Some Thoughts On Hardbody's 'OD'
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It’s a whole new year and we’re feeling thankful that another “SOTY Season” is finally behind us so we get a few months of peace before the obsession starts all over again. Each year it’s the same, and we’re tired of the discourse being dominated by who will “win” skateboarding. We must remember that skateboarding videos can still make you feel something beyond the competitive urge to see your guy get the big award. Hardbody’s OD has a 43 minute runtime (imagine how many hours crouching with the VX that translates to) but The Skateboard Internet largely ignored the first 41 minutes and argued about whether or not the last part of the video was impressive enough to help a guy win SOTY. Different story at 360° of Game HQ though. OD, in full, got more replays than any other release last year because we understand the draw of the two most important aspects of skateboarding — wearing nice clothes and lurking around in the streets with your friends.
Emilio Cuilan has been slowly building the “brand” (feels a little off to even call it that) for the past several years. Hardbody gives us a refreshing look toward the future by going back to the more lowkey ways of the past, when fans had to piece together brand narratives from biennial video releases and a few closely-studied ads. We’re presented with the occasional long-form VX project, a font, a few slang terms, and — most recently — a couple names on boards (one of them with wheel wells). We don’t even have to waste time with a single instagram post. You’ve got to manually navigate to their website and find the little blog tab if you want the “content” — Hardbody is for the discerning and intentional skateboarder. In an era where every company is stumbling over each other to promote themselves on social sites, some calculated restraint and a slightly clandestine lean go a long way. Hardbody’s minimal, detached feel has them sitting a tier above most other brands. Plus they sell their cut and sew stuff at C’H’C’M’ — can’t really get more ~*elevated*~ than that.
OD is a historical document representing a life lived skateboarding — you can sense the curbside beers, the meet-up spot arguments in the group chat, and the excitement and tension of watching a buddy struggle for their clip knowing your girlfriend expected you home an hour ago. The average small town skatepark regular may not be impressed with some of the clips in here, citing a lack of difficulty. They’ve also probably never filmed a four trick line up and down curbs, around pedestrians, over cracks and different textures, with a backside flip over a manhole next to a moving Uber to close things out. The video may not be filled with the most limit-pushing, daring, or technically progressive skating, but it accomplishes what a good skate video should — it immerses you in a little self-contained world.
Kevin Tierney starts things out with a part that’s not exactly a “comeback” — don’t think he ever stopped being heavy in the streets — but feels more like he finally figured out a proper expression of his new manic form of skateboarding post knee injuries and Ecko paychecks. The amount of levity bro brings to this section almost downplays how seriously hard some of the stuff is. This dynamic is especially apparent in the line with the wild switch mongo pushes into the switch wallride on the chain link fence. On paper, lipslide combos and switch bonelesses might sound kind of wack but, when mixed with the high energy of a DMX classic, it’s impossible not to get all hyped up on the trick selection. We’re left wondering just how many pairs of all black Superstars he burned through during filming. The part sets the tone for the rest of the video.
In many ways, OD functions as a modern day Peep This – a snapshot of a scene in a particular era. Ross Berkowitz is a new face — he kills it in Jordan 4s and Lynx. Chachi Maserati pops up in huge pants to remind everyone he can still ollie over really high shit. Brandon Scott James does one of the best fakie frontside flips of all time on flat. Aravin Nathan runs considered tech lines in all orange kits on some monk type shit. Adam Zhu’s mini part leaves the viewer wishing for more clips. Jason Byoun skates weird setups and stands all frozen like a statue for mad long in between tricks. Charles Lamb gets the OG Respect Award for coming through with crazy lines on Oakland’s courthouse ledges 23 years after his EST part. Shawn Powers clips are sorely missed.
There’s lots of creative, youthful skating, but we’re not forced to sit through random art school skaters dropping in on shit. Well known pros like Dick Rizzo and Max Palmer are featured, but there’s a notable absence of prime-time Cali transplants. Somehow, Clive Dixon makes his way in there — wildcard. Who exactly is on the team? Does it really matter? It’s hard to know if Cuilan is going out of his way to film skaters with certain traits or if he’s just pointing the camera at his friends. Whether or not the cast of characters was consciously curated, they represent an idyllic (and nostalgic) vision of what New York skateboarding should be.
