It's pretty interesting when a clothing company comes out with a full length video in skateboarding. I can't think of too many instances of this happening. Ambig came out with a solid 15 minutes or so of insane shredding with great editing via Modern Art, but that's definitely a promo as opposed to a full length video. I was super stoked on Ambig since the video and their sick team, but after a few team member cuts I can't back them as much. Anyway, LRG is the other clothing company in my memory that has pulled off the legit full length video just a few years ago. Give Me My Money Chico turned out to be really sick; it combined a pretty versatile and stylish team with editing inter-connectivity to give a consistent vibe throughout the whole video. And everyone's parts were definitely memorable to still be brought up today. A good 35/40 minute video with full parts from everyone is priceless these days in the increasingly viral world of skateboarding.
Since then, the team has changed up a little bit (I still find it funny that almost immediately after GMMMC came out Tommy Guns, Billy Marks, and Tom Asta were added to the team) and has some new heavy hitters now: Felipe Gustavo, Carlos Ribeiro, and Trent McClung. Recently, LRG introduced Miles Silvas to the team (welcome video above), who has been on an absolute rampage this year with coverage and sponsors. With that welcome video I saw that LRG is officially working on its next full length video for 2014. With a lineup that LRG has now, a full length video can be extremely epic. Definitely something to be hyped for this year.
A quick highlight run through of some of LRG's skaters to be ready for their upcoming video:
You know what Billy Marks, Tom Asta, and Carlos Ribeiro are capable of.
Tommy Sandoval - just look at his Cold War part
Miles Silvas - can't wait to see probably the biggest back noseblunt ever!
(And if any of their international dudes have parts too...oh boy!)
In addition to the LRG video, I should probably mention the upcoming video from Gold Wheels: Gold Goons. I just saw the trailer this week, so I didn't plan on posting about it. But just looking at the lineup in the info underneath the trailer, there are so many tight dudes on the team that even semi-full parts from some of them would be satisfactory. I'm not too sure which ones have been stacking clips for Gold Goons specifically, but a lineup like that leaves plenty possibilities for a full length video.
First off, Aidan Campbell's new part that came out today was pretty awesome. Ever since his sml wheels intro, I was hyped on him and wanted to see more. His new part for Etnies (between AB&A and David Reyes' new part and all the other commercial features Etnies, Etnies could've easily worked towards a full length team video!) was exactly what was needed to bring Aidan to the spotlight. His style and smile make everything he does look super fun and easy, not to mention the really great editing we've come to expect from these Etnies videos. His trick selection is great and mixes in some pretty gnarly spots with some classy tricks. And the knee bend as he holds onto the boardslide at the end is priceless.
But even with that, I simply cannot look past Dee Ostrander's new part that he dropped for Baker. The Baker vibes always make you feel like you're with the homies, so when Dee starts casually ripping everything up for 6 full minutes, the destruction is too good for words. Dee skates some huge, gnarly spots, from rails to gaps to street wide grass gaps from huge ditches (aka the insane ender). So the skating itself is enough to amaze anyone and get skaters psyched to go shred the streets. The taildrop boardslide at 3:16 hyped me up so much! But the fact that everything is done with an apathetic ease left me in awe, which makes sense since Dee just so happened to drop a 6 minute part full of bangers completely out of the blue. Anyway, this part is nuts and deserves plenty of re-watches.
Yoshi Tanenbaum has been killing it lately and doesn't seem to be slowing down after his sick Mag Minute came out.
Though it will be taken down soon, Ben Hatchell's part from Cold War was released on Thrasher showing that anything he puts out is all-terrain gold. Seriously though, the quality of the gnarly footage in Cold War is ridiculous. It might be on the shorter side but I'll take nonstop thrashing footage over an over-edited piece any day.
