20 Years Ago Today...

What new, musical heights would Steve Ray Vaughn have reached if he were alive today? It's been 20 years since he flew away from a gig and never returned.

Here's a tribute to arguably the best blues guitarist in the world:

Caged Rats: Newport KY

Months of sweltering in the summer heat turns the caged rat to a state of manic and compulsive behavior. Excessive exercise such as this releases stored energy and creates a sense of calm within the pack. What appears to the eye as depravity is in fact one of the rats' keys to survival:

Caged Rat from David Faul on Vimeo.

New Colerain Bowl Footage + Bonus Clip!

Here's some footage of Ethan's few runs in the new Colerain bowl. It's crazy to be skating a bowl while the coping is being installed up above you. In some of these clips you can see Tom's crew in action while Ethan skates. Since the coping was still being set we obviously couldn't get on it. But the walls and lines felt incredible. Bowl skaters in the Cincinnati area are really lucky for this gem. Thanks to Tom at Who-Skates for building this park and for allowing us the chance to check it out. You can see more of Tom's work here.

Looks like the rustbelt is finally getting a piece of the action that has been happening up and down the west coast for years; legitimate skateparks offering all terrain for all skill levels, built and designed well and most importantly CONCRETE. The new mega-bowl bowl up in Centerville is another example of world class building going on close by. The pre-fab ramp builders (pump and dump) are facing some tough times ahead. Think about this - there are places in Oregon where you can find 10 parks of Colerain and Centerville quality all within an hours drive of each other. That's a lot of concrete being poured. I think the time will come when we have the same offering around here. How about Northside and Newport? I know there are already people working to make that happen. Good things to come.

No more of this --- please think about the children - look how sad and confused:



Music: Greyboy Allstars - V-Neck Sweater

Sneak Peak: Colerain, OH Bowl Footage from David Faul on Vimeo.

Sneak Peak: New Colerain Skate Park by Who-Skates

I've been following the progress of a much anticipated new skatepark in Colerain for well over a year. The original Grindline plans were thrown up on the web and what looked like an amazing park went a step further with an out-of-this-world 10 ft vert bowl including tiled pool coping. There are many bowls around town but nothing can really compare to what they had planned. Tom and his crew at Who-Skates (check his site here) were hired to build the park and began work in early 2009. Everyone was hoping to be skating a completed park by the fall. Heavy rains that year caused servere damage. Building was shut down around late summer and did not resume again until summer 2010.

As of now the park is near completion, however, there is still no word on the actual open date. This is a massive new facility that will house the park, huge kids playgrounds, baseball fields, etc...The word is that all this needs to be completed before it will be open regardless if the skate park is finished or not.

I had a few email conversations with the builder, Tom, and he invited me and the kids over to check out the park and have a run on this new, holy-ground of virgin concrete. I have to say that this was a truly generous offer on Tom's part and we're very grateful! Tom has been traveling around the country since 1987 building skate parks of this quality. It was a great experience to meet someone who follows their love and passion with that kind of dedication.

So we made the drive to Colerain in about 40 minutes and Ethan tagged along because he started convulsing when I told him where I was going. The park is amazing, all of it. But the bowl is something that must be seen in person and will possibly give you vertigo. It looked unworldy to me. Beautiful, smooth lines, rounded to vertical. Standing dead center in the deep end surrounded by 10 foot walls felt like I was in a church. Concrete so smooth and fast like only the best parks. This kind of design and building is where the industry is heading. The days of pre-fabricated, metal, death parks are coming to an end.

Here are a few pics:

Yeah, Ethan, sweep it up nice for daddy:

Tom and his small crew built all this with their hands, concrete and tools. It's functional art:

The park isn't just a single, bowl mecca. It's got two amazing, plaza-type street runs and a huge flow bowl. You can see the non-skate related work being done in the back ground:

Here's a shot of the flow-bowl with the big bowl in back: