Another Summer 2020 baby. This time it’s a video by one of our favorites Jake Kuzyk and it is featuring: Dustin Henry, Landon Avramovic, Dylan Fulford, Antosh Cimoszko, Evan Hay, Tremaine Glasgow, Keegan Sauder, Chance Swainson & Justin David.
Additional Filming by Antosh Cimoszko.
You might have noticed that the banners are up, the first test runs are being made and this week it will be decided who will win the Vans Park Series stop in Paris. But first, we would like to share with you one of the best VPS best trick sessions we have ever seen.
As always the skaters went big, the money was flowing as was the beer at the Montréal landmark spot the “BIG O”!
If you don’t know the “O” Watch the Canadian episode of the loveletters if you don’t know about this landmark but either way enjoy this close up and personal view of what went down that day.
After the “Photo-Recap” now comes the moving image and it shows you just how things went down before & after Conny Mirbach’s postcard moments.
We learned a lot during our stay in the MTL but the number one thing is: never count out Pedro Barros and breakfast poutine is way better than regular poutine.
After the party is the after-party and after that is probably the hotel lobby but in Montréal we got the after-party on the first day of the contest. “The Big O” is a legendary Canadian skate spot that was host to some serious destruction during this VPS.
Text by Roland Hoogwater.
Photos by Conny Mirbach.
You might have seen Jake Wooten blazing through it on our Instagram but trust us when we say many…many more tricks did go down during this wild onslaught in and around the Big O.
And before we spoil you with the moving images of the Park Series we figured the stills tell their very own story of what happened at this staple spot.
Check out Part One of our coverage here.
Special thanks go out to Vans for the support.
Mainly Canada focused “Courtesy” delievers with a bunch of good moments and the overall feel good video you want to watch before skating. You have to watch it. At least once.
Antosh is a multi-talented guy that is probably getting requests from multiple brands to produce content for them.
When you do a lot you sometimes need a breather and what do filmers do for fun? They hang out with their friends and film and that is probably what happened here.
Canada keeps on taking the crown even though the weather is shit over there. The north literally has always been on top even though they weren’t for the longest. Enjoy!
Bobby De Keyzer’s last name means “the emperor” in Dutch and like his name requires him to do he is ruling skateboarding in his way. Meaning, his skating is amazing, the perfectly fitting music was made by a friend and Chris Thiessen’s filming and editing truly brought it all together. Probably Bobby’s best part to date!
The guy that made The AntiSocial video and Civic Affair now delivers this 9-minute video called “Savers”. As always everything is on point, especially the music selection.
Featuring:
Dustin Henry, Dylan Fulford, Mike Campbell, Magnus Hanson, Kevin Lowry, Andrew McGraw, Mike Vince, Will Marshall, Zander Mitchell, Justin David, Jed Anderson and many more.
Also in Canada spring is fully going on. Pat O’Rourke dusted off his old camcorder and captured the “GOOD VEEBS”.
Us being the skate nerds we are we tend to follow all that is going on in skateboarding and to us it has become evident that in 2016 some of the best things are coming out of Canada. The country formerly know as the uncool cousin of the USA but now the times have changed and it is safe to say that edits like this have had their effect! No longer are the Canucks just famous for their denim, their long white tees or the Red Dragons, they are now also known for their high quality skateboarding, good trick selection and consistently showing us the fun side of skateboarding (think DIME MTL). Crawlspace is not only a great title for a video project it is also simply a good video with nice music and tricks from our favorite snowboarder Jed Anderson. Enjoy!
Not much going on on the European front today so we checked out what our Canadian colleagues were up to and this Nolan Waller’s part is what we found. Nolan delivers a sweet but short part featuring one of our favorites Dustin Henry the whole thing is well worth a watch.
Any Dustin Henry footy is good footy, so when his part from the Duluth video dropped you know we had to post it.
Canada, Oh Canada, why are you so special? And why RDS FSU (Red Dragon Fuck Shit Up) is a video for the ages…
For some reason Canada and Canadians for the longest of times never got the shine they deserved. I mean, obviously we are all very happy that Canada supplies us with their Canadian maple, so we can buy and skate fresh seven-plied pieces of wood.
