience store that has seen its fair share of drug deals and house arrests, Elephant features Kevin Lowry, Bradley Sheppard, Andrew McGraw, Marc Tison, Torey Goodall, Justin Gastelum, Seb Labbe, Russ Milligan, Pat O’Rourke and Mike Fyfe as seen through the idiosyncratic filming/editing double edged sword swung by two people who actually give a damn. As it’s such a special film that deserves to penetrate through the temporary times we awkwardly live in, we have decided upon watching the stream to give it a full-blown review. Be sure to keep your eyes on Color for how to get your hands on a legit copy when its limited life span online is inevitably replaced by crappy youtube pirates tugging their e-peen.
After a series of short but soul-warming animations and film clips we are introduced to Andrew McGraw. Here is a man with a seemingly endless bag of tricks that is emptied across a wide variation of Canada’s answer to terrain that will be sufficient evidence in an extensive essay on what spots have defined the term ‘east coast’ skateboarding over the past two decades. I’m talking ‘real’ street son; expect the unexpected.
Mike Fyfe is up next and takes the refreshingly stubborn ‘I refuse to skate anything other than the sketchy local spot’ approach to an entire new level (please see: the frontside boardslide to thin wall tightrope walk to evade a bunch of kids playing ball in the street rollaway just a few tricks in). One of those kids high fives him and so should you. The stuff he is skating is difficult even by UK standards, and I’d love to provide you with examples but I’m struggling to draw my attention away from the most OTT stedge I’ve ever seen. It’s exactly 4:20 in and that probably means something. The filmer must have been high as a kite to take equipment there. Props on a stellar front nose too.
What follows is a shared section featuring Russ Milligan, Pat O’ Rourke and Seb Labbe, the kind of line-up that implies bad implications, the idea that there wasn’t going to be that much footage from all of those names isn’t a pleasant idea. But having enjoyed this film so much until this point I didn’t let that doubt enter my mind and I was right not to; this section killed it. Russ’ continues to dabble in a trick selection that makes your feet feel weird just watching it, and I like that. Pat O’ Rourke meticulously flows through sick lines and Seb keeps it real tasteful on spots that continue to look awesome on camera but must suck to skate. By this I mean I’d love to skate everything I’m seeing in this video.
It wasn’t until the friends montage that I noticed something which may explain my increasing love for this video: everything looks like it was filmed in Autumn or Winter. Regardless of whether this aesthetic may be inherant amongst independent Canadian or East Coast videos, I really, really dig it. The montage is a great one too; there’s appearances from the likes of Brian Delatorre, Jimmy Macdonald (who lands a front biggie so rugged and raw that I screwfaced at the sight of it), Jeff Edwards and Luke Koch.
Bradley Sheppard and Torey Goodall are next in a car-grinding section that sent me into a brief state of bewilderment that I’m only half way into this relatively short video and I’ve already seen so much untainted awesome. There’s simply nothing not to like here, and furthermore, it’s remained true to its testament: this is for the workers, those who revel in doing stuff by hand and getting a little dirty. It makes me want to get grubby and skate the spots I skated growing up again and I haven’t felt that in some time. Rumour has it that this will be Torey’s retirement part (the rumour comes from the mouth of Torey himself, but we all know how skateboarders love to say stuff like that), and I sincerely hope that isn’t too true. This section was unexpected enough given the five years since his last full part, and it was a visual treat; Torey makes you want to skate.
Marc Tison’s opening two lines on that unforgettable concrete full-pipe/mini ramp, the Montreal ‘O’, is enough to make this a stand-out section, so to speak. Not to say the other sections don’t stand out, but the sheer amount of control this man has over his skateboard is mind-bending. Pools are torn apart what follows on the ‘O’ by both Tison and Justin Gastelum is just too much. Bricks will be shat.
All that has been discussed culminates with Kevin Lowry who has proven enough times that he should be the first name to come up in your history if you type so much as ‘k’ into your Google Chrome searchbar. Any footage from this gent is outstanding and deserves your full attention. Fakie cab over a big block to switch manual (or fakie nosemanual if we’re playing that pedantic shit) down a bank? 50-50 over what looks to be the roof of a shop door? This is urban fantasy at work.
Your skateboarding life will be made better by having this video in your collection. It’s that simple. Jeremy Elkin and Jason Auger have outdone themselves in this worthy testament against the over-abundance of throwaway footage and video embeds on message boards. Stream it while you can, then go and get it.
