2014 Videos #5: Shane O'Neill

Now there's not very much to go on here, but according to Twitter and directly from the man himself, Shane O'Neill will be dropping a full part through Thrasher soon. I don't remember/can't find exactly where, but I'm pretty sure there was word that the part would be out in 2014 as well, which really makes sense the way pros can come out with parts every year if they really worked for it. I also heard rumor that a good portion of Shane's Chronicles part (above) was "filler" footage, which is also understandable since we know what Shane is capable of. Again, that was just rumor and there's no official trailer or footage for the video part, but nonetheless this is Shane O'Neill. Filler or not, his Chronicles part was insane. Anytime there are ridiculously tech and beautiful NBDs in a part it's gonna mark its place in skateboarding history. All things considered, I cannot wait for whatever Shane's cooking up for his next part.

Here's a few of his mind-boggling and super steezy parts from earlier years:
Not Another Transworld Video
Going Pro Berrics Part
Debacle (with Theotis Beasley)
Am Chowder

Clipper #3: Darrell Stanton

It should be illegal to look as casual as Darrell Stanton does on a skateboard. Being able to get 4 tricks at Clipper, including some gnarly blunt variations, all the while not shrugging a shoulder is not something you can practice. He's just naturally that graceful and managed to get 4 beautiful tricks at Clipper. 2 of those tricks were in his Roll Forever part above. At 1:11 Darrell starts off "easily" enough with a backside 5-0 back 180 out, and then gets blunted with a super steezy nollie backside noseblunt ender at 2:13. The right arm position while rolling away is priceless. There was also a cover of Thrasher back in 2002 of a regular back noseblunt from Darrell with the ultimate steeze, almost like he's just posing on the ledge. Lastly, in Free Your Mind Darrell does what seems like an impossible trick at 5:10: ollie over to front blunt. He somehow pops his way with enough control to slide the opposite side of Clipper, but despite the insane difficulty of the trick, his left arm remains as smooth in its balancing position as possible. Gnarly tricks with such style makes for remarkable tricks.

Slams #3: David Gonzalez

David Gonzalez is a pure thrasher. He attacks tranny and rails like few others with an almost reckless, crazed mindset to put aside any pain as he battles for his tricks. Look at Possessed to Skate to see some of David's rough bails. Starting things off at 0:45, David battles the Muska rail to get a back 50. From getting caught in the rail for some serious shinners and gut shots to getting pitched down the second set of stairs straight to the shoulder, David gets heavily bashed around getting this trick. At 1:41 David sacks a kinked rail very straight on. What makes it worse, despite David already being short enough to not avoid sacking easily, is that the rail rides up against the wall and David can't even move away after sacking the rail because he's pinched up against it, sustaining that moment of pain. Also, he nails a gnarly kinked front board but only after a rough battle at 3:52, which is highlighted in the Hall of Meat above.
A couple other Hall of Meats for David include some serious bruising while slamming his knee into the ground trying to backside 360 down the Cherry Park stage gap, and also falling straight to the arm here while trying to kickflip front board a long wooden rail. For the latter bail, it's not human for someone to simply shake off the wrist after landing with all their weight directly on it, but David's definitely different.
Now this clip of David trying to ollie a 22-set is 6 years old but still shows how hungry he was to try the gnarliest tricks. The very first bail is scary because David's head smashes super hard into the ground, but then again every bail after that just hurts when you watching his body uncomfortably compressing into the ground and sliding/rolling out.

Next Week: SOTY 2013 Contenders

It's always hard to think of there being only one single Skater of the Year, but Thrasher has kept up with the task every year since 1990 of honoring one awesome ripper with the title. Now that we're in the last quarter of 2013, it's an appropriate time to take a look at some of this years top contenders for SOTY. This week will be my personal top 5 picks for who I think could take the title.
It's always tricky with the politics in the skate industry because the award for SOTY can almost be considered a universal title, yet it's exclusively given out by Thrasher Magazine. So whoever decides the winner in the end has to have some preference towards skaters with loads of coverage in Thrasher specifically, as opposed to other magazines. This does shift my Top 5 somewhat, but regardless, here are a bunch of guys that could definitely be deserving of such a title but that I don't think will ultimately win the award:

