H
ow to Skateboard and Not Kill Yourself is about a boy who skates for hours by himself pathologically, to the point where his brain gets so contrived that he begins doing things nobody in history has attempted to dream about. That is how the book How to Skateboard and Not Kill Yourself by Sean “The Mutt” Mortimer might be perceived if it were fiction. Frighteningly enough, the above description is an accurate portrayal of Rodney Mullen’s biography, minus one small detail – decades later, “he skates everyday for hours by himself,”... “it [still] warps his brain and he starts doing things nobody else has thought of.” In a recent conversation with “The Mutt,” Mortimer continues to mourn freestyle skateboarding, “I think it’s almost as pure as skating can get, but it’s dead. Sorry. I don’t think it’s coming back.” Although he thinks it would be really awesome if it did, even The Mutt (former skater for Powell), a skater from the late 80’s, recognizes the contradictions of the essentially extinct art of freestyle skateboarding. Although there may be skeptics, I will venture out on a limb here to say that if it wasn’t for Rodney Mullen, street skating wouldn’t be where it is today. He is the reason we have the opportunity to write about this stuff, or even have a magazine and a place to set an image on the cover. Negative aspects aside, it can be argued that commercialism is to thank for giving many professional skateboarders a place where they have the opportunity to spread their success and be recognized in other creative endeavors. Today, much of the nonskateboarding public recognizes Jason Lee only for his work in Hollywood films, Spike Jonze for directing that movie with Nicholas Cage or the one where Cameron Diaz looks super tossed… Oh yeah, Being John Malcovich. While many art scenesters recognize the face of Ed Templeton as an international painter, or even Tony Hawk as a video game character, none of this would be without the acceptance Rodney brought to skateboarding. The corporate dollars that keep our wheels turning would never have been made without the appeal that Mullen brought with his [at the time] uncool freestyle skateboarding. While researching for the book, Mortimer learned that, as the owner of a company, Stacy Peralta always lost money on freestylers, such as Rodney’s, board sales — but as a promotional tool he was perfect. Rodney brought skateboarding to ground level, literally. In a time when vert-skating ruled, Mullen was able to demo skateboarding on a single sheet of plywood inside a shopping mall. Freestyle skateboarding introduced people to the sport before it was commercialized on TV. Many will attest to these claims, but as far as opening doors goes, Rodney broke the lock to let street skating move towards its full potential. Rodney was concerned for a long time that street skaters wouldn’t accept him. People such as Word Industries’ Steve Rocco and Marc Johnson encouraged him to use his freestyle roots to progress [street] skating.
don’t die wondering
A REVIEW OF THE NEW YORK/PARIS BASED ARTIST COLLECTIVE SURFACE TO AIR AND THEIR FIRST CANADIAN EXHIBITION
local boy gets shazam city: malibu politicaly minded geoff dermer sandy plotnikoff slam city jam xi franz ferdinand
AN INTERVIEW WITH ANCASTER, ONTARIO’S BIGGEST MENACE, BRYAN GIBBS
AN EXCLUSIVE WITH MIKE YORK AND CHRIS ROBERTS’ FIXER UPPER
A GALLERY OF LOS ANGELES/MONTREAL BASED PRODUCTION HOUSE, HEAVYWEIGHT
A RARE INTERVIEW WITH VANCOUVER’S PRIDE AND JOY
ARTIST FEATURE
CONTEST...
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Rodney made it viable for skaters to pursue other ventures and to be recognized for their other strengths. You’ve seen Spike Jonze admired by movie buffs and interviewed about his films, possibly read articles on Ed Templeton in an art publication or seen his work at a gallery in Italy, seen Jason Lee’s face on the big screen and in entertainment magazines and Tony Hawk in Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue, but Rodney doesn’t have the desire to go outside the bounds of skateboarding, for he sees no bounds. The mosaic on the cover of this issue was produced by an analysis and disection of Rodney’s skateboarding image: redistributed, Rodney Mullen, the face of skateboarding, appropriated and brought to the streets. - Sandro, editor/art director.
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Cover Photos: Jody Morris
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contributing photographers
brendon sohar, kevin wong, david chistensen, jody morris, felix faucher, bob kronbauer, rob gilbert, graham vickers, kristopher grunert, john holdsworth, dan mathieu, scott serfas
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2.2credits.
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christian
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1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. bboy tee. 15. 16. 17. 18.
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matix white label thurston jacket c1varsity hood emerica gotti jacket stacks guitar pic khaki fourstar plaid long sleeve fourstar mike carroll chino matix triumph stretch freshjive pinster pant emerica vice leather stacks eagle and hyena heather freshjive nordic sweater freshjive orgasm s/s t father skateboard co, western edition larry young deck zoo york elephant shoes eS lockwood lurkers truant trucker hats rtft everybody 13. hi camel, moss, gunmetal
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For a lot of guys these days who aren’t fortunate enough to be ridiculously good looking for a living, they turn to their skateboard for companionship. Yes, I’m talkign abouyt being lonely, but if you truely love skateboarding then the thought has never crossed your mind… but maybe it should. Your girlfriend is a skateboard! You’re viewed by the public as being “taken” and therefore you’ve been repeling any possibility of being picked up by the female gender. Once again, it doesn’t matter to you and the thought has never crossed your mind and you’ll continue to skate and wonder why girls like the ”idea” of skateboarders, but you continue to sit on the barrier alone.
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For a lot of boys growing up in broken homes with divorced parents, they’ve looked only to their skateboard for guidence. Whether your skateboard is your father, your best friend, girlfriend or shitstick, for Micke Lemay and Yanick Nolet of Father Skateboard Co. it’s a symbol for what guides them through their passions, dreams and future. Never believe a rumor because Father Skateboards is always up and running and our souls “FOREVER”. FSC has just recently launched 4 new graphics for the 2004 spring collection. Father Skateboard Co. since 1997. For more info check out www.upsesion.com/ilovefsc.html -Sandro producttoss.
dc artist series: howell alias c1rca cx 108 navy/yellow/white kr3w ben watch, ar shades, kowoh wallet eS lemans leather trucker hat emerica cop buckle propagandist pagan tee, rectik blotus ltd 7” vinyl, printed fabric folder Bowel Massacre Part 1 B/w Part 2 (7 inch green vinyl) As Lucifer’s unholy order we will soon eclipse the land and homes you habit, raising forth a wasteland of impurity. Children of god, your desires; we will twist and distort them into fears, doubts, and misunderstandings. From the shadows and dark corners, we attack; unseen and withdrawn. With your mind and soul weakened, we will then forth proceed with the physical assault on earth, spreading war, pestilence, torture, self-destruction, and hatred. You will hear us from afar. You will hear our battle cry before the unholy harshness we will unleash on you; the grinding cacophony of a thousand axes, the sound of a hundred drums being furiously pounded and the growls of a million lost souls in unison, in the name of our Lord Lucifer. This is the sound of Rectik Blotus and you will feel “Bowel Massacre”, our war song, our chant – our instigator, as thousands of raven mustang hooves stomp on your skull. The sound – unholy evil death metal, blackest of black – the most impure will foreshadow your impending doom. -Data -Data
sandro
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23. crownfarmer speedy hooded, chill duffel, 100% goth tee the crownfarmer fall 2004 line is now in shipment. It includes nine t-shirts, two sweatshirts and a cotton sport zip up. you’ve seen the crownfarmer tees shown here before, but now crownfarmer’s Bob K has finaly given us the distinct pleasure to show these beutes off! Order online at www. crownfarmer.com or in Canada at Antisocial. 24.
mystery ryan smith wheel
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ftc bi-fold wallet, woodie printed cap, western edition wristbands
For over a decade now FTC had been a successful skateshop located in SF’s Haight district. What started out as a skateboard catalogue made up for some friends, has become (like Hubba Hideout, Pier 7, Wallenberg, EMB, Mike Carroll, or Mark Gonzales) absolutely synonymous with SF street skating. Without a doubt, the San Francisco skatescene would not be what it is today if it weren’t for FTC’s support, along with Thrasher Magazine, or Deluxe Distribution. Just watch any FTC skate video, from past to present and it’s bananas to see what SF skateboarders were doing back in the day. Its legendary status is equivalent to what Supreme is to NYC skating. Finally in 2004, it’s nice to know that Canada has gotten it’s hands on FTC’s line of streetwear and accessories. People throughout Canada can now represent the community that the store has long been a part of. You know FTC is hot shit when savvy Japanese kids going ape do-do over it as they did with Supreme for a while. It just has to be. That’s the Law of Trends. And you’ll
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for sure find this limited stuff on E-bay. With the name it made itself during San Francisco’s skateboarding golden age, and the success from FTC Clothing and SFO (Snowboard shop), owner/ founder, Kent Uyehara decide to start amongst other projects, Western Edition snowboards; one of the first commercial projects to showcase the work of world renown artist Barry McGee (Twist) . That venture eventually evolved into Western Edition skateboards (because snowboarding sucks guys). Western Edition boards have nice pop, and the design work is simple and sophisticated; showcasing San Francisco institutions like TransAmerica Pyramid, Golden Gate and vignettes of jazz musicians. You can find FTC and Western Edition boards at finer skateshops, or you can order from them direct at www.ftcskate.com. A new site is underconstruction so watch out for that. -Chui .producttoss
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grunert [o]
by scott radnidge
The plight of border crossing, for both skaters and musicians,
is a parallel dilemma. While someone with a DUI charge is usually let into the country without so much as a blink, a suspicious skateboarder or musician is often reduced to getting the “drug dealer, suspicious character” tag and refused entry; the authorities citing that both of these groups are a threat to the culture of the United States. So why let them in? The authorities will hum and haw over computer screens as they look for reasons to ban entry to applicants, looking for anything to stop the influx of shady people. Eventually, they will smile gleefully as they pull up an unpaid ticket from one of the skaters for skating on a sidewalk way back in 1992 when the offender was 12, and that’s that. No entry.
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The border causes fear to bloom in everyone who waits in its nerve racking lineups, perspiration soaking through t-shirts. “What will they be able to deny me about this time?” is a question that runs through the skater’s and musician’s dizzy and spinning minds.
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There was a white line that, after wavering a little from left to right, stayed a straight course down the last mile towards the gates that blocked the road. Often watched and actively pursued, the barriers at the end of the line always blocked our paths. As kids, we would flirt with disaster by circumventing these formalities that ended this long stretch of pavement, but as we all got older it all seemed so official – it had to be. The air in our lungs always hung low from waiting in anticipation as we lined up with the others – pining for a glimpse of the other side, waiting to cross the line before we could breathe easy once again – our smiles and conversations being shushed and repressed, lest we show a crack in our exterior with a wrongly timed grin. anthrax.
The bricks and mortar, one-way glass and beacon lights, the questions asked without eye contact, it was a charade happily played out by all involved. We did our side well, passing the test and being sent off for an hour or so; all this for an hour or so, maybe a tank of gas, pack of smokes, a record, books or cheap beer. All of this for an hour or so. Buildings, guns and mirrored sunglasses, trick questions and spy cameras, we felt the guilt and suspicion even thought our motives were nothing less than honest. The years passed. Buildings got bigger and better reenforced, cameras hid in every nook and cob webbed cranny – always searching for something, reading our faces as we stared straight ahead. Everything still ended at the end of the white line, but the mood on either side was different. This place, my white lined friend, was now the frontier, and I slept with the enemy. Once a backwoods outpost, it now proudly defended the front line, separating good from evil. Everything was there in the fight against the axis of evil. The signs above the road threatened to rain down bombs if we didn’t stay in line. Atomic lasers eagerly awaited to fall from the sky, all in the name of security. The lineups now were longer – the one-way glass stretching longer alongside the building, a feeling of being in a fishbowl striking fear in the line makers, fearful of questions that would remain unasked, but still implied, this has to be a mind game at the end of our earth. In a learned response, my breath still hid as I slowly rolled along, completely aware of the stares of dogs and armed men I stayed the course. “Straight along the white line” I muttered in a mantra, suppressing the anxiety in my heart, “straight along the white line”.
The questions came, slower than I could remember, eye contact seemingly replaced with technology, computers spouting God knows what information about the cars’ occupants as we sat and stared, trying to look as casual as can be, when trying not to stare at the size of the M-16 near the trunk, damn, it looked so big. Silence. Oh shit. The man in the box has stood up, left his coffee, computer and chair, and has decided to pay the car a little visit. A peek, lift, shuffle and stare, questions rapidly fired, not enough time for a reply, and we’re fit to go he said as he looked past us towards the next car, full of people that I’m glad I’m not at that moment, fearing that their skin color is going to get them in a lot of trouble at the end of their own white line, another casualty on the edge of Armageddon. I drove to the other side, the smile slowly cracking through my chapped lips and rubbing over my dry teeth. We were on the other side! The air smelled the same as back home, I thought as we drove, my lungs taking in the moving air, lapping up its freshness. But the fleeting feeling of happiness quickly made way to curiosity. There was a lineup on this side of the bricks and mortar, gates and cameras, questions and stares. It was a long lineup, whose participants bore the same expression that I had just minutes ago. I looked farther up the road, in the direction that we travelled, and was amazed that for these people it was all different. They would never feel the fear that I felt for the end of the white line, where I always felt translucent and shallow. They would never see the white line that I had known all my life. How could they? We weren’t the same. How could we be the same? They had this thick yellow line that went straight down the middle of their road. Their yellow line did something else entirely to me, it made me worry and want to keep on driving, I didn’t want to know what the yellow line meant to them.
