Marble Floors, Gold Turlets and Chandeliers

Belatedly, another ten good ones from last year:

Nik Stain – ‘Bruns Skate Jawn’
The half-cab flips could’ve come straight out of an early Prime video, in a good way.

Aaron Herrington – ‘Static 4’
Skating to song, probably the best possible pace-setter for the two Static videos to come.

Brandon Westgate – ‘Zoo England’
He doesn’t slow down

Eli Reed – Japan part
Eli Reed goes Magenta in Tokyo with some scarfs and socks. See if you can find the ‘Street Cinema’ spot.

Matt Miller – DC shoe part
Rob Welsh’s onetime water boy released one of the gnarlier parts all year, and got a shoe for his trouble, potentially eliminating the descriptor ‘unheralded’ from his career. Switch 360 flip noseblunt, switch backside 360 noseblunt, etc.

Youness Amrani – ‘Almost a Part’
Some late-period 411VM vibes from this one, in a good way. Downhill manual revert and late 180 on the heelflip varial are bananas.

Chewy Cannon – ‘Transmission’
Dead or alive, there are few better to watch skate

Matt Bennett – ‘True Blue’
It’s cool to see how far this dude has been able to take his sack of mainly unconventional tricks – the pop out of the handrail fakie backside tailslide (to regular) is of note.

Carlos Iqui – ‘Iqui Does It’
Stevie William’s ‘Reason’ opener-attempter, but on a hubba.

Jamal Williams – ‘Static 5’
Among the best put-together video parts this year, and possibly for all of history

Matt Miller Takes The Mini Picnic Table Game Of Inches Up About A Foot

Like the cellar door and the Jersey barrier, the pint-sized picnic tables native to Southern California practically encompass their own subgenre at this point. Across the past say, twenty-five years, you can pick and choose your peaks and choice practitioners — from the ’90s era take Sean Sheffey’s fakie ollie, Kareem Campbell’s 360 flip 5-0, Gino Iannucci’s last trick in “Trilogy,” Keenan Milton’s switch flip, Daewon Song from 1994 to 2000. New millennium you could put in there Justin Case’s switch backside noseblunt, flaring in his DC uniform for a Ghetto Child ad before vanishing, later on Alex Olson’s sideways jump and maybe Torey Pudwill’s hardflip. Lucky contestant this decade is Norcaler Matt Miller with a heavier-than-most nollie 180 into a switch backside noseblunt revert. This would be one for the Police Informers or Chrome Balls to adjudicate, but I’m not even sure I’ve seen the more-common half-cab version on one of these lunch spots.

Balls of Steel

Matt Miller’s heave-ho to backside tailslide is a strong contender for trick of the month, if I were able to remember what month it is again. From the AVE TWS, which has some really good content including a pretty bonkers Jason Dill interview that I’d comment on if he didn’t threaten to knock out people who put him on their blogs. And clearly I have enough problems. On an unrelated note I think Third & Army makes a convincing case for the skatepark-as-street-plaza concept as more or less irrelevant.

Midsummer Video Roundup: And Now

“Fuckin, I don’t know”

Okay, can I just tell you my favorite thing about this new Transworld video, even more so than Kenny Hoyle’s opening kickflip, or Richie Jackson’s paisley pirate outfits, or Nick Trapasso: no fucking voiceovers. This closely approximates my personal reaction, except on a couch. I was wearing basically the same amount of body armor.

Pretty much every time a TWS video has come out in the last few years I’m inclined to think “hmm, this is the best TWS video in years” which may or may not actually be the case after a few weeks of viewing. But this time, guys… this time for sure (no Bullwinkle) I think “And Now” really is the best TWS vids in quite some time. There’s been some hoopla in the magazine about how this is like the new “In Bloom,” which I can see, sort of. But that begs the question: who’s gonna flame out Trainwreck style?

Transworld videos at this point are an institution, like Madonna for instance, and if you took the 20 or so videos they’ve put out over the last 15 years (TWS that is) you’d have a fairly accurate roadmap of trick trends, skateboard fashion, and evolving film/edit techniques that generally represent the best in skate videos at any particular point. A lot of the credit goes to Ty Evans, who presided over the TWS golden age of “Feedback”/”The Reason”/”Modus Operandi,” but the revolving cast of filmer/editors that has passed through those hallowed AOL/Time Warner doors since has taken up his blueprint and soldiered on, with mostly positive results. Filming innovations and high production value aside though, there’s Ty tropes that maintained long past their expiration date, like the intolerable voiceovers (some sounded like they were reading off a teleprompter) and the vaguely hilarious inanity of the titles.

So it’s cool that “And Now,” humorously inane title aside, tones down the starry-eyed “wow, skating, man” and keeps things moving. No overblown intro montage (not too overblown anyhow), no goddamn voiceovers, no skits unless you count Richie Jackson’s whole part. Reckless dumbass David Gravette comes out blasting with his charbroiled rail moves and winds things up with a trick that’s sure to get some novices sacked before the snow flies. Matt Miller I was really looking forward to and he came through with a solid part of fairly straightforward skating, fakie flip body varial noseblunt aside. (That’s what it was right? I had to rewind many times.) But generally he had a minimum of the polejam/wallie/manual combos that TWS videos have showcased heavily the last couple years.

That of course is handled with psychedelic aplomb by Richie Jackson, dark hippie avenger from Oz, who twirls and skids and somehow powerslides down stairs. Some of the tricks are pretty inspired and I was relieved to see him work in some more standard-issue shit, like the b/s 5-0 revert and the switch 360 flip, because sometimes I get the sinking feeling that these guys known for doing nutty/dork/novelty tricks all day long may not be able to actually skate any other way.

Kenny Hoyle is just great. The angle on that switch bigspin heelflip he does over the hump is so good. A prime example of a skater who on paper might not sound that sound exciting but the way he lands tricks does it all. Nick Trapasso is sort of the same (see the way he rides away from the double-set switch frontside heelflip) but freakishly talented enough to inspire head-scratching and rewinding. There’s some stuff I’m not into at all, like the nollie tuck-knee, but it’s hard to complain much. It’s like he can do anything. Both the song choice and the electric blue socks are kind of untouchable.

Then there’s Sean Malto, who seems to be the living, hardflipping nightmare of every skatepark old guy who narrows his eyes and mutters “damn kids” as some 9th-grader glides down the rail. Switch kickflip frontside k-grinds, cab feebles, et cetera. It goes on for some time. I can imagine people complaining that the marquee tricks have already been in ads, but for me, the full gnarliness of those tricks didn’t quite translate through the 2-D photo format, although that could just be my brain problem. Malto, though: So much command and confidence, and he’s so young. At least he looks young. If my calculations above are correct Malto will soon be sleeved up and bloated from alcohol misuse, so as long as the legions of skatepark old guys can keep their guts in check til then, the last laugh may yet be theirs.

In summary, best TWS video in years. I think. No voiceovers!