We find it’s something of a good omen whenever Bill Strobeck posts a new edit on his Youtube Channel. There’s something about the things captured in these short edits that inspire you to keep a keen eye out for the extraordinary amongst the ordinary during your day. Something that Strobeck, without fail, captures on the regs.
‘Sister’ is the latest, and features some east coast madness from Alex Olson, Dylan Rieder and Austyn Gillete. Enjoy below.
Following on from last week’s London shredding the RVCA crew have hit up the smooth streets of Italy on their Euro ‘Dick Moves’ tour. The video dropped online and features bangers from Nestor Judkins, Cory Kennedy, Leo Romero, Cairo Foster, Spanky and more.
Nestor’s feeble grind is a thing of beauty. See for yourself below…
Death have announced that their new pro rider fro 2011 is none other than Boots! Look out for his colourful Circles deck in your local SOS this Xmas and expect the usual mob of Death team riders at this year’s Xmas Jam .
Thankfully mini ramps have been popping up in gardens and barns all over the UK this year. Some are now sitting there covered with tarpaulins as the winter does its best to halt play, others have been built and housed for all year shredding and these are the ramps that will be in high demand over the coming months as the wet weather takes a foothold in our daily lives.
The hard work is finding them, making that relationship with the owners and respecting the labour that has gone into the end product but if you do find yourself skating that ramp the hardest part is keeping the secret.
Last Sunday we were invited to skate a private mini ramp near to London so our advocates hit the road to discover the gem that was rumoured to be lurking in the fields out there. This video shot by Alan Christensen features Mark Brewster, AC, Jamie Harrison a bottle of plonk and some basketball skills from their debut private session. Who knows, maybe if we keep the secret we will be invited again.
Always ready to jump on the latest trend and make a complete mockery of it, Krooked have taken the holiday blockbuster release into their own creative hands with KROOK3D, also known as TH3 Y3AR’S MOST 3XCITING SKAT3 VID3O COMING OUT YOUR SCR33N IN 3Y3-POPPING 3D!!! Coming from any other company, this kind of effort would result in an awkward compilation of suck; but with Krooked you are guaranteed something that for me, is essentially canonical in skateboarding: being forward thinking in the dumbest way imaginable. So what better way to interpret the growing 3D novelty in film by using the technology (in a way that really, really works) and just piss around with your friends. Enter Mark Gonzales, Dan Drehobl, Bobby Worrest, Luke Croker, Brad Cromer, Mike Anderson and David Clark, the members of one of the most fun skate companies around, to provide you with a video that would be the one of the year’s must-see flicks whatever dimension you choose to watch it in.
The video begins with a dedication to the sorely missed Van Wastell, who sadly passed away in 2008. His absence from the group’s antics that follow is missed but the crew do a brilliant job in letting Van Wastell live on in our memory and in the good times that Mark and co. continue to bring us. Rest in peace, brother. Your legacy won’t ever be forgotten.
Rather than follow a section-by-section routine, Krooked have chosen (wisely) to seperate the footage into locations, beginning with New York and moving on to San Francisco and so on. I often feel that more companies should consider this as a possible option and not to dismiss it as too outside of the norm. If you have a team that work so well together like these guys, then it unsurprisingly works to the video’s advantage by depicting Krooked as Krooked, not as a series of individuals. Not to take anything away from the individuals themselves (come on, people like the Gonz, Drehobl, Worrest and co. have a distinct and uniquely awesome taste seperate from one another) but the cocktail is something most pleasant for your eyes to sip on. More so that instead of a showcase we’re presented with something that’s closer to the late 80s/early 90s ‘session’ style of video editing than anything else outside of Etnies’ Skate and Create edit has brought viewers this year. We encourage this. Now, are those glasses sitting comfortably and looking ridiculous on your face? Good, then let’s hit up New York.
To this day, there is nothing like watching The Gonz skate New York. He’s the undisputed king of all things skateboarding in the East Coast and no one will ever interpret something as simple as getting from A-B in a way as imaginative as him. For A-B to Mark is more a case of going from A, then to Y, then to 4, then to Yellow, then to Z before finally arriving at B. In this uncouth journey we see everyone tear up whatever they see before them in a way that combines the free-flowing jazz spirit of 90s Stereo flicks and the gloriously juvenile tomfoolery of the Tilt Mode Army. Hammers aren’t planned, but come out of the natural talent that sporadically bursts from the team’s feet, like Bobby’s backside noseblunt at City Hall that’s so perfectly imperfect. Don’t think that the ‘3’ motif stops at what dimension we’re in either, as Gonz explains during a particularly rad downhill spot, “three sets of stairs, three stairs in each set, three skaters, take it down! in 3-D!”. He then sucks on a monster cigar. I challenge you not to love him even more than you already do.
San Francisco is the next stop and opens with Dan Drehobl’s trademark mayday variations set to a backdrop of the Golden Gate bridge. Visually, it carries something potentially beautiful that countless budding photographers constantly fail to achieve. Of course, Gonz has covered this landscape HDR fiend’s wet-dream with crudely drawn stars and a scrawled ‘San Francisco’ title that makes it the skateboarding equivilent of drawing a moustache on the Mona Lisa. Words cannot begin to explain how much I’m all over this shit. This section is totally rammed with car-dodging, pram-dodging, big grinds, dorky combos, quotes from strangers, flips over questionable ‘bums’ and Drehobl hitting up the China Town Banks like only he can.