Felix Faucher A skateboarder’s eye is trained to seek and destroy our urban landscape. We have been trained by the diligent giant called skateboarding to appropriate architecture and give it new meaning. This one-of-a-kind bound book by Canadian Photographer Felix Faucher brings all the organic elements to a bounded form by means of paper, ink pen, cardboard, linen thread, acrylic paint, bubble-jet printing and elastic. Hand sewed, no glue, No Pop No Style displays Faucher’s enhanced perspective of what skateboarding presents on our physical environment as a form of lucidity. “Humans in general take little advantage of the structures and architecture surrounding them, besides walking in the paths made for it. In that sense skateboarding is like tree climbing when you’re a kid; if it looks fun, just go and climb/jump/slide on it!” This book is the first of a series with the themed simple forms that one could find in an urban environment and that would inspire fun on a board, but there’s nothing simple or fun about the production of this piece of work – only a skateboarder could find the obsessive compulsive desire to tackle such a unique project. - Sandro
Ginko Press THE
RED SNAKE
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Hideshi Hino DH Publishing
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Many, many years ago I read an article about Japanese horror comics in the horror movie magazine Fangoria (or one of its brethren). Featured was the cover of the Hideshi Hino book Panorama of Hell, prompting me to immediately try to get ahold of this seemingly masterful horror graphic novel described as “gory as hell” and “profoundly disturbing”. Little did I know that the book would forever change my perception of the underground comic genre and the way that heavy issues can be portrayed horrifically, consisting of dreadful family history and dark obsession with societal death and blood. This was the first English translation of the great Hideshi Hino’s work. The book is seen as his masterpiece. It is indirectly riddled with the horror of nuclear war, as Hino was born just a year after the Hiroshima bomb. His first comic was published in 1967, and since then he has had 150 graphic novels published and has directed two stories made into disturbing films (the legendary Flower of Flesh and Blood and Mermaid in a Manhole). The second graphic novel translated into English was Hell Baby, and the third was a short story in a Japanese underground comic collection. It’s been some years since there have been English translations of his work, so I’ve had a friend in Japan send me Hino books in trade for harsh noise for the last few years. My Hino collection is now vast, and the horrific imagery is all there, but the abrupt Japanese to English translation are sorely missed. Quotes such as, “Move the fuck over rotten dog!” And, “and the head of a pig. Red flowers of Hell, flute of hell, I’ll give you them so you’ll sleep well.” The speeches and statements are great and they begin to actually play with your head as you read the stories for hours on end. Finally, DH publishing has released two more books of the Japanese underground horror comic master – The Red Snake and The Bug Boy. Both are highly representational of Hino’s monumental work, as The Red Snake deals with the haunted and evil premise that possesses a family sect and The Bug Boy depicts the slow and gruesome transformation of a boy into an insect. Red Snake is along the lines of the epic Panorama of Hell’s story, revolving around the family’s tattoos. A family unit is terrorized by evil doings every time a red snake appears in the house. The Bug Boy is a little lighter and not as abstract. The transformation of the boy and the bug aesthetic follow his many other tales that seem to almost be directed toward a younger audience. The Bug Boy is not quite as obsessive and over the top as The Red Snake, but still fantastic and has an ending that rivals his most dramatic and, let’s say, 2001ish conclusions. I read some time ago that Hideshi Hino has retired from illustrating and writing horror comics to concentrate more on his Samurai studies. New works of his hard lined, simplistic, yet aggressively gory stylings will be missed, but there’s always the other underground horror works of Suehiro Maruo and Junji Ito to tide over the collector of this sincerely scary art form. - Sam
Morning Wood inspirationbound.
Morning Wood is about alternatives; from the artists featured to the mediums they have chosen, it‘s an incredible compilation of pure inspiration. Morning Wood features 50 top artists and provides a long-awaited forum for well-known visionaries like Billboard liberator Ron English, the creator of the Garbage Pail Kids, John Pound and Sex Pistols’ art director Jamie Reid. Each artist took advantage of complete freedom to present a selection of his or her best work in four full bleed pages. To ensure that these impressive works were presented in a current context, Morning Wood also features this generation’s brightest stars such as Espo, Cynthia Connolly, Dalek, Giant, WK Interact and Estevan Oriol. Consider this a snapshot of the current sate of “alt-art,” complete with current biographies to put the art, artist and timeframe into context. - M.Wilson
Writing - Urban Calligraphy and Beyond Die Gestalten
Until recently, graffiti had been long ignored and looked down upon by the “art community” for its proximity to comic culture. The business community continues to vilify it as vandalism. Graffiti, since ancient times, has steadfastly remained in the public view: universal and with a natural affinity to the lines of architecture - a key artistic aspect in a modern city. Graffiti is now the source of styling and aesthetic cues borrowed by fashion and graphic designers and architects alike. This book is a study of modern urban calligraphy, it’s origins firmly rooted in the New York style of “writing” based on extruded typography. Compiled by activist designers Markus Mai and Arthur Remke this book contains a number of essays about the appropriation of public space by this low-tech conspiracy. - M.Wilson
Los Logos Die Gestalten
Identity done right is simple, effective and effortless. In today’s mass appeal mass media blitz of extreme branding, from music video product placement to signature shoe and clothing lines - a logo must create a positive image, trigger the memory and perfectly distil a message. All this in a simple, radically reduced, easily recognizable symbol. Yeah, that’s just too easy! This book is the holy bible of identity, a heavy tomb worthy of its long-standing record as a worldwide best seller. LL is a must have in any serious designer or culture vulture’s collection, if simply for it’s over 3000 works from 200 designers on 444 systematically structured pages. - M.Wilson
No Pop No Style 1.0
be sure to catch the chocolate canada tour : 7/11 Kelowna B.C + 7/14 Calgary Alberta + 7/16 Edmonton Alberta + 7/18 Saskatoon Sask + 7/19 Regina Sask
for details check www.chocolateskateboards.com or www.crailtap.com supradistribution.com 604 253 0559
On Friday, April 30, 2004, a new type of ship surfaced near Gastown’s harbour. Instead of attracting the usual retirees clad in Hawaiian prints and money belts, the “Don’t Die Wondering” spectacle created by the art collective Surface To Air grabbed the attention of everyone from the art school cool to the fine art elite and some in between – actually, a lot in between. Even organizers Neil and Denny from Pigeon were (pleasantly) surprised to greet the crowd of over 250 people, which eventually resulted in the art show/excuse to get wasted outside a bar/dance party being shut down by police, still in full swing, around midnight. Attendees were then forced out into the streets to negotiate the long line-ups of bitter skaters, who apparently weren’t important enough to be on the guest list for a Slam City party. Perhaps in homage to, or simply inspired by, the days of playing wrapping-paper-roll swords at Christmas time or being more interested in the packaging of a present than the actual gift, the aforementioned ship was made entirely from cardboard, masking tape and a whole lot of love. Four members of the New York and Paris based collective, came to Vancouver with only photos and dimensions of the exhibition space, from which to imagine and install an original piece of art. The project that was eventually realized in their seven days in Vancouver was a 1940’s naval battleship built to scale with scavenged material. The cannons even moved – how cool is that? Apart from nearly of capsizing a coupletimes, the ship withstood the stormy weather that is a cash bar and a crowd of locals who “don’t get out much.”
Gordon Hull, Daniel Jackson
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holdsworth
Cyril Mazard
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In addition to the impromptu exhibit, the eight-person collective were also showing original screen-prints with images such as wolves and pretty girls – a safe bet, but well done nonetheless.
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Surface To Air (S2A) is an eight-person taste-shaping art collective based in Paris and New York. Starting as an obscure purveyor of the “street” art aesthetic, their artistic talents have made them one of the most sought-after design teams in the world; with recent high-profile projects such as an installation for the Nike Reconstruct campaign (New York) and artwork and packaging for new albums by The Stills and Feist. Surface To Air has also launched a S2A women’s Spring Line and designed the interior of the new Breakbeat Science store in Tokyo. -Nicki Clyne. prints available @ Pigeon, 227 Carrall Street, Vancouver. www.pigeonshop.ca www.surface2air.com
surfacetoair.
INFO: 604 251 1097 ETNIES.COM
RUNE GLIFBERG
E T N I E S : THE THESA ALSO COMES IN BLACK+BLACK+GUM AND BLACK+GREY.
S EF TAL ISH
THESA {WHITE+WHITE+GUM}
GIBBERACHI THROWS DOWN A FRONTSIDE FLIP AT BEASLEY PARK. CONCERNED PARENTS SUSPECT LOCAL BOY UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF MIND ALTERING SUBSTANCE TO REACH SUCH HIGHTS. ”BEEZ AIN’T
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NO MOTHA FUCKIN’ PARK!”
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shazam.bryangibbs.
With
Color 2.2 Summer, 2004
Bryan Gibbs
An interview with the notorious “Local Boy”
Photos By KEVIN WONG
Amature Insider,
Interview By CALIDEN ROBINSON
Skating the streets with reckless abondon
EXCLUS IVE PHOTO!
canada
Growing up in a small “Leave It To Beaver”type of town, you usually have to resort to primitive and uncivilized means of entertaining yourself– for me it was random acts of destruction and vandalism. These sorts of activities in a small, wealthy, quiet town are generally taken as a direct threat to the community and most often lead to some sort of blurb in the weekly town newspaper. For years I was proud to grant the people of Ancaster, Ontario with valuable and news- worthy talk of my contribution to the downfall of their perfect, uncorrupted environment. That’s until one day I started to notice documentation of mischief that I wasn’t even responsible for – this was a whole other evil, one that was almost as sick and premeditated as my own. The headlines almost made me jealous (“Local Boy Eludes Police on Mo-ped”... or “Local Boy Exposes Himself during Heritage Day Parade” etc). I soon uncovered the source of this injustice and its name was Bryan Gibbs, the devil’s apprentice himself. Clearly the only rational thing to do next was to join forces and make bigger and more horrific headlines. I soon pronounced him “Local Boy” and the shit has consistently hit the fan since. Currently, Bryan has been causing havoc on his skateboard as well as to the Hamilton Wentworth region. He still manages to receive lots of coverage in random publications, such as Vice Vol.11, Number 5 where they quote “Look at these fucking turds. Could they be bigger pieces of human waste, please? Look at them. They’re just two big pieces of genitalia with ridiculous hats on. They’re not even worth diarrheaing on.” This is in regards to a photo of Gibbs and his female styling gel model friend. If you haven’t yet had the pleasure to witness Gibbs’ Gonzo style behavior, then just keep your eyes and ears open, for if he should embark upon your city or town you are almost guaranteed to hear about it.
LOCAL BOY DEFACES PUBLIC LEDGE WITH UNCIVILIZED BACK TAIL. ESTIMATED DAMAGE UNDETERMINED.
the Body Smarts energy-bar rack and did a rodeo flip into the front door. After a brief struggle, I got away but they got my license plate and the police called and I had to take it back and apologize to the guy working. My mom had to wait in the car… I’m twenty years old. You were with your mom? I was still drunk from the night before, so I wasn’t allowed to drive. I’ve got lots of stories like that but I kinda gotta keep it PG-13 cause last time I did one of these things my mom learned my theory about late-night girls and she didn’t like it. Oh yeah, this weekend I got into this big fashion event in Toronto called “Fashion Cares”. It’s a pretty big deal, there was like 300 people outside trying to buy tickets off people for like 200 bucks, and at the after-party I went up to Supermodel Linda Evangelista and told her that she looked like “Katinka Bagovananana” and I got shushed away by her man-servants while I yelled random Zoolander quotes. If you could have your own billboard on Sunset Blvd., what sort of look would it exhibit? Probably “Blue Steal”, but maybe “Ferrari”, that’s a softer look – I use it more for footwear work.
Awesome, you can’t go to jail for being awesome.
How do you want the General Public to perceive you?
What’s the last thing you worry about when skating? I don’t know, filming, landing tricks. What’s the first thing you worry about? How good my griptape job is, top sheet colour, shoes, pretty much just my kit in general.
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Do people take skating too seriously? Yeah, way too seriously. It seem like a lot of people don’t even have fun, though I don’t skate with those people.
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Today happens to be your birthday, you’ve just turned twenty… what do you anticipate going down before the age of twentyone? Switch Tre the gap at the top of the loop, and then evolve from the boy Corey into the man Tad. shazam.
What videos fuel your inspiration? I only have three videos: Mouse, Twenty Shot, and Trilogy. That’s all I need. It’s all about Twenty Shot this summer– crewnecks, khakis, Starter tees, Tical, and Beez- Hamilton’s version of Lockwood. What’s on your regular list of things to consume on a daily basis? Hamilton’s crisp smog, Camel Lights, Booster Juice, Pizza House, Old English and female saliva. Tell me about the your last most embarrassing moment during what your AA Sponsor would refer to as “one of your episodes”. I got caught stealing a magazine from the local 7-eleven at 3:00 in the morning last week ‘cause upon exit I yelled the words “No one can tame me!”, but I wasn’t looking and I tripped over
SHOWING NO
REMORSE, LOCAL BOY FLEES THE SCENE EARLY FROM A BACKSIDE BLUNTSLIDE ON TAX PAYER’S PROPRERTY.
would they see when they retrieved the tape at the end of the day? Lets just say that if you put a helmet on me and a wild monkey at the same time, the footage wouldn’t turn out that different. Hey, ask me who my favorite Skater is! Who’s your favorite skater? Gino Iannucci. Is there a question you would like to ask yourself? Ya, I’d like to ask myself where my priorities are right now. Do you have any Shout outs? Ya Totally. The whole Beez crew, Conbrad Hotpit, Manny Fresh, Old Man T, Surfer Jay, Red Daddy, John Teebo, Little Mikey, the whole DMBC family, Jamie Johnny, Spider, Sean Mo, Team Superfriends, WONGNETO, Adam Mancini, braces, downtown Daniel Brown, Mr. Bokma, Mike McCourt, the girls in Montreal, Tony from the Pizza house, Jeremy Ricketts, My Black friend Mansa, Trixie, baby Faced Bastards, Hoop Dreams, the dicks at Shred, Muska, Terry, Deaner, Hansel, Harry, Teen Wolf, Crazy Dan, Ashley Olsen (But no Mary Kate), Smog town Snakes, rest in peace Chi Chi and Blue Polaski.
