This is a guest post by Tyler Knowlton.

So I went to Montreal last spring to hang out with Zach and Mark and skate the new indoor park Le Taz.

I was still rocking a pair of extra manky old DCs that mark gave me before I went down to Cali for a ten day pool-stravaganza.

I guess he felt sorry for me cauise he sent me into his shoe room to grab a pair of Manteca 3s for the night of shredding.

It seriousely took me a full summer of skateing almost everyday to put a decent wear on these suckers.  Granted, I’m not blasting out a string of kickflips and in our games of POSER but hey, I still ollie like the next man and I put a hell of tear on the soles.

These Mafucker’s got heavy-duty suede/Action leather, a soft tricot lining, and lots of cushioning in the tongue and collar. DC added ridiculously durable Super Suede onto the toe cap for abrasion resistance and included elastic tongue holders so you can leave things loose (I don’t and Jermaine can cry football all he wants). Of course, there’s also a shock-absorbing EVA midsole and DC’s trademark Pill pattern.

Anyways, these things are comfortable, solid and will be coming with me this year on round two of the Canucks in Cali wonderland trip.  Let’s see if we can get them into Bucky’s bowl…

DC Manteca 3s – If you need some good solid soles that grip, a solid upper without too much bulk and a low-ish profile hesh feeling shoe (that still protects the old heels) – these pass the OMT no problem. If you want some more info on the Mateca 3s or any other DC shoes, check out their WEBSITE.

Here’s some shots from Le Taz – shoes in action…

Peas out

Tea

Make sure you check out our new rad ad in 68East magazine.  It got a little confusing in the copy writing area…

We are proud to announce that we have brought “KEEP COMPANY” shoes to our ever expanding shoe wall.

These shoes are beautifully simplistic. Using different patterned fabrics and prints, KEEP shoes are the perfect “go-to” sneakers for every outfit. KEEP Company offers green fabrics and materials in the making of their shoes, without skimping on comfort in any way. Whether you want ginaham, herringbone or water mellons, KEEP has you covered. If you check out their website @ www.keepcompany.com you can see all the styles they offer!

In store we currently have:

“The Guerra” in Grey Gingham Herringbone, “the Nuss” in Grey Gingham Herringbone, “the Elias” in Violet Chambray and “the Ramos” in Purple with Green Ginham. Check out the photos below!

xo Sarah

Hey guys!

DC came out with some N.S. inspired outerwear this year, and it’s pretty rad. I’m wearing the DC “Sutton” long  jacket in white and the DC “Martock” pant in yellow with blue suspenders. I’ve got the Anon “Majestic” goggles in white with a gold lens and a Burton beanie. Under my feet i’d be riding the Salomon “Lily” in 148 for some fun.

xo Sarah

DC Martock Pants

Photo by PDIK www.predikament.com 2009

This is a Guest Post by Tyler Knowlton

So we’ve been planning a recording for a while now – the Release of Skate Babble really got us in the creative mood so we got our gear together and booked a date to start working on a full length album.  I mixed the last record with some pretty ghetto sony headphones that have just about seen their last use so I talked to Jon to see if I could get my hands on a pair of Nixon Headphones to put to the test.

Jon came through with a set of the Nixon Nomadic Headphones – I picked them up Sunday morning and headed out to The Baron’s studio.  Unboxing them was awesome.  I have to say that I was immediately surprised by the weight and heft of the box – I hadn’t seen these in person so I was not sure what to expect.  The box is awesome to keep you extra cables and stuff in too by the way.  Anyways… back the the headphones – I’m not really a hiphop kind of guy so I was thinking that they looked a little to hifi fresh for me but then I tried them on and had to change my mind – they can go either way – hesh audiofile or… Fresh DJ type.

When I plugged them in at the studio I was pretty stoked to find the volume knob on the side of the casing.  It’s pretty cool – you just twist the outer case and hey! volume up, volume down.  This was wicked during the guitar takes because I could just adjust on the fly without having to put my guitar down and mess around on the computer.

It seems almost weird to mention the audio quality once you see how high the attention to detail is on the case and construction of the headphones – but it’s there all right.  If you want a full disclosure on the audio spectrum these suckers put out then head on over to the website ( http://ca.nixonnow.com/headphones/ )

Photo by PDIK www.predikament.com 2009

These headphones don’t really do much in the noise cancellation department but for city travelling this is an advantage ( don’t get smoked by oncoming traffic yeah? )  They wouldn’t block out much on a plane though.  This didn’t pose a problem in the studio even though we were recording live off the floor (V drums are pretty useful).

