-Big 'ol Hummer.
Oh, there's kids skating in there.
How you doing?
-Pretty good.
-What's your name?
-Jonathan.
-Pretty cool.
Nice to meet you, Jonathan.
-You were skating fast.
I'm like, oh, shit.
It's Daewon.
I saw your "Decker" video.
-Oh, the old one, yeah.
That was a long time ago.
It's crazy that it's so long ago.
That was eight, seven years ago.
Time flies, man.
Take advantage, dude.
-Don't do it.
Don't OK.
-We'll redo the courthouse thing that--
-People would do lines back then and then after they
viewed the line, people would follow him
like yeah, Start cheering.
-The end of the camera's part you'll see it in
"Goldfish," I think.
Skating has changed in that way a lot, it seems.
It's got so serious.
Now it's huge.
That's good, man.
Just keep skating.
Didn't even like stuff that they do, don't
even worry about it.
Don't ever sweat like, hey, is this good enough or is that
good enough.
As long as you're happy with it, it's fine.
-Yeah, he's not intimidating to be around.
He's cool.
He make you feel like you're hanging out.
-All right.
Welcome back to the show.
This week, I went out to Los Angeles, met
up with Daewon Song.
Daewon brought along Daniel Castillo, and we went to some
of the spots that those guys filmed for the video "Love
Child," which is really kind of trip for me because, I felt
like I went in some time machine and went into this
video that was really important to me as a skater in
the early '90s.
I think "Love Child" marked a change for World Industries
and a change for skateboarding in general.
It was just really different.
It was like these city kids all skating these street
spots, the schoolyards Then like '80s like Santa Cruz
speed wheels kind of skating or like
white kids before they--
I don't know.
We just looked at some spots those guys skated.
And that's all.
This is the Daewon Song episode.
I hope you enjoy it.
-All right.
So I'm trying to think where we should go first.
Seventh Street is an old classic spot, but I think
people have seen enough of that place.
You know what I mean?
The best spots are the ones that just you can't even
believe it, hours and hours of skating went on.
-Could you describe it?
-This is the school like at the end of "Rubbish Heap" when
Rodney's part ends, Jeremy Klein runs and folks just
gives him a street board when he comes out
here and ollies that.
[INAUDIBLE] insane, like pretty crazy to think about,
and he does a couple of other things on the street board.
-It seem so weird.
It's so big.
Like I watch "Rubbish Heap" and I was like, man.
The World never even interested me whatsoever.
I was more like a Z-boy, Dogtown kind of guy and from
where I grew up.
-Around our neighborhoods, Daniel grew up in a fucked up
part of Culver City, man.
Up at Stoner Boulevard near the projects.
Whew!
-Yeah.
I think definitely if I didn't skate, there would've been a
chance I probably would have done drive-bys.
Oh yeah, I got shot, man.
I was just at a party and wrong place at the wrong time
pretty much.
They thought me and my friends were a bunch
of gangsters, probably.
And they just unloaded on us, like two cars.
But now, I always stay far from that.
And skating is so good for kids that grew up in bad
neighborhoods.
Do you know what I mean?
Because it gets them like psyched on something else
rather than what's going on around them.
Frescas was my World Industries.
I'm still under the same distribution.
Like where World started is where I'm still at.
It wasn't the first place I've ever gotten where I first got
sponsored and I'm still at the same company.
It's pretty crazy to think about.
Daniel, how old were you?
14?
13?
Yeah.
So I was like 15 or 16.
And I miss those days.
Like in 92, when they had revamped the whole team like
and like a lot of the guys have been on it took off.
It was like me, Kareem, Shiloh,
Chico, Spencer, Daniel.
That's pretty insane.
-Yeah, like all of the people that were in "Love Child" were
totally city kids.
Me and Kareem used to skate a lot together
when we were younger.
And he was like, yeah, there's some new guy in World
Industries and I was like who?
He was like some dude named Daewon.
And I was like, Daewon?
I was like what nationality is he?
And this is what Kareem said.
Kareem said oh, he's some nigger.
I don't know.
-OK.
You're gonna trip out on this.
First World ad ever.
This is the tail grab one foot, that
first White Power ad.
-Yeah.
We had that first ad together, me, him and Kareem.
It was pretty funny.
Spike Jones actually shot the photos.
It was pretty crazy.
And it probably took like an hour.
