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For the know your roots category

Feb 25

Know Your Roots: The Guatemalan Persuader

By Dunfee3 Comments

The only two things I would add to what Iberg writes about this movie is Glen Plake shooting water out of his butt and someone else popping a squat on the deck of a jump at Breck. Hopefully this gets a few kids INSPIYAD TO DA WORLD! to bring back some serious antics in ski edits.

“If you didn’t get enough from Burger Time… then you will need to check out the highly anticipated 2nd production from Mercon Industries that was a 2 year project. Back at it with more insane carnage and up close broken bones, blood, shit and puke we took it to another level once again when we teamed up with magical creatures like Falcor from The Never Ending Story and drank 40oz with him! We also got to see Greg Tuffelmyer as he lurked though the windows of his gilrfriends pillow fights! I mean shit, who doesn’t like boobs right! So enjoy The Guatemalan Persuader with once again some of the best skiing, drinking, shitting, puking, snowmobiling and whatever else happened. This movie is just pure awesomeness!!!

Shit just doesn’t happen like this anymore! If it did, no one would be sponsored because big companies are pussies and scared to let there athletes be their own person! Fuck all that shit, have fun, shred and ski with your friends! Because it could all be gone tomorrow as we all know!

who knows… there might be a 3rd movie in the works!”

-Iberg

 

Feb 21

Know Your Roots: Burger Time

By Dunfee5 Comments

Burger Time was a self-made movie from 2001 by Jon Mercon. His movie, along with others like the UP1 edits that would make it into the Poor Boyz DVD bonus features, showed freeskiing in a much more vulgar light than we typically see these days. Ska and punk colored movie soundtracks, while party footage of pretty much every top pro pounding booze, doing fucked up shit with dogs, jumping off of balconies, slurring their way through half-Quebecois/half-English phrases with one eye closed before dropping down a staircase on a skateboard, and throwing up all over the place was the norm. A particularly hilarious one involved the then-indomitable Oakley team – JP Auclair, JF Cusson, Philou Poirier, and Juien Regner – blacking out one night and waking up in a terrible hangover to go to fitness testing at an Oakley facility, then nearly eating shit off of inclined treadmills before vomiting in every trashcan in the gym. Shit was hilarious.

At any rate, Burger Time brings much of the same, along with sketchy parking lot gaps, directional park skis, and streaking in a wrestling mask in downtown Breck. And seeing so many backflip mutes and no spin over 540 being grabbed is just good for the soul. Although future spins were already a part of the scene – Greg Tufflemyre was throwing 1260s in the pipe with his signature metal-flow long hair. *Thanks Iberg for the corrections.

Feb 11

Know Your Roots: IDEA (2007)

By Dunfee8 Comments

IDEA was one of Eric Iberg’s biggest contributions to ski filmmaking and a major break from the ski porn of the time, which was just fading out of its obsession with ska and fast action at the time. You can clearly read the strong hints of Pre-Nimbus Nimbus style in this movie, along with the same crew, most of the same tricks, and definitely the same style and pace. Here’s what you gotta love in IDEA:

-Andy Mahre doing one of the first stalefishes
-Eric Pollard shredding in that ridiculous orange Helly Hansen one-piece survival suit on his EP Pros, some of the noodliest sticks on the market
-Most of the Nimbus crew, especially Pep Fujas, throwing some of the best tricks of their career
-Skiing pow switch for the sake of skiing pow switch, which no one does anymore because it’s ugly
-Entry of shitty Cali P-esque reggae into ski edits, never to leave
-Annoying or slow piano and other kinds of slow music, a precursor to all future Nimbus soundtracks.
-Pep more or less owning the movie

Oct 25

Know Your Roots: Level 1 x 3

By Dunfee2 Comments

Stefan Thomas’ opening Segment from Long Story Short. Despite a weak song, the 7 blunt Stefan stomps over the rocks is a thing of pure beauty, along with a couple other goodies. This guy has always been underlooked.

Another Level 1 “oldie,” the Keystone/Eclipse Turboside from 2008 is full of gems. Early Tom Wallisch, Adam Dalorne, Mike Hornbeck, Duncan Adams and Jon Brogan. How da ya like dem apples?

Alas, early Jack Borland is also a blast.

 

Jack Borland Superunknown VIII Finalist from Level 1 on Vimeo.

Oct 17

Know Your Roots: I Hate NY in Mammoth

By Dunfee3 Comments

Before Van Bear Pig, before there was the Traveling Circus, there was I Hate New York. Enjoy Garrett Russell’s noseblocks in a one-piece on 189 Maiden AK’s, as well as slightly vintage appearances by the Didali brothers, Andy Parry, Will Wesson, Bernie Rosow, Kevin Malone and other Mammoth dirtbags.

Jun 27

Know Your Roots: Wicked Full Movie

By Dunfee1 Comment

We’re busy today with some real-world shit, but nothing does the trick like some East Coast nostalgia to keep you guys sold for 24 hours.  If you had a chance to read Neil Sotirakopolous’ two-part interview early this month, you probably saw a lot of mentions of Wicked in the article and in the comments.  Here’s the full movie, featuring everyone who was anyone in East Coast skiing in the early millenium.  Enjoy!

