The Element team packed their bags with new gear and flew into Chile to taste what’s on offer in Santiago’s streets. Watch Chad Tim Tim, Levi Brown, Julian Davidson, Nick Garcia and Spiro Razis on the road in this brand new edit.
ELEMENT “KEEP DISCOVERING” CHILE from ELEMENT SKATEBOARDS on Vimeo.
This afternoon’s meeting regarding the proposed plans for a new skate park at The Level in Brighton has been successful. Freestyle‘s plans passed the planning stage which is great news for the locals. It means the build now moves into a new phase with work scheduled on the project looking likely to proceed in February 2013.
Worried locals thinking that they would end up with a smaller park should be happier knowing that the new build will come in at around 1400sqm as opposed to the current space that houses around 1200sqm of skate-able land. The new park will now move North of the hedgerow of the existing site and the design you see here will change slightly before the build starts but not too much.
Congrats to the Brighton & Hove Skatepark Association and the locals for their massive efforts in getting this result and for persisting with the struggles they faced from all angles down there on the South coast. Brighton’s skate scene have deserved this news for a while. Here’s to the future.
Get ready for some fun this winter at the Bay Sixty 6 skatepark. Not only does the new park boast a bowl for the first time, the new street course now has a ledge that works on hydraulics as revealed in a recent video update from NikeSB today. Set the size of your choice and skate it. Simple.
This is the ledge that has the magic system built in below. Click here for the rolling feature of the park’s progress.
Nike Bay Sixty6 – The Builders from Nike Skateboarding on Vimeo.
Casper Brooker’s full section from the City of Rats DVD by Slam City Skates has been uploaded this afternoon by Henry EW. Grab a copy of the DVD today from here.
Casper Brooker – City Of Rats from Slam City Skates on Vimeo.
Want more? Enjoy Neil Smith and Jerome Campbell’s section here:
Jaill
‘Traps’
Sub Pop
Traps is Jaill’s third full album, and their second for Sub Pop. That they’ve been around for 10 years and only managed three albums in that time suggests that they might well be immersed in the slacker ethic that enshrouded some of Sub Pop’s bands back in the late 80s/early 90s. Still, we’re not here to criticise a band’s work ethic, it’s the end result that counts after all. Traps might be a bit of a patchy, beige affair, but it does possess some redeeming features. Disengage your brain entirely, take in the summery tones of the album and it’s actually not a bad set of songs. Pay too much attention and it all seems a bit bland and overwrought.
It starts well with ‘Waste A Lot Of Things’, a breezy pop tune that initially sounds as if its wearing a massive grin on its well tanned face. Under the sunny disposition there are lyrics awash with darkness, the odd lost mind and a dollop of sadness, the kind of thing that’d bring down any sun-kissed holiday – like sand in your sandwiches.
Frankly Vincent Kircher’s a bit of a buzz kill on this album, for all the uplifting backing vocals (which are reminiscent of label mates Fruit Bats) and surf-guitar breaks, he’s there, banging on about his sexually frustrated girlfriend or whatever. ‘Everyone’s A Bitc’h is a perfect example of this. It kicks in with a nicely serrated new-wave riff throws in a bunch of great harmonies, and then Kircher’s there moaning about how his (ex) woman thinks he’s a bit vanilla. Whether he’s aware that she’s using gay slang to describe his prowess is open to debate, as he seems to think it’s something to do with ice-cream.
At this point, it’s worth considering whether it’s better to ignore what Kircher’s going on about and just concentrate on how he sounds because there’s more misery on the way with ‘Horrible Things (Make Pretty Songs)’. Yet here it works so much better, there’s no juxtaposition of breezy pop tunes and sorrowful lyrical content, it just cuts to the chase. “No one to take care of, no one to take care of me” Kircher intones over a delicately strummed acoustic guitar; the heartbroken lyrics fitting perfectly.
‘I’m Home’ opens like a high pitched take on The Breeders Cannonball before turning into a spiky pop-nugget complete with woozy keyboard interjections. ‘House With Haunting’s laid back swing is pretty good fun but doesn’t really go anywhere. It’s a similar problem with ‘Madness’, which is a nice sounding if unrewarding strum. Yet for all these misfires, when the band and Kircher are on the same page emotionally, everything clicks. Million Times’ heart-rending sob story fizzes with a palpable tension and it is arguably the best thing on the album by some stretch.
They close out with ‘Stone Froze Mascot’ which is catchy enough but lacks enough force to smash its way into the pleasure centres. It’s this lack of force and focus that hinders the album; ultimately it’s a nice enough but Jaill and Kircher in particular sound a little confused. By the end, it’s easy to see why his girlfriend legged it hurling ice-cream related insults, sometimes you need a little bit of unadulterated excitement.
6/10
Sam Shepherd
On tour in the UK:
Sep 25 – Green Door Store, Brighton, UK
Sep 26 – Sebright Arms, London, UK
Sep 27 – Soup Kitchen, Manchester, UK
Sep 29 – Stereo, Glasgow, UK
Sep 30 – Stereo, York, UK
Oct 1 – Oporto, Leeds, UK
Note are about to release a new Stinger deck soon, so Heroin rider Tom Day decided to test out the new wood at Blackpool’s tranny haven. If the good folk of Note are reading this, please drop the Olympic footage soon as it’s usually amazing fun to watch from down here.
Skate photographer Grant Brittain features in this short film based on the job at Bucky Lasek’s backyard bowl. Educate yourself with this inside look at one of skateboarding’s most talented snappers.
Get inspired by this 16 minute documentary of the building of The Beast, a DIY pool that was erected by local skaters in Zurich, Switzerland. It took an entire summer to build this but they now have daily sessions in their new creation that is sat in an former Soccer Stadium.
TO BUILD A BEAST from September Wheels on Vimeo.
John Rattray may have injured his arm a few weeks back at a Zero demo but The Predatory Bird is still flying.
“This video, of Anti-Hero alumni Div Adam and Tom Remillard, is inspired by the notion that we do not ultimately have any control over our decision to do anything.” More here.
HITAROCK from predatory bird on Vimeo.
The West Country’s High Brow company have released this teaser ahead of their new edit that will drop very soon. The new edit has footage of Jak Pietryga, Owen Hopkins, Chris Jones, Tom Carr, Phil Parker, Ian Devine, Joxa and more.