NORTH SKATEBOARD MAGAZINE
ISSUE 15
O3EPO – Even In Siberia There Is Happiness Igor Fardin – Kickflip � Photo: Alexey Lapin www.carhartt-wip.com
NEW BALANCE NUMERIC PROUDLY WELCOMES
Cover: Freddie Lusk - Kickflip Photographer: Graham Tait
Requiem For A Screen
Film Gallery Freddie Lusk
TYSHAWN JONES
NA-KEL SMITH
North X Theories
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Requiem For A Screen
Interview by Neil Macdonald
How do you actually do these? And at what point did you realise people should probably see them? I make them all on Photoshop, either using scans I find online or I scan stuff in. I had a load of images saved on a hard drive, just reference/research/inspiration for work and it had got to a point where I had so much stuff that I wanted to put it online as a visual reference for myself. So I started putting stuff up on Tumblr so I could access it from anywhere. It started as a mood board for me to play around with layout and design ideas. It was more for myself than a considered effort to show other people. Was there a moment where you noticed it had taken off? A re-blog, or a certain amount of followers or anything? I’m not sure if it has fully taken off! A lot of the stuff I made a few years ago but people are still discovering it for the first time. Major milestones for me would be getting an email from Daniel Pannemann at Place magazine asking to do a feature on RFAS. They ended up using one of my collages for the cover, in May 2015. Then it was May 2016 I made a double-page spread Primitive advert that ran in Thrasher, which is definitely a highlight. Coincidentally again in May this year I got asked to do a Brain Floss feature in Transworld. Looks like I need to line something heavy up for next May!
What’s your day job, and how did you get into that? I’m a designer. I work for Shiner Distribution and my role there is designing and developing Independent Truck Co. and Santa Cruz Skateboards’ European apparel lines. I’ve been there about 18 months. I worked for the previous licensee doing a very similar thing for about eight years, but I’ve always done freelance stuff for other brands since I finished uni. I started off just doing stuff for my local shop, City Surf R.I.P. - doing posters for events and then scene video stuff. Then my friends started ‘The Stimulus’, remember that? That’s where the Pritchard vs Dainton video came from that led on to Dirty Sanchez. The first stuff I ever had in a skate mag was some photos of a beer bottle for a Stimulus advert. I bought a digital camera with my student loan. It had 4.5 mega pixels... Haha! I did a few other photos for them and then when Dainton started doing Kill City I started helping him with that. From that I ended up doing his Etnies shoes and some more stuff for Sole Tech. Around the same time Pritchard got offered his Globe shoe and I designed that and some clothes for those guys. That ended up being one of the best selling shoes for a couple of seasons and meant I got to do a load more stuff for them for a few years. Oh, and Crayon! That was fun; I designed everything for that with Dykie. You must have been stoked on the Quartersnacks collaboration did you know those dudes anyway? Yeah, that’s super fun to work on. Kosta just hit me up on Tumblr a couple of years ago and it’s grown from there; I’ve been designing a couple of graphics a season for them. He’ll send over a few ideas and we go from there. We usually end up with something totally random, which is cool. I also got to do some Requiem style collage stuff for Sage Elsesser’s Cons shoe launch. They had Earl Sweatshirt interview Sage and I made some images to sit alongside. It’s always cool to walk into DSM and Supreme and see something you designed on the shelf.
Can you look at skateboard photography objectively now, or are you looking at colours and lines instead of the trick? I still get stoked on skate photos but working in design changes everything in that aspect. Not just skate, but I can’t look through a magazine without breaking it down. Or look at clothes without looking at where they’re made, what the print quality is like what the fabric content is. Certain photos jump out at me to rework into ideas, but most of the time it’s the skater I’m looking at - the shapes and style. I sometimes think that chopping out the background noise and just focusing on that makes a really strong image. So who’s making good clothes right now? Skate related? Futur, Pop Trading, Supreme, Polar and Palace all make decent clothes. As far as hard goods companies go, the product we’re putting out in Europe for Indy and Santa Cruz is really good quality. We don’t use blanks and it’s all custom fabrics and fits. With most brands now at £30 plus for a shitty printed blank I’m stoked we can offer a better quality basic tee for £22 - £25. Outside of skate-specific brands I like Norse Projects and Our Legacy for shirts and jackets. APC, LVC and Dickies for bottoms, and for printed tees Cav Empt and Brain Dead. You can never really go wrong with a good bit of Ralph and I’ve being buying a bit of Noah NY recently. What kind of things do you look out for in a photo? It can be anything really. Something interesting in the background of the spot, or the clothes the skater is wearing. Something easy to cut out!
