October 5, 2002 Summer ISPO, Munich, Germany ... just like every year. It was wild. It was hot. It was wicked. I hardly saw anything of the trade show.... The ISPO is one of the biggest trade shows in Europe. I go there every damn year and every damn year I end up absolutely hammered at some strange partaay. It was just like that this year. Sandra and me visited the guys from Black Flys, Jack and Rambo, and we talked about CGs, motoX and all that stuff. Later that day we went to the Eastpack Hardcore Party at the Backstage (a club in Munich). Eastpack is sponsoring quite a lot of events like that and they got 3 great bands for the party: Ignite, Shelter and the Bones. Unfortunately the Bones had to cancel their show as Boner got sick. Beef said he suffered from somekinda heartache. I was really sad about that. I have always wanted to see them live but everytime I wanted to go to some show I somehow missed them. But I’ll be there next time. For sure! But Shelter did a great show and so I was kinda ok with the situation. Ray Cappo was in such a good mood. It was almost scary. But he really got the crowd going and his wife (just married) was also doing backing vocals and playing theguitar during the show. Ignite was up next and they had a great time on stage. They also got a new guitar player who is really rock’n’roll and doesn’t really fit in a HC band but I have to admit that it gave the show a new touch like glam HC or something like that. Just like in Maastricht Zoli talked harsh words about G.W. Bush’s war politics and they did their obligatory Sunday Bloody Sunday cover. I was pleasently surprised when they also did a Misfits cover, 20 eyes. I totally forgot that Zoli once joined the Misfits and did the vocals. It was quite a good cover I have to say. After the show we talked to the guys and they agreed on doing an interview for CGs the next day at the trade show. We left the party at about 1 am and when we got to the ISPO the next day we saw 4 absolutely wasted Ignite guys. They all came wearing black sunglasses and they admitted that they partied all night long and went straight to the trade show. They had to play an accoustic set (which was really sweet) and after that we did the interview. Me: - First of all it was a really great show last night. We enjoyed it very much. Ignite: - Thank you very much. Me: - Do you like performing in Germany? Has it any special meaning to you? Alex (guitar): - It’s been always great to perform in Germany. We have always enjoyed playing here a lot. The German fans have been very supportive over the years. It’s also one of the first places we played and I played since I joined Ignite. Germany is one of my favorite places to play. Me:- Is your studio sound different from the live sound? Are you more energetic on stage? Brad: - People who know our CDs say that we sound live way better. So I guess that’s good. Zoli: -It’s really hard to get a great sound on a CD. So our live sound‘s better. Me: - What other bands do you like? Zoli: -I like NY HC. Like Madball, Sick Of It All. Agnostic Front. Me: Is hardcore just a lifestyle or a way of life? - laughter – Zoli: - It’s definitely a way of life. It’s like a tattoo. When it’s there it‘s there forever. Me: -How did you get in the band? Alex: - I got in the bad about 6 months ago. I met Zoli at a guitar center in California. Zoli: - I heard him play stairway to heaven. Alex: - I probably annoyed everyone at the guitar center except him. Zoli: - After that I invited him to play together and now he’s in the band. Me: - What are your plans in the near future? Brad: - Writing songs, that’s it. Me: - That’s it? Brad: -There’s nothing else going on right now. No shows, no record. Me: -Are you guys sponsored by Eastpack? Zoli: - Oh, yeah yeah! The Eastpack guys are nice people. It’s fun to work with them together. They are doing quite a lot of HC shows. They take good care of the bands in America. Do you know what I mean? They are really doing a lot for the scene. Me: - Ok, that’s it. Thank you! Ignite: -Thank you! Later that day after hanging out at the ISPO, drinking beer and eating doughnuts, we went to the obligatory Pleasure Party. I met Jake. We celebrated some kind of Monaco Terror Squad reunion. And we got so hammered that night! I don’t remember