Ummmm… (Quicktime)

The little-kid explosion in skateboarding has produced a pack of new riders who seem to have come out of nowhere. These kids are insanely good and are scaring off the less-talented pros in droves.

TWS In Bloom gives a few of the hottest youngstas their very own full-fledged video parts. In typical Transworld style, this vid is slick, well-filmed, creatively scored, and certainly on the top-of-the-heap in production quality.

Each rider gets their own part, with guest skaters and commentary from their bosses: Dustin Dollin, Andrew Reynolds, Kareem Campbell, and John Cardiel. There’s also a nice interlude featuring the homemade Turkey Banks, and a little montage section which is very well done, with some great footy from Bob’s ramp in Fallbrook. Also watch out for a nasty slam section, where Mikey Taylor slashes a 6-incher in his shin. I fast-forwarded past that.

* Evan Hernandez
Evan gets the opener, and it’s non-stop hammers for this kid. He’s really small, but skates grown-man shit. Evan takes out 12 stair rails for breakfast, and has a mean flick. He caps it with a 20+ stair FS board. The only problem here is that with so many hammers, you kinda lose perspective of what he’s doing. Evan’s spots are also pretty much stricty So Cal schoolyard, so the terrain isn’t too interesting either. As for style, Evan’s so little, he doesn’t have much power of flair, so he looks a little stiff.

* Chris Cole
Chris’ part is nutso, bonkers, banannas! This kid has it all, rails, ledges, massive gaps, tranny, parks, hubbas, blah blah. He’s a street natural on the level of a Koston. Definite tech-gnar guns: switch flip Rincon, FS and BS flips down Love Fountain.

* Tony Trujillo
You watch Tony skate, it’s as if he was just made to ride a skateboard. This kid is an absolute natural. He’s just smiling, flowing, and getting maxed out off every hit in the place. It’s really good to see full park sections, as the terrain in these new parks is really amazing, but TNT also kills plenty of real street spots with legit flips and grinders. L’il Duece is gonna be huge! Oh yeah, he skates to Motley Crue (of course).

* Mikey Taylor
Again proving that there’s no room for mediocre street pros, l’il MT blasts through mile-long rail crookies, switch buttas, nollie everythings, all with good style and a money flick. MT goes huge and gets tech, he has mastered crookies and flick-crookies.Yeah, he’s a wigga, but we’ll just have to overlook that.

* Paul Rodriguez
P-Rod (son of the comedian with the same name) got himself on Girl by being better than 75% of the established pros. That’s it, basically. Watch Koston in Mouse, then watch Paul. Effortless, natural precision. Smiling, humble, no ego bullshit. We like P-Rod.

* Alex “Trainwreck” Gall
Trainwreck has tattoos, that’s apparently important to note. He skates to Slayer (Agressive Perfector). His whole thing is basically that he’s clinging right to the ragged edge of everything, which makes for some burly hammers at top speeds. Trainwreck is a ‘stuntman’. If that’s your thing, you’ll love it. Personally, I’ll take Heath Kirchart any day.

Overall, this video is tops. After my disappointment with Label Kills, it’s good to see that street skating doesn’t have to be monotonous, filmed-from-the-pop rail grinds with sketch landings. These kids are gonna be huge. B-level pros, think about college, your days are numbered.

This weekend it rained, so I had no choice but to sit in the pad and download skate vids. Anyway, I’m gonna start out the week with a video review of Label Kills, the latest from Lucero’s hesh crew.

The copy I had doesn’t have any sound- so I can’t review the music, which I’m sure is pretty hesh. So we’re gonna have to go on skating alone here.

I don’t want to say that this is a bad video- it isn’t bad. And I wouldn’t want to say that these are bad skaters- they’re not. But in a testament to how competitve skating has become- this video just ain’ that interesting. Skating is not just about tricks, or clothes, or styles- to be a big baller in the 2k3 you gotta have the whole onion- an elusive combination for sure.

