SK8MAFIA 4 LIFE

SK8MAFIA released there new full length video free online yesterday and it's up on youtube today. Shit is extra ill!! I'm a subscriber of the school of thought that if you don't have anything nice to say don't say anything at all. So I try to keep this blog focused on shit in skating that I'm stoked on. There is enough internet hate out there, and enough lame shit in skating to warrant the hate, but on this blog I'm down for only wasting my time on the good shit (which there actually is just as much of). Sk8mafia is the good shit!

I grew up in a small town in Canada, far removed from the do's and do not's of the oh so judgemental skate industry, so as a kid my perception of what was cool came directly from the magazines and few videos I could get my hands on. There was suprisingly a lot of kids in my town obsessed with skating (as it should be) and for about a year we were all obsessed with Shorty's Fulfill the Dream. That video and Toy Machine's Welcome to Hell and Jump Off a Building pretty much shaped my early skating (and for better or worse, fashion sense). It's only natural then that I am and always have been super psyched on SK8Mafia. Two of my favorite parts in Fulfill the Dream and quite possibly to the this day were products of the San Diego duo Smolik and Turner. These dudes are both the backbone behind the Mafia and I will always love their skating and anything they release. When I saw that they had put out their new video free online I was so hyped and couldn't wait to check it out. Once again these dudes come through!

The video opens with a tribute to the fallen soldier Cantrell. I'm not too sure who he is, but his passing is definitely tragic and saddening and as I'm sure he was important to the Mafia dudes, the addition of the tribute part was touching. Plus he really really ripped and had some awesome footy! RIP

After that, the next part comes at the hands (and feet) of the ginger ninja Jamie Palamore. Palamore is a sick skater and always has rad footage in the SK8Mafia Saturdays and in the AM video. Being a huge hip hop head myself I always love the music selection in Mafia productions, and Palamore's part set the stage for another awesome soundtrack endeavour. He skates to a Raekwon song and a classic blacksheep song and does some rad tricks. The back 5050 to sw fs overcrook in the opening little line thing is insane to the point I can't quite wrap my head around it. That's only the beginning however and he goes on to slay the rest of his part with crazy tricks like loooong front blunt on the up ledge into the pyramid bank and the back 3 into the yellow bank. The front 270 tailslide was probably my favorite trick in the part, sooo proper. He does lots of bluntslides and tons of ledge combos, but dude is legit and his part sets the bar high for the rest of the vid.

Lil B, the man, Fulfill the Dream alumni, Brandon Turner gets next part and it is straight up crispy. In my opinion it is his best part to date and has some of the gnarliest footage of him I have ever seen. I hate the word buttery but this dudes style really is buttery. His tricks are executed with such finesse and the way he catches everything is so sick to watch. One of the few dudes in skating who can actually pull of the white wife beater and not look like a jock. His opening trick the kickflip nosemanny to manny to huge drop off of the roof was nuts and definitely not something I'd expect from Turner. He doesn't land it but just watching his attempt elicits nothing but fear and admiration. His first line is straight Turner steeze and some of the most classic footy in the video. Treflip over the dirt gap, backside flip over dirt gap then switch tre flip grass gap, amazing! He has lots of tricks in this part I really wouldn't expect from Brandon, like his ender, the taildrop into the super steep bank, variety is the spice of life and it's rad to see people do something different.

Larelle Grey skates to Wacka Flocka and is super good. Jimmy Cao is a technician and does an insane amount of lines, all with crazy tricks and skates to sould man and CCR, two awesome song choices.

One of the few let downs of the video was the lack of AlkaSmolik footy. He only has a few tricks in the montage section but they are all classic Smolik and probably could of been released in any of his video parts without anyone really noticing. He loves the noselide shuv noseslide combos and loves the shorts, tall sock combo even more. It's Smolik tho so anything he puts out is rad!

Javier Sarmiento is super Brazilian, skates to a Brazilian sounding song and does a ton of crazy tricks on ledges that I couldn't even begin to keep up with.

