Ultimate Slacker!

It has been almost a month since the last blog update! Possibly my slackest ever! But i'm gonna make up for it by giving you a bunch of videos and news:

I guess the most important thing that has gone down is the Something For The Weekend comp, there is a whole section on the website dedicated to it now but I still wanna say thanks to everyone that entered! The comp has grown every year and hopefully will continue to do so! We had a whole bunch of prizes this year which although isn't the point still makes it better! We ended up with a bunch of decks,shoes,tees,stickers etc from Real, Spitfire, Nike SB, Vans, 5Boro and Karma - these are the companies that wanted to support your comp, so they deserve your support back!
I was pretty overwhelmed when we had 30+ entries, but a bit gutted when people started pulling out after one half wet saturday! You guys needed to have some faith! The ones that did lapped up the Sunday, which was the nicest day of the year at that point!
The standard of skating this year was awesome too, some sick stuff went down by the winners Team Vent, and you could see a bunch of progresssion by all the kids that have entered in the past, but I was really stoked on Team 187, who I didn't really know and who managed to pretty much shut down the infamous West Quay road gap!


Loads of rad videos seem to be coming out soon, We just had Deathbowl to Downtown, a documentary on skateboarding in NYC which is awesome, and we should be having Beware Of Sasquatch soon with a full cory Kennedy section! As well as This Time Tomorrow with a full Jimmy Mcdonald section.







I'm looking forward to the Jimmy McDonald section, the guy kills it on a skateboard and reps 5Boro too!













And here is Reskue rider Jed Cullen getting gnar on the skatestopped rail at the guildhall!



In shop news we have the new Vans Rowley syle 99s in two colours, some new Abuze London clothing, a bunch of fresh new Stereo decks and wheels, some 5Boro decks, and we are pleased to announce that we are going to be a Carharrt stockist from tomorrow, with a full range of jeans, tees, jackets, belts, hats etc! Exciting times!

Manderson and Tom Asta!

Mark Gonzalez has a habit of having rad skaters on Krooked, slightly twangy styles and a rad bag of tricks pretty much sums up Krooked riders and Mike Anderson is no different, he absolutely kills it in this vid:


Also on the hype ting is Tom asta, his part in the Zero vid was sick, and now it looks like he has been officially welcomed to Mystery, check this clip, biggy back tail like woah!

Killa!

Cory Kennedy is a badaman! (So is David Baker)

So for the release of the Nike SB Salazar shoe the SB team went around the globe generally killing skateparks and stuff, check this clip for some seriously stupid skating from Cory Kennedy:

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Meanwhile on the mean streets of Southampton some of the Soton Yoot made a little edit of a day out to Merryoak, hopefully some of these nippers will be killing it for SFTW!

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Menace and Fabian Alomar - True gangster!

In the mid nineties LA schoolyards were where it was at, and MNC pretty much ruled that scene, it was pretty short lived but MNC was dope, I had a MNC bag I bought from Off Beat in 1996, you probably weren't born, damn!
Check out this interview with LA gangster Fabian Alomar:

Stereo/Crayon

By the time you read this we should have a bunch of Stereo decks in stock, including the Obey collabo series decks and some price point boards at £45, We are also getting a new brand (for us) Crayon, the boards are made on Deluxe wood so they are the same as Real/Anti Hero but they are only £40! They have a pretty sick team of UK rippers, including Korahn Gayle, who is pretty jokeshop on a skateboard, check out this video part of his:

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Support UK skateboarding!

Don't forget we have the Omar Salazar shoe dropping on Saturday too! He got a few of his SB friends together and they ripped some parks up in Sacramento, any footage of Omar and Justin brock is very welcome:

I got scared...

...when Bob Gnarlys youTube account got suspended, he basically uploads parts from a lot of underground scene videos, but I guess occasionally shares stuff that aint quite ready for sharing and his account gets suspended, its cos of Bob Gnarly that Joe Pagets part got seen by 1000's of people, and I get to see a lot of sick skating and then share it with you! anyway hes back! Here is your fill of true street skating :










Thats gives you something to do while your girlfriend is yapping on about Twilight/dresses/rose wine/lady gaga or whatever it is girls like these days.

Happy Days...

