SKBSG


SUPPORTS SKATEBOARDING IN SINGAPORE
WELCOME ALL SKATEBOARDERS

SPREAD YOUR LOVE TO YOUR SPORT.

NEVER TOO YOUNG TO START , NEVER TOO OLD TO SKATE.

Thursday, April 30, 2009

SKBSG SK8 NEWS UPDATES










'Tis the season of the art show and people seemed to smell it from afar in the case of the Greg "Pnut" Galinsky's Art show at Tony Alva's skate shop in LA. After all, I suppose you can't turn down some brain massaging art, a little beer-flavored stress euthansia and some grub. The show was open to the public and brought in loads of people. The art was pleasing to the eye and there were plenty of people to say hi to, from all the Vans representatives, friend and CO shop owner Raul who runs Satellite Board Shop, Alva himself and, last but not least, that one dude from TMZ (couldn't get a pic, but his name is Max Hodges and you can chart all things Max Hodges here).

SKBSG SK8 NEWS UPDATES







The new Fourstar site is up, featuring a download of A Tribe Called Mapquest, new Team Pages, a new video page, The Spring 09 collection, Ad Archive and more.

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

SKBSG SK8 NEWS UPDATES






If you’ve been wondering where Anthony Mosley’s been lately, wonder no more. He’s been working with Finesse and here is Mosley’s debut Finesse Pro model.


Analog Clothing recently launched the brand new Web site with updated Spring product, team interviews, photos, videos and more. Another feature that many have already started taking advantage of is the “Analog Army” page. You can sign up to be notified about everything Analog: events, sales, news, contests, etc.

Tuesday, April 28, 2009

SKBSG SK8 NEWS UPDATES



Natural Koncept’s accomplished graffiti artist/art director/owner Katch 1 has a book out of his work. 267 pages of whole freight trains, childhood drawings, street bombs, and more. See more and buy it here.


MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (April 25, 2009)—The second stop of the ASA Action Sports World Tour (ASA ASWT) had as many thrills and spills and unexpected twists and turns as a NASCAR race when the first Skateboard Vert and Big Air BMX Triples contests of the season took place tonight at Target Center in Minneapolis. Twenty-two athletes took to the ramps—10 skateboarders and 12 bikers—to start paving their way toward this year's Action Sports World Championships. For two men the trip has begun; Pierre Luc Gagnon (Montreal, Canada) and Ryan Guettler (Queensland, Australia) captured first place titles in Skateboard Vert and Big Air BMX Triples, respectively, and amazed the audience with the skill and big tricks they had come to see.

The usual suspects took a while to find their groove in Skateboard Vert. Gagnon and Danny Mayer (Omaha, Nebraska) each failed to put together a successful 10-wall run for the first two rounds of the four allotted in the contest. Going into the third round Marcelo Bastos (Sao Paulo, Brazil), Rob Lorifice (Encinitas, Calif.) and Adam Taylor (Cocoa Beach, Fla.) were in podium position with Buster Halterman (Wellsville, Penn.) and Alex Perelson (San Diego, Calif.) hot on their heels. Round three, however, saw Gagnon and Mayer lay down the boards and pass the competition, sliding into their comfort zones of first and second place. When the contest ended PLG had captured his 6th consecutive ASA Action Sports World Tour Skateboard Vert title and Mayer held onto second, with Bastos rolling into third.

After claiming virtually all the major titles in 2008, including the LG World Championships and X Games Gold, and winning the early contests in 2009, Gagnon seems to be unstoppable. What does it take to beat PLG?

"I don't know," Gagnon answered when posed with the question. "Danny's [Mayer] been killing it lately. He's always there. I'm just going to keep training—hard."

Mayer makes no secret that he wants take a title from his friend. "I'm still happy with second, but I want to beat PLG. Tonight I got a slow start. But, if I had hit all of my tricks, I think I could have had a good chance. Pierre's looking so good through. He's hard to beat."