With the exception of Turner, who gets best part based solely on his OG status, the next two best parts in the video in my opinion obviously go to Wes Kremer and Tyler Surrey. Kremer has been gettin a ton of footage over the last two years or so, and deservingly so. I think he has one of the raddest and most unique styles in skating, does everything with power and lots steeze and always has awesome music in all his footage. Dude has shit on lock. This part shares in the radness of his previous ones, and his skating is nuts. Hippie jump heelflip was crazy, late front shuv the wheelchair ramp even crazier. He shows he can literally skate anything with his huge gap out to nollie back crook down two part handrail and the amazing switch back heel over the blue fence. My favorite trick in his part, which really is super cool, is the fs 180 5-0 tap on the round statue, I rewound it like 5 times, classic!

And of course the ender goes to Tyler Surrey. I've known this dude was killer for a while now but I never really comprehended how killer. This part really does his skating justice and shows to everyone the insane skill level that this kid possesses. His part opens to the Senfield theme song which is hilarious and the tricks are mindblowing. His line with the fs 180 the decent size set of stairs and then quick switch flip the next set is awesome. He does a lot of ledge dancing, which although I can respect the difficulty of, I am normally not a huge fan of watching. This dude does it all so well and with such nice style that for once I can't help but find myself liking it. His line with the sw fs 180 up the curb then frontside noseblunt nollie flip out on the white ledge is silky and the back crook nollie bigspin flip out is the most flawless I have ever seen that trick done and by the far the best one I have ever seen, straight props! Like everyone else in this video Surrey does some really really cool lines, especially the long ass nose manny down the stairs up the bank and nollie flip the drop which is really original. My favorite trick in the video, which seriously made my heart race, I can't even begin to imagine how he felt while doing it, was the nollie front crook in the ditch while the train goes by, CRAZE!

This is video is exemplary of the direction I like to see skateboarders and skateboarding in general taking. No excessive party footage (party footage is good, but not a whole video of it, and the mafia seems to understand this) not a single energy drink logo hat in the entire thing, amazing tricks, awesome music, lots of laughs and a succinct communication that the dudes are actually having fun filming the thing. This video has it all and I'm backing it and the Mafia 100%! As winter approaches in Toronto its shit like this that is going to get me through a long long season

Kareem Campbell: Phantom Menace?

The highly anticipated first episode of the Epicly Later'd Menace series aired today and I have to say right off the bat I was a little dissapointed. That's not to say that the episode wasn't good however, my frustration stems entirely from the fact that there will be absolutely no Reemo appearance in these episodes. O'dell is no idiot and he obviously realized that the fans would be bummed about the absence of Kareem, thus he offers a disclaimer at the very beginning of the episode, wise choice or everyone would be anxiously awaiting the next episode hoping that Campbell would eventually arrive. There is still lots of Kareem footage in the episode though which is relatively redeeming (tre flip 50 the top of the picnic table was fucking crazy). In my opinion dude seriously had one of the best bs 180s in the history of skating. The illustrious absence aside however, the episode does not dissapoint. There is lots of previously unreleased footage of the Menace crew during their heyday when they were running shit in LA. The opening clip showing Fabian Alomar almost kicking the shit out of some random dude is classic and reinforces the fact that Alomar is and always has been a fucking beast. I love O'dell's analogy between NWA and Menace and how Menace was sort of the NWA of skating in the sense that they were the crew you didn't want your parents seeing. I was super young when Menace was actually in operation, but as a youthful hiphop head residing on the concrete streets of Toronto, Menace was very appealing. The popularity of Menace has never been based on the actual skill level or technical progression of the skaters skating, but rather it is rooted in the whole vibe of the Menace operation. They were obviously a super tight crew of dudes who had a ton of fun everyday skating and hanging out. At a time when skating was dominated by suburban white kids, Menace was a breath of fresh air into skateboarding's diversity. Consisting of a mixed bag of ethnicities, Menace was the embodiment of the the undeniable fact that skateboarding brings people from all walks of life, together in one place. Another influential selling point behind Menace was the insane level of thuggery possesed by each of the skater's, none of which was faked as the epicly later'd episode reveals. And although perhaps it was not the main focal point, the skating fucking ripped. The destruction of the gap to ledge at the First Interstate Bank were always my fav tricks in the video and that part has always stood out. The gap to sw back krooks was awesome. It was cool to hear the filmer Socrates talking about the spontaneity of the Menace clips and how nothing was ever really planned. A lot of the things mentioned in the episode were gone over on the Fabian Alomar episode of skatetalk, but it was extra cool to have the video footage playing over all the stories. Being the little guy in my own crew back home at the time, I was always a huge fan of Javier Nunez, especially after seeing him with the gun in the movie "KIDS" I thought it was so badass, and there was some cool footage of him in this episode.
The wait between Thursdays from now on is going to be a tough one. Good work O'dell!