We head back east to Washington D.C. for more fruity jazz scores and lines that make you feel grrrrrrreat. Unsurprisingly Bobby Worrest totally owns this section but there’s some serious bits and pieces from Manderson and David Clark in the mix too. A brief transition segment follows that features welcome cameos from Lance Mountain, Jake Brown and more. As expected, vert looks pretty spectacular in the third dimension so suck on that James Cameron.
After some dicking around in skateparks we’re returing to the west coast to Los Ang3l3s. Here, there are more perfectly captured sessions that are making it progressively more difficult to sit through the entire thing without pausing and running out for a quick skate on whatever is directly outside the front door. But amongst this we see some Crailtap heads getting in on the action, notably Eric Koston doubling up with Gonz as seen on the cover of the latest Wallride Catalogue. The footage from these sessions is as awesome as you’d expect. Koston’s line (featuring the rarely seen regular hardflip) at the end is something magical. Although, not quite as magical as Bobby’s noseblunt on a LOG during the slow-motion section that concludes the film. Yeah, a log. What is this I don’t even…
Props must go to Erik Bragg and all those that made this production possible. Nothing else this year will inspire you to go out and have a proper session with friends, dick around, occasionally do something epic, but in a way that only enhances the session rather than overshadow it. This is how skateboarding should always be. Make sure you get this.
Stanley
The DVD also features twenty minutes of eye-popping mind blowing tantalising 2D action! It’s out now in all good skater-owned shops.
After years of absolutely merking the UK skate scene, Joshua ‘Manhead’ Young is now officially pro for Unabomber Skateboards.
In celebration, Unabomber gave Josh and their other pro riders, Ben Grove and Craig Smedley, complete freedom on their latest graphics. Josh repped his hometown and went for a Tingely themed deck, Ben Grove collaborated with Manchester’s own Suzuki Method and Smedley stopped breakdancing for a second to work with Nottingham artist Brad Garner for his ‘Don’t Meddle’ model.
Have a look below to see what they look like and keep your eye out for them dropping all good shops soon. Congrats Manhead!
This week’s Sunday Stooges edit from Dainton is quite a special one. Coming in at five minutes Daint keeps us all up to date on all the haps and then throws in a banger (hohoho) of a Bonfire Night edit down in Newport.
Contains a monsterous ten tricks from GRIM and some mini-ramp shredding from Dainton himself. Get stuck in below for Welsh thrills.
Fresh out of the steamy red-bricked neighbourhoods of Brooklyn, New York, the Desoto is swiftly becoming one of Element’s most wearable and well-designed denim product. It’s expertly crafted from cotton and nice ‘n’ stretchy ‘flex denim’ and comes in a classic slim-straight fit that’s neither too tight nor too baggy but fitted like all good jeans should. This may come as a surprise to those who saw the word ‘Brooklyn’ and were mentally assaulted by gangs of scumtache hipsters in the tightest jeans ever made, but the fitting is legit and perfect for getting just the right amount of attention. As in, they make your legs look good to any eye that looks your way and not ridiculous. Yahtzee!
It’s a noticeably lightweight jean that allows more freedom and leg movement than most of the preferred trouser-choices of skateboards (cords, chinos etc.), certainly more than denim. Versatility is something that should always be encouraged in clothing companies who aim their products at skateboarders; as when we’re not skating or climbing over fences (poorly) we’re sitting on our arses, so a strong but massively comfortable jean is ideal. This is spot on.
Pictured is the same grey colourway that are currently covering my thighs, knees and shins. It’s got pockets in the right places and there’s minimal branding which – in an ideal world – should be practiced as standard. Two thumbs way up on these bad boys and full dopealicious/10.
Bellend Sebastian
Now here’s a name that deserves to be mentioned more often than it does. Steve Durante had some typically powerhouse tricks in the east coast section for Habitat’s stellar Origin, and now his part has been remixed and re-cut to a tune a little more Durante than ol’ Panda Bear.
Enjoy this slice of east coast goodness below.
Think Skateboards are a company that in the past have sponsored some of skateboarding’s finest riders that include Dan Drehobl, Pat Duffy and Birmingham’s new favourite skater Lizard King. Think have re-launched their team recently and Think is now home to many ex-City riders with a banging new promo so things are looking up in general and rightly so.
When this arrived through the post I opened it up to find potentially my favourite skate graphic ever. Think have been inspired by Nintendo’s 1981 smash hit ‘Donkey Kong’ for this model and this was an instant win for myself- a self-proclaimed video game geek. For me this couldn’t have come at a better time, a week off work and not much to do so I headed down to some of the Black Country’s finest parks and gave it a test drive.
The board’s a perfect size for me personally coming in at 8″-31.75″. The width making it a lot easier for my feet to find the thing to land on. A few hours later and my conclusion was that it was more than good enough for the early grabs and crack nollies that I was going to use it for. This 8-Bit Tag deck comes with a medium concave and holds up strong enough for Dave Bachinsky to Kickflip off the Eiffel Tower; all thanks the Deluxe wood it was made with.
If that doesn’t cut the butter for you then feel free to let the Think team do the talking in their latest promo whilst I nerd out on some 8-bit video game action!
Brewer