Volume 7, Number 6

Page 1

a skateboard culture special edition.

Silas Baxter Neal John Rattray Cairo Foster Rick McCrank Kenny Anderson Keegan Sauder Chris Haslam

New Zealand

ANDY JENKINS | BEAUTY AND THE BEAST || | THE POWER OF TENS | BREAKfAST ron mueck | ben tour | josh clark | lucas puig they live | om | adidas canada | nicaragua $7.99 CND/USD


a skateboard culture special edition.

Silas Baxter Neal John Rattray Cairo Foster Rick McCrank Kenny Anderson Keegan Sauder Chris Haslam

New Zealand

ANDY JENKINS | BEAUTY AND THE BEAST || | THE POWER OF TENS | BREAKfAST ron mueck | ben tour | josh clark | lucas puig they live | om | adidas canada | nicaragua $7.99 CND/USD


a skateboard culture special edition.

Silas Baxter Neal John Rattray Cairo Foster Rick McCrank Kenny Anderson Keegan Sauder Chris Haslam

New Zealand

ANDY JENKINS | BEAUTY AND THE BEAST || | THE POWER OF TENS | BREAKfAST ron mueck | ben tour | josh clark | lucas puig they live | om | adidas canada | nicaragua $7.99 CND/USD


TEN YEARS STRONG


KICKFLIP

CAIRO SELECT / BLACK SUEDE LAKAI LIMITED FOOTWEAR: THE SHOES WE SKATE / JOHNSON / CARROLL / MARIANO / HOWARD / WELSH FOSTER / BIEBEL / LENOCE / CAPALDI / ALVAREZ / FERNANDEZ / PUIG / GILLET / BRADY / JENSEN 955 Francisco Street, Torrance, CA 90502 / ad #124 / www.lakai.com / www.supradistribution.com / photo by zavlasky







J A N U A R Y 2 0 10 THE CORNERSTONE OF EVERY BUSINESS IS ITS STORY — THE FOUNDATION OF WHERE A COMPANY HAS BEEN AND SETTING THE COURSE FOR ITS FUTURE. AFTER NEARLY 20 YEARS IN THE MAKING, ELEMENT’S STORY IS FINALLY READY TO BE SHARED WITH THE REST OF THE WORLD. COMING JANUARY 2010: “MAKE IT COUNT: THE ELEMENT STORY ” E L E M E N T S K AT E B O A R D S . C O M / M A K E I T C O U N T


JEFF CANHAM

ISAAC MCKAY-RANDOZZI

ARIANA PREECE

ILL-STUDIO

guest typographer

contributing writer/photographer

assistant fashion stylist

contributing artist

Jeff is a craftsman in the traditional sense of the word. His hand done typography has graced the windows of many establishments around his home base of San Francisco, as well on tee shirt designs, surfboards, zines, albums and books. Been featured in a number of magazines such as Surfer’s Journal, and has shown all over the United States. This may not be the first time you’ve seen Canham’s work in a skateboard magazine, and we certainly hope it won’t be the last. Enjoy his handy work on the title spreads of all of this issue’s featrues.

Photographer, writer and documenter IM-R a.k.a. Randozzi a.k.a. ‘that bearded creep in the corner with a camera’ is fond of using analog equipment and outdated slang. Both of his cameras are older than he is and he prefers to print his own photos whenever possible. When not found skating, collecting ashtrays or taking walks with his daughter, he can be found causing chaos (say what) and getting into misadventures with fellow Color contributor, Porous Walker. He can also be found lurking the DLXSF skateshop. Recently his half-frame photos have found their way onto Stereo decks and a couple US skateshop shirts. 96

Ariana Preece deserves some props, she has been assisting Mila with all her recent fashion projects, and anyone capable of dealing with that definitely deserves mad props. Born in Los Angeles, California, and raised in Vancouver, Ariana is currently working towards a BA in Communications with a minor in Magazine Publishing at SFU, and has been styling since April 2009. She escorted Color to NYC for the last fashion story, and is looking forward to working on a magazine project of her own in the future. She likes fashion, iPhone photography, blogging, rock ‘n’ roll and hot yoga. 82

The ill-studio is a French group of collaborators based in Paris. Their goal is to bring 10 individuals together, working in various artistic areas such as graphic design, photography, typography, illustration, video, motion design, etc. The studio provides an environment wherein its members’ complementary influences meet, and contribute to the stimulation and development of the whole, whether the works produced are created collectively, or individually. The ill-studio is Léonard Vernhet, Thomas Subreville, Nicolas Malinowsky, Pierre Dixsaut, Thierry Audurand, Sébastien Michelini, Harold Urcun, Artus de Lavilléon, David Luraschi and Fred Mortagne. 104

JeffCANHAM.com MYDUMBLUCK.COM

ILL-STUDIO.COM

8

ANTHONY ACOSTA

FELIX FAUCHER

JOHN RATTRAY

MIKE HELFRICH

contributing photographer

contributing writer/photographer

contributing writer

‘first photos’ winner!

You may remember Anthony from his days with Deca crew or you may know him from his six and a half years as a published photographer. He fell in love with photography after a professional photographer hired him as an assistant. The photographer gave him his first camera and Acosta hasn’t stopped shooting since. He currently works for The Skateboard Mag, Vans shoes and does whatever other freelance work that will take him around the globe. He has the best job in the world, and shot Chico’s Minuagua city for us on 92.

Born in Montreal, Felix moved to Lima, Peru, at six months old to come back at the age of nine. He started a clothing company by the name of Freshlix at 15, which he ran until he was 20. Felix has spent the last ten years working as a web designer and contributing to skateboard mags from Canada, South America and Europe. Now 31, he’s pursuing two Master degrees in Montreal in Communication and Design. He plans to write movies at 40 and finish his days in sunny Buenos Aires. 70

anthonyacosta.com

felixfaucher.com

John was born in Aberdeen, in the North East of Scotland, in 1977. That same year, amongst other things, punk music began. Since that year he’s been to schools and university and met many wonderful people whom he hopes to see again.He’s whiled away many hours falling down and getting up again. He’s watched his father, maternal grandmother and grandfather slowly disintegrate and die and has taken solace thinking of the molecules and atoms that they had been composed of going back into the system from which they were borrowed in the first place. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. He also graced us with a delightful narration to The Tour, on 116.

Mike has been behind a camera since he was 14 years old. At that young age, he began to define the world around him through the lenses of borrowed cameras until five years later when he finaly made a push to pursue photography and bought his own camera. Ever since then, he’s been constantly reinventing himself, experimenting with new ideas and trying to keep it fresh. Behind every photo there is a story, and he hopes to bring those stories, those vibes, those connections to you. He won “best overall” in the Push.ca first photo contest on 56.

colORMAGAZINE.CA

MikeHelfrich.com


volume 7

[ o ] WAGNER

Intro

“I wonder if we’ll skate on this trip. This doesn’t feel like a skate trip.” —john rattray

L

et me paint a picture for you... after a long day of battling strong headwinds on your bicycle you have just been kicked out of a hot springs river, (yep, a river of almost too hot water complete with waterfall) and had to battle a stretch of treacherous highway in the dark, massive trucks honking at you, giving you little to no room, but that’s all behind you now. There’s a full moon, bright enough to illuminate the faces of the cows and sheep you pass. You are riding four abreast taking up both lanes of a quiet country farm road. No one is talking, you look around and realize that everyone is just quietly taking it all in. It is simple enough, but this is a moment that I will remember for the rest of my life, a moment of pure contentment. There were a few moments like this on a trip that started out as a simple plan, but eventually hatched into an elaborate tour on the other side of the world with an epic cast. The New Zealand bike trip 116 was a career high,

not just for myself but for most of the people on it. No signings, no demos, just some fun skateparks, steep hills and the road. That trip was the catalyst for this whole special issue. You hold a magazine built in the spirit of travel and adventure. We did our best to track down photos from Albuquerque to Dnepropetrovsk, and from Wellington to Winnipeg. Josh Clark had some friends help him shoot what became a full interview over a few weeks in Barçelona 70, Chico Brenes filled us in on his hometown in Nicaragua 92, and Jay Revelle went to Japan to track down skate rock band Breakfast 132. We also had Rick McCrank narrate some excerpts from Beauty and the Beast 2 46 and in keeping with the “tour” theme, our own Ben Tour worked together with Gordon Nicholas to create a nice marriage of ink and celluloid in our fashion editorial 82. The photo you see above is Hot Water Beach. We raged to make it there for low tide. That is when you are able to dig up your own personal hot tub, mixing in the sea water to get the temperature just right. It was the end of a long first day. I was exhausted but feeling more alive than I’d felt in ages.

dylan doubt, photo editor

colORMAGAZINE.CA

9


Mike Anderson. 180 Switch Crooked Grind in the Edward. Photo: Bradford. esfootwear.com timebombtrading.com stickers@timebomb.bc.ca





distributed by Ultimate


[ o ] ACOSTA

volume 7

92

CITY Managua, Nicaragua Chico Brenes shows you around his home country of Nicaragua and provides a guide of where you should eat, skate, and party when you go and visit.

COVER 7.6 by Dylan Doubt

154 [ o ] DOUBT

[ o ] MORFORD

56

John Rattray sneaks into Silas Baxter-Neal’s slipstream and they work together to power through the mountain stage. Whangamata, NZ. “Me and Silas should go close to each other, close enough so that we can smell each others sweat as we ollie over the hip.“ —john rattray

46 EXTRA/RANDOM

LTD ART COVER by Andy Jenkins

[ o ] LAM

[ o ] BETUGIAS

lifestyle

Beauty and the Beast II

A handful of outtakes from the second installment of the most epic skate trip collaboration to date.

152 CV

Lucas Puig Ever wanted to hire a professional French skateboarder? Just make sure to check his references thoroughly.

Front: 08 09 15 23 28 36 51 52 56 58

CONTRIBUTORS INTRO contents inspiration bound cMYK ANTHRAX HELTER SHELTER Gallery CONTEST SHOW

Back: 134 145 146 149 154 158 160

fotofeature trailer soundcheque NEXT/BEST LAST NITE credits over ‘n out

colORMAGAZINE.CA

15


issue 6

[ o ] WAGNER

skate

60 GREAT PLAINS, TRAINS, AND AUTOMOBILES

The Eminent Adidas Endeavour

Head across the country with the Canadian team as they hit Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg and onwards to Vancouver while they skated, held shop signings and enjoyed everything Canada has to offer.

70 LEAVING GREY

Seizing the Day in Europe with Josh Clark Felix Faucher and Josh Clark headed to Barcelona for different reasons. One to clear his head and travel towards familiar friends and the other to get off the continent for the first time and get to know new places and a whole new way of living.

106 THE POWER OF TENS A select few skaters from The Tens video have made it onto our pages, where in a quest to find out a bit more about them they were each asked a different Top Ten.

116

150 UP IN STOKE

[ o ] DOUBT

[ o ] FAUCHER

Rick and Kenny, Tairua NZ

116 THE TOUR

70

The IPATH Canadian Tour

106

Cycling New Zealand with Rick McCrank, Chris Haslam, Keegan Sauder and friends A group of the world’s best skaters attempt to ride bicycles 500 kilometers over 12 days from Auckland, New Zealand, to Wellington, skating what they find along the way.

fashion / art

82

SECRETS TRAVEL A collaboration between artist Ben Tour and photographer Gordon Nicholas produces a fashion editorial of fantastical realism.

96

ANDY JENKINS Artist Feature Andy Jenkins’ new body of work is possibly his most muted to date. The artist and art director, whose breadth of experience and legacy is discussed by Isaac McKay-Randozzi elsewhere in these pages, has traversed styles over the years from heavy graphic illustration to doodles, to collage, and gestural and flat abstract painting reminiscent of something between Rauschenberg, Pollock and Marden. But his current body of collages reveals a subtler approach, a move away from figuration and bold swaths of colour towards geometric abstraction, monochromatic palettes and a more sophisticated sense of texture.

music

80

REPO MEN They Live! Make Fresh Rap Out of 80s Debris These Seattle MCs embrace their West Coast sound but are also influenced by East Coast rap, R&B, and John Carpenter movies.

68 OM’s meditative metal Twenty-five minute long songs are the norm for this band who equate playing live shows to being in a war.

132 BREAKFAST What does 80s style skatepunk from Japan sound like? は騒音としか感じられない音楽です。

Please recycle this magazine.

16

colORMAGAZINE.CA


SSS ?DK?KH=PAOG=PA>K=N@O ?KI SSS OQLN=@EOPNE>QPEKJ ?KI



S E A N I S F E AT U R E D I N T H E M A LT O S I G N AT U R E D E N I M . A N D E R S O N B L E D S O E B R O P H Y C A R R O L L H O WA R D G O N Z A L E S K O S T O N M A R I A N O P U I G S C H A A F / F O R T H E E N T I R E H O L I D AY 2 0 0 9 C O L L E C T I O N G O T O S U P R A D I S T R I B U T I O N . C O M




distributed by Ultimate

Š

ipskateboards.com


WALLPAPER* CITY GUIDE: VANCOUVER (phaidon)

When it comes to listing places to sleep and dine, the Wallpaper* City Guides are not for people traveling on a tight budget. They say they reveal “the best a location has to offer the design-conscious traveller,” which translates to boutique and highend hotels and pricier restaurants, bars and shops. While the guides may not hold the key for where to get the best deals in town, they do steer you towards the more interesting parts of a city that regular guide books may not let you know about. I flipped through the Vancouver and Marrakech books because I live in the first and have travelled to the second destination. Suffice to say that in contrast to the places recommended by the guide book, when in Marrakech, Morocco, I never stayed anywhere with a pool nor did I ever eat anywhere that wasn’t set up and broken down everyday. I never even knew the shops listed in the guide existed because I was too busy haggling and getting lost in the massive souk, which consists of alley upon alley of stalls and shady characters. The Marrakech guide is definitely for a swishier clientele than I. The kind that can afford to go golfing or to the casino, and for the kind who would actually want to do those things. The books are laid out with a really nice aesthetic, including tabs labeled “landmarks, hotels, 24 hours, urban life, architour, shopping, sports, and escapes”, nice photos, rough paper to jot down notes, and an index of locations.

THE MAP AS ART: CONTEMPORARY ARTISTS EXPLORE CARTOGRAPHY katherine harmon (princeton architectural press)

At a glance you might just pass this book by. The dying art of cartography? My phone can show me the shape of the pothole in my alley if the Google van has visited recently. But it’s true, the printed map is fading and the romanticism of the unknown on this planet was charted long ago. Or was it? Look closer at the cover illustration by Jules De Balincourt and you see America depicted as the centre of the world with ocean all around it and the rest of the planet’s countries below. Even the distribution of the states themselves provides a comical dialogue. This 250-page, full-colour book isn’t all just thoughtful artwork spanning decades of pop and contemporary culture, including Jasper Johns. There is also plenty to read with essays from Gayle Clemans such as “A Geography of History and Strife” and the tackling of such subjects as The Politics of the Land. Not enough can be said about a subject investigated and executed so thoroughly and thoughtfully. The works explored in The Map As Art are as diverse as they are profound. For the creative or expanding mind, this treasure dropped at just the right time. There truly is something in this world larger than ourselves, but leave it to contemporary art to encapsulate it. This is one for the shelf that will be charted and passed down with the rest of humankind’s finest crafts. —sandro grison

THIS IS NOT A PHOTO OPPORTUNITY

EARTH FROM ABOVE: 366 DAYS

The problem with being a magazine editor is that your job can become overwhelming and often other pastimes and interests fall victim to late nights and weekends spent in the office. Fortunately, Mark Whitely has never let his passion for the magazine quell his love for photography. The images in this book remind us of how much he has contributed to Slap over the years behind the lens, as well as in front of a computer screen and on the phone etc. From elaborate studio shots, music, skate photos and documenting the random goings on in skateboarding, to street life and the necessary distractions that come from a life immersed in skateboard culture. Will Oldham, Too $hort, Chan Marshall, Chris Johanson, Ari Marcopoulos are but of few people of note that join some of our favourite skate icons in this most enjoyable collection. Pick one up today for a loved one, or, hell buy one for yourself, because brother, you deserve it! —dylan doubt

This book offers a frank perspective on the limits of human expansion. Edited as a sort of calendar, Yann Arthus-Bertrand had a handful of photographers shoot aerial photographs from every corner of the world, giving the viewer an image accompanied with text for everyday (plus one) of the calendar year. Every image is breathtaking and truly defies what is perceivable by the human eye. From volcanic ranges in France, to a scattering of pink flamingos in Chile, no place is left un-shot. The book truly celebrates hidden beauty, possibilities, grim realities, and the curious working of humans on this amazing planet. Somehow it seems all too appropriate for these questionable times we find ourselves in. —gordon nicholas

mark whitely (gingko press)

yann arthus-bertrand (harry n. abrams)

abramsbooks.com

GINGKOPRESS.COM

PAPRESS.COM

All in all, at only $9.95 these guides are something fun to buy if you want to spend some time at a few of the more luxurious sites in a city or if you want to have some nice looking, pocket sized, colour coded additions to your bookshelf. —j.macleod PHAIDON.COM

colORMAGAZINE.CA

23




K E V I N AUSTIN STEPHENS JULIAN DAVIDSON

“ S P A N K Y ”

CAIRO FOSTER

KEEGAN SAUDER

DAVID REYES

L O N G ED TEMPLETON

K E V I N “ S PA N K Y ” LO N G

JOSH HARMONY

LEO ROMERO

NESTOR JUDKINS


T H E

B A L A N C E

O F

O P P O S I T E S

26#! #/- s 26#!!.01 #/- s ).&/ 4)-%"/-"42!$).' #/- s 34)#+%23

26#! #/-

4)-%"/-" "# #!


volume 7 issue 6

28

colORMAGAZINE.CA


MIKEY PLANTUS manual, Miami FL [ o ] todon.

