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Skateboarding News

Mike Carroll kicks MJ off Chocolate in an interview

marc_johnsonWhen 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.

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Features Skateboarding

True Stories – Fabian Alomar and the Stiffy Bouquet

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Take a good look at this crew photo shot by Canadian photographer Jody Morris from his 20 Plus book. It captures Fabian Alomar, Keenan Milton (RIP), Mike Crum, Gino Ianucci, Jason Dill, Eric Pupecki (and tour driver) in the midst of a banging era of skateboarding whilst on tour in Nottingham, England, 1994. Steve Rocco’s anarchic revolution was well under way by then, Big Brother was the best mag on the shelf, Sidewalk Surfer was just starting up, DC Shoes and Chocolate Skateboards were also just launching and Gator had already served two of his 31 years in the slammer for murdering his girlfriend and burying her in the desert.

“I was working for World Industries and being very lean times in skateboarding the European distributors had pooled together to do a collective tour with all the World brands traveling together,” remembers Morris. “For many of us it was our first trip overseas, and quite possibly one of the best.”

The influx of American teams over the next couple of years lead to the Generation 97 comp at Wembley Arena in London. This mammoth skate event featured an old Jag dumped in the middle the street course and saw the likes of the Gonz, Creager, Rowley, Senn, Wainwright, Koston, Duffy, Brauch, Vallely, Daewon, Templeton, Reynolds and many more sign a page in the UKs skate history book. To this day, G97 still puts the likes of Street League to shame, which isn’t hard, it was all about skateboarding.

Menace pro Fabian Alomar remembers G97 well and delved into his memory banks for a quick story from behind the scenes. What goes on tour, stays on tour…well, for at least two decades.

Fabian Alomar – Lausanne, Switzerland 1995.

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“OK, so back in 1997 we were in London to compete in a comp there at Wembley, and well, it started off good. I was skating, getting my run down and the rest of the Menace, Girl, Chocolate, World Industries heads were on the course and we were doing our thing. I remember approaching another pro skater who was talking shit about “skaters in LA all wearing gold chains and driving Honda Civics and sagging and shit” in an interview he had done in one of the mags. Of course, me being the person I am, once I laid eyes on him I dropped in from one side of the course to where he was. We won’t mention his name for his safety cause he couldn’t bust a grape then and I’m pretty sure he’s still peeing his pants when he gets confronted. Talk about ‘Turnt Down’.

Anyway, back to the story…

So, I took a break from skating and went outside to grab a hot dog from this truck that was parked out in front and flirted with the Hot Dog Girl who was serving up and let me just say this…by the time I smashed on them two hot dogs with a vengeance, I knew I’d be smashing Hot Dog Girl’s ass with fury. Yeah, I bagged that broad in no time.

So later that night we went to a wack-ass place to drink and smoke. I still remember the FUCKEN MUSIC! There was techno and fucken lazers everywhere! I was over it and remember talking to Hot Dog Girl again, grabbed her and said “let’s go to my hotel” and she followed.

OK, here’s were shit gets kinda fucking weird. I was piping Hot Dog Girl in my room – and believe me, I was really giving it to her “FRANK HURTS STYLE” with the kids in the room (Javier Nunez and Lee Smith) acting like they were asleep. They were too young to go out so they hung out in the hotel, smoked blunts, drank beer and jerked off to porn. Now in the middle of my sesh with this broad, I hear frantic banging on the door to my room, so naturally I pulled out, ran to the door with a stiffy, opened the door, and it’s Guy Mariano standing there.

My lil’ buddy is scared outta his mind (and fucked up wasted of course) and there’s this older, big ass dude right behind him yelling shit out and he looks like he wants to hurt Guy. So Guy gets behind me and throws a fly punch on him from the right and said “fuck him up Fabes”, so I threw a punch too. Naked.

This fucker got nailed twice and that was enough for him. So now Guy’s telling the story and it turns out that Guy stole the bouquet from a wedding reception in the hotel lobby, all drunk and shit. I was like “of course everyone from the wedding is gonna be pissed Guy! I mean fuck dude, you stole THE fucken bouquet of flowers and you still have it in your hand?! Give it back so all these people can get the fuck away from my door, can continue with their wedding, and I can continue penetrating Hot Dog Girl!”

