The new indoor build at Revolution Skatepark in Broadstairs is getting love from the locals down there. Ben Wilks has put together an edit from the Bank Holiday session that went down with skating from Charlie Tremble, Alex Todd, Dan McCusker, Tim Prescott, James Brown, Sam Watling, Edward Davies and Ben himself.
As workers around the world celebrated Labour Day (May 1st) with a well-deserved day-off or a good old riot in the streets depending on your current national economy and austerity plan, Element Skateboards paid homage to their hardworking team of amateur skaters by releasing for a 24hr period only Future Nature. Staying true to their environmental roots, Element decided to build this video around the idea of a David Attenborough wildlife show. They replaced Sir David with Blueprint Skateboards’ chief Paul Shier and invented an entire plethora of pig-latin names for their riders e.g. Accelerus Impossibilus or Gracefullius Awkardus, the tone is set for 37 minutes of top-knotch skateboarding.
With Cole Matthews, Mark Stewart and Ricky Bedenbaugh behind the cameras and Kirk Dianda directing, the Element amateurs give it their best in a bid to become tomorrow’s professionals. Julian Davidson opens the show and demonstrates his love of long rails. Despite the majority of the tricks involving flat metal bars, Julian does find time to kickflip up a hefty set of stairs too. I’ll skip straight to the last skater Nick Garcia here because I honestly thought I was watching Julian again. Rails aside, Nick takes his transition skills and applies them to banks and walls. Nick’s switch noseblunts are a treat and his ollie manual down a bank is worthy of Mosher status.
Back to the order of things, Boo Johnson and Madars Apse have the next couple of parts and each of them is dope. Boo has a very easy-on-the-eyes style that leaves you wishing the editors had put more lines in his section. The handicap ramp ollie to frontside 360 line is an example of Boo’s smooth operation. Madars on the other hand is the round peg in a square hole. He fits the happy blond-haired wholesome image that Element pushes, but he skates like someone brought up on Mark Gonzales and Eastern Exposure tapes. Trading big pop and sun bleached school yards for powerslides and wallie jams, Madars is obviously a Euro in a land of Yanks.
Speaking of Euros, the European Element team get some shine sharing a flow section with their American counterparts. Trent McClung and Nassim Guammaz serve as bookends to a solid section where the highlights include Chase Webb stepping on Nyjah Huston’s coat tails and Tom Schaar getting dizzy with the world’s first 1080°. Not bad for a montage section.
The last amateur to feature in this video is Evan Smith. I leave him till last because I doubt he’s going to stay amateur for very long and will soon join the professional ranks for Element or dare I say it, Habitat? Long droopy hair? Check. Travelling man? Check. Guitar strings? Check. Handsome skating? Check. Evan has been producing some stellar skating recently (c.f. Transworld Cinematographer) and this new section is full of unseen top rate footage that means he’s been putting in the work. Highlights include Evan’s fakie 5-0 variations in various Californian ditches and his Iberian wallie combos.
Some people might find the nature documentary theme of this video annoying but I believe Element wanted to stay true to their game and have a bit of fun at the same time. My personal preference would have seen Skateboard wrangler Bob Sanderson hired to lurk behind bushes and pounce on a few of the riders as they rolled away from afterblack hammers. The 24hr window posting might be a scheme to limit pirate copies hitting the net, but nothing stays offline for long nowadays. Look out for Future Nature on iTunes soon.
Ralph Lloyd-Davis
Dutchman Rob Maatman takes Edit of the Week with this amazing footage for Emerica Europe edited by Henry Edward-Woods. Enjoy this!
Death Skateboards pro Zarosh gets his hands dirty again in this how to screen print vid. 
They call it Ben and Jerry’s, we call it simply more goodness from Essex’ main dagger. This Day in a Life of Ben Raemers has some amazing ditch skating in it. Get stuck in.
Matt Hensley is featured this week in a video interview online. The Flogging Molly accordion player and one of the most inspirational skateboarders of all time looks back on his pro skate career and why he walked away from it in this first of two webisodes.
VICE RECORDS
Unless you’ve had your head firmly stuck in the sand, or gone feral in a cave in Bora Bora, OFF! cannot have failed to register on your radar. I believe the story goes that a recording session by the Circle Jerks went to the wall and singer Keith Morris subsequently hooked up with producer Dimitri Coats or something like that, but whatever, the partnership drafted in Steven McDonald from Red Kross, powerhouse skin beater Mario Rubalcaba (lotsa bands) and OFF! was born.
We should be truly grateful, because they’ve gotten Keith back hollering like the Hermosa banshee of oh-so-many years ago, recalling the guy who rallied against the fenced-in, white picket dystopia of Southern California in, first Black Flag, and then the aforementioned CJ’s. Lesser men mighta taken the easy way out and just been happy to continually rewind past glories, but what’s got so many folk stoked on OFF! It’s all new music, new songs. Sure, it’s a sound that trawls back to the source, but delivers it in 2012 sounding fresh, urgent and totally alive.
A buncha roasting 7”s acted as a precursor to OFF!’s capabilities and now this 16 song album has landed (and you better believe it) it’s a totally blasting 17 minutes of raging Hardcore powered by absolutely shredding music. Keith’s all pissed and sarcastic, getting shit off his chest, spitting out 60 second anecdotes about times spent hanging on a wire in distant days (“inside the Masque, with the Alley Cats”) He’s also throwing in candid observations about his fellow citizens in the land of the free… “Teach them to shoot before they can read, sprinkling glass on their Happy Meals”…. cutting!
Seriously, this is an essential album, easily destined to make up a chunk of many folks summer soundtracks and only the most po-faced and blinkered members of the hiperatti will fail to recognise its awesomeness. Oh, and did you know that they shred live too? Thanksfully they will be back in the UK in June. You really need to see them. Get in there and get vaporized!
Pete Craven
Jesse James and Chris ‘Avi’ Atherton are back with a new psychedelic skate edit stuffed full of magic, mystery and Worzel Gummidge. It’s not often you see people skating a park with a cheesecake in your hand so watch this latest edit to find out what flavour Avi has. If you remember their last video mash up titled Wightmare then you will have a better idea of what’s coming next.
Press play for the most bizarre skateboard edit you will see this month.
Fos FM is still pumping the airwaves across the pond in California. Mark has Nike’s latest recruit Alex Olson in as guest for his radio show this month and he also has a new Evil Eye deck out on Heroin. Watch this clip made with Rogie that is inspired by the film, The Ring and look out for it in your local SOS.
Stevie Thompson has a new edit online this morning with his trademark moves wrecking the Hove Lagoon for Push skateshop. Support skater owned, it’s opposite the Level, Brighton.