“Getting laid is ten times more important than skateboarding,
What are your first four vices? What’s a vice again? Like you’re dependent on them? The four C’s: Camels, Cougars, Coronas and loose trucks– so loose that when I shake my board the wheels touch the board. Who are your current sponsors? Girl (Skateboards), Lakai (Shoes), Fourstar (Clothing) from Supra Distribution, and DMBC (Skate Shop).
What about Mike Smith? Oh dude, Mike Smith is the best skater I’ve ever seen skate live – hands down. He tre’d over a garbage can standing up on flat. If scientists put a helmet cam on you for a day, what sort of footage
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DMBC was one of (Mark) Appleyard’s first sponsors. Who else has graced the team roster that deserves recognition? When I was growing up I really looked up to Jamie Johnny. I was always scared to talk to him at Beez when he was sponsored by Kastel (Shoes) and had corn rows, but now we’re in a boy band together and I saw him pour a forty on a cat. Um… Jamie Mcguiness – so San Fransisco, Scott McDonald, me and Red Daddy are on an underground latenight street soccer team
together called “Team Superfriends” and I’ve been bumming menthols off him for four years now and still goin strong. Sean Mo, we skate together everyday and talk about what we like most in 20 shot sequence everyday along with whose the most recent honorary Canadian on crailtap, which is our dream in life. Manny Fresh, he’s the best moonwalker in Hamilton. Conrad Hatrum… whenever we go out girls always ask me how I know Val Kilmer – he pretty much gives me every ensemble I’ve ever dawned. Little Mikey too – he’s just getting into girls and stuff so I’ve kinda taken a leadership role in teaching him the ropes and O’neal Linton – he doesn’t skate much anymore, but he used to be the local Kareem Campbell.
but skateboarding is ten times more important than having a girlfriend.
.shazam
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LOCAL BOY CAUGHT TRESSPASSING ON NOLLIE FLIP TERRITORY.
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bryangibbs.
WWW.55DSL.
A VACATION PARADISE WITH NATURAL SURROUNDINGS. ENJOY THE PEACE AND QUIET OF OUR LUXURIOUS RESORT FACILITIES. MOUNT TRASHMORE IS PROUD TO BE
Your Home Away From Home
the funk: lost and found
by Barry White illustration by Tour
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Digging through funk, or for the sake of this article, reissued funk, can be an intoxicating expedition to say the least. Let’s face it, amidst the slew of hey-day rare funk down at your local shop, there’s a lot of forgetta ble stuff. I’m not saying it’s bad music, all I’m saying is it can sometimes get excrucia tingly repetitive. The truth is, buying music on the sole premise that it is rare has led to my disappointment on more than one occasion and has led me to be rather choosy in what I check for these days. When I first heard about the LA Carnival album, I wet my pants. Just kidding, but I was intrigued. I mean, Egon’s label Now and Again was behind the album, which is a very good thing, and the “Blind man” 12” preceding the LP was ridiculously hot. But more importantly, or should I say most importantly, this was not a reissue of the LA Carnival LP, but a first official release. That’s right, a whole album of unreleased psychedelic jazzfunk classic rockish-in-a-way (kind of) songs circa 1970.
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music.
Unlike the 45-drawn reissues flooding the vinyl scene, this is something to really get hyped on. Everything from Average White Band to Sly Stone to Chicago is reminiscent when I listen to this album. The straight ahead funk-rock feel is definitely the theme, but dope instruments like wind-chimes (on “Flyin”) and flutes keep your head nodding and your instincts second-guessing. They even have two acoustic ballad type songs, “The Klan” and “Can you hum a tune?” which to say they are unbelie vable hardly does them justice. I could go on about how stupid it is that this album is not seeing proper release until now, but I won’t. Instead I’ll just thank God for people like Egon and PbWolf who are crazy and enthusiastic enough to stumble into this kind of shit. Anyways, here’s roughly how it happened: Omaha, Nebraska 1967. The LA Carnival, in its first incarna tion, was the Les Smith Soul band. Guitarist Ron Cooley met Leslie Smith as student s at Omaha North high school. Their first real gig as the “Les Smith Soul band” was a sock-hop at their school in the fall of 1967. At the time the lineup consisted of guitaris t Ron Cooley, vocalist Les Smith, Rick Chudacoff on bass, Lynn Overholser on drums and John Kirsch on trumpet. They covered classics (these were new at the time though) like “Midnight hour”, “Hold on, I’m Coming” and “Turn on your Lovelight” and, says guitaris t Ron Cooley, “The response was tremendous”. Word got out about some ‘white cats’ playing ‘soul music’,
fronted by an amazing black vocalist named Leslie Smith. Phones rang off the hook with invites to play high-school and college dances – gigs that eventually would land them a spot at a local teen night-club called Sandy’s Escape. By the following spring the band had added a Temptations - like feel to the group by adding 3 backup vocalists, complete with dance steps and choreography. Les would also lend his keen fashion sense to the band by picking out stage wardrobes, furthering their credibility. The cost of affording more band members eventually caught up with them and 2 of the vocalists were dropped, leaving the bluesy, energetic stage persona of Arnold Lucas backing Les. The new arrangement was the formula that would lead to the band’s initial explosion. According to Ron Cooley, “With Arnold and Leslie in the group it was like having James Brown, Lou Rawls, Wilson Pickett, Johnny Mathis and Otis Redding on stage every night!” By August of 1968, the band decided to change the lineup once again. Lester Abrams was already a fan of the band and was intrigued by the chemistry of their live shows. Les Smith knew that if the band were to grow, they would have to replace current drummer Lynn with Lester. Lester was older and the band would clearly benefit from his musical expertise. As Ron and Lester began to write the bulk of the bands material, Ron confesses that Lester had the “whole package – lyrics, music and that sound that came straight from the heart.” Their first demo was “Blind man” and “Color”. It was the 45 that would precede their full length, and was pressed in limited quantities. Little did they know of the importance that single would have some 30 years in the future. Several months later, Les Smith was drafted and was sent to Vietnam. Instead of replacing him (but how could you really?), Abrams just changed the name of the band to LA Carnival, and took over himself on lead vocals. The band then rerecorded “Blind Man” and a host of other songs for an LP, but with no radio or store support, the band tragically had no cash to press the album. Soon after, by summer 1971, band members dissolved one by one as music took a back seat to the reality of growing up. The LA Carnival was soon defunct almost as sporadically as they had begun.
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, Egon anut Butter Wolf mmer 2001. Pe Su i to ipp rd iss wa ss for Fast lfport, Mi roll en route to Gu dying un eir Th and Cut Chemist u. yo ering southern ba inting through the swelt d the like, pinpo re funk 45’s, an ra th to leave ns pla th wi obsession wi th, yl spot in their pa vin le lled ab ca ail av pe y ever ratty mixta ir finest wax. A rney – one jou the to them raped of the k ac dtr a. hlitz” is the soun r Dante Carfagn “Home of the Sc friend & collecto by m him ge to er en aft of Cut’s, giv rs bang out gem r’s shitty speake ites a twinkle ign r As the rental ca ula rtic pa in one track ce a la Normal bias, olor” – a royal pie LA Carnival’s “C n the ow e: kn ey o ’s olf (tw in W posses it lucky enough to ivileged pr is o wh of wax for those ne yo the want list of an astute copies!) It tops Wolf, more than of its existence. ow ke this kn ma to ws vo enough to , ns tio ow reissue selec . What he would of his Stonesthr onesthrow army St al loy the to landmark in a shit known of t or uld be nothing sh wo on luck of up le mb stu and a stroke of few phone calls sed LA lea re un of music history. A um alb ting on an entire sit discovery is olf the W to , n er lat e-struck reactio aw s Hi . ial ter reacCarnival ma nd members – a by that of the ba ly king on uc ed “F tch as ma is described Rick Chudacoff tion that bassist Unbelievable!!!”
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city 2.2
ted! n a w t s mo s ’ u b i l a m
A few months back, Girl Skateboards wanted to hook up a place for Girl/Choc team riders to stay while in Los Angeles. Instead of renting some overpriced dump in Hollywood, they used their connections in the world of real-estate and found a fixer-upper mansion in the hills of beautiful (yet bourgeois) Malibu, just a few minutes outside of the city. Recently, I spent a day there (at the Girl Mansion) with Mike York and Chris Roberts, watching them play a game of skate out front while the flooring was getting pulled out. The place came with old, cracked marble floors but they’re replacing them with 100% Canadian hard rock maple. I guess it just seemed appropriate. -Bob Kronbauer.
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Out of the office and into the..
a conglomerate of skateboarding’s key heads
coming this fall
from takemetoyourprom.com
Accepting submissions until August 10, 2004.
entrepeneurs, photographers, designers, videographers, warehousers, sales reps... dudes, this is your time to shine!
bryan caissie, photo editor, Concrete. harry gills, photo editor, SBC.
david christian photo, camera malfunction, Color!
T his is the second installment of the Political Minded series:
A collection of portraits and homages of people, activists, political figures and cultural icons whose work, lives and sometimes their deaths reveal vital details about the reality of our world and the shape of our own social political perspectives. For the past five years, Heavyweight Art Installation’s live painting canvases have featured the portraits of favorite musical influences and cultural icons, writers, and artists celebrating their contributions to our cultural lives. We have directed the focus of Political Minded series, created now in the painting studio, to the lives of people who help define the meaning of activism and whose work can provide information of a political climate that can often be missed in corporate media. The figures represent stories where people insist on putting their careers, lives and freedom at stake in order to provide qualified, educated information about important world situations and strife.   Others whose confrontations with policy, authority and inhumane ideologies highlight the struggle against injustice, and in some cases their actions typifying the qualities that we would hope of from our own leaders, society and policies.   Some figures represent voices of impassioned leadership, the goals for progressive political objectives through basic democratic principles, or the yearning of the oppressed to be heard.
Heavyweight Art Installations by Tyler Gibney, Gene Starship, and Dan Buller. For further information on Heavyweight, go to www.hvw8.com
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General Romeo Dallaire (retired) served for 35 years in the Canadian Armed Forces, and has written a book called Shake Hands With the Devil, the Failure of Humanity. As the force commander of the United Nation’s mission to Rwanda and Uganda in 1994, Dallaire faced the futility of trying to convince the international community of the impending disaster – the slaughter of 800,000 people in less than 100 days, mostly hacked to death with machetes provided by the government. “Dallaire did everything he could, pleading for 2000 more peacekeepers to be added to his insufficiently equipped 3000 man force. If they had answered Gen. Dallaire’s pleas, the U.N. could have stopped the slaughter of hundredsof- thousands of Rwandans. Instead, following the deaths of 10 Belgian Peacekeepers assigned to protect the President, his forces were cut down from 3000 to a mere 500, who had to watch as one of the most horrible genocides in human history took place before their very eyes. Gen. Dallaire, frustrated and disheartened by the U.N.’s passive attitude, nonetheless stood for his beliefs, repeatedly confronting his superiors who did nothing to prevent the horrific events from unfolding.” - from canadians.ca Now, ten years later, again at the risk to his own life, he is standing up to the perpetrators as key witness in the International Criminal Tribunal of Rwanda in Arusha, Africa. “I blame the American leadership, which includes the Pentagon. The world is racist, Africans don’t matter, Yugoslavians do. More people were killed, infured, internally displaced, and refugeed in 100 days in Rwanda than in the whole 8 to 9 years of the Yugoslavia campaign. Because there is no self-interest, no oil, they didn’t come because some humans are considered more human that others.” - Romeo Dallaire Dallaire is now working on problems of war-affected children, and the problems of children used as soldiers and sold into sexual slavery.
ROMEO DALLAIRE 89.5 x 66”
Born in 1927, Cesar Chavez stood for the rights of farm workers in the US for his entire life. At a time when the country had yet to recover from the stock market crash and the Great Depression, Cesar Chavez worked in the California fields where jobs were scarce, many workers were homeless and labor contractors and land owners exploited the workers (many who were Mexican). Recognizing the need for action to protect his fellow workers, Chavez would go on to spearhead organizations and unions that would strive to inform workers of their rights. He was principle in forming the National Farmworkers Union, facing major confrontations, bitter disputes and his own imprisonment, as he demanded that no one would work in the fields without the full protection of farm workers rights. In 1973, the union changed its name to the United FarmWorkers of America.
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CESAR E. CHAVEZ
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58 x 48”
hvw8.
Born in 1947, Shirin Ebadi is an Iranian lawyer and human activist and winner of the 2003 Noble Peace Prize. She served as the president of the city court of Tehran and became one of the first female judges in Iran. She is celebrated for her research and work to promote peaceful democratic solutions and serious social concerns. Her work represents reformed Islam, the harmony of Islamic law with human rights, equality and freedom of speech. She is an activist for human rights and has written numerous books on the struggle for women and children’s rights in Iran. Ebadi has displayed her personal courage, defending both her and her colleagues, writers and intellectuals – many of whom were killed or, like Ebadi herself, imprisoned under a harsh political system functioning by inhumane interpretations of Islam.
SHIRIN EBADI 64 x 42”
Krugman, economist and writer for the twice-weekly op-ed column in the New York Times, is both loved and hated for being one of the first and few in the US mainstream media to have taken up analyzing the Bush administrations melding of corporate-class and right-wing interests, and condemning the administration’s lies regarding tax cuts and the War in Iraq. Krugman is a Professor of economics at Princeton University.
