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Song Listing
Intro: J Mascis – A Little Ethnic Song
Omar Salazar opening: J Mascis – Creepies
Omar Salazar title: Growing – Grandmas Drunk Again
Omar Salazar: Dinosaur Jr. – Almost Ready
Jake Johnson: Animal Collective – My Girls
Arto Saari: Battles – Atlas
Dylan Rieder: Elliott Smith – Coast To Coast
people pushers: Sebadoh – K-Sensa-My
Steve Berra: Songs: Ohia – John Henry Split My Heart
Rob Dyrdek: Steve Winwood and Traffic – Dear Mr. Fantasy
Josh Kalis: BullyMouth – Boom Box
Grant Taylor title: Growing – We Will Never Win
Grant Taylor: Dinosaur Jr. – Grab It
Jason Dill: Animal Collective – In The Flowers
Tyler Bledsoe: Modeselektor – The White Flash (feat. Thom Yorke)
Mikey Taylor title: Growing – Wrong Ride
Mikey Taylor: Dinosaur Jr. – Crumble
Anthony Van Engelen: The Adolescents – Kids Of The Black Hole
flight form: Duane Pitre – Music For Microtonal Guitar And Mallets
Heath Kirchart: Morrissey – Speedway
Heath Kirchart ender: Duane Pitre – Study For “Sun AM”
credits #1: Black Moth Super Rainbow – Untitled Roadside Demo
credits #2: Growing – Innit
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Nine years since its last release and modern classic Photosynthesis, Alien Workshop makes a thundering return to the world of skate footage and DVDs with the utterly beautiful artsy massacre of Mind Field. After significant roster changes and some ownership tweaks, Alien delivers an understated punch with one of the most impressive rosters in skateboarding today.
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Intro
Set to the bagpipes of an Amazing Grace cover, the intro is in a league of its own. An honorable, traditional feel comes over the flashes of windmills and birds and bright red flowers as the whine of the instrument blankets your senses, and Dylan Reider delivers a taste of whats to come with a perfect rooftop hip impossible. A sense that AWS is about to deliver a masterpiece settles over you. A curiousness that puzzled me throughout the video appears for the first time here; some kind of coned ball, possibly like the gumballs that fall from trees, seems to be rolling around in dark paint or oil. The look is definitely out there, and keeps the weirdness of the non-skate video clips to a high, interesting level.
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Omar Salazar
Starting off with a weird song for his first intro played by some guy with white hair then seamlessly erupting into the guitar driven audio of his second intro, Omar Salazar is a perfect opener. After cool stop photography shots of a toy alien, Omar rips a smith on a hill bomb to rail to hill bomb, and follows up with several hard hitting clips including an inhumanly fast ditch line, one of the biggest fifty’s on a hubba I’ve ever seen, a huge hippe jump, and a stunning wallride door grind right after a clip of him spinning in one of those chairs that looks like a hand. Quite a good start. Then right as you think its on to the next guy, here comes his actual part. We also get first glimpse of the titles, a cool metallic-looking font floating around in some dark liquid, like the balls I meantioned earlier. In his second part, he does as we expect from him. Lots of super fast pushing, huge backside 5050s, and a ridiculously large ender. Other highlights are his wallride to back tail at the spot where Gravette pulled his ridiculous wallie back 180 north line in And Now, a long tailslide into a more-than-big ditch, and a noseblunt across a planter in what I’m assuming is San Francisco, for which I’m told he got a cover. Good song in the second part too, but doesnt compare to its predecessor track in the last bit of his intro.
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Jake Johnson
Opening up with glaringly blue clouds, time lapses, lots of bees, ducks and somersaults, among other things, east coast ripper Jake Johnson enters our awareness. His soundtrack is a bit different, but quite a good song and very fitting regardless. A huge backside flip, a switch flip nosegrind that confuses me as to why its not one of his last tricks, some impressive wallie manuevers in the Brooklyn Banks region of Manhattan, a kickflip back lip that coulda been an ender in Fully Flared easily, lots of pop-dependent rail and ledge tricks, and two very very good wallrides highlight his part. I noticed lots more artsy-clip cuts in his part than I seem to remember for the rest of the vid, and also due to this I noticed the weird model with the worm in its mouth doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the imagery, and additionally that I really like the little person model and what they did with that. His part is ended by the stopping of some mechanical mosquito look-alike.
