BarRier Kult
The dark AsSemblage photos
Judah Oakes
intro
Frank Daniello
words
Deer Man
Concrete skateboarding
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While skating down a dark East Vancouver alleyway, the yellow overhead street lamps began to flicker. I knew why. The barrier ritual ground was to my right, but it appeared to be shrouded by a sinister fog. The sounds of soft wheels, dark metal, and the pronounced bark of a barrier slash grew louder. I’ve heard the fear-filled rumours before, but needed to see for myself. The hard wheels rolling beneath me were the telltale sound of an outsider, and suddenly the dark sounds stopped. The fog consumed me, but transformed into a thick cloud of concrete dust. I retreated to my barracks, coughing horribly with swollen and irritated sinuses. The high fever lasted for a week, and the broken visions it brought told me of an immense tree in the dark woods that would hold a scroll in its gnarled branches. A scroll that would answer my inquiries. A scroll to share with all skateboard citizens… The Barrier Kult has certainly achieved a dark assemblage in modern world colonies with their penchant to both horrify and inspire those who bear witness to BA.KU customs, beliefs, and actions. From the forest and dark lake interiors of British Columbia, BA.KU was first brought to light in Vancouver through an initial hand carved ‘zine and scroll in 2002 – a manifesto of sorts. Motion picture evidence of their barrier ritual arts was brought forth in 2004’s Barrier Kult Horde Video (recently re-released by Skull Skates). In 2005, Ryan Smith was the first to be seen donning a BA.KU shirt. Heroin skateboards in the UK approached the Kult in 2007, and handed Deer Man of Dark Woods a Pro model to assist the treacherous barrier movement. This board was followed shortly after by the Deer Man “Mad Balls” deck, also by Heroin. Followers needed the means to spread the BA.KU plague further, so shirts, decals, and patches were produced by the Kult in 2007. I could go on, but after surviving the debilitating concrete fog and the ensuing fiery fever, I’ll simply share the deciphered all-capital text contents of the scroll that was scribed by the mysterious Deer Man of Dark Woods himself.
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Concrete skateboarding
BarRier Kult
The dark AsSemblage photos
Judah Oakes
intro
Frank Daniello
words
Deer Man
Concrete skateboarding
31
dModW My personal mandate entails pure nature worship in its truest form. My resentment towards mass religion as a whole comes from society’s neglect for the natural world. Their fundamentalist mentality has disrespected the animal race since the early days of man. My mandate is to promote animal and man as equal entities, and fight “species-ism” through the lines of the Barrier Kult movement. Until society and religion understands and respects the power and importance of nature, I will wage this war until this disrespect is abolished and the unspoken are spoken for. My connection to wilderness ideologies is deep-rooted.
The Movement In the forest interiors of BC, there were many black arts rituals of smaller and very tight transition ¼ pipe entities. The “jersey” barrier was the utmost form of the common tight ¼ pipe that eventually represented to us a form of truth, self, and skateboard weapon fulfillment. The accessibility of the jersey barrier is overwhelming as the masses walk around endlessly trying to find a freestyle bank, freestyle railing, or freestyle ledge. The barrier is everywhere and is always ready for plague and bone scraping rituals. This fact was the major epiphany that led us to the Barrier Kult ideology of the ultimate tight transition, and the ritual dedication and altar worship thereof. There are certain subtleties in different barriers, but the other true power is in the fact that one can skate the same barrier over and over, and acquire the same rituals and darkness.
While the dark rain hits the outside world’s pavement, Deer Man performs a solitary blunt to tailblock in a shielded urban enclave.
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donning the Mask Like a murderous draped prowler from the 1930s that stalks his way through the hallways, hidden passages, and secret doorways of an old dark house, the Barrier Kult wears a black mask – mostly notably in the form of a balaclava. We carry this fearful form for reasons that go beyond dark murder for gold, diamonds, or inheritance. The contemporary focus of the skateboarder, based on the fact that they can ride a skateboard well, is one of the weakest links of skateboard culture – destined for a circle of filth and untruths that can leave a human animal’s mind powerless. The Barrier Kult is a militant ritual focus that is dependent on the strength of its snake’s head. The Kult members know that creativity and personality are merely weaknesses that can lead them to disaster. This weakness can play havoc with the BA.KU strengths of vile sores, sickness, black arts militance, and tight transition barrier worship. We become phantoms of the skateboard spots – unidentifiable and only concerned with stabbing knives into altars of concrete.