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PAUL KRUGMAN 85 x 66”
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“Geoff is a guy who feels the moment, lives for the moment. To Geoff, it seems as though there is no reason to worry too far into the future, good situations fall into his lap for no discernable reason, but it all makes sense- he has some serious good karma, in life and in skateboarding. Everyone’s got love for Dermer!” - Cyrus Thiedeke
Known more for his ledge and manny work, Dermer shows he’s got some barrier tranny skills. Frontside Hurricane.
interview by cian browne photos | david christian
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“It’s
a good pressure ,
but it’s a thin line .
If you take it too
seriously,
It could bum you
out.”
Skating this bank with a bit of an uncommon approach, a tailslide where most people would be content with a kickflip.
Switch flip back tail: Years of skating downtown Vancouver’s ledges have paid off. Making himself at home in SF, Switch nose manual fakie bigspin mannie.
So you’re leaving tomorrow for Montreal to do some filming for Jeremy Pettit’s new video. Tell me a little bit about that. I’m so stoked to be working with Jeremy. We pretty much grew up together. Jeremy made the Big Guns 2000 video, which was our generation’s first attempt at a video, and he’s been filming doing his thing ever since. The next video is going to be so good. The crew gets along really well. I’ve never been involved in a video project like this. I’m so thankful… Thanks Jer. We decided to go to Montreal to film for a month because it’s in Canada and we all wanted to check out the scene and skate some new spots - we’re hyped for sure. Check out northtwo. com for what goes down.
“ANY DAY IS SKATING
I’M CON AS FAR AS
Back to the way it was then? I don’t know where it’s going. I think it’s going to be different for everyone. Personally, I just have faith that the kids are skating and having fun– skating new spots, going to new cities just to skate. I like to think people will start to skate till they’re like fifty [years old]. Does skating encompass your life right now? Yeah, and it definitely always has– right now it does more than ever. Recently I’ve reached the point where I can skate every single day and if I’m not trying to film something, I’m organizing a United team demo. Even when I’m just relaxing with my girlfriend, I’m still usually skating because my girl, Marina, skates too, so we’re always down to go and roll around any park or skate flat ground on the beach. How long have you been skating? 15 years at least. I’ve been skating a lot longer than most people who are my age. No doubt, it shows. Would you change anything about when or where you grew up if you could? I wouldn’t change the path that I’ve been on. I’ve had a great time being raised as a skater in this city. What’s up with downtown Van these days? .geoffdermer
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AY D D O O G A CERNED.”
What’s filming like for you? Do you hate it? Do you love it? Are you indifferent? Well, I skated for years before I ever had a chance to watch videos and then when I started to watch them I was into it immediately. It’s so crazy just how amazing footage was when I was a kid, just mind blowing. I’d just skated bowls before, and I didn’t have any idea what could be done. I remember I borrowed Questionable from the Boarding House and I was just so overwhelmed. Then by about ‘94, I was definitely trying to see every new video. Virtual Reality, Creager, Gino, everything was advancing so fast. I loved the progression aspect the best, and that is still one of my favorite aspects of both filming and watching videos, seeing what’s new, you know? I love filming; just sporadically getting footage is the best. It forces you to get creative, to find new things and do new things. It’s a good pressure, but it’s a thin line. If you take it too seriously, It could bum you out. I just always try to remember how much fun skating is, even if you don’t make your trick, any day skating is a good day as far as I’m concerned. On that whole ‘94 tip, where do you see skateboarding going right now?
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have marble ledges! I’ve got faith in New Line. They’re gonna pull it off.
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It seems like downtown has been a graveyard for me since like ’99… 2000 for sure. Seems like you just skate flat ground or stairs if you skate downtown. It’s wild to me how we live in the most skate-proofed city in the world, but have the best skateparks in the suburbs, with nothing in the city yet. Our day is coming though. I just saw that work has started on our new street park next to Hot Spot, downtown. I can’t believe it, it’s gonna geoffdermer.
Who are your sponsors right now? You’ve been on a few different teams in your day. Yeah, I’ve definitely had a lot of help throughout the years by a lot of awesome people. Right now I’m the team manager at United Clothing. I ride for Circa Footwear as well and Satori wheels, and also, as of super recently, I just got hooked up by Creation Skateboards, a fresh new company out of the Satori camp. Super stoked about that. I’m also riding for a new shop called Richard Kidd– they always have a lot of cool different stuff going on. They’re
Making himself at home in SF, Switch nose manual fakie bigspin mannie.
pretty dope. They just opened up in Gastown. What was last year like for you at Slam City Jam, qualifying second and stuff? I remember seeing you right after you got kicked out! I had just wanted to be actually allowed to skate the course for so long and that course was so nice. I was psyched. Slam City once a year was an awesome way to grow up. It’s been going on since I was 13. It was pretty crazy walking around on the
final day last year– I couldn’t believe I made it to the finals and I don’t think anyone else could really. I’d just walk around and see all my little homies from the parks and then see all the older dudes I’d known from China Creek. I just felt like I knew a lot of people in the crowd and felt like they helped. I just felt it, it was a great day.
What about contests in general?
Another trick switch , another barrier. Flawless goofy-footed
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interview.
We were thirteen and Dermer was slappy nosesliding the curb outside his house with a cast on his foot. Here he
switch noseslides this barrier with a roll-in... no cast.
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The mechanics of some tricks make it nearly impossible to look smooth, and others so smooth they scream for something more, Switch frontside noseslide: it’s your call.
I think contests are an awesome part of skating because they’re just like a big session, and the session is the best part for me. I love the social aspect of skating and when everyone is skating together in the contest, or at a spot trying to film or something, to me it doesn’t really matter whether you land anything or not, it’s just about how much fun you have that day. So you’ve managed to travel to a bunch of places through skating, what are some highlights from your trips? I got to go to Australia when I was really young and I skated a bunch of parks over there. From then on, anywhere I got to go I automatically took my board. Going to Jamaica with Satori was so amazing. We felt like we got so many kids stoked on skateboarding. We watched kids learning to skate in front of us, it was so amazing. That was crazy. I’ve seen all of Canada on various skate tours and that ruled, especially Newfoundland. Newfoundland was about as different and about as much as an amazing experience as Jamaica. Highly recommend people check it out. You ever think about moving away? Like down to California, now that you’re on Creation? Well, hopefully now I’ll be going down there a lot more. I don’t know if I’d move completely. Vancouver will always be my home. I’ll always come back here. Growing up skateboarding here, I always felt really lucky right from the start just to be a part of the whole scene from growing up during the China Creek bowl days to the Skate Ranch, to the New Spot era, the Clubhouse, Ladner park days to the tail end of skating downtown when Eaton’s got capped. We have the best scene in Van still ‘cause everyone moves here from literally anywhere in Canada if they want to skate. You got any thank you/holler/shouts? Alright, first I have to thank everyone who keeps skating no matter what, because it’s what they love to do. People who take back spots, people who design innovative parks. S&J for giving me my start working in this industry. H.O. and Monke. The crew at Fourstar distribution. Everyone at United. The entire Satori movement. Creation skateboards. Twentyfour/Richard Kidd. Jeremy and the Port Moody Blues posse. Mom, Dad. The Dorm. Of course my girl, Marina. And everyone I know, and if we’ve never met, I’ll see you skatin’ one day.
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christian
- Geoff Dermer.
switch kickflip | ryan oughton
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“I grew up with this instant reflex where if you see a cop you turn around and point your board the other way and keep walking and don’t look back. So many of my friends got brand new setups taken away. You had to be fast and have an escape route planned. New Spot was like the golden era. It was a time when skateboarding was actually a part of the city of Vancouver and I’m so grateful and thankful that I got to experience it at such a young age.”
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newspot.
morris
“This one day we saw this weird French hippie lying on the grass rubbing his stomach — it looked like he was jerking it or something, so Ben Nichol went up to see what he was doing and to get him to stop. The guy got up and pushed Ben, so Ben roundhoused him in the head, so the guy, all dazed, went over to his bike and grabbed a pipe. Sam [Devlin] then grabbed the pipe from him and bonked him on the head. Shit didn’t really happen that often, but the funny thing was some pros from Cali just arrived that day and that was the first thing they saw.” –Moses Itkonen
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“...we filmed this movie, we got hired as extras. It was some low budget movie, so we told the director that we needed time to practice. The director sent down the caterers so we got paid $100 bucks and got free food to skate. The sweetest thing was when Colin skated up to the top and ran into this Robo Cop dude and knocked him over. Instead of the director getting mad at Colin he started yelling at the actor.” –Moses Itkonen
There’s something instilled inside we who skateboard that keeps us inadvertently aware of our surroundings. To be street smart and know the rules of the road are a given when spending the majority of time cruising streets, but the thing that keeps us on alert the most is the endless search of the next “new spot”. Although spectators might think our generation has a new found appreciation for geometry and construction and it may seem that although skateboarding has brought a new interest in architecture and the urban landscape, I think that’s looking a little too far into it. Whether you’re a small town kid sick of the played-out local gas station curb and have caught yourself confusing despair with creativity after spending four days prefabricating a runway, scoping and landing for what you think to be the next big spot. Or maybe you’re more advanced, know the ropes and are on the top of your game but in need of new terrain because every trick in your vault has subsequently been done and photographed already. Regardless of outside motives, there is a common goal that drives us all is to be the first to land a certain trick at a new spot. Color has compiled some archived images from what was once the ultimate rat race for landed tricks, prior to its skate-proofing by the city of Vancouver. In this issue we honor New Spot for obtaining all the criteria for the perfect skate spot. Although Color wasn’t kickin’ in the early to mid nineties, during New Spot’s glory days, rest assured there is an undiscovered adventure playground out there waiting to be exposed. Don’t confuse creativity with despair and you just might see your New Spot in the next issue.–Sandro
“We held it down for a almost five years. There was even some people who worked downtown that thought the New Spot was some sort of public walkway or a cool place to eat lunch.” –Colin McKay
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“The first day I went to New Spot was the first day I met Moses Itkonen and Scott Serfas. I did a switch ollie over the rail and it ended up on a cover. After that I skated everyday with Serfas. That pretty much jump started my life in professional skateboarding.” –Rick McCrank
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Every day,spots are found, skated, then shut down, but every so often a spot is found that eventually defines a city. Philly had Love Park, SF had EMB and Vancouver had New Spot — nestled neatly at the end of Howe Street between Hastings and Cordova in downtown Vancouver sits one of the most recognizable spots in skateboard history. New Spot was initially constructed as a walkway for businesstypes leisurely strolling through to spend their lunch hours enjoying the scenic view looking on to the mountains of North Vancouver. What the architects overlooked was that they had created a chunk of land to be forever titled “new” for its aid in the progression of street skating in Canada. For a brief moment in time, New Spot shed its intended purpose as a pointless walkway and became every skaters dream. New Spot held everything any skater could ever ask for: ledges of all sizes, a double five-flat-five, a handrail and even a bump at the beginning (that strangely enough, I have still yet to find). To everyone’s disapointment the spot only reigned for a few short years before being plagued by bike cops and angry business folk, turning a skater’s playground into a place to be studied like lab rats — in turn New Spot became one of Canada’s first skate-proofed wastelands. Today New Spot is virtually unrecognizable by the cluttering of capped curbs, benches and planters, leaving just the stairs and rails which once stood secondary to the curbs. The following pages are a gaze at the past, from those who lived through Vancouver’s original New Spot.
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“One day one of us stole one of the bike cop’s ticket books, the two cops wrote everyone they caught tickets and rode off. Five minutes later there was every cop that worked downtown charging into New Spot to kill us. They swore how we would never skate downtown again and blah, blah, blah, blah. After watching them squirm for twenty minutes someone finally pointed out their ticket book in the trash can right behind them. Definitely the best day at new spot.” –Colin McKay
–Matt Meadows
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< photos .robbie g
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.sandro hair .samantha@helmet makeup .elisabethjiollife model .jenny |denim| we .vintage.resin > dc .maple > billabong .rhs > matix .matigirl.darkabrasion > home .straight.alt > matix .matigirl.cargoÂ
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keep off the goddamned grass
www.takemetoyourprom.com
velcro buttons on bellaclava, c.2004
conc e pt mot i on >
Intro | Sam McKinlay
When aspects of pure concept reach obscure levels and the artist begins to participate in the world of contemporary art post the year 2000, we have so many different opportunities to try and achieve any sort of creative platform. Time and time again, artists are forced within barriers that keep their creative stem forming inside – blocked within pre-determined capacities such as a gallery wall, a painted surface, or a sculpture made up of certain material. The importance of the differential between the idea, motion, performance, and the simple painted surface is astounding and should never be overlooked or unaccounted for. This juxtaposition of the body, motion and the status of an art object are considered very carefully by the artist determining the piece, a concept work, or a performance work. The final item can easily end up being much more planned and calculated than any realist or structured abstract painting. In recent years, certain looks at society and its circles have played a major role in the artist and his/her view of the social aesthetic.
tools and landmarks of usage became fair game for the artists to persuade his/her audience to take a closer look and possibly discuss the habits that form within social means. Everyday items that we use for our own means become something that is to be investigated and then re-articulated for a possible audience. People’s reactions to pre-placed material, or even easy social habits such as walking within a controlled public environment, can be itemized and therefore made systematic and public for the eventual gallery wall or piece of art literature. One of the most important themes that was tackled by the conceptual artists of the earlier decades was the idea of the “system”. The system played an important role in the ideology of the artists of the time as it determined for the artists the framework and secure placement for an idea to develop. Douglas Huebler did an interesting piece in 1970 were he had a ceramics class photographed at the same time everyday for seven days with the same clothes on and everything else kept exactly the same. The only difference was that every time they photographed the group, the artist held a different duo of words up behind the camera for the subjects to consider. The looks on their faces were then photographed, categorized systematically and assessed with artistic intentions. Through manipulation of printed matter, clothing, and other common multiple manmade necessities, artist Sandy Plotnikoff has abstracted the qualities of the items and made them something new and newly/freshly recognizable for the viewing audience. Color magazine asked Sandy some questions about what he’s been up to, and to describe some examples of manipulating simple social precepts into conceptual works. How did you get started? .artistfeature
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Human disciplines and habits are a haven for the creative being to assess and recreate for all to see. Social behaviour has many common parallels with forming aesthetics – from the person that rides a ten-speed to the store, to the other person who drives his/ her car across town, to the person that happens to ride a skateboard to a simple skate spot. All of the human necessities are present, but scrutinizing the underlying qualities can be the work of an artist (or simply someone that watches and finds interest in the habits of the human race for that matter). The simplification of the human form and the human habit is nothing new in the art world, and the conceptual artists of the late sixties and seventies had some of the firmest grasps on the subject. Human beings’ cultural
Interview | Silas Kaufman
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q-tips, c.2003
How did you get started? Things started to get creative when I got into self-publishing. Making photocopied zines, posters, and stickers. I remember you used your zines as a currency to travel. Yeah, I would usually have some zines in my bag, as a way to hook up with people in other towns and share what I was into. I’d trade or sell them for a few bucks here and there.