At the same time, these days Canadians are often on the butt end of the joke. Now this joking about the great country above the USA is something that I as a European just might not fully understand. Sure, Canadian skaters are known for being into some things that were kind of special or weird, things like: a fondness of really long white T-shirts, fitted hats, super tech skating and stink-leg tre flips. But at the same time, Canada produced amazing skaters like Rick Howard, Mark Appleyard, Keegan Sauder, Wade Desarmo and only recently Bobby De Keyzer.
Canada also has a great history when it comes to making skateboard videos. The Dime MTL Crew has been putting out great material and before that, Green Apple made Supper’s Ready and Video X, which inspired Peter Sidlaukas to create the Bronze 56K videos. But still, I feel we often forget one of the greatest skate videos to ever come out of Canada: The Red Dragons 2002 release RDS FSU. So let’s talk about this classic, and why you should care about it as well.
Let’s start at the beginning. Some of you might be familiar with Red Dragon, a brand that has not changed its image or clothes one bit since it first came on the scene. Big red logo shirts, board shorts and a bro-tastic party atmosphere are still very much at the heart of the company’s products and image. You could argue that the Red Dragons might not move in-sync with the current time, but you could also argue that they are staying true to what they know and love.
I first came into contact with this Canadian phenomenon through their first video, RDS FSU. Some of you might not have had the pleasure to watch this video – you can find it below – so I will provide you with a little taste. The video starts of with the typical epic slow motion intro, but instead of showing you the classic Zero-esque skateboard hero, we see a couple of rollerbladers getting ready to skate a very big double set. They are rolling up to the set and are about to try something gnarly, as the shot fades into showing the rollerblader trying a backside 180 air. The moment the blader slams his head into the concrete, the music instantly changes to Kernkraft 400’s “Zombie Nation” and the Red Dragon party starts.
To me, this is the perfect opener to a great skateboard video. First part belongs to Ryan Smith who is skating to Guns N’Roses, a great song. After Ryan’s part ends, the video moves into Moses Itkonen’s part. Moses is a scary-looking fellow who likes to fuck with anybody who’s trying to ruin a good skate session, but besides being quite the alpha male Moses is a very esteemed performer of the noseslide. If Quartersnacks had been around in 2002, Moses would have been a contender for their Noseslider of the Year award.
Now let’s fast-forward to Rob Sluggo Boyce’s part: Sluggo is a muscular gymnast, snowboarder, break dancer, and vert skater who’s intro consists of a phone call from the filmer announcing that they edited his part to the Backstreet Boys. Boyce’s answer is short: “If you edit my part to the fucking Backstreet Boys, you are fucking dead!” During this phone call they show images of a shirtless Sluggo flexing topless. Then the music fades in: Backstreet’s back alright! This is one of the greatest parts by a vert skater, on top of that, it is possibly the best part in the video. The first time I saw his section I had to rewind my VHS tape multiple times to finally come to the conclusion that he did a backflip to fakie on vert!
Whilst Red Dragon is a clothing brand, the Red Dragons started out as a crew, the evolution from crew to brand often brings about a change in the vibe a brand has, RDS FSU however shows this crew type of feeling that many skaters know and love. Before Skatemafia had us throwing up gang signs, we had skaters like Colin McKay throwing up the Red Dragon horns. When I recently met former Red Dragon team member Chris Haslam, he told me a remarkable story: Chris was visiting a gallery opening where he met a deaf person, the guy ended up showing Chris some sign language, as it turns out the hand sign for skateboarding looks almost exactly like the Red Dragon hand sign.
Now, of course we can’t be sure what the origins of this are, but I choose to believe that the influence of the Red Dragons made it all the way into the sign language.