anything! I’m really ashamed of myself but my hangover the next day was punishment enough I slept till 4 p.m. and Sandra felt as bad as me. We were puking all day and didn’t go to the ISPO. No further details. I let the pics speak for themselves. Check out: http://www.eastpak.com (Eastpak –the label) http://www.ignitemusic.net (Official Ignite homepage) http://www.ineedyourshelter.com (Official Shelter homepage) http://www.ispo.de (Ispo website) http://www.flys.com (Black Flys rulz!) Stay wild! -Sabine Ignite photo © copyright 2002 Sandra Steh @ www.steh.de August 20, 2002 July 12-14, 2002 Monster Mastership, Dortmund, GER Text: Sabine Schenk Rocknight pics: Sandra Steh „I knew this was going to be a lame contest when I saw Mike Crum drinking water up on the ramp." Ok, it wasn’t lame, it wasn’t even lousy. But when I got to the masterships on friday I was sure it would be like that as everybody seemed so burned out. When I started writing for coolgrrrls about 2 years ago I was touring all around Europe and I was at almost every contest there was. And it was hella fun! The guys were crazy, the drinks were free and the skating was hot. Being at a contest again 2 years later seemed way different. Most of the guys I used to hang around with weren’t even there and those who were seemed burned out. I think that probably happens to you after years of touring... But let’s talk about the contest now. It’s actually the 21st monster mastership. 21 years of skateboarding.. I guess most of the people in the audience weren’t even born then... A field of over 100 invite-only skateboarders from all over the world battled it out to save their share of the 70.000 USD in prize money. On friday there was only a big practice session going on. But it’s always fun as it is chilly and everybody got some time left for a few words. Although most of the guys didn’t recognize me by first sight as I got long hair now. hehe. I met Cristiano Mateos from Brazil and wheew.. his English really improved. Do you remember my Lausanne 2000 update? Then you should already know a few things about Mr. „kontakte lens". And the news is: He’s living in California now and he gets sponsored by Red Bull. Which is really cool as they pay quite a lot and so it is possible for him to travel whereever he wants to go. I also met Buster Halterman. This time he didn’t talk about gardening and ice-cream but he was there with his beautiful wife and his cute new-born baby. I spent a few hours watching the practice sessions and then I went straight to the after contest party with a hip-hop/MC battle where I met Thomas Madsen and Nicky Guerro. Danish Dynamite. Thomas and me talked about party escapades we have gone thru together and it was hilarious... although it was a bit scary... I was a bad bad bad girl back in the days. hehe. Later on I got to know Tony Trujillo. Anit-hero teamrider and heavy metal freak. Actually he even got a Mötley Crüe tattoo on his back. I watched him at the contest before and he’s a damn good skateboarder. He does it the punk rock way which means he rides very fast, he ollies very high and he is not a very techy rider as most of the Hip Hop guys are. He seems to be a bit more like: no risk- no fun (or no brain no pain?). He’s from SF and I missed it to do and interview with him although I’m sure that he’s got something to say. On saturday the street prelims and the legends contest took place. What was really cool was that 2 girls took part in the street contest. Louisa Menke from the Netherlands showed the audience that chicks rule: fs ollie over the hip, long 50/50 grind on the ledge, boardslide in front of the vert ramp and a bs kicklip over the hip. The legends contest was really fun. Some guys could have been my dad and they are still rippin‘. Chris Borst showed even a fs rodeo 540! But he got a cool trainings partner. Rony Hawk. hehe. Tony Magnusson also showed some McTwists and even Mike McGill was there. He invented that trick! My neighbour Klaus-Dieter Span showed some really nice stuff during the street eliminations. 