ver$hy ver$h & dilbert1's $pectacular $kateboarding $election

[version]

@catalog's been asking for this, so here it is.

I stopped in my mid 20s because I had no one to skate with anymore and I was more conscious of getting seriously injured, smacking my head or breaking an ankle or whatever. Still have my board in the cupboard.

Other than the actual skating, I definitely miss the hanging out part the most. Heading out early and spending an entire day at some secluded spot when the sun's out. There was an abandoned place where I grew up that had really smooth concrete, ledges and stuff and where nobody would come and kick us out. Bliss.

 

[version]

Legendary. Smooth Gino x Wu Tang.

 

[version]

Something which occurs to me looking at these vids now's how young everyone was. You had older people running some of the companies, but the industry was basically built by teenagers and people in their early 20s. It's all so casual and unprofessional. Similar situation to the pirates, jungle, grime, etc. People doing stuff out of bedrooms and living rooms. Whenever the older lot get interviewed all the stories will be about how they came up with a logo just stoned in someone's living room doodling or how all they did was skate all day and party all night. Some of them are still a bit like that. The extended adolescence thing.

Keenan, Gino, etc. all look about 12 at the start of this.

 

[version]

This stuff gives you a very particular map of your area and bits and pieces all over the world. You get this spread in your head based on stair sets, handrails, etc. These things become landmarks based on what so and so did there in X photo or video. It's a lens you never really lose. I still see ledges and embankments and imagine what you could do on them.

It's one of those things that offers routes into all sorts of other areas too as you get people branching off into things like urban planning, photography, carpentry, graphic design, filmmaking. Lots of stuff to play around with. You get people making their own edits of old vids, Insta clips, and sticking them on YouTube too.

 

[version]

It's been interesting to watch it collide with larger forces over the years, see how things like smartphones, social media, progressive politics, big money, international travel, have influenced it. When I was skating in my teens you'd usually have one or two guys who had a little digital camera and basically fell into being the designated filmer and got all nerdy about it, nowadays obviously everyone's got a decent enough camera in their pocket to do it themselves without much thought.

 

[IdleRich]

Something which occurs to me looking at these vids now's how young everyone was. You had older people running some of the companies, but the industry was basically built by teenagers and people in their early 20s. It's all so casual and unprofessional. Similar situation to the pirates, jungle, grime, etc. People doing stuff out of bedrooms and living rooms. Whenever the older lot get interviewed all the stories will be about how they came up with a logo just stoned in someone's living room doodling or how all they did was skate all day and party all night. Some of them are still a bit like that. The extended adolescence thing.

Keenan, Gino, etc. all look about 12 at the start of this.

This is true of all youth scenes, northern soul, garage whatever - I think there is something quite fascinating in all these scenes about loads of fifty year old blokes (and it's always blokes of course) explaining how the best music or thing ever was achieved by some kids who grew up with them and and the best way to demonstrate that is to keep fetishising that in the weirdest way possible and if you don't get that your'e weird. And that's obviously fucked up and.... I sort of admire it.

 

[version]

Like with music, you'll find geography and local culture exert a major influence. The skating that's come out of Britain's quite different to what you get in the US. It's much scrappier, lower impact, because the ground's worse, the weather's shit, everything's smaller. You don't see much in the way of people flying down massive sets of stairs or bombing huge hills. There are people that can do it, but the environment isn't really there for it. (I'm underselling the variety in the US, but you get the point.)

 

[pattycakes_]

I hung out with a bunch of skaters growing up in the lake district. Loved the whole world: the vids, the clothes, the aesthetic the attitude. Really cohesive and you felt like you belonged to something outside of the mainstream, even if it was totally corporatized in its own way (a lot of the good shit was expensive!) but it has this proper diy vibe to it. Can't understate how much cool music I discovered from the vids.

Only tried to skate one time, by dropping in on the half pipe at our local skate park in Windermere and my leading foot went with the board, while my other foot decided to stay at the top of the half pipe and I did the splits really fast and landed in a crumpled heap moaning and groaning for a good 15min. That was the end of my skating career.

 

[version]

If you get into it at an early age it can also be quite formative in terms of being your first collision with private property and an authority beyond parents and teachers. The way some security guards will speak to you and behave, even if you're a kid, can be quite jarring. It's exciting sneaking into spots, trying to get a trick before you get caught, but also pretty scary having some mad middle-aged bloke in uniform popping up shouting and chasing you off or threatening to lock you in when you're that young.

