We sat down over coffee with roommates Kevin Lowry and Tyler Warren to find out about what makes them tick. Enjoy!
You guys have been roommates for a while, right? Tell us about the spot you live in, as there’s some great skate history there. Tyler: We’ve been roommates for almost a year now. Kevin: I’ve been living there [above Kalamata Grocery] for eight years. T: I just moved back last winter from Vancouver.
How long were you in Vancouver for? T: Like two years, on and off.
Kevin, ollie.
So who else lives with you guys? K: Bacon [Cory McNeil] T: Bacon. Cory. Haha.
You’ve had a lot of roommates at that place, right? K: Drew [Merriman], Andy, Sean MacAlister, Ben Blundell, Dylan Homer, Paul Gonzalez.
Where do you guys skate in the winter, with no indoor park in Calgary? K: I skate one indoor spot but I can’t talk about it. That’s about it. My friend had a mini ramp but he moved. T: There’s one secret spot but we can’t go there that often. It rarely happens. So Skate Church. K: Every Tuesday. T: You give’r cause it’s two hours a week that you get to skate. K: Those guys that run it, I always have to go say “thank you” because they volunteer every week to put up with mayhem. T: We were actually just talking about Source Park last week. And how #$%#ed it actually was. It was insane. Guys like Bryan Wherry moved here just for the park. He didn’t know anyone. It was solely because of the park. It was the craziest park ever. I was watching videos of it the other day. I was so young at the time so I only went there for birthday parties and stuff.
Tyler, hurricane. Marentette photo.
Do you guys have any trips planned? K: I’m going to SF in a couple days and then I’m coming home for five days. Then I’m going to Europe for six weeks. I’m going to Lisbon and all around Spain, London. Tyler’s gonna come meet up in Spain. T: First time in Europe!
Have you been to all those places before, Kevin? K: Yeah, pretty much. But not every single one. T: We’re going to small places, small cities in Spain. K: I’ve never been to Alicante or Malaga.
Is Barcelona still the spot or is it blown out? K: I went twice last year. It’s still good; the police kind of suck. People are pretty over it. Almost every skater in the world has gone there.
One thing that people don’t realize is in Calgary is, the city builds something new and it turns into a spot… T: People just go all in skating it and it gets capped in like two weeks. K: And people don’t realize that they have to take care of these spots. If you bring a drink, don’t leave it on the ground. Be respectful. If someone walks by, it can be pretty intimidating if eight dudes are skating– just say, “Hi, how’s your day going?” or something like that. That can make them feel safe.
Kevin, 50-50
Any favourite spots?
K: I like City TV. That’s my favourite ledge to skate.
T: McDougall was the best but they’ve capped it and sandblasted it.
K: I like Chalk too.
T: Yeah, Chalk.
Kevin, you aren’t originally from Calgary. What brought you here? K: I’m from Saskatoon. I came here to get sober when I was 16 years old. I was court ordered to a rehab center. A lot of people ask me while I still live here. I like it here. It’s central. I have good friends here, a good house. It’s comfortable.
What about you, Tyler? You came up with the last generation of the Skaters shop team. Who did you skate with growing up? T: I grew up in Forest Lawn. None of the guys I used to skate with skate anymore. I met Ben (Blundell) and Dustin (Henry) when I became allowed to go downtown on my own. It’s because of meeting those guys from skating downtown and at Mills that I just hung out with them and no one from my neighbourhood.
How did you get the nickname “Crazy T”? T: I don’t know, man. K: Just trying to be crazy.
Tyler, tailslide. Nicholas photo.
How did YOU get the nickname “Kevlar”? And is that one sticking? T: Hahaha! K: I don’t know. A couple people said it and then Gonz said it. Yeah, it’s sticking. I actually don’t mind it. It doesn’t bother me. Kevlar is pretty tough.
Have you skated with Gonz more than once? What’s he like? K: Yeah, a bunch of times. He’s super down to earth. I think it’s hard for him because he’s been in the limelight for so many years. If you’re just walking down the street with him he gets stopped and asked to pose for a photo. He’s famous in the skate and art world. He’s pretty full of life– almost like a big kid. He skates every day. He’ll go out by himself and skate an 8-stair.
Tyler, 50-50 transfer. Snow photo.
What photos/videos are you most proud of? K: The video part I’m most proud of is Elephant Direct. I just like that whole video. I also like Sus Monts though because it was all filmed in Calgary. It was also probably the most fun I’ve had skateboarding.
