Jordan Trahan.

Static Ender.

Jordan is from Lafayette, Louisiana. He was pro for 5Boro and has been on Chocolate for a while now. Some of his favorite skaters include Tim O'Connor, Keith Hufnagel, Jack Sabback, Nate Broussard, and Jimmy Lannon. New Balance has been his shoe sponsor for over a decade. I like how Chocolate incorporates parts of New Orleans culture into his graphics.

It has been toasty this week. I actually had fun for a change last night skateboarding in the driveway.

Work was extra busy the last five days so there might not be anything for next week. I'm not exactly sure yet and don't really have any ideas. I'll see how it goes over the weekend.

Thrasher - December 2015 Volume 36 Number 12

Arto Saari & PJ Ladd.

Flippin' legends.

Arto was riding for Gravis prior to New Balance. I believe he has contributed photography work for them over the years. Since PJ and New Balance are both from Boston, it made sense to add a local legend to the team. I think he was on DC, but he also might have been floating in shoe sponsor limbo in 2012. I like how Arto got into both pool skating and photography as he grew older.

Arto: Thrasher - September 2015 Volume 36 Number 9

PJ: Thrasher - October 2015 Volume 36 Number 10

Levi Brown #2.

"Levi Brown is a rad stylish underrated skater." - John Rattray

Now this is more like it. New Balance found their artistic direction and everything clicked from there on out. Levi was pro for Element and moved over to office life at New Balance.

RIP Ozzy. Go watch Fred Gall's part in Timecode for some heavy duty grimy shredding that might as well be on the streets of Birmingham.

Thrasher - July 2015 Volume 36 Number 7

New Balance Team 2015.

Numerical.

After disappearing for a bit, New Balance came back in 2015. I'm saying disappeared because I couldn't find any ads after early 2014 and before this one. I checked mags other than Thrasher and nothing turned up. The team in the ad is all the riders who were in the Second Narrows video. Based on John Rattray's LinkedIn page, he was only team manager for a year and was working for Nike by the end of 2013. This supports my theory that things didn't click with Black Box. Of note is that Jack Curtin and the UK's Tom Knox have been added to the crew. Tom Karangelov is riding a 3D board. It's cool to see how long some of these guys have been riding for New Balance.

Thrasher - June 2015 Volume 36 Number 6

New Balance Team 2013.

I thought I'd take a look at how New Balance got into skateboarding. They had an unremarkable beginning in 2013. In an article on ESPN by Robin Fleming from December of 2012, it was announced that New Balance would be fielding a skateboard team. They partnered with Jamie Thomas and used his Black Box operation as their distributor. New Balance worked with Westlife Distribution for their creative and design needs. Westlife was a distributor for Dickies, Paul Frank, and a snowboard clothing brand called 686.

The team was formally announced in May of 2013. John Rattray was the team manager. The squad consisted of Arto Saari, PJ Ladd, Levi Brown, and Tom Karangelov.

New Balance released a video called Second Narrows to go with the print rollout in November of 2013. It featured John, Arto, Levi, PJ, and Tom plus Tyler Surrey, Marquise Henry, Jordan Trahan, and Jordan Taylor. Joe Pease and Russell Houghten were the filmers. It's an interesting little video with creative editing that harkens back to the days of Sheep Shoes and Physics Wheels.

After the opening serve, New Balance ran three more ads like this:

They had similarly bland ads with Arto Saari and PJ Ladd before disappearing until the summer of 2015. My guess is that the partnership with Black Box didn't work out. Other than having some top level skate talent, there's wasn't much that looked overly exciting about New Balance's debut. Everybody's got to start somewhere.

Team: Thrasher - November 2013 Volume 34 Number 11

Jordan: Thrasher - January 2014 Volume 35 Number 1

Jake Duncombe.

Gremlin attack.

Jake is from Byron Bay, Australia. He won SLAM's Skater of the Year award and turned pro for Blind in 2006. His other sponsors included Globe, Bones Wheels, Volcom, and Theeve Trucks. Jake joined up with Life Extention in 2013 and had a full part in their Theatrix video. His skating is a mix of gnarly park tricks and precise street tech with some hairball moves thrown in for good measure.

I'm still not really skateboarding so well for myself. It's made for a long week. I keep plugging away at it and hope something clicks again soon.

It's going to be a look at the early days of New Balance's skateboard program for next week.

The camera work is by Chris Ortiz.

Thrasher - November 2008 Volume 28 Number 11

Nick Trapasso #3.

"I wish I had took it more seriously now after having a real job, like how easy it was. But yeah, you're kind of on your own schedule just thinking you can do things however you want, but you really should be focused on skating all the time. I was like 50-50 with wanting to party and skate, or just make fun of it. But yeah, it shoulda just been a little more serious, for sure."

Nick reflects on how he maybe should've made better use of time during his pro skateboarding days. He also hampered by a couple of knee injuries. All things considered, he did have a pretty good run as professional skateboarder.

For the quote: Thrasher - April 2023 Volume 44 Number 4

Thrasher - December 2012 Volume 32 Number 12

Pat "Sinner" Pasquale.

The drop.

Pat is from Chicago, Illinois and moved out to Huntington Beach in the early 2000s. He was sponsored by Baker thanks to connecting with Beagle. Erik Ellington gave him the Sinner nickname. In addition to being pro, he handled a lot of the behind the scenes jobs at Life Extention. Sinner closed out their 2014 Theatrix video. He had a three song part that was scored to dubstep. His skating is a mix of technical manuals with some well planned big drops and a couple handrails.