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How’d you get from self-publishing to some of the events that you’d do – for example, the bun event in the park.
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artistfeature.
superballs (with Lucy Pullen), c.1996
photo: David Christensen
There were always lots of antics and pranks going on in the scene, and the zines were a way of documenting that sort of stuff… Explain the bun event. There is an annual Easter egg hunt in Kelowna where people from the radio station hide chocolate eggs around the park for the kids. I had found a dumpster full of buns behind a bakery and began collecting them, thousands of buns, with the idea it would be fun to saturate the entire park so that the kids would find a lot more buns than eggs. I printed up tags that said BUN BUN BUN, and silkscreened posters that said BUN with directional arrows. Late at night before the Easter egg hunt, a bunch of friends helped out hiding the buns in the park. Everywhere you looked there was buns. (Laughter) Then what happened? Well, I made the mistake of using a pin to attach the BUN BUN tag to the buns. Some parents found the pin and were worried it was a razorblade apple type thing. Most of the buns were soggy from rain and at least a month old - not good competition for chocolate eggs, but still it’s a bad idea to mix sharp things with food and kids. Then things got really crazy when
flip bush, c.2002 the local paper staged a photograph, with pins and nails bursting out of a cracked open bun! It turned into this sensational story with headlines like “Cops Hunt Bun Wacko”. The photo and article were published all over North America. I left town shortly afterwards. (Laughter) Over the years you’ve done lots of these stunts do you have any favourites? Well another favourite was the Superballs thing with Lucy Pullen. We dropped a few thousand Superballs off the roof of a seven story building in Halifax.
(Shared laughter) What are you doing now in the art world?
wienerdog collar, 2003
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The balls, were those little? Bouncy balls, all different colours. Dropped into the streets at seven a.m. on a Sunday morning. Some friends were gathered to help film or check it out, and then a busload of ravers showed up. They went nuts collecting the balls and bouncing them all over town. Little coloured balls would show up on the streets for months afterwards.
Making buttons, (laughs). Lots of stuff with snaps and buttons. For a few years I’ve been putting snap fasteners in everything I could think of. Then connecting it all in different s culptural combinations, and distributing it for people to wear as clothing accessories. It’s gotten pretty out of hand... snaps on band-aids, q-tips, plastic bugs, pop-cans, Rubix Cubes, rings, bubbles, spandex pants, etc.... If I see an open snap on your clothes, I am wanting to attach something to it.
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Where have you beenshowing with all this? I do a lot of gallery shows, and sell some of the snaps in shops. Sometimes I’ll set up a booth at a craft show or do a garage sale with friends. Some other projects are done in public anonymously – like painting “no parking” graffiti, or carving jack-o-lantern faces in traffic cones.
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Do you see connections between skateboarding and your artwork? In some cases there are obvious connections, like the street gymnastics stuff with Justin Lukyn in the Flipbush photo and White Pumpkin video. That’s pretty much skateboarding without skateboards. Another skateboarding influenced project is the continuous moustache line drawn in marker through The Face magazine. Starting on the cover and through every page, the line would travel across people’s faces as a moustache and once in a while would switch over to monobrow. And with the buttons and snaps? The snaps project is kind of subversive with how it interrupts the intended purpose of regular snaps. It pushes something familiar into creatively open-ended territory. The idea there is to encourage new and unexpected combinations between things. Talk about the hats.
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white pumpkin, c.2003 That project was done with the Solo Exhibition gallery in Toronto. It started as a room full of five hundred hats all connected together by snap fasteners. A number of people would wear it at the same time, or break it apart and rearrange into smaller hat sculptures. It gradually dispersed as we sold the hats individually, possibly reconnecting later if people hooked up by spotting each other on the street. It was a cool idea, but the bright yellow hats were sort of ugly for a lot of people to wear. So, there’s lots left if anyone wants one... Almost like the buns. Yeah, except the buns have all decomposed by now. What can we expect from you in the future? Right now I’m messing around with Velcro, magnets and photography. I’m preparing for a show in Tokyo in the fall. That’s what I’m thinking of right now. Maybe a book of photos from the snaps project... How can people get a hold of your snap stuff? There are buttons and bracelets in shops around Canada. Best way to find those is check my website: www.laundry-line.net
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face plant, sandy plotnikoff, c.2004 .artistfeature
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As mentioned in the past in COLOR, it seems that Western Canada is a hot bed for extreme metal and all the sub genres that go along with the this mighty element of music. As of late, the most prolific of the metal genres in Vancouver seems to be Grindcore, broken up by the static atrocity of Goatsblood, and the classic metal mayhem of Three Inches of Blood. British Columbia’s strong history of Black Metal, via Conqueror and Blasphemy, has laid down roots that have managed to spread back and forth across the waters and onto Vancouver Island.‑ These roots have generated the current black war metal (bwm) of Vancouver Island’s own Allfather. To try and contin‑ ue to bridge the dark circle of Western Canadian cult metal bands, I was lucky enough to interview Justin Hagberg of the mighty Allfather and what he thinks of the state of Canadian black metal and what’s hap‑ pening abroad.
By Sam McKinlay
Do you think the political and welfare state of a country directly influences the chaos and power of the bwm band? For example: comparing Singapore’s Impiety to France’s Antaeus to America’s Black Witchery and then to something like Brazil’s Sarcofago? I can’t really answer that, as I have no idea about the political and welfare states of those countries or what really inspires those bands to play such chaotic music. It could be the soil they stand on and the natural surroundings, or the politics in their countries that inspire them to play brutal music – but then again, they could just be fans of extreme music and want to play music they appreciate.
Try to gauge the influence of ideology against musical aspirations when you create your war chaos. Which do you think is more important? In my opinion, a complete band consists of well composed music and creative lyrics or well expressed ideologies. I enjoy reading lyrics as much as I do listening to music, and if one band fails to please me with either lyrical content or music then I’m not fully satisfied with the album. What are some of the ideologies that push Allfather to create the blasting walls of bwm? Klassen (vocals) and Jacobsen (drums) write the lyrics for Allfather, but everyone in Allfather plays a large role in what is expressed from the band. We have ideological discussions as a group, which later lead to the writing of the lyrics. We’re inspired by ideologies that encourage the human conscience to rise above to glory rather than to descend into weakness and defeat – to the Victor go the Spoils!
What are the bands that you listen to nowadays that may directly influence the band’s music? Well, I’ve been listening to a lot of different styles of music lately – some that might be influential to the band, but mostly just inspirational on a personal level. Metal bands that come to mind are Assuck, Disembowelment, Revenge, Spear of Longinus and Sigh, to name a few. Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of Ennio Morricone’s Spaghetti Western compositions, Scott Walker, The Divine Comedy, Elvis Costello’s North album, as well as tons of folk music and dark ambient and industrial noise. I could go on forever, but I won’t. Explain what the name Allfather means as it represents the band. Strength and ascension, honour and war, blood and soil...just a few words that can describe the essence of Allfather, and as a band we represent the essence of Allfather through lyrics and brutal music. As individuals we are also very inspired by the Allfather on a much more physical and mental level. .soundcheque
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Why do you think Western Canada has always been primarily at the forefront of the extreme metal scene, boasting bands such as Blasphemy, Conqueror, Axis of Advance, and of course, you guys? I feel that the West Coast of Canada, and especially B.C., is always advancing with new and inspirational music. From past
\legendary bands like Blasphemy, Conqueror, and Skinny Puppy who set new standards of music and are still inspiring the masses worldwide, to the present Goatsblood, Funerary Call, Strapping Young Lad, and Three Inches of Blood – as well as so many other bands in the West Coast dominating the music scene today with their incredible compositions.
There are a lot of arguments in black metal zines, etc. for and against cult Black Metal bands signing to semi big record companies. Do you think it acts as a good tool to spread the bwm plague, or do you personally like to see things stay somewhat underground and cult? Personally, I don’t really see any problems with bands signing to bigger labels to better their band. If a band is satisfied with their label support, than that’s the main thing. As long as a band writes great music, I’ll keep listening to them. I don’t care what label they’re on.
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contest.ÂÂ
The Teflon dome stands alone amongst concrete paths and viaduct diversions, funneling observers and participants along weathered sidewalks and through glass barricades to get inside the scene that awaits. Passing one checkpoint, I am told to report to another as I walk through revolving doors that spin automatically. “Do not push the door,” people yell. I am able to read the sign, but I will continue to push every time I enter and exit – it is too hard to resist. Every time I enter, my bag gets checked, once, twice, security then police, looking for weed in zip lock bags. I finally get inside, past the first phase, just in time to line up for the second ordeal: the pass desk. I find my table. I am not a participant or competitor, so I continue past that table for the media/exhibitor table, where my name is spoken endless times slowly and then spelt out to many people who can’t find it anywhere amongst all of the celebrities that will darken this white marshmallow’s doors. “It’s under Color Magazine,” I plea for the thirtieth time, and then as I begin to wonder if I actually do exist, my name is found, and I can sigh in relief. I am validated, I am on the list, I am cool!
by scott radnidge
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[o]
ristband in tow, I enter the noisy cavern that will be my home for the next few days. It is littered with signs and clutter; booths line mall-like setups with promises of good deals and 2pm autograph signings. In the air, the unmistakable sound of wood on concrete rat-a-tapping loudly echoes against the floors and plastic seats as people practice alone, eager to try and get one more run in before the melee erupts into full scale excitement. But then, as the false sense of being alone sets in, the doors open and the hordes flow in like a mooching tide, an undaunted pack of freebee seekers and autograph hounds, companioned by dreading Visa clad parents and thirteen something girls who are showing the world that they are ready; with bare skin and perky, um, smiles, they all look for that elusive product toss and sexy older pro.
“Brad [Staba] is pretty much just a total asshole. He’s kicking me off Skate Mental because I don’t answer his phone calls. [gap to crook] He can eat it.”-Bob K.
Right away I see the street course, its fenced in area barely containing the rush of tricks and sketchy flow. I stand and watch, dumbfounded by the overwhelming amount of youthful looking participants that roll with small forms of reckless abandon, they all make even Sheckler look old. Something is amiss; I don’t recognize any of the skaters. Am I that old? Am I now old enough to be a parent of a pro? This whole age thing depresses me, and watching them, if the truth be told, they’re not all that good. One kid eats it on a rail that is half a foot high, another can’t ollie to save his life, but they’re in there, competing for glory, give them props, I guess. They all look sponsored to the gills, everyone is decked out in Vans clothing and such, does that company have the lock on all the up and coming skaters? So, I stand and watch them for half an hour, doing their thing. After a while, I hear a voice and the brush of a hand on my shoulder. “Dude, how’s it going?” the voice asked. “I’m ok,” I responded, but I confessed that I didn’t think the skaters were worth shit this year. Look at them I said, they can hardly skate, they even have to have their moms sign wavers to get them in, what’s up with that? “Where’s the judges booth, how come they all have to wear day-glo helmets?” The voice laughed and said that I was a funny guy, for everybody knew that this was the kiddy area, a form of small skater daycare. Hmmm…
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Kiddie Park smith girnd. [ Not the kid who did 75 kickflipd in a row ].
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Sascha Daley catches a skate-lite popped backside flip as one of Canadaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s many ams to steal the show while others concentrate on winning the prize purse.
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Sitting at the Color booth by the fenced off area with the grass, art and stumps, I smile and try to talk to the interested people who pass by, my attention quickly wavering as I realize that no-one really wants to talk, for most ask the same questions: “Do you have any free stuff?” “Who are you guys?” “Can you sign my shirt?”
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I watch and dream as the art unfolds under the guidance of Beer Bench Gospel, or do I enjoy watching people watch the art unfold more? Some looked confused as they strayed their stares from grass, to art, to sign, to stump. Their faces tell it all – an interesting tell-all expression that shows they think the eleven.
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booth sticks out like a sore thumb. Not everyone is created equally though, and not everybody is interested in a mall of skate shops.