29


30

BEASTER ollie to hippy jump, Toronto ON [ o ] zakharov.


MARISA DAL SANTO no-comply flip, Houston TX [ o ] jones.

31


32

KEEGAN SAUDER blunt kickflip fakie, Wellington NZ [ o ] doubt.


colORMAGAZINE.CA

33


timebombtrading.com stickers@timebomb.bc.ca



issue 6

READER LETTER Dear Color, Love your magazine, but I want to see more videos on your website. —rob craigie, via e-mail Hey Rob, Well, you’re in luck. As you’ve probably already noticed, our website has had a major overhaul. We upgraded everything from our blogs to the event calendar and added a video page with exclusive content and shows unique to our site. The print magazine has a limited number of pages for features and content, but the website has unlimited room for stories and interviews, which we’re taking full advantage of by adding tons of exclusive content. You can also sign up to have your own colormagazine.ca account and add events to the calendar, upload media content, add comments, and even sign in through Facebook. We could go on and on about the new site, but it’s best if you just check it out yourself and let us know what you think. —color

OH SNAP! FENCHURCH CONTEST WINNER It’s sometimes surprising and shocking to scroll through party photos from a slightly foggy night before. But thank goodness you did what we asked and made sure your cameras were with you to document all the good times. Look on our website to see who won our stylish photo search to take home the $500 Fenchurch prize pack. COLORMAGAZINE.CA FENCHURCH.COM

colormagazine.ca [ o ] NICHOLAS

DIG YOUR OWN TUNNEL This series of city-specific notebooks from Moleskine let you design your own guidebook. They provide you with maps of the city, maps of the transportation systems as well as different tabs to create your own sections. Now you can have an entire part of your personal tour diary dedicated to the many splendid beers you taste in Brussels, Belgium, or as many pages as you want for keeping track of weird facts and travel stories picked up along the way. Choose from 45 select cities.

TO: YOU / FROM: ALIST

MOLESKINE.COM

HANDLE YOUR BUSINESS If you aren’t at the stage in your career where you’re flying first class to exotic locales and closing billion-dollar deals, at least house your business cards in something that makes you look like you could. UK-based magazine Monocle has partnered up with the renowned British luxury leather goods company Ettinger to produce a folding card holder as well as this hard box case to help you get your hustle on.

Toronto’s Allister Lee has been hard at work collaborating with “The Godfather of Chinese Skateboarding” Jeff Han to rebrand and develop Gift Skateboard’s hardgoods and apparel lines. The theme for the company’s deck series came from Chinese firecracker label art and was developed by Chinese skaters for Chinese skaters and the community beyond. Keep an eye out for Gift’s first full-length video filmed in Mainland China to be coming out soon. ENTERTHEALIST.COM

MONOCLE.COM

WOOLY GOODNESS This year marks Oregon’s iconic Pendleton brand’s 100th year anniversary. One of the special projects they’ve put out to celebrate the milestone is this special capsule collection with Hurley. It features the infamous washed-andworn Beach Boy plaids that reek of cool nights spent on the beach, cozied up to the campfire. HURLEY.COM

36

colORMAGAZINE.CA

image courtesy Skateistan.

SKATE. DON’T DESTROY. Skateistan is a non-profit, free skateboarding school for boys and girls in Afghanistan that also teaches important life skills, languages and the arts. Some of them even get paid to teach others now instead of having to beg on the street. And there’s just been a pretty rad looking indoor built in Kabul for them to get psyched! Help Skateistan out with a donation and you’ll feel real good, whether you agree with the war or not. SKATEISTAN.ORG

CAMPING COCOON This amazing, puffy, adult-snuggly was the brainchild of Brad Staba. Here’s what inspired him to partner up with Nike SB to have an extremely limited number of these made: “You know when you go camping and have to take a piss in the middle of the night, then you try some Jedi shit to make it go away… but it doesn’t? Then you pump yourself up to freeze in the cold to walk on the dirt and find a tree to take care of this task? I know that feeling too well. People, I can solidly say that I will never have that feeling again. Why? Because I own the greatest sleeping bag known to man. This bag is a heavy duty S.O.B. and I dare you to argue with me. I also hope everything I’ve written so far sounds like an infomercial. This bag zips from the crotch, down the front, and around the back only to clip each of the lower halves of the bag to the sides. That pretty much means you can pass out anywhere in the woods, transform your bag to mobile mode, and start making a puddle on the ground. Of if you wanna just hang out by the campfire and get the warmth of a jacket this will do that. It has powers. Or it’s just a really cool sleeping bag.” NIKE.COM


MULLEN

MULLEN MULLEN

DAEWON DAEWON

HASLAM HASLAM

DAEWON

HASLAM

COOPER COOPER

COOPER

PUDWILL

MARNELL

SCHULTE

PUDWILL MARNELL SCHULTE PUDWILL MARNELL SCHULTE


issue 6

IS THAT SPRAY PAINT CAN IN YOUR POCKET OR... SLIP ME SOME SKINS You can’t skate like Koston, but what you can do is throw on these pieces from his signature Oakley capsule collection. The Frogskins and backpack feature woodgrain print details and colourway, but you’ve surely read all about that on his Twitter. OAKLEY.COM

ZERO HERO With the dropping of his long anticipated full-length video part, it seems like our old friend Keegan Sauder has thrown himself head first into a pro career. He’s been skating like a professional for a couple years now, but it’s nice to see his name on the deck to support it. A pretty epic first graphic at that, but it is a shame that they corrected the mismatched shoes that grace the original artwork, which will forever live on his forearm.

Bobby Worrest got his buddy Cycle to design this fleecelined, nylon, quilted jacket for éS. The well known graffiti artist who has made his mark in DC, NYC, and SF really put some thought into making this wardrobe piece something he’ll be able to put to good use. The jacket features two spray can pockets to help keep a low profile.

ZEROSKATEBOARDS.COM

ESFOOTWEAR.COM

TIME FOR A TREAT This is Nixon’s fourth year of producing a limited Holiday watch collection, only available at Barneys NYC. There are five different models all incorporating luxurious looking black, gold and tortoise shell details, ideal items to add to your holiday wish list. NIXONNOW.COM

SKATE CLASSY

YES, THOSE JEANS DO MAKE YOUR ASS LOOK FAT So get rid of them and do something good for someone else while you’re at it. Volcom is giving you the chance to win a year’s supply of jeans with their “Give Jeans a Chance” program. All you have to do is grab a pair of jeans you have in your closet right now and drop them in the bin at participating shops and you can enter to win a closet full of denim. All of the donated jeans are being distributed locally by “The National Coalition for the Homeless” to folks who will really appreciate the gift. VOLCOM.COM

These DC Sector 7 WTs are the perfect shoe for the holiday season. They’ve got a subtle touch of class with their wing-tip toe and a gentlemanly, cement-coloured suede upper. Brilliant apparel for that quick session you squeeze in on the way to family gatherings. DCSHOES.COM [ o ] TAIT

INSIGHT ROLL THE DICE

PURPLE BEARING EATER

Insight is producing another amazing collaboration series, this time with acclaimed band Black Dice. Rising from the Providence, Rhode Island, art and music scene in the late 90s, Black Dice has become famous for their own brand of melodic-harsh noise music. The members of the group were at one point all members of the Rhode Island School of Design and alongside their musical endeavors the collective also produces visual art. These pieces from their collaboration with Insight are the collective’s latest non-music based project.

Keep your Toy Machine bearings in this handydandy dispenser, then when you’ve used them all up, fill it with some Tums for those post-party, early morning work-days.

INSIGHT51.COM

38

colORMAGAZINE.CA

TOYMACHINE.COM

POP SHOP Anthony Poppalardo’s handmade stools/benches/chairs are all meticulously handcrafted with a variety of exotic woods. The attention to detail is immediately apparent and as such, these pieces don’t come cheap. One of these pretty stools will cost you around $1000, so maybe better to save some cash and pick up one of his decks instead. chocolateskateboards.com


NIKE SB

SKATE MENTAL

NIKESKATEBOARDING.COM

DECEMBER 09


IT HAS ARRIVED.

THE WEBSITE YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR. FEATURES

EVENTS

MAGAZINE

VIDEOS

COMMUNITY

BLOGS

STORE

Quality photo and video content you won’t find anywhere else. Enjoy full screen photo viewing and HD video without the usual clutter.

Explore our calendar of events and check back fore event photos. Plus, if you’re a registered user, you can share your own events and photos!

Get the scoop on what’s new on the paper side of things. Sign up to receive either print, or all new digital copies that you can share with your friends!

With channels and programming for everyone, the new Color TV has it all. Filter your content by show, director, genre, or department.

Check our what readers have to say, and what’s new in all sections of the site. At a glance, see Color’s twitter, facebook, and flickr action.

Daily updates from the magazine staff, and a controlled list of talented contributors in all areas of the sport, art, and culture of skateboarding.

Get limited edition merch including collaborative products produced by Color with your favorite brands, + back issues, art prints and more.

COLO RMAGAZINE.CA LAUNCHING 01/01/10


[ o ] NICHOLAS

volume 7 issue 6

Line ‘em Up

(Shot on location at the St. Regis Hotel, Vancouver BC.)

A little choice never hurt anyone, so whether you’re starting your tour with the spring blossoms, or just hitting a warm spot this winter, pack heavy with skateboarding’s lightest footwear. (left to right) ELEMENT winslow CONS cts POINTER taylor CIRCA er IPATH dayak LAKAI belmont

colORMAGAZINE.CA

41


Only the Essentials

Pack your carry-on with the necessary items you want to have near you at all times, even as you slumber. Keep them within arms-lengh laid out for easy access on the bedside table.

[ o ] NICHOLAS

WESC joshi robe and golden oboe headphones DVS francisco corduroy slippers COMUNE sid wallet VESTAL savant watch LRG 47 gun salute media case EMERICA ceelo kit pouch ‘n dice BRIXTON hitch key chain


[ o ] NICHOLAS

It Makes the Man This heavy on the lux and mellow on the bux outfit will make bottles pop all night long. Keep it looking right with overnight drycleaning before throwing it in the garment bag and jetting to the next party.

VOLCOM stone suit suit ÉS belair long sleeve woven COMUNE manchester belt SKATE MENTAL forbes gold watch deck EMERICA laced hi suede shoes

colORMAGAZINE.CA

43




Beauty & the Beast II wordsby rick mccrank

T

his is the last time I will ever complain about my job. The truth is that pretty much everybody has to work, everyone has to put in their hours and get a paycheque to spend on food and shelter etc., it’s just how our society works. And with most jobs comes a certain amount of monotony, you fall into a familiar routine or you see the same faces at work every day. I’m lucky enough to call skateboarding my job but even skateboarding for a living (after a certain amount of time) can and does become a little monotonous (just a little). (from top - left to right) Lincoln City beach camp, windy, cold epic. colenphoto. (This caption is a no-brainer) Frank getting tubed in Missoula. smythphoto. Team Pretzel Grip’s mascot. morfordphoto. On a full OCD mission Brian built up a nice sage collection. smythphoto.

46

colORMAGAZINE.CA

At home you mostly end up skating the same spots with the same filmers, photographers and skaters and get kicked out by the same security guards. Going on tour, which used to be new and exciting, even becomes routine. Doing demos you tend to do the same tricks that you think are good but don’t take all day to land, at in-stores you write the same autograph in the same spot on the same poster of you and your teammates, drawing the same large afro on yourself over and over while someone else opts for adding a penis to the monotony. In the van you always sit front row/left window, at night you turn on the same generator to light up the same loading dock ledge, rail, stairs or bank in every town. You go to the same hotels and sleep in the same beds on the same side of the room, you and your same roommate meet everyone in the lobby at the same time every morning and try to find the same overpriced, over-sugared corporate coffee shops next to the exact same row of corporate fast-food restaurants, clothing stores, and furniture stores that are identical (identical!) in every town. Then a funny thing happens, all of a sudden things start to look and feel different and new, all of a sudden the team you’ve been skating with for so many years decides to join with another completely different team and go on a

completely different tour and you’re not staying in hotels anymore, you’re sleeping in a sleeping bag under the stars or in a tent. You’re not doing demos at every stop, you’re just skating new fun parks and spots everyday and you’re lighting fires every night instead of lighting up spots and you’re loving it. The routine gets changed, you’re not going exclusively to faceless corporate chains but instead you’re going to the unique establishments owned and run by the weird but amazing locals with the best stories in the world. You’re so excited about all of this different and new stuff that you all decide that it has to happen again next year somewhere different and new again but with the same people (and a couple add-ons). So now it’s next year and you’re doing the new thing all over again but it’s not so new anymore, you realize that these new people that you are with aren’t strangers anymore – that somehow you know each other really well, somehow you’ve always known each other, you’ve always done this and you’ve always gotten along, you realize that hanging out with the same people isn’t monotonous at all it’s just awesome because they are awesome and skateboarding is awesome and the reason you hang out with awesome people is because you like to, not because you have to, and you can’t believe that you actually get to skateboard for a living.


volume 7

This kid has no idea how special he is. Thanks, Robbie. colenphoto.

Me and Alex: “Dude, this totally reminds me of Swingers in Hollywood.” morfordphoto. colORMAGAZINE.CA

47


[ o ] COLEN

colormagazine.ca


www.fenchurch.ca



volume 7 issue 6

Volcom Skate House, CA

2.

3.

1. wordsby dylan doubt

4.

photosby remy stratton

I

had a favourite book as a child, The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. It’s the story of a boy and the tree that loved him. He would climb in her branches, and eat her apples and nap in her shade. But the boy grows and spends less and less time with the tree and that makes her sad. The boy returns as a man, and the tree offers him apples so that he can have money, branches so that he can build a house, and eventually her trunk so that he can build a boat and sail away. In the end the boy returns as an old man, and the only thing the tree can offer is a stump for the man to sit on, which is all he needs and makes the tree happy. I can’t help but think of a skate team house in these terms, quietly awaiting the throngs of transient inhabitants, happily offering a warm place for them to rest their heads as they blow into town for various skate missions. Alternately, I picture a sad house, full of empties, dirty socks and broken boards, missing the sounds of laughter, loud music and skateboarding – the pool surface smooth, the mini bars empty, the flat bottom of the mini ramp covered in leaves and debris. Built during the Cold War, the Volcom house lies on two acres of wooded property containing a pool, bar, mini ramp, fire pit and an array of wildlife. The house has been called (temporarily) home by most of the Volcom skaters and bands on the Volcom

5.

6.

7.

8.

label. It serves as headquarters for visiting skaters on So Cal skate missions, Aussies, Euros and cosmonauts who stay for longer stretches. The house is an ideal home base or a quiet escape to sit and scratch the head. Unfortunately, the house’s days are numbered, its future lays in a massive condo development, but for now the Volcom team is doing their best to get the most out of it, from raging pool parties to quiet afternoon mini ramp sessions. So while the future is a little up in the air, at the moment there are Europeans in the somewhat chilly pool, a mellow mini ramp session going on and people drinking around the fire pit, and the house is happy.

