peak Greco – the Deathwish Video – 2013

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rsMNyFo58W4?rel=0&start=1789]

First of all, are we all just going to collectively ignore that fact that Jim Greco no longer has most of his tattoos?!?

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s take a look at Jim Greco at the peak of his gnarliness in 2013’s The Deathwish Video. Skating to Slayer, nose blunting cars, getting all darkslidey, and dropping namesake hammers left and right. It was such a pleasure to see Jim (and Ellington) both bring it (as opposed to singing it) for Deathwish’s first solo video instead of fading comfortably into guest-trick-from-the-company-owner-who-is-keeping-himself-pro territory (i.e. Rick Howard, Ed Templeton, and so on).

As Greco has recently produced annual video parts of a -uh- more artistic variety, the sobering reality is that Jim won’t be rapidly editing hammers to speed metal again in the near future. I’m thinking we will be lucky to get 2 or 3 tricks, if any, from him in Baker 4. Is Greco even on Deathwish anymore?

But maybe I’m wrong. The Deathwish Video part was a surprise for me so who knows what Greco has hidden up his fashionable sleeve. Apparently he has been skating regularly.

If you want to see all these tricks edited in a different order and laid over a Velvet Underground song, Thrasher reedited this footage in 2014.

This Jim Greco Identity Crisis flow chart is pretty nifty.

Also, let it be said I thought Year 13 was a pretty good video.

The Vert Button: Mike Frasier in Stereo’s A Visual Sound

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZDoX5Txrck?rel=0]

As a young skater, I acquired a good deal of my skate videos copied from friends. We would rotate who in the crew would buy the latest video and then we would connect two VCRs with those red and black cables and dub them onto a blank tape. If you copied videos in EP mode, you could fit, like, 5 videos on one tape.

In order to save space and enhance our future viewing experience, we would often hit pause on the recording deck and not copy parts that were deemed whack. Inevitably, this meant the vert parts.

And thusly is how I went many, many years without knowing about Mike Frasier‘s part in Stereo’s 1994 A Visual Sound video. While certainly not as immortal as Mike Daher’s, nor revered as Jason Lee’s, or as career-making as Ethan Fowler’s, Frasier’s part is still a powerful addition to an all-time classic.

Quick, snappy, and strong, yet relatable to a street rat like me who wasn’t hitting coping then and isn’t now. Frasier’s all-vert part isn’t at all out of place in the most cohesive skate video ever. So think twice before hitting that vert button, kids.

Is Nike SB Chronicles, Vol. 3 Eric Koston’s best part?

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How does Eric Koston put together what I would argue is his most entertaining part at age 40?

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9ohmfKkkCk?rel=0]

I suggest that being freed from the boundaries of the need for switch stance innovation is the cause.

He has more than proved himself deserving of lifetime pro status to both the skate world and his Nike overlords, and the expectations for a full-on, non-shared part in 2015 weren’t all that high. Koston could have easily blown it for this video and we all would still love him. A few DIY skate ledge tech moves and a manual or two would have been plenty to keep him in shoe dollars for another 5 years or more.

Some cooks make their best meals when they aren’t hungry. Perhaps the lack of pressure to make a defining part wasn’t the cause of such a great part (Koston never really seemed very stressed about skate tricks anyhow), but it probably didn’t hurt.

Witness a 3 minute Eric Koston skate part with wallies, trollies, pole jams, death-drop 5-0s, and, if I’m not mistaken, only 3 switch tricks. It’s as if he was given permission to drop the switch tech innovation and all that natural talent went in a different and, I think, more aesthetically pleasing direction. He got downright Oyola with it.

Cameo Wilson – Full Pro Part from Darkstar – 2014

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z3AJGyXxW20?rel=0]

Cameo Wilson Full Pro full part from back in 2014 is a prime example of the sad state of skate videos in the age of internet parts – here today and gone later today. This one is definitely more than a hastily assembled ‘welcome to the ranks’ edit; This is five plus minutes (well, nearly 4 minutes and then some B-sides) of heavy tricks on international obstacles. It deserved more than equal billing with whatever Firing Line was tossed on the pile later that day. I feel bad that this part came and went so fast.

