Mark Wetzel

Avid LIVE Skateboard Media readers should remember the noise around the latest Traffic Skateboards (East coast pioneer Ricky Oyola's board company) full-length video release: "Look Left", as it wasn't without causing quite some waves amid the underground scene last year and we also jumped on the opportunity to interview team riders Mark Wetzel and Joe Yates. For the past few years now, Theories of Atlantis' Josh Stewart (of "Static" independent series fame) and Pat Stiener have had a hand in the image and distribution of the company, something in the name of which they just put up its first ever full-length offering from 2006: "Via", on their YouTube channel, in its entirety. Along with Josh's "Static II", that film is a true pearl of culture in that it helped shine some more light towards an East coast scene that really had never slowed down since Dan Wolfe's "Eastern Exposure" saga ten years back, or the Zoo York "Mixtape" video from a few years prior. Of course, Ricky's direction for Traffic had to be pure street only, straight from some of its best East coast representatives with a visionary eye for trick and spot aesthetics - something that's become a standard since, but those guys were part of setting that whole imagery! Namely Mark Wetzel, Ricky Oyola, Pat Stiener, the incredible Rich Adler, Henry Panza, Andy Bautista, Brannon John, Shaun Williams and some guests of choice along the likes of Bobby Puleo all make appearances. The twenty-minute format makes "Via" a perfect pre-skate watch, oh and the soundtrack is as incredible as the skating. Homework of a pleasurable kind!

Always abrasive in his approach, that Mark Wetzel dude, and never taking the beaten path, unless it leads to the perfect non-spot! Then again, you don't really ride for Traffic for no reason! A small dose, as an appetizer for more soon, maybe?