360flip over the gap and fs 180 fakie nosegrind revert! yeah. Neighbourhood skateboards just gave him his own promodel. So he is the third German skater who got his pro model in the US. After the contest Sandra and me went to the obligatory Monster Rocknight. The line up was: Biohazard, Son Goku, Donots, Los Canones and The Faction. We were mostly interested in The Faction as Steve Caballero is their guitar player. Caballero is a living legend and still rippin. He almost qualified for the street finals! He’s got to be like 38 now... craazy! The infamous highlight was when the police came and arrested Ali Boulala and Marc Arning. I think Ali tried to get on a girl in the VIP area and finally got in a fight with one of the security guards.. whatever. We left soon enough so we didn’t get into any trouble. On sunday I was able to watch the street and vert finals. One of the guys who impressed me most of all was Rodil Junior. His first run was: kickflip over the pyramid, crooked grind, switch fs tailslide to fakie on the ledge, switch fs lipslide to fakie on the flat rail, switch fs flip over the hip, switch bs boardslide, fs 180 noseblunt, kickflip to wheelie, 360 flip to fakie on the bank, 360 flip over the pyramide and fs flip over the hip! Can you believe this??!! And this was the first run! Absolutely constant without bailing one single trick! Chris Senn was also very impressive by throwing down a ollie from the table of the vert ramp onto the ledge in the street course. The only one that could keep up the standard set by Senn and Rodil was last years winner Bastier Salabanzi. Kickflip bs lipslide to fakie, kickflip bs 50/50 bs revert, switch fs 360 over the hip, kickflip nosewheelie bs revert, bs lipslide on the flat rail, kickflip fs boardslide and finally a gigantic bs 180 kickflip over the right box. The vert finals were spectacular as well. But they usually are if my fav rider is taking part, Rune Glifberg, and sets the ramp on fire. This time he impressed me with a fat bs ollie tailgrab, fs nosebone, fs heelflip. kickflip bs lipslide (!!), nollie 360 to fakie and switch bs flip! Buster Halterman showed a grreat fs rodeo before he seriously injured his knee during his second run. Andy MacDonald was there. The man in yellow showed varial nd bs 540ies, McTwist, bodyvarial McTwist, Madonna, bs tailslide revert, nollie heelflip fs grab, fs rodeo bs grab. The most spectacular trick was shown by Mathias Ringstöm. I already saw him doing it back in ’99 at the Air&Style contest. But it is still unbelievable... frontfoot impossible lein grab. Who else can do an impossible in a vert ramp??!! Pierre-Luc Gagnon got a sweet nickname by DoubleD Dave Duncan now. PLG. PLG showed really techy stuff as usual. Kickflip indy, heelflip indy, fs tailgrab, caballerial heelflip, nosegrind to fakie and caballerial noseslide. That was the last part of the contest and while we were all waiting for the prize givin ceremony I stayed with Howard Cooke and Tony Trujillo drinking beer and talking bout music and skating. Howard is no longer with Consolidated skateboards. Scott Bourne and him got an won label now which is called The Unbelievers. (I’m not quire sure if that’s the right name... but I think that’s what Howard told me). After the prize giving Tony, 2 girls from Dortmund, Howard and me had some Turkish food and some beers at their hotel room before I went home to Münster to get some sleep. Results: STREET: 1. Bastier Salabanzi, FRA, 16 2. Chris Senn, USA, 29 3. Rodil de Araujo Junior, BRA, 22 4. Caswell Berry, USA, 18 5. Ryan Johnson, Puerto Rico, 23 6. Rodney Jones, USA, 23 7. Ed Templeton, USA, 29 8. Henning Braaten, NOR, 23 9. Avi Luzia, Israel, 23 10. Carlos De Andrade, BRA, 23 11. Dayne Brummet, USA, 24 12. Wagner Ramos, BRA; 22 13. Chris Aström, SWE, 26 14. Arto Saari, FIN, 20 15. Chet Thomas, USA, 28 VERT 1. Pierre-Luc Gagnon, CAN, 22 2. Rune Glifberg, DEN, 27 3. Andy MacDonald, USA, 28 4. Mathias Ringstöm, SWE, 25 5. Lincoln Ueda, BRA, 28 6. Jesse Fritsch, USA, 23 7. Terence Bougdour, FRA, 24 8. Buster Halterman, USA, 30 9. Neal Hendrix, USA, 29 10. Sando Dias, BRA, 27 11. Mike Crum, TEXASS, 28 12. Paul Zitzer, USA, 30 LEGENDS VERT 1. Tony Magnusson, USA, 39 2. Chris Borst, USA, 34 3. Steve Caballero, USA, 37 4. Mike McGill, USA, 36 5. Nicky Guerrero, DEN, 34 6. Steve Salisian, USA, 32 7. Sean Goff, UK, 37 8. Bernt Jahnel, GER, 33 9. Remy Stratton, USA, 31 August 1, 2002 Playstation2 bmx freestyle worldchampionships July 2002, cologne (GER) Text: Sabine Schenk Photos: Sandra