Do You Believe In The Healing Power Of Kyle Wilson’s Skating?

The world rent by heartache, disease and strife; millions in the grave, recriminations and poisons spat across borders and Zoom meetings, liberty in retreat. A schism in Britain’s royal family over yung breakaway royals sets teeth grinding and ferments mistrust across the empire that was. Not even Oprah can fix it, and in streetwear’s woodgrain-floored and white-walled halls, fears of a tug of war between the Old World and the New over cultural claim to the 20th-Century people’s princess. This year was promised to be better.

But hang on a minute. An unsettlingly temperate spell drains off snowy piles, and one needle at a time, there is hope for a global pandemic to be pushed back. From up out of the HD digital video files of Austin Bristow last week came ‘Portions,’ a comprehensive but tantalizingly brief glance at the Palace Group’s recent London activities through non-vintage lenses, arriving on the cusp of a spring gesturing toward a better summer ahead. Everyone is here, Danny Brady doing Danny Brady things at Canary Wharf, Chewy Cannon resplendent in blue jeans and backward ballcap, Heitor Da Silva running it back in real time, Rory Milanes switch frontside blunting off a stone cliff face, Lucien Clarke putting up this young year’s toughest switch inward heelflip to date.

Tom Penny and Tom Knox and a lot of other dudes pop in, but even in a more intensive rendering than is typical for some of these skaters, much of the vid flows by in a kind of fog left after the smouldering bomb crater left by Kyle Wilson, who commands the start of the vid. It’s a collision of black denim, hugely floated tricks, switch backside tailslides and switch heelflips and certain other decades-tested streetstyle standbys. Early on he’s rodeoing a wallie up onto a waist-high block, later hucking a big backside 180 at South Bank, swerving his landings all over the place. The molten, fiery core of this video part is a ledge line at dusk, when Kyle Wilson is pushing switchstance between blocks, a massive camo parka billowing around him, its hood liner easily the fuzziest seen on British shores since Brian Wenning switch backside smith grinded at Milton Keynes, its value likely rivaling Rob Welsh’s multi-payment plan Giants bomber. It is over in a few seconds and feels like it will reverberate for years.

Is Kyle Wilson the best skateboarder alive, as Slam City rhetoricizes? Why not? It is the fundamental question that comes up watching his roundly unimpeachable footage. Why not switch frontside noseslide a stupid tall ledge and then roll off some big drop? Why not blast a frontside flip as high as you possibly can before setting up for the stair set ahead? Why not politely explain to the young and sophisticated bicyclist that you need to jump that wall so you can crush the landing and shortly afterward firecracker partway down the stairs? Why not see how high you can pop that shaped deck? Why not give Ishod Wair competition for the world’s most coveted rollaway? Why not believe in a better season ahead?

Can a few minutes of incredible skate footage inject confidence and optimism not only into the tricks and session ahead, but prospects for the planet at large? Did you also catch similar vibes seeing the reinvigorated Fred Gall do a fakie ollie to noseblunt slide pop-in on a skatepark quarterpipe? How many cheap and easy payments might be required to secure a Kyle Wilson-cozy camo parka and, perhaps, peace for the House of Windsor? If web logging web sites were paid by the question mark could even the most meandering, run-on sentence typers drape themselves in fine, MLB-endorsed distressed leathers?

The Sun Rises on a New British Empire, Which Also Includes Francis Showerface As Well As Chewy Cannon Nosegrinds

When did the sun set on the first British skate empire? Views differ, but the rubbery, tearing sound of overreach could be heard in the intro to Blueprint’s generally great ‘Make Friends with the Colour Blue’, when the squad that built a movement on overcast skies, soot-stained streets and ‘Wandering Star’ opened with sun-sloshed Los Angeles art installations and the jaunty notes of ‘Birdhouse in Your Soul.’ Like tea-thirsty monarchs of old, the British Isles grew to become a realm too small for Blueprint, and waiting for the world took too long; Europeans and Americans were signed and it was off to the New World to compete with Southern Californian palm tree tenders on their own turf and terms. An effort noble in its aim, perhaps, but doomed.

