Fallen – Ride The Sky

Ride The Sky is the first video offering from the Jamie Thomas-owned shoe company, Fallen. The companies image is modeled much after Zero Skateboards, meaning this video is gonna contain alot of handrails and some serious gaps. However, Fallen is keeping with the times with their incorporation of Fully-Flared-esque tech tricks and a nice dose of tranny and originality to boot, particularly in the owner’s part. Indeed, its possible for an old dog to LEARN new tricks. After all, who is there to teach the Chief?

SOUNDTRACK

• Intro – Lucifer’s Friend – Ride In The Sky
• Tommy Sandoval – The Small Faces – Tin Soldier
• Gilbert Crockett – The Brian Jonestown Massacre – The Way It Was
• Brian Hansen – Pentagram – Last Days Here
• Josh Harmony & Matt Bennett – Creedence Clearwater Revival – Ramble Tamble
• Tony Cervantes – Jimi Hendrix – One Rainy Wish
• Jamie Thomas – Q65 – I Just Can’t Wait
• James Hardy – Lynyrd Skynyrd – Saturday Night Special
• Billy Marks – Jethro Tull – Aqualung
• Chris Cole #1 – Danzig – Soul on Fire
• Chris Cole #2 – Judas Priest – Diamonds and Rust
• Credits – Frijid Pink – God Gave Me You

INTRODUCTION MONTAGE
With a song of the same name as the video, what more could you possibly ask for in an intro? Set into motion by the use of some fantastic time lapse cloud shots, the intro lets you know exactly why you picked up this video; theres some big stuff getting ready to go down, coupled with some crazy speeds. While the song is not my favorite, Slash’s epic pivot fakie is, and additionally the handrail ollie to lipslide the next set and Gilbert Crockett’s four beautiful intro clips will leave your jaw slack. Why those clips weren’t in his part is beyond me. Marks and Sandoval also throw down some hammers to wrap it up. Turns out T-Sans can fs flip anything he wants.

TOMMY SANDOVAL
Tommy filmed this part at the same time as his epic part in Smoke and Mirrors. He starts off strong, witch a steezy switch crook, and throws in a good variety of tricks within the first 45 seconds, highlights being his pivot pop fakie on that bank made of circles and his lipslide pop out. For those of you that read his Skateboard Mag interview, the footy from that is in this, in the form of his switch nosebluntslide and that massive grass gap ollie, and the switch nose manny double flip, which is potentially my favorite trick of his part. Tommy kills everything, from front 270 lipslides and halfcab feeble 270s on handrails to switch hardflips and fakie fs flips down stairsets. He throws down a notably massive halfcab and the steepest lipslide ive ever seen, and his ender is most definitely NOT designed to ever go down on a handrail, and is ridiculous indeed. The song also fits quite well, and gets me hyped for the next part.

GILBERT CROCKETT
This is the hometown boy for me. The kid is from Richmond, and a guy that lived on my hall in my freshman dorm was good friends with him. This kid has style growing out of his ears. Song again is great, and goes well with his chill dress style and buttery landings. I’m not sure if some of the footy is in high definition or not, but his opening front feeble 180 sure looks like it. Gilbert is a beast at any back smith variation, as well as anything involving the nose and a kickflip, as evidenced by his Lucas Puig-esque kickflip back nosegrind back 180 and back nosegrind flip out into a classic, sketchy east coast bank. Though not much of a handrail guy, he makes his handrail tricks count in the forms of a kickflip frontside 505 and back smith fs 180 out, and he throws an unbelievably high fs flip over a flat gap to rail that can only be understood by viewing the alternate angle in the credits. He also goes quite long on several of his tricks, although I feel his ender was too sketchy to be the last trick, and his massive kickflip front nosegrind shoulda been the deal-sealer. Watch out for a transfer trick involving a back smith and a kickflip.

BRIAN ‘SLASH’ HANSEN
Goes fast. I could leave it at that, and you would get the gist. Again, song is great. My favorite song of the video in fact. Wallie front 5-0 is a treat, and this guy likes going off the beaten bath when he gets gnarly. The frontside nosegrind he did on the banks with the cutout ledge between them is joined by a back nosebluntslide and backside overcrook in this video, and yet they aren’t even highlights of his part. That’s right, it’s THAT good. On a side note, he seems to slam alot, and by slam I mean slam HARD. Sammy Baca has an astounding guest clip, but before long he is forgotten as Slash gaps into 5050 and casually tosses a kickflip stalefish, meanwhile pondering how he’s going to achieve mach speed on his highlight-of-the-part kickflip front board on a fat, tall hubba. He also achieves a lofty back smith on another thick hubba, and an insane kickflip whilst rolling into a bank, and has a great transition trick as an ender, which I wont reveal.

JOSH HARMONY
The first song of the video I dont particularly like goes in Harmony’s part. I’m also not a huge fan of his style, not to mention the first half of his part seems like pretty much throwaway. It’s only basics, for example: he Caballerials a gap that was already switch backside heelflipped in another video, and boardslides a ledge thats been backside 50-50d. However, Matt Bennett enters the mix with an odd flatland trick, and things start to shape up. A perfect switch flip backside fifty, back 5050 back 360 out, a great back 180 nosegrind and a switch ollie into the bank of a double set are highlights, then its back to Harmony. This time, Harmony delivers. Great ollie across those marble waves, a pretty unique caballerial bigspin down a french double set, an alley oop frontside wallride, and an alley oop back 5-0 270 on a steep bank are personal favorites. His second to last trick, which should have been his ender in lieu of the fairly boring front 5050 that got the slot, is a text book frontside crook, and definitely worth dredging through the boredom that is the first half of his part. Things I didn’t like were his frontside bluntslide in his second half; he clips 5-0 as he gets into the trick, and his back heel over those brick bank to banks, which looks switch its so ugly, and matt bennett’s halfcab noseslide on the hubba that Chris Cole later casually bluntslides.

