Taking another run at this as the prior attempt to lay out this idea didn’t get all the way there and, lord knows Maybach Music Group isn’t afraid to go back to the well.
The thinking was, has somebody done a wallride (90-degree wall, off a flat surface/sidewalk/etc) and then grinded (say a 50-50 or 5-0) the top of the wall, with wheels remaining generally in the wallride position? The Jordan Sanchez, Stefan Janoski and Silas ones referenced in the previous episode of ‘Diced Pineapples’ all involve a bank up to the wall, gnarly though they all be. The Forest Kirby one is pretty close, and very gnarly indeed, but had been visualizing more like a grind that locks in briefly on a square ledge. Danny Sargent’s in 1281 and the bro in the ‘Welcome to Hell’ friends section both kind of end up transitioning to the top of the ledge, I’m thinking more sitting sideways.
This dude is on my wavelength: “… a normal bs crooked grind could be an unnormal fs nosegrind. daewon could probably do it …”
Thinking like the Jake Johnson pic above, except if his trucks were about eight inches higher, scratching at the top of the wall. Thanks for bearing with me yall
Quartersnacks the other day posted up this deep dive into Sect adherent Jake Johnson who sounds like he’s spent the better part of the last year pondering ponderous thoughts on a skate-oriented pilgrimage to Pittsburgh as part of a broader effort to reconnect with his inner dirtball. The idea wins kudos at this blog webpage, where such concepts are prized above sponsorship by big-box retail chains. One of Jake Johnson’s ponders involves the “message” that underlies skateboarding, a potent smoothie of rebellion, aggression, creativity, pain and escapism, some of which might be lost on a generation coming up with parks aplenty and tweet-ready reality idols straddling the primetime viewing hour. There’s a separate message though for which Jake Johnson feels more personal responsibility, transmogrifying his board into a ball-point pen and the streets to an 8.5×11″ piece of white printer paper:
“My sponsors give me a lot of freedom. For the most part, they understand that me developing a concept, message, and my style of skating is the most important thing for their company. They’re willing to do whatever it takes for me to skate my best, and they trust me that I know how to do that. A lot of companies don’t.”
Thinking back on “Mind Field” Jake Johnson from what I recall worked hard to root the footage in his working frame of reference which was mostly New York at the time, setting up kind of a contrast to Josh Kalis’ various beefs about Greg Hunt not incorporating enough of his Barcelona tricks, but whatever. The comment (and whole interview really) signal that Jake Johnson found an early grasp on what somebody can do with the career opportunity he was handed and seems to be thinking hard about what he wants to do with it.
Who else thinks in terms of this “message” thing? I think Leo Valls and the “Night Prowler” guys definitely have an aesthetic that they’re looking to promote with their skating, built on what Ricky Oyola and Bob Puleo developed, a sorta homesteading purity for the streets. When Jamie Thomas cued up that clip of himself skating over that bridge in Chicago at the beginning of his “Welcome To Hell” section I think he had an idea he wanted to get across, same with Jim Greco and Stevie Williams a couple years later. Jason Dill is a dude who you can imagine looks at his message as a malleable and mutating thing. Mike Vallely’s career arc cast him into a spot now where you could say that “message” is nearly all he puts out, versus skate tricks.
There’s some comments made in the (too) long-gestating “Epicly Later’d” on Menace along the lines that Pupecki, Valdes, Suriel et al were at the time some assortment of castoffs and misfits corralled by Kareem Campbell to fill out his allotted corner of the Rocco empire. Maybe that’s partly true, but you gotta think that the mastermind behind our still-beloved “mNc” star logo had his own type of message in mind, having to do with communicating through vaguely scary hand-signals and 360 flipping through sidewalk cafes. If all he wanted was some square pegs he could’ve got Adam McNatt and Ryan Fabry.
