Stealth Games, Tile Medleys and Other Recent Achievements in Skate Video Sound Design

Still pinkish and unsteady on its paws, but already beginning to sharpen cuspids and canines on accessible trees and stumps, this yung Year of the Rabbit already has delivered in service of skate video sound design, that untelevised and yet fiercely contested also- also-ran of the fourth-quarter awards season. The early and obvious standout as springtime draws nigh is Tightbooth’s frenetic and swaggering ‘Lenz III,’ proportioning its goods out in a fairly audible drip-drop sequence over these past few weeks, several of the dudes’ clips rewindable for their eardrum-tingling properties nearly as much as the relentlessly combusting tricks — check the percussive tempo shifts as Kotora Mitani samples varying sizes and shapes of tiles, the whetstone-slick scrape of Ayahiro Uratsuka’s humpy 50-50,  the hallucinatory barrage that is Japanese Super Rat, a part that plays like a ‘Beez’ vid. Ryuhei Kitazume, the world’s favorite skater, delivers a comparatively more classically mic’ed frontside k-grind revert and elsewhere, in his accompanying ‘Meet You There’ part for Free, a stair ride-out that thrums like a drumbeat.

Are the auditory pleasures of such footages enough to render any musical soundtrack superfluous? It is a question that has been probed, poked and at times vigorously prodded over the years, with vids from World’s ‘Rubbish Heap’ to the GX1000 full-lengths going musicless for extended stretches; Tim Dowling’s late campus-period document ‘Listen’ famously made the skating sounds the sole soundtrack, a tactic variously employed by Dan Wolfe’s ‘Eastern Exposure Zero’ comp, PJ Ladd in ‘Really Sorry,’ Hockey’s 2017 promo, and various others.

The most intense use of sound in this nubbly and provocative season though may arise from the Mason-Dixon straddling Quasi camp, which over the past week uploaded two distinct video computer files related to Bobby DeKeyzer, a knowed pro and established ASMR supplier in his own right. In ‘Prototype,’ the Youtoob video file preceding the somewhat more conventional ‘Hard Dream‘ BDK vid, sounds woosh and clang and cut in and out in a cut-up manner matching the footage itself — til an extended passage toward the end in which Bobby DeKeyzer and filmer enter into a real-life ‘Metal Gear Solid’ episode with a roving security guard; they are signaled from quiet across the street to keep as the security guard looks, listens, and the tension piles up by the metric ton, building toward an optimistic but still uncertain end.

Does ‘Prototype’s silent cat-and-mouse standoff with security reveal the lasting influence of the nonstarting Numbers Edition, whose unique and unfortunately limited video output positioned the audience as voyeur to sessions spiked with a weirdly ominous vibe? Do the earmuff headphones rocked of late by pros ranging from TJ Rogers to Jahmir Brown suggest a school that instead seeks to block out all ambient noise and sound while the actual skating is being pursued, similar to those weird vids with the skating sounds totally muted? Would the correct way to honor the potential passing of DatPiff.com, for so long a matchless source of auditory motivation to generations of skaters, be to soundtrack parts or maybe an entire video solely with DatPiff.com DJ drops?

Mike Carroll Comes Out of Voiceover Retirement As Niels Bennett Puts On A Transatlantic Pants Clinic

Have all the myths been made, all the great tales handed down, chiseled into stone tablets, and pulverized into a fine powder to be taken up and lilted unto the planet’s corners, crannies and nooks? Sometimes, a bro wonders. Several eons ago, in a dinosauric age, dispatches from ‘the pro scene’ and available industry hype were parceled out in monthly-arriving periodicals and less-predictable videocassette releases, strained through the keyboards and mouse-movements of editors and film-o-graphers. The stories that were had were the ones that were determined to be told, in the decided style and length, sometimes fine-tuned for drama and legendmaking and lulz. 

Amongst the signature tools in the big box of Transworld video production values during their late ’90s/early ’00s heyday was the voiceover, a concept previously explored in such vids as Foundation’s ‘Rolling Thunder,’ and seasoned with that signature TWS Pro Spotlight sauce to deepen narratives and make parts like Henry Sanchez’s ‘Sight Unseen’ comeback or Marc Johnson’s upper-echelon arrival in ‘Modus’ land harder, linger longer. Through the voiceover, Brian Anderson taught a generation of kids the powers of visualization; the story of Cliff Coffman’s kickflip led to a reconsideration of football players everywhere, and Mark Gonzales anointed John Cardiel an ‘Original Coors.’ Around the time of the Great Recession the voiceover lost favour, occasionally resurfaced by the history- and vibe-mindeds such as Pontus Alv and Mark Suciu, but more broadly buried by the cinema verite wave of raw files, video-part commentaries and IG stories of name skaters’ meals and home improvement projects that have torn away the proverbial curtain and obviated much of the more choreographed mythmaking activities. 