There must be certain things that draw you to a photo though. Like Half Cabs, maybe… What usually happens is I randomly stumble onto an idea, for example I had a couple of photos of Kareem Campbell wearing Polo Sport gear and remembered a photo of Lee Smith in a sick red Polo sweat. So then I started looking for other skate photos of people wearing designer gear. Just the way my blog fits on my screen I tend to do a series of three images so they can sit side by side. So I ended up with a series with AVE in a Tommy Hilfiger tee, Lennie Kirk in Calvin Klein, the Kareem pics and then Jamal Smith who’s pretty legendary for rocking Tommy. Since then I’ve found some rad Chico photos - he always had dope gear - and a Gonz photo with a Calvin Klein tee and he’s drawn his name under it! If anyone knows of any more please email them to me. The Half Cab series started with a Eric Pupecki photo, the block he was skating looked like the Half Cab sole so I blew the shoe up so it looked like he was doing a blunt on in it. I think it was around the 20 year anniversary when Vans re-released the all the sick OG colour ways so I made a series with Carroll in the classic chalky whites and the Julien Stranger Thrasher cover in the tan joints. I think actually Henry from Pillow Heat [@pillowheat] picked up on these and started sending me loads of sick photos of his USA made Vans so I started making some stuff for his Instagram. Ever done one twice? Nah. The thing is, there are so many good photos out there that I haven’t seen yet - old and new - that I don’t think I’d get hung up on one.
How many half-finished pictures do you have?
Do you have a favourite photographer?
Only a couple of bits, once I start one I tend to see it through.
That’s impossible, there are so many amazing ones!
Sometimes I have a fixed idea when I start but usually I just
Ari Marcopoulos, Daniel Harold Sturt, Lance Dawes, Mike
play around until it works.
O’Meally, Ben Colen, Oliver Barton, Marcel Veldman, Jake Darwen and Reece Leung are the first to come to mind... If I
What were the first reactions from the people in the photos and the
had to pick one it would be Sam Ashley. His work has been
photographers, once you started getting RFAS out there?
consistently amazing for years.
Anybody especially stoked? Has anybody been upset? Who is making art right now that inspires you? Everyone has been really complementary so far, I don’t think I’ve upset anyone. I hope not. I’m always stoked when the
I like loads of different stuff art-wise. Geoff McFetridge,
skater leaves a positive comment or the photographer
Todd James, Jose Parla, Chloe Early, Barry McGee, Word
reposts an image.
To Mother, Russell Maurice and Antwan Horfee right now. My favourite illustrators doing skate stuff at the moment are
How are you with seeing your shit on other people’s feeds without
Yaiagift and Marcus Dixon. I love their graphics. I always look
a credit?
forward to seeing new The Killing floor, Quasi, FA, Palace and Isle graphics too.
I don’t really mind too much, once you post something up on Tumblr or Instagram you really have no control where it goes.
Do you do collages like these for non-skate photos?
A lot of the time when my stuff gets reposted without credit on Instagram, it’s from people finding it on
Yeah I have done a few for various different things, the last lot
Tumblr but not knowing where it originated; they just liked
were for a show called ‘Reminisce’. I used photos I’d taken
the image and wanted to share it. Now someone usually tags
in Tokyo and Texas, I chopped them up and passed them
me in the comments, which is cool.
through an ink jet printer multiple times to build up layers of different colours then cut elements out and stuck them to a
Do you go out your way to let the subjects/photographers know
couple of decks. My wife jokes that if I made collages of
when you’ve posted one?
rappers and trainers I’d probably be making some money off this by now, and she’s probably right.
I try to tag them all in the post if know their Instagram name. Or hashtag them to give credit where it’s due. I’m not trying to
And who inspired you in the past?
claim any of these as all my own work. I couldn’t do it without the amazing photos.
David Carson, Vaughan Oliver, Peter Saville, Jim Phillips, Sean Cliver, Mark McKee and Mike Hill. Record covers and skate mags!
