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00:06I'm MatterZaps and I'm on a mission to explore skateboarding outside EDGE.
00:11Hop in as we travel the world meeting skateboarding mavericks to find out what skating means to them.
00:34Welcome back to Skate Tales, another episode of Awesomeness with Matt Tomasello and the Crazy Fancy Lad crew.
00:44By the way, Boston, USA.
01:03Can you look away for a second while I try?
01:19America!
01:37Fancy Lad headquarters, some of the most creative skaters out there.
01:44So excited to see them.
01:46Nice to meet you, glad you made it.
01:49Matt Tomasello and the Fancy Lad gang have flipped what we know as skateboarding on its head.
01:54As some of the most innovative and creative backyard wizards ever,
01:58they have taken the concept of tricks and board assembly into new realms of insanity.
02:03Not only have they produced some of the funniest skate videos ever,
02:07but the first anti-skateboarding video too.
02:10With his range of jerry-rigged, spring-loaded manips,
02:13Matt and the boys have pushed the boundaries of skate possibility into a light-hearted but gnarly space.
02:19With their Boston skate house acting as a kind of insane laboratory,
02:23the Fancy Lad's have won worldwide acclaim as their creations
02:26and Reckless Charm have seen them showcased in museums and comedy shows alike.
02:32Join me as we try to unravel whether skateboarding is art, comedy or a heady mix of both.
02:38We're going skating the Fancy Lad way.
02:45Just got here to Fancy Lad crew.
02:48Looks like they're doing some refurbishment of the house and got a new van.
03:00Yeah, I grew up with like a dirt road and a dirt driveway in Halifax, Massachusetts.
03:05Probably a little before the year 2000, around like the first Tony Hawk game when that came out.
03:09Yeah, that's when I started skating.
03:11This was the first video Matt Tomasello ever saw.
03:15Also his favorite video of all time.
03:17Fun fact.
03:19Yeah, one of my friends who like got me into skating.
03:21Yeah, he bought, yeah, a toy machine jump off the building.
03:23And we used to watch that every day and just try to skate like that.
03:30We're going to skate this skate spot just across the street from where Fancy Lad's at.
03:36And nobody really skates it, but only the Fancy Lad guys.
03:42Yeah, me and Sam concreted that barrier.
03:46And the dudes who helped build the skate park built that quarter pipe.
03:49And we just caulked this thing to the ground like last week.
03:52I haven't skated yet, but...
03:55Dave Darling's box isn't looking too good anymore.
03:58Oh my God.
03:59But that box over there is at least 20 years old.
04:03It was all ripped up right before that bang, so...
04:06We skated here occasionally, but it was not a...
04:09It's not really a fun spot to skate because it was kind of too crusty.
04:14For now, you know, probably the last like year.
04:24I don't know if Matt told you, he started his own wax company.
04:27So he's an entrepreneur now, such as myself.
04:30I own Fancy Lad Skateboards, Matt.
04:34He's the proud sole proprietor of Spooky Boys Wax Co.
04:38Oh, God!
04:39He doesn't actually sell it to anybody.
04:41It's a way to keep it in high demand.
04:46Yeah!
04:53Yeah!
04:54Haw!
05:00Yeah!
05:12Oh my god! Wow! That was insane! Bigzo eats a lot of shit, so I've seen him take some slams,
05:22but that one was pretty fucking, you know, just the odds just seem extremely, it's really low
05:29that something like that would happen.
05:33I moved into the city after college, and we used to make videos just to have homey premieres
05:42at the Coliseum, and once that shut down, we just kept making skate videos, and it was
05:50Artie's idea, he said, why don't you guys just print some boards and put a name at the beginning
05:55of your video, and then you'll actually have a company. And I said, not a bad idea.
06:01It was created in 2011. I thought it was a pretty funny joke at the beginning.
06:14The first video is a total chaotic, I've heard it been called, like, an anti-skate video,
06:20so we thought we were pretty ground-breaking at the time, but everyone thought we were a bunch of losers.
06:28Oh! Almost!
06:30Good try! See, my wife used to say, honey, you're gonna break a leg! I said, break a leg!
06:45That was so sick!
06:47I've always, yeah, I've always kind of known them, just from the Coliseum video and everything,
06:51but, uh, yeah, when 1031 went out of business, probably about 10 years ago, Big gave me a call,
06:57and was like, hey, you should ride from Fancy Lad, and FL3 had just come out, and I really liked
07:01the video,
07:02so I just decided to skate for Fancy Lad.
