Tom Asta’s new Accel Slim on éS is about to hit your local skate shop. This signature colourway, influenced by the colors of the American flag with red and blue accents, come with a tongue ventilation system to keep your feet cool and a 400 NBS outsole providing flex and grip for the perfect flick.
Search them out, vote with your feet and support skater owned.
To get to the point, ‘The Important Nothing’ is really darn good and you should watch it. If unavailable in your bricks n’ mortar skate shop (R.I.P. SS20, support your local), you can get a copy from the Palomino.
Within a relatively small scene such as the UK, reviewing home grown videos is a delicate task, because they’re invariably a labour of love, by someone with admirable intentions who is likely to at least know someone you know. This small degree of separation means that each such review in our now extinct domestic print media has tended to be super positive. Who would say they didn’t love a work that someone has slaved over, with little commercial return, especially if you could conceivably session a spot with individuals involved in the near future? But you also want to be credible. A review can be a recommendation.
With internet clips vying for attention, why should you, the reader, part with both money and time to watch a full length vid, if you’ve been told that each and every UK video is brilliant? I wrote that the Isle video was excellent, because it was, I’m now going to tell you the Science video is more than worthy of your 25 minutes and £10, because it assuredly is. Unfortunately there are a number of videos that came out between these two offerings that are less than great. Because we’re all friends here, those sub-par offerings are left unmentioned rather than subjected to some narcissistic display of mean-spirited wit.
Science are an interesting outfit, and are part of the movement of small firms that are increasingly important to our culture and lifestyle. To distill an argument advanced in some detail here, the act of ‘just doing’ something, like setting up a small skate firm, stamping your tastes onto a corner of the market, keeping yourself motivated in the face of the pressures of adult life, connecting to other scenes and firms, and hooking up a community of like-minded skateboarders not only keeps skateboarding diverse and unique in the face of increasing commercialisation, but it helps us pursue our essential reason for being – the urge to create (our “species essence” in Marx’s view) – that is so often lost in the alienating experience of the 9 to 5. And when motivations are this pure, the outcome is more often than not cool as fuck.
Starting in 2006, owner Chris Morgan has been responsible for the lion’s share of the brand’s look and feel, and is behind the editing, design and large part of the filming of ‘The Important Nothing’. His interview with Crossfire is a good read, and provides detailed insight into one man’s personal vision of skateboarding balanced with a keenness to frequently collaborate (including with big names like Sergej Vutuc and Jon Burgerman and team rider Sam Taylor). Aesthetically, Science could be placed within the tradition of post-Blueprint 1.0 UK companies that combine unashamed artiness with an appreciation of gritty UK street scenes, 90s callbacks and golden era hip hop, soul and lo-fi indie, alongside Landscape, the National Co and Isle to name the most obvious. Where the National have looked to the hot shit that comes out of Sweden in their team line up and video aesthetic, Science make connections with the equally hot Japanese and SF scenes – and ‘The Important Nothing’ has strong similarities with recent Japanese independents like the Lenz videos.
Ph: Dan Tomlinson ollie noseblunt transfer by Chris Morgan
The filming style is unobtrusive, and avoids the closer-than-close fisheye steez currently en vogue and beloved of the Magenta bros and some of the aforementioned Japanese films. There’s a nice nostalgia, with a lot of black and white and deliberate graininess (and the jazz intro keeps things far more classic Stereo Super 8 than Palace VHS), with callbacks to a 90s hip hop appreciation of kung fu movies and frequent flashes of primary colours complementing the lovely DVD packaging and Science’s graphic output and logo. The soundtrack fizzes with a nigh on optimum balance of hip hop, soul, stoner rock and indie that made me think of some of the classic UK and East Coast vids – with Dan Magee, Josh Stewart or Chris Mulhern likely to be pretty stoked on the choices. Rounding off the ‘just right’ mix of characteristics is the 25 minute running time – if my knee wasn’t jacked, I’d have picked my board up and raced into the grotty streets of Long Eaton as soon as the credits rolled (in stark contrast to the soporific effect of the 1 hour plus running time of certain very big budget hammer fests).
Highlights from the skating includes London-resident, Leicester ex-pat and prolific scribbler Sam Taylor and his quick feet, loose style and mastery of wallrides and no-complies. Pete Buckley, whose time in Sapporo, cements the Japanese connection, rocks a classic Girl/Choc (circa Mouse/Paco) steez and boss man Chris Morgan can do stylish new-old (no-complies) as well as old-new tricks (refuting the assumption that 30+ skaters can’t do good flips). I dig any Luka Pinto stuff since his Eleventh Hour section, and really like how he and Glenn Fox have established this unique style that Channel Islands (get it?) Quim Cardona looseness with Magenta quick-feet.Ben Cruickshank reps the lanky-tech (more golden era Girl/Choc – gangly natural street styles of Shamil Randle) and the dope Saafir track.
Dan Beall has been another favourite since his standout Baghead Flats section. Dan reps a different fine vintage of street skateboarding, strongly British in style – the nimble precision honed on rough terrain that other slight-of-frame bros like Welsh Tommy and Jin Shizmizu also rep.
The premiere went off.