I’ve noticed Peter Saville designs in your work a few times. Are there other notable artists whose work you incorporate into your collages? The Peter Saville images came about from a Dill quote about how FA was the ‘New Order’. I made something for each of the team using a New Order cover; I really like how Saville has re-purposed images and made them into iconic graphics. I’ve used a few famous paintings in collages. The first was a Monet painting mixed with a Jason Jessee image in reference to his famous ‘My mind is a garden’ quote from Risk it. I think some of my favourites are the series I made using Edward Hopper paintings - Josh Kalis doing a blunt on a taxi in front of a Phillies cigar sign in ‘Nighthawks’, Bobby Puleo down an alley in ‘The New York Office’ and Natas doing what you’d expect on a fire hydrant in ‘Early Sunday Morning’.
I’m told you’re super sociable and fun, and yet your approach to publicising your art is pretty low key. You aren’t really pushing it too hard, but it’s out there everywhere. Was that quiet confidence, or just being unsure of how people would take it? Ha! I love going to parties, just not my own! I much prefer making stuff than talking about the stuff I make. I’ve been lucky enough to make a living designing skate graphics and clothes without having a website or really putting myself out there that much. But times have definitely changed and it’s much harder to get work now without having this whole social media presence. Before I started working for Shiner I had a year just doing freelance and figured it was about time I started promoting my work a little bit more. It’s funny that this stuff has been so popular as it’s only really a small part of what I do. I mainly design clothes, accessories and graphics for t-shirts. I’ve never really thought about it too much but I guess partly why I don’t push my work too much is the timelines involved in designing apparel, for example the product I’m working on at the moment is for AW18, the SS18 lines I’ve worked on are being sold in now and the AW17 line is just being delivered into stores. So the work I can show and talk about was created over a year ago and I’m already on to the next thing. So what’s the next thing? I’m super busy with Santa Cruz and Indy. We’ve loads of great projects coming out this year, and 2018 is the 40th anniversary for Independent trucks and the stuff lined up for that is insane. Personally I’ve made a couple RFAS images for a SkatePal ‘zine that should be available soon and I’ve been working on a new brand with Andy Netkin, one of the founders of Primitive. That’s a mad one. I can’t wait until that launches, the team’s looking proper. www.requiemforascreen.com @requiemforascreen
BS BIGSPIN
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Josh Matthews Gap to Backslide Lipslide
PHOTO: MIKE HEIKKILA
NEIL HERRICK. BROOKLYN, N.Y.
www.habitatskateboards.com / sales@keendist.co.uk
Film Gallery
Andreas Satzinger / Fabi Daucher / Boneless
Graham Tait / Paul Regan / BS Ollie
Graham Tait / Miles Kondracki / Wallride
Mattias Welker / Chris Pfanner / Kickflip
Canon Hastings / Valentin Bauer / Nosegrind
Terry Worona / Josh Riviere / Half Cab
Bart Jones / Louie Lopez / Wallride
Mohammed Zakaria / Marc-Antoine Marcoux / BS Noseblunt
Benjamin Deberdt / Felipe Oliveira / One Foot Nosebonk
Photography by Kazuhiro Terauchi Interview by Graham Tait
Isaac McKay Randozzi / David Abair / Fastplant
Marcel Boer / Bastien Selbeck/ Kickflip
Alberto Polo / Remy Taveira / 50-50 Trasfer
Sam Shuman / Zach Dyled / Wallride
Luciano Peciano / Vali Erlmeier / Kickflip
Todd Taylor / Garrett Miller / FS Lipslide
Balthazar Wyss / Simon Perottet / Kickflip
Windbreakers coming soon.
insta: @trafficskateboards email: mike@theoriesofatlantis.com
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A NEW VIDEO FROM TRAFFIC SKATEBOARDS.
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Freddie Lusk Photography by Graham Tait Interview by Neil Macdonald
So when did you start riding a skateboard?
Every song is like a jam, you put on one song and you can totally get lost in it. I love that. I’m trying to track down a copy
I think my mum got me one for my Christmas. I couldn’t tell
of the Uriah Heap album Wizards and Demons, if anybody
you what age, but I just remember going on my knees down
has a copy... But yeah, I follow Harsh Toke on Instagram and
a hill at the side of my house. My mum wasn’t too keen at
saw that they were going on tour around Europe. I was in
first, but one of her friends convinced her.