Daly City backside smith angler Mike Carroll not only was a prime featuree of the Transworld video heyday, he also for years was a voiceover heavyweight, channeling a uniquely 1990s alloy of sarcasm and self-deprecation to assess his own neuroses in ‘Modus Operandi’, speak on tour life in ‘Beware O The Flare’ and lament slams in ‘Harsh Euro Barge.’ For much of the past decade Mike Carroll has shifted into behind the scenes roles as Girl has installed a new generation, while simultaneously remaining retired from voiceover work. 

Until this week, as Niels Bennett, among the more incandescent lights shining forth from the Crailtap set in recent years, brought forth via Free his spectacular ‘Heroes/Helden’ vid, replete with soulful music, popped tongues, switch bs 5-0s and tricks done the hard way across multiple time zones and tax jurisdictions. The vid makes resourceful use of Niels Bennett’s great fortune in filmers, parceling the Chris Mulhern-filmed US stuff and the Torsten Frank-filmed Euro stuff into halves, which are stitched together via a Mike Carroll voiceover, expounding upon Niels Bennett’s Crail-bestowed ‘Professor’ nickname and what’s described as a questing quality to his choices in spots and tricks. The vid is on the one hand another progression for Niels Bennett, whose tricks and ability never have been in doubt but here look stronger, perhaps elevated by a more grown visage and particularly a baggier cut of pant that seem destined for a @whatpantsarethose feature, or 10, in the days and weeks ahead. It also is a return to form for Mike Carroll’s voiceovering, the years seeming to have slightly weathered his sound but his noun and verb and adjective selection still in top form. 

Did some of Tom Snape’s pants game, long regarded among the sharpest in any hemisphere, rub off on Niels Bennett during the course of filming Adidas’ still super-good ‘Reverb’ video? Did you get the Guy vibes too on those nosegrind revert tricks on the one lil rail? With Mike Carroll having ceded the spotlight to successive generations of Crailtap pros and yungstars, is it nice just to hear his voice? 

Trendwatch 2K23: Destroying The Entire Planet

Young Joc would weep to see it: this week’s Thrashermagazine.com highlight ‘Shopaholics,’ an apocalypse-flavoured dispatch from inside a dilapidated Milwaukee-area shopping mall compiled by N95-packing Wiskate affiliates. Conjuring the spirit of 1978 fantasy epic ‘Dawn of tha Dead,’ which portrayed an idyllic life of ‘chilling’ 24-7 in an abandoned mall with your closest pals, Josh Ellis and Eric Risser follow Strangelove fuzzbuster Max Murphy and certain other urban spelunkers through skylit and mold-encrusted ledge plazas, darkened corridors and occasionally through holes in the walls, whilst surveying a menagerie of adolescent graffiti (including obligatory Slayer tag) and the worldly mysteries of Mr. Bulky. There’s a lovely bluntslide across a tipped-over desk, a gruff wallie off a grate to long backside 5-0, and a backside noseblunt to fakie on a bump to block that seems fit to rev the Muni crowd. 

‘Shopaholics’ is the latest in a line of ruin-repurposings and blight tourism that have enabled fleeting if often unsanitary glimpses at a world in which ‘turn off pedestrians’ and ‘turn off cars’ can be clicked in some grand options menu. The excellent ‘Grains’ series probed the loading docks and weathered brick of the emptying-out rural Midwest; ‘Rust Belt Trap’ and any number of Jersey and upstate NY vids have plumbed that region’s industrial swamps, while the reconstituted Alien team roamed the seemingly empty Detroit; the Girl team a few years went into pre-demolition mode at Mike Carroll’s house and also Rick McCrank for a time hosted a TV show called ‘Abandoned.’ 