All those locked in rails and legit stair bangers and what did Cameo get? A “Teaser” on Thrasher on June 17th, then the video drop on June 30th, a link to a “21 Questions Interview” on Darkstar’s website (since lost) about 3 days later, and then… well, congrats on the pro status but that’s all she wrote.

Odds are good that if you didn’t peep Cameo’s part on the day of its release, it was probably too deep in the endless scroll of Thrasher’s site for you to notice by the time the July 4th holiday rolled around. And unless you are a big Cameo fan or are somehow concerned with the non-Lutzka/Decenzo roster of the Darkstar team, you probably haven’t had the impulse to look this part up over the past 3 years.

Does all this footage and hundred-dolla-bills belong in the internet landfill? Hell no. Cameo Wilson’s Full Pro is serious internet skate video Buried Treasure. Dig it up, dust it off, maybe add it to your youtube playlist or download it, and keep it alive. This part may very well be Cameo’s legacy to skateboarding and it is pretty damn good. And we’re letting it slip away.

At the very least, take a few moment right now to revisit the twisted smith-180s, near-misses with speeding autos, stand-up 5-0s through the kinks, and several rails that haven’t been seen since. I don’t know if we’ll ever see footage like this from Cameo again, so don’t let it rot underground.

NYC Montage from Transworld’s Greatest Hits – 1997

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtbJPHYOVdk?rel=0]

A standard feature of the skate video full length since the early 1990s is the montage or “Friends” section. Usually a song in length, we get treated to an assortment of tricks from skaters not featured elsewhere in the video and rarely even on the team in a pro/am sense. It is a highlight reel of geographic pals, sister-company associates, flow  international team riders, and otherwise unclaimed ‘other’ tricks that went down during the filming sessions.

While occasionally refreshing and at random times containing a surprise banger, these parts are easy to forget. There are, however, exceptions.

For your consideration, the NYC montage from Transworld Skateboarding‘s 1997 Greatest Hits video (itself basically a 35 minute montage of montages). Note: Greatest Hits was the title of TWS’s 3rd video (4th is you count Dreams of Children) featuring all new footage and not a greatest hits video in the typical use of the word.

Filmed mostly by Ryan Gee (I assume), I’m looking back at these clips through a lens 20 years thick and thinking this part does a surprisingly satisfying job of encapsulating NYC skating in the mid 1990s. All the more unusual being produced by a magazine that is staunchly SoCal.

The spots, the skaters, the sounds, the grit, and the crowded, cavernous feel of skating in a pre-skate stopped (and pre-9/11) Manhattan… Huf is popping, Keenan is alive and well, Puleo is doing a variation of the cellar door thing, the Banks are covered end-to-end, and Quim is at his most Quiminess. Some tricks from obscure-only-if-you-weren’t-there legends like Chris Keefe, Ryan Hickey, and Peter Bici give the part a little more authenticity. Now, if only Transworld had sprung for a Mobb Deep track.

I also miss back when it was ok to put the skaters name on screen. Why did everyone stop doing that?

The bottomless scroll and the need for feed.

Rando

skateordie

Remember when we used to watch skate videos on a television set. Perhaps you borrowed your friends copy of the latest issue of 411. Or maybe it was a home recorded and hand labelled VHS tape with several bootlegged videos on it, recorded in EP mode. Maybe you didn’t even bother to bootleg the vert parts.

Remember when we used to watch the same video several times a day, every day… Before skating, during meals, or randomly on in the background. We memorized the songs of bands we never would have listened to otherwise. Skateboarding a curb with Iron Maiden in your head and feeling like Jamie Thomas. We spoke random lines from the video knowingly. “Lance Mountain tearin it up”. “I hope god makes you break your leg.” “Quit sinnin'”

Remember yelling “oooooooooooh!” at your tv.

I want those days back.