Summertime Mixtape Vol. 10 – Adidas, ‘Greece’

Before ‘big shoe’ consolidated its power and sorted pro skateboarding into three major camps, the sportswear conglomerates’ contracting activities produced teams with a certain eclecticism of lineup that went a long way toward establishing the programs’ credibility and capacity to add something to ‘the conversation.’ They resulted in vids like this 2012 Adidas one, a high point of the Juice Design-steered, geographically organized period, which caught a good deal of the early triple-striped squadron in top form. There’s Pete Eldridge blasting monster switch tricks with the ‘Bootlet 3000’ shotgun blasts echoing somewhere, Lucas Puig still in the early innings of a peerless two–decade run, Silas Baxter-Neal doing a load of tricks he probably still could do, and a pre-thickening Jake Donnelly, massively tweaking switch flips between sun-bleached boat rides, rubbery synthesizers and umbrella drinks. You assume there is a Tim O’Connor clip in there somewhere. 

No Time For Slipping

Years ago, before all our troubles and sadness, demonic possession was ‘buzzworthy’ and a hot topic. From time to time, shivers and consternations would be raised high by satanic board graphics, unholy amusement park field trips and unlucky shoe numbers. In those easier and younger times, much could be chalked up to youthful irascibilities and in-good-fun nose-thumbing. At times, though, things veered darker and weird, most famously in 2012 when a published Lucas Puig sequence featured the freshly striped-up Frenchman switch hardflip backside tailsliding with a water bottle in hand, immediately kindling frights that one of the most promising, ascendant talents of the time had been supernaturally captured by the faded spirit of Chris Lambert’s professional skating career.

Ghostologists and statistical occultists never delivered conclusive proof either way. Yet as so often is the case in the spirit world, unintentional consequences followed. Clutched between the sweaty and griptape-calloused fingers of ams, pros and various bros, water bottles became commonplace, the hand towel occasionally was revived by SAD’s spiritual descendants, and kickflips with VX in hand became a way to flex on the rapidly grizzling GoPro generation. Elevating the discipline in 2017, Philadelphia ledge maestro Dylan Sourbeer barreled through Muni with a t-shirt in hand; in a much-replayed DC spot bumpering Thrashermagazine.com uploads, the Macba block was kickflipped while grasping a second board. Most infamously of all, career regulator Bob LaSalle in the Dime Video dominated both ledges and a gap while a handling a loaded pistol.

Now, everyone is older. Grant Taylor, onetime taciturn teen, is a family man, chatting with Thrasher about his recent Los Angeles migration, a two-kids-and-a-dog realm of avocado toast and crossover hybrids. “I like that feeling of just getting lost,” he muses to celebrity photog Atiba Jefferson in Thrasher. “And that’s how you end up finding new parks, playgrounds or places to go. All the food, too. My wife and I love trying new things and eating out or getting take-out now because of COVID, so that’s always fun.” The global pandemic emptied SoCal’s streets and back-routes in time for Grant Taylor to trade in the bowls and Slayer for his first extended dip into the handrails, hubbas and ledges in some time; now, winding down Nike SB’s ‘Constant,’ he is as natural on the alleyway steeps as any GX’er and young enough still to tangle with a bull-ride backside 50-50 and the gap out to backside lipslide.

Grant Taylor’s West Coast adulting bleeds through midway into the part after he carves backside up an asphalt blob and spins a frontside 360 wallride thing that brings around his left hand, clutching what appears to be either a formidable banana or a Salinas-fresh organic zucchini straight out the farmers’ market. Draped in Bob Seger’s ‘Still the Same’ — the bittersweet old-head’s answer to the Virginia Slims-ready bop of Orleans’ ‘Still the One’ — it is a yellow flashing signal, at once a requiem for misspent youth shrinking in the rear view, the promise of high-fiber and low-guilt sustenance ahead, and the ever-present risk of slipping out if one’s guard falls too far.

With the wellness trend now claiming item-in-hand clip-getting, must we brace for a backlash that puts triple-decker burgers, bottom-shelf vodka bottles or, for optimal photo/video incentives, energy beverage tall cans in the palms of the next generation? Could a rejection of big boy/loose fit denim usher in a return of Ali Boulala-ready blouses and vests that call for knives, perhaps even clamped between the teeth? With street grabs thankfully out of fashion*, are dudes’ hands subconsciously searching for something to hold? Could wider adoption of bananas, zucchinis, carrots, cucumbers and other similarly-shaped produce help to turn the tide against safety hands, fairly maligned?