07:09He said that that video, you know, changed his perspective on the company, because it was taking it to another
07:17level.
07:20There you go!
07:21It was kind of when we first fully formed the vision of the company.
07:28Silver at best.
07:30Those VX cameras!
07:33Yeah, they always break, and you always gotta fix them.
07:37It just ate it, you know?
07:42It's gonna miss the shit!
07:44They don't know that.
07:45They don't know it, but it's gonna help the clip.
07:55See, all that work finally paid off.
08:02See that, the inside?
08:13He did all that work!
08:16Hehe!
08:22He did!
08:28He did!
08:41The Obviously, the practice and learnings
08:43him to become more
08:57Check this out. This is where Matt lives. It's like a community here.
09:04Hello.
09:05What's good?
09:06Good morning.
09:06Good morning.
09:08Yeah, I grew up near like Plymouth, like this town called Halifax. It's like 40 miles out, but it's just
09:14like the woods.
09:15Yeah, that's where you started skating?
09:17Yeah, dirt driveway, dirt road.
09:20No, no flat?
09:21No, we used to like lay plywood down and skate.
09:26Skater of the year. One million?
09:29Yeah.
09:31Whoa.
09:31I spent it all already though.
09:34So Matt lives in this house and the rest of the Fancy Lad crew lives in that house.
09:40I'm actually playing Tony Hawk right now because I'm like working from home. So I always run the Tony Hawk
09:46Pro Skater 2. Best game ever. Boston Legend. This is the Coliseum video. But yeah, no, PJ Led has put
09:54Boston on the map, 2002. And I mean, that pretty much spawned Coliseum, which pretty much spawned Fancy Lad. Here
10:01we are today.
10:02Is that where we all met?
10:03Yeah.
10:06This is where most of the Fancy Lad videos are made.
10:08This is where the magic happens.
10:10So I guess these are kind of like a bunch of sketch ideas. Skateboard confessionals with priests.
10:15Christmas boner. Eric is pregnant.
10:18That's the board closet right there if you want to take a look at the inventory just to prove that
10:22we're a skateboard company. Go ahead, show them the board, man.
10:25Orange man, Abraham Dubin. Pro skater.
10:29Yeah, it's got a short wheel base. Yeah, for all those slap ears out there. You want it? You want
10:36that board? Yes. Take it.
10:39Oh. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what I'm talking about. I mean, I went to school for painting, but I kind
10:48of stopped because I started a skateboard company.
10:54Damn, who's that sexy mother? Oh, my bad. That's me.
10:57I secretly put them in every team rider's room so they know that I'm there, you know, just watching them.
11:05But they don't know where the painting is.
11:06I know it's a mess. Oh, I'm sorry. But that's the VHS nook in there. You'll find some gems in
11:12there, such as Tony Hawk's Trick Tips and Tony Hawk's Trick Tips Volume 2.
11:17Oh, this is my studio. This is where I make my beats. And I made this sick drum right here.
11:26I started doing TM myself, Transcendental Meditation. I was inspired by David Lynch.
11:33And then I keep these notebooks to make titles for all the videos. This is when we did the Adult
11:41Swim Edit, which I think might be our best work to date.
11:54So you've been living the longest in this house? Yeah. Yeah, I am. I'm the only sucker that could withstand
12:01it the whole time here.
12:02I mean, the company wouldn't exist without the skate house. That's the whole basis of how the company functions.
12:20I mean, it's definitely a vacuum of sorts where we, you know, are influenced by each other. But as long
12:28as Fancy Lad has existed, like minded people have been magnetized to it and seek it out and make the
12:36pilgrimage to the house.
12:41I mean, it's a home for people who are looking for the other in skateboarding.
12:46All right.
12:47Come on.
12:50All right.
13:07.
13:08Growing up in the suburbs of Massachusetts, you don't have anything to skate. So, you make
13:14do with a crack in the ground you know skating your driveway just spots that
13:20you wouldn't even consider spots you just start looking at over the years
13:24and then starting to sort of expand your your view on the entire this one area of
13:31skating that you've seen. I credited that to each of us just having grown up in
13:41Massachusetts and never left. Now this, this is a fancy lad spot right here.
13:55One of the sickest Chinese ollies I've seen. I don't know if that's you know the
13:58politically correct term anymore, but.
