Is Crailtap the sick man of the industry?

[Jehoshaphat Augustus]

Crailtap is Pooty Tang after he sells out

[inconvenienttruth]

Long-running and generally shady business practices, for example. Things like not paying riders what they earned. Well before what they did to Marc, which was also disgraceful. But people don’t leave when they feel respected, autonomous, given some creative input, and taken care of. Especially not an iconic distro like Crail. It’s no different than the downfalls of AWS, Sole Tech, Blackbox, World Industries back in the day and so on. Don’t respect the skaters or skateboarding (or employees like Ty) and they leave and you lose. Kinda fun to watch the karma of greed and neglect manifest itself actually, because it completes the cycle and things start anew. One of the best things about skateboarding is change. We grew up looking at new mags And 411s every month for NEW NEW NEW. New ads, new pros, new tricks, new brands, new products, new videos and so on. Friendly reminder: the economic impact of the corona virus crisis is gonna kick the ass of some of the shrinking, low hanging fruit brands out there.

[urbneathme]

Long-running and generally shady business practices, for example. Things like not paying riders what they earned. Well before what they did to Marc, which was also disgraceful. But people don’t leave when they feel respected, autonomous, given some creative input, and taken care of. Especially not an iconic distro like Crail. It’s no different than the downfalls of AWS, Sole Tech, Blackbox, World Industries back in the day and so on. Don’t respect the skaters or skateboarding (or employees like Ty) and they leave and you lose. Kinda fun to watch the karma of greed and neglect manifest itself actually, because it completes the cycle and things start anew. One of the best things about skateboarding is change. We grew up looking at new mags And 411s every month for NEW NEW NEW. New ads, new pros, new tricks, new brands, new products, new videos and so on. Friendly reminder: the economic impact of the corona virus crisis is gonna kick the ass of some of the shrinking, low hanging fruit brands out there.

a full season of factory shutdowns is probably going to be the final nail for lakai. i can’t see them surviving without any new product on shelves for 4-6 months. they were already taking out crazy loans and it lost them koston and guy, can’t imagine those dire practices got better

[SHARPSHOOTER]

At this point they should just go for an all Girl skate team

[radcunt]

Does Carroll still skate? He needs to do a Chico, and then Chico needs to be on Chocolate if that still exists and they need to have their legacy dudes who are still around getting footage and being cool, then they've got something to hang their new shit from.

As it stands, it just feels like an abandoned mall and the owners are in Barbados collecting rent.

[DannyDee]

Crail was historically the best of the best skaters. And, it is impossible to maintain that. The fact they did for 15 to 20 years is impressive as hell.

[French manicure]

Still can't believe how they fucked up with Jeff Mikut, dude is sick.

[HORSES]

Does Carroll still skate? He needs to do a Chico, and then Chico needs to be on Chocolate if that still exists and they need to have their legacy dudes who are still around getting footage and being cool, then they've got something to hang their new shit from.

As it stands, it just feels like an abandoned mall and the owners are in Barbados collecting rent.

Chico clearly left Chocolate on bad terms.

[Atiba Applebum]

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I  blame Ty. Good job Ty

[close]

Ty was an employee. They could have fired him if they wanted to.

[close]

I never get why people pretend otherwise. Mike Carroll and Rick Howard knew what was going on with that video. They're hardly absolved of any blame.

It was Spike who had the actual influence  He’s where the high fives came from.  Unfortunately, both that and Ty’s overproduction were reach levels of parody at that point. 

The real thing that has hurt Crailtap is lack of proper talent management and scouting. Real essentially has no image, but has managed to stay consistently relevant because they keep their team consistently refreshed with new talent and promote them as such.  Gonz was the last established skater added to the team (Mason Silva isn’t announced yet) and that was maybe 96.  Even as they bring the new blood in, they still have Huf and Schaaf and others on the team, a balance that should be up Crail’s alley.  Also, Crail tried that shit of making new riders have to sign with Lakai as well which probably cost them a lot of talent as well since the shoe deal is the big contract.   Simon is the hot ticket item and he’s a Cory Kennedy hook up so you can’t really congratulate Crail on that pick up.   They just get lucky with Washington skaters (like Griffin?)

[SHARPSHOOTER]

Really what Girl should have done is throw a bunch of cash at Mason Silva. Crazy dude was doing those stunts with no board sponsor.

[drewsmahgoos]

They're so stale and all the girl videos seem generic as fuck. They're more watchable than some but all but a few minutes of the skating is forgettable. The team is mostly forgettable at this point.

Personally, I don't see the appeal of china wood when I've skated both new Girl, and a ton of other boards that are made in North America. So many better choices. I don't care if "the wood is good again." It's lame. But if that floats your boat, whatever. I won't tell someone what they should skate.