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Arto Saari
Having come a long way in his style and trick selection since his Flip days, Arto still starts off in true fashion with the evidence of a brutal lipslide bail that tore the side of his face to shreds. Past his brush with facial-impairment, he rattles off possibly my favorite part of the video, with surprisingly good variety and lots of multiple-kink rails. Highlights were a speeding bigspin backside disaster, a death-defying kickflip-to-ditch, a nosepick on a ledge that looks as tall or taller than him, his cover-earning switch back 180 and a surprising tre into the same bank, a kickflip nosepick on Rattray’s blunt fakie spot, and his Kirchart-esque ender. Weird psychotic voices appear in the song, which I felt was too repetitive. Overall a solid part, with some seriously jaw-dropping clips within.
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Dylan Reider
To begin with, Reider does a boneless that any kid with two arms could do. After that he embarks into the depths of his part, which surprisingly contained NO impossibles. Whilst back tail flipping to fakie in the ditch Mariano lines with a front blunt in Fully Flared and nosebluntslide reverting long portions of ditch coping, Reider demonstrates even more progression in his thin-man style, and an even greater maturation of his trick selection. By far the most standout footage of him I’ve seen thus far, and a definite competitor for one of the best parts in the video. Other highlights were his fs flip bank to bank over a rail, a tremendous wallie to gap, and a Carroll-spanking fs flip over the same wall MC back 180d last year. Also worth mentioning is the excess of super skinny shoes, and a definite change for the bigger in terms of the size of Dylan’s spots.
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A strange yet amusing segment detailing the use of Segways commences. I skip it.
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Rob Dyrdek
His first part since entering the limelight of hollywood, Dyrdek shows some surprising style and trick selection considering his popularity and obvious time constraints, but falls short of truly being impressive as he once was. Despite progression in his technicality, he still seems one step behind the tech ledge skaters of today, as shown by his smith flip on the bank to bench that has been slaughtered in the past year and a half. He takes an ironic smack to the face to open his part, and his MTV humor gets to shine through. I admit, I laughed. Coupled with a chill song, his fakie double flip line was surprising, as was his switch tailslide heelflip line, and both his tricks on the bank around the tree. Too short is my verdict.
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Steve Berra
As much as I hate to say it, I feel Steve Berra’s career is mostly over, and now he’s beginning life as a legend. While I respect the man and love all his parts, it seems to be obvious that multiple ankle injuries, age, and business are catching up to him. He showcases his trademark half cab flips, delivers his typical tech lines with back tails, fakie flips, and kickflip variations, skate-dances to a slow and partially fitting song, and again feels much too short, like Dyrdeks. I have to say though, his ending line is pure perfect.
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Josh Kalis
Another contender for favorite part, Kalis rips along to some fast rap in the video’s only gangster styled part. Hurling buttery tre flips left and right and hauling through Barcelona and Chicago with baggy jeans in tow, Kalis showcases every colorway of his two latest shoes amidst an onslaught of perfectly stomped switch heel variations, a cab noseblunt slide, a varietys-sake backside noseblunt, and plenty of super-proper bigspins. Highlights are a lofty fly out fakie flip, bolts switch heel over a table, tre flip over a foundation wall in the same shoes I’m wearing at the moment, and an impossible noseslide. His two ending tricks leave you speechless. Also of note is my perplexion at why a clip on the Kettering Skate Plaza long rail makes it into his part, and why he chose such an ugly color for the JK6’s he sports in his nolliebigpin noseblunt line.
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After a series of seizure-inducing light shows, we move on to….
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Grant Taylor
At this point I realize AWS has a big team. If this were a Transworld video, I’d be at the credits by now. Set to a fast song and backed by images of rockets, Grant rips his backyard pool, goes fast and big with multiple boosted tricks to bank, and gets his tranny on at that abandoned water park from Built to Shred. Highlights include a sketchy ollie to bank, opening tre flip into a slab of concrete, all his waterpark clilps, an Alex Olson-reminiscent flat ollie…… except not quite as long, but only about 10 inches wide on either side, a smack at Chet Childress with a completely impossible frontside disaster, a bump to 5050 and his ender, the like of which I hadn’t seen before now. Also we can take from this part the lesson that guns are cool to play with.
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Jason Dill
His song, by the same artist as Jake Johnson’s clip, is not very memorable. That being said, and aside from my confusion as to the overwhelming presence of tabloids in his intro, Dill continues in his crazy-socked tradition of doing extremely cool tricks on anything weird. lots of wallies, banked mannies, steep short obstacles, and tricks youve never thought of. Highlights include a waist tall bump feeble, a hill bomb to ride-on grind to bank, and a tall manny pad ender. Also, he looks like a convict through most of his part. Take that in whatever way you choose.