BA.ku Weaponry I have been affiliated with Emerica/Timebomb for all time due to the ritual and darkness of their skateboard shoes. In 2008, Emerica asked if the Barrier Kult would be interested in doing a shoe. Based on themes of plague spreading and propaganda, BA.KU was pleased to
help design a shoe that represented the chaos and darkness of the Kult’s transition rituals. During the design stages, we articulated our need for heavy canvas, synthetic material, and durability that would sustain nights of black candles and foot blood dragging – materials that would also stay true to the feeling of the dirt beneath our soles, which is the equivalent to true nature worship. I specifically requested the synthetic material to heighten the expression against society’s pressure on true nature and wildlife. When the time came to develop the Emerica DMODW/BA.KU limited-edition shoe, we struck the sword into the graveyard of skateboarding and immediately began contemplation after choosing the “Francis” model as the template. The shoe is designed with many black arts films and imagery in mind, with black worn soles and black stained rough material – like that of a mountain cliff that would end at the castle of Vlad “The Impaler” Tepes. Emerica also gave BA.KU numerous opportunities to relegate propaganda tools and violent knife stabs with the T-shirt and balaclava that is included in the “line” of Barrier Kult violence from Emerica. We can only appreciate the respect that they have given us towards the issues of representation – be it via the shoe and the clothing, or the vile plague texts that accompany the pictorials in the Emerica catalogs. The wheel for Momentum gave us the opportunity to have a medium to large size tight transition blade that also features a softer urethane for rough nights of violence. There have now been three representations of vicious knife urethane circles from Momentum.
DMODW uses a violent backside boneless to summon a sinister fog of conrete dust at The Ritual Barriers.
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Would the non-skateboarding public misunderstand the pure intentions of a masked man doing a backside smithgrind on a parking lot barrier? probably. Would a woeful bank teller feel threatened when Deer Man heads in to cash his photo incentive cheque after the session? Most likely.
The recent Skull Skates/BA.KU “Diehard Barrier Kult” deck represents the pinnacle for pure BA.KU deck worship as Skull let us have the shape of the original Diehard (10 x 30) with Tub Tech1 concave – Diehard right down to the original “Canadian hard rock maple” graphic that adorns the nose. To us, Skull Skates represents the epitome of black and white cult darkness from the ‘80s, and beyond. This Diehard pig shape is the deck to end all decks – a very powerful, fearful, and liberating knife into the ground of the transition entity.
hEsh Law For Spring 2009, Creature will release a video called Hesh Law. A Barrier Kult section will be featured within it that will represent the Kult plague much like the original video released in 2004. The new part will include barrier destruction from the “Depth Leviathan Dweller”; two guest parts from “Muskellunge of the Dark Island” (one of the most ritual contemporary practitioners) and “Hammerer of Roots” (the builder of concrete altars), as well as a complete part from myself. For the video, I was interested in pushing my chaptered abilities on barriers further, but mostly I was interested in merely representing 34
Concrete skateboarding
the Barrier Kult in its truest form. Freestyle progression and staying current is not a priority for me, or the BA.KU. True power comes from militance, not acceptance. More focus that came from the filming strategies was a coarse action to include only a few spots repeated again and again – designed to hammer the truth and raw power of the singular altars into cultists’ thought patterns. These single altar spots are respected and worshipped.
Plague Spreading Over the past few years, the Barrier Kult has managed to infiltrate its way into small circles worldwide. With the popularity of the 2004 video, as well as Heroin’s Magic Sticky Hand video and other short propaganda productions, the plague of the Kult has found its way into the dwellings of many new followers. The first groups to contact us were from California, and then the veined roots extended into England where the mighty war metal atrocity, Heroin skateboards, made blood rituals with us. Australia is another spot of worship and plague as there are followers there. Japan also has factions of “Wallride Kult” followers that are guided by the tight transition entities and darkness of the Barrier Kult plague.
Another elaborate ceremony takes place at The Ritual Barriers, and DMODW displays dark worship with a boardslide 270 out on an abrupt concrete altar.
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