Midsummer Video Roundup: Moving in Traffic

To a deluxe apartment in the sky

A lot of people will talk about the whole rap-rock era and condemn the Limp Bizkit/Korn/Linkin Park movement as a load of horseshit, and you know I’d have to agree. But some of those people will be quick to add “except for the Pharcyde” or “except for Rage Against the Machine,” a couple groups who I guess could be considered the originators of the genre, if you want to call it that. The point is that the creators shouldn’t be blamed for whatever watering-down and bastardization followed, which I guess is fair, but rap-rock can stay dead and buried as far as I’m concerned.

Except maybe for those scary clown guys who named their album “Iowa,” cuz they seemed like they were onto something.

Anyway, the same general concept can apply to this new phase of urban/weird spot/”creative”/cellar door skating we’re in right now, and bearded munchkin Bobby Puleo, who set the stage in La Luz way back in 2002. Even those who’ve had it up to here with the pivot fakie craze will tip their hats to Puleo, being as he’s the one who came up with a lot of these moves.

It makes a certain kind of sense that Puleo ended up with the Traffic/Static set, and his BDP-powered opening part in the new “Moving in Traffic” promo is to me his best skating since La Luz or maybe even the Infamous promo, possibly because it came as a surprise to me that he put aside his internet conspiracy theories and aggressive indifference to skating in general to make a notable effort. He’s fleet-footed as ever and his style, to invoke probably the most overused word on this blog, is looking smoother than it has in years as he noseblunts and nosegrinds and manuals all over the place. The spots of course are like the Rust Belt’s greatest hits, and Rich Adler’s rapid-fire editing is right on time. If he wants Puleo can go back into hiding for a couple years off this part, it’s seriously that great.

Later on Oyola grinds some steps, Pat Steiner breezes some lines and Damien Smith wipes down an SUV with his black tee. Oh, and Dan Plunkett (I think it’s him) sails a big ollie out to nosestall to pop back in fakie on a bank-ledge, which is wild. Rich Adler rips and chooses good tricks to do and hooks up some pretty inspired music choices for the parts though.

The other anchor of the video is Jack Sabback who cranks his backside nollies and low-rides long nosegrinds and always seems to rotate into or out of tricks in the most eye-pleasing direction available. You know? He’s looking like a young Egon Spengler and skids the sickest nollie frontside noseslide pop-over to fakie. This is the part that myself and, I can only assume, billions of others have been awaiting since the Ipath promo a few years ago, and it satisfies through the final fucked-up switch frontside pop-shove it.

On a side note I don’t know why more companies aren’t going the Tim & Henry route in this age of the 24-hour filming cycle. Jamie Thomas was talking about putting out a Zero video every fall that would basically be edited around whoever had the most/best footage at the time, which is an interesting idea. Either way, the Traffic promo comes out to the perfect length for a pre-skate viewing and hopefully more companies try this approach. It seems to be translating into board and softgood sales, since Oyola can now apparently afford to put titles for different skaters’ parts and pay street cops to wear Traffic merchandise.

They had this video up at the Traffic website for a while, but now I can’t find it. The site is however home to quite possibly the gulliest news update in some time, check it out.

Torey Pudwill: on some shit

seriously what the fuck

We’re at the beginning of an era where a lot of people will try and reproduce the Fully Flared brand of late-aughts tech skating (brace yourself for the next Ronson Lambert part), but Torey Pudwill of all people steps right up and gets it pitch-perfect in the new DVS promo. The magazines over the last few months have been showcasing his ever-taller pop and he held it down at that Lord of the Lines contest, but to me his new DVS part shows he puts some thought into the tricks he does, which is what generally separates your Jason Dills and your Rob Welshes from Mr. kickflip-two-more-stairs.

There’s a ton of great stuff in this part, and the obvious Fully Flared influence is there with the b/s tail pop-up to manual or the b/s smith 360 flip (ridiculous). But I could rewind that nollie heelflip over the hydrant three times whenever I watch this. And it’s amazing to me when somebody has the control to nollie flip up a block as their set-up trick. Kickflip b/s smith grind on that bridge bench in NYC is pretty mind-boggling, and I like the way he really stabs those b/s smiths. The bigspin b/s tail to regular was smooth as shit, on par with the one Kalis had on DC-TV a few weeks back.

Pudwill’s still got some kinks to work out, like the occasional spazz-oid arms and wonky waist, and his switch b/s bigspin flip doesn’t have the suave-ness of Dylan Rieder’s or Russ Milligan’s. But compared to the wounded bird that shared a part with Daniel Castillo in Skate More he’s come about a million miles. And while everybody else tries to step to the Fully Flared level over the next few years it’ll be interesting to see Pudwill try and top his own shit.