Stanley
ELEPHANT DIRECT – TRAILER from Color Magazine on Vimeo.
Grinderman
Mute Records
Mental breakdowns and crises can occur at any point in an existing person’s lifetime, most commonly when confronted with the concepts of existence, or indeed a limited time in which one can be alive and exist. Shit, I’m constantly surprised that we’re not in a constant state of anxiety-ridden madness, I know I’m flirting with the idea just writing about it. And listening to the latest disc of fuzz-fuelled fantasy and anti-serious garage rock from Nick Cave’s Grinderman project almost tempted me to indulge in a balls-out illicit affair with insanity.
That is not to say that Grinderman is Cave’s outlet to just lose his shit; though shoving on some Roman garb and thrusting lasers at the earth while a wolf circles a girl in a bathtub would almost have you thinking otherwise. And I’m certainly not going green-text imply that The Bad Seeds isn’t the music he truly wants to make. What Grinderman 2 is, is an informed soundtrack of celebration for the natural impulses that linger in our sub-conscious that make us occasionally want to thrust lasers from our dick while wearing armour and shout ‘HERE COME THE WOLFMAN’ while walking into a cinema. It’s the reason why we celebrate Halloween.
Musically, it’s bitter, gorgeous and somehow more sonically expansive then the first collection of impromptu sleazy, visceral rock. Cave’s absurdist saturation of sexual, violent, hilarious lyrics penetrate harder than ever as he scowls on Worm Tamer, ‘My baby calls me the Loch Ness Monster, two great big humps and then I cum’ while the perpetual bass fuzz makes you want to just get up and throw shit. One can only imagine how fun the Grinderman recording sessions are as they surf through high and low culture on an impossibly badass selection of bluesy riffs and guitar noise that can only be made by the monster that lives in the garages of tacky US horror flicks.
So dive in and embrace the wonderful breakdowns that are imminent when listening to one of the most raw albums you’ll hear in 2010. And if you thought your big husband would protect you, YOU WERE WRONG.
The Wolfman
Groove Armada have announced that they will no longer be performing live after their series of dates in the UK and Australia this year.
Tom Findlay and Andy Cato, two of mainstream dance music’s most influential performers will no longer be playing with the full live band after their tour that begins on October 7th.
Be sure to catch them on their last tour as when backed by the full band, Groove Armada consistently put on a stunning, visceral spectacle that DJ sets rarely come close to. Head here for a review of their UK tour last year around the release of their album, Black Light.
They will be playing the following dates in October:
Leeds, Academy – 7th
Glasgow, Academy – 8th
Manchester, Academy 9th
Norwich, UEA – 11th
Bristol, Academy 12th
Birmignahm, Academy 14th
London, Brixton Academy – 15th/16th
The band responsible for the omnipresent ‘gypsy-punk’ description that barely applies to any other band besides themselves, Gogol Bordello have released the new video for Immigraniada (We Comin’ Rougher) through the tech/culture website Boing Boing.
The video has been described as one of the band’s most personal and autobiographical pieces, chronicling the everyday life of an immigrant in the dog-eat-mongrel landscape of Los Angeles. The band themselves unite from all over the globe, collectively hailing from Ukraine, Russia, Israel, China, Ethiopia, Ecuador and Trinidad and so offer a greater legitimacy than most bands tend to have when covering this sort of issue.
You can watch the video below, but follow this link to read a great interview with lead singer Eugene Hütz on the making of the video and some additional stories behind it.
Bad Religion’s 30th anniversary celebrations are set to reach a climax as their 15th studio album, The Dissent Of Man, is set for relese on September 27th.
The band have just posted the entire album, previously reported to contain some of the band’s favourite songs they’ve ever written, on their Myspace for all to hear.
The tracklisting is as follows, now go in and listen to it.
While it’s currently buzzing away at the top of our Buzz Chart you should all take some time out of your busy schedule to listen to the noisy duo No Age whose album ‘Everything In Between‘ is now available to stream online (via Guardian)
Click this link to read Sleekly Lion’s review and hit the picture below to wrap your ears around some rad sounds.
No Age- Everything in Between promo from Patrick O’Dell on Vimeo.
When was the last time you can remember the idea of new Tom Penny footage not making your day infinitely more awesome? Never. It’s always the case, and this clip below is no exception.
See below for some fresh moves in Christiania from the Wu Tom Clan.
The ‘Tap have posted some unused footage from the Girl Skateboards Outbackwards tour earlier this year. Dive straight in to 10 minutes of fun below.