As one major takeaway from reading this article, the sign for skateboarding is quite easy to learn:
1. Fold both hands into the Red Dragon horns position; basically a “peace” sign with crooked fingers.
2. Lower your arms till you are at stomach height.
3. Imagine your hands now symbolizing both the trucks on a skateboard.
And the second takeaway of this article, is check out RDS FSU. The video also shows some of the skaters’ struggles and Canadian pride, whilst at the same time making fun of themselves. I’m not going to summarize the whole video for you because that would defeat the purpose of you actually checking it out.. Go see it, RDS FSU is truly a video for the ages!
A little rumor, when I recently met up with Red Dragon Ryan Decenzo he told me about his wish to make a new RDS FSU video so we might see another Canadian classic soon!
by Roland Hoogwater
Photo: Danny Sommerfeld
I don’t think I have to tell you about Canada’s recent rise in coolness… Everything Canadian seems to be poppin – from Drake to Dime MTL. I believe we can now add Clubgear (Clothing) to that list of cool things coming out of that country north of the US.
The current style of dress seems to be on the verge of changing. I mean, at least some of us look like the skaters in this clip, but I can imagine that the next generation might be fed up with the current mischmasch of Dickie’s and tech gear – the circle of trends… You know!
Here are the latest clips from Clubgear – enjoy!
Skateboarder look at things differently, just think about the urban environment with all it’s stairs, ledges or handrails – in short: spots. This kind of thinking makes many skateboarders sort of creative and so it’s no surprise, that many of us end up working in creative trades. PLAN 9 presents “Skate Trades”, a documentary that shows the connection between skateboarding and trades. The 22 minute film entered into many international film festivals and is now online for your viewing pleasure, due to privacy settings, we’re not able to embed the video… Click here to watch “Skate Trades” on Vimeo, it’s perfect for rainy saturdays…
Dime has been responsible for some of the best content i’ve seen in recent years from digging up Joey Valdez to making fun of New York skating they know how to make something good. To celebrate the release of their new Vans slip on shoe they hosted a contest, where the focus lay not only on doing the best tricks but also on the weird culture of skateboarding.
Start following Dime!
Skateboarding schreibt immer wieder schöne Geschichten: Es ist zwanzig Jahre her, dass Arbeitertrupps anfingen, ein mehrere Millionen schweres Hotelresort in Nova Scotia (Kanada) zu bauen – nur, um es dann nach plötzlichem Baustopp halbfertig der Wildnis zu überlassen. Seitdem ist nicht viel passiert auf dem verlassenen Gelände… Bis jetzt. Denn Anfang September machten sich Ryan Decenzo, TJ Rogers, Joey Brezinski und eine Crew der besten Skater Nordamerikas auf den Weg an die Küste Kanadas, um das verlassene Resort in den ultimativen Skatepark zu verwandeln. Alles, was man auf dem Gelände des Resorts finden konnte, wurde auch benutzt und herausgekommen ist ein 60.000 Quadratmeter großer Park, der sich über drei Ebenen aus feinstem Beton erstreckt.
Das Ergebnis in Form eines 13 Minuten Clips gibt es hier zu sehen:
Die Hauptakteure der jüngsten Flip Tour nach Kanada sind Louie Lopez, Curren Caples, Matt Berger und Alec Majerus gewesen. Diese bewiesen im Land des Ahorns, dass sie ein echtes Team sind, während das Video Feature des Skateboard Mags vor guter Energie sprüht – egal ob Streetmission oder Demo. Die Mischung der verschiedenen Charaktere mit unterschiedlicher Trick- und Spotauswahl macht Flip Skateboards 2014 zu einer der besten Companies überhaupt. Arto Saari, der als Fotograf mit dabei gewesen ist, als auch Legende Lance Mountain wird es gefreut haben zu sehen, wie die Jungs das Holz gefällt haben. Cheech und Chong dürfen auf so einer Tour natürlich nicht fehlen.
Bobby de Keyzer hat nicht nur den geilsten Namen, der Typ hat es auch richtig im Fuß. Der kanadische Vertrieb von Hélas Caps hat das erkannt und sich den Jungspund direkt geschnappt. On Top legen wir noch diesen sonnigen Skateparkclip mit modernem Skating a la Austyn Gillette. Viel Vergnügen:
