4.02.2010

chrome ball incident #452: aggro zone










Q: "You can't think of any contributions you gave to skateboarding?"

A: "No. I just skated... did my part."
Posted by chops at 01:52
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10 comments:

Giles said...

he did a nollie on a mini spine ramp in that tempe contest in '86. i think that's long before natas did one. he also pioneered a few other important concepts in skating, not least among among them a more creative approach to the lip: nosestalls, nosepicks, going from truck to rail. and then the lien air. as much as i like chris miller he really damaged that trick with the crossbone. it looks so much cooler without the tweak. i've got a video with neil skating the kona halfpipe in '82 or '83 and he does one just perfect. and a handout, the precursor to the manual which is another one from blender as i recall.

April 2, 2010 at 3:47 AM
JayCee said...

Gotta admit, Blender had a pretty mean shoe game back then. His Coffee Break board is still one of my all time faves.

April 2, 2010 at 8:05 AM
Jason said...

Never seen that method from TWS Still Life. Rad. Skateboarding (and the world in general) needs more Neil Blenders. I did a piece on Neil a while back. Enjoy: http://freakbeatfuzz.blogspot.com/2009/08/neil-blender-loaf.html

April 2, 2010 at 10:20 AM
Anonymous said...

thanks so much, i just barrowed street style in tempe from my homie and been stuck on blenders inovative entertaining run

April 2, 2010 at 12:43 PM
Henry said...

One of the things that struck me about the Cardiel Epicly Later'd is when he said, "It's not the actual skateboard, it's the vibes." For me, skateboarding was more than just doing tricks. Looking back, at a young age I was exposed to people like Mark Gonzales and Neil Blender... and they were different from what I saw around me, knew, or went to school with. It wasn't just a matter of, "Wow, neat trick"... it was that there were people like that in the world; you didn't "have" to do anything, you could do something new and completely different. I never forgot that.

April 3, 2010 at 8:33 PM
brainwashvictim said...

Can't mess with the original, but I see absolutely nothing wrong with Chris's version (looks good even 25 years later).

In that Tempe run, Neil also does a frontside nosegrind on those tiny spines. Add to that new deals, no deals, nose stalls. He pretty much pioneered skating the nose. Impressive in the world of Snub noses, sub-2" noses (look at his first G&S pro models) and no upturn.

April 4, 2010 at 1:24 AM
Giles said...

brainwash,

you're right, it does look good when chris does them that way. i guess the thing that bugs me is that everyone has done them that way since, and the fact that it kind of makes it easier to eye your landing. maybe he was making sure he didn't hangup like that upland backside air! anyway, i have a shot of christian at del mar doing one in '85 sans tweak and its just sick. he's like 7 feet out, and it looks so precarious, like he's falling towards his back. actually one person still does them old school: lance. he does a good one in his firm part.

it's funny, neil's nose stuff on vert kind of set the paradigm for ledge skating.


hey, chops: did you ever do a al losi post? he's a guy who pioneered some lip stuff that risks getting lost to posterity due in part to his vari-bot status. first person i ever saw do an ally oop fakie 50/50. also, he did long stand-up grinds, smiths, and backside 5-0s in contests when other pros either couldn't do them well or just wanted to do 12 backside airs in a row.

April 4, 2010 at 10:39 AM
chops said...

thanks fellas.

Giles, is that the cement Kona halfpipe? (did I just make that up?). I don't know man... liens and crossbones both have their time and place for me. i never really equated the two (but I don't really know much about vert). I've thought about doing a Losi post before but honestly, that was before my time and I really don't think I could do him justice.

I was sweatin his shoes too, Jaycee. And yeah, coffee break is definitely in my top 3.

nice article, freakbeat. all blender is appreciated.

exactly, coals. very well said.

April 5, 2010 at 6:51 PM
Giles said...

chops,

kona had a wooden halfpipe that had about 3 feet of vert and less than a normal amount of flatground. this is before my time, but i think that when all the old parks were getting dozed and skaters were transitioning to halfpipes there was a period were there wasn't consensus on the what was the ideal proportion of flat, transition, and vert. the video was some promotional thing, and it mostly had cheesy stuff of kids going down the snake run. but there was about 5 minutes of contest footage. cab was there too and did caballerial. he was so small.

April 6, 2010 at 6:09 AM
Anonymous said...

imagination leans toward harm in the reptiles time would run it looks

is that right for the aggro zone ad? i tried it like 30 times im sucked into it i got to know

December 11, 2010 at 8:55 PM

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