14:09The truth is that we weren't as professional athletes as the other guys.
14:18We have a really good sense of humor and we like to entertain each other.
14:23All right, let's just go. No, don't touch it.
14:28We weren't very tragic so then the next operation we would be comedy.
14:34We take it really seriously but it's at the end of the day too it's it's all for a
14:39laugh and we're just taking our it's like a comedian who takes their jokes very seriously.
14:47This is what it's come to. Everything's been done in skateboarding.
14:53Skating is easy to segment into so many other genres.
14:59Perfectly good. All right.
15:00And the best in art defies genre labels and I think this does that.
15:06If it had to have a genre it'd be clown jazz skateboarding.
15:23A ton more possibilities. It's funny. I think there's like a comedy aspect to it too.
15:28Like you gotta laugh, you know?
15:57We knew we weren't going to be good enough to make a video on a professional level skill-wise.
16:05So we thought it would be funny if if you made a video and where people just couldn't look away
16:11just because it's not really skating what we're doing. It's skate art. He's a scardist.
16:18Yeah, you know what? I'm showing you the Charlie Wilkins rail then.
16:22Oh dude, yeah. We gotta look at the Fred Gahl rail up here where he went 50-50 to 50
16:27-50.
16:27That wasn't Fred Gahl. That was Clint whatever who skates for Birdhouse.
16:32No, he did not. No, he did not. Show me the footage.
16:35Oh my god. Fred Gahl did it years before.
16:36No goddamn way in hell. Fred Gahl did it years before.
16:39Because I think it was from like the Eastern Exposure video.
16:41I'm taking a fucking- No, it's definitely not in the Eastern Exposure video.
16:44I'm taking a photo and I'm sending it to him right now.
16:49Take the photo. All right, we're pulling up.
16:52We're pulling up. We can get Fred Gahl on the line.
16:54This is the rail right here.
16:57Did you do anything on this rail? Grinded it on an OJ trip.
17:02Was it 50-50 on the rail? Yeah.
17:04Did you 50-50 the rail and Ollie to 50-50 on the ledge? No.
17:09I think it was 50 F2 if it was like 50-50 to 5-0.
17:13Oh my god, dude.
17:18Skateboarding is very silly. Skating with Matt Tomasello.
17:21It's funny, but he's so fucking talented.
17:26It's crazy to skate with him every single day because, you know,
17:29he can go out and like blunt slide a handrail first try,
17:32but you don't really see that because it's just like boring to him.
17:36OCD sort of- I mean, Matt skates like his
17:40brain's working in slow motion sometimes, I feel like,
17:43just because of how technical he can get.
17:47First time doing skating with a trampoline.
17:51Let's go!
17:58I'd say he's a really good skateboarder.
18:00I think a lot of people sometimes overlook what he's doing,
18:03and maybe it's because it's at a point where it's so like,
18:07whoa, like how did that even happen?
18:09Like they're to the point where they like can't relate.
18:21I appreciate and respect that because he's constantly finding ways to
18:27not only keep it more fun and like make it fun,
18:30but it's also just like, whoa, how did you even think of that?
18:35Sometimes you just got to sit back and watch and enjoy the view.
18:41I'll see you next time.
18:44Bye.
18:49Bye.
18:58Bye.
18:59Bye.
19:00Bye.
19:25This guy's been my neighbor for a year and a half, and I've never seen that.
19:36I mean, like all creative skateboarding, we steal from the best.
19:41So, like any, you know, creative endeavor, you borrow from what inspires you.
19:47For us, Simon Woodstock.
19:51As far as creative skateboarding goes though, Simon Woodstock obviously was an inspiration
19:55because of all the manipulations.
19:58Oh, you know, Simon Woodstock started it, but people forget about him.
20:04And then you think you invent something, you know?
20:08Then you start looking at those old VHS tapes again, and Simon did it.
20:13But who did it before Simon?
20:15So I heard you do some manips?
20:17Oh yeah.
20:18Like manipulations of the skateboard?
20:20Yeah, it's just the weird boards, you know?
20:23Oh yeah, here's the one I already made though.
20:26Spring loaded?
20:27Yeah, so like self-closing, you know?
20:29There's like springs in it that want it to...
20:33And where did you get this idea from?
20:36The first person I ever saw do it was Jesse James and Chris Atherton in Golden Egg, that video.
20:44And Abe was really inspired by that orange man, and me and him filmed a lot at the time.
