Is he a cow ? Is he a cousin ? Ask uncle Ricky ? Connie made the whole family proud when he skank planked the bejesus outta that there cradle piece..... roaring ensued.... beer was spilled. Footage to be seen in The G9 Summit.... next month.... hopefully...
A jenky film advance lever left me with a cool photo of the Chelsea Piers skatepark in Manhattan, appearing to be wiped out of existence by a wall of white fire. Might make a good postcard...
One of the 90's gems hidden in my stack of magazines is this 1996 Droors ad featuring Danny Way and a wholesome looking young lass... which is a parody of an old Jordache jeans ad from a few years prior. When I was in New York last year I came across the original Jordache ad in an old Playboy, and luckily I had the trusty G9 with me, so I took a photo of it.
Sharing a lesser-known Tommy James & The Shondells track today, the psychedelic thumper," I am a Tangerine". The hits from this 1968 album were the title track "Crimson & Clover", and "Crystal Blue Persuasion", though "..Tangerine" sounds as if it was created under the influence of just a little more help from their...ahem, friends. Picked up this record at Zia Record Exchange in Tucson, a strange Blockbuster video-looking place that, for some reason, has a half decent vinyl selection.
I wouldn't feel right about sharing any track from this album without paying homage to Andrew Reynolds' classic Baker 2G part from 2000, which starts off with "Crimson & Clover".
Always been a fan of the Boss and Baker... Bake & Destroy was another great addition to their crispy bucket of videos. Short & simple for OTR today.... wiped out from late-November sunny day street skating. See ya tomorrow....
I met Steve Marino last winter while visiting Arizona, he was also visiting with some mutual friends from the east coast. You know how good skaters make awesome filmers/photographers ? That's Marino. Handling business on both sides of the lens. Both of us spent a lot of time behind the cameras on that trip, and Steve captured some great stuff. He's got a blog where you can check out some of his various work, plus entertaining posts covering his travels. Hope he makes it out to AZ this year.... here's an edit he made showcasing some of the attractions of the desert lands that keep us coming back every winter....
I miss Slap Magazine.... the actual print version. It was a stylish representation of skateboarding and the culture built around it, that has had some obvious influence on more recent skate publications. I still have the January 97' issue that features an AM JAM with triple O.G, Judah Oakes, getting beastly on a rail at a Vancouver staple spot. I once saw Judah land on his board so hard, after doing a huge transfer at the old Clubhouse skatepark, that he basically put his footprint through the tail. He's power and style crammed into one humble package.... kinda like another old friend I found lurking in the pages of the same magazine....
... Stevie Denham ! Blasting out of the quick quarter at the new( at the time ) Ladner skatepark, curiously referred to as "Seattle Stevie". Not sure what accounts for the mistaken nickname, but Steve must have been stoked to get a photo in Slap when he was just a shirtless teenager.
Judah and Steve are two of the first people I met when I moved out west to Vancouver in 1995, and they're both still ripping with no end in sight. Love those guys.... definitely going to post some more of their old coverage as I come across it. Props to Slap for giving international exposure to lesser known Canadian skaters, and for just being an awesome magazine.
...something familiar about that Stevie photo.... maybe I'll ask Geoff Dermer....
I got a tooth pulled recently, which isn't very noteworthy on it's own... but the ensuing nausea/confusion brought on by the pain killers I was given unfortunately kept me from making it out to the premiere of David Ehrenreich's new Suplex video, filmed entirely on VX1000. Luckily, hard copies just became available, in addition to the online release. This one is worth owning for the simple fact that it will motivate you to go out and skate... featuring a solid roster of ( mostly ) Vancouver-based rippers illustrating that there's still lots of potential in the streets if you get creative and bring the homies ( Tyler Warren, Cory Wilson, Jamie Maley, Will Blakley, Rob Rickaby, Mike Campbell & more ). Great skating, editing and music.... plus some classic Keith Henry moments.... everyone kills it in this video, watch it.
Sometimes you gotta jump on the bandwagon when the wagons bangin'.... so to speak. With Chocolate Skateboards' Pretty Sweet video hot on the premiere tour, it seems fitting to share one of the short, but pretty sweet parts from Mouse, featuring the bosses themselves - Mike Carroll & Rick Howard, and the soundtrack that helped to create a classic. Choosing Slippin' into darkness by War for the music in their part, the Girl guys kept it all quality... while keeping it funky.
I got this random blue vinyl for about $6- at Red Cat a couple years ago, almost solely for Slippin' into darkness, although there's lots of great tracks on this promo compilation. Slippin' was the 1st big single War recorded after the departure of Eric Burdon, selling over a million copies and appearing on their 1971 All Day Music album. The heavy drum beat falls at an ideal pace for some of the most stylish skateboarding ever condensed into a minute and a half... leaving the viewer/listener wanting a bit more of both.
... would have loved to see more of the O.G. Girl guys in Pretty Sweet... maybe the bonus DVD has some surprises. Congrats to Guy for bangin' it out hard as hell instead of fading away, dude is unbelievable. Go listen to some War.
As the rain begins to make itself comfortable in Vancouver, Arizona seems closer and closer. Driving down the coast with some old friends this winter to meet up with Willy and the usual suspects is sure to provide a few good stories.... keep posted for a recap in February....
