A Must Have

Please someone buy me the DVD shown here

An amazingly low budget, raw and gnarly DVD from the guys at Peepshow. Jess Kimura & June Bhongjam & Esthera Preda are the guys that founded the collective. There are some really good riders stapled throughout along with what happens off the snow too. Summed up beautifully by Huck Magazine ' Urban riding, style, fresh talent, beer, boobs and blunts.

A real snowboard film.

Let's Make Better Mistakes Tomorrow from peepshow on Vimeo.

Piece of candy!

A nice little edit here from Bataleon from most of their riders during this season. Nice to see some of the guys staying true to their brand and the ideology of the brand too.

Great riding, great music and great brand

1011 BATALEON FAMILY EDIT from MR. B bataleon snowboards on Vimeo.

Skate

I have always had a a fascination with skateboarding. A frustrating fascination sometimes at the fact I can't skate and quite an elating one when you see a friend work really hard to nail a trick before finally riding away clean. This infatuation developed into snowboarding and bmx but there is just something that always brings me back to skating. The culture, the characters, the progression and overall diversity of the skating lifestyle.

I recently watched a short documentary on youtube simply called Canvas: Skateboarding Documentary (Link here) . It really showed what skateboarding is all about. Just hanging with your friends, letting your actions do your talking, having a good time and pushing yourself through physical and mental barriers. The biggest thing that struck me about the documentary was how it was then and how it is now, the clothes, the music, the quality of boards, the brands, the skates, the tricks, all different but the underlying skate culture is the same. Sure now and again you get a clic of absolute morons who spoil it for the rest but they are few and very far between.

One guy who stood out then and who still does now is Rodney Mullen, an absolute geek and legend. He is the biggest skateboarding dork ever but one of the most technically proficient skates to ever ride a plank of wood. In the documentary he is nailing tricks that would look brand new and innovative in this day and age, he has such a rare style that you never really see anymore so it's a blessing he is still on the fringes of skateboarding.

Enough waffle, get watching.

Sunday Funday

Its such a beautiful day outside, sun shining blue skies and all I can think of is how much it sucks that it is not threatening a huge dump of snow. Every Sunday I get off work I will be sure to get myself off to any mountain or steep hill, even a small grassy bump on the local park.

Today my life is packed full of football (of both kinds), food and maybe some light (read: heavy) drinking. Currently not happy at the Bengals thrashing the Ravens and Dolphins pulling it back to equal score.

A few things to share; my tache is coming along amazingly/terrible depending whether you argue for or against trashy taches. Not really worth a photo update just yet!

I spent $20 on digital downloads yesterday on iTunes. I purchased Get Real, courtesy of Burton, Forum Forever and N,E,S,W from Forum again. Can't wait to get a chance to watch these and see what is being thrown down. I have heard and seen good things about Get Real. Check out the teaser here.

'nuff said.

(Not so) Smart Idea

At Toad Hall the other night we got board and built a mini skate ramp, indoors, yeaaaaaah not so smart. Here is a little time lapse of how the building went. It lasted 4 hours before the front bit of the ramp kicked in, admirable effort for sure!

On a quick side note, I officially took the plunge and changed my DVD Region on my Mac to Region 1, eek!

Fresh This Season

A little Web-clip straight out of Boreal, CA. Enjoy!

Hot Mess Express from SPEC on Vimeo.

The 'B' Movie Mini-Review

I have decided to just bang the movie on again as I write this but let me just say that the first time I watched it blew me away and I wasn't paying attentive critical attention, my guess is that it is only going to get better.

First off just take the box it comes in and re-live the old days of VHS, mine were limited but I still lived it. It even has a be kind and rewind 'sticker' on the graphic sheet box insert.

Another thing worth mentioning besides the riding is the soundtrack. It is absolutely phenomenal, such a blended range and all fitting so well to the riding that is going down on-screen. While on the topic of soundtracks, I downloaded a majority of That's It, That's All's soundtrack thanks to this website which lists all the tunes in virtually every snowboard movie.

The intro kicks off with a helo focusing on what looks like a graphically enhanced B sculpted into the ice, more on this later! After this its just an assortment of riders throwing down and doing what they do best, apart from one guy who slams his face, hard think it was Keegan Valaika

Opening part goes to Keegan who tears it up on the streets and some nice shredding on the mountain, taking a huge portion of the spine with him. Highlight for me is the huge rail combo he did and the kicking about in a snow bowl.

Next up we got Shaun White, what can be said about this guy huh ? I wanted to see more variety in terrain from him as al he did was rinse the halfpipe. His riding is so clean and effortless and makes it look like you could strap a 89 year old into a board and they could nail it no problem. I'm sure its a 1260 attempt he destroys himself on or even a 1440 from the looks of how he was trying to twist it so late.

