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44 Robert “Rooney” Woodward, bs smith grind.

Huddersfield, UK. This photo happened on a random trip last Christmas. We were visiting family friends in the town of Huddersfield in Yorkshire, England.

The weather was unseasonably good for a late December day and my thoughts turned away from family walks up hills to skateboarding in city centre. After a visit to see Andy at the one and only Endemic skate store and a message to local boy Robert ‘Rooney’ Woodward, a time for shreddage was arranged. We hit a couple of spots before heading to this blue window ledge. This thing looks perfect, but you should know that first it’s very difficult to skate due to close proximity to a curb and second, it’s a total bust. Somehow though, even though multiple security guards walked past us, no one said a word. The season of goodwill also extended to Rooney as he ground back smith after back smith before popping out of a perfect one.

Then it was off for a pint in the local!

Cheers to Rooney. Same again this year?”

Photo Leo Sharp.

BRANDON WESTGATE | KICKFLIP

EDITORIAL 44

THE PURITY OF SKATEBOARDING

Mattia Tommasoli & a little friend // Photo Davide Biondani / Canon.

TIAGOLEMOS NOLLIE F\S CROOK BLABAC PHOTO

C A L I F O R N I A S P O R T S - T E L 0 1 1 9 2 7 7 9 4 3 - W W W. C A L I F O R N I A S P O R T. I N F O

a brief glance’s BOOK Volume 001

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O3EPO – Even In Siberia there is Happiness Felipe Bartolomé – Frontside 50-50 � Photo: Alexey Lapin www.carhartt-wip.com

CONTENTS_44

Fragments Corrosion of conformity_Mattia Turco P-Stone Tales from England A secret escape to the Five Lands Places_San Francisco Stardust

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Lukasz Kolasowski_crooks _ Photo Davide Biondani / Canon.

a brief glance

a brief glance | year VII_n° 44

EDITOR and CONCEPT_ Davide Biondani. {davide@abriefglance.com} ASSOCIATE EDITOR_ Guido Bendotti. {guido@abriefglance.com} ASSISTANT EDITOR_ Andrew Zolin.

TRANSLATIONS_ Jonathan Levin.

PHOTOGRAPHERS_ Leo Sharp, Jonathan Mehring, DVL, Sergio Pointillo, Craig Dodds, Brian Gaberman, Marcello Guardigli, Davide Biondani, Giulia Romano, Kirill Korobkov, Erik Gross, Reece Leung, Marcel Velmdan, Caterina Candido, Federico Casella, Sebastiano Bartoloni, Ale Martoriati, Fred Mortagne, Joel Peck.

CONTRIBUTORS_ Francesco Paolo Chielli, Mario Torre, Giulio Repetto Mark Baines, Giorgio Zattoni.

DESIGN_ M. Bod Ciceri {Question Mark, ink!#?}

GET ALL THE INFO at: info@abriefglance.com a brief glance skateboard mag is a bulletin published by Fake Donkey Skateboard asd.

No part of this publication may be reproduced without the permission of the publisher.

All right reserved.

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Thanks to Canon Italia for the support.

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a brief glance

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Fabio Montagner Fs crooks to fakie Treviso, Italy Photo Davide Biondani

Karsten Kleppan Fs air Gran Canaria, Spain Photo Marcel Veldman

Jakko Ojanen Fs bluntslide Barcelona, Spain Photo Gabriel Engelke

Richard Naumertat 360 flip Chemnitz, Germany Photo Erik Gross

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Corrosion of conformity

Words & interview_Guido Bendotti.

Still life / art photography_Federico Casella.

Portraits & action photography_Davide Biondani./ Canon.

MATTIA TURCO

I love Mattia Turco, but at the same time I also hate him.

Mattia is part of the generation that took off in Italy toward the early 2000’s. It was a strange period during which new talents were born that skated in an aggressive and complete manner. Super tight pants, leather jacket, and all the right sponsors of the moment, besides a super pop, incredible board control, and spontaneity in skateboarding that I had rarely witnessed the likes of.