1. The house is apparently haunted, not to mention the previous owner’s son (a grown man in his 40s) comes by randomly to pay homage to the land and climb his favourite tree. 2. Nautical knot knowledge is essential. 3. Any given day. 4. Unskateability deemed this one a bomb shelter, though the acoustics demand a jam session. 5. When we moved in the previous tenants left piles upon piles upon piles of junk behind. It was as if they never threw anything away since the house had been built back in the 50s. This organ was one of the few items that we hung onto. An entire wing of the house was over run by cats, with piss and shit everywhere. The Hazmat crew had to come in and cleanse the place before we could move in. 6.Team dinner party central. 7.The big room. It has a futon in addition to two bunk beds. It gets more people, but more smells and noises to deal with. 8. Unskateability deemed this one a swimmer. It’s pretty cold these days but don’t tell the Euros that, they’ve been in the pool daily. colORMAGAZINE.CA

51


volume 7 issue 6

Tour Posters

“I modified the shirt of Turtle-boy to have the commonly asked tour questions on it.” —ed templeton

wordsby dylan doubt

T

here is a reason that we have been inundated with an endless barrage of limited edition shoes, decks, shirts, socks, etc. over the past few years. There is definitely a place for the classic white tee, or a nice pair of Chuck Taylors, but generally there is something extra appealing about anything that is available only for a finite period and then is gone. Nothing is as honest an example of this as the tour poster or t-shirt. Unless you were a stop on the tour, part of the art department, or had a spot in the van, it’s unlikely that anyone ever gets a chance to see them. We asked some of our friends to dig through the vaults and selected a few of our favourites from over the years to share with you.

52

colORMAGAZINE.CA

ephemera | 'fem( )r | plural noun things that exist or are used or enjoyed for only a short time. • items of collectible memorabilia, typically written or printed ones, that were originally expected to have only short-term usefulness or popularity. Ralphs Variflex Demo, 1981 Free Yogurt “Eric Grisham snd I fell over the back of the Plexiglass ramp we used that had no decks back then.” Bones Brigade Tour, 1986 by Jim Knight “Think this is the tour we drove George Powell’s station wagon around the USA with a jump ramp on the roof.”


Super Champion Funzone, 2005 (Fourstar, Japan) by Rob Abeyta

South Africa Tour, 1999 (Girl) by Andy Jenkins

Eh to Z, 2008 (DVS Canada) by Matt Deak

Lurk-Fest, 2007 (Toy Machine) by Ed Templeton

colORMAGAZINE.CA

53


RYAN SHECKLER BACKSIDE FLIP

OLIVER BARTON PHOTOS

etnies.com timebombtrading.com stickers@timebomb.bc.ca



contest

Tomorrow’s Photographers Today

wordsby dylan doubt

A

t Color, we’re always on the lookout for talented new photographers, so when Push.ca approached us about being part of their First Photos contest we jumped at the chance. Along with Brian Caissie and Bob Kronbauer (from Vancouver Is Awesome), we poured over what seemed like hundreds of images. There were abstract blurry art photos, cell phone images, photos stolen from the internet, photos of kids jumping off their balconies, and even a couple images “borrowed” from my own repertoire. Among all this visual detritus were actually quite a few good images from aspiring skate photographers. In fact, narrowing it down to what appears on these pages was much more work than you’d think, but after a few arm wrestling matches and some coin flipping we managed to pick some winners. There were an overwhelming amount of reflections and rocks, but it seems that none made it this far. Also worthy of mention were the number of truly first photos. A borrowed camera, and some bros messing around in their backyard. Now that’s the good stuff!

3.

6.

1. 2.

56

colORMAGAZINE.CA

4.

5.

1. BEST LIGHT & COLOUR

2. BEST CONTENT

Jeff Khounthavong Nathan Bartlett - switch flip Edmonton, AB Camera: Nikon D40 / Lens: 10.5mm

Stephan Hare Andrew Reynolds - frontside flip Vancouver, BC Camera: Canon 30D / Lens: Canon 19-35mm Exposure: 1/160, f/5.0, ISO 400


3. IMPACT

4. BEST QUALITY

5. BEST TIMING

6. BEST OVERALL

Peter Stankiewicz Chris Marleau - backside smith grind Toronto, ON Camera: Nikon d2h w / Lens: 35-70 2.8 Exposure: 1/1000, f/4

Curtis Rothney Nick Hanlon - smith grind Halifax, NS Camera: Bronica Sq-a w / Lens: 150mm Exposure: 1/125th, f/5.6

Eric Lemay Ian Simono - kickflip backside smithgrind Montréal, QC Camera: Nikon D2Xs / Lens: 10.5mm Exposure: 1/320, f/5.6, ASA 100

Mike Helfrich Dean Wuensche - ollie Vancouver, BC. Camera: Nikon D300 / Lens: 18-200mm Exposure: 1/160 sec, f/3.8, 26mm, ISO 100

colORMAGAZINE.CA

57


volume 7 issue 6

Guy Ben-Ner, Stealing Beauty, 2007 Ron Mueck, A Girl, 2006 Ron Mueck, Head of a Baby, 2003

Ron Mueck & Guy Ben-Ner wordsby leah turner

Mueck, with his incredibly hyper-realistic fiberglass and silicone sculptures of the human body, is the undisputed star of this pairing. Predisposed as he was, being the son of toymakers, Mueck went on to have a successful career as a model maker and puppeteer for film, television and advertising before transitioning into contemporary art in the 1990s. (Notably, Mueck worked on Jim Henson’s now cult-classic Labyrinth – and as an irresistible aside, he contributed the voice of gentle giant Ludo). Success came quickly, especially after his inclusion in Charles Saatchi’s now-infamous 1997 exhibition, Sensation. Central to the experience of viewing Mueck’s sculptures is the psychological tension elicited through a dramatic distortion of scale and proportion. A Girl (2006) is the focal point of the exhibition – a gigantic, bloody, 16-foot newborn baby, with umbilical cord intact. Its body is dramatically twisted, clenched and disproportionately elongated. If A Girl hasn’t already delivered an emotional wallop, then the comically sinister Head of Baby (2003), otherwise known as this writer’s worst nightmare, certainly will. About eight feet in diameter, Mueck’s giant, puffy, baby head riffs on the typical function of monumental sculpture, offering a playful metaphor for the emotional power and presence that the child wields within the family dynamic. At the other extreme, only about two-feet long, Old Woman in Bed (2000) draws instead on the power of the diminutive. In Mueck’s worldview, babies are born giants, threatening

58

colORMAGAZINE.CA

Images courtesy National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa.

O

ne of art history’s best told tales recounts how artists learnt to convincingly render reality, hinging, of course, on the 15th century “discovery” of linear perspective and its potential for remarkable illusionism. Contrary to what the five following centuries of artistic practice might suggest, the success of Australian-born, London-based artist Ron Mueck proves that verisimilitude and technical virtuosity still hold us very much in thrall today. Organized by the National Gallery of Canada, and in large part comprised of works in their permanent collection, Real Life brings Mueck together with acclaimed Israeli and Berlin-based artist Guy Ben-Ner, to probe the philosophical territories of reality, artifice and everyday existence. Originally shown at the National Gallery’s satellite exhibition venue in Shawinigan, Quebec, in 2008, Real Life has since toured to several venues across Canada, including where I took it in, at Calgary’s Glenbow Museum.

“Here reality gives way to something beyond, something excessive and deeply psychologically effecting.” and invincible, shrinking with age. Profoundly affected after visiting his wife’s hospitalized grandmother, Mueck’s Old Woman in Bed is a tender portrait of human fragility – a woman on her deathbed, shrouded in blankets, skin papery and translucent, her mouth gasping for air. Mueck’s bodies are extraordinarily, utterly lifelike, and it is wonderful to revel in the fine details: gooseflesh, blemishes and nipples. But his bodies soon begin a subtle transformation. Akin to the effect of viewing Gunther von Hagen’s plastinated cadavers, here reality gives way to something beyond, something excessive and deeply psychologically effecting. Though we marvel at the craftsmanship on display, these objects simultaneously and paradoxically seem to exist completely, uncannily, of their own accord. In contrast to Mueck’s virtuosic manipulation of materials, Ben-Ner’s work deliberately invokes low-tech, hasty fabrication. In video and sculptural installation Treehouse Kit (2005), the artist stages himself as a Robinson Crusoe of sorts, who washes “ashore” under a large tree, which is assembled from various pieces of shoddy, pre-fabricated furniture and presented in the gallery space. Throughout the course of the video, which parodies the do-it-yourself home improvement genre, we witness the artist methodically dismantling and reconfiguring the wooden components into what ultimately proves to be a rickety but adequate dwelling.

Ben-Ner’s other offerings, Moby Dick (2000) and Stealing Beauty (2005) also deal with make-believe, role play and the idea of home – the latter a 17-minute video that sees the artist and his family setting up residence in a series of IKEA model rooms across the globe. Produced without permission, Ben-Ner eventually found himself evicted from each store, but not before setting up a camcorder and loosely staging all manners of domestic activities. His wife catches him masturbating in the shower in one scene. In another, he lectures his kids for misbehaving, launching into a spiel about private property and theft, while throughout the disjointed narrative, confused shoppers and loudspeaker announcements periodically interrupt the action. While perhaps not the most obvious pairing, these artists are connected by their humourous, deeply empathetic view of the human condition, and their ability to punctuate the everyday with experiences of poignancy. “Birth and death, love and loneliness, body and mind.” The exhibition text panels call attention to these most fundamental of binaries – subjects that despite figuring prominently throughout art’s history, clearly continue to absorb us with their inscrutability. Et plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose? Glenbow Museum, Calgary October 17, 2009 - January 24, 2010



volume 7 issue 6

The Eminent Adidas Endeavour


Zach Lyon, switch frontside feeble, Vancouver Zach Lyons came all the way in from “Bodymore, Murdaland” to join the tour and all he got was the staple Canadian skater XXXL tall tee… and this switch front feeble. Maybe he can use his incentive cheque to come back and stalk Tegan and Sarah. photosby jeff comber

colORMAGAZINE.CA

61


“I had a amazing time in Canada! I’m just kind of bummed I didn’t get to meet Tegan or Sara.” —zach lyons

Security in Winnipeg, MB

I

n the heat of summer, adidas spread their giant trident across the country, getting the Canadian team together along with team manager Benjamin Motz and Color’s compadre with a camera, Jeff Comber. With a strong eastern connection, the team started their trek in Montreal hitting the suburbs, visiting shops, hosting games of S.K.A.T.E. with the locals, and barbecuing up the best beef our great plains have to offer. Plane tickets stowed, they hit the road for Ottawa and then the railway for Toronto, onward to Winnipeg. Separating ‘tours’ from ‘trips’, adidas made it successfully to Vancouver, and after 20 days of skateboarding every day, the barbecue burned better than ever and the after party sizzled too. U.S. import, Zach Lyon attests, “I had an amazing time in Canada!” Reminding us again that skateboarding hasn’t forgotten about us. “[I] Got to see Tony Ferguson skate, Gailea Momolu got me a shot at the bar, chilled with Wade [Desarmo]…” Lyon adds. Lost train tickets, endless days of driving, injuries, and the necessary shop visits to boot, the team introduced to you on the following pages offered not the standard trick-by-trick recollection of their journey, but simply brief stories about some people you may or may not know who skated for 20 days straight and got the photos to prove it. Benjamin Motz recounts the journey: When we got to Vancouver, both Jake Donnelly and Zach Lyons flew in from their respective states to come skate some of the shop events with us and to visit Canada. Zach seemed to know more about Canadian skateboarders than most Canadians do and Jake likes Canadian girls about as much as most Americans do. Zach made it a mission to get a photo in Color, hopefully he gets paid incentives in USD though, because at the time of this writing our dollar isn’t exactly doing well.

62

greatplainstrains.


Drew McGraw - Winnipeg, MB

(opposite) Andrew McGraw, backside five-0, Montreal

Tyler’s dogs - Newmarket, ON

Nick Genova - Vancouver, BC

McGraw is one of the hardest working skaters you’ll ever meet, and don’t think I’m obliged to say it either. The fact is that he just skates – all the time. And it just happened to pay off in a huge stack of clips for the new Studio vid along with a few banger photos as well. He also decided to enter Am Getting Paid at the last minute and finished just out of the top ten, which meant that I got to buy the beer as usual.

Wojtek Zawada, nollie flip hippie jump, Toronto Wojtek likes his sleep, when we went to New York last year he somehow managed to get jetlagged on the flight from Toronto – which crosses exactly zero time zones. Get a few baskets of french fries and a couple burgers in him and he’s somehow ready to go. Laserflips were banned this trip, but that didn’t stop him from fingerflipping a 10-stair at a Winnipeg demo on my board. Wojtek is an enigma wrapped in a perogi, and he snores louder than any human I’ve ever met, thankfully Andrew and Charles had to sleep next to him.

.andautomobiles

63


Charles Rivard - Vancouver, BC

Charles Rivard, wallie, Winnipeg Sometimes I get the feeling that Charles doesn’t exist on the same earth the rest of us do. Then in a moment of clarity he comes up with something entirely poignant, but you still have to laugh because he’s wearing the same tie-dyed shirt with a howling wolf printed on it. Nothing really fazes Charles, the kid gets out of bed late, wakes up a few hours later, eats some beige and then hops on a skateboard and somehow manages to skate anything and everything you bring him to.

64

theeminent.


Charles & Tyler - Toronto, ON

Mike McCourt, ollie, Toronto Skate trips are usually equal parts fun and frustration, it’s fun to skateboard all day, but it’s hard to be spontaneous when you have a group of guys all wanting to skate different things, and sometimes there’s too many kooks lurking around for it to come naturally. McCourt is the type of guy who can disappear for a day and come back with something awesome, whether it’s a photo he took, or one of him. Or maybe it’s an idea for something entirely not related to skateboarding at all

Tyler Maher, nosemanual nollie flip, Toronto During the trip there were at least two rooms at any hotel, one called the “old folks home”, which is where the old guys slept. Tyler isn’t really that old at all, but he can still handle his liquor better than anyone on the team and he’s up in the morning ready to grab coffee and get a day started no matter what happened the night before or what time he dragged himself in at.

Tyler Maher - Surrey, BC

.adidasendeavour

65


Andrew McGraw - frontside tailslide, Toronto The empty security desk in the lobby means it’s GO Time. Drew makes this frontside tailslide before coffee break was over. VXS.K.A.T.E., Mike Vince, nollie, Toronto We met up with Mike Vince in Montreal and invited him to come skate with us in Toronto before he headed out to NYC. The last time I saw Mike was in Barcelona four years ago where he was doing insanely difficult ledge tricks, and it was good to see that not much has changed.

Hotel life - Ottawa, ON

Twenty days on the road can take a lot out of you, and when you throw a bunch of events and parties into the mix it can get downright exhausting. We were lucky to have great weather with us the whole trip and to have met a bunch of rad people who helped keep us going along the way. Traveling while skateboarding is one of the best possible times you can have, so if you’re thinking about packing up the car and heading out on a road trip, or booking a ticket across the ocean to a more exotic locale, just make it happen. It’s way better than spending your money on Xbox live.

Drew - Toronto, ON

66

trip.

