Any skateboarder worth his Mark Gonzalez knows that their favorite skater’s favorite video is Plan B’s Questionable. Featuring skateboard lifers like Matt Hensley, Rodney Mullen, Pat Duffy, and Mike Carroll. Every skater cool enough not to wear a helmet at the skatepark has seen it.

I was stunned when I found out that my twenty-something co-worker at SASS had seen the light and decided to “become a freeskier” without having seen 13. That’s like me seeing the light and deciding to become a freeskier without having seen State of Mind. I remember watching 13 on the last day of the season when I was in middle school; it was my first time seeing a twin-tip ski, and by the time I’d seen CR (RIP) nearly stick a cork 1260, I was out in the yard trying to slide a shovel handle on my mogul skis.

Any little ninja who can grab blunt has seen a Jiberish edit or downloaded Refresh when they finally put their damn movie on iTunes, but it takes a true OG to know how to work the tracking on a VHS player well enough to watch the classics.

So go on young’en, find a tape deck on Ebay, harass the film companies for their backstock, and get yourself learned so the next time you ask JP Auclair for an autograph you’ll know what obscure trick from his long career to compliment him on in exchange for him writing “You da man!” on your stupid poster.

13

The word: Johnny’s last pre-16 mm film and my all-time favorite.  Now three different race skis with raised tails exist, but plenty of people are still in the pipe with straight Harts.  There’s also one guy who never wears a shirt and looks like he spends a lot of time waiting outside of high schools with binoculars (Josh Loubek).

The why: Mike D. doing misty flips to a Metallica song about raping mothers and killing babies.  Candide’s film debut and still his best trick ever (flat 7 mute over the High North quarterpipe).  Philou Poirer’s massive switch backflips in the Whistler park, in sunglasses, after pounding six plates of home fries.  JF Cusson’s bio 9, switch misty 7 in the backcountry, and straight backflips to switch 15 feet out of a halfpipe with walls that barely reached above his chest.  Trennon Paynter’s alley-oop double flip in a quarter pipe on Harts.  Hammers that stand the test of time.

Balance

The word: The infant East Coast park scene in complete ska-rock disarray. The beginning of Scott Hibbert’s long career of killing himself, including an attempted 1260 in a melting Killington halfpipe with six-foot walls that nearly decapitates Josh Berman. Eric Hjorliefson ripping cork 9’s on the Whistler glacier with spikes coming out of his A-frames, and a host of other pros who probably didn’t realize Berman was filming them at COC.  Terrible, terrible music.

The why: Suffering through Level 1’s first offering will grant you true OG status: Balance is a headache-inducing exercise in repeat shots, split-screen mirrored tricks, and a too-typically early millennium soundtrack of angsty ska that will leave you disoriented and seeing stars.  Lord knows what Berman’s boatshoe-sporting classmates at Ye Olde Dartmouthe must have thought.  That’s not to undermine a few bright spots of talent in Garrett Brittain (flat 3 mutes), Josh Novotny, Rory Tuscany, and one of my favorites, Rory Will. Rory spends the movie DESTROYING the pipe before anyone knew how to do that, with eighteen foot alley-oops out of the old Sunday River halfpipe, in a visor.  And who can’t appreciate the Schrab brothers throwing double misty 1440s off the windlip behind the Horstman Glacier with no shirts on?  Take that, Bobby Brown.

Continuum

The word: In the spring of 1995, the Jones brothers, along with Dirk Collins and Corey Gavitt eat mushrooms and go to a yard sale in Jackson, and wake up the next day with a baby crib full of old toasters and a beat-up 16 mm Bolex camera.  After letting their pony tails grow all summer, the crew decides to take the camera around Jackson and burn or overexpose thousands of dollars in film.  As the season develops, the “designated filmer” idea comes along, where after drawing straws, the one with the small straw is left only a small amount of ganj for the day, ensuring he holds the camera right-side up with the subject in focus.  They manage to put together enough footage to make a movie (All completely unverified and likely untrue, but nobody at TGR would get back to us).