... was a pretty sick TV show, apart from the fact Fonzie was a single man who rented a flat above a family, and hung out with a bunch of kids younger than him, and tried to pimp on young girls, maybe he isn't so cool? Anyway, it is happy days in Southampton at the moment, 20 teams have now signed up for SFTW, and this years is gonna be the best yet! We have prizes from a bunch of rad companies and i'm seriously pleased with the amount of people that have entered! also repping our scene is the most recent Sidewalk, which if you haven't already you should definitely pick up, there is a 6:57 Silverscreen with four pages of south coast shredding, including two photos of steez master Jak Tonge and Pagets first two photos in a magazine, Bangin! Congratulations chaps!
I couldn't be more pleased for Rob, 6:57 has been really well received and people are starting to notice our scene, Rob is currently over in Australia, where he has managed to catch a few demos of Girl/Chocolate skaters, and was at a park when Grant Taylor and Lance Mountain turned up!

I'm pretty sure this is in Oz, all I do know is every single trick that Sean Malto and Cory Kennedy do would be 99.9% of skaters best trick ever, and they casually cruise through them at demos!
If this type of skateboarding is a bit tech for you here is some of the Vans team skating a mini ramp in Croatia:

Omar Salazar is dope and the Sun...

...is a skateboarders best friend, now that we have finally seen off February things are looking good for spring, I have been slacking on the blog as usual but FACEBOOK fans know whats up! Something For The Weekend is looking good, we have 13 teams so far and 5Boro have just said they are gonna hook us up with some prizes too!

We have a mega sale on this weekend, a bunch of stuff is gonna be up to half price, but this weekend ONLY! So get on it!

The next weekend after that (Sat 20th) sees the release of the much anticipated Nike SB Omar Salazar shoe! He has a mini site up explaining the shoes technology and there is a vid of him ripping as always. I have been a fan of Omar Salazar for years, since his first video part with a Slayer song on Nervous Breakdown, anyone? The pro shoe is well deserved and they look sick so head down a week on Saturday if you want a pair!
Here are a few clips to get you pumped:
I always liked the timing of the music to the two backlips in Omars bit (it doesn't start til 2 minutes in)

Youtube are Nazis and took the audio of his First Love part but here it is:
kish kish whoah, kish kish woah!

omar salazar first love
by guigs-kun

One half of the Omar part from AWS Mindfield:

Omar kills it, straight up!

Gangstarr.

I have been slacking on the blog again, but you need to get with the times and become a fan of our FACEBOOK! It gets updated everyday so you can get your fill of news from Reskue.

It was on Facebook in fact that I discovered the news that Guru, one half of the legendary rap group Gangstarr, has unfortunately had a heart attack and is currently in a coma.

Guru was always one of my favourite rappers, despite the groups name they often focussed on more pressing issues than just trying to be gangster, and a lot of his rhymes are really well thought out and flow through DJ premiers beats with a relaxed but meaningful conviction meaning you pretty much know the lyrics after one listen.
Guru along with Premier can also be credited with the idea of mixing Hip Hop with Jazz and bringing the music to a much wider audience.
I'm obviously not the only skater who is a fan as a whole bunch of video parts have featured Gangstarr tracks, here are a few of them:

This is from way back in 98, Kenny Hughes suits the music perfectly, and has one of the smoothest switch crooks on a handrail ever.

Here is another video from around the same era, Steve Olson, the quickly forgotten hippy of the OG Shortys era:

Here is Ryan Gee in Chomp On This, if you have no idea about Chomp it was basically a video that had sections from all the well known photographers and videographers of the time, as well as a bunch of appearences by top pros, hence why you might think this section sucks! Chomp was really really popular at the time and a bunch of people had the Pac Man drawn on their grip!

Here is probably my favourite use of a Gangstarr tune, Josh Kalis in the DC video, sick skater, sick song, bangin!

Here are some pretty underated guys from an IPath promo:

Here is a trailer for Static 3, the eagle eared among you will notice that this isn't Guru rapping but is Jeru, this was on a Gangstarr track which had a whole bunch of other rappers on, which obviously wouldn't have happened without Guru, he is really well respected by basically everyone in the Hip Hop industry, and the skateboard industry too, lets just hope he gets well soon.