*with the exception of the melon grab

Lucas Puig Is Skater Of The Quarantine

Where to turn, as walls reach up, close in and hold us? The global plague hems in the living, and each day claims more dead. Shades of apocalypse waft from emptied supermarket shelves and block-deep lines for firearms. Covid-19 sank feverish hooks into Josh Stewart; authorities spread sand and mulch over skateparks and at others, in a truly bizarre twist, threaten to arrest kids. Bill Withers passed, another piece of the music died. Gone last week is Jeff Grosso, irascible and deadly earnest skate dad to us all, who wore his love for the life on his sleeve and tried to rub some onto yours, too. It is frustrating and unfair. Feels like losing a general in the middle of a war.

Mired in gloom, to whom to look to for hope? A swaggering, bearded and sometimes-shirtless Frenchman beckons, modeling responsible social distancing behaviours from within a picturesque seaside flat. Lucas Puig is the Covid-19 therapeutic the world needs to see through these dark, blurring-together days. Sequestered with his family and a seemingly fully equipped toolbox, the Helas chairman sees Instagram’s skate-at-home campaigns and raises bets to heady, often ridiculous levels. When pros and assorted bros were doing their best living room Kevin Bilyeu, Lucas Puig stepped out and kickflipped a damn shoe, pleasing fans and earning packs of high-profile imitators. He melds that credits-section standby, the laying-down flip trick, with Max Geronzi’s 2019 shaped-board beatdown into a 360 flip novelty act with better form than many traditional line-filler variants. Ocean breezes wafting in, he switch lazer flips it, and moves on to yet stranger realms, 360 flipping a brush-on-wheels and catching it a foot high, or unlocking the Kelly Hart three-times 360 flip achievement on a 2×4 — gripped, you neanderthals, of course.

Lucas Puig also provides street footage, crucially in the drought. In this week’s Jacky Biarritz video, a breezy seaside bro-cam affair, he is switch kickflip backside noseblunting and switch heel mute grabbing, backside tailsliding tall blocks and channeling countryman Bastien Salabanzi in both backside flip and post-make exhortation. He howls and cheers his friends as they careen into downhill stair sets and energetically pat their bellies, presumably fat with freshly-boated fish. Fellow shoreman Vincent Milou blasts a street gap kickflip suitable for any of the world’s major urban centers, Sammy Mould scoots a block-to-block noseblunt slide, Rafa Cort Lorente threads a hairy bench-gap ollie by the beach (all their spots seem to be by the beach). By the time Jeremie Plisson scrapes his way backside down a ‘Sorry’-scale hubba, Lucas Puig is beside himself, lifting the viewer’s spirits — and maybe, the whole world’s.

Even in the midst of this worldwide virus crisis, do we ‘deserve Lucas Puig’? With the potential for months more sheltering-in-place ahead, must Thrasher’s brain-trust now consider the prospect of suspending this year’s asterisk-burdened SOTY chase and instead name a Skater Of The Quarantine? How many viewers subsequently opened their Milton Martinez SOTY Thrasher issues to read Lucas Puig’s last and hopefully prescient ‘Firing Line’ quote — “cela aussi passera” — this too shall pass? Have you, dear reader, opened your wallet to support shops through this unnerving and horrendous time?

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?

An Item About the ‘Gypsy Life’ Vid that Maybe Was Gonna Be Called ‘How Cliche Got Its Louvre Back’

As the pot of boiling molten lead that is euro zone’s economic crisis continues to upend itself over the continental bloc, scalding and blistering the region’s economic back and dribbling into the frayed and threadbare underpants of its long term growth prospects, seeking sales abroad makes sound business sense. In recent years Blueprint and Cliche have followed the trail blazed decades back by Flip, settling into So Cal distributorships and placing themselves into contention to sign American handrail hopefuls and carve forth that ever-succulent slice of the lucrative US boards market, with the throbbily rising greenback translating to ever-larger piles of euros and related European commodities such as wine, Matif wheat and heavily sold David Hasslehoff albums.

Cliché’s latest vid arrives entitled ‘Gypsy Life,’ perhaps in a nod to the company’s Frommian series of tours as well as its increasingly nationless nature. A decade ago, in the ‘Bon Appetit’/French Fred era that elevated Cliche to the world stage, Australian phenom Cale Nuske represented a major off-continent shift in Jereme Daclin’s teambuilding. Two years after that Cliché scooped Arcadian manual-pad mixologist Joey Brezinski who had languished for a time in a kind of post-Tyron Olson teammate limbo, considered to be a uniquely singular experience, and also representing Cliché’s initial foray into employing Americans.

