~*Gangstafied*~ Technical Skateboarding
...and a tortoise
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RECOMMENDED LISTENING - Back in the golden era of The Rap Internet there was a lot of talk about the “KC To The Bay” connection — a bunch of rappers from the respective zones linking up to work together on music and, presumably, other business ventures. After only knowing him previously as “the guy who killed Mac Dre” (details are hazy on that one) we discovered the extremely banging music of Fat Tone through one of these blog posts.
If there’s a recipe for a perfect THaSDoG type of song, it probably involves pairing up wild-style, aggressive bars with an extra-smooth R&B type of hook. “Gangstafied,” off 2004’s I’mma Get’cha, is kind of ideal when it comes to that combo. Fat Tone’s 51st Street Crip bonafides give his violent boasts added gravity and the beat is on slow-and-low — maybe a Zapp and Roger sample or something? Who knows, but this one is certified “feel cool while driving” music — the only type of music we feature in this newsletter. The Yung Cat homage goes pretty hard, too.
“I’M A VET!!”
VIDEO TALK - So much stuff comes out every day now but December 23rd was a particularly heavy one for ~*gangstafied*~ technical skateboarding. Baydestrian Jack Curtin further cemented his OG status with an activated Venture part (“that switch tho”) and Dan Fisher-Eustance folded flips over turning counter clockwise in big ass clothes while navigating some old-timey looking nautical settings for his “Centrifuge” part — another spinning-related name, that’s what’s up. Pretty much any other day one of these parts would have won THaSDoG’s prestigious “clip of the day” award, but on the 23rd, Shay Sandiford released his “Night In the Life” part for ASICS.
Up until recently, Sandiford’s skating wasn’t quite hitting for the team at THaSDoG. Bro was obviously killing it, but previous clips almost came off as overly icey — maybe a little too perfect. More recently, his G-turned 180 fakie manual fakie frontside flip thing on a wild Twin Cities dream spot caused a double take and put him more firmly on our radar. Maybe it has something to do with going from skating Steve Berra’s content farm to spending time around some of the nut-ass riders on ASICS, but the homie seemed to be evolving. “Night In the Life” is a part from a dude who is not only next-level good, but also thinking mad hard about his skateboarding.
Before even getting into the zany editing, the intentional camera choice, cinematic score, and nighttime-only parameter are already framing this one up nice. The VX1000 — the uncontested ~*best*~ option for presenting skateboarding as agreed on by the whole industry + all participants and video viewers — does some of the heavy lifting to help his clips feel more raw and downplay some of that too-pristine sheen mentioned previously. It also adds a nice dreamy element to the night clips, even on some of the more strip mall type spots that would’ve looked pretty sterile in the daytime. Jean-Luc Vida and some other heads got very activated on the angles as well. Skating at night with a camera light pointed up into your face is tough — wild to imagine flipping your board hella different ways and sliding on shit all backwards and twisted around under those conditions. Obviously some of this stuff would be right at home in a Primitive video, but we also appreciate the obvious piss takes — the crooked grind to 180 nosegrind mad times like he’s just mashing buttons and the tail drop front board, especially. Too many good clips in here to mention but the thread the needle manual to bigspin, boardslide to gap nollie, and front board 270 pretzel out on the handrail stand out.
Bro is showcased snapping on both back-breaking manuals and color coordination here. We imagine a box showing up containing the coffee/habañero Vic NBD colorstory and a lightbulb going off above his head telling him to layer up coffee/habañero style with a brown quarter zip over an orange tee. The forest green ASICS logo on some Japan Pros pairs up with a forest green polo (?) and dark rinse denims with some kind of Girbaud-esque forest green accent strap. Some of these choices have fitted-matching-the-footwear energy and we have to respect it. Kit-wise, he might be tapping into some of that new millennium Canadian flyness. The sheer size of some of the jorts checks out too, although we appreciate him skipping the tall tees. There’s also a few clips (nollie frontside feeble with the avant-garde filming, etc) where he’s tonally matching the spot pretty perfectly, but that could be coincidental.
Sandiford may be getting creative with the outfits, but he doesn’t necessarily strike the viewer as being “artsy” in a way that’s congruent with the part. We wonder if he was sitting in front of the timeline with Jacob Harris expressing opinions about like, where the Lynchian B-roll of two Shays awkwardly holding up old telephones would fit best. The quirky edit does go crazy with his skating though. The opening title with the saturated pink flowers sparks things off and we know we’re in for some loc’d out viewing. Sandiford is sent through portals to back lip on some fake grass, gets the ramped slow mo treatment while simply riding switch stance, and goes down a slide both switch and regs on some “wHeEee!” type shit. In an era where so many skate vids look like car commercials, we appreciate Jacob Harris giving us a look into his dark and twisted inner world via a promotional shoe company clip.
Kudos to ASICS (and/or Kaspar van Lierop and Jake Gascoyne) for letting Harris chef up something different while all the other big shoe brands are sitting around worrying about like, kerning on their wordmarks or whatever, too scared of “alienating a consumer segment” to have any fun. Nike, adidas, and New Balance all hit the same polished, middle-of-the-road notes with each release. Vans and Converse* aren’t much different, except they get to lean a little more hesh/alt because, you know, vulcanized sk8rs are lowkey on some rocker type shit. Meanwhile, ASICS is out here putting Gino in funny outfits in front of a green screen and renting out fuckin’…amphibious, cold-blooded animals for their riders to interact with. Their videos might be a bit polarizing, but they’re actually taking a stance and doing something that feels unique and, for lack of a better word, “cool.” (The shoes look and skate really good too, which helps.)
Sandiford holding a tortoise all pleased-looking staring into the camera followed up by a switch bigspin front board? Fire combo. “Night In the Life” will be on heavy repeat around here for a while.
REAL QUICK - After a brief hiatus, Tobin Yelland recently relaunched his webshop. He was around to document some of the best skaters of all time during that early-mid 90’s sweet spot where technical advances got infused with power and taken to bigger spots, specifically SF hills. Tons of reasonably-priced prints and some tees — Lavar McBride, Huf, Cardiel, etc — you should probably consider sliding some cash to a legend.
RANDOM SHOE OF THE WEEK - Vans Eras when they were $29.95 and still made in the US.
Thank you for reading.
*This is pretty reductive obviously — both Greg Hunt and Ben Chadourne have done cool stuff for Vans and Converse respectively. Purple is probably the best corpo shoe company full length of all time.