T: I haven’t had many. I guess Civic Affair. And my first published photos would be my favourites: the 50-50 on the red bar on the underpass [KingShit] and the gap 5-0 that was in Color. The blue one. Jeff Thorburn shot it.
Tyler, 5-0. Thorburn photo.
Do you have copies of them?
T: Yeah, my mom collects them. If I get a photo I’ll tell her and she’ll go pick up the magazine.
K: I actually save everything I’ve been in: every video, every magazine.
Kevin, 50-50.
Are you guys filming for anything right now?
T: Squad Massage. We’re going to Spain and then Bacon’s gonna put it out.
K: I’m kinda done filming for that.
T: The Antisocial video.
K: I’m filming for the adidas video. They’re making a full-length.
Thanks/shout outs:
K: Jascha Muller, Skin Phillips, anyone who’s ever filmed me. Chris M, Bacon, Lars, Brandon Conroy, Joe Castrucci, my parents.
Bretton Brulotte is a 14 year old Calgary skateboarder who recently started a Facebook petition for more skateparks in Calgary. To date it has over 1,700 members and is growing daily. Bretton was overweight until he lost 70 pounds in the two years since he started skating. We asked him some questions about himself and the petition he started:
Hi Bretton, how long have you been skating?
About 2 years technically but I really started going to parks and progressing last summer.
What got you into skateboarding?
The Mission that opened in Aspen, went in there one day just to check it out and started asking about getting into skating. The guy that worked there showed me Guy Mariano’s part from fully flared, the creativity and art that I saw in skating inspired me to start and I bought my first board soon after, it was a Mariano deck.
Why do you like it and keep doing it?
Everything about skating is awesome. Its the coolest art, sport and community you could imagine. Skateboarding keeps me active and getting exercise every day for multiple hours and I have met my best friends in skateboarding.
Are your parents supportive?
For sure, before I skated I would never get any physical activity and hated doing any sport. My parents used to put me on soccer teams that I hated. Skating gets me 3 or more hours of exercise a day and I’ve got some really good friends through it.
Where do you usually skate?
Westside in the summer– it’s small but it’s a safe place that my parents don’t hesitate to let me skate at. Having more supervised parks or even just good parks in more youth friendly parts of the city would be a good idea.
Where do you skate during the winter months?
In the winter Skate Church when I can get there, Millennium but my parents don’t really feel safe sending me there, and my garage.
There was a lot of negative energy towards the city and I wanted to change that into passion to make a change. I wanted to show that there was need for parks and places for us to skate. At the end of the day i just wanted to do whatever I could for what I’m passionate about.
Why do you think Calgary is so far behind compared to other cities when it comes to skateparks?
Having the mountains so close is one factor, the city may not see need for amenities within the city with such natural beauty so close and don’t understand what a large part of our lives skateboarding is. Money is probably another, we are one of the wealthiest cities in the country and many people go to lakes and wake board or the mountains to ski or snowboard but skateboarding is a lifestyle and just isn’t substituted by other sports and is more accessible than others.
This posting is a little out of our normal mandate of Calgary content but it definitely on topic for the importance of skateboard parks. This video has been making its rounds on the web so you might have already seen it but if not it’s a good one. Tommy Carroll has been skating since he was ten, but has been blind since the age of two. He hits up his local park and makes his riding time count. Get inspired and shovel the snow off your favourite spot/park, find a parking garage, beg or buy your way into a garage mini sesh just get some skateboarding in any way you can. No excuses just skate!
Want more? Here is an interview and some more skateboarding by Tommy:
Artschool is a Calgary-based skateboard company. They are going into their 5th season. The company is highly art focused and strives to promote and progress art, artists and skateboarding in local Canadian communities.
Artschool was started like many other companies; on a napkin over a couple of beers. Read on to learn more:
Mark Kowalchuk and Jeff Talbot (both long time skateboarders) were discussing their growing 80s skateboard collections and how the modern skateboard art is more about the marketing and less about the art. Jeff made an off the cuff remark that they should start their own deck company with an oldschool feel. Mark was already lending his art to a few snowboard and skateboard companies so the idea was a perfect fit.
Jeff: We didn’t know where to get the wood pressed or how to promote a company. We didn’t have a team or even a company name yet, but somehow we had just started a skateboard company. Mark grabbed a napkin and the sharpie he always carries and started sketching out some ideas. I made a comment about the ET shirt he was wearing and that it might look cool to have Jesus peddling the bike and Buddha in the basket. Five minutes later we had our first graphic. Five day later Denis Lebel agreed to be on the team and thanks to Mark’s connections at SBC, they announced the start of Artschool Skateboards. We were then lucky enough to add 4 more riders to the team: Jeff Kent, Brad McCoy, Reuben Bullock and Ryan Hall. All this before a single skateboard was pressed.