Ispo Mini Ramp Comp

Greg and Marc have just come back from the Volcom Comp and as usual the skating is rad, check out Andy Scotts rather impressive fs ollie to sit down!

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Crossroads

For this springs Crossroads Jamie Thomas took it to San Diego and put on a rad contest as well, here is the skating that went down:
Darren Tate wants me to point out the irony of Jaws skating a shark.

Simpel Sessions finals day mega blog!

Sorry it has taken till today to get this up, we were all pretty much beyond tired yesterday! The finals day at Simpel was ridiculous and its all pretty blurred but i'll try and give you a good run down:
All the euros really came up at this comp, Nike SBs Tim Zom was killing it, Maxim Habenec who is on Adidas had the nicest tres of the contest and Eniz Fazliov who is on Alien Workshop cruised like only a Workshop rider could, like a euro Dylan Rieder nosegrinding copingless quarters! Biggest come up was definitely Adrien Bulard however, who hardly practised at all and pretty much lands everything! He qualified in the top three so didn't have to enter the semi finals and went straight to the finals. Kris Vile strolled onto the course holding a danish pastry twenty minutes after he was meant to skate, they let him take his run at the end and he just cruised through all his tricks landing everything, Vile is seriously good at skateboarding!
Here is Hold Tight Henrys footage from the Semis:

The finals were kinda strange, the runs were really short and basically if you messed up a trick it seemed there wasn't much time to recover, and most people seemed to mess up a trick or two, it turned out that each person had two runs however and Adrien Bulards second run was nothing short of amazing, he landed everything, including a tre down the stairs, the most hustled 360 shove over the driveway, a nollie heel over the driveway and a nollie front foot flip over the hip, all in one run! Americans seem to be hating on his Hustled foot on tres and shoves but they used to hate on Tom Pennys steez before he showed them all whats up, Adrien Bulard is amazing plain and simple! Tony Panici was some dude I hadn't heard of but he was pretty sick, doing clearance to nosegrind down the apex rail, Maxim could have done really well but unfortunately messed up a few tricks including 270 over the hip which i'm sure he landed evey time in practise, anyway here is the footage of the finals:

After the finals it went pretty much straight into a best trick contest, Johnny Layton came on and tried to switch tre the stairs, while Bulard tried a few times for nollie late flips as Tim Zom flip front boarded the rail, feeble to back smithed the rail and flip back lipped it! Some dude was getting really close to nollie back heel and Grove made the signature shirt off backside flip which kept slipping away on the ice like floor.
Overall the contest was amazing and i'm really glad we all went even if none of us did very well, Joe and Darren were definitely inspired by some of the skating they saw and hopefully we'll get a bunch of rad footage as I know they are both pretty amped to get some stuff done.

Here is some other footage from freecaster:
Qualifications:

3rd place Sami Mietinen, he had to skate AFTER Adriens flawless run, so was pretty pressured, still ripped though!

2nd place Tim Zom, This guy killed it too, seemed a bit moody but was happy enough after his runs!

1st place Adrien Bulard, the second run is an absolute pisstake!

Final and Best Trick highlights:


EDIT: Here is another video from Hold Tight Henry of some extra footage and the best trick, this is probably the best footage of the comp, Eniz Fazliov absolutely kills it, the clearance backnoseblunt is ridiculous!

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Here are a bunch of photos from my blog cam:




Just before we left.

We had to wait for 6 hrs for the plane.

Sleep deprived Tate mode

Tallin is Nice!

The contest seemed like a pretty big deal out there.
Paget liked the snow!
So did Tate mode
Snowball fights were pretty inevitable!
And Paget gets inevitably owned!
But so did Tate Mode!
Here is when we first arrived at the stadium.
the course wasn't properly finished yet!
Paget looking excited to get a skate in.
we all had to stand on this green screen thing for a video intro.
A view from the riders area.
I didn't really want this extra elbow
Or to burn loads of skin off on the floor
Darren Tate is metal before breakfast
Here is the camera section
Some dude, sick frontside 270 kickflip.
Hugo Liard, Ben Grove and Chris Astrom
Fabien Verhague checking out Tate Modes ass
A Tailslide on the ledge, look at the dude stood nearby and you'll notice its thigh high!
Tate mode decided to learn bs 270 flips!
Some dude front board on the rail.
Ben Grove backside flip.
Pfanner warming up
Our little crew.
Sheckler chilling, he doesn't like gherkins in his Mcdonalds.
Adrien Bulard.
You would think this photo was pretty whack, until I tell you this is a catch of a nollie front foot flip.
The Stadium.
The Crew.