Wojtek - Montreal, QC


colORMAGAZINE.CA

67


Om’s Meditative Metal wordsby shawn lennon

O

illustrationsby niall mcclelland

m is a duo featuring the sonorous bass tones and chant-like vocals of Al Cisneros, formerly of Sleep and currently also in supergroup Shrinebuilder, along with members of Neurosis and the Melvins. The group formed in 2003 with drummer Chris Hakius, also of Sleep, and released five albums together before Emil Amos of Grails and Holy Sons took over on drums in 2008. Om’s sound has always contained the hallmarks of Sleep’s revered stoner rock but, relying almost strictly on rhythm instruments, their songs are focused and meditative musical dialogues that often run well over 10 minutes in their search for transcendent bass tone. Live, Al’s Rickenbacker bass is powered by 480 watts and 18 speakers rivaling the bellows of a giant pipe organ, while Amos exudes enough fury behind the drums to fend off an army of rabid pit-bulls. Even at molasses-slow tempos, Om’s songs work like incantations, drawing a magic diagram that holds their two extremes – drawn-out euphoria and explosive crescendo – in perfect tension. They’ve just wrapped up North American and European tours in support of their new album God is Good – their first to incorporate more diverse instruments and flavours – and with new material already in the works, Om’s future is something to look forward to. Here’s a few words with the new Om’s Al and Emil as they talk about the new record, their initial inspiration and what’s to come.


volume 7 issue 6

Color: What got you started in music? Al: I was just drawn towards it from the earliest age. Kiss’ Destroyer was the first record I owned, my dad bought it for me in 1978, and I just continued from there. I think the first pivotal records for myself were Maiden’s Piece of Mind and Rush’s Moving Pictures, and I was completely absorbed into it from there forward. Both of those records, I didn’t know then, but they’re definitely bass player records, I just continued evolving, searching, listening, practicing. Was it always bass? Al: I started on guitar in fifth grade, I worked on it for about a year and a half, took some lessons and practiced really hard, but the guitar solo on “Over the Mountain” on Diary of a Madman caused me to realize that no matter what, I’m just not cut out to be a guitar player. When I met Chris in eighth grade he had a bass guitar and played a little bit. We wanted to start a band really bad, no matter what. He was able to play some beats better than I could, and the bass felt very natural to me so we just traded and that’s how I ended up on bass. It’s been that way ever since. I always see the bass as a melodic drum, like it’s kinda a combination between guitar and drums, it’s really my favourite instrument in that respect. How did Emil end up taking Chris’ place? Emil: That whole story is basically that Grails and Om went on a West Coast and an East Coast tour and after the shows we’d stay up really late and instead of socializing we’d often just turn into total music scientists and examine super analytical semi-spiritual interpretations of Black Sabbath records. We bonded in this kind of weird secret cult of record-head nerdism. Then after Chris left, Al called me and we organized recording a Sub Pop 7-inch before we’d even played together. He flew up and we had two days booked in the studio and that’s how it all started. We started booking trips to Japan, Belgium and Spain, and we hadn’t really played together so our lives were a bit of a mess but I guess that betrayed how confident we were. That’s basically the story. Was it a hard transition? Al: No, not at all, it was a very welcome one. Emil’s playing style is very energetic and very lyrical which facilitates the very premise of a rhythm section. I feel very blessed and am really looking forward to the new material, we already have new material post-God is Good. We just really communicate well musically and understand one another’s ideas and the nuances of the songs we’re working on. It’s great working with Emil. Emil: The central fact is that we’re staying true to ourselves and we’re super excited about what we’re doing. The changes are pretty subtle in the end. It’s not like we’re going to come out on trampolines, playing harps or anything... it’s still gonna be the same band, it’s not gonna be that shocking. How structured is the stuff with Om, coming from the recordings to the live performance? Emil: Everything in all the bands I play in is generally completely structured, a lot of people think it’s improv because we kind of come at it in a freeform way when playing live... but everything in Om is definitely written. I think the way that Al’s brain works tends to use the song parts like metaphors for an almost ritualistic strict religious practice... so a song definitely repeats a specific amount of times, then it goes to another part. It could be that changing a part for him would be sort of like ripping pages out of the bible or something. The changes in the music are so far apart it must take some concentration. Emil: That’s what interesting about playing in Om and that’s what’s really challenging. It’s not completely natural for your body to play at top volume for, like, 25 minute long songs. Your body starts to cramp up and sometimes I have to do drum fills just to take a deep breath or break it up because you’ll start to feel the Carpal Tunnel coming if you keep doing that repeated motion. You can get lost in a huge sea of sound with sweat in your eyes, bleeding from your

“You can get lost in a huge sea of sound with sweat in your eyes, bleeding from your hands and going totally deaf...” —emil amos hands and going totally deaf... if you don’t really know what part of the song you’re in you just have to give yourself to it. It’s more like being in a war for me than being in a normal two-and-a-half minute pop song band or something like that. After doing the Sleep reunion show at ATP, any chance of doing any more? Al: We’re talking about it but there’s nothing confirmed at this point. We had some great closure and healing in the process and it was a really good vibe so we’re open to it. Of course the priority is always Om, and my other band, Shrine Builder, is getting ready to go on the road in a couple weeks. That album just came out about two days ago. So the new album, you recorded it with Steve Albini? Emil: Yeah, it set a precedent because that sound, the clarity is so transparent for his recordings. We’re going to do the next record on the West Coast and we’re not sure what kind of character it’s going to have, ‘cause after you record with him your drum sounds and everything

have this very specific identity. Albini often says that he finds himself only really listening to bands or music where he gets the distinct feeling that he would like to hang out with the people involved more than even listening to the specifics of how their songs go, and I’ve always felt that way, too. It’s similar to skateboarding because there’s so many kids that can do pretty much anything so everybody often finds themselves focusing on style more often than the technicalities. When you watch 1000 skate videos in a weekend everything starts to blur together and things don’t stand out unless they’re really fun to watch and you start to cue into the subtleties... Like if you compared Chris Cole and Heath Kirchart: all the kids are going to want to see Chris Cole do some insane nollie 360 flip down some stairs into a blunt slide on the handrail. But the way Heath Kirchart just does a 360 down them can be more satisfying to watch in the way his body moves and what his style is conveying. It’s like the difference between watching James Dean in a movie versus just some guy on like Melrose Place or something. It has this certain character to it, it’s like a certain type of spiritual confidence or grace that we are all drawn to. Have you decided who you’ll work with on the next record? Al: We’re determining that right now. We have a couple of engineers we’re talking with and studios we’re looking at and new material starting to form already. It’s been forming for awhile and I’m really looking forward to that. Again, a continuation of the theme, the theme that there is in the first four LPs. More reports on the movement of that journey. God is Good is out now on Drag City records.

colORMAGAZINE.CA

69


volume 7 issue 6

words and photosby felix faucher

Seizing the Day in Europe with Josh Clark


colORMAGAZINE.CA

71


Josh Clark, backside kickflip into bank, Barcelona.

72

leavinggrey.

S

aturday night at the end of the winter. It’s been two weeks since I’ve quit my comfortable job in order to change my life. The 30s crisis hit me hard and a complicated relationship with a co-worker had made things worse. So here I am, drinking with some friends, wondering what I’ll be doing during the six months before returning to school. Considering my state of depression, a friend suggests that I just pack my goods and head to Barcelona. I tell him that it doesn’t just work like that. I can’t just show up in Barça and start shooting photos of random skaters, so I simply sink into my bottles of red wine and fall asleep on his couch. I arrive home the next day to find that Josh Clark has added me on Facebook and I initiate a conversation. Josh tells me that he’s in Barça with a group of guys for the next two months. I check my bank account, arrange for someone to water my plants and pick up my mail, and buy a plane ticket for two months in Europe. My head still hurts from all the wine but to quote The Dead Poets Society, I’ve got the feeling I have seized the day.


Josh Clark on ‘Just up and doing it’: Moving to Spain for the winter months

Color: How did you manage to finance such a long trip in the relatively expensive city that is Barcelona? Josh Clark: I moved back home to Fredericton [NB] and worked in construction building a hotel for two months prior to the trip, and my sponsors helped me financially as well, it was kind of half and half. How did that trip come about, who organized it? Well, Max Fine planned it from the beginning, it was his idea at first, he was renting an apartment in Barcelona and talking around with some friends seeing who was up for it. I knew Kevin Lowry was also part of the plan since very early on, so I expected the three of us to be together. Turns out Max had talked to quite a lot of people, so when we finally dropped into the flat there were nine of us in a two-bedroom apartment. That was our setting for the first two months. Somehow I had a room for myself, but there were people sleeping in the closet, two people on the kitchen floor… We had a full house the whole time we lived in that apartment. Alex Fauteux and Chuck Rivard came around, also Evan [Poduluk], Drew [Merriman], David Shubat… There were so many Canadians in Barça it was just insane. One morning we were warming up at Uni [Universitat metro station] and there were something like 50 Canadians at the spot. The missions were organized like safaris: a filmer and a photographer will pick up some skaters and head to a spot. We would mostly film with David Shubat and Jordan Mayfield. The Kitsch guys knew a bunch of spots so they were good people to go on missions with.

I’m walking down on Passeig de Gracia. The sidewalk is covered with a pattern reminiscent of seashells. Two of the most recognizable buildings in the world stand on each side of the street: La Pedrera on the left and Casa Batlo to the southwest. Both masterpieces are the product of Catalan genius Antonio Gaudi. The shape of these buildings remind me of Atlantida. Gaudi’s buildings seem to have suffered erosion. With seashells under my feet, lost within a river of tourists under the Mediterranean sun, I suddenly stop. On the sidewalk, in between the fancy stores and the terrasses filled with Germans, English and American tourists, a group of Africans have created a surrealist scene. A dozen black men are standing 12 feet apart from each other in two parallel rows on each side of the sidewalk. In front of each one of them is a rectangular blanket with nylon threads coming from each corners attached to their right hand: these guys are fishing. Their bait are some glittering handbags lying on the blanket that will hopefully reward them with a couple Euros. Yet each and every one of these men has a gaze wich says terror. They

frantically look left and right, inquiring any pair of eyes they stumble upon, trying to recognize the signs that forecast a police storm that would lead to deportation. Watching these fleeting fishermen reminds me of the hundreds of skateboarders that fly every winter to Barcelona in a quest for footage and photos, risking their bodies and defying the law in what has become skateboarding’s Holy Land.

Max Fine, kickflip over rail, Barcelona.

I finally meet with the crew. Everyone’s got a laptop, is ten years younger than me and is at least six feet tall. It’s like hanging around with a bunch of shoulders. There’s Josh Clark from New Brunswick, whom I’ve met a couple times in the past six years, and two new faces: Kevin Lowry from Saskatoon and Max Fine from Toronto. Glencoe Hogle also hangs around with us and there are some other guys in the apartment who I don’t get to know much. I stayed in a different apartment for the first two weeks, then moved in with Clark, Lowry and Fine in a small place in El Raval, near MACBA.

.trip

73


“It is the place you want to hit at least once in your life if you ride a skateboard.”

Kevin Lowry, ollie, Barcelona.

74

trip.

Josh Clark, rock ‘n’ roll slide, Girona.


Lowry is a reserved guy with an intricate sense of humour, which are two great qualities for a travel mate. When he couldn’t take any more of Josh’s exhuberating energy he would simply walk out to skate the MACBA with his Blueprint pals. If we had any late-night wine and cards or night out plans he’d simply go to sleep or hit the internet cabin. I much prefer someone who knows his tolerance threshold and how to deal with it than a drama queen. Lowry is in control, both on and off his board. Max Fine is the easiest guy to hang out with. Always down to skate, play cards, go out or argue with Josh about anything. Nevermind the talent. As much talent as you might have, if you’re lazy you won’t move far past mediocrity. Josh’s got talent too, but most importantly he’s got a plan and a will that you don’t see often. In the words of Jason Crolly (referring at the

time to Ramondetta), the guy’s got heart, and that means sticking by it. If he has tried it he’ll just never give up. From the cold and rain that we experienced a few times it seems like the end of March is not the best time to hit Barça. On one of those stormy days I took the train two hours out of town and headed to Dali’s museum in Figueres. I got to the museum too late, but on my way back I noticed what seemed like skateable wooden structures in a town called Girona. Lowry, who was spending his fifth winter in Europe, had heard good stuff about that town, so the next morning we all took the train in search of El Dorado. Girona is the real deal. Much quieter than touristic Barcelona, it has spots by the dozen and a peaceful, antique feel.

.leavinggrey

75


Was this your first year in Barça? Yeah, Ian Twa kept telling me about it, so I thought I might as well go for three months. Barça is one of those places that no matter how high your expectations are you’ll still never be able to imagine something close to the real thing. It’s one really big skatepark, bank paradise. It is the place you want to hit at least once in your life if you ride a skateboard.

“That’s the other thing I learned in Barça, I got a sense of how big the world is.”

What about the Girona adventure? You came back from a train ride out of town with the story of some spots you saw through the window in a town call Girona, and Kevin had heard about it so we all took the train one morning to try and find something new to skate. It took us two hours to find the first spot, but then we found five perfect spots. One of them had been skate stopped with large metal bars around it, and we wanted to uncap it later in the evening but you had to head back to Barça, so we decided to stay a bit late and catch a night train back. We waited until it was dark and started jumping at the bars to break them, when we finally got the work done, we hurried to the train station only to realize that the last train had left five minutes before. We started wandering around, trying to find a place to sleep and internet access to let you know that we got stuck in Girona and that we wanted you to meet us at a spot on the following day, but we couldn’t find internet and the hotels were, like, 250 Euros and up. We thought about sleeping on the street but Kevin’s camera was a risk factor, so we eventually found this small hostel in the middle of the night. We slept in a room the size of a closet. The next morning we went and skated the newly uncapped spot, then the minute you showed up cops arrived, but overall Girona was gold. Barcelona and the surrounding towns are all just unbelievable, you see the architecture and wonder why would anyone build something like that besides for skateboarding? Terassa, Cornelia, Badalona… You just take a train to step out of the downtown area and all of the negative myths about Barcelona disappear. Of course, the downtown area, MACBA and a lot of other spots are a bust, or have been capped or every trick’s been done on them, but there is so much more to discover and skate. Instead of a trick list I had a spot list, and I was actually able to go through most of it. As with any meeting spot, it’s hard to get away from Uni. You wait for people to arrive, then someone is missing because he went for a coffee (someone like Kevin) and someone else wants to get a trick down before they leave (like Max). Also, Uni to me is the most perfect spot, so you have a hard time interrupting your fun to step in a train for half an hour, but it’s well worth it and it’s the key to be productive, photo and footy wise. The good thing about Barça too is that you don’t need to warm up in skateparks before hitting the spots. Yet even what looks like perfect spots are sometimes hard to skate. Kevin told me he went to the spot where Devine Calloway kickflip nosewheelies and it took him five tries just to ollie on it. And Kevin can sure ollie.

Kevin Lowry, frontside nosegrind revert, Barcelona.

76

leavinggrey.


At the end of the day I’m ready to head back to Barça as a Latino Party waits for me in an abandoned factory thanks to my Chilean friends, yet the guys still want to hunt a little more. So I head back alone to go to the party, a Fiesta Okupa. In Spain, the term Okupa is for squatters, in this case it’s a bunch of artists who dwell in an old Print Making factory. Apparently by now they have a deal with the owner and pay minimal rent for their spot. The party rocks until six a.m., and I’m quite surprised when I get home and see that the guys are nowhere to be found. Later, I get an e-mail telling me to head back to Girona and meet them at a spot. When I meet back with the crew they are in a better shape than I’d expect. They almost slept on street benches after missing the last train but they finally managed to get a room in a hotel. (continued on page 148)

Josh Clark, frontside crooked grind to fakie, Barcelona.

.trip

77


78

trip.


How was the end of the trip? After you left, my girlfriend joined us and we took some time to just visit the city. We rented some scooters and drove around town, into the mountains surrounding the city, the view is insane. That’s the other thing I learned in Barça, I got a sense of how big the world is. Was that your first trip outside of Canada? It was my first trip outside of North America. Won’t be my last. I’ve been to California and all over Canada, lived in Vancouver, now Montreal for the past two summers. I currently live here with J-S Lapierre and Adam Green. I think Montreal is a good city to be based in, the vibe is similar to that of Barcelona, it’s cheap too. Next trips? I want to go back to Spain this winter for sure, yet this time try to visit other cities than just Barça. Australia is also in my plans.

Josh Clark, fakie kickflip, Barcelona.

(continued on page 148)

79


volume 7 issue 6

They Live! Make Fresh Rap Out of 80s Debris words and photos by bobby farrington

S

o let’s say you’re a homeless drifter in L.A. with a bad-attitude and huge muscles and one day you happen upon an abandoned church full of boxes and boxes of Ray-Bans. There’s a crazy, blind priest inside broadcasting subversive messages on pirate T.V. airwaves. You put the sunglasses on and – holy shit! – now you can see hidden, corporate, mass media messages of “Obey” and “Consume” that secret alien overlords are using to subliminally control our minds and take over the world. So with your badass decoder shades on, you get some guns and then say something like, “Life’s a bitch... and she’s back in heat,” while you kill some aliens.

