Vladik lives in Cologne. I lived there till last year as well, and we became friends over time. Doing interviews with friends is somewhat difficult because you know them too well, so I thought about another way. A friend suggested doing it while celebrating the Cologne Carnival together, which is a major week-long street festival. I’ve always stayed away from it for as long as I lived there, but now I traveled to Cologne especially to take part in it. Turns out, this idea didn’t work at all, but at least we spent a weekend together and did some talking.

Besides maybe his Bianca Chandôn guest board, I think the younger generation doesn’t know this man. Recently, people accidentally could have found his part from the Santa Cruz video Risk It while trying to google Tom Knox (the young one) footage and only finding Tom Knox (the old one), who also has a part in Risk It. In a way, Scott might represent the quintessence of skateboarding’s early street style which was inspired by surfing. You can easily recognize his style – it’s like an aggressive cruising, being able to use every shape of concrete itself, and a signature layback powerslide in bowls. His past in skateboarding, surfing and living in the early days of the Venice Beach scene influenced his architectural view and the way he designed this sculpture.

Started as a European magazine, Solo has managed to cover every continent of the world by now – except Australia (and yes, I know about Antartica, but come on…). You could say now, “Of course, after all, Australia doesn’t even exist. It’s just an invention of the lizard people and all Australians are just actors,” but even if I repeat myself… come on! So there was this blind spot, and suddenly, Cameron Markin sent us a bunch of photos from down under. We didn’t know his name, but we liked his pictures. First, we wanted to meet on his trip to Europe, which unfortunately didn’t work out. Then he just kept on sending photos, and at some point, we managed to collect a great selection. We also tried to do the interview on the phone, but the connection was so bad that the call mostly sounded like, “C-c-c-can you hear me?” This Australia seems to be far away indeed. In the end, it still worked out somehow and the bit we talked was enough to see that Cameron is a funny guy. Before that, we only knew that he was good at taking pictures – with these people claiming to be Australians, on a continent that doesn’t exist.

We (the French Vans team) tried to escape a cold January by flying to Tunisia. Not really the first place that comes to mind for a skate trip, but the country surprisingly has a fair amount of spots to offer and the local population is exceptionally welcoming to tourists. There’s a huge skate scene there composed of about 20 guys who helped in every way possible to make our stay a nice memory. We started in Tunis but also explored other cities like Hammamet, Monastir, and Sousse. I also want to give a shout-out to Sam Partaix because he did a perfect job for his first trip as a team manager. His cosmic personality mixed with experience and a 24/7 good mood let him handle everything perfectly, and he gave us quite a few golden quotes:

Thanks to skateboarding, this autodidact has been part of my life for more than 15 years. We’ve hung out all over Europe, faced weird situations, enjoyed many moments in unusual places, and all these sessions!!! His energy, creativity, frankness, and commitment to living make this human being special through his unique youth education and eagerness to learn. Nothing is impossible with him.

Now, we are grown up men, family caught us, but I am waiting for the next session. Time is flying by and while we’ve had good ones, I am waiting for the next 15 ones cause I am sure it will be even more tasty.

Thanks Gabriel for being BEEB! Let’s meet with your tribe somewhere soon.

Juju [Julien Bachelier]

In most cases, skateboarding means hitting the streets and rolling away – no matter where you are. However, it actually makes a difference whether you’re in your hometown or out on vacation or on a tour in a foreign city for a couple of days, especially when it comes to getting photos. That’s why we sent Cape Town local photographer Sam Clark together with British visitor Charlie Munro, and afterwards, Berlin-based Dennis Scholz, who was on vacation in South Africa, together with the local Yann Horowitz (you may know him from the recent Chakalaka video) to the same spots to see what kind of different perspectives would emerge. What new ways did the locals find, what unexpected tricks did the visitors pull off? What view of a city does an outsider have and which angles do only the insider know?