The why: TGR’s first offering with some of big-mountain skiing’s best talents before they were very sponsored.  Doug Coombs opens it up to a scratchy live version of “Trenchtown Rock” while skiing an impossibly steep Teton line.  Every single person in the film wears Steeptech in yellow, the flagship color of 90’s skiing.  All the Jones brothers were sending it before they figured out who was better at filming and who could only manage to ski.  The world is introduced to endless monologues about dropping everything and moving to ski towns, the purity of skiing powder, etc. etc.  Shot way before Jackson dropped their ropes, Continuum features lots of entertaining shots of Micah Black and the crew ducking ropes at full speed, airing the cliff right next to the lift, and straight-lining it out before ski patrol can get their Super Force 9’s down there as the filmer remains hidden the woods.

Blizzard of Aahhh’s

The word: Mike Hattrup, Scott Schmidt, and Glen Plake ripping in 1988; enough said.  No one wore hats skiing, or even knew what a helmet was.  Glen Plake, introduced as a “Mohican terrorist,” had just gotten out of prison, was lightyears away from hosting RSN. Hell, he had only recently given up stealing cars to rappel down chutes in Chamonix with a mohawk and a necklace made of wristwatches.  No one made a ski shorter than a 215 or wider than 70 in the waist.  Frankie Goes to Hollywood features prominently in the soundtrack, and moustaches are worn without irony.

The why: There’s a reason used copies are going for a hundred dollars on Amazon; this is one of the most ground-breaking films in ski history and has inspired legions of otherwise career-minded individuals to drop out of school, give their parents the finger, and move to a filthy ski town.  Schmidt ripping hop turns down the backside of the Aguille du Midi where no one had ever skied before.  Plake and Hattrup sending it off cliffs in pastel one-pieces, or following each other down couloirs with a ten-pound camera drilled to the side of a motorcycle helmet.  Bump lines in Cham, Telluride, and Squaw.  Quite simply a film that could not have been made at any other time with any other group of skiers.  This shit is true OG.

In the early evolutionary years of newschool skiing, there was one beast of an event that brought together the leaders and young guns of skiing. In some sort of Darwinian process, the likes of Tanner Hall, David Crichton, Pep Fujas and Simon Dumont made names for themselves while the brick layers of skiing, like the Three Phils, JF Cusson and Vinnie Dorion, continued to push the sport forward. This hallowed event’s scientific name is: Parkasaurus.

Mercon gaps a dinosaur  p: Freeze.com (extinct)

Each year, from 2000 to 2003, Parkasaurus would appear at Snow Summit CA. Organized by FREEZE magazine (RIP), it was an event that brought together top skiers, filmers, and photographers to evolve skiing without competition. It was said in the historical pages of FREEZE, “Events like the U.S. Open and X Games establish the best athletes in a competitive environment, but Parkasaurus is a place where creativity oozes like spaghetti sauce from everyone’s pores.” It was a time before edits, so the creative beast could only be seen when films were released and photos were published. Many important milestones were reached at Parkasaurus events, like Tanner landing the first disaster switch 450 on 270 off, CR sliding the first 50-50, Jon McMurray backflip disaster, JF Cusson and Philou slaying the first rainbow and battleship rails, Crichton’s massive halfpipe airs, and the infamous transfer gap over an inflatable dinosaur.

Species: Tanner Hall  p: Freeze.com (extinct)

As we get nostalgic and unearth Parkasaurus, there is much to discover from evidence left behind in issues of Freeze and early Poor Boyz films like The Game, Propaganda, Happy Days, and Sterotype. First of all, we need to refocus on unifying park shoots again. By necessity, skiing park shoots brought every crew together in the early years.  Now, we have little niches and film crews shooting on their own, but nothing brings about more creativity than putting together an entire ski community. Yes, we have JOSS and a ton of park shoots for each film company, but none that brings all of them together without competition.

The next artifact we need to dust off and learn from is Parkasaurus photography. We have edits, interactive websites, and real time ski media, but all at the expense of good old photography. It’s amazing that you can watch events live, but nothing beats some high quality photographs. Parkasaurus helped produce some of the most iconic images in skiing history that ignited tons of careers. Now we just wait for the next dub variation in an edit and can’t appreciate the stopping of time, composition, and body position. I’m sure all the print mags that are dying would welcome an emphasis on photography again. Skiing needs memorable images for this generation to look back on, and in recent years I can’t remember many.  Lastly, we need to start jumping over more inflatable animals. Park shoots need to have a sense of humor. Without some fun it just turns into a huge ego trip and we’ve all seen what happens next.