He skated everything, without fear or preconceptions about what was cool or not. Yeah, maybe he was a bit reckless while doing some tricks, but he seemd to be driven by purity.

He had what it takes to become a staple in the Italian skate scene, and maybe the Euro one as well.

Hailing from a small town in the countryside, he then moved to Milan to be closer to the heart of skateboarding. At one point he even lived in Barcelona for a while.

He had all the right qualities: talent, location, young age, the right contacts, covers, interviews in magazines, and the right sponsors... but he got distracted.

Mattia got distracted, and instead of trying to make it in skateboarding, film videoparts that would shed light on his talent, tour Europe and maybe the whole world motivated by his qualities, he chose to dedicate himself to other things, living life differently. And although he kept skating in a senseless fashion, he was no longer a reference point in the scene. He was like a flash in the pan, he would appear out of the blue and you couldn’t help but admire him.

Mattia is the guy that comes to mind every time I think about “wasted talent” and it makes me mad.

He knows this very well, because in my distorted view of the world, with a talent like his, there’s nothing else you should do but skate and earn a living from skateboarding.

After seeing him on and off for a few years, during which he dedicated himself extensively to his art and to surviving in an expensive city like Milan, Mattia focused on skateboarding again... and maybe, he is now finally fully expressing his potential because the tricks you see here are not dictated by trends. He has always skated like this, spontaneously and without planning his tricks, just letting his imagination roam freely, without limiting the potential of a spot by what’s cool at the moment, and especially by skating spots that aren’t even spots. His talent and pop (still incredible) will do the rest. Mattia is a skateboarding artist, and you can’t tie art down.

Welcome back Mattia. ( If you don’t skate I’m gonna kick your stupid ass).

Fs nosegrind.

When did you fall in love with skateboarding?

It was definitely love at first sight, I was 14 and I learned to ollie the same afternoon I first set foot on a skateboard, right outside of school. A friend of mine already knew how to ollie well and was trying some kickflips, so he gave me some advice and from then on everything changed. I think it must have been the body movements, hanging out in the streets, the personal challenge to land a trick, that feeling of freedom when you hear the noise of your wheels breaking the silence of the streets of the little town you were born in, and seeing the people around you completely bewildered, almost ready to throw a rock at you.

It felt so personal, detached from everything and everybody, I didn’t care whether other people understood what I was doing or not. To me, it was similar to painting, it was parallel in some way, an outlet. But if painting was probably more intimate and at times more rational, skateboarding was and is like turning off the light, an inner explosion, a mix between losing control, extreme concentration, and instinct.

From then on I was hooked.

When did you distance yourself from skateboarding?

In reality I don’t think I ever did distance myself from skateboarding, unless it was because of some injury, for example. I distanced myself from the contest scene to be exact. It was as if at a certain point I realized that for me,

Art @MattiaTurco.

skateboarding wasn’t something competitive, I wasn’t trying to compete against anybody, I just didn’t understand contests any more, they gave me anxiety and weren’t fun. Actually, I was probably starting to really understand skateboarding, or at least what skateboarding means to me, 100% artistic expression, no judges, teachers, or winners.

Why did you choose to live in Milan and how did you manage to make a living there?

After skating for a few years I got my first sponsors, I started traveling to skate, and most of the time I would go to Milan where I would squat my friends’ houses. The scene was obviously more alive than in my hometown, and the city itself offered many more opportunities. I made some very tight friendships and ended up feeling more at home in Milan than anywhere else.

So I decided to move there. I mostly did lots of different part-time jobs in pubs and the like, or worked as an assistant photographer to my dear friend Andrè Lucat, plus many smaller jobs like adverts or film extras... very handy as a source of additional income. Milan is definitely not an easy city to live in, especially if you don’t have much money to cover expenses. Rent is high and to make it here you have to be very dynamic in order to survive. For sure, it’s a city that puts you to the test and an excellent training ground for life.

