Words, Photos & layout: Jason Lunn
Location: The Level Skatepark Brighton
Web Code: Mark Mapstone
Copyright: All content copyright Chilled Heat 2006

 

If you haven't been to Brighton already, maybe you should plan a visit in the near future. I suggest you pick a clear dry day because Brighton Sea front and pier never fails to provide the kind of glorious sunsets you think you need to travel halfway around the world to see.

I have always loved visiting Brighton and have passed through many times over the last 30 years. Many of my good close school friends have moved there because of all the cool stuff it has to offer. This is especially true if you like good music and creative independent people into their art and own personal directions.

Anyway to cut a long story short, me and my South African housemate Robbie went down for my good friend Marcus "Chillster" Hills' birthday. A good time was had by all. We enjoyed two great sunsets, A great night out in Hove's, Arthouse backrooms and a Sunday Roast in a local pub. We also managed to squeeze in a sunset skate session at the Level skatepark Saturday and Sunday.

History: The Level skatepark has some serious skate history and has been home to all the Brighton Rippers since the Seventies. I used to skate the Vert ramp there back in the 80's when the park still had a concrete bowl and halfpipe. Over the years, like all the different skaters that have ridden there, various mini ramps and wooden ramps have come and gone. Now what remains is a bunch of assorted wooden ramps and driveways with this flat bank wedge hip that I took these shots on.

As you may know, all of us at Chilled Heat love a good sunset skate session so if you do too you should enjoy the pics we captured of two local Rippers Isaac Miller aged 13 and has only been skating 18 months and his friend Tom Felix aged Sixteen. Also big ups to Stevie who has moved down from London who was skating so fast and spontaneously that I couldn't even capture a single shot, yet was clearly the skate daddy of the day with backside nollie transfers from high to low on the quarter pipe, all kinds of bean plant and ice plants to fakie off the vert back wall, airwalks over the hip and to fakie on the quarter pipes and a whole bunch of other light footed, nimbled toed technical antics from one of the uk's most underated yet talented underground skate legends.

Well if you take a look at these pics you will witness the influence skateboarding like Stevie's is having on the next generation of little rippers. There is a great chemistry between Isaac and Tom who were just pushing their moves a little higher, harder and faster each time. What we have here is a selection of melon grabs and monster boned ollies to fakie over the flatbank wooden hip by Tom Felix and some hefty ollies, tail grabs and blindside kickflips to fakie by little Isaac Miller.

These two between them have some serious style and flow and with their friends who are not pictured are the future of skateboarding in Brighton and the UK. So I will briefly give credit now to some of the skaters over the years that I have skated with and would like to thank for keeping it real down in the Pig City pig pen.

Respect to Pig City and the things we remember:

"RJ" The legend tried Mc twists on the vert aged 14 with RJ is the greatest printed on the back of his shirt "Luke Mc Kirdy" Street Vert Mini ramp all terrain ripper, egg plants and frontside inverts aged 14, now lives in So Cal. "Merlin" Madonnas Justin Ashby "Pasty" The one and only never to be forgotten unsung hero of British Skateboarding, Fast plants and frontside grinds all round "Mark Collins" Pig City OG Frontside Nose bones, "Simon Levine" Slalom King Brighton OG resurrected.
These people above planted the seed of hardcore skateboarding in Brighton and as a result the park lives on today

Peace from all at Chilled Heat.