Saturday, March 21, 2015

The "LUX" Video Review


After 5 years of keeping the whole scene on their toes, Friendly has pulled through and dropped their epic full length video, LUX.  Peasley and I got the honor of peeping the flick before it came out.  Here's our rundown on all the parts..


           It kicks off with a shade of black with those "Friendly" letters fading in to get you stoked and basically saying finally... finally! It dives right into the opening montage which sets the vibe for the video and rolls through the whole line up. Whilst casually melting your mind with the bails and shenanigans about unroll within these dudes parts.





Aaron Bransdon comes through with the first part full speed with shit under control.  We've heard that pretty much all of his footage is from a trip to Cali that he took back in 2012 that's been resting until now.. and it still delivers! Long effortless grinds and like I said speed. Makes you wonder if you get your speed from your grandma.




Mark Abbott kicking the door down to join the party with his one of a kind style & scooter wizardry, putting together tricks like it's a gnarly spell or something funn like that. Mark is from New Zealand so he's got the homie clips from Jasper Russell-Dennis & Lawrence Rubin featured in there.  His last tricks are some of the most serious drop ins we've ever seen. They'll have you slammin your keyboard yer so damn stoked.

Jon Archer cruises in surfing with solid flowy lines and technical maneuvers that will keep ya fancy. His song works so well with his style that you'd of thought Jon wrote this as his theme song. Fucking sick ass part, definitely one of our favorites.


Alex Collins hucks some nifty looking gaps n slides those rails nicely, his style reminds me of a bmx rider but he throws some switch tricks into the mix! Also has a siickk ledge combo second to last trick that looks like he's ready for battle n' will not slow down.

The first Friends section is full of gems for days, shout out to all those shredders! It's sick to see the mix of new age riders with some OG guys like Coedie.  Really stoked to see some footage of Jackson Manzie thrown in as well since he the originator of the whole LUX project.  Moey Ahmad gets an honorable mention with some heavy peg tricks, not too many people have heard of this guy outside of Australia but this dude slays!

Reece Alderton comes in hard with a bail that gets sketchy fast! Then long smooth steeze to match up to with a mellow hiphop track that makes it an easy watch.  However, the track might be a little too mellow because they're some bangers that don't pop off as hard as they could of at the end.  With that being said it was definitely a sick part! Those kinkers are crazy.

Darcy Altavilla rides through some good shit to give ya the gold, gets there n' when he gets there, he gives ya the tricks you want. Some clips in there with the classic short bars and original Proto deck that gets any old dude stoked to see again.

Next up is another friends montage that's two song with almost mini parts of dudes that got some steez to keep ya hooked.  Some really sick clips from the filmer/editor Sean Furze. As well as a guy we've never heard from before, Jami Chan.  James Bull wraps up the section killing it around on rails, ledges, and gaps .  The rail he hits at the end is pretty absurd it seems like he can't even believe he rolled away.

Luke Maffesoni understood the first time someone told him "just go for it" Riding up, down, and off gnarly objects with some heavy stuff.. brings the briflips to the street spots that they should be thrown down at.  If there's one dude who can make briflips look good, it's Maff.  There looks there was something missing on the ender though.  The angle doesn't really do it justice and the clip before it was pretty fucked, we thought that clip would've worked better.
Royce King comes in breaking shit in short shorts or boxers? We dont really know but it's no ones bussiness what he wears riding like that. Puts the pants on to give us a real sick flowy line. The dude can shred n huck himself over any sized gap. There's this one trick over a handrail into a bank.. yeah look out for that one, it's not even last trick.  Don't even get us started on the last trick, you have to see the gap to truly understand how mental Royce really is.  We just had to post this.




And the last part goes to Kevin Austin, Mr. Control, Dr. Smooth.  It's unreal how clean this guy lands every trick. A well deserved last part for sure.  Every rail, doesn't matter what grind it is, he's locked isn't gonna slip out.  We don't want to say a lot cause there's too much to go on about but you guys won't be disappointed at all after watching this. The banger is intense.


Good video all n' all, everyone had their own stuff to bring to the video. We felt that the soundtrack was lacking at times and the editing definitely could have been better for all the time gone by.  However the riding alone speaks for itself. There's so many siick spots on here that dont get shredded twice over. A good 5 years well used dudes!

Be sure to head over to  http://www.friendlybrand.net/ to download the video once it drops! They'll be releasing the hard copies soon so you can add LUX to your DVD collection.

- McKeen & Peasley