There’s any number of things that pretty much guarantee (eventually) a blog posting in this blog space, including but not limited to skateboarders throwing away lucrative sponsorship deals in favor of paying Don Cannon American dollars to shout slogans on a 75-minute mixtape, switch backside noseblunt slides, and various situations involving Fred Gall, moving vehicles and open containers. Another has been Jake Johnson skate footage, even recycled, it shines like a diamond-studded DVS logo pendant: the imitable Quartersnacks has fused a couple youtube clips’ worth of 3-4 year old video, some of which I’d seen, some not — like the couple runs near the end of the second clip incorporating some 180s up and down a median curb that zoomed me back to the one all those Zoo York/World guys used to skate with the turned-over trash can (or not, as the case may have been). That and the kickflip f/s tailslide in the first clip. Quartersnacks claims to be sitting on a long-form interview with Jake Johnson which will probably be worth reading. He seems to have come up with a healthy baked-in sense of disillusionment which tends to complement East Coast skating and his off-the-grid movements are refreshing paired up against Twitter shouting matches between kids and pros closing in on 40. Pulling for the rumored Alien promo with Gilbert Crockett or at least some Gravis one-off to come next year, which will go some way towards offsetting the European sovereign debt crisis and the bad feelings that will come when AT&T Mobility steals all of Boost Mobile’s best riders.
The discerning observer will realize that it’s hard to come up with many knocks against Jake Johnson’s Alien debut in “Mind Field,” what with the strange and free-flowing arm motions, eye-pleasing urban environments and magic carpet wallrides that are sometimes of the switch variety. Beyond the absence of any rumored handrail switch b/s noseblunt, only two possible complaints are even to be comprehended, one being that more clips would be nice and the other that the original section lacked the hollow rasp of one Young Jeezy to really capture the bleak glory and cash profits to be found in ruling over an empire of crack cocaine consumers.
Helpfully the computer scientists employed by Quartersnacks.com dug into the b-roll footage and Jeezy’s triumphant 2008 song about “putting on” to peanut butter up the chocolate that was already among the awesomest video parts of the year. Due to my hapless internet coding capabilities I have failed in posting the actual video above succeeded in convincing the Quartersnacks bros to upload it to Vimeo. The full AWMF Re-edit can be viewed here, where the part in question starts around 3:00, or you can download it in superior quality off the QS site here. Watch it again for the first time, marvel at the majesty of the switch 50-50 on the bench-back and the b/s noseblunt shove it, and ponder whether Young Jay Jenkins maybe has the game locked by default in 2010 with nearly every other worthwhile competitor jailed.
Update: Original edit here, with the AC music that honestly I don’t hate at all and cameos from that springy bug thing.
Downtown New York artistic circles today mourn the death of Dash Snow, the former IRAK graffiti artist, sometime nudist, and all-around hipster deity who was also heir to an art-collecting dynasty. His work in the medium of Polaroids, collage and, err, his own semen has been alternately praised and derided, but what’s generally overlooked is the instrumental role his work played in Jake Johnson’s addition to the Sovereign Sect.
But first a word on the “hamster nest,” among Snow’s innovations that did not include bodily fluids:
Saatchi got them a fancy hotel room on Piccadilly. They had to flee it in the middle of the night with their suitcases before it was discovered that they’d created one of their Hamster’s Nests, which they’ve done quite a few times before. To make a Hamster’s Nest, Snow and Colen shred up 30 to 50 phone books, yank around all the blankets and drapes, turn on the taps, take off their clothes, and do drugs—mushrooms, coke, ecstasy—until they feel like hamsters.
Flash forward to the summer of 2007, when Snow and affiliates expanded on the idea for a gallery show; while the skateboard world was transfixed by the resurgent career of Peter Smolik, a young Jake Johnson endured a literal trial-by-fire intro to Jason Dill’s brand of artsy weirdness, as related in the most recent Thrasher interview issue:
Any good Dill stories?
One of the first times I went to skate with Jason, Brengar and I met him at 2 am at this art gallery downtown. It was this 10- by 10-foot cubicle room filled with newspaper shavings. It looked like this giant human hamster cage with little pieces of paper fluff everywhere and weird music playing. Jason was there and he got Brengar to film his buddy lighting an aerosol can on fire while Jason skated as fast as he could and ollied into this big hamster cage.
I was going to do one of these video-focused postings about the Untitled video where I gave all the skaters names of characters in the midcentury Bible story epic “Ben Hur,” except it started to seem like a lot of work real quick because I haven’t seen “Ben Hur” (not sober anyhow) in a good long while. So whatever. Then I thought about how I should have done one on the Lakai “Final Flare” box set, but it’s been like three months since the goddamn thing came out and you can probably imagine where I’d go with it anyway: the no-sound-all-slow HD feature is basically 20 minutes of footage stretched over a 45-minute snowboard video canvas, the unused footage is bonkers, a bunch of Alex Olson’s best tricks somehow weren’t used (barrier tailslide, nollie b/s 180 over the bar), that fantastic Australia/B.O.B. tour clip is in there, the documentary veers a bit too far into the “Hot Chocolate” lane for comfort and leaves you wondering whether Carroll considered handing Ty Evans his walking papers once the whole thing was over with. One of the issues I have with his approach to making skate videos is the way the drama/emotion often gets turned up to 11… his sensibilities still seem like a weird match for the minds behind the goldfish chase and “Paco,” even all these years since “Beware of the Flare.”
