Category Archives: Full Parts

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

Tom Knox’s part in the Eleventh Hour video

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Y_v5m85goI?rel=0]

Dreary overcast skies, crusty brink banks, quick footed half cabs, and other unexpected tight fitting drop-ins. Let’s enjoy Tom Knox (mk II) from Jacob Harris’ Eleventh Hour video from back in 2013.

Parts like this make me think my city is probably just cram-jam of interesting street spots, if only I had the eye to spot them, big wheels to roll up to them, creativity to find the lines, pop to reach them, and talent to not kill myself trying. Alas…

Mike Rusczyk – Foundation Art Bars

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[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grDnTLFk0H8?rel=0]

Mike Rusczyk stomped a memorable part in Foundation Skateboard’s 11th (!) video… Art Bars, Subtitles and Seagulls from 2001. The title of the video suggests all the abstract art film nonsense is sarcastic, but I get the feeling all that interstitial editing hoopla is a genuine attempt to get in on the Manzoori / Memory Screen stylistic party.

However, the  skating proves forward thinking for the time with non-comply heelflip step-hops, tweaked nollies over the rail,  and an overall well balanced trick selection that feel straight-up street. It could’ve used a few less animated Lego men, though.

I liked the post-Daniel Haney  pre-Duffman-dominant era line-up for Foundation with Rusczyk, Strubing, Ethan Fowler, and even a little Markovich thrown in there before Tum Yeto gave him his own board brand.

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.