RED TELEPHONE PRESENTS - STUCK IN THE PAST 2000 / PART FIVE / EASTERN SHORES

RED TELEPHONE PRESENTS - STUCK IN THE PAST 2000 / PART FIVE / EASTERN SHORES from adam cassidy on Vimeo.

Stuck In The Past 2000 is back for Part Five, this time following Adam Cassidy out to the east coast for some ripping with the Homegrown Skateboards family, and stopping off for a quick visit in Ottawa along the way.

"From 2002 - 2005 I was riding/working for Homegrown Skateboards in Nova Scotia - my home province - and making a couple trips out to the east coast each year to help film their first ever full length video, The Burning Whale Project. The Maritimes is a pretty hard place to come up in skateboarding due to the lack of spots and skateparks (at the time, more have popped up since the late 2000's), but the skaters out there work with what they have and we were still able to get lots of great clips for the video.

Many of the evenings were filled with jamming away on the various instruments at the LaHave Bakery or a local's back yard, and lots of the jams were recorded on the fly using my camera, so we included them in The Burning Whale Project as part of the soundtrack. For this episode of Stuck In The Past 2000 I've included one of those tracks in the credits that was somewhat of a staple for the crew at Homegrown.

Once I started working with Homegrown, I knew I had to visit Ottawa on my way back east to finally check out the city that so many of my Vancouver friends call home. I made sure to book my stop over during the 2003 Canada Day celebrations, and I couldn't have picked a better time. Summer was in full swing, and Ottawa is nuts on July 1st. I had great tour guides during my stay, and the locals threw down as much as they could in the sweltering heat. Keep your eye out in the edit for a young Wade DesArmo sneaking some of his signature smoothness in the mix, before he was a household name.

A huge thanks goes out to everyone out east for the down home hospitality, and to Homegrown Skateboards for helping to keep the Nova Scotia skate scene thriving. Enjoy the edit and if you haven't made it out to the Maritimes for a visit, grab yer boots and git on to er' by's!"

                                                                             - Adam Cassidy

RED TELEPHONE PRESENTS - STUCK IN THE PAST 2000 / PART FOUR / JAMMIN' AGAIN

Part four of Stuck In the Past 2000 is another look back at one of the most classic skate events that took place in Vancouver, and gained world wide acclaim in skateboarding - Slam City Jam - this time with the lens focussed on the 2000 and 2001 incarnations of the contest.

The more I dig into these old tapes, the more I'm realizing some are missing, but luckily I still had enough footage saved to make an edit for anyone who is nostalgic for days gone by when the whole skate world would converge on Vancouver for a weekend of shedding and partying in early May each year. 

I think it's time to bring Slam back - anyone? 

Enjoy the edit! 

*for the sake of keeping things a reasonable length, I didn't include full runs (aside from a treat at the end), but I'll be letting a few clips make their way to instagram over the next bit to keep the nostalgia going...

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With moving into a new place and an elbow surgery taking priority the last couple weeks, Stuck In The Past 2000 has been on hold, but we're back tomorrow! Truth be told, I was also a bit on the fence about this next instalment, because it's contest footage.😬 But, Slam City Jam was legendary, so I'm sure a few people will enjoy some highlights from 2000 - 2001. Since I'm not putting full runs in the edit, here's Rune killing it in 2000. Did he win? Or was it Bob? 🤔 I can't even do 3 flat ground tricks in a row without getting winded. This is mental. #stuckinthepast #slamcityjam

A post shared by Adam Cassidy (@acdtz) on May 9, 2019 at 1:54pm PDT

See you in a few weeks for part five!

                                                                            - Adam Cassidy

RED TELEPHONE PRESENTS - STUCK IN THE PAST 2000 / PART THREE / AJ

For Part Three of Stuck In The Past 2000, I'm going back in time to (hopefully) do right by my old friend Arron Johnson, who joined me in falling victim to one of my biggest personal pet peeves when it comes to skate videos - the soundtrack ABD.

When I collaborated with George Faulkner to produce my first full length video, "VIDEO" in 2001/2002, I had a great soul song picked out for AJ's footage, and it fit well once we laid it into the timeline. So, that was that and "Cramp your style" by All The People would serve as the soundtrack to AJ's part, without a single person ever mentioning a word to me about that song being a HUGE ABD that I definitely should have known about.

Some background...

