Arriving shortly after Rick Howard and Mike Carroll joined forces with Ty Evans, this entry closed out 411VM’s midperiod and set the stage for the bloated, high-concept video escapades of the 2000s that would help sink 411 itself and eventually become an albatross for nearly all companies possessing the dollars to still attempt them. This clip also marked a historical juncture for Girl itself, featuring the handrail-heavy pickup Rick McCrank in his absolute prime and Eric Koston still ascending toward the height of his Sparkles-era powers. All the Ty-isms are there too: an intro that spans a third of the clip, stridently emotive techno-pop, high-fives and camera mugs, slow-mo. Rick McCrank whipping a switch ghetto bird on a battered QP, Mike Carroll refurbishing some of his ‘Modus’ moves like the nollie flip to backside 5-0, Rick Howard shove-iting into and out of a backside nosegrind, Eric Koston going the distance on a wiggly bar, everybody in Es shoes, launch ramps and an ostrich — nobody in 2O00 could touch it.
Posts Tagged ‘411VM’
Summertime Mixtape Vol. 5 – Alex ‘Trainwreck’ Gall 411VM Wheels of Fortune
June 21, 2017
Alex Gall careened into the frame at a time when a dude could get a wheel ad and a board ad in a magazine along with a 411 part and immediately become a factor. Jamie Thomas hitched a VX1000 to this dude’s blazing backside 5-0s and barely hanging-on squat landings to get out this ‘Wheels of Fortune,’ which came in a couple flavors, before the misanthrope knowed as Trainwreck hopped to J Strickland’s Bootleg venture and then for the board-company blip Young Guns before his pro arc fizzled. But while he was hot, he was hot. The 411 part is Zero edited to the Mountain Dewiest cut-at-the-snap levels, with Alex Gall screeching backside tailslides down hubbas, fakie ollieing onto the Arco rail six ways to Sunday and 5-0ing long handrails, real visceral skating that sort of personifies the triple-stud spike belt that’s ripped across the sidewalk at the beginning of the park. Let the record reflect that Alex Gall’s brief time at the top of the industry heap also produced what remains one of the best non-trick magazine covers.
Summertime Mixtape Vol. 5 – Danny Garcia ‘Inhabitants’
June 19, 2017
Danny Garcia’s curtains-drawing part in ‘Mosaic’ somewhat was the Guy Mariano ‘Mouse’ part to Stefan Janoski’s preceding Eric Koston position, but by the time Habitat came with ‘Inhabitants’ four years later Danny Garcia was transitioning from hubba-gracing gentle giant to brooding, button-up troubadour. His flick though remained among the best on the market, regular, switch, toe or heel, and his early embrace of colourful socks and surf-loose trucks extends this part’s shelf life such that someone could release it today and generally remain in step with where things stand, similar to former Lakai compadre Anthony Pappalardo’s ‘Fully Flared’ section. Few dudes then or now can hand a switch heelflip with such grace, and dudes still aren’t that much doing frontside shove-it backside nosegrind reverts both regular and switch in the same parts. Even as he turned up the lilting psychadelia and the cruising, and dialed back on the thunder gaps, you can now and then glimpse Danny Garcia’s All City roots, like in that loading dock line with the switch shove-it nosegrind revert.
Summertime Mixtape Vol. 3 – Lurker Lou ‘Vicious Cycle’
July 4, 2015
Among the many Zoo-affiliated video projects percolating in the years around the turn of the century, ‘Vicious Cycle’ held weight not just for its function as a vehicle for Zered Bassett, one of the best dudes working at the time off any of this world’s seaboards, but also as a generation-shifting document for certain dudes transitioning to old head status such as Vinny Ponte and Robbie Gangemi, and the ever present young bucks making meals from the New York spot churn, like Aquil Braithwaite, Brian Brown, Eli Reed and a young feeble grinder going by Lurker. Opting to reserve the heavy pyrotechnics for later on, ‘Vicious Cycle’ alots opener duties to Lurker Lou as he strings together numerous and solid tricks in meandering runs with some crouch-surfer landings, scrapping his way across much of the town’s serviceable terrain mix — for some citizens this would be a mellow season saturated in Etnies Raps and gently blaring horns, and perhaps a final gasp of innocence before Lurker Lou singlehandedly would go on to pursue various subcareers ranging from 411-venerating board developer, Osiris legacy-ponderer to ruining skating forevermore.
Ten More From 2011
January 6, 2012
In no particular order. BTW, Deluxe posted up a link to Jake Donnelly’s missing “Since Day One” part that is salivated over in the posting below, so watch that too if you haven’t seen.
Chewy Cannon – “Tres Trill”
Switch wallie backside 180. RZA = PALACE TM
Torey Pudwill – “Big Bang”
Going forward there will always be a camp that solemnly believes Torey Pudwill was robbed for SOTY 2011 and they will always have a reasonable argument to make. Some of these tricks even six months later seem so obnoxiously difficult, like it’s not enough to jump a rail and lipslide a pic-a-nic table, then you gotta kickflip out too. But it’s hard not to cheer for this dude, his spring and zest for colorful shoes and big ledges.
