Categories
Skateboarding News

Love thy neighbour…

People with poor geography knowledge will always throw the Danes, Swedes, Finns and Norwegians into the same basket and label them ‘Scandinavian‘. Even though they are all Scandinavian, they are also very different!

Would a Scot allow himself to be labelled Irish? Or, and Englishman Welsh??? We didn’t think so.

Luckily these Northern neighbours are good enough pals to get their skate on together for the hot new video project Neighbours- NOTHING to do with some dodgy Australian soap opera!

The men behind the lens are Geir Allan Hove and Øyvind Aspen, whilst in front for our viewing pleasure we have Janne Saario, Love Enroth, Henning Braaten, Jani Laitiala, Mike Edin, Stefan Jacobsen, Kristian Bomholt and Anders Jorgensen. Phew! That’s a lot of good skating- trust us!

The video WILL be available in the UK for sure, so we will let you know as soon as we find out the dates in future news.

Click the image above to watch the wonderfully arranged trailer and visit their site direct here.

Categories
Skateboarding News

Squash the Firm rumours.

Haters are busy trying to bring something good to its knees, but The Firm ain’t dead yet!

News direct from the source tells us Weiger is hitting the shelves with two new pro models, Javier Sarmiento is shifting weight too with his new Al Capone model, and Rodrigo TX is handling business proper, taking no prisoners with his technical suave and dropping not one pro spotlight but TWO!

Lance Mountain is the only man down at the moment with a tweaked knee, but right hand man Ray Barbee is still smiling as he strums his instrument for live shows in San Fransisco. Finally, Mr. Bob Burnquist is somewhere in the stratosphere doing corkscrew loops and frontside 540’s to tail a.k.a. the Gnar Jar (adlibbed by Jake Phelps)….get with the times and eat this news bitch, the team are on fire!

Categories
Skateboarding News

Harold Hunter R.I.P.

Whilst most of us woke up on Saturday morning feeling rough from the night before, some of us didn’t. There will always be a time when the party gets the last laugh and you have to pay the tab. The 18th Febuary 2006 was Harold Hunter’s last order at the bar.

Harold was a true New York legend who repped Zoo York since way back when and stayed true to his roots despite all the politics and bullshit. Harold had mad charisma and shone through as an emblem of what having fun was all about, be it on or off the board. Sadly, the fast life of the Big Apple party scene caught up with Harold and took him away from us much too soon.

To remember Harold properly, we suggest you visit the following sites:www.splay.com/harold/

In his own words: www.splay.com/harold/video.html

The picture of a very young Harold on this page is ripped off the web, if you shot it, sorry we did not ask your permission to use it. It sums up all of us as we all start somewhere and enjoy our lives to the full.

Categories
Skateboarding News

New park planned for Potters Barn

This news has just arrived from Mark Brewster who is helping to get a new cement park built in Potters Barn.

The park has a tight budget, but judging by the visuals, it looks like a fun place to have a whiz around. Transitions, hips, Pier 7-esque ledges and manual pads… it’s all there and will hopefully be up and running before the end of the year. Fingers crossed.

Check out www.freestyleskateparks.com for all the info about other Freestyle skate park designs.

Categories
Interviews

Pete King Interview

Despite all the videos, web sites, magazines and other mediums that cover skateboarding, one discipline is missing: Vert. Despite being some of the hardest working pros on the circuit who fly endlessly around the globe in the goal of promoting what we love, they still get no real love from us.

Well, Crossfire wants to buck this bizarre trend and pass the mic to a man who has sessioned with the best, and beat the rest- Pete King. He is known for his vert skills but can skate anything you put in front of him. Say hello to one of the the UK’s skate ambassadors and appreciate the lovely photography courtesy of Richie Hopson.

Hey Pete! I’ve been trying to get a hold of you but it’s very hard. Last time I tried, you were off in Estonia- What was going on over there?

Yeah, sorry. There was a street comp over there, and it was the last trip for the Vans Team manager Pete Derichs, so we went out there for a bit of a party weekend and a skate.

Did you get to skate much?

Yeah, I skated a fair bit of street, but the day of the comp it was looking pretty grey and I was suffering irregular chronic bowel movements… But I had a good little skate before then, but I guess I was suffering my slight over indulgence of the night before!

Who is Gerald? And did you find him at a bus stop?

(Laughs) Ah! Gerald and Neil Kirby are the British mascots at Marseille! Legends- proper piss heads, always up for it. Neil, if he isn’t smoking one, he’s rolling one… They are sort of like a bickering old couple, but it’s worth going to Marseille, just to see them! (Laughs)

Did you see Brewce Martin skate naked at Marseille?

Nah… I had a mad night out with him there, though. After the comp, I had to catch a flight early the next day to Austria. Everyone was at the pub, but ended up going to bed around half eleven. I didn’t want to sleep for fear of missing such an early flight, so I hooked up with Brewce and some dodgy birds he was chasing after, and we went clubbing in Marseille. It was mad! He’s such a hillbilly, but so good. I mean, he’ll let anyone sleep on his property if they are down for skating. He’s got that massive Skatopia ranch, and he keeps telling me to get out there.

If you went, would you drop in naked out of respect?

To be honest, I don’t think I’d dare! (Laughs) He sent me footage of a comp or jam thing at Skatopia, and while guys are skating the bowl, there are people pissing in the bowl, fgalling in the bowl naked, chairs being thrown at the skaters while they ride it! It looks absolutely gnarly! I think I’d stick to the background for safety… (Laughs)

Why did you have to be carried home from Marseille?

(Laughs) Oh! Suffering from over indulgence again! That was messy weekend. Apparently, I was a little worse for wear and needed a shoulder to lean on. But, I did wake up with cuts and scratches all over my body, shit on my clothes, sprinklers were going off… I think I threw a bit of a wobbly due to the mix of sitting in the sun all day and skating, filling myself up with beer and whisky…

Tired and emotional..?

Not emotionally disturbed, just physical! (Laughs) The night after, I had a whitey so I went to sit down on the beach and the next thing I knew it was the following morning! Freezing cold, alone, board still there-luckily!

What do you think about all the drama that went down last year with the Anti-Hero team?

Actually, I missed most of it because of a Quiksilver tour, but people told me a bit about it. Apparently someone burnt a park, which is disgusting in my opinion! Tomi Tomminnen, the Quiksilver team manager sparked one of them… I don’t know. I’ve only ever met a couple of people in skateboarding who are real dicks. You get the odd bitter person who is acting a bit devious, but other wise I really only meet good people through skating on my travels. In the magazines, they should quit the corporate blackouts and just ban someone’s coverage if everyone knows that they are a cock!