Steh Yeah! Finally an extreme sports update! I hope you’ll enjoy reading it just as much as I enjoyed being part of it. As I live in Münster I had the idea of going to Cologne by car which should usually take about 1 hour. It took me 4 god damn hours to get there! I was stuck in a terrible traffic jam and I was in a really bad mood when I finally got to the contest area but just as soon as I got out of the car and took a look at the huge parcour I knew: yeah, it was worth every single sweaty hour! 500 riders of 20 different nations took part in the competition. There were about 25,000 spectators ( I think it may have been even more as the whole youth park was really crowded) and there was a total pricemoney of 25,000 US$ (which is not really much compared to contests in the US). There is a difference compared to skateboard contests. If you go to a sk8 competition you got two different groups of competitors. The professional riders start in group A and the amateur skaters in group B. In BMX contests on the other hand there are 3 different types of groups: Expert, Master and Pro. I didn’t really get the difference between expert and master. I think expert is something like the amateur class in skateboarding and everybody can join the contest and master got to be something like higher level amateur class.. but whatever... I stuck with what I knew and watched the street prelims in the pro class. Hehe. It was a little disappointing as none of the riders showed their top skills but Ryan „the Swede" Nyquist got the crowd really cheering by throwing a huge 720 down. I met a really funny friend of mine Stefan „OBG" Geisler (if you read one of my earlier updates you may have already come across his name and check out his website: http://www.o-b-g.de ) and he said to me that the street parcour was pretty shitty and that it would be no surprise that none of the riders was able to show his best tricks. Later that day I watched the dirt jump prelims and that was craazy! It’s a little like FMX. The riders showed tricks like superman seatgrab, no handers, no footers,.. really pretty much like moto cross. The crowd was cheering and the riders showed really crazy stuff. One guy from Latvia got a little overmotivated and showed a backflip. Unfortunately something went wrong and on top of his move he slammed. That means he crashed down from about 5 meters height straight on his head. All of us thought he would be either dead or paraplegic. He just didn’t move anymore so the contest was finished for that day. The next day we were really relieved when we heard that he had just blacked-out and he had no other injuries except a concussion. But let’s go back to friday. I wanted to drive back to Münster after the contest but OBG persuaded me to stay for the party. The infamous x-cite party at the essigfabrik. He offered me to sit on the handlebar of his bike and we’d go there together as it would be a 10min ride by bike... at least that’s what they told us at the contest.. well, first of all none of us knew where that damn essigfabrik may be. Then it started to rain. We were really pissed as we were already on the way for nearly one hour. And then Stefan crossed a curb and he couldn’t keep up the balance so I slid down from the handlebar and smashed on my right cheek bum. It didn't really hurt but my bum is still bruised and swollen (one week after it happened). Hehe. But it was really hilarious and I can’t remember the last time I sat on one’s handlebar.. I must have been 10 years old or younger. Finally after being bruised and soaking wet coz of the pouring rain we arrived at the essigfabrik. The place was crowded and just a short time after we got there Quest for Rescue started their performance. They are a pretty good band and they always always play at BMX and MX parties as one of the band members is actively involved in the BMX and MX scene. We were all in quite a good mood when two hip hop acts started their performance. Ferris MC and DJ Stylewars. Both are really big in Germany but hey, it’s no use to do some hip hop in front of BMX freaks. Coz they are tough guys and only listen to hardcore, metal and adrenaline driven types of music. So I wondered that Ferris stayed on stage for nearly one hour without being hit by a bottle or something. But