taking up skating in late 30s

[Spacecase Records]

Yeah, pressure flips are sort of happening again. Not a lot of folks are doing them, but I'm seeing them after twenty-four years of being totally dead. Erik Ellington blitzed one in the last Deathwish video over the LA Library gap and I felt really queasy watching it. Great skater doing a ridiculous trick -- that means we're in trouble. I started skating in 1995, but my older friends who started in the New Deal era have been busting them out again as a joke. Muscle memory goes deep. Pressure flips shaved boards like a jigsaw and 60-grit sandpaper. 

[Richie]

Pressure flips are back in, no complys and body varials are back out.

[Spacecase Records]

My late friend Van Wastell had something to do with the body varial thing coming back. He was really, really good at them. Although ex-60/40 AM Larry Moore was keeping them on life support back in the mid-'90s.

Not feeling the no comply thing, unless you're Ray Barbee or Sean Young.

[Richie]

I agree. No complys bum me out unless its in a Barbee part. Had no idea you knew Wastell, tragic story. I remember when he was gonna be the next big thing hand-picked by The Gonz himself.

[Mark Daid]

Not feeling the no comply thing, unless you're Ray Barbee or Sean Young.

Or me if you could see my no comply flips.  Still my favorite trick to do.

[Mark Daid]

Not feeling the no comply thing, unless you're Ray Barbee or Sean Young.

Or me if you could see my no comply flips.  Still my favorite trick to do.

Those and any # of board slide variations at the Franklin Block or slappies at the Reed Curb.

[Spacecase Records]

I agree. No complys bum me out unless its in a Barbee part. Had no idea you knew Wastell, tragic story. I remember when he was gonna be the next big thing hand-picked by The Gonz himself.

Van was my childhood friend. We grew up skating together. He was two grades below me in high school. His brother Kurt was a pro snowboarder. When Kurt would visit in the mid-'90s it was like seeing a demi-god walk into town. He'd ollie over bike racks when we were barely making it up curbs.

I'll add one more person to the no-comply list: Ron Whaley. He'd do no-comply lazer flips in '96 when no one cared about them.

[forced to frug]

I agree. No complys bum me out unless its in a Barbee part.

There are plenty of bad examples out there right now, especially among random skatepark kids on instagram.  An IG account that points out various offenders:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BZjOsGkAnNG/?taken-by=squareup_skateboards

Occasionally, someone will do a new no comply variation that looks great:

Pontus Alv from a few years ago - https://youtu.be/Pf9inO0pL8M?t=16s

[Spacecase Records]

The no comply stuff will likely age as well some of the cheese ball tech of the late '90s (think Osiris' The Storm) and Damon Byrd's part in the Union Wheels video (early '90s). That's not saying that a lot of those tricks aren't hard -- some are incredibly difficult -- I just view it along the lines as the monochromatic fad of the late 1980s hot rod scene.

I've been skateboarding for over twenty-two years. Seen a lot of shit come and go. Even with dreadlocks, Matt Reason's skating still makes the most sense to me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gji-cx5JNwI

[rutabowa]

What do you all think of the PALASONIC video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2Ew-i8a7cg

I totally love it of course as a kind of love letter to the city of london, it captures the feel of it so well. the soundtrack is absolutely perfect. i think the vhs styling has irritated some people but it fits right to me... and the skating is hypnotic raw street. best thing of 2017 imo.

[Spacecase Records]

I could only get through part of it. Incredible skating, but the VHS-C/Hi-8 aspect got tiring. I grew up skating during the period (mid-'90s) when that technology was cutting edge and most of us started out filming on 8mm. My friend, who ended up filming part of Workshop's Photosynthesis and the DC video, put a Hi-8 camera (Canon ES6000) on a credit card (they were prohibitively expensive). When the VX1000 came out he did the same thing. I don't get the fixation with videotape -- you can't recreate that time period by using the same cameras; Trilogy ain't coming back. It was a pre-Internet world and corporate sponsorship was nearly non-existent. A lot of skateshops look more like boutiques these days. A real change. (I'd have been unable to predict the future of skating back in 1996. My guess would have been wildly off from the present-day situation.) I had a good friend on Krooked, as well as an acquaintance. Gonz explored this return to lo-fi video ten years ago. The guys on the team were indifferent to unreceptive to the idea. I'd have felt the same, although the novelty of Gnar Gnar would have been more compelling. It's Gonz after all.