While HBO’s ‘Last of Us’ has suburban Californiano moms reconsidering their mushroom microdosing regiments, it is worth pondering skating’s fixation on the barren and derelict, and whether this may suggest an embrace, or even cheering on, of the planet’s demise. As always, subconscious signals can be vaguely gleaned from the annals of skate graphics and logos, a CCS-flavoured Ouija board that has mutated and evolved alongside skating’s swerving and occasionally flatspotted path from spat-upon misfit to bankable Olympic partner. In the early 1990s, regarded by some as a ‘simpler time’ when the trick frontier still was being mapped and nobody had any money, World Industries conveyed a gigglesome and mischeivous worldview in the form of grinning, carefree and childlike globes:

Seasons changed, summer gave way to fall, television ratings expanded and a bunch of stuff got more serious. A shift in vibe was detectable by the time Habitat brought ‘Inhabitants’ in 2007, hopscotching between deciduous leafage and Fred Gall blowing up a spraypainted TV on some train tracks, tagged with the slogan ‘A World In Decline.’ A global Great Recession set venerable hard- and soft-good suppliers on their heels, clipped pro paychecks and set in motion a steadily fragmenting galaxy of smaller companies exhibiting a darker and more nihilistic worldview that presented itself in the form of graphics with the earth looking sad, ill, and suicidal:

As another crisis gripped the globe at the turn of a new and pricklesome decade, the lockdowns that accompanied the Covid-19 pandemic gave rise to theories and fantasies that the planet, for a time bereft of human industry and machinations, may begin to ‘heal itself’. Amid this tumultuous and nervy period, the more ominous globe graphics of late came to be reconsidered:

However, science soon debunked such future-bucolic notions, and the planet’s residents resumed jamming the surface with cars and warring. Skating’s planetary portrayals reverted as well, offering visions of the earth in a zombie-like grip, or sporting a firing squad-ready cigarillo-and-blindfold combo:

Do the darker and more malevolent depictions of the Planet Earth in graphical t-shirt and board designs over the past decade reflect a latent desire for a post-apocalyptic future, featuring abandoned and readily skatable malls around every corner and accessible debris free for line-friendly configuring? Even if the all ledges were nice and squared off, would the loss of billions of lives really be worth it? Between their various Hollywood outings, is Jason Lee or Mike Vallely skating’s true lord of the mall, or is this a title that rightfully must be ascribed to Mac Mall?

Chopper City In Sponsorship No-Man’s Land

The life of the free agent can be fast-moving and merciless, where emotions must be shedded and checked at the door, skin lathered with moisturizing thickening agents, and at least one eye trained upon the proverbial ‘prize.’ It is an eat-what-you-kill enterprise, where a bro may at the end of the day find his own self upon the proverbial ‘menu.’ For the end of these rainbows could hold a decade long, one-third-of-a-billion payday; or it could be only series of highly tax-bracketed mirages, where one can be briefly romanced by a giant or a metropolitan or both before being tossed aside like so many mouldering tangerines, cast back into one of 10,000 boreal lakes for a paltry $200M.

Within the skate industry’s comparatively blue-collar dimension, where tee shirt-protected pros must be able to balance on the toes of their weaker foot whilst going backward down a handrail for pennies on the dollar of a major-league contract agreement, patience sometime rewards the field-player. Witness yung Dylan Jaeb, that ‘Forecast’-era Mike Mo doppelgänger who appeared born incarnate of the Poods park and sublimely switch 360 flipped in Thrasher’s recent ‘Am Scramble,’ play the field for around 18 months before placing his footage with Primitive in time for its ‘DEFINE’ production and moving various Dragonball and Megadeth merchandise. Downtown Chicago pop monster Nick Matthews bounced between flow arrangements for years until in recent months bashing through to the cover of Thrasher and the new Anti-Hero vid.

In years past, barrel-chested surf dad Lucas Puig kept message boarders guessing for nearly a year after Dwindle tugged loose Cliche’s plug, before jilting the short-lived Numbers imprint and other unfortunates and linking with the stripes-allied Palace group. Sometimes it’s millennium ducats and other times, the dividends are paid in career longevity and general goodwill drizzled generously over personal brands, with thumb-up, plumped bicep and flamey emojis flowing liberally when Chris Cole returned to Zero, Austyn Gillette to Habitat, Arto Saari to Flip.