Glasgow, but I just booked a ticket to go and see them, because in my head this was the closest they were going to
What video game was out at the time?
be to me, and that was in Tilburg in the Netherlands. So I thought, fuck it, and I made it a trip. I went to Amsterdam for
Tony Hawk’s 4 was the one that got me started.
a couple of days then went to Eindhoven, but went to Tilburg for the two nights of the festival. When I first saw they were
Whose video parts were you watching when you were growing up?
playing, it was the 21st, so I just bought a day ticket for the festival, and a couple of weeks before I was going I saw it
I think my first favourite skater was Mike Mo Capaldi. His part
said the 20th... So it was a bit, “Fuck, I’ve bought a ticket for
in the Lakai Fully Flared video. I don’t think I had a full grasp
the wrong day”, but I double checked and they were playing
of skating yet, at that point, I just liked it for the way it looked
twice. So I ended up buying a ticket for the other day as well.
and all the tech shit he was doing and how well the part went
So I saw them twice.
together. Did you meet them? Walker Murdoch: You’re kinda out on your own with the gnarly stuff just now. Most people around here are ledge skaters. And
I was sitting outside this cheap bar with someone I met, and
when you slam you still seem happy, you don’t seem to care about
I went inside to take a piss and Figgy was sitting at a table
that.
with some of his cronies. I didn’t want to disturb him. The fact that I saw him play was enough, man. He was going for
If you’re slamming you’ve got to have that attitude of just
it, it’s like watching him skate when you see him play guitar
being, “It’s good, it’s good”.
and you just get hyped off it, and I’m into that music. Being at that festival myself, I was the only person in a white t-shirt.
What happened with you following Figgy around Europe?
Everybody else was wearing black. The next day when I went along I had my board and I was the only person in the whole
I saw that his band, Harsh Toke, were playing in Europe...
place with a board. Like fuck man, I need to stand around like this...
Who else is in them? Nuge? Nah, that’s something different, that’s Arctic. That’s Figgy, Nuge and Frecks on drums. Nuge must be on bass. But Harsh Toke... I kinda heard of them through this band Earthless, who I went to see in Glasgow. That was one of the heaviest gigs I’ve ever been to, that was so rad.
FS 50-50
I heard you were going out to Copenhagen and staying for a month,
He also wants to know why you’ve only recently started wearing
but I just heard that you’re actually going out there to stay...
shoes.
Yeah, I leave tomorrow. I went for the weekend last year and
Man... Back in the day people didn’t have shoes. You’ve also
ended up staying on. Everybody was always saying how
got a lot of stress points on the bottom of your feet. If you
good it was, and I finally went last year for four days and I
walk on sand you can’t roll your foot, so sand’s really good
stayed for two weeks. After the Netherlands, I just thought
for building up muscles. Like going for a jog on the beach,
that I’ve got no ties in Glasgow and I need to go away and
you can’t roll it because the sand gives way. And I found out
get some. I know a couple of homies out there. My time is
that if you walk on gravel in bare feet, it’s almost like getting
up in the [Glasgow skate house] Boneyard unfortunately. I’ve
a massage because all the bits of gravel are hitting the stress
had the best time there. In August it would have been three
points, unknotting all the muscles in the bottom of your feet. I
years, so just a month shy of that.
just got hyped on having bare feet, so I’d turn up at his door in bare feet a lot. Stink his flat up. Stink the street up. It
Who was the best guest at the Boneyard?
escalted from there and now I love it.
Rab [Milne] was probably my favourite guest at the Boneyard.
You two lived just about next door to each other. How’s that been?