Photo by PDIK www.predikament.com 2009

The biggest plus that these suckers have is: when the session is over I can just plug them right into my Iphone and they have all the same functionality that the regular white earbuds have – Mic, start stop skip track button and all.

Here’s a list of all the features:

• custom full size volume knob
• synthetic leather headband
• memory foam ear cushions
• patent pending ball and socket design for unlimited range of fit
• custom folding hinge detail
• custom removable cord: 1.5m braided cloth
• driver type: 40mm
• 3.5mm jack iphone compatible
• 1khz sensitivity: 103db
• frequency response: f20-20,000 hz
• weight: approx. 245g

Photo by PDIK www.predikament.com 2009

Oh yeah while we were laying down a some tracks I got this message about a skate trip – had to decline but Richard’s response is priceless…

Oh why yes it is.
You can find her on the cover of Snowboard Canada Women’s Annual!.. and looking quite fine  i might add. It’s pretty nice to see our homegirl shredding on the cover of some publications. That Conrad kid is going somewhere my friends.

Make sure you follow this girl’s progress while she is at the 2010 winter Olympics in Vancouver! You can all rest assured knowing that we got this girl on your team.

So there’s no better way to end this blog then with the famous endings of those intense CTV commercials..

DO YOU BELIEVE?

Keep up the good work

Under 20 20 dolla billz ya all!  Due my personal economic downturn in funds, I’m feeling rather cheap this week ; or as Mark likes to say ‘inexpensive’. So so so, I decided to check out our sale bin and I found tons of goodies in there that are fashionable and fun. There are Elm, Bonfire, Burton, Nixon, Brixton and Billabong toques, Gravis travel cases, a beautiful array of scarves, WeSC gloves without fingers (aka fingerless gloves), one incredibly large Volcom umbrella, and much much more!!! I got so excited that I couldn’t contain myself; I just had to dive right in.  If you don’t believe me then come check it out for yourself. We promise that we won’t let you fall in. That’s all for now. Peace. XO. Jenna B

Hey guys,

Here are my picks of the week;

For everyday wear I’ve got “Eve” jeans from WESC in the dark rinse, a WESC logo tee, a Nikita hoodie and a Neff hat to keep my head warm. For sneaks i’m wearing the Gravis “Tasha’s” in yellow, and for my bling i’m wearing the Nixon “multi coloured Chalet” and the “watercolour Icon belt” also from Nixon.

For snowboarding i’ve picked the WESC “Jackobina” jacket, Special Blend “SI Eames” plaid pants, the Nikita “Mirabella” belt, Nikita “Magical” touque and Von Zipper “Sizzle” goggles in orange. And under my feet i’d be riding the Burton “Feelgood V-Rocker”.

From skate to snow all in one day!

Cheers, Nicole

Ladies,

Pick up your copy of FLARE magazine this month and turn to page 46. “Casting Call”  is an editorial shoot on fall’s coolest demin! Quiksilver is used twice in the shoot, and one of which is the “Harvest Moon” demin dress which we have in store right now. See picture #3 bottom left corner!

xo Sarah

Hey all, here is my recounting of the Nova Scotia part of the recent Skull Skates Tour. Good times even with the wet weather on Friday.

Brent Jordan was supposed to get in Thursday afternoon, which would have made for a good warm-up session on Thursday evening at the Commons, but his flight got messed up. Eventually I got a call from Brent around 9:30pm while still at the park. Brent had just landed. He quickly hoped at shuttle downtown. Dale Hussey, Brent and I then went for pizza & beers. Brent was staying with me, so we headed home for the night. In the morning it looked like rain… I had to work, but went in way late so I could take Brent by the Fall River park. We skated for only about 30 minutes when it started to sprinkle. In this time Brent slammed once sliding out and once trying to jump up the sitting ledges on the way to the bathroom! After that I dropped Brent off at Uptown and headed into work about 3 hours late… oops!