When did you first catch a glimpse of a skateboard?

First time I ever saw live skating was in a friend’s garden, his older brother had a mini ramp round the back of his house. It was only 2 foot high with no coping, but there were loads of kids sessioning it. I went down there and watched them skate it, but before long I borrowed someone’s board, and that was when I got into it. This was about 15 or 16 years ago.

It’s a weird assumption, but do you think riding a ramp to start has led you to become the ramp rider you are today?

No, not really. We had the mini ramp in that kids garden, and we kind of helped build it because his dad would take us around building sites and we’d nick the wood and stuff. We had a spine ramp with a vert bit to it that ran up the wall. Then, the kid also had a quarter pipe in his garage and an adjustable flat bar on the floor… He even had bits of plywood lent up against his kitchen windows! It was amazing, like a little skatepark. Pikey as hell, but amazing! Then that kid stopped skating and his dad just tore it all down, so I couldn’t skate ramps again for years… Strictly carparks.

Do you think some kids get it a bit easy with all the parks at their disposition? Don’t you think they need to get out there and build some ghetto ramps themselves?

I wouldn’t say it’s too easy, but some kids don’t realise how good they’ve got it. A lot of the kids live near skateparks, but don’t actually bother to visit them. They’d rather go to town and skate some set of stairs and a bit of flat with a ledge or something. If I think back to the time when I used to street skate all the time, it’s because that was all there was to skate! If we had had a park back then, we’d have been there everyday. It’s good to see that there are a lot of great skateparks that have been built in the UK, but it depends where the kids live, I guess? We’re definitely starting to catch up with Europe which is great.

You’re an avid supporter of skateparks aren’t you?

Yes for sure. That way the parks get some good designs with everyone’s input. Everyone in England complains about how shit skatepark designs are, so if you can get involved and make something good, why not?

Should skaters be more supportive of their parks?

Definitely! I like that Sidewalk Magazine have started doing these park reviews; that’s really positive. Some kids don’t realise what they are missing with the parks because you can skate all day without getting the boot, hang out with your mates, and they are ours. They were made for skating!

Aren’t you getting your own ramp built at the moment?

Yeah, I’m getting a vert ramp built which Vauxhall are funding. I’ve been working on it for the last year, and it’s been complicated to accomplish, but we’re there now and the ramp’s getting built. Hopefully it’ll be at the Urban Games and NASS. It’s just a big fuck off vert ramp basically! Probably the biggest in the country…

I heard you copied the exact measurements from Tony Hawk’s ramp..?

Yeah! My mate skates that ramp all the time, so I phoned him up and got the details.


Have you skated Tony’s ramp?

Yeah, I have- It’s amazing. That’s why I specified on getting the duplicate done because it’s the best ramp I ever skated. Tony Hawk’s ramp is in this building that looks like the headquarters of HSBC or something because it’s on the premises of the Tony Hawk Federation- a charity organisation that does all these fundraisers and stuff. It’s a good thing, but it’s pretty glitzy! The ramps round the back. You know, the one he uses on his Boom Boom Huck Jam tours? It’s got a loop and a 10 foot channel, big fuck off roll-ins… Insane!

You mentioned Vauxhall- this isn’t the first time you work with them, is it? What was that Vauxhall Skate City thing about?

I just got a phone call out of the blue! I think they had been asking around, and I was lucky that the people they asked had suggested me. They came up with a project they wanted me to do with a designer, Sam Buxton, where they wanted something unusual to skate. It had to be 50% skateable and 50% design project. Sam was a good dude who had a good laugh making it, but the photos that came out of Skate City didn’t do it justice because there was a lot more of it. You could move it all about, and there were proper ledges and kickers but it was all adjustable so you could make the gaps bigger and stuff. When it was up and done loads of people came to skate it and it was good fun.

Do you think we could see another Skate City thing in the future..?

Uhh… No, I think that’s done now, and I will try and shift some of the units into my shed for later use, I mean you could put them on top of a vert ramp and skate them like that. Vauxhall’s project at the moment that I’ve been working on is this vert ramp. I’ll try and get the ramp to various events which is good because like that the guys won’t have to skate dodgy set ups anymore!

You didn’t manage to blag a free car out of Vauxhall?

(Laughs) Nah, but they did lend us a nice one!

Now, street skating dominates the media- what do you think it would take to bring vert riding back into the spotlight and regain the reigns of popularity?

Well, it’s sad but true, but I honestly think that if Girl, DVS, Chocolate, Lakai and other big companies like that started sponsoring vert riders and putting coverage of them out there, then the kids might start to skate vert again. I mean, the British skate scene does follow America quite a bit in regards trends. Actually, some of the most talented kids I’ve seen ride skateboards recently have been the ones on vert! In England we’ve got some amazing little rippers! Ben Raemers is rad, Paul Luke, Sam Beckett… They’re both throwing down rodeos and flipping their boards about, and they have only been skating for like 2 or 3 years! I think vert skating definitely going to have a big comeback and with all the little kids coming up, the takeover bid is on.

Would you agree with me when I say those X-Games events killed vert in the eyes of skateboarding?

Yeah, and the other thing is vert skating attracts weird people. I mean, I have friends who ride vert and rip it to bits, but they aren’t interested in any other areas of the sport. They couldn’t name one person that rides for Girl, for example. They don’t care about any of that malarkey, they just care about riding their boards which to me is really refreshing because there are too many people looking the other way. Vert does tend to attract the people who just like to ride their boards. I mean, I’ve been to loads of competitions and there are those riders who you can tell have planned their runs perfectly, and take it so seriously because all they want to do is win.

Well, how do you feel in those comps, like Marseille for instance, where dudes like Omar Hassan put down the same tricks everytime and pocket the cash, just because he does a heelflip or something? Surely it must be annoying…

No, not really. When I watch Andy Scott riding a comp, I can physically feel myself wanting him to go off because some people like him are the embodiment of what skating should be for me. Andy Scott is one of the best vert riders in the world! He skates everything, and I really respect that. Even if he loses to someone else at a comp, I look at Andy and know that he is in a different league of ability to everyone else. Of course, he might miss a trick because he hasn’t practised as hard as the next guy, and that’s a disappointment, but really I’m still one hundred percent behind him. He’ll never win the X-Games, but ability wise Andy is there!

I must say that you are a bit of a British skate ambassador what with all these tours and demos you do- How and when did you get into that line of work?

