10. Luke Croker – Deluxe Catalogue

And off we go again, counting down this here blog-site’s top ten video parts of the year:

At some point along the space-time continuum, fair-haired Australian gangler Luke Croker evolved into the bloodthirsty and hard-charging Neanderthal depicted in this heavy section from last summer’s online Deluxe catalog, which shook the internet with an impact along the same lines as the invention of fire or a woolly mammoth careening off a cliff. Watch as Croker sweeps the stringy mane from his eyes like so many sabre-tooth tiger entrails, bludgeoning gaps and ledges with a technical speedball combo a la Anthony Van Engelen or a “Third-Eye Vision” Reese Forbes. He’s got this gift for landing tricks smooth and at speed but not making them look inconsequential. The orange rainbow backside tailslide is particularly fun-looking and wouldn’t it be nice to race around town, backside 180’ing up curbs the hard way.

The Deluxe Online Catalog: Better Than The Post-Jail Gucci Mane Mixtape

No pancakes, just a cup of syrup

In a way I feel like Deluxe is almost too easy to like, they’re sort of like Fugazi. In it for the right reasons, street cred out the wazoo, around forever, down for the kids. Advertisimal NorCalcentralism aside they run a pretty big tent that administers Mic-E Reyes man-hugs to everyone from Theotis Beasley to Peter Hewitt to Peter Ramondetta to Huf. They’ve never done the hardgoods manufacturer equivalent of eating mushrooms and taking off their clothes and going up onto the roof to preach to the neighborhood. So in some ways I kind of feel like Deluxe is that solid, all-around good guy that everybody likes at the beginning of the war movies, the dude who gets shot and dies in Tom Hanks’ arms. Or wait, wasn’t it Tom Hanks who died? Anyway.

While the skateboard industry continues to rejigger video pricing in the post-YouTube world and magazines dip toes into the waters of digital publication, Deluxe seems to be blazing full-speed ahead, looking to harness the internet public’s thirst for pics of new products by turning their now exclusively online catalog into a sort of in-house 411. They’re rolling it out piece by piece; currently clips include a heartwarmingly gigglish video of the Mic-E tribute board on Krooked, the valiant struggles of a cameraman doing what he can to keep pace with a Dennis Busenitz hill bomb, and a short part from this Oklahoma kid named Kyle Walker, who pops a fun playground bridge ollie amongst some otherwise pretty bleak spots.

The highlight so far though is the Krooked section, which opens up with a couple Gonzo-goes-to-New York tricks and then introduces you to the increasingly grown up Krooked ams. I had a hard time keeping all these young yahoos straight in the “Gnaughty” vid, partially due to the hard-to-read titles and also my chronic illiteracy, and they all kind of skate alike (to mellow musical stylings of the 80s) but with their own power moves; witness Brad Cromer’s f/s crooked grind bigspin and mongoloid switch backside flip. Mike “Manderson” Anderson has become good as fuck switch and busts a high-velocity no comply in tight quarters and lil Luke Croker has evolved into a sometimes caveman-haired skateboard beast — his part’s the best I think. Hopefully when the Real section goes up they have footage of Nick Dompierre’s backside tailslide from that Thunder ad.