Thrasher - September 2012 Volume 32 Number 9

Life Extention.

Life Extention was started in the fall of 2011 with the products hitting the streets in early 2012. Nick Trapasso and Pat "Sinner" Pasquale were the ones in charge of most things. The misspelling of the name was intentional. The boards were distributed by Blitz, the home of Birdhouse and Flip. They managed to get Jay Strickland to handle the creative duties. Jay knew Nick from the Bootleg days. The team included Jake Duncombe, Beau Reid, Jamie Tancowny, and Tony Tave. As near as I can tell, they ran all of three ads. I was surprised they went with Blitz and thought they partnered with somebody else.

Thrasher - March 2012 Volume 32 Number 3

Nick Trapasso #2.

HO-TEL!

Nick was the talented am from Phoenix with the very relaxed style. He relocated to California during the days of Bootleg in the early 2000s. Nick turned pro for Toy Machine and got in on the ground floor at Converse's rebooted skate program. He had previously ridden for Vans. Converse was quick to give him a pro shoe, too. He had a great part of big stair tech in Thrasher's Prevent This Tragedy video from 2010. He would leave Toy Machine to start Life Extention in 2012. As of 2023, he was working at a motorcycle dealership.

The photographic gnarlitude is by Seu Trinh.

Thrasher - November 2008 Volume 28 Number 11

Blake Carpenter.

Vinyl me, please.

Blake is from Daytona Beach, Florida. He rode for Toy Machine up until 2022 and then floated around without a board sponsor for a couple years. There were rumors of a spot on Nyjah Huston's Disorder, but that never happened. He also moved back to Florida from California. His other sponsors are Nike and Spitfire. He recently started his own company called Vinyl. The team includes Art Cordova and Thomas Dritsas. Blake had a really smooth part for Spitfire in 2024. He has a solid grasp on quality technical skateboarding with a few big handrails thrown in the mix.

Skateboarding has been a chore lately and not fun. I’m trying to work through it with minimal progress. I'll get a couple tricks fine and then struggle with others that I normally can do easily. I hadn't done any switch pop shove-its in a while and then rattled off a bunch of decent ones no problem the last two nights. I'll follow that up with not being able do a boardslide or a 50-50 on a ledge. I guess that's how it goes. This happens to me every few years. I think it might be more of a mental thing, although it has been weird gear issues in the past. I don't exactly know. I'm going to keep on trying and hope things get better.

Jonathan Mehring took the photos.

Thrasher - July 2013 Volume 34 Number 7

Diego Bucchieri #8.

Chopping up the lumber yard.

Diego is from Buenos Aires, Argentina. He had a very successful run for Think and Toy Machine before starting up Cleaver Skateboards. There's kind of a Geoff Rowley air to this photo.

The picture is by Ignacio Morresi.

Thrasher - October 2011 Volume 31 Number 10

Leo Romero #16.

"Man, I don't want to get into that, dude. I mean, I'll say it, but there's so many. My push is jacked, too! But Leo Romero's got a pretty hectic one. I know he was your guy's SOTY, but especially his switch push is very hectic. Antwuan Dixon told me this back in the day, it's like, 'Dude you can take ten little pushes or three or four big, good ones.' I'm more on that side of the fence. I'd rather just take like, three. Sorry, Leo, but to each his own, you know? I'm probably gonna get hated on for that one, but whatever. I get hated on for skating slow, too." - Pat "Sinner" Pasquale

I don't know why I remembered this quote from Sinner. I'm a fan of Leo, but I thought this was funny, too.

The guitar slinger photo is by Kevin Barnett and the noseblunt slinger photo is by Michael Burnett.

For the quote: Thrasher - July 2014 Volume 35 Number 7

Thrasher - August 2011 Volume 31 Number 8

Dan Lutheran #2.

Sun blasted daydream.

Dan is one of Albuquerque's finest hubba and handrail skaters. He's been on Toy Machine and Vans for a long time now. I dig the noseslide photo and how the whole spot is shown. The trick was in Dan's part in Propeller, the Vans video from 2015. He studied art education for a couple years in college before the pro skateboard career took off.

The photographs are by Joe Hammeke and Jonathan Mehring.

Pop shove-it 50-50: Thrasher - September 2011 Volume 31 Number 9

Nose: Thrasher - March 2013 Volume 33 Number 3

Jordan Taylor #2.

"He was a little bit of a slow starter, and he had some injuries, and he's not as gregarious of a personality like Daniel Lutheran. He's a lot quieter. We saw something we liked, he had a lot of different moves. Some companies make the mistake of putting the same rider on over and over again. He has a different bag of tricks. It would be easy to put a rail chomper on. Kevin Barnett, our filmer, was showing me a lot of stuff he was doing, and I liked what I saw." - Ed Templeton

Jordan got on Toy Machine in 2007 and left for WKND in 2016. He turned pro in 2017. He's still involved at WKND, but injuries have taken their toll on his skateboard tricks so he works behind the scenes. Jordan also does a belt and clothing company called Loosey.

I like how the Toy Machine ads were looking in 2012. This would've been in the time after their Brainwash video from 2010. Ed was using bigger photos and not as much additional art. The graphic designer in me hates the small text and copy in the trim zones.

The photo is by Eric "Rodent" Cheslak.

For the quote: Transworld - July 2012 Volume 30 Number 7

Thrasher - February 2012 Volume 32 Number 2