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Tyler Bledsoe
He lands everything perfect. Sick, chill song. Boardslide 270 shuv in the beginning is insane. Bigspin blunts, blunt bigspins, and back tail bigspins fall victim to this kid at every opportunity. Even the throwaway in the extras for him is super sick. I love his sat-on front feeble, massive hardflip, back tail bs flip on some dirt-surrounded ledge to gap, his back smith over the curb, his ledge tech, and his annihilation of the planter ledge that Matt Miller nosegrind 180d. His ender apparently wasn’t hard for him; he appears as Antwuan Dixon rolling away from that gap, except with glasses and shorter arms.
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Mikey Taylor
Lots of hype seems to surround Mikey these days. Though not overly impressive in terms of tricks, his super clean style and feel-good song bring deserved comparison to his break out DVS part. A massive halfcab into a bank, steezy lipslide bigspins, lots of silhoutte clips, a crook pop over to hill bomb, perfect balanced back 5-0s, a great clip of him clearing off a board in some strange room, a surprise nollie heel, long switch grindage, a crook from the DVS days with the baggy pants that dont appear as much as they should in this tall guys part, and a mentally-insane-to-try ender make his part an interesting watch.
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Anthony Van Engelen
One of my favorite parts from The DC Video belonged to this guy. I’ve been eagerly awaiting a follow-up for quite some time now. Translation: I’ve waited for this since I started skating. Unfortunately, while still very sick, he’s not the same AVE as he once was. A departure to rail skating, tighter pants, and no long hair make him seem like a completely different man. While personally bumming me out, regardless of my expectations his part was still incredibly sick. A punk song beats along behind the torrent of stylish switch mastery, a perfect switch tre up a large foundation euro gap, a tall switch front crook, and some smooth long grindin’ smith and 5-0 variations on those trannied banks that are showing up in every video these days nail down the sickness factor for his part. A brilliantly executed switch crook to fifty, switch back tail to frontside noseslide and straight on handrail tricks are highlights. I didn’t like the sore-thumb vert clip of Danny Way, it didn’t fit in this video one bit.
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Now comes an odd ad-type bit for Mind Field consisting of some quite cool bird flock movements.
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Heath Kirchart
Curtains for Heath. As it should be. Skating to Morrissey, Kirchart lays waste to rails everywhere, and despite his tall figure, the highwater jeans seem to be absent on this one, and his style is surprisingly flawless. An appropriate buzzsaw sound accompanies his title, then dramatic pillars and the graphic-inspiring owl appear. The beef of his part includes multiple gnarly bluntslides, double set gap-to-grinds, lots of black clothing, a fantastic hip to hip table noseblunt, giant 360 airs, a techy ledge line, some ballsy flip-to-rail tricks, and a curvy 5050. The second half of the massacre includes a mind-blowing kickflip back lip, the apparently now-trendy front blunt bigspin down a handrail, the equally trendy back tail bigspin on a big-ass ledge, and a laughter-inducing front 180 over the ending gap from Johnny Layton’s Suffer The Joy part. Except Johnny Layton had it as his ender, it was only an ollie, and he handdragged. Heath showed him what was up. His ending tricks blow the mind. They’ll probably be public knowledge by the time you read this, but they are most deserving of the ending trick of an ending video part. In fact, his ender is the reason why some videos kinda suck; they’re the perfect cap to a video, and they leave you speechless. Without a trick like that at the very end, what IS a skate video?
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Credits
Film-industry-esque credits leading to weird balls in ink set to a calming song and lots of nature clips. Later a second song, with random clips. Not really worth watching.
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Overall the video’s art direction is unparalleled. The mood is amazing. The color correction thoughout the video gives a consistent vibe, and the music selection is notably strong, despite some songs that feel weak individually. I didn’t like the thing that’s eating the little worm, that thing didn’t fit, and I felt the artsyness in Jake Johnson’s part was a little overdone. However Black and White was balanced very well with color, slowmo was used very tastefully, and the whole format is very relaxed, inventive, and classic. The very viewing of the video brings to mind some kind of alien or futuristic media. The video brings back the feelings of videos from the early millenium, which has not been present in the more progressive yet still brilliant videos of late. This video is a must-see. Bring a big drink, and your appreciation for incredible visual art.
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