Category Archives: Full Parts

Full parts from individual skaters. typically from a full length video.

Pedro Delfino

Pedro Delfino has a literal death wish

Full Parts, Internet Parts, ,

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TR6ndj4ugk?rel=0&w=560&h=315]

Floridian and future CTE sufferer Pedro Delfino made his official debut for Deathwish skateboards recently and that skull thudding slam to start it off has given concerned citizens plenty of justification when they tell a skater to get off their roof. Rarely are we, the online skate video viewers, subjected to the realistic consequences of stunt level skateboarding. Seeing Pedro’s limp unconscious carcass on the ground (twice!) for a ‘welcome to the team’ video that was already below the fold within 24 hours makes one wonder if it is all worth it.

All horrifying realities of our hobby aside, Deathwish has done well to add Delfino to the team. He adds some needed pool skills, is clearly willing to sacrifice everything for the footage, has a great eye for one-hitter street spots, and his dumptruck style is a welcome change from the bland precision of many of latest crop of overachieving ams.

Maybe it’s just the concussion footage, but it really seems like Pedro Delfino is skating out of his depth and barely escaping the tricks he is initiating. It is thrilling. Plus, his first ever published photo in a magazine happened to be one of the best Thrasher covers ever.

bigcoverimg

Cody Mac

Cody Mac and the Think Skateboards farm system

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8P3aJSaEI8?rel=0]
If ever there was a minor leagues of skateboarding, it would be the post Speyer/Drehobl era of Think Skateboards. It was where talented skateboarders like Danny Fuenzalida, Jake Nunn, and Sean Payne would toil in obscurity, never graduating into the major leagues. It was also the team where such future (nick)name-brand professionals as Lizard King, the Duffman, and Diego the Butcher would get their start before moving on to relevant board sponsors. One could put Street Leaguer and 2006 Tampa Am winner Cody McEntire onto that roster as well.

Let’s take a moment to enjoy the debut of Catfish in 2008’s Digital Smoke and Mirrors video, before Cody got all hair gel and toothpicks. It is just a great part with so much precision in the landing, so much tech on the minis, and some seriously large drops. I wouldn’t go so far as to say he owns backside flips, but he definitely was leasing them in this part with the option to buy.

The filming isn’t all that fancy, with the exception of a few French-Fred-lurking-around-the-corner shots. It keeps the tricks as the focus and doesn’t distort the drops. Simple Man from Skynyrd adds a little emotional depth and timelessness to the whole thing. All in all this is a powerful debut from Cody Mac that he has yet to match, but it sure is fun watching him try.

Riley Hawk 1991

Riley Hawk gets stoned – Quicksilver in 2011

Full Parts, Internet Parts, , , ,

Hudson Hawk was born in late 1992, his parents apparently completely unaware of the terrible Bruce Willis movie that had stunk up theaters the previous year. Once they realized their mistake, they started calling him by his middle name, Riley. Not long after that he started skateboarding like his father. A little over two decades later he had the final part in Lakai’s The Flare.

But somewhere in between, Riley Hawk transitioned from Tony’s son who is also coincidentally sponsored by Birdhouse to “Daaaaamn!” One can see the metamorphosis was well underway in 2011 when Quicksilver released an unnamed online promotional part. Let’s take a look:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg3Pq1VLRNw?rel=0]

You can practically smell the reefer kicking in throughout this video. Riley’s little kid grown-out buzz haircut is turning into flowing headbanging locks. A Black Sabbath forearm tattoo shows up. The t-shirts get more and more metal as the tricks go from tech to tech-gnar. He starts to look less Birdhouse and more, well, Baker.

In less than 3 years after this video’s release Riley would turn 21, get completely covered in tattoos, be named the recently digitized Skateboarder Magazine’s Am of the Year, and go pro for Baker skateboards. His promotion to professional status would set off a chain reaction that would lead to the end of Jeff Lenoce’s career, compel Braydon Szafranski to sell luxury pajamas from the Playboy Grotto, inspire Spanky to sober up, and , in the unlikeliest of occurrences, force Shane Goatmouf Heyl to courteously relinquish his Baker pro board with grace and dignity.