The first time I did a demo was at this event called ‘Live 95’ through Andy Peerless funnily enough. But I guess I’ve just been lucky really… A lot of the reason why I started doing these tours was because of the vert ramps. Vert was completely dead, but I kept at it with a couple of mates because it was still fun to skate. A couple of guys invested in these portable ramps because it was easier to travel with than a whole street course, and the general publics could relate to it a bit better. They put these ramps at all sorts of events: fashion shows, trade shows, art shows and all that kind of malarkey… Honestly, I think it’s good for skateboarding. I know the ‘cool’ kids diss it and look at it as commercial, but the fact of the matter is this is how a lot of kids see skateboarding for the first time! They might not end up skating a vert ramp but they’ll see skating and think, “That looks fun!” Plus it gets skating out there, and it’s a chance to skate with your mates, having a laugh. I never went out of my way to do these tours and demos, but I just got the chance. If you do one event one year and people are happy with you, not being a dick, then they’ll invite you to the following one next year and so forth… A lot of the random trips I have done are usually through friends who hooked me up and blagged me in on it with them.

At one of the big demo/comps you’ve been to, have you ever swapped suits with other athletes, like don some rollerblades or something..?

(Laughs) I’ve never put rollerblades on! I’ve had a go on someone’s bike before but only for a couple of minutes. I went to Woodward Skate camp with a couple of mates, me Dave Allen and a couple of bikers, and the bikers were trying to get us to land backflips into the foam pit! So I jumped on his bike, but stacked it just going up the quarter pipe! (Laughs) But Dave was nearly doing backflips!

Have you ever been star-struck when you’ve been skating?

I did one demo in London that was pretty full-on: It was at London Arena and I knew Tony Hawk would be there, but I just thought it would be a demo style thing, no pressure… Inside it was just a vert ramp because it had been sold as a Tony hawk demo. There were people outside, packed inside, people couldn’t get tickets… Danny Way was there, Bucky Lasek, Jason Ellis… That was one time when I thought, “What the fuck am I doing on the ramp with these lunatics???” Danny Way was always my favourite as a kid, so that demo was a bit of a trip! It’s a bit surreal, you know?

You must have a fair few stories. What were some of the craziest places or things you’ve had to skate?

I’ve done a few weird ones… One time, Jocke Olson from Sweden was staying with me over at my mum’s place, and he got this call from Taiwan where they wanted two skaters to go join a circus for 6 months. Jocke blagged me in on it, and we had a week to decide if we wanted to go and sign these amazing contracts. I mean, it was meant to be loads of money, but remember that me and Jocke were both dead broke back then! (Laughs)
So off we go and when we get there it’s fully run by the mafia, and they hadn’t even begun building a ramp! (Laughs) So we were just stuck in Taiwan with nothing to do except tag along with this circus and hang out with all these Mongolian acrobats, Russian bear trainers… Full on circus family, you know! Me and Jocke just had a mad party and met all the local skaters and went street skating every day. Jocke had brought all his records with him, so I went around all the clubs saying Jocke was a DJ. Nobody spoke much English out there, and in those days there weren’t many visitors, so I’d go there and say, “Yeah, I work at Ministry of Sound…”- because that was the only British club they had heard of.!- “…and we’re really happy to have top DJ Jocke Olson with us who’s prepared to play at your club!” (Laughs)

No way!

Yeah! So Jocke had these life-size posters of him outside the clubs and he’d be playing three clubs a week getting paid cash! Plus, Jocke owed me money, so I got paid back sweet… It was street skating by day, and mad benders at night! We never ended up skating in the circus, but after seven weeks the bloke who sent us out there started to sue the guy who wouldn’t pay us. Like something out of a film, at 2 in the morning there was a knock on the door. Me and Jocke had just got back from another night out, pissed up, and I open the door to these two big fuckers in suits with a lady. The two gorillas didn’t say a word, and the women kept telling us, “Here are your plane tickets- You’ve got to leave tomorrow!” Naturally, we’re having fun so we’re like, “No, we don’t want to!” at which point she insists and basically threatened us that if we didn’t leave they’d break out legs! So, basically we took the tickets like we were going to leave the next day, but she hadn’t actually threatened us, it was more implied, if you know what I mean..? “You must go! You have no choice! You must go… Very serious if you stay. Very serious.” But we had met a few people by now, so we left the hotel and started hanging out at theirs for another couple of weeks… But yeah, that was one of the weirder ones! (Laughs)

What was the worst course you’ve ever had to ride?

One time, a friend called me up and said they wanted some skaters to do a demo at some event up in Nottingham. I get there really early in the morning, security lets me in no problem, and there in the hall is this massive vert ramp. So, I’m like, “Rad! But I haven’t got my pads…” I jump on it anyway to cruise about, and this guy comes running up like, “Fucking get off the ramp! That’s not for you, it’s for the BMXers! Your ramp’s upstairs…” So, I walk upstairs and all I see is two little fly-offs lying on some carpet! The ramps weren’t even attached to the floor… Otherwise, I had to do a demo at Donnatella Versace’s house and they had put these weird plastic sheets all over the ramps…

Eh? How does that work??

Well, it didn’t! (Laughs) You might be able to skate it, but you could bail because it would rip your jeans, bite your kneepads and spit you to your face! The reason they used it was because it looked nice behind this catwalk with all these precious models???

Zac mentioned a deal with Al-Jazeera TV- what was that about?

Oh! Some guy had been organising it for ages; he wanted us to travel all across the Middle East doing demos with Al-Jazeera filming and stuff. Some of it sounded ok, like Dubai and Saudi Arabia, but that wsas the diluted version because initially it was supposed to take us through the gnarlier places over there and show skating to the kids. The guy had been busting his balls organising it, but in the end the plug got pulled, so hopefully we can have another go next year.

Do you ever put limits as to where these tours could go?

Well, I did have my reservations about going to Iraq! Sure it would good to get some footage of us going into Iraq, but we’d be prime targets for kidnappers with the film crew and all that…The plug go pulled for whatever reason, but I would have gone because I wouldn’t want to miss out on an opportunity like that.

What would be your words of advice to a skater who wants to travel the world like that?

I think who you go with is really important. Pick your travel buddies wisely because it can be more important than where you choose to go!

Do you think skaters need to organise themselves a bit better when approached for one of those kind of trips?