Two athletes made the Minneapolis ASA ASWT stop their debut in pro competition. Zach Miller (Del Mar, Calif.) faced the Skateboard Vert ramp and Colton Satterfield (Salt Lake City, Utah)

Sunday, April 26, 2009

SKBSG SK8 NEWS UPDATES




A few years ago certain segments of the skateboard industry went on the attack after blank boards and shop decks and ultimately mom and pop skateshops that carried either. I thought the way it was handled was total crap. I hate blank decks too; they're inferior wood and devoid of that graphic element that defines skateboard art. People that make blank boards generally do not skate and simply see the manufacturing of those boards as a moneymaking business and that is all. Blank manufacturers do not have to support pros, do demos, place ads in magazines or do anything for skateboarding to keep the whole thing going. So I have always been in full agreement that blank decks and their manufacturers suck.

Jamie Thomas [President of Zero and Mystery ] puts it best, "As the sales of blank boards have continued to thrive, it has become increasingly difficult to continue to support the magazines and go on tours as often as we used to. I'm afraid the future of skateboarding will continue to look grim until we can prove the importance of supporting pros."

Tod Swank [President of Tum Yeto, makers of Founation and Toy Machine] goes on to say, "Blanks decks? Obviously I can complain about them because I have branded companies that have teams and we spend around 20% of sales on those team riders, marketing and supporting events all over the world. It's fun and exciting to do this stuff. And it promotes the skateboarding culture and participation. Skateboarding is probably bigger than ever in its history. More public parks around the world than ever, mainstream media like never before. Yet we have been getting smaller over the years. Why? Because the biggest market shareholder is blank decks. It sucks but we cannot do much about it. We can't compete on the price point that blanks go for. I understand the attraction for kids and retailers. Cheaper decks for kids and bigger margin for shops, double edged sword."

But who the hell am I to tell a kid what he should ride if that's all he can afford? And who am I to tell a skateshop owner how to make his profit when our own industry is underselling to big business mall chains and online stores? And for that I didn't understand the way the anti-blank threat was presented. It wasn't a war on the big business B.S. manufacturers of the product. It was an attack on the skaters that rode them and the shops that sell them and I'm not big on skater on skater attacks. When it's silly-business in an interview, I get a kick out of it. But when it was as mean-spirited as that War On Blanks was it pissed me off.

The basis of their argument was/is that pro skaters make skateboarding. It's not completely true. I wasn't turned on to skateboarding by pro skaters and I don't think most people in the skateboard industry were either. The knowledge of pro skaters came later. The seed is generally always planted by a regional scene or from random stumbling upon skateboarding. It's seeing a random kid skate down the street or a friend getting a board that sparks an interest in others. My first experience with skating was when my friend Dave Hatalla, who I rode BMX bikes with, suddenly had a miniramp in his back yard. I saw someone grind the coping and have been in love ever since. No pro got me to that point. It is the small core shops that creates this localism and yet they were the ones under attack.




Chris Nieratko
Would you rather be staring at a wall of blanks made by furniture manufacturers?Obviously, since I started skating, I have cultivated a few hundred-page laundry list of skaters who are my favorites. But back when I started, I had no clue. It was my local friends and the nearby skateshop that produced the scene that made skateboarding accessible. And I think a lot of people have forgotten that. Jim Thiebaud [President of Deluxe, makers of Real, Krooked and Antihero] sees both sides of my argument. "Pro skaters are hugely important but I just think the act of rolling or whatever turns you on about it, is what fuels the whole thing. On my end I just want to get information out about Deluxe and let people know what we're doing. In no way, shape or form have I tried to tell someone what he or she should or shouldn't ride. And I think the thing that came out a few years ago came out that way and I felt really embarrassed to be associated with it. When you have some companies taking out ads making fun of people for what they ride, that's in no way what I want to be a part of. That said, I don't back people coming into skating, or anything people love and devote their entire life to, and come into it just for the money."