Ollie up, boneless in.

Apart from skateboarding, over the years you have invested a lot of time in your art: tell us about it.

I started painting before I got into skateboarding, I’ve always felt the urge to alienate myself and express through a different language that which you cannot explain with words. It has always seemed like a more direct mode of expression to me, even though in reality it is disguised by a mask of colors. I didn’t attend any exceptional schools, and was never able to accept the method and arrogance of the school-system, with the exception of the first high-school years during which I was lucky enough to have a teacher who was also a painter.

She recognized my interest in the subject and introduced me to various techniques and little tricks. I’ve always experimented and used the paint brush a lot, at times with acrylic paint and most of the time with oil-based paint. I’ve always felt close to figurative painting whilst at the same

time working on abstract subjects. Then 6 or 7 years ago, I was living with Matteo Di Nisio at the time, and he gave me my first oil pastels and I began experimenting the technique you learn in kindergarten, where you overlap layers of pastel and a final black layer. Then, by scratching the surface, colors appear underneath.

Lately, I’ve been working with oil pastels by subtraction. I create layers of color that I scratch one at a time, then overlap once more and scratch again, creating micro-materic transparencies that are figurative of inner worlds at first, and subsequently move toward an abstraction of feelings, transforming them into patterns that create a dialogue through shapes and forms, transparencies, and details that are created by subtracting one color from the other.

It becomes an inner dialogue where my hand follows my consciousness, my feelings, and the chaos within me.

Fs wallride.

You’re a nice guy and almost too friendly, have you ever felt used or underestimated by other people?

Yes, I think that being “nice” has worked against me. I have the habit of being equally nice to people whoever they are. I have no extreme prejudices and I like to be polite and humble with everyone, which is something that my closest friends always tell me. “That’s excessive!!! It’s counterproductive!!!” they say. I don’t think that by bragging or exalting myself I can give more value to my work or my skateboarding. This is my point of view, it’s not better or worse, it’s just mine. At times I feel like in this world, if you don’t have an unrestrained ego or you don’t exalt your “things” as if they could save this world, it seems like you don’t believe in what you do or are underestimating yourself. Yes, of course the person facing you may be more shrewd or cruel than you expect, and may try to fool or deceive you, or use your underestimation or fanaticism to his advantage... but these are the types of people I tend to avoid, and fortunately they are not the only people in

the world. When such things do happen, I’m not exactly kind. On the other hand, I’ve had the opportunity to meet golden people, as is the case with the Bastard Store, with which I have been collaborating for some time and they have helped me out a lot, giving me the necessary space to work in-residence. They encourage and push me for any project or direction. They’ve become like a second family to me. Even with Vans, that has been supporting me for the past few years, we have been able to expand the relationship beyond skateboarding, with projects that are somehow connected to my works.

So I like this exchange, this meeting between the two things. I’m especially glad that they are able to see beyond the skater and the tricks he does, helping him grow in other fields of his expertise.

In general, this “nice” or ”kind” attitude of mine, as you say, is probably what gets me into a lot of extremely comical or absurd situations. Maybe people don’t expect it, or maybe it’s because I have no problems speaking to people, or maybe it’s just my cosmic magnetism, ha ha ha.

What aspects of yourself do you think you should work on to be able to affirm youself more in the art world?

More than being appreciated, it’s about making people understand. Not that there is necessarily anything to understand, but people are constantly being bombarded by images of all sorts, so that the sentiment intrinsic to the image you’re looking at risks being lost. The art world is not easy among small colorful fish and ruthless sharks. I feel like I’m living in a historical period that is guided by chance, where the artwork itself almost has no value compared to the words used to describe it and the artist. Of course it’s an added value, something I should get better at, but I don’t think that is the essence of art. It’s a different language that should be interpreted and appreciated as such, or not.

