Categories
Interviews

Lakai interview

The headaches from the Lakai Fully Flared premiere after party had just about subsided and Moose managed to get himself over to meet a small but elite section of the team to ask them about games of Skate, waxed ladies, and steroid injections.

Welcome to Crossfire Mike Carroll, Brandon Biebel, Mike Mo and Rob Welsh. I have 3 or 4 questions for each of you, but if you want, you can choose which one you want to nominate to someone else…

MC – No peeking?

No, no peeking. So, first off, Mike Carroll, how does filming for Fully Flared compare to filming for Questionable or Virtual Reality?

MC – Can I nominate some one? For me it is comparable to filming for Virtual Reality. Filming for Questionable was more of a fun innocent experience, I didn’t know I was filming for a video. This one, I realised I was doing it for a video, there was a little more stress involved.

BB – Mike Carroll is the king, straight up. He doesn’t have to film for no video. All he has to do is skate and do what he does. If there is a camera around he is gonna look good and handle his business. If you ask him if there is any pressure or anything about filming for a video, c’mon bro, this is Mike Carroll, do your research man. He ain’t go no problems. He just skates, goes out, does his thing.

MC – [To BB] – You know that raise you were asking for? You got it!

BB – [To MC] – Thanks man! [laughs]

Why aren’t Lakai pushing ‘Mini Me’ teams? Kids Teams, like other brands.

BB – Why aren’t they? Because Lakai is Lakai. Lakai is 100 % skateboarding. They don’t need to. They have the cream of the crop, there is like 19 dudes. There’s no need for fucking mini boards and shit like that. Right Mike?

MM – They aren’t opposed to it, they’re just not trying to.

BB – Nyjah doesn’t ride for Lakai dude, know what I’m saying?

MM – We just out anyone on the team that we think will fit, not because of they are mini…miniest…ness

When is it right to retire?

RW – When Mike Mo tells me to. I’ve talked to him about it alot. I tell him all the time that if I start to become delusional, which I sometimes feel I am, that he should tell me. So the right time is when Mike Mo tells me.

Last one…what trick can’t you do?

BB – Switch back heel flip, I do not fuck with it. I cannot do that trick and I don’t plan on doing it any time soon. I could if I wanted to though, but I don’t want to.

MC – I can’t do varial flips. I hate varial flips, that’s why I don’t do them.

BB – RW can do every trick there is, he is modest. He is fucking modest.

Rob, has the pressure of filming increased your smoking habit?

RW – I quit smoking 4 months ago. I quit because I felt like a pile…

MC – A pile of what?

RW – A pile of shit. I knew it would be stressful, so I thought I should handle it right now.

BB – Rob Welsh had been smoking lot. He is real good at smoking cigarettes, he smokes a lot. Smoking made him real lazy, it’s the worst thing for you. I’m proud of him.

RW – By no means am I in the clear though…4 months no cigarettes. I put a patch on and then I thought, you know what, if I went into a coma and the patch was left on…I would wake up a smoker. So I was like fuck it, I’ve gotta get this thing off me!

What would you throw at Biebel in a manny battle?

RW – I wouldn’t even try, I don’t show up at competitions because of this guy! [laughs]

BB – Welsh can do them all

Is skateboarding a science or an art?

MM – I think it’s the science of art [laughs] Skateboarding is skateboarding man. You get what you put into it. You could compare skateboarding to something like dancing, it’s the same. It’s an art.

RW – I think Mike dances beautifully on his board.

Mike Mo. Mo money, mo problems?

MM – I’ve got no money so I ain’t got no problems. More money, more problems. Sometimes money can solve a problem. You get your phone bill…it’s a problem! You solve it by paying the bill with money.

Do you feel robbed by Nyjah at the ES Game of skate?

MM – No, because he does gay-ass varial flips.

BB – Let me tell you one thing, Mike Mo is Mike Mo and Nyjah is Nyjah. But Nyjah will never ever ever ever have a thing on my man Mike Mo. OK? He better get on steroids and inject that shit into his calves! I’ll beat the shit out of his dad, straight up. Comparing Mike Mo to Nyjah is disrespectful to Mike Mo!

Mike, do you and P-Rod exchange trick tips?

MM – No, we just play SKATE alot. Basically we do like treflip skating. You just keep doing them. Whoever misses it gets a letter (S-K-A-T-E). Sometimes we do an ollie like 50 times in a row and no one gets a letter!

RW – I don’t know if I approve of that game, but yeah, it sounds cool.

[BB disappears….]

[Mike Carroll answering for Biebel]
How much handle rail footage do you have stashed away?

MC – I put it all in my part. Biebel has a bit stashed away.

I think you should answer the question in his style as well….

MC – I can’t do it. I’m not a good actor.

Ok…Instead of Fully Flared, why not Totally Tight?

[laughs]

MC – Haha, totally tight…we are totally tight! That’s going to be the name of our next tour. Totally Tight Tour….triple T.[To Crossfire] You should get a nickel every time somebody says that….

BB – Totally Tight is cool too, but Fully Flared works for this video. It’s cool man. Lakai, Fully Flared.

What helps better with patience. Manuals or Fishing?