I'm from a small town in Nova Scotia, and skate media was incredibly limited. I didn't see many crucial videos and magazines until years after they came out in many instances. One key video that I missed was "Las Nueve Vidas De Paco", by Chocolate Skateboards, though I do remember watching it around 1996. The thing is, I must have only seen part of it, because Gabriel Rodriguez ENDS the video with a part I would have loved (I'm a California picnic table fan), skating to that very song. The most shocking part about this whole mix up (aside from no one ever saying anything about the faux pas) is that I didn't even see the full video until around 2016 - all those years being under the impression I had seen the whole thing in 1996. I was crushed when I heard the song come on. I try do do my best to never reuse a song from another skate video, so to have such a classic part as the victim of my faux pas stings just a little bit more.

I haven't found any evidence of the song I used for this new version of AJ's part being used in any previous edits, so lets all just sit back and enjoy some quintessential Arron Johnson on the come up footy, with an extra big thanks to Jeremy Pettit for chipping in a good chunk of footage while also filming AJ for "North".

Part 4 of Stuck In The Past 2000 coming late April... see you then!

                                                                           - Adam Cassidy

AJ being filmed by Adam, Westbeach ad circa 2001. Check the part for the clip!

RED TELEPHONE PRESENTS - STUCK IN THE PAST 2000 / PART TWO / RENTOS

In the winter of 2000/2001, I was tired of the non-stop rain that is an all-too-normal part of life in Vancouver, and had just split up with my girlfriend of a few years, so I decided to go for a change of scenery and take up a friend in San Diego on his offer to crash at his place as long as I wanted.

One 36 hour Greyhound trip and a few funny stories later I found myself at the bus station in downtown San Diego, and by that evening I would be relaxing on the beach outside my new temporary home in south Mission Beach. I was living on very little money, but I was in sunny California and couldn't have been happier.

Not long after I arrived, my team manager at Globe shoes in LA hit me up to see if I'd be down to help film Renton Millar for his part in the upcoming video, "Opinion". More than happy to help, I started splitting my time between Mission Beach and Mission Valley, and Renton got to work laying down one of the most technically advanced vert parts of the era. I'll be completely honest and say I was not expecting such a wide array of technical tricks when I took on the role of filming a "vert part" - but Renton was definitely on a "kicky" kick, and every day he was doing some new crazy trick he hadn't done before. It was amazing to watch.

He also brought his friend and legendary OG Australian vert skater (and secret street killer), Dom Kekich along for the ride, who seemed happy to chill quietly until nonchalantly spinning flawless McTwists every time when there was a break in the action. I can still hear the announcer in the old Powell video when a young Dom is spinning and spinning and spinning at a local contest in the 1980's - "Ohhhhh my god, he's going OFF!". Smooth operator, that Dom.

Renton always made it out to the annual Slam City Jam contest in Vancouver, so after the winter of filming in San Diego, we met up back on my home turf and he had a blast ripping the newly constructed Hastings bowl when he wasn't inside laying out his runs.

Part two of Stuck In The Past 2000 is a re-edit of Renton's footage that went towards the Opinion video, and the extras that I used for my own full length, "Video", in 2002. It's been years since Renton has made it to this side of the pond, but maybe I'll make the trip to OZ one day so we can relive some of the old times once again! Bacci bongs, mate!

                                                                                      - Adam Cassidy

Part Three coming mid - April, stay tuned...

BUDOS BAND V

A little over a decade ago, a record shop owner who knew what sort of stuff I was into suggested the Budos Band to me, and I nonchalantly said "Cool - I'll check them out" while I continued to thumb through the vinyl. Not long after that, a different record shop owner who had been to the night I was DJing at the Waldorf in Vancouver also mentioned he thought I would be into the band - but this time, he put the record on. My first impression was that this music sounded right up the RZA's alley - you could grab a dope sample from any part of the song we were listening to. I bought the record on the spot (Budos Band II), went home, threw it on, and realized I had just found my new favorite band.

It wasn't long before new skate videos/edits started featuring Budos Band and the various other Daptone/Dunham/Truth and Soul groups, heavily. That music just works so well with skateboarding. I even made a remix of Ghostface Killah's "The Champ" using a few different Budos samples. I can't wait to add this new Budos Band album to the library of awesome afrobeat, funk, soul and heavy psych rock vinyl I've amassed since their discovery.

Going to see them live for the first time this April in Seattle - see you there?

