Back to Basics

Wow, long time no blog. But thats ok, cause its gonna be back in full swing.

Heres a little blast from the past to tie things over.

Spring Cleaning

The other night, I was just doing a little spring time cleaning on my hard drives and coming across some aweeeesome shit! Tonnes of old MSN recived files, and photos of just stupid shit. Nothing tops the videos though, just a whole mess of quicktimes and wmv's from a not so distant past!



Once upon a time, I used to be good at skateboarding.



Phil still rules. This was before LaBella and I rode for King Boardshop, and we were actually riding for Full Tilt's B-Team for this competition, which was totally a bust, cause they ened up winning the contest, and we never got PAID! hahaha, whatever, Shit was still fun, plus the King Boardshop scouts were out in full effect, and were quick to scoop us up after our one day contracts with FT were up.

Milton Park vs. The Rail

These past few weekends have been a Blast! Milton has been reppin hard, and skating even harder... and I guess, Drinking, even harder? Ohhhhhhhhhhh Yeah. Well, back to the skating, and this time, to the rail park. It was my first time out, and I was amazed to see how we got the place to ourselves. We got down to business and ripped hard. Who didnt come away with hella flat spots? Needles to say, the flat bar got a solid beating from one Jonathan Condren, and no quarter pipe was safe from Jays wrath of gnar. Cseff was out in full force and looks like hes been sleeping under a bridge for the past 3 months! There can never be enough power-slides when the Labellas are around, and this night was noooooooooo exception. Thanks to everyone for such a rad sesh, and a super huge awesome shout out to Kev for the hot rides. Pizza's on me next time!

VHS Is The New DVD

With the recent "Limited Edition" release of Krooked's new video Gnar Gnar, shot entirely on VHS-C Cameras and available only on VHS Format, everyone is jumpin on the bandwagon to bring back this almost dead format. Its only a matter of time before they bring out the VHS-C iPod! What better time that now to dig into some of my old VHS tapes and post up some clips from sessions past. God only knows how many hours of footage there are of shell park sessions with Appleyard, Sauga night missions with Cseff and Capper, all day Milton street spot sesh's, Shortys gear from head to toe was a must.

In this post ive dug up an old sponsor tape I probably made in grade 8 or 9. Peep the heavy flossing of DC shoes, and "Gold" watches I used to rock. Oh mannnn! Amazing! Theres probably a few tricks in there I would be hard pressed to do now!



The second clip I posted was just a log of old footage from the same tape featuring vintage Volpe, LaBella, Big Willy J, and way to much crappy footage of myself. So fire up those VHS tapes and search for gold!



Worst fake steeze ever. what!

Diggin Deep

Its been a while since I have posted anything, but rest assured, the Blog is back in full force. Be sure to check back for a recent "428 Field Trip" Starring Carmine LaBella. But for now, I have come classic 35mm shots from the depths of my harddrives.



Carm Gets Down on a Switch Flip in the Harsh Oakville Winter.



Condren with a familiar 180 nosegrind. I remember Mccourt giving me some lighting pointers on this shot.



Growing up in Milton, there was really nothing to skate, so anytime we got to "travel" to missisauga, it was always a good sesh. Me an Marc Madersbacher used to cruise around and skate all day, hittin up all the sauga spots.



LaBella throws down a FS nosegrind in the Milton ghetto. We put coping on this ledge, and hit it hard almost everyday. You may reconize this hot ledge from John LaBellas STNS part, where he serves up a fresh FS willy. Speaking of which...





This Ramp has been in the scene for many years. It started off as a hella steep, hella vert, pretty much unskateable ramp, but we fixed it up, recut the tranny, and it was golden. Volpe obviously killed it, this FS flip is a lofty example.

For Those Who Dont Already Know...

No Words, Just ...

Top of The Charts

T-Cab and I were talking the other day about google searches, and what comes up when you look up certain things. T-Cabs blog and site get the top hits when you search em in google:

http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=andrew+norton&meta=

My name doesnt quite bring up the same thing. It seems someone else has already claimed top cheese as "Kris King Photography". Wierd thing is, the guy is from Toronto. Thats fine with me, cause I like to play it from all angles, im not gonna limit myself to just photography like he does:

http://www.kriskingphoto.com/

WESTmetro Productions on the other hand, brings up some intersting results. Ranging from other peoples skate video blogs, to this crazy asian site:



Looks like were takin over the world. Stay tuned for more vids, and not just some stupid stuff I find in google. Holler!

428 and a Half

So, Carm was down for the week, and it was much fun. Comming off his recent liver hacking, Carm is back on the mean streets, and rocking vans harder than Salman Agah. It was obvious that a 428 Morning Moss sesh was in order, and getting three drunk bastards up at 10:30 am was nothing short of a miracle .... or maybe it was just Andrews home-made banana pan cakes. Deee lish. This is a video summary of what happens when Moss gets attacked, by 428 and a Half.