You get the feeling that the Quartersnacks dudes maybe had a similar reaction to “Mind Field,” but instead of snarking around about it on the internet (or in addition to) they took it upon themselves to tear the original to pieces and put it back together in new shapes of their own choosing – a Google image search-inflected reframing of the Greg Hunt masterpiece, compressed to under 30 minutes and strained through a filter of Drumma Boy and “Fresh Prince” that sifts out all the Dinosaur Jr, most of the artsiness and half the dudes’ parts (they kept Arto?). Favored sections are expanded by way of b-roll footage and, as the situation warrants, QS seagull/cigarette equivalents in the form of ’80s tap-dance routines, cameos from the likes of Tom Jones and Lennie Kirk, and an update to the Carter-Dill tapes. Obvious highlights are Jeezy/Johnson and Kalis’s Trick Daddy epic, along with the musical tributes to Dylan Rieder’s fair features. This AVE part is perhaps better than the original and the shocking return of a dearly departed Workshopper at the very end throws everything about the original video (if not the entire universe) into question.
Anyway, a total tour de force, I think they still have it up for download here. Nobody go suing anybody now…
“Mind Field” is a big meal. Beginning with the ams…
Grant Taylor is a hard one to pin down: all-terrainer of the new school, fresh-faced fifth-grader features with an affinity for graffiti(?), ramps and fits of grouchiness that could coax a cracked-tooth smile upon the craggiest faces of slash dogs. He lives in a bowl and reportedly spearheaded the construction of his own foundation spot, at the ripe age of however old he is (my guess, not very). Following the brief trick-list rundown in the Nike video and assorted cement park schralpage sprinkled throughout the Indy 30-year tour thing, “Mind Field” finds Grant Taylor sharpening his street teeth on some standard little-kid thrill chasing (big rails, big jumps) and other shit of a way different order: the half-cab backside smith*, the door bash and so on. Personally I would’ve liked to see more transition out of the kid, because I like that one thing he does with his arm when he lands, but it’s going to be interesting to watch where he takes things from here – I get the feeling he’s already foregone a probably assured career milking his ingrained Penny style on easy ledge/natural transition stuff. More to come, I guess.
Tyler Bledsoe I knew first as a midget in baggy pants who wore glasses and made periodic appearances in complimentary DNA calendars; we now know him as an upstart Oregonian with an affinity for headgear of multiple types, still-loose clothing and the ability to impress Rick Howard with frontside bluntslide variations across the USA. Hat wearin’ Tyler, as he is known to some**, practices soft-focus landings and Sean Malto dismounts and brings probably the greatest level of Lakai ledge flare to the Alien production; at times it’s like the honchos in Ohio opted to trade in their option on Torey Pudwill in favor of the next-gen edition with the kinks worked out. Bledsoe doesn’t have the off-kilter tech mindbender nature that Pudwill employs, but you’re less likely to fear for his pelvis when he’s bigspinning out of some tailslide six or seven feet off the ground. So maybe it was an insurance liability issue. Which would explain all the hats, to cover the glasses strap.
Jake Johnson we have waxed on, and waxed off, in this space previously… I’ll keep this brief: several viewings in, his section remains my favorite in “Mind Field” and I regularly sit up straighter on the couch when those kaleidoscopic twinkles fade in after Omar’s ovation. Johnson builds on the ambidextrous/low-tech approach taken in the Chapman video a year ago, with the limber flips and skyscraper rails, but he looks a lot more fluid now – on some kind of Nate Broussard puffy cloud even when he’s riding away from those colossal wallrides, or that hairball of a fakie heelflip.
*Also performed about eight or nine years ago by your boy, Bobby D
**some who read this blog post, anyway
This part from the lanky, fringe-haired toast of New York came out late last year but the powers that be at Chapman boards only got around to putting it out on DVD about halfway through this year, so I’m gonna go ahead and count it for this little list. I’ve nattered on about Jake Johnson’s East Coast superhero potential ad nauseum already, so I’ll spare you, except to say that lately what’s got me psyched on this part is the way he flips the skateboard – crisp and solid, not all ginger-footed like some of these kids out there today. You know what I’m talking about, right. In a PJ Ladd sort of move Jake Johnson logged nearly another part’s worth of footage in the post-credits, which Slap board maven “Gest” has uploaded for your perusal here. And, Quartersnacks still has copies of the actual DVD for those of you with six dollars to your name, as well as the “New Thirsty” video which you really should be watching in this holiday season.