 

[0bleak]

there was definitely a big intersection here between skating and the "alt" music subcultures
i didn't skate due to my motor skills issues/nvld, but I knew tons of people that did or at least did at one point or another - it seems like it was practically almost every guy, really

 

[version]

Like with music, you'll find geography and local culture exert a major influence. The skating that's come out of Britain's quite different to what you get in the US. It's much scrappier, lower impact, because the ground's worse, the weather's shit, everything's smaller. You don't see much in the way of people flying down massive sets of stairs or bombing huge hills. There are people that can do it, but the environment isn't really there for it. (I'm underselling the variety in the US, but you get the point.)

New York's a bit like the UK in some respects. They have lots of grimey little spots and people skating in that scrappy way. L.A. in contrast is very smooth and wide. SF has lots of hills.

NYC


L.A.


SF


Philly


London


Paris


Barcelona

 

[catalog]

Vetsyib divyoy lijr the beasyes b oi ys?

 

[catalog]

My skateboarding life began when I was 8 years old and I got the two best presents ever:

Shell suit and skateboard

 

[luka]

Dilbert aired the thread. Confirms what we suspected. Cold inside. Sociopath.

 

[version]

Style for days.

 

[version]

How I got into Scarface.

 

[dilbert1]

Old friend of mine just had a short part come out, amazing skater @ver$hy ver$h might dig his moves. Ultimately I don’t think jungle really works in skate videos (the tempo save for precise editing but also the drama of the music usually can’t be matched and overpowers the footage) but never heard dred bass in an edit so the novelty factor is something

 

[dilbert1]

My good buddy @ver$hy ver$h has great taste and warms my very sensitive heart he made this thread which we discussed over intimate private messages

 

[catalog]

Ultimately I don’t think jungle really works in skate videos

It's funny how the form seems to demand a certain type of music. Much like it demanded a certain type of clothing.

 

[version]

English skating used to be really dreary and have stuff like Radiohead in the vids, but Palace came along and started putting grime and jungle and whatnot in and gave it a kick up the arse.

Still dunno where that Wiley vocal of the East Connection remix at 1:20 is from, "I am the boss, bish bosh... "

They were a breath of fresh air, but I think they were getting into backlash territory last time I properly paid attention as they became so successful and started collabing with big companies. The usual. Jonah Hill was in one of their ads, they did stuff with Ralph Lauren.

You started getting similar discussions about postmodernism and nostalgia and that too as they filmed everything on VHS, used lots of 90s stuff and even rebuilt Radlands (classic park);

There's the music connection with Palace too; Will Bankhead who runs Trilogy Tapes knows them, so there's this connection to people like Rezzett and Joy Orbison and a melding of the music and skate scenes in London, plus they pulled in Supreme and managed to get a foot in the fashion thing. They've got lots of connections that bolster the brand and popped up with a great aesthetic at a time when there was nothing like it.

Supreme were somehow seen as something of a skate brand without ever really producing anything specifically to do with skating other than one short vid in the 90s then they tapped up Bill Strobeck who used to film stuff for Alien Workshop and completely took over in the 2010s. with a really specific style;

Strobeck's quite raw and full of zooms and close ups and indebted to people like Harmony Korine. They've got Burzum and Bad Brains and stuff on the soundtrack and everyone's much more style conscious. It's the antithesis of the Red Bull thing, despite being the product of a big brand.

There was this wave of more "indie" companies over the last decade or so that made really scuzzy videos with much more lifestyle footage, like in the old 90s vids like Fucktards,

Catalog would probably be into all this stuff. It's all got that trashy, collage sort of aesthetic that's there with Hype Williams, Harmony Korine, 'zines and whatnot.

There's a company called Bronze 56k who really leaned into the vaporwave thing;

The best stuff's people just goofing around with style, imo. Much more entertaining than watching stuff down huge stair sets over and over;

I used to, yeah, although YouTube was a godsend later as people started uploading everything and you could watch stuff that was only around on VHS or in the US.

It's completely different now. The companies all have YouTube channels and it obviously all goes online. A new skate vid these days is a 30-minute edit uploaded to a company's channel or sold on iTunes.

One advantage British skating has over American skating is I haven't come across any Nazis over here yet whereas there are legendary figures in American skating who've been openly racist, had swastikas on their boards and stuff.

#MeToo and Trump and everything that's been going on in the last few years had an impact in skating too. It's a culture where adult blokes never really have to grow up, so there are obviously a lot of twats and idiots involved in it.