After Dan Murphy's shared part with Dave Bachinsky in Natural Selection came out not too long ago, he's now releasing more solid footage as a commercial for his truck sponsor, Theeve. Almost Skateboards is one of my favorite companies because their team is nothing short of legendary and every single one of those dudes skates super creatively (to say the least) and has a blast while doing it. So this new feature from a good group of guys on the team was awesome, not to mention basically a full new part from Youness, yet another footage machine.
The LRG Europe squad is darn talented, like extremely talented, at skateboarding and it shows in their sweet tour video through Cyprus.
Nice NYC vibes throughout this video, Off The Braxx, with a crazy ender part from Dylan Witkin, who somehow managed to find loads of big handrails in the city.
There have to be hundreds if not thousands of dudes that are under the skateboarding industry's radar, but Chris Luhring and Julian Klein both came out with tight parts this week for Creation/Satori and Atlas Skateboarding respectively that should definitely help with that. Haven't heard of either of them before but their names will stick out after seeing their skating here.
Jack Curtin is definitely one of the most underrated dudes out there. His ability to skate everything from ledges to flatground and especially to rails/hubbas in any stance is really quite incredible when you think about some of the rather "tech" tricks he puts down some handrails. Hitting the big Clipper hubba is a perfect example of this: Jack has nailed 3 pretty heavy switch tricks down the famous ledge. At 2:19 in Give Me My Money Chico you can see Jack rather perfectly execute a switch backside 5-0 grind down Clipper. There's something about switch 5-0s in general that just seem so uncomfortable to handle as easily as the regular version, so Jack's fluidity with the trick is definitely awesome. Since the switch 5-0 wasn't enough, Jack grabs two more switch bangers at Clipper, both seen in his Parental Advisory part above. At 3:22 he switch kickflips into a switch backside 50-50 grind, a pretty nutty switch combo down a hubba that size, and then for his ender at 3:34 Jack somehow gets the pop and control to switch back lip the ledge. 3 heavy switch tricks at Clipper put Jack Curtin in the top 5 Clipper skaters for sure. And the story behind the switch flip back 50 for a Transworld cover is also worth hearing about, just adding to Jack's radness.
UPDATE: I just realized that I completely bypassed two other super gnarly tricks from Jack down the ledge! Apparently he also has done a nollie noseblunt down the hubba as well as another switch trick: switch crooked grind for his FTC part at 2:05. Not only are those both really gnarly but that puts Jack's collection of Clipper tricks up to 5, which definitely moves up his position in my top Clipper skaters.
Right now, Felipe Gustavo is basically Schrödinger's professional skateboarder. He is considered both am and pro at the same time. After competing in a pro contest at SPOT, he's now listed as pro on their website, yet Plan B has not released any pro model decks for Felipe, which is the real turning point for professionalism. Either way, just to alleviate everyone from the headaches they've been given for trying to label Felipe as a pro or am, Plan B most definitely needs to come out with a pro deck for him. It's not worth even writing any supporting reasons for why he should be pro; everyone that is involved with skateboarding understands that he deserves it 100%.
So, to recap Felipe's progression in the skate world, here are most of his major video parts that he's put out over the years. Knowing that he's Brazilian should be enough to mentally prepare for the technical wizardry that is about to follow: Digital F.Y.I.: I absolutely love the full motion of the kickflip back noseblunt fakie to end a line at 2:27 and the hardflip front nose big spin out at 2:05 is still such a shocking trick today. FKD Park Project: I always appreciate a good switch flip back tail (0:34) and to follow it up with a nollie frontside flip down the stairs was an enjoyable pairing of tricks. Same goes for the pairing of the nollie frontside flip 360 over the hip with its backside counterpart at 1:07. LRG United: I'm including this clip exclusively for the trick at 4:54. Never before had I seen a nollie 360 flip backside tailslide, and I still don't remember seeing many if any at all after this either. Just leave it to Felipe to come up with a trick like this.
