Review written by Brian Krans
Photography provided by Strange Creatures
The video premiered at the Blading Cup in early October. After a month of arranging the nearly two hours of B-roll, it’s soon set to be in shops shipping worldwide.
“We were on tour, literally, the Friday night before the premiere,” Amir said in a phone interview last week. “I made the premiere copy in five days.”
The video—the second serious production by Amir Amadi, 22, San Clemente, Ca.—is the documentation of 1.5 years of skating with a mix of seasoned pros and emerging ams.
It’s a creative endeavor of power, finesse, style, and speed powered by the Strange Creatures Crew: Adam and Keith Brierley, Dean Coward, Dylan Davis, Matt Langel, Matt Luda, Brandon Smith, and Alex Broskow. The crew covered Los Angeles, Arizona (twice) New Mexico, Texas, San Francisco (three times), Portland, New York City, and a bunch of other spots along the way.
They’re part of that retro-punk, big beard and clean cut, slicked over greaser hairstyle, flannel-wearing, rock ‘n’ roll, black-and-white film photography, brown-boot movement that I couldn’t be a bigger fan of.
The first night they landed in New York, I was fortunate enough to meet up with them in a basement bar with $5 beer and shot specials in New York City. The team was there to film clips, skate in the Invitational, and drink beers, and on that particular night, no one was skating.
The boys had been traveling for what felt like forever, yet they were excited for the week of boozing, blading, eating a good slice on the curb, and trying to keep pace with the city. They were all sharing one hotel room.
Those New York nights were reasons people travel for blading: skating new spots, finding new things to do, meeting new people, gathering old friends, and getting the fuck out of your town to see another one.
“New York standard is pretty crazy. Those first few nights, well…those ones were kind of blurry,” Amir said.
Few of us remember those nights—except for Alex and Dean—because that’s the excitement of a new place. For the touring boys, they knew they were in for the last clips of the video from then until the three weeks until the Blading Cup in Santa Ana, Calif. All the traveling had been fortunate for the group, outside a van tire exploding and disintegrating on the road home from Portland, Lady Luck had been on the boys’ side.
“We didn’t get into too much trouble,” Amir said. “We kind of lucked out.” That’s one of many reasons why the finished product is so excellent.
Luda’s video-ending section couldn’t be more of a testament to the changing style of the finished product. You can actually watch him evolve in his section from a Broskow influence to a B. Smith influence, leaving you with an insanely technical introduction to a burly smooth finish. Amir did an excellent job of documenting that, proving that Luda is officially on the fucking radar.
The same goes for the other ams than have been producing clips and sections for other projects, but Voodoo Show proves as yet another prime example of one direction skating is going, leaving spots and tricks open to a kind of interpretation that never gets old.
Every section was absolutely worth every second it was given. The music kicked ass right along with the talent.
“Everyone surprised me for different reasons. Going on tour and skating the spots we got to skate, everyone pushed it,” Amir said. “It’s different skating with Brandon and Alex because they can do anything on any spot.”
Amir doesn’t think of the video as a mix of young talent and season pros, but rather a gathering of cool people who were down for the project. That’s very important when traveling, especially when the trend can sometimes be sleeping in well past noon and then nursing injuries and hangovers throughout the day.
“Everyone gets it. They know,” Amir said. “It’s hard when you’re out late and no one wants to move the next day. Still, everyone pulled together.”
Now the next thing up for the Strange Creatures kids is pulling together to move from SoCal to a new spot. They’re eying the Bay Area and we couldn’t be happier to have them.
Buy the video.
Be extremely entertained.
Support the cause.
-KRANS
