I just re-watched the Magic Sticky Hands DVD recently and remembered that I reviewed the DVD for Sidewalk #127 a few years ago. Whatever happened to Nick Worthington? Originally I had the plan of getting Div, Benson and Colin Adam to review it for me, but when it came to it that turned out to be as much fun as herding cats - so it ended up being a fairly straight affair.
The sections aren't up on the Heroin site but the still solid Pulman extra is over on the Mpora site.
The UK got the first and last shows of the tour in the UK. A little moment of worry with immigration, but all was fine in the end. Hangover didn't kick in till 3pm today. It was P.T.
We used Edward's name to confuse one of those mobile phone "answer any question" services once. We asked it the "How much wood could a woodchuck chuck.." question and it came back with an answer so detailed it was insane, covering everything from the Woodchuck's weight to the fact it is actually called a Groundhog (Which could lead me into talking about another amazing film). So anyway, to beat the answer service we stepped it up a bit. "How much wood would Edward Woodward chuck if Edward Woodward could chuck wood?"
It came back "unknown". We we're the happiest three little drunks after that. The idiots outdid the computers.
How good is this? I just nabbed it from the Thrasher site. In the days of mage ramp madness and private vert sessions on gadget ramps its amazing to see a session with Lance Mountain, Darren Navarrette, Red, Christian Hosoi , Mike Frazier, Mike Crum, Max Schaaf, Rune Glifberg and Lincoln Ueda all on one "standard" vert ramp.
Just got back from the Volcom Team House in Algorta, Spain (Just outside of Bilbao).
We got to hang about with Alain, too. Best dude ever. The team house is pretty much right behind me from the angle of this photo.
Kris Vile, Nick Stansfield, Ben Raemers and Gav Couglan made it out. Aaron Sweeney got left at the airport as they wouldn't let him on with his tattered passport. Lesson learned? I doubt it - When they tell you that you need a new one, get one. Don't wait until they tell you six times and then deny you.
Tons o' bloggin' coming soon.
Sam Ashley shot an article, too. Some amazing shit.
I think I've already mentioned that I found a bunch of CD-ROM's with backups of a lot of lost Hi-8 footage.
I put this clip together a few weeks ago - just before the Stone Age Tour (Of which I still need to post up). It's Tom Ball footage from my parents video camera, Alex Mead's camera and my first one, too. In fact, Alex filmed a bit of this, if I remember correctly - The kickflip at the end was his. A little Jelly Mumbo's in there, too.
Anyway - Tom is rad. Still shredding. Not sure how his golf game turned out these days, though.
My luck has been in for good music this week. Dave Lombardo dropped by the Volcom store last week and got talking to the staff there...and they hooked me up with signed copies of the below.
DOA has for a long time been one of my favourite live albums. Hell Awaits going into The Anti-Christ is crackers...and what can you say about South of Heaven? Amazing. Hence it being on the front page of my plays on last.fm.
A little while back, Zac from Caught in the Crossfire sent me the 2009 release Deluxe version of Black Sabbath's 'Paranoid'. It had the OG album, a disc of bonus tracks (Pretty good, too - although the Instrumentals are kind of a waste of time). Best of all, it has the original Quadrophonic mix on a DVD, not released since the 70's. Trippy Sabbath from four speakers.
Last week he followed through and posted me out Deluxe Edition copies of Black Sabbath and Master of Reality. Stoked.
I used to have those two albums on loop in my Austin Maestro sometime in the mid-nineties. Sitting in the car, in the woods, while the rain came down listening to the opener of the first album. The Four Horsemen didn't have shit on us. And it was a 1.3 litre, too.
Different takes of various songs seem to reinforce their decisions as to what made the cut on the second discs and best of all, "Weevil Woman '71", an original line up song I'd never heard before...
Which re-release will the Blue Suede Shoes cover surface on?
Cheers Zac. You rule.
I need to find homes for my old, old CD copies now.
Actually...Fuck it. I'll get this out fo the way now.
Street Qualifiers:
Vert Qualifiers:
Street Semis:
Blueprint and Mob Grip Best Trick comps:
Vert Finals:
Street Finals:
Last weekend was mental. Sam Beckett is a wizard. Throwing 720's into runs and Kickflip Liens. Is he pulling forward from his forenamesake who seems to be stuck on the 540 variations? No diss to Bosworth. You can't knock a fourteen year old doing seven foot high airwalk 540's. Beckett's bag of lip tricks and flip tricks seems to work out for him, though. I'd still love to see the X Games footage where Bosworth won.