And I agree; it is my opinion that blanks still suck. You'll never find one in any of our NJ Skateshops and you'd be hard pressed to find blanks in any of the many reputable skater owed skate shops across the country. Sure the crap mall chains will gladly sell you a blank deck in a heartbeat because they don't care about skateboarding other than to profit off it (They'll also put your trucks on backwards). But for many of the people that brought up the debate years ago, it seems that in this tough economy that the conversation has fallen by the wayside. But it should not be forgotten. Blank board manufacturers are as lecherous as the mall chain stores: THEY DO NOT GIVE BACK TO SKATEBOARDING.

The three gentlemen I spoke to about this topic have foregone profits to do everything they can to try and help both the retailer survive and allow kids to get the best deal possible on a deck. Jamie Thomas offers the hard facts, "Like most brands we've had to analyze every aspect of our company during these tough times. We used to be able to offer aggressive discounts to shops that primarily supported branded products, but due to the massive declination of skateboard sales in recent times, we've had to scale back on how much of a discount we can offer. We obviously still intend to continue with giving whatever discounts we can, but we just can't go as deep as we could a few years ago. We also intend to start working more closely with shops, so we've created an extensive collaborative board program that will co-brand our brands with the shops. We intend to roll this out in the next month. We're in hopes that this program will show the alliance between the our brands and the best shops."

To combat the price difference on blanks Tod Swank introduced an incentive program for shops that did not carry blanks. "We introduced our "We Believe" discount program that offers discounts to all shops in all categories. Obviously the best deals are to shops that don't sell blanks. Just for decks we offer 25 different prices on decks. We have another discount program called "The Dirty Dozen" that applies to our accessories and tees. Why do we do this? To help retailers increase their margins. We're taking a hit in hopes that retailers will commit to our brands and keep our volumes up there and our presence strong so we can all keep on participating and doing the things we all love to do. It's good for us all. Shops would not be that inspiring if they just sold blanks decks. BORING! Core shops and core companies are the Foundation (Pun intended!) of the skateboarding culture and community. We need to all be working together closely so we can all keep doing what we do. We believe in the skateboarding culture and lifestyles. We are it. Skateboarding Foundation for sure."


Chris Nieratko
Pros, Brian Brown, Ryan Bobier and Joey Brezinski sign gear for the kids after a demo.Thiebaud has created a price point deck for each of his brands that should not be priced over $40. It is an alternative to a pro model deck that can compete with the low costs of blanks. He explains, "A lot of our stuff isn't thought all the way through. We often shoot at the hip reactionary. I don't know if everything is sustainable but my thought was I don't necessarily think having a lower priced deck cheapens the brand. I think it offers a good solid product for kids to ride and I know that shops need a deck at a certain price point right now so a kid can afford it and I wanted to do something to hit that. Using a different board from our woodshop that they can make cheaper for us and still have it be a really great board I'm able to pass that pricing onto shops."

And the initial reaction from shops? "Phenomenal. Incredible," Thiebaud says, "It's not a piece of shit board. It's something any one of our guys here would skate. It's a great, great board at a really solid price. I think it's allowed the shops to make their money on it as well, instead of making a lower margin; it works for everybody. Works for us, the skater and the shop. It has been really positive. I never wanted to tell anyone, "Don't do this, don't do that and I'll do something for you." It's always been, 'Here's what we do and hopefully it works for you.' I prefer to let our actions speak for us."

I think in this day and age with our failing economy that's all anyone can really do. Hopefully, in doing so skaters will learn that buying branded goods is what allows their favorite pros to come do a demo for them or travel the world to film that next great video part. I am sick of kids coming in the shop with brand new, WARPED, blank boards that they got off eBay. They come to me and show me their pretzeled board and say, "This board doesn't ride right. What's wrong with it?" All I can do is shake my head and wonder where to begin in answering that.

SKBSG SK8 NEWS UPDATES

























Oakley and Bob Burnquist had a big open house at Bob’s ranch to celebrate Earth Day. We rolled out to his property in rural Vista, California, checked out all his ramps, and ate some good healthy organic food. The weater was good, the atmosphere was relaxed, and damn if that mega ramp isn’t gnarly as hell. Peep out the photos to see who was gettin’ Earthy and what new contraptions Bob has at his mega camp.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

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