Rinfret. USA! USA!  p: Freeze.com RIP

Parkasaurus went extinct during the final years of Freeze; but I have hope that the likes of Powder, Freeskier and Newschoolers can make a miracle happen and bring back this Jurrasic Park. Skiing needs to come together and put on a huge unifying park shoot that doesn’t have every little kid arguing for a month about who had a better edit; instead it stokes the shit out of all skiers to the point that there is no room for debate.

 

Jason Levinthal is the founder and mad scientist behind LINE skis. I had the privilege of skiing with him at Stowe.  Before we met up, I put together fifteen questions and we got through about four of them. When J Lev speaks, you listen. What follows is Jason’s response to my first question; I passed him my iPhone and let him talk because what was flowing was essential for knowing your roots. I’ve transcribed the interview for the readers among us, but I’ve also included the raw audio for your listening pleasure.

Who and what influenced your skiing the most back in 1995 when you started Line?

Back in ’95 skiing, you gotta remember and it’s hard for people to realize, there were signs at the top of the Stratton Terrain Park, and most terrain parks, that said no skiers allowed. You know, that’s just a fact. And then, the other fact is it wasn’t even called terrain parks, it was called snowboard parks. If you can imagine that, then that’s only the tip of the iceberg of what skiing really was, and it’s such a short time ago, but it’s so easy to forget.

The only ski you could buy was like a 203 length, you know, if you’re 5’10”, 150 lbs, you’re gonna ride a 203 length ski that was like 65 in the waist, so stiff you couldn’t even flex it if you put it between two saw horses and jumped on it. It had no side cut, so you really weren’t even carving unless you were going 80mph down a downhill race course in the Olympics, which only 5 people can do. That’s what all the skis were built on. So, your options for skiing was basically this product that really inhibited you from progressing, and then you had no imagery other than Scott Schmidt and Glen Plake which, hats off to those guys for at least taking that product and pushing it as far as they possibly could. I mean, they’re throwing like 720’s off cornices and they’re doing like everything possible but it was still so far behind snowboarding, and snowboarding was behind skating, and you know, that’s ultimately what influenced me was the fact that all these other action sports existed and were so far ahead of the curve of skiing.

Skiing was one of the oldest of all those sports, and it was like the last one to ever evolve or change. I mean you’re talking 30-40yrs of just the same thing:  skis built for world-cup downhill skiers, of which 99.9% of people that go to the mountain can’t ride like, don’t train enough to be able to bend a 200-length ski at an 80mph course of ice. They just wanna go have fun, and they’re really fighting the design of the ski. So, for me, design-minded, kinda inventor-minded, mechanically minded, I saw snowboarding, I skateboarded, I wakeboarded when that came about. I inline skated when that came about. Mountain biked. BMX. All these products were old products. I mean cycling evolved to BMX, evolved to mountain biking. Skateboards became twin tip. Wakeboards came from water skiing. Rollerblades came from roller skates. Snowboarding really came from a problem with skiing not being able to evolve.

So, what I did seeing that, it just bothered me for like a long time, probably, 10 years leading up to that. So, I started snowboarding in like ’88 or something. So that was when I was going to Stratton on the weekends and I was visiting the Burton factory, and I was seeing what Burton was doing for snowboarding. You know, from just an idea into a finished thing. So, I saw what Burton was doing with snowboarding and how they were doing it and then, eventually, when I had my second or third board, my first board was a Sims Switchblade, anyone that knows snowboarding knows how old that was. That was one of the first boards with edges, you know, a few years after edges were put on snowboards.  Eventually, I got a Burton Air, it was a completely symmetrical board, or pretty damn close, it was the first board that was like that. I got on, took one run at Stratton, and it was like the light bulb went on:  “I’m mounting my skis centered.”

So I didn’t mount my skis center, I was just on this snowboard, and I said, “this is crazy dude, like what I can do on this snowboard is unbelievable and this is what I need to be able to do on my skis.” And I was literally snowboarding half the day and skiing half the day. I’d bring a snowboard and skis to the mountain every time I went. Half the day I’d snowboard, then I’d jump on my skis the other half, because I love skiing because the forward facing, just like that was me; but snowboarding, I got a feeling from snowboarding carving, riding switch, doing tricks, the maneuverability, the playfulness, the fun, the agility, all is what I really also loved. I wanted to be able to do that on my skis, but couldn’t, so I just had to do both to satisfy my craving.