As for Street - Grove got done out of the big money. I say that as a judge - and it was way harder than last year. Cast your mind back and think about Chris Oliver's run. Not one person would have doubted him at the top of the podium. This year, though, the guesses we're all over the place from the crowd. Ross won it, fair and square, though. Everything he did was a joke - clean and comfortable. I'm actually looking at the scores now - and up until eighth place it is all so close. Grove was only a couple of points below Wileman - but a £700 drop in prize money is harsh. I'm sure he doesn't give a fuck, though - He killed the Blueprint Best Trick comp (As did BP's other ex, Flynn Trotman) and walked away with an entire warehouse backing him.
Grove is on form - Ross and Sam may have taken the loot, but it was his weekend, undoubtedly.
Oh - Check Daryll in the finals. Dude's we're feeling ballsy kickflipping that driveway when he came along and ruined the show for them.
Special mention to Vaughn Baker and Neil Smith. Vaughn was clearly having a right laugh and Neil was creating lines in a park for which they don't really exist.
In order of appearance: Dave Chesson, Tom Crowe, Mark Brewster, Ed Harper, Nick Biagoni (Rav), Nick Jensen, Pete King, Luke Hunt, Simon Skipp, Matt Cotton, Tom Ball, Clive.
I think this clip was put together purely becuase I had some new editing equipment/software. Maybe. It'd explain the reverse footage and the crappy mosaic fade out at the end. This edit is from about 1997. I found it on a CD-Rom when I last moved house.
The tower blocks at the start are the Thamesmead Estate in South East London. They appeared a couple of years later in the Aphex Twin Come to Daddy video. Thamesmead is quite possibly of of the worst places, ever. The old police station was burnt out had then been moved into an adjoining port-a-cabin. In turn, this had been burnt out so they'd just moved to another next door.
On a Dave Chesson hot tip, we went out relatively early to skate there on a weekday, thinking that all the smackheads would be asleep. It was the right plan. Simon Skipp's Backside 360 flip to bow legged run out was filmed there, too. I'll have to find the other Chesson/Skipp tricks from that session and get them up soon.
This clip has got a few Chesson treats, actually...I can't think of seeing him do many Backside Nosegrinds, and that Frontboard on the now defunct Bexley Heath rail was great. Brewster's Zoo Yorked out Frontboard near Southbank is really of its time. Black Shell pants. Yo.
Ed Harper is the guy doing the Frontside Half Cab Flip. He used to knock about Playstation Skatepark until the boss gave him a job. He's now in a pretty successful band called White Rose Movement. Matt Cotton is in there too with a Switch Heelflip Varial. I think this was the day he came out with the "If I don't get sponsored this summer, I am going to quit skating" line. Ha. I saw him a year or so ago. I think he actually did quit for some time. Clever.
Rav is in there skating my old secondary school. He once had a sequence in Sidewalk skating the middle of the A12 link to the M11 about 200 meters from where I now live. I saw him in a pub last night, too. I think thats the main reason I uploaded this clip today. Rad guy. Shame he doesn't skate anymore, but I think he fucked his knee so many times he had to stop as he was missing a lot of time off of work.
There a little Nick Jensen in there, too - both in terms of the one trick appearance and his size. He used to be part of the OG crew at Playstation. He was there every single day only disappearing off to Southbank at weekends, although he'd return for the evening session. True rat.
Simon Skipp has the one foot roll away from the Fakie Backlip on a bench which is now the local hang out in Romford for a bunch of Emo kids who carry their boards by their trucks and have yet to figure out that they could skate the benches as opposed to just sit on them smoking Marlboro Reds...
Tom Ball is in there with the Nick Jensen WFTW Double set stair ollie amongst other things. Tom was stoked Nick did that in his video part (Nick did it in a line a few years after). Chris Ault returned and killed those stairs for a HTL edit a couple of years ago. Tom also has probably the first footage of Skipps Ditch, way before we cut back the bushes, fixed the ledges and concreted it up...
Worst customer service, ever. Even though I have placed several orders previously, and for my latest rang 30 minutes after placing an order and they still wanted to charge me full cancellation fee. Totally unwilling to budge. Fair enoug, I guess - but they would not put me through to the manager who could help and then told me that it is "not their problem anyway".
I ended the call. I really don;t need someone telling me that.
About 15 minutes, the same guy rang me back to call me out on putting a negative report on their guestbook.
Nice working relationship! Surely there is some law against doing that? I mean, to have the same guy ring you back felt pretty intimidating.
