Summertime Mixtape Vol. 8 – Kevin Taylor, ‘Ryde Or Die Vol. 1’

Kevin Taylor – ‘Ryde or Die Vol. 1’

Coming up in an indelible era with an impervious spread of tricks and no bad photos ever on his record, it’s strange that there never really seemed to be a definitive Kevin Taylor part in the period that made his name. It didn’t really capture his roaring speed and effusive line construction captured in Stevie Williams’ ‘Reason’ part, but his ‘Ryde or Die Vol. 1’ opener is probably the best document for one of the quiet East Coast titans — there is a crazily over-rotated kickflip backside lipslide on one of the Love Park bench backs, a Baker2G-worthy careening rollaway on the half-cab bluntslide, and the lengthy buildup to the Daewon picnic table configuration ender, one of the best Transworld covers of its golden age. His fairly exhaustive ’42’ part from a few years back is still super heavy.

10. Zach Funk – “Fuck Yinz Vol. 2”

We begin again, year’s top ten video parts in terms of tickling this blog site’s fancy.

Macrobrew flavoring for a limited distribution release, Zach Funk in this vid brings what you’d maybe call a skater’s skater something or other, starting with the first backside flip on flat. Which is to say there’s not a lot of flash to this part in terms of tricks, or spots or production value and for its purpose on this list that’s maybe a lot of the point. The woozy lean on the front blunt kickflip out stands over a million cleaner versions at better-lit spots filmed in HD and the floaty frontside pop-shove it reminded me of an old World Industries video though I couldn’t put a finger on which one or why exactly. Wrist cast, step-up rings, baggy hooded sweatshirt, he grasps the gangster powers of a frontside flip nosegrind and this dude also can do a good backside tailslide. Not knowing a lot about this vid I’m hoping it really did come out in calendar 2011 or else this year’s edition of the list will be off to a particularly rough start.

The Medium-Sized MNC Star T-Shirt Is The Message Dudes

Quartersnacks the other day posted up this deep dive into Sect adherent Jake Johnson who sounds like he’s spent the better part of the last year pondering ponderous thoughts on a skate-oriented pilgrimage to Pittsburgh as part of a broader effort to reconnect with his inner dirtball. One of Jake Johnson’s ponders involves the “message” that underlies skateboarding, a potent smoothie of rebellion, aggression, creativity, pain and escapism, some of which might be lost on a generation coming up with parks aplenty and tweet-ready reality idols straddling the primetime viewing hour. There’s a separate message though for which Jake Johnson feels more personal responsibility, transmogrifying his board into a ball-point pen and the streets to an 8.5×11″ piece of white printer paper:

“My sponsors give me a lot of freedom. For the most part, they understand that me developing a concept, message, and my style of skating is the most important thing for their company. They’re willing to do whatever it takes for me to skate my best, and they trust me that I know how to do that. A lot of companies don’t.”

The comment (and whole interview really) signal that Jake Johnson found an early grasp on what somebody can do with the career opportunity he was handed, and seems to be thinking hard about what he wants to do with it. Who else thinks in terms of this “message” thing? I think Leo Valls and the “Night Prowler” guys definitely have an aesthetic that they’re looking to explore with their skating, built on what Ricky Oyola and Bob Puleo developed, a sorta homesteading purity for the streets. When Jamie Thomas cued up that clip of himself skating over that bridge in Chicago at the beginning of his “Welcome To Hell” section I think he had an idea he wanted to get across, same with Jim Greco and Stevie Williams a couple years later. Jason Dill is a dude who you can imagine looks at his message as a malleable and mutating thing. Mike Vallely’s career arc cast him into a spot now where you could say that “message” is a large portion of what he puts out.

There’s some comments made in the (too) long-gestating “Epicly Later’d” on Menace along the lines that Pupecki, Valdes, Suriel et al were at the time some assortment of castoffs and misfits corralled by Kareem Campbell to fill out his allotted corner of the Rocco empire. Maybe that’s partly true, but you gotta think that the mastermind behind our still-beloved “mNc” star logo had his own type of message in mind, having to do with communicating through vaguely scary hand-signals and 360 flipping through sidewalk cafes.