Simpel Sessions day 2, or 1 or something.

So at the end of the blog yesterday we were heading back to have a session with the Vans Europe team, it was rad seeing Pfanner, Wainwright and Vile skating, along with Madders Apse who is sick and Phil Zwijsen who did nollie nosebluntslides so so fast it looked awesome, I didn't even realise it but Hold Tight Henry was there and filmed a special Kingpin ten tricks:

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Pfanners Half Cab the wrong way over the rail was amazing!

When we got there today we were all pretty tired and Joe seemed pretty nervous about his run, being first he didn't know what level everyone would be, I don't know if thats good or bad, he landed a few tricks though, including a smith on the rainbow rail and a frontside 360 shuv over the hip.
I was up next, unfortunately about five minutes before the comp started I fell pretty hard doing a boardslide of all things! I had a big swellbow and managed to burn a load of skin off on the floor, I had to pick some skin off the inside of my tee shirt, and when Hugo liard started his run off doing a big mosher tail drop into the quarter I wasn't really feeling it, and after I failed at my first trick which I had been landing a few minutes before I was a bit gutted and I couldn't really be bothered.
Darren was the next person up and we had been joking for weeks that he should start his run off with a boneless, I think due to nerves the board managed to slip out of his hand and he bailed it, but I think this just relaxed him more and he ended up cruising a few tricks, the old back board down the big rail and a couple of fifty fifties.
After seeing the results for the skating the judging seemed a little sketchy, Joe only got 5 points more than me and I didn't land anything! Other people didn't land anything at all and managed to get 160+ points too, obviously based on their sponsors, and an Estonian kid landed one 5.0 and got 190 points! But its all just meant to be a bit of fun and none of us expected to qualify anyway.
The general standard was pretty low at this point and I think it boosted Adams confidence, he started his run with a solid hardflip over the hip, stomping a 360 flip tailgrab over the driveway and sticking in a few tranny tricks too.
That was it for our crew, all the rad skaters seemed to come after us, Kris Vile had a pretty sick run including a switch bigspin down the big euro gap, a bs 360 kickflip over the hip and a bluntslide down the hubba. One of my favourite new skaters Chris Pfanner landed everything for the first two minutes of his run, including a smith down the rail a backside ollie down the stairs and a flip melon over the driveway, other notables included Adrien Bulard who did a ridiculously steezy tre flip down the stairs first try, and Eero Antilla who landed a whole bunch of stuff and Fabian Verhaugue who cruised through back smiths, back lips and clearence feebles on the big driveway. Also props to Ben Grove who puked up halfway through his run and still carried on skating and frontboarded the big rail, it kinda sucked that Tom Penny and Sheckler both didn't skate even though they were there, maybe they will skate tomorrow, J lay kept saying he was hungover but still managed to switch tre up the euro easy as pie.
Hold Tight Henry also already has an edit out of the first day:

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There was a hell of a lot of bailing in the qualifiers, but looking at this edit there was a hell of a lot of rad skating happening too, and i'm looking forward to tomorrow now, thats if I can still stand up properly for a whole day! I have just come back from watching all the BMX too which was all ridiculous, it was really obvious that the course was just made for them really.
Ranny got a whole bunch of sick photos today and hopefully there should be a whole bunch more tomorrow, I have load of photos for the blog too, which I might try and upload tomorrow, but to be honest I hate laptops, everything takes forever!
Thats it for now.

Simpel Sessions day one!

