Confession: we’ve skipped out on every single opportunity we’ve had to attend the Vans Warped Tour. Apparently, in contrast to Blink-182, we actually could “wait for the summer and the warped tour.” Seventeen years, as it turns out (sorry Steve Van Doren).
Yesterday, however, thanks to the All Girl Skate Jam (pictured above), we found ourselves in Carson, California for the fifth to last stop of the 2011 Vans Warped Tour. And, we’re happy to report, the kids are alright.
The first season of Street League was, at times, painful to watch. I wasn’t the only person to liken it to watching golf. Nieratko thought it looked like kids playing on a slide. “They slide down, then they run back to the top, and slide down it again, then run back to the top…” I sometimes see a combination of freestyle and jump ramps when I watch it. Rob himself even admitted that the first season was “slow as fucking shit.” Is this how skateboarding is going to be perceived?
Click the link to read the rest because, as usual with Carnie stories, it is real and insightful. And those are two words we rarely use in connection with skateboard media.
Tony Hawk has a new line of 2 and 4 GB Birdhouse flash drive decks available at Staples, according to his twitter feed. They cost $10.99 for 2 GB and $12.99 for the whole 4 GB. Click here to buy some.
While the pain remains the same, these slow motion slams actually look extreme artistic. It’s a ballet of bummers. A symphony of slams. A festival of failure. A party of primos. And it’s likely that you’ve seen this all before. Time for another look.
It should be no surprise to anyone who saw Tom Remillard (above) rolling the Converse Coastal Carnage bowl over the past three days that the San Diego skater would be nearly impossible to beat. His smooth, effortless flow at speed is unmatched on this terrain and is reverts out of the cradle and the deep end were just crazy. And that’s the truth.
Here’s how the rest stacked up after Sunday’s (August 7. 2011) final jams on the sand in Huntington Beach.
Bowl
1. Tom Remillard – $15,000
2. Pedro Barros – $12,000
3. Curren Caples – $8,000
4. Tony Hawk
5. Ben Hatchell
6. Ben Raybourn
7. Robbie Russo
8. Kevin Kowalski
9. Kalani David
10. Andrew Langi
11. Josh Mattson
12. Div Adams
13. Christian Hosoi
14. Kyle Berard
15. Lance Mountain
Best Trick
1. Tony Hawk – $2,000
2. Ben Hatchell
3. Milton Martinez
4. Aaron Homoki
5. Ryan Reyes
After four hours of non-stop ripping in eight chaotic heats of Converse Coastal Carnage skateboarding, the judges did the nearly impossible job of cutting the field of 40 down to the 12 skaters who will compete in the finals.
Here’s who made the cut:
1. Ben Hatchell
2. Robbie Russo
3. Curren Caples
4. Kevin Kowalski
5. Tom Remillard
6. Pedro Barros
7. Div Adams
8. Kyle Berard
9. Ben Raybourn
10. Josh Mattson
11. Kalani David
12. Andrew Langi
When the Agenda Show opened at Huntington Beach, California Hyatt Hotel yesterday (August 3, 2011) it didn’t take long for the place to fill right up. And that didn’t seem to bother show co-founder Aaron Levant all that much.
“Even in the first two hours it was packed everywhere we went,” Levant said. “The valet filled up and there was no where to park. We’re having some logistical problems like that, but they’re good ones, just because there are so many people here. We’ve been getting compliments all morning. It’s good show.”
Levant brought the show back to Huntington Beach after a January show in Anaheim because there’s just nothing like the synergy created by the US Open, Huntington Beach, and being right in the middle of it all.
“This is our third year in a row that we have coincided with the US Open,” Levant said. “The US Open has a lot of energy. And the two things together has an undeniable draw for someone traveling from across the country or across the world. They can come out to Agenda, get business done, hang out at the US Open. See the contest. See the free concerts. I think that whole synergy together is kind of undeniable.”
While the space in Anaheim was larger, Levant was able to bring close to 350 brands back to the Hyatt thanks to a temporary building called The Pavillion. “We really wanted to come back to Huntington for the summer with the US Open and the whole vibe here,” he said. “So that’s why we had to build that whole zone, because we just maxed out the space here.”
Time to roll back down to the Crossroads for skateboarding’s most fun trade show and best trick contest. Show runs August 5 – 6, 2011 at Black Box Distribution located at 2777 Loker Ave W, Carlsbad, CA 92010. Click the link for more info.
Skater, musician, and graphic designer GSD (Garry Scott Davis) is one of the most influential skateboard chroniclers of the modern era.
Through his seminal zine Skate Fate (which he published by hand from 1981 to 1991) GSD uncovered, interviewed, and dissected the icons of skateboarding as no one had before or has since. Now, Garry has collected the best of Skate Fate into one volume that makes the genius of the zine even more obvious.
The Best of Skate Fate is a mega-thick, 320-page, stark black-and-white book bursting with the most crucial content culled from the pages of nearly all 76 issues of this legendary zine. It’s delivered to you fresh from the pre-computer era, when pens, pencils, paper, glue, tape, triangles and T-squares were the tools of the trade. Scanned directly from the original master layouts, it all looks better than ever!
