DVS have spent a weekend with Torey Pudwill and have posted the very nice results of their stay online.
In the video below you can get a little peak into the life of T-Pud’s as he hits up some local streets, gets his backlip on with Dan Abadi and Shane O’Neil at Lafayette Plaza, hits up P-Rod’s TF with Nick Garcia and even fits in some bowl action at Pedlow.
Look out for a monsterous backtail from Carlos Zarazua too…
30th July
Dempsey’s Bar
A walk through Cardiff’s St Mary’s Street on a Friday night may land you into some pretty surreal situations. If you’re lucky you won’t be glassed outside one of the more unfriendly bars and perhaps you’ll find your way to Dempsey’s, the warm location for tonight’s premiere of Christian ‘Pirate Man’ Hart’s latest inexplicable audio/visual creation and the first ‘proper’ CSC video ‘Join Us‘.
No one throws a premiere quite like the Welsh. Tom Hobson put on his finest dog outfit for his role as DJ. That’s if you call putting on a track and then twenty seconds later changing it and then leaving an album on for a bit and then skipping through songs so the 150+ attending heard five second clips for a couple minutes DJing, I know I bloody do. Everyone was so out of their minds at this point anyway, getting increasingly paranoid as the boxman surrounded them. A couple had to double check themselves as the junior CSC were in attendance and the balloons that were scattered everywhere caused a few people to wonder if they’d accidentally entered a very illegal brothel.
Drunks and children aside, tonight was defined by one of the most out-there yet entirely compelling scene videos I’ve ever seen. Pirate Man has regularly shunned conventions in the past; the Hi-8 cut and paste bonanzas Labyrinth and First Blood mix skating with clips of films, adverts and other things even he isn’t too sure about. But ‘Join Us’ takes these ideas and compounds them into something that’s not only weird and funny, but very watchable. The skating summons both the weird and the gnarly too, resulting for a must see for not just those interested in the constantly growing and forever friendly Welsh skate scene, but those interested into how far the boundaries of a skate video can be pushed…into the gutter. Expect a proper review when a DVD arrives and I can remember what happened because I don’t think anyone there could accurately recall what happened, if it even did happen. The pictures taken say the dream was real…
The skate video pre-drinkathon at Chateau Ridout
Boxman’s house was raided! By Wham?
CSC heads bringing the hype
Tom Hobson moonlighting as DJ iDog
A packed Dempsey’s was blown away by Christian’s collection of weird shit
Gibbsy congratulates the director while Rhys Whaley and Chris Jones get better acquainted.
Nick and Stanley descend into a media circlejerk.
My totem kept spinning as I saw Gibbsy show off his dream sponsor…
The lost boys had no intention of being found tonight.
Show me your dirty face.
Still spinning…
Australia’s Violent Soho have experienced several things over the past couple of years that many a fledgling rock band can only dream of. They were signed by Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore to his own record label Ecstatic Peace!, they played a private show for Rick Rubin at his house and they got to record an album with the legendary production powerforce that is Gil Norton. Add to that the tours and festivals that they’ve been playing across the world and you’ve got a pretty exciting and turbulent lifestyle which the band could never have predicted, growing up in the bible belt area of Mansfield. We decided to give vocalist/guitarist Luke Boerdam the Crossfire treatment and find out what it’s been like for the band and what makes them tick. Oh, and some of them skate too. Bonus!
Do you know how Thurston Moore got his hands on your music? Was it a totally random thing?
Thurston Moore is like some weird omnipresent music guru. When we first met him I asked him if he knew a band from Brisbane Australia called Budd. Not many people in Brisbane know who that band is and he just turns to me and says “Yeah I know them. I put a double 10″ of theirs out in the 90s. I have a bunch of them under my bed.” So who knows how that guy finds music. We are just grateful he found us.
How did it feel working with Gil Norton? What are your favourite records that he’s been involved with in the past and why? How did he influence your music in the studio?
At first, I was scared shitless. I think we all were. But Gil is such a great guy and he made us feel so comfortable in the studio. But I mean you can’t help but be nervous when you’re playing in front of a dude who recorded the Pixies’ Doo little, Trompe le monde, Bossanova, The Foo Fighters’ The Color and the Shape… I mean, the list goes on.
How did Gil and Thurston react to your music? What do you think it is that drew them to working with you?
I remember we got a phone call and it was Gil Norton saying that he loved our music and said he would love to do our record. After it was all done and mixed he said he was real proud of the record, which meant the world to us. The first time I ever saw Thurston was at a venue in New York. He walked in while we were playing, stood right in front of James and started headbanging.
How much is the record (especially songs like ‘Jesus Stole My Girlfriend’) a reaction to the way you were brought up?