That being said, the crail store is a fucking joke. It looks like they didn't just go for a woodshop in China, but one of those giant ass factory towns that mass produce a bunch of different shit. Like some sketchball chinese mogul came to them and let them know they can put the words chocolate and girl on as many cheaply made, mass produced things as possible. Fucking alarm clocks and shit. What nonsense. Carabiners, key chains, socks, backpacks, a cooler, a license plate frame, an "olympic mini futbol', a 5 pack of cozies, a city cowboys pin set(whatever the fuck that is), more pins, an ashtray, a wallet, sunglasses, a pirate jar, playing cards, sunglasses, a clock, a moleskin notepad, a beach towel, a laptop sleeve, another ashtray, a carabiner cup,  a pot on a wooden stand, a literal fucking chair...

All that is on sale on their site at the moment.



All those poorly chinese made chachkies is why I don't take crail seriously anymore. Beyond the mediocre, very forgetful skateboarding that they generally seem to pump out nowadays, the overload of shitty stuff they sell turns me off. It's like the fog of yesteryear has lifted and the reality that it's just another corporate machine, vying for a good quarter, has turned me off from buying from them.

And fuck if Carrol didn't sound like the winiest cunt in that interview where he fires MJ off of chocolate even though he clearly quit when he went to Adidas. What a twat.

[Arto!Arto!WakeUp!]

^ not going to try and disagree with that much of the above, but simon is definitely not forgettable. he's one of the best out.

niels also has a delicious style, in my opinion.


andrew brophy, on the other hand, is possibly the most forgettable skater ever.

i actually just had to look back at the beginning of that sentence to even remember who i was bitching about.

oh, it's gone again.

[drewsmahgoos]

^ not going to try and disagree with that much of the above, but simon is definitely not forgettable. he's one of the best out.

niels also has a delicious style, in my opinion.


andrew brophy, on the other hand, is possibly the most forgettable skater ever.

i actually just had to look back at the beginning of that sentence to even remember who i was bitching about.

oh, it's gone again.

I generally think their team is good. It's just forgetful skating to me. Neils is solid yeah but I don't think they have anyone that's newer than Malto that I'm going to remember in ten years and I can't remember a single line from any of their newer shit.

[Drucksache]

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Does Carroll still skate? He needs to do a Chico, and then Chico needs to be on Chocolate if that still exists and they need to have their legacy dudes who are still around getting footage and being cool, then they've got something to hang their new shit from.

As it stands, it just feels like an abandoned mall and the owners are in Barbados collecting rent.

[close]

Chico clearly left Chocolate on bad terms.

Can somebody explain why Chico left Chocolate on bad terms?
Thanks.

[eranka]

It all started going downhill when they switched to the shittiest wood possible. i really did try to like Crail products because i love the team and even liked the aesthetics at the time, but i cant bring myself to fuck with a brand that doesnt care about quality. Every Crail product i had for years sucked real bad, from clothing to boards and even shoes.
even the team didnt fuck with the boards they had, it seemed like they would skate anti heros or the 25 years anniversary boards that were made in a different factory.
same thing with a brand like Palace, you cant build an 'elite' image with a proper team and use shitty wood. there are alot of old brands that sucked way harder than crail or just didnt put out any content for years but still kept their prestige or legitimacy like Toy Machine, Zero and Black label and people still fuck with them.
Crailtap has to do something extraordinary to regain trust and a new following.

[Roger Mexico]

I've been wondering if, maybe, Jake Rosenberg gives us part of the answer in his chromeball interview:

"If I were to differentiate the Plan B videos from the Girl videos, which I hold in very high regard, the Girl videos are more about a love of skateboarding. They’re more playful with this idea of skateboarding, where the Plan B videos are love-letters to the skaters featured.

Not that Mike Ternasky should take credit for Girl’s success in taking skateboarding into new directions, but he did play a role in having people initially fall in love with them. The love-letters we wrote those guys played a large part in defining their images early on in their careers."

Are there any iconic crail riders that didn't come to crail with an image they'd already established on another team, but then further developed on girl/chocolate? Think about it. All the OG teams. Keenan & Gino. BA, Marc, Kenny. The only ones I can think of are Mike Mo, A.O., and Malto. I'm thinkin' that maybe the phenomenon part of crail is to take someone who's already pretty great and then show them having fun skateboarding. They don't seem to have had great success farming people up in the way that a team like real does.

[Swithflip]

In 2000s they had good replacements for old heads like: Rudy, Ben, Ferguson etc. Marc, Anderson and Kenny were great adictions. But after that only good fits was Mike Mo and CK1. AO, Elijah, Reven and others should go to teams like 18 or Real. They sleeped on Carlos Ribeiro and Many other. JB on chocolate would be perfect years back, better than Hsu.