I don’t know… I mean, the whole corporate side of things don’t really like skaters and vice versa but it got us out there. The big corporations are making millions off various pro shoes and stuff, so you shouldn’t be fooled by clever advertising. Especially Nike! Look how many kids are running around with Nikes on their feet? Nike is an old Chav brand that have never done anything for skateboarding, and they just dived in at the Eleventh hour because they know they can make money off of skateboarding. And that’s cool??? A company like Red Bull have been working with skaters for ages and done tours and stuff promoting it, like funding comps so we can skate and get together, but they still don’t seem to get the same type of Kudos as Nike who have done nothing!

It might come down to the way you sell your stuff because I know Nike has some pretty harsh tactics…

Yeah, but I was talking about this with a friend who runs a skateshop, and he said in Nike’s defence that they do give exclusive rights to skateshops with all their sneaker-mugs limited edition stuff… I don’t know the ins and outs of that, but at least that sounds like a good thing.

I don’t know if the kids are aware, but skateboarding is going through a bit of a slump at the moment. Has it affected you at all?

The slump that’s affecting shops doesn’t have to do with less kids skating now. I’m certainly not seeing that from going to the parks and stuff, but shops are probably suffering because there’s a slight recession at the moment. I mean, all the local kids at my skatepark buy their shit off E-Bay now, so the slump is probably more due to that than kids not skating.

What did you feel when Reaction bowed out of the game?

To be honest, I couldn’t really give a monkey’s arse because I didn’t really ride Reaction boards anyway! They didn’t make a board that was wide enough for me. But it was a shame because all the people on the team were friends. At the end of the day, where you get your skateboard from isn’t on the end of my list of worries, in so far as at that period of time I had no input over at Reaction. It’s alright; their demise didn’t stop me skating. I’d be more gutted if I twisted my ankle! (Laughs)

So how is it now riding for Karma Skateboards?

I’m really stoked with Karma because if you ride for an American company through a distributor then you have nothing to do with that company, you’re not part of it and the people on the team in America probably don’t even know you exist. Adam, who runs Karma, phoned me up to explain the whole Ethos of the company, and it was clear to me from his first words that he wasn’t in this to make money and he does actually care about what he’s doing. Adam’s supportive of his riders, and just his whole attitude towards running the company really suits what I think. Even the guy who they’ve got doing the graphics, Mick Foster, he’s a long time ripper himself, so I can see him out skating every weekend and that’s the kind of person I’d like to work with, you know? Karma aren’t bothered about being cool, they are just down for skating. I’m stoked.

How does a Karma trip compare to a huge demo circuit deal?

It’s all pretty much the same because I’m skating with mates. Obviously with a Karma trip there is less pressure, but lately I haven’t been skating vert too much so if I get the call to go ride a ramp with maniacs who ride perfect ones all the time, it can get me a bit stressed.

Karma have a well-rounded team, haven’t they?

Yeah, it’s great! Dave Snaddon is on and he has got massive pop- fucking spring loaded legs! (Laughs) You can learn tricks, but you can’t learn what he’s got.

What has skateboarding taught you?

Skating taught me that people come from all walks of life, be it pikey or pilot. I also appreciate the travelling because I’ve seen there is so much more to the world than just my local area.

What do you do in your down time off the board? How do you switch off and unplug from the plank?

I live with my girlfriend and she couldn’t be further away from skating which is good because I wouldn’t like to skate all day, come home, talk about skating, have dinner, watch a skate video… Just general living, I suppose; take the dog for a walk, go out weekends and get drunk, dance like a dad at a wedding… (Laughs)

What are your plans for the future?

Get busy helping with these parks down Monaco way. I’ve just been finishing off a section for Andy Evan’s new video, This ‘n’ that. With Karma, we’re looking to do a tour in the Baltic region, but the country isn’t decided yet.

Ok, Pete. Run off your sponsors and thanks.

Karma Skateboards, Quiksilver Clothing, Vans… Cheers to the Extreme Sport Channel, Screwed Hardware run by a friend of mine, Type S wheels and Independent Trucks. Thanks to everyone that has helped me out and put me up on my travels!

Ralph Lloyd-Davis

Categories
Skateboarding News

Flare if you Dare – Lakai Trailer

News this hot needs a proper Westwood blast off:

*Blasts signals, horns, coins tumbling, rockets exploding!* DAAAAMMMNNN DOGG!!! So HOTT right now!! HOLLA BACK! Fully Flared getting’ ready to drop in the Oh-Six shooter… DAAAMN!!*Blasts more rocket signals!* I’m FEELIN’ the Lakai DOGGS!!! Droppin’ MAD pressure right now… Peep the trailer! Pop the Trunk for that CRUNK Juice… HOLLA!!!! ONE for all my Y-Ohs… All my JUVES on lockdown! H-M-P!!! * Blasts a huge mix of signals, horns, smashed glass, rockets, coins…*

www.lakai.com

Categories
Moves

Filthy Moooos

Steph Morgan: fakie 360 flip fakie nose manual over a gap [above]
Travis Stenger: backside tailslide thread the needle.
Bob Burnquist: Full pipe loop.
Sean Young: Hill bombing
Adam Colton: Longboard G-turn
Tom Penny: Fakie laser flip

Top 5 Skateshop necessities:

1. An endless supply of videos to watch.
2. Strong coffee.
3. A pretty face for the parents.
4. A degree in Social Services.
5. A life outside of skateboarding.

Categories
Interviews

Pierre Andre Senizergues Interview

The brands Etnies, Emerica and eS Shoes are household names in skateboarding, all under the roof of a company called Soletechnology. But did you know they were all owned and put together by a team of people under a man with such a massive vision for how skateboard shoes should be designed, worn and thrashed?

Let us introduce you to the man behind that vision and the story of how such a challenging idea formed originally in Europe ended up being one of the flagship companies of the current Skateboard industry worldwide. At some point your feet would have been in a pair of Etnies, CEO Pierre Andre Senizergues explains how they got there and much more after dropping into Crossfire HQ in February 2006.

Bonjour Pierre, I hear that you are the Big Cheese of Etnies skateboard shoes, is this correct?

Yes, that’s right….

When did you start Etnies?

I started Etnies 16 year’s ago, it was actually a company that was started in Brittany in France and I brought the company to the U.S and launched in California, the mecca of skateboarding back in the day, and that’s kind of how the story starts with Etnies.

So it was a company that was started in 1986, made by a footwear manufacturer in France, it was a generation of people who had been making shoes for over 200 years and they interacted with a skater whose name was Platoon. Well that was actually was his nickname.

Platoon?