While Lucas Puig, that postnaturally gifted ledge soothsayer, and drop-down sweatsuit maestro JB Gillet remain spiritual viceroys, the current Gypsy Cliché is more multinational than ever, with Frenchmen representing just over one-third of the team; U.S. riders now make up the largest non-French bloc, with the remainder split between the U.K., euro zone and Australia. While Palace and Polar ball for position in an effort to crack some long-standing glass ceiling long constraining east-of-the-Atlantic hardgoods operators, Cliché’s recent hires of the triple set-thundering Paul Hart, transition muncher Brad McClain and schoolyard impressionists like Daniel Espinoza and the now-FA’d Kevin Bradley give the company firm US positioning in several relevant subgenres.

In Cliché’s bid for cross-borderdom, it is Lyonnaise hot shoe Max Geronzi` who makes the most powerful argument for France’s continued dominion, uncorking probably the best video part so far this year – Thrasher drew the easy comparison to Puig but for our unconverted francs the better metric is Chewy Cannon, whose nervy energy, switch ollie poke and merciless flick Max Geronzi closely approximates. He also constructs some of the more incredible lines in a while, weaving in poorly understood tricks such as the fakie frontside bluntslide, an arcane god few recently have prayed to beyond the house of Cobra Chris Cole. In another frightening turn, Max Geronzi backside lipslides a legit handrail out of a manual.

With some three parts under his belt so far this year, is Max Geronzi preparing for a Mark Suciu-esque run of productivity that can only end under the crushing drudgery and long-term wisdom of pursuing higher education? Is French still regarded as the international language of ledges? Is JJ Rousseau still recording footage? Did the boy seriously backside lipslide a handrail from a manual? If what Joey Brezinski said years back about using EA Skate to craft new manual combinations, would this qualify him as the first dual-level professional both on board and on screen?

Gino Iannucci’s Most-Productive 14 Months Ever, And Other Assorted Notes On 2013

2013 fucked around and turned out to be a banner year footage-wise for Long Islander and long weekender Gino Iannucci, doing a mini-Beyonce with a quick minute of mostly-park footage uploaded without warning Christmas Eve by hardworking Brick Harbour elves. Pinning down Gino when he’s on his board doesn’t seem to have gotten much easier over the years, despite his willingness to wax nostalgic on video about train station parking lots, but if you put this footage together with his tricks from ‘Pretty Sweet’ plus the inexplicably trimmed extra footage you’d have a nearly three-minute section that would readily accommodate a Mathematics instrumental.

10 Other Video Parts

-Derm – ‘In Crust We Trust’
One of the oblique thrills of marking time via local scene videos jockeying for YouTube chart positioning is that you may or may not ever see any of the dudes again, or, you might. It’s an open question as to whether Eric Dermond desires or will have any type of ‘career’ in the industry but his section in the enjoyably grimy “In Crust We Trust” felt like watching “Subzero” era Fred Gall skating “Inhabitants” era Fred Gall spots, topped with a nicely bone-crushing slam.
-Kyle Walker – ‘In Color’
-Mark Suciu – ‘Philadelphia’
-Jordan Trahan – ‘Boros to Bayous’
-Matt Nordness – ‘Hurry Up & Try’
The intro with the blocks is almost enough all by itself.
-Jake Donnelly – ‘Jake’s VX Mix’
-Evan Smith – ‘The Evan Smith Experience’
This one seems to have come and gone pretty quick, but Evan Smith loosened up his trucks and floored it and recorded a bunch of fairly heavy tricks for this.
-Lucas Puig – ‘Bon Voyage’
-Ben Raybourn – ‘New Ground’
“Horse pool”
-Cole Middleton – ‘Video X’

Thrasher: Have you ever exercised in your life?
Fred Gall: I started lifting weights a little bit to try to buff up when I thought I was going to jail.
-Thrasher Jan. 2014

The Rise of Coloured Pants

Increased embrace of shorter/smaller videos from the likes of Emerica, Nike and Habitat harkened back to certain early-90s practices that make current economic sense — the trend toward ever-larger teams and vague desires to recoup travel expenses via blockbuster video projects remain at odds with the general public’s tendency toward watching individual parts on Youtube and skipping back to watch specific tricks rather than whole parts. Meanwhile some of the wealthiest professionals, including Theotis Beasley, Ishod Wair and Nyjah Huston, participated in their own early-1990s style revival by sporting loudly coloured pants and in certain instances what appear to be swimming trunks, signaling a potential new front in the swag wars.