The patience required to play ‘tha long game’ can be learned elbow-to-elbow with cardsharps in a seaside high-rollers’ den; it can be driven into the bone with the sub-zero intensity of a lifetime spent in Siberian gulag. It also can be acquired marching step by step up the side of a mountain-installed MegaRampTM, battling for building-sized tricks at 45 miles per hour. As of this writing, it has been a decade since Bob Burnquist twisted no-grab flip tricks the length of an Olympic swimmin’ hole and switch backside 360ed UP onto the MegaQP deck in his ‘Dreamland’ magnum opus vid, and during this time the vertical switchstance pioneer and MegaRampTM chancer has enjoyed a stable arrangement with international hardgoods provider Flip, while endorsing a steady diet of beverage products, apparel designs and footwear options. And yet Bob Burnquist’s helicopter, lowkey MVP on the enders and doer of several heli NBDs in a whirlsome cameo, has hovered in sponsorship no-man’s land.

Until now? The boldfaced collab factory Supreme this week on IG revealed that it apparently has put the helicopter on its team, generating hundreds of thousands of likes and comments including ‘wut.’ Aviation Youtubers who had days earlier spotted and filmed the vehicle’s takeoff tagged it as an AS350 / H125 model on an LA session with a homie from DHL in yellow and white livery. With the basic version retailing for around $2.9 million, a brand-appropriate markup to Bob Burnquist helicopter’s pro models issued by Supreme must be assumed to eventually command $48 billion on Grailed.

Is Bob Burnquist, still technically governed by the forces of gravity so far as we all know, in danger of being shown up by his helicopter appearing to land an exclusive aerospace endorsement deal with Supreme? Will the helicopter jump on the next filming trip, helping teamriders reach higher-altitude, unskated grass- and dirt-ride spots, while Bill Strobeck zooms out from the cockpit and into the ski landers? Now that winterized extremophile Shaun White is retired from Olympic competing, must the ‘Flying Tomato’ title shift to this becrimsoned ‘copter? Does Palace, which recently branded some cars, need to come with a plane or blimp next? With Nick Matthews hopefully now fully aboard with Anti-Hero, does Walker Ryan become the most criminal case of being overlooked by the industry, following his dumbfounding, self-released ‘Textures’ video?

Girl Joins The Hardware Wars, And So Potential Planetary Destructions Must Be Contemplated

Beneath a grimly monolithic sky, ‘Punxsutawney Phil’ waits dreaming — until hoisted by the scruff and slung aloft for the mirth of the masses, and to pad the pockets of his masters. On this day, in the spatial and rugged year of 2023, the befurred savant speaks blind his truth — no easy escape from winter’s brittle grasp — and summarily is returned to gaol, industrial animal pellets a paltry but scrumptious reward. And then it is done.

Over in the hardware game though, hope springs eternal. Girl Skateboards, the southern California hard-good concern that has also previously employed a rodent mascot, of late is promoting to potential buyers a newly innovative bolt design under the banner of ‘Longneck Hardware.’ Presumably modeled upon bottled beers, the bolts feature a mostly smooth length, topped with threads only where the tip protrudes beyond a truck’s baseplate. The concept is geared toward battling a scourge that the Girl IG has named ‘baseplate blowout.’

Is your board rattling or making an undesired turn? Over time, the friction of your hardware threads rubbing against your truck holes can make them oval out, causing truck wobble. Our Longneck™ Hardware has reduced threading, to minimize that wear.

Purse your lips and whistle, for a moment if you can, past the graveyard’s worth of coffins rattling with attempted mounting hardware innovations from the last several decades — BridgeBolts, Diamond’s reverse-threading of the nuts into the bolts, and the mighty Thunderbolt ones that you pounded in with a hammer. More fearsome still is the current bolt-market, saturated as it is with colorful combos and projects that exist partly to fund trips for teams of multi-shoed/boarded bros, and as vehicles for premiumly priced soft-goods with unique designs. In this realm, titans such as Diamond Supply Co., Shake Junt and Bronze 56K jockey for position, and woe to the interloper who finds themselfs underfoot.

In this sense, Girl’s arrival is auspicious — and potentially courts global disaster. During what likely was several years of R&D devoted to the Longneck hardware’s innovative design, there have been signs and siguls of an ancient power, moving here and there. In various vids, long-forgotten t-shirts and hoodies have been sported anew by the likes of Jordan Taylor, Kevin Tshala, Nico Marti’s one homie at the end of ‘STILL’, and even Chocolate’s own Erik Herrera, carrying the name of onetime hardware deity Shorty’s.