MC – Manuals are the worst thing in the world to do. I swear to god. Being stuck on a manual is the worst thing. I fucking hate it. Fishing is better.

Is that BB answer then? Is that what he would say?

MC – Oh yeah, for sure….I mean, no one wants to film manuals, you flip your board…land on two wheels…maybe.

Biebel, where should wax not be applied?

BB – I’m a fan of wax man, if it helps you grind or slide more frequently or grind further, then wax shit up.

What about waxed ladies?

BB – Yeah, waxed ladies, that probably the best kind of wax. Get them, get them all. I’ve got a girlfriend dude, this is European shit.

That’s it then, anything you want to say about the video?

BB – Totally Tight.

Click here to visit the Lakai London Premiere Gallery feature. Go to www.lakai.com and look out for ‘Fully Flared’ in your local skater owned shop…

Categories
Skateboarding News

Black Box gets a visit from Santa Crails

Black Box have delivered a little Christmas video message with a bit of skating at their training facility.

Don’t know where all the skate team have gone, but Santa fucking rips it in between delivering presents and eating mince pies.

http://blackboxdist.com/archives/podcasts/view/?id=69

Categories
Skateboarding News

Acid rife amongst skateboarders

Reports of excessively abundant bingeing of the mind bending, psychedelic drug L.S.D are beginning to surface across World skateboarding media. Footage of the abuse has been documented to warn skate rats of the damage that can be caused as a result of lengthy periods of heavy tripping…

Categories
Skateboarding News

Haslam TV

Globe have launched an online TV channel dedicated entirely to whatever Chris Haslam wants.

The daily blog type site has what the bearded one calls sweet pics, gorgeous videos, sounds of awesomeness, and rubbish, so it’s definitely worth a peek on a daily basis.

www.globe.tv/haslam for hair-farming goodness.

Categories
Skateboarding News

Berrics in the City

The Berrics site is picking up momentum and seems to have people in and out of there everyday now.

The United Nations section this time features City Skateboards team of Alex Klein, Jimmy Cao, Jeremy Reeves and Dave Bachinsky hitting up the park with some super smooth video evidence.

www.theberrics.com/united_nations/city

Categories
Skateboarding Product Reviews

ACE Trucks

Make no mistake these ACE Trucks are not the most flattering I’ve seen to date, G&S ventured into the truck market during the 80’s and they pulled it off though. They’ve attracted comments ranging from “wow, Variflex“, to “they look like something from Argos“. On appearance alone they may look old school but I shit you not, they certainly perform!

This is unsurprising when you discover the company is owned by ex Indy team manager Joey Tershay, surely this guy knows what he’s doing, right? Well, if you like the original Indy stage 3 geometry, you won’t go wrong with these bad boys.

I broke these in during a mellow Bay Sixty6 mini ramp session and they took a while to get used to like any new truck. Saying that, I was riding a new complete set up with a stiff deck and rock hard, slippery wheels and we all know what’s up there! Now because ACE have lightened the hangers by reducing the size and reach of the support, the trucks look overly wide, even on a 7.6″ deck and I still need to get my head around that one.

I got to the point where I accepted these as ‘OK‘ but that’s up until I took them into a bowl. Pretty they aren’t but sweet Jesus they totally and utterly slay! If you get your kicks from by bombing frontside around bowled corners, these are going to make you very, very happy, they’ve really put a massive thrill into my bowl riding and I just can’t get enough. The grind is nothing special, even for brand new trucks. The metal seemed softer than I expected and I got my 50-50 locks worn in pretty quick. New trucks can be a real shitter ’till the locks are worn in.

Fellow Team Breakneck rider and mate of mine Tom ‘Eco’ Briggs is a true bowl addict and it shows in his riding, the guy is obsessed with killing transitions, he’s a full-on gnarler and he knows what a good set of trucks are all about. When I tried Eco on the ACE MFG, he threw down some ridiculous lines and popped out wearing a huge grin, the first thing he said was “Fucking Hell, they’re certainly lively! Take it from me, these are worth the switch, period…

ACE MFG trucks come in seven different sizes from ’00’ to ’33’ ifnd them at www.acetruckmfg.com or at their Myspace.

Adie Kitachi

Categories
Skateboarding News

SkateMCR Nativity Skate

Got anything planned for tonight? (18th Dec) Well this evening is the SkateMCR Christmas Doo Part 2 & Nativity Skate Jam at Central Skatepark.

It’s a fancy dress skate night with the theme of the Nativity, so come dressed as a Shepherd, WiseMan, Angel, Sheep, etc. The best dressed person will win an Element Deck from SkateMCR! So make the effort! Also, don’t forget that the Central Skatepark Staff will be performing their beautiful rendition of the Nativity Story, so don’t miss it!

Categories
Features

Crossfire Xmas Jam 2007

8th December 2007

Words: Moose
Photos: Ben Norton and John Wildsmith

Santa wouldn’t have known what to make of this year’s Crossfire Xmas Jam, had he turned up of course. Hundreds of people queued for hours in the cold and wet outside Bay Sixty 6 to make sure they could get inside to witness yet another skate riot. If you’ve never been to an Xmas Jam, you’re missing out big time. No rules, no real time limits, a shitload of prizes and proddy, and as much fun as you can possibly squeeze into a day.