With dark, earnest features reminiscent of a young John Cusack and a fringe the size of the Oahu pipeline, AWS wonder-kid Jake Johnson puts his limitations as a skateboarder right up front in the newish Chapman promo “Short Ends,” starting off his part by bumbling the landing on a nollie 360 flip backside 5-0 grind. I know, I know… no pole jam involved anywhere? I was thinking the same exact thing. But, he’s still new so maybe we’ll cut him a break.
This is Jake Johnson’s big debut part, sort of, in that he is now a somebody in this wild and woolly skateboard industry. And though he never gets around to landing the… ah… n/360f/bs/5-0, he brings the bazooka for several minutes of pure, uncut Colombian destruction at notable New York skate spots. Such as, that one ledge by the water. Or that yellow bar over the driveway bump. Or that one other ledge by all the buildings.
It’s an amazing part, not just because it’s one insane feat after another (fire hydrant varial heelflip, thread-the-needle k-grind transfer, the frontside flip into the hubba, etc etc) but because he’s one of those preternaturally gifted kids with supreme confidence as far as timing and putting down tricks, the kind of kid you have to assume will be reincarnated as a legless lizard or a disabled wombat in the next life since he’s obviously cashed in all his good karma for his current life. He skates sort of like Janoski but without the soft-shoe landings and a different menu of maneuvers. The switch flip backside tailslide on the Philly rail is in there.
The rest of the video’s pretty good too, like the Traffic promo it’s nice and short. Three parts and a montage. Brendan Leddy, who you may remember as Sam Weir in “Freaks and Geeks,” bags a beaut of a backside smith grind across a long ledge, and notables such has Luis Tolentino, Billy Rohan and a backside grabbin’ Vinny Ponte appear in the montage, ahead of some really sick shit from some little shit by the name of Mike Marks. Luke Malaney, who has the other part, bangs a big switch pop shove-it over a block and into a bank, along with a pop shove-it nosegrind down a handrail which was particularly awesome.
What’s the deal with Chapman though? Their website has transformed into an ad for the new video but it used to detail their woodshop operation, supplying decks to Zoo and so on. Now, anyone who remembers the heyday of Xenu-fearing circus trick ringmaster Danny Gonzales remembers that Chapman once was a branded hardgoods outfit with its own team, graphics, etc–check TWS if you don’t believe me. (Up-and-coming ams like Scott Pazelt and Anthony Furlong!) So what’s the deal with these guys now–is this an all-woodshop team? Does Chapman also make blanks? And if they do… are they driving themselves out of business by doing so?!
If only I had the answers. This video is really good though, and I’m not just saying that out of my slavish devotion to Jake Johnson. Order it from Quartersnacks along with their new video, which is probably way better than that gimmicky Nas album that came out last month.
What was the last band that got real big off Myspace, with only a few songs? Was it The Black Kids? Jake Johnson is like the current Black Kids of skateboarding. With (as far as I know) only a handful of photos, some clips on Quartersnacks and a video part in a video that barely anybody has seen, he landed himself on the Alien am squad while being annointed the current skate wunderkind and Next Big Thing etc.
And who’s to say he’s not, really. He’s got control out the wazoo and has mastered various methods of flippery, he’s got a good long-legged lanky style on the board, skates for legit companies and is out of New York (originally by way of State College PA). There’s rumors floating around about tricks he supposedly tried (switch b/s noseblunt that round silver rail in Texas, where Mariano did the noseslide/crooked grind) and then there’s the shit he’s actually done, like the switch kickflip b/s tail on that little 5-stair rail in Philly. And, he didn’t look like a fool doing it, compared with whatever hometown hero dork probably pulled it on a similar-looking park rail or something.
Jake Johnson’s supposedly got a part in this new Chapman video (as in the board company that used to sponsor Billy Rohan and Danny Gonzales, now apparently just a woodshop), but it’s not out yet, despite premiering alongside Static 3 a few months ago. Way to keep it skate, Chapman. So while we wait for that one, here’s some Quartersnacks clips where he’s featured. Long download times but worth it.