To HeckRide, Erik Herrera related the mysterious circumstances by which the HORTY sweater came to his possession:

How long were you working at Goodwill? And is that where you found that Shorty’s hoodie that was in your Welcome to Chocolate part?
I worked there for about three years and yeah, that’s where I got the hoodie (laughs). I just remember some guy dropped off a box of a bunch of skate stuff and just took it.

Similar to how drilling humans’ erroneous awakening of the so-called MUTOs in the 2014 biopic ‘Godzilla’ aroused the blue fire-heaving avenger from his own centuries-long slumber, resulting in several instances of property damage, has the increasingly active hard-ware space set in motion a revival for the long-dormant spirit of Shorty’s? Can the Muska be assume to be involved in such efforts, given his recent e-vending of classic Shorty’s decks? After all these years, does the Silverado remain the longest-lived and most-influential mounting hardware innovation? At this point, has ‘Solo Jazz’ come to rival ‘Fulfill the Dream’ for classic status, and does ‘Shrimp Blunt’ best them both in terms of music supervisions?

The Bigspin Sleep

Scene opens in a musty office; it’s dimly lit, the only light streaming in from the frosted windowpanes, and now the door, which creaks open to admit DAVE. Across the office sits BOB, behind his desk in the shadows, smoking a cigar. BOB motions for DAVE to take a seat, and he does. There is a pause as BOB sucks on his cigar.

BOB: ‘She’s Cheating.’

BOB spreads a handful of polaroids across the desk and gestures to DAVE to examine them. DAVE does, and begins shaking his head, clearly agitated. His face, when he looks up again at BOB, is a mixture of shock and anger. Briefly we can see ETHYL in a photo, with another man, his face obscured by a hat. BOB, calm, puffs again on his cigar.

BOB: ‘You Deserve It.’ (He fixes DAVE with a cold glare.) ‘You Changed. Don’t Ask Me When.‘

BOB slides another set of Polaroids across the desk; briefly, DAVE is seen with several different women. These further agitate DAVE; BOB next passes a set of papers, which look like bank statements and receipts. DAVE begins to leaf through them, then looks up.

DAVE: ‘OK Then.’

DAVE stands and, returning BOB’s icy stare, reaches into his jacket pocket; it’s implied he is going for a weapon. BOB pushes back his chair, revealing that he already has a pistol drawn — and it’s pointed at DAVE. 

BOB: ‘Play Dead.’

DAVE looks at BOB, looks at the pistol. BOB cocks it, and DAVE hurriedly drops to the floor.

DAVE: (muffled, his face to the floor) ‘I Just Took A Bite Of Dirt.’

BOB: (gesturing with the pistol toward the door) ‘Mind How You Go.’

DAVE: (still on the floor, cowering, eyes fixed on the pistol in BOB’s hand) ‘Easier Said Than Done.’

BOB, in one motion, holsters the pistol, steps around the desk, and reaches down to grab DAVE by the collar, then hoists him up and shoves him toward the door.

DAVE: ‘OK, We’re Leaving.’ (He stumbles, steadies himself on the doorjamb, and sneers at BOB) ‘Thank You For Your Patience.’

We see BOB now has the pistol in his hand again. He half-raises it in DAVE’s direction.

BOB: ‘Then Again…’

DAVE: (Seething) ‘See You Later.’ 

DAVE half-slams the door; we can hear his footsteps trailing away down the hall. BOB replaces the pistol in his shoulder holster and, eyes still on the door, puffs his cigar. Behind him, the closet door slowly opens, and ETHYL steps out — confidently. She strides to BOB’s side, slides an arm around his waist, kisses him on the cheek, plucks the cigar from his fingers and takes a puff.

ETHYL: ‘Good Riddance.’

The office lights go out. A moment later, the office is empty, and we see HORACE, the custodian, emptying the trash can beside BOB’s desk. Pouring its contents into the bin on his cart, we can see HORACE glancing at hotel receipts, airline tickets, and finally, a half-crumpled photo of BOB and ETHYL, embracing on a beach. HORACE shakes his head and tosses it with the rest of the garbage.

HORACE: ‘Sounds Like You Guys Are Crushing It.’

We watch HORACE push his cart out of the office and close the door; the last thing the audience sees as the lights go out are the words printed across the glass: “Bob’s Detective Agency.”

