Sandro's Blog — February 2009 Archive Blogger Profile

absolutely ripping!

We've been getting a lot of response from people trying to copp some merch outside of Canada who said it wouldn't let them. Well we've fixed that problem, so try try agian. Thanks!

Strange Brew video

Head on over to the Corner Store to pick up your very own hard-pressed copy of Jeremy Elkin's Lo-Def.

"I still have a poster size drawing of his that he did in high school." —Jessie Van Roechoudt

from Color 3.2 (2005) interview pages 59-64

by Kyle Shura, words by Sandro Grison

"[Jeff] was one of the 'good guys' when I was just getting started about 15 years ago." —Jon Bunyan

The most confusing time in a typical boy’s life was for me the most simple and concise period I can ever recall. Age fourteen was the first time I felt free to do whatever, and it was the last time I didn’t have to work to get by – just be home for dinner and the moms was happy. Looking back on memories filled with the scent of vintage clothing stores and Slurpees, I’m reminded of what it was like to skate for a consecutive eight hours and still have the energy to watch videos all night, then do it all over again.

Summer at fourteen involved taking the city bus into town every day at 11:10am to our quaint skatepark on the lakefront/beach. Shaded by the ancient, giant Cottonwood trees that once stood before the epic windstorm, I’d show up to the park with an abrupt entrance where the bricks ended and the concrete began sending you forward when your front wheels hit the raised concrete – for some reason I’d always be drinking a slurpee, failing to remember this crack. Kyle Shura and his video camera would be sitting on the top of the 3ft bank with his legs out, so you had to avoid that area; Simon – who you could have sworn was raised by skateboarders the way he handled his BMX – would be in some nose wheelie stall on the pyramid; Aaron Loyie sweating it out in his XL crew neck sweater during 35 degree temperatures; Dickie-dee (who got his name from when he’d ride his Dickie-dee ice cream bike to the park and make a killing off all us skaters) shredding around looking like the young Steve Olson in polyester pants three inches too short; Bunyan, Aamon, Derrick and his brothers; Mike Balogna – post gym days – looking like Schwarzenegger; Danny Knorr and the 540 guys, launching huge backside airs off the first pyramid – everyone staying clear of Les for reasons of his temper; Mike Harding and his nollie hardflips... everyone would be in sequence every day. Around 1:00, Ryan Smith would show up for an immediate, non-stop, charging destruction session for about 30 minutes where you’d get to witness all the new tricks that just came out on whatever World, Toy Machine or Plan B video was currently in rotation. Around 1:30, the park was safe to skate again and Ryan would join Rheal, Kurt and his other Rutland homies on the bank with Kyle and commence to unintentionally intimidate every little kid who entered. It never seemed to faze Pablo though (or “Pepsi” as Kyle would call him, citing an episode of The Simpsons). He skated consistently for 10 years, and in that time I did not witness a single sign of progression from probably the first day he stepped on the board. But it didn’t seem to stop him from trying frontside bigspin heels over the pyramid, though... if that’s what you’d call it. Every day of the week, just around 3:00, Mike McKinlay would pull up in his green Austin Mini – fresh off work from his job at the local juice plant – to perform a flawless routine of trickery that would blow any mind who didn’t have the privilege to see it go down every single day. Yes, there was no shortage of characters. But while these seemingly scheduled spectacles would take place every day, only one subtle element would go noticed if it would have been absent. He was the guy who was friends with everyone, but needed nobody. Worldly, but went nowhere, said nothing, yet made you smile. A role model without reason, Jeff Ferner is the only fine detail that personifies the free and easy time in my life where I discovered that everything I really needed could be found in skateboarding, and he reminds me of this every time I see him back home at the park.

Check back next week when we look at Mike McKinlay's part – the week leading to Ryan Smith's first video part... the finale. Click here to view all Nobodys entries and check back every monday for additional parts.

new from the Corner Store:

premium "miki" tee by Color and Tim Barber.

Iast week I joined the rest of the skateboard media (that matters) in Newport Beach, CA to tour the headquarters of Etnies Shoes aka Sole Technology. We got the lowdown on the lines (also éS, Emierica, and Altamont), but there's plenty of time for us to catch you up on that.

