Simon Jones, James Coyle, Brian Donaghy, Sandy Louden, Chris Hemple

Folk Implosion - Raise the Bells, Castaways - Liar Liar & The Talking Heads - Love -> Building on Fire

We filmed this minivideo over the 6 days we spent in Barcelona from the 25th of November until the 1st of December. It was a great experience, not only were we in Barcelona (the skating mecca of the world) but we also ended up on Les Ramblas, the rowdiest street I've been on. Haha, we also happened to be on the "dodgier" end of the street too which provided us with much entertainment.

From the balcony you could see all the happenings of the street and even at 3am there were hookers trying to score with fat rowdy Scottish drunks, and pick pockets trying to steal from fat rowdy Scottish drunks. Just to give an indication of how well situated our apartment was... right next door was a Stripclub/Sex shop, right outside the door were numerous hookers, directly opposite was a Burger King (which provided us with many a breakfast, brunch, lunch, dinner and suppers haha). To top off the Burger King, the secruity guard (yes Burger King had a security guard) was a pimp. He was trying to set us all up with his 2 girls.

Skating-wise Barcelona is incredible. All the skate spots are close together. For instance at one point we trecked it out to locate Univertistat, we went far out to some subway stop that slightly resembled the word "Univertistat". No dice. We go to MACBA at night and meet this safe English bloke who informs us that Univertistat is only 2 minutes away, and as the legend he was he kindly walked us there. You can get to all the spots from Les Ramblas pretty fast. You can walk/skate to MACBA, Univertistat, Parallel (not that you'd want to), the seafront etc all from the apartment. Sants and Fondo are a few stops away by metro.

We were quite taken back by the skating ability of some of the locals/pros out there. I guess it's what you'd expect from a city famous for skateboarding. At the Sants manny pad square some dudes from a San Fransisco team rolled up... inward heel manny shuvs, switch flip fakie manny pop out, attempted tre nose mannys etc. Stumped my nose manuals haha. At the Sants benches people would be busting perfect lines with stuff like back 180 switch nosegrinds and then floaty switch tres. We rolled up to MACBA on Tuesday being told it was a quiet day to skate there. As we arrive we notice there are like, fuck loads of skaters there. Then you start recognising them all. It's amazing seeing people you idolise skating. William Phan for instance was busting hardflip 5-0s with miles of style. Then you look around... "oh what, that's Stevie Williams!". It's pretty crazy. The only downside is it puts you off skating in those circumstances. I'd hate to get in the way of a switch frontblunt pop out with my 50-50s.

We spent our days skating various spots, then we'd hit up our apartment to watch footage, then go out to MACBA for a night skate and have some beers until maybe 2am. That was a usual day, but each day had it's own charm. Like one day at Sants we were approached by this little black crackdealer in a suit. He offered us crack, in which we declined but he was really friendly (not like UK crackdealers haha!). Later on he comes up to me with a smile and asks for a go on my board in which I oblige... he does some mongo tick tacks and then proceeded to give me skins. Then another night we were pretty drunk and we were following some fucked up American guy who thought he was such a legend.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the minivideo. It was fun to make. Barcelona is happening again on the 15th of Feburary and I really can't fucking wait. Barca Minivideo: Round 2 coming soon (k).