It was pretty awesome back then.
-When we got on, Spike was pretty much in charge.
He was the one doing the ads and shooting so, we went over
to Tower Tide.
Daniel did a tail grab one foot Kareem did like a 540 and
what did he do, Daniel?
-A 540 [INAUDIBLE].
-On the same bank?
-Yeah.
-And I had a tail grab shove it.
No wonder I couldn't pick up any other sponsors.
So it started right here.
-Recreate it exactly.
-Dude, I don't think I could do it again.
-Did you go down the slide in it?
-No.
That was the beginning of the part where I go down the
slide, and then it's like the line after that.
It's right after that.
It's the slide and then right after that is this line where
I do a front pop.
We got to skate through.
So I just see it through.
I'll just tell you what I did.
Is that cool?
Front paw, a point down there, huge one.
And then my board I did an ollie tre flip.
Back then I didn't know it was an ollie tre flip.
I just thought it was some sort of nollie and then
flinged around.
And then I did the old faithful like back 180 and
then switch 180.
360 ollie over this.
But I landed it.
I did the worst kick flip ever right here.
360 flip right there.
And I went off this bump.
Bump with the manhole was a double flip.
Then I did a poor excuse for a pop shove it right here.
You can watch it back and go, wow.
That's lame.
Then I was like, oh, it's really coming now.
I'm going to prep up for this.
And I'll leap up these and just went huge with a switch
540 big flip.
But they didn't get that one, so I just ended up doing a
hill flip shove it.
When I did that line, were there a lot of lines?
I think it would trip people up, because they were like,
are you allowed to do lines long like that?
You know what I mean?
It kind of took a minute to get down to the grand finale.
The heel flip shove it looked terrible.
"Love Child" was random.
Three tours plus maybe filming for like a month
straight and that's it.
Where now, it's like, oh God.
I gotta film 7 different people.
I hope I can get can get the footage.
Film for a year.
-Did you like it better then?
-I liked it better then.
It seemed more like I was just skating and all of a sudden, I
had a video part.
-Yeah.
I remember being super psyched on the hard flip over this
little gap that he did.
It was super slick looking.
-The worst hard flip ever documented?
-What's so bad about it?
It was the first one ever done.
-It was the first, but it was the worst.
So it's cool.
So it's like first and worst.
Back then too, I didn't even know what it was.
All I know is I had to mule kick the fuck out of my back,
front foot and just move it out of the way.
And if you shot a photo, there would definitely be three
frames of just something that just did not look right.
-But you had never heard of anyone doing that trick?
-No.
You know what?
I actually did here one person who did it.
This guy Dan Gallagher.
Rodney was saying he thinks he did it.
And I'm pretty sure he did do it, but I don't want to give
him full credit.
But who got it on footage first over a huge gap?
You got your fish with you because--
There's borough.
God, they need a gardener.
This was a really popular spot back in like '93.
This place is like one place like it goes way back from
like the "Rubbish Heap" Jeremy Klein days where he came here
and I think, did the best stuff ever.
-They put a pole at the bottom of the one that everybody used
to skate, and we still skated it.
Jeremy Klein had some stuff in it a long time ago in old
video and then now, they put poles all over, and put those
benches to really just kill it.
-Rick Howard had a bunch of stuff that was good too.
-Rick Howard had a cover switch 360?
-Yeah.
It was on that wall.
Gino actually had like a fakie hard that was amazing and then
this is what we call the vortex, the V. And there was a
lot of stuff they went down here.
Jeremy Klein did some stuff that was, he did like front
side flip in the birdhouse video.
I know he did backside flip.
The main bank that everybody skated was the one right next
that railing.
That's the main one.
If you watch like the old video in "New World Order"
where Daniel is sitting at the top of that bank over there,
and I do some weird trick where I didn't hit my tail.
Hey, everybody did the Howard Hail right there and then you
were talking.
That was the first try but I hit my tail.
That was fucking sick, man.
Skating is sick.
He's the best in the world.
Yeah.
I would never leave my area, plus well, back then I felt as
though everything was right at your front door.
You don't have to go far for curves.
People we're traveling around the world for curves?
This is Alta Vista.
The curve is still waxed.
See, I got to get out and try to hard flip
it and 5-0 it again.
Should we stop and get out?
-Yeah.
Let's get out.
-Tim Gammond had a fakie tre, fake nose grind going on here.