His name was really Alan Laughty but the Platoon movie came out and he was wearing camouflage all the time so all the skaters were calling him Platoon. This guy was living in a village where there was this big shoe manufacturer who made fashion shoes and he talked to them to see if they could make good skateboard shoes. That is kind of how it started. The company didn’t work very well at the beginning because they still had the mentality of making shoes from fashion shoe designs but these were for skateboarders.

Yeah, French shoes as well?!

Laughs‘…So Etnies was trying to make it happen but they were really having a hard time trying to do this from the village and I came in during the late 80’s after I had decided to retire from skateboarding and I brought the company to California. I designed the shoes that were with the team that consisted of Natas Kaupas, Rudy Johnson, Eric Dressen, and Sal Barbier even Gonz was on the team for a while…but different guys like this.

Legends now of course.

Yes, big names now but back in the day some of the guys like Rudy Johnson and Sal were unknown in the beginning but they became big names as we went along.

What inspired you to set up a shoe company and not a skateboard company?

I was skating for so many years and I wanted to stay in the skateboarding industry because I was passionate about skateboarding. I grew up skateboarding in the suburbs of Paris and I wanted to stay skateboarding but I was having back problems and couldn’t skate any more. So I had to do something and I didn’t want to go back to France, I wanted to stay in California. I decided I would like do something that would contribute to skateboarding and there we so many people making boards I couldn’t really add anything.

I was looking at skateboarding shoes and I didn’t really see anybody making good skate shoes at the time so I figured I could try shoes and see what happened. I thought that one thing I could contribute to was stabilising the skateboard market because it was the seventies and skateboarding was dying. I’m not even necessarily talking about the shoes but skateboarding as a whole. In ’78 and ’79 I saw skateboarding dying immediately and by ’87 it went big and then ’88 and ’89 it died again and I was like “damn what a bummer“, and I thought I should try to do something to stabilise skateboarding as a whole so the kids can be supported.

I figured if I did shoes, I could make a difference because there weren’t many people doing shoes and secondly if the shoes could appeal to a wider audience, that could stabilise skateboarding because that would mean there could be a shoe company generating revenue who could invest and market skateboarding. Even if there were less boards sold we would have a base to support our passion. That’s why I went into the shoe market and umm… everything went wrong!

‘Laughs!’

Well I thought it was going to work but it didn’t! ‘laughs!

But you stuck with it?

Yes, I stuck with it. I started borrowing money like, hundreds of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Was that not scary?

That was scary and when I could not pay it back, that was when it was really scary. I could not pay it for 4 years, and I went into millions of debt!

Millions? Dollars, Euros?

Dollars….and I was thinking I should shoot myself!

Shoot yourself?

Laughs!‘ Either that or I had to make it work, but luckily enough in 1994, Etnies took off in the U.S. which was due to different reasons. Firstly because I finally understood what it took to run a company, like, how to make shoes. Secondly the economy was coming back up in the U.S. so that helped and we had started designing shoes that the new generation of skaters wanted, like the lo-cut like the lo-cut type of shoes. Back then we were doing the high top, and the low top people were getting away from the high tops but nobody could see that skaters wanted the lo-top shoes…

Only because they had no options….

Yeah because everybody was used to the high top for skateboarding, as if skateboarders only skate in high tops.

Because they protect your ankles….

Yeah, exactly, so when we developed the first pro shoe with Natas in 87, it was a high top and everybody was in the “hi-top, hi-top, hi-top” mood. ‘laughs!‘ Then suddenly I was seeing a lot of skaters wearing the Adidas Gazelle and Puma and nobody was moving on it so Etnies decided to develop a low cut type of shoes. We wanted to make a shoe that lasts, unlike a Gazelle where you skate it and end up with a hole in the shoe because they were not made for skateboarding. So we were going to do a low cut type of shoe but with a durable outer sole and a durable upper part and modify these shoes so they would be better for skating and at that point they took off. And so for 4 years it was a pain owing so much money that when it took off, it went the opposite way! ‘laughs!

I can appreciate that, it does hurt sometimes, but the good things in life really work when you want them to. Am I correct in saying the lo-cut is still the biggest selling Etnies shoe of all time?

It is still one of the biggest selling ones but the biggest one right now is the Callicut, which is a version of the lo-cut in a sense. It still has the E on the side and is a bit different but it is still a simple shoe.

Did you have any other names you were close to using instead of the word Etnies? Where did you get that word from?

Well the concept first came about because when we were skating we were always a little group of people back in the late 70’s. When I was skating with my friend there was about 50 skaters in France and we knew every single skater, we knew their name, we knew where they lived, we knew everything about them, so it was kind of a little clique of people – our little sub-culture ‘like a etnique‘. But the word etnique was too close to a shoe brand called Etonique and we couldn’t trademark the name. So we had to change, and it became Etnies which was the closest thing that came to it. The concept of Etnies was a little sub-culture, a group of skaters that came together doing their own thing. Their music, their skating, their own way of living….

So you were a freestyle skateboarder back in the day?

Well it’s funny actually because every body knows me as a freestyle skateboarder but in reality when I started I was doing everything. In the 70s people were doing everything. You would be skating ramps, you would be skating pools, freestyle, high jump, slalom, downhill. Everybody was doing everything and I think it was a pretty amazing time because there was so much variety and the ways you could be skating, and freestyle back then was like street skating. In a sense, street skating was non existent because people were skating in the streets doing freestyle tricks but nobody saw we would be riding walls at the time. We didn’t know how to do an ollie, they didn’t even exist. Alan Gelfand invented ollies but they were in pools and we did not think we could do that on the flat. We were doing more like pressure flips, nose wheelies, 360’s. One thing I remember is doing 360’s and seeing how many i could do!

Have you noticed that the skate industry is pretty much run by freestylers?! – Jeremy Fox, Don Brown, Paul Sunman, Rodney Mullen, Steve Rocco, Ian Deacon etc.

Well you also have Kevin Harris. He runs a distribution in Canada and has the biggest distribution in France for skateboards….

He was on Powell wasn’t he?

Yeah, that’s right. and Jon Marquette, a big distributor who was sponsored by Powell too. Ricky Bains has turned distribution in the U.S. there’s a lot of them.

A huge amount…

But what I think happened is ramp and freestyle merged into street skating because in the mid 80’s popularity was going towards street skating because it was the most practical thing to do. Vert skating was a bit too crazy like a bit too hard to start off, hard to drop from the ramps.

Well it’s a massive transition from freestyle to becoming a vert rider over night….