Robbie Gangemi and Busta Rhymes – Zoo York 1997

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With Chaz Ortiz fulfilling his contractural obligations and setting sail, I think it is safe to say that Zoo York is officially out of the business of supporting skateboarders. Not that they really had any credibility remaining. Zoo York was just a embroidered satiny shell of skate brand squeezing its last drops of street cred to sell another logo shirt to the branded masses. But it wasn’t always this way.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=om3WdNZSD8o?rel=0]

Zoo York’s 1997 masterpiece, Mixtape, stirred together everything we dream of when we wax nostalgic for 1990s New York skateboarding. Freestyle lyrics flowed via the Stretch & Bobbito radio show – showcasing the skills the youthful generation of rappers who would soon come to dominate hiphop. Graffiti and music and stylish clothing choices and raw city skating all came together in a perfect blend of what we all imagine NYC in the 90s to be.

My favorite part from Mixtape, the part I go to over and over again, isn’t from Kids motion picture celebrities and New York legends Harold Hunter or Jeff Pang, but from Boston’s Robbie Gangemi.

His smooth style doesn’t conceal the raw power this skating has. Every trick, even the flatgrounders woven through the sidewalk pedestrians, are lofted. That front foot catch on the Brooklyn big Banks hardflip, the roller rink indoor park hip to rail backslide lipslide, and a few other illusion frontside flips are all just gorgeous. I love the look of night footage filmed with only a camera light. And the straight-on backside 50-50 to end the part is easily the best trick in the whole video.

Robbie would quit Zoo York the next year and eventual start Vehicle, one of many struggling East Coast centric board brands that should’ve been huge. The near impossibility to clear the music and video rights from the skaters, Stretch and Bobbito, the rappers, and the beats they are rapping over has made Mixtape a hard video to locate and one that will never see an official digital reissue. I don’t think the contemporary Zoo York really has much interest in it anyway.

Joey Bast – Real Non-Fiction – 1997

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Z7E-sr0lv8?rel=0]
Joey Bast‘s quick part in the middle of Real’s Non-Fiction video paints a sweet portrait of mid-90s San Francisco skateboarding. The EMB/Union Square days were essentially over but the city still had lots of classic terrain available.The mass produced ‘skatestopper’ had yet to be marketed, the routineness of security guard encounters coupled with the plethora downtown spots made easy pickings for a skater with the obvious natural talent and baked-in pop of amateur Joey Bast. Thus, about half the tricks being filmed on the same day.

From an older Bobshirt interview: “I was kind of a procrastinator. When it came to filming I would always put it off, so in total I filmed for maybe two weeks. Real did set a deadline and I realized that I didn’t have enough footage, so all the footage where I’m wearing that stripped shirt was the last day of filming.”

Sitting amongst a legendary roster featuring prime Huf, laidback style king Drake Jones, barrier breaker Jamie Reyes, the Cardona twins, and the fucking Gonz, it would be easy to glaze over Joey Bast’s 90 seconds. He was dropped from the team not long after (or perhaps even before) the video was released, and other than a Planet Earth part and some 411 clips, that was all he had to give. Which is a shame, because the kid had a lot of loft in his tricks and some serious ambidexterity combined with the willpower to not film all his tricks at the trendiest bust-free SF street locale of the era, Pier 7.

So take a quick moment and appreciate a forgotten part that is as refreshing as a misty breath of fresh air before an elevated pop shove it.

Jon Dickson and the embarrassment of riches – Deathwish Part 2

Full Parts, Full Videos, Internet Parts, , , , , ,

Damn, what a run of high-quality online skate videos it has been in the past two weeks, although mostly released through Thrasher’s website. We had Zion Wright going rail-crazy for Real, Christian Maalouf fakie flipping tables over here for WKND, Erick Winkowski taking the Christ Air to the streets with a board that can only be describes as impractically 80s, Taylor Nawrocki soars up the rankings of my favorite skaters with an ambidextrous single-spot Beastmon part filmed entirely at the Williamsburg Monument (plus, anything Colin Read is involved with is usually gold), and speaking of Nawrocki, Theories of Atlantis gives of four minutes over at Transworld with the Patsy cut.

Did I mention Primitive skateboards released Never the day after Shane O’Neil announced he had quit the team? They did, and its more or less full video with questionable slow-motion and gratuitous drone interstitials to compliment a fantastic non-arena part from Mr. Paul Rodriguez Jr and some very, very heavy footage from Nick Tucker. Then Trent McClung leapfrogs way ahead of both siblings and teammates with a tornado bluntslide.

Plus, even as I write this, new groundbreaking edits of Pedro Barros (oh my god, that’s sick) and Breana Geering are just begging for multiple viewings. Plus probably another dozen or so more decent things were released in that I just didn’t absorb.