somehow he survived. After his performance the highlight of the party got on stage. Hanns Martin Slayer. That’s an amazing Slayer coverband and they were really terrific. Of course, the crowd freaked out and none of them could be hold back from the moshing pit that set itself in front of the stage. But the real hero of that party was Coach. He is the main judge at every BMX event. He judges even the X-games and got his own club. Visit his website: http://www.hardcoredrinkingteam.com Then you may get a vague idea of how crazy that guy is. But anyways he was my hero that night coz he got himself (hell knows where from!) a B.A. mask (you guys remember B.A. the tough guy from that 80ies TV series the A-team?!) and some fake golden chains. Then he got on stage and stayed there during the whole Slayer performance. He made the crowd going and me laughing my ass off! Coach, you fucking rule! And the audience just loved the Slayer guys. So they just kept on playing and playing and... I think they played for 2 hours straight when the police switched off the electricity so they were forced to get off the stage. It must have been about 3 or 4 a.m. when we went out of the party. Stefan offered me to stay at his hotel room together with two of his mates so I took the opportunity. Stefan, Dober and that other guy said they would get to the hotel by bike and Francesco (ADIDAS team) & me wanted to share a cab to get there. Well, it took us quite a while to find one... Cab driver: „Where do you want to go?" Francesco: „Park Plaza." Cab driver: „Is it this direction?" Me: „Hell, we got no idea! We don’t live here!" Cab driver: „ If it’s not that direction I won’t take you." Then he drove away... I mean.. what the fuck?! Now that was really really weird but we laughed about it for 20 minutes at least. Just a few minutes later we got into another cab and the driver was willing to take us to the Park Plaza. I waited at the entrance for the others to arrive and then I finally got some sleep... although there are more comfortable places I could think of to get some sleep than do some bed sharing with 3 sweaty snoring BMXers but I was glad I had a place to stay at all (thx again Stefan!!). I got up about 9 a.m. and drove back to Münster where I had a shower and a quick breakfast then I drove to Essen where I picked up Sandra and together we went to Cologne. We watched the Pro Dirt Jump Finals and it was crazy. They split the riders in 3 heats and each heat consisted of the creme of the crop when it comes to BMX. Ryan „Swedish" Nyquist, Colin MacKay, Ryan Jordan, Chris Mahoney,... every rider showed extremely difficult tricks and the level was set a lot higher than the day before. I was just a little pissed that there was no security around to keep the visitors from the dirt jump area itself so once in a while the riders just crashed into some spectators as they were standing way to close to the dirt hills. Steve Murray from the UK was my hero as the did a 270 backflip turn down over the hip. Actually he tried it a couple of times but he only threw one down after the contest. But that trick is just so crazy that I have to mention it. In the end he placed 14th. After the dirt jump event we went back to the street area. There was a movie premier of two fantastic BMX films (Etnies and something else I forgot). Sandra and me kept hanging around for a couple of hours doing small talk then I drove us back. On sunday I didn’t go to the contest anymore as I had to prepare for my college exams. Results: PRO VERT FINAL: 1 Simon Tabron UK 95,00 2 Eduardo „Spanish Fly" Terreros ESP 91,80 3 Zack Shaw UK 87,20 4 Stefan Geisler GER 86,00 5 Achim Kujawski GER 79,80 PRO MINIRAMP FINAL: 1 Ryan Nyquist USA 93,40 2 Dave Osato CAN 92,20 3 Colin MacKay AUS 90,40 4 Clint Millar AUS 87,20 5 Tobias Wicke GER 85,60 PRO FLATLAND FINAL 1 Martti Kuoppa FIN 99,00 2 Michael Steingräber GER 98,00 3 Jorge Viki Gomez ESP 97,00 4 Alex Jumelin FRAU 96,00 5 Marcos Jesus BRA 95,00 PRO STREET FINAL 1 Ryan Nyquist USA 95,40 2 John Heaton CAN 93,10 3 Dave Osato CAN 89,40 4 Colin MacKay AUS 88,50 5 Kye Forte UK 85,30 PRO DIRT FINAL 1 Ryan Nyquist USA 79,80 2 Ryan Jordan USA 78,40 3 Colin MacKay AUS 75,33 4 Brandan Pundai USA 70,27 5 Heath Pinter USA 69,67 yeah! I had a great time! Stay wild! -Sabine