Bud Patterson is even older and creepier today, and he stands a good chance of getting so Newfie drunk tonight that he'll miss the Pretty Sweet premiere tomorrow.... but that back tail is pretty sweet, so he gets a pass. He's the unknowing star of the upcoming new drama The G9 Summit, which also premieres soon, but for an audience about the size of a group of people with an iphone in the kitchen of a basement suite. Happy Birthday Kreep !
Bud made these edits a few years back, featuring some of his future co-stars in The G9 Summit.
Yup, that's Sam. Already raging at 15 ( from the March 92' issue of Transworld ). Another find from the dusty box of old magazines at Ultimate Distribution. Sam was back on a board not long ago, ripping noseblunt slides at the Plaza like he never left... hope he's doing OK.
"That guitar sounds like a cat - meowww." Muddy Waters' own words regarding the sound of his 1968 concept album Electric Mud give a nod to the subject of this edition of OTR, the psych-blues "Tom Cat ". The album was put out on Cadet, a subsidiary of Chess, in hopes of breathing life into Muddy's career by pairing him with a backing band of psych rockers from label-mates The Rotary Connection. Tom Cat does a great job of blending the two sounds together, heavy on the trip, deep in the blues.... and even though a good deal of Psych/Garage bands of the time started by doing blues covers or blues based rock & roll, this approach at the same idea gets a few extra points for including an O.G. Blues man in the mix.
I found this sealed, 1981 Canadian pressing at RedCat in Vancouver about a year ago for under $30. It got crossed of my list of albums containing samples from classic hip hop songs that I'm looking for, as Tom Cat appeared on Cypress Hill's self titled 1991 album in an interlude entitled "Ultraviolet Dreams". Although not even a minute long, Ultraviolet Dreams' simple loop of Tom Cat sets the smoked out scene behind some mumblings from unidentified loccs that are about to light another...
Love that fuzz-wah...and the whole Cypress Hill album in general. I've found more samples/breaks used by Cypress that will be featured in future installments of OTR... Jimmy McGriff comes to mind...
That high flyin' guy up there is Lil' Dave, just havin' a time cause' he got the derf. Originally from Red Deer, AB, Dave moved to Vancouver a few years back and brought with him a taste for so-called "out dated " video cameras. Hi 8, Digi 8, DV Cam... whatever. Dave's got a good sense of humor and a knack for putting together entertaining edits under the Gnartang empire. Skateboarding doesn't need to be in HD... nothing wrong with that, but Red Telephone always appreciates the nostalgic eye. Check out one of the Gnartang's edits below.... Jah ?
I was investigating some upper levels of the racks at Ultimate Distribution when I came across a small, incredibly dusty box of magazines from the mid-late 80s.... including the 1st magazine I ever owned. Even more interesting was finding a copy of the December 89' Transworld with O.G. NVLOC, and my good friend, George Faulkner on the cover.
All [o] Grant Brittain
When this issue came out, I got 2 copies via 2 different people giving me them at Christmas... long before I ever met George... and to this day I think it's an awesome cover photo. Imagine being a kid skating your local spot, and then one day you end up on the cover of the biggest skateboard magazine of the time.... must have felt amazing. Not only that, but this sucka got another photo inside the magazine for an article on the Richmond Skate Ranch, along with his twin brother Gordon, and friends Sluggo, John Munroe, Colin McKay and a few other locs.
George & Sluggo
John & Gordon
..and this little guy skating the biggest wheels Powell made.
John is teaching on the east coast these days, Colin McKay is most likely sitting on some ridiculous footage that his fans will get to see in the near-ish future, Sluggo's been on a bit of a charge the last few years marathon ripping every bowl contest... and the twins are still both naturally awesome on skateboards and in life. I'm gonna keep digging through those dusty shelves to see what's been forgotten. You should see how many boxes of Rat Nuts are up there....
I had something else lined up for today but Busenitz trumps all. If you don't like his skating your brain is jacked. His filmer probably lost 5 pounds during that line. Love it.
OTR takes a small side step in this edition to give respect to a classic underground mix tape, Hiero Oldies. If you were lucky enough to catch any of Hiero's mid/late 1990s concerts, these tapes were for sale, along with the Hiero B-Sides mix tape and other various merch. A few highlight tracks would be a remix of "Cab Fare", "Our Secret" and the self-titled "Souls of Mischief", the latter being used as the music for Tony Ferguson's section in the classic 1993 skateboard video, Virtual Reality, by Plan B.
Tony's part is such a great representation of that era in skating.... the music, the kit ( light blue jeans, white tee, tan suede shoes )... and footage from the heyday of classic spots. The essentially un-released "Souls of Mischief" track became somewhat of a hiero-holy-grail that had lots of people wondering how to get their hands on a copy. Finding this mixtape at a concert a few years later was like finding gold.
Tony Ferguson is living in Vancouver again these days, still stylish as ever on a board.... though maybe freestyle rapping a bit less. Souls of Mischief have definitely crept a bit further into the underground, with some low key solo projects by a few members... but they've earned their place in Hip Hop history with a grip of early 90s west coast classics. OTR returns to the usual all vinyl format for the next installment, maybe keep your third eye out for a spotlight on the Hiero B-Sides tape somewhere down the line...
Ahhhh, skateboarding..... so refreshing. One of the best things to ever come inside the shrink wrap of a new deck, the Anti Hero stealth coozie. Just havin' a soda ya know, no big D.
