Digital – Smoke & Mirrors

A lot like the theme to And Now, Smoke and Mirrors is a video by former video magazine Digital to showcase the talents of some of today’s up-and-coming amateur skateboarders. The video features Kurt Winter, Tommy Sandoval, Kevin Romar, Ronson Lambert, Magnus Hanson, and Cody McEntire.

Soundtrack Listing

• Intro: The Who – Sparks
• Kurt Winter: Spoon – The Underdog
• Tommy Sandoval: The Doobie Brothers – Listen to the Music
• Kevin Romar: Bobby Bland – Ain’t No Love in the Heart of the City
• Ronson Lambert: Gang Starr – The Ownerz
• Montage: Gnarls Barkley – Run
• Magnus Hanson: The Yardbirds – For Your Love
• Cody McEntire: Lynyrd Skynyrd – Simple Man
• Credits: The Chesterfield Kings – Up and Down

Intro
The intro starts off showcasing a little preview of the featured skaters’ talents, as most videos do. The song is nice and chill, and being instrumental gives a feeling of something just beginning. Highlights are Cody McEntire’s massive nollie bigspin and Kevin Romar’s nollie backside 360.

Kurt Winter
His intro starts out with some guy rapping. This particular part is a tad bit annoying, since the ‘rapper’ has no flow whatsoever. But Winter makes up for it instantly, starting off his part with the most massive nollie flip I’ve seen in my life. The song has a good little horn section that adds a perfect feel-good vibe to his skating, and speaking of, the boy rips. He throws switch back heels like they’re ollies, and has such a clean style to go along with it. Personally I love how he isn’t clad in new eras and baggy jerseys OR tight pants and weird caps, but just as a normal human. His part is fairly textbook in terms of his footage; he loves his stairs and rails. A highlight is his feeble bigspin on a fixed jersey barrier, but I wish he’d showed us exactly how versatile he can be. His last several tricks are nothing shy of amazing, and its obvious that Mr. Winter can get tech no matter the drop size. Enter a switch ender down the Santa Monica triple set.

Tommy Sandoval
Let me just say, T-Sans is quickly becoming a favourite of mine. Even though this part lacks in comparison with his show-stopping part in Ride The Sky, its just amazing the bag of tricks this guy has. And its obvious he’s enjoying himself, at least to me. He just looks so mellow with his skating, like it’s just meant to be. Again, the song is a winner, which is a surprise after Digital’s last release, Get Tricks or Die Trying, which suffered from a non-memorable soundtrack. On to the skating, did I mention Sandoval can skate it all? Manuals, tranny, ledges, and inhumanly massive drops and gaps. His part starts with a solid and picture perfect manual tre flip out line, and soon after are some of his highlights, a massive fs 180 over a grass gap, a kickflip fifty fakie on the extension of a huge concrete quarter pipe, a lipslide on a rail of quite steep proportions, and a fs flip over one of those nasty ghetto concrete flybox-type spots you’ve seen behind your local grocery store. Maybe.
Anyways, now that I’ve ruined some of my favourite tricks in his part for you, I’ll summarize the rest of his part merely by saying that I absolutely love the filming and feel of his part, and each trick is memorable in some way. Look out for an fs blunt kickflip, massive ditch ollie, and a ridiculous ender flip trick.

Kevin Romar

This guy hasn’t really been on the skate radar, other than when he tossed a switch fs heel down the Rincon four block. I’m not sure why he hasn’t been more popular; he’s got loads of variety and steez to go with it. I feel like I would have enjoyed his part a lot more if he hadn’t followed up Sandoval, since Romar skates a good bit slower, and is much more a practitioner of lines. This is not to say he can’t go big; he is known for a pretty massive trick after all. He hucks a ridiculous shuvit and a monster nollie bigspin, and even a rarely-seen switch shifty. He’s a connoisseur of fine nollie 3’s, as seen in the intro, and he can also go long with those nollie heel variations. His ender is not my favourite trick from his part, but I’m sure it was quite hard. Obviously. Antwuan Dixon, anyone?

Ronson Lambert
Mr. Fake Steeze. This usually plagues him, but I feel like this part was better for him. He seems to have picked up some speed, and as usual his ledge tricks are pretty much impossible to understand. I think he dropped a pants size or two, also. His part is like a more tech version of Romar’s, being mostly lines and ledge skating. I cant even name particular tricks I like of his, but kickflip back tail switch manny revert is a good one to throw out there. I hate his ender, its on a flat ledge and it was performed on a much more ridiculous spot by Chris Cole in Ride the Sky. I apologize for the second fallen reference. Oh and I’m not really a fan of lamberts song, but I liked it much better than the one in Romar’s part.

Montage

Tommy Gurrola is a beast. Jordan Hoffart does some tech that’s not the size of a building, what? Amazing. Didn’t like Busenitz’s clip, that let me down. Evan Hernandez seems to be back on the scene, and killin’ it. Felix May is also in here, who if you don’t know, is the guy that fakie tre flipped the MACBA four block a year before Koston. The ending trick in the montage is quite a treat, I don’t think I’ve ever seen that trick before.

Magnus Hanson
Love this song. First heard of this guy in the momentum video, I think. I’m not sure. My friend is a huge skerd (skate nerd, for those who don’t know) so maybe he showed me a YouTube clip or something. Either way, I knew about this guy. His part is a little boring until he kickflips into that ditch that Danny Garcia nollies into in Inhabitants, then it picks up from there. I like how this guy wears his Circas, by the way. Magnus is pretty diverse, although it’s not really noticeable on the first watch. Nollie back 3 heel over the Barca hip is a favourite, but he also has a MAGNIFICENT tre flip and a nosegrind nollie flip in there that’s quite mentionable. Not my favourite part, but still good. Better than Romars, at least.

Cody McEntire

So I’m sure you’ve heard by now, but the man is a beast. I’ve been following him for a while, waiting for him to explode, and I believe that time has come. His part starts out unofficially with some insaneeeee tech lip tricks. I’d have to work for like a month and a half just to STICK one of his mini ramp tricks. His part officially starts with a Jeremy Wray-esque line…… that’s right, Carlsbad baby. So perfect. All I can say. This part is an instant classic. Sandoval’s part is sick, and Winter is awesome, but this video is all ABOUT Cody McEntire. Pop, tricks, steeze, lines, goes huge, and skates to Simple Man by Lynyrd Skynyrd. What more could you want? I’ve heard some people didn’t like the song with skating, but it’s a classic, like this part. Seriously, his lines are immaculate, but not text book immaculate, more like they are perfectly done with a touch of character. He has switch tres on LOCK, and goes at such a determined speed for his gap tricks. Blunt flip fakie, nollie inward heel rewind, and switch flip shifty in a LINE are favourites. He also pretty much murders the Santa Monica triple, and that grass gap to bank from one of the Transworld montages. Not to mention one tossing one of the hardest gap tricks on earth down Carlsbad as a perfect ender to a perfect part, followed by an old man raving about how he broke his neck once. Cody also has a crook nollie inward out in the credits, which I’ve never seen before.

Overview
Overall, it’s a good, well-rounded video. But seeing as it came out with somewhat of the same theme and in the same timeframe as And Now, it gets a little overshadowed as a whole. But like I said, though the other parts are good, the standouts are Winter, McEntire, and Sandoval, and Sandoval had a somehow even sicker part in the Fallen vid, so this video really is made by the Cody Mac ending part. That alone is a must see. Check out the whole vid, but you can’t be a skate video fan without seeing the Cody Mac segment. Honestly, I feel this is Digital’s best offering to date.