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Your style in skateboarding was probably ahead of its time... big ollies, unskateable spots, footplants, etc...

I think that skateboarding, being so connected to body movements, is almost entirely a mental thing. You can do anything if you have clear in your mind what you want to do. Of course I have my own nightmarish tricks, but that is only because I probably don’t have them clearly visualized in my mind, as if they were out of focus. But I feel good nonetheless. I don’t feel like I want or need to learn all the tricks in the world. I just try to follow the flow of the spot I’m at. I like skating spots without thinking too much about what’s already been done or doing the heaviest trick. I just try to look at the spot from my personal point of view, inventing or learning a new trick at times because that’s what I focused on in that moment. I just let myself be inspired. I love playing with space.

Footplant over.

P-STONE The first time I met Preston was in 1996 during the ISPO event in Munich, Germany.

He was there to help set up the vert ramp and to skate.We became friends right away and when I moved to Cali later that year we started to hang out and skate together.

He started working for Powell and we had the great opportunity to travel together.

We used to spend summertime in Italy. He loved to hang out at my place and my mom’s pasta was his favourite meal. My parents loved P-Stone, he became part of my family in a second.He filmed my Powell Magic video part.

When P-Stone was around I had something more to give, my skateboarding was getting better just by the fact that he was there. He had that power to get you in the right mood and give more than 100% to skateboarding.

I confess that when P had to leave I would cry my way back from the airport even though I knew I was going to see him soon...We experienced the same feelings again just a few months ago when he came to visit me with his family. Two weeks of vacation together, skating, filming, hangin’ out, and playing at the beach with his kids.

I organized a few “must do’s” for him while he was here and one was lunch at the Fish House, just like we used to do back in the days, one of his favourites.

When P-Stone was around, the days, the sessions, and the food were better, he could turn a random day into an epic day, that was his superpower. We love you P!

Giorgio Zattoni

P-Stone at his work station in San Diego , 1997. Photo Giorgio Zattoni.

Giorgio Zattoni, Fs lien over the channel at Marianna Skatepark, 1999. Photo Davide Biondani.

TALES

ENGL

FROM

LAND

JIRI BULIN - KICKFLIP - IPSWICH After a 6 hour drive from Cornwall to Ipswich (basically from one side of England to the other) through Friday evening traffic, Eddie Belvedere and myself met up with Jiri Bulin, Frank Stepens, Mark Kendrick and Jeremy Jones. It was 1am and although we were absolutely knackered from the drive, everyone was keen to skate.

A quick hill bomb from Frank’s mum’s house later and we arrived at the iconic Crown Pools bank in Ipswich city centre. The whole spot was pitch black at night, so George (Jiri) skated by the camera light alone, flipping out of the bank and over the wall which is super difficult to do due to the angle. We headed back the next day to shoot this photo in the daylight. Kendrick’s clothing company ‘Pilgrim’ will be launching soon and I’m sure this kickflip will be in the promo.

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IPSWICH BRISTOL FALMOUTH CORNWALL LONDON

Words & photography _ Leo Sharp.

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NICKY HOWELLS - BS NOSE BLUNT SLIDE - BRISTOL The Bristol ‘pump track’ was a collection of mud humps just for mountain bikes up until it got a smooth Tarmac surface in 2017. It’s now my favourite thing to skate and is just around the corner from another Bristol staple spot - the DIY that has been dubbed ‘Daveside’. Nicky was keen to shoot this backside nose blunt at the pump track. Thanks to Sean Lomax for lighting assistance!

CORHAN GAYLE - KICKFLIP - BRISTOL The spot has been sessioned a few times down the years and had an ollie (Tim Crawley) and switch ollie (Matt ‘Stalker’ Keal) thrown over it, but never a kickflip until Korahn stepped up. I remember Kaygeezee booting a couple of switch heel flip attempts after landing the kickflip. It’s in one of the Skateboard Cafe edits out last year if you’re keen to see the footage.

