This aint California - Good work Marten and Kaio!!

Bright Days in December

- December 28th, 2012 -

December 2012 was incredible sunny in Barcelona. There was nonstop blue skies, not a single cloud and it even started being quite warm again most of the days. After the finish crew left all the german boys arrived just on the next day - My former roommate and very good friend Basti who had left me last autumn to instead start a new life with his lovely girl, newborn daughter and two pugs in cologne, my good friend Malte from Hamburg and also Petzi, who had been in Costa Rica for the past year building skateparcs in poor areas and pushing the scene down there. Theres a documentary coming out soon about it, have them eyes open for that one. Sadly I was starting to become a little stressed from having so many people in my flat nonstop, trying to start a serious relationship around it and also having some broken harddrives drama. Last issue made me rip out my own hair for quite some days, luckily the drives were seagate drives and they have the best customer service ever. After the guys left, Rita and me finally had some time for us after 6 weeks of action, which we gladly spent with some amazing brunch session together with Julien and Helmi. Christmas was coming, and I went on some last filming sessions with the Antiz guys Steve Forstner, Dallas Rockvam, Paul Labadie and also Julian Dykmans, Phil Zwjisen, Bram de Cleen and Dominik Dietrich. After most of them left the city and hopped on planes to different destinations to spend their holidays with their families I had decided to stay in Barcelona and get comfortable with my girl. We had an amazing Christmas dinner with Julien, Helmi, Patrick Bös, and Johannes Bayer. Sadly we had to spend some of the following days in the hospital because Rita had some serious problems with her toncils, but in the end everything turned out good. There was tons of work left in those last weeks, my friend Maria was in town and we finished her dancing shortfilm “Ruvye”, I finished my first Showreel and we finally found a narrator for the Flamenco Documentary we’d been working on for almost 2 years now. While writing these lines I’m sitting in the plane over a pitch black Sahara, flying to the next adventure and re-visiting Cape Town, South Africa.

Ruvye on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/56848570

Ruvye

Starring Maria Munain Moral

Directed by Lucas Fiederling

BCN X Finland

- November 18th, 2012 -


BCN Life continued as it is. We managed to get a lot of footage, especially Eniz killed it of course. Also Rita and me started getting more and more excited about baking our own bread and eating good food. Parties happened only a few in these days, but we still managed to have our fun outdoors. It also started getting cold in Barcelona, so the days became shorter and the footage hunt more and more exhausting. Cops have been all over us as usual, its incredible how bad that situation became these days in Catalunya. Theres tons of people getting robbed all day, but instead of dealing with that the cops decide to kick out some skaters most of their day, arriving with 2 copcars and 5 angry officers to tell 5 finnish tourists who are skating around in the sun on some plaza to fuck off, go back to their country and that they will take away their boards if they see them again. And after that they walk away high five-ing each other as if they have done some good work there. Fucking retards, go to school, learn some english if you work as a cop in a city that lives from its tourism and start doing your job instead of busting people that don’t harm anybody besides making a bit of noise in the city center next to the cars, carnage trucks, mofas and whatnot.

Back in Barna

- September 27th, 2012 -

Arriving back in Barcelona was kind of weird. It was the first time I went back after a long journey and was totally not motivated to be there. Still I was keen to be back in my flat of course, and was looking forward to some sunny days. My friends Leslie and Tobi from Germany visited me for the first week and we did some nice non-skating activities such as swimming in the pool on montjuic a lot, taking bikes all the way to Badalonas beaches or hanging out in Parc Güell. This just continued like crazy, my friend Sina came for a visit and after that Rita whom I met in Finland and we actually started dating so my focus was a little bit away from the “usual” Barcelona days. I still had Niklas SVC, Phil Swjisen, Dennis Behrens and Dennis Laaß coming to stay at my place for some days. We went on a bunch of footage hunting missions, also accompanied by Benny Fairfax, Ross McGouran, Chris Oliver, Luypa Sin, Flo Marfaing etc…and finally after a quite comfortable month all the finish homies arrived - Samu Karvonen, Eniz Fazliov, Tommy Puustinen, Pete Ruikka and Ron - all staying at my place. So I had 5 finish guys plus my finish girlfriend in my flat! Goodtimes though, skating, cooking, beers, filming, movies - I had to realize once again that I feel more at home if there is a bunch of friends laying around on the floor everywhere, than if I have my privacy.

Cologne / Willow

- August 25th, 2012 -

The trip to my hometown in west germany was horrible. Sam and me went by trains, a full day journey and it was around 37 Celcius that day. Luckily when we finally arrived my mum had set up a pool in the garden so we could cool off. We stayed out there a whole month, chilling with my mum and going back and forth to Cologne to film with Willow for his upcoming part in my video and also his upcoming Transworld spotlight “Willows World”. Once again, luck was not on our side. Willow started having some knee problems after just a few days of getting some Bangers, so we ended up only shooting with him for the first half of our stay. Sam left to Hannover for some days and I had a visit from Volcoms photographer Jelle Keppens and wonderkid Axel Cruysberghs. Again, we had a hard time getting some good shit done, but at least got 3 Tricks with him also. Better than nothing.. Besides skating and shooting we enjoyed some nice days at the campfire in my mums little paradise garden, just as I love it every summer if I have the time to pass by. Seeing all them friends and family, plus even Maria who recently had moved away from Barcelona and now lived in Amsterdam came for a visit, which was really lovely. Finally I also filmed some advertisements for Cleptomanicx sublabel Lousy Living, who make the best boxershorts in the game - starring Dennis Behrens, Paco Elles, Niklas Speer von Cappeln, Willow, Vladik Scholz, Tjark Thielker