So it is easy to feel bad for the Baker Boys. A video like Deathwish Part 2 has every right to stand head and shoulders above the rest and could be the best video of 2018 to date. That such a good video might get buried in the heaps of gold that were released this week is a shame. Even if you remove Lizard King‘s psychedelic interpretation of what’s an acceptable place to land your large drops (apparently right in the middle of a stair set), take away Ellington‘s inward heelflip, ignore Jamie Foy‘s convincing argument for back-to-back SOTYs, disregard Jake Hayes executing another perfect kicklfip, and pretend Neen‘s varial heelflip never happened (also Kirby and Slash’s tricks) and we would still have a part to blog about. Jon Dickson.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olDxibvWjRo?rel=0&start=565]
Jon Dickson skates like a speeding bulldozer with machines guns mounted on its sides, destroying gaps and tearing pants with the unstoppable force of an Incredible Hulk with sideburns and a man bun. Sure he kickflips into handrail tricks of both the slide and grind variety, and hell yes there’s cabellarials over the bar and into the bank, and of course he casually pops out of that smith grind before the knobbed end (although I’m convinced he would just plow right through that thing), and obviously he can turn a flatground frontside flip over a picnic table into a set-up trick… but the real joy of Jon Dickson in Deathwish Part 2 is the roll aways.

A man of Dickson’s power and density has no business gliding away with such poise. Check the right arm crossing gracefully in front of him. Scope the left arm swinging behind his back like a lazy boat rudder cutting the calm waters of a still lake. His knees are bent like the bank carving surf style skaters of the 1970s. His eyes glancing over his shoulder from the ground to the road ahead with no sign of surprise or shock. Take away the death defiance of the tricks and brawniness of approach and, dare I say it, Jon Dickson is an elegant skateboarder.

Also, look at his legs on that 11-stair switch frontside flip at around 11:30 in the video! Good lord that is insane. Of all the tricks to not get a second slow-motion angle of, why that one?

Infinite by Design – the Alien Workshop reboot of 2015

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMsLh1VIOBw?rel=0&start=157]

Chris Carter. Rob Dyrdek. DNA LLC. Joe Castrucci. Burton Snowboards. Mike Hill. AVE and Dill. Neil Blender. Pacific Vector Holdings Inc. Don Pendleton. Dinosaur Jr. Bo Turner. The saga of the Alien Workshop, both on the board and in the boardroom, is long and complicated.

In 2014 it all came to an end and the skateboard world mourned the shuttering of an institution after 24 years.

Within months Castrucci secured Habitat and developed a brief courtship with Tum Yeto. The remaining Workshop riders whom hadn’t fled to FA started their own brand called Mother (forcefully renamed Quasi within months). Meanwhile, Carter moved into a decommissioned nuclear bunker.

And then, while we were still in mourning, Alien Workshop was hastily reborn once again out of Dayton, Ohio. I may be going against the grain here, but I feel that the Workshop benefitted from this all am reboot. Some team continuity (and amazing skating) from Crockett and Jake Johnson would have been even better, of course. But, I’m pretty happy with where this all ended up.

Bunker Down debuted the new Workshop team in late 2015 and while still drawing from the classic Alien video iconography and style, the video production is surprisingly crispy.

Skip that 2+ minute intro (a very Alien thing) and go directly to the good stuff with new team tentpole Joey Guevara (Yaje didn’t join until a few months later). The spots are unexpectedly gritty and urban with more cellar doors then sunny schoolyards. Joey glides through the sidewalk cracks overgrown with weeds and I get the impression he doesn’t slam very often.

The rest of the team follows up with their own flavor twists, but the over video style is cohesive. Frankie Spears checks all the multi-kinks and ridiculously tall loading dock flat rail boxes needed in this day and age. Frankie goes big and it is easy to see him slipping into to Foy/Walker/Nyjah club of casual death defiance. Max Garson samples most of the the streets have to offer, from serious-consequences-if-you-fuck-up handrail grinds to the sweet little dish spot line. Those orange street barriers are generally not to be skated as ledges from flat. Brandon Nguyen ends the rebirth with a precise style the conceals just how gnarly some of these tricks really are. I can only imagine how difficult it is to smoothly dismount a kinked hubby frontside smith?

And a special reminder to take a second look at Paul Liliani. With a team popping with so much star potential, from a brand identity so infused into our skateboarding bloodstream, His mid-video tricks can easily be overlooked. His switch loft and clean haircut brings to mind a young Paul Sharpe. Liliani skates casual, making 180-manuals look like afterthoughts and generally not break a sweat.

