Innehållsförteckning för 210 från Slam Skateboarding

Recently, I’ve started to realise just how much of a lucky bugger I’ve been throughout my adult life. I’ve been fortunate enough to have mixed my passion with my occupation. I definitely haven’t taken it for granted, as far as I know, but sometimes I forget that my various jobs within skateboarding have been the catalyst for me to travel frequently and meet skateboarders from all over the world. The following sentiment is somewhat of a broken record within skateboarding, but I’m going to state it anyway: as a culture, I feel skateboarding has a unique gift when it comes to unity, acceptance and adoption. You would be hard pressed to find a group of skaters from anywhere in the world who wouldn’t give you a warm welcome. I chose…

On a particularly humid Australia Day, a group of Melbourne skateboarders thumbed their collective noses at the controversial national holiday and celebrated the birth of Jesus instead – on four wheels. Upon further inspection it seems The Guy Stokes Channel Xmas Bash was a celebration of our lord in name only, but thanks to sponsorship from Coopers Brewery, Beer Money and Sporté, the mood was certainly festive. When quizzed on their decision to hold a Xmas Bash on January 26, event masterminds Conna ‘Hog’ Mallett and Callum ‘Chainsaw’ Paul explained the reasoning was partly practical. “Well, we were very busy during the actual birth of Christ, so we had to choose an alternate date. With everybody off work we thought they might have had nothing better to do.” But it…

Widely regarded as having one of the best kickflips in the business by anyone who has seen him skate, Mikey Mieruszynski is our new New Gen of the Year. With a silky smooth style and a big bag of tricks, the 23-year-old graphic designer from Sydney put out two solid sections over the past year. His curtain closing section in Trophy Room ran at just over four-and-a-half minutes of street skating gold. To top off his Trophy part, he backed up his New Gen interview in print with a video part for the Slam site. Please put your hands together for Mikey and his classic catch.…

KICKS THREADS…

JAKE HAYES PRIZE PACK We’re giving you the chance to skate like Jake Hayes. Well, not quite, but you can rock the same gear as Jake. Thanks to our new SOTY’s sponsors we’ve secured a huge prize pack that’s up for grabs, and it’s all product that he rides or wears himself. For your chance to take home this beautiful box from NB Numeric, Baker, Dickies, Thunder, Spitfire, Sock Posse, Sunday Hardware and Lodown Store, simply write in and tell us where you’d like to see Jake Hayes go on a SOTY tour; who he should go with and something that they have to do while they are there. DOG BOX More hits from The Gong! The Wollongong scene continues to churn out independent videos, and Dog Box is the…

The voting poll on the Slam site for Video Part of the Year towered towards one clear winner this round. Chima’s Propeller part sent him soaring to the top of our charts with his internationally acclaimed opener in the first ever Vans video. Chima had a full part ready to roll back in 2012, so everything since then has been icing on top of what would’ve already been a sweet section. In the past few years, that icing has set into being some of the heaviest skateboarding thrown down by anyone in a video part last year. Cheers, Chima. Big ups for always doing Australia proud.…

Ah, Australia. The beautiful beaches of Sydney, the beers, the women, the epic vibes and spots down in Melbourne. It’s become somewhat of a pilgrimage each year to trade the barren, desolate, freezing and almost unlivable winters of Los Angeles for the amazing Australian temperatures. So, as Ryan Sheckler, Chris Joslin, Nick Garcia, Julian Davidson and Trevor McClung stood around shivering while waiting for our rental van, I couldn’t help but laugh. It was unbearably hot in Los Angeles when we left, and yet here we are freezing in the early spring of Australia. I thought, well shit, maybe we’re doing this backwards. Our trip began in Melbourne, which was a nice place to start. Everyone was jetlagged, and being so used to the warm weather back home, we would…

How’s life in Medowie treating you? Medowie is bloody beautiful. I’ve just been skating, really. Also falling on my face a bit. Where the hell is Medowie? Medowie is about 45 minutes north of Newcastle, the city of steel. It’s a little country town and there is nothing to do here at all. I lived in Kurri Kurri until I was six, and then moved to this hellhole. What sort of interesting things have happened in Medow’ town? One time, Rowan Davis and I were skating the abandoned squash courts; we skated for about 20 minutes before the cops rocked up and handcuffed us, threw us on the ground and took us to the cop shop for the night. I guess we’re just hoodlums or something (laughs). That’s nuts. Congrats…

1 First things first: be enthusiastic! A major part of the job as a filmer is to encourage the skaters you’re filming to push themselves. You need to ask for more from them. They need to know you care about them and that you want them to be the best they can possibly be. Nobody likes ‘Buzz Killington’. Keep the energy up and keep the session firing. Remember, you’ve got to be the man to be the man. 2 Now that your attitude is in check, your dumb-ass needs to learn, and keep on learning. Don’t make the mistake of thinking you know everything, because you don’t. You will continually learn until the day you die. If you’re not continually learning then you deserve to die anyway. There is no…

Our newest inductee to the Slam Hall of Fame is the godfather of Australian skateboarding, Anthony Mapstone. Mappy is larger than life – in stature and personality. Weighing 100 kilos and standing at six-foot four, the 43-year-old Melbournite shreds every chance he can when he’s not managing the Fast Times city store or tending to his team-managing duties for Globe and Hardcore. He’s encouraged countless skateboarders over his 31 years on board and shows no signs of slowing down. The new HOF – an apt title suited to the predominantly shirtless stud – is a well-deserved legend of Australian skateboarding. Here’s to many more years of Mappy’s mad antics on and off the board.…

Five years after the earthquake that shook the entire central city of Christchurch, New Zealand, Oliver Pelling takes a look at how the local skate scene has handled the cataclysmic change. THE EARTHQUAKE, CHRISTCHURCH February 22, 2011 “I heard a noise that was similar to a tree cracking, and looked down. The backyard was literally opening up beneath my feet. I looked up and my little brother was standing next to the brick garage, which cracked and got caught on a power line. If it hadn’t, it would have crushed him for sure. I scrambled and tried to get my bag packed. I guess I thought the airport might still be open. We started driving out, and that’s when I saw the extent of the damage. “The liquefaction bubbling up…

“Bentley is a hesitant, polite young man with one hell of a kickflip. He also loves a drop of whiskey and plays video games way too much.” – Harry Clark “Bentley has been consistently killing the Perth and Freo scene on the low. He has the finest lofty pop. He also has a dope customised van, which is fully equipped with an X-Box, stove and shower. Stoked he’s getting some well deserved shine.” – Phillip Marshall…

Even though Secombe was a couple of years younger than me, being around him always felt like having an older brother. He carried himself in a way that made me envious. He inspired young people and influenced his elders. Over our long friendship I never once argued with Secombe. Even in my worst moments, he would gently point out what a dork I was being and have a good giggle. He had a way of making you feel loved. If you ever met him you would know what I mean – that crooked smile, that cheeky laugh, those big, blinking eyes. Watching Secombe on a skateboard over the years never failed to impress me – power, speed, style; the bro was truly gifted. He found Talei, the woman of his…