Dudes like Tommy Sandoval and Dane Burman skated the gnarliest (to say the least) spots in Road Less Traveled, and are likely going to have standout parts in Cold War, assuming it still comes out before the end of the year. Unless those parts are seriously groundbreaking, their not-technically-full-parts-but-more-like-montage-clips from RLT probably won't put them at the SOTY level this year, in my opinion. Same goes for Chris Cole, who has been on the contest circuit this year. You can never count him out for dropping a legendary part in Cold War, yet I think it's going to have to be just that in order for him to come close for SOTY.
Guys like Walker Ryan and Julian Davidson (who dropped most of his footage while still am...would that make a difference towards SOTY?) came out with loads of really great footage this year. Both had amazing parts in Perpetual Motion, which coming from Transworld may not help them in the SOTY race. Walker had a really awesome part in Organika's Grow With Us as well as a sweet Mag Minute for the Skateboard Mag (again probably not helpful for Thrasher's SOTY). Julian had sweet footage in his Element Pro Part including that wonderful Bercy frontside flip, as well as a nice clip for getting on Etnies. Despite both of these dudes killing it this year, I feel like their lack of Thrasher coverage goes against them with respect to getting SOTY.
Then there were guys like Jim Greco and Bob Burnquist who each dropped a single part, but a single part that was insane in both instances. Greco even came out with probably the most memorable commercial ever (for me anyway) for Supra that I'd consider for his year of awesome skating. For these two guys, despite dropping epic video parts, I just have a gut feeling like they're missing something for the SOTY running.
David Gravette came out with a nutty part in CSFU and backed it up with his just as crazy Real Street part. Again, David could totally deserve SOTY this year after these ridiculous parts but I just don't personally see him winning this year.
Daryl Angel is sort of an underrated guy for me but with the potential to still make a really strong run for SOTY this year. He had a memorable couple of tricks in Austyn Gillette's part in Cosmic Vomit 2 and still has a part coming out in Chronicles Vol. 2 as well as some clips if not a part in Habitat's Search the Horizon (assuming that's released before the end of the year). I'd say his more simplistic take on his tricks together with his smooth and speedy style combine for the potential for a pretty awesome part in the Nike video, something worth mentioning with this SOTY talk.
Also, there are guys like Shane O'Neill and Luan Oliveira that likely will have outstanding parts in Chronicles Vol. 2, but much like Chris Cole with Cold War, those parts will surely have to be outstanding to be considered in line for SOTY 2013.
And finally, considering that the Plan B video is not going to drop before the year ends, that takes away a good number of other skaters that could easily be in the run for SOTY. 2014 better watch out for this though...

Skating the Unskateable #1: David Gravette

The fact that David Gravette came out with this Gregslist video just to skate literal garbage from a rusty pipe to a piano shows his exact spirit for skateboarding: getting out of your comfort zone and conquering new obstacles. David is very good with this and has shown his expansion of spots particularly well with new ridiculous handrails and transitions. He skates some of the gnarliest obstacles possible and seriously expands on the possibilities of what can be skated. His handrail skating is some of the most dangerous and impressive in the game and has been for a good number of years now.
Looking back to his And Now part, aside from the few insane handrails that may be only skateable to a select few of handrail killers, the few clips from 1:47-2:10 peek into David's spot creativity. From a tall sewer tunnel to a cartoonishly enormous pole jam to a legit brick wall skatestopper built right at the end of a handrail (which David gaps out over nonchalantly).
In Hesh Law at 1:27, David skates a crazy handrail that is much longer than you'd expect, and then at 1:37 he skates a mini electrical box on the side of a telephone pole to show that nothing is out of reach.
In Beware of Sasquatch he skates a bracketed handrail at 2:54 and somehow avoids the natural skatestoppers, despite the lack of any surface area of a rail to grind on.
In Prevent This Tragedy he just glides around a super curved handrail and backside 180s out for good measure at 1:42, even though just maintaining composure through the curve seems impossible. The last rail has surely turned countless other handrail killers away, but with a godly 50-50 like David has he stays unaffected by the kink in the handrail as the rail just keeps getting longer and longer. Perfect balance cheat codes? Check.
Since David's been on a rampage of skating this past year, he released a CSFU Bonus Part in which he opens up skating a dirtbike course in the middle of the woods. Keyword: dirtbike. At 1:03 he steeply drops in and then rides a sketchy looking rail ingrained in the dirt and decides that it's not enough, so he comes out into a nose manual and then pops into the bowl. An impossible combo all starting from the impossible grind.
David's most recent full video part in CSFU (above) contains quite possibly the main reason for this week's subject: his very first trick of the part. After a long and mentally gruesome battle with the rail, David rides the roller coaster 50-50 through two full 90 degree turns containing small kinks, all while gradually going downhill as well. This trick in itself deserves a medal of some kind because balancing does not work like that. He later launches into a no pop full speed feeble grind at 1:42 around a tight curve; it's all in the posture on this one. At 2:02 he flies down a well-sloped handrail into two kinks and a shifting angle of the rail as well, gliding through the grind like it's nothing, even though just looking at the rail makes any trick seem unlikely. The run up for the rail at 2:52 appears to be way to small but a quick carve and David magically sticks with the enormous double kinker all the way down.
And lastly, in David's Real Street part (which is filled with some rather awesome clips) he slides right over a bunch of bike racks at 0:28. It's funny because bike racks are meant to stop you, but David clearly is having no business with these standard rules. The ender 50-50 is better shown here with all the trials and tribulations, both physical and mental. What's absurd about this trick is mixing the number of kinks with the actual steepness and shortness of them too. Only David could see this as being an actual spot to skate.

