Tag: Full Length

The new CREATURE video is breathtaking. Fearless riders on incredible huge spots.

Featuring Darren Navarrette, David Gravette, Willis Kimbel, Chris Russell, Al Partanen, Taylor Bingaman, Ryan Reyes, Sam Hitz, Peter Raffin, Jimmy Wilkins, Milton Martinez, Cory Juneau, John Gardner, Truman Hooker, Josh Rodriguez, Allysha Le and Kevin Baekkel.

Buon Appetito! Everybody’s Favorite Food Skateboards – also known as Pizza Skateboards – released a new video that, on first glance, might be a little too short to call it a real full length, but skating-wise it deserves this attribute for sure. When already traveling to Europe, I personally might have chosen Italy to produce the video of a company named after the most well-known national dish next to spaghetti, but apparently the guys gave their preference to Spain like almost everybody at the moment. However, luckily there is one simple rule: You can find good pizza everywhere!

Featuring Jesse Vieira, Chase Webb, Michael Pulizzi and Ducky Kovacs.

The longer you watch the new full length by Chance Swainson the more insane it gets. This crew is something special for sure.

Featuring Ty Peterson, Dylan Fulford, Owen Brackman, Aleka Lang, David Barbeau, Andy Anderson, Austin Butcher, Tom O’reilly, Brandon Dick, Donald Glover, Curtis Pollard, Sascha Daley, Tristan Henry, Jo Regeil, Brandon Lachance, Larry Bird, Dillz, Caleb Banman, Michael Ray and Lil Ginge.

You really can’t complain about the last couple weeks. Almost each and every day another new full length drops somewhere and thus provides some cure for the winter depressed skateboarders here in Europe. The same is true for Conjure, which is a very well edited and nicely filmed project from Tennessee.

Featuring Ryan Cooper, Cameron Dell, Nick Guertin, Logan Lewis, Matthew Sharer and more.

I’m deeply ashamed to admit that I have never heart about Cooper Latimer’s full length before, but luckily Leon Rudolph is always down to share his discoveries with me. Thus, Sleepy House is definitely an interesting underground project that throws you back in time accompanied by a soundtrack that makes real hip hop fans go crazy.

Featuring Ryan Snobbs, Henry Palmieri, Matt Western, Darreck Burns, Dillan Conniff, Austin Siegel, Donta Hill, Mason Silva, Max Klein, Khadar, Thomas Leurentop, Derricke Nua, Michael Sasu, Zach Carlson, Jamal Gibbs, Jacob Garrity, David Serrano, Cooper Latimer, Blake Doyle, Etienne Forte, Ish Lipman, Lawson Bayne, Desi Perez, Jack McNulty, Brady Sullivan, Nate Sells, Kendall, Tinky, Frankie Decker and Todd Midler.

“How I got my first skateboard? I think I probably stole one.” Sometimes skateboarding can be the key to success and thus lead to a better life. But no matter how far these guys are away from their apparently humble beginnings they never forget about their roots and in this way keep the spirit behind DGK alive. Saved is a new full length with both long-established and new unfamiliar names.

Featuring Quel Haddox, Dwayne Fagundes, Wade Desarmo, Josh Kalis, Stevie Williams, Boo Johnson, Adrian Del Campo, Dane Vaughn, Marquise Henry, Ricky Chavez, Juan Moreno, Maurice Jordan and many more.

The insane ledge tech superiority of Hélas is back with a new mixtape set in – where else? – the marble wonderland of Shanghai. Exceptional skateboarding that already definds the bar for 2017 with especially an outstanding Mark Del Negro leading the way.

Featuring Brian Peacock, William Monneris, JP Villa, Marek Zaprazny, Dan Leung and Mark Del Negro.

After 15 years Trauma Skateboards from France suffers the same fate as Clichè recently did. But before pulling the plug the team and everybody behind the brand want to say “Au revoir” with this full length, which fittingly goes by the name of “NoWhere”.

Featuring Léo Cholet, Fred Plocque Santos, Alex Richard, Ben Delaboulaye, Julien Morin, Jeremy Garcia, Tim Débauché, Macéo Moreau and Elliott Auffray.

