The Quartersnacks X Nike SB capsule releases this Thursday 13th October at 8am.
Technically speaking skateboarding has always been about progression, following a fairly formulaic pattern. You take what's being done and add something to it, whether thats doing a trick over a bigger gap or down a longer rail or throwing a flip in/out.
This pattern does not lend itself to the true progression of skateboarding though, I mean sure the wizardry of Street League 'best trick' contests are worlds apart from Hokus Pokus in terms of technical ability but does this mean that it is better? To many it most definitely does not.
(Matt Hensley in 1989)
Around 2009 I was 16, and the videos we would all watch were the classic big company releases, Fully Flared had come out a few years prior and fuelled the move towards a higher production value in skate board videos being deemed 'the best'. It is at this time I watched my first independently made skateboard video from outside of England entitled 'Rich Mahogany' by Rob Harris, I had seen some videos on youtube of course but this was the first time I'd sat down and watched a physical DVD copy of an independent film from overseas.
Like many people Rich Mahogany is still one of my favourite videos to date, the skating was incredible of course but it was the random clips of the crew hanging out or skating some un-perfect spot that wasn't a marble 16 which made this video hit home. It was a bunch of guys that you could totally relate to doing the same kind of stuff you were doing and it was this relatability that made it so enjoyable to watch, foremost it made you want to skate.
(Rich Mahogany era Yaje Popson)
After watching the video a quick google search led me to a website called Quartersnacks, a blog type site that dominated 80% of my internet browsing in the following months. The voice of QS was that of an average skateboarder, they were talking about normal stuff, they had a cartoon teacher shouting at a kid in a scenario we had all been through, but most importantly they had everything you wanted to watch/read about NYC in one place.
(#life)
Fast forward 7 years and New York is most definitely at the forefront of enjoyable content in current skateboarding, a whole slew of crews have managed to extend their blog/videos into a physical line; Bronze, 917, Alltimers, Hotel Blue etc. This is purely down to their popularity amongst skateboarders from over the globe who were, like me, very bored of the robotic hammers the West Coast was producing.
Quartersnacks have gone from strength to strength initially releasing a Dunk Low with Nike SB in 2014 and around this time last year we saw the crew compile their whole story into a book entitled 'TF at 1: 10 Years of Quartersnacks'. We sold out of the book in a day or two which is an impressive feat for anyone who knows how cheap skateboards really are.
(TF at 1: 10 Years of Quartersnacks)
This Thursday we see the east coast bloggers team up again with Nike SB for a small but extremely tight collection utilising a very on-trend colour scheme of Pink and Birch which adorns a jacket, T-shirt and a pair of hairy suede Bruin Hyperfeel's.
The collection will launch Thursday at 8am online and 9am in-store.
