Assed Out.

The End of JDM (Tuning).

It's sad news hear that HKS has filed for bankruptcy. With ARC and ZeroSports closing their doors early this year, HKS is the next in line of legendary Japanese Tuning Houses falling by the wayside. May it be aftershocks of fallen US & Japanese economies, the increase in price of international shipment, or the lack of aftermarket support yet another JDM shop will be no more.





For years I have fought to defend the quality of buying Japanese produce parts for Japanese cars for only to fall on deaf ears with many opting to buy replicas or Ebay knock-off claiming "it's just as good". But if there are no more JDM tuners producing parts, then who will the knock off companies copy then? I suppose there's no single demographic to put the blame on. I myself have not bought a new part in 2 years. But it's really sad to witness the end of an era. First the dissolution of the Hot Import Nights car show circuit, the closing of my beloved local JDM importer FIZZAUTOSPORTS, to the closing of many Japanese car tuning powerhouses; I've lived through a JDM tuning era only to turn the key of a relic of a car of days gone by. RIP JDM.




The History of Zerosports (1-3).





Tsukuba Time Attack:

Funky Fridays #136.

Stacks.

Weekly R&B Banger #71.

Bump Bump.

Sun Drop.

Rip Curl.

Happy Easter.

Weekly R&B Banger #70.

Quiet Storm.

Funky Fridays #135.

DOWNLOAD.

Happy 4/20.

Ken Block Ryno Power Workout.

Ken Block's core training workout with trainer Ryan Hughes is impressive. I've always been surprisingly sore from heavy karting sessions. I can't imagine the strength needed to compete in the World Rally Championship.



As a Subaru enthusiast, it pained to hear about his switch to Ford; but Subaru's withdrawal from WRC prompted the change. I'll always own a version of an STi, but would be nice to see a turbo Fiesta Stateside.



The original Gymkhana 1 with his 06 Subaru STi prepared by Crawford Performance.

Weekly R&B Banger #69.

Look Remix.

The Stadium.

When I normally wait to be blessed with some freebie early season tickets from friends or clients, my wife suprised me with some amazing seats for our Anniversary. I knew I married the right woman. Early season can be rough. Temps hover around the 30s-40s and you basically are braving the elements for 3-4 hours. So you throw on your snow outerwear which hopefully has not been packed away for the winter and hop on the 4 uptown. Today was no joke with 30 degree weather, 20mph gusts, and a %70 chance of rain. But we had some sick seats and the game wasn't called off. Game on.



As an aspiring fat kid, one of the best parts of coming to the Stadium is the food. The new Stadium has everything you could ever want. Where I used to bring whole pizza pies into the old location, now there's more than I could every ask for from Orange Chicken to Turkey Legs to Lobel's $20 Steak Sandwich. I kept it classic and went to Nathan's for the Big Boy Value Meal.



It was a great game against Texas with the rain pretty brutal at parts. But after spending a couple bills on our seats, my wife wasn't budging. Our perseverance paid off with a 5-2 win and the Yankees gave those who weathered out the storm, free tickets to another game of our choice.




We stayed to the bitter end to hear Frank Sinatra. Shit, we had Frank close out our Wedding. We weren't about to leave early just to get seats on the train. Thanks Yanks for a great day.

Supergoose.

The Stussy x W-Base x Oakley bike is pretty sick. I like the clip but couldn't figure out how to keep it from auto-play. Here's a LINK to the video.

Funky Fridays #134.

DOWNLOAD.

Blow the Whistle.

Flatland 101

On days like today I wish I still had my Haro Master.

TGIF.

Droga Y Rap.

I got super into Mr.Dibbs after hearing his tracks used for Habitat commercials in 411. Went onto collect everything he came out with until he started touring with Atmosphere and releases were few and far between. Here's some tracks for the fans.



Dead World. 6.8.10.


Panic. 5.4.10.


The Best of The Good and The Bad of the Ugly Vol.1 05.08.


Eat Meat 2. 6.13.07.

Funky Fridays #133.

Caught a sneak preview of the new Real video. Super sick. Raw street skating, def makes you want to run out and roll around. Like watching Real to Reel but in HD. Rolling intros are the same. Good feel to the video. Prob the best video since Flared. I guess Stay Gold was a good video, but still haven't seen it. I'm not too into the "I used to be a drunk but now I ride motorcycles and although I have a clothing sponsor, I'd rather buy clothes from the young women's dept at Goodwill with pants with the crotch ripped through and maternity collars on extra medium t-shirts." Not so much.

James Hardy opener- Super burl. Def earned his pro model. Congrats.

Jake Donnelly- Buffalo's finest. One of my favorite parts. Skates to the above track. Proper trick selection. Backside everything.

Davis Torg- White Malto. Gordon lightfoot.

New am section was sick esp Robbie Brockel. All terrain.

Some middle parts were a blur (Nick D, Ernie, Chima) but super good, just too Zero style to keep my attention. Like if you threw a bottle out of a two story window and it rolled away. Kept expecting them too just explode upon impact from the huge gaps.

HUF- Sick part. Still got it. Still skates huge. Lengthy part was a nice suprise. Still reppin' for the gray haired crew.



Justin Brock- Best part of the vid. Two song kit. Crazy no set-up combo lines.

Ishod Wair- Part perfectly edited to James Brown track. Skates way longer after the song ends.

Peter Ramondetta- Sick metal track. Super gnarly shit.

Busenitz- Prob the most anticipated part of the video, but to be honest, it was kind of a let down. With his crazy trick bag, it was beat to not see as many lines as he's capable of. I appreciate that his part was mostly SF footage, but I was hoping for Diagonal Part 2. Prob would have been best to ship him someplace and film him for a week. Maybe it was the hipster lite fm track that threw me off, but I kept watching this b roll footage part waiting for the real part to drop, then the credits rolled up. Bummer.



"(laughs) I don’t know how this whole “going fast” thing has become my “shtick” or whatever you call it. I don’t really think that I go that fast. It’s just turned into this weird thing that I’m known for so everyone just keeps going with it. I just think that going a little faster makes boring tricks more fun. You don’t have to learn something difficult to have fun, you can just go faster and spice it up a little bit."



Overall, video was sick. Def worth the purchase. Made this old man want to run out and skate- push super fast and jump over stuff. Same feeling when Stereo's A Visual Sound came out. Good shit.

The T.M.

The Bridge.

Download the Bootleg..

"Shit remember when both Nas and the Mobb were a half-mic short of a classic in 1999? Then their albums leak on the street corners and they ended up releasing a different album from the intended effort. I always preferred the bootleg version of Murda Muzik rather than the retail. The sequencing flowed better on the bootleg (track #2 on the retail version sounded like an outro). There was also some unreleased tracks and skits on the bootleg that didn’t make the final cut like the acapella freestyle from Cormega right before “Deer Park” a.k.a. “What’s Ya Poison”. Believe it or not the bootleg wasn’t even the version that almost got 5 mics either (it was the closest to it though). The original version of Murda Muzik had three other unreleased tracks we never heard, “Power Rap” from the QB’s finest album, and “Nobody Likes Me” from the first Violator compilation. The lo-fi quality also adds to the dark theme of the album like an old Triple 6 tape. Everyone says P was at his best during Hell On Earth but I honestly thought he was at his prime during the Murda Muzik era. He was merkin’ everybody with that emo thug brown liquor shit barely rhymin’ any bars within his verse."