Exactly, and freestyle was a bit too technical for a lot of people and they wanted to have fun right away so they combined freestyle and ramp and skating got a whole era of new street skaters in the 80’s like Natas, Gonz, all those guys. So the pro freestyler was not selling many boards. It was a different reality to be a pro freestyler to a pro street skater and all the street sales would go to all the street skaters. The ramp skaters were also not popular but the boards were almost like a street board back then, you could street skate with a ramp board but not with a freestyle board because they were too small so the freestylers were left with basically nothing. They had to be working somewhere, they had to be doing something to survive, they were the first ones who had to find a job, you know.

That’s true, you go through the list and the whole industry is run by people that were running freestyle skateboarding throughout the world, everywhere.

Its very interesting too because its not like there was like millions of freestylers, there were not that many. Freestylers knew all the other freestylers. Even when skateboarding went really big, freestyle was always a little subculture, something for like weirdo’s or nerds. ‘laughs!

The nerd thing’s now official! ‘laughs’

laughs!” – The reason I was doing freestyle was because I felt I could do it anywhere, in the kitchen, in the airport, anywhere I would travel and I just loved skateboarding. I wanted to be able to do it anywhere, so it was logical for me to be a freestyler instead of being a ramp rider where I need a ramp especially because back in those days, when there were not that many skateparks either.

So the transition from moving from a small suburb in Paris with your idea to California was a big one…how much of a tax on your brain was that?

Well the way it happened was kind of funny. I was skating in France and I went to Sweden for a skate camp, called Euro Camp. I went there and Mike McGill was there and Caballero was there and Per Welinder was doing the freestyle, and he was amazing. So I went there and learnt some new tricks from him and then I came back and one day I decided I kind of wanted to go to California. But I knew nobody in America except Per Welinder who I’d met in Sweden a few years before. I thought if I called him, I could stay at his house one night so I called him and he said “yeah you can come, stay at my house” so I flew to California and stayed at his house. The next day we go to Venice beach and I started skating and there was this crowd just watching me doing my tricks. I was really surprised and out of the crowd comes this guy who ask if I wanted to ride for Sims. I was like “who is this guy?” and it was Steve Rocco ,the was team manager of Sims and I said I would love to ride for Sims as they were the best company at the time.

At that time they had Lester Kasai and Steve Rocco was on the team. I remember just being like “no kidding I would love to ride for Sims!” so I went to the factory with him to get some boards and then he asked me if I wanted to go to a pro contest in Vancouver, and I told him I wasn’t sure if I was good enough. I was just a rider from France but I went there and won the contest and in that year I won pretty much every single contest in freestyle. I become number 1 and world champion and they started giving me boards with my name on and royalties and it was crazy, I couldn’t believe it.

But with all of this going on how did you find time to set up Etnies?

Well that was 1985 so it was all running and I felt like just living my dream and in the meantime I was taken to the French army for a year and that was a catastrophe! I went to fight and I couldn’t skate anymore so I was losing my mind!

That must have been hell! All of a sudden your having the time of your life and then the next minute your just running about with dickheads with guns!?

Yeah! And it was also the worst winter in Europe it was below 25 degrees in 86 and so I went from California where I was having a great time – you know, free boards I could skate about with, to the military for a year and I think I almost lost my head at some point but I managed to turn it around and I managed to skate in the army. I have a lot of stories about the army and skateboarding.

Do you have any photographs of this?

Yes I have photographs, I have a photograph were I lay a soldier on the floor.

What and ollie him?

Well I couldn’t ollie him because it was too early, so I was doing long jump jumping over soldiers from one board to another, it’s pretty scary because it’s like the army in full uniform and then I just lost my mind and got into a big fight with 15 soldiers and a captain and everything and they shot me and sent me to the hospital!

Why did you get shot?

Because I was getting out of control I couldn’t stand not to skate anymore. So they realised I was a pro skateboarder and they interviewed me, because at the start of the army, you go in front of a board of people, and they ask you what your job is, so they can assign you a place. So I said, “I’m a professional skateboarder!” and these guys went nuts and they decided to send me on the worst mission possible, like driving in the middle of the night, it was crazy, but I lost it after 6 months!

Did they kick you out?

Well they didn’t know what a skaterboarder does, so they thought “maybe we should let him skate for half an afternoon and help him get better before he starts to kill everybody” and it was much better. And then they asked me to do a skate demo in front of the officers to show them what skateboarding was about. So I did a demo, and there was a change of base, so there were 3 of the major generals of the French army with their wives and kids. So they kids came and loved it and I spent the whole morning and afternoon skateboarding. So after that, for the last 6 months, I spent half the time skateboarding and half the time in uniform. So it worked out really good. But it was like Midnight Express, I went there from California at 25 degrees to being where people were freezing in the night and going to the hospital thinking “what am I doing here?!”

It’s a good lesson I guess, we live fairly decent lifestyles as skateboarders. And I guess when you hear stories like you it makes you realise how lucky you are. You know you have to get through the worst times to get to the best times.

Exactly, for me it was a good lesson. The thing I learned through that was that I was really passionate about skateboarding. I didn’t know I was that passionate until I started losing my mind!

Would you say that single handedly gave you a purpose to set up Etnies? Or one of them?

Yeah, it gave me that feeling that it was too important in my life to not be involved in skateboarding and actually, I’m glad it happened, because it gave me a better direction of where I was supposed to go.

So let’s talk a little about the direction, what’s happening right now, and the Etnies worldwide team. In record companies, you have an A&R guy and that person will source a band, sign a contract with them, they’ll produce and amazing record and they’ll sell it. It’s very similar to skateboarding as far as I’m concerned. So who is you’re A&R person and what makes hthat person pick a certain rider?

Well, it’s a team effort, not a single persons decision. It’s a group of skaters, we decide together and we trust each other in the decisions we’re making and we’ll all back each other up. So the guys that make the call on the team are the team managers because they specialise in that area and they live it 24 hours a day, so they go around the world and they go to skate parks and talk to people to see who is coming up and should be supported and we take a look at him and how and when we decide to sponsor him, then eventually give him pro shoes depending on the person and what’s best for that person.

We don’t give shoes to a person right away, because we might feel like that person is not ready. Giving them a shoe might be financially beneficial for them but not mentally. It has to be the right timing. There are too many stories of people’s heads exploding because they’re making lots of money or have too much popularity and they can’t cope with it. We pay a lot of attention to this. For example with Ryan Sheckler, we just gave him shoes this year but we felt like he was ready to get them, he has a good head on his shoulders and he has a supportive team, he’s been with Etnies for a while and both of his parents were behind him too to make sure we’re not going overboard as far as taking him too far. He can be a pro skateboarder in the best possible way for him. Also, with giving a pro shoe, you have to be a very very good skateboarder and you have to want to have a shoe, because some don’t. So it’s a number of things, its not just one thing, and it’s a decision for the whole team who work for Etnies, so we can be behind him 100%.