Gou Miyagi – “Subspecies”
Don’t know much about this dude aside from the Slap interview a while back but have come to think of him as one of the precious few authentic weirdos that hopefully will always be able to find some kind of outlet in a skateboard, whether it’s gripped with felt squares or whatever.
Lucas Puig – Transworld Profile
Think I liked Lucas Puig more when he was a kid who seemed like he had the potential to do anything, versus the grown-up beast man who can and does do everything. I dig the idea of a French counterweight to the US-bred Kostons and Chris Coles and so on though, and Puig makes wise trick choices especially for one of the main proponents of the “Beware of the Flare” school of ledge combos. Also contains Lem Villemin’s challenge to Torrey Pudwill for backside tailslide of the year.
Tom Asta – Mystery pro part
The song got to me after a while, but the Love Park gap at night still is one of the more dramatic/picturesque settings for your power moves, reiterated in the new Mark Suciu ad.
Mike Anderson “Not Another TWS Video”
They are some fast feet
Gilbert Crockett – “Life Splicing No. 005”
Lifting his cat-pounce a few levels out there — was surprised the clip of the bench leap and the three-times manual weren’t held for some more prestigious release, but one of the upsides to the more-disposable nature of the web clip is a sort of throwback to the days when you could catch something inspiring between “Chaos” and the first “Wheels of Fortune.”
Travis Erickson – Santa Cruz part
Still one of the funnest to watch. Like to imagine he’s doing this stuff on his way home from work, keys hanging off the belt and backpack on.
Justin Brock – “Since Day One.”
When I think back on this section I think about the tricks off the bump and onto the shorty ledge, like the noseblunt, the Snowman-Eazy E mash-up and that long run through the park at the beginning. Justin Brock might not be your first choice as a thinking man’s skateboarder but I think he’s got more depth than he gets credit for.
Nick Boserio – “Life Splicing No. 004”
One of the better-edited parts made this year. Nosegrind through the kink was bananas
Prodigal Spaniard
December 5, 2011
If anybody needed proof of the youtube-era truism that every kid these days can do every trick, the Sk8Mafia video does the job, where you’ll find kids in freely rippling tee shirts mapping flip tricks out of nosegrinds and other once-unspeakable combos now rendered ABD in and around San Diego. All that puts a bigger premium on the curveball pickup of Javier Sarmiento, a dude who for this site’s phantom adbucks stood at the absolute pinnacle of streetstyle about a decade back, probably peaking near the time of the still-quality Can’t Stop part and even today you don’t see that many folks nollie flipping out of f/s noseblunt slides (present company excluded).
Sarmiento’s hiring to endorse Sk8Mafia brand goods serves the planet by plucking the dude from the type of obscurity only achieved by a European pro whose link to the US hardgood media markets goes out in classic whimper fashion. But it’s a little bit topsy turvy also, like Howard Roark going to work for Peter Keating or lending your dad money to secure a boat loan. Perhaps Peter Smolik’s greatest attribute is that he has never apologized for his role as the nucleus of “The Storm;” whereas Javier Sarmiento back then was working in refinements, in the years since “YeS” he has probed deeper tech, such as nollie bigspin flips and nollie kickflip 360s (?) out of crooked grinds — laborious tricks compared with the beauty with which he can still crack a frontside flip over a bench, switch b/s tailslide backside flip out, edge off a frontside crooked grind in the middle of a ledge, or (have the vision to include a clip of Rodrigo TX blasting) a switch hardflip off a whoop-de-whoop in camouflage pants.
It’s all mostly quibbling though with the main point that Javier Sarmiento’s still skating and still getting support after Es went into the can — Sk8Mafia’s posted the whole vid for free on their website.
Easter Egg Hunt
June 8, 2009
Dig dig deep for your soul
One of the enduring traits of the Crailtap set is the childlike whimsy they’ve been able to maintain over the years, starting with the Lance Mountain reset skit, through Keenan’s tumultuous skate down the block and the ongoing adventures of the pink/flame decks, who hopefully are teaming up to fight the hoverboard by the time the next Girl video comes out in 2015. So it is with this spirit that Eric Koston, for the moment apparently still a free shoe agent despite recent visits to the, er, Portland airport, has thrown the latest curveball in the ongoing game of which company will have the honor of covering his feet and paying him untold billions in endorsement cash: via Twitter, Koston is now strategically hiding pairs of shoes in and around Los Angeles and doling out not-so-subtle clues as to where they can be found.
I guess I’m not sure what we’re to make of the initial pair’s identity, but any 411-o-phile worth his issue 30 with the AWS industry section knows that Koston is revisiting Ronnie Creager’s timeless “Day in the Life” section, where in between skating a two-stair handrail and getting his grin on, Creager drove around to various LA zones and planted oodles of World Industry products. (It is rumored to this day that the motherload remains undiscovered and that this partially inspired the Kurt Russell vehicle and cautionary tale of family piracy, “Captain Ron.”) All I’m saying is, let’s not all be totally surprised if Koston’s next move is relocating to Arizona, also known as the place old pros go to nurse knee injuries and skate ditches, where he and Creager will soon preside over the unholy resurrection of Nadia footwear.
boil the ocean 