Grant Taylor Skater of the Muthafuckin Year!!!

Congrats Grant!!!!!

Mafia Days

The day with SK8 Mafia clip has been on Transworld for a bit now but I still wanted to touch upon it, because it's a pretty rad little video. Not only is it sick because it's a clip with both Brandon Turner and Wes Kremer in it, but it's also sick because it's pretty refreshing. As I'm sure any readers out there have gathered that I'm pretty psyched on things in skateboarding that portray it as the super fun thing it is. To me skateboarding has always meant being outside with the homeys having fun. This short clip is pretty much the embodiment of that idea.

Normally when you see a day in the life clip you see what ever featured pro it is waking up, meeting up with a couple homeys, skating etc etc etc. It's not very often that you see clips of day to day life where the majority of a team meets up as part of a daily routine, cruises the city and shreds (except maybe on the bakerboys site). I personally think that's pretty sick and although I was already a fan of the Mafia, it definitely gets me more hyped on them as a team. It's rad to see that the riders are actually homeys and enjoy being around each other, as I can imagine this isn't the case with every team. It's refreshing to see these dudes are still spending every day doing what I did when I first started getting really sparked on skating; meeting up with the crew, cruising the city and having good times. It's also awesome that they start the day at the strip club and end the day with Wes Kremer being presented his Transworld cover, pretty tight.

Oh yea and the Jamie Palmore no look heelflip, B Turner fat chick kick out swerve and Larelle Gray switch ollie the bar were tight too.

Fresh Till Death and Full of Smiles

I recently finished watching the Fresh til Death tour clips on the Thrasher site and I was definitely not disappointed. When I heard that this tour was going to go down my initial thoughts were; "tight idea" and "there better be a tour dvd". In much the same vein as the Beauty and the Beast tours, Fresh til Death found the uncanny pairing of the Zero team with the DGK camp for a cross US tour. Zero and DGK together on one tour is like a hot chick driving a really nice car. On their own each thing is awesome, but combine the two and the level of awesome is elevated to a much higher ground, and this is for sure the case with Fresh til Death. If ever there were two lessunlikely teams to hit the road together then Zero and DGK, I can't imagine them. The tight pants, even tighter schedules and choreographed destruction characteristic of the Chief backed Zero is a far cry from the hightops, snapbacks and hip hop influenced brainchild of S dot Williams; DGK. This sentiment is best expressed in part 1 of the videos in the words of one perpetually stony Tommy Sandoval " Like shred, like hesh, gnar and then just like chill, gangster thug. You bring those two together, put em on one tour...just seeing everyone come in was like 'this tour's gonna be fuckin insane".

That's exactly where the beauty of this tour lies. It's a direct extension of one of the most compelling things about skateboarding; it's unrivaled ability to unite, in common bond, a huge variety of walks of life. It doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, what your other interests are, all we need is skateboarding in common and instantly the flame of friendship is ignited. These tour videos illustrate this pretty succinctly and make for a super enjoyable watch .

There are so many sick things about these videos. Some completely expected, like how sick Stevie Williams' pop is, how consistently fucking gnarly Tommy Sandoval is and that Jamie Thomas will probably still be jumping down rails when he's 60. There are some things in these vids that weren't quite so expected and actually had me pretty surprised. Namely, the fact that Keelan Dadd is a smooth ass beast who was tearing shit up on every single stop on the tour. There were way too many sick tricks of his to list here but the nollie front foot flip was pretty craze.

