Would have qualified as nothing but a crime to pass on saluting the return of the great "TRAFFIC REPORT" series (courtesy of Traffic Skateboards, as one may have guessed), via Theories of Atlantis, especially given that the newest episode, featuring Josh Feist, is especially memorable in how the improbability of the spots contrasts with the man's apparent ease, if not elegance. The last trick in particular is quite the epitome of seeing spots where they barely exist, and then doing something great out of them.
In other Traffic-related news, despite the relatively recent releases of "LOOK LEFT" and then "LOOK RIGHT", the brand has already been crafting and dropping a brand new full-length: just in case you might have missed it, "THIRD SHIFT" can be peeped in full here!
We've already done our best to warn you about the gem that is the latest Traffic video (if one somehow doesn't count their recent Japan trip as canon), "Look Left"; a while back, we even went as far as interviewing Mark Wetzel and Joe Yates for your reading pleasure - and also to try and provide a window into the culture surrounding an authentic company that is deeply anchored in the history of street skateboarding. Well now, the whole piece is finally online, thanks to the homies at Theories, the distro and collective led by Josh Stewart - who's also the filmmaker here. Don't slip and forget to catch a glimpse of the recap of Josh's recent exhibition at Vladimir, retracing the twenty past years the man has spent working on his own series of independent skate videos, the classic "Static", before you go!
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!
