Tag Archives: skateboarding

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.

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.