A couple of years ago my friend David Thornton and I started a longboarding podcast called Frontside 360. The podcast is still there at frontside360.libsyn.com.
We both had a lot of fun with it, but eventually we felt kind of constrained by the world “longboarding” in the tagline. Then we both got busy, and a pandemic hit, and I have lots of other projects, etc, etc.
Well, I just got a comment on the previous post from a reader who enjoyed that podcast. He is not the first who has contacted me. I’m not sure, but it seems like that podcast was filling a niche with some listeners.
We started that show because both of us missed the days when people rode boards in the 40″+ length range all over — skateparks, ramps, ditches, etc. These days it is hard to find, for example, a board that is 42″ long but shaped like a normal board — just stretched out.
These days, longboarding has become synonymous to some extent with two forms: the so-called “longboard dancing” and downhill. Now, downhill skateboarding is really its own monster. The boards maybe be longer than a typical board, but I would consider those to be downhill boards first and foremost, and longboards second. The Dancing style and the boards associated with it came about in the early 2000s, when Adam Colton made a series of influential videos on homemade longboards, and coined the term “dancing.” Soon Longboard Larry started making a board called the Oldschool Dancer for Adam, and then Adam hooked up with Loaded Boards and put the on the map, and the dancing thing took off. It has evolved to include staggeringly good cross-step footwork and whatnot. Essentially freestyle on a longboard, but including some ghastly step off your board and twirl the board in your hands and jump back on stuff. Obviously that stuff is not my thing. My point, however, is that longboarding is, in general, not the kind of thing you saw in the old Gravity or Sector 9 videos anymore. Not to the great unwashed hoards, anyway.
I was looking at longboard stuff on the interwebs last night. Checking out the “team” from Paris Trucks. No doubt they are all really good, but also they are just a different kind of skater than those from 2001. I am getting older, and they are young, and I have to admit between the age gap and general stylistic differences, I have a hard time relating.
Anyway, for what it’s worth, David and I are recording tonight. New episode on the way.