We left for Tallin on Wednesday at 10pm, meaning we had to hang around in the airport for ages waiting for our flight which left at 7.45am, we arrived in Tallin at 12.30 local time and with no skating on the thursday and having all been awake for 24 hrs+ we were pretty tired, seeing Tom Penny picking up his luggage is pretty surreal! We tried to go swimming but weren't allowed with shorts, we had to have speedos! So we went bowling, seeing Joe Paget bowl is pretty much the best thing ever!
With the time difference we got up pretty early today for the first practice day, when we arrived they were still sweeping all the wood dust off the course, as the ramps had only been finished hours earlier! This meant the whole course was really really slidy! You can't even get a solid push without slipping and everyone was really struggling, not to land things but to rise away! The whole course is pretty huge, way bigger than it looks! Adam Keys who was in the second practise session had to watch us skate until his sesion and mentioned it looked pretty small, but after he skated it he agreed it was all huge! So bear this in mind when you are watching the comp! Jart pro Eero Antila was in our practise and was killing it, kickflipping the double flight with ease (which is huge!) Johnny Layton did the best frontside bluntslide I have ever seen clearing about six foot on the pop out, some euro on Adidas was ridiculous, nollie nosesliding the waist high ledge and back smithing it every go, Darren managed to learn backside 360 flips turning with it over the hip and me and Paget were just roling about finding our feet with our tramline tricks, heel shoves and k grinds then Paget tried a Frontside Bluntslide on the ledge, he fell off backwards which on a regular block would have meant him falling on his ass, but its almost waist high so he fell back on his head, I think this freaked him out a bit but we are going to go for another practise session in a minute and hopefully he'll be back on it, he still did a lazer flip over the hip and smithed the rail. When we finished our practise we watched Adam cruise for a bit doing tre flip talgrabs over the driveway and hardflip reverts up the euro gap which he would land every go if it wasn't so damn slippy!

The draw for our skating was up and there are 27 groups of 3, and only one person from the three qualifies, Joe is in the first group which is gonna be pretty nerve wracking but we didn't recognise any of the other people in his group so he could do ok, i'm in the forth group, and with Hugo Liard, who is pro on Antiz so qualifying is pretty unlikely! Darren is in a group with some unknowns and Adam Keys is in a group with Famous pro Kurtis Colomonico, you can watch it all live in the morning, I have a whole bunch of photos and Ranny is with us getting photos for Sidewalk so you'll see a load when we get back, we are going for a practise session with the Vans europe team now, Wainwright, Chris Pfanner, Kris Vile and Flo Marfaing who didn't make it in time for the morning practise, hopefully we'll get some rad photos and i'm excited just to see some of my favourite skaters shredding up close, the handrail is pretty much a full size handrail so anything down it is good, not many people really skated it today and it does show that it is more of a BMX course but hopefully we'll get some stuff!

Thats it for now!

Inspiration time!

January sucks, we can't even pretend its cool, no one has any money because they all spent it on Christmas, the weather sucks so you can't go skating, no new stuff comes out, its pretty easy to get depressed in January!
You guys need to be looking past it, you can still be skating in car parks - getting your flat ground on lock, organising trips to indoor places. Just think from now on the days are getting longer and longer, and spring will be coming round pretty soon! SFTW is coming in March and we'll be announcing a bunch of cool stuff soon, but in the mean time here is some awesome skateboarding to keep you inspired!
Oh and we'll have the new Thrasher which comes with an awesome free DVD very very soon, it has full parts from all the Converse team!

SK8MAFIA always kill it, they have some sick new graphics too, including a Ron Burgandy deck!


Bryan Botelho:

Aaron Collier

Jon Choi geek steez!

Here is a trailer for an independent vid, looks sick!

Ricardo Paterno

Here is a recent Famous demo from when they were on tour with Blink 182!

And here is a classic part from Tom Penny from an old Etnies video, Tom absolutely killed it in those days! Everything he did was massive at the time.

Simpel Sessions - small seeds!

I posted up about the Simpel Sessions last year because they had a live stream of the contest, Simpel is basically a comp over in Estonia (its next to Russia)which is mainly focussed on BMX but has a bunch of skating in there too, my buddy Mike Netley who runs Case BMX mag was going to be going to take photos and generally have a laugh as its pretty well known for the after parties as well as the actual contest!

Mike invited me along but I figured if I was going i'd want to skate the course cos it looks sick! I e-mailed the organisers asking if some of the shop team can enter, when they finally got back to me they said it was cool, and Reskue fam Darren and Paget wanted to come too so we booked it up! Then Ranny who recently shot Jak Tonges First Light for Sidewalk mag wanted to come to get photos and 6:57s Adam Keys wanted to as well, so it now looks like there is a whole crew going over!

