Skatelier is now Three Hundred and Sixty Degrees of Game

It’s been a while but it feels like the right time to get “bacc to the Stacc.” We’re ditching the Sherwoodesque name for something equally as stupid yet far better since it comes from a banging Spice 1 track.

360° of Game will sit in a niche the streets have been waiting to see filled — ADD-style commentary on skateboarding, footwear, and clothing mixed with a bit of regional (mostly Bay Area) rap-nerd blogging. Can’t believe someone hasn’t thought of this essential combination before. You can expect a newsletter every week and we’ll be oscillating through time, lacing you up with gold-certified game ranging from like, shoe reviews to reminders to watch random old video parts. We’ll also be attempting to fight through a severe case of “executive dysfunction” to release some kind of longer form “piece” every once in a while.

There’s a good chance you’re receiving this email having totally forgotten about subscribing a few years ago and we’d welcome you to tap in on some of the older #content to see if you’re still into it — definitely wouldn’t blame you for chunking up the deuces and unsubscribing tho too.

Damn OK time to get into the first edition of 360° Of Game…

OFF TOP - Starting things off with something pants-related as a strategic move to get readers engaged. Big Boy fatigue has caused lots of talk about skateboarding’s possible swing back toward skinny jeans, but in certain pockets the pendulum is taking a detour toward some very unusual bootcut situations. Yes, Frog now offers a bootcut and Zak Anders from Late Nite Stars has been crushing the streets looking like a member of an early ‘00s christian rock band for a minute now, but they’re taking it to another level ~*across the pond*~. Grant Dawson’s recent video Wish led us to believe the younger lads may have been revisiting Olly Todd’s Portraits part and riffing on his pant and hair game.

They’re going beyond chewed up hems over there though. One YouTube comment reads, “when the homeys all dress out of a bin” — pretty funny. Certain members of the gang definitely look like they’re part of a rag-tag band of pick-pocketing street urchins or something. They wear some of the most oddly distressed denims we’ve ever seen. We’re talking about pants that are slimmer in the top block then kinda balloon at the knee with strange panels, patches, and pins — plus holes in spots that don’t quite make sense. Honestly just curious where they’re even picking some of these up at. Wish also features a homie bootcuttin’ in one of the more diabolical denim options — that’s right, Grey Jeans.

Mandem sort of look like if The Verve all tumbled down a big mountain made of sulphur and sand paper. Frayed out pockets and the layout of holes on certain pairs lead one to wonder if some of these guys might be getting extra-curricular with scraps of griptape after setting up a board in the flat.

This may sound like we dislike the jeans in this video, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. Despite the schedule of how trend cycles should be working, skateboarding has been struggling to move beyond 90s throwback gear into proper new millennium kits and this feels like a step in the right direction…or at least a better direction than the nu metal thing a lot of kids are doing. So many edits come out all the time and everyone can start to look like little clones of each other, but these pants actually stood out and elicited a reaction. At the end of the day, we have to admit these guys look pretty tight.

The team at THaSDoG might be too washed to really “get” it, but the proportions, denim washes, and unorthodox headwear selection of these outfits gets close enough to Danny Brady’s LoF section that we can appreciate and enjoy what’s going on here — grey spots, grey skies, and the occasional pair of grey-ass denim. These guys may be going more, like, rocker style with it, but the lineage that has always made London skateboarding feel unique to an outsider is very apparent. “Time is a phat circle” — shoutout Andrew Luecke.

FOOTWEAR TALK - At this point there’s maybe 2 or 3 footwear collaborations a year that’ll actually cut through the noise and activate some brain chemicals. A while back a special pair started popping up on the IG stories of one of the greatest purveyors of game we’re aware of, and we spent about a week frying out on them trying to figure out if it’d be possible to get a pair. Usually it takes something coming out of left field, beyond the realm of the handful of global sport/sneaker companies, to get the synapses firing a little. Not this time though.

We’re talking about the recent Reebok/Everyone Tokyo link up — an updated (“2.0”) version of the Classic Duke, an early 2000s model with a funny name and some of that ~*premium materials*~ type of grown-man crossover appeal. We’re hyped on the slight orthopedic feel, “everyone” logo peeping out the little window, asymmetrical toe, and the sort of biophilic sole unit, which brings to mind some Prada Sport-via-DVS Dill shapes. These came in black and brown pebbled leather, each with multiple lace options and, for some reason, 3 different insoles(?) — damn, that’s a luxurious amount of insoles.

Not only were these a Japan exclusive, they also only made up to a 29 (roughly a US11) — not quite diesel enough for the big-footed homies at 360° of Game. They’ve long since sold out anyway. Hoping the model flows down that standard collaboration-to-GR pipeline so we can see them in the states.

REQUIRED LISTENING - Not that we needed an excuse, but Messy Marv’s appearance on History Of The Bay a while back prompted a thorough revisitation of his catalog. He’s made so much music over the years and you can kind of randomly dive into different eras and uncover gems that may have gone overlooked before. This round of listening to 2009’s Cake & Ice Cream Volume 2 unearthed Underneath, a perfect song to help you feel cool while driving.

Mess has all these different personalities that come out (likely based on what substances were present in the studio) on different projects. He can be this imposing, aggressive character, a full-on comedian, or — like we’re seeing here — this sort of monotone, detached figure laying back in the cut, rifling off various types of game. A quick search didn’t reveal who sings the hook, but he compliments this version of Mess perfectly on some “take a step back and trip out on how crazy and beautiful life is” type of shit.

Underneath has two mentions of major cultural factors worth calling out here:

I’m on the grind so hard that you would think

Tony Hawk

Was on the block

When you see me hustlin’

…

We sworn to the streets and my click be conceiving it

You ain’t got the legs to stand up for your block

You just Christopher Reevin’ It

QUICK ONE - One of the more banging archival IG accounts, Science Versus Life, recently posted a ‘96 Bryce Kanights shot of Jaya Bonderov boardsliding a diesel rail into a steep one with Alcatraz in the background. The spot/angle looked familiar but it took a while to sort out where we’d seen it before. Luckily, Kenny Reed photos are pretty memorable and this ‘99 Pete Thompson one was lodged somewhere deep in our memory. Backside versus frontside, black and white versus color, 6 flipped over into 9 — these two are lowkey yin yangin’.

RANDOM SHOE OF THE WEEK - Lugz Roshe Run bite.

Thanks for reading, see you next week.