After work I hooked up with Brent and the others at Uptown. Donairs were on the menu for supper. Brent as usual (like his California burritos) kept a partly eaten donair in his hoodie most of the evening. Since it was raining, we all head down to the Fist Fulla Fives indoor mini-mini. Drinking and skating ensued.

DMODW – Smith grinding

Barry Walsh – Big ollie frontside air on the little ramp

Dave Hung – Stylin’ frontside hurricane r’n'r.

Barry Walsh – Backside air – using his Big-O skills

After a few hours of skating and drinking we decided to head out on the town. Tribeca was our destination. Nacho gave an account of that, so I won’t go into much detail. Bill Danforth was chatting up a few young ladies… have some funny pics on my cell phone of that. I was driving and took it easy, but most of the Skull guys had their drink on. A bunch of them wanted to meet the Trailer Parks Boys, so about half the group took off to Bubbles. When Tribeca closed we went and found the others and Barry W, Marc T, Bill D, Ri and Brent headed back to my place to chill in the hot tub before sleeping. Ri enjoyed my collection of classic arcade games and was still playing Ms. Pacman at 4:30am. Around then we all passed out… well Bill Danforth had passed out hours earlier but Brent got him to move… somehow he ended up waking up under the pool table in the morning.

We got up around noon… had a big breakfast and checked the weather. It looked daunting, but Steve Hare called from Chester saying the park was dry… so we headed out. A few sprinkles on the drive down, but Mother Nature co-operated and the park stayed dry from till 5pm or so when we left for La Have/Homegrown.

Brent Jordan – Tuck-knee invert

Barry Walsh – Big backside ollie

Ri – Frontside air

Barry Walsh – Can ollie higher than you!

Brent Jordan – Frontside poop air

Barry Walsh – From another angle

Ri – Smith grinding over the loveseat

Bill, Bruce and doggie chillin’

DMODW – Backside boneless on the taco

Five cars loaded of people set out from Chester to La Have. Stopped in Lunenburg to get beer and bbq stuff then raced to catch the cable ferry over to the Homegrown shack. A few hours of chillin’ and bbqin’ ensued before most everyone headed up to the ramp. Not sure how long we skated, but when Dale Hussey showed up it was around midnight and people were probably skating till 2am or so… Including a quite tipsy Clancy that was funny to watch! Brent Jordan decided to stick to drinking and playing guitar… even played an old Grave Concern tune. Clancy or Michel was on the drums most of the night. Lots of drinking was going on all night both inside and out by the water… I’ll let the pics tell the rest.

DMODW – Big melon to fakie.

Party goers watching the action – Not sure who the dude in the green was, but man was he annoying when he got drunker as the night went on!

Dave – a.k.a. Horse Man out in the parking lot

Brent and Justin getting their drink on!

Not sure what the deal was here

DMODW and Horse Man

Dale Hussey – Late night Texas plant

Skull Skates road trip crew

Skull Skates team riders – From left, Marc Tison, Barry Walsh, Bill Danforth, DMODW, and Brent Jordan

Bill Danforth was stoked on finding a mini of his old Pro model

Eventually the drinking slowed down…. Probably because all the beer was gone. People started to crash around 4am…. It was getting light out as I went to sleep in the back of my car.

Sunday was a sun day. Woke to perfect blue skies. We all chilled around the bakery and had breakfast. Eventually around noon we headed back into Halifax to skate the Commons park. Around 2pm most of us skated the bowls at the Commons while a few hit the street area. It was super sunny and difficult to see in the freshly painted Big Blue Bowl but people managed as you can see below!

Brent Jordan – Big frontside air in our little 9ft bowl

Jon Swinamer – Representing with a nice smith grind.

Zack – Corner double truck carve grind

Brent Jordan – grunting through another nice FS air.

Ri – with his signature Smith grind

DMODW – skating the haggard old street area

Justin – sliding safely through a tail slide – nice helmet!

Around 5pm everyone was beat from the sunshine and previous night(s) drinking. We headed to Uptown and then to get some grub before the bulk of the Skull guys had to start their journey back to Montreal. Ri got to work an hour late on Monday morning…. Not bad for leaving Halifax around 8pm. Brent Jordan was flying to T.O. the next day, so we checked out an art show and then formed a new band.

“The Geriatrics “ – Jon, Greg, Brent and Rob (not pictured)

The Skull guys were stoked on the trip and talked of coming back for a vacation asap. Good times!