At one point I snowboarded half the day, I switched to my skis, I was on like 203 Rossi’s, those green ones, and then I, without thinking, just did a 180, cause like that’s what I had been doing all morning on my snowboard. This was like before college, I was in high school. Then like 5 years went by and I was in college and we had to do a project and I was like, “I’m gonna make a ski like a snowboard.” This was in ’95, so I took all the dimensions of a snowboard, cut in half—length, width, everything. That’s how I came to a skiboard. There was no more thought beyond than that.

So, I wasn’t about to take a ski and redesign it. I was going to take a snowboard, and evolve it into a ski, you know, start all the way from one extreme.  That’s why it was short, that’s why it was wide, that’s why it was twin tip, symmetric, and had side cut, and it had a soft flex. All those aspects of that ski at that time, which people want to call a “skiboard”, was closer to the modern day ski that you’re on today. You’re riding on longer skiboards, or more realistically, back then, you’re riding on shorter skis that were fucking 10-15yrs ahead of their time. People call them skiboard for the same reason they call terrain parks snowboard parks. They couldn’t get over the fact that that could be a ski.

What should the term be then?

They’re just skis, dude, they’re skis. Everything’s a ski. If you’re standing on two boards sliding down a hill you’re on skis. Cross-country skis are skis. Downhill skis are skis. I’ve always been over the fact of people calling it “twin tip ski,” I mean that’s like calling a snowboard a twin tip snowboard. Like, “where’s your twin tip snowboards?” Dude, we got snowboards. They all have tails. Some have symmetric geometry and yeah you can call that twin tip, that’s a true twin tip. Like a true twin tip means it’s symmetric. But twin tip today is used to refer to a ski with a tail, and that’s just wrong. Like a tail is just like saying, “those are skis with edges…those are steel edge skis.” They all got fucking edges dude! Like get over it!

Like back in the day when they first came up with edges, I sure someone was like, “Oh, those are steel edge skis!” Or, “those are fiber glass skis!” And now they’re saying, “those are twin tip skis!” It’s like, “what do you do on those? Freeski?” Like, “no dude, I ski.” I’m a skier. That’s why I made the shirt, “I am a skier.” You know, I like saw…I can’t take total credit for that shirt…I saw KRS-1 concert and he had a shirt that said, “I am Hip-hop.” I just thought like, dude, that makes sense. Like, I am a skier, like forget about being a freeskier, a park skier, a newschooler. You’re a skier. And some day when you can proudly say, “I am a skier,” and people understand, and they have the vision of the style of ski you do without you describing, “I twin tip ski…I ride in the park…I freestyle… you ever see the x-games,” like, you shouldn’t have to say all that, but that’s gonna take time. Just like back in the day they had to call it a skiboard because they were like, “well it’s not skiing, you see! You can go backwards! You can, like, carve! It’s fun! It’s like…it’s agile. You could spin. You could, like, do all the things on a snowboard. Oh, ok! It’s a skiboard!” Ok, fine sure. It’s a skiboard.

If that’s what you need in order to open your mind to a new realm, a new perspective of what skiing is and can be, then call it a skiboard. You know, great! Call it a twin tip ski, fine. But you know, at the end of the day we’re all skiers and it’s just a ski, you know. And there are gonna be different skis for different styles of riding. It’s just a style. Just like surfing, there’s different styles of surfing and everything else. So that’s the deal! That’s what inspired me to build the skiboard, as people like to call it, and I called it cause I needed a word to differentiate it at the time from skiing and especially then. There might’ve been a tail on some ski back in the day, for sure, but it wasn’t understood.

I mean…I could talk for an hour and a half right now. You want me to do it?

I would close this one, and then we’ll…

Let’s fucking session then!

Let’s do it!