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ED BELVEDERE - NOSESLIDE - IPSWICH This nose slide was also shot on the Ipswich mission. Eddie only came along because he wanted to get out of Cornwall, and as usual ended up smashing it and amassing a stack of clips. This is Crown pools again (the same spot as George’s kickflip) and extremely difficult to negotiate any tricks on the bar due to it’s height and the fact it’s set back from the top of the bank. Thanks to his little hobbit feet, Ed somehow managed to get up there and pop out again.

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JASPER DAWSON-CLOUGH - FALMOUTH, CORNWALL The day we shot this wall ride photo started off with a classic Quarry carpark session in Falmouth with Eddie Belvedere and Chas-one’s collection of home made blocks, flat bars and kickers. Jasper turned up skating in a pair of Crocs (which I thought was hilarious and he must be taking the piss). He proceeded to tell me in no uncertain terms that he was deadly serious about skating in crocs and, once you got used to them, they were actually really good for skating in and lasted much longer than generic skate shoes. I was left in no doubt that he was telling the truth after he nailed this wall ride on a rugged as fuck pebble dashed wall off a builder’s wheelbarrow ramp!

CAM BARR - NOSEPIVOT SHOV - LONDON. On a random visit to London last year, I ended up skating the Clapham Junction banks with Ryan Gray and National Skateboards team rider Cam Barr. Cam’s aptitude for street and transition alike married with his hectic style make for

interesting

skateboarding,

especially at these somewhat iconic and difficult to skate banks. I don’t remember it taking long for Cam to get this nose pivot shov in the bag. I think this trick is in his part in the National video.

A SECRET ESCAPE TO THE Skateboarder Jacopo Picozza Words Giulio Repetto.

Photography Davide Biondani / Canon.

FIVE LANDS

In 1972 I was three years old and in the summertime my mother used to take us to the sea to what was then a small fishing town that could only be reached by railway.

Apart from us, the only other “tourists� were the sons, grandchildren, and friends of the residents. There were no hotels to sleep in, so the locals would rent rooms in their homes for a low price.

On summer nights we would sleep with open windows, and the only discernible sounds were those of the wooden clogs everybody wore, young and old. That magical place was and still is called Riomaggiore, and is one of the towns of the Cinque Terre (Five Lands).

Over the years I went back various times and witnessed its slow transformation into a tourist destination where every summer thousands of visitors arrive from all over the world.

Nevertheless, it might just be my memory, but I feel like there is something characteristic of that place that still to this day pushes me to go back regularly, almost as though I have to make sure that it still exists and that all those memories are not a figment of my imagination.

Bs kickflip.

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It was precisely during one of these visits that I began thinking about how a skate trip to the Five Lands could be.

Certainly very different from the classic skate tours I had been used to, where the scenery often consisted of modern cities, parking lots, or abandoned industrial areas. My relentless fantasizing eventually brought me there with some longtime friends, who by happy coincidence, pefectly fulfilled the necessary roles to make it happen.

We departed not really knowing what to expect or whether we would be able to skate anything, but the mood was clear: if we didn’t find the something skateable, that meant we’d just go to the beach that day, or on a boat trip, or to a wine bar to drink some Sciacchetrà or Vermentino. And if we couldn’t produce enough material... oh well.

Our base was a house overlooking the seashore of Riomaggiore. We got around a bit by foot and a bit by train, passing through other locations inside the Five Lands National Park: Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, and Manarola.

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Bs nosegrind.

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Nosebonk.

Each village has its peculiarity. Monterosso is likely the largest town, reachable even by private transport and with a “real� beach, while the other towns still preserve a more maritime atmosphere with their small harbors and houses perched on the rocks.

There is an old, picturesque trail that connects all five towns, but it has not been accessible for several years because of numerous landslides that have taken place.

