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#2 the Mosh It Down issue
Editorial Money, money, and money again, independent brands are struggling while the big corporates ones are spreading. Individual and original efforts are overruled by hopes of profits. The passion of rolling in the street discovering new places, learning new tricks, meeting new people is replaced by fixating on contest scores. Where is the skateboarding that inspired me when I started? Where is that feeling of friendship and adventure? Where is this pride of feeling different and original ? It’s becoming harder every day for freedom to take place in any project. Hopefully, some are still believing and fighting to keep that dirty VX and century alive, and don’t forget where skateboarding comes from! fortunately, some people are still loving skateboarding. Mosh It Down is an independent video project, built with passion and guts, not waiting for anything else in return than making you want to jump out on your board.
In this issue, I tryied to remember and write down some afternoon I spent, some people I met and some fun I had while skating and filming for this video.
Cover: Marc looking at the spot a.k.a. the calm before the storm
Dominik is always calm. When you can do 5-0s on a rail like this, you don’t need to show off.
I found this hubba during a session with the Antiz guys and went back there with Mark and Chris. I wasn’t sure it could be skateable, the run up is rough, the hubba is really high and there is a tree and a street on the landing. Chris proved it was with this 50-50.
Julien, the ofďŹ cial Mosh It Down’s photographer, always good to have him around for the sessions. After having shot pictures all afternoon, he packed up his bag and jumped on his board. He tryied a couple of nose-slides and was close on every try. Unfortunately, his foot slipped out the tail and he got a big heel bruise for a couple of weeks.
Eric is one of the quietest visitors who joined the sessions. He came for a couple of weeks and was always happy to skate Barcelona’s spots.
Up and right : You never know what to expect from a session with David. That day we were walking around on this hill to check new spots and ended up on the end of the afternoon on this old gap. David checked it up and decided to skate it. He tried a pop shove it to warm up before some other trick that I don’t remember. The spot is a little bit downhill and David was pushing too much, as usual. After a couple of attempts, he rolled around and his board hit his face really hard. He spent like 2 days on aspirin due to a sore head. That was a pretty scary bail. Left : Blunt Flip to fakie on this spot invaded by BMXers
Niklas came to Barcelona to ďŹ nish his Clepto part. He was looking for tricks hard enough to be ďŹ lmed, this one was hard enough to die. Everybody held his breath during the whole time he was up there checking the rail and doing the drop to 50-50.
Charles joined us a few times or we would just bump into him randomly. Each time it was a real pleasure to see his natural talent and light skateboarding.
We heard about those new hips and went to check them out. There is a lot to skate around. Thierry came along that day and did a couple of lines with ease and styz.
G N I L R DE E I F S LUCA
Lucas is the swiss army knife skater : rider, T.M, filmer, editor. Still find time to play guitar, sky dive and spend time with his friends. While people loose themself in Barcelona black hole’s party, he uses the ambiant energy to produce and create. To try to learn about his daily routines would fill the whole zine, let’s focus on his perception of the video.
Up: Another hard day at the office for Lucas. We were supposed to meet around 10 am on that day and, of course, nobody showed up before 11h30. This street gap is right in the center, in a really busy area. Luckily, it was still clear and it didn’t took too long for Mark to land the backside flip.
next page: We were coming back from some village after having been kicked out by the cops before we could get any footage and just stopped randomly on the way back. We found this nice gap and Lucas gave the camera to Mark to do this heelflip right before it get too dark. I think he saved up that day actually.
G N I L R DE E I F S A C U L
What’s up: Mosh It Down premiere was close to one year ago, are you happy with the returns you had during this time? Lucas: I guess so, yeah, specially with all the personals problems we had meanwhile and time was too short for editing, because of the dead-line of Mark’s birthday W’sU: Working on independant video like this allows you to a lot of freedom, is it easyier or harder in the end, compare to working for a company which guide you more? Lucas: Well, independent videos are always a much bigger struggle. Of course you have more freedom in the editing. But on the other hand, working with friends can be hard, and there is so much heart involved!
W’sU: Mosh It Down include a lot of skaters from differents brands, is it easy to have a bit of support from those brands. Do you think they really realise how much advertising it represent? Lucas: It’s never easy to make people give you money. but it always worked out fine for us in the end. We had 200 000 clicks within the first 2 weeks from everywhere around the world, so when you compare the money they gave us to the price of an ad in a mag, it’s a joke! I really think that brands don’t focus enough on full lenght video project and should stop this web clip bullshit. You can still watch it or download it on http://moshitdown. com/ W’sU: You are one of the busyier filmer/editor in town, is it really important for you to keep on doing those personal stuffs? Lucas: Sure! It’s fucking fun and it’s what I’ve been doing for a long time now, why would I stop it? Plus I have like an Indy video featuring my homies from every 2-3 years of our lives, that’s the best about it!
lich Ü r F Mark Mark is both quality and quantity. He can be gnarly and original on the same trick. He has more than 150 tricks in the video when everybody else have together less than 115. Taking a close look at his part will let you know he is all about friendship, dedication to skateboarding, respect and motivation. Up: Everybody skates this spot going downhill, when Mark talked about using the bank like a bump, we thought about some misunderstanding. Mark broke his tail trying backside ip but went back and did the late shove it.
Right: When Marc found out how to properly lock frontside feebles on this bank, he started to learn how to pop out all kinds of tricks... as you can see in the video.
We went to this rail one day when we were skating a spot nearby. Marc liked it at once, even with the shitty spanish tiles on the run-up and the landing. There is a pescaderia right in front and of course we got kicked out after a couple of tries. But of course we came back when the shop was closed and Mark landed this long frontside nose-slide.
Marino has always been at the meeting and warm-up spot with us, but was always too busy to be able to leave the center. He nearly never complains, good style and motivation. He did this crooked grind during one of the few days he came along.
The journey journey, not the arrival matters www.skhateyou.com
#2 the Mosh It Down issue
Hope you enjoied the zine and the video. Next issue: #3 the double issue
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