An amusing exercise a month or so back, when Grey published the instant-classic Rich West shot of Mike Arnold’s phone booth hippy jump, was inventing metaphors to read into it. Like, might this board and body barreling through a derelict telephone compartment represent a magazine transcending the digital wave pounders painfully remaking the media sphere? Do the stomped-off nose and tail demonstrate the bloodthirsty courage of the forest mammal, caught in a trap, chewing off its own leg to escape, the sort of frantic bravery required to persist as an under-the-radar talent pushing U.K. skating through a global industry slump? Something to do with the fractious Brexit vote and Michael Gove’s perplexing applause technique?

It feels like another British wave is cresting. Around seven years back the initial Palace clips began to surface. Blueprint foundered five years ago. In 2015 the venerable Sidewalk mag wound down its print edition, later that year Free emerged. Blueprint fragment picker-uppers Isle’s ‘Vase’ debut vid at the end of that year polished Paul Shier and Nick Jensen’s already-secure legacies, but more notably launched Tom Knox and Chris Jones onto the global stage in one of that year’s most cohesive videos. The vibrant and jellyfish-scented ‘Atlantic Drift’ series since then has elevated them further and granted an international platform to dad-bodded Mike Arnold, who put his own dizzying spin onto the one-spot part at Bristol’s Lloyds Amphitheater.

Now comes ‘Palasonic’, a long-in-the-waiting ‘official’ full-length from those skate-cum-fashion standard bearers of the British Islands. It lands as much of Palace’s squadron seems at the height of their powers — Lucien Clarke is ripping Carroll spots, Danny Brady still is going in 15 years after ‘First Broadcast,’ Rory Milanes appears still well in his window, Chewy Cannon has had several years to hone and hopefully rebroaden his spastic wallie/360 repertoire, Shaun Powers has established his international artistic bona fides, Jamal Smith filmed 1995’s best 411 commercial. In recent months Palace rebuilt Radlands and got Lucas Puig.

Can Blondey McCoy’s much-reposted collision-turned-cartwheel off a purple hack be infused with some similarly labored metaphor for the Palace full-length finally dropping? Has the GX1000 crew’s recent focus on hill bombing left an opening for the Haight Street-originated hippy jump to be colonized by the British? Can human achievement in general surpass Chewy Cannon’s bank-to-ledge nosegrind or can we only hope to match it?

Summer of Good Vibes

The heady daytimes of midsummer were made for growing green things, construction projects and loving refurbishments, laying supplies and fortifications for the long winter nights ahead. What with its rolling papers and noon wakeups, skateboarding leans toward the lazily fiddling, devil-may-care grasshopper in the tale of old, or perhaps a chaotic Fraggle. But the bold ant, in its levelheaded industriousness and generous way, can provide an alternate insect avatar, and skating must never overlook the rebuildatory tendencies of the lowly Doozer. Half-submerged in a midsummer night’s dream of positive vibes, Bowl The Ocean site examines three visions of a world that is not yet the future, but could be.

Clint and Reef, Ollie Men: Since time’s beginning, skateboarders of all stripes have celebrated that singular and uniting thrill, the big jump. Even so, one of the biggest ollies of recent years has sown division. After dueling ollies down the Wilshire 15 and over the yellow poles (implanted for pure gnarlieness enhancement) appeared last year on the Instagram pages of Birdhouse bad boy Clint Walker and FA-affiliated ATLien Reef Johnson, Jenkem magazine probed the backstory — whereas Clint Walker had tamed the massive gap and sat on the photo in hopes of bagging Thrasher’s cover, comer-upper Shareef Grady unknowingly did the same ollie and, over Clint Walker’s career-minded protestations, they both wound up pushing their tricks to the socializing internet masses to get what shine they could. The scenario was a debacle made possible by a unique fender-bender involving old and new media, and though few hard feelings were aired publicly, nobody seemed satisfied with the outcome, which also had the effect of clouding a legitimately heavy trick.

