photo by brian swanson
Hitting the Street
behind the scenes of market skate shop
by Kalyn Clemens
Popular culture has had its way with skateboarding.
The virginity of skateboarding has been taken and its dignity has been rewritten as a hormonal commercial break between My Super Sweet 16 and Laguna Beach. Not to name drop, but Reality TV show household names like Bam Margera, Ryan Sheckler and Rob Dyrdek represent today’s skateboarding status quo with their sponsor-hustling, Cadillac lifestyles. Not exactly the same stigma attached to skateboarding during the days of Dead Kennedys, Black Flag and Minor Threat worship. Today’s scene has taken the form of a hypocritical alter ego that has deviated from its original elementary fundamentals of fun and has strayed to a “because Bam does it” attitude.
Despite these mainstream flaws, grass-roots Market Skate Shop, located on Jefferson Street in Old Town, has maintained its reputation with the local skateboarding community as it has established a pure skate scene in Fort Collins. The Market boys are in an innovative trance, attempting to shift the industry limelight to defy the popular direction that media has taken it.
“We want to let people know that what we see on TV is different from what we accomplish here,” said Market Skate Shop owner Andy Weiss. “We’re trying to preserve skateboarding.”
The Market skate team has decided to translate their self expression and awe-inspiring raw talent onto film as they introduce The Market’s first ever montage of footage to the skate world. On the front line of production, The Market skate team cast has a lineup rolling seven deep. This brotherhood of Fort Collins’ skateboarding revolutionaries includes the riders and artists that represent the local Market Skate Shop and consists of team members Schuyler Gantert, Grant Garcia, Chris Jones, Kyle Knight-Johnson, Nate Likewise, Chad Seidel and Taylor Derhart. These are the faces of The Market. “The greatest crew this side of the Mississippi,” Likewise said.
Without a doubt, skateboarding has changed. Take it or leave it, love it or loathe it. “Skateboarding has strayed on the wrong path,” Garcia said. In its most organic state, skating is an art form of self-expression that departs from anything mainstream. “I think that a lot of people don’t understand that skateboarding is something that we love and actually need in our lives,” Jones said.
Ironically, skating itself has become more than just “skateboarding for the sake of skateboarding.” Nowadays kids are too caught up in their image and “getting the shot” in an attempt to emulate Sheckler’s charisma, or better yet, his seemingly effective ability to “mack on hunnies.”
“We don’t want to lose sight of why we started skating to begin with,” Weiss said. “Most kids are so concerned about just getting footage that they forget to skate and have fun.”
That’s not to say that everybody is skateboarding for the wrong reasons. “I don’t skate to “win” you know what I mean?” Jones said.
“Anything that started small with a core following, you know someone will commercialize it,” Weiss said. “The original concept of art is lost. Skateboarding is so big now and it’s changing a lot. Don’t get me wrong, we want progression, but a lot of times when things grow, they grow in the wrong direction.”
There is a unanimous and unambiguous love for skateboarding that ties these boys together. “We’re more of a family than a lot of other skate shops and skate scenes,” Jones explained. “Being on the team has really created a good bond and friendship between everyone that is involved with the shop, and that’s bigger than anything to me.”
“Basically, if you’re down for the shop then you’re pretty much family,” Garcia added
This full-length film, with prospective plans to premiere this summer, will showcase a coalition of the aesthetic talents of the team as well as friends of the shop. “We really want to put out something that represents a pure skate scene in Fort Collins [and] show that people are getting things done in Fort Collins. People here are die hard,” Garcia said.
The mass appeal of the video will capture the culture of the team’s innovative talents and progression and will consist of a compilation of footage ranging from local spots in Fort Collins, Denver, Colorado Springs as well as footage from team trips to Arizona, New Mexico and San Francisco. The goal of the video is to illustrate the second nature of the team in its realm of riding and having fun together. “There is a diverse type of style and talent on the team,” Weiss said, “so every little scene has a different feel.”
“We would all like to try and set this video apart from other local shop videos,” Jones said. “We all look at skateboarding in different ways.” Schuyler shreds tranny (transitional skating); Jones, Seidel and Derhart dominate stairs and handrails; Garcia “gets awesome” on ledges and wallrides; Knight-Johnson kills it on rails and tranny; Likewise owns the streets.
“Everyone has one thing in common though – creativity,” Garcia said.
“My hopes for my part are that it will show a style different from anyone else on the team,” Gantert said. “To me, skateboarding is more about personality and style.”
“It will definitely be an expression of myself and hopefully people will enjoy watching it,” Jones said.
Despite the misconception that the process of producing a skate video is as easy as including a few pretty faces with embroidered transitions and music, Weiss explained, “It took two months of filming to get a 5 minute promo. We know what we want to accomplish here.”
At the same time, these boys aren’t exactly about all business and no play. “If you’re not having fun what’s the point?” Garcia said
“Some kids with cameras can make a legit video,” said Seidel, video editor. I want people to be hyped; I want everyone’s talents on the team to be shown to the world. I want it to be looked at as more than just a shop video. The other guys on the team are amazing and people need to see it. I want it to be epic. It will be sick, don’t you worry. I don’t think anyone will be disappointed.”
“We want people to remember it,” Jones said. “I mean, this is the first video in the 11 years The Market has been open. We’re going to put everything we have into it, and hopefully we produce something that people are really hyped on. We’re just doing what we love to do.”