Here you'll find some photos none of the other blogging magazine editors could bring you. That's because they're mine!

if you can't view the slideshow below, click here.

The new Enjoi catalog is online now announcing the return of the Tilt Mode Army and featuring all new coloured slim fit denim.

The first of 2 montages in the Nobodys video (Kyle Shura, c.1997), this montage features (in order of appearance): Jeff Ferner, Mike McKinlay, Sam McKinlay, Jon Bunyan, Ryan Smith, (ss backside 180?), Simon Barry, (hippie jump?), (boardslide?), Tyler Wutkie, Josh Sacrey, Roger Bruinsma, Mike Balogna, (rooftop ollie?), (front feeble fakie on serwa's ramp), (last trick?).

Most of the above names appear more than once in this montage. If you think you know who's skating in any of the ?estioned clips, please write to sgrison@colormagazine.ca Subject: NOBODYS

Nobodys interview with Keith Yerex by sandro grison

Keith Yerex, or "Dickie Dee" as he was known around that skate park for his summer job as a bicycle-ice cream salesman, was a staple in the Kelowna skateboard scene. Before that, I remember him in elementary school as "Grandpa Pants". As different or awkward as he was, his sense of coolness is undeniable. He played a fretless bass in a punk-rock band called Macho Insecurities, then later in an other band called Undermind. His skateboarding was as technical as his mind—you can almost see physics and math equations running through his head as he executes maneuvers.

What was going on in your life during the time of this video? Most of the filming was done while I was finishing grade 12, and in the summer afterwards. I was riding for a short-lived shop called Rival. I don't remember doing anything other than skateboarding at the time. After the summer I went off to university in Edmonton. How did it come about that you were going to film with Kyle and make this video part? It didn't really start as a video part; me and Kyle had been filming together for fun for a couple years before that, so it was sort ofjust what we did. I met him through common friends in school. They all skated, but not all that much or seriously. He starting getting into filming and we connected because he wanted someone to film and I was better than most of his other friends, not to mention easily convinced to go skating anytime and all the time. He used call me up and drive me around a lot in the Mazda MPV, which I remember as being well stocked with cliff bars. Did you ever notice Jackie Chan is wearing Vans in that intro to your part? No I have never noticed. I had gone to Edmonton before they edited this, so I take zero responsibility for that opening. At what point did you change up your style of pants? Well, I still wear grandpa pants, just not floods. But I started wearing jeans when I snuck onto the Famous Skateboards team in about 1999 or 2000 in Edmonton (thanks to my good friends Krista and Devin), and Glenn Suggitt gave me five pairs of jeans he'd worn once (and was therefore done with).

Check back next week when we look at Jeff Ferner's part and weeks leading to Ryan Smith's first video part... the finale. Click here to view all Nobodys entries and check back every monday for additional parts.

SAM McKINLAY on the Nobodys video (by kyle shura, c.1997) interview by sandro grison

