Video of the Week: GX1000 Medellin

I already described my love for the Adidas team tour edits with that incredibly talented and eclectic group of skaters mixed with aesthetically beautiful editing. But at the same time, the utter rawness of the GX1000 edits are untouchable. "Raw" may be used quite often here but it's the perfect word for everything GX1000 puts out, from the street skating to the citites and spots skated to the fun and entertaining encounters the crew finds in their environment. The latest edit takes place in Medellin, Colombia, which can almost be compared to SF (at least with a few of those downhill-driveway spots), though more vibrant and colorful with its surroundings and much grittier as well. The city lends itself to an appealing edit (also because Medellin isn't too popular or overused with skate trips...knock on wood), but the crew of raw rippers works its magic. Some new Jake Johnson clips are always appreciated and Stevie Perez shreds so hard in the whole video, reminding me a little of Ishod with his total comfort on the board. Yonnie Cruz always comes through with a sick interpretation of the streets, as evidenced by his repeated ollies leading to a 50-50 and almost powersliding into a car at 1:16, as well as his synchronization at 4:43. Josh Velez surprised me at 2:32 with potentially one of the longest back lips and then officially seals the deal with a good two-story ollie or so at 2:57. The final bump into the older gentleman at the end sort of sums up how great the trip must've been, with locals as friendly as that. 

Also released were the B-Sides from Leo Romero's part in Made. Leo skated some crazy rails and put in loads of work into his part, which is given the necessary recognition with these clips. I would argue that Emerica is one of the best, if not THE best, at producing videos in general. The B-Sides are no different and often just about as exciting as the video part itself. The Berrics puts it best, calling Emerica's B-Sides as a "modern classic". While Leo deserves the credit once again for his sick part in Made, Emerica deserves the credit for continuing to put out the best skate videos.

Christian Vannella just came out with a part at the DC Embassy. I'm just going to say that the hardflip late flip and the hardflip backside nosegrind to manual 360 flip out were NOT the craziest tricks I saw (at least in my opinion). So take the time to witness Christian's craziness and remember his name.

In other skate video news:

Anton Arratia displays some super techincal ledge skating in his Mag Minute, along with other great tricks.

Shaun Gregoire released a new part via Pyramid County with some of his awesome style.

Stan Karbine's part in $14 The Hard Way was released and showcases his great use of pop.

Erick and Mikey Winkowski share a part filled with brotherly love...and some gnarly tricks as well.

Living in Newark, NJ and seeing this Ironbound edit from NJ Scum made my day.

Tony Hawk gets a Krooked guest deck and still shreds the halfpipe as well as any other guy out there today, showing why he's such a legend.

Pro Too Soon #2: Trunk Boyz

This one might be a bit more personal than the other posts this week. And for the record, the Trunk Boyz I'm referring to here are the three that went pro together most recently in May 2013, not including Vincent and Cory. Most people know these dudes from Pretty Sweet, which is really the only place I know of these three putting out full video parts. Backtracking from Chocolate's introduction of these three as ams to the team, Raven was with the Creature fiends for a while, Elijah with Foundation, and I honestly hadn't heard of Stevie before the introduction. Again, I could have been totally slipping before these guys went to Chocolate, but I also don't think they were very heavily covered before that. Anyway, no major parts from any of these dudes were brought to my attention, meaning between their skating and their sponsors, there wasn't enough of a stir in the skate world to learn much about them. Pretty Sweet dropped and all three guys came through with sick parts for sure. I'm sure being a part of such an epic video aided in overshadowing their ripping parts and even though there were some very memorable and crazy clips, I didn't get that standout feeling like I do with some other ams' parts before (Luan in Extremely Sorry comes to mind). And ever since then, all I've really seen from any of these three were "internet-filler" clips, aka tour footage (like the Pretty Sweet Tour above), skatepark clips, or throwaway street footage. (Minus Stevie's Lakai mini-part that was pretty awesome, released right after going pro.) I value the full-length video part with one's board sponsor pretty highly, and I feel that with only Pretty Sweet up these dudes' sleeves, there's really not enough reason to go pro just 5 months after that video release. Even today, despite all the tour and park footage coming out from these guys (as their recognition coverage grows), I don't feel a sense of professionalism when I watch them skate. Watching the Trunk Boyz together gives the vibe that they shred a lot for sure but also that "I don't care, I'm too cool for everything" kind of feeling. Again, that could be just me, but disregarding that still leaves the rather shallow resume of video parts from these guys. In the end, I would definitely like to have seen more ripping from these three before they got their first pro models. When they were given the surprise in Puerto Rico, I basically felt like Chocolate was trying to make sure they didn't have any ams on their team, making sure they were exclusively professional. Getting that feeling is definitely not what should happen when some dudes turn pro.

Best Music for a Part #1: Beirut

Beirut's songs alone really don't naturally associate themselves with ideas of skateboarding, yet when their songs are used in video parts, the skating elegantly comes alive. I wouldn't ordinarily listen to most Beirut songs offhand, but now that I have the visuals of some pretty great parts connected to the songs, I love being carried away by the music into those very video parts. Beirut's style is particularly hard to put into words, especially as to why they make video parts so special. I'll leave it at this: the skating becomes extremely graceful, the vibes are relaxing for the senses, and the skills of the skaters are brought out by the memorable melodies.
Joey Brezinski's part in Cliche's Cle (above) was the first time I'd ever heard a song by Beirut, so when Joey specifically asks Junior during the opening conversation to check out a song, my interest was peaked. Moving from the dialogue to the video part as "Carousels" starts playing, you can already tell that Joey's wild manual combos and energetic style would fit well with the song. The main tune for Carousels is extremely catchy, making me want to pull up Joey's part again and again at the most random times simply to appease my craving for Beirut-edited skateboarding. One clip that sticks out for me is at 2:14 where Joey does a fakie manual kickflip to switch manual down a kinked pad to the singing of "It's a long way down..."
Before Stevie Perez blew up with Chocolate he came out with this part in Good Luck to Beirut's "Vagabond". The slow intro is fitting for both the song and the edit, and then the somewhat syncopated tune repeating in the background keeps things very up tempo and happy-go-lucky for Stevie to casually get a lot of tricks in with his quick feet and have fun while doing it. Stevie's make-everything-look-easy style also works rather well with the smooth song and keeps you craving more of those buttery lines from him.
One song that is high in my iTunes rotation from Beirut is "The Rip Tide" because it was used in Mark Suciu's Cross Continental, which is easily in my top 5 favorite video parts overall. The opening piano keys and old film capturing techniques settle you in for a great work of art and at about 0:44 unleashes the aesthetic energy when Mark properly lands bolts on a switch backside kickflip down a set. For the rest of the use of "The Rip Tide", every trick Mark does is technically impressive in some way or another (you know, classic Suciu) but with his insane control over his board and body, he oozes an incredibly smooth style that could not fit any better with the song. The trailing note on the trumpet as Mark ends his Washington DC line from 1:51 with the fast back tail gap out leaves your brain running through everything that just happened but wanting so much more of the flawless skating at the same time.
Lastly, looking at The Philadelphia Experiment again, the zoom in on the flowing LOVE park fountain about 4 minutes in together with the introductory chimes of "Payne's Bay" from Beirut provide you with the perfect mind state to witness a very appealing piece of videography, while engraining tricks like Ishod's front heel over the LOVE plaza garbage can into your head.
It helps that the lead singer of Beirut has a voice that will throw you into a trance of focusing on the skating. Not only that but the sheer intrigue behind all of Beirut's songs keeps you wanting more after you finish watching the skating that goes with it. Whatever mysterious aspect this is just works and I don't mind one bit.