“The best Berliner skate video since Panorama.” – Unfortunately, I can’t remember who said this to me, but I found this quote really fitting when, a week ago, Dan Schulz‘ independent full length “Oh Snap” premiered at the overcrowded Cassiopeia in Berlin.

Photos by Paul Röhrs

 

 

 

Intro

Since I wanted to write this article as authentic as possible, I decided to travel to the town of Essen in order to get to know every single one of the guys behind Europe Co. and also get an idea of their everyday lives. Essen is part of the so-called Ruhr Valley, a region situated in the west of Germany that consists of several larger cities located really close to one another; including towns such as Dortmund, Bochum, Duisburg and more. Thanks to their close proximity, you can easily switch between the cities in a minimal amount of time via train, which in turn unlocks an almost unlimited abundance of spots. The urban areas all have this rather modern architectural character with high-rise buildings, strict geometrical forms, and lots of concrete, steel, and glass. The cityscape tends to change at every street corner from snug to rough, from rich to poor, from vibrant green to gloomy gray. As I learned on my visit, this is exactly the environment the Europe Co. is rooted in.

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The Creator

The main man behind Europe Co. is Niels Reimann. He designs all the graphics for the clothes, films and edits all the clips, and takes care of the daily business. During my three-day visit, I stayed with him and Deo Katunga. The two share an apartment in Rüttenscheid, a really pleasant district of Essen with smaller houses, parks, cafes, and restaurants. What really struck me was the fact that Niels has been doing all the Europe Co. stuff and all the filming for only a mere one-and-a-half years at this point. Before that, he was producing beats and also released a cassette on a French label called Cindys Tapes. As we were sitting in Niels’ room watching some snippets of the upcoming Europe Co. video called autobahn – and Niels also showing me some of the music he made years ago – I understood that he has a certain intuition to know what fits well together and what doesn’t. This is actually reflected in all of his creative work.

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The Clique

What I really enjoyed about the Europe Co. guys is that they all seem to be one big family that I also quickly felt belonging to in a way. Most of the guys have been friends and skating together for many years already. It was also great to see how a motivated group of ten to 15 people would go out skating every day trying to get some clips. I personally have not filmed anything for almost three years now and suddenly got super hyped to try a guest line for their video as well. Unfortunately, I did not manage to roll away but still they brought back a feeling, which I thought I had lost some time ago – the joy of going out there and producing something. Which, of course, can be the most fun you can have with the right people around you. Speaking of people, almost everybody in the Europe gang goes by one or sometimes several nicknames, which made it really hard for me to learn all their names and sometimes almost impossible to follow their conversations. Luckily, Niels helped me out with this cheat sheet:

The G (Georg Anders), P Body (Philipp Bieronski), Pablo (André De Matos), Kicki (Yannick Skornik), Kaio (Kai Hillebrand), Pichl/Krishna/Skkinz (Matthias Pichl), Milky (Deo Katunga), The Coach (Timo Meiselbach), Bifi (Stefan Granitza), Kuyt (Florian Nass), Biber (Marius Paradies), Vman/Vitzke (Kevin Vietzke), Zyllek (Marcel Zylka), and Ching Chong (David Czichon).

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Philipp Bieronski – Crooked

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Don’t Fuck With The G!

On the day I arrived in Essen, Niels and Kuyt picked me up at the central station and we took the train to Dortmund – only half an hour in the same direction I came from – to meet with the rest of the gang. Nothing unusual really happened, until a character known as The G appeared at the spot. Without greeting anyone he went straight over to some guy and snapped his board, which resulted in a short verbal fight with heavy insults while everyone else was just watching the show. A few seconds later, The G introduced himself to me with a big friendly smile as if nothing of what just transpired had really happened. It turned out that the other guy had cheated him out of a serious amount of money, wrecked the door of his car, and did several other uncool things. Since then, The G snaps his board whenever he sees him at a spot. A little later, the other guy came back with his gang trying to raise a quarrel. But in the end, nothing happened because nobody really wants to have a fistfight with The G, I guess…

