Video of the Week: Eric Thomas - Paradise in the Plains

This might be the first week in a while without some huge name video part release, but it was still full of really solid skating. Last Sunday, Paradise Wheels welcomed Eric Thomas to their team with this super fun video above. Probably flying under the radar for most people, this video really stuck out to me for the spot selection. From some of the coolest looking ditches to literally middle of nowhere spots to some pretty tall rooftop drops, Eric covers a wide variety of aesthetically pleasing and unique locations. The other thing that stuck out was that for the most part, the skating was rather slow. Now usually slow skating is a big turnoff and boring to watch, but Eric used it cleverly with the spots and creative tricks to keep me wanting more. It's definitely not your typical video part by these days' standards in any way, but it was thoroughly entertaining.

In other news:
-European legend Florentin Marfaing had a quick interview over at Red Bull and reminded us that he's still super sick.
-Brandon Taylor mixes really gnarly tricks with creativity for one of the better Mag Minutes in recent memory. The huge caveman is nuts!
-The Ollie Crew rolls deep and is featured skating some rad street spots in Vancouver and San Francisco (2/3 of San Vanelona...)
-Nate Lacoste came out with a new video part, shared with a few friends, for Roger Skateboards and it's definitely worth the watch.
-The Tilt Mode crew is stacked and this Archives video is full of sweet footage from the likes of Daryl Angel, Jon Nguyen, Zack Wallin, and Peter Raffin.
-Manolos Tapes is probably the best source for remixed videos in skateboarding. Once again it doesn't disappoint on remixing Parental Advisory with less acting and more street shredding.
-I've been a fan of James Espinoza and his buttery style, surprising amount of pop, crazy manual tricks, and fakie inward heelflips for a while, so it was great to see a short VX part from him.
-The latest Tum Yeto recruit, Tre Williams, silently destroys a bunch of California spots as if he was sleeping.
-Though it came out a little more than a week ago, I cannot neglect the latest part from Italo Romano. It's not only inspiring but it's full of really crazy tricks too!
-After Shane O'Neill's part in Chronicles 2 was released last week, more parts from the ripping video were released this week: Donovan Piscopo, Theotis Beasley, Luan Oliveira, and Ishod Wair.

Along with this, I have to give credit to the Berrics for coming out with the Populist. It's cool to get another source of major recognition in the skate industry on top of the big mags, such as Thrasher's SOTY or the TWS Awards. And my favorite part is that they basically compiled the best skaters' video parts from 2013 all on one page for a good day's worth of awesome skate video watching.