Insane.
Actually, we should be coming here on those days where we
have nowhere to go.
This one was in "New World Order." So there was like a
hard flip [INAUDIBLE]
180 and there was a--
Everything was filmed from pretty much that angle to
where you're at.
Thing is huge still.
You got a marker because I want to write
down what's been done.
Don't you hate hate that?
I've been to so many spots where people write down what
they've done.
It's me like when there is steep walls are something like
tail block, back side tail block.
What did Richard have on it?
I know I can't remember anything Richard had, man.
Richard had so much stuff it's hard to remember.
Didn't you lose your virginity here, Daniel?
I'm just playing.
-Yeah, right.
You lost your virginity at Kareem's.
Yeah, I did the world parks.
The craziest stuff would happen at that place.
So many random chicks would show up and--
-There was quarter pipes.
-There was quarter pipes they had the beast wall like there
was actually a bunch of stuff like this big
six foot mini ramp.
In '92 and '93, that's where I think the most innovative
skating went down within like Gino and Mike Keenan and
everybody and you just see the craziest stuff going down.
You actually watched somebody do something new.
You know what I mean?
That was crazy.
I'm sure we've stayed in every one of these little motels.
Rocko used to put us in like, yep.
You guys are staying here.
He would just put us in random places or just give us money,
like one dude money the oldest one, which was probably like
15, the responsibility to get us a room.
And then once the World part came along, that's when it
ended up being in like a little place to stay.
Remember the Imperial double set?
Dude, Daniel calling it out.
Jeremy Wray all he did flawless.
He was Jeremy Wray though.
He could probably backside flip it now.
I only did it with Sock filming but, it was like when
you ollie, and you lean back and one leg
goes up, and I fell.
And I remember telling Sock you can't cut it.
It's so funny asking somebody that question,
like can you cut it?
Hey, is this how Wallenburg looks, like one more?
-Vista, you ever been there?
-No.
Yeah.
He's kept himself in like the whole South Bay area his
entire life as far as skateboarding goes.
I look back at like think of all the video footage and
stuff from just the years past.
It's all there.
I don't think I've really noticed it too.
Do it where you want to.
That's what I say.
-There's a place like after I kick jumped it in "Love
Child," we came back and I tried to front side flip it.
And then the board, I don't know if Sock still has the
footage, but I stepped on the nose and it completely smacked
me in my face.
Jeremy Wray really killed that thing, fakie hill, front side
flip, narly back side flip, everything.
See?
It's pretty long because he took three
steps on the flat part.
Pretty tall guy too.
This thing's huge.
Guy switch tre-ed one day and some do but he
forgot to film it.
Guy was probably like ah, oh, well.
-I think I did it once without filming.
I went back to film it and I think maybe it took a lot of
tries and the cameraman ran out of batteries, so the
footage got messed up or something.
And it is very important to document this stuff, but it's
not what it's all about.
-It's nut.
I ain't going out to launch at the top of this baby.
And they even made a baby ramp too. they made like a 3 and
1/2 foot kicker.
When they go, they go big.
To switch tre though that's nuts.
And at that time too.
-What year was that?
-That was like '93, right?
'93.
Well, it was underground at the same time too.
And you had to wait a year and a half to
ever see any new skating.
We didn't have YouTube.
We didn't have--
you couldn't just go to somebody's site and watch all
this new footage that came out within the last week.
So we're headed to the imperial blocks.
These were the hub for us in '92 and '93.
Now, we used to skate these ones.
Oh, wait.
Was it those ones?
Pretty nuts.
Coming back to spots like this and thinking about all the
stuff you couldn't do and still can't do, probably.
I tried a lot of shit I couldn't do but there was a
couple of guys that came here and was I think Rick was
trying to do a front to half calf grip crooked grind, maybe
or some back in those days, which was nuts
to even think about.
And then in the plan B day we had front to calf
flipped the hard way.
So like a back 50 or 5-0.
I think Henry Hambertino did backs 180 hill fakie nose
grind on that one.
Switching on hill, switch 5-0, that's pretty nuts too.
It's so funny how so much stuff went down like that back
then, but you've seen so much crazy stuff like that back
then that nothing really, everything just went by.
It wasn't like you had one good thing in your part.
You watched people's parts and everything was good.
So you're just like, yeah, that was good, that was good,
that was good, that was good.
His part's over.
OK.
