Couchraiders

Aymeric Nocus - 25/06/2025/06/20

Couchbuilders

If quarantine was spent locked down on the couch for some, almost ironically, the Couch Raiders' interpretation of the situation was one less passive and more constructive - literally, as their C.E.O. and Polish filmmaker Michał Buśko of Half A Brain Productions, now residing in Manchester, U.K., involved a whole crew into building a D.I.Y. spot of their own, just around the next street corner. And what a spot! "THE SHORT HAZARD STORY" recaps the bunch of frenetic sessions that went down alongside the evolution of the project, and intertwines that footage with fun narrative elements (in a style that can be reminiscent of "BLOKES", the recent video production out of South London by Ed Hubert). Thus, it's multiple forms of grinding that's really being highlighted here, for five minutes musically orchestrated by Szwed Sed, complete with lens hits aplenty - life goes on, after all, that's for sure!

Now for even more Couch Raiders, feel free to revisit their past video output, conveniently available here!

Read more about Couchbuilders

Tags:

Couchraiders, Maciek Wieczorkowski, Adam Bajkowski, Łukasz Suska, Maciej Borkowski, Pedro Sanchez, Josh Collins, Michał Buśko, SZWED SWD

article: Aymeric Nocus - 23/03/2023/03/20

"COUCH-VID 19" / Couch Raiders / PREMIERE

LIVE already introduced you to the Couch Raiders just the other day (via their full-length video: "CONNECTIONS") - so you might remember this crew from Poland, orchestrated by Polish filmer Booshek of Half A Brain, aka. Michał Buśko who's been living in Manchester for some years now. Despite such a move, the universal aspect of skateboarding still prevails over the arbitrary order of geography and, this time, it is in Barcelona that everyone caught up with everybody.

The resulting piece, brewed by Michał before the Big Lockdown: "COUCH-VID 19" is infectious with gritty VX-2100 vibes, and varied styles aplenty as many generations punctuate the timeline, comprising skaters from fifteen to forty-five years young.

The soundtrack is homemade, too, by Szwed Sed, big time hip-hop and rap producer in Poland and also a former skateboarder (if there's such a thing), who knows how to modulate the pace of his beats to the flow of the skater his creation is then tailor-fit for.

"It was a few months ago - before the virus - when my friends and I went on another trip to Barcelona; it's a tradition of ours to go there every year, to skate and forget about all the bad aspects of England and Poland, such as the bad weather.

Nearly everyone knows Barcelona is one of the best cities in Europe for skateboarding but, this time, we tried to explore the city in a different way than we normally do. We focused on skate spots that aren't near the city centre - we'd travel by train.

We were there for eight days and that's obviously not much time to stack a lot of clips.

We were very lucky to have our friends on board with us: Stu and Tommy, as our guides. They had been living in Barcelona for some time before the virus, so they knew more about the skate spots and places around than we did - this was a bonus for us. Stu still lives there to this day, and he's one of our connections from Manchester. We hope you're good, G!

Anyway, it was very interesting to see how many diverse age groups could participate on this trip - there were at least four generations of skateboarders present." - Michał Buśko

Read more about "COUCH-VID 19" / Couch Raiders / PREMIERE

Tags:

Couchraiders, Tomek Ziółkowski, Miłosz Opuchlik, Michał Kobus, Piotr Kostur, Stuart Reynolds, Kuba Brniak, Filip Szalak, SZWED SWD, Michał Buśko

Aymeric Nocus - 14/03/2014/03/20

"Real shit outta streets" alert!

Couch Raiders isn't too much of an abstract concept to grasp, and the honestly-named crew is originally from Poland, orchestrated by Michał Buśko who has now been living in Manchester, U.K. for three years and counting. Just as straightforward, the title of his full-length video: "CONNECTIONS", a Half a Brain production, proves to sound sincere, as said video is the result of four hectic years spent traveling and filming all over a big chunk of ye Olde Continent.

Most of the clips were collected in the U.K., notably in Manchester, Sheffield, Liverpool, Leeds, Bristol, Halifax, Huddersfield and London in between various smaller towns with their own respective shares of obscure spots (fans of the style will appreciate), but the timeline is also punctuated with Budapest, Vienna, Berlin and Barcelona footage and as far as Michał's home country of Poland is concerned, Warsaw, Gdansk, Kielce and Krakow are the featured ambassadors.

If all that doesn't perspire VX-2100-mounted dedication already (with an efficiently modded fish-eye to boot), to the point where eventually finalizing the project possibly saved the author's marriage, and regardless of how immaculate the quality of the product turned out to be (complete from the technical production standpoint to the emanating energy), hinting at a genuine passion for skateboarding from Michał, the most grand thing about "CONNECTIONS" has to be how it's just the coincidental tip of the iceberg of said passion. Fully embracing that his place is on the streets, camera in hand, Michał describes Couch Raiders as a collective of skateboarders over a brand and in addition to his personal time, it's his personal money that he is constantly investing into the sponsoring, plane tickets and per diems of the people he likes to film, as though to convey his illumination over to new generations and plant seeds, all the while materializing his vision.

That is to say, one would be hard pressed to find a more authentic product. Obviously, by nature, skateboarding-wise, the whole hour-long video consists in a remarkably wide variety of styles and spots, and the amount of focus spent on its creation shows in the quality of the production. Today, LIVE is introducing you to the full video, divided into sections under the form of a YouTube playlist; although, it is encouraged that you consider supporting Michał's efforts and purchasing the material object from here!

And since the man obviously isn't the kind to call it quits, stay tuned for a new clip by Michał on LIVE, soon!