There’s a rad SF friends section that includes relatively well known locals like Tony Manfre and John Lindsay and the combination of spots doesn’t overkill the hill bombs (and includes Fort Miley, some DIY spots and street that isn’t sloping at 45 degrees). Dan Tomlinson is sick, with powerful pop and clean trick selection, that contrasts with Josh Cox’s unusual trick bag and manny mastery. Holdtight London alumnus Joe Sivell holds down the last section, with Roots Manuva setting the scene for tech and fashion that throws a contemporary British-take on early 2000s Puzzle glory days. Remember Stephane Giret? I’ve been betting a pirate’s hoard of gold doubloons on a come-back for both the tricks and the wardrobe of that brother, and Joe’s leading the charge to make sure I’m soon a wealthy man (and laughing at the rest of you as the pound sterling continues to fall through the floor).
I don’t want to do this video a disservice by listing too many historic references (that many of you won’t have been around for… but I’d bet more doubloons, and maybe a bronze cudgel and a horned helm, that Chris Morgan knows exactly what I’m talking about). Suffice to say, a bit like Pontus’ amazing Polar video, you can enjoy it equally as a fresh feeling contemporary offering, if you have the gift of youth, or as a life affirming, knee cartilage re-growing re-up of a certain era that burns very brightly in our sub-cultural memory.
Chris Lawton
Rowley, Figgy, Nyjah, Jaws and many more have conquered the Walnut High School stair set in California but who else? Click play for Krak’s latest comp.
Get those pints raised for 30 years of Slam City Skates this year. Spitfire were first at the bar with a collab wheel (52mm / 54mm / 101 Duro) in honour of which you can find here online after you see Brady and Jensen’s latest footage shot by Mark Jackson. That back smith…
Rodney Mullen’s back with more incredible freestyle trickery in footage shot by fashion photographer Steven Sebring. This revolutionary 360 dome studio technique looks stunning, but Mullen still has it all on lock. NBDs in here? List them.
Patrik Wallner and friend picked a tough country to visit on their latest worldwide mission in Kazakhstan. It’s a young country which only became independent in 1991 after the collapse of the USSR but has many magic spots as you will see in his latest edit featuring Gabriel Summers, Rob Wootton, Nestor Judkins and Vladik Scholz. Enjoy The Kazakhstan Triangle.
Ph: Ben DeSoto / 1980
Austin’s legendary skate-funk-punk pioneers the Big Boys disbanded in 1984 but they are fondly remembered for one fundamental reason; there were no limits to what they could do musically. No shackles, no boundaries. Their punk rock was in their heads, not restricted to their music. Trouble Funk collided with the scratchy post-punk of Wire and Gang Of Four, smashing head on with the energy and spirit of that first wave of hardcore punk.
“I’m a punk and I like Sham, Cockney Rejects are the world’s greatest band. But I like Joy Division, Public Image too, even though that’s not what I’m supposed to do,” sang frontman Randy ‘Biscuit’ Turner in the song Fun Fun Fun, perfectly summing up what the band was all about. Their gigs were a chaotic celebration, their lifestyle pushed as hard against the boundaries as their music did. In short, the Big Boys ruled and they deserve their own movie.
Enter Austin director Joe Salinas, whose forthcoming doc You Can Color Outside the Lines: The Big Boys is aiming for a Sundance 2016 premiere. The trailer for the film has just hit the web and features an impressive cast of talking heads from the era. Ian and Alec MacKaye, and Jeff Nelson from Minor Threat, Dave Grohl (obviously), Glenn Danzig, J Mascis, Steve Caballero, Steve Albini, HR, Kevin Seconds, David Yow, Keith Morris, Steve Alba, Lance Mountain, Exene Cervenka, John Doe and Tony Alva are among the many individuals telling the story of this incredible band.
Here’s the trailer. Go skate, make noise, start your own band. No restrictions.
This new feature on Danny Way is worth a watch. He discusses his life in skating, from the early days, to having kids, playing music, XYZ days, jumping the Great Wall of China, his views on the 2020 Olympics and more.
We interviewed him exclusively in 2004, if you missed it, dive in.
Tyshawn Jones and Sage Elsesser are fronting pro boards in this photo from the weekend. Congrats!
When the news came through Twitter that Marc Johnson had been seen in a new sports skateboarding video this week, we did ponder if it was true as his name as bold as the Eiffel Tower on the Lakai website.
Could MJ have sneakily cut a deal with a billion dollar sports brand after coating off their tennis shoes in a recent interview? Yeah, of course, because that’s sadly how pro skateboarders do their business today after long time friendships in the skate industry. It has become a joke, but today it became even worse.
Mike Carroll has just responded in a very open and cutting interview on Jenkem, the same site that ran MJ’s anti-sports brand rant a while back:
“I’m mad that he told me, point blank the night before the premiere, that there would be no announcements and that he would talk to his lawyer and we’d figure all that out. All the people that work hard for him, that design his shoes, the sales people, production people, the team – everybody that works for Lakai was there and for them to show up to the premiere and get blindsided like that… We didn’t do anything to him to deserve that. For them to find out that way? It just makes us look like fucking idiots, because this dude is a pathological liar. He couldn’t be man enough to tell me straight up.
The night before the premiere, when Marc and I talked, he could’ve told me… I would have been mad but at least he would’ve been honest and I could’ve called the team and told them instead of them finding out like that. He recently had things come up personally and I respect his privacy and distance. I’m just truly disappointed how he went about this. I’m curious to see what he has to say for himself. I can’t wait to see what type of lie he is going to say to justify his action.”
Read the full thing here but good on you Carroll, it’s about time people started discussing how these billion dollar companies are setting themselves up to ruin what skateboarders have worked tirelessly for. Choose skateboarding.
