If this doesn’t get you stoked, nothing will.

We’ve been blessed with great weather over the past few days in Wellington, which means it’s going to be the diggy dog shizzle this weekend.

If you have a chance, go and skate the streets, and try to be as creative and sincere as this guy.

Building on Jake’s good work.

Tony Ferguson was always the GIRL teams OG underground ripper, and has a sick interview over at The Chrome Ball Incident. I only just found out, through digging around after reading said interview, that GURU died recently. Gang Starr and affiliates where a huge part of the skate soundtrack of the nineties, so to celebrate and honour all of the above, here is TF’s section in Girl’s classic – Goldfish – backed up by the GURU produced Group Holme Track ‘So called Friends’.

Woah, unseen Tom Penny (and Rune) footage from the mid-90s? Yup. Penny in his prime, destroying transition in Etnies Raps.

Riding The Long White Cloud trailer

You remember Rattray and co.’s bicycle trip round the North Island last year? From the trailer, it looks like Alex Craig’s full length edit of the tour will be well worth seeking out:

Riding The Long White Cloud – Trailer from friendlyfire on Vimeo.

In the meantime, here’s a sweet clip of the reflective Scotsman shredding up a mini with some of his cycling cohorts:

Day in LA from friendlyfire on Vimeo.

And while we’re on The Ratt, here’s a blast from his NZ-touring past – on tour with Colt Cannon and Adrian Lopez circa 2001 (see what I did there?):

Two days somert left. DVS have a few of Bainsey’s throwaways.

I used to skate with Mark in the UK back in the mid 90′s. Super nice dude, mad skills and Blueprint representative. Here’s his Ten Tricks over at Kingpin. MFWTCB coming in April, Yo!

So it seems that Steve Caballero won’t be around this weekend – which I personally am gutted about (get well soon steve). Even though there is not one in the clip above – if I could skate mini like that (in 1989 – 21 years ago, or any other year) I would not bother posting on here!

Here’s three of the best:

I’m not sure how often THE BOSS will pop up in our list, but at the moment it’s two out of two.

Bastien Salabanzi may have burnt some bridges, and may or may not be one of the most arrogant talents in skateboarding, but there’s no doubt he can spin fakie 360 at will.

OK, it’s not strictly a Cab but Tom Penny’s nollie version of this trick made the good ol yankees give due props in 1996, after vibing him a couple of years earlier.

If you don’t know, now you know.

Matt Miller came to my recognition in the 2008 Transworld flick “And Now”, with some monster pop and dope steez. Since then, he’s been putting in the hard yards (check The Berrics and DC Site for big nollie action) which may (alongside Josh Kalis) have had something to do with Mr Miller making the jump to the KAYO CORP, and the ever-strengthening Expedition Team.

Daniel Victor Brady, picturesque crooks

• Start with 2005′s celebrated Lost & Found, the video that got Danny Brady and Nick Jensen a new shoe sponsor.

• See Steve and Eric’s private park get a kicking from Blueprint United.

• And watch Chewy Cannon’s award-winning Adidas Diagonal
  part. “Unbelievable!”

Chris Pfanner performs ye olde frontside shove-it heelflip

That monstrous varial heel in Chris Pfanner’s second batch of Pfriday stunts prompted some round-the-campfire rambling over other notable examples of the trick. Here’re three of the best:

• Rick Howard‘s always made them look good. The frontside half cab variation bears his name – Howard flip (or Rick flip if you prefer).

• Geoff Rowley showed his mastery in Sorry, including to five-o, switch over a picnic bench and fast and lengthy down the infamous Santa Monica triple set.

• There’s only one example in Andrew Reynolds‘ The End section but wow it’s a corker – so solid you can hear all four wheels whump the concrete simultaneously.

One question though: how come nobody calls them frontside shove-it heelflips anymore?

As the nineties drew to a close, if you were a skateboarder, odds are, you were listening to Hip Hop and skating street. This was a period when Zoo York was a small skater owned company, evolving out of the legendary Shut Skates. When Mixtape dropped in 1998, it hit a rich vein, combining grimey east coast street skating, with dope freestyles from some of the freshest MC’s of the decade and containing rare video footage from the Stretch and Bobbito Show.

Managing to keep on the right side of underground, and never, ever feeling like an MTV music video, on watching the blazing Roc Raida (RIP) intro, you knew you were in for a treat. Apart from power house Robbie Gangemi, the video contained an innovative switch skating Danny Supa, the pop and speed of now restaurateur Vinny Ponte, a casual Jefferson Pang and of course, NYC icon, Harold Hunter (RIP).

Maybe it was the long extinct idea that you could try a new trick in a line (Harold Hunter 1.08), the combination of music and live studio footage, or the nature of the spots and skating that made this video so addictive to watch. Alongside the Eastern Exposure series, Sub-Zero and Statics, Mixtape epitomises raw, legitimate street skating.

So rather than going down the park again this weekend, have a roll in the opposite direction, take your bike, or the train, and go out and hunt down some new spots, be creative and most important – have fun!

The Gravis Media player is one of the wackest things on the face of the earth. Luckily, to compensate for this, they have a team headed by one of the best daredevil skateboarders to ever walk the earth, SOTY, Arto Saari.

Drew Holnagel nollie nosegrind

Andy at theProgram posted up a bunch of unused photos, including this peach of a double-exposed nollie nosegrind from the excellently-named Drew Holnagel.

Not-quite-right photo, not-quite-right spot, undeniably-proper stuntage.