Will this new Alien era ever approach the cultural impact of the Sect’s past eras? There might not be bigger shoes to fill. My enjoyment of the new team is definitely aided by the clean break and reboot brought on by total bankruptcy. Let’s face it, you aren’t going to ever adequately replace a Kalis or Gall or Kirk or Dylan. I’m hoping the new team stands a chance by having it’s own identity disconnected from the riders of the past, while still entrenched in the traditions of an Alien Workshop video. I’m pretty psyched on these dudes and have high hopes for another Alien full-length issued on a color cassette tape.

A heads-up, though… The mute your computer before watching Bunker Down. The music soundtrack is unforgivable.

Paul Sharpe and the rites of passage of Heath Kirchart – Transworld UNO – 1996

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0-gZWX0BpU?rel=0]

We don’t really have all that much footage of the incredible pop of Paul Sharpe. Back in the mid-90s if your looking for someone to straight nollie that obstacle, he was the guy to call (maybe Paulo Diaz if Sharpe was unavailable). Digging in the online video crates, there are really only a handful of parts from his career.

Let’s take a moment to visit this buried gem from Transworld’s first non-Dreams of Children video, Uno. Paul Sharpe switch ollies a fence,  locks into a tall smith, and I really love the backside flip up a curb to start a line.

And then we get a couple tricks from a babyfaced Heath Kirchart. I see that final kickflip as the death of young barbarian at the gate Heath the birth of the HK that continues, still, many years after his retirement, to own skateboarding with mystery, dignity, and a slow motion death defying grace.

The groundbreaking, music-free Andrew Reynolds part you missed… Best of 411 Vol. 4

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3RvMC5USg4?rel=0&start=1247]

Most would consider Andrew Reynolds performance in Birdhouse’s The End (1998) to be his graduation from Willy’s friend into an elite realm of professional skateboarding. This metamorphosis was presented rather completely the following year in the Baker Bootleg video, condensing Andrews growth from fuzzy headed Florida grom into the proto-ringmaster of the band of degenerates who would soon take over skateboarding. Baker Bootleg’s Hi-8 B-Roll of all the motion picture filmed Birdhouse stunts seemed to make those monumental tricks all the more real… the Boss had arrived.

But those of us paying close attention during this era had already witnessed Andrew’s undeniable proclamation of manhood. Tucked neatly away twenty minutes into a Best of 411 volume from 1997 lies nearly three minutes of golden Reynold footage. No music, no embarrassing spoken intro, no filler, no drunken orangutans, just Boss trick after Boss trick.

Even to this day, it is very rare to come across a skate part without music. Outside of Tim Dowling’s Listen video, I can hardly think of any (coincidentally enough, Andrew Reynolds in Bake & Destroy comes to mind). Without a driving rhythm or narrative of a song, the tricks and lines attack relentlessly. Heavy trick after heavy trick bludgeon the viewer providing only the slightest breathing room with a stylish line or a broken board.

It’s understandable that this part would be forgotten quickly, even in an era of repeated rewatchings of every skate video released. 411s, while popular, tended to only be on topic until the next issue came out. Except for the slow motion intro tricks (and even then), a 411 part rarely got the shine of a board company release. The “Best of” even less so.

The potential impact of Andrew Reynolds’ Profile in Best of 411 Vol. 4 can be revisited by watching the entire video, or even browsing a few different parts. In a video full of present and future legends (Marc Johnson, Daewon, Rodney, Jerry Hsu, etc.), Reynolds’ part is truly unique, memorable, and only dated by the low quality of the magnetic video tape. Future business partner and pre-identity crisis Jim Greco also has an incredible part in this tape that predates his Misled Youth reveal, but see how the song and overall “411-ness” of the whole thing lower what should have been Greco’s big debut into just another 411 Wheels of Fortune for the pile.

Why more skaters and skate video makers don’t choose to make an edit here and there without music is beyond me.

the correct way to make a quick Vincent Alvarez part – Static V

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Glbd51sC59g?rel=0]

Theories of Atlantis recently posted this Vincent Alvarez quickie from Static V, and it is infinitely watchable. The strength of Alvarez’s skating lies in the style and flow. It’s those set-up tricks up the curb and the arm dangling roll aways that make him my favorite line skater (maybe a tie with Bobby Worrest).

There’s also some good content featuring Theories kingpin Josh Stewart talking about the unwritten rules of skate video editing and music selection over at Village Psychic. An interesting read, particularly after watching this Vincent Alvarez part with what I would consider questionable music selection.