Koston on the Chrome Ball Incident

[20matar]

http://chromeballincident.blogspot.com.br/2017/05/chrome-ball-interview-101-eric-koston.html

Beautiful interview with one of the GOATs. From the beginnings to Nike to leaving Girl to the GG Allin thing. Some stuff about Numbers, as well. A must-read.

[Francis Xavier]

Good read, he has said before "the devil's in the details" about leaving girl...business instead of games. Still not copping any Numbers gear though.

[5inchDick]

MOST DEF A GOOD READ, THOSE DUDES AT CHROME BALL ARE FUCKIN ALWAYS STRONG NEVER WRONG !

[Dr-Feelgood]

That was a long ass interview but definitley a good read, kostons the man. I only just realised that scene from Yeah Right where the crackhead stole his wallet happened in Vancouver haha, solid interview.

[Mouth]

Koston is the best ever.

Had that 'On Your Knees Bitch' ad on my wall for 10 years.

[j....soy.....]

That was a long ass interview but definitley a good read, kostons the man. I only just realised that scene from Yeah Right where the crackhead stole his wallet happened in Vancouver haha, solid interview.

Maybe it happened while they were filming that skate TV show? 

Super good interview....people don't realize to what degree he held it down....he arguably carried the title longer than anyone....rad to hear how much Mcrank pushed him....

[Atiba Applebum]

The only time I've ever seen Koston in real life was at the silverlake Rudys barbershop.  Funny that it's his his first pic

[OldieButFrenchie]

good read.
I still can't believe him and Guy quit Girl. It's like your favorite band breaking up.

sooooooooooo......it seems he's kinda siding with MJ over Carroll??

[fulfillthedream]

ha cool that kyron davis on on numbers!

[Esquivel]

"But what?s funny is that Fabrizio Santas and Bob started taking their legs off grinds not too long after that. I always wondered if that was my fault."

[Mystical Leader]

good read.
I still can't believe him and Guy quit Girl. It's like your favorite band breaking up.

sooooooooooo......it seems he's kinda siding with MJ over Carroll??

So is it safe to assume that Mike Carroll is a kook? Kind a sad to see MC shitting over crailtaps legacy over money...

[thomas kook]

i wouldn't call that safe

[heckler]

Great read, was never a huge Koston guy growing up (or in recent years, for that matter) but this was super insightful. Only topic I wish Chops broached was the Pretty Sweet debacle and his relationship with Supreme and filming with Strobeck. Regardless, I'm definitely gonna go back and revisit some of his parts later on today.

[OldieButFrenchie]

i wouldn't call that safe

Me neither.
It's just Slap was collectively hating on MJ pretty hard for that whole thing.......so I'm curious to see the reaction now.

Anyways conducting business with friends is always touchy. and those dudes - Carroll, Johnson, Koston, Mariano, Howard - will forever be legends in my book.
It just makes me sad to see all that shit aired. Kinda like when the Dead Kennedys were suing each other.

[thomas kook]

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i wouldn't call that safe

[close]

Me neither.
It's just Slap was collectively hating on MJ pretty hard for that whole thing.......so I'm curious to see the reaction now.

Anyways conducting business with friends is always touchy. and those dudes - Carroll, Johnson, Koston, Mariano, Howard - will forever be legends in my book.
It just makes me sad to see all that shit aired. Kinda like when the Dead Kennedys were suing each other.

that's the worst part, yeah. like, of course they're friends and they're gonna have some disputes together but you'd hope that they were good enough friends, or maybe even: professional enough, to keep that shit between themselves.

[shit_for_brains]

Sad to see it aired? I don't mean you specifically but since the Koston and Guy/MJ exodus people have been demanding to know the dirt. People wanted blood and now that it's on their shirt they think it's gross

[Robert Baratheon]

No shit, right? That very easily could�ve been me. That thought definitely came to mind� though I don�t think, in any way, that I did anything to warrant that type of lashing.

That was a bummer, man. That one hurt. Just knowing the situation and how fragile Marc can be. I don�t think that it was okay to go public with all that stuff.

I'm sure even Carroll might regret it at this point. Koston is saying that he himself didn't warrant a lashing like that. To me, that says Eric thinks that his exit was different than Marc's.

[Robert Baratheon]

Sad to see it aired? I don't mean you specifically but since the Koston and Guy/MJ exodus people have been demanding to know the dirt. People wanted blood and now that it's on their shirt they think it's gross

I WANT IT ALL

[nonstop29]

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No shit, right? That very easily could�ve been me. That thought definitely came to mind� though I don�t think, in any way, that I did anything to warrant that type of lashing.

That was a bummer, man. That one hurt. Just knowing the situation and how fragile Marc can be. I don�t think that it was okay to go public with all that stuff.

[close]

I'm sure even Carroll might regret it at this point. Koston is saying that he himself didn't warrant a lashing like that. To me, that says Eric thinks that his exit was different than Marc's.