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Red faced and trying to be cool, I sauntered on in search of the real contest. Sensory overload assaulted my eyes and ears. Damn, where was I going? I needed a guide. Where were those Downtown Ambassadors? The ones you see downtown in their little red uniforms giving directions to tourists and shooing skaters away from 401. I needed directions now, or I was gonna freak out! All I saw in every direction that I turned were booths with boards, booths with bongs, booths with Tylenol, booths with chicks… Somehow, I felt I was trapped in a maze of booths, and half expected to look up to the cigarette tar stained Teflon sky and see some giant little kids lift the roof off of the dome and look in on their miniature tech deck maze that they had built in school. In short, this all felt like a science experiment. Oh yeah, there it is I mumble as I see the real street course and the vert ramp. Hard to miss that vert ramp, although with the luxuries of the RDS Park, and maybe because of the space where it was placed, it looked more like a mini-ramp. So I give myself a verbal reprimand for being a hater and make myself promise that I’ll be good all weekend. Positive thinking will be my thing, even when it comes to the booths.
Luckily, for every fifty mooches that saunter by, there is a speck of gold, and the people who are interested and stoked on the booth, logs and magazine make everybody sitting at the booth happy for a moment or two – for that’s what it’s all about, getting people happy about skating. And this is a skate contest, and it does deliver – getting most people stoked that is. Contestside, qualification time makes nervousness shows in some of the newbie’s jerky movements; their over amped attacks ending in kinked rail wipeouts and kick flip stumbles, but the crowd roars at their attempts, which is what it is all about – getting people amped. I smile as the locals rip alongside their famous out of town peers, watching the Vancouver skaters skate as well, or even better, to loud cheers, stoking their fire and sending them to skate the course with abandon; they are local hero’s. I call it a day around dinnertime when my head hurts more than the loads of free Tylenol can handle. I promise myself that I’ll work harder tomorrow. I will work more at the booth, I will try and get interviews and I will do all that stuff that I’m supposed to do, I guess. Once again, I push the revolving doors that say “Do Not Push”, and I am happily greeted by the warm sunny air and silent surroundings of the outside world and my system is recharged. It was a pretty good day after all. In fact, now that I was outside, I wanted to go for a skate. Morning time again. The sun greets me with a grin and a nudge, laughing at my disheveled demeanor. My eyes lay sunken into my head from lack of sleep, the result of Slam parties and premiers the night before. [this page] Greg Lutzka, switch bluntslide, mega-pop out for the win.
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Paul Machnau will nosebluntslide anything with any setup, the Bones photo incentive is just another way to rub it in your face.
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christian [o]
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At the revolving doors, my bag gets checked for the thousandth time, coffee gets searched, camera gets the old once over. I show my wristband to 5 different people, and then I’m in, again, but this time I am wiser as I walk right by the kiddy area. I know where I’m going, and it shows as I make precise rights and lefts through the consumer village. Smiling, I stand beside the vert ramp and look at my watch: 30 seconds, it only took me half a minute to get through all the stuff on the floor, all the crap that is in everybody’s way. That was a record for sure.
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But it’s all part of the show, and the show must go on, I mutter as I get myself together and make my way to the bus, which goes to the Skytrain, which is next door to the marshmallow mall of skate stuff, and that is where I go, once again.
slamcityjam.
Something happens in the dome all of a sudden. A contest breaks out. There’s skating, and people are watching. Vert. Women’s and men’s runs try to unfold to a rather large crowd, in the end being constantly interrupted by TV time-outs for some unknown reason, taking whatever flow the contest has and flushing it down the NBC TV network’s toilet. Cheers are encouraged and reverberate through the Death-Valley-like echo chamber that houses the masses, all excited about people flying and falling. A break in the action. People run to food fairs and board booths, picking up anything that money can buy. Eight dollar burger combo’s and fifty dollar shop decks in hand, they get back just in time to see the street contest hit the fan. Oh, my sunken eyes, already mad at me, throb even harder because I can’t see anything. All the action seems like 3 blocks away from my spot in the
stands. I can’t tell if it is Haslam or Mayor Quimby out there, it’s all too far away. I can’t imagine trying to figure out what they are doing, so I decide to clap really loud when everyone else in the stands does – fake it till you make it kind of thing.
And that’s where I ended up, here, there and everywhere. I saw vert and street, women and men. I saw Boxing Day like frenzies at booths that were slashing prices. I saw cool people and uptight people, skinny and fat, clothed and practically naked, all nationalities and ages. All under that ugly smoke-stained, once white roof – I saw it all, and it was cool, for the most part, it got me stoked and I hope it did the same for most. Big mall-like contests can get ugly if you let them, but if you can get past the shiny exterior and large dollar signs, it’s still just skating.
With no mistake this year, kids knew exactly who this man was. Not a Yeti, not Deaner, not Jamie Thomas, it’s Chris Haslam of coarse! Who the fuck else kickflip back smith grinds a handrail this long - at a contest?! [left] small retarded boy cheers Haz on. .eleven
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Confused, I turn and head for familiar territory of the oasis-like booth with the grass and fence, looking for a sappy stump to park my weary ass upon and for some faces that I recognize. It will be a long walk there, through the throngs and masses, but it’ll be worth it. But on the way, there is trouble in paradise as a fight breaks out. Rebel booths giving away free gifts with purchases have crossed the line, the international skate contest line that goes way back to God knows when, a line that states that no one should give away anything for free, a rule that is so respected that when it is crossed a crack team of slim security people quickly move in with
stealth-like maneuvers that result in a quick shutdown. Or was it a bunch of fat rent-a-cops making a big scene when they started a fight with the workers at the booth when they started throwing the young kids around? I couldn’t tell, there were too many people telling me to move along. To where? “Anywhere, just not here!”
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Chris Gentry of Dregs, Silver Star and Type S. Kickflip Indy with the only complete setup garunteed not to be confused with yours in the “Deck Check” at the front door. Greg Lutzka holding up the trophy foreshadowing thoughts of the amount of drinks he WON’T be buying us all when we’d run into him later that night... What a dick. -swore loser Ollie challengers, and bowl killers TNT and Kootney resident Josh Evin got no beef.
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For those of you who care, and haven’t already read the results from the contest in a poopey article in another magazine , I guess we owe it to you after ten pages of contest... But remember, it’s not wether you win or lose. It’s about how much fun you have, right? Well then it is also true that if “you booze, you lose”, although I wonder who really had more fun.
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Tony Trujillo, long ollie. First long, very try... flip that.
Men’s Street: 1. Greg Lutzka 2. Rodile Junior 3. Ryan Sheckler Men’s Vert: 1. Bucky Lasek 2. Chris Gentry 3. Sandro Dias.
Women’s Street: 1. Vanessa Torres 2. Elissa Steamer 3. Lauren Perkins Women’s Vert: 1. Cara-Beth Burnside 2. Mimi Knoop 3. Lyn-Z Adams Hawkins
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* Gwin Gwar
* Sixty Chicks * Bad Girls
* Daydream
* Blue Green
* Street Magic
93 . 94 . 95 . 1992-1997 . 2000 . 2004
“It’s just some friends skating... None of that RDS bullshit.” - Mike McCourt.
For decades now, uninfluenced Canadian towns have been the grounds for
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genuine creations. While some (myself included) sat in awe over some of the early nineties’ San Francisco or New York derived videos, amazing things were happening right under our nose, hidden in the recession of skateboarding. “Set to a backdrop of downtown city scenes and a mix of anything from salsa to hip-hop or jazz”, Paul Spencer remembers the Green Apple videos for their unique aesthetic to Canada. The Green Apple videos were by no means mass- produced, and were very much an “in the know” movement happening in Winnipeg. “Over time, the quality got better and the production tighter – some of the crew quit and others kept the torch burning. Now, with the new video set to drop sometime soon, the new crew representing the Green Apple legacy no doubt promises a solid showing” says Spencer.
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Not many westerners are familiar with Winnipeg’s best-kept secret: Roan Barrion’s Green Apple video anthology dating back to about 1992. Actually, if you don’t refer to your clothes as “combos”, then you’re definitely not in the know, as not only do the resurrected Green Apple crew possess outfits, but they even have slang to describe their “kits”. Winnipeg natives Mike McDermott, Paul Spemcer, Mike Christie and Rod Fernes reign the new Modern Love picture as original skaters from a respected line up of such rippers as Kenny Haralson, John Erhart, Sheldon Withawick, Daniel Golub, Carlo Abubo, Jon Ferrer, Jake Stewart, Chris Rasmussen, and Chris Steggles. modernlove.
by sandro grison
photography by david christian
Yes, the line up for the newly re-birthed Green Apple productions is a unique and talented bunch with a lot of style, or “flavor” as Rod Ferens put it. They come from an era where style means more than stair counts and character precedes dexterity. Travis Stenger, Aaron Rosenblatt, Joey Williams, Mick Lemoine, Jason Crolly and Mike McCourt, are new editioned like-minded “super buds” brought together by videographer Ryan McGuigan to issue another homegrown video swollen with reasonable pride for its roots. McGuigan’s most notable work can be seen in the past 5 foot 12 video productions he titled Exposure and Push Record, as well as the highly praised Antisocial video, released earlier this year. McGuigan’s modest stance may be derived from the reward skateboarding brings him on a daily basis. When asked of his past works, he admitted to not much more than burning music, watching peers edit, and eating Michelle Pezel and Rick (McCrank)’s food while they were away. But it’s difficult to take credit away from something you live, while it’s easy to gain inspiration from it. McGuigan is in the process of writing a full length film due out by Christmas, but is currently putting all of himself into the much anticipated, nostalgic Green Apple installment, Modern Love. When inquiring about the video Ryan replied, ”Are you kidding? I shouldn’t even be talking about it, it’ is nowhere near ready.” What he could tell me was that it’s called Modern Love and if I tell you any more, this guys “gonna kill me!”
“It’s like everyone on Green Apple
always had something else about them. It seemed like it was more about how you did the trick, and that the gnarli-
est wasn’t always the sickest. If you
thought you were the shit... you prob-
ably didn’t get any footy in the video.” – Rod Ferens, backside wallride.
“I’m honored to be a part of the Green Apple crew– bros skating around, filming and having fun, that’s what it’s all about. I just hope I don’t blow it.”
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– Travis Stenger, backside nosegrind pop-out.
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“If you found one for sale behind the counter at SK8 Skates, you were lucky– these gems were bootlegged and dubbed over and over, you could barely make out Kenny and Jake doing pressure flips… in the middle of winter, under at least three layers of insulation.” – Paul Spencer. Jason Crolly, ollie.
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by Greg Ipp embroidery by Becky Brisco
Popularity has a way of sucking the passion out of some bands, turning them into jaded artists with nothing to prove, and everything to lose. Walking onto Franz Ferdinand’s tour bus with Nick McCarthy (guitar, keyboard and vocals) and Alex Kapranos (guitar and vocals), I couldn’t help but wonder what to expect. Here was a band that, over the last six months, had gone from playing gigs in an abandoned warehouse in Glasgow, to releasing the single “Take Me Out”, which peaked in the UK Top 5. When Nick offered me a piece of carrot cake, it became apparent just how relaxed and likeable these guys were, and I knew popularity had not fazed them. They seem to have succeeded in a way few bands are able to do: producing music they love, keeping a level of artistic integrity, and letting the fans come to them. With their infectious blend of dance rhythms, angular post-punk guitar attack, and hookoriented song writing, it’s no surprise that their loyal group of fans continues to grow internationally. When band members Robert Hardy (bass and vocals), Paul Thomson (drums and vocals), Alex Kapranos and Nick McCarthy first came together in Glasgow, part of what pushed them to perform and do something different was the attitude they saw in the drab common club scene. “Established venues could be a bit of a drag,” says Mike. “Gigs were really male dominant. The guys would come down (to the venue) and stroke their chins, and it would be a bit boring.” What Franz Ferdinand wanted was an atmosphere more akin to the early acid house days: dark warehouses filled with people interested in a good time, less of a stand offish attitude and more of a party than a show. There wasn’t much live music being played in a warehouse environment in Glasgow, so the band created something that was their own:
THE CHATEAU “When I was a little runt growing up in Winnipeg in the early ‘90’s, my favorite skaters weren’t the pros I saw in Thrasher, they were the local guys I saw in Green Apple videos. They were really good and they made skating look like fun. They also displayed good style for the young guys to observe. They did sick tricks and rocked dope combos. It wasn’t until I moved out of Winnipeg in ‘94 that I realized how good Winnipeg’s skate scene was. There was nothing like Green Apple in the city I moved to. Thanks for making the Green Apple vids Roan, they’re dope.”
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– Mick Lemoine, varial heelflip
Modern Love will premier October 31, 2004, check www.takemetoyourprom.com for further details.
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The reaction to The Chateau was amazing. Not only was it about bands playing music, but it also focused on art and a sense of community. With nothing more than word of mouth to guide people to the space, they managed to bring 400 people together for their first party. The concept of ‘word of mouth’ isn’t a new one and it has always proven to be a successful method in promoting underground movements, giving them a level credibility along the way.
POPULARITY
Franz Ferdinand enjoys it all– from playing for a few of their friends at The Chateau, to festivals with thousands of fans. They are against “the elitism that comes along with many of the bands that come from the left field.” Mike is absolutely against keeping what you do as a musician to yourself, “Once you’ve created your music and put it out there it doesn’t belong to you anymore and if the music really moves you, you want to call all your friends up and tell them about it.” Of course, this doesn’t mean they are willing to bend to the pressure of popular culture, “The best form of subversion takes ideas that are unconventional and brings them into the mainstream,” says Mike. He follows it by pointing out that, “Everyone listens to music in their own way.” This is the kind of attitude that sets Franz Ferdinand apart from many of their contemporaries.