So I threw it back at these fools, and by the way, I am still in my birthday suit (minus the stiffy) but I still wanna bang this broad so bad. So now Guy notices something that I totally missed. Hot Dog Girl has 666 and some Devil shit Pentagram and crazy bat shit tattoos all around her snatch. So now I’m like WTF?! I’m a firm believer in God bro, I ain’t trying to bone the Devil homie. Now me, Guy, Jav’s and Lee are trippin on her tats and this Devil / Hot Dog Girl is spread eagled telling us the story on how and why she got her crazy ass tats around her pie hole.

To make a long story short, at the end of the night I banged her with the lights on with everyone watching and making comments, and I was doing all the positions I loved in porn, even taking requests from the homies too. Yeah, those were the days. The making of FRANK HURTS. Good times!”

Words by Fabian Alomar.

If you have a True Story you want to share, write to us.

Order 20 Plus online or ask your local skate shop to get one in for you.

Enjoy this G97 footage:

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Photo: World Industries, Blind, 101, Menace, Plan B – Euro Tour – Amsterdam, 1995. Standing L to R‭: Fabian Alomar‭, ‬unknown‭, ‬Kelly Bird‭, ‬Henry Sanchez‭, ‬Keenan Milton‭, ‬Yves‭, ‬Colin Mckay‭, ‬Pat Duffy‭, ‬Chris Hensley‭,‬‭ ‬Eric Pupecki‭, ‬Kareem Campbell, Joey Suriel‭, ‬unknown‭. Front L to R‭: Ronnie Bertino‭, ‬Gino Ianucci‭, ‬Matt Hensley‭, ‬Jeremy Wray‭.

For more Fabian Alomar stuff, watch this Vice documentary.

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Skateboarding Product Reviews

New Trunk Boyz decks and more from Chocolate

Trunk Boyz Elijah Berle, Stevie Perez, Vincent Alvarez and Cory Kennedy have all been announcd as pro’s this week on Chocolate Skateboards. Check out their new pro rigs here that will be in your local skater owned shop this month and more wood released this summer and new video of them all skating Puerto Rica here..

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Home Skateboarding Skateboarding Product Reviews

Line Check July 2011

UK skate shops are stacked with new decks, wheels, clothing, shoes, hats and more right now so here’s our monthly gathering of what we think are the best options throughout July. Explore below for a selection of products available from Skate Mental, Girl, Superdead, Heroin, Drawing Boards, Volcom, Foundation, Unabomber, Chocolate, Crayon, Toy Machine, Fourstar, Altamont, DVS, Lakai, Kr3w, éS and Emerica.

If you would like your product considered for inclusion in this zine, get in touch here.

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Skateboarding News

Watch: Crailtap’s Year In Review!

Yes! If there was one edit (other than Andy Evans’) that was guaranteed to be super fun and filled with good vibes then it was the inevitable round up from the Crailtap camp.

“Carroll said if we got it out before February we’re good.”

Just about. No one would care if it was late anyway. This is must see shit so watch it and feel good about the weekend. Skateboarding is fun yo.

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Skateboarding News

Cory Kennedy tests the Crailboard

Cruisers are the shit. If you don’t have one then you’re missing out on something fundamental to skateboarding and the general notion of getting rad. Thankfully the good folk at Crailtap have released a new version of the Crailboard for both connoisseurs and noobs alike to get their shred on. You can see the deck in all its glory in the new Wallride Catalogue. Inside is an exciting page that simply reads ‘New Girl and Chocolate Video Coming Soon”. Now, we all know how ambiguous Crailtap are with dates but we’re stoked to be reminded of it none the less.

Cory Kennedy gave the stick a test-spin and you can see below in a rad little edit what’s capable on that badboy. Whether or not you’re as abnormally talented as Mr. Kennedy, this new deck looks like heaps of fun. On top of that, is that some sunshine we can see in this edit? One can only dream the UK will start bucking its current cloudy and miserable trend and get all happy and sunny again.