Based on Ray Nelson’s 1963 short story “Eight 0’ Clock in the Morning” and adapted into John Carpenter’s most politically-conscious (but still ridiculous) film, They Live critiques 1980s Reagan-Era conspicuous consumerism and economic marginalization. Now the world is different: made up of Seattle MC’s Gatsby and Bruce Illest, They Live! make blunted West Coast rap without forgetting Carpenter’s 80s campiness. From song to song, They Live! drop anything from Repo Man to South Park samples, mixing with Jodeci hooks and heavy beats to form something funky, biting, and funny.

80

it’s a whole bunch of R&B, new Motown swing, running into funk and breaks and hard, high-energy drums. You guys definitely have different styles that really fit in well together, do you guys hear that a lot? Gatsby: It’s interesting, we have a West Coast aesthetic but we have a lot of East Coast influences. West Coast is more than a type of lyrical structure, the West Coast is an idea, it’s the heart. Ice Cube has always been a big influence, he’s been my favourite rapper forever. I realized he was my spiritanimal a long time ago.

They Live! released their first album, The Dro Bots Saga, in early 2009. I caught up with them and talked about not fitting in, the need to share, and post-apocalyptic punk comedy.

Yeah, the single you just released, “Whitney”, sounds really West Coast, I guess. What else are you working on? Are you guys signed right now? Gatsby: We appear courtesy of our own damned selves!

Color: On a basic level, where would you say most of your musical inspiration comes from? Your music moves quickly and it goes a lot of different places… Bruce Illest: I think we both have individual influences. For me, Slick Rick as a rapper but my base influence in music is R&B, everything from Marvin to Teddy Riley to Jodeci. I get inspired by R&B and then make hip-hop. When music collides for me

Bruce Illest: Everything was originally about a middle finger to what’s going on. A lot of times I don’t fit in with what people are doing. I listen to R&B, I play breaks for b-boys and I rap and I just don’t relate with a lot of people. So everything I have always done has been in reaction to somebody saying, “You can’t do that.” I just threw [The Dro-Bot Saga] online and people started listening to it and we started doing shows

colORMAGAZINE.CA

“My base influence in music is R&B, everything from Marvin to Teddy Riley to Jodeci.” —bruce illest and it has literally been its own animal. It’s been its own mission.

Radjaw (Mad Rad) were talking about making a movie…

In terms of films and T.V. and pop culture references, your music has a lot of influences. I love the Repo Man clips in there… and a lot of people have seen John Carpenter’s They Live, so what is the connection? Where does that film and television stuff come from? Gatsby: It’s just the shit that stays with you. Our styles reference a lot of shit. It’s not like “name check, name check,” but it’s like that Transformer who was a motorcycle from the Junk World and who could only talk in T.V. fragments and advertisements? He was always my favourite. We’re kinda like that.

Gatsby: Oh, get the fuck out! Bruce Illest: Yeah, last Saturday night… Wait, tell me about this movie. Bruce Illest: The first conversation just happened on Saturday night, so… Okay, well, if you could make a movie, where would your mind be? Where would you go with it? Bruce Illest: Oh, I would go with the 80s all the way. Go post-apocalyptic punk comedy. Gatsby: Shit, yeah.

Bruce Illest: Personally, being a DJ, I like sharing music with people. I got that way making mix-tapes and if I was making a mix-tape and watching a movie, I would take shit that was hilarious to me, even if it was out of context and I’d just put it in the tape. If I’m going to share my music, I’m also going to share the stuff I watch and the stuff that makes me laugh. You guys are working on a full-length that’s almost done and you just came out with a single with Thee Satisfaction (“Whitney”). Anybody else you’re working with in Seattle? Bruce Illest: I’m working on something with Pearl from Champagne Champagne. I just recorded a song with P Smoov from Fresh Espresso and Mad Rad… Me and Terry

Bruce Illest: I have a goal in life that I want to naturally say every 80s cliché movie line if somebody else sets it up and doesn’t realize they’re setting it up. I’m just ready for it. Like, “Where we’re going, we don’t need roads.” I want to live like a character from an 80s movie. I want to live and speak and drive a Ferrari like someone from an 80s movie. I want to pour my Slushie on somebody’s head at the mall. Gatsby: That was savage, man. It was hard. I always felt for Gary and Wyatt. They Live!’s The Dro Bots Saga is out now. You can hear and buy their releases and remixes online.



volume 7 issue 6

ILLUSTRATIONS BEN TOUR PHOTOGRAPHY GORDON NICHOLAS Stylist mila franovic STYLIST ASSISTANT ARIANA PREECE HAIR AND MAKE-UP ANDREA TILLER AT NOBARUSA USING TRESEMME MODELS LAURENCE FROM RICHARDS MODELING AGENCY AND DAVE AT JOHN CASABLANCAS VANCOUVER

82

colORMAGAZINE.CA


dave: MATIX pants laurence: RVCA cardigan • ELEMENT pants



dave: FENCHURCH hoody • FOURSTAR jacket laurence: INSIGHT top • VOLCOM jacket • accessories by stylist

.secretstravel

85


dave: (left) SPLIT flannel as scarf • INSIGHT sweater • DC jeans • CONS shoes (middle) RVCA denim shirt • WESC railroad stripe shorts (right) ALTAMONT toque • LAKAI toque • LRG flannel worn under a boiled wool • FOURSTAR jacket • MATIX pants • COMMON PROJECTS shoes laurence: ELEMENT jacket • OPENING CEREMONY sweater • hat by stylist

86

secretstravel.



laurence: MATIX cardigan • MM6 drape • FENCHURCH jeans • F-TROUPE boots dave: (left) WINGS & HORNS cowichan (right) ALTAMONT long sleeve • NOM DE GUERRE denim • CONS shoes

88

colORMAGAZINE.CA



Back Tail - September 14, 2009 - Oceanside, California - Photo by Rhoades

timebombtrading.com stickers@timebomb.bc.ca



volume 7 issue 6


The waterfall in El Almendro about five minutes away from the town. I remember going here when I was younger and having BBQs with family and friends. It’s actually a pretty big jump because you have to clear these rocks. There is a bigger waterfall jump about one hour away...

Managua, Nicaragua wordsby chico brenes

photosby anthony acosta

C

hico Brenes may live in Los Angeles, but Minagua, Nicaragua, is his second home. He fled the country as a child but still has family there, and about six months ago he opened up Central, Nicaragua’s first skate shop. Chico’s regular visits help the thriving skate scene, and he is currently lobbying for the city’s first public skatepark. Nicaragua is the largest country is Central America, bordering Honduras in the north and Costa Rica in the south. The currency is Cordobas and the exchange rate is about 21 Cordobas to one dollar. And don’t believe everything you hear, Nicaragua is also one of the safest countries in Central America.

colORMAGAZINE.CA

93


SNACK.

SKATE.

Places to eat. If you want typical Nicaraguan food go to:

We have no skateparks but we do have really good street spots.

La Cocina de Dona Hayde Planes de Altamira (from the óptica Matamoros, go one block west)

El Muro de Sandino Has banks and rails.

La Plancha

Parque de las madres Has really good ledges. San Judas This is probably my favourite spot – it has ledges off stairs, a six-stair hubba, gaps and good flatground to play S.K.A.T.E. and warm up.

94

managuanicaragua.

El parque Ciudad Jardin This spot has this perfect double set rail, it’s seriously perfect like a long flat bar. Rotonda de la Virgen This is a 20-stair rail into a bank and what makes this spot cool is that there is a big statue of the Virgin Mary at the top of the spot. You could pretty much skate anywhere in the city, all I could say is bring big wheels and be ready to skate some real street spots.


QUIET DRINK.

PARTY.

HANG OUT.

NAP IT OFF.

These are some cool bars that you should check out if you don’t feel like clubbing. All these places have special deals every night, like 50 cent beers or $10 all you can drink.

Night life: if you feel like clubbing this is where you could go.

Spots to check out:

The Reef Zona Viva, in the Galerías Santo Domingo

Moods Zona Viva, in the Galería Santo Domingo.

To chill and relax, I really recommend Barcelo Monte Limar Resort on the beach, it’s about one hour away from the capital but is worth it. For $60 you get a night stay in one of their cabanas and all you could drink and eat. Everytime I go to Nicaragua I have to come here.

Traffic Bar Costado noreste Rotonda Universitaria, Plaza Comercial Brazil

Brother

Zona Hippos Baco’s Bar

Hipa Hipa Plaza Familiar, Carretera a Masaya.

Matrixx Carretera a Masaya kilometre 4 1/2, in front of the Hotel Hilton Princess.

San Juan Del Sur It’s a beach town on the Pacific Coast about two hours away from Managua. Central Skate Shop De la Rotonda el Güegüense, 2 cuadras abajo, en el centro comercial EL Portal, módulo no. 4, Residencial Bolonia, Managua The first and only skate shop in Nicaragua. For more info and photos on the skate scene in Nicaragua go to www.skatenica. com, or phone (505) 22683805.

Chaman 200 metres south of the Restaurante Tiscapa.

colORMAGAZINE.CA

95


volume 7 issue 6

words and photosby isaac mckay-randozzi

H

The Personal Works of Andy Jenkins

ats. As we go through life we all wear different hats to suit the needs of the moment, job, trick or relationship. For Mr. Jenkins, the front of his head has become partially worn due to the number of times he’s had to change hats over his career and life. His first hat tricks were in the magazine business doing a wide variety of work for BMX magazine Freestylin’, Homeboy, DIRT, Transworld Skate and Snow, Big Brother and his own company Bend Press (although it no longer produces on a regular basis). The number of hats in those jobs alone range all over the spectrum that can never be captured in a resumé. During those years he honed the skills he learned at art school in the work place, gaining experience and the learning the pacing of monthly and weekly deadlines. In 1989 his attention turned to doing board graphics. He did the graphics for new Blind pro Jason Lee and continued to work freelance doing graphics for 101, World Industries, Fishlips, Blockhead, Blue and others until he was hired on as Girl’s main art man in 1992.

96

colORMAGAZINE.CA

(opposite clockwise) Heavy Weeks mixed media on wood 28" x 52" Graphic for Foundation Skateboards in celebration of their 20th anniversary Due out: summer 2010 Commissioned by Tod Swank Modern Mandala mixed media on wood 28" x 28" From the collection of Spike Jonze


“Someone should make a Jenkins costume: ballcap, glasses and a goatee. Standard issue.” —tony larson (former Art Dump member)

.northof

97


“He has an air of professionalism and generosity that (it turns out) is unusual in the skateboard graphics world. He was the boss, a legend!” —geoff mcfetridge (freelance artist)

(above) New Depression Refuse #8 mixed media on paper/board 28” x 40” (left) Paintings 2009 with detail (opposite) New Depression Refuse #9 mixed media on paper/board 28” x 40”

98

thepedro.




“That’s one of the most important things that I learned from Andy is getting on with it, no matter what.” —michael leon (former Art Dump member)

Deck for We Are Contributors’ Smile On Your Brother travelling group show, 2009. (opposite) New Depression Refuse #8 mixed media on paper/board 28” x 40”, From the collection of Shepard Fairey

Since then he has been at the helm of one of the most respected art departments in skating. Straying from the general fair of skate graphics each new batch of Girl boards had their own simple and basic aesthetic. Over the years graphic technology has changed and given Jenkins and the other Art Dumpers greater freedom to bring more of their ideas to fruition. But that simple basic feel is still present even in the most Technicolor series. Under his watch Girl has done what few other companies have been able to do: consistently produce solid and creative graphics that are fresh in idea and always nice to look at, then slide off. His off-board artwork and illustrations have been in venues far and wide and on products as varied as you can think, but

when it comes down to the basics. Mr. Jenkins would much rather stay at home and watch his son skate and paint in his kitchen. What one’s friends and contemporaries say speaks volumes to the kind of person someone is. The friends, co-workers and former Art Dump members of Andy Jenkins all speak of him as someone who is more of a guide than a force in the workplace. While not immune to the human condition it seems his way is to be a boss in an almost subversive way because he does it in a way that made those under him like him. In the following text you’ll read what they think of him, as a boss, friend and legend of his craft.

(l-r) Graphic for Mob Skateboards in celebration of their 10th anniversary. Due out: 2010 Commissioned by Christian Roth Guest graphic for Krooked Skateboards, Due out: 2010 Commissioned by Tommy Guerrero

colORMAGAZINE.CA

101


VIEW THE ENTIRE ADIO LINE AT ADIOFOOTWEAR.COM - PHOTO: ED DOMINICK

KENNY STANDARD SL CARCOAL/BLACK/BLUE



volume 7 issue 6


Lomo pictures from the first Gypsy Tour in Italy. [ o ] MICHELINI

Twelve Years of Cliché Skateboards, French Pressed.

wordsby sandro grison

collageby ill studio

C

liché’s new book, Résumé, chronicles the first 10 years and changes of the French-made skateboard company and how it grew to be an internationally known and admired entity amongst skateboarders. Mackenzie Eisenhour breaks it down from owner (former Flip Skateboards team rider) Jérémie Daclin’s career as a skater in the early 90s onward to the early beginnings of Cliché Skateboards in the late 90s and how it came to be known as one of the best companies and teams of all time.

From great misses (including passing up on Arto Saari for the team) to their greatest triumph, “the new Mariano” Lucas Puig and their crowned achievement at the 2005 TWS awards as ‘Best Team’, Résumé documents the anomaly that is Cliché. It tells the story of a boy with a dream through stunning photography and artwork that has come to characterize the success of the foreign brand. Three hundred pages of quality pages are bound together to present spectacular photography and artwork including portfolios from Benjamin Debert, Mike O’Meally, Oliver Barton, and French Fred among others, inspiring us to create a new column in the magazine (page 152) for which we bestow Lucas Puig with the honours of first go.

colORMAGAZINE.CA

105


volume 7 issue 6

wordsby mike christie

I

n our opinion, the best part in Plan B’s earth-shattering video Virtual Reality doesn’t have any Plan B skaters in it. It’s the Beatles sound-tracked friends section: Guy Mariano, Brian Lotti, Henry Sanchez and others, dropping multiple NBD neutron bombs, all in somebody else’s video! It was a time when videos weren’t all-important and people weren’t forced to horde their best shit for years. And it seems astonishing to us that nobody has tried to recreate this kind of distilled, rapid-fire intensity, until now. TENS is a video by Don’t Sleep Productions, the production outfit of Ben Stoddard and Dave Ehrenreich, which began as a very simple idea. “Me and my washed-up skate friends were talking about how cool it would be if we could manage to film ten tricks each over the summer,” says co-creator Ehrenreich, “Then all our friends turned into people all across Canada.” With no formal ‘parts’, it’s ten tricks each from such Canadian shralp-machines as Spencer Hamilton, both Descenzos, Paul Machnau and Bradley Sheppard, to name just a handful. We asked the filmmakers about whether dudes were willing to give up their A stuff, and Stoddard replied, “We’re really the only Canadian project coming out right now. I think the skaters are stoked on the idea and saw it as a good opportunity to get their stuff seen.” All this with the prolific and illustrious Bob Kronbauer on art direction, and you know this thing is gonna look real snazzy as well. TENS is going to be a free DVD distributed to skateshops across Canada, so you can all save some time on scouring YouTube for jerky, pixilated clips, and dig into the real deal, free of charge. Because we can’t wait either, and if they manage to recreate just a little of the mind-bending intensity of those friends sections of yore, we’ve got a winner on our hands. “Me and my burnt-out skate friends never made our TENS goal,” says Ehrenreich, “But luckily everybody else did.”


colORMAGAZINE.CA

107


011011010101001100

1100

110

011

01

01

00

10

01

100

001

11

01

01

10

101 1010

101

DEREK SWAIM / nollie heelflip [ o ] dufresne. 10 thuggish rap lyrics Buck buck [gunshots] from a glock / Let the glass fly. I don’t wanna but I gotta do it / The temptation got me ready to release the fluid. 3. We must remember that tomorrow comes after the dark / So you will always be in my heart, with unconditional love. 4. Driven by my ambitions / Desire higher positions / So I proceed to make Gs / Eternally in my mission. 5. This fast life soon shatters / ‘Cause after all the lights and screams / Nothing but my dreams matter. 6. Raised as Gs / Loc’ed out and blazed the weed / Get on tha roof / Let’s get smoked out and blaze with me. 7. My attitude was, “Fuck it” / ‘Cause motherfuckers love it. 8. To be a soldier / Must maintain composure. 9. Bet they say as of today / I’m back on top like a toupee. 10. Broads hit they knees / Out they clothes when they greet me / Mouth wide open just begging me to skeet skeet.