[Robert Baratheon]

I never understood the take about Crail ‘fucking over’ flow guys? They don’t owe them a timeline to stardom. These flow guys were not under contract. If they had opportunities to do better somewhere else, they could’ve and should’ve gone.

[hotstudios_on_youtube]

Vincent Alvarez and Perez aren't white enough to sell product

/too many sponsors on the same camp at least shoe wise, baker does it well with guys on vans, nike, emerica, cons

[CHONGO]

been skating a girl board for awhile now. Love it.

[eranka]

AND FUCK THEM FOR NOT PAYING TRAVIS STENGER.

[ok boomer]

Girl from 93-2003 was pretty boss. What made it special was that family vibe, group of friends that all just happened to be top notch skaters. The artsy (not always big logo) graphics and the Spike video style. I was pretty disturbed when Shef got let go, not that it didn't make sense (to me later) but I couldn't believe it, as a Shef fan. I believe that montage in the Yeah Right video, was a big point of change as you were basically saying goodbye to Rudy and Tony F.. Great montage by the way, worked perfect with the song too. And that's when Jereme and PRod came in. Times have changed and just like they did to the industry, people like what's new/ what's cool and tastes change, especially by generation. What's considered cool currently is not my cup of tea, but that's probably partially because I'm the same age as the OG Girl guys. Up to me, I'd just skate 1992/1993 reissues only so what does that say. anyway..

nothing lasts forever, even cold November rain

[Jehoshaphat Augustus]

AND FUCK THEM FOR NOT PAYING TRAVIS STENGER.

While still paying Manchild
This is skateboarding

[Not_Bruce]

Expand Quote

Does Carroll still skate? He needs to do a Chico, and then Chico needs to be on Chocolate if that still exists and they need to have their legacy dudes who are still around getting footage and being cool, then they've got something to hang their new shit from.

As it stands, it just feels like an abandoned mall and the owners are in Barbados collecting rent.

[close]

Chico clearly left Chocolate on bad terms.

I suspected the very same thing. As a huge Chico fan I have been enjoying his recent renaissance.....As one of the og Chocolate dudes its peculiar they parted ways considering how hard Chico has been putting it down. Though I enjoy Eldridge on the nine club.....him being on Chocolate while Chico is off has classic crailtap mismanagement written all over it. 

[Cuban_Lynx]

I'm starting to regret my Trunk Boyz tattoo

[Jehoshaphat Augustus]

I'm starting to regret my Trunk Boyz tattoo

I believed the energy too! They had a great run, despite seeming as natural as the Backstreet Boys.
I wanted to believe the hype.

[SantaMonca]

It all started to crumble when they willingly associated with the enemy during the great "hesh vs fresh" wars of the 2000s by doing the beauty and the beast tour with anti hero. A tsunami of cheap beer, flannels, dickies, orange beanies washed away the last speck of freshness.

DGK all day.

Free keelan dadd

[WarmUpZone]

For me, Crail slipped when they went all-in on the "Trunk Boys" - so that would be Pretty Sweet. It was 4 or 5 skaters, all talented, but all marketed as one. This is why Alex Olsen stood out from that group, and he couldn't wait to get out from under Crail. And when the CK's 7-day-weekend ended in tragedy, Girl lost both their best productive talent and that whole hard-partying image became pretty distasteful.

At this same Pretty Sweet time, most of the old guard were pushed further back by choice or by lack of footage, but they weren't cut.
Frankly, Koston and Guy and MJ and Jerry leaving was great for Crail. These pros are just not relevant to skateboarders under the age of 24, and that's who is buying product. Kids today don't know or care who Mike Carrol or Rick Howard or Kenny Anderson are, never mind such contemporary skateboarding non-entities as Jeron Wilson, MikeMo, and Brophy. McCrank is too busy trying to get famous through Vice. Is Crob really going to be your most popular pro... for podcasting?

And now, with "Trunk Boys 2.0", the new talent is once again just being presented as a group... the floppy haired, hard partying Pacific Northwest wunderkinds. They are amazing, but Niels and Simon on the same team basically negates each other and Manchild is doing his best to become the most hated pro in skating.

There is some hope with Griffen Gass, Yonnie, Breana, and Duckworth. I also love the idea of Colin Read being the goto person to fill Spike's shoes for video skits like he did in Doll.

But it is time to cut a lot of dead weight and go all in on the best young talent. Stop flying Brophy and Stevie around the world.

[Dr Dew]

The brophy hateboner is real.

[Davethedavedave]

Crailtap just has corona virus. They will prob make a full recovery