Words by ATMurrell

In a nutshell, if you're tired of SoCal handrail videos featuring all headline skaters, you will probably love this video. It's full of up-and-coming ams, ledge lines galore, and actual style. It's put out by Syndrome Distribution and features Paul Rodriguez and friends. In fact, I think only two people (other than Paul) have had video parts before this one.

It starts out with Mikemo Capaldi, who, according to P-Rod, "Skates like a grown man." He's right, but Mike also has some robotic-ness in his style. He also seems to have a limited trick selection - lots of switch heels and 360 flips. But his part was still pretty good. I was totally feeling that intro thing with the leaves on the picnic table, and I was feeling his ender, too - a textbook switch heel.

Nick McLouth's part was my favorite - he skated ALL ledges and some gaps. He only had one stair trick and no handrails at all in his part. I was feeling the kickflip nose manual to nosegrind, the kickflip back tail on the upper ledge to pop out over the lower ledge, and his skating the inside of the ledge. My only peeve was that it seemed like his skating didn't fit his song because he went sort of slow at times.

The first friends section came next, and it seemed very poorly placed and unnecessary to me. It came too early and was too long. It had some legit stuff though - I noticed Jereme Rogers, Mikey Taylor and Evan Hernandez in it, among others, including an unknown hard flipping the Wilshire 15, but a lot of it seemed like filler. Watch it through a couple times then forget about it.

Jason Wakuzawa is really good at switch and tech stuff, and has a really good style as well. My favorite tricks were the bs nosegrind nollie bs flip out on the picnic table, the nollie back noseblunt on the SF hips, and the switch tailslide on the curved up ledge in LA. It seems like this part is a bit too long compared to the other parts, but he makes tech tricks look easy, so it's definitely worth watching.

Random Plan B Stuff

Mike Barker's part was good - his style is still amazing. I liked the switch bs 180 nosegrind on the hubba ledge and the switch fs shove down the Big Four. And the song in his part fit his skating really well, too. But for some reason, a lot of it seemed like leftover stuff from his recent 411 part. A good part though, even if it was leftover footage.

The second friends section was much better than the first one, but it is still unnecessary to have two friends sections in the same video, especially when they are both longer than some riders' parts. They should have just used this one. But you should watch it just for Nyjah's stuff - kid's gonna' make a mark.

Ronson Lambert is a really tech skater who happens to have really bad style. His part also seemed much shorter than most of the other parts in the video. He had a lot of sick stuff though - the pop-shove bs pivot switch manual switch 180 (Yes, that was one trick.) and the kickflip bs 5-0 fs bigspin into the bank were sick. Those definitely deserve a couple of replays.

It seems that Paul Rodriguez has listened to some of the criticism he's received and tried to learn from it. There's a lot more ledge skating in here than in his other parts and a lot of his footage is pretty old, too - you can see he's still riding Girl boards and even wearing eS shoes in some shots. Lots of sick stuff, like the switch flip 50-50 down the hubba and the switch 360 flip over the loading dock gap, but it seems to me that he should have given someone else the ender. But it is P-Rod and friends, so that's probably just me.

Like I said in the intro, you will love this video if you want to see some originality and style from people you've probably never seen in videos before. It's got some good bonus features, too. If you want something different, you'll like this one.

ATMurrell