The whole Five Lands National Park has a dense network of trails, and the view we enjoyed while climbing through vegetable gardens and vineyards all the way up to the sanctuary of the Madonna di Monte Nero was astonishing as was the dreamlike atmosphere we experienced.

The peculiarity of such places is their ability to merge the undeniable growth in tourism with local traditions; down at the harbor you won’t find a shiny new motorboat, but more likely, an old seaman folding up his fishing net or repainting his boat. In the evening, apart from a bar that stays open till late, the only people around are local elderly ladies sitting on the steps in front of their homes chatting, kids playing ball, and this time around, even a group of young and not so young people with skateboards sitting on a bench, drinking a few beers and dreaming up new trips.

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Fs noseslide.

360 flip.

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Backward nosegrind.

A Secret Escape to the Five Lands is the result of what these places mean to me, a stimulus to never stop dreaming and imagining new paths, in the hopes that they can continue to be a source of inspiration for the future. And whatever that will be, it will have to embody this particular spirit as its only driving force, which isn’t to be better than everybody else, but to simply do things that makes you feel happy and well.

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SAN FRANCISCO

Photos_ Caterina Candido.

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Photography & words_Davide Biondani / Canon.

STARDUST a brief glance

When I was a kid my skate buddies and I used to joke around and daydream about our favorite pro showing up at our spot during a skate session. We would take turns naming the pros we wanted to meet, fantasizing about the tricks they would have done on the ledge, manual pad, and from the two blocks with no run-up from which we usually ollied off of.

At the time, you could only see pros on the paper pages of Slap, Transworld Skateboarding, Thrasher, on the videos of the various companies that from time to time would come out, and on 411 Video Magazine when you were lucky enough to get ahold of a copy.

We would look at them so many times that they would get consumed, as with the videos that we would watch every day before going out to skate... dreaming about one day being able to go to SF or LA to skate the famous spots under Cali’s blue sky.

The internet, Youtube, Whats App, and Instagram didn’t exist yet, so you didn’t know what your favorite pro ate, you didn’t know what bar he had spent the evening at, and you had no idea what spot he had skated just ten minutes earlier, but surely, we daydreamed way more than today.

We’d dream about the spots we saw in videos, we’d dream about going to Cali or making the same noise the wheels made on EMB’s red brick pavement in S.F., or of ollieing over the ledges of the L.A. Courthouse together with your heroes.

Some time ago I was on tour with some pros of the newest generation, cool guys and amazing skateboarders that kids go crazy over. More or less the equivalent of the skaters that my buddies and I used to dream about when we were kids. Among them there was also a skater that was no longer from the new generation, but just as famous, maybe even more so.

The bad weather forced us to travel by train to another city in order to be able to skate a covered spot and so that’s what we did. While pushing toward the spot from the distance we could see a group of kids skating...

And hearing us getting closer, they stopped to see who we were.The moment we reached the spot they realized they were face to face with some of their favorite pros and they literally just went wild. Seeing their faces and expressions was something to behold: they went from total disbelief to utter excitement. After a few bizarre moments, they began approaching their favorite pros, asking them questions, taking selfies together with them, screaming, and calling their friends up on the phone!! Ha ha ha.

SAGE ELSESSER // 5-0 from flat a brief glance

KENNY ANDERSON // Bs tailslide.

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They then skated with their idols, getting hyped at every trick landed.

They stayed there until the light went down and we decided to leave.

Seeing those kids’ faces was like seeing ourselves at our local ledge back in the days, fantasizing about our favorite pros and dreaming about meeting them at our home spot. I witnessed as a spectator our childhood dream come true.

Yes, it is still possible to dream in 2017.

ROMAN GONZALEZ // fs wallride alley oop fakie 5-0 fs out.

SAGE ELSESSER // Ollie up heelflip over

SEAN PABLO // Nosebonk

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SAGE ELSESSER // Ollie over the corner to bs lip

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