010 01

1 10

0 11

0

011

0 101

101 101

01010

101010101001011010

1. 2.

00 1

108 thepower.

0

10

01

1

10011

10

1

01

0 01

1 10

1 010

010 101

1


010

101

11

01

10

01 0 100 10

0

10

10

10

010

110

10011

0101010101010

101

11

010 1

0 01

1

11

01

110

10

0101101001010

01010101001011

10110

10101

101

P.J. (Patrick John) Ladd T. God (Terence Goddard) TNT (Tony Trujillo) BA (Brian Anderson) Dr. Z (Zared Basset) TK (Terry Kennedy) GSD (Garry Scott Davis) JS (Jean Sebastien) Lapierre EE (Erik Ellington) PB (Peter Bici) DD (Dustin Dollin) HUF Mo P. Unit Ox

001 0

10 110

100

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

01

BDB / switch heelflip manual [ o ] comber. 10 skaters known by their initials

01

1

1010110101010101

10

1

1010

10

00

1 00

01 101

11

0

101

1010 101011

0101010101010101 1101

0 .oftens 109


10101110101110

010

10

10

10

MAGNUS HANSON / kicklip [ o ] doubt. 10 things to spend contest winnings on.

01 101

1010

I only spend my money on three things, bro: gas, food, and beer. Whoever has 10 things to spend money on is insane.

1

01

01

10

00

101 0

01

010

111

010101

001100101

101

100 1

01

1 110 thepower.

1 0110101 0101010110

0101110011010

010

010

010

110

01

10

0

1010

01

11

01

10 010


.oftens 111


1011010101010

101

010

11

10

110 1

01

01 0 100 10

01

10

01

11

0

0101101001010

10

10110

10101

101

His sponsors repo’d his phone ($800 phone bill). He forgot his Facebook login info. “Delivery Status Notification (Failure).” He missed the bus. He needed to cash a cheque. Girl problems. Headphones on. No fixed address. It’s always 4:20 somewhere in the world. He’s out skating.

001 0

10

10

010

110

10011

0101010101010

101

1

101 0

11

10 112 thepower.

100

01010101001011

01

PAUL TREP / switch frontside 180 heelflip [ o ] caissie. 10 reasons why we could not contact him 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

10 110

10

10

10

1

01010

10

1 00

00

11

11 010


001011010101010110

011

010

10

10 1

0

011

001

100

001

101

01

01

01

01

1

0101

01

01

0 01

10

01 101

101010101011101 01010

1

01

1

10

1 00

01 1

01

10

101

11 100

010

Roll to the party with Swell. Always agree with what the angry drunk guy says. Find a girl, but not Ed Hardy’s girlfriend. Dudes with trackpants and sideways hats aren’t your friend. Being the loud funny guy isn’t the best plan. No wandering by yourself. Stay off the streets, the piggies will get you. Stash your herbs. Don’t beam anyone too hard. Bring your own beers.

1101010101101010101

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

1010

JOHN HANLON / nollie inward heelflip [ o ] caissie. 10 ways to keep it safe when you’re partying in the hood

.tens 113

01

00

110

010

1101

1001011010010101101

001

0

111 0

01

10


1101010111010

1010

101

011

01

01

0

010 101

0101

01

10

010

011

01 101

0 1 0 1 0 1 0 11 0 1 0 1 0 1 0 1

1. 2.

0101 01

The sushi place in the mall… soo ballin’. The skatepark. It got built a year ago and it’s super sick, I spend every day there! 3. The old people who will stop at the park and talk to you for an hour about religion. 4. The whole SA crew in all its glory. 5. Making park montages. 6. The abundance of street spots (for how small the town is). 7. Bush parties… ghetto! 8. The long cold-ass winters… not! 9. The chill atmosphere of a small town. 10. Being surrounded by friends and family and my girl! Tons of support… That’s my favourite part of Salmon Arm!

1011

0111010111001010101

110

SEAN LOWE / nollie frontside noseslide nollie heelflip [ o ] dufresne. 10 best things about life in the Salmon Arm

0

00

01

11

10 1 01

10

01

011

011

0010

110100

10101101001

0111 00

110

10

01 0

11

01 114 tens.

100

10

00

10

01

10

01

10

0

101100

01

1 10

0 01

110

010 101


colORMAGAZINE.CA

115


volume 7 issue 6

At the Front of the Peloton, I Break Wind. wordsby john rattray photosby dylan doubt captionsby keegan sauder


Silas Baxter-Neal Keegan Sauder John Rattray Kenny Anderson Chris Haslam Rick McCrank Cairo Foster

colORMAGAZINE.CA

117


“Apparently it’s an easy day, but whoever the hell made those rules up should be fired. I got it. C’mon, Cairo.” —chris haslam “Aw, buddy, did you say it was supposed to be an easy day?” —cairo foster

Haslam’s channel kickflip. This was our second day? Unfortunately this awoke the demons in Haslam’s foot and he was forced to turn into a cycling machine to stay sane, no skating meant he would be riding very slowly around the camp each morning fully packed and waiting to leave before anyone was out of their tents. He is awesome.


lam

illustration by Chris Has


The only other time Haslam got to skate before the toe of death became inflamed. He is beast. And he likes to go backside. In the small photo you see him playing guitar – he actually stayed outside like that all night playing metal riffs for warmth because his tent was a piece of crap made by his shoe sponsor which I won’t name here, but they should make a decent tent for him ‘cause he’s fucking awesome and awesome people need good tents.


“I was out, like, 8 to 9 months with a double fracture on the same toe, I just got over it and I just did it again. It’s starting to really piss me off, but whatever, it happens, you’ve gotta deal with it.” —chris haslam



“Theres a limit to how wet you can get. Once you reach that limit and you’re movin... You just keep going.” —john rattray Aside from trying to follow me to glory in the mountain stage, Rattray skated like William Wallace would have if he had been born in our time and had not been busy trying to liberate Scotland from the death grip of England. Maybe ‘cause Rattray grew up in Aberdeen he was drawn to this narrow set of stairs... probably the worst stairs you could ever hope to ollie in the entire country – narrow, long, high, rough, Scottish.


illustration by Chris Haslam

“I’m happy that I did 500kms man, that’s pretty impressive to me.” —silas baxter-neal

The SOTY set his own pace with shredding all things and a relaxed attitude to cycling similar to a wine-tasting seminar on wheels. When we were all caught up with racing an invisible clock or the soul-murdering headwind, we could drop back a bit and enjoy life with the SOTY... and save our legs for the skating that lay ahead in the small towns.


“You know, you make it this whole way and that’s kind of what’s pushing you and here I am on the last day with a splint and I can’t ride. It’s pretty upsetting.” —kenny anderson

polaroiod by Silas Baxter-Neal Here we have two perfect men. The SOTY, and literally “the perfect man”... Kenny. Some shithead on meth drove his car into Kenny and hurt his wrist. He still did this perfect backside smithgrind though. If that guy is reading this I hope you drive your car into Lake Taupo.


Roger Foster: most know him for building the great pyramids in Cairo... yes, he is that old. Kidding, you can’t be very old to survive a crash into a pole on day one and then skate a gap-to-rail after cycling halfway across the North Island of New Zealand.

illustration by Chris Haslam


“All in all I’m pretty excited that we’ve done this. I feel like I’ve biked more in these 10 days then I’ve biked in my whole life.” —cairo foster


Me, frontside air. Yeah, I need to learn a new trick. And me kickflipping over Haslam’s bike... the video of this tells a more emotional story than the photo ever could. The rest is some randomness of men rubbing grease on their junk and stuff like that.

[ o ] WAGNER


“Sad that we’re not going to be riding anymore. I’m kind of getting used to this and it’s pretty fun. It’s just a fun way of living, camping and rolling around on bicycles.” —keegan sauder


Richard James Robert McCrank. Friend. Father. Skateboarder. Actor. And now... cyclist. I don’t get to travel with him that much, so any excuse is a rare treat, just as “grind crushers” on Zip Zingers are rare treats. That’s right, it’s not a 5-0 to fakie, it is a “grind crusher”. Remember that. And remember that Rick McCrank is the best.


“We loved it! It was awesome! Ya! That’s why we’re here, right?” —rick mccrank


volume 7 issue 6

Real Hardcore Skatepunk is Alive and Well in Modern-Day Japan wordsby jay revelle

illustrationby raymond pettibon

酒と同じくらい。

J

apanese bands rarely get exposure on the shores of North America, and Breakfast is no exception. Amidst the throes of hardcore bands that are currently active in Japan, Breakfast has one defining characteristic separating them from most: their love for skateboarding. They seem to love skateboarding just as much as rocking a stage, and their musical style stays oh-so-true to a late-80s hardcore skatepunk paradigm. The artwork of many of their CD releases and other merchandise often displays the work of Raymond Pettibon, famous for his connection to bands such as Black Flag and the Minutemen, among others. Although the growing legacy of Breakfast has long established itself, it continues right here in the pages of Color. Once again, skateboarding and music has bridged the gap between culture and language, and Breakfast is hard proof that real 80s skatepunk is alive and well in modern-day Japan. Color: What kind of music do you play? Breakfast: We play hardcore music! It’s the kind of music that not everybody likes – most people think it’s too loud. That’s why we like it. How many albums have you put out? We’ve put out four to date. When did Breakfast start playing together? We began playing ten years ago. At that time, and now still, we just had a deep urge to play music. What is the essence of Breakfast? We just think about having fun, but we also think about and consider many different things. Our base essence is the drawing out of all the good feelings inside and getting them out. Additionally, if, as a group of four, we begin to lose the fun of it all, we would have to quit. What’s the connection to Pettibon’s work? Our only connection was the fact that we simply asked him for some artwork and he said okay! Why do you guys use it so much, and how did you go about using it? Pettibon once said in a magazine interview, “If any

132 colORMAGAZINE.CA

bands out there want to use my artwork in their concepts and band art, please give me a shout.” So one day, we all went to an art show featuring him to meet him and introduce ourselves, and we brought a seveninch and a letter for him. That was how it all started. However, it took a real long time to get something done for us! Anyways, he continued to send us work from America to Japan, however it was a time-consuming process, and perhaps it was troublesome for him. Then, one of our friends went to America, and from that trip we managed to get some more pieces from him. Do you know him personally? He’s a friend of ours. He’s given us his work and we would often send him CDs and t-shirts. We are very thankful to him for all his work. Arigatou, Pettibon! Hardcore connections are the best! What kind of skating do you guys gravitate most to? Street skating! Definitely, a city where everything is changing means it’s great for skateboarding. For us, we don’t feel there is any difference between the “hip hop” guy and the “punk rock” guy. Hill bombing is the best, although that’s kind of a style we don’t really know so well around here. In the beginning of the skate scene in Tokyo, there weren’t any parks around, so we skated around Shibuya, Shinjuku, and Harajuku. The asphalt in those areas was all we knew. Where are you from and where do you play? We are from the Tokyo underground, we’ve never really seen the outside world. [Laughs]

Why is music and skateboarding so similar? We don’t actually feel that skating is similar to music, but perhaps skateboarding and hardcore music are alike. People with no interest in either of these things find them loud and annoying. What is it about 80s-style skateboard music that appeals to you? In the 80s, we had dreams of movies such as the Goonies, Back to the Future, and Urusei Yatsura (Japanese anime), and at that time, we hadn’t begun to skate yet. Our skate style evolved from what was evolving just before the 90s hit. This was the time when Real, Blind, and New Deal were just coming up, and we were very intrigued and interested in all these new things. What are the band’s current projects? We are doing a live show with Abraham Cross soon. Someday, I would love to have a big jam session where all these bands show up and rock hard. I’d want a DJ beside us playing some beats while the crowd keeps bouncing. It would be at that time that some girl from the audience should come up and say, “Today is so fun!” That would be a great scene, with everyone having a fun time – and no fights! What helps you the most on a daily basis when it comes to music? That would have to be any time members in the band laugh, I think. Who has helped Breakfast the most and how? Our friends in other bands are so cool live, and that helps us bolster our resolve to get better. What are your musical influences? We are influenced by alcohol. Last message from Breakfast. Start your own band!


distributed by Ultimate photo: Zaslavsky

Momentumʼs first-ever environmentally charged wheel. Made with a 25% soy based compound, our new high performance wheels rely less on non-renewable fossil fuels, taking the first step towards a more ecologically aware ride. www.momentumskate.com


volume 7 issue 6


JOHN RATTRAY kickflip, Wellington NZ [ o ] doubt. 135


LEO ROMERO frontside 5-0, Albuquerque NM [ o ] acosta.


JEREMY GELFANT frontside tailslide, Winnipeg MB [ o ] neufeld. 137



KEVIN LOWRY backside 180 nosegrind, Lisbon, Portugal [ o ] woytowich. 139


140 ZACH BARTON switch tailslide, Vancouver BC [ o ] nicholas.


ADAM ALFARO backside nosepick, Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine [ o ] larkey.


142 SHANE BARLOW hardflip, Edmonton AB [ o ] henry.


colORMAGAZINE.CA

143



HESH LAW

STRANGE WORLD

RADIO-TELEVISION

Stoked off the bat with the intro, one of the more creative I’ve seen in a very long time. Truman Hooker, first part, best part. Absolutely kills it, really stoked to see more from this kid. Adrian Mallory approaches the boardslide distance record but that’s really all that’s worth mentioning. Gravette was obviously too baked to care but still managed to get down to business with a classic part. And what the fuck, Taylor Bingaman using Pat Burke’s song a month after it comes out in the Slave video… stoooops! But, fuck yeah on the BAKU section in there, basically saved the whole video, Deerman nollie shuv pivot to fakie! Unreal. Take that chongos. A subtle mention to Silent Mike, totally ruling, and some sick Baca cameos in there for character. Basically could have done without about half that bowl footy, as ripping as it was, but what can I say, at least it’s on the right side of skateboarding. —gordon nicholas

I don’t envy the Zero video department one bit. Few other skateboard companies have laid as epic a legacy in film, and the pressure to produce a video that lives up to this standard must be immense. The other challenge is how do you fit 20 or so dudes (ahem... and ladies) into a coherent format while keeping the stoke factor at an all-time high? So let’s just say that they had their work cut out for them. Fortunately they had a few things working in their favour. It goes without saying that the Zero team is ripping. Mix in Keegan Sauder’s highly anticipated debut pro part (and skating to the Flower Travellin’ Band no less, perhaps one of the most jamming skate tracks to date!), Tom Asta going head-to-head with Chris Cole, and a first glimpse for some at Marisa Dal Santo, who may just have the best part in the video. Sheldon, bro... where’s all the Canadian footage? You holding out for a forthcoming Zach Barton project or what? Elissa is still ripping, as are the Chief, Rattray, Sandoval and the Birmingham Barbarian, but I would have liked to have seen more from Tony Cervantes. What you been up to, buds? Jamie Tancowny wraps the whole sucker up with an incredibly banging part. Rumour has it that his epic Rincon backsie overcrooks (god, can we rename this trick, please?) ender which appears on the poster, ad etc. was landed just a couple days before the premiere. Way to go, Baby! Looks like there may be a couple Canadian pro models in the Zero catalogue before too long. —dylan doubt

“Every age has its own poetry; in every age the circumstances of history choose a nation, a race, a class to take up the torch by creating situations that can be expressed or transcended only through poetry.” Jean-Paul Sartre said that. He may not have been the liveliest dude, but he was onto something. He also said, “Better to have beasts that let themselves be killed than men who run away.” Both are applicable to Radio-Television, the first full-length video offering from Slave skateboards. In the tradition of SMA’s Debunker and Alien Workshop’s seminal Memory Screen, this video is a complete visual experience rather than a cum shot montage of dudes jumping down stairs and grinding 20-stair handrails. We are served skateboarding on a bed of archival imagery, propaganda, and savagery from the animal kingdom. You may not recognize a lot of names, but this can be a refreshing thing. Yes, Mumford is still crushing it, John Allie is a terror, and Goemann has a well-deserved last part, but the really good shit here is a stocky ginger named “Frecks” who ain’t afraid to take a slam every now and then and my personal favourite, Pat Burke, whose signature squeals and general sketchiness help to emphasize just how much he’s enjoying not just skating, but life itself. Watching him almost makes you feel guilty for wasting energy worrying about the simpler things in life. In short, the video is another reminder that ultimately we should enjoy ourselves, get a little dirty, and shrug off responsibility every now and then, because in the words of Sartre, “Every existing thing is born without reason, prolongs itself out of weakness, and dies by chance.” —dylan doubt