Rab honestly holds it down. It may not seem like it sometimes, but he fuckin’ holds it down. He’s the oldest boy
Er, amazing! It’s the easiest thing ever. If you want to chill, all
in a family of nine and he just fucking nails it.
you’ve got to do is hobble downstairs and get on the sofa. Half the time I’d end up waking up there in the morning. At his
He wants to know why you’re called Igor.
previous flat I’d have to walk home in the morning, but with this I don’t even need to change the time of my alarm. I still
Fuck. He gave me that name because of my feet. After a
wake up at the same time, go upstairs and have a shower,
heavy skate my feet just need a break from the shoes and
then it’s all good to go.
the socks and whatnot. We’d always go to his and chill, and the first thing I’d do would be take my shoes and socks off. I
WM: What’s the worst tattoo you’ve seen get done at the flat?
was definitely adding an essence to that flat. A funk. He was saying I had Hobbit feet, and it escalated to Froddo then to
Oh shit! The worst one that’s ever been done was done by
Igor.
me on Rab. He was gunning for getting ‘FREE VYBZ’ on his knee... Honestly man, did you do that with your eyes shut? Fucking... I was seeing three Vybz that night, triple vision. Triple Vybz. And I was seeing the ‘E’ like... Oh man. Aye. Tried to do it, didn’t do it very well, but Perry came to the rescue. He got his gun and finished it off. Haha!
FS Tailslide
What was your job until you decided to move to Copenhagen?
How important has Kelvingrove been to you?
I’ve had a bunch. The last job was working at EK skatepark.
It was already open when I started skating, and it was the
Teaching kids, doing the skate club. My good friend Fraser
place to go. This guy Lyle that I’d been skating with was a
works up there as well, he took all the tech kids and I took all
year older than me and he’d already met everybody in the
the ones that were wanting to skate transition.
Glasgow scene. He had a pair of DCs with an air bubble and he taught me how to drop in at Queens Park...
WM: You’ve been before, right? When you met Eric Dressen? On the vert ramp?! I knew who he was, but I didn’t realise at the time how much of an influence he’d had on skateboarding. The only thing we
Ha, no! On the four foot. I’ve dropped in on that vert on
were talking about was Still Game, which was on the U.S.
rollerblades... Standing up.
Netflix at the time, and when I told him I was from Glasgow he was all, “No way, I fucking love Still Game! My favourite
Haha! Did you rollerblade before you skated?
character’s Isa!” I was telling him that there’s an Isa in every high rise flat in Glasgow. Every character in that T.V. show is
I did. I did everything! My mum reminded me today that I had
a real person in Glasgow. He was hyped on the programme
a scooter when I was younger. When I would cycle to the
but hyped to have a local’s perspective of it. That was on
park I’d be on my bike with my rollerblades and my
my birthday as well. It was wet all day so we were drinking
skateboard, and every half an hour I would switch.
all day and I was hammered, talking to Eric Dressen about Still Game. It wasn’t until a few days later I was talking to
What’s the best skateboarding you’ve seen in real life?
somebody about salad grinds, and it all made sense... Salad Dressen. I had to go and learn it after that!
Oh man... I dunno!
So this is your last day on Scottish soil, and you move tomorrow.
Rab tre flipping the spine?
It’s funny - in this past week, everything that I enjoy doing in
Fuck! I was there for that. Oh my days. Tre flipping over that
Glasgow, I’ve done, which is the raddest thing. Yesterday we
spine... He worked for that and he nailed it so hard. He was
were just at the park, and then we went and climbed a tree.
staying with me at the time, and he would go to the park
There were ten of us in the tree, just listening to tunes. There’s
and try the tre flip until he was dead, and then he would chill
this amazing hill bomb next to the tree, so we bombed the
for two days, and then he’d go back to the park and try the
hill a few times. We skated the fountain; the fountain was
tre flip again. He definitely tried it maybe five to nine different
somehow dry...
days. The day he got it, he got it in like six or seven goes. I lost my fucking shit. I couldn’t believe what I’d seen. I don’t have facebook or anything but it went viral on facebook and shit. I’m pretty sure he probably got chicks from it. Matches on Tinder because of that trick.
Crook Bonk
You and Rab are both pretty chill when it comes to Instagram.
Have you ever seen Sandy Bingham skate?
