Hobbies such as skateboarding and listening to music can be a very influential tool in life. Those hobbies can shape a person’s life and sway them in a direction that might not of taken if they never involved those two in their life. Well that notion was realized by REAL skateboards along with the Band Green Day.
As a member of Green Day Billie Joe Armstrong along with Co-founder of Real Jim Thiebaud conversed about the idea of combining their talents into a way of helping and inspiring others. Along the years their ideas turned into a reality through their friendship and passion for influencing the youth. As time elapsed, they came to the conclusion of Actions REALized x Green Day skateboard decks to be of aid and assistance to the youth at the Children’s Hospital and Research Center of Oakland.
A percentage of the profits from these boards will be happily donated to the Children’s Hospital and Research Center. This collaboration is one of beauty because of the main goal to help the youth in need. Not only that, but its the only Childrens hospital in the Bay area that specializes in the youth. Everybody here at Stix recognizes the big accomplishment they pulled off and we commend them. Good stuff.
Paul Shier and Nick Jensen finally came to a conclusion regarding the name of their brand new skate company and the name is going to be Isle Skateboards along with the public announcement of adding Sylvain Tagnelli into their new skate team including Jon Nguyen, Tom Know, and Chris Jones as their representatives.
Arto Saari recently combined forces with the all new and improved WeSC team and he’s also been rumored to have been added to New Balance’s Numeric skate team.
Blind Skateboards converted Felipe Ortiz into a professional along with his own brand new signature model at Tampa Pro where it was announced that Cody McEntire has united with Blind as well. In relation to Blind, Jake Duncombe has been rumored to have secured a spot with Blind. Its been quoted from his personal Instagram feed, “Just want to thank everyone at Blind for helping me out for all those years and putting up with my shit and to let everyone know LE is my new family!!!”
In conclusion Mike York secured his place on the roster down at Blueprint along with Ingnacio Morata.
Josh has been tuning his skills over the past couple of years with a strong dedication and will to his craft. His talent definitely proves that hard work pays off and its obvious whenever he shreds. With that being said, Lifeblood Skateboards was more than grateful to proudly greet and welcome Josh to their own squad of skaters.
In this clip, Josh visited his friend Kevin Kowalski to his house that is highlighted with basically a private skatepark in his backyard. The two shredded the bowl while under the weather of the Oregon coast. After their session, they followed it up with another at Phil Tedder’s personal bowl before he made a trip back home the next day. Make sure you keep your eyes peeled because this kid has a few tricks up his sleeve and he definitely plans to reveal them!
If you’re familiar with the JFK Plaza, then you’re no stranger to the infamous name of LOVE Park. It was designed by the late Edmund Bacon and Vincent Kling with a lot of attention focused on the style of modernism with sleek stone benches, raised planter beds, along with smooth pavement surfacing the area. The success behind the plaza for pedestrians is arguable, but the terrain is perfect for skaters and their needs of a smooth surface and ledges along with makeshift ramps made from the concrete tiles that you could maneuver.
In the early nineties skaters started recording each other at LOVE Park and those videos eventually made their way to California, the motherland of the skating domain. LOVE Park then became a skating landmark as a result from those videos. The growth of the skateboarding industry also led to the popularity boost of LOVE PARK as well. By the end of 2000, an abundance of professionals moved to Philadelphia just to skate LOVE whenever they felt like it.
LOVE Park became a landmark for skateboarding, yet skateboarding was never declared a legal thing to do in the vicinity. As a matter of fact, the Police there will chase away skaters, issue them tickets, and even take away their boards. As the city tried to renovate and improve the area for middle class taste they put the park on a closer watch to prevent skaters from “misusing” the park for other purposes.
As a result from the popularity of the newly formed skatepark, the city revealed that they would contribute a $1 Million dollars to the redesign of the park to prevent skaters from using the park. DC shoes actually tried to match the city’s Million to keep the park how it was and to renovate it, but the city refused and renovated the redeveloped the park a couple of years later in 2002.
The city replaced the slabs of granite that were once ideal for grinding with wood benches that may look like they belong in another time era. The renovation disturbed more people than just the skaters, it also enraged the late Edmund Bacon, one of the park’s designers. He was so enthralled with passion that these skaters found a new way to find use of the area he developed, that at the elderly late of 92 he decided to skate in LOVE Park in the heat of the debate about the renovation.
If you never had the chance to skate at LOVE, or if you don’t skate in general but what like the idea to, you can shred at LOVE through the virtual world in Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 that was first video game to feature LOVE Park in a game.
If you’ve been a Stacy Peralta fan and a fan of Bones Brigade, then you should be thrilled to know that Stacy himself has just let us know that theres going to be another collection of exclusive products and rare memorabilia that are going to be available for purchase on the official Bones Brigade website.
Stacy is quoted saying, “We are in week 3 of the pre-order of Bones Brigrade, an autobiography & by overwhelming demand, we’ve gone back into our skate collections and cherry picked another round of historic items to offer directly from the Bones Brigade website.
A few items that they’ve released already has said to been a few rare items that belong to Tony Hawk, Tommy, McGill, George, as well as Stacy himself. The items included range from signed posters and postcards, to rare and scarce products such as team jackets to Quicktail boards along with a whole new collection of fifty brand new signed ripper boards that feature all eight signatures. They’ve had a few more offerings in anticipation to the final debut of their film along with a collaboration of items from Rodney and Caballero as well.