Can I also say, as a Canadian, how tight it was to see Wade Desarmo killing it full force once again. It's pretty common knowledge that Desarmo had been dealing with injuries for the last little while and that he was purportedly back in good health and back on the board, and these vids did nothing but solidify that fact. He's killing it.

I previously hadn't paid much attention to Marquis Henry in the past, but if nothing else these videos serve as a reminder that there's a reason he's Kalis' DGK protege, dudes good. The inward heel 5-0 was crazy and he made that shit look like nothing. Rewind it to really see how nutty that trick is, especially on the ledge he did it on.

Another dude I was pleasantly surprised by was Derrick Wilson. I haven't seen much footage or coverage of him other then the fairly recent DGK ad and welcome video of the pretty burly switch ollie, but these videos were definitely a good intro for the dude. In his interviews he seems like a cool guy and he straight kills it on the board. The section in part 2 of the crews skating the triple set in New Mexico is proof in the pudding of the fact that Wilson can hang. The three flip and switch front bigspin down the triple were both real sick, not to mention he's got some serious steeze to boot.

Oh yea, I can't forget about Sandoval's bs noseblunt up the down near the end of the video, shit was proper!!

So if you ever need a reminder of why you started skating, a reminder that it's fun, a reminder that all this image bullshit that is so important these days is just that, bullshit, and that at the end of the day we're all skaters, then check this shit out!!

Goat Cheese

goat da goat da goat goat mouuuuth

It warmed my heart endlessly yesterday when I checked out Burnett's post on the Thrasher site highlighting the Shake Junt video premier on Sunday night. Not only, as expected, did Burnett's pics give the reader a glimpse into what appears to be a joyful evening full of bros, brews and much anticipated video footage but in addition all this this was the undesputable highlight of the night. It continues to put a smile on my as I think of it now.

The Goat Father, Shane Heyl, is Baker's newest pro. I wasn't even necessarily aware that Mr. Heyl was actually an am for Baker,or that he was legitimately considered to be a rider on the team. This is irrelevant however, as he obviously was and is. It isn't nor never has been a secret that Heyl has always been a fixture in the whole Baker/Deathwish camp and his noseslide heavy footage has been popping up in their videos since the
game changing release of Baker Bootleg, but I never honestly thought I would see the day when Shane's name was adorned in the infamous black block graphic that has become so synonymous with Baker.

I am definitely and wholeheartedly pleased that this is now an actual reality. Word on the street lately has it that Heyl has absoutely been killing it since recovering from a gnarly knee surgery and in preparation for the junt video, but once again this is completely irrelevant to his new found pro status. What is relevant is that Shane is a skateboarder and deserves to be a professional skateboarder, regardless of his skill level or lack of magazine coverage. He has been down for skateboarding and more specifically down for Baker since day one. It's obvious that Shane has been on the scene for so long not only because he loves skateboarding but he obviously also loves the homeys with whom he gets to do it with on a daily basis.

What is a pro? A human representative of skateboarding and what a company represents, made available to the kids. If Shane Heyl is not the ideal characterization of skateboarding to offer up to kids and fans, someone who skates because he loves skateboarding and having fun with his friends, then seriously who is?

shake junt shots

http://videos.theskateboardmag.com/shows.php?cid=15439&mid=53876&title=Dollin-&-Herman-Speak-Easy&page=1

There's a new series of clips of on the skateboard site's web series the speak easy with the grinders from Shake Junt. Everyone knows there a new release on the horizon from the extended fam that is shake junt, and whether you want to admit it nor not, pretty much everyone is looking forward to it. These short clips are a quick reminder of what's to love about these dudes and what will probably be the main contributing factor in this video being a beast....these dudes love skating and love skating because it's fun. I could get into a whole diatribe that has been exhausted endlessly over the web in recent years about contests killing skating and how everyone is forgetting about the roots of why we all started. Then of course their is the flip side and grass is greener scenario about companies like baker/deathwish contributing to the negative stereotype associated with skating and the constant glorification of partying etc etc etc blah blah blah. Fact of the matter is that we all want to see the shakejunt vid that is soon to be released and of course the subsequent deathwish full length coming soon....so watch these clips, get hyped for the vid and remember...it's skateboarding....it's just for fun and these dudes remember that.

