real stoked on this... puffed-out cheeks and all.and here's a question, did anybody ever make one of those noseslide tailgrabs look even remotely as cool as hensley did?
and on a 3-stair rail at that...
10.04.2009
chrome ball incident #356: waiting to exhale
real stoked on this... puffed-out cheeks and all.and here's a question, did anybody ever make one of those noseslide tailgrabs look even remotely as cool as hensley did?
and on a 3-stair rail at that...
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23 comments:
let's just say there's a reason my blogger picture is hokus pokus, and it ain't colby carter.
that historics video is pretty much the coolest thing ever.
thanks for posting my vid!
From skateboard superstar to Chicago paramedic... He reminds me of Lotti in that respect. It was like, Huh? He's doing what?!
Ah yes, the other picture of the Harlem banks!
I don't know what else I can possibly post in terms of how stoked I was on Hensley in the early 90's.
I like the Sub Society version of the song better that that one but it's still pretty cool.
Zorlac Rusters? I have faint memories of white Rastafarians (not the peace-loving Creation crowd, rather, the scary, street-challenged, slalom-dabbling, tie-dyed shitbags) lurking about Bobby G's skatepark that year. Whichever year that was.
hensley is king of street steez, his back flip over the trash can mute in 89'. that's it right there. that's it.
you got a photog for the first one? sweet new desktop.
Matt Hensley got me into the Jam. That's all I need to say!
I'm just gonna come right out and say it, Matt Hensley had as much of an impact as Gonz but I still feel like he's slept on to this day. Dude was such an influence onme he had me thinking military school was even legit
Hensley was great but he never had the influence of the Gonz, he'd probably say the same thing.
thanks patrick. amazing job on that.
coals, skateboard superstar to paramedic to pool hustler to world famous accordian player... you can't make up a story like that.
my new desktop as well smorales. and that's another amazing daniel harold sturt snap.
me too, k.
sprntrl... hmmm... not sure. i totally agree with the slept-on part but as much impact as gonz... i just don't think so. the only people i can honestly see having as much of an impact as gonz (but in a completely different ways) are tony hawk or rodney mullen(strictly my opinion). any other street skater (except maybe natas) and you could potentially sway me for hensley... not to shortchange matt.
what i always liked was the mutual admiration back in the day between hens and j.lee. praising each other in interviews... always thought that was rad.
To me, in my 21 year progression from a little grom to where I am now, Gonz isn't even in my top 10. Hensley is definitely top 3 and I'll add Natas in there too. I never saw any Gonz footage (only pics in mags) until Video Days and between the first video I saw (Animal Chin) and that, I latched onto other favourites who I idolized and tried to emulate.
I fully see and appreciate that in the grand scheme of things, Gonz, Natas and Mullen laid down some serious ground work for where street skating is now. From this aspect, I don't think Hensley is in the same echelon.
this has been my laptop wallpaper for 4 years.
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3057/3020582768_cc394e4bdd_o.jpg
I need a new computer!
that scan is stolen from you chops!
yeah, it just depends on what standpoint you're coming from... the grand scheme of things is way different than personal influence. Like Tony may be the greatest of all time and i respect him immensely but he never really meant all that much to me as a street skater.
having said that though, for me personally... gonz is king. no matter how you go about it in my mind. but hey... everybody's different, there's no right answer.
big up to sprntrl and james
there is a correct answer, its Gonz. If you never knew about him till video days and you've skated for 21 years where the f were you?
with Gonz its not all about him inventing doing handrails etc etc. If you add up his physical talent and his creativity and his personality you have the best skater. If he arrived now he would blow doors. Cos he's older these days people forget (or just don't know )how craze he was as a youngster.
I never said I didn't know about him until video days, I said I never saw any footage of him until then. Of course I saw pictures of him before that in magazines. For me, I can only get so psyched on a skater based on pictures.
Back then, videos were hard enough to come by in my suburban neighbourhood.
Amazing post, couldn't be anything less considering the subject is Matt Hensley.
I was looking forward to seeing the iconic photos of the freeway overpass as well as The Hat but that Harlem Banks picture is the fucking tits, was that from Poweredge?
Great stuff as always, keep it up.
You can't really compare the two. Sadly, Hens's influence has faded in recent years, but back in the day there were millions of little Hensley clones running around.
Yeah, I have been skating for 20 years and I was never personally influenced by the Gonz. From what I understand, however, he basically was the first to skate a lot of the different types of spots that street skaters skate nowadays, which is obviously a super gnarly type of influence to have had. But nothing in Video Days approached the gnar that was Hensley's backside flip grab over the can. I was asking someone who had just seen Hokus Pokus over the phone what the highlights were, and he told me that he did that trick, but he said the trick really slowly, and so I thought that Hensley actually did three different tricks: a bs grab over a can, a bs 180 over a can, and a kickflip over a can. But it was one fucking trick! Like I said, I acknowledge Gonz's influence on the grand scheme of things, but Hensley was the king for years as far as I was concerned.
so sick
I'll admit I bit that tall striped sock style hard back in the day. So far as the Gonz/Hensley debate, just based on longevity Gonz takes it. Nobody made ridiculous tricks look cooler than Gonz, which in turn made hard tricks he did look so easy that you thought you could do them...until you tried and failed totally. Hensley is a pure icon, and being on the 2nd tier isn't so bad when the 1st tier has greats such as Gonz, Natas, Lee, etc.
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