Video of the Week: Dee Ostrander Baker Part

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. 

Actually Next Week: Speed Demons

Since I want to do the Speed Demons justice and not fly through them on this blog as fast as their skating, I will save the posts for next week when they will be thoroughly covered. Until then, enjoy what I may say is my favorite single video part of all time below. (It's only weird to say that because it's a mixtape of footage, but it's outstanding regardless.)

Next Week: Speed Demons

Skaters are getting gnarlier and crazier these days, so seeing them skate faster to push skateboarding (almost literally) to new limits is no surprise. But there are a group of skaters that just stick out because of how fast they skate, and how consistently they skate at that speed. So this week I'm going to cover the top 5 speed demons that are personally the ones I think of when it comes to fast skating.

There are tons of other dudes that skate super fast too, so it's obligatory that I mention a few names here as well:
Tony Trujillo, TNT, rips extremely hard in his part in In Bloom, street and tranny, to cement himself as one of the fastest skaters for sure.
John Cardiel, like TNT, skates so crazily fast on street and tranny in his part in Sight Unseen. The line at 0:39 is too awesome.
Corey Duffel skates down some insanely huge gaps and does so by skating insanely fast. The last ollie in his Real Street part seems unreal and will stick in your memory after watching it just once.
Danny Way deserves the mention for sure. Breaking gap distance and height records...oh and this land speed record as well.
Grant Taylor skates super fast, wild in a controlled way, and just simply powerful. Before his Chronicles part dropped, he was awarded SOTY 2011, for a definitive reason I might add, through this video part on Thrasher. That very first line gets me every time just thinking about that high-speed half cab and then ollieing over the guy on the bench.
Chris Pfanner is another dude that skates some huge gaps and goes on an all out assault at every spot. There are some speedy lines and long gaps here in this Volcom Stone-Age clip.
Jordan Hoffart has been known to skate pretty fast. Every one of his parts has some clips that are just full-on speed, but the insane ollie from Bones New Ground will be the trick from Jordan that sticks out the most.
Gilbert Crockett also skates really fast. Though pretty short, his Life-Splicing part is probably my favorite part of Gilbert's. Without exaggeration, every single clip involves some solid speed, and the final ollie still blows my mind.

Video of the Week: Ishod Wair - LOVE Gap Uncut

It's really getting ridiculous at the quantity of good skateboarding that's coming out every week. This week I could include a lot more videos but I'm going to try and keep it short enough with my favorites.
Ultimately, I was pretty pumped to see Ishod take SOTY 2013 after dropping loads of high caliber skating and looking ever-so-relaxed while doing it. The ease with which Ishod does his tricks can be super misleading, particularly for his ender from Wair N Tear. The switch frontside big spin down the LOVE gap didn't come as too much of a shock to me because I had seen the sequence in an issue of TWS and was somewhat expecting it at the time this video part came out. So seeing Ishod barely lift an arm and rollaway flawlessly from this trick made it seem like just another day in the park for him, no biggie. The realization of just how gnarly the trick really was though came this week with the uncut footage of Ishod's work for the trick above. For one, it's the LOVE gap, not small by any means. Secondly, a switch front big spin is definitely not the first choice trick for many skaters. But what gets me is just the volume of attempts that Ishod goes for the trick. The determination to not let the wind, cracks, or commotion at the spot get to his head is already a lot, and then you add on the fact that his body must be so sore after jumping down so many times. If that's not enough, throw in a broken finger, a broken board (and having to get acquainted to the homie's board), and actually sticking it numerous times without rolling away and you have a near impossible mountain to climb. But it's this very reason, and the relatively calm, non-glamorous outcome of landing this trick that make Ishod a great choice for SOTY 2013.

Uncut footage and outtakes are some of my favorite clips of skateboarding because you can connect with the skater more and appreciate the work put into tricks. So just like the 5 minutes of switch front big spins from Ishod, Nyjah's Fade to Black Outtakes are just priceless. While the video part itself was an audiovisual experience for the ages, seeing the raw footage is just as good, if not better. Personally, it was kind of cool to see Nyjah get frustrated with some tricks and just crack a laugh here and there as well. That's the stuff that brings out the fully-realized awe of watching some gnarly skating go down.

