It just occurred to me that Twincities skateboarding is now four generations strong, what with the coming out party that was the New Flavors premiere this evening; hello Fourth Gen (As for the other generations: The Old Guard, above 30, The Lost Generation, late 20s, and the Boondoggle Generation, early 20s, get it?). The vanguard of this yet to be named Fourth Gen is filmer and editor (and erstwhile blogging princess) of New Flavors, Kevin Horn, who managed to fill the Oak Street Cinema to standing room only proportions.
After a mellow introduction, Max Byers opens things up, headbands and all, stringing together proper lines, and generally cementing a more complete image of his skateboarding than all the Familia events that I've seen him skate at put together. Hani Shamat is the dude that kickflipped off The Roofs onto the table while wearing a helmet; Hani does not disappoint, doing the roof to table ollie in a line and showing off his prowess for flipping his board after grabbing the nose with his hand. You dig?
Rayshaun Crawford has entered the building. Mr. Crawford picked up the pace a bit speed wise, did backside nosegrind reverts on picnic tables, and hopefully at some point someone will kick some free gear his way so he doesn't have to skate such decrepit shit in the future. If I'm getting my video order correct, following Rayshaun were a couple of montages, featuring some more familiar faces than before yet even more new dudes. Sherman got as froggy as you'd expect, and Ricky whose last name I cannot remember seals the deal with yet another monstrous kickflip; good looks.
Next, Tom Rohrer and George Akande take aim at being the old dudes in the video, and they come correct. Extensive polling has shown that Tom should rock a clean shave, but that hasn't slowed the kid down one bit, and he pretty much picks up exactly where he left off in Boondoggle. George got the biggest cheers of the night for a switch front board to boosted bigspin, and from there, he proceeded to steal the show. He looked strikingly similar to Kareem jumping down the stack at South High, did picnic table lines, and generally handled the award for being a man amongst young adults.
Following the Akande show was Peter Edge, evidently a fan of Salman Agah for his penchant of rocking either a wrist cast or wrist guard throughout his part. Pete breaks a lot of boards and will one day be breaking many hearts on his skateboard. Ender ender status ended up with Jeremy Coners, one of those long-haired long-bodied dudes that can do 360 flips with ease. Coners is another young St. Paulitan who I'd only seen skating at those Fam events, and with the advent of his first part, and this goes for everyone in the video, I'll say the kids are all right.
As for the video production, Mr. Horn did a bang-up job. There's an evident focus to the entire thing, the filming and editing are clean, and Horn mixes some good classic rock with some newer music to have a nice, cohesive, if not mind-boggling soundtrack. As far as first efforts go, this one is a doozy, and hopefully, finer skateshops across the metro will offer you a chance to pick up New Flavors.
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