Its time to bring in the New Year with an update from the skate scene concerning news and rumors that have been circulating since 2012. Its time to unveil the new additions and drops as well as other news to keep you up to date. In the next few months to come theres going to be a number of events and even more updates within the industry.
So without further a due, lets start off with your dose of skate for the day. Not necessarily sure why New Balance chose Dodger Stadium to unveil their first addition to the NB Numeric skate team, but nonetheless they announced the signing of PJ Ladd to represent them. Down at the Agenda Trade show in Long Beach Keelan Dadd has his moment of becoming a professional skater for DGK with a party hosted by Stevie Williams himself.
Luis Tolentino has been said to combine forces with the pro’s down at Shut Skateboards. Ipath footwear has been rumored to adding skater Shuriken Shannon as the latest addition to their skate team. The good guys over at Brixton stated that they proudly enlisted Victor Garibay to their team. Its also been rumored that Imperial Motion has brought Justin Strubing aboard to their list of shredders. Last but not definitely not least, Christian Hosoi has brought his talents down to Penny Skateboards as an official representative with him featuring his very own signature deck to debut and hit shelves April 1st, 2013.
2013 is near, yet an abundance of regions in different countries haven’t had the opportunity to experience some of the basic essentials we take for granted. There’s a number of problems that these countries face including hunger, poverty, abuse and poverty. One of the biggest problems that poverty stricken regions encounter is unsanitary water. Water is one our biggest vitals in regards to keeping us alive and healthy. Unclean water provides a variety of problems including a broad range of bacterias that can’t be treated due to the poverty in the first place, it also creates a long list of health problems that continue down the line.
After experiencing this epidemic himself as a child, pro skater Nyjah Huston and his mom Kelle Huston wanted to address that problem themselves. With the resources from his ventures in skateboarding, Nyjah was able to form a non-profit organization called Let it Flow.
Rob Brink presented this story through ESPN about the efforts and contributions made by the Huston’s that have impacted a large number of people. Their goal is to raise $18,000 from Nyjah’s 18th birthday on the 30th of November up until January 5th that would give them enough money to construct water wells as well as sanitation station for regions such as Ethiopiam Kenya, and Tanzania.
There’s an abundance of different skate companies that have a certain characteristic that sets them apart from the others. Distinction plays a key role in the success of a company because without it they’d all be the same, another company mixed in with the others. As it was said before, originality is one of the biggest assets a company can have.
Some companies specialize in one thing, another company may specialize in another. Whatever their specialty is, its what attracted their audience to their brand in the first place. Theres a wide range of demographics and generations that spread across the board with different tastes and likings, so with that in mind different companies accommodate those tastes and likings.
Hook-Ups is the brand that displays their appeal through bold imagery, females, and other visuals that catch our attention. Anime is one of their biggest themes, and its been used to display Jeremy Klein’s interests. Jeremy Klein by the way is the founder of Hook-Ups as well as a professional skateboarder.
He founded it back in July of 1994, it started out as a simple clothing line including all of his favorite pastimes including Japanese anime, ice cream, skateboarding, and of course women. The overwhelming popularity of the line turned it into a full fledged skate company with skateboard decks as well as various types of apparel and accessories.
This brand has evolved from its original anime roots to creating characters and an overall style all in its own. What started out as a t-shirt line has since evolved into something that collectors seek on a regular basis.
Rest in peace to another legend. Tom Sims was a pioneer in the skate and snow industry with dozens of innovations under his belt. He was a perfect example of an All-American athlete. Sims was renown as the World Snowboarding Champion in 1983 as well as a World champion Skateboarder in the year of 1975. Tom Sims was also the founder of Sims Snowboards as well as Sims Skateboards.
Tom was known for his ideal innovations and takes on the industry we love including a rendition known as the “ski board” which he made in the 7th grade in wood-shop. The board was inspired by the love of his two all time favorite sports, which was skiing and skating.
If you’re familiar with the 007 James Bond movie A View to Kill, then you might be surprised to find out Sims was the primary and main stunt double for Roger Moore in the film.
His company of Sims Snowboards has been undertaken by Collective Licensing International but he was still played a vital role in the company by staying active and involved in the production as well as the design theory behind their products. He was there along the whole way up to his death by testing the products and equipment before they even hit the shelf.
Tom Sims has played a major role in the skate and snow scene with countless contributions and innovations featuring the 1st metal edged snowboard, the very 1st snow half pipe, the very 1st freestyle snowboard as well as the 1st pro model snowboard ever. Not only that but he owns the prestige of designing and marketing the world’s very 1st longboards for recreational use in 1975.
May Tom Sims rest in peace as one of our most influential and important legend we have to to honor.
Vans seems to be cooking up something new and exciting as time passes, from competitions to music festivals, the festivities are endless. Well in this case Vans has teamed up with an artist by the name of Jay Howell stemming from San Francisco, and this communion marks the first of an animated web series following the stories and tales of Vans skaters. The series is under the name of “Classic Tales”, and it’ll include interviews, stories, as well as loony cartoon antics to tie it in.
The premiere will include Christian Hosoi as well as other skaters being featured down the line from Joel Tudor to Tony Alva, and an abundance of others to watch. Their debut episode will explain Christian Hosoi’s marveling and mesmerizing adventure he had while spending time in Hawaii. It includes a gnarly mushroom trip that he and his friends went through some years back while on the island of kaneohe. I’d like to explain further but its best if you watch it for yourself, also, Christian Hosoi is going on 13 years of sobriety!
Be on the lookout for this series to launch in the near future, you can check it out at offthewall.tv