You’re never hyping yourselves up on it. Oh man, I was up at Kashif’s, and he put on this video - which I have so much fun skateboarding with Rab. He will not let
might have been yours actually - and he does a tre flip over
you forget that that’s why we’re skateboarding - it’s for fun.
a wall which fucking blew my mind. It’s just... I mean... I’m
The fucking thing’s a toy. I feel at one point I got
still speechless now. Skating with somebody like that, or like
distracted and starting thinking that it isn’t a toy, but I did a
Andy White, it kind of puts into perspective that you can do
U-turn when I was like, “Fuck, if I want to have fun with this, I
it if you put your mind to it. You get these people who have
need to remember it’s a toy”. I can just go down the park and
worked out that process of tricking their mind into knowing
go around in circles. That what I did today, I didn’t pop my
they can do it. Just turning something off and turning
board or anything. That was all I wanted to do. I really enjoy
something else on.
just cruising about cities and hopping up curbs, just seeing the city. That’s something skateboarding allows you to do. I
Do you think having pros who only do powerslides and wallrides is
mean I know Glasgow like the back of my hand because of
diluting the quality of skateboarding right now?
skateboarding. I could tell you where there’s a bump in an alleyway and shit like that, just because of skateboarding.
It’s made it more accessible. If people can see that they don’t
It’s almost like I appreciate skateboarding so much because
have to jump down a set of stairs, it still counts. If you’re
of how much other shit it’s given me. That’s a big factor, and
skating, you’re skating! If you’re riding a skateboard, and
that’s what keeps pushing me.
you’re trying, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing. Skateboarding - as much fun as it is - is about pushing
Where else have you been, through skateboarding?
yourself as well, trying to better yourself every time you go out and skate. You wanna learn something new, or learn to do
I went to the States at the start of 2016 with two of my
that trick you did yesterday better.
friends, Jake 2 and Simie. Did you have a bro model on some Scottish company? Was it a filming mission? Fuck. I don’t know man, I don’t think so. Not really, it was just to see the States. I’d never been and those two had been before. We each chose a place to go, so
Start some beef. Who do you hate? Do you hate Route One?
Simie chose LA - and we all agreed on each others choices, I should say - so we flew into LA and then to Oceanside,
Well, I prefer to support the sort of people who actually own
which was my choice, and then we went to Vegas. I won’t
a skateshop and skate, like the two skateshops in Glasgow.
say whose choice Vegas was but you should be able to work it out... Haha! Then we went back to LA for a few days and flew back home. The States is fucking rad, man.
BS Pop Shove-it
Do you not skate for both Glasgow skateshops, Clan and Pyramid?
Your Instagram [@axelgrooves] isn’t obviously you either. It’s not your own name and you don’t post much skate stuff. Most of your
Haha! Jamie [Blair] from Clan has always helped me out and
Insta skate stuff is posted by other people.
I’ve known the Pyramid boys since I was growing up and they always said, from before they had a skateshop, that
I’m just not fussed about posting shit of myself. I’d rather
when they opened a skateshop I’d be around. And sure
people saw what I saw, if you know what I mean. I want to
enough, when it opened I was so hyped man, to see some
post what we’ve been up to, not what I’ve been up to. When
of my friends have one of their dreams come true. That was
I’m happy it’s when I’m kicking it with my mates. A lot of
one of the best things ever and that got me hyped. They’ve
what I’ve posted on Instagram is photos I’ve taken on film,
got that now, so we need to do our part now. Need to get
then got developed and then posted. Pictures of good times.
some for you guys.
I’m a big fan of North because I’ve never really shot photos digitally, it’s always been film. Developing film is a surprise!
You’re not on facebook are you? You’ve had a lot of injuries, right? I had it. I got it made for me when I was younger, and it served its purpose in a sense, but when people are posting
The whole left hand side of my body has fucking seen some,
statuses that I was getting affected by - even if it didn’t have
man. I always try to repair it and I use all these different
anything to do with me - it was playing on my mind, and why
methods to try to keep my body in check.
should it? The way around that was to remove myself from that situation. If somebody’s been complaining about
WM: You’re on a plant-based diet, are you not?
something online, I won’t have seen it, so when I meet that person we’re still going to have a good time if they’re in a
Haha, yeah... I only eat fuckin’ plants... Shit that grows from
good mood. If they’re in a bad mood I can talk to them. I
the ground. It started from smoothies in the morning. I just
don’t want to just comment on facebook saying, “Oh, I’m
want to get as much energy as I can in the morning, from the
sorry to hear that”. I’m always down to try to help someone,
groovy smoothies, and it just escalated from there.
man. People have helped me and I want to help other people. Who has the most luxurious hair out of everybody you skate with? Simie’s got a heavy barnet. Jake 2, he’s got some curls on him. How long does it take you to get ready in the morning? It doesn’t take me any time! I just get up and go. But I do brush this, because this shit can get knotted. I had braids Previous page: FS 5.0
once, and Walker told me that Lennie Kirk used to have braids, and I still don’t even know who Lennie Kirk is.
