Monday, June 17

Etnies Presents "Forward"

By Mark Holder & Piney Kahn

The Art Theatre, Binghamton, New York

After all the waiting and all the anticipation, on Saturday, May 25th the day finally came for the premiere of etnies first BMX video Forward. The 2nd etnies La Revolution contest of the year was going down that weekend, so it was naturally a good time and place to premiere the video. Almost every member of the etnies BMX team was in town. Nate Hanson, Ruben Alcantara, Josh Stricker, Sandy Carson, Joe Rich, Marvin Loetterle, Dave Friemuth, Mike Griffin, Ian Morris, etc.

As the day went on, things started to get crazy. Picking up the projector, checking out the etnies La Rev contest and hearing stories about the cops coming by the night before because a bunch of guys were setting off fireworks in the street. A huge rumor was going around that the cops were going to raid the premiere…luckily, it wasn't true.

With Dave at East Coast Terminal's recommendation, we held the premiere at the Art Theatre in Binghamton. Dave has helped with premieres in the past at The Art Theatre, and we heard that they get crazy. The guy who runs the bar next door to the Art Theatre is apparently nuts. At the Little Devil video premiere "Criminal Mischief" last year, the neighbor called the cops and came out screaming and waving a baseball bat. We were kind of excited to see if he would go psycho again. Instead of a during-premiere-freak-session, he pre-empted the whole thing by calling the fire marshal on us and trying to get us busted. Nice. Thanks. We appreciate that. Luckily, it didn't really interfere with the premiere. Nice try, bitchboy.

We started letting people in around 8:30 and everyone rushed the doors pretty hard. I actually almost pimp slapped some kid who practically ran me over, as he attempted to jack a chair from the lobby to put in the theatre. It was completely packed, standing room only.

The video itself is absolutely amazing! When the best riders in BMX are all in the same video, and they pretty much killed themselves filming for it, you know it's going to be a kick-ass video. And that's exactly what it was - kick-ass. From beginning to end, the video never gives you an opportunity to even blink your eyes…you just had to hope you didn't have to use the bathroom while it was playing! After the first showing, though, the bathroom filled up quickly!…must've been the beer that somehow made it's way into the theatre. The reaction was as expected, everyone was psyched, and just couldn't wait to get to the after party to celebrate. I'd get in to the details of the video, but I think you should go buy it and be in suspense until you see it.

By the time it was over, there was a huge line in front of the theatre of those that didn't get in to the first showing. The enthusiasm of the people exiting the theatre must've really excited the second crowd because people barged into the theatre searching out the best spot possible to view the video from.

A huge crew of people headed to the etnies after party at the Sports Bar in downtown Binghamton. The after party…well, there were 500 drink tickets floating around so you can imagine how it went... I was pretty amazed at how quickly the drink tickets disappeared. The crowd was hilarious. A mix of BMXers and the locals. At one point, a girl in a wedding dress showed up with her posse of wedding folk. Amazing. Ian Morris got kicked out for absolutely no reason. Crandall puked a lot. Ok, not as much as I (Piney) puked, but at least mine wasn't caught on film. There was a lot of "I love you man, no I love you man!" going on. A lot of really huge beers and shots and more beers and more shots and….oh, my liver. I can honestly say it's the only party I've ever been to where I woke up with not one drink ticket left in my pocket.

I'm not exactly sure how the night ended..if the bar closed or if we got kicked out, but I hear that we were all banned from the bar for life. In the grand tradition of etnies parties…we can never go back to the same place twice. The photos pretty much sum it up.

Four more premieres were held across the country over the next week.

June 1, 2002 Transitions Ramp Park, Dearborn Heights, Michigan. etnies rep Scott Towne (a.k.a. el jefe de BMX) took on the task of making this premiere happen. Pretty much every local rider in the area turned up for the premiere. The crowd was cheering and applauding the whole way through. After the video, the locals were so inspired that a session ensued and continued late into the night. Thanks to Transitions and Scott Towne for an amazing premiere!

June 2, 2002 West Boylston Cinema, West Boylston, Massachusetts. Thanks to Eastern Boarder, etnies East-Coast rep Chris Gombos, and etnies sales manager Gary Siskar, the etnies video "Forward" premiered for the 3rd time. Approximately 200 to 300 kids showed up for this showing, and they all left with a smile on their face.

June 3, 2002 Java Lanes, Long Beach, California. Right here in our backyard. Java Lanes is a bowling alley, which turned out to be a great place to premiere a video. For one, you can set up the screen out in the middle of the lanes, which allows everyone to get a good view. Secondly, before and after the premiere bowling was free to those that wanted acquire the nickname "Striker". It was, however, difficult to get strikes due to the fact that the bar was open, and once again there were plenty of drink tickets floating around. There was also a great DJ (Sam – he rules) after the premiere that consistently played good rock and punk music.

The video at the Long Beach premiere was slightly different than at the Binghamton showing. Parrick had a few more days of editing and he added some slams. In the course of filming for a video of this magnitude, you know that there are going to be some serious slams…and believe me, there were! The crowd loved it and everyone was thoroughly impressed.

Only bad thing that happened all night? Some bitch stole our digital camera. So, we don't have any pictures for you! We don't think it was anyone who came there for the video, we think it was some sucker who came to bowl…well, wherever you are, you are hereby hexed! May you never bowl another strike and may all your beers be bitter.

June 5, 2002 Skatepark of Tampa, Florida. The premier went off with out a hitch. Over 100 BMX destroyers of all ages showed up to view the much anticipated and promoted Forward video.

"Once the video started the place went crazy from beginning to end. People were hoot'n and a hollerin from the first peg grind to the last" said Andrusko (etnies Florida rep). When the screen went black, the product toss began and the riot police almost needed to be summoned. Once the maylay subsided from the free ETNIES goods, The park remained open for an all Tampa BMX expressions session.

Thanks to all the people who came out to the premiere of etnies Forward and everyone that worked so hard to make this video happen.