The music selection is as varied as the personalities in the video — it’s all over the place in the best way possible. The team at THaSDoG is continually dumbfounded at how ass most 2020s music supervision is — we’re talking lazy at best, full-on noise poisoning at worst. OD is different — we get a soundtrack that bounces back and forth between Lee Scratch Perry and a Young Thug/Yeat team up, momentarily dips into Bronze-ian vapor wave territory, and pairs advanced line choreography with a dancehall song about smoking weed. We also get some kinda hectic woman moaning vocals over a track with hollow drum noises and a whistle blowing hella loud. Our standout song of the video, “Xylo” by Lary 7, plays during the de facto Limosine section and only has 44 views on YouTube at the time of this writing. You can tell a lot of time and intention went into finding deep cuts and left-field picks. It’s a wonder how well everything meshes together despite the crazy variation. Moby’s overly riffed-out rendition of “New Dawn Fades” from the Heat soundtrack provides a comedic heaviness to our favorite part in the video.
Despite how diesel the guitar wailing is, Josh Velez (with support from Keith Denley and Connor Champion) brings a nice adult contemporary technical feel to things. A good flatground game is truly skateboarding's “gentleman’s pursuit”, and the iciest flip tricks not-up-or-down-anything are on display in this section. Velez’ years-long commitment to only running rare Jordans doesn’t feel tired yet, and adds a fun dimension to his footage, especially when he swerves close to the MK1 and you can see just how cooked a pair — particularly the Metallic White 5s — is getting. The filming and golds on the shirt-in-hand switch wallie put it in the running for “clip of the video” status. The array of brain-busting slappies (there’s at least 5 or 6 noteworthy ones in here) might not surprise anyone familiar with his work, but we’re also reminded that bro can flip into all types of shit as well. The long downhill kickflip 5-0 looks really fun. There’s an argument to be made that Velez should’ve been the first name on the bottom of a Hardbody board.
In the context of modern video releases and attention spans, OD is exceptionally long, with the full runtime creeping up on the lengths of 2016’s The DANY Video and 2021’s The Hardbody Video combined. The three projects could be played seamlessly back-to-back, but OD still feels like Cuilan’s most fully-realized work. Parts flow together smoothly thanks to well-paced B-roll, and a few short skits and segues provide just enough breathing room. We initially roll our eyes at another Mark Gonzales weird-shaped-board-ass voice over before catching the Sight Unseen curve ball and smiling.
The huge, wheat-pasted ‘OD’ titles peppered throughout the video continually reaffirm Hardbody’s presence in the streets. Board graphics are bold enough to be easily visible during flip tricks, even on analog cameras. Between clips, Adam Zhu is shown flipping to a two page ‘OD’ spread in Thrasher — a real life, physical magazine. Antonio Durao’s title is his first name being silk screened onto a shirt by hand. There’s an emphasis on the classic and the tactile. Hardbody is making moves in the real world, not just on computer screens. By the time we make it to the Hjalte Halberg tease in the final seconds of the video, there’s a palpable feeling that the brand is on the cusp of some kind of big moment. The Quartersnacks write-up confirms this feeling — “it’s the prequel.”
Wondering what’s next for Hardbody brings up a number of questions about like, financial growth, cultural cachet, and the cool cycle — you know, some capitalism type of shit. After a number of years “beasting in the underground”, the brand now has a new global reach thanks to two high-profile pros and is primed to get swept up in the momentum of relentless market forces. You know there’s at least one buyer at Zumiez HQ trying to get Hardbody gear in the malls and probably a few corporations hoping to “collab” for relevancy points*. Just run through the Zoo York brand arc in your head as quickly as you can — who knows, Hardbody may have the juice to follow suit and end up in like, JC Penny some day. That may be a stretch, but as fans we worry about the purity of something getting diluted by growth and success. We worry about the one-off P Tricky clip not getting the loudest cheers at the premier if there’s too many big names involved.
We’re hoping Hardbody can continue to grow in the grey area between being a “business” and a homie-based “project”. If not, and Cuilan does end up taking Zumiez checks or some even bigger deal, then well, fuck it…he earned it with time out in the field. You know bro’s knees and back have to be torched from filming all those long-ass lines.
*We’ll gladly take a reissue of the Club Cs they did in 2019 tho.
Great video, last time I got this feeling was watching Tengu: God of Mischief by Colin Read. Predominantly an East Coast video and a must watch if anyone hasn't.