DANCE MUSIC TO DANCE TO
of the band and having that personality apparent when they’re on stage. They try to find the eyes of the audience. “We find as many sets of eyes as possible and don’t look away.” This creates a connection between the band and the audience, which can help overcome the physical barriers of a stage performance. When it comes down to creating an album, Franz Ferdinand tries to capture the same sort of energy that goes into their live shows. They don’t sequence and layer their tracks or play to click-tracks. This is evident in the raw feel of their debut CD, which conveys the tension and excitement in their music, and you can’t help but listen to it at stupid loud volumes. It’s a perfect combination of pop music based around a hook that just won’t leave your head and the conveyance of primal emotion experienced in dance music. Sitting over-top the rhythms and the infectious beat, there is also a focus on lyrics and melodies that often border on melancholy – lyrics based on both the ups and downs of life. All of this makes for music with a broad appeal. So, being a rock band that can get the girls on the dance floor, which one person would the guys most like to see dancing to their music? For Nick it is Debbie Harry (of Blondie); a great choice, overshadowed only by the sexually charged moves of Margaret Thatcher, the woman Mike would most like to see dancing to Franz Ferdinand.
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What also sets Franz Ferdinand apart is their unabashed admittance to how the qualities of dance music and its culture (which dominated the UK music scene in the nineties) have influenced how they make their music so danceable. “We like the dynamics and techniques of dance music, the breakdowns and basing things around the kick drum, and pulling back and making sure the rhythm is prominent.” When the band started, they said to themselves, “the weirdest thing that could happen at a gig is that the girls come down and start dancing.” People have been programmed not to dance when they listen to live music; the guys at Franz Ferdinand’s LA show were amazed that all the hipsters came down and actually moved. Part of this comes from the energy the band has on stage. Of other artists who seem preoccupied with staring solemnly into space, Mike joked “if you’re so fucking bored, get off the bloody stage. We’re into music that is full of energy and so full of passion it makes you feel alive. We’re not afraid to dance on stage.” They love playing with The Rapture and bands that push their audience to move. More recently, they’ve been setting up gigs in London with a band called Park Attack – a band based more around rhythm than melody. To Franz Ferdinand, it’s about the personality
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[left] Sam Houde, frontside ollies at a little known pond, while warming up for another Felix Faucher Waterslide adventure [here] Dayne Brumett frontside smith grinds a skirty slide in autumn.
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[right] Dan Mathieu’s Quebec missions will never cease to strike fear in local skaters such as Guy Levesque. Although long boardslides to tight transitions on a wet board is all in a days work.
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There was about seven and a half seconds when all the planning seemed worthwhile. We would park ourselves strategically in the hot tub next to the main pool after noticing an especially vulnerable victim lining up for the chute, and then it was just a waiting thing because this wasn’t just any slide. In the middle of a typical blistering hot summer Saturday, lineups made every individual wait at the waterslide park average around fifteen minutes. Situated smack in the middle of the tourist-flooded mecca of the Okanagan, this water-abundant oasis of fun had created a slide that was a completely straight line; a slide that once you committed to, sped you up fast, faster, and fastest until you were literally careening into the pool below, arms and legs exploding in a fantastic, refreshing explosion of water. For locals who were familiar with the run, the slide would skim you across the entire pool, but for the naïve, and for the few girls who insisted on wearing them to this particular slide, the Kamikaze run was notorious for ripping bikini tops off like a banshee (about every seven and a half seconds).
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As indispensable as they are for summer fun, the other seasons render them virtually unusable; at least for those that think of them in the most traditional of senses. Skaters, however, seem to observe their world through a more creative lens, and the possibility that the curved line represents to the trained eye opens a world of potential. Practical pool wall shaping by builders that could never build a proper skatepark become a highly adaptable form of skate structure in a medium of the design of tubing gates, slide walls, and kiddie pools, surrounded by the pathways to orient people in a specific direction. Perhaps it is the pure flow of skateboarding that shares a relationship with the natural flow of water that seems to find a way to connect us to the shapes that direct it. –- RJ Dueck
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50 Foot Wave Bug EP
Trans-Am Liberation Thrill Jockey
To these ears, the adjective “progressive” attributed to the noun “rock” is the aural equivalent of attributing “warts” to “genitalia”. Then again, I’ve never really considered Trans-Am a rock band. Take “Uninvited Guest,” or “Total Information Awareness,” both from their latest full-length, Liberation. Both songs sound like fucked-up hybrids of John Oswald’s plunderphonics mixed with the synth-scores from b-grade Italian slasher flicks. I give TransAm a continuing stay of amnesty from my painful correlation to genital warts; let’s call Liberation a good wank, instead. - Tim Horner
The Golden Virgins Songs Of Praise
Abominator Nuctemeron Descent Osmose Productions
When I found out that Abominator is made up of members of the two most notable Australian pounding war metal bands, Bestial Warlust and the legendary Destroyer 666, I was excited to inflict the CD onto my stereo, fully prepared for some new total fucking war anthems. This is Abominator’s third album, and the unrelenting blast beats worked with the grating riffs shows that the band is not failing to ever let up on the spreading of total barbaric walls of bestial black metal. One thing that really stands out on the release is the attack process that leaves the listener stunned. The structure on this album acts as a total wall of blackened death, never succumbing to any slowed down atmosphere. This vicious, remorseless style is truly effective – never letting up on the brutal intensity of the attack. This style of unstoppable pounding black metal acts as a purely true and destructive sheet of violently structured unholy chaos. - Sam
XL/ Beggars Banquet
Rootsy, whiskey-soaked pop from Northern England. A little too British (i.e. Beautiful South-y) for my admittedly narrow taste in pop, but it’s interesting nonetheless – if only because its dark and boozy. Apparently, “the UK press machine is all over this album!” so this one’s causing quite a furor over in our colonial homeland – Don’t believe the hype, though. We all know that the British music media is very excitable. They’ll try to make you believe that the Golden Virgins, along with Coldplay, Badly Drawn Boy and Travis and whoever else, have perfected the craft of pop songwriting – That’s nonsense, Avril Lavigne has. - Carrall King
Ill-Eas The Exorcist
Too Pure/ Beggars Banquet
Here’s my ill-at-eas exorcism: about eight years ago, I was going out with this alt-girl who was all about Liz Phair, Royal Trux and Cibo Matto. There was a constant battle for stereo supremacy that year: my Misfits box set vs. her Exile in Guyville. The whole thing ended one night after my Christmas staff party, when she left me in front of a nightclub – to jump the line and make out with my coworker’s date in the men’s washroom. Whenever I hear crappy indi fem-pop like Ill-Ease, I’m instantly transported back to that night, and I pout like a big retarded baby.
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- Tim Horner
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Lungfish Love is Love Dischord
My dad used to get so mad at me, constantly stating that you should never judge a book by its cover. I never really got the point, because I’m still guilty as hell of judging something right away; everybody that knows me knows this. So, over time, as compensation, I’ve learned to be the ”King of Backtracking”, always changing my opinions after my first knee jerk reactions… Anyways, so I get this CD by a band called Lungfish, on Discord Records, and “The King Of Backtracking” assumes it’s gonna be all “yeah, I’m gonna fuck some shit up now, some shit in your face motherfuckaaaaaaaaah’s”. But alas, Lungfish is the exact opposite. You can tell these guys have been through time and a half, looking like old peaceful draft dodgers and artists that hid out in shacks in Montana and such, but man, do they craft a beautiful mix of this droning Americana backwoods rock thing, with lyrics as vivid and poetic as a carefully nurtured memoir of inner musings and thoughts. They’re like a dirty battle scarred Wilco, wiser and ten times grungier. Plus, who else would have the balls to name their album “Love is Love”? Only people who have seen grey dreary dawns over many years, but see the beauty in it anyways, could pull something like that off. - Scott Radnidge
4AD/ Beggars Banquet
I haven’t listened to the whole catalogue of 4AD artists, but it seems like they know how to pick the best of them. Throwing Muses is one of these bands, with a huge cult following to back it up. Two members of Throwing Muses; guitar-queen Kristin Hersh (who herself, has had a long withstanding solo career) and bassist Bernard Georges together, along with drummer Rob Ahlers, are 50 Foot Wave. The six song EP, a throwback to late eighties / early nineties indie rock (or alt-rock if you want to get specific), is good shit. The sound is so dated it sounds new to me. Maybe it’s because, I missed all that grunge / alt-rock/ plaid wearing/ jean shorts over long underwear period that everybody a little bit older than me went through. Everything about this album makes me think ‘92 or something like that. Kristin’s vocals are loud, raspy and raw, the guitar riffs shred and the drums are unrepentantly ferocious. Yesss, Grunge is back. - Mike Chui
Ratatat S/T
XL Recordings
Ratatat is the unlikely two-man combination of the top freelancing guitarist in New York (Ben Kweller, Dashboard Confessional) and a bedroom producer from Oregon called E*Vak. The result is impossible to categorize, but if you had to you might call it something like “lo-fi summertime electro-prog rock”. Whatever it is, it’s wholly original and its pure gold – full of sunny, optimistic major chords and downbeat breeziness. The sincerity is over the top, but its OK because there’s a lopsided, fucked-up quality to it that distorts the whole program. Most people will hate it but the right people will like it. - Neil Simonton
Now It’s Overhead Fall Back Open Saddle Creek
Apparently, a few years back a disgruntled ex-employee of the Omaha school board serially poisoned the water supplies of all the city’s public schools. The infecting agent was some gnarly hormonal compound. The result: A group of young Omahasters were subject to a massive hormonal influx and thereafter became the most sensitive people on Earth. Thankfully, they have all found one another at Saddle Creek Records, where they gather to hold hands and emote. Emotion breeds creativity, of course, and the sorrowful lot purge their sadness with song.
Sometimes, as in the case of “Bright Eyes” live on stage, these songs make you want to curl up and cry. Other times, as in the case of this Now Its Overhead album, they make you want to laugh and poo at the same time. - Neil Simonton.