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Deo Katunga – BS 360

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Kevin Vietzke – Crooked

The First-Try Guy

The Europe Co. definitely, has a strong crew that truly never goes home unless somebody gets a serious trick. I was really surprised by how much footage they produced within the few days I stayed with them. But still, one guy stuck out the most during the time I have been with them: Deo Katunga. I don’t want to waste your time with all the empty phrases that could be doled out at this point. But just believe me, this kid definitely has something special going on. Whatever spot we went to, he was like: “Yo, first try!” And even if he never really got a trick first try, he still made almost every trick within the first five or six tries. So after he piqued my interest, I soon began to like this weirdo and we naturally started talking about his roots, life, and dreams. Which is, at least to my mind, reason enough to bring a little conversation I had with him into this article more on that later today.

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Text by Paul Röhrs
Photos by Laura Kaczmarek

Finally, Dan Schulz’s Berlin based independent skate film Oh Snap is going to be premiered on December 3rd. Here is the official trailer, which provides a good foretaste of what is to come! Oh Snap!

Featuring Pascal Reif, Justin Sommer, Joscha Aicher, André Gerlich, Tim Bornemeier, Quirin Staudt, Valentin Ott, Patrick Rogalski, Ilja Judizki, Michel Funke, Philipp Oehmige, Farid Ulrich, Danny Goodman, Roland Hirsch and Daniel Ledermann.

“Ruhrpott” is in the building! The Europe Co. just released their brandnew and highly anticipated full length called autobahn, which is absolutely one of the top videos this year. Niels Reimann’s creative mind did a great job and the soundtrack choices are on point as well. So be ready to get sparked!

Featuring Kevin Vietzke, Timo Meiselbach, Max Matthias, Matthias Pichl, Kai Hillebrand, Florian Nass, André De Matos, Philipp Bieronski, David Czichon, Georg Anders, Stefan Granitza, Marcel Zylka, Deo Katunga, Tim Thomas, Sasha Gro, Dennis Laaß, Filip Labovic and Danny Goodman.

You probably have seen the parts of Marca Barbier, Maceo Moreau and Michael Mackrodt on our site already. Now this is the complete full length project about Europe’s three popular metropolises coordinated by our friend Thomas Busuttil. Very worth watching!

Featuring Remy Taveira, Kevin Rodriguez, Roman Gonzales, Tom Knox, Jake Collins, Jarne Verbrugen, Didrik Gallasso, Joseph Biais, Vincent Coupeau, Denny Pham, Dennis Busenitz, Kyron Davis, Marc-Alexandre Barbier, Maceo Moreau, Michael Mackrodt, Yoshi Tannenbaum, Harry Lintel, Edouard Depaz, Giorgi Balkhamishvili and so many more!

You probably know Girl Skateboard’s newest young gun Simon Bannerot already from their recent tour clip. Now Simon’s home boys released a little full length called “Chongo”. Set mostly in Washington it is filmed and edited by Parker Boyes and a fairly nice watch, especially – how could it be any different – the footage of Simon Bannerot is amazing.

Filmmaker Martin Strøm produced a short but worth watching full length with his crew from Oslo, Norway, which was produced only between August and September this year.

Featuring: Marcus Vik, Øyvind Svensen, Ruben Soon, Thomas Sandli, Jonathan Arnestad, Martin Dammen, Jonathan Struksnæs, Fredrik Winsents, Marcus Shaw, Thomas Berget, Aleksander Østreng, Gabriel Bjørsvik, Stian Jacobsen, Kevin Bækkel, Vi Duc Truong and Daniel Pedersen.

“We like to skate, we are having fun.” – This is all what Romain Batard has put as video describtion for his newest full length. And after watching it, I feel like I don’t dare to add anything more to that because sometimes saying less is saying more. However, you definitely should get your own impression!

Featuring: Joffrey Morel, Glen Fox, Santiago Sasson, Marc-Alexandre Barbier, Victor Demonte, Joseph Biais, Juan Saavedra, Oscar Candon, Steve Malet, Alexis Jamet and Hugo Maillard.