Straight Out The Dungeons Of Rap, Travis Erickson Submits An Entry For Most ‘Street’ Video Part Of The Year

Watch Wisco kid Travis Erickson mine the San Francisco bay to concoct one of the more “urban” skate parts to be seen this year: Hanging onto moving vehicles, getting yelled at by passersby, skating a curb, switch frontside flips and 360 flips off natural bumps, a switch k-grind to regular, skating in a goddam backpack, sidestepping traffic, water on the lens, skating a truck bumper and truck trailer on nonconsecutive occasions, and a wallie. If you had a street skating bingo card this dude could win the George Webb gift certificate even without the free space and cellar door square.

Rose-Coloured Glasses, Made In Philadelphia

Recently while aboard a luxury locomotive I gazed out the window to take in the urban decay and peacefully zoned out on the loading docks and warehouses, snapping to after realizing that it had been several minutes and probably it looked semi-catatonic to whatever secular co-passengers might’ve been paying attention. One of those increasingly seldom times when a person can still feel as though these pursuits might set them apart in some fundamental way from the rest of the whoevers, and coming on the heels of the pretty emotionally heavy Oyola “Later’ds,” casts Ricky/Bobby/Traffic and the rest in a whole different light.

I ask you, who but a truly cockeyed optimist looks for and sees potential for good times in a sea of crumbling concrete foundations and pissy public parks and disused traffic barriers? What sort of a person launches a hardgoods affair, in 2011, out of the east coast without Marc Ecko rhino pants money and with a full-time truck driving job? What sort of a person would professionally endorse this company? What sort of person devotes the last decade-plus to filming this stuff for unprofitable video enterprises? Does spot-seeking and those who live the attached lifestyle require a person to be naturally outfitted with rose-colored goggles, or are they earned like a samurai’s blade or a unicorn’s wish-granting powers?

Elsewhere on the east coast, Du Flocka Rant gives the children a reason to believe. (via quartersnacks)

Night Fever

We know how to do it

Despite the continental-sized chip on its shoulder, one of the things that made the 2004 Lordz wheels video “They Don’t Give A Fuck About Us” great was the exotic nature of these amazing spots the dudes were skating… wide-open and untouched plazas, old timey-looking buildings in the background, enough grime caked into the cracks on the sidewalks to make it interesting, et cetera. The new “Night Prowler” video out of Japan has a similar thing going on but in a way that’s a lot more claustrophobic, like these walls and buildings are pressing in on the camera’s field of vision or something.

Flannel shirts, Vans and ski caps have fully taken over in Japan and Hiroki Muraoka is pretty exemplary of what’s going on for the next half hour: tall 50-50s, fast ollies, speedy lines and urban transition, all that. The mini-backside tailslide he does is great. Traffic’s Rich Adler makes an extended guest appearance, and there’s tricks from Soy Panday and Emanuel Guzman, as well as the never-seen-enough Mike Manzoori of all people. Akira Imamura does a zany backside flip wallride thing and Deshi performs some Natas spin moves amid some sketchy 50-50s.

It might have something to do with the type of skating that’s going on, with a lot less gap-sailing and more of jamming the boards up, onto and over various obstacles and things that creates almost a constant clattering of urethane on stone, cement, steel and whatnot. I don’t know if there’s some kind of superior Japanese technology at work here but beyond the collage of streetlights, wallrides and transfer grinds what I took away from this vid was the sound of wheels rattling and skidding from surface to surface. It sounds interesting here, different from other videos it seems like, and you could picture ripping this to an mp3 and laying on your newly acquired rug, eyes half-closed with headphones on, listening to the sounds until yet another interloper cracks you across the jaw.

10. Jack Sabback, “Moving in Traffic”

Here we go, my top ten video parts of the year begin counting down today:

Recent years have seen a lot of companies take advantage of the comparatively inexpensive DVD format (or the comparatively free web video format) to mess around with skate video construction, bringing about an overdue resurrection of the “Tim & Henry’s”/”Two Songs”-style promo that doesn’t skimp on quality without bogging down the time-strapped viewer of today with interminable intros and lengthy skits. Despite all that and a great beard, Jack Sabback nonetheless shoulders a considerable burden, following a reenergized Bob Puleo and closing out one of the more anticipated promos of the summer, but he gets over on fast skating, an assortment of mellow nosegrinds and a great last-part song. That final line, the way he sets down that backside 180 before losing track of the switch frontside pop-shove it conjures the feeling of long, sweaty summer afternoon sessions that leave your legs with a satisfying ache the next morning.

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.