Next up we got Nicolas Muller, Jussi Oksanen, Jeremy Jones. JJ & Muller both brought it in That's It, That's all so I was expecting something just as big and they brought there A game yet again Very similar to some of the riding in That's It but its what people pay to see, them doing what they do best. As for Jussi he threw down as hard as any of the others did.

Nicolas Muller snatched himself a whole part all for himself too and proved why he is considered world class. Not to sure about laying down on a cagey looking precipice right up on top of the mountain, crazy fo'. Needless to say he threw down some tech nightmares but also carried some really sweet looking 5 variations with such style. He seemed to nail several tricks on the first attempt as fresh track ride-aways were on the cards.

Squaw Valley Session is up next, nailing big gaps with super 7s and 9s. You see the craziest hippy rainbow pants in this session too. Best song for me on the whole soundtrack, only just though! Love the handheld camera through the tricks and the lodge riding, epic!

Frederik Kalbermatten & Nicolas Muller (yet again) shredding it to funk. Frederik has a different style to Mueller, his riding is a bit more edgy but makes it look a bit sharper and more tech as opposed to free flowing james from Muller. The amount of buttering in this section is enough to fill enough slices of bread for the whole of Africa, fact!

Frederik Kalbermatten & Jussi Oksanen (also again) very much the same as before, great riding and slashing. Some nice natural hip transfers, wall riding and again capping off a huge portion of a spine. Some fun spinning on the ice too, gotta love it.

Next up is the most mind-blowing action from Jeremy Jones dropping the bomb with 360 foot spins thanks to his front binding being able to rotate. This enables him to shred up urban terrain like no one else before. Some sick mountain riding too. If I was to pick any individual's part to watch then this would be it for sure. I don't want to give too much away. Check out him stand-up riding on his bike, smooooth.

So back to that sculpted B, yeah it's real, an actual B. It's the best group sessioning of one individual object I have ever seen, frickin' mental. Everyone is throwing it down something insane. Again don't want to give much away about some of the tricks going down.

Thats it, great riding, great music and great terrain.

Go check it out now!

'nuff said.

Bristol Mountain Trip

Today I was lucky enough to be able to go check out the local mountain, needless to say it got me amped for the forthcoming season, cannot wait!

All the info and map of the mountain terrain can be found here.

I took my camera and got a few decent photos, my new photo of the moment is from a selection of photos I snapped. Check out the rest of the photo gallery.

I also purchased a copy of the new Burton Snowboard Video, the 'B Movie'. It features all their sponsored riders. Check out the video teaser/trailer below:

Check Yourself

I'm a day dreamer, simple as. Tiff forwarded me this video titled 'Last Day Dream'. I pounced on it straight away, needless to say its 42 seconds of pure raw emotion. Check it:

Last Day Dream [HD] from Chris Milk on Vimeo.

Going GaGa for Live Lounge

So I have been looking at Radio 1's live lounge videos on youtube and they all blow me away, whether its a new take on there own work or a cover of someone else, they all are brilliant in there own way (blanket statement, the odd one sucks).

The one I wanna share is courtesy of Lady Gaga, do not question my sexuality before watching this video, if you appreciate good music you will understand why.

See! She can sing and is classically trained, it's bullshit how money hungry record companies portrait there artists to maximize profits and disregard an artist's true talents

Another video worth checking out is this one courtesy of the Orange Unsigned Act

Stolen Content for the Soul

I am taking this post straight out of DC's blog because this is one of the best thing YouTube has given the world. It was long overdue with all the absolute shite on there.

Here is the YouTube version of the video description:

"Filmmaker Marc Isaacs sets himself up in a London tower block lift. The residents come to trust him and reveal the things that matter to them creating a humorous and moving portrait of a vertical community."

It is a truly heart warming and inspiring thing to watch. Trust me and take 25 minutes of your life and watch something truly stellar.

Digging in the Archives

Here is an oldish video of Tyler Chorlton shredding it, check out the jib action to front flip on the side of the lodge, immense!

'nuff said

Introducing you to Joe Sexton!

THIS VIDEO SUCKS JOE twsnow from Stepchild Snowboards on Vimeo.

Stolen Content

Stolen off a friends Blog because it's just that insane. Music is the acoustic version of Creep by Radiohead.

Check it out here

The life of a Snowboarder, how it should be!

partysnake again teaser from leepipes on Vimeo.

This video has some of the best jibbing action in it I have seen for a long while along with some of the craziest riders you could ever wish to see!

Actions > Words #2

Pat Moore first came to my attention in That's It, That's all and blew my mind not just with his skills but his ability to appear more insane that the maddest madman you could wish to meet.

Anywho, check out this edit from Forum Forever.

Epic Video

Tiff e-mailed me the link to this epic snowboarding video, a bit unorthodox to say the least but it keeps it fresh!