There seems to be a big push behind European/British skating now. It's good to see a lot of those guys get the spotlight. I knew/skated with a few Brits and they told me that the Eastern Exposure videos were influential due to the rugged terrain. I'm still convinced that France's JB Gillet was one of the best street skaters ever.

The best skate video that felt like a documentary of a scene was Zoo York's Mixtape. Before they went fully corporate and Supreme became a global brand, Zoo York (RB Umali) put out an incredible document of East Coast skating ('96-'97 period) before the marketplace for that stuff blew up -- at least for those in the right place. I was/remain very happy/proud to be from Southern California, but I really liked a lot of the footage coming out of Philadelphia and New York from that time period. Seems like some of those dudes had a huge chip on their shoulders against Californians. It didn't bother me; I liked a lot their footage and pros -- Matt Reason, Fred Gall, Robbie Gangemi, etc.

I still skate every day, but I feel pretty divorced from what's going on -- same goes for music. I can take it or leave it. I have to say that I do like seeing big boy Jamie Foy crush rails. That kid's hellbent on spot destruction.

[velcro]

Can we get a top 10 skate videos of all time list from ya'll?

Not like a "historically significant" list but a personal top 10. I love reading this shit. Do people avidly collect these old VHS'? Are they all online now or do people sell DVDs or something?

[forced to frug]

What do you all think of the PALASONIC video? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2Ew-i8a7cg

I totally love it of course as a kind of love letter to the city of london, it captures the feel of it so well. the soundtrack is absolutely perfect. i think the vhs styling has irritated some people but it fits right to me... and the skating is hypnotic raw street. best thing of 2017 imo.

I enjoyed it, despite now having a really low tolerance for skate videos that are over 20 minutes long.

I loved this clip featuring a bunch of the same people:  http://www.thrashermagazine.com/articles/videos/mwadlands/

[Spacecase Records]

Seeing as I'll take skating over music any day of the week, sure.

1. Trilogy. I was skating UCLA by myself in early/mid-'96 and I saw Richard Mulder there skating the rail in front of the John Wooden Center. Seeing as that was the early days when skating was still fairly underground, the guy filming him and I just skated the whole campus for the rest of the day. Richard asked if I had seen Trilogy yet which had just come out. I told him no. He said, "Go to the skate shop and get that video." I did. He was right. It's still my favorite video, especially the 101 section.

2. Mouse. An All City/City Stars AM told me that the Menace video didn't come out because Kareem felt that Mouse would've buried their video. That's a shame, but speaks volumes of how good this video was.

3. Best of 411 Vol. 2. Second video I ever bought (had a bunch of dubbed tapes before though). Matt Reason and Lennie Kirk in the same vid? Enough said.

4. Easter Exposure 3. Truly amazing. Donny Barley, Resse Forbes, Bam before drugs, and Ricky Oyola. I remember seeing Barley skate at a Hot Rods demo in Santa Monica when he was the new Toy Machine AM. Dude was truly a powerhouse on the board. Jerry Fisher was good and the Freddy Gall footage -- I mean, fuck if that wasn't memorable.

5. Welcome to Hell. Jamie Thomas shut shit down, but goddamn if Mike Maldonado wasn't a pitbull on a skateboard. BA's front blunt on Hubba was one for the record books.

6. Mix Tape. Pre-corporate, raw East Coast skating. Robbie Gangemi was incredible. His closer is the best back 50 ever done. Period.

7. Rodney vs. Daewon. Daewon is the best. Here he is at his peak.

8. Listen. Tim Dowling's flick. I grew up skating the Santa Monica Courthouse and Venice Pit. This was my era when I started out. I used to see a lot of these guys skating, although I was really young (13 to 16). Just really raw skating. Some of these guys ended up dead or in prison. It was before money entered skating. I'm not trying to romanticize this shit, just saying what Charlotte Pressler stated: those were different times.

9. Krooked's Gnar Gnar. I don't hide the fact that Van Wastell was one of my best friends and I miss him a lot. When that vid came out I asked Van why "Dreams Never End" was used over and over again. He said, "Mark just liked the song."

10. Video Days. I like Gonz. Rudy Johnson is a nice guy and his part was underrated.

I can talk about skating for hours and hours. It was and remains the most meaningful aspect of my life.

[levon]

In no order-
Antihero - Cow
Antihero - Tent City
Stereo - A Visual Sound
Blind - Video Days
Transworld - Sight Unseen
Toy Machine - Welcome to Hell
Real - Nonfiction
Girl - Mouse
Alien Workshop - Photosynthesis
Alien Workshop - Timecode

Bonus contest vid pick- Jim?s Ramp Jam