Hopefully there will be a live stream of the contest again and you can watch Paget in his first major comp! We recently hooked Joe up with a Zoo York and Thunder flow so he is gonna be out there repping them and Reskue!

In the last few days it has been announced that Johnny Layton, Tom Penny and Javier Sarmiento are gonna be there, as well as Ben Grove, Wainwright and Ryan Sheckler! Its a pretty big contest for a few Southampton kids to go to, but we wanted to escape the miserable weather here and skate a rad park!

Check out the Simpel website HERE! And wish us luck!

New Year! same slackness! - Romsey Park!

I just realised I have been slacking on the blog updates again! I don't know how many times I need to say you should follow us on Facebook and Twitter too but if you haven't been having a fill of news then here you go:

First of all the biggest bit of news is the possibility of Romsey indoor skatepark, while this isn't currently anything to do with Reskue as I have added a lot of people to the skatepark page a lot of you have been asking questions about it! If you actually read the Facebook page you will know just as much as me!

Basically Gravity, a ramp company based in Romsey who Marc Churchill designs for, are trying to get the biggest indoor park in the country built in Romsey, already even with that tiny peice of information people started complaining that it wasn't in central Southampton! One of the main reasons we have never had an indoor skatepark in the central south coast is that it is really really expensive to get a warehouse and get insurance, so having it outside of the city brings down the cost straight away, a twenty minute drive/train/bus is a hell of a lot better than a three hour travel to anywhere else so stop complaining!

Gravity are hoping that different district councils will club together to provide the neccasary funding for the park, which they believe will cost £1.4 million, while this isn't confirmed they have support from a lot of districts and as Gravity is based in Romsey there is the possibility it could get built quite quickly, however when I say quickly I mean months rather than years, anything to do with councils takes time, thats just the way it is!

The best way you can help out and hopefully get the park built is to add yourself to the Facebook group, e mail Gravity or councils pledging support for the project, basically anything to raise awareness to the need of an indoor park!

There is already some negativity on the page about designs, location etc which is ridiculous! The design is just one idea, and there will be loads of space for loads of different aspects of skatepark design, if there is something you do want in there then let them know, but rather say what you DO want rather than what you DON'T! Positivity is key here!

I personally think a foam pit is pretty pointless as only BMXers really use them and it takes up a lot of space which could be used for better things, however with the potential size of the place i'm not gonna complain too much as most of the things I would look for and would therefore want to be positively telling them about are already in the design! indoor concrete with pool coping! A vert ramp! But as I said if there is something you want then LET THEM KNOW!

People have also been asking some pretty stupid questions, such as is it going to be free?! obviously its not, as I said it costs a hell of a lot for places like this and thats the only reason it hasn't been done before! So please don't be naive enough to complain about paying! You wouldn't complain about paying to go to a gig, nightclub or cinema so don't complain, and you wouldn't expect to get in cheaper just because you are from the area, we are all gonna be really lucky if this gos ahead so compalaining about paying is stupid!

People are also just asking when this will be done, its impossible to say and would be pointless to estimate as it could easily change.

This really could be amazing so add people to the group! I have already added 400+ people so you should be able to do the same! The more people that show support the better! Leave a comment on the page showing your support for the project and hopefully we'll all be meeting up for an opening jam in the future!

FACEBOOK GROUP HERE!

Here is some skateboarding for you too:


This guys dope:

Mike Mo

Fuel TV is a channel in America which has a bunch of "Extreme" sports on, these normally suck but they seem to actually do a pretty good job with some of the skate stuff, here is a show they did recently focussing on Mike Mo.
Its pretty much impossible not to like Mike Mo, the guy seems really humble and genuinely loves skateboarding, and his part in Fully Flared was ridiculous! Skatelab the park he skates in this video is out in the valley near LA, I went there a few years ago and a couple of dudes were just matching tricks for ages over the hip, they were two of the best skaters I had ever seen, but I had no idea who they were, looking back it was probably Mike Mo! I just sat down and watched them, which considering I was there to skate was a pretty big deal.
Its pretty scary seeing his brother in recovery from cancer, but rad that he is still about, he is pretty much Mikes personal filmer and like he says he pretty much owes everything to him, so thanks Vince!



The third part seems to be a bit sketchy on playing so you may have to click the link, its a hard life innit!

A year in review....