Like '94 to '95, I just was over it.
Hung out at Long Beach all the time.
Shiloh had told me later, like Rodney an them were
hitting them up.
Like Daewon's not skating anymore.
He's doing something else and Rodney was telling Shiloh
like, hey, we might have to kick him off.
And Shiloh was telling them, you can't
kick Daewon off, man.
He'll skate.
He's going to skate.
And I came back and called Rodney.
I was like look, I'm sorry for not being around, but I'm back
and I'm going to try to work on trying to
get something going.
You know what I mean?
-I always knew that that guy can't he probably could never
quit skating.
He loves to do it so much.
And that's when we started filming and I did the whole
"Trilogy" part.
It put me back on the map.
You know what I mean?
There was nothing left to really skate.
Everything got skate stopped.
Everything got blocked, all the curbs just were curbs.
Ended up going to some school putting tables downstairs and
we never got hassled.
So I was like look, I guess this is where it's all going
to happen now.
It was almost like a new type of skating for me.
Like now I'm going to focus on this.
-Yeah.
I remember later then seeing footage of Daewon.
I thought they said he didn't skate anymore, and he was
fucking ripping.
I remember when he was doing all the picnic table shit.
But I mean I always thought he was gnarly, you know?
But there's only so many picnic tables you can see.
-I got a lot of shit for the picnic
table thing for a while.
There was no way of how people try to erase things out of
their life, and that will be there forever to haunt me,
which I'm not ashamed of it.
I used to love the whole picnic table thing, but it got
a little too overboard.
I went on tour and my nickname because in Australia was like
the picnic table wizard.
They would have picnic table specifically
there so when I came.
I remember one of the guys came up to me and was like,
Daewon man, I'm still glad you're here, man.
I'm sorry we couldn't get you the picnic tables.
I was like, well, God damn it, there's nothing
I can do here then.
I'm out.
But my whole problem is I get caught up and I over do it
like eating too much cake.
If you give me a whole cake, I'll eat the whole thing, and
it drives people nuts.
Like dude, please no more.
-He was real crazy into like the benches.
-Yeah, I hit those spots, but like the way this guy looks at
shit is so crazy.
Like he would be oh, you could skate.
I made this spot and you could skate like this and that.
And I'll look at the spot.
I'm like, how did you even get that from-- you know I don't
look at it like that.
He'll take it to the extreme, man.
I I think that's the way he does things.
He gets into something, and he just sticks with it till he
burns it out for himself.
-Honestly, he's on a different level than anybody.
There's only like a few guys out there that are like at the
same level like Costen and Reynolds and those kind of
guys, you know.
And then there's things like the middle like me.
Daewon is definitely on the top.
-"Round Three," he skated those top of those fucking big
rigs, right?
And he was telling me oh, I'm doing this big rig thing.
You should come down, dude, like just back heel it.
I'm like what?
Like hell, no.
That shit is like death defying.
-I've been just trying to have fun with it.
It's really easy to stay motivated as long as you just
kind of put yourself in a new place.
Like for me, the whole "Cheese and Crackers" thing, that was
just all fun, three months of just fun, and we ended up
getting a video out of it.
But that's how "Love Child" was.
-So you think something like "Cheese and Crackers" couldn't
have come out in like the mid '90s?
-No.
I don't think nobody would have cared and plus when they
said vert died, in those days it really did, even anything
to do with it, even if it was just mini ramper tranny,
people were dead serious.
Like nobody wanted to see it.
Costen, he did a 360 tail grab fakie nose
grind revert in a video.
People don't talk about that.
It's come back to that point now where I think tranny, it's
cool again.
-Is your trucks always like that, loose?
-M-hm.
-Is that just how you skate 'em?
-M-hm.
-I always think like tech skating you have to have tight
trucks.
-That's what everybody thinks, but I couldn't do a nose
tranny unless my truck was that loose.
Plus these days, I don't know.
-I think Rodriguez has his trucks like that.
-He has both, because only one of mine is like that.
-And the other one's tight?
Whoa.
-Now, Rodriguez has both.
That dude's nuts.
It's just nuts that like there's people out there are
so good at one thing, but they're afraid to admit it.
There's a couple of pros right now that are afraid to admit
that they good at vert or to admit that they
used to skate vert.
I'm not going to say any names, but you guys
know who you are.
One dude is not afraid though is Channie.