The lineup is:
Jason Adams
Jim Gagne
Mike Vallely
Salman Agah
Matt Hensley
Pro-Mar Hassan
Neal Hendrix
Kristian Svitak
Patrick Melcher (am?)
Jub (am)
Wes Lott (am)
Adam Alfaro (am)
Ben Gilley (am)
Ricky Espinosa (am)
Pat Smith (am)
Jeff Grosso

Obviously this is a big team. The first thing that struck me about this vid was that it’s really a ‘hardcore street’ team- I was expecting a lot more mixed terrain. Ultimately I think this is the demise of the vid- many of these riders just don’t stand out as street dogs. Yeah, Pat Melcher wears a cool hat, and they all seem to fall a lot, but how can anyone get jazzed about a handrail nosegrind when little kids like Paul Rodriguez are doing em’ in their sleep?

Rather than bash the weak points (except Vallely, I’m definietly gonna bash him), I’ll skip to the good stuff:

Jason Adams: I’ve never really seen a full part from ‘The Kid’, but this was what I expected. He seems to be genuinely having fun, skating 1000 miles an hour, doing curb slappies and skating weird trannies. Just don’t think he can’t do a FS noseslide on a hubba, cause he can and does.

Neal Hendrix + Omar Hassan: These guys both turn in plenty of rockin’ pool jammers, with Omar going balls and divebombing off the roof into Chicken’s pool. Neal has lip tricks mastered and I love to watch lip tricks.

Pat Smith: Although probably destined for obscurity, Pat shot his whole part in NYC which leads to plenty of new and interesting spots.

Matt Hensley: Hensley’s part is done in a ‘home video’ style, mixing in his new family and some old home movies. No hammers here, but it’s fun to watch him hit up all sorts of weird homemade obstacles and generally have fun.

Kris Svitak: Kristian’s part is definitely a legit street part, he’s got the skills and style. He gets a mongo ollie over a bank that is totally nutso.

Other that that, the rest of this vid is pretty standard. None of the street dogs have the tech-gnar skillz to compete with the new breed. The main point here seems to be that these guys got really wrecked making this vid, which, to me, says nothing. L’il Mikey Taylor slashed his leg wide open in In Bloom and rips harder than any of these ams. Ben Gilley gets clobbered on every trick he tries, Jim Gagne is old and a goon and gets clobbered, I don’t see why that should make me like them.

Finally I want to mention Mike Vallely’s part, which consists of nothing except him pushing really fast down the street and doing some ollies and stuff. The whole thing seems like it’s trying to show how punk he is and how little he cares. Unfortunately, it makes him look like even more of a caricature of his former self, a guy who’s milking his look for all it’s worth. It’s obvious that Vallely is full of it, just look at this. How punk is that?

Label Kills is not a bad vid, but not a great vid. This is one of those videos that just fails to live up to the image of the team. The whole thing is very calculated and professional, at the same time bland and formulaic. I never got the sense that these were guys who are disconnected from the skating mainstream- it just looks like a lot of average riders with vans and black hair, tryin’ to get paid like anyone else.

Last week at the pit, the local skateshop goon managed to have a screaming, board-throwing fit after not getting a KF Noseslide in a line. Of course there was NO CHANCE of him landing it. He barely came close.

Saturday, I arrive at the pit to find a youth stomping his board into pieces cause of a 360 flip that wasn’t getting landed anyway. After a thrown shard nearly hit me, I decided it was time for him to “give it a fucking rest” and asked if he was “finished with his temper tantrum”. Soon after, the sullen teen and his posse of slightly embarassed youths decided to vacate the area.

On sunday I returned to the pit to find Black Label am Pat Rakestraw (AKA ‘Street Rake’) and Kiwi FOSKO am Gareth Stehr, along with requisite filmer goons and hangers on.

Street Rake was going for jumper to BS 50-50 to BS 360 out on the Donger ledge (Markovich BS Smithed it). He landed it a couple of times, kinda sloppy, but he was ripping. I woulda been happy.

After a bunch of misses he freaks out, focusing his board by smacking it, griptape-side up, against the corner of the ledge. This has the effect of instantly shattering the board into little pieces.

After seeing all this nonsense I have to ask- how are these people gonna make it through life? It’s simply not OK for a grown man to have a temper tantrum, is it?