Nosegrind
Woah. okay. What skateboards do you ride?
What was the first thing you got for free from skateboarding?
Homework skateboards. Homework is Ross MacPhee, he’s
When Focus had a shop in Glasgow under the Central
a Glasgow skater who’s been skating Glasgow for about as
Station bridge, Sean [Revill] and Dave who now runs Pyramid
long as I can remember. When I saw him when I was younger
worked in there, same with Alex Martin and Keith Allan, just
he was doing no-complies, and all these tricks that are
a bunch of people who I looked up to... Sean once gave me
going on now. He was doing all that before it was ‘cool’.
a bucket of Shake Junt wax and I don’t think I’ve ever been
I want to say Callum Rennie and Rory Torrance -
more stoked in my life. It was this chicken bone wax, and
Seabiscuit - too. I remember them doing quirky shit before
I’ve still got one piece in the cellophane, it’s like an ornament
that had all kicked off. I was still watching people throw
in my room. I was so juiced on that. Ass an’ titties, ass an’
themselves down sets, and a no-comply couldn’t have been
titties... Then I got a board, Lucky Edge gave me a board.
further from what I wanted to do. Then I realised I needed to learn them. It’s a good trick for putting lines together. Maybe I
What was that? Sounds snowboardy.
had more sock showing for a bit back then, before I reverted back to no-sock. Anyway, so MacPhee wanted to do this for
Yeah, the sharp edge... I think it was a bedroom company a
the Glasgow skate scene since there hadn’t been a proper
friend of my friend started. It lasted a little bit, and they got
skater-owned board company out of Glasgow since... I don’t
a couple of photos in Sidewalk and shit. One of the best
know, since I can remember. So he started that and he put
parts, the guy that owned it asked if there was anybody else
on my good friend Andy [White]. He was skating a lot with
in Glasgow I wanted put on, and I was like, “Fuck, Declan
him, and it was the 11th of November - 11/11 - and we were
Welsby!” He got on, so to be on the team with one of your
at the Buchanan Street eleven when Andy did the no-comply
good homies was rad.
double flip up the six the same night I tried to kickflip the eleven. I boardslid the rail with the kink at the bottom, and Andy did a line - he did a front 180 over the rail and then switch flipped the ten that’s at the side. Literally as we were leaving that spot we bumped into MacPhee and Andy was showing him the footage. The next morning MacPhee texted to ask if I wanted a board. He actually came round to my work, to the cafe I was working in at the time - Naked Soup - to hand me the board.
Melon
And now you’re on a team with Jamie Bolland.
Are you filming for Homework?
That’s trippin’. Even before I appreciated the skating Jamie
Once I was on, and once MacPhee got a camera, we
was doing, it was rad. But once I started appreciating things
started filming. As I say, he was killing Glasgow before I even
like the kickflips he does - over the St. George’s Cross rail or
knew what a no-comply was, and he hurt his back. He still
the Mitchell road gap - it blew my mind. And then to meet
wanted to contribute to skateboarding so he started building
him, I mean he’s such a rad guy. Me and Andy went to his
DIY spots, and he started Homework. Everyone skates this
music studio and ended up recording a song with him and
black ledge at Kelvingrove, and I don’t know if they know,
shit like that. We cycled there, but we only had one bike so
but he was the one that hooked that up. He bought that
I was on the handlebars. I got a copy of Jamie’s magazine,
and a miniramp from a skatepark that was closing. We took
Indoor Parkour. One of the photos is him upside-down in an
the miniramp to SWG3 for some of the skate events that
armchair doing this pose and the caption is something like,
have happened in there. We got a whole miniramp but we
‘Taking the outdoor form of parkour and slowing it down to
can make so many things out of the parts of it and there’s
something more suitable for indoors’, and I was so hyped on
more to come for sure. Hopefully a deathrace! I want to see
it. I like how he’s taken this fast-moving thing, and is chilling
a deathrace, man.
with it. Reading those words, I felt like I was almost in the mind of Jamie Bolland as he was writing it. He’s taken
Tell us about GSS.
