Saturday, March 8, 2014

Video of the Week: Bobby Worrest - Hometown Turf Killer

Filming a part in one location is rarely something you can watch over and over and over...and over again. It gets to a point where the static scenery makes the clips feel repetitive, which is a key reason why I don't watch vert skating or even skatepark parts as much as I do street skating. With so many impressive skaters out today, the tricks get repetitive really quickly, so often times it takes a unique style or a special spot selection to make a video part interesting. However, Bobby Worrest provides an exception to this concept by coming out with a part filmed entirely at Pulaski park in DC. Bobby explores every corner of the park and maintains his unexpectedness with every clip. Not only is it great to get another part from Bobby, but to come through with high quality footage for a legitimate full part strictly in his hometown, he really mixed all the right ingredients for an awesome video. Oh, and that switch tre at 0:39!

Almost celebrated its 10th year in skateboarding at The Berrics with a nostalgic highlights video, an epic and fun-filled session at the park itself, and then an in-depth interview with Rodney Mullen that you're not going to find anything close to from any other skater. I could go on for a while about Almost: how I started skateboarding just after Round 3 dropped, how I would study every one of their parts in the video, how inspirational a guy like Rodney really is, how incredibly talented and creative all the team riders are, etc. Almost is one of my favorites without a doubt and it's terrific to see them going strong after 10 years.
-RIP Lewis Marnell-

Dave Vaughn's part in Find the Air showed how sometimes you don't need the absolute craziest tricks to have a ripping part (even though he throws in some serious bangers and solid lines), you can just have a style that makes skateboarding look good.
Chase Webb, despite conjuring up plenty of discussions related to Nyjah, the typical Californian handrail skater, etc., dropped a part through Transworld that is too gnarly to not appreciate.

Now the next few videos are all super awesome in their own way, but I'm keeping them for the end because they all have a good deal of older footage that is just remixed:
Tony Durao is one of my favorite up-and-coming East Coast shredders right now, and Quartersnacks masterfully remixed his TWS Check Out footage, his welcome part to Waters and Army, and some new footage for a part that should be talked about for years to come. (Massive switch boneless at 4:33!)
Mark Suciu's part in Search the Horizon was an instant classic and has been remixed with the same vibes you'd expect in a Habitat video, along with some cool footage I don't remember ever seeing from Mark.
Same thing pretty much for Brandon Westgate's part in MADE. This time it's been remixed with some of his older parts as well, which makes this Westgate compilation a true testament to his place in skateboarding.
And finally, this recap video from the Berrics' 2UP contest is actually quite worthy of a few views, especially when you have the blend of manual masters that you do for this contest.

Monday, March 3, 2014

Next Week (and maybe the week after that): Gone Skating


I didn't want this to come, but maintaining this blog with new topics every week is becoming a bit too tricky to handle. Every day you can look on skate websites and find loads and loads of new videos to occupy your time, but I started this blog to take a look at videos probably lost in the abyss of the internet and have them resurface with a new purpose. I just don't want to post a video and list a name every day without backing it up with an analysis of why it's worth watching/re-watching and why it's worth remembering within the topic for that week. And for that, I have decided at least for a little while to hold off on the weekly topics until the time comes that is actually free enough to provide quality posts for the week. My selection of Videos of the Week will keep going as a way of filtering through the packs of daily videos. But the next weekly topic that Skateboarding High Fives is built on may be in a few weeks, maybe a month, maybe a few months, maybe summer...I don't really know. As quantity is pushing down on quality of skate footage these days, I hope to provide the posts that are worth reading and watching. So while I take the time to thaw my legs out from this winter and skate a bit and focus on my other responsibilities, I'll leave it with this VX piece by Gravis, featuring Jake Johnson and Sammy Winter. If this doesn't emphasize quality over quantity, I don't know what does.