Innehållsförteckning för 238 Winter 2023 från Slam Skateboarding

Once upon a time, on a fortuitous day in the year 2000, I was on a session with the Zero and Circa big dogs in downtown LA. I was staying with Matt Mumford on an extended holiday, and on this particular day, Chad Muska was filming for his Shorty’s Guilty part and was on a mission to grind a 17-stair Hubba. Man, his energy was electric! He had his ghetto blaster pumping on the session, and was rocking his signature red singlet and red bandana combo. He was at the top of this Hubba, jumping around and repeatedly shouting, “You ready?” at Atiba Jefferson shooting the photo. “You ready?” at Lee Dupont and Jamie Thomas filming. And then, “Are you homies ready?” at me, Mumford, Mark Appleyard and a few…

We all love an old crusty skatepark, with all its history of tricks and wild parties after dark. Then there are the different layers of graffiti jobs, remnants of shopping trolly barbecues and maybe even a burnt-out car in the bottom of the bowl. Maybe I’m getting soft, but man, it’s nice to skate a newly refurbished, mellow wooden ramp with perfect, smooth plywood. A while back, we went on a trip to New Zealand for Internet Birthday and rocked up to this recently refurbished Fairfield skatepark in Dunedin. The crew had two options for getting their rusty legs going. Option one was a couple of flat bars and a decent ledge on a slab of bitumen. Option two was a perfect transition wooden spine ramp. The crew split up.…

Catching up with the second Newcastle skater to turn pro this year for a chat about crowd surfing, hanging with the Worble crew, and the pro surprise where Poppy screamed at ear-piercing decibels. Hey, Poppy. Where are you and what have you been up to of late? I’ve been in Cali’ for the past couple of months skating, filming and sliding down hills. Now I’m in San Juan, Argentina, for an Olympic qualifier. I’ve never been to this part of the world. No one speaks English, so it’s been fun trying to learn Spanish. Your pro surprise party at the Worble World premiere looked like a wild night. How was the lead-up to the big moment? It was a wild night, for sure. The plan was to have a little…

THIS NZ TOUR WAS OUR FIRST LEGIT SKATE TRIP IN YEARS. While we’ve done little trips here and there, we haven’t gone further than 400 kilometres from Sydney and haven’t had the USA crew here since 2019. So, this is the first legit Australia and New Zealand team tour in years. With a 17-strong crew of international heavy hitters, young bucks and one redheaded larrikin to bridge the gap, it was sure to be a trip to remember. THE KIDS FIRST VOLCOM TOUR A lot has happened since 2019, especially if we look at our team. Specifically, let’s look at Liv Lovelace, Rome Collyer, Ethan Copeland, Theo Clarke and Jay Runciman. Back in 2019, these legends were proper kids. They have all ridden for Volcom for more years than I…

I’ve been blessed with two perspectives in skateboarding. One is behind the lens, seeing some pretty gnarly tricks go down, and the other is on my skateboard, ticking off tricks on my own list of personal skate challenges. The common thread between these two perspectives involves asking, What is actually going through that skateboarder’s head right now? Ah, the thrill of discovering a spot, thinking of something to try and the process of making it happen. I’m sure you can relate to that feeling of finding that new gap, bank, ledge or rail. The feeling of rolling on fresh concrete or bumpy tiles. Or dropping in and finding your line at the new bowl or park. Those first moments involve you checking out all the conditions to determine how skateable…

All the pieces of the puzzle came together for this trip - we spent 10 days in LA and then a couple of days up in Ventura, which is an hour-and-a-half north of LA. Jack O’Grady, Josh Pall, Kevin Shealy and Tenny [Alex Tennison] live in LA now. Then Sam Sutton, Mikey Mieruszynski, Cameron Sparkes and myself flew from Sydney, and Matlok Bennett-Jones from the UK. It wasn’t quite the full team, but we managed to pull this trip together through different opportunities and good timing. It was our first official team trip in a while. A few of us had been overseas since Covid, but this was the first one where we all got in a van together. We stayed in Glendale, not far from the Hyperion Warehouse, our…

AGE: 22 LIVES: Coolum Beach, Sunshine Coast RIDES FOR: Santa Cruz, Vans, Knobby, Clif Bar, Krux, Modus “Taniah Meyers: undercover comedian, wildly intelligent, and low-key greatest dancer of all time.” - Shanae Collins “T is my ultimate hype friend. She’ll slap me in the face if I don’t land my trick, which makes me commit every time. I do the same to her, but she doesn’t even flinch. I remember we went to the first Olympic qualifier together in China, and everyone was so serious and intense. T did all her runs with her helmet backwards and ran out of the bowl like a demon. It was the best part of the whole comp.” - Poppy Olsen…