When it is raining every day it is easy to forget how much good stuff has happened recently, and this year has been awesome for skating in Southampton so I thought I’d have a little review for you guys!

First of all the amount of videos that came out this year was amazing and they were all generally really really good too!
Here are a few little re-reviews.
If you aren’t too fussed about videos then skip down a bit!

Mindfield
The Alien Workshop video was one of my favourite videos of the year, the whole team are some of the most clean, original and stylish skaters in the world. This video introduced us to Jake Johnson, one of my favourite new ams, the combo moves of Tyler Bledsoe, and a resurgence in the popularity of AVE who absolutely kills it, and skateboarding from Dylan Reider that can only be described as beautiful. This video is bound to go down as one of the all time classic skate videos. AWS also tried something a bit new in having a book with the DVD and cool looking packaging to try and get people to actually buy the video, and it seemed to work a bit too. I was also stoked on how well Workshop decks sold after the vid came out

Zoo York – State of Mind
I have to admit this took me by surprise, I think this turned out to be one of the most underated videos of the year, I love east coast skating but thought since Zoo got bought by Ecko it might be a bit generic, but they have a team of rad skaters, Eli Reed, Ron Deilly and Matt Miller all held it down, and the older dudes like Donny Barley and Aaron Suski still kill it and there was still an east coast feel to the vid, even though it’ll never feel like the OG mix tape days!


God Save The Label
Pretty under the rader on this one, I love the label, Jason Adams is one of my all time favourite skaters, and Shannon and Chris Troys parts were bangin, including the fakie bigspin to feebs down a rail, pure sickness, but unfortunately with the AWS vid I think this got a bit overshadowed, the filming was all good and the editing and songs were rad, pretty underated again I think.


Fun
Again this took everyone by surprise, Powell is far from most peoples favourite company but they seem to know what they are doing when building up a team! Loads of power moves came out in this vid, fakie Ollie switch front feebs down a rail, nine kink handrails and THAT smith from Ben Hatchell, its no surprise that Jamie Thomas has poached Hatchell and he is now part of the Zero team!

Hold Tight London
I was stoked on this video, a great price that you couldn’t refuse and an independent video to boot, Henry clearly makes these vids because he loves skateboarding and it shows, loads of the filming and editing was better than some professional filming and the british soundtrack to all the HTL edits can’t help but make you proud of skateboarding in the UK, Tanner smashes it in theis vid, definitely one of my favourite UK skaters, and Karims mega pop makes an appearance, even after Paget stole his Sugar Puffs!

Extremely Sorry
I was really surprised by the mixed opinions on this, the video gave me goose bumps at the premier, Bob Burnquist was absolutely amazing, Rowley still smashed it, Luan confirmed what I had been saying all year and Gonzalez was straight gnar. Buteven with this a lot of people went on about how they didn’t like the music, I personally think if you can get Lemmy to record a new song specifically for your video part then you are on to a winner! A lot of peoples minds seemed to change when they realised that a lot of the songs had well known and respected artists in too. This video is also gonna go down as an instant classic, and I’m looking forward to kids in the future saying this was the first video they used to watch all the time.


Slave and Zero vids
I can’t really say much about these as we don’t have them in yet, but I have seen them both and they are both rad , Slave, like Stereo, are one of the companies we have always been behind, so hopefully like The Berrics has done for Stereo this video will show you all just how rad Slave are! Frecks is a beast! Both the vids should be here between Christmas and New Year.

Hesh Law
Does what it says on the tin, a bunch of straight gnar from the Creature dudes with a lot of focus on the street ams who kill it, Taylor Bingaman is sick and a lot of new skaters love Gravette!
The surge in park and tranny skating is definitely helping the popularity of these guys, I think the only thing people didn’t like about this vid is where the hell was Stu!



As well as this we have supported or put on a lot of stuff locally:

One thing that really increased this year was the amount of premiers we put on, and we plan to continue to do so! The Black Label vid, Heel Toe Magic, Extremely Sorry and 6:57 all had an airing and each premier was busier than the last so if you continue to support them then they will only get better!

We also supported a bunch of comps this year, about 7 I think, two at Hoglands, Two at Merryoak, Shirley Warren, Netley View and the yearly Something For The Weekend comp.