This year, Jason Hernandez is videotaping Clint Walker and the rest of Tony Hawk’s brood for what’s being billed as ‘The End’ for a new generation. Clint Walker, who has nollie heelflipped atop bone-crushing canyons and conquered fear itself, will have an assuredly crazy part. But what about that one ollie, now loaded with so much baggage? An old caveman saying from the planet’s spryer years holds that ‘the crazy thing about baggage is that it’s lighter when a friend helps carry the load,’ and the statement never was truer than when applied to the Birdhouse video in progress. Imagine a break in the middle of Clint Walker’s section where he rolls up to the Wilshire 15 and Poles, then it cuts to him jumping it, but the camera keeps rolling and then Yung Reef comes right behind him and jumps it too, riding out into a torrent of bro hugs and high fives. The vibes would runneth over.

Lakai Collabo Matchup: Even upon opening a new chapter with a winning full-length built around mostly new faces, storied shoe group Lakai faces turbulence, over the past month reportedly having to send back and reprint all physical DVD copies on some music rights shit and Fort Miley burler Jon Sciano leaving, apparently to skate for Vans. Amid Lakai’s various high-profile team defections over the last few years, Blackpooler Danny Brady has held tight, getting a shoe design recently for his efforts.

Lakai’s collaborative shoe projects have run an extremely varied gamut of partners, from entertainment figure Lena Dunham to certain Wild Things to further investments in pastel paneling via several sneakers colored by Illegal Civilization person Nico Hiraga. But the Danny Brady link provides a lane for Mike Carroll and Rick Howard to potentially something together with Palace, which has made deluxely curated bathrobes and swishy shirts with any number of mega sports gear manufacturers such as Adidas and Umbro and Reebok. Palace’s teaming with Bronze helped elevate the New York bolt factory to a sought-after street fashion sensation. A similar project could further invigorate Lakai and keep Danny Brady shod on his current productive path.

Brian Wenning For Hire: For those fumbling toward some nightlight amid dark hours of the soul this summer, Brian Wenning’s recent podcast unburdenings have left DNA Distribution devotees of a certain vintage aglow. By all accounts, Brian Wenning reached the bottom of his own self-fulfilling prophecy and a humble halfway-house rebuild seemingly has done wonders for his self-regard, career reassessment and, importantly, his switch backside nosegrinds. Slimmed down and again in DCs, Brian Wenning is starting to look like he never went anywhere, venturing back onto the road and appearing to deeply enjoy himself.

His could be a feel-good summertime story, especially as Habitat prepares to reissue one of his OG graphics in what looks like a tribute to clamoring back onto life’s board. But Al Davis, another former Habitater asked and answered what must be the ultimate question in the matter: ‘PUT HIM BACK ON!!!!’

3. Danny Brady – ‘Definitely Brady’

Danny Brady to Palace was one of those soundly logical, hand-in-glove industry happenings that helped maintain some sense of normalcy and balance in a year otherwise characterized by seismic team-jumps and resignations, and this part, which is probably Danny Brady’s best in several years, did double-duty washing away the awkward weirdness which is Blueprint’s current Canada-by-way-of-Arizona iteration. Brady’s fakie game, now cemented firmly cemented among the pantheon of veteran devotees such as Clyde Singleton and Terry Kennedy, is in top form here, like on the bank-to-ledge tailslide kickflip, and the relative frequency of clips without a hat implies a new level of comfort and trust in his Palace bros and bosses. The line with the backside tailslide to fakie needed only the cub scout cap to be a ‘Lost & Found’ clip.

7. Danny Brady – “Make Friends With The Colour Blue”

(14:20)

The Blueprint video never got a proper rundown in this space when it came out last summer — briefly, seemed a gutsy project in a number of ways and not just because Shier/Magee brought the whole taco back from the brink. Starting and closing your first project in five or so years with the longest-serving members of the squad instead of any overt torch-passing was interesting, if only because the Blueprinters have made an effort to broaden beyond the British Isles in various ways these past few years. Jerome Campbell brought a young-Huf sort of street intensity to a lot of those overcast spots, the US dudes may or may not be your cup of tea, and after many a watch I still have trouble discerning between the two Nordic-named kids; Nick Jensen doing his thing to Portishead was a “why didn’t somebody think of this 5/10 years ago” moment and the whole “120 Minutes”-themed soundtrack I thought worked good even in spite of the TMBG opener, which continues to strike me as a bizarre choice.