An enigma amongst the wise in Canada's skateboarding community, Sam McKinlay was, and pretty much is still today the last rolling survivor of the original guard of Kelowna skaters from the mid 80s. He entered the Nobodys video (by Kyle Shura c.1997) as first part with a distinctive style and trick selection that most of us "new school" kids only respected. At the time of this video I had only come to know Sam a little bit, using his skate shop, "S&M" (co-owned with his brother, Mike McKinlay) as a refuge during the winter months. Some might have been introduced to Sam along with other fellow "Mains" in the 1990 issue of TWS where he and other skaters in Kelowna such as Sandy Plotnikoff gained coverage by none other than Spike Jonze. The town has spawned an excess of talent through the years, but only Sam has been there to see and influence it all. I got to talk to him a bit about that and what it was like filming for this video nobody ever really got to see until now. Most of the skater's around today don't know who Kyle Shura is, but anyone worth a damn (Russ Milligan, Moses Itkonen, Tony Ferguson, Russ Milligan...) skating in Vancouver around 2001 was probably photographed with him. Little to nobody would know him as a filmer. Kyle was around all the time. He skated quite a bit back then - I remember teaching him how to skate the half barriers. He was really in to abstract skateboarding, like ollieing straight / 90 degree angle onto a low flatbar and stalling over and over as a session. Fucking killer that he was an ex-squash champion as well. I remember him really taking to camerawork and being good at what he did. Your brother Mike and yourself had a skate shop back then that moved around a bit. At this time I think it was in the back of “Cop Out” Records. Did this have any influence on your music selection for your part? S&M was doing well until that fire downtown. By the time we were behind Cop-Out, we were just trying to pay the bills, but were still having a good time being right downtown across from the lake and the sails.Cop-Out acted as the opposite music-wise actually.What they played we avoided like the plague. Their store was during the first onslaught of the pop punk takeover that resulted in what we all know as mall punk now. When I worked for them occasionally, playing BIG BLACK loudly all the time bummed out many aspiring 'good times' mall punks. Your clothing style, while tame, was like nobody else I’d known or seen at the time. Did you wear those same tight shorts and black socks in the winter? I am STILL just copying anything that Matt Hensley was wearing at the time. I think that was around the time he had one of his first comeback interviews in Heckler.I'm wearing the same outfit. I still tuck my chain wallet into my pocket, wear docs, and have my first pair of exact Hensely replica army shorts from the day. There’s a couple barrier tricks in your part. Was this the earliest footage of your barrier skating released to video? Does it have anything to do with the Barrier Kult? The old Kelowna skate natives had always ridden barriers since the original mid 80s Island Snow team days.They were always seen as a go-to tight quaterpipe to have a session on. The Barrier Kult is all about obsession, and I can definitely see where their apprecation lies as the barrier is the ultimate replica of an altar style shallow end of a pool. Filming probably started a year or two after the Trinity Church Ramps were torn down. Did you prefer Trinity over the skinny 8ft wide, 6ft high ramp you skate in your part? The steel layered church mini ramp was great and acted as a bloody good shelter from the ZMB ledge days. It was nice to always have the option of a huge mini ramp with a spine, and the nights there were fucking EPIC.That ramp that was tucked behind the building featured in the video was killer. Reminded me of the first backyard halfpipe I ever skated which was in around 1985; just take away the masonite, platforms, some of the flat bottom, and add a foot and a half of vert. Your grabs are tweaked beyond recognition at some points in your part. Are you still able to skate like that now, 12 years later? The last time I was trying/doing that shit was a few years ago with Derek Serwa and Danny Marshall at the same pyramid in downtown Kelowna.I thought it would cool to try everything on a 7.75" wide popsicle with tiny Ventures, etc. I eventually landed one of 'everything' but not after some of MAJOR body slams and epic jeering from the peanut gallery. Ever since moving to Vancouver, 'ollies' and even 'airtime' has been slowly put completely to the wayside to make more room for slappies, tight transitions, concrete coping, tailblocks, and an 'endless grind' mentality. Is there anything else you remember about this time that you’d like to share. Anything you want to add? I think I'm the last of Kelowna's old guard/first generation from the mid 80s on that video. It would have been amazing if there was some moves on there from Sandy Plotnikoff, Tim Battersby, Keith Langergraber, Scott White, etc. I was purely just the last of the Pandosy Island Snow guys left in Kelowna.

Sam McKinlay has travelled the world as The Rita, performing harsh noise. He's also an avid horror film fan and collector of rare import genre films. He held a column in The Nerve magazine for many years, continuing to write for such publications as Cinema Sewer. Today you'll most likely find Sam managing the SKULL SKATES store, recording harsh noise, reading Clark Ashton Smith or some pre-code 50s horror comics, watching GRAVEYARD OF HORROR again, playing with my knives, or skating some obscure transition spot while obsessing about Motobilt trucks. He's undoubtedly a supporter of the Barrier Kult traditions of obsession, militance, ritual black arts structure, and anonymity of the human animal.

Check back next week when we look at Keith Yerex's part and weeks leading to Ryan Smith's first video part... the finale. Click here to view all Nobodys entries and check back every monday for additional parts.