(creature)

(above) Jamie Tancowny sliding and flipping his way into last part. camarillophoto.

jamie thomas, mike gilbert (zero)

ben horton (slave)

colORMAGAZINE.CA

145


Dam-Funk

Falty DL

toeachizown (stones throw)

love is a liability (planet mu)

Drew Lustman, former sushi chef, has been a favourite new talent on UK radio lately with his blend of dubstep, funky house, and two-step garage, a dancefloor-friendly cocktail that ties together virtually all the dominant sounds on the British beat scene. He’s got Joker’s squealing g-funk synths, Burial’s sense of atmosphere, dense melodic layers, and a great ear for vocal samples. So he’s a minor superman. He does so much at once that, at times, Love Is a Liability starts to blend into itself, fusing his pastiche-borrowings into a gooey, uniform mass of downtempo sauce that melts right through your ears. There’s no doubt that it’s tasty, but it might not satisfy as a main course. Still, if you’re the type to tune into Rinse FM, Gilles Peterson, or Mary Anne Hobbs, you’ll want to sample this platter. —saelan twerdy

Dam-Funk calls his music “electric-spacefunk”, although however otherworldly or erotic-robotic it sounds, the tunes are all built from the manual workouts Dam puts in with his museum of vintage drum machines and analog synthesizers. A longtime folk hero of the Los Angeles underground boogie scene, Dam’s put in work with everyone from funk legend Leon Sylvers to MC Eiht and Westside Connection to some guys called Animal Collective. His debut, Toeachizown, sounds like the soundtrack to a Dr. Dre dream sequence or a billion sunsets over Sunset Boulevard. Clocking in at about two and a half hours, Dam’s got more than enough sprawling funk fantasia for an entire rhythm nation. Take it in two discs or five LP’s, Dam doesn’t care. Just let L.A.’s favourite son, Flying Lotus, tell you all about it: “Dam-Funk – oh, that’s the most L.A. guy I know. You seen that perm right?” —rj basinillo

King Midas Sound

waiting for you (hyperdub)

For this project, UK producer Kevin Martin (a.k.a. The Bug) teams up with dub poet Roger Robinson for an infinitely cooleddown version of his usually burly dancehall/ dubstep bass assaults. Instead of urban warfare, King Midas Sound turns inward, offering a heavy platter of crawling paranoia and frozen lovers rock. Robinson sounds haunted and vulnerable, even on the romantic songs, where he can’t tell from one moment to the next what mood his lover will be in. The overwhelming impression is that every smile is forced – in a dying world, happiness may be impossible. “Earth A Kill Ya” rails against ecological disaster with dreadlocked righteousness, but is saved from preachiness by the album’s meanest beat. Elsewhere, icy bass pulses, sparse percussion, and vaguely threatening swirls of echoing street sound evoke a cold world of inhospitable black streets, metal walls, and driving rain, but like the best of Massive Attack – which this album evokes more than just about any dubstep album to date – the grace and soul of the music itself offer repreive. This is a dystopia you’ll want to revisit. —saelan twerdy

146 colORMAGAZINE.CA

Little Dragon machine dreams (peacefrog)

Little Dragon are a quartet from Gothenberg, Sweden, whose electronic dance-pop falls somewhere in the territory between Lykke Li’s pouty, upbeat pop and The Knife’s weird, haunted pop. They have some of the production creativity of the latter (though with fewer shadows and far more colour) and all of the R&B-inflected charisma of the former, if not more. From the stylish, extremely current neon glide of opener “A New” to the Prince-esque keyboard funk and 80s drum machine beats of “Looking Glass”, Little Dragon exhibit a diverse range of styles and an extremely broad, lush sound palette that have been rare (with notable exceptions) for most of the last decade. Singer Yukimi Nagano’s phrasing isn’t acrobatic or overstated, but it drips with stylings borrowed from recent British soul without actually turning into R&B or chart pop. Never quite deciding between moody atmosphere and all-out dancefloor crashers, Machine Dreams is an adventurous album that definitely rewards a headphones listen, both refreshingly alien and immediately catchy. —saelan twerdy

The Mayfair Set young one (captured tracks/ woodsist)

A dream team-up for lo-fi fans, The Mayfair Set (a collaboration between Mike Sniper of Blank Dogs and Dee Dee from Dum Dum Girls) manages to bridge the two solo projects almost flawlessly. “Junked!” showcases Dee Dee’s soaring vocals alongside Sniper’s distinct grumble, perfectly complemented by his trademark warped and warbled guitar. Meanwhile, “Let It Melt” is a Young Marble Giants-style dialogue between the two, complete with airy bass line, echoed handclaps and twinkling synth rolls. Perhaps the quintessential Mayfair Set, though, is “I’ve Been Watching You”, sounding as if the duo mashed two of their demos together to form the perfect hybrid of their unique styles. This compilation, which covers their previous 7-inch and 12-inch releases, manages to highlight the strengths of both artists without compromising the sound of either. Yet again, the sum has proven to be greater than the whole of its parts. —mark richardson

Real Estate s/t (woodsist)

Real Estate are all about water. Nearly half of the songs on this album reference beaches, lakes, rivers, and swimming. Their guitars (one of which is played by Matt Mondanile, better known for his solo psych-drone band, Ducktails) are clean and shimmery, and they run together in fluid counterpoint parts that lap up against each other like wavelets in an inlet. Even the drums sound like they’re underwater, and Martin Courtenay IV’s vocals are reflective and understated, totally content to float on the surface of the music. In the summertime, when most of these songs were circulating around the internet, it was easy to lump Real Estate in with a half-dozen dreamy, spaced-out bands (Washed Out and Neon Indian among them) putting out extremely summery music. But when it comes down to it, Real Estate are actually too chill to be a summer band. Even their tune “Let’s Rock the Beach” doesn’t really rock, it just drifts, and tunes like “Snow Days” point out that this band’s brand of suburban indie-pop (comparisons to Yo La Tengo might be apt) works just as well for cool nights and blue moods. —saelan twerdy

Yellow Fever s/t (wild world)

Since their inception over three years ago, Austin’s Yellow Fever have gone through a name change and slimmed down to a duo. Now, after a 7-inch and two CD EPs, the duo finally get their debut LP release on the Vivian Girls’ label Wild World, which is actually a compilation of those previous EPs. Unlike the hurling fuzz attack of the Vivian Girls, Yellow Fever prefer to keep things minimal and pedal-free, weaving together cyclical and clean guitar and bass lines, repetitious lyrics and just enough drumming to keep the music pulsing. Despite this minimal approach, Yellow Fever manage to fill a lot of space, much in the same way and style as kindred spirits Marine Girls, The Raincoats and in particular, Quixotic, with a nod to the sleepy vocal stylings of Mira Billotte (currently in White Magic). Fans of the current wave of female fronted post-punk bands, such as Grass Widow, Pearl Harbor, and Wet Dog, are sure to be enchanted by the taught and spindly rhythms of Yellow Fever. —mark richardson

Lindstrom & Christabelle

real life is no cool (smalltown supersound) After the epic, balearic sprawl of II Lindstrom has teamed himself up with his old pal Christabelle for an exercise in sultry synth-disco a la Glass Candy, Chromatics, etc. But whereas the Italians Do It Better acts (most of whom include producer/synth-dude Johnny Jewel) insist on restraint, Lindstrom and Christabelle are happy to loosen up. The catchy, hornsdriven “Baby Can’t Stop” smacks of of MJ’s “Don’t Stop ‘Til You Get Enough”, and “So Much Fun” is pretty straight-up disco, until Lindstrom takes over with a crazy Emerson, Lake, and Palmer “Lucky Man” synth solo. This is all a far cry from the iciness of the ‘Italians’. Wisely though, Lindstrom takes the backseat, generally letting his arpeggios and synth stabs play out underneath Christabelle’s charmingly awkward lyrics and occasional repetitions and cliches. She does actually sing “real life is no cool” somewhere on the album, which makes sense when you learn that most of the vocals were written in one take. Real Life is refreshingly casual and fun, if not exactly Lindstrom’s most original work, but he and Christabelle know what they’re doing and they’re doing it rather well. —michael barrow


volume 7 issue 6

Christmas Island

blackout summer (in the red)

Christmas Island are from the same San Diego garage scene that spawned buzz bands Crocodiles, Delta Spirit and Soft Pack, all of whom were recently featured in the Rolling Stone “Hot List”. Not bad for a group that hadn’t even released a full-length album yet. The duo is quick to remedy that with a summer-themed long player that has arrived just in time to help combat those winter blues. Blackout Summer is crammed with twelve infectious, catchy and simple big-beat tracks of beach-y garage punch-ups. Despite the 30-something age of this couple-in-love duo, the songs tread playground territory with cutesy lyrics about dinosaurs, puppy love and, yep, the summer. The naïveté is pushed even further with rudimentary drumming, playful keyboard stabs and sloppy surf guitar lines, hallmarks that recall those salad days of early 80s DIY. Christmas Island are the perfect antidote for those a little put off by the current climate of aggressive and burly garage rock. —mark richardson

Baroness blue record (relapse)

Blue Record (follow-up to 2007’s Red Album, natch) first mesmerized me – as all Baroness albums will – with guitarist/ vocalist/illustrator extraordinaire John Baizley’s Sistine Chapel-worthy cover art: women, rooster and fish. The eye-catcher of the year? Ceremonies commence with “Bullhead’s Psalm”, which feels a bit “Greensleeves” – then whammo! The pummeling begins, another win for the Sabbath-patented frilly intro-riff-riff metal methodology. The masterful flow of the whole work is undeniably soothing, elating even, despite the fierce tension, transitioning from wispy, harmonized folk to volcanic eruptions without ever jarring the listener. Nothing lasts long – only one track tops six minutes, and it drags – but there’s no shortage of purpose or heavy metal purity. Meanwhile, “Blackpowder Orchard” recalls Bert Jansch and “Ogeechee Hymnal” is a mutant Celtic march led by drummer Allen Blickle’s brutish, punctuated crash hits. The climactic “The Gnashing” (what a title!) is a ballooning, foot-to-the-floor stomper topped with playful, rousing harmonies. All told, Blue Record is continued proof of muscular man-music’s capacity for high art. —dave bertrand

Priestess

prior to the fire (indica)

At least once a year, but never more than twice, I hear an album that forces me to take the long walk to the riding school where my little sister takes English riding lessons. I visit the paddock of her horse, Barney, and saddle him as I slide on my headphones. Usually the album is epic death metal. More often than not, Swedes are involved. But this time, intrepid Canadians Priestess have harnessed the power of the irresistible, galloping riff. This isn’t the solid, catchy rock of their first album, Hello Master – we have a turn towards the prog, as you’ll read in every other review, but what’s important is that this music will force you onto the nearest pony for a irreversible ride into the dark heart of the Riff Almighty. We used to be able to rely on Mastodon to get us there, and maybe we will again one day, but I’m grateful that Prior to the Fire has been given to us. I know that it’s a masterpiece when I can hear the hooves. Leave your broadsword at home to avoid doing anything foolish. My sister misses Barney so much. —nathan ripley

Clipse

til the casket drops (columbia)

Til The Casket Drops, the latest offering from rap duo Clipse, find the brothers Thornton on unfamiliar turf. Gone are the days of their well-documented label drama. They couldn’t be further removed from their days of slangin’ coke in the streets of Virginia. The have a new record deal, a clothing line, and an album that features commercial heavyweights Cam’ron, Kanye West, and Keri Hilson. Childhood friends and longtime collaborators, The Neptunes are back and in top form and Pharrell wisely eschews rapping to concentrate on plain murdering hooks. The outstanding production is made all the better by memorable contributions from Vancouver-resident DJ Khalil and Diddy-cosigned duo Sean C & LV. They’re taking shots at LeBron James, they know what Twitter is (@Malice757, @ Pusha_T) and are taking time to reflect (“I thought that life was a bad bitch, bad car/ nah, life is with your kids watching Madagascar” opines Malice on Champion.) Don’t worry, their swagger is fully intact and comes cut with despair. Like any classic album, its true depth is revealed only after successive listens. The greatest compliment I can pay is to say that I actually plan to pay for it. —ian granville

Hot Wax Best Coast s/t 7-inch (black iris)

Best Coast are another addition to the quickly-crowded beach-pop sound that seemingly sprang up out of nowhere last summer. “When I’m With You”, the standout A-Side of this 7-inch, which is one of three being simultaneously released, begins with a sleepy start that gallops into a full blown, reverb-soaked gem straight outta the school of Spector. It takes about thirty seconds to figure out that Bethany Cosentino’s new band is indeed far removed from her former hypnotic chant ‘n drone group Pocahaunted. The beach may be crowded but there’ll always be a blanket for Bethany and Co. —mark richardson

Four Tet

love cry remixes 12-inch (domino) In light of the success of Four Tet’s (Kieran Hebden) collaboration with Burial earlier this year, it’s no real surprise that the first remixes of “Love Cry” come from two of the most interesting names on the UK Funky/Dubstep scene: Roska and Joy Orbison. If the names are unfamiliar, this record should give you plenty of reason to start paying attention. Roska’s remix runs down his checklist (snakecharmer bassline, R&B vocal and jerky two-step drums), reworking “Love Charm” into a Rinse-ready UK Funky track. But the Joy Orbison remix is cleaner, punchier and warmer than the original – a joy indeed. So good, in fact, that it overshadows both Roska’s remix and Hebden’s original. Not only does this record have me excited for Hebden’s forthcoming LP, it has me excited about what Joy Orbison is going to do next. —michael barrow

Thee Oh Sees

dog poison 12-inch (captured tracks) Thee Oh Sees have been right on top of the dogpile of for 60s-inspired garage-psych lately, and with their latest release on Captured Tracks, Dog Poison, they’re letting their psychedelic locks hang down a little looser than usual. As the guitars have transitioned from electric to acoustic, and the formerly-tight guy-girl harmonies become a little dazed and undone, the result is a sound that’s more offbeat, homespun, and distorted than before, producing a quick, 24-minute pinner of nine jangly pop songs. Despite its casual folksiness, the overall vibe of this EP is “total party”. If there were skits, they could have revolved around a joke about “more panpipe”, as the flute makes a welcome (and hilarious) cameo on a few occasions here, adding some pseudo-refinement to John Dwyer’s bug-eyed vocals and the hooting, yelling, falling-down-the-stairs chaos of most of the song arrangements. Imagine The Monks and The Kinks brawling in a basement before settling down to beers and backslapping. Sounds like a badass pop record, right? Well, Thee Oh Sees have delivered once again. —jackie linton

colORMAGAZINE.CA

147


(continued from page 79)

“The buildings of the Soviet era look like satellites and there is an energy fostered by youth and artists that can hardly be contained.” —felix faucher

After three weeks of a routine consisting of warming up at Universitat, going to shoot far out of downtown and playing cards with the boys I finally leave Barcelona and take the train up north to Berlin. This is my first time in Germany and I have to say that from a design perspective, this country is impressive. Good design and engineering is just all around, and in Berlin this mixes smoothly with a vintage atmosphere that has you feeling like you’re in 1960 with the technology of the future. Maybe something like 2001: A Space Odyssey. The buildings of the Soviet era look like satellites and there is an energy fostered by youth and artists that can hardly be contained. The city also has the most efficient public transportation system I’ve experienced so far, with the U Bahn, the S Bahn and the trolleys being functional 24/7. Berliners sure appreciate good beer, and I’m surprised to realize that anywhere you buy a beer you are offered a bottle opener. You can drink anywhere at any given time, so might as well open one for the road (or the metro). My friend Max Jochem, who I hadn’t seen in seven years, showed up one weekend on a break from Med School. Crazy how time just flies. After ten days in Berlin I take the train to Brussels to visit a couple of friends and later to France, where I’ll be spending the last two weeks of my trip. My main contact in Paris is David Tura, a French skateboard magazine editor whom I’ve been friends with for years. Tura introduces me to the local skate scene and we often go shred or to events together. On one afternoon we were walking towards a cocktail held at a skateshop when Tura tells me : “There’s a fellow Montrealer.” In front of me stood Christian Mongenais, one of Quebec’s best ramp skaters and a kid I’ve known for over a decade. On another

148 colORMAGAZINE.CA

occasion I walked into a new contemporary art center and met a fellow Peruvian artist who was in residency in Paris for nine months. I had met Juan Diego Vergara during a photo exhibition I had in Lima, Peru, in 2007. There’s also Atticus Machego, an elementary school buddy from Lima with whom I had kept contact but hadn’t seen in 23 years. He’s now an architect in Paris and walked me around his city directing my attention towards different examples of contemporary design and the integration of new within old. When everything was over, I was happy to have spent time with old friends I don’t get to see often and to have made new friendships with people from Canada, Germany, Romania, Finland, Bolivia, Brasil, Argentina, Chile, France and Belgium. I’m pretty happy with how things turned out – thanks for adding me on Facebook, Josh ! I guess this trip had a completely different meaning for Josh than it had for me. He went to Barça with a plan that involved skating, having fun and getting exposure. A side effect he got from this process was that the frontiers of his world expanded, giving him a sense of how much more there is to discover. I went to Europe to escape from a bad time, refresh my mind and spend some time shooting and skating on the streets of the continent. A side effect was to stumble upon about 20 people from my past, getting reminded of how small a place the earth is. What is common to both our experiences is that our perceptions about the nature of the world were transformed, his world expanding, mine reducing, for traveling changes the relationship we have with this planet.


volume 7 issue 6

JULIEN STRANGER intro and photoby dylan doubt

Julien Stranger just may be the quintessential skateboarder’s skateboarder. Heavily dodging the limelight and staying true to his own view of what skateboarding should and shouldn’t be without standing on a soapbox to do it. Julien started Anti-Hero in the mid 90s and it remains one of the most respected and revered skateboard companies to date. There have been many discussions over the years about who the worst person in skateboarding is and Julien is so far on the other side of the argument that his name almost always comes up, if only to remind ourselves what the criteria is for a good skateboarder. Who better to check in with for our tour issue than the man whose team is responsible for inspiring the Girl team to rough it?

