Oh, God, Back-to-Back Reviews? or Why Kristian Svitak Should Never Get Bent

I didn't want to post back-to-back reviews.

I can remember, back in 2004, there was a social networking site geared around skateboarding, called icelounge. The site was, more or less, a skate-centric myspace, where people could interact with other skaters, post photos and videos, and the big selling point (at least for me) was the ability to interact with the pros and companies who had accounts on the site, one of whom was Black Label skater Salman Agah.

I was never exactly a fan of Salman; I picked up skateboarding in 2000, and he was a little before my time. I was, however, a fan of the Label. Older tricks and a punk rock soundtrack? At eighteen years old, that was as good as it could get. Coming hot off the heels of the Blackout Video, I was itching to see more from guys like Kristian Svitak, Jason Adams, and Patrick Melcher, guys who skated the streets like they were backyard pools and it was 1983, and when Salman announced on his Icelounge account that he was taking over as Black Label Team Manager, I went onto his account and congratulated him, thinking that I'd be looking at the same old Label I loved, but with an established pro skater calling the shots.

In what seemed like one fell swoop, just about everything I liked about Black Label was gone. At the time I may have secretly blamed Slaman Agah for selling out; cutting away the old bones that used their hands and put down their feet in favour of jumping on the tight pants and handrails bandwagon that gripped the first half of the last decade like a vice. In hindsight, this probably wasn't the case, and although I was anticipating God Save the Label, I feel like the brand has lost much of the unique spark it held back in the early 2000's.
Melcher went to the UK's Death Skateboards: no one cared much, until recently when Richie Jackson made them a name to be heard over on this side of the pond.
Jason Adams went to Enjoi, and released what is, to this day, one of my favourite video parts, before heading back to Black Label for a time.
Svitak lied low for a couple of years, and then started 1031: People hated on it immensely, and expected it to fail within a year. For me, the company took that spark that the Label had in the first half of the last decade and ran with it. When Mike V left Element and got on Svitak's wheel company Landshark, for however brief a time, I was hoping he would wind up with 1031, which he did, in a way, with a limited-run guest model prior to his third-run return to Powell Peralta. When Jason Adams left the Label and announced that he would be riding under former teammate Svitak's Jack-o-Lantern banner, I was elated. When their new video Get Bent premiered online last Friday, I downloaded it instantly.

I didn't want to post back-to-back reviews.


The video is a testament to why 1031 has outlasted the naysayers, chock full of interesting, inspired skating from Cyril Jackson's opener straight through to Fritz Mead's ender, and even past the credits with Chad Knight's retrospective. The entire team really brings their best, bringing a perfect balance of skating that is at a high enough level to get you stoked, but creative and fun enough to make you want to go out at try it. It has a fast, hard soundtrack that gets your blood pumping, and is truly a memorable experience that anyone who rides a skateboard for the right reasons ought to witness.

I didn't want to post back-to-back reviews......

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So watch it for yourself.