TONY CERVANTES
When did this kid grow up? The last we heard of this kid was Zero’s New Blood, when he was still in his mid-teenage years and sporting the look of a gnar-child. Now he’s gotten taller, lopped off that ridiculous hair in alot of his clips, grown a goatee, and gained the style of a man. His intro trick is his most memorable, I’ve never seen a street melon tweaked like that before, it is truly one of a kind. The song is a little mellow for the skating he does, but its still enjoyable. Highlights of his part are his wallride down a double set, front 270 lipslide on some little hubba, backside madonna to tail in some bowl painted like an eyeball, switch fs flip a handrail to curb, wallride melon 270, airwalk frontside boardslide, and an indy into a steep white bank. The kid seems to suffer from some confusion in his dress, vaguely reminding me of a day-laborer at times and then a native american rancher at others. His ender is riciculous, and if you guys ever want to learn that particular trick, look to that clip as a perfect example of how to do them correctly.

JAMIE THOMASJAMES HARDY
One of my top three favorite parts, this guys feet are meant for skateboarding. Great, chill song, beautiful tweaked kickflips and feebles, two pieces of art in the form of a 5-0 front shuv on a bank and a bluntslide kickflip on a bank to ledge, and a steezy 180 nosegrind on the weirdest hubba I’ve ever seen are characteristic of this segment. He also tosses a text book front tail kickflip fakie on the ledge that Tommy Sandoval switch nose manny double flipped, and shows he’s got some going-big in him with a tweaked back smith, gap to crook, and massive backside 180 nosegrind. His ender was a little too weak for my tastes, and looked like a Sean Malto filler trick.

BILLY MARKS
If you keep up with The Berrics, Billy Marks can evidently shred without looking at his board, as he does for his opening kickflip roast beef. We get down to business on a perfect tre flip lipslide and kickflip noseslide, and then the massacre begins. Some fast lines start him out, and then its on to the Billy Marks we all know and love. Variety, and size. Massive halfcab flips, a great double flip, and of course his trademark ledge and hubba mastery. Feeble flip out, kickflip front lip, a kickflip and backside flip line, roll-in to tre flip, and a historical carlsbad trick are all highlights of his part. Despite the trick carnage, I would not call this his best part to date, and I didnt care much for the song.

CHRIS COLE
A bit over-hyped in my opinion, Cole shows us he can be as tech as the Lakai guys with this part. To his credit, he does some ridiculous ledge tricks, ex; cab back tail, switch nosegrind bigflip, fakie backside noseblunt varial flip, heelflip back tail shuv, etc, but his strength is still obviously going big. I felt his part could have been cut down a bit shorter, since he kickflip front boardslides a handrail just like every other person in the video and does some lines on some less-than-tall ledges. However, i still much loved his backside lipslide varial heel out, disco flip late 180, switch fs 360 kickflip, switch tre, LOVE fountain back three (although somewhat ruined by the idiot that leaked that clip on youtube), bluntslide line on the wavy ledges, 180 switch crook revert around the bend, massive hubba noseslide, cab back lip the wavy ledge, backside flip nosegrind, kickflip 5-0 front shuv, back 360 bigflip, heelflip nosegrind line, kickflip wallride shuvit, tre double flip, and his last three tricks, which i will not spoil due to the insanity of their execution. Sorry for the long list, but in a two song part, there’s a lot to watch, and a lot to like. So I was forced to double my highlights list. Anyways, not a fan of his first song, but the second one isnt so bad.

CREDITS

I gotta say, the footage in slow-mo is a little cliche by now, but the song is sooooo good and makes me think back to when I used to live for skating with my friends while i was in high school. Great feel to wrap up the video for sure, and watch out for the alternate angle of Crockett’s Frontside flip that I mentioned earlier. I also love the clip where someone pops an ollie over a resting James Hardy, since he seems so unfazed by it. Probably just hilarious to me, but i thought I’d mention it.

EXTRAS
GREAT extras, lots of bonus footage plus a whole montage in HD, if you have a high def TV pop in this DVD and drool to the quality of this montage. I also love the menu for the extras, its a super artsy clip of Josh Harmony chucking his board into the sunset.

IN CONCLUSION
As a summary, this video is definitely a good investment, I saw the premiere of it over the summer and since then I’ve had a certain love for this video. While dominated by handrails, stairs and gaps, there’s still plenty of different spots and tricks and even a good dose of originality in there to keep any type of skater entertained, and also to reassure everyone that being ‘gnar’ isnt just about crook grinds, kickflips, and feebles. Indeed, this video caters to a more down to earth, classic mood for its presentation, and doesnt feel temporary in the least, especially compared to counterparts such as Nike’s Nothing But The Truth and Lakai’s Fully Flared, which both sport an ultra-modern feel. Top three parts for me are the young guns; Tommy Sandoval, Gilbert Crockett, and James Hardy, but there’s plenty else to get excited about. Go grab a copy of this DVD, and support a company that has skateboarding held deeply in its heart.