I have had a lot of people asking if we are gonna be doing a SFTW next year, I’m not sure what part of annual comp you guys don’t get but yeah, we will be doing it EVERY YEAR! Always around March to kick off the spring, its gonna be cool to see how much some of you guys have progressed that have entered for the last two years! We should have a lot more prizes for the next one too. This years seems like ages ago now but it was rad, the 6:57 and Winch edits were both amazing, and it even had the editor of Sidewalk taking notice of our scene!
I did mention at the time that we were going to trying to get a Southampton article happening, that is still going to happen at some point!


This year was definitely the year for the Berrics! A few people didn’t enjoy BATB as much as the last one but a few of the matches were amazing!


Busenitz is amazing!


The quality of some of the Bangins and Recruits have been outstanding, the only qualm I have the Berrics is that at the end of the day it is just a skate park, and filming in skateparks is pretty damn boring, street skating and finding spots and adapting to your environment are some of the best parts of skating, and I bet there are gonna be more kids just filming stuff in parks which is a real shame. The resurence in flatground is kinda cool though, if only for some originality with clips like this:

At the same time we fell victim to the weather and had a nice little block that we would skate when it rained or in the dark, unfortunately for me this meant all the time! A few people asked about getting invited to Level 3, you don’t need an invite, its just skateboarding, if anyone wanted to turn up and skate that was cool! Having said that the block has now disappeared but hopefully we’ll have an even better one soon and the Reskue training facility will be back on!
Level 3 RIP!



By far the highlight of the year has been 6:57, which you should have bought and seen by now!
The premier was rammed which was awesome, I was so pleased that so many people came out to support the project.
Rob Crawford has been filming Skateboarding in Southampton for years, and finally put together a full video, and its awesome! Everyones sections are amazing, i’m stoked people can finally see how sick Curtis style is, and see best nollie tres you’ll ever witness, but I’m mostly proud of Paget, I hooked him up with shop sponsorship pretty early on, and a few people doubted my decision, but he is progressing really fast and his video part is sick, to see how much better he has got in the last year is helping me know that Reskue is doing exactly what I started it to do, support our scene!

It’s looking like Paget might be on a bit of a flow deal from some companies after they have seen his part, which companies they are will probably be officially announced in the new year but I’d hope its like a Zoo in here with Thunderous applause when his first package arrives, he deserves it!

More Skateboarding >>

Unfotunately injury cut down the filming time for Curtis, but he’ll be back on it soon and I have no doubt he’ll be hooked up next year.
Curtis is straight G


6:57 was also the catalyst of getting Rannys first photos published in sidewalk with Jaks First Light, he should be getting some flicks of Paget for a First Light in the new year, and it is rad we have a photographer that can get published photos in Southampton.

You may have also noticed a change in the amount of events we are sponsoring, and the fact that we now sell tickets to events, basically Reskue are now partners with Raygun Youth, a company that puts on Hip hop and Drum and Bass shows, this has meant we are able to get a lot more stock in (hence all the new SBs!) and support a bunch of local DJs and MCs as well as skaters, this will also mean that I might get a few days off next year and will be able to put on a lot more skate events! It will never mean that we are coming detached from skating in any way, in fact the more events Raygun put on and the more Paint and tickets for events we sell will mean we can get more stock in and support skateboarding even more, and it also means that you can get tickets for all the Raygun Youth shows without paying a booking fee.
We are even hoping to combine this with the shows and have some music/skate crossover events, imagine a skate comp with some top UK hip Hop artists there, it would be sick!

So next year you can look forward to:
A LOT more comps, including the SFTW! With a lot more prizes!
More events at skateparks with some live music.
A Southampton article for a magazine.
First lights from some of our riders.
Demos from the team.
Hopefully some more sponsorship for local skaters!
Some big names in Hip hop and DnB coming to local venues in conjunction with Reskue.
Some free skate schools and introductory lessons in conjunction with Rubicon.
Some Graffiti workshops.
And a hell of a lot of skateboarding!

All of this is only happening because of you guys too, so thank you, the people that support Reskue! We'll keep doing what we are doing and supporting the scene, as long as you guys keep supporting us! This year has been amazing, and next year is going to be even better!

I hope you all have an awesome Christmas, and are looking forward to the new year as much as we are!