Mark:
7 yrs ago I was designing graphics on t-shirts calling them Artschool and working as an artist for snowboard companies.
Who is pressing AS now?
Jeff: it seemed like we here changing manufacturers every few months in the beginning. Its tough to get good service when you are pressing 1000 boards a season instead of 100 000. 2 years ago we were in a really tough spot with our supplier basically going out of business. I called every manufacturer in North America, I never thought Schmitt Stix would even answer the phone, they press most of the boards you see on every skate shop wall. They bailed us out of a tough spot, getting us our order in 2 weeks.
Mark: Schmitt Stix has been making boards since the beginning of skateboarding. They press a lot of big name brands that are known for the best quality.
Who is on the Team?
Mark: Our riders all come from Alberta. Half of our team now lives and skates in Vancouver. Denis Lebel, Jeff Kent, Brad McCoy, Steve Rohl, Ty Klassen, Ryan Hall, Reuban Bullock, Jeff Muirhead, Cam Lynch and Darcy Tran and Austin Jensen are on the flow team.
Jeff: Our Team Manager is Erica Jacobs. She is good at picking out the right fit for the team. We try to get riders with a positive attitude. Jay is our rep and has been helping us out a lot this year especially since he already has such great relationship with shops across Canada. Joey has been working on getting us more involved out east as well. People that want to try to grow and help the team and other skaters progress, we pretty much just look for people that we actually want to hang-out with.
What artists have worked with AS?
Jeff: For the first couple years Mark did all of the art, it is amazing the talent and ideas that come from that guys mind. He is very well respected within that community for good reason.
Mark: In season 3 we wanted to start using the company to promote more local Canadian artists. We have been lucky enough to have artists like Matel, Darren Camplin, TJ Schneider, Zema, Carl White, Dan Curtis and even Canadian pro skater Corey Sheppard.
I’ve noticed Mark your graphic this year is sick graphic you colab with Andres Friden, is that right?
Mark: Yeah sort of, I’m a huge fan of ‘In Flames’ a Swedish metal band and lead singer Anders Friden has been using me to do some shirt designs over the last year and he is a big fan of skating so we worked on my this years graphic together I painted the lyrics on the deck and he added the text. Recently I just finished a CD single album cover for them
Artschool has also worked with musician/ pro-snowboarder Trevor Andrew?
Mark: That’s right. Last year we did two different special release limited coffin cruiser decks for ‘Trouble Gang’, Trevor’s band. Trevor, besides being a pro snowboarder and musician, is an accomplished skater as well. We plan to work more with him in the future on some collab decks.
Jeff: Trevor has been a big supporter of Mark’s art and Artschool Skateboards. When I first saw him skate I was expecting him to be good, but he was the kind of good that makes you not want to miss the next trick. We should put him on the team!
Jeff: I think some of the raddest things I could have ever imagined are happening in skateboarding today, I see the things that are being done on a skateboard right now and it all seems like a video game. But 2013 also kind of makes me mourn the “skateboarding subculture” that used to exist. In the 80’s (really the 80s? wtf) we used to fight with city councils just to get a place to put a few wood ramps, always hoping that someday that there would be as many skateparks as ball parks. We aren’t there yet, but now that this is starting to happen in some ways it has unavoidably backfired. More parks, means more skaters, means more corporate interest which is actually a great thing for furthering the sport and bringing money to events and helping skaters and skateboarding go to another level. But now we also have big corporations buying up all the companies and box stores pushing out the local core shops. There aren’t skateboarders running these corporations, so that translates into skateboarding not being run by skateboarders anymore.
Mark: As far as the scene and art of skating I think there is a full circle. I see veteran skaters popping up more and more. Companies re-issuing old graphics. Companies playing off old classic skate art. It seems like finally what made skating cool in the beginning is becoming cool again, which I think we always were about so for me that kinda makes me feel like we are on the right track.Or maybe we are totally off track but who cares its still fun to create stuff.
Where do you want AS to be?
Jeff: In the future we want to keep supporting the local skateboard scene and highlighting Canadian art and artists. Try to support Canadian skate community especially in the rural areas. And hopefully in the short term to work with CASE to get an indoor facility in Calgary. We want to keep being involved with the City of Calgary, we did a design-a-deck program last year through the city and likely will again, and keep sponsoring the skate camp. At the end of the day its just fun to be involved and we want to be as much as possible.