Hamburg / This aint California

- August 5th, 2012 -

From Finland me and Sam Clark went to Hamburg to visit Niklas again. The Plan was to get some stuff done for his part in his hometown, and besides many days of enjoying summer, eating good on the Schanze and hanging out with all the homies we also got quite some skating in. Also memorable was a wonderful day on the Alster river I spent canoeing with my best friend Anja who visited me there - Hamburg can really feel like Venice in that way. After staying at Niklas place we moved to my friend Ben Wes crib for the last week, which was more centered and made it easier to get to all them spots. All in all a good time, although I wish we would’ve been a bit more productive - Hamburg’s a lazy city! I also had free tickets to the premiere of “This aint California”, a feature film - documentary by director Marten Persiel about skateboarding in the DDR back in the days. My friend, skateboarder and actor Kai Hillebrandt stars as the main character “Panik”, and I was blown away by the whole movie. Good acting, good edit, nice filming and hell of a story. A must see not only for skateboarders!

Helsinki Tour

- July 27th, 2012 -

On the 13th of June it was time to head to Helsinki, Finland already. The first week the mission was to film as much as possible with Samu Karvonen, Eniz Fazliov and Niklas Speer von Cappeln for my new skateflick. We were not exactly lucky with the weather, but still managed to use every dry minute to get bangers. Sam Clark joined us aswell and we stayed at Samu and Vanttes place, a little outside of the city located right next to a beautiful forest. Our friends Harvey and Meri from Barcelona were working on a boat-restaurant in the time we’ve been there, so all the free evening beers were no problem either. Sadly we caught a flew and all had to stay in bed with fever for the second week of our stay, but luckily got over it and were able to hit the streets again. All the good food we cooked together instead of the usual partying might have helped a lot to get over it. I personally had a great time in Finland also because of many warm up sessions in cool DIY-parcs I had, it’s always a good time for me if I get to skate enough myself. Finally for the last week of our time in this beautiful country we lived at our friend Raakels dads penthouse suite in the center - for free. We had a terrace there, so we made some great BBQ nights with Popa, Mila, Teemu, Pete, Raakel, Samu and the whole crew. The last weekend me and Sam had to shoot the Helsinki Hook Up Contest for Monster Energy, which turned out to be way more fun than expected. Finish people know how to party, thats for sure, and thats what everyone did all weekend. Still everyone also skated hard, especially Jonas Skroeder, Austyn Gillette and Eniz, who finally took first place home were killing it constantly. There was an aftershowparty everyday (even before the contest actually began) and when Eniz won we had to extend our weekend for another day, adding even another one because it then was our last night. We spent the last one going to a blues jamsession, the Volcom guys were out there including my good friend from back in the days Peter Molec, everyone from our finish crew came out for a last drinking session including Mikki, Anna, Meri, Harvey, Brian, Popa, Mila, Samu, Vantte, Teemu.. simply everyone (besides Pete and Raakel, who were simply too destroyed). Thank all of you, thank you Finland. Time for the next adventure and see you all next summer…

Edward Sharpe / Anjas Bday

- July 12th, 2012 -

After the RVCA summertour I spend a week at my mums place in Germany. First day when I arrived in Düsseldorf I met with Anja, Barbara, Yarek and Johnny to go to an Edward Sharpe concert in Cologne. It was one of the best concerts I have been to, the perfect place to drink some more beers and let all these great tourlife memories pass by again, while dancing the night away with some super close friends. From there on I had some organization to do, sort some office work out and work on Marias dancing showreel “Ruvye”. Also had some nice dinners with my mum, saw some of the homies and just enjoyed a few days off.

Summer Bright 012

- July 5th, 2012 -

It was a long and amazing tour, and when we arrived in Berlin everyone started being a little bit tired already. Anyways there was filming missions planned every day from 13h, but I had to wake up earlier a few days to hit the Bright Tradeshow and start talking some business for my new Project, an Indy skatefilm that I started working for in Arizona already and that I planned to finish until late 2013. It didn’t go as good as planned, business was going through tough times as usual when I start talking to potential sponsors for a new project. Anyways, after that the skating days felt super long of course, but we still got a bunch of amazing footage. Andrea doSouto joined us to shoot for RVCA Girl, and even Epicly Later’d creator Patrick O'dell joined us for a day. One of the best things about the days in Berlin was, as usual, the food. Every evening there was some RVCA Sales Meeting BBQ or a Nike Party or the MSM Party and we even went on a boat ride for our last team dinner, always free beer included aswell of course! One last fun thing was helping out Mark Nickels to film the last session for his upcoming Documentary, so we hit the new DIY Indoor Spot Lennie Burmeister build next to “Betonhausen”. We got some great footage and the session was incredible, Tom Penny was killing it, Greyson Fletcher, Curren Caples, Louie Lopez - and since the session was so good I called up Spanky and Charles to join aswell, which they did and in the end Spanky even got some of the main bangers of the session.