428 December

The combined forces of 428 Media, ie T-Cab and King, have been taking advantage of this unseasonably warm weather to "get stoked". I know ive been lacking a bit on the postings, but its only because I have been to busy skating! T-Cab and I have been rolling with many-a-crew around toronto, and hitting up some well known spots. Here is a little taste of summer, right in the middle of winter!

Pooched It!

I poached this clip of poached footage from a morning moss sesh like 3 or 4 weeks ago. Mike Maines was on fire landing every trick possible. Props to T-Cab with the Smith Seq. Holla!

Bolton Park!

The Dream is now a reality, well, almost. Last weekend, John and I traveled North up to Bolton for an early sesh at the brand new Bolton Park. We got in a decent session with some of the local skate rats, the park wasnt 100% finished, but it was close enough. There were still large sections of concrete that still needed to dry, and they were tarped off. But the parts that we could skate were amazing. Its pretty cool when you get to see, and SKATE a park that you helped design from the ground up.

Pimp My Space

Recently, I recieved an email from Gordons people, requesting some footage for Andrew's MySpace page. I thought it was a little wierd, but whatever, some people like to pimp thier page.

"Hey Kris King. This is Andrew's friend.. we need the footage for him personally. We're editing his myspace and want some footage. We'll give you thanks. Email it to cxxxxxxxxxxn@hotmail.com Thanks man!"


Hopefully this footy will help Gordo mack hot internet bitches!


- Older Footy


- Still Old, But Not Sooo Old Footy

Suffer The Toy

Ed Templeton and Toy Machine have come out with another gem of a video, Suffer the Joy. Toy Machine videos are instant classics. I still watch Good and Evil on a daily basis. Cant wait to see the new B-Marks and J-Lay footy!



Classic.

Bump to Three

This spot was recently blown up when the 5Boro team came and put the hurt down in Toronto. Its a really fun spot, and is tucked away from most anyone who would care, or kick you out. T-Cab and I decided to mission to find this spot, and came up succesful. We also found some other dope spots, such as a gnarly 11 stair with perfect run. Heres some of the footy from the day.

Plan Bizzle

Plan B - Life After Death

A real YouTube Gem. Amazing skating from the whole team. I think Ryan Galant gets the VIP on this one. PJ Ladd has to much control to be human. Classic Wenning footy aswell.

The Block is Hot!

Its nice to have some half decent weather these past few days and be able to skate with the crew of 428! Just a stones throw from our apartment is this curb spot. Its super rad cause they re-paved it, and left the parking blocks in during the process. The end result is a perfectly skatable, slappy-able, painted block. We wax the hell outta the bitch and grind for days. Heres what went down Sunday night!

Two Thumbs Up: The Lost Tapes

Simple Fact: To put together a video, you need to film.... alot. More often than not, you come up with footage that was just for the hell of it, or a "maybe this could work" angle, or just some stupid line that didnt go down. These next few videos will be just that, the unused tapes. Im in the works of putting together all the lost or old footage from the past Two Thumbs... I mean years. Enjoy!


Kris King


Carmine LaBella

Harsh Euro Barge

man i have been so many places already and i still have 5 more countries to go to in the next 2 and half weeks, we are in berlin germany right now. i saw Chany at MACBA haha he was wearing the same shoes as me(royal family tedfords), and a nike sb guy from here but his name i cant remember. Yes sir next season is hammer season this was our year off to re-energize after the epic two thumbs up year...i checked out t-cabs site, so hype that guy is killing it..behind the lens lol. anyways i will try and talk to you again soon, peace out buddy say hi to everyone i would say hi to if i were with you.

-will

Reppin Bolton

Labella and I recently had the opportunity to help plan, and design the new skatepark being built in Bolton, Ontario. The township of Caledon had a few meetings with the local skaters, and brought in a design firm to get started on some plans for the new park.

We didnt make it to the first meeting, but that wasnt a huge problem, because we hit the second one hard. It was obvious that the park was pretty un-skateable, and we knew that we could change that.

We set up a smaller third meeting, with the designer, town counsil, the rest of the KBS team and a few others. We came prepared with scale drawings and layouts of the park we wanted to build.



"No, Scrap it, We want this here, and this here.... NOW!" - John LaBella


We were amazed at open they were to our ideas, and actually willing to design what we had brought to the table. John, Phil and I completely re-worked the whole bottom half of the street section, added our own obstacles, and gave the park a much more skatable, flowing design.



They have already started construction, and they say it should be done towards the end of november. Its really a simple design, so I dont see any problems with that. We all know that skatepark deadlines are really just up in the air. Cant wait to skate it though.

Check out http://www.ccsk8.ca/ for more info on the park.

When Your Downtown

Its been amazing living downtown, just a quick skate or street car will get you to any spot. The 428 crew (T-Cab, Labella & King) hit up the streets with Mr. Adam Cseff during a recent visit. We didnt film much, but here's a little bit of footy from the night sesh.