                                                                                             - Adam Cassidy

RED TELEPHONE PRESENTS - STUCK IN THE PAST 2000 / PART ONE / WEST ENDS

We're back!

I took a long break in between the old Hi8 Stuck In The Past series and starting this new, mini DV Stuck In The Past 2000 run, but after I finished a few big projects in 2018 I started to capture all those old tapes and it was amazing to see how much skating people got done in Vancouver when the scene was looking pretty bleak for spots between 1999 and 2005. Skate-stopping was at it's height, and everything new was being built pre-capped.

The infamous "Dorm" in Vancouver's West End eventually birthed the Roughriders crew/brand/extended family, and part one of the series heavily features that particular group of downtown aficionados. Two of my best friends and former room mates book end the edit, and I even snuck myself in the mix since these guys welcomed me into that big cutty family from day one.

This is only a fraction of the Vancouver skate scene at the time, and there's lots more to come for Stuck In The Past 2000, so enjoy the trip down early 2000's nostalgia lane and keep your eye on The Red Telephone for the next episode!

                                                                                - Adam Cassidy

MEMORIES STAY GOLD

Andrew Reynolds, backside kickflip, Tucson, 2010. [o] Cassidy

Joe Hammeke recently posted up his 2010 sequence of Andrew Reynolds' classic, and massive, line-ending backside kickflip down Tucson's famous 15 set at "The Blocks" downtown, from his part in Stay Gold, and it got me thinking about the story behind that day - from the perspective of a coincidental witness. 

I was giving some friends a tour of Tucson that day, and we happened to show up at that spot at the same time as the majority of the Emerica team. Not wanting to make anyone feel awkward, we decided we'd continue on to another spot to let them handle their business, but on the way out we passed by Aaron Suski and I figured I'd quickly ask him if he knew of any close by spots, since I knew he was from there. He turned out to be one of the nicest humans of all time, and in addition to giving us directions for a nearby ditch, he gave us his phone number with an enthusiastic "Hit me up to skate!". What a guy. With directions in hand, we went off to search for our own spot to get busy on, and after finding the ditch Aaron had mentioned, Bud Patterson manned up and kickflipped into the abyss. Not much approach, and a biiiiig rollout, but he caught a beauty which I also caught on my old Pentax ME Super. (below)

After Bud got his kickflip, we headed back to downtown, passing through The Blocks on the way. As we rounded the corner we were just in time to catch Andrew Reynolds tossing his first attempt at a backside kickflip down the 15 set, after a raging fast switch frontside tailslide on the bench in the hallway before the stairs. On the 3rd attempt, he got it perfect. Unfortunately, Manzoori did not. 

In a somewhat unbelievable turn of fate, the exact same thing that happened to The Boss all those years ago on a kickflip down the same stack had just happened again - Mike had adjusted the exposure dial on the VX1000 one notch too far when he reached the much brighter top of the stairs, and he closed the shutter completely. No backside flip for you today. That is unless, you're down to try it again - you did just make it in 3 tries...

It's Andrew Reynolds. The guy will backside 360 off a mountain and re-do it if his pinky finger looked awkward on the roll away - he's gonna re-do the backside flip. Damned if it wasn't a battle the second time around, though. I seem to remember it being around the 30th try that the second one went down. He took a beating too. Andrew Reynolds is a G.

Now, what I haven't mentioned is the huge crowd of local skaters that had gathered after word somehow spread that the team was in town. Braydon Szafranski said he counted 70, though he looked pretty partied out and that sounds a bit high - so I'd say 50 tops, but still a lot of people gathered around waiting for you to do a gnarly stunt. I swear he blocked it out. Something tells me 20+ years of demos helps with that. One eager local even airwalked the set to keep the hype going as Drew caught his breath. 

Shane Heyl was on damage control going through the crowd to sternly tell everyone not to post the footage - particularly Bud and Falconer with the VX, but it's understandable. A few years after Stay Gold came out and all the extra edits had been watched to death, I snuck my clips of both backside flips into the end of the Arizona section in The G9 Summit, right after his team mate and my new desert go-to skate buddy, Mr Aaron Suski. Hopefully that high profile poach aged appropriately and there's no hard feelings about hyping up an unseen angle long after the attention has faded.

Stay Gold indeed.                                                                     - Adam Cassidy

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A post shared by Adam Cassidy (@acdtz) on Feb 16, 2019 at 2:00pm PST