FATBMX Your Online BMX News Resource Since 1998

FEDERAL presents "TRAVAELIO" FEDERAL Bikes has a very strong team that travels all over the world in search of good riding spots. Ed Docherty brought this together in this Federal Team DVD called "Travaelio" and shows his multitalent with working on computers, Filming and Photographing. Very good intros, outstanding filming and the music is excellent too. What about the riding? Are you kidding me? This is the FEDERAL TEAM, that says enough, these men are not afraid to go to the hospital and give everything a try and try as long as they succeed their stunts.

Number Ten, a film by Edd Allen Running time approximately 40 minutes Cover design Dean Hearne DVD Authoring Mark Richards Titles/Help James Dale Now this is a video! It's enjoying to watch. Edd Allen knows what it takes to make a good video and he pulled out all stops to make it happen in this Seventies production. The intro is beautiful. It must look insane on a big screen in a cinema but I only had the pleasure to watch it on TV. The Seventies crew distributes a lot of brands and they sponsor a lot of riders. This gave them a lot of choice to get footage together for Number Ten.

Hunter at Infantry5 put up a video that will make everyone laugh except for the guy on the picture on the right. Humble BF might even think it's funny too. Ahh the good old days of spray painted Cycle Craft frames...... The old bmx footage was recorded at the California State Championships in 91'. It was a jump demo put on by Cyclecraft's National #1 expert racer Brian Foster with the help Jimmy Garcia. And I thought BF had always been smooth........ [url=http://www.infantry5.com/brian1.html]Click here for BF in racing gear doing a jumping demo[/url]

To collect footage you need to get out there and film. The Hoffman team of Bruce Crisman, Chris Souter, Seth Kimbrough, Jon Taylor, Ryan Barrett and Sebastian Keep loaded up some vans and hit the road in Europe. H*B's Mark Owen and Bryan Baxter were on board to do some filming. The countries that were treated with some riding were England (big session at the Seventies warehouse), France (Bercy/Paris) and Germany (Cologne/Düsseldorf area). Although the team visited the 2004 World's in Cologne, there is zero contest footage in the Euro Trip. Brakeless riders Seth, Chris and Bruce don't need much to do sick tricks. Give them a ledge, a few stairs and a flat bank and you'll see backwards tricks, 360-s and barspins all mixed up. Stand out on the Euro trip is by far Seth Kimbrough. He delivers on everything. Big rails included, well impressed. The editing/graphics are well done. It follows the theme of the H*B ads in the magazines.

In 1985 I gave graffiti a try. We stayed up late and went to a school to make this masterpiece that we had drawn on a piece of paper. It was a huge pacman with the words "RAP '85" next to it. It was dark so we colored it in over and over again thinking the bricks were sucking up the paint. We couldn't see much. Next morning on the paper route I rode by the wall and there it was! The RAP '85 wild style piece. So stoked, I felt like I was in the movie Breakdance. When school was out, the police had already shown up. It was straight to the station for an explanation. There was no way out so a few minutes later it was back to the wall at the school with buckets full of thinner, water, brushes and whatever else to get that piece off the wall before they sent a professional cleaning crew and have us pay that bill. It took forever to get it off. We were regretting the multi layers of paint we used to fill in the stupid pacman.

Chris Smith (UK) sent in a VHS tape with xeroxed cover. The ValleySideStyle video had a lot of local footage in it. It seemed like a project where he filmed friends and decided to make a video out of it. Some of his friends do crazy stuff like jumping scooters, flipping cars over and play with fireworks. All good shit. I really did not have a clue what Chris' intentions were on the business side of things as the norm nowadays seem to be DVD's with slick full color covers. I checked in with Chris:

Maze sent over this movie link. It's about the Bike Kill event put on by the Black Label Bike Club from New York. If you think we're used to some fucked up stuff in the BMX freestyle scene, watch this movie. We've got a long way to go to catch up with these freaks. As seen by Rachel Meyrick of Red On Red Productions. [url=http://homepage.mac.com/rachelmeyrick/iMovieTheater8.html]Fucked up bicycle stuff from the Bike Kill 2004 event in New York[/url]

SUFFOCATE FASTER *** Out of Cincinnati these Hardcore musicians played lots of local shows and formed the band in fall of 2001. Gorilla Biscuits gave about everyone inspiration, and so did they do to Suffocate Faster. The band started to write aggressive, fist-clenching music combined with ferocious lyrics that emphasized its own political stance: Straight-edge and pro-American. After playing around Cincinnati they headed West and toured California, Chad Gilbert (New Found Glory) saw them and started to work with them. The band's debut album : "only time will tell" was made in no time and is a lesson in hardcore chemistry: one part NYC street-core, the other part Slayer! "If you like heavy music, you'll definitely like it" according to Aaron the guitarman, and I did. PdJ

We're catching up on DVD's we still need to review. One of them is the latest RoadFools. Issue 13 had some people land in the hospital and that was bad luck. Still most of the crew stayed on two wheels most of the time. This Roadfools was different in a way that a couple of riders chose 3 fellow riders to go on Roadfools. It sure ended up being a trip of BMX characters. If you think Beringer's riding is weird, wait till you see Kevin Nelson and his 23 kilo home made steel bike with wheelcovers. Dennis McCoy made it on the bus thanks to Lou Capparelli's one man team ("I only have one friend, and that's DMC"). If someone can keep you entertained on the road, it's Dennis. I cracked up in the outtakes section where Dennis is bro-ing down with a drunk black man. He sure can be a bastard too.

OFF THE WALL VOL VII by VANS Records VANS RECORDS? Yes they are not only the best shoemaker in the world but also into music as well, didn't you hear about the "Steve van Doren Band"? We didn't but VANS is doing the famous WARPED TOUR for years now so they have a lot of contacts whitin the music industry and they put their favorite music on a compilation CD for the 7th time. Bands like Bad Religion/Fu Manchu/Pennywise and the Bouncing Souls are well known but the other 25 bands are all upcoming bands and makes this a perfect CD for the upcoming road trips. Check www.vans.com or www.vansshoes.nl how to get hold of this OFF THE WALL VOLUME 7 and put the volume on 10. PdJ