20:48And I was filming him do the crazy boards.
20:50He has like the mini-innie, so he's got like a skateboard inside the skateboard secretly.
20:55Yeah, I think that's pretty clever.
20:57And yeah, he kind of inspired me to just get into it and start doing it.
21:00With like, you know, more of like the technical stuff.
21:03Like, he started using like a lot of hinges and things like that.
21:06And yeah, me and him were just filming a bunch and just started doing it myself.
21:15They're in the Netherlands right now for like an art show, I guess.
21:19An art.
21:19They paid for me to like send them out there.
21:21So they're all on display with like a video clip, I guess.
21:24Like Tweak Art is the name of it.
21:26But I think I'm going to get them back in like a month or so.
21:28How many of them?
21:29Eight.
21:31Yeah, all eight.
21:32Definitely.
21:33I never thought anyone would want them.
21:35So it's cool to see them somewhere, you know.
21:38Yeah, I got one in the Ripley's Museum, I guess.
21:41Yeah.
21:42Were you surprised that someone saw it as art?
21:45Yeah, it's a bunch of trash.
21:50Trash is the best art.
21:51Yeah, exactly.
21:52Reduce, reuse.
22:00Almost got it in my eye.
22:02These are the videos that I had to send to like the Netherlands.
22:05They're like on display with the boards, I guess.
22:08Yeah, that one's just got like a release mechanism.
22:10So when like the board hits the ground upside down, like this little thing releases and then it springs it
22:14back.
22:15So like see how that thing like released.
22:19It's just like spring loaded hinges.
22:21So they snap back kind of.
22:24But that's the board the mattress is going to try out.
22:27I use cane bolts a lot.
22:29And yeah, the spring loaded hinges mostly because like the springs kind of animate it for you.
22:35So messes with like the physics in the air.
22:37So when they like release, it's like a bear trap, you know.
22:39Oh, yeah.
22:40Scoot.
22:42Good enough.
22:56He's got it.
23:12I think there is a manip version for everyone's skating, whether that be switch up your outfit, switch up, you
23:20know, to an unlikely spot.
23:22I don't know, to to unexpected the expected.
23:49I think we've contributed a lot.
23:52I mean, the amount of hours that we've put into it and the amount of tricks that have only been
23:59done in a Fancy Lad video nowhere else.
24:05I mean, I think there are too many to count.
24:08Is it too fast?
24:10You know, if you've ever watched a Fancy Lad video, all the tricks that everybody does, there was never a
24:15discussion.
24:15It was just completely, it happened.
24:19Hundreds of thousands of tricks happening like every day.
24:22So you just got to focus on the ones nobody's doing, you know, stay ahead of the curve.
24:34This guy Fisk is going off doing all sorts of crazy stuff I've never seen before.
25:01That was fucking, I mean, that was sweet, but not as sweet as that.
25:08That was probably something.
25:12Let's go, let's go, let's go!
25:20I'm very excited to let you know.
25:40Skateboarding has no rules.
25:41People try to make rules, but at the end of the day, there's no rules, you can do whatever
25:46you want.
25:55That's what I like about Fancy Lad, you can film a bike trick, it doesn't matter.
26:02You can do whatever you want, and that's how skateboarding should be, in my opinion.
26:06There's no score system, it doesn't matter, you can do whatever you want, have fun.
26:16See, you gotta smile at the people, so they know that there's nothing to worry about.
26:21Nothing to see here.
26:22Yeah.
26:24Nothing to see here.
26:26You know?
26:27It's a little heavy.
26:36It's a little heavy.
26:47So what is skateboarding to you?
26:48It combines so many different elements of art together, and it's an art form that is
26:57physical.
26:58And next level manip.
27:00And just the experience of going out, filming a trick for five hours, you know, getting
27:07it once for a two-second clip in your video, and just the high that you get from after
27:13doing that is just, I think, what keeps us going and what makes us never stop.
27:23Skateboarding, for me, I think it's just a creative outlet.
27:27I don't know.
27:29Skateboarding can be whatever you want it to be.
27:32Some people say it's an art form, some people say it's a sport.
27:34Whatever you want it to be, you know?
27:36Make what you want out of it.
27:41Making judo?
27:44Ticking back 360 nose grab for heat.
27:46Oh, no, no, wait.
27:46I got it.
27:46I got it.
27:47Sack tap.
27:48Yep.
27:49Sack tap.
27:50Benihana.
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