Screenplay by Harry Bergenfield, Pontus Alv, Federico Hazama, Tactics, Bill Strobeck, Drake Johnson, Joshua Simpson, Harald Reynolds, Jeff Cecere, Bye Jeremy, Logan Lara, Neema Joorabchi, Steve Mastorelli, Vincent Milou, Alltimers. NOTE: All proceeds from this production will go toward replenishing the reservoir of one-word skate video titles.

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10 more

-Shintaro and Masaki Hongo, DC part – potent package deal via Japan
-Remy Taveira, ‘MÖNITOR’ – surveillance state noseblunt slides
-Dick Rizzo, Vans Green Half Cab – sometimes formulas work
-Shawn Powers, ’SP Underground’ – cruisy part from SP that could slot into ‘Peep This’
-Tom Snape, ‘Sour Solution 3’ – making the Universitat grate into a measuring-stick spot
-Jake Johnson, ’Right Here For Pablo’ – duh
-Kevin ‘Spanky’ Long, ‘Horses’ – deep into his second act, heavily contending for back-to-back slappies of the year
-Jamal Smith, ‘Adimatic’ – quick check-in with the reigning heavyweight champion of the universe, also featuring a frontside bigspin pivot to fakie
-Chris Milic, ‘Alv’s Angels’ – Hjalte Halberg: “Pontus loves Frog”
-Tristan Funkhouser, ’Baker Video with Tyson and T Funk’ – buy the ticket, take the ride

1. Vince Guzaldo – ‘Immortality Research’

In this glad and girthy time of dad tricks, judging any potential infractions, parsing which rules that still remain and tallying the expanding exceptions, there is a measure of comfort to be found with Vince Guzaldo, among the vanguard bearers of the current Chicago renaissance, who this year brought forth multiple video parts’ worth of impeccable trick and spot choices. In Tommy O’Mara’s ’Immortality Research’ he applies knife’s edge tech to downtown Chicago spots with aesthetics on par with your favorite Philly or New York inner-cityscapes, and roves more broadly across the greater ‘Grains’ and ‘Grand Prairie’ regions. He really works the frontside noseslide, going way deeper than the nollie heelflip out varietal that’s become commonplace in the last few years, and seems to have unlocked the pop shove-it to backside ledge trick, like on the AZ hubba and after dark, a pop shove-it backside 5-0 frontside 180 out, categorizable within the Tim O’Connor school of lesser-seen ledge configurations. His previous section in Bleach USA’s ‘Spike’ vid was just as gnarly, with a very nice switch Suski grind 180 out and one of this nearly dead year’s most picturesque switch 360 flips, flicked across an alleyway gap and backed by a freewheeling saxophone solo.

2. Jeff Carlyle – ‘Right Here for Pablo’

Debates raged across skate shop counters in the early days of the big gap era over how the precision and finesse required for tech tricks compared to those needed to get the right pop/flick/spin off the top of a big drop, and the confidence to hang on til impact. The GX1000 dudes have added a new and white-knuckled dimension over the past decade, mainly in the sense that past a certain point on some of their hills, there’s no kicking out or bailing. “Fuck that shit, it’s all mental,” Jeff Carlyle states, maybe to himself, nursing a charlie horse and a beat-to-shit board before nosegrinding a bump to bar towards the end of ‘Right Here for Pablo.’ He expresses the sweary comment after already having featured in some of the more intense and pressurized clips in the video, boardsliding a kinked handrail mid-kick out, jumping fakie down the China Banks tiles and riding all the way down after the fence backside smith grind. Jeff Carlyle’s backside lipslide on the rail at the top of Mason Street and the bomb down is the craziest trick in a heavy video, and he ripped all over town, from the wallride 180 50-50 180 out and the nosegrind grab over the bench, plus he got to back up Jake Johnson.

3. Bobby De Keyzer – ‘Bobby’

How many years are we away from Socrates Leal or Tim Dowling launching ASMR YouTube channels dedicated to VX-mic’ed crooked grinds and Hi-8 flatground soundscapes? Until such a point in time people may have to settle for Dude style head-to-rug headphones sessions, double-tapping left to replay again and again Bobby De Keyzer’s kickflip backside nosegrind in his symphonic project last fall with Ben Chadbourne. The different mood flashes give this vid some depth, from the straight obnoxious kickflip that starts it out to the sighing strings when he gets into the backside tailslide, and the late-night comedown after the manual to perfectly caught backside flip over the gap, a potent artist-producer combo from two of the modern masters.