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Skateboarding Skateboarding Product Reviews

Line Check: Holiday 2010 2 of 2

The Holiday Season is always packed full of great products to chose from so here’s our second round up of what we’re stoked on arriving in skater-owned-shops right now, including a few last minute gift ideas at the bottom (because we can’t be the only ones shopping for them on Christmas Eve). Click here to see part one of the Holiday 2010 Line Check.

Vincent Alvarez name came up quite frequently when asking others who their favourite skater of 2010 was. His pro model for Chocolate was approved by the masses, and the watercolour line is classic Chocolate aesthetics.

Unbelievable right? It’s true, Alien Workshop turned twenty years old this year and to celebrate, all their riders got some classic AWS iconography attached to their name on these rad decks.

It was a good year for rippers getting the deserved bump to pro status as Boots’ first pro model for Death came out this month. Cliché close up for the holidays leaving us with this little team model to get bamboozled over.

Theeve have reportedly the lightest, strongest, straight up best truck on the market. If you have a little extra Christmas pocket money this year maybe you should try a pair out. Thunder continue to bring the goods with Marc Johnson’s ‘special blend’.

Momentum keep rolling out amazing looking wheels for the stocking filler hill bomber market this Holiday season, this time employing the capable hands of Andrew Pommier to decorate their urethane.

OJ Wheels made a welcome return to the urethane spotlight this year. Click here for a review of the the Street Razors.

It’s definitely the time of year to stock up on these badboys. So be sure to keep your head warm this winter, but also rep skateboarding while you do it, and who better to rep than the good folk at Girl, Chocolate and Fourstar?

Lots of good stuff from the Soletech camps are entering UK skateshops right now. éS may be renowned for keeping your feet secure above the good wood you ride but they’re pretty rad at keeping you warm and not a flu-stricken wreck too while you’re off it.

Etnies take the tried, tested and massively approved classic approach with these awesomely plain and simple hoods.

Emerica unsurprisingly go a little leftfield with their winter warmers, fully repping the kind of grandpa festive sweater steeze that some of us here at Crossfire love a little more than the others. Make your own mind up on that one but we’re all down for Heath Kirchart being rad.

More goodies from éS who have already won us over with their amazing Bobby Worrest collection earlier this year.

Only one pair of trousers are on our Christmas wish list: these perfectly crafted cords from Altamont.

Nick Dompierre’s pro model for DC is hitting UK stores this month, alongside more boot throwback goodness from Supra’s Tom Penny.

Simple, effective and guaranteed to have perfect board feel; standard practice for Emerica.

Hsu’s are such a great shoe to skate and this camel colourway is an excellent move. It would be rude not to give the pro shoe to come from this year’s SOTY a mention too, Leo Romero’s purple model is dope.

Perhaps it was the little interview éS ran this week with team rider Kellen James, but we’re definitely super stoked on this SK8MAFIA collab on the Square Two.

John Rattray is simply the best around. Rep Scotland with these in 2011. It doesn’t matter if you’re not Scottish, John Rattray is and therefore you should start wishing you were.

Need some last minute gift ideas? You can trust the Crailtap camp to deliver the raddest stocking fillers this year.

And there’s no way we couldn’t include these… amazing holiday merch from the ever rad DEVO. Watch our interview with frontman Mark Mothersbaugh here

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Skateboarding News

Watch: Carroll, MJ, Frost and Alvarez in Skatepark (Red)

New footage from these guys is one of the best possible ways to finish off the working day. So as you computer heads log onto Facebook to skive one last time and you students… well, continue skiving as per, have a watch of this sick edit from the Crailtap park that’s had a bit of a (Red) makeover.

Mike Carroll, Marc Johnson, Eric Koston and Vincent Alvarez all smash it in this, some of the things done on the whippy quarter to hubba are totally bonkers. Enjoy below.

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Skateboarding News

Der Brat Wurst Tour Ever Trailer

choclate girl skateboardsGirl and Chocolate team riders hit the autobahns of Germany in May and are due to release their footage from the trip very soon.

Here’s the trailer for a forthcoming Der Brat Wurst Tour Ever, featuring Eric Koston, Sean Malto, Chico Brenes, Vincent Alvarez, Kenny Anderson, Cory Kennedy and more.