Very much. All the songs revolve, in some way, around the idea of loneliness, the mundane and boredom of suburbia. Mansfield is a bible belt area, we grew up with a lot of pentecostal christian influence. Jesus Stole My Girlfriend isn’t just a story about what happened to me. It also embodies a reaction against going with the normal.
What does your hometown mean to you and how does it feel being away from home for long periods of time whilst on tour / recording etc?
Our hometown is what made us the people we are and gave us the frustration we needed to make the music we do. So our hometown is everything to us. Being away from home for long periods sucks, but it also helps you keep going because in the back of your mind it reminds us why we do this. For the love of the 4122.
What’s your favourite thing about being on the road?
Meeting random people is always fun but my favorite thing is all the crazy junk food and weird bars.
Where is the most amazing place you’ve visited so far?
We camped out at Joshua Tree and went up to the mountains and looked out over the ranges but I think Santa Rosa in LA is the most amazing place. Anywhere where you get given over a half of the best bud ever is pretty amazing.
When you go on tour, do you take your board with you? What cool places have you come across to skate?
Yeah Shut Skateboards in NYC gave James a board so he always takes that with him. Hollywood is a pretty rad place to skate. Heaps of good spots.
Who’s your favourite skater?
James always goes on about Jay Adams and every story I get told makes me love the dude.
Does skateboarding influence your music in any way?
Sure, I mean everyone has a record that they put on and it makes them want to go for a skate, like the first Face to Face record ‘Don’t Turn Away’. It’s a vibe I guess, growing up those are the records that stay with you forever and we’d love to think that someone out there is skating to our record.
What’s your ultimate goal as a band?
Stay friends, make the best music we can and play as many shows as possible.
What do you think is your biggest achievement to date?
We lived in a small 4 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment with 10 people (more at times) for 10 months and are all still great friends so I think surviving that is our greatest achievement.
How has the UK treated you on your visits here so far? Have you got any plans to return soon?
Awesome. We love the UK. Great beer, great people, great music. We hope to be there as soon as we can hopefully before the year is out.
What does the near future hold for Violent Soho?
We are going back home to Australia to do a small tour then we get to play in Chicago at Lollapolooza and then go on tour with Mondo Generator which we are pumped for always been a big fan of Nick Oliveri.
Current UK MC D Double E has become quite a sensation since emerging from the London grime scene and establishing himself as an absolutely bananas MC with the Swerve-produced Street Fighter Riddim.
The track in question has cemented itself in the regular playlist at the office (read: just Abjekt’s computer but we love it) so we were overjoyed to see this banger finally get a video. It’s somehow even more fun than the actual track, so get on it… Hadouken!
Kanye West made a surprise visit to Rolling Stone to talk about himself, spit some impromptu spoken word, talk about himself, get a little sweaty, talk about himself, take off his jacket, talk about himself, refuse to take off his sunglasses and erm… talk about himself like only he could. And oh boy, does he.
Ratatat are continuing their trend of insanely odd music videos for tracks off this year’s incredible LP4.
Drugs is an instant Ratatat banger, slick and sleazy guitar slides, euphoric keys and vast landscapes of beats, and the video for it is just as immediately unnerving as the video for Party With Children. Arguably it’s just a bunch of people standing and smiling at a camera. But it’s not that simple at all. See for yourself…
Etnies and Carhartt are back again for the tenth European Skateboard Championships in Basel kicking off on the 5th August.
If you are planning a trip to Europe this Summer then this is the event you should base your trip around. The ESCs always go off and there’s lots in store for this year with tea drinking hype-bringers Lovenskate making some fresh looking tees and DJ Shadow celebrating the event’s tenth birthday in style.
See below for the flyer and head over to the official ESC website for any information you could possibly need.
Skateboarding’s premier bloodsucking company Toy Machine have posted the last video of their recent Zumiez tour. They concluded their trip in the home away from home of Crossfire’s hip-hop aficionado Abjekt, in Minneapolis.
Have a look below for a visual treat, witness Billy Marks and Leo Romero channel the power of their scumtaches into some handrail hammers while Matt Bennett and Nick Trapasso and more chill and shred.
Toy Machine Zumiez Couch Tour 010 from Toy Machine on Vimeo.
At the end of this month Manchester’s Pump Cage will be celebrating its six year anniversary. That’s six years dedication to bringing skateboarders together and ensuring that the sessions they have at the Pump Cage are rad enough to cement its reputation as one of the best sheltered skateparks in the UK.
The ProjektsMCR crew are currently on the hunt for footage (old or new) filmed at the park to make a little archive of the good times. So if you’ve got an edit laying around, or some footage gathering dust on a hard drive somewhere then put it together and send it to Projekts.
Here’s one that’s already surfaced from Dan Cintra. Vive le Pump Cage!
Jart have just posted a welcome video for the Limerick board flipping wizard Cian Eades.
Have a look below for a very unexpected banger down a rather long set…