Plan B vAmdalism (above): Scott Decenzo has also been one of my favorites for a while, with this part cementing the fact that both he and Felipe are among the technical greats in skateboarding. I feel like Scott should also deserve to be pro very soon, but needs a bit more consistent industry coverage first like Felipe has gotten (or it could be some Canadian curse...but more of that some other time). One of my favorite lines is at 3:40, where Felipe demonstrates his one of a kind, fast flicking, unnaturally elevating 360 flips into a nosegrind (revert out of course) followed by a proper frontside half cab flip and closed by a kickflip back noseblunt on the tabletop of a bench. The big spin out of the nollie front nose at 3:58 (ending a line nonetheless) totally shocked me as to how fast he's dropping off the handrail and still manage to big spin out. The fact that Felipe actually sits on the grind of a nollie flip crooks nollie frontside flip out at 4:48 shows me how professional he is already, and every clip after that has some very technically difficult trick that Felipe just throws down like a seasoned vet. Switching it up for Plan B: I'm including this clip because there's another solid minute plus of quality tech clips, proving just how good he is at switch tricks. DC's Rediscover Home (Part 3): One of the reasons that there are a ton of skaters out there that just can't seem to find their way into the industry, despite incredible talent, is the fact that their backgrounds or personalities are not unique enough to fund. This three part series that DC did about how Felipe managed to work his way out of Brazil and fulfill his dream to skate with one shot at SPOT really shows a wonder story for one kid to make his way into skateboarding for everyone's benefit. This is the kind of background that should get someone coverage and on the path to turning pro. Not to mention Felipe displays his ninja precision on a skateboard once again at 6:30.
It feels like Kelly Hart has been around for quite a while. And all through that time I always felt that he had a very grown up, professional steeze that would grant him his own deck at some point. Kelly is easily one of the butteriest skaters out there with his easy-looking but dominantly high pop, flicking and catching tricks, and bending his knees for one of the best landings styles I could imagine. Kelly can manual like he's in a video game with cheat codes, holding a single pose throughout entire long manuals like nothing. He's got a mastery of nollie and fakie pop shove its and varial flips (and when I say POP shove it, I mean it), which no one else has as smooth as him. Another thing I doubt many people give him credit for is that with his skills to skate switch as smoothly as he does regular, he is able to film tricks that are mirror images of each other, which is a clever way of making his parts more interesting to watch (nollie pop shove nose manny followed by fakie pop shove fakie manny for example). One of his first major parts was in It's Official, where I'd say all the tricks from 0:50 - 1:11 perfectly demonstrate his pop shove it abilities, his pop, his manual abilities, and his gorgeous tre flips. His part in Give Me My Money Chico (above) is also really pleasing to watch, just to see exactly how tricks should be executed. I love his varial heelflip at 2:18, he has a perfect switch heel over a bump to bar at 2:50, and he displays his craftiness with his last two tricks by mirroring a fs 5-0 kickflip out with a switch one afterwards that looks just as buttery as the first. His Berrics Recruit part once again comes through and shows Kelly's mastery of good-looking flip tricks and perfectly balanced manuals. He comes again with two nice mirrored lines starting at 1:02: a front tail then a beautiful fakie tre over a bench and a switch front tail and nollie tre. His nollie inward heel over the fire hydrant at 1:57 is just another piece of eye candy. Kelly also has some great clips in the latest Expedition offering Madness with some very speedy and smooth cruising lines, in one of which he approaches a handrail and decides that with a tre flip as good-looking as his, he might as well just tre flip over it instead of worrying about any grind tricks, which I fully back. Throwing a switch flip in the middle of a switch manny at 2:23 is not even fair because he almost doesn't flinch or waver at all! And the fakie POP shove it at 2:35 may possibly be the best one ever done.
So with a really solid collection of video parts, a proper style that is the perfect amount of butteriness without going overboard, and some of the most correct flip tricks in skateboarding (he has the most Berrics' Trickipedia entries for a reason), it's really a shock that he hasn't gone pro yet. Even just some talk of turning him pro would be nice, but all I can hope for is that he's working on another attractive video part for his first pro board.