DM & Jemini Tweny Six Inch EP Lex Records
“Looook at me baaaby... Look how we said it/ Twenty six inches/ At a redlight/ But them rims keep spinnin’ round/ We gettin’ so rich/ Oh you noticed?/ Girl stay focused/ Watch them things spin around?’’ Am I hearing a collabo between C-Lo, DM & Jemini? Whoah, I think it is; and there’s also tracks featuring Alkaholiks and Sadat X? The Twenty Six Inch EP kicks off explosively with the track, “What U Sittin’ On”, featuring C-Lo and The Alkaholiks. Yep, that’s right fuckers, all the way from Atlanta, Georgia; DM (aka: Dangermouse) & Jemini dropped some fresh fruit for that ass. DM is hot dogs right now, after dropping the infamous Grey Album a little while ago; the one where he takes lyrics from Jay Z’s Black album and mixes them into The Beattles’ White Album, essentially remixing two albums. Jemini, “The Gifted One” – there’s a reason why he’s called The Gifted One. He flows effortlessly over DM’s classic hip hop production style that’s kicked up a notch. giving that tired sound some new life. Jemini also croons velvety smooth raps on, “Ghetto Pop Life II”. This DM & Jemini EP is absolutely worth checking out. - Mike Chui
Ravager Naxzgul Rising
Osmose Productions
I’ve read that this is to be the mighty Ravager’s last album. The band has split due to varying interests and difference of opinion. Ravager features members from the legendary, grotesque and raw death metal group, Disgorge (my favourite band of the genre) and also includes members of the newest incarnation of Mexican brutality, Demonized. Ravager is an abrupt powerhouse that, like Demonized, has raging blast beats accompanied by unbelievably technical riffs and vigorously timed war metal style raid fire change ups. They have a long history of being rulers of the genre in their country (and quite possibly the world – held high against Black Witchery, Impiety, Beherit, etc…). The album never lets up, as the raging war strike of the track “Nuclear Vomiting Warcraft” acts as a violent opening act that just introduces the mighty bullet fire chaos that is to follow through the rest of the album – all the way through to the triumph of “Forth to Naxzgul” (the end of the album
conjures up in your head visions of the amazing nihilistic album cover art by Joe Pentagno). Ravager’s “Naxzgul Rising” is one of the most intricate yet fucking intense war metal albums that I have ever heard, and it makes a fine cap on the history of this legendary blackened death war metal band. - Sam McKinlay
Tiger Army III: Ghost Tigers Rise Hellcat/ Epitaph
From afar, I love psychobilly. Putting together twangy-punk, exaggerated pompadours, tattoos, and a dose of the macabre is a terrific idea, but I could never make the commitment to be really into-into it. Partly because I’m a pussy, partly because it seems a bit confined, which, by its very definition, it is. Luckily, with this release, Tiger Army branches beyond psychobilly’s self-imposed borders, revealing dark pop influences like the Cure and Depeche Mode and offering a heavy nod to the forefathers of country. And here’s the best part: A year ago Tiger Army’s drummer, Fred Hell, got shot four times in a home invasion robbery. Despite the fact that he currently has a bullet lodged in his brain!!, he has taken his rightful place behind the kit and is on tour with the band as I write. That’s as gangsta as it gets. - Carrall King
RJD2 Since We Last Spoke
Definitive Jux/ Outside Music
Okay, so I give the album a good listen, and eventually it finishes. I was troubled as there was nothing that really caught my attention. Me thinks to myself, “Wait a minute, is this RJD2?” Is this the same guy who made the fuckin’ awesome Deadringer? The same guy I paid thirty bucks to see along with Prefuse 73 only to be bored out of my mind, but was still happy, because I had the chance to see them live? Because I just listened to this album of his and it did nothing for me. Now, His sophomore release is not bad, on the contrary, but it does need a few listens to digest, compared to Deadringer. Since We Last Spoke is heavily influenced by qualities found in 70’s Rock n’ Roll. Tracks like “Exotic Talk” have this hybrid hip hop/ arena-rock feel to them – hard guitar rhythms, multiple drum beats, sparse synth stabs, muted organ keys and modulator vocals. “Clean Living” sounds like Average White Band rockin’ space suits at a block party in the Bronx; and “Through The Walls” was definitely a product of insemination between Rush and The Cars. Some of the best work on this album has to be “Iced Lightning” and “Making Days Longer”. Overall, Since We Last Spoke is good, just don’t compare it to Deadringer. - Data
Young Heart Attack
Mouthful of Love
XL Recordings/ Beggars Banquet
In a world of rocking grease-bag bands and retro looks running wild, there’s usually a temptation to dismiss bands who are compared to AC/DC and MC5; tags that every “rock” band use to the point of nausea. Fears of another so-so rock band were quickly dismissed as I threw on Young Heart Attack’s debut album, Mouthful of Love, for less than a minute. They can hold their own by crafting an album of rock-fuelled catchiness; the screaming lead vocals amazingly counterbalanced by a co-vocalist whose voice could conjure up the ghost of the Runaways with ease, in the end pleasing me with 35 minutes of head bobbing smiles and a adrenaline boost that I soon won’t forget. Damn, how had they slipped under my radar for this long? - Scott Radnidge
Yesterday’s New Quintet Stevie Stones Throw/ koch
You wonder whether Madlib ever sleeps. The release Stevie, his second production effort with instrumental act Yesterday’s New Quintet, comes wi thin a couple months of both his Madvillain project with MF Doom and the Jaylib album, his collaboration with Detroit’s Jay Dee. This one’s a re-mastered and re-sequenced album of Stevie Wonder covers that originally appeared as a Triple Five Soul promo disc in 2000. It isn’t going to blow anyone’s head off their shoulders, but it isn’t trying to either. It is what it is: A respectful and technically sharp tribute to one of the greatest songwriters of our time. Worthwhile. - Neil Simonton
Soul Side S/T
Dischord/ Sammich
Why is it that a mid-school punk re-issue sounds better than just about anything to besmirch the Warped Tour stage this year? This re-issue of the long out-of-print first Soul Side album reminds me of when I first laid ears on the re-issue of Squirrel Bait’s Skag Heaven; call me old and sentimental, but this shit just sounds better. In a lot of ways, Soul Side were ahead of their time; the strength and conviction of pre-emo punk (with a nod to the first Dag Nasty album), plus the seeds of musical ability that would later come to fruition when the group morphed into Girls Against Boys. So fuck the latest sceamo flavour of the month. Go pick up this overlooked classic instead. - Tim Horner
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Dennis wears white Bomber shoes by 88, the Zipper hat by Neff, Lifetime “Dude” hood, the Reno tee by Ambiguous and High Life pants by Obey. Krista wears Obey’s Old Frilly Tank in Heather, BJay shoes from Gravity Pope, Vancouver. Dress by Toyo and Velvet glasses. Tara has on the Griffin baby tee by Obey and Fornarina shoes from Gravity Pope and Velvet glasses. Dress by Toyo. Creative |Sandro Photo | David Christian Styling | Justina Anzulovich Make-up | Elisabeth Jiollife
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Hair Styling | Melissa Majeran
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Krista and Tara | Lizbell Agency
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Tent City Antihero
Deluxe Productions
Black Gloves and Razors
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Sinister Sam Video
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In grade eight I took third place in a speech contest for ripping my face off in front of the entire class. I was thirteen and obsessed with gore make up and slasher films to the point where I’d get up early and work on my face for two hours before walking to school with my skull bone exposed and blood pouring out of the wound. When I showed up at school in makeup, the girls would scream and run up to me to see if I was hurt, while the guys just laughed. I loved the attention. When the speech competition was announced, it was only natural that I’d do a speech for my grade eight English class on gore make up. Working for a week with latex and derma wax to sculpt the upper half of my face, I created what I felt was my masterpiece: a thin life like layer of flesh that blended my forehead and nose seamlessly with the rest of my face. To make the blood flow and splatter I’d devised a complex system of small clear plastic tubes running through my hair, down the back of my neck, entering into my long shirt sleeve and ending at a squeeze bulb (much like the end of a turkey baster) that was filled with fake blood. I skipped all of my classes the morning of the speech, to apply my make up in the boy’s washroom. The best part about ripping my face off and spraying blood all over the class that day was that I took third place for a speech that I’d spent no time preparing. I winged the speech because I was too excited to wait to get to the ending. I wanted to see blood fly and splatter; I wanted to see all the girls scream and the guys cringe and laugh like they always did. What I didn’t expect was that my teacher would like the presentation enough to place me in the top three, who would then represent our school in the city speech championships. If you’re at all like the thirteen year old I was, and can’t wait to see blood run and women scream, then Black Gloves and Razors is a must see. Sinister Sam has skipped many classes to edit together the rarest and sickest splatter scenes from seventies Italian Giallo (Italian thriller) films – (be warned, this is only for the hardcore). Much of this stuff was unreleased in its day. The best part is there is no lame speech to wade through; Sam literally cuts to the chase and brings on the gore. - Silas Kaufman trailer.
There are very few videos that I like to keep around and/or actually go after to have in “the collection” of skate videos that line the rack above my TV. I must admit that I’m pretty fucking prejudice when it comes to the videos I watch: Scarecrow, Creature, Antihero, 1984, Consolidated, Bones Brigade 1 & 2, Black Label… you get the picture. When I got a look at the ads for the Antihero monthlong Australian tent camp DVD epic Tent City in a skate magazine, I was fully into actually mail-ordering a copy if I had to. The gnarly articles and various photos were enough to make the DVD look worthy of anyone’s collection. The video careens into the world of the popularized 8mm foray, along with the other recent DVD pieces Fruit of the Vine and Northwest, directed by Coan Nichols and Rick Charnoski. The footage weaves in and out of super 8 (much of it with sound). The video work during every spot comes into cap at the end of the chapter, thus hitting the viewer with some loud reality after the filmed abstraction of the somewhat rough super 8. It’s a good idea that works well with the atrocious spectacle of the harsh spots. Rick Charnoski co-directed Tent City with Buddy Nichols, which may account for the overall presentation of the DVD. The spots covered are amazing and obviously teamed into the world of weightlessness, as they hit various pipe spots that have funneled openings (both which are skateable) and they even squeeze themselves into a shelled steel pipe that plays acoustically like some drudged out doom rock band. The skating is the best possible, with a comprised group of the best all-round transition skaters imaginable, coupled with some of the best styles in the industry – i.e. Julien Stranger. Steve Bailey kills it with numerous flowing ollie lines. Peter Hewitt powers through every spot consuming especially the funnels and egg plant possibilities. Tony Trujillo takes over every spot with speed lines that seem to come out of nowhere. John Cardiel proves that he is one of the most hardened pros with constant all-round ability. Max Schaff shows the ever present dominance of style to vert wall and to add to the mix are Frank Gerwer and Matt Rodriguez to spice up the bowl action with creative street and concrete lines. The unbeatable Antihero mentality is spread throughout the film with dialogue on top of the super 8 footage; the most enjoyable being Strangers’ and Cardiel’s as they honestly drive home the fact that skating is skating no matter the matter the matter. All in all, the DVD is a fantastic document of skateboarding in its purest form and the extra bonus footage comprises a film in itself. The only thing that would have matched the intensity of some of the spots is if they ran into a white pointer at one of the Australian beaches and got it on film. Tail blocks rule. - Sam McKinlay
Circle of Confusion Board Kennel
Most video reviews will go through who did what and how amazing it was but I won’t. All I am going to say is that I would put this video up against any major board company’s any day of the week. Not only does it contain some of the best skating I have seen in years but it proves that shops can make amazing videos if they truly try. “Cirlce of Confusion” has just set a new standard in shop videos. The music is amazing, the cinematography is pure Jon West, and the skating is astonishing. This video is a solid ten. If you want a copy you’ll have to do one of 3 things. You can head down to Board Kennel in White Rock, BC and pick one up. But if you live too far you can email them (boardkennel@telus.net) and order it. Look closely and you’ll notice that women’s jeans are very hot in White Rock right now. -Meadows
Switch Skateboarding Volume 1 EMI
After an exciting trip to the local seven eleven where I had to dodge a needle-wielding junky while trying to get myself a cream soda and coke slurpee I decided to relax with the first volume of Switch Skateboarding. The video features the talents of Darrell Smith, Ryan Blaxall, Dustin Montie, Jesse Landen, Grant Patterson and Morgan Smith as well as a whole rack of cameos from a bunch of Canada’s finest up and comers. I’ve got to say I was anxious to get this video to check out Darrell Smith’s part after hearing all sorts of rumors since he’d been down in Frisco, destroying Pier Seven on the daily (tre flip nose wheelie nollie tre out? Honestly, what the fuck?). I must say I wasn’t let down, Darrell and Ryan Blaxall share the opening part and it’s my favorite in this flick. All the D-Money fans out there will be happy with his part, matched up perfectly with a hot new banger of a Maestro (FRESH WES, WUT!) track. Jesse Landen doesn’t disappoint with a nice mix of handrail and hubba madness and ledge/line goodness. Grant Patterson, this kid is on a tear as of late, he’s tearing the shit out of anything he’s skating. Guaranteed the next big thing from the great white north, good to see him skating ledges too. Morgan Smith, coming in at the tender age of seventeen, shuts down this volume of Switch with the last part. Definitely another kid to watch. This gem from Chad Albert and David Worthington is highly recommended by me and university professor approved. –Cian
We haven’t had a Tattered Ten interview since Trainwreck’s display of the true meaning of tattered. I’ve since replaced the demolished tape recorder and gathered myself for another go at this suicide mission. To recap though, Tattered Ten is a ten-question, unprepared mess that always results in regret. Regardless, “We’ll be friends in the morning”… In attending an industry party, I had the pleasure of running into legends Kelly Bird and Rudy Johnson with Supra Distribution president Peter Sullivan. Some beers were stashed as we watched the open bar diminish and I was harrased about my shoes by Peter, while listening to stories of Bird’s early ninetees North Van excursions with Colin and Moses. There was nothing to stop us until an uninformed shop manager asked with angst “Who are you!?”, only to be dissapointed with a polite, “I’m Rudy, man.” And so we began:
Rudy with
J o h n s o n b y s an d r o
1. Was there another Blind video in the works that was rumored to be released around the same time you left to skate for Girl? No, I don’t think so man, not that I fuckin’ know. Actually, I think there was gonna be the Tim & Henry Video – that was it, but I think it was pretty set that like it was gonna be them and then as far as our footage – whatever, you know what I’m saying?
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2. How involved are you with Royal trucks? Um, I just whatever man, I’m involved and I like… to collect… beautiful… (laughter), I’m involved though man and I love skating!
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3. I know you’re a talented musician, what instuments do you play? I play drums, guitar, bass, piano – the whole shit. - (Manager at Westbeach tries to take our beers away) Bird: That’s bullshit man. 4. Isn’t percussion where they put the kids in highschool when tattered10.r udyjohnson
face knocked out in Vancouver. It was the worst thing ever man. So that’s the worst, but the best? Probably the first DC tour. Then there’s the tours Peter took us (the Girl Team) on. Peter likes to sleep and shit. I’m glad I wasn’t in the van when he fell asleep. The whole team fucking crashed.
they can’t play any other instrement? That’s bullshit, any instrument that requires two hands (ie: Congas). Percussion is harder than the drum set. 5. Have you ever jammed with Danny Way? Yeah, I used to go jam with Danny all the time man, he’s like a good friend man. With Daemon, not as much, but with Danny I used to go to... fucking go to his house back in the Blind days and do like weekends like very often. I haven’t skated with him though in a while, but every time I see him we like catch up and it’s cool man, he’s fucking rad man, he’s a talented bastard. 6. Where does Rhythm come from and why can’t us white guys get it down?
Hosestly, firstly I think it came from Africa. I have seen like on the Jazz channel some incredible bands that I hear and then they walk in the room and it’s all white guys – drummer, bass, everything. It’s like if you learn to love what it is you’re doing I think either one can be just as good. African-american people might have it a little more naturally because they basically came from there. 7. Blind, Video Days, Closing scene – was that alcohol or was that not alcohol? Well the liquid was water by that point, cuz Mark (Gonzales) had already drank the whole shit. He (Mariano) was only 13 or something. 8. What’s your most memorable tour story? One I will never forget is getting my fucking
9. Do you watch hockey? No man, I can never see the damn fucking thing moving around in the whole game dude. I just see dudes slamming eachother which is cool, and I know they have the same offside rules as soccer which is cool, but I can never see it happeneing so I don’t really watch it. 10. When’s the last time you skated a vert ramp? Maybe about a month and a half ago. My brother in-law fucking rips the vert, he’s an old school ripperused to ride for Powell. Vert’s good, but the whole Danny Way vs. Tony Hawk thing… Danny Way can blow him out of the fucking water. It’s Gonz over McGill right? Exactly!
Crailsnatch, 360 Flip, Backside Flip, Frontside Flip, Blair Cakes, Pressure Flip, Frontside 360, Salad Grind, Big Spin, Frontside Bigspin, Rodeo, Cor pus Flip, Switch Flips and Heels Ever y Way Possible, Clicker Flip, Frontside Flare, World’s Highest Ollie the Wrong Way, Ollie Impossible, Shuvit Flip, Nate Sherwood, Nose Pick, Kick Flip Nose Slide, Cat Flip, Rodent Flip, Kick Flip Indy, Finger Flip, No Comply, Bend Slide, Ollie One Foot, Roast Beef, Ollie Nor th, Li’l Flip Snicker Doodle, Chinese Ollie, Nose Press, Tail Press, Late Shuv, My Dick, My Dick Flip, Back Foot Flip, Saran Wrap, Sal Flip, Pizza Guy