Ryan Sheckler is a good example because obviously he’s a very young up and coming skateboarder with world recognition because of the competitions he’s winning and his parts on DVDs, like the Almost DVD that just came out. How much input would a new rider have on their pro shoe?

I think it’s one of the things that makes skateboarding very unique, the ones that get the shoes are more involved in designing their shoes than in any other industry like basketball or running for example. I’ve spoken with people who develop basketball shoes and they’re making so much money that they don’t really care about the shoe, it’s not really important. I’ve heard stories where a basketball player goes to the designer of a certain brand and finds out how many they’re going to sell of it. With skaters its not the same way at all, they are really involved in the shoes, they take more pride in taking a shoe than in basketball in general. For skaters, the image is very, very important so if they put their shoes on the market, they wanna make sure they function well, make sure it looks good, the way they like. They wanna make sure that everything works with the shoe, they don’t take it light, they take it very serious. That’s why, to me, skate shoes are much more interesting than any other professional shoes outside skateboarding, because I think skaters are thinkers, what’s cool what’s not cool, and they wanna do something really amazing. Otherwise they don’t wanna do it, why do it if you’re not pushing the envelope?

Are you still running that Soletech shoe testing complex we saw photographs of last year?

Yeah definitely, the sole-tech institute is the first bio-mechanic laboratory for skateboarding, and the only one that exists. Part of the reason I did that, was the reason I started in the beginning – I want to make shoes that functioned better for skating. When I had enough resources I was able to say that instead of just saying “this feels good, the material absorbs shock well“, we wanted to do it bio-mechanically, rather than just by feeling. That was groundbreaking in skateboarding, for me, from the standpoint of being a skateboarder and having back problems from skating so much, I was thinking that I had to make the shoes the best possible. I wanted the shoes to last as long as possible and not be limited in what they do, I wanted to push to the limits with how fan they could do. The bio-mechanic lab enabled to do this.

One of the things that made me happiest was when I saw Ryan Sheckler testing some of his shoes in the lab and his mum was there, and she was watching him jumping 10 stairs and a hand rail and landing on a plate where we measure impact and where we have sensors that go into the shoes to show exactly where the impact is, so we can see that if he’s getting more pressure on the front of his shoes, or side of his shoes, we can build his shoe a certain way. Ryan is very small and this was a few years ago when he was 14, but he is tiny so he looked like a 10 year old kid and you see him doing the tricks, and his mum could appreciate that there’s no way she can stop him skateboarding because he loves skateboarding and so she supports him. But it was good for her to see how we support him so he can do this for as long as he wants in the right shoe. That’s where the lab was being useful to do something good for him.

Obviously Sheckler is a priority on the team now and has just won the Global Assualt in Melbourne, but you’ve lost a few people like Ellington, Penny etc in the last couple of months, that must have hurt?

Yeah sure, when you lose somebody its always difficult because we put so much into our riders to be part of our family, it’s heartbreaking when this happens. But I’ve seen this happening where people have had 25 years skateboarding but they move on, and it might be the best move for them, but it’s always a hard decision to make. You try as hard as you can but sometimes you realise that you can’t force something.

Like in a football team, when you have someone who doesn’t want to be playing for you, its best to let them go?

Right, sometimes the best thing you can do for somebody is let them go because they can learn from that, so it’s important. We’re always looking at what the best thing is we can do for our riders and sometimes the best thing is to not hold them back and to keep them on the team when he goes for himself and it’s the best for him.

When senior members of the team leave, do you feel there is a need to replace them with other senior members from other shoe companies?

Yeah when someone leaves, it leaves a spot for somebody new. We don’t necessarily look to take people from other shoe companies, it’s more usually that people come to us or with other people in the pipeline too. Or it’s a chance for somebody to take the step up.

If you could take a pro rider from anywhere else in the world and have them on the Etnies team, who would you pick?

I dunno, I never look at it that way. I never think about taking somebody from another shoe company.

But if there was a flagship rider out there that could represent Etnies who would be your ideal man?

The one guy I really like is Mark Appleyard – I like his style, he’s a great rider and he’s a really cool guy too. He even comes to my Halloween parties!

Good ones?

Oh yeah!

Scary?

Last time he went as Marlon Brando! We had a great time, 700 people in fact came to the last one. We got kicked out of Newport Beach because people were too scared!

It’s an interesting name to mention actually, because he’s with Flip Skateboards and obviously there’s an affiliation between Flip and the riders on your team at Etnies. I take it you’re quite close with Jeremy Fox and the whole Blitz set up?

Well yeah, Etnies came from Europe and Jeremy came from Europe too and for me, I always had some kind of emotion for England because my mum came to England to teach French so she always had marmite.

Was she a fan?

Yeah yeah, she loved it.

Because we’re split down the middle here, you either love it or you hate it!

Oh really? She also loved that store Liberty. She once sent me out Christmas Eve shopping and it was a nightmare. People were so crazy! But also Etnies was at the beginning sponsoring Pig City in Brighton so we always had a strong link with England. So the first freestyler I saw was Jeremy Anderson.

Before my time….

In the 70s, he was one of the best freestylers in Europe and was from England. And my friend Don Brown who was the first person I hired to help me with the team, because I was bombarded, was from Brighton. So the liason with Flip was very natural. Also you know even though Etnies has headquarters in California, I always felt bad growing up in Europe and not being able to live as a pro skater in Europe. You had to live in California because all of the major companies are there. So I wanted to contribute the other way round, to support skateboarding in Europe so we started doing the Etnies European Open in 95, with my friend Rudy, another freestyler and I trusted him to start a kind of union of skateboarding and creating a scene in Europe. So going from England to skateboarding in Spain or Finland or wherever, to create a scene between all these countries, but he knew that there was something they could count on and it was the tour going all over Europe, that we’d be back every year. And the idea was that we didn’t want to do anything with the outside, we wanted to be able to depend on us skaters, so even if skating was getting fashionable, or dropping, we’d still have this base supporting us.

European skateboarding is definitely on the up and in many ways self sufficient now, where you are in California, do you notice that rise? How are Americans reacting to the uprise?