Jun 21

Flashback Friday…Thursday: Travis Heed

By Dunfee9 Comments

Before there was B-Dog and El Dorito, before there was Jon Brogan, before the iPod, there was Travis Heed and his part in Neil Sotirakopolous’ Wicked.  

Jun 15

Know Your Roots: Neil Sotirakopoulos Interview Part II

By Dunfee2 Comments

If you were shredding park on the East Coast in the years after the turn to the millennium, you logged onto SASFilms.com every Monday to watch single clips of the best tricks that guys like Ben Grunow, Derek Klick, and Jon Lippiat had done over the weekend.  One of skiing’s first popular video-sharing communities, SAS Films WAS East Coast skiing for years, thanks in part to Neil Sotirakopoulos’s tireless efforts filming everything and navigating the possibilities of the early stages of the internet.  Culminating in the amateur and still classic film Wicked, the talent, shots, and careers that came out of the people behind and in front of the lenses at SAS represented the strongest era of East Coast skiing in recent memory.

In Part II of this two-part interview, Neil  talks about life since the days of SAS Films.

What was your path like going from SAS to bigger projects and companies and then ending up with Orage?

Lost and found? After Wicked I set out to launch a new hybrid dvd/web video magazine called Queued. It was pretty close to launching, but like a lot of things I’ve worked on, the project eventually succumbed to what my friends like to call “Neil time.” I took it as far as filming a first issue, running a print ad in Freeze, collaborating with a guest artist for the art in the first issue, and pitched the whole package with a couple preview segments to potential sponsors at SIA.

Cover art for Queued DVD Magazine Issue #0.  Skier is Craig Coker

In the mean time I was living in Mammoth and working on various freelance projects with Level 1, Orage, Poorboyz, Line, Jiberish, Joystick, and a few other shops and brands struggling to keep the whole SAS Films dream afloat. Even though it was one of the worst snow years on record, that one winter I spent in Mammoth is one of the most memorable of my life. By Spring 2007 I was pretty far in the negative financially, and when Orage offered me a full time job I jumped on the opportunity and moved to Montreal.

 

 

What did you do for Orage? My job at Orage sounds pretty dreamy when I think back on it. I was working on a mashup of backend web development, video production, and marketing, all revolving around orage.com and how it related to the brand, athletes, events, and partners.
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Jun 14

Know Your Roots: Neil Sotirakopoulos Part I

By Dunfee14 Comments

If you were shredding park on the East Coast in the years after the turn to the millennium, you logged onto SASFilms.com every Monday to watch single clips of the best tricks that guys like Ben Grunow, Derek Klick, and Jon Lippiat had done over the weekend.  One of skiing’s first popular video-sharing communities, SAS Films WAS East Coast skiing for years, thanks in part to Neil Sotirakopoulos’s tireless efforts filming everything and navigating the possibilities of the early stages of the internet.  Culminating in the amateur and still classic film Wicked, the talent, shots, and careers that came out of the people behind and in front of the lenses at SAS represented the strongest era of East Coast skiing in recent memory.

In Part I of this two-part interview, Neil  talks about what the East Coast scene was like during the heydays from 2001-2006.

 

Shane McFalls talks about that 2001-2006 or so time the best era of the East Coast scene. He says he felt like he didn’t have a need at all to move out West, that the East had just as much going on. Do you feel the same way?

How could I not agree with that? I grew up in New Hampshire never knowing the difference between sheer ice and “packed powder” and was under the impression that Tuckerman Ravine stood up to the best backcountry spots in the world.

Around that time I was living in Troy, NY and my home mountain was Mount Snow. Back then Troy was as much of a mecca for handrails as Utah is for powder, it blew up so much with ski and snowboard crews that I think it even made it into the Freeskier resort guide one year. Mount Snow was still hosting the Winter X Games back then, and riding the parks there and meeting all my favorite athletes any time events rolled through made it feel like the forefront of the park scene. Even if the East wasn’t the epicenter I thought it was, that’s the only reality I knew.

One of the first videos released on SASFilms.com – 2000/2001 season recap from Mt. Snow

Continue reading this entry »

Dec 02

Free Friday: Waiting for Winter

By Dunfee2 Comments

Americans and the French do not mix well.  Us stupid, hamburger-eating, English-speaking, pickup-truck charging freedom lovers usually don’t take kindly to lots of wine, back to back vowells we can’t understand, and all that jour de vive, if that’s even correct.  But considering our Congress is dumping freedom left and right and the French president recently stated they should be more like Germans, it looks like we’re all loosening up a bit.  So maybe it’s time to take another look.  On that note, the very French-sounding “Simply Beauty Production” recently put out this clip called “Waiting for Winter.”  We know only a few of you know how to ski powder so it’s probably good to educate yourself more on that end.  Or you could just fast forward to 6:00 and see the most insane speed-flying landing EVER.  Let me just take my parachute with cette skis and do a fancy loop 20 metre above a snowless field and vouila!  Une landing parfois! Where is my baguette?

BONUS: Poor Boyz Productions’ timeless Propaganda is illegally up on Vimeo!!  Enjoy an early Eric Pollard segment, Mike Nick’s liu kangs, and JF Cusson’s best segment ever.

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