At least he wasn’t demoted to “Dave Bach”
Image can be a sticky zone for pro skaters, who do well to tread lightly lest they stand accused of orchestrating trend-conscious makeovers, get labeled a lifestyle pro, or run the risk of generally faking the funk. Dave Bachinsky is hardly a blank slate, seeing as he busted onto the scene two or three years ago as the kid who kickflipped El Toro, and has devoted much of his subsequent coverage to living down that dubious honor.
Nevertheless the new City video (following a campaign that set a new hype cycle standard for a purported promo), from the title on down, devotes itself to establishing the finer points of the Bachinsky persona–namely cigarettes, massive flip tricks, burgers, and the unique love between a young man and a supremely soiled camouflage hat. Seriously every time I watch this video I try to think of some camcorder-era skate video that featured a dude rocking the same damn hat through his entire part, and I came up with nothing… anybody? There’s gotta be at least one guy.
Anyway, with a good eight or nine months of ads and various verbal butcherings of the noble Bachinsky name, the kickflippinest kickflipper’s moment is here, and after his teammates and various Norcal commentators mine chuckles from the nuances of Big Bachinsky’s personal foibles, he skates. And it’s good. Tons of flawless flip maneuvers piloted down gaps, assorted ledge techquery, noseblunts and switch backside tailslides on beefy hubbas, that greasy hat. He carries the PJ Ladd influence in his 360 flips and his beat-to-shit Adidas.
No huge surprises, except when he occasionally gets Daewon with it and throws something like a hardflip nose-stall pop-over to fakie on this natural spine thing. I mean, more than enough street pros have pulled limp blunt fakies on Jersey barriers, but Bachinsky has some wild, bizarre moves in mind. Much more than the El Toro kickflipper indeed, and as long as he doesn’t blow his knee on one of these lofty frontside flips, he could be a dude who pushes things in the future.
Elsewise, Jimmy Cao kicks it off with a two-song part featuring the “guess it’s not messed up if he’s cool with it” Carl Douglas song selection. He’s so light-footed the way he catches his flip tricks and alights on his board, it seems like he’s not skating that fast, but he probably is. Jeremy Reeves smashes gaps and rails with slow-motion style. The fakie 360 shove-it was a mind-boggler; Trapasso’s running it too now and Tony Montgomery takes it nollie over a table in his part, so maybe this is trick of the year 09 or something.
City made a good move nabbing Eduardo Craig, coming along with a real smooth, loose-limbed way of landing tricks that’s super pleasing to the eye, like his big fakie kickflip for instance. Russ Milligan stays destroying in the lowest-key way possible for a guy who can land the type of shit he can do, and while I don’t think it’s quite as amazing as his “Crime in the City” section he’s not slowing up.
The forward-thinking honchos at City once again are encouraging the wholesale bootlegging and Youtubing of this video, which of course makes certain that most everyone will hear about and/or watch it. Lumbering dinosaurs with pea-sized brains such as myself still will want a DVD copy to put on while we fall asleep on the couch, but as skateboarding companies stumble glassy-eyed into the digital age it’ll be interesting to see if web-friendly videos maintain the longevity of those that follow the old DVD route. And with City as an early adopter, I also sort of wonder if they’ll stick around long enough to see everyone else eventually follow their lead. Hopefully.
boil the ocean 