Slim, French and Dynomite

As a sorta postscript to the last couple rambles, formerly Cliched professional JJ Rousseau offers one spin on a post-honeymoon occupation, setting in as lensman for a day at the foundation with recent summertime ambassador Lucas Puig. He seems to be vying with Mark Suciu for lines of the year, will anybody in the Crailtap production get in their way? Section bears ties with another former pro, Alphonso Rawls, who reveals that the three-stripe idea has been done not once but twice before. That frontside 180 to fakie manual, I can’t stand it..

Summertime Mixtape #5: Lucas Puig “Bon Appetit”

With its Mediterranean breezes and expansive vineyards, France can be an easygoing place, illustrated herein by the major-production video debut of the nation’s favorite four-wheeled son in Cliche’s “Bon Appetit,” set to a freewheeling Zappa jangler. Back when this came out–not that long ago really, but seems like a while ago–people began drawing comparisons between young Puig and Mouse-era Mariano, and while these comparisons haven’t borne out over time given both dudes’ eventual embrace of tricky ledge combos, they did wind up endorsing the same kind of shoes, so the possibility remains that some of those original comparison-drawers were psychic. I was and remain ‘psyched’ regarding a lot of the relatively simple but well-chosen moves in this part, namely the kickflip backside shifty, the fakie frontside flip off the wedge, those backside noseblunt variations on the little banked ledge, the spin on the switch 360 flip over the channel and the smattering of dork tricks in the middle. Lucas Puig tapdances across sculpture gardens and sunny public spaces, plus there’s a JB Gillett feature, without which no summer can really be complete. In closing, we hope you have enjoyed this rare run of several posts across consecutive days, or at least the video clips.

Lucas Puig Ledge Sequence Raises Concerns That The Ghost Of Chris Lambert’s Career May Be Trying To Possess His Soul Dudes

Several people noticed a change when Lucas Puig left Lakai Footwear Ltd. to go work for Adidas, fulfilling a longtime dream of endorsing certain of the same sportswear products as his French heroes of years past. For most people, the difference centered on his feet and the shoes he was wearing. But behind the scenes at industry functions some began to whisper that a stranger and potentially more troubling metamorphosis could be at work, namely that during this time of upheaval in Lucas Puig’s sponsorship situation that the specter of a defunct pro career, years in the grave, may be seeking to supplant the “Fully Flared” skater’s grasp on his own affairs and remake his career in the poltergeist’s own graven image.

This month’s Adidas ad spotlights what we must interpret as a silent battle for nothing less than Lucas Puig’s soul. Here we find him maxing out his “special” bar with a switch hardflip backside tailslide, back to switch even, a maneuver that requires intense concentration to successfully land for maximum bonus points. Deep in thought and staring down the ledge similar to the way a hungry wolf in the French hillsides might stare down a wayward baguette, Lucas Puig does not notice his hands beginning to move on their own, seeking some extra token to take the photo to some other, unspeakable level. Over one shoulder hovers the translucent shade of Chris Lambert, gleefully urging Lucas Puig’s hand toward a clear plastic water bottle, criticized for cluttering European cities and producing loud crackling sounds. Over the other shoulder floats SAD, fingertips at his temples and eyes closed, exerting all of his internal forces in order to sway Lucas Puig’s hand instead toward a white handtowel that represents purity of soul and also the Ramada Inn.

Luckily for Lucas Puig’s future prospects we can see that the white towelette was the victor. But this episode raises a more deeply troubling threat, that the skateboard industry in this time of harsh recession could be primed for haunting. Ghosts regularly preyed on pros in at the tail end of the 1980s and early 1990s when the industry lolled over and exposed its weak underbelly during the administration of George Bush Sr., and many privately fear that a worse haunting could be at hand soon. Besides the usual property damage and costs related to expungement, an abrupt rise in hauntings poses longer-term threats because it can be scary and equity investors find it difficult to secure insurance against ghosts. This weekend Boil the ocean urges all friends and defenders of the industry to attend church and not answer the door if it seems like a ghost is ringing the bell. Thank you

Ten More From 2011

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