]]> http://brobomb.com/2010/03/know-your-roots-jason-levinthal/feed/ 4 http://brobomb.com/2010/03/cr/ http://brobomb.com/2010/03/cr/#comments Sun, 07 Mar 2010 19:29:54 +0000 barberdude http://brobomb.com/?p=1264

CR Johnson hit the skiing masses’ consciousness ten years ago on the Contender page in Freeze and Plake’s Picks in Freeskier. It amazed me that someone my age was just as good, if not better, than most pros in the park. It’s not surprising to see teenagers push the sport today, but at the time the movement was dominated by a crew of 20-somethings from Canada. CR made a generation of kids realized we could be a part of this thing. I hung a photo of his 1440 on my bedroom wall and the pullout from Frontline of two BC booters hung in my dorm throughout college.

CR’s segments and style have changed my skiing. He made me love the big floaty three, legitimized halfpipe skiing to the masses, and made it cool to excel in all aspects of the sport. His recovery from a near-fatal injury in 2005 and recently placing at the Red Bull Linecatcher this year should be an inspiration to anyone.

The day CR passed away Jon’s brother, Dan, and I waited for the same closed Headwall lift at Squaw, skied the same cliff area, and hooted and howled like everyone else in a foot-plus of powder. We noticed a crowd of skiers and patrollers gathered to the left of the lift, but wouldn’t get the news until we were headed back to the hotel.

CR changed skiing forever and made it more fun for us all. RIP.

For well over a decade, rails were strictly for skateboarders, snowboarders, inliners, BMXers, and pretty much anybody else considered X-Games worthy. Rails were like the prerequisite to be considered a cool extreme sport in the 90s, and anything from Soap shoes to skiboards (sorry Line) were legit, because you could slide rails. Unsurprisingly, skiing was not considered cool back then. Much of this is attributable to the fact that skiers still didn’t have the nerve to risk nutting themselves in terrain parks or urban settings.

In some kind of collective consciousness, skiers realized we could slide rails with the best of them and be as cool as all those Dew-chugging, wide-leg-jean-wearing “extreme” kids. Well now we’ve seen more than a decade of skiing on rails, every kid under the age of 18 can do all eight, and every pro can do unimaginable things to any urban rail. It’s amazing to see the progression in skiing’s rail game and I want everyone to take a step back and appreciate this progression. Pros used to just slide rails and that was good enough. If there was a kink, even better, and not moving your body an inch was ideal.

Now this all leads to the real reason I’m writing; skiing has come so far with rails and urban, yet the major ski mags have only given the coveted cover shot to an urban photo a dozen times or less in the last 12+ years. Skogen was the first one on the October 2000 issue of Freeze, and the most recent was Max Hill on an issue of SBC Skier. AXIS magazine, which only had 5 issues, had three covers with a skier sliding an urban rail; best ratio in skiing. Seems unacceptable when 50% of videos are urban shots, and kids are more preoccupied with rails than learning to actually ski.

Freeskier, Powder, and every other ski magazine– why are you neglecting the urban shots? Tom Wallisch, Mike Hornbeck, Will Wesson, Phil Casabon or any other urban slayer should be snagging covers left and right. We need you to represent skiing accurately on newsstands. Same question goes to Poor Boyz, TGR, Level 1 and MSP. Name me one movie cover with a skier sliding a rail or urban feature (other than Exact Science).

It's a bit of a stretch to call some of these "urban." And why does Sammy Carlson get so many covers?

Let us know who should be bagging more covers and fill in the blank:

I want to see __________ get a cover.

Why is Julien Regnier the Ultimate Badass?

• He landed a 360 mute at the Nagano Olympics in 1998.
• Illegally did cork sevens in mogul comps.
• Did the first flair, as seen by JP Auclair.
• Designed one of the first twin-tip skis, the “Pow Air.”
• One of the 1^st skiers to go switch off backcountry jumps.
• One of the first to throw critical rodeos.
• Invented the double japan.
• Original Armada team member.
• Editor for Poor Boyz.
• Co-creator of UP1 series (classic).
• Designed the Armada ”JJ.”
• Designed the Red Bull Linecatcher event.

Sickest Japan Ever!

Julien Regnier is probably your favorite skier’s favorite skier.  He single-handedly influenced more aspects of the sport than almost anyone. This past week, Anthony Boronowski mentioned him and JP as the skiers he watched growing up.  With Ant and JP, Julien created the UP1 series, which was such a refreshing dose of fun at a time when ski films took themselves very seriously (imagine that). If he were given the money, he would create the greatest ski film ever, and that’s a fact. I guess there are those who would disagree; even as an original team member and trendsetter, he found himself orphaned by Armada this year. It’s a sad story, but dry those nostalgic eyes and check his new sponsor- Black Crows Skis. Seems like a perfect fit for the legend and his imagination.