P.S will talk more about these topics...just an appy. 

America F*ck Yeah

http://www.thrashermagazine.com/articles/wtf-world-premiere/

Foundation finally released their new full length vid on the weekend and it's sure to satisfy all those mourning the loss of the summer and subsequently another skate season. Adding to the beauty of the video is it's price (free) and it's availability (online) which make it easily obtainable from the second of it's release. Foundation generally puts quality vids, complete with amazing skating, good editing and interesting and unique music. F*ck Yeah is no exception and the combination of the team's established pros (Duffell, Fellers, Rivera, Murphy), the new additions (Dakota Servold, Ryan Spencer, Taylor Smith) and the much talked about New Jersey Attention lacking gnarbuckler Nick Merlino all come together to create an extremely watchable, entertaining and inspiring late season release.

The video is perfectly timed, coming in at just over 20 mins. I, like many other skate enthusiasts despise the drawn out, over dramaticized nature of many modern skate videos. F*ck Yeah definitely avoids this category. It begins with a brief intro before diving right into the mind blowing first part delivered by Lunatic Fringe alumni Dakota Servold. The video moves from part to part at an alarming rate, going from banger to banger before I even realized what was really going on. Not that this is a bad thing though, I could probably watch F*ck Yeah three times in the same amount of time it would take to watch Mindfield, and in my opinion this is not a bad thing.

All in all the video rips. Every part is amazing but the standout came at the hands of Spencer, Servold, Fellers and Preston. Cory Duffel (who I have in the past not been a huge fan of, undeniably amazing skating aside) comes through in spades in this videos with one of the best parts I've seen this year. His new, less flamboyant style in addition to the amazing INXS track coupled with incredible skating come together to create a video part that is so re watchable I have already consumed it more then ten times since it's release less then 3 days ago. The video concludes on the note of Nick Merlino, who is amazing at skateboarding there is no denying that. He jumps down huge things and does crazy tricks on rails, but other than that...not much else to say about the part.

Should you take the time to watch the new Foundation vid? F*ck Yeah you should

Au Revoir Es

It's a sad day in skateboarding and the end of an era. Es shoes is purportedly going out business, or as they put it "on hiatus". I know a lot of people probably don't give a shit but this is actually quite disheartening in the grand scheme of things. If es is going out of business, who's next? Growing up in my isolated Canadian skateboarding world, es was the shit. Sal, Koston, Penny, Muska, McCrank, Creager, the list of incredible and influential skaters who laced up a pair of es's goes on and on. To think that this legacy in skateboarding is to be no more is pretty scary. If a company that held this much weight and affected this many skater's lives is so easily left by the wayside, what does it take to survive?

Menikmati was one of the first skate videos I ever saw and it's not an over exaggeration to say it blew me away. Not only the technical level of skating that was achieved in the video but also the overwhelming style that oozed off of the TV screen made a such a huge impact on me that I am still writing about it today. I'm not really one to talk about negative shit on this blog but once and a while I feel a compelling responsibility to touch upon some of the things that are truly bumming me out.

I truly believe it is undeniably paramount for us as skaters to support the small(er) companies out there. The ones who are owned, or at least are rooted in this culture that means so much to us. I realize Adidas and Nike make a good product, there is no denying that. But at the end of the day do they really give two fucks about skateboarding and skaters? I think not. If we were all to fall off the face of the earth today Nike and Adidas would be no worse off then they are today. They still have basketball, football, soccer, golf, baseball and all the other sports that have helped build their empire. Companies like es on the other hand need us, the skateboarders, the ones who give a shit. They needed us to survive and perhaps we failed them, a company that was there for skateboarders all along. Perhaps we were blinded by the gleaming three stripes and intoxicating swoosh, a blindness so severe that it was too late before we realized what had happened in the absence of our sight. But it's not too late, it's never too late. If we start putting our money back into those companies who have always gave a shit about skateboarding and the culture it encompasses, then perhaps they will still be around when we need them most.

E