Chaz Ortiz, Kevin Taylor and ‘Black Dave’ flew into Oz for some local street sessions and Zoo York demos and came back with this edit for your perusal.
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éS are about to release a series of white Accelerate canvas shoes into select stores worldwide this month. We have not skated in these yet as none have arrived in the office to test them out but look out for them on your travels. The red Accents were super smooth on the feel front and enabled your toes to really feel every grain of griptape.
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Jaws at the Dern Compound
There ain’t no rooftops in the forest on this occassion, but Jaws does have some new footage online today courtesy of Dekline.
Skate Mental’s Dan Plunkett features in this rad new edit from Thrasher that dropped over the weekend.
The talented skills of 90s pro skateboarder Josh Beagle is paid homage to in this edit sown together by Spike Jonze and Joey Sinko.
Ph: Lucien Clarke by Ben Stewart
Lewis Ross and friends cruised in from the East to film an edit from the latest SB get together at the Undercroft. Look out for Chewy Cannon, Lucien Clarke, Rob Smith, Ben Rowley, Casper Brooker and many many more.
Great ideas cost nothing and can be inspirational. Check out the unique idea formed by 3DSD crew Constanza Tagini Nightingale, Jamie Harkins and David Rendu who spend a lot of their time carving out 3D imagery on the beaches of New Zealand. Mesmerising stuff.
REAL team members Davis Torgerson, Justin Brock and Robbie Brockel flew into the UK a while back and hit up Bristol, Brighton, London and more with UK REAL team aficionado’s Jed Cullen, Dylan Hughes and Harry Lintel who all feature in this new Crash Up Derby edit on the Berrics tonight.
Click Tottenham’s gap for the sweets.
Vertical Scratchers
The Waiting Room, Stoke Newington
May 8th, 2014
It’s with a sense of relief that we greet Vertical Scratchers as a power-trio as they step out onto the small but cosy stage in The Waiting Room tonight.
Vertical Scratchers, you see, have made an album this year – ‘Daughter Of Everything’ on Merge Records (review here) – that over-flows with quirky genius pop songs that are utterly addictive and compelling. They are the latest song-writing vehicle for John Schmersal, part of the stunning 90s noise rock band Brainiac whose incredible run of music was cut cruelly short in its prime with the death of singer Tim Taylor in 1997. After some time John continued to make challenging music with the brilliant Enon before most recently, moving onto Vertical Scratchers.
However, a brief glance at YouTube showed some footage of them playing live as a two-piece and to be honest, the performance wasn’t a patch on the lush pop of the record. It lacked bottom end without a bass player, obviously, and the songs were not shining through in the way that they should have done. Which is why, when the band walk out onstage tonight, that it is with a sense of relief to see them emerge as a three-piece, hardly pausing for breath as they begin to plough through the choice cuts on ‘Daughter Of Everything’ with energy and gusto. Occasionally Schmersal’s soft vocals get lost under the barrage of fizzing guitar and crashing drums but the melodies contained within songs such as ‘Turn Me Out’, ‘Memory Shards’ and ‘Way Out’ cut through like a razor and crackle with energy and static. ‘Pretend U Are Free’ brings things down a little with its Beach Boys-style harmonies and ‘U Dug Us All’ is slimily hypnotic and mesmerizing.
Let’s hope there’s much more to come from Vertical Scratchers. With this band Schmersal has crafted some of his greatest songs to date. Fingers crossed he’ll continue to scratch that itch for some time to come yet.
James Sherry
Have a good look at the largest skatepark in the USA that has just opened this week in Houston, Texas. It’s an absolute beast with lines for MILES.
The mammoth construction of Spring Skatepark started back in February 1st 2012 by Grindline, located at the corner of Rankin Road and Kukendhal roads in Houston Tx. Get that in your trip diary and enjoy this new flyover video below.
Europe has a smaller version being built by Grindline in Denmark right now with Rune Glifberg’s input. Seen it?
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