something super fast and aggressive, and has slowed it down, and paused it for a second. It’s like if everyone started
The Glasgow Skateboard Scene. Everyone in Glasgow, it
doing freestyle on a skateboard now, taking it back to doing
seemed, was skating at Kelvingrove at one point. And it just
pogoes and shit like that. Or just carving.
felt like we were this massive crew and we should have some fun with it. Once something like that has a name it just escalates. When you have people like Andy White, Tom Shimmin and Rab, all these really good skaters in Glasgow saying it, or talking about it, or even posting a little photo that’s got something that says GSS in it, and then the younger kids wanted to rep it and it seemed to spiral out of control so fast. We held a 24 hour skate, from midnight until midnight the next night and people were fuckin’ falling asleep at the Transport Museum at like six in the morning. People running around with duvet covers and shit like that. We got kicked out of the Uni at like three in the morning. Some girls that we know brought a full trolley of sandwiches and shit like that. They bought all this shit from Tesco and made about forty sandwiches; that was amazing. A few of us managed the 24 hours, but not everybody. If we passed someone’s house they’d be like, “Nah. I’m going in”.
FS Nosepick
What was Shetland like?
There are these amazing gun turrets, and we drove to them and just kicked about. One of them is underground and
We went up to visit Rab in Shetland. Me, Sam - Bessa,
flooded with water, and people had put paving stones down
amazing DJ - and Rennie met Muzz in Aberdeen then we
so you could walk all the way through. So it’s just paving
got a twelve hour ferry to Shetland. They had sniffer dogs
stone after paving stone into the blackness, then you get to
on the ferry and we were definitely walking around sweating.
the end room and it says shit like, “Big Hazza bangs ket”.
Even just going to meet Rab, those dogs knew. We couldn’t
Classic shit like that. That brings you back to reality. But
have looked edgier. At the end we just scuttled past them
within about a day of being in Shetland, we’d be walking
and we knew we’d be fine as long as we were on dry land.
down the street and hear people say stuff like, “The
We could see Rab as the ferry was pulling in. The biggest
mainlanders are here”, “There’s four mainlander boys here”,
part of the town was about ten houses, and we hadn’t even
and shit like that. We went to this island called St. Ninian’s,
pulled in, but we could see someone in a Thrasher hoodie
which is connected by a sand belt, and we chilled out at the
skating down the hill. We were like, “It’s fucking Rab! It’s on!”
Viking ruins there, doing backflips off the sand dunes and
We went and checked out all the Viking shit, and there was a
shit. Taking parkour to the sand dunes of Shetland.
brand new skatepark. That gave us even more of an excuse to go. I want to mention Matthew Henderson from Shetland.
Shout some people out.
He was a skater I never knew and never skated with but any time I heard about him, or saw any footage of him, he was
This is a heavy list... I want to start from the start. Mum and
busting his ass to get it. Like that switch backside flip down
Dad, Lyle McKellar, Kashif, Andy McKerrigan, Andy White,
the ten outside St. Enoch Centre that Alex Irvine shot.
Tom Shimmin, The Teleboyz - Sam, Rab, Mike, Rennie, Simie for doing everything he does for the scene - the Pyramid
What else happened in Shetland?
boys, Jamie from Clan, MacPhee from Homework for supporting the scene... All the Edinburgh boys - Miles and
Oh man, what didn’t happen in Shetland... Two of the crew
J.J.; the Aberdeen boys - Neil, Muzz, Tom; the Shetland boys
that went ended up on a boat that was heading to Norway,
- Shetland was one of the raddest places I’ve ever been to.
until the captain caught them and was like, “You boys need to fucking get off this right now” - they got found during all the final checks before the boat left - and this is after being at most British pub I’ve ever been to for the heaviest goth gig I’ve ever been to. I won’t name names but people were on the stage, screaming in the mic, screaming the gnarliest shit while there’s photos of the Queen above the bar. All these fishermen looking at us, knowing we’re definitely from the city. There are so many rad hills in Shetland. And World War II sites. It’s one of the first places that, if you were attacking the U.K., you’d go for. Heelflip
Thanks
Editor & Photographer Graham Tait
Mike @ Keen Dist Josh @ Theories A&M Imaging
Layout & Design Graham Tait
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