Don LaFontaine R.I.P.

The man who brought you thousands of epic movie trailers, Don LaFontaine, passed away yesterday.



R.I.P, Thunder Throat.

Sunday Service

Mr Kennedy recieves this weeks Sunday Service from the lovely guys at Sidewalk Magazine.
Head over to the Sidewalk site to check out his featured skate sections.

Did he just say caveat?

Just spotted young Mr Toby Paterson on Newsnight there. Lad did well.

Incoming.....

Instore in the next few days.

Who's the daddy?

Shhhh! Don't tell anybody but.........

.....we're expecting a delivery of these in the not too distant future. Only available in store. We'll keep you posted.

The Man Who Cycled The World

If you didn't catch this programme last week on BBC1, I'd highly recommend watching it on the BBC iPlayer.

Mark Beaumont from Scotland broke the solo round the world cycling record earlier this year and what an achievement it was. 18,000 miles in 194 days, completely unassisted. Quite astounding.

Watch The Man Who Cycled The World.

August Nikes.

Bit later than expected is the arrival of August's Nike SB's. Some tasty morsels this month including the all new P-Rod 2 High and the magnificent Unfutura Dunk Hi's.

See and buy online at www.focuspocus.co.uk

Mad Skillz

This guy is pretty original. What do you think?

Benson Front Cover!

Congratulations to Benson for making the cover of the Big Push issue of Document, thats one of the sickest photos i've seen in a long time.

Also in this issue is Edinburgh's very own Beans!

Will be available in both store any day now.

redvision

Was linked to this short on Vimeo the other day, a clip of some skating at that French spot that was quite prominent in Menikmati. What makes this a bit different is the fact that the footage was shot on a Red One camera, which shoots in ultra high definition at 120 frames per second.




Also, it seems that Elwood shortened some of the clips on the team page I linked to in the last post, but luckily someone was savvy enough to rip Kenny Anderson's full clip and fire it up on yoochoob:

Elwood

Elwood have just done a massive update on their site and have footage up from all the pro riders, great stuff too considering it's just throwaway web clip stuff. Kenny Anderson in particular has a sick clip, and John Rattray has a daft trick at Paisley Square, not one I've ever thought of myself anyway.

Check it out at Elwood's website.

On a side note, I hadn't seen this until today:



Geoff Rowlet is insane. Frontside flip.

Gravis IV Skateboarding

Just arrived at Focus is the first installment from the Gravis Skateboarding project. Have a wee gander below to see what it's all about.



For over a year we have been working on a new project here at Gravis, part of our brand’s DNA since day one. We feel that it is now time to confirm the rumors.

Welcome to Gravis IV skateboarding.

Over the last few months our dedicated product team has worked with Arto Saari to develop our first ever performance skate footwear collection. Over the next year we will introduce four deliveries of product exclusively created by our team of skate athletes.

The first product released under the Gravis Skate program is the Viking Hi LX Ltd, a limited release of the Viking, designed and built from the ground up by Arto Saari and Gravis. This product line will be sold exclusively in skate shops around the world.

Over the next few months we will build the content and update the next additions to the IV skateboaring team, stay tuned.

The stamp of approval for all products specifically built for skateboarding is the Gravis IVsk8 word mark and IVsk8 icon. This is the official emblem of the Gravis skateboard team.

Welcome to Gravis for skateboarding.

Buy Gravis IVSK8 at Focus here.

Savoir Faire

New in this week, Savoir Faire. Available in both stores now at the bargain price of £4.95.

Featuring our very own Div Adam. Check it out!

New Blueprint goodies

Both stores just got a restock of Blueprint's new Pachinko team series decks, a bunch of nice new brightly coloured graphics to match the.... less than bright Summer we've been having. Still, it's gonna be nice and sunny tomorrow, so I'm gonna set one of these bad boys up and get my evening shred (read: many games of SKATE) on after tomorrow's shift.

Also, look out for the new Flourish pro series decks in the next week or so:



And if you haven't done so already, go and check out Blueprint's 'Tales Of The Black Glove' team blog over at http://www.blueprintskateboards.com/feature.php?id=113 too.

Have a merry fun weekend troops!

Ray Underhill R.I.P

Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-lee-doo-BOO!!!

The end of an era.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7526290.stm

7 + 1 - 3 X 5.......

92 til infinity

Here's a sequence a shot of Mark '92' Thompson a few years back. It was used in Sidewalk a few years ago, i was stoked.

Disposable

My friend Neil was nice enough to send down a copy of Sean Cliver of Powell & World Industries fame's book "Disposable: A History Of Skateboard Art". As well as visually documenting the colourful history of skate graphics, it also features words from Cliver himself, the artists behind the graphics and some insight in to the inspiration for the graphics from the pros themselves. If you're the type to geek out on skate history or just have a thing for the aesthetic of the 80s & 90s, I recommend tracking a copy of Disposable for your coffee table, bedside or toilet reading collection.

www.disposablethebook.com/

PS: If anyone has any of the recent decks Sean Cliver designed for Supreme up for sale, get in touch!

Nas is back.

Word.

Laminate Lover

If you've ever been to any of the Scottish skate comps in the last few years, chances are you'll have seen some of Daryl Smith's work. Using old recycled skate decks, Daryl has created some incredible trophies and other scupltures.

Check out his work at Laminate Lover.

Eastpak

We are now stocking backpacks from the world famous Eastpak. Starting from £29.95 for the Padded Pakr all the way up to £74.95 for the Walker which you see above.

Click here to view Eastpak at Focus.

Specials.....

Just spoke to Sam at Nike SB who informed us that we have a couple of limited releases to look forward to next week. First up is the Singapore "only" released Dunk Hi in some fruity colours which we will have 6 pairs of and will only be available in our Glasgow & Edinburgh stores.

Also released on the same day is this super limited (50 pairs in the entire U.K people!) slip on with trademark elephant print panels. Again only available instore sometime next week. Please give either store a ring if you're interested in either shoe.

Analogue....

The most excellent Analogue has a brand new website at www.analoguebooks.co.uk which you should visit soon.

The King of Kong

If you haven't seen this movie then get yourself a copy asap, it's amazing. There's a website called Twin Galaxies that features heavily in the movie, it's got all the video game high scores from every game ever made. I was on it today and they have released the new world record breakers for Guinness World Records. There were 48 new world records which is amazing, but even more amzing was seeing that 10 were by the same guy, Isaiah "TriForce" Johnson. I looked him up and found that he was the first guy in the world to buy the Nintendo Wii when they were released in NY in 2006. But better than that, he wears a Nintendo Power Glove.

How awesome is that!

Shadow Puppets

Apologies for all the viral guff, but here goes anyway:



Amazing!

Livi Fun Day(s) 2008

You may not have heard, but the 2008 leg of the legendary Live Pure Fun Weekend is this coming weekend! This year will probably be a more low key event than those of previous years, but if you can then go along, show your support and try to avoid anyone else in the big bowl at midnight.

Who would have thought a ZX Spectrum could still be useful.

This was created by James Houston a graduate of Glasgow Art School who utilised old computer parts to remix Radioheads Nude. Hope you enjoy.


Big Ideas (don't get any) from James Houston on Vimeo.

The Big Yin!

They seem to love Stu over at Thrasher, click the link to read his new interview.
(subtitles available on teletext page 888)

Numbers 5th Birthday

Our West Coast branch and Nike SB have hooked up with Glasgow's Numbers club who are celebrating their 5th birthday on Friday 4th July at the Sub Club and Saturday 12th July at Club 69. Musical entertainment by Rustie, the Numbers DJ's and Special Guests.