This is going to be amazing. I saw a liitle sneak preview of Tanners part and it was a j-o-k-e. The premiere is tonight...and I've not booked a ticket. Looks like I'll be knocking about on my own while everyone else enjoys the DVD.
Ben Raemers came to stay last night before he went off on his mission this morning to Belgium, Rotterdam and Amsterdam. I'll meet him in Amsterdam in a couple of weeks for a weekend of riding bikes around the city.
We ended up looking at some internoodles, which led onto going through some footage of new-ish local spots (bear in mind that I've filmed about 10 things in total the past year), which then led me to rediscovering a load of footage tucked away on a drive.
There's all sorts there. Like this clip of Chris Pulman.
I think it may have been in 'Good Shit', although I'm not sure. I know I filmed Fos' wrist breaking. It was right where Chris' above trick was filmed, just before the mini ramp was built (Which I think was brand new in the Pulman clip). That slam was horrible. I'm glad I don't have the footage and that he does.
Anyway - what pushed me into putting that up was that this morning on my usual internoodles rounds, I came across this Blackbox High 5's.
This was a little ad I put together for last years UKSA National Skateboarding Championships.
I think Niall Kenny filmed the Ben Nordberg training footage. I like Nordberg. He is up for it and doesn't take himself too seriously.
Hopefully it is obvious what we were trying to do here. I mean, it's clearly goofy footage of him pissing about while bored on some tour. Kind of a shame as I wanted to do a really serious one. One where no-one would actually be sure if we were joking or not. I mean, we came out with the "National Skateboarding Championships" (A necessary evil) moniker which kind of reeks of everything I didn't want to be near when I got into skateboarding - so we could of managed to pull off the 'not getting it' angle easily, I'm sure. Anyway, if you missed it -gutted. It was a good excuse to not only get all the usual contest faces together but also knock about with those not normally prone like Snowy, Joey, Lev, Nicholson, Tom Knox, Tanner, Howsey, Sean Smith and the like. The actual skateboarding was fucking crackers, too.
I stuck this up on the Tweaker blog a few days ago. Old news, I know - but I've just found an embeddable Youtube version.
So...
Volcom just posted their United Nations up over at The Berrics a few days early. I guess that as their Game of Skate 2 is going up over the weekends, it has pushed stuff like this into a Friday slot.
This clip has a serious list of people – The finally realised best thing ever Dennis Busenitz, David Gonzalez, Aaron Suski, Caswell Berry, Louis Marnell, Little Louie Lopez, Filipe Ortiz, Colin Provost, UK-boy-done-good Ben Raemers, David Gravette, Rune Glifberg, Darrell Stanton, Cody McEntire, Luan De Oliveira, Mark Appleyard.
I've annoyed the cat too much, so figured I should leave the house to take some pictures. Cleverly, I ended up at the mini ramp. Probably the darkest spot I could have gone to.
This is my first ever photo of skateboarding. Nigel Davies. Frontside Mayday. Poor guy.
Thanks to everyone who attended. Everyone who entered and the parents and friends who came along to make some noise for those skating.
Thanks also to Jart Skateboards , Electric , Skullcandy and Vans for the prizes and Red Bull for the free drink all day and sorting out the barbeque. Also, big ups to Revolution Skatepark for the venue, Brooks for the video clip, Chris Johnson, Denise Hickey and Mark Heaton for the photos as well as Biscuits, Nick and Adam for judging and Lev for MCing!
Skater of the Day: Tom Steele
Under 15s 1. Jack Collins 2. Neil Kellas 3. Ollie Beeby
16 and Over 1. Awadh Mohammed 2. Daryll Dominguez 3. Harry Lintell
Good friend of mine, Matt Compton has given me good reason to pass on a bit of grim gold. Reason being (I need a reason?!?) is it kinda reminded me of The Orphanage. Not in some plagiarist sense; just in a very creepy "What the fuck? I want out of here" sense.
Matt Compton's most recent film, 'Bubbling Under' is one of the thirteen films involved in the Film London's Best of Boroughs awards.
Then pass it on to your friends, your family, your enemies, your lovers, your neighbours, your children, your colleagues, your employers, your employees, your hostages, your kidnappers, your milkmen, your baker your.... well you get the idea.
Go to the polls to fight BNP hate From The Guardian
We love Britain precisely because of its tolerance and diversity. The British National party and its allies are a threat to everything that makes us proud of this country we love. The BNP is working hard to conceal its extremism because it knows that people in Britain totally reject the politics of racism and hatred.
