Phil Evans is documenting skateboarding in a wider context. He built custom-made wide angle lenses to compose allencompassing urban interactions. Explore his scenic vision in this exclusive four-part series supported by Dakinein collaboration with Carhartt and Lodown. Let's tune into the first part with the one and only Warschauer Benches housekeeper Jan Kliewer, representing the streets of Berlin.
Phil Zwijsen is a professional skateboarder, but I also believe he has the capacity to be a professional wrestler too. I had my first encounter with Phil Z on a massive plane departing from Frankfurt a few years back and despite the fact that Phil was very late and that we were flying to Tokyo, he still found the time to stop in one of the airport's smoking booths to get his nicotine fix before we took off. He arrived onto the flight just in time in a flurry of heavy breathing and cigarette smoke, satisfied that he had pulled off his smoke break trick and got to his flight in time. His first greeting was both friendly and intense, a firm grip with a steely determined gaze and a wide grin. These first impressions of Phil as an intense, determined, energetic individual remain largely undiminished to this day and my trip to Antwerp to film his Panoramic episode only proved to reinforce my impressions of Phil...
I recently had the pleasure of viewing a documentary about 80s/90s Indie label Creation Records called "Upside Down" (the film has been out for 4 years, I'm really on the cutting edge here). The documentary chronicles the rise and fall of the label as they successfully produce and release many hit albums from mainly previously unrecognized talent (The Jesus & Mary Chain, Oasis, Primal Scream, etc.) all under the helm of an ambitious drug-fuelled Scotsman named Alan McGee.
The documentary was inspiring in the way the label took on the big guys and won (for a while anyway) despite being run under chaotic drug-heavy conditions. Alan McGee is naturally a great documentary subject, he knows how to spin a yarn and due to his loose attitude to all things chemical in his hey day, he was often the centre of a lot of banter/controversy/memorable quotes. One particular standout moment occurs when McGee finds himself relocated to Manchester in pursuit of the then thriving Acid House scene. When queried (by Factory record boss Tony Wilson) in a TV interview as to why he moved from London to Manchester he casually replies, "A better class of drug, Tony"...
-Words by Phil Evans
Panoramic pictures:
Gallery #8089
PART 4 - WITH BASTIEN DUVERDIER AND JOSEPH BIAIS IN PARIS/ FRANCE:
Have you ever been mugged?
I was almost mugged, but by a combination of stupidity, drunkenness and luck I somehow managed to evade my would-be muggers.
My almost-mugging occurred on my first trip to Paris roughly thirteen years ago. I have returned to Paris several times since and have had plenty of incident-free sojourns, usually to film skateboarding and go skateboarding - and that seems to be the difference between confrontation on the streets and not.
Here’s how the incident went down in the summer of 2001.
Myself and three friends from my small Irish town of Bray had planned to go ‘Inter-railing’ for the first time around Europe. We had all just completed our first year of college and seeing as we were students we were eligible for cheap train tickets to take us across the continent. So we bought some multi-zone tickets and very loosely (and drunkenly) planned a retarded journey of haphazard stops across a few countries.