The Americans generally aren’t too happy about this because they like to control everything but I think for me, my goal was always to promote skateboarding wherever it was, and I grew up skating the suburbs of Paris with no support from anywhere and I always felt the need to do something in Europe and I applaud the companies from Europe that are doing it directly from Europe because its very hard. When Etnies was launched in France first, it was very difficult to make it work. But now it’s a different market, what’s optimistic is that skateboarding is much bigger now, much more recognition everywhere, skateboarding has existed since the 70’s so you have now 4 generations of skaters. So if people like me have kids, they can understand why we were skating and will put their heart and soul into this and can be there to support it. They can go to the mayor of the city to try and figure out how to sort the skatepark and move things around and be there to support youth culture. There is much more support in Europe and have companies coming directly from Europe and being able to survive with what they do.

What are you feelings on what Nike are doing in skateboarding?

I’m not sure exactly what they do. I think its good because in a sense they are recognising skateboarding because other big companies are looking at skateboarding.

Some people tend to disagree….

I understand why some people disagree because they’re coming into the market and trying to steal the scene that has been made by a lot of decent people. But it’s very difficult to do it, I think you really have to be in skateboarding for a long time to be able to do it. I mean if you go to a skate comp you’ll see more skateboarding shoes than shoes from the big sports companies because people recognise their roots. It’s obvious to work out who are real skaters and who are not.

Would you be able to compete with Nike and stop people leaving Etnies for Nike?

Yeah, we were born in skateboarding, and if there is a danger for us to survive, then we’re going to do whatever it takes to survive. I think it’s a bit like a country trying to conquer a country. But this time it’s not a country and they are trying to conquer something they know nothing about and the country will defend it with their last bit of blood because that’s what they are. So with the example of Vietnam. Lots of countries tried to conquer them but it never happened, in fact the people of Vietnam took back their own country. It’s surviving or dying. And for the skateboard industry, it’s the same way. The people in the industry who come from skateboarding are going to do whatever it takes to stay there.

One last question: Can you take Etnies any further? Is the ultimate shoe on the market right now or is there something up your sleeve?

Yeah the goal is always to get better. When you go skating you do one trick, it’s good and cool but you wanna learn another one, so it’s a non stop thing. I think that’s the spirit of skateboarding, it’s always been creative. So Etnies are pushing forward all the time. We are also looking at the environment too, I want to make sure that Etnies leaves the right footprints behind. It’s very important than when you go skateboarding, you breathe good air, so you can skate better and have a better time. We manufacture products that reduce pollution, so we don’t use petroleum anymore, so we don’t pollute the planet as we did. We run our research and development building all on solar power, we have huge solar panels.

Where is this based?

This is California. It’d be hard to do in London!

We’d all be fucked!

But in California we have so much sun so we’re using that energy and we save 42 acres of forest a year which is important because it means turn carbon dioxide into oxygen with 42 acres of forest. So it helps you breathe better, you have a certain responsibility. My goal with the company is to always leave the right footprint in whatever we do. Supporting everybody else too, not just skateboards. And we have meetings every 2 weeks with the City to go over what’s happening at the Etnies Skatepark to make sure the City Council and the Mayor know what’s going on and they come to the meetings and the skate park is even more than a skate park, it’s becoming a youth centre, we have local bands playing, art shows, movie premiers, charity for foster kids and stuff, oh and of course skateboarding!

In December we had 500 kids turn up and we do demos and have people talk to the kids and sign autographs, we had Santa singing to them and we gave every kid a pair of shoes. It’s fabulous, you see the workes at Etnies, the carers, the Council, the Mayor and the people of the community coming together to support the youth. You see this and it makes you want to do more.

So you’re a happy man?

Yeah, yeah!

I’ve got one last question for you: Pogo or Primo?

I’ll say Primo!

For more info on Etnies, go to www.etnies.com

Categories
Skateboarding News

Hesh Vs Fresh!

Alright, get your fingers at the ready because two new websites have just popped up and they are shit hot. First of all we have the wreckless and inspiring www.skatopiathemovie.com . This website is chock full of stories and teasers that are appetizers for a full length movie about Brewce Martin’s Skatopia compound in Ohio.

Step up or get out is pretty much the motto for these bowl thrashing libertines as they grind the pool coping to the punk rock riffs of Duane Peters and the Hunns, or take a hazardous ride atop a racing car on a path to destruction!

Elsewhere on the web you can now find a home for Rob Selley’s brainchild: www.motiveskateboards.com . Rob has gathered a sick team of stylers to push the boundries of street skating into the future. With notables like Jody Smith and Layth Sami rolling through, you know a video project is going to be amazing.

Categories
DVD Reviews

Super Champion Funzone – 4 Star

4 Star Clothing in Japan

I admit that I initially thought Super Champion Funzone was a promo video that wouldn’t cost more than a fiver and probably come free with magazines next month. I was wrong.

4 Star Clothing sew the threads that dress some of the finest skaters out there. SCF takes us on a journey with Mike Carroll, Rick Howard, Eric Koston, Mark Gonzales, Brian Anderson, Max Schaaf, PJ Ladd, and even Guy Mariano (even though he just chills in a flat cap- expect his footage elsewhere…) as they tour Japan to promote their high quality goods.

Obviously, presented like that, the idea of sitting through another Ty Evans bro-down private joke documentary is less than appealing, but I think you fail to realise just who you’re about to watch!

I won’t go into too much detail over the proceedings of demos, autograph signing, waiting and general tour madness that occurs throughout, but here are a few things you should know: PJ can talk, Koston can skate everything, the Gonz is a certified lunatic, Mike Carroll is actually friendly despite the gruff appearance, Max Schaaf is the ‘mood maker‘, Brian Anderson can perform one man demos and Rick Howard is probably one of the best bosses to have.

I watched this alone, and again with my girlfriend. She didn’t complain which obviously means there is more to SCF than just plain skating. With the fly on the wall style, you find yourself giggling at the 4 Star team’s predicaments abroad, even if Mark Gonzales does look like he’s over doing it at times. You also realise just what it must be like to be a skater at the top of your game and that entails and demands of you. Eric and the boys take everything in their stride even if you know they wish they were elsewhere at times. My girlfriend kept asking me if any of them were married or had girlfriends? I have no idea, but I can only imagine they must be patient.

So, SCF is a success in its graphic portrayal of tour life and gives you that urge to hit the road with your pals and skate the unknown. I might also add the bonus sections which include a bizarre weekend with the artist formerly known as the Gonz, and a sick skate part from big man Brian Anderson, go get it!

Visit www.fourstarclothing.com for more.

Ralph Lloyd-Davis