Lockdown Family Theater: Best Skate Vids of 2020
Every year shit flies by at a break neck pace and it feels like there’s barely time to appreciate or remember what occurred. Thought I’d compile a list of my favorite skate videos from this year. These are the ones I watched more than twice that made me feel buzzed and happy to be on this planet. So if you’re still locked down somewhere in the future and want to watch what I think are, the best skate vids of 2020, here you go.
It would be disingenuous and lazy for me to start an end-of-the-year-favorite-skate-video-recap by bagging on 2020 and falling into the “goodbye crap year!” trap that is the popular take. To be quite honest, on a personal level this year has been really nice, calmer and saner than many that preceded. At the same time we were all forced to be stuck, contained, at home. So unsurprisingly most of the vids I loved tended to revolve around friends, on the road, in foreign lands. A celebration of life and skating. Actually that’s nothing new, quarantine or not, it’s my jam. Thanks for looking.
1. VANS EUROPE: TOM’S TALES
Martino Cattaneo’s opening to this video is my favorite part of the year. The pace, the music, the tricks, the near death by mini, this was the Bourne Identity of skate parts (someone really needs to tell Madness he skates for them). A dream summer camp/road trip across France, Spain, Italy, Austria, Croatia and Russia. The Dakabraka song Baby paired with a particularly steady onslaught of tricks to a brutal apex was another joyous highlight. Also Pfanner, David Allan Coe and Doobie, c’mon.
2. VANS EUROPE: KINGDOM FOR A COOLER
The same crew from #1 but now travelling around Morocco. From the labyrinths of Tangiers to the Southern port of Agadir, the skating, the shots of the country and the spirit are just a delight. Also again great attention to the importance of the soundtrack. I traveled around Morocco on my own years ago and this was like that except with friends and everyone could skate.
3. SK8MAFIA: PROMO
Link Here. Man, Brandon Turner…bookended with Alexis Ramirez and Kellen James, Wes Kramer…etc in between, it’s pure SD joy. I watched the Brandon Turner part repeatedly. Great soundtrack.
4. JARNE VERBRUGGEN: PROFESSIONAL LIFE
12 mins of a Belgian crafting a part in Croatia and almost dying at least twice. Fantastic.
5. FANCY LAD: THE SECRET OF THE CLOWN BOX
Link here. Back in the day, “Fancy Lad” was a graffiti tag I’d see mostly around Jamaica Plain and some of the Boston. I smugly assumed it was some pretentious Massart student who loved A Clockwork Orange…I was mistaken. Took me a bit of time on Soundcloud to track down the song from Tomasello’s part. This is pure fun and chaos.
6. ILLEGAL CIV: GODSPEED
Yes, Alex Midler looks like a 1980s, college movie, villain but I sat still on Christmas afternoon for 58 mins straight just smiling. Sucker for pedestrian arguing. This felt like how skate videos used to feel, big old important documents.
7. WESTERNWORLD: FFFurther
This whole video is so gnarly, so fun. Zane Timpson’s part is unreal. It’s like the future Ken Burns documentary about the Guerilla war against the Bay Area tech bro takeover.
8. WORBLE: PARTY DESTROYER
VVVVermont. A year ago I was in the middle of a really stressful and depressing trial, I remember on my lunch break checking my phone and seeing that Dave Mulls Toxic Planet part had dropped and it was like a pure shot of joy, a spirtual facelift.
9. DEATHWISH: UNCROSSED
Taylor Kirby went off
Link
Taylor. Kirby. Holy Smokes. No breaks on this one. Pedro Delfino and I drank beers together in Queens last October and talked about east coast spots, no big wup, don’t even know why you brought it up.
10. NASSIM LACHHAB: INDY
Morocco’s native son throwing it all into the tagine pot. Great spots, great style.
Great Lockdown-Fallout-Shelter-Rewatches (Honorable Mentions)
Grosso Forever: Propeller Vert Session
Vans: Credits
New Balance Numeric: Calcada
Vincent Huhta’s Lågaffektivt Bemötande
Chris Colburn X Cobra Man: Heatwave