On top of that, David Reyes came out with a fantastic part via the Berrics and Etnies. His style is essentially perfect and absolutely kills handrails, along with some other sick clips for a great part overall.
Richie Jackson returns to the radar and doesn't disappoint with a new video part of one-of-a-kind tricks. It's crazy to think just how much he has innovated aspects of skateboarding and continues to do so in ways most of us never would have thought of.
The 5boro squad released a sweet video of footage from Philadelphia. They always come through with some of the best East Coast skating vibes out there.
Though the part will probably be taken down soon, Tony Cervantes' part from Cold War was released. A tad short but very sweet, Tony's footage keeps grabs and gnarliness alive and kicking.
Ashes Griptape came out with a "half full length video" called New Sheet that is just awesome. Full of some serious ripping, including some definite face-melters near the end, it's likely a first for a griptape company to come out with a full team video like this. Tons of gnarly and appealing spots coupled with a really sick European team makes this video so rad. I must also say I was scared for Chris Pfanner at 3:53 but his crazed, fearless assault on anything he comes across allowed him to just keeping on rolling.
And finally for this week, is Old Woops New Groove from Magenta Skateboards. Leo Valls and Ben Gore take the throne of SF by mixing extremely fast and stylish skating with loads of fun and a new look for skateboarding at the streets and driveways in SF. This is exactly the kind of video that gets you hyped to just go out and skate and have fun.

Euro/Ditch Frontside Flips #1: Collin Provost

 

This was one of the craziest things I've seen in a while. I thought Anthony Schultz and Chad Bartie already stretched skating over full fences to its limits, but Collin Provost's ender from Emerica MADE goes above and beyond with an insane frontside flip over a seemingly-impossible Euro/Ditch gap. You know it's enormous when just about everyone else skates the lip of the ditch. If you haven't seen his part in MADE or the whole video for that matter, get the DVD and get on it ASAP!

Euro/Ditch Frontside Flips #2: Rick McCrank

Again this post is coming a little late, so it's only fitting that it's about Mr. McCrank. Not only was it a pleasant surprise to see Rick skating in the Pretty Sweet Tour, but it was made even better because he was seriously killing it! Even though it may not make up for his lack of footage in Pretty Sweet itself, I was so pumped to see Rick's playful, casual, and totally rad style across spots in the US. Quick to forget how good Rick is (check Menikmati for proof), the reminder of his skills in the Pretty Sweet Tour came at full force. This frontside flip in particular is really incredible not only because the gap is huge and pretty sketchy, but because how nonchalantly Rick makes it look. I keep reflecting on Brandon Westgate's front shove it across this gap from MADE and think that it looked a lot harder in that case. Something about Westgate's style to me shows the difficulty of tricks as they really are, which is awesome to watch. But at the same time, it makes something so easy-looking like Rick's frontside flip that much more impressive.

Euro/Ditch Frontside Flips #3: Axel Cruysberghs

Etnies dropped AB&A a couple weeks ago with a really cool trio of European skaters. Opening up the video was Axel Cruysberghs with plenty of hammers and a fast, ripping style. Loads of fun to watch. One trick that stuck out to me (and ultimately helped inspire the theme for this week's posts) was his frontside flip out of a random Euro-gap (fittingly named here)/parking lot ditch out and over the long sidewalk gap to the street. The picture above shows that the sidewalk is quite large and Axel is soaring high, but the slow motion on the second angle of the trick really drops your jaw. Axel was hauling coming into the bank and it paid off. He boosted higher than normal, controlledly caressed the board to catch it, and floated on with the board unwavering at his feet. There's something about the power and gracefulness behind this trick that really made it stick out in Axel's sick part.
And here's the kicker (pun intended): look at the first post from this week with Justin Brock's frontside flip. I'm pretty sure it's the same gap! There must be a sign at the base of the gap saying "please frontside flip me"...