While Vaughn Baker and Mikey Wright were missed Danny Brady recaptured a lot of the same type of nonchalant tech skating that made the “Lost & Found” opener so sweet. The Beach Boys reinterpretation bubbles up as Brady gets his Golden State on, deeper into the Pupecki grinds (are we cool with a frontside version) and going full Carroll on that frontside hurricane grind on the block — there is the Reynolds callback in the lovely framing of that fakie frontside flip. What really gets this section over though is when he breaks out all the stalls on the bank-to-high wall toward the end, maybe not fully shutting it down, but making sure his name comes up in italics and bold print if and when so-and-so has an ad doing such-and-such there a few years down the line and this all gets discussed on messageboards. Wish the big 180 over the South-Bank steps was in here, but what are you gonna do.

Let’s Stay Friends

Hold on to your genre

Once upon a time there was a band called Ween, two brothers in blurred vision and fractured humor who made cheaply recorded records full of bizarre and beautiful ditties dedicated to squelching weasels, juicy trees, Mexican restaurant menus and persons called “Jilm.” Born of hotboxed bedrooms in that fabled decade of the 1980s, the Ween bros for years beckoned listeners to follow as they stumbled sidelong into new nooks and crannies of their aural rabbit-hole, until at a certain point they decided to try their hand at actual songs – cleaning up the rattling fuzz, taking the delirious helium out of their voices and scaling back on the copious chemical consumption that fueled the fever dreams of their early days. Few begrudged the evolution and broader success followed, but that beloved loopy spark was diminished.

Try as I might to shrug it off I’m having a hard time not feeling similarly wistful re: Blueprint’s annexation of U.S. amateurs in recent years, most recently highlighted in this “Make Friends With Marty (Murawski)” clip teasing the hotly anticipated “Make Friends With the Colour Blue” vid. There’s nothing much wrong with the skating of Murawski or his Bostonian brother-in-boards Kevin Coakley, who preceded his entry to Blueprint’s ranks; aesthetically these two guys are fine but you kinda wonder to what purpose they’re seeking out these US dudes, overlooked by domestic operators either fairly or not.

It is tough to hold it against Blueprint, particularly in tenuous economic times, for aspiring to be more than “just” a British concern. They’ve earned a seat among the top-tier outfits of the world by virtue of output, progression, very nice graphic design and general staying power over the years, etc. But I recall putting on “Waiting for the World” and cocking an appreciative eyebrow at the meticulously constructed intro, like a TV-shaped portal into an empire of overcast skies, decrepit ledges and red phone booths made for the the “unique vision” of the thing, in the earnest parlance of a Tim Gunn. The rather ripping Brady/Jensen footage in the “Make Friends” clip is a good/current example, and their approach got these dudes into the biggest vid of the past five years, so they’re doing something right.

This is all sounding kind of “you know, when I was a kid…” and whatnot, which is true, but Blueprint’s got global heft to its name and the hope is it’s put to good use, as opposed to loading up the new BP holo-vid in ten year’s time and seeing a load of the same Arizona ditches and San Diego handrails that recently appeared in the 20th-anniversary SK8Mafia video for instance. Keeping it gutter, and so on. Probably these reservations will fall to the side when “MFWTCB” arrives, and I’ll buy it regardless, but in the meantime I’ll wonder why you’d fish overseas when there are bass like this to be boated in your own backyard.

Addendum: Do you think Brady frontside flips into that thing for the video?

Smell the glove

Blueprint always seems to get a ton of footage out of their annual spring break trips to Mallorca, so by doing all these “Tales of the Black Glove” podcasts from their most recent trip there, I’m assuming that they’re just keeping it skate and are going to end up pushing their new video back to holiday 2009. They only started the “coming soon” ads earlier this year after all, and as we all know, industry standard on that is 2.5 years prior to release minimum.

Sidewalk posted up episodes 6 and 6.5 the other day, and while 6 is a truly gripping account of Paul Shier applying his bearded technical prowess to a pot of spaghetti, 6.5 is pretty much all skating and features some right cracking footage from Danny Brady, his first line in particular. Speaking of crack how deliciously cheesy would it be to set a Joey Pressey part to this song? Some 11-year-old YouTube hero should get on it. Meanwhile this Blueprint video is looking like it’ll be really good.