This year’s Jam was graced with the presence of the Osiris international team of John Rattray, Garret Hill, Corey Duffel and Diego Bucchieri, who stoked the kids out by signing body parts, posters, tshirts, Mum’s car keys and anything else that was handed to them.

The cream of British skateboarding turned up to have a laugh, cruise about and possibly earn some cash-dollar by knocking out bangers across the park. Riders who were spotted, and possibly captured by Crossfire’s lenses, included Neil Smith, Danny Brady, Louie Cooper, Joel and Seth Curtis, Joey Pressey, Kris Vile, Vaughan Baker, Lee Blackwell, Aaron Sweeney, Kev McKeon, Carl Wilson, Josh Roullion, Boots, Marc Churchill, Pete King, Ollie Tyreman, Greg Nowick, Tom Knox, Chris Ault, and fuckloads more.

With Zac Slack at the helm and manning the megaphone, shouts of “Mind the media scum” were just about heeded to as the Jam got underway and skaters threw themselves across anything they could in a monumental scrum of skateboarding. The handrail got absolutely dominated this year with tricks like you wouldn’t believe getting scraped across it’s steely structure. Kickflip frontboards, frontside bluntslides, backside tailslides, frontside shove-it boardslides, feeble 180s, crooks. Seriously, the list goes on and the footage speaks for itself. Blueprint’s Danny Brady brought the smoothness to the hip ledges with some buttery nosebluntslides and frontside 5-0’s to fakie as well. In fact, I’m not going to bother telling you much more about what went down as if you watch the video, you will know. And if you were there on the day, you definitely know.

I will, however, tell you about the two-man destruction team that come in the form of Death protégé Carl “Potter” Wilson and Vans flow rider Aaron Sweeney who did not stop shredding all day, and even when the lights got turned off you knew they could have carried on ripping for hours more. The vert wall saw them throw down massive crailgrabs, nolliecab melons and noseblunts on the inside wall. Oh yes, it got destroyed by these two and it didn’t end with the vert wall either.

The miniramp jam saw everyone shralp the coping to pieces, with Marc Churchill throwing down frontside feebles to smith, Pete King getting his lip-action on noseblunt disasters and all sorts of technical trickery, and Potter and Sweeney hucking up massive frontside airs and stalefishes. Sweeney even got his head in a spin on a beaut of a backside 540, whilst Kris Vile rolled up, took one look and put down an alley-oop bigspin fakie 5-0 like he was just chilling in front of the telly with a cuppa. Piss take. Potter also swallowed up the whole ramp with a backtail shove, and his eyes must have been bigger than his stomach as he bit off more than he could chew and rolled away somewhere about three streets away.

Proddy toss time, and the scramble for free shit managed to leave one kid with concussion and another with a bleeding eye. Whilst we’d usually be down for a bit of scrapping, this was too far and obviously some people forgot that they were decent human beings and resorted to caveman instincts of ‘kick the shit of of them’. Definitely not cool, we were all there to have a good time and now those two kids are leaving with scars they didn’t want. Remember, we’re all skaters, we’re all equals, and we’re all friends. There’s no need to hurt anyone just to get a free tshirt.

Aside from that, the Jam went off like a cat with a rocket shoved up it’s arse. The after party messiness can be see over in Night Raids, which was a laugh until we got the boot for apparently being ‘too rowdy’. To be fair love, we could have been much worse, but we weren’t and we were all enjoying ourselves right up until the last.

A massive thanks to everyone that turned up and got their skate-on, it was a top day and by far the best attended one to date. You know what that means though don’t you? We have to beat that next year and make it even better, so anyone not there this time, sort it out and get your arses there in 2008. Shout outs to all who turned up to support, Paul and all at Bay Sixty 6 Skatepark, Alan Christensen, Martyn Thomas, Crossfire staff, John Wildsmith, Ben Norton, Greg Atkins, Mel, Aiden, Matt and Simon at Jett 26, Don Brider and our friends and sponsors at Osiris, Sidewalk Mag, Document Mag, Venture, Creme, Blueprint, Heroin, Landscape, The Harmony, Karma, Death, Kill City, Creature, Casual, Plan B, DGK, A Third Foot and Spitfire.

Check the footage from the Xmas Jam below, or for the full-fat version, right click and save it to your desktop – it’s at the top right of this page…

Categories
Skateboarding News

RVCA’s Dmote blog

RVCA’s head honcho Shannon ‘Dmote’ Peel has his own blog up at Slamxhype.com

Find out all the latest updates from RVCA and the Artist Network Program by heading over to Shannon’s internet world at www.slamxhype.com/blogs/dmote

RVCA are currently featuring a range of tshirts with artwork from Luca Ionescu, but check the site for collaberations and prints from loads of other artists.

Categories
Skateboarding News

Erik’s at The Berrics

Erik Ellington has an interview over at The Berrics site, whilst the main man himself Steve Berra gets a night-time line on the go.

Keep checking TheBerrics.com for regular updates.