Yes, this is a twitter report, but you can get skate info from that odd social forum faster than any news outlet. So, anyway, turns out Tony Hawk is in the White House today. You can see it on his twitter: "Hi. I am inside the White House gates eating Frosted Flakes and about to do press. You heard it here first. Yes, I brought my skateboard," he wrote. The event appears to be a visit along with other athletes and entertainers to meet with President Obama for a story themed "First Fathers." Major press event aside, the Birdman found time to roll a little when another person on Twitter called him out. "@aplusk called me out to skate the halls. Snagged a weak manual on the way to CNN while nobody was looking." Kind of funny...I thought someone might be interested in this. By the way, remember it's Father's Day on Sunday.
There are certain things I've come to expect from Black Label videos:
1. A bunch of punk
2. People spitting into the camera
3. Sporadic cuts to grainy black and white footage
4. Duane Peters
5. Lots of slams
6. A video that generally makes you want to skate
So, when I showed up to Hensley's Flying Elephant Pub , I had the image of Gilley's Black Out Sepultura rail chomping playing in my mind as I picture-in-pictured what I foresaw myself doing in the bar on the back of my eyeballs (drinking a pint of Irish beer and eating a burger). Instead, I found a line wrapped around the outside of the packed bar. Good for Black Label. Not so good for me (click read more to continue).
Josh Brooks
The line was outrageous.
"The bar's at capacity," the bouncer said, "so we can't let anyone in until someone leaves." I looked at the line. There were a hundred people standing on the sidewalk, maybe more; it'd take all night to get in. We opted out of the torturous line, hoping they would clear the place out for a second showing and went to Fallen TM Ian Berry's for our friend David's birthday celebration. Because this is of interest to some people, some of the skateboarding superstars that were there were (commence name dropping now) Gilbert Crockett (good), John Rattray (officially quit Osiris, but better things are in store in the near future, I promise) and Kewday's Chad Bartie (I'm always stoked to see this guy...7 Year Glitch Part anyone? Time 22:29).
Josh Brooks
How can you not be stoked for this guy? Rattray and Zero TM Greg Robinson congratulate Shuriken on the ender in the sea of people getting ushered out of the bar.
After some brats and hotdogs, we heard there was a second show and blasted in there. By the time we got to Hensley's, a grand portion of the video had passed. We missed our friends Ethan Fitzpatrick and Peter Watkins' parts. We missed Peter Raffin, Chaz Pineda, Vince Del Valle and favorite to watch shred Childress. But, here's what we did see:
1. As expected, there was punk in this video. Check.
2. I didn't see anyone spit into the camera, but I did missed a great deal of the vid, so I'm not sure.
3. I think there were some of those sporadic cuts to grainy black and white.
Josh Brooks
Raffin's The Duane Peters Gunfight cowboy shirt. Kind of like a Duane Peters sighting.
4. Adam Alfaro soul-skated. Name a big ol' bank and he fronttail or backtailed it. The best stuff was his frontside flip and floater kickflip to fakie in that massive ditch in the San Jose area (I think that's where it is).
5. The bit of Kyle Leeper I saw had his classic light feet and creative tricks.
6. Chris Troy has mastered the spin with crazy shovit, bigspin and 270 variations into rails, ledges or whatever else (I think he did a fakie bigspin to back feeble on a rail...wow).
7. Jason "The Kid" Adams delivers in his classic fashion and it's entertaining as always.
8. There weren't necessarily that many slams (although I didn't watch the whole thing).
9. Shuriken Shannon ended it all off and, as is his style, he killed it. He put a hurting on that steep rail with the bank on the side of it (the one that everyone does flip tricks on over the rail into the bank) by crooked grinding the rail and transferring into the bank in the middle of the rail. Pretty boots.
10. This one broke the mold by having some of the first hip hop I've ever heard in a Label video. Shuriken skated to Public Enemy.
Secret photographer
A well known skate photog took this. He was passing by and we knew him. It was originally supposed to be a pic of my friend Greg and me, but then Sheffey walked through and the keen photographer got him in the photo. Golden. Amazing eye.
The same way I didn't get the Irish beer and burger I expected, God Save the Label broke a lot of the mold I had in mind. I didn't see any spitting into the camera or Duane Peters (although Peter Raffin had on a Duane Peters cowboy shirt). But, as always from Label vids, it was entertaining and made you want to go skate. Go and enjoy it. Check out some of the other premieres. You can find a list of other premiere dates here.