Agree, I think he's always had more transparency towards Carroll, Howard, and the guys over at Crail (according to the interview, even recently with the whole Girl debacle he was upfront and direct about the situation). Plus, he even had a "Goodbye" video when he left Lakai

[stevedave]

"Owning shit is not that great, especially with partners that are questionable. So as things deteriorated for me at Lakai, it became hard to ignore how well Nike was treating my friends that rode for them.

Sounds like he's calling out Rick and Mike pretty hard, as far as his ownership in Lakai went. 

[Fongstarr.]

^^^^I always thought was in reference to Podium. Like that Podium deal was nothing but a bad business decision and was the start of Koston wanting to leave Lakai. Even if it does reference Rick and Mike, I doubt it's about them as a person but more of the business sense. As we've seen from Kayo, owners sort of have to do what they can to keep their own business alive and sadly that effects the people that work for them which are the riders. It happens almost in every business really.

[Julz]

^^^ Sounds like it was more aimed at the podium folks (Tim Gavin ?)

If Koston would still be on Lakai, the current state of the shoe industry would probably be way different.

[artichoke]

The Koston epicly later'd includes a shot of Tim Gavin shaking his head and talking about how he wished things had gone differently re: Koston and Lakai. I think he might have put his face in his hands for it, but i'm not digging through the annals of Vice's youtube channel to find it.

Bear in mind, this was leading up to Podium's collapse. I don't know the exact timeline on all of this, but it wasn't much later that they had cut the team and shuttered Matix, Lakai was distributed and run out of Girl, and DVS got sold to whoever owns them today.

[stevedave]

^^^^I always thought was in reference to Podium. Like that Podium deal was nothing but a bad business decision and was the start of Koston wanting to leave Lakai. Even if it does reference Rick and Mike, I doubt it's about them as a person but more of the business sense. As we've seen from Kayo, owners sort of have to do what they can to keep their own business alive and sadly that effects the people that work for them which are the riders. It happens almost in every business really.

Gotcha - I hear ya and was wondering if it was more of an Altamont partners thing.  Podium was just the name of the distribution that housed DVS amd Matix, which was owned by Crail. 

[IanBZHD]

I understand why people jump to the conclusion that its Rick and Mike, or Gavin... but there isn't just skateboarders running these things.

The undesirable partners are most likely outside investors who want to see continual grown of their investment (company).
When the board meetings took place it sounds like Koston, being part owner of Lakai at the time, has ideas of his own and the other people in the room decided to continue the path they were on.

Obviously, being a company owner, Koston wanted some say in how the company is ran and its direction. Once he saw that his word in the company didn't carry, he was over it and decided it would be better "work" for a company (Nike) and be taken care of, then battling outside investors opinions on what is right for the company.

Now, the saltiness with Rick and Mike most likely is coming from them being trapped with Lakai and having to work around the investors they put into place. Im guessing they were saying "oh shit this isn't how we planned, but now were already neck deep". I'm sure Rick and Mike want to keep their company going and make money, but they have to essentially fuck over their friends by listening to the investors.

[HFS40000]

Maybe he meant partners that were in Questionable

[Robert Baratheon]

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^^^^I always thought was in reference to Podium. Like that Podium deal was nothing but a bad business decision and was the start of Koston wanting to leave Lakai. Even if it does reference Rick and Mike, I doubt it's about them as a person but more of the business sense. As we've seen from Kayo, owners sort of have to do what they can to keep their own business alive and sadly that effects the people that work for them which are the riders. It happens almost in every business really.

[close]

Gotcha - I hear ya and was wondering if it was more of an Altamont partners thing.  Podium was just the name of the distribution that housed DVS amd Matix, which was owned by Crail. 

I think that his decision to leave Girl had to do with Altamont.

Podium was, allegedly, not using widely accepted accounting practices as it pertained to DVS and Lakai. Crail took Lakai in-house and DVS is a ghost of it's former self. I think Koston hired an auditor to look into their shit.

[oyolar]

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^^^^I always thought was in reference to Podium. Like that Podium deal was nothing but a bad business decision and was the start of Koston wanting to leave Lakai. Even if it does reference Rick and Mike, I doubt it's about them as a person but more of the business sense. As we've seen from Kayo, owners sort of have to do what they can to keep their own business alive and sadly that effects the people that work for them which are the riders. It happens almost in every business really.

[close]

Gotcha - I hear ya and was wondering if it was more of an Altamont partners thing.  Podium was just the name of the distribution that housed DVS amd Matix, which was owned by Crail. 

Podium wasn't owned by Crailtap. It was its own thing. They're two different distributions.

[Manolo]

I think Koston hired an auditor to look into their shit.

[j....soy.....]

I think it was shetlers podcast where Gavin says that the others in podium weren't that great....

The vibe I get was that the owners of podium weren't great and it left everyone wondering what was up...