CITY

— Havana. / Auckland maybe. Sydney’s nice. New York is still tops.

COUNTRY

STYLE

CURRENCY

— Carroll and Hewitt. / Yeah, totally. Jay Adams. Mark Gonzales.

— World Cup points. / Your word. Your history.

— Cuba. / Definitely New Zealand.

— Potrero Del Sol. / Anywhere, anytime, bro.

SKATESPOT

MODE OF TRANSPORT

ESCAPE

ENTERTAINMENT

DUDE

— Deluxe van. / Bicycle.

— Defection from capitalism. / To where?

— Mystery! On public television. Love those British whodunits. / Mary’s club.

— Hubard and red. / Scott Sisimus.

SKATE TRIP

MEAL

LADY

— Copenhagen, hopefully. / Europe hell ride ‘96 or New Zealand ‘94. Damn, I’m old. Those years.

SKATEBOARD GRAPHIC

— Chicken pot pie from Bakesale Betty’s in Oakland. / Rice, Vegetables and meat. Burma superstar.

HANGOUT

— The mystery. / That’s kinda personal. Wait, this whole thing has been personal... shit.

USEFUL ACCESSORY

— Chris Johanson and Dennis McNett. / Caballero’s first board. Blue dragon on silver. Seminal. Also love the S.M.A. airplane.

— Fuck, man, I can’t think anymore. / Around a good fire with good people and some beer. Time-tested and true.

— Tupay. Spelled wrong I’m sure. They really help some people. / Brass knuckles.

BOOK

SONG

USELESS ACCESSORY

— Nothing on deck. Maybe reread some Hemingway. Been thinking about him lately. / Reading “The Story of Crass.” Really good. Also, “Journey to the End of the Night” by Celine.

PURCHASE

— I want to get a good road bike that I can ride across the country on. / A good meal. A book. I really hate spending money on consumer electronics. Makes me physically sick.

— Something by the Drunk Injuns. / “Swelling Itching Brain”... that’s a tough one. I haven’t even listened to that song in years, it’s just the first one I set on.

DRINK

— I know it’s a yuppie drink here and I’ve never actually had one in the U.S. but having a Mojito in Havana is the shit. / It’s called ‘a punch in the brain’, my friend Ashley made it up for me.

— Where to begin. Anyone read any Buckminster Fuller where he talks about how for every new invention we actually also lose something or things. / Lapper.

VIDEO PART

— Looking forward to Pork Chop’s part in the new Thrasher vid. / Gonz part Blind vid. Todd Congelier in old Speed Wheel vid, I can’t remember the name but it involves fireworks. Oh, and Little John’s part in I think it’s called “Why Wouldn’t You.” It’s a mostly Portland vid. colORMAGAZINE.CA

149


volume 7 issue 6

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

IPATH up in Canada wordsby jay revelle

Ryan Lay, 5-0.

I

n pondering the essence of the modern skateboarding tour, this famous sentence [above], as written in A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, can’t help but come to mind. Although completely unrelated to skateboarding, such prose seems to completely bespeak the trials and tribulations of the modern skateboard tour as we have come to know it. Tours in which disaster anxiously awaits around every bend in the road, tours in which trouble can sometimes turn to triumph, and tours in which legends are born, friendships are solidified, and battles are won.

150 colORMAGAZINE.CA

Against the backdrop of such meanderings, during the summer of 2009, IPATH shoes decided that it was time to take up arms in search of all that a skateboarding tour has to offer – the best and worst of times – crossing Canada on an expedition cleverly titled, “Up In Stoke”. As the summer heat steadily began to reach its peak, Fred Gall, Kenny Reed, Richie Jackson, Adam Alfaro, Matt Rodriquez, Ryan Lay, Ben Laybourne, and Aaron Homoki, along with a multitude of locals and random lurkers, found themselves suddenly compartmentalized within a cramped, fart smell-laden tour van, becoming increasingly sebaceous, scouring our beloved country for fresh spots.

photosby randy rivera

Ipath team, Kelowna BC .

As with most cross-country Canadian tours, the skate meccas of Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal headlined the journey, which was off to a good start when the chivalrous Kenny Reed decided to bravely battle a bout of food poising during the visit to Vancouver. Once in Victoria, however, with food poisoning alleviated, the crew was mildly entertained by Poison, a young lurker on a BMX bike wearing a leather jacket three sizes too small for him. Needless to say, he was soon friends with Richie Jackson. As the crew made their way to the eastern portions of the nation, it was evident that Ben Laybourne, despite being only 16 years old, held extensive knowledge of tricks older than he, and to the surprise of most, he also had the style to keep them looking proper.


Ben Raybourne, air to fakie.

Adam Alfaro, 360 flip.

Surprising and seemingly relating to some kind of inherent insight into the life of a skateboarder on tour, Dickens also wrote: “Great men are seldom over-scrupulous in the arrangement of their attire”, and amusingly: “A boy's story is the best that is ever told.” While he lived during a time absent of such tours, perhaps Dickens knows what it’s like to exchange farts, battle salmonella, and nap uncontrollably within an overly small and cramped mode of transportation while traveling across a continent. Perhaps the literary tours of yore were all about bongs, bitches, and brews? Who knows? Of course, we can’t be certain, however, in remembering his famous first-liner, if he were on the Up In Stoke tour for some reason I’m sure, despite the generational differences between iPath and this rather smart chap from a few centuries prior, he’d fit in just fine.

colORMAGAZINE.CA

151


volume 7 issue 6

“Le Skate, c’est de la balle!”

152 LUCAS PUIG nollie heelflip [ o ] reda.


CV OBJECTIVE Skateboarding to me is all about the good vibes and getting a good session going with friends. I’m very lucky to do what I do and to see new places every year. Le Skate, c’est de la balle! (Skating is tha bomb!)... the Résume book is my travel journal.

WORK HISTORY • Bon Appetit by Cliché 2003 • Freedom Fries by Cliché 2004 • Hello Jojo by Cliché 2004 • Fully Flared by Lakai 2007 • Clé by Cliché 2008 • Gang of Fourstar 2009 • Had a few covers in Europe, Sugar, Kingpin etc... But none in North America.

WORK EXPERIENCE • Cliché Skateboards since 2000 • Lakai Footwear since 2003 • Fourstar Clothing since 2004 • Autobahn Wheels since 2006 • Independent Trucks since 2005 • Official Skateshop Toulouse since 2006

SKILLS A good switch 360 flip and known to primo slide out of flip tricks [Fully Flared]. Can rip transitions too.

INTERESTS & ACTIVITIES Watch rugby with friends in Toulouse, France, and hit the road on the Cliché Gypsy tours with Jeremie [Daclin].

EDUCATION • Zinedine Zidane and JB Gillet for the inspiration. • Dropped out of high school in grade 10 to pursue travelling and skateboarding. Tried homeschool while filming for Fully Flared but that didn’t last long.

AWARDS • Turned pro for Cliché in March 2004 after the release of Bon Appetit (last part as the am on the team) November 2003 • First Lakai pro shoe dropped March 2009 and now working on second one which will be released in Summer 2010 • Autobahn pro wheel in 2007 • Fourstar signature garments in 2008 • EA Skate 2 and 3 character • Won the Best Team awards with Cliché for Transworld Magazine in July 2006 • Won the Best Video award with Lakai TWS 2008

REFERENCES • Jeremie Daclin, Cliché Skateboards - clicheskate.com • Kelly Bird, Lakai Footwear - podiumdist.com • Matt, Official Skateshop (France) - officialskateshop.com

CONTACT INFO Cell phone when switched on, replies to e-mails if in French.

colORMAGAZINE.CA

153


volume 7 issue 6

We Are Contributors Art Show

wordsby grady mitchell

photosby sundgren & fotheringham

T

he Smile On Your Brother art show tour, put on by charity skate crew Contributor is now over. The 60 old school decks, prettied up by 60 artists ranging from Chris Pastras to Color’s own Sandro Grison started in Vancouver and finished with a bang in Quebec City.

Now, don’t hate yourself too much, but the Smile On Your Brother art tour is finished. Even if you didn’t catch one of the shows put on by Contributor, a charity created by Annie Lam and Mike Giles to get skateboards into the hands of less fortunate youth, you can still help out. Head over to their website to check out the artists, get a little background on the charity, and maybe even buy a board. Your proceeds could put a deck under a kid’s feet, and give him or her a chance at a lifestyle that many of us take for granted. Each board was handcrafted at the woodshop of Giles’ custom furniture company, Furni, and based on the long, tapered look of classic decks. “The exhibit is supposed to be like a look back on where skateboarding came from, and about a point of discovery for everybody. What was your first skateboard? How closely do you hold the memory of it to your heart?” says Bob Kronbauer, who co-curated the event.

Joe Fotheringham, Angelo Destounis, Scott Meleskie, Justin Li, Mike Giles, Devin Barrette

Vancouver

Montréal

154 colORMAGAZINE.CA

Smile aims to raise enough money for 100 skateboards, the first step in Contributor’s plan to reach the 1.6 million Canadian youth living in poverty. “All we can do is hope that offering a kid the chance to funnel their energy, emotions, and passions into something that meant so much to us growing up can do the same for them,” says Giles. So crack a beer, take a look at the pictures, and it’ll feel like you were there. Then you can become a Contributor by buying a one-of-akind deck beautified by someone like Andrew Pommier or Thomas Campbell, and do some good at the same time.

Victoria Pagsisihan, Jason Dantes & Carlos Ortiz,Toronto

Calgary

Motoboy

Kelly St. Pierre

Montréal

Krista Sofranko

Sarah Lowden

Eryka Del Vecchio


distributed by Ultimate


venturetrucks.net/dadd

EL TORO

FEATURING GRADE 8 KINGPINS

distributed by Ultimate


KEELAN DAD

D

SWITCHFLIP

[ 5.2 WIDES ] BIGGER BOARDS NEED A BIGGER SET OF TRUCKS. VENTURE 5.2’s EMBODY TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE AND SUPERIOR HANDLING, NO MATTER HOW WIDE YOU RIDE. GUARANTEED FOR LIFE.


issue 6

SANDRO GRISON

co-founder / creative director

DYLAN DOUBT* photo editor

JENNIFER MACLEOD

circulation / managing editor

DAVID KO

graphic design

JEFF CANHAM

guest typographer

NICHOLAS BROWN arts editor

SAELAN TWERDY music editor

MILA FRANOVIC

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

joel dufresne

andreas sundgren, annie lam, anthony acosta, arkan zakharov, bart jones, ben colen, ben wagner, bobby farrington, brian caissie, chris bone, curtis rothney, dan neufeld, daniel finkelstein, dave todon, eric lemay, felix faucher, gabe morford, giovanni reda, isaac mckay randozzi, jeff comber, jeff khounthavong, joe fatheringham, joel dufresne, keith henry, maurice li, michael larkey, mike helfrich, mike melanson, owen woytowich, peter stankiewicz, randy laybourne, randy rivera, remy stratton, sebastien michellini, stephan hare

BEN TOUR

CONTRIBUTING EDITORS

fashion editor

RHIANON BADER copy editor

GORDON NICHOLAS senior photographer

STAFF WRITERS mike christie jay revelle

PRE PRESS

illustration

KYNAN TAIT online editor

ADVERTISING 604 873 6699

craig rosvold crosvold@colormagazine.ca dario phillips dphillips@colormagazine.ca

benjamin motz, bobby farrington, dave ber trand, felix faucher, grady mitchell, isaac mckay randozzi, jackie linton, john rattray, keegan sauder, leah turner, mark richardson, michael barrow, nathan ripley, rick mccrank, rj basinillo, shawn lennon

CONTRIBUTING ARTISTS

ill-studio, raymond pettibon Baku haiku by *THE DARK GLOVE OF INTERNAL COMBUSTION (That’s a miller flip for those who aren’t in the know.) nicholasphoto.

ISSN 1920-0412 Publications mail agreement No. 40843627 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: fourcornerpublishinginc. 321 RAILWAY STREET, #105 VANCOUVER, BC V6A 1A4 CANADA

Please recycle this magazine.

DISCLAIMER: The views and opinions expressed here are not neccessarily shared by fourcorner publishing inc. or Color Magazine, but by the author credited. Color Magazine reserves the right to make mistakes and will do so on a bi-monthly cycle without liability. No part of this magazine may be reproduced in any form [print or electronic] without permission from the publisher. The publisher of Color Magazine is not responsible for errors or omissions printed and retains the right to edit all copy. The opinions expressed in the content of this magazine do not necessarily reflect the views of Color Magazine. Color Magazine reserves the right to accept or reject any advertising matter which may reflect negatively on the integrity of the magazine. Color welcomes submissions for photo and editorial content, but is not responsible for unsolicited material or liable for any lost and/or damaged material. Please provide a return envelope with postage with your submissions or email submissions@colormagazine.ca for more information. Color Magazine is published by fourcorner publishing inc., printed six times yearly and distributed direct to retailers throughout Canada and to newstands by Disticor Distribution. Subscriptions can may be ordered individually or in bulk by retailers for resale. Subscribe: 6 issues for $39.99 in Canada, $59.99 CND in the United States, $89.99 CND for all other countries. Contact us at 604 873 6699, subscribe@colormagazine.ca with any subscription inquiries or visit us online.

Printed in Canada

158 colORMAGAZINE.CA



issue 6

—

Next Issue Spring 2010

ISSN 1920-0412 Publications mail agreement No. 40843627 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: fourcornerpublishinginc. 321 RAILWAY STREET, #105 VANCOUVER, BC V6A 1A4 CANADA

160 colORMAGAZINE.CA

Vincent Alvarez, ollie up to bluntslide, Beauty & the Beast Tour II, Ketchum ID. morfordphoto.


P H O T O _

A N D R E W

K U Y K E N D A L L

2 0 0 9 A D S _ AKUY

C O P Y R I G H T

©

2 0 0 9

P H O T O G R A P H A new series by Jason Lee Parry.

09 D I S T R I B U T E D

B Y

W I C K W I N D E R

W W W . T H E C O M U N E . C O M C O M U N E @ W I C K W I N D E R . C O M T

6 0 4

2 7 6

9 4 2 5

COMUNE WAS FORMED FROM THE IDEA THAT THERE WILL ALWAYS BE PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO NOT ONLY EMBRACE THE RAWNESS AND IMPERFECTIONS OF EVERY DAY LIFE BUT USE IT TO CREATIVELY PUSH THE BOUNDARIES OF WHAT’S POSSIBLE IN SKATEBOARDING, FASHION, ART, AND MUSIC THEIR OWN WAY, WITH COMPLETE DISREGARD OF THE CONSEQUENCES.



Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.