Switch Backside Kickflips #2: Walker Ryan

For a guy that dominates the switch backside bigspin like no other and has tricks like switch big flips, nollie frontside flips, and switch back 360s down pat, it is no surprise that Walker Ryan's switch backside kickflip is one of his best tricks. Not only is Walker extremely skilled in a wide range of skating (mannys, tranny, gaps, ledges, you name it) but he has a special style. Personally, his style gets me every time in that I forget about what other skaters have done while I watch Walker skate and just lose myself in his one of a kind bag of tricks. It might sound weird but I'm distracted by his elegance on a skateboard so I always have to remind myself just how hard the tricks are that he does.
It's interesting because I think what also attracts me to Walker's skating style is that with a lot of his flip tricks (particularly gap tricks), as soon as he catches the usually slightly off axis flip (which adds cool points for uniqueness already) there isn't that robotically perfect board-glued-to-your-feet moment that every skater has (look at the nollie cab at 3:21 of his Graduation part above to see what I mean). The uncertainty of whether or not he can keep the board with him while watching him land his gap tricks is unexplainably exciting. Even though I've watched his parts hundreds of times and know the tricks and how he lands them, it isn't until Walker actually starts rolling away that my eyes relax from not knowing how the board will stay under his feet. And yet all of his landings are pretty much bolts too, which makes the paradox that much more intriguing.
With that being said, he is without a doubt one of my favorite skaters, so I will chronologically (as accurately as I can) go through his extremely solid resume of video parts that he's consistently put out throughout the past 5/6 years or so and visually remind you why his switch backside flip is one of the best in the game. (And while I could include variations like switch big flips or switch flip back noseblunts - because they are obviously awesome - I'm going to just highlight specifically switch backside flips.)
Welcome to Organika: switch backside flip at 2:04 out and down a pretty well-recognized NYC loading dock gap.
Focus Group: at 2:39 down a sizable stair set, while making it look like nothing
Concrete Jungle: at 2:18 down and across the "Walker-Ryan-made-famous" UCSD gap and in a line at 4:39 after a switch ollie up onto a bench and into a regular manual on another bench
Welcome to Circa: at 1:28 down the well-sized stage/bush gap and immediately followed at 1:37 over a large block to manual off the curb
Berrics Recruit: at 0:40 bump over 4 stair, at 0:57 to switch back disaster, and for his ender at 1:50 to regular backside 5-0 grind down the small hubba (like seriously, who else does tricks like these last two?!)
Shuffl Video: for his ender at 3:30 across the gap spanning two ledges at embarcadero and into a manual because just switch backside flipping that gap wasn't enough already
Graduation: at 2:40 out of a switch manual with a really cool looking off axis rotation (the thought of trying to hold a switch manual and then somehow turn switch backside scares me...), at 3:34 down the very large famous 6 block (definitely one of the top tricks done down that gap), at 3:53 to 5-0 (now upgraded from the Berrics to a street spot), and ultimately a switch backside 360 kickflip at 4:08 off a highway bridge kicker just to prove that this mythical trick is possible in the streets.
Double Rock: at 0:44 to switch back disaster, over the uneven hip in a line at 0:51, and to start a line at 2:09 very speedily down the stairs
Grow With Us: at 1:19 across a pretty well-recognized gap to manny and then front 180 out, down a really sick and pretty big set at 2:19 to finish off a line with proper tweakage, and quite possibly one of the best switch backside flips ever at 3:21 over a tall bump to bar with very little lift-off
Perpetual Motion (remix): at 2:09 into a decently long nose manual and with nice-to-see complete control at 3:21 down the pretty well-known water fountain gap