Watch this “mixtape” edit of Julien in PBP films like The Game, Propaganda, Happy Dayz, and WAR, and witness why Julien is no doubt the most underrated founding newschool skier. Then, be sure to check out Julien’s other edits on his Vimeo page. Especially the “Yeah Dude” edit, that shows him absolutely destroying BC pillow lines.

There are tricks, grabs, and styles that have come and gone in skiing over the last decade, but there’s one long lost grab that is greater than them all– the infamous Huntony.

The Godfather’s Huntony. Photo: Paul Morrison

During the first couple years of skiing’s “newschool movement” the Huntony was one of the grabs made famous by the likes of JP Auclair, JF Cusson, Mike Douglas and Shannon Schad. It’s more or less an overly tweaked mute grab that is pulled into the opposite thigh while the other leg is bent back like a daffy or back scratcher.  To use more common grabs as reference, I guess you could say it’s a daffy mute grab, but that sounds really lame.

What’s interesting is that grabs and old school tricks always seem to come and go, but the Huntony just hasn’t been trendy again in almost a decade.  It’s one of the original “newschool skiing” grabs and probably not one skier under the age of 25 could tell you what a Huntony is.  We even searched it on NS and only found one thread, 4 photos, and zero videos. BroBomb is on a crusade to change this, because there might just be potential for the Huntony in today’s scene.

So, we would like to reward those who will help us bring back the overly tweaked mess that is the Huntony.  Every month “Know Your Roots” will feature the Huntony of the Month.  The best photo of YOU performing a Huntony posted on the BroBomb Facebook wall will be featured on BroBomb.com, and you’ll get some sort of schwag.  This month the winner will receive a bunch of stickers and a sick ass Orage t-shirt.

JF Cusson full tweak. Photo: Chris O’Connell

Go tweak it to your knee, and let’s make the founding fathers proud!

I’m obsessed with analyzing and reflecting upon the last decade.  I can’t get enough “best of” lists, news stories, and discussions from the first decade of the new millennium. It’s been the most influential and important decade of my life, and possibly everyone else in their teens to mid-thirties. We’ve seen the true rise of the internet, cell phones, and awesome blogs.  We witnessed 9-11, a couple wars, Katrina, and the Great Recession. Music has shifted from rap rock, boy bands, and compact discs to “indie” music, autotune, and iPods. I personally graduated high school, college, and got married.  Every aspect of life seemed to progress and change at an alarmingly fast rate; skiing was no exception.

I just returned from celebrating Christmas at my parent’s house in upstate New York, and I brought my entire ski magazine collection back with me. When I got home, I spent hours skimming through piles of Freeze Magazine, every issue of Freeskier published, countless issues of Powder, and the infamous Axis Magazine. With this vast collection of skiing history at my fingertips, I plan to bring out the best and worst of the last 10 or more years of freeskiing, since no one else will.  We need to recognize, respect, and laugh at the apparent changes skiing has made over the past decade.  It’s alarming to read on NS that some kids don’t know about the New Canadian Air Force, Candide Thovex, Julien Regnier, or understand how this whole “newschool” thing started.  I get nervous that skiing will forget its roots and neglect to learn what worked or hasn’t worked from the past.  Thus, BroBomb births the new series “Know Your Roots.”

So let’s get nostalgic before we forget.

Come back for discussions about the stuff everybody seems to have forgotten, like Axis Magazine, Huntony grabs, New Canadian Air Force, Parkasourus, “13”, skiboarding, Skogen Sprang, Freeze Magazine, Julien Regnier, Siver Cartel, JF Cusson, Stereotype, David Crichton, Ski Time Magazine, Boyd Easley, SB1, Rory Will, Ask Brad, Line print ads, Nicky Adams, gorilla steeze, Mike Nick, Jonny Moseley Mad Trix, Josh Loubek, Kent Kritlier, The Three Phils, etc…

(Disclaimer: I won’t be talking about all of it, just the important crap.)