But the BNP's record is clear: its 2001 manifesto wanted mixed-race relationships to be outlawed and for any black person who commits a crime to be thrown out of the country, even those who were born here. Nick Griffin, the leader of the BNP, was found guilty of inciting racial hatred in 1998. He denied that the Holocaust ever took place and believes that Jews are conspiring to brainwash white British people. We consider Griffin's views to be not only racist but fascist: he has previously described the BNP as "a strong, disciplined organisation with the ability to back up its slogan 'defend rights for whites' with well-directed boots and fists. When the crunch comes, power is the product of force and will, not of rational debate".
A vote for the BNP is a vote against everything that makes this country great. We are determined to vote on 4 June: please join us in voting for a great Britain.
Gordon Brown, prime minister, Ben Helfgott, Holocaust survivor, Matt Lucas, comedian, Dame Kelly Holmes, athlete, Ross Kemp, actor, Gary Neville, Manchester United, Thandie Newton, actor, Eddie Izzard, comedian, Phil Neville, Everton, Jimmy Carr, comedian, Meera Syal, actor, Richard Wilson, actor, Vivian Wineman, president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Right Reverend Bill Hewitt, moderator of the Church of Scotland, Rebecca Wheatley, actor, Rhona Cameron, comedian, Professor Iain McLean, Oxford University, Robbie Coltrane, actor, Paul Skinner, business leader, Sarah Waters, novelist, Jeremy Newmark, Jewish Activities Committee, Garth Crooks, broadcaster, Tony Woodley, general secretary Unite, Tim Stone, Salvation Army, Derek Simpson, general secretary Unite, Dave Prentis, general secretary Unison, Wes Streeting, president of the National Union of Students, Alastair Campbell, novelist, Brendan Barber, general secretary TUC, Rev Jeff Gould, General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches, Jenny Seagrove, actor, Olaf Cramme, director of Policy Network, Simon Fanshawe, broadcaster, Chris Powell, Leicester City, Karren Brady, Birmingham City, Sam Duckworth. Get Cape. WearCape. Fly, Ben Sedgemore, Kings Lynn, Paul Kenny, general secretary GMB, Clarke Carlisle, Burnley, Mr Saleem Kidwai, chair, Muslim Council for Wales, Chris Hope, Rushden and Diamonds, Marcus Hahnemann, Reading, Scott McGleish, Wycombe Wandererer, John Hannett, general secretary USDAW, Dareen Moore, Barnsley, Colin Murdock, Accrington, Stanley Moritz Volz, Fulham, Steve Guinan, Hereford United, Sally Hunt, general secretary, University and College Union, Oona King, broadcaster, Sunder Katwala, gen. sec of the Fabian Society, Faisal Hanjra, president of the Federation of Islamic Student Societies, Billy Hayes, general secretary CWU, Adam Pike, chair of the Union of Jewish Students, Alan Ritchie, general secretary UCATT
For reference, the actual BNP feelings are all so beautifully summarised here:
I just put this post up on the Tweaker blog. Figured I'd double post it here as the video is so good...
"Skateboarding for the love of it is so out."
...Was this part filmed PRE-Flip?
If so, that means that Luan came up with this without Ewan and Co. breathing down his neck.
Does stuff like this video part happen anymore without management, PR and marketing (AKA the paid up pro-team/TM, the staff photographer and the employed filmer) giving the skater hell and riding them hard on deadlines, paychecks and cover shots?
You could probably count the amount of times this sort of knockback shit has happened this millenium on one hand. In fact, all I can think of is PJ Ladd.
PS. PurpleTurtleDrizzle - Extra points for filming it off the TV. Lose them all, go straight to jail and don't collect £200 for encoding your username in the top corner of the clip.
Cruising YouTube to avoid work is great. Karma rewarded me already for such a grand decision.
I'm guessing this is Reading University time for Si Skipp around 96ish.
I remember being handed tiny comressed Quicktimes of these tricks for an old video part which were never used due to the quality. Stoked to see them somewhere again.
I seem to have strayed a little from the original idea of this blog as the excuse to get all the edits and randoms off of my hard drive and into one place.
So, back on with the task.
I had the Scots (Div, Colin, Benson and Alex Irvine) stop by the house for a few days and managed to convince Raemers it'd be worth his while taking some floor space at the same time.
We rolled around a few spots - Ilford Bowl, the rail (Frontlipped at 11am after the previous days 8 hour skate marathon), Whitstable (Which has the worst BMXicans for locals), Saffron Walden, Dartford, the Finsbury Park double kink and that secret spot, too and Ben just kept upping the ante wherever we went. We seriously ended up with so much stuff. I should find the extra bits from around that time and get it up as a second clip.
Anyway, about three days later Ben, Munson, Leo Sharp and I headed to Rom where Ben went crackers again (Flip Backside Disaster in Rom Pool is not to be sniffed at). This was followed to a pre-team house trip to Bilbao for Ben to shoot his Haunts...and shoot it he did. Kris Vile was also on that trip. He didn't skate a ton, but every trick he did was the "new best trick of the trip". Most of that stuff showed up in his interview last year and a little appeared in Savoir Faire. All the Spain stuff was over a 4 day visit.
Actually, there are a couple of randoms in there. Three tricks are from Amsterdam Am, during practice or over on their amazing mini ramp. A couple more are from Wild in the Park's in Aberdeen. There's also a vert wall slam from Penzance (Where we got a little of Div's part for Savoir Faire).
About this time I gave Nick at Power a shout about their new Death DVD. Reason being that I just really didn't want Ben's stuff to end up on a web edit or worse, sit on a hard drive for 4 years only to become outdated. I'm good at letting shit go stale.
He was keen and threw Ben's part on as an extra (Although it got an airing at the premiere - Whoop!). As a side note, I also sent it up to Consolidated to see if those guys we're interested in it. I didn't get a reply at all - until I re-emailed them after I saw that they'd just thrown it on their site a few weeks later and had given it to TWS, claiming it as theirs. So stoked they're still about the little man, eh (Although to be fair, Volcom paid more than I did. Petrol receipts n' all)?
Anyway...Negativity out.
The K Grind at the end was stupid. Vile Backside Smithed it and Raemers believed he couldn't keep up with that, so he just tried to go really fast on his trick to make it worthy. Such a funny outlook. That Lipslide hop in is bullshit. So gnarly, and a fucked up but amazing Raemers roll out. In fact, the whole part is still bananas. That doorway spot is so, so hard to skate.
Enjoy.
PS. I'll try to find some obscure stuff soon. I know I have Santa Cruz UK demo tapes somewhere. Tim Brauch and Chet Childress.
I still don't get Chris Pastras which reminds me - I wish Ben Gore had never rode for World Industries as he is pretty rad. Pastras gets away with it...but Gore skated for them six months after they dropped their entire pro team (Whatever happened to Carlos De Andrade? Who else rode for them in those last shitty days?) and Forrest Kirby skates the other way around so much that his regular stuff now looks switch. Check the Backside Smith.
Oh, Nate Broussard still could be Nick Jensens older brother.
...and most importantly watch Jack Sabback and his well thought out lines. Love it.
"How to report the death of 96 people, crushed to death whilst the Police and officials looked on" by The Sun.
Have you ever logged onto Facebook, MySpace or the like only to find a Friend Request from that cunt in your class who used to bully everyone? Not that I'm waiting for an apology from anyone in particular - as from what I can remember they were all self-centred cunts anyway and by now I've accepted that after 15 years of leaving school, it's not coming.
The thing is, The Sun is that person. I had to look. I had to find out. I went and took a peek over at their website to see. They're running a remembrance article/slideshow on the 20th Anniversary.
Is there any sign of an apology? Is there fuck.
It always amazes me that this absolute waste of energy could have the highest circulation of any daily English-language newspaper in the world and the biggest circulation within the UK. Then again, it shouldn't. Look at this world. It's full of self-centred cunts.
We skated a barrier. Hans and Armando killed it. This thing was tough to skate - all vert and no room for error. Be quick or be dead.
We then headed back to the Volcom office where Jebrane was ready and waiting with concrete to be laid.
Some organisation and debating was required.
Lean the barrier back and pack it out using the leftovers of the building site next door to the office...
...or watch, beer in hand.
Employ some cheap foreign labour to mix the 'crete.
Get the first slap of muck on there.
Vorsprung Durch Teknik. Micha had it. We all stood around quietly and noddingly approved as we are men and know this anyway. Right? Right? No. It was a good lesson. I'll admit that. I now know the technique for laying decent 'crete.
Find a child to stick their handprint in there.
You know how you can tell that this isn't England? Nope - not the sun. There are girls near skateboarding. That never happens here.
Finish up...
Drink up...
..and cover up for the oncoming rain (Y'see...It IS like England!) leaving a little "Don't touch" message for the local kids.
