The Video of the Week, and probably the homie video of the year, without a doubt goes to Shep Dawgs Vol. 4. With the perfect soundtrack to keep the good vibes and gnarly sessions going, the loads of footage gathered in this true full length video starts off strong and never lets up. It's crazy because quite a few parts could have been the ender, but AJ Zavala (part featured above) puts his name on the radar with some nutty handrail variations and all around ripping. Definitely worth getting the DVD, the Shep Dawgs prove that there's nothing quite like feeding off the energy of each other and skating with the homies.
Cory Kennedy and Bert Wootton had their parts in Rat Poison released by The Skateboard Mag and boy are they awesome! Cory never ceases to amaze in whatever he's trying, be it some dork around trick, some crazy handrail, or a super tech ledge trick (or even making a line out of two varial flips), and Bert strings together some of the trickiest lines (the one at 2:00 is too good) while making everything look like it's nothing. X Games Real Street is bound to make your day better. Even with some arguably strange competitiveness forced by the X Games overlords, these 16 mini parts from your favorite skaters are always worth it. Tom Karangelov's Out of Sync part for Thunder Trucks has a couple of minutes of fast and gnarly skating, never slowing down since his Cold War part.
There's lots of rad London shredding in Innocence & Experience from Hold Tight London Andrew Cannon's latest part for Theeve Trucks is super clean and full of good vibes. Vince Duran has a Surprise Spring Cleaning, which is definitely not as throwaway as it sounds. His fakie ollie and variations with it is for sure one of the best in the game right now. Jon Holland's part for The Cinematographer Project with the Sk8mafia squad was re-released through Transworld this past week and worth a few views if you haven't seen it on the full DVD already.
There were a few videos this week I was considering for Video of the Week. Chewy Cannon released his Transmission part over at TWS, coming through once again with awesome London footage and skating fast with a fun, loose style. I've been a fan ever since his Diagonal part with those thrashing switch front boards, and he has plenty of his true switch stance skating in this new part. It's cool to see a full new Chewy part, even after the footage in the Cinematographer Project, which TWS also released through Torsten Frank's section this week as well. Along with that, Ewan Bowman uncovered a bunch of lost footage from Bastien Salabanzi, delivering a full part of unseen footage. Right from the time period when Bastien left Flip, this 6+ minute new/old part stands the test of time and is still pretty incredible today. Ordinarily, when a guy repeats a trick at multiple spots it gets a tad boring and mundane, but Bastien's caballerial kickflip is one of those tricks you can watch all day. It helps that he flicks and spins them out super fast and at some of the sickest spots too. And to think that Bastien came out with a legit cab flip front board down a handrail 10 years ago is phenomenal, especially when Nyjah's version was close to ending one of the heaviest video parts of all time.
But even with those two stand out video parts from this week, Grant Taylor's "cruising" welcome video for Antihero - a pretty big skate news announcement in itself as I'm still hoping AWS keeps it together - was my pick for this week. Normally I don't find tranny skating that entertaining (possibly because it always looks way too flowy and easy) but there's something about Grant Taylor that defies the laws of motion. He has a raw natural ability to boost higher, grind longer, and pump faster than just about every other skater I've seen. This intro video to Antihero looked as if he could pull it together with just some chill sessions with the squad, yet the footage is super gnarly. He glides around bowls like nothing and strings lines of tricks together because he has so many good ones down pat. Watching him skate and witnessing his ease and control with the board is certainly a pleasure.
In other news...
-Even though I'm skeptical about the legitimacy of everything being first try despite what my friend Pat says, Shane O'Neill's tricks at the Berrics for New Years are insane, park footage or not. Only Shane...and I cannot wait for his upcoming Thrasher part!!
-Though it'll be taken down soon, Tom Karangelov impresses everyone with his first full length legit part from Cold War. Great style, great eye for spots, and pulling off the Heath look certainly helps too.
-I don't normally post year-end montages but when I do, they are super gnarly and get you psyched to skate like no other montage. It's been a Hell of a Year over at Thrasher.
-Anton Myhrvold comes through with a really smooth part through Globe and Kingpin with some pretty incredible switch skating.
-A bunch of teams put out montages every month or so but they usually feel like filler, throwaway, or just more decent footage that adds to the entropy of the internet. But there's something about the crew at Stereo that stands out - editing, style, I'm not sure exactly - and they came through with a tight edit from some of their riders.
-The underratedly stacked team at DVS mixed with the beautiful East Coast spots in NYC? A combination worth a few view for sure with DVS's Trippin through The Big